PhilosopherJay

Hi TedM,

Thank you for the kind words.

It is a little tricky giving an exact date for Christianity because i see it developing out of numerous elements and influences which wax and wane disappear and come back at different times.

1. Christian stage:

If we take it as meaning people looking for a messiah or an anointed messenger than the Essenes have to be considered Christians as early as 100 BCE or even the followers of Maccabees, over sixty years earlier.

2. Jesus stage
If we look at Christianity as involving the name Jesus as an integral part, I think sometime in the early 1st Century people get the idea that Jesus or Yeshua was the name of God. Yeshua meant "Yawah saves," but since pronouncing the name Yawah was tabu, saying Yeshua (Jesus) was just as effective and not dangerous as saying Yawah was. Thus Jeshua gets identified as the name of God and you can do magic by calling upon God's name, Yeshua (Jesus). At around the same time Jeshua also gets identified as the name of the coming God who will return and establish a kingdom of God. Philo in the 40's talks about the Logos or word of God being separate from God and in a metaphorical sense another God. The name Jesus also gets attached to this "Word of God" God. Philo also speaks of a "second Adam" and the word apparently gets attached to that. We also hear of Yeshua as an angel - Joshua of Nun who led the Jews into the promised land. Finally, we also have the concept of God sending another man named Yeshua (Jesus), a sort of reincarnated Joshua of Nun.

Thus, in the first Century before the war the term Jesus (Joshua/Yeshua) is being used by different groups in five different senses:
1. Name of Jewish Creator God
2. Name of "Word of God" (Logos God)
3. Name of "Second Adam"
4. Name of Angel (Probably Jeshua of Nun from the Hebrew Scriptures as a warrior angel leading God's heavenly host, the way he led God's earthly host.)
5. Name of various human messianic and prophetic figures, for example Jesus son of Ananus (described by Josephus in Wars)

I think for the first century, one could describe the majority of Jews as Messianic, looking for the Christ to save them from the Romans. Thus, a Church of Christ worshiping in Jerusalem in the mid-first century would not necessarily be worshiping a man named Jesus. In Paul's main letters, we basically don't hear about a man named Jesus and anything he said or did

3. Jesus of Nazareth Stage
I think that it is only after the Bar Kochba War 133-135 that the messianic era of Judaism ends. At this point various remaining messianic Jews create the story of Jesus of Nazareth based on collections of the sayings, magical deeds and tales of the numerous Christ figures of the 1st century.

The idea that the Messiah came and went without the Jews recognizing him is a mid-2nd century idea used to explain the failure of the Jewish wars. Just as the post Bar Kochba Jewish leadership blamed the misery and suffering on the zealots who started the war, the zealots blamed the misery and suffering on the Jewish leadership who did not recognize the true Christ whom God sent, but killed him instead. It is at this point that Christianity truly becomes a separate competitor religion from Judaism.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

TedM

Hi Mary. I don't understand why you find the timing off from say 30AD. Are Para4 or Para5 dateable to be before that? Since Tiberius ruled until 37AD I thought they potentially were that late.

TedM

Thanks Jay. I'll need to let this swim around in my subconscious for a while..

maryhelena

I take it you are referencing your previous post:

The expulsion of the Jews from Rome is dated to 19 c.e. - thus is within the context of Pilate being in office in 19 c.e.


Helen Bond goes with the later dating for Pilate - 26 -36 c.e. - thus necessitating her suggestion that Josephus is mistaken in his chronology re the dating of the expulsion of Jews from Rome.....

gLuke, can be read as a crucifixion in the 15th year of Tiberius - 29/30 c.e. when JC is only 24 years old - or a crucifixion in 36 c.e. when JC would be 30 years old. (birth narrative in 6 c.e.). Both dates being way beyond the context of 19 ce in which the TF is set.

gMark, without the birth narrative and the 15th year of Tiberius, can handle a crucifixion JC story that works from a 19 c.e. dating for Pilate and for the TF.

The JC historicists, with their desire to harmonize all the gospel stories together - need Pilate dated to 26 - 36 c.e. - and to do that, they then have to accuse Josephus of being in error with placing the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in a context of 26 -36 c.e......:huh:

TedM

Thanks very much Mary!

maryhelena

Your very welcome...

andrewcriddle

I'll just note that we have evidence of Zealot type activity in the period before Tiberius and evidence of Zealot type activity in the period after Tiberius.

However the reigh of Tiberius seems to have been free from revolutionary activity in Judea. It is unlikely IMO that the death of Judas the proto-Zealot occurred during the period of Tiberius.

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan

It might have occurred under Tiberius, if he had been imprisoned earlier and then either died or ws executed. But I don't know of any evidence for it.

EarlDoherty

The significance for a Josephan mention of Jesus in a TF (positive, negative or neutral) in the eyes of Christian commentators before Eusebius would not necessarily have been the content, but simply the very fact that a non-christian historian had mentioned him at all. (There were precious few of those to be found, if any.) And certainly if that mention were anything like the "authentic Testimonium" which scholars have thought to extract, for such a passage would have been perceived as at least marginally positive about Jesus, if not more.

Earl Doherty

TedM

Earl, what evidence do you have that a Josephusean paragraph that simply confirms the gospel accounts and adds nothing new is going to be significant enough for Christian commentators before Eusebius to mention it simply because a non-christian historian wrote it? Why, if they already believed that there were thousands of Jews who were aware of the basic ingredients of the 'original TF' would they need to point out or appeal to what one of their historians put down in writing? What or whose argument would they be addressing, or what need would they be fulfilling?

In your review, Josephus on the Rocks, you mention that they would have appealed to the words pertaining to the miracles, works, startling deeds, or whatever it was Josephus might have written, but where do you see a need for that even? What remaining works from the early christian writers shows a need to support that belief? Even Justin's Trypho didn't question this idea--he attributed the miracles to magic Jesus learned while he was in Egypt.