John Deere

Spin:

I'll be gone for a couple of weeks. No 'drive by poster' cracks, I'm a busy guy at this point. I'm in the middle of editing the next book. But I'll have my assistant check the thread for your address and send you the book.

Looking foward to your criticism.

Joe

spin

Yes, it is, isn't it? I'm just employing your tactics in a margially different way. You are trying to avoid dealing with matters through what I'd consider pedantic means. I'm trying to stop you from avoiding them. The result will probably be inconclusive, because you have been sufficiently elusive in your statements so as not to provide much meat at all. This means eking out your content and that allows you wiggle room.

John Deere

Spin:

I am being evasive? Follow your 'logic'.

Start with retracted statement of fact, then go to

"some assumed information," followed by

"This is accompanied by the implication" which leads to

a "question, " and then on to

"The documents you were interested in generically" next

"bringing the implications out into the open" next

"your statement and question add up to" that naturally goes to

"summing up the claim in my terms from what you said"

Just pitiful reasoning, if you don't believe me just take it to your local logician for his impressions.

Trust me we will have more with CM

Joe

spin

Nice try, but you still haven't said anything in this thread that has substance. You've spent most of the time protecting your rear, as in the case of this post.

In the specific case, when one frames questions, they usually include a great deal of assumed material, as in your case. You are now trying to pretend that none of that can be reclaimed from your question. This is quite a sad attempt at ignoring the linguistics.

All you are doing is forcing me to use tighter language. You, however, still have to deal with the implications of your statements.

I do enjoy your evasiveness in a clinical sense. But that can entertain for only so long.

In the end I have your statement accepting the notion that Josephus claimed to have been an Essene, linked to which was a question laden with the assumption that he would have had access to Essene literature which you equate with the content of (some of) the DSS. I can understand you wanting to disown the idea in public. Hence the evasiveness.

John Deere

Spin:

Your claim:

"In the end I have your statement accepting the notion that Josephus claimed to have been an Essene"

is a hallucination.



Joe

John Deere

Spin:

Just to clarify.

As shown by my diagram of your tortured chain of 'logic' above, your assumptions are hallucinations, not the notion that Josephus claimed to have been an Essene. (Simply take your post to logician as I suggested and he or she will confirm)

joe

spin

I guess you didn't actually mean what you said in the substantive part of this question.
The NSOED gives "since" to mean (def. b II) "Because, seeing that." The word indicates a premise and in our case that premise is that "Josephus claimed membership in the Essenes". It is, as stated, not conditional on anything.

If it is a hallucination, it is because you've made it so, perhaps by forgetting it or through some other means.

"I didn't have sex with that woman."

Richard Carrier

Atwill's "version" of our conversation is amusing. The best antidote to distortions of the truth is the actual truth. So those who want to know how our conversation really proceeded--instead of Atwill's creative omissions and "interpretations" of what happened--I have simply pasted in below all the emails I actually sent him, from start to finish. I have neither changed nor omitted a single thing.


From: Richard Carrier <rcc20@columbia.edu>
Date: Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:37:17 PM America/Los_Angeles


Greetings!

And to be sure you understand, I find this thesis highly implausible, which only means the burden of evidence is greater on anyone who wants to prove it, not that the thesis cannot possibly be true.


This is certainly true, though it seems clear to me the purpose was a Jewish effort to convey a new message about how to reform society by conforming to God's true will. The genre is called midrashic haggadah and is exemplified already in the writings of Philo and the 1st century Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum. It is derived from Hellenic modes of mythic discourse. The content only makes sense when understood as a message about how people should behave in order to correct the problems plaguing society, primarily corruption and greed, which inevitably led to violence. The commentaries of Bruce Malina are good studies on this point, but see also my discussion of Mark's empty tomb narrative in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (esp. pp. 158-67) and Evan Fales's contribution to that same book, "Taming the Tehom." Similarly, note the Genesis and Clay Pots themes in Paul's discourse on the nature of resurrection (ibid. n. 91, p. 206, and associated text and notes; p. 143, with associated notes; note also how Philo does same thing with OT that Matthew & Mark & Paul do: nn. 34-35, p. 202). This is all very clever and would require rabbinical familiarity with the OT and Jewish customs.


Even if that is so (and if so, you should get this one analysis published in a peer reviewed journal to start the scholarly discussion properly), such type-mapping does not require Roman authors, nor the flippant motive you suggest.


I do not expect a theory to be proven on one case, but I must start with one case, for the same reason psychical researchers do not waste money setting up experiments to test a psychic who has already failed one good test, and yet these same researchers don't assume the psychic's powers can be proven by passing that one test. One must pass several tests in sequence, each test justifying the labor and expense of setting up and conducting the next, but as soon as tests start failing, further inquiry is not warranted. So, too, here: I need one good case that is not ambiguous or flawed and that hints at something significant along the lines of your thesis. Once I confirm that one case, then I can look at the next best case, etc. However, if even your best case fails to convince, then I know I need not waste time on any others. It's just a requirement of economy.


I don't follow you. There is no one named "John" in John 21, except Simon's father, and that name is only there as a patronymic (it's Simon's last name, e.g. Simon Johnson). The "beloved disciple" is never named, but is most probably not someone named John, but Lazarus (see Bruce Malina's commentary on John, esp. pp. 193-211, 290, and cf. Jn. 11 and 12). Simon and John were also extremely common names, and the "fates" hinted here are extremely vague, so no one can demonstrate a link between these characters and any historical persons, even if one were intended by the author. Moreover, John 21 is not original to the Gospel. Like Mark 16:8-20, John 21 is an additional ending added by someone else later (cf. Jn. 20:30-31, compare 21:24-25), which redacts a story borrowed from Luke, about an event that happened during the life of Jesus, not (as here) after his resurrection (another example of contradictions between the Gospels). None of this makes much sense on your theory, certainly not as much sense as the standard interpretations do (i.e. that the reference to Simon's fate is simply a nod to what was then Christian legend regarding Peter, as represented in the later Acts of Peter, the Gospel of John having been written by most accounts between 100 and 110 AD with this added ending written between 110 and 130 AD; while the mention of the unnamed disciple's fate is simply a correction to a legend about Lazarus, that he would never die, having already been resurrected by Jesus).

For me that already makes your claim highly suspect, or highly unprovable.

But please note the pages in your book where you make your case and I'll take a further look.


