Zeichman

NO, it's not. Muslims, Jews, liberal Christians, and other religions would not agree. It's a direct result of your fallacious equating an HJ with God.
I think you need to get updated on the theory of evolution. There are always "missing links." The missing link, for example, which connects chimpanzees to humans.
One does not need to accept ANY of these to believe in a historical Jesus. If you were referring ot the Biblical Jesus, I misinterpreted this entire series of posts, if you're equating the Biblical Jesus with the Historical Jesus, you'll need to get updated on Biblical Scholarship, as no critical scholar accepts the "violation of natural law" miracles, which includes the virgin birth. Most believe that Jesus was a psycho-somatic healer of some sort, though.

Noggin

Into your hands I commend my spirit... no just kidding!

but I will commend this most excellent website. Even, one of the holy of holies web site. Even a website which, in part, was instrumental in snatching my very soul out of the torments and clutches of delusional religious world views!

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/jesus.html

Historicity, faulty & contradictory lineages of Jesus, major flaws of his teachings, errors in his doctrines. If you ever wanted to question Jesus, this is one of the places you should put on your travel itinerary.

I don't know who the creator of this website is, but if I ever meet him I owe him dinner.

Noggin

Roger Pearse

I learn from Alice Whealey's survey of the history of the scholarship on this issue (published in 2003) that the consensus of scholarship has always favoured the authenticity of the short passage, and that the long passage is today generally considered genuine but corrupt.

I am unclear why you objected so strongly to someone writing as he did; surely working from the ancient data is the best way to learn things?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Terrible Heresy

I know that liberal Christians can be pretty....well....liberal with thier beleifs. But there are Christians out there who don't beleive Jesus was God? That is news to me. I thought the whole point of Christianity was excepting Jesus as God

Well, I agree with you to some extent. You can't disprove that there was an historical Jesus just by disproving things he has said to have done. However, I do think that the claims make a historical Jesus less likely. Though, it definately doesn't disprove him entirely.

The very notion of a missing linked is a flawed, outdated idea. I would suggest that you learn more about evolution before you start trying to teach other people about it. Your use of the word "Darwinism" makes me suspect that you may have done most of your evolution learnin at a creationist website...but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume you only have a layman's knowledge of evolution. Either way, I would suggest you not try to speak as some authority on the subject.

Zeichman

Not orthodox Christians. I think Albert Schweitzer denied the divinity of Christ. Edward Schilllebeecx did, too, as did many other prominent scholars.

Right, I think Robert Price's book "the incredible shrinking son of man" is devoted to this topic, iirc.

That is hardly the case. i was a Biology major my first year of college. If I gave you impression that I Have any notable qualms with evolution, that is certainly not the case. I'm a rather large foe of ID and creationism. And I certainly don't believe in miracles/violations of laws of nature. But whatever, my idea with bringing up evolution was just an analogy. The lack of direct evidence is does not mean that someone accepts this only on faith.

Iasion

Greetings again,

Pardon?

"Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged, he does not even mention the coming of Christ, the events of his life, or the miracles performed by Him. "

Yes,
for clarity and brevity (it adds little to the meaning that I can see), I left out the bolded phrase "Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged".

Can you explain what this phrase means?
Can you explain what the "common fault of the Jews" is?

Are you arguing that it was a "common fault" of the Jews not to mention Jesus?

Or are you arguing that some un-specified "common fault" of the Jews explains why Justus did not mention Jesus?


If you are so convinced I "mislead" people, can you please explain exactly what you think "Suffering from the common fault of the Jews" means?

And why it explains away Justus' silence?


Iasion

Roger Pearse

It all depends on whether one is writing to educate or to propagandise. In the former case I wouldn't start chopping bits out of the sentence, in case I were accused of propaganda. In the latter case, of course, if you edit or abbreviate unduly you're volunteering to be accused of dishonesty. So either way it seems a dumb thing to do. You know that your accuracy is being challenged. That means you need to do something. Why not do it?

If you tell me that you really can't understand this, I'm sure I can't help you! I would only wonder, in that case, whether it might be unwise to start editing sentences if you don't understand them?

Frankly I really don't understand why you don't quote the whole codex. Are you paying for internet access by the byte or something?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I'm sorry, but I nearly didn't see this at all.

I'm sorry if I was unclear. Thanks for bearing with me.

Let's remember that each of these 'codices' is a description of the contents of a book he had read. I think it might be useful now to have the full text of codex 33.

