gnosis92

Pliny wrote about them.
Tacitus wrote about them.
Suentonius wrote of them.
The New Testament is about them.
The Gnostic Gospels are about them.
They wrote letters.

Josepheus was to write a history of the Jews up to the war, and writes of several Jewish groups such as the Sadducees and Phillistines and Zealots and Essenes.

Other than 2 highly disputed passages, he doesn't seem to say much about Christians. There has been speculation that the 2 disputed passages were lifted out of Luke or the NT. If so, why doesn't Josepheus write more about Christians, and the roles and contraversies they played in early second temple period, and what side they were on during the revolt, etc. Since Christ-mythicists are so found of the argument of silence, Josepheus' and Philo's silence on Christians seems to me to be prima facie evidence that Christians did not exist during the relevant time period. Except we know they did.

Any explanations, Christ-mythicists on Jospehus' silence?

Toto

How do we know that Christians existed in the first century? Some mythicists hold that Christianity developed in the second century and created a past for itself.

If Christians did exist, both historicists and mythicists have Josephus' silence to explain. The usual explanations are:

Christians were a small marginal sect (Josephus talks about multiple schools of thought, but only really describes 3.)

The Essenes were really early Christians (or one sect of the Essenes).

The "Fourth Way" or Zealots were the early Christians, but they changed dramatically between the time Josephus wrote and the second-third centuries.

torquemada

According to Robert Eisler there was considerable censor of literature that was unfavorable to Christianity after the conversion of Constantine. Eisler has reconstructed from the Old Russian version of Josephus was he really wrote about the Christians.

aa5874

I think Josephus has literally destroyed the HJ position. Josephus did not write about a single Christian or a rumor of a Christian nor did he write about a single controversial or any teaching of Jesus, yet in the book called Acts, Christians were being converted at a phenomenal rate, sometimes thousands in a day.

Josephus is said to have been born just after the assumed death of Jesus, so he should have been alive around the time of the events in Acts were reported to have occured.


Acts 2:41, Then they that glady received his word were baptized, and the same day there was added unto them about three thousand souls."

Acts 4:4, "Howbeit many of them which had heard the word believed and the number of men was about five thousand".

Acts 21:20: And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord and said unto him, Thou seest brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe and they are all zealous of the Law".

Josephus did not write anything about these events, not even rumors of them.

Doug Shaver

Mainly because at no time during first century -- when Josephus was writing -- was Christianity anywhere near as big a deal as the church later tried to claim it was. If there was no historical Jesus, then there also was no bunch of people running around telling everyone he was God's only begotten son, crucified and resurrected to save the world from sin.

Pliny et al., assuming those references are authentic, are all from the second century. By that time, Christians who thought Jesus was historical were just beginning to make themselves noticed.

FatherMithras

What he thinks was written, not what actually was.

gnosis92

Given
"Pliny wrote about them.
Tacitus wrote about them.
Suentonius wrote of them.
The New Testament is about them.
The Gnostic Gospels are about them.
They wrote letters."

The fact Josepheus does not write of Christians is evidence that our documentary record is seriously incomplete of the second temple period.

The dead sea scrolls exist, Qumran exists, both in the second temple period, and we cannot link any Jewish group Josepheus writes of, with the community at Qumran or the dead sea scroll authors.

Hence, I think Josephus has literally destroyed the MJ position.

Does Josephus writes of Philo of Alexander?

Toto

Josephus wrote about Philo. earlyjewishwritings:

The rest of your post doesn't make a lot of sense. Of course there are gaps in the historical record. What does this have to do with Qumran?

TedM

IF Josephus wasn't referring to Christians when he wrote about the Essenes and the Zealots, that doesn't mean he was silent about them originally since no one knows for certain what was in the original versions (no manuscripts).

One possibility is that Josephus did actually mention the Christians in the last part of the TF--as that part could have been originally authentic.

Even if ALL of the TF is inauthentic, is there any evidence that there WASN'T something else there in place of the TF originally--perhaps something less flattering that was later replaced by the TF by someone?

If not, then Josephus may well have mentioned the Christians, or referred to their tribe in a previously existing passage that talked about Jesus.


Also, is it not possible that both the numbers in Acts were close to accurate AND the group was still fairly insignificant to Josephus? I recall reading that the population of the Jews at the time was over 1 million people. If there were as many as 10,000 Christians that still would have been only 1% of the entire Jewish population.

I'm curious about that old Russian version? What does it say, and what does Eisler say? EDIT: never mind, I found it. Bizarre.

ted