You mean Gergesa (aka "Gerasa"). Gadara is a textual corruption. Earlier manuscripts of Matthew had Gerasa or Gergesa (variants of the same coastal-town's name), not Gadara, as was already known by the time of Origen (early 3rd century) if not before, and has since been confirmed through manuscript textual analysis, and is why Luke and Mark both correctly identify the town as Gerasa, not Gadara, while the geography of all three accounts obviously requires the town to be Gergesa, not Gadara--the latter being nowhere near the water (rather, more than a day's walk from it).

So I can zero in on this, please identify the pages in your book where you find parallels between the Gergesene Swine and these "two groups" that "all together rush into the water and drown."


Page numbers again, please.


Jewish myth already spoke of the two thieves crucified next to each other, one was saved and the other damned, and "why" they had different fates was the moral of the story. By inserting Jesus between these two well-known parabolic thieves, the writer is conveying a moral message about the role of the Savior in resolving what was previously resolved by appeal to Mishnah: hence Jesus is now the intermediary, not the Law. This is clear when we compare and contrast the conversation of the thieves in the popular Jewish legend and their conversation in the Gospels. Someone with genuine rabbinical credentials must have written this.

Nevertheless, again, please direct me to the relevant page numbers here.


When Romans poked fun at religion, it took forms like that of the Satyricon of Petronius or Lucian's "True Story" or his "Lover of Lies," or the Satires of Juvenal, not obscure and highly technical rabbinical midrashic haggadah with clearly moral content, not satirical. That's why I find your theory highly implausible. It defies expectation by having the Romans behaving very uncharacteristically and crediting them with vast and impressive rabbinical knowledge, all just to tell a joke no one would get.


Just FYI, secret writing was not Jewish. It was Greek, and only borrowed by the Jews from their Greek conquerors by the time of the writing of the forged book of Daniel (c. 2nd BC). The concept of hiding true doctrines behind ostensibly historical "tales" began with the mystery religions (especially under the influence of Platonic philosophy around the 4th BC, if not earlier, since Plato's explicit defense of the practice clearly indicates it was already a practice before he came along), and thus was well-known and more or less respected by most Romans, who were certainly well-acquainted with the mystery religions and their practices (e.g. Varro discusses the practice and endorses it as a way to control the masses). Romans would not have seen this style of writing as peculiarly "Jewish" at all. What was peculiarly Jewish was the way already-existing texts were "re-interpreted" as portending current and cosmic events. Though something vaguely similar was done by using Homer in a manner similar to the way the Chinese employed the I Ching, this was not quite what the Jews were doing with the OT. The closest Greco-Roman approach was to compose stories using popular mythemes as befitted the message and subject, then to explain the secret meaning in initiations using physical events and props and "theatricals." In contrast, the Jewish approach predominately replaced the use of cultural mythemes with scriptural passages and allusions--and to what extent the truth was revealed via initiations is unknown, though it must have been revealed at the very least via secret oral lore passed on from elder to initiate (as Paul already reveals hints of). Not that any of this contradicts your theory. I'm just posting it FYI.


But it didn't destroy the messianic movement (Bar Kochba), nor does it seem designed to: the Gospels and Epistles overtly aim to replace it, not destroy it--as is evident from Paul already, the new "inner" messianism was a Jewish response to the opposite course of Zealot militarism. Our sources and evidence suggest that the Zealots and the Christians were both Essene factions, each trying different solutions to the same problems, and very much at odds with each other as to methods (much like the Confucians and Taoists). See my article "Whence Christianity?" in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Higher Criticism. Likewise, Daniel already predicted a Gentile victory, the execution of the messiah, and the destruction of the Temple, followed by the messiah's return from heaven. Militant Jews were straining against their own scriptures, whereas the Christian sect actually conformed to the scriptures better than the Jewish elite ever did. There was no need for Romans to come up with all this. It was all already there for clever Jews to pick up and mold to sell their own moral vision to society. That's why there is an even greater burden on anyone who claims it was a Roman idea, not Jewish.


That is only half your thesis, since even if true (and it still needs to be demonstrated to the scholarly community) it does not entail that the reason for this mapping was satirical, rather than mytho-ethical, or that it was crafted by Romans, rather than Jews. The latter is the other half of your thesis, and may be even harder to prove than the first half. I certainly think they need to be kept distinct as much as possible. What "is" the case and "why" it is the case are very different as to methods and evidence, especially in history.


I agree. But most content in the Gospels already has these sources in the OT and Apocrypha and Jewish oral lore, and only occasionally are there clear allusions to distinctly Hellenic contexts (e.g. the Emmaus narrative in Luke is clearly a transvaluation of the legend of Romulus and Proculus, and I believe there is a commentary on Orphic soteriology in Mark's empty tomb narrative, both with clear moral import). We should thus look first for Jewish parallels that produce meaning (e.g. how Matthew reworks Daniel in his empty tomb narrative: see my discussion in "The Plausibility of Theft," again in The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave), and consider parallels from the Gentile world secondarily. And either way, the greatest problem is always one of retrofitting: loosening definitions so much that almost anything can be made to fit. To avoid that, we have to maintain strict methods and restraint in our assertions.


In contrast, the "lack of perspective" I see is that none of the commentators seem to grasp the relevance of book technology to the problem (e.g. a brief paragraph would be mandated by the space available for adding interpolated material--since scrolls had to come in fixed lengths, and one "book," which we call a "chapter," consumed one scroll, usually with considerable economy, leaving very little room for an interpolator to add material), and as to the other reference (James), none seem to have any experience with accidental scribal interpolation, of which this seems an obvious example (the actual intended "Jesus" here is clearly Jesus bar Damnaeus, mentioned a few lines later, since that is the only interpretation that makes any sense of why Josephus is reporting this story in an extended account of the succession of the priesthood, e.g. he mentions the execution of James to explain why the Roman punishment for this crime was to depose Ananus who killed him and install in his place the surviving brother of the man he unjustly killed). At any rate, I have significant experience with both phenomena (I have studied textual errors and interpolations in other texts for years), and I can say from experience that these two passages look like textbook cases to me.

Do let me know as to the exact page numbers (above) and I'll check this one claim and count it as our first "test."

Be well.

