the_cave

Why should there be?

It's not extraordinary to wonder about it, but the answer is not necessarily "it didn't exist." Lots of things exist that never get written down, simply because they were not of note. Probably there were not the mass conversions of thousands to Christianity as documented in Acts. That doesn't mean there were none.

I'm willing to admit there is no definitive way of knowing one way or the other. (But I should add, shouldn't we be consistent and doubt the existence of, for example, all the Presocratic philosophers? Every single one of them?)

rlogan

There is obviously nothing I could do to convince you that this is an anomaly.

Too bad you can't ask the Christians why they felt it was so important to fabricate Josephus entries though.

After all, we would never expect such entries to begin with, now would we?

rlogan

Damn, spin. Hard to keep up with your homework.

So what I took from this was that there were multiple editings. In some places, what ended up as canon was not present in either Marcion or Tertullian versions.

Al Kafirun

Cool. I learn somethin' new everyday. Thanks Spin.

Here's another Josephus question. What about the parallels between his brief autobiographical notes and the less mythic aspects of his purported life?

Al Kafirun

I screwed up my question and for whatever reason I can't edit my post. Here's what I meant to say...

Here's another Josephus question. What about the parallels between his brief autobiographical notes and the less mythic aspects of Jesus' purported life?

spin

Sorry, I don't understand (still). "his autobiographical notes"? are they notes by Josephus regarding Jesus or autobiographically about Josephus? I'm of the opinion at the moment that Josephus said not a word about Jesus.


spin

MortalWombat

Well, technically, he says a few words about more than a dozen Jesuses.

Toto

I assume you are talking about Josephus astounding the elders in the Temple with his knowledge at the age of about 14, and Jesus doing the same thing in the gospel according to Luke? Both are probably mythic boasting, and Luke probably had a copy of Josephus in front of him.

Are there any other parallels? Josephus was not born of a virgin, was not a carpenter, did not wander around Galilee speaking in cryptic parables, was not tried before the Sanhedrin or Roman authorities.

spin

Don't be a pedant. You know what the content of the sentence is, which is what is important.


spin

Amaleq13

I recently browsed through a book at Border's (don't recall the name ) that argued for identifying Josephus as Paul. This appeared to have been primarily based on comparing shipwreck stories (i.e. Acts) but there seemed to be some other interesting parallels.

Not enough, IMO, to take the notion seriously but it was interesting. Anybody familiar with this book?