Loomis

Check out Leviticus 24:16 from the Masoretic Text (Hebrew):

He that curses the name of Yahweh, he shall surely be put to death.

Now compare that to the LXX:

But he that names the name of the Lord, let him die the death.

Do you see the difference?

In the Hebrew version the sin is the act of cursing the name.

But in the Greek version the sin is the act of identifying the name.

neilgodfrey

What is TJ and FJ? (Sorry, but having just come back to IIDB after months of absence I have not read every post since.)

But as for the reason for the name "Jesus", I have always wondered if this, along with a host of other "questions or problems or issues" that pop up with the origins of Christianity, could not the most simply be explained with a model that has Christianity originating POST 70 C.E.

With the Mosaic order wiped out, and a new order so sorely needed to replace it, how natural to label it with the name of Moses' successor!

No proof. Just a thought that keeps rearing its wormy head.


Neil

http://vridar.wordpress.com

Loomis

It looks to me like Elishua is the El version, and Yeshua is the Yahwist version.

judge

Unless of course the NT greek is just a translation from say, Aramaic. After all even the greek version the gospels have Jesus speaking Aramaic, and even the greek versions of paul have Aramaic words in them still (not hebrew).

The Aramaic version of pauls letters (and the rest of the NT) give an interesting twist

Roger Pearse

Not least that messiahs called "Biff" or "Sonny" or "Edward" don't really cut it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Loomis

From your link:
It’s not confusing at all. There is no dual usage. Why do we have to pretend there is a dual usage? Why do we have to pretend it’s confusing?

It only becomes a problem when you believe the gods are real. The LXX read lord and so Paul invented his stories based on what he read at face value – unaware of the god (Yahweh) behind the title.

If the Aramaic were the original then there is no explanation for the alleged Greek dual usage. But if the Greek is the original then there is a perfectly good explanation for the Aramaic version (a fix-up) and the Greek version (never heard of Yahweh).

Romans 10:9:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Yahweh and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Compare …

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:12

For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Yahweh is Yahweh of all, who richly blesses all who call on him.

Compare …

For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, for the same lord is lord of all, who richly blesses all who call on him.

Yahweh is absurd. The lord makes sense.

judge

The problem I see is that Paul does not appear to have used to LXX. Sure, at times he agrees with it, and at times he does not. So seeing him using the LXX is no explanation. It is a partway explanation. It only accounts for a portion of the evidence.

No translation is ever perfect. You have already shown this by alluding to the LXX and comparing it to the Hebrew version we have.

You make the point that..."Maybe Yahweh’s name was so sacred that they stopped using it and eventually forgot what it was. (It's not in the LXX).",

but express shock (apprently IIUC) when the NT translators follow their lead and not use MarYah, which is found in the peshitta.

The NT greek translators did what the translators of the LXX did.

spin

Besides a mythical Jesus there are other possibilities of a non-real Jesus, including the Fictional Jesus and the Tradition Jesus. A fictional Jesus hopefully needs no description: it was invented, usually through some sort of conspiracy, such as the Flavian game that Joe Atwill seems to plug. A mythical Jesus is one whose existence depends upon the myth his story fulfills. Doherty seems to think of the earliest believers as never having believed their Jesus was a real in-this-world entity. But some figures are simply neither fictional nor mythical and the examples I have given are Pilate's wife, developed by the time Matthew has her inserted, later to get various names including Procla, eventually to become an orthodox saint. Ebion, Tertullian believes, was the founder of the Ebionite movement, patently not so to someone who knows the Hebrew origin of the word "ebion", but it doesn't stop either Tertullian or those who later wrote about Ebion from thinking he was real. These two figures are neither mythical nor fictional. I referred to tradition Jesus (TJ) to give it a handle. It seems to me that after Paul preached the reality of his revealed Jesus, his proselytes took him to be real. (Despite this, Jesus may have been real, but I see no way of anyone knowing. Hence TJ is just a theory like the rest of them.)


spin

neilgodfrey

Thanks for the explanation. To me the really interesting question is explaining the origins of Chrisitianity. Whether or not there was an HJ and what his role was in relation to the origins of Christianity will be incidental conclusions or possibilities drawn from answering that question.

To focus on the question whether or not there was an HJ seems to me to be more a theological question than a historical one. At least it has theological significance more than any historical significance. What Doherty et al are doing is not so much investigating whether or not there was an HJ but whether the earliest Christian documents are related to an HJ or not. (Okay, Doherty himself goes further and goes on to argue for a MJ.)

The historical question of how Christianity began requires a different approach to the evidence than is found in so much of the literature. So many studies, insofar as they are attempting to explain the origins of Christianity, are doing this from the HJ model, which is more grounded in theology and cultural assumption than history. What is needed is a fresh approach to a study of the documentation that leaves that model aside.

-- or at least clearly differentiates between an HJ and a belief in or narrative about J, whatever other letter precedes it.

spin

The reality or not of Jesus seems to be the essential issue for many people. There are many proponents who would argue that if there was a real Jesus then it would be natural that that was where christianity began. People peddle the idea that a real Jesus is the most plausible source for christianity. I don't believe that they are correct in their claim, but it seems to be an overburdening weight on understanding the origins of christianity and as such must be put in its place, wherever that is. It can't simply be ignored.

By delineating an FJ and a TJ I'm trying to bring attention to the fact that there are more options to be considered. The functional outline of a TJ ultimately derived from Paul's revealed savior/messiah of Gal 1:12 provides what seems to me the earliest point of departure for christianity working from the fact that Paul preached a gospel that did not come from what people taught him, but from what god revealed to him. Working from his testimony that seems to have been the start of his beliefs. (He had, according to his own report, been a conservative Jew up to that point who had had conflicts with less mainstream religionists, but what those people believed he doesn't help us understand.)

Elsewhere I have challenged people to push christianity back before Paul's revelation, for, with the start of the religion as Paul describes it, there is no need to go back any further and I don't know of any evidence which can take us earlier.


spin