--
Richard C. Carrier, M.Phil.
Columbia University
www.columbia.edu/~rcc20


From: Richard Carrier <rcc20@columbia.edu>
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 11:07:07 AM America/Los_Angeles


Regardless of what Origen said, we now can determine ourselves from extant mss. that Gadara is the corruption (check any textual apparatus for the NT to see why). Origen was aware of there being a corruption, but lacked the data we now have, so he resolved it by appeal to his personal knowledge of geography (and the symbolic employment of the location by the gospel author)--and his reasoning is entirely correct: Gadara is geographically impossible, whereas Gergesa is clearly the intended location (Origen also discusses a very different city called Gerasa, but we now know that Gerasa is a possible translitteration of Gergesa from local dialects into Greek, and so the original text could have had either, referring to what Origen identifies as Gergesa). That all the earliest mss. that survive of Mark, Matthew, and Luke have Gerasa or Gergesa, not Gadara, confirms this (including an actual papyrus from Luke dated to the very time of Origen), as does the fact that the textual analysis of the manuscript tradition that we can reconstruct from texts all across the Mediterranean confirms that the Gadara reading must have arisen later in the tradition than either Gerasa or Gergesa.


Pardon me, but he says no such thing there. The text says:

"Then Justus through persuasion convinced the citizens [of Tiberias: Life 31] to take up arms, though forcing many against their will, and he went out with all of them and burned the villages of both the Gadarenes and the Hipposians, villages which happened to be lying on the border between the land of Tiberias and that of Scythopolis."

Hippos and Gadara had towns "on the border between" the cities of Tiberias and Scythopolis (which Josephus can only mean in rough terms, since neither could have had towns directly between those two cities, but could have held towns within five or ten miles of a point between Tiberias and Scythopolis, which could have sat on the border of lands held by Tiberias and Scythopolis). Nowhere is there any mention of the "Sea of Galilee" here, nor geographically would that be possible. Hippos would certainly have had villages near the sea, but they would be between the sea and any villages held by Gadara. So there is no way to read Josephus as here saying there were villages of Gadara near the Sea of Galilee, much less on it.

Indeed, elsewhere Josephus says Gadara is twice as far from Tiberias as Hippos (Life 336): Hippos, he says, is roughly 4 miles from Tiberias, Gadara roughly 8 miles, and Scythopolis roughly 15 miles (all his numbers are short of the actual distance by about 25% but are correct in proportion). Here again he places the sequence in geographic order as: Tiberias, Hippos, Gadara, and Scythopolis. Though these do not sit on a straight line, their relative position north to south is correct. It is roughly four miles from Tiberias to the end of the Sea, where the border of Hippos could have been (if Josephus is measuring to nearest border and not across the water to the actual city), and about six actual miles beyond that in a continuous line (as the coastline points) is Gadara. So Josephus was short by only a couple of miles, yet even his own short estimate places Gadara several hours away from the sea. Josephus likewise says (in Life 44) "some nearby peoples, Gadarenes and Gabarenes and Tyrians" joined an attack on Gischala--these tribes are all over Galilee, and none near the Sea of Galilee. Thus again "nearby" is clearly a relative term--certainly for any sentence that says both the Gadarenes and the Tyrians were "nearby" Gischala!

All in all, there is zero support in Josephus for placing any Gadarenes near the Sea.


Did you actually bother to check the meaning of this? The coins in question were issued only once under Pompey and depict a war galley with the inscription "NAUMA[CHIA]." No Gadarene coins from any other era depict any ships of any kind. A "naumachia" was usually a mock naval battle held in an amphitheater, and may have been in this case, although the Sea of Galilee could have been the most convenient venue at the time. But all the cities of the Decapolis would have been invited to send teams to the competition, not just those on the coast. The Gadarene team probably won, and Pompey honored their victory by issuing a coin celebrating it. This in no way conveys the notion that Gadara was a naval town, much less a military base!

I think your scholarship is alarmingly shallow here, in both your treatment of the text of Josephus and this coin. Do you even read Greek?

--
Richard C. Carrier, M.Phil.
Columbia University
www.columbia.edu/~rcc20


From: Richard Carrier <rcc20@columbia.edu>
Date: Tue Nov 1, 2005 1:05:49 PM America/Los_Angeles


I understand all this and I agree with what I think you mean, but this does not mean that all explanations that "work" are therefore equally likely to be true, as I'm sure you would agree. And if explanations that "work" differ in merit, there must be some criterion that distinguishes theories with merit from theories without, the same criteria that can identify the "most likely" explanation from among numerous working explanations. Thus, to "prove" a historical theory true means simply that: to demonstrate, as you put it, that a given theory explains all the evidence better than all other explanations. Explanatory power is not sufficient to do that, however--it is only one of at least five criteria that have to be met--see my discussion in Sense and Goodness without God, pp. 238-52, or--more importantly because it presents a direct parallel of a fringe theory that eventually converted me from a scoffer to an advocate--my discussion of Doherty's Jesus-myth theory (http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...spuzzle.shtml). Thus, when I ask you to make a case, I am not asking for a scientific or mathematical case, I am simply asking for a case that meets the same criteria as any other historical theory that we are warranted believing is most likely true.

And in my experience, the people who advocate that extraterrestrials built the pyramids, or that UFOs are alien spacecraft, or that psychic powers exist, say all the same things you do as to method: that their claim cannot be "proven," it just "explains more" than any other explanation, and that therefore we should believe it, or at least believe it is more likely than the mainstream explanation otherwise accepted throughout the academic world. Your theory stands in the same place that these theories do as far as consensus goes: it is not accepted by the academic world, not even by a respectable minority. Therefore, you have two options: accept that your theory is less likely to be true than the mainstream theory, or demonstrate otherwise. And to do the latter requires meeting real standards, of peer review, consensus-building, and careful and thorough scholarship.

That's where you stand. Where I stand is different, because I am in the same position vis-a-vis your theory as I am vis-a-vis the aliens-built-the-pyramids theory. As a matter of mere logical possibility, that theory could be true, but it is simply so unlikely that I cannot warrant wasting time considering it, as I hope you would agree. Thus, when some new pyramidiot comes to me and says he has some amazing new evidence for his theory, which is considerably complicated and requires extensive research to confirm (and they do--having written on this for a national publication years ago I am still a magnet for every guy who thinks he can prove me wrong), I don't bother checking his supposedly "new" theory against the evidence. And I am right not to bother.

But if he gave me a taste of his case and insisted, just as you do, that the whole case is strong enough to warrant attention, what am I to do? I can't listen to every bozo who says this. My lifespan simply isn't that long. So I will ask him to present me with one single piece of his case, the piece that is most "amazing" or suggestive or whatever, and if that checks out and does indeed point where he claims, then I can ask for his next best piece of evidence, and so on, and if he keeps passing the bar eventually I will have examined his whole case and, by then, I should be convinced he's right. But if he fails to present anything even remotely persuasive even on the first try, then I know it is a complete waste of my time to look at any of his other hundred pieces of "evidence."

