Antipope Innocent II

Fair enough.


Jesus is the Greek form of some other Aramaic name?


Why is that particular assumption unreasonable? It's not like there was any shortage of guys called Yeshua or that there's any shortage of evidence the Greek form of that name was Jesus. I could make a snide observation along the lines of "that's what MJism is all about: taking perfectly reasonable ideas like 'Jesus is the Greek form of Yeshua" and rejecting them out of a bizarre hyperscepticism".

A Jesus who lived just a few decades earlier. Most people find the idea that there was an actual guy behind these stories far more reasonable than the highly contrived contortions required to come up with an alternative where no such person existed. That's why MJers are a minority in any community and virtually non-existent in academic circles.
Do you buy Doherty when he says that Paul's reference to James being "the brother of the Lord" wasn't a reference to him being the brother of the historical Yeshua? Because if you don't, you have to explain how a mythic/ficitonal construct could have a flesh and blood brother.

What appeal to authority? You made a statement about how it was somehow impossible and completely unreasonable to suppose that the gospels and epistles aren't mistaken when they say that just a few decades before this guy had existed. This is not impossible or unreasonable at all - which is why the majority of scholars so suppose.

That's pretty much standard operating proceedure for all kinds of figures who seem to have had an historical origin which has later gained levels of folklore. Take "King Arthur" for example. Does Malory give us history? Hell no. But does this mean the idea of a Fifth Century warlord is unreasonable? Of course not.

Interestingly, while you find a whole plethora of theories and ideas about who Arthur was and which parts of the later traditions have a historical basis (sound familiar?), there isn't a fringe school of thought that says there was NO Arthur at all and that he was purely mythic. That odd and over-sceptical idea seems unique to Jesus.

I'll let you ponder why that difference exists.

Was "Jesus" the Greek form of Fred or Algernon? Here's that irrational hyperscepticism again. Do you really think people would be so irrationally sceptical about Jesus if he wasn't the central figure in a major Western religion - a religion that many of the same people resent or dislike?

dog-on

Jesus = Jew Zeus

Is there any manuscript evidence of Jesus's Aramaic name?

Antipope Innocent II

Sure - the fact that he's referred to using the Greek form "Iesous". That's the Greek form of the Aramaic "Yeshua". Both Yeshua and Iesous are rather odd names for a mythic being. That would be a bit like inventing a deity and calling it "Larry".

spin

How long had Greek forms been used by Jews in the diaspora and even Judea?

I didn't say anything about things being unreasonable, though reasonableness is not necessarily a useful criterion here, as much fiction needs to be reasonable, so we know that reasonableness is not a sufficient condition, therefore of little use.

As I just said, "reasonableness is not necessarily a useful criterion here, as much fiction needs to be reasonable".

You have no grounds to talk about "hyperscepticism" other than that you like the sound of the term.

The same response for your reasonableness condition. It shows little of use.

I have independently proposed the same idea. Posterity won't help you understand the way Paul used the phrase. Elsewhere on BC&H I have argued that Paul doesn't use kurios as a substitute reference for Jesus. He reserves it for god. The very few instances of such a usage appear in contexts which indicate interpolations. What the phrase means I cannot say. I am also at a loss to understand the full significance of the Hebrew name Ahiyah, "the lord is my brother". The phrase is used once and only in Paul so there is no way for anybody outside Paul's writing context who has access to the meaning. Anyone who believes differently are only stimulating themselves.

Your insistence on Yeshua is simply a belief. You would like to look beyond texts to some reality, but in the end you will still only have texts.

There you go spouting "reasonable" again. Is that the only excuse you can muster? Killers get off on reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean that they didn't do it.

We work on evidence for substantive claims. Learn to live with it.

Johnny One-Note?

I won't hold my breath for anyone to demonstrate that there was one.

It exists because you need it.

I was pointing out that you were saying nothing particularly meaningful.

I don't think that you've shown that you are in any position to make claims about rationality.

People wouldn't care. And people wouldn't care that you have no arguments up your sleeve, so you throw around a few "reasonables" and a few "irrationals" to cover up lack of content.


spin

spin

President Kennedy's name was John, but would you claim that it hides the fact that his real name was Yohanan? You are confused about what information you can extract from the name Ihsous.

You make your errors hard to deal with because of the irrelevant content. However, there is nothing strange about a messiah being called Jesus -- after all that was the name of the hero who led his people into the promised land.

Poor analogy, but par for the course.


spin

PhilosopherJay

Larry is short for Lawrence, which happens to be my brother's name.

Laurence (Dictionary.com)
masc. proper name, from O.Fr. Lorenz (Fr. Laurent), from L. Laurentius, lit. "of Laurentum," a maritime town in Latium, lit. "town of bay trees," from laurus (see laurel).

The Golden Bough (chapter 9.4)from http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/gb00902.htm
In some negro tribes of the Congo region pregnant women make themselves garments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree, because they believe that this tree delivers them from the dangers that attend child-bearing. The story that Leto clasped a palm-tree and an olive-tree or two laurel-trees, when she was about to give birth to the divine twins Apollo and Artemis, perhaps points to a similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain trees to facilitate delivery.

Note this from the encyclopedia mythica (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/daphne.html)

Daphne was the daughter of the river god Peneus. Apollo chased down the maiden, desperate for her love, but she wanted nothing to do with him, and she ran from him endlessly. Soon, she grew weary in her running and that Apollo would ultimately catch her. Fearful, she called out to her father for help. As all gods of water posses the ability of transformation, Peneus transformed his daughter into a laurel tree. Suddenly her legs took root, and her arms grew into long and slender branches.

Apollo reached the laurel tree, and, still enamored with Daphne, held the tree in a special place in his heart. He claimed the tree as his special tree, and adorned himself with some of it's leaves. And that is why the laurel was, and still is, a symbol of the god Apollo.


Note this from the early Christian work "Protoevangelium of James":

Then Anna prayed under a laurel tree, and behold the angel of the Lord stood by her, and said: 'Anna, thy prayer is heard, thou shalt bring forth a child that shall be blessed throughout the world;

We can say that the worship of the laurel tree was transmuted into the worship of the Sun God Apollo, which under the Emperor Constantine, turned into the worship of Jesus.

In the meantime, the word "Laurel" changed into "Lawrence" which changed into "Larry". My brother will be glad to hear that when people worship "Jesus" they are really worshiping him, although they may not realize it.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

wordy

PhilosopherJay, as a nobody I love such writings you did here above. I have no idea how realistic it is but it is fun to read. Almost hope all was true. Would be a good thing to tell the Christians. Them getting a lesson.

Mythra

That was a pretty good case made for Larry.

But everyone knows that God's name is Harold.

Our father, which art in heaven, Harold be thy name.

This is also, not coincidentally, what the H. in Jesus' full name stands for.

Mythra

On the topic of first century silence, it surely seems that in light of the widespread fame of Jesus that is mentioned numerous times in the gospel stories, there are at least three writers that should have taken note:

Flavius Josephus
Philo Judaeus
Justus of Tiberias

Add to that the silence of Saul / Paul. Since his Jesus bears little resemblance to the Jesus portrayed in the gospels.

Clivedurdle

Probably not historians, but I favour a playwright making up a character!

Seneca was it?