XXIII. Read the Chronicle of Justus of Tiberias, entitled A Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews in the form of a genealogy, by Justus of Tiberias. He came from Tiberias in Galilee, from which he took his name. He begins his history with Moses and carries it down to the death of the seventh Agrippa of the family of Herod and the last of the Kings of the Jews. His kingdom, which was bestowed upon him by Claudius, was extended by Nero, and still more by Vespasian. He died in the third year of Trajan, when the history ends. Justus' style is very concise and he omits a great deal that is of utmost importance. Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged, he does not even mention the coming of Christ, the events of his life, or the miracles performed by Him. His father was a Jew named Pistus; Justus himself, according to Josephus, was one of the most abandoned of men, a slave to vice and greed. He was a political opponent of Josephus, against whom he is said to have concocted several plots; but Josephus, although on several occasions he had his enemy in his power, only chastised him with words and let him go free. It is said that the history which he wrote is in great part fictitious, especially where he describes the Judaeo-Roman war and the capture of Jerusalem.

Iasion has argued that the omission of any mention of Jesus by Justus is significant. He quotes Photius, in the dubious version quote-mined by someone unknown, I think in the 19th century.

You may not know that these 'quotations' enjoy a literary life of their own, passing from book to book unchecked. Often they get ever more exaggerated in transit, and ever more dramatic motives get attributed, or even edited in. This has started to happen with this Photius 'quote': it is introduced in many places as:

Photius, a 9th century apologist, who claimed that he had read it, expressed surprise that Justus did not mention Jesus anywhere: "He [Justus] makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did" (*Bibliotheca,* code 33). (Farrel Till)

And, from the half-sentence, it's a reasonable extrapolation. But it's only a sensible extrapolation when you don't know the rest of the codex.

The full text says that Justus is very brief (and starts with Moses!?!); it omits a lot that is really important; being a Jew he has the usual fault that he ignores Jesus; and his work is said to be largely fictitious. The guy was also a rogue. (Photius has clearly read the minor works of Josephus, although he doesn't review them in the Bibliotheca).

Surprise? No. Significant? No. It's just a fact about the book. To me, at least, it gives quite a different impression to that which the half-sentence gives, that Mr Till got from it, and that Iasion intends to use it to give in his page.

Does that explain more clearly why I consider the half-sentence a misquote? It's not very far from Freese's text, once you know the whole text, but the distance between the two is quite far enough to be misleading. Who honestly benefits from this misunderstanding going further? I would simply quote the text properly and avoid the misunderstanding.

I realise that this might well destroy the utility of this supposed significant silence, but that's not the issue here.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13

OK, I think I'm following you now.

Regardless of Photius' opinion of Justus' failure to mention Jesus, his description of Justus' work doesn't suggest such a reference would necessarily be expected anyway.

Is that about right?

Terrible Heresy

Interesting. I got the impression of this with my little bit of reading into the Jesus Seminar, but it is a new thing to me that some Christians don't beleive in Jesus as God.

Just to be exact, you are saying that some Christians beleive that Jesus had no signifigance other then as a profound teacher. No divinity at all....just teachings that are meant to be followed?

If so, more power to you. Especially since most liberal Christians take so much of the good stuff Jesus taught and try to live by it.

I haven't gotten around to reading it. So many books, so little time and money

That's fine.

But I don't understand how someone with knowledge of evolution can use the description of a missing link instead of talking about common ancestors. There is no missing link between chimp and man....we simply share a common ancestor.

Roger: You seemed to show that, at best, Justus was not as reliable as Iasion made him out to be. And perhaps that we shouldn't expect him to mention Jesus as much as Iasian does

The problem is that, as far as I can tell, in your rebuttal you don't say this. You simply assert that Photius "said nothing of the kind". Which is wrong. Photius said exactly what Iasion said he did. Just because there may be other objections to it does not change the fact that Justus does not mention Jesus. And Photius says that Justus doesn't mention Jesus.

And lets remember, this is a discussion about the proof an historical Jesus. If we are to accept any secular writing such as Josephus, we will see that the proof of an historical Jesus are skeptical writings of people skeptical of Christianity. Right?! The point is, where these skeptics might think a mention of Jesus might be in order.

The argument I would imagine you have on your side is that a jew would obviously not include Jesus in a passage about Jewish kings! The counterargument is obviously that you might expect a refutation of Jesus's authority in such a passage. Right?

Also, I find it funny that you are involved in what amounts to be a 2,000 year old smear campaign against Justus's charactor. This isn't an election