Whether you appreciate this or not is irrelevant. You simply have a choice: meet my standards or walk away. If you walk away, then I remain where all other historians stand: with no warrant to give any credit to your theory. If you are fine with that, then so am I. Otherwise, your only recourse is to meet our terms of demonstration. Yet already you break the rules by barraging me with a dozen cases of mixed value. I told you to pick one--your best--and start with that. Yet none of the examples you sent me are even good examples (except one, which is not good enough, as I shall explain).


This sounds like apologetics to me. Either you have a good example or you don't. If you don't, then anything you construct from bad examples is not going to get beyond clever retrofitting, and that's simply not how real history gets done. I hope you understand that I do not mean by "good" example an example that alone proves your case. I merely mean an example that is peculiar enough that it generates a reasonable suspicion that you may be on to something. I think your best examples should be even more impressive than that, but if your very best example merely rises to the level of being what I just defined as a "good" example, then start with that. Otherwise, if you lack even a single "good" example, I am afraid to say you can only have a clever bit of pseudohistory on your hands, a theory that "can" fit the evidence but is not thereby the most likely explanation of those facts.


Matthew never says anything bad about "the Jews" but only the Jewish elite--the legal and political authorities and their lackeys. The Qumran community said the same things about "the Jews" outside their community, and the Samaritans said the same thing about "the Jews" outside Samaria. You can't read Matthew as if it were condemning all Jews everywhere--indeed, that would be to convict Matthew of irrational self-contradiction, because he says every single follower of Jesus was a Jew. Maybe you could read Matthew as an anti-Jewish tract if all twelve disciples were notably Gentiles. But not even one of them was. Likewise, Paul was a Jew, yet he often writes about "the Jews" in a hostile manner (the crucifixion is a stumbling block to "the Jews," etc., yet he also says many Jews have become Christians, including himself--so clearly by "the Jews" he means outsiders, not insiders, and not all Jews as a race).

Thus, early Christian tracts must be placed in the same context as the anti-Jerusalem rhetoric of the Samaritans or the Qumran sect. In fact, we can trace several ideological and historical sources for the teachings of Jesus to the Samaritans and the Qumranians--and since Essenes were Samaritans, and the Qumranians were an Essene faction, Christianity was very likely a Samaritan sect, another faction of the Essenes. Once we grasp that, then it becomes clear how tracts like Matthew are exactly the kind of thing a Samaritan or Essene would write, to condemn the worldly and elite "Jews" of Jerusalem who had abandoned true faith in their God.


Again, please make an effort to distinguish claims as to what is the case from claims as to why. Causal theories are different from theories of fact, and anyone who confuses them will likely get all sorts of things confused. So please take this advice:

(1) You should be able to show that the Gospels map onto Titus in a manner that cannot reasonably be explained by coincidence or noncausal inevitability, and you should be able to do this without making any assertions as to why the evidence maps that way. The key here is that your map must be good enough that coincidence or inevitability become less probable an explanation than deliberate construction of a parallel. That is the bar you must meet for that claim.

(2) Once you have established (1), and only once you have established (1), you should be able to present evidence that the reason this map was created is "satire designed to mock the messianic Jew's belief in prophecy," as opposed to some other reason. The key here is that your causal explanation should have specific evidence in its favor that does not support any other causal explanation nearly as well, or specific evidence that actually argues against all other causal explanations except yours.

Even proving (1) but not (2) would be an enormous breakthrough that should be reported and discussed throughout the field of biblical scholarship, and thus warrants submitting papers on it to peer reviewed journals. But proving (2) would be a breakthrough of vastly greater importance in every conceivable way. But you can only establish belief in either that is proportional to the strength of the evidence. If you show that (1) is only slightly better an explanation than coincidence and inevitability, or that (2) is only slightly better than alternative explanations, then your theory only warrants a suspicion of being true--it will not warrant any actual belief. I think you will need a stronger case than that for your work to be of any use to the scholarly community.

But in the following you make no effort at all to untangle (1) and (2). Your presentations confuse both kinds of theory and thus you seem to be confusing yourself even more.


The most obvious alternative causal explanation to (2), assuming you can establish (1) in the first place, is that Jewish critics of the Jewish elite, following God's prediction in Daniel of that elite's downfall at the hands of a Gentile conqueror, crafted the Jesus character as a symbolic link between God's promise as played out in Moses and God's wrath as played out in Titus, asking the reader to choose sides (Jesus or the Jewish elite) and by thus choosing, they choose their own fate (destruction, just as at the hands of Titus, or salvation, just as promised to and by Moses).

That is the first theory I would examine for (2) if you establish (1). But you fail even to establish (1) as far as I can see. For not a single example below is a "good" example of that as defined above. You can't count something that "can" fit as a good example. The fit has to be significantly more probable by design than by chance, and that requires actual evidence of an intended fit, not the mere ability to force a fit by reinterpreting whatever you need.


Except that in Paul and the Gospels the idea of eating the flesh of Jesus makes far more sense as a Jewish theological scheme of salvation than as some vastly obscure joke no one got. Surely you know scholars agree Jesus is equated with the atoning lamb whose flesh is and was in fact eaten by Israel, and not only that, but eaten in substitution for human flesh (that of Isaac). It is thus a message of communion and salvation, a means to enter the true Israel and thus win the salvation promised by God to Israel. That's quite clearly the meaning, not some joke on cannibalism.

For example, Jesus clearly is presented as one who merges the Passover Lamb and the Goat of Atonement of Yom Kippur. The Barrabas story clearly indicates this (he is the "scapegoat" of Lev. 16, as his name means "Son of the Father" and thus we have two "Sons of the Father," one taking on the sins of Israel and being released into the "wilderness," i.e. the mob, and the other being sacrificed to atone for the sins of Israel). This is the theme in Christian theology throughout all the NT documents, where the sacrifice of Jesus atones for the sins of Israel just like the Goat of Yom Kippur and yet is also the Passover Lamb that unites Israel and wards off God's wrath. For example, it is by sharing the flesh of the lamb and bread of Passover that one joins or exits the promise of salvation, by joining or exiting the body of Israel, therefore it is by sharing the flesh and bread of The Savior (which is what the word "Jesus" means) that one joins or exits the true body of Israel. There is no cannibalism here, any more than there is "cannibalism" in eating the ram substituted for Isaac--rather, it is a ritual by which one joins the body of Christ by sharing in his flesh, and thus sharing in his fate, which is eternal life (see my discussion in The Empty Tomb, p. 145, etc.).

