Amaleq13

It is shocking that Jeffrey is apparently unaware of the scholarly value of google, isn't it.

You seemed to think it was reliable earlier in this very thread since you claimed it for the basis of this assertion:
:huh:

So your "probably" and "could" combined with a source you consider to be unreliable (at least sometimes) and a google search is the basis for your assertion? :rolling:

patcleaver

The Christian book of fantasies says that there were Churches, but archeology says there were none. Pointing that out is not inconsistent.

In the Christian book of fantasy, Acts says that Paul was accused of allowing a gentile into the temple. That is inconsistent with Greek gentiles being allowed in the synagogues.

You have nothing but fictions and forgeries behind your claims that Jesus is historical. There is no case that Jesus was historical - only crackpot attacks on the obvious fact that Jesus was a myth just like thousands of other religious myths.

gurugeorge

This is it, this is really getting to the heart of the matter.

i.e., what the very earliest Christians were - what the Jerusalem people that Paul saw were, taking Paul to be largely valid - were post-Messianic Jews. But not only that, they were post-Messianic Jews whose idea of what the Messiah was was radically different from the ordinary understanding of what a Messiah was.

The Joshua Messiah was originally an idea, "seen" in scripture, of a radically different version of the Messiah. A different Messiah concept that turned the Messiah tropes on their head and inside out. Not to come but has been, not military but spiritual, not king but criminal, etc., etc. (even the name "Joshua" suggests "Everyman Messiah")

I really think that if one gets this it all starts to fall into place - it all starts with a revision of the very concept of "Messiah", and that revision is called "Joshua Messiah".

Joshua Messiah is exactly as mythical as the standard Jewish Messiah, but the fact that this revision includes putting him in the past leaves hostages to fortune (ordinary people want more details, and their leaders start to "fill in" the gaps), and with the passage of time and distance, and the tragedy of the Diaspora, and the machinations of the Roman version of the new religion, eventually what was initially just a vague placing of this Messiah in the recent-ish past hardens into a semi-biography, then a biography, with pseudo-historical details.

Roger Pearse

Interesting. Can you be more specific as to what data exists in each case? (We have Plato's works, admittedly in very late copies. Is that what you have in mind?)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Sheshbazzar

gurugeorge,
This is the clearest expression of my views that I have yet seen posted by another individual within this forum. I believe that this "Joshua Messiah" figure was a expansion on the specific "watchword" that was employed to identify and to unite nationalistic Jews in warfare against foreign powers, and in waging a spiritual warfare against the syncretizing intrusions of Hellenistic culture and practices that were threatening to overwhelm and replace all distinctive Jewish culture and praxis.
In 2 Maccabees 8:21 we are told that "they were greatly encouraged and disposed even to die for the laws and their country." and in 2:23 " he had given them for a Watchword, "The help of God": which being pronounced in Hebrew would be similar to, and a form of the name "Joshua" "The help of YAH".
This comes up again in 2 Macc. 13:11-15
"11. Because they were afraid to be deprived of the law, and of their country, and of the holy temple: and that he would not suffer the people, that had of late taken breath for a little while, to be again in subjection to blasphemous nations. 12 So when they had all done this together, and had craved mercy of YAH with weeping and fasting, lying prostrate on the ground for three days continually, Judas exhorted them to make themselves ready. 13 But he, with the ancients, determined before the king should bring his army into Judea, and make himself master of the city, to go out, and to commit the event of the thing to the judgment of YAH. 14 So committing all to YAH, the Creator of the world, and having exhorted his people to fight manfully, and to stand up even to death for the laws, the temple, the city, their country, and citizens: he placed his army about Modin. 15 And having given his company for a "Watchword", "The Victory of YAH", with most valiant chosen young men,........17. Now this was done at the break of day, by the protection and "Help of the YAH."

Having thus triumphed, it would only be natural that these devout and patriotic men would continue to place reverence and trust in that selfsame "Watchword" under which they had united and prevailed, and to pass that Word (of life and of victory) on to their children.
The "WatchWORD" became the "annointed" Word, and the Name of that One who had given them victory over the nations, just as "Joshua" of old had done. A "Word" and a Name that became identified with their victorious "military messiah"
However in spite of these earlier victories in the struggle against syncretisim, the people became more and more seduced, and submissive the prevailing influences of Hellenism.

