GakuseiDon

From The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher:
By the Romans?

Because he was writing for a Roman audience, who were likely to have heard of Christ by 90 CE. Identifying James as the brother of a known figure makes sense IMO.

Paul wrote to a Christian audience around 60 CE. If Tacitus can be believed, Christians were looked down upon in the time of Nero.

may

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus referred to the stoning of “James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ.� (The Jewish Antiquities, Josephus, Book XX, sec. 200) A direct and very favorable reference to Jesus, found in Book XVIII, sections 63,64, has been challenged by some who claim that it must have been either added later or embellished by Christians; but it is acknowledged that the vocabulary and the style are basically those of Josephus, and the passage is found in all available manuscripts.

Tacitus, a Roman historian who lived during the latter part of the first centuryC.E., wrote: “Christus [Latin for “Christ�], from whom the name [Christian] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.�—The Complete Works of Tacitus (New York, 1942), “The Annals,� Book 15, par. 44.

With reference to early non-Christian historical references to Jesus, The New Encyclopædia Britannica states: “These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds by several authors at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries.�—(1976), Macropædia, Vol. 10, p. 145

gregor

may
Thanks for posting without reading any of the actual text of the posts that preceeded. I assume your entire post is a cut and paste from somewhere.

Vivisector

Amaleq,

Sorry for the long delay - still ruminating on your previous posting and thought I'd move the discussion over here - seems this is where the action is at present. Just a couple of comments/ideas for your (and/or others') comment.

I'm still inclined to suppose that Josephus wrote *something* about Jesus in Ant. 18, and that he probably referred to him as someone who said he was a prophet or whose followers made that claim for him (based primarily on Origen, as we've discussed previously, and my difficulty in seeing how this content would fit easily into a "lost passage."). It seems at least possible that the actual reason that Josephus would have mentioned him here - indeed, at all - is that Jesus's activities might have resulted in one of Josephus's "tumults," culminating in Jesus's execution.

The idea that occurred to me is, what if Origen's copy of Josephus *did* read "Jesus called Christ" in Ant. 20 but that the addition of "called Christ was made not by a Christian scribe, but a pagan scribe? Sure, Christians were ultimately responsible for preserving Josephus's works, but would it have always been that way?

The most immediate objection I can anticipate is, "How would a pagan scribe have known to associate James with Jesus/Christ?" The problem is simpler if Josephus actually referred to James as the brother of Jesus, because the scribe has to make only one more step to get to the current reading - he needs only to associate this Jesus with Christ. I would suggest it wouldn't have been impossible, given that by 110 CE or so, Christians were a sufficiently large blip on the Roman radar that Ignatius was executed for his beliefs. In other words, within 20 years or so of the publication of Ant., perhaps it's not so much of a stretch to suppose that educated Romans would have been passingly familiar with the traditions of Christian origins. I simply don't see how a Christian would have penned "called Christ" (it's too weak) and I can't quite understand why Josephus would have in this manner.

Anyway, just a thought.

spin

Aww, Gregor, you're trying to dampen may's free spirit. Just because we've talked ourselves blind about the very subjects, it doesn't mean that may should bother to read such stuff and cramp his/her style. may is letting the spirit do the talking for anything that we've already said and resolved will be quickly put into question by that leading spirit.


nips

Toto

may - it's always good to provide a reference. I find the text that you cut and pasted here with attribution to "Reasoning From the Scriptures".

Vivisector

May appears to prefer the copy/paste method in her calling as a "trutth seeker," although with attribution only in the case of quotations from the Bible: Example

You people are so nice - the flame throwers would have appeared *long* before now in any number of similar forums I've seen! :angel:

I knew there was a reason I liked this place! :notworthy

Amaleq13

It is a HUGE leap, IMO, to suggest that this degree of awareness existed 30 years earlier.

I don't know of any evidence that the Romans knew anything about "James the Just" but the evidence we do have suggests that he had a considerable reputation among the Jews that was entirely independent of and prior to any sibling relationship he may have had with Jesus. If the Romans knew him, it only makes sense that they knew him from that reputation.

Again, what evidence makes this "likely"? Pliny and Tacitus worked directly with Christians but neither seems to know very much about them. Why should we assume that Josephus' readers were better informed?

That they were looked down upon does not require or imply that anything was known about their alleged founder.

Rick Sumner

I'd suggest it's an Islamic redaction of the TF.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Diogenes the Cynic

That appears to be Spin's guess too (such as it is) but why was it redacted? If it was done by Christians, why remove the juicy stuff? If it was done by non-Christians why not remove the whole thing?

I'm not saying I disagree, I'm just trying to get some more thoughts on it. I've always pretty much held onto a view that the TF is partially authentic (and except for the tone, the overall arc of the hypothetically "authentic" portion pretty much matches Tacitus) maybe I need to put more thought into it. Dude starts a religious movement. Dude gets offed by Pilate. Movement continues.

I don't think that this much per se is implausible as something that could have been recorded by FJ. I'm not saying that makes it authentic either but a less interpolated manuscript at least doesn't hurt a theory of partial authenticity.