The ingenious congruence of texts makes this quite clear as the intended meaning of the eucharist, and I see no joke here--this is clever and serious. Note my emphasis of key vocabulary:

John 1:29: "On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!"

Thus Jesus is declared to be both the Lamb of Passover and the Goat of Atonement all rolled up in one. Because he is the Lamb who atones, we eat him just as we eat the lamb, and gain the same benefits thereof.

So, therefore:

"Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but with precious BLOOD, as of a LAMB without spot: the blood of Christ: who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of times for your sake." (1 Pet. 1:18-20)

And this principle of substituted flesh is already Jewish:

"Then ON THE THIRD DAY Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off....And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, GOD HIMSELF WILL PROVIDE A LAMB for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing THOU HAST NOT WITHHELD THY SON, THINE ONLY SON from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering IN THE STEAD of his son....And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for BECAUSE thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." (Gen. 22:4-18)

That establishes the principle of substitution, "on the third day" eating the flesh of the ram in the place of "his only son" and by doing this God will guarantee every good thing.

Hence Jesus does this by connecting Yom Kippur with Passover, wherein the lamb must be eaten:

"Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a LAMB, according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household: and if the household be too little for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbor next unto his house take ONE according to the number of the souls; according to every man's eating ye shall make your count for the lamb....and THE WHOLE ASSEMBLY of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the BLOOD, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it. And they shall EAT THE FLESH in that night, roast with fire, AND unleavened bread...it is Jehovah's passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Jehovah. And the BLOOD shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall NO PLAGUE be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt....for WHOSOEVER eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be CUT OFF FROM ISRAEL." (Exodos 12:3-15)

One Passover Lamb that can feed everyone will do, all the Jews will kill the lamb (just as the Gospels and Paul portray as having happened), and those who eat its flesh and take its blood as a sign will be saved from destruction, while those who do not share of the Passover blood and bread will be cut off from Israel (thus by sharing the sacred bread one joins the body of Israel). The symbolic parallel here is clear in Paul:

"In the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little LEAVEN leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For OUR PASSOVER also hath been sacrificed: Christ. Wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Cor. 5:4-8)

Thus, Jesus is our Passover, by eating his flesh we join the congregation by joining the body of Christ and thus we share in his fate. That is why Paul routinely says the Church is Christ's body, which it becomes by consuming his "flesh" symbolically--in the same way that wine was widely regarded as the blood of Bacchus, and grapes his flesh.

This is in fact the mainstream view--most scholars agree with the general interpretation above. This is the theory that your theory (2) is competing against, and the evidence so far looks stronger on our side than on yours.


But the encounter with Jesus does not take place on Mount Gerrizim. The location is Jacob's Well, just outside Sychar (4:5). Mount Gerrizim is only visible from there (4:20), and its importance is plainly stated there: it is the center of Samaritan worship, their parallel to the Jerusalem Temple, thus it is inevitable that Jesus would mention how he will replace it just as he will replace the Temple (Jn. 2:18-22). Had it been some other mountain that otherwise had no reason for both texts to mention, then a parallel might exist with Josephus, otherwise we already have sufficient reason to expect John and Josephus would mention the same mountain.

Likewise, no parallel with dying of thirst on the mountain is drawn, but with drinking the water of Jacob's well. Hence the "water" reference is exactly the same as Mark's allusion to the water of Jacob's Well (Empty Tomb, p. 161, etc.), which makes far more sense of this than your theory (and is clearly the intended sense from the chapter's entire conversation). Your theory seems to cherry-pick this "living water" mention, and fudges the location for it, in order to force a tenuous parallel in Josephus. Gerrizim would inevitably be a center of importance in both authors and "water" is a Johanine theme, mentioned twenty times in that Gospel, usually with theological significance (thus allowing lots of different contexts you could have cherry picked from), including a repeat of "living water" that reveals the actual intended meaning of the phrase:

"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38)

Thus your theory does not make any more sense of the facts than coincidence and inevitability already do.


This is an implausible stretch of speculation. The mainstream theory makes more sense, or at least just as much sense: i.e. his "time" is the time of death and resurrection when he shall atone for all sins and thus prevail:

Joh 2:4* And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.

Joh 7:6* Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready.

Joh 7:30* They sought therefore to take him: and no man laid his hand on him, because his hour was not yet come.

Joh 8:20* These words spake he in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man took him; because his hour was not yet come.

John 20:17* Jesus saith to her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.


In the mainstream theory, yes. In your theory, it seems forced and implausible and in no way exceeds the mainstream theory in evidential support, as far as you've presented it here.


Where? I see no reference to a war here, or in fact to any specific event on Gerrizim. You have to be "inventing" such a reference by conveniently "reinterpreting" what the text says as it suits you. This is the same trick played by biblical literalists who interpret the text however they need to in order to eliminate contradictions.


Why not just say this? The Gospels have Jesus outright predict details of the destruction of Jerusalem, but here he completely hides any prophetic mention of any specific event behind an otherwise clear theological and soteriological discourse on Jacob's well and the true salvation of all Israel? That seems improbable to me. So I don't see your theory coming anywhere near as well supported as the mainstream view of this passage.


The reference is to mana ("the living bread which came down out of heaven," and literally "mana" a few verses earlier) and God's corresponding promise of salvation to Israel, allusions that make less sense on your theory, nor is there here any reference to any prediction of anyone starving anywhere. So again the context already provides a clear, obvious, and far better supported interpretation than yours.


That this "can" be what Josephus intended in no way argues that it "is" what Josephus intended. "Maybe, therefore probably," is invalid reasoning.


These are inevitable parallels--they are true of hundreds of people in history. It's like the scores of "parallels" between Lincoln and Kennedy that circulate on the web. We need good examples, not questionable ones. Not because Josephus couldn't have intended these parallels, but because we have no way of knowing whether he did from all-too-common attributes like these.


Where is this in Josephus?


There are at least six men named Jesus in Josephus. It was one of the most common of all Jewish names. And Titus kills a lot of leaders, not just this one. So we have here all the ingredients for coincidence. And since the name means "Savior," the Christian savior had to have that name (indeed, I think it is demonstrable that the gospel Jesus comes from the OT: the name "Jesus" appears there 214 times! Take all those references, and the OT verses that are linked to them by direct allusion back or forward, and you can construct almost the entire gospel from them).


