mountainman

No evidence must be dismissed. The story exists. All positions seek to determine the date (century) of earliest original authorship. The story describes how a Roman soldier rapes Mary with the result that Jesus is born. Jesus is not the son of God, but of a Roman soldier. There are certain theological implications in the difference.

The fundamental historical question is ..... in which century was the story first authored? We cannot hope to know who Queen Helene was in the story until we know when the story was authored (who, and why, etc). Do you agree or disagree with this?

At present the internal evidence suggests the 4th century.
NB: This is not about my theory, but about the evidence for dating the Toledot Yeshu

What other evidence is there to suggest another century?

I cant see anywhere above where you have stated a date of authorship.
You dont think it was authored in the 1st century BCE do you?

maryhelena

Pete - I don't know when the story was first recorded - and neither do you. The same goes for the gospel JC story. We don't have published dates; we have no first edition.

All we have are two stories; two stories set in two completely different time frames.

1) The Yeshu figure is born under Alexander Jannaeus and was executed under a Queen Helene.

2) The JC figure was either born under Herod the Great or under Quirinius - and was executed under Pilate.

That's it - that is the bare bones of what we have. Two stories set in two different time frames. Now, we can reject the time frames as of no consequence - both stories were composed hundreds of years later and simply set down in the two different time frames. That approach, I would suggest, gets no one anywhere. As is evidence in the current state of the JC historicist/ahistoricist debate. Deadlock.

Or, we can, which is my approach, take the story setting as being relevant to the story. A position that holds that history, that historical realities, were relevant to the creation of both the Toledot Yeshu story and to the JC story.

It's the two stories we have to deal with - the how and why these stories are what they are. Pure imagination - or historical reflections that have produced, been instrumental in producing, a symbolic and mythological narrative...