Juststeve

Yes.

show_no_mercy

Why would there be?

Juststeve

There is no reason to expect there to be mention of Jesus and his followers but it happens there are. Not counting Christian writings there is Josephus' description of the death of James who he describes as the brother of Jesus, as well as Tacitus' mention of Christ who he takes to be the founder of a pernicious superstition. Neither of these seem to be Christian interpolations but yet there they are in the middle of secular history.

Steve

show_no_mercy

So for you, the only two options are interpolation and indepdendence? I think you missed spin's point.

I also don't know why people still seem to think that Josephus would have called someone "christ".

Juststeve

Mercy:

In Antiquities Josephus doesn't call Jesus Christ. He calls him Jesus and records that some call him Christ which seems accurate. Some did call Jesus Christ, didn't they.

Do I take it that you concede that the words about James and Jesus in Antiquities are those of Josephus, or do you want to hold back the interpolation claim until its needed?

Steve

David Deas

My translation of 20.9.1 doesn't read "some called him Christ"

It reads "called Christ"

Toto

He refers to James the brother of Jesus called Christ, using the same wording for "called Christ" as is in the New Testament.

spin has argued here for interpolation. It looks like a marginal note could have been copied into the text. The passage refers to others named Jesus.

avi

I don't accept the argument.

We know, beyond any doubt, that someone, or some group, on one, or more likely, multiple occasions, altered, forged, and thereby falsified the text of Josephus (while concomitantly destroying all extant, earlier versions.)

We cannot then, assert our profound wisdom, and claim to know WHICH moieties of the extant text represent Josephus, and which that of his Christian interpolators.

Neither spin, nor anyone else, knows what Josephus wrote, if anything, about John the Baptist. The fact that text, attributed to Josephus, differs from that found in the Gospels, demonstrates a degree of sophistication in the process of interpolation, far greater than that which we have been willing to attribute to the forgers. All that shows, in my opinion, is our own imperfection, our own inability to recognize that great minds were active two thousand years ago. Let's give a bit of credit to the forgers. They knew what they were doing, and they knew how to forge a document with skill. We need to stop imagining that we are the only clever people in the history of human civilization. I have yet to meet the person on planet earth, who could compute the circumference of the earth using only two pieces of wood, as did Eratosthenes 2200 years ago.

avi

Kapyong

Gday,

Yes there is.
We DO have mention of all sorts of minor nobodies from that period. Most are ignored as un-important.

Such as :
Pausanias mentions a Jewish prophetess - a figure so minor she is essentially unknown:
"Then later than Demo there was a prophetic woman reared among the Jews beyond Palestine; her name was Sabbe." Phokis, Book X, 12, [5]

A minor nobody from Palestine, that no-one has ever heard of, mentioned in an ancient work.

There are THOUSANDS of such minor nobodies in the indexes of the dozens of books of the period.

Jesus could eaily have been mentioned.



Late, corrupt and/or interpolated.


80 YEARS later, Tacitus repeats Christian beliefs (getting the title of Pilate wrong, showing it's a LATE comment.)


K.

Kapyong

Really?

Historical evidence for Mary?
Joseph?
Lazarus?
Nicodemus?
Martha?


K.