You mean the korakinoi (KAPPA-omicron-rho-alpha-KAPPA-iota-nu-), the "the Alexandrian raven fish" (the word fish is not in JW, but the appellation is understood by context). There is no parallel in the Greek letters or meaning between that word and the city of Chorazin (CHI-omicron-rho-alpha-ZETA-iota-nu-). [Incidentally, you also have the wrong verse--you mean Mt. 11:21--but I assume that was just a slip]. No one could possibly have imagined any connection between these two words or references--except someone who reads only English, and that of course could not have been anyone back then!

[snip]


Here again you are simply inventing a connection--the word "legion" nowhere appears here. Had Josephus intended a parallel, don't you think he could have done a better job of drawing it? Indeed, you seem to think "thousand" or "ten thousand" is somehow equivalent to "legion," yet I have no idea where you get that notion. The standard complement in a legion was 6000 men (though of course legions were rarely at full strength). JW says "ten thousand" yet the Gospels say "legion" and "two thousand." Indeed, you are assuming something "too small for an army" should be taken as equivalent to an army (since a legion is an army), thus converting a falsification of a parallel into a confirmation of a parallel! Huh!?

[snip]


Are you saying this is one of your best cases? There is no water here, nor any linguistic parallels, and too much that is very different between the two accounts. I'm sure you could find such a poeticism of a boar hunt parallel in all kinds of history books about war. Otherwise, you have to really reach to create a parallel between this and the Gospel swine. The swine are all killed. The soldiers in JW are not all killed. And, again, it's the wrong place (per my other email). In fact, there are no connections at all except the beast reference and the boar hunt analogy, which are conceptually connected to each other already, and this parallel is not even very closely accomplished (in contrast with the parallel drawn with Daniel by Matthew in his empty tomb narrative, as I show in The Empty Tomb: that's the kind of evidence you need, yet you have nothing even remotely like it here).


JW says fifteen thousand are killed and about two thousand are captured (JW 4.436). In fact, JW is precise: 2200. The Gospel is not precise, and the Gospels refer to men who die, not the ones who don't die. The differences are fatal. It is almost impossible that the author intended a parallel to be drawn here. Had he, he would have made it far better a parallel than this! Had the Gospels said 2200, then you might have something.


It looks like you are retrofitting again--finding anything that is even remotely able to be forced to fit. Otherwise, there is no sequence of events that is the same, unless you yourself arbitrarily "declare" that a wall of spears is a Sea, that some dying and others dispersing is the same thing as all perishing, that rebels recruiting soldiers is the same thing as demons entering pigs (neither story using the concept of "infection"), that recruits "some by will, some forced against their will" is the same thing as all the demons asking of their own free will to be moved into the pigs, and so on. In other words, this "parallel" is far too contrived to be convincing.


I see no such sense in it. The parallel is bizarre and barely intelligible, and so tenuous that no one would ever get it. In contrast, that the choice of demons would be to perish is exactly the moral message of the gospel. There is nothing incoherent here--this is perfectly in line with Jewish theology. And that this fleet of demons would get the peculiar label "legion" is yet another reference to the way of violence, and the use of force by the elite to suppress the masses is the way of demons and thus the way of destruction (in contrast to the way of communism and pacifism that was being offered in its place). For example, when the Jewish "mob" choose Barabbas, the message is that they are choosing the way of insurrection and murder, and hence death, instead of choosing the Atoning Death of God's Christ, and hence eternal life.

Even beyond that, MacDonald's theory as to the Homeric meaning of the swine has more evidence in its favor than yours, and though I do find it intriguing, I am not entirely convinced by his theory, so I can only be even less convinced by yours. Yet he at least has strict criteria and tries to follow them, unlike your approach:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...erandmark.html


You mean JW 6.201. This is the only example you have presented so far that is a good example. Unfortunately, it is not a good example of (1) since here Jesus is not being mapped onto Titus, nor can it be a good example of (2), not only because it fails to realize (1), but also because the only connection to Jesus is the name Mary, which unfortunately is one of the most common Jewish female names (being the name of the sister of Moses). In fact, every opportunity for setting up a parallel here was missed by Josephus, making the hypothesis that such a parallel was intended improbable. It is certainly very likely that Josephus did craft this story as an inversion of the Passover, precisely to convey how Jewish society had been completely turned upside down, and you should publish the demonstration of this parallel in a peer reviewed journal--you cannot yet maintain that the parallel relates to Jesus, since it could simply relate to a Jew's own poetic inversion of Passover to make a contextual point about the state of society at that moment and place. At most, you could hint at a Jesus parallel as a possibility worth exploring further, but you could never get the definite assertion that this was the purpose of this passage past any decent peer review. But you could get the Passover parallel published, and I think you should.

Otherwise, had the baby been called Jesus you might have had something. Or if the Gospels identified the mother of Jesus as "Mary the daughter of Eleazar" or "from the town of Bethezob." Or had any gospel identified the other Mary as being the actual daughter of Lazarus, instead of his sister (Jn. 11:2). But alas, no such connections are there. Otherwise, Mary is too common a name to be remarkable, as is Eleazar. And the Gospels fail to identify Lazarus as from Bethezob but instead from Bethany. So it's the wrong Lazarus. In other words, it sooner appears that either Josephus or John was trying to destroy any parallel rather than to create one!


All these conjoining factors do suggest a play on Passover was intended, indeed an inversion of it (especially since sacrifice is supposed to substitute an animal for Isaac, one's only son, yet here one's only son is substituted for an animal, thus the message is inversion of the Passover). However, in any published article you will have to concede that each item by itself is unremarkable: meat is often roasted, there is no reference to legs or whether any bones were or were not broken, and hyssop has no unique association with Passover (i.e. though Ex. 12:22, also: Lev 14, Num 19, Ps 51:7, Heb 9:19), but the conjunction of all the factors (including hyssop and house) is what makes the parallel probable.


I agree. But that Jesus or Christianity are being commented on here is very easy to dispute, and that is the only thing that would relate at all to your thesis. Otherwise, all I see here is a clever inversion of Passover by an author intent on conveying how Jewish society had been turned upside down by resisting Rome.


Jesus says "a sword shall pierce through thine own soul" -- had Josephus used a phrase closer to this, you might have something. But instead you have to exaggerate what tenuous connections there are, when anyone could describe hunger in a similar way as stabbing pains, while in Luke there is no connection at all even alluded to that such piercing will be related to hunger or would even relate to the body! That's not a good example. Moreover, you are jumping now between Luke and John to build a parallel--yet any intended parallel would most likely be constructed all in one place (either Luke or John or both, but not spread out at random between them).


