spin

You aren't dealing with Paul's claim that his gospel didn't come from being taught, but from revelation.

If Paul didn't need a historical Jesus, why should you?

Probabilities are based on relevant data.

So Paul did get his gospel from humans contrary to his own claims?

Umm, Judas was dead. We aren't dealing with a testable tradition.

Looking at each of the Pauline passages dealing with gospel material and they all seem suspicious.

Clear, especially when Paul doesn't allow you to think that.

And you need to demonstrate, rather than assume, it. Paul contrasts faith in Jesus and justification through his death with torah observance.

So it's not important what people write. You have codes for interpreting their words. Paul specifically says he received his gospel from the revealed Jesus. There is no problem with 1 Cor 15:3. He received the knowledge from the revealed Jesus.

The post-Pauline intrusion of the last supper into the problems Paul was dealing with over the abuse of the communal meal simply confuses the passage and goes off in a tangent. The text is about carnality and the abuse of the meal. The last supper is a poor interpolation, but the text isn't read for its significance but for quote mining.

Yet it's christian apologetics and you should be more critical.


spin

spin

The scholarly arbitrariness on the issue is like watching me pee in your water bottle and they can remove the pee so that you can drink what's left.

If you consult the archives you'll know that I've been through all this material with a fine tooth comb. No, Origen didn't know the James passage. He knew another source which knew the James passage. Origen has added a great amount of his own conjecture in the passages from Contra Celsus. He gives the false idea that Josephus called James "James the Just". He has the false idea that Josephus said that James's death was responsible for the fall of Jerusalem. It's not Josephus and in fact Josephus attributes the fall to another's death in BJ. Josephus doesn't talk about "James the Just brother of Jesus called christ". The passage in Josephus talks of "the brother of Jesus called christ, whose name was James". Origen is no help in trying to bolster the claim of the awkward James passage.


spin

aa5874

It would appear that Origen was not reading from Josephus, what he wrote was not in his writings.

So which James was Origen referring to? You can guess.

teamonger

Such a lovely metaphor...

Reconstruction will always have a level of arbitrariness, that doesn't invalidate the attempt. There is more instrinsic probability in a scribe "correcting" a passage that he found offensive, than in a scribe inventing a passage of whole cloth. Especially when Origen relates knowledge of Josephus' negative view about Jesus as Christ.

Origen did read Josephus very loosely, in a way that suited his agenda; he did that in other places as well. But that's not particularly relevent to this question, because the identification of James as brother of Jesus is a rather simple datum, and one that is indeed in the Josephus text. There is nothing awkward about Josephus' reference, it's simply a way for him to identify which James he was talking about.

You've been over it with a fine tooth comb? does that make you an authority? so have plenty of scholars, and most still draw a different conclusion than you.
t

teamonger

(sigh) painting a respected scholar as an apologist is really sad. Sanders freely admits that early Christians "made things up" in the gospels, does that sound like an apologist? For an apologist, generally it's either all or nothing. The Jesus myth position, that nothing could be historical, is starting to look like apologetics to me.
t

spin

I usually use another metaphor, but the implication doesn't seem to sink it. The point is there is no way to know how much of the passage if any is original. Josephus quite often drops names of people without giving background and suddenly here we get a lovely little synopsis. I think it's all crap.

It doesn't allow the Testamonium Flavianum to be used as a witness to Jesus.

Riddle me this: as AJ 18.65 starts "About this time another outrage threw the Jews into an uproar", what is the previous outrage that threw the Jews into an uproar?

You're not reading what Origen actually says, which is simply that Josephus didn't believe in Jesus, which is an assumption, but probably a correct one. After all Josephus was a Jew.

Actually, as he ties the notion of James the Just to his representation of Josephus, saying that he hadn't read Josephus firsthand. He got it from a previous reader of the text, but how much of what he got was from the text and how much was the assumption of the earlier writer can't be reclaimed from Origen. The only clear thing is that he was ignorant of the text getting almost nothing right about it.

Tying "the Just" to James.

Which is a matter of christian doctrine, thus eminently information a christian could add as an explanation. We already should be able to see that Origen doesn't know the passage.

Actually the wording is extremely awkward. "the brother of Jesus called christ, whose name was James". In earlier analysis I showed that Josephus doesn't put the relation before the subject unless the relation had just been mentioned. The word order attributed to Josephus is very different from that of Origen.

So it is unlikely that you'll say anything that I haven't heard before.

How many people who don't have commitments to the content? One of the biggest hurdles in religious studies is that it is mainly religious people are doing it. There are places many will not go.


spin

aa5874

Rufinus in his "Epilogue to Pamphilus" claimed that Origen's writings were heavily interpolated, so much so that Origen wrote a letter complaining that his writings were corrupted by heretics.

The writings of Origen have been manipulated and corrupted.

spin

This is a cheap way out... "but he's a respected scholar". For you to understand, what percentage of non-christians do you find enrolled in bib studs in any university? Apologetics works across the crass-erudite scale.

That may also be the case.


spin

spin

To come back to this:
Below is the principal example of what Origen said in his Contra Celsus. Indigo text marks obvious Origen additions (opinions and observations); Green marks apparently erroneous material unrelated to the James passage.

[Josephus], (although not believing in Jesus as the Christ,) in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, (whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet,) says nevertheless (--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--) that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James (the Just), who was a brother of Jesus called Christ, (--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice).

Given that we are left with [Josephus] says nevertheless [of] the death of James who was brother of Jesus called Christ that is potentially from Josephus, can you really derive from the above that Origen had ever laid eyes on a copy of the Josephus passage? Origen is blithely unaware of the actual source text. The only thing that has potential of coming from Josephus is "James a brother of Jesus called christ", but not in that order. For me Origen helps us understand the sorts of errors people commit being too slavish with their source materials.


spin

Toto

Since "apologist" is such a heavily charged word here, let's try to avoid it, okay?

teamonger - as I mentioned before, spin is not a mythicist. But you are mischaracterizing the mythicist position when you describe it as "nothing could be historical."