aa5874

Well, as I have already pointed out to you there is no evidence that Paul wrote first or that that gMark was the first gospel, yet some have deduced that Paul wrote before the gospels and that gMark was the first written Gospel.

What evidence is there that Jucundus Chrestianus wrote anything?


-Once Jews are called the []Christ[/B] of the LORD or Christ, as found in numerous passages in Leviticus, 1&2 Samuel, Psalms, Isaiah and Jews believed in Christ then it is absolutely plausible that Jews were called Christians.


Even in the Jesus story as found in the Gospels, JESUS was a JEW and Jesus, the Jew was called Christ meaning anointed and his followers were called Christians.

Now, the word CHRIST[/] did not originate from the Jesus stories.

The word []CHRIST PREDATED Jesus by hundreds of years.

Jesus of the NT, if he existed, could have only been human, and based on the NT, if the miraculous events are removed, Jesus was just a Jew CALLED CHRIST WHOSE FOLLOWERS, some being JEWS, WERE CALLED CHRISTIANS.

It is accepted that Jews believed in and expected a Messiah or Christ as found in the writings of Daniel, Josephus, Suetonius and Tacitus before the Jesus stories as found in the NT WERE WRITTEN.

Now, using deductive skills, it can be seen that there were two type Christians, the first being those of the circumcision, the Jews, that believed in the physical non-supernatural Christ born through normal means of reproduction since the writings of Daniel or earlier, and then long afterwards , hundreds of years after the writing of Daniel those who believed in the virgin-born supernatural miracle performing Jesus that did not even exist, but called Christ.

Jesus was a Jew.

Jesus was called Christ.

[b]It was plausible for Jews to called Christ.

In the NT even Jesus claimed many will claim to be Christ.

IT MUST BE PLAUSIBLE THAT THERE WERE JEWS BEFORE THE JESUS STORY THAT CALLED CHRIST.

The followers of JESUS, THE JEW, were called CHRISTIANS.

IT MUST BE PLAUSIBLE THAT JEWS WERE CALLED CHRISTIANS.

mountainman

This may be plausible to a Greek speaking caller.
However there is a slight complication involving
a very similar sounding and spelt Greek term ...

C H R E S T I A N S

Greeks were called "chrestos" if they were "good".
To the common people it was just one thing.
What did the academics in Plato's academy make of it?
Plotinus, Porphyry, perhaps Arius, and of course Sopater?

aa5874

Well, exactly.

It must be plausible that people who spoke Greek referred to people, Jews or not, who believed in Christ or the Messiah as Christians once they believed in a Christ that was either human only, god only, or God and man.

It is so obvious. The word "christian" is derived from "christ", a greek word.

mountainman

The subject of this thread is a corollary to the above.
This corollary, that the early "CHRESTIAN-LIKE-WITH-AN-E" inscriptions
have therefore nothing to do with Christianity, should be also obvious.

Of course, in prior centuries people wearing "Christian Glasses" (with an "I")
conflated these two references and honestly and sincerely managed to
convince themselves, and their children, and their already-convinced peers,
that inscriptions related to "chrestos" were inscriptions related to "christos".

This isomorphism can no longer be maintained.

Hence my insistence that "the Early Christian Epigraphic Habit"
is overdue for review, housekeeping and critical skepticism.
We do not have any early inscriptions with an "I" in them as far as I know.
The earliest "Christian" inscriptions, according to my index,
explode like supernova in the fourth century, when times were ripe.

aa5874

Once you admit there was some confusion or ambiguity about "chrEstos" and "chrIstos" or that people convinced themselves and their children that both words were related, then Chrestian may indeed have something to do with[/b] Christian[/b].

You must now try and determine when the confusion or ambiguity occurred, that is, was the it before or after the inscription.

mountainman

Yes, we might allow the fact that the stone-cutter
was not in the least confused at the time, as well.

It seems to me quite obvious that the epoch in which
these two terms became the most conflated would
have to be the same epoch during which either one
or the other, or perhaps both terms, were raised to
some form of unusual or unexpected prominence in
the Greek public eye.

Especially to the public eye of the lineage of the
Greek philosophers who held roles in the academy
of Plato during the first << x >> centuries ...

aa5874

But, you must admit that the stone-cutter may have been the child of one who was convinced that chrestian was related to christian.

Tyro

Something is not probable because it is possible. Of course the stone-cutter who wrote Iucundi Chrestiani could have been a child of someone convinced that Chrestiani somehow was connected to Christiani. But why? What do we know about the stone-cutter's parents? Nothing at all. You haven't even made any convincing arguments regarding why Herennius Chrestianus or Jucundus Chrestianus would refer to Christians or Jews. In fact, you have only made an unsubstantiated claim about Jews being the Christians/Chrestians, even though it is not known from any source that anyone was called Christian/Chrestian just for being a Jew. That also Jews were Christians, and that Tacitus' says Christianity originated in Judaea, adds nothing to the claim about Jews having been called Christians/Chrestians before the believers in Christ Jesus were. Just because Greek speaking Jews theoretically could have regarded the Jewish people as anointed/christos by God (an ordinary Greek word), that does not mean that they ever called themselves Christiani, or were called Christiani by anyone else, ever. Nowhere in the passages about Christiani/Chrestiani in Pliny, Tacitus or Suetonius is there any hint about the Christiani being ordinary Jews, certainly because they were not. If Jews had been called Christiani at any time at all, that would certainly have been documented, and it is not. Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius would have been compelled to say "By Christiani/Chrestiani I do not mean the Iudaei", but nothing of that kind is written. As said in the beginning, the possibility of your claims does NOT make them even a bit plausible. Your "deduction" is as probable as the Christians having been called the "Jesusiani", even though noone called them so. Remember that you have to back up your assertions with actual proof, and not only loose speculations based upon translations of words you do not know in the original language. Jews were not called Christians just because you claim so, or want it to be so. Find a thread of evidence, and come back. Screaming the same unsubstantiated things over and over again will not be of any gain for this discussion about the inscription about Jucundus Chrestianus.

aa5874

You probably did not notice that I used the word MAY and not MUST.

And if something is possible how do you deduce it is not probable?

Now, people who believe in Christ are called Christians.

Why is it not probable or highly unlikely that a Jew could be called a Christian if he believed in Christ?

Tyro

Anything "may". Jesus "may" have been a homosexual magician as well. We deal in probabilities here, and something is not probable for being possible. Jews worshipping a Messiah could perhaps be called christiani, I guess, but which such Jewish groups, predating the Jesus story, do we know about, which aren't called something else?

I regard your theory not probable since we have no evidence of any Jews being called christiani just because they were Jews. Your assertion that Simon Bar Kochba's followers were called christiani, is totally unproven. That Suetonius calls Christians a NEW superstition, and that Pliny and Tacitus separates Christians from Jews in general, without noting any possible confusion of the groups, makes the claim that Christiani is a name used regarding Jews in general (or any other sect than the believers in Christ Jesus) improbable. When you find the word christos referring to Jews in general, outside the Hebrew scriptures, please let me know. BTW, if you regard Jesus as fictous, I do not understand why you use "Jesus was a Jew" as an argument, since Jesus, if ahistorical, of course could not have been a Jew. And as I said, no other Jewish sects are known to have been called christiani - certainly not the followers of the so-called Messianic claimants, like Theudas, Menahem, Judas the Gamalan, Simon Bar Kochba, etc. Please let me know of any scholar - religious or secular - claiming that "christiani" refers to the Jews.