No, he says she has chosen the good portion and will never lose that, and the context is clearly that hearing his teaching is more important than troubling oneself with daily affairs (hence a closer parallel is to the birds that neither sow nor reap). You can't change the verb to invent a non-existent prophecy.


Again, if we were told Lazarus were either Mary's father, then you might have something. But even so obvious an allusion as that was apparently lost on your "genius" writers. Indeed, he is only a brother, and the names (Lazarus and Eleazar) aren't even spelled the same, which usually indicates a lack of awareness of one writer by the other, not collusion of any sort. Meanwhile, Mary is the name of the sister of Moses and the only prominent woman in the Exodus (hence Passover) narrative, thus the obvious choice for Josephus to use when inverting the Passover by using a mother eating her child, especially given the meaning of her name, as you note. But this "Mary" is "rebellious" per the OT legend of Num. 12, not from anything in the NT. And she is the woman whom Aaron begged "Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb" (Num. 12:12). A Mary from the days of the Passover associated with a half-consumed baby. Hmmmm. Sound like the source of Josephus' story to you?

The Numbers passage in the Septuagint even says "katesthiei to hêmisu," while Josephus uses "to hêmisu katesthiei," inverted but otherwise identical wording. And Josephus calls his story "a forsaken myth" that would symbolize the "plight of the Jews" (6.207-208). Thus, we need look no further for what Josephus is doing here.


I'm sure nearly every sentence in the NT that isn't a quotation is entirely unique.


Yet not the same vocabulary, which makes confirming a parallel very difficult. JW says "beautiful portion" (moiran...kalên), which emphasizes physicality, but Luke says "the good part" (tên agathên merida), which emphasizes abstraction, and also punning on "anxieties" (merimnas) in the previous verse, the obvious contextual point here, which doesn't map well onto the JW story. And the JW Mary saved the beautiful portion for someone else, this isn't the one she "chose" for herself, so the portion she herself chose is not the portion that isn't taken away (in contrast to Luke), breaking the parallel (obviously the one she did choose couldn't be taken because it was already eaten!). In fact, there is no saving of portions for someone else at all in Luke.

And I find it incredible to suppose that the two concepts "good" and "part" are "rarely" joined in Greek! Are you really suggesting that?


It is actually a more obvious pun on what the word Arimathaia actually means: "Best Doctrinetown."

Again, why not simply say Barmathias? Why disguise the connection by spelling both names differently? The Gospels also make clear it is a place not a person ("from" Arimathaia). And J's Life says Matthias while the Gospels all say -mathaia, yet an intended parallel would employ the same spelling, don't you think?


What!? "Simon" appears seven times in John 21!


Except that the Gospel is not entitled "John." It was assigned "according to John" by later scribes (that is why it says "according to" rather than "by"). Again, why not put the name John here? Why the deliberate avoidance of naming the "beloved"?


But how can it have started out at an "incorrect" position when all the Gospels are supposed to have been crafted with the same ends in mind? Did Luke screw up?


If these are your best examples, the case is closed: your theory is unwarranted. None of the above examples is "good" and thus I cannot warrant wasting any more time on this--unless you have kept your actual good examples in hiding? The only good example you have is neither an example of (1) nor (2) and therefore is not an example of anything relating to your thesis--although it is a very fascinating example of a clever literary device in Josephus, one I would encourage you to get published in a peer reviewed journal.

--
Richard C. Carrier, M.Phil.
Columbia University
www.columbia.edu/~rcc20


From: Richard Carrier <rcc20@columbia.edu>
Date: Wed Nov 2, 2005 11:19:42 AM America/Los_Angeles


You seem to think "can be" is equivalent to "probably was." Please stop that. I am a historian, and speak like a historian, not like a theologian. I am not arguing for what is "logically necessary" but what is historically probable. The scenario you suggest is certainly logically possible, but it is very unlikely, and again nowhere in evidence--remember, Origen went there and is speaking from personal experience of the geography. Had Gadara held villages on the Sea, don't you think he would have pointed that out instead of arguing that the town must have been Gergesa? Hence you are the one who has to "invent" towns nowhere in evidence in order to get your parallel to work. But a theory based on pure speculation remains pure speculation. It can never rise above that. I am content to agree that your theory rises no higher than pure speculation. Are you?


Oh dear me. Are you serious? The demons flew into the pigs, then the pigs ran six miles to the sea? That's exactly the kind of silly and desperate contrivance that biblical literalists depend on to eliminate contradictions in the Bible. Just like them, you are trying to eliminate a contradiction between the facts and your own pet theory. If you get to invent hours-long journeys out of "rushed down the slope into the sea" then what theory couldn't you defend? Don't you see the self-defeating nature of your own methodology? All you have here is a self-fulfilling theory, by which you can invent anything you need to make it fit. What objective criteria limit what you can do by way of "interpreting" the text? I see none here.


Origen does not know or state the dates of the mss. that had that reading. So it cannot be said any of the Gadara readings were "earlier" even from his remark. Yet what I said is that all the earliest mss. that survive have those readings, so my statement cannot be contradicted by anything Origen said anyway. What Origen lacked access to was all the diverse geography and tradition that current mss. reflect. The fact that so many diverse traditions have that reading (even in translations, such as the Armenian and Syriac and Ethiopian and pre-Jerome Latin, etc.) corroborates statistically the conclusion that the earliest reading was not Gadara (had that been so, we would have more traditions with it--instead, the only extant mss. with that reading are the later and less reliable mss.). Again, though it is "possible" for the normal course of transmission to be inverted, this is not probable, and historians deal in the probable, not what is "merely possible."

You are also ignoring the point that neither Luke nor Mark have Gadara until later medieval mss. start inserting it. Only Matthew has anything like an early reading of Gadara. That confirms the original reading was not Gadara: since Mark wrote first and Luke and Matthew both copied Mark, the corruption to Gadara had to happen either between Mark and Matthew (or by Matthew) or after Matthew (most likely the latter, since most extant early mss. of Mt. still don't have Gadara, and Origen himself confirms this, below). Since Gadara only appears in Mark and Luke in late mss., never in earlier mss., and since most mss. of Matthew don't have Gadara either, even in very isolated traditions (like the Ethiopian and Armenian) where an emendation away from Gadara would be very unlikely to have occurred in both completely isolated mss. traditions (much less numerous such geographically distinct traditions), the conclusions of probability are not with you.

Hence all scholars who know what they are talking about and who have applied the science of critical textual analysis to the mss. agree that Gadara was not original in Mark or Luke and is very unlikely to have been original in Matthew. You are thus again rejecting established expert conclusions which were based on proven skills and criteria, without applying any proven criteria at all, merely to prop up your own dubious pet theory. That's exactly what the biblical literalists do. It simply isn't the way real history gets done.


