Amaleq13

You can read his thread here:

Jesus vs. Archelaus

Berthold

What has an eclipse to do with it? By definition, there can't be an eclipse on Good Friday.

Benni72

IIRC the Talmudic Toledot Yeshu is also set during the times of Alexander Iannaeus. But it is generally considered a very late and dubious source, anyway.

Chris Weimer

There are other reasons for assuming that Jesus is early first century without the TF or Tacitus, the first which is probably interpolated, and the second seems to be based on hearsay.

post tenebras lux

Hi Chris, could you list some of these 'other reasons', please?


More generally: would moving Jesus (whether HJ or MJ) further back in time help with respect to the other 'copycat' gods/sons of gods (who had managed to die by being speared whilst stuck to a piece of wood, etc.) knocking about at the time at that end of the Med?

Chris Weimer

Hello luxie,

There are several reasons for accepting an early first century Jesus instead of an earlier one. The first is the Jesus movement is mid-first century. Paul speaks of the founders of Christianity as people he knows, and we cannot push Paul further back than the mid-first century.

Second of all, that Jesus was mid-first century is accounted for by early traditions of John the Baptist, whom Josephus puts in the early first century, and the later associations of Pilate and Herod. Even if Pilate wasn't personally responsible for crucifying Jesus, that he was later associated by at least Mark if not early seems to give a thumbs up to that time frame.

Finally, the Jesus story, cutting off the gospel innovations, seems to best corroborate the time he supposedly lived in, especially Q. It wouldn't make much sense later, nor would it earlier.

Chris

Vorkosigan

What are the exact words that Paul uses to identify the Founders and who they were?

Clivedurdle

?

Has Ellegard been dumped as off the wall? Who has read him? And we might have corroboration from this Thallus reference? What other author's comments do not fit the assumed timeline?

Juma

Why should we believe that Paul has anything to do with Jesus?

post tenebras lux

But I keep hearing 'liberal' christians calling Paul a 'ding-a-ling', and I find it hard not to agree with them even though I also understand the argument that Paul was the 'first christian'. Thus Paul is not the most trustworthy of sources to me - he seems to me to have felt he had a license to fib and make things up on the hoof.But if the stories of this Jesus were floating around as general folktales/folklore, isn't John the Baptist exactly the sort of figure people would include in the story?
With Jesus we seem to keep switching back and forth between people obviously knowing that he was the chosen one and other people who had no clue who he was.
Jesus is born in a manger - but worshipped by kings - which seems to be forgotten when he goes to the temple - etc. And then Jesus meets the famous Jonh the Baptist and - hey presto - John declares himself not worthy - then Jesus goes off and people start saying 'who is this man?'

I wish the gospel writers had just made up their minds as to whether Jesus was recognisably different or not: instead it looks like they portrayed Jesus to be anonymous or recognisable depending on whether it fits the story. To me it would be prefectly credible for the references to John the Baptist to be additions of the order of "Oh, so did this Jesus of yours ever meet the famous John the Baptist then?" - "Why yes! Not only did he meet him, but ... blah blah".

If we had independent writings from JtB - or if his followers (I forget their name) believed their own john/jesus stories - then I would reconsider, but to me the fact that christians claim to be able to co-op JtB is no different to people co-oping Richard the Lionheart into stories about Robin Hood.Not quite sure what this is actually referring to. Perhaps it is just random chance as to which time period ended up as the fixed standard to which the heavily-vetted stories were bent to fit?