"Joshua the Messiah" as a Watchword and a name would be to these devoutly nationalistic Jews a defense mechanisim against becoming "overwhelmed" and "going under" in this internal and external struggle.
Even the more so, when some "Jews" (who were only Jews in name) would think to substitute a "different" and Hellenistic name and title, for the original "Watchword", even as the contrast between "SHIBBOLETH" and "sibboleth".
A "Watchword" or "password" must remain unchanged and inviolate to be effective. At that time, it served to identify and unite faithful and patriotic Jewish citizens from those unfaithful who had so willingly "sold out" and in so doing had betrayed their own religion and nation.

Amaleq13

The word is "ekklesia" which means "assemblies" and neither requires nor implies a permanent structure. Pointing out that such assemblies didn't leave any archaeological evidence of their existence is foolishness not "inconsistent".

Yes so you might want to add some actual thought in order to conclude that something other than the simplistic conclusion you derived is what is going on here.

You have amply demonstrated that your knowledge base and research is woefully inadequate to suggest that your opinion is even in the neighborhood of "informed". :wave:

Solo

...to you.

It's very difficult to have a reasonable discussion with someone who believes that lack of evidence for the historical Jesus, is evidence against the historicity of Jesus.

It's a basic point, and it's called excluding the middle. The illogical way of doing it has been immortalized by A.C. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: After you have eliminated the impossible, whetever remians, however improbable, must be the truth. Yeah, to Baker Street irregulars.

Evidence, def.: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

Whatever evidence there is for the historical Jesus of Nazareth, it is evidence for. The events surrounding this person may appear unreal, self-contradicting, based on literary borrowings from the past, but at the and of the day a reasonable person could only say: I do not see evidence for existence. Those who have made a claim for historical existence have not made the case.

Now, to have evidence against the historicity of something or someone is a different ball of wax. One would have to have facts or information which directly contradict the assertion of historicity. It cannot be based on an opinion or interpretation of evidence arguing the opposite or saying things irrelevant to the issue.

Example: one of the staple myths in the Serbian consciousness is something called 'the Great Migration' from Kosovo that took place in 1689-90. It is believed that the demographics of the Serbian "holy land" were radically changed by the exit of the majority of the Serbs after an unsuccessful revolt against the Ottomans. The classical picture centers around the Patriarch Arsenije leading the mass exodus from Kosovo to Hungary. However, a controversial pro-Albanian Cambridge scholar, Neil Malcolm has reconstructed the whereabouts of the Patriarch and the circumstances of his flight from contemporary documents and they (if true) make mincemeat of the Serbian historical account. The documents put Arsenije was in different places than believed and make his flight from Kosovo 'too fast' for him to have led a mass of refugees. This would be an example of documented historical falsehood.

Jiri

aa5874

That should be obvious.

I would hope that your opinions, views and positions are from you and not from someone else.

Well, Jesus was described in the NT as follows:

• The prophesied Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the God of the Jews.
• He had thousands of followers.
• He was believed to have carried out miracles, fed thousands and raised the dead.
• He was believed to have been resurrected after his death.

It must be reasonable to expect Philo, or Josephus, Jewish writers or writers around the region to mention this phenomenal prophesied Jesus, the Messsiah.

Josephus mentioned probably every character in the NT, except Jesus of Nazareth, and his followers.

This a partial list of characters in the NT mentioned by Josephus:

• Herod the Great, John the Baptist, Claudius, Felix, Agrippa.
• Pilate, Bernice, Drusilla, Festus, Anias, Caiaphas.
• Gamaliel, Theudas, Candace, The Epicureans, The Stoicks.
• The Pharisees, the Saducees, Tiberius.
• The prophet Daniel and Jonah.

It is my position that the Jesus of the NT should have been mentioned by Josephus and since he did not along with other writers, I have concluded that there was no Jesus of Nazareth, the prophesied Messiah, Christ and son of the God of the Jews in the 1st century.

How could Josephus mention the loner Jesus, the son of Ananias, declared to be a madman for saying "Woe unto Jerusalem" and forget to say a single word about the popular Jesus the prophesied Messiah, who said "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisee, hypocrites?"

Josephus mentioned the books of the prophets like Isaiah and Daniel, yet he never mentioned any prophecy with respect to Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus of Nazareth comes up blank in the 1st century. He has no history whatsoever.

If it is claimed that Jesus existed in the 1st century and no evidence can be found for such a position, then the claim that Jesus did not exist is absolutely reasonable and can be maintained to INFINITY until new evidence comes to light.

Toto

Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (or via: amazon.co.uk)

If history can be maunfactured so easily and so recently, how does this help the case for historicity of Jesus?

Solo

The example was not intended as help for the case of historicity; it was intended as an example of valid evidence for non-historicity.

Jiri