Oh dear me. That is entirely false, and on this I can finally conclude you are not competent as a historian.

Origen says:

"The transaction about the swine, which were driven down a steep place by the demons and drowned in the sea, is said to have taken place in the country of the Gerasenes."

Gerasenes. Not Gadarenes.

Then he says:

"But in a few copies we have found, 'into the country of the Gadarenes' ...[but] there is no lake there with overhanging banks, nor any sea."

Hence a few copies said "Gadarenes." Emphasis on FEW. Therefore, most did not say Gadara. He does not say of which Gospels, either, but since he doesn't say "the manuscripts of Matthew" clearly his remark entails that most mss. of Matthew did not have Gadara, either, and probably no other mss. did except a few of Matthew.

Origen then is vague as to where he gets the idea of Gergesa, but from the context it seems clear he either understood Gerasa to be a possible translitteration of Gergesa (as we have now concluded today) or he knew of some mss. with that reading (as we now know there were). At the very least, he does not deny either conclusion, and does not otherwise state his reason for mentioning this town (not even as his own conjecture). But one thing is clear: Gadara was the rare reading even in his day, not the common reading even in the mss. available to him.


Why do any of the several thousand corruptions exist in the Bible? A great many are simple errors of mispelling, misreading, transposition, etc., as we have confirmed countless times in all mss. traditions in and outside of the Biblical field. It was so common, in fact, that the presumption must be toward scribal error, unless we have good reason to argue otherwise (e.g. dogmatic purposes or cross-contamination). That we don't know exactly why this mistake was made in no way argues against the abundant evidence that it was, in fact, a mistake. Hence you must answer why some mss. say Gazarene, some Garadene, some Gergesthan, some Gergustene, or else concede that such corruptions simply happen--as in fact clearly they have!

Your other email resorts to similar contrivances and inventions as you've resorted to above, and neither follows nor articulates any valid method I am aware of, so I won't answer it. You have not convinced me, despite your best efforts. So I consider our conversation closed.

--
Richard C. Carrier, M.Phil.
Columbia University
www.columbia.edu/~rcc20


From: Richard Carrier <rcc20@columbia.edu>
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2005 11:18:39 AM America/Los_Angeles


I'm afraid not. You have essentially misunderstood some of what I have said and ignored the rest of it and now you have created a fictional world in which I have been "spanked." The fact is, my points remain sound, and your argument remains non-credible. But clearly you have given up taking serious scholarship seriously, and you see yourself as a persecuted and misunderstood outsider. That's fine by me. It just isn't my gig.

Be well.

--
Richard C. Carrier, M.Phil.
Columbia University
www.columbia.edu/~rcc20

Juliana

This is coming a little late, sorry, but there is no analysis coming. Any reader who is in his right mind will understand why: Caesar's Messiah is simply not worth reading let alone reviewing. I tried, looking for a single coherent thought, but after repeated efforts I gave up some 30 pages before the end. I cannot but wonder about people who lauded this book, they must have either read a different one or suffer from mental confusion.
Anyway, I just saw some remarks on the book by Aquila Pacis at Amazon. Since they correspond with my opinion I post them here.

Juliana

----

A few words from a reader in utter despair:, January 19, 2006

Reviewer: Aquila Pacis - See all my reviews
How can Jesus and the Gospel have been "invented"? Since Jesus is the Divus Iulius incognito, the Gospels can only have been "re-written", only in part and not substantially. There may well be a Flavian redactional layer on top of NT scripture, but the unbelievably hair-raising (if not grotesque) errors that Atwill produces while trying to hold together his shaky and wildly far-out theory, leave no room for any sane person to rate this "book" with anything better than "1 star". ("0.5" would be more appropriate!)

Atwill's complete fabric crumbles to dust right from the outset: most scholars date the origin of Mark to 55 A.D., Christian theologians sometimes as early as 30 A.D.. How then can the Gospel of Mark have been written during the reign of Titus? These times are if anything only the "historiographical" birth of Jesus Christ, when the final editions of the Gospels were produced. They are the terminus ante quem. In addition Atwill has no scruple about re-writing history himself, for instance stating that Rome started the war to subdue the Jews. The only problem is: historical sources show that the Jews themselves started the war. Some other examples of Atwill's "expertise":

1. Atwill calls Flavius Josephus a betrayer of the Jewish cause, he calls Jesus a pacifist, all of which has been falsified by modern scholarship.
2. Atwill jumps all around the NT, as if the synoptical Gospels were one coherent body of work.
3. Atwill fuses Eleazar and Lazarus into one person, but he doesn't even try to prove they were identical.
4. Atwill calls Flavius' Jewish Histories "fiction", but uses them as a historical anchorpoint for the Gospels. What in God's name is this??!!!
5. Atwill often twists interpretations back and forth to best suit the needs of his theory, e.g. at one point he states that the people living during the times of Jesus were still alive during the times of Titus; a few pages later he says exactly the opposite.
6. Atwill seldomly presents original sources to back his findings, working mostly in the english language.
7. Sometimes Atwill even assumes or believes things, and a few pages later he uses it as proof!

The list could go on and on...

And last but not least: why do we need a rehash of the works of Bruno Bauer? Bauer came to similar, sometimes the same conclusions as Atwill, but that was back in the 19th century! ...and you know what? Bauer was wrong!

"Caesar's Messiah" is the worst kind of scientific pulp that one can imagine. Hocus-pocus, not worth of any further mention. A little analogy: there are people who seriously say that the etymology of the name "Caesar" is the english word "seizure"! Atwill isn't much different. (So it's time to move on: Carotta offers a much more stable and absolutely convincing solution.)

Vorkosigan

ROFLMAO. The mainstream date for Mark is usually given as 65-75, and most scholars fall after 70. Scholars giving 55 for the date of Mark are a tiny conservative religious minority.

You mean FJ served the Romans from the start? And here I thought he had been a turncoat.

Yes, that is his claim.

You must have missed that one.

You mean fictions can't contain any history? Things are really quite different on your planet, where the majority of Mark scholars believe Mark dates from 55, fictions never contain history, and Josephus didn't switch sides in the Jewish War.

Citations, please. I will assume your inability to provide them means there aren't any.

Atwill's book is written for a popular audience, of course he does not use much Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Duh.

Citations please. I will assume your inability to provide them means there aren't any.

Carotta is crap.

Vorkosigan