stj

Alvar Ellegard believed the inspiration for Jesus was the Teacher of the Essenes, which would date back in that era if I remember correctly.

I hadn't read any extensive translation of the Toledoth Yeshu. But the association of Jesus with marks in the skin recalls Morton Smith's interpretation of Paul's stigmata as tattoos.

The association of a magical figure trying to fly and falling recalls the tradition of Simon Magus. Personally, I tend to suspect that some of the excess names are something of a subterfuge, and some stories about Simon Peter were transferred to another, fictional Simon.

If Jesus had begun as a supernatural heavenly figure whose descent to Earth like Wisdom (Sophia) was the only essential detail, then was subsequently given a fictional earthly biography, the details of the fictional biography would vary according to the purposes of the faction desiring vindication by a Jesus biography. One faction might have faced the Essenes and found Jesus as a martyr of a time period to the Teacher convenient for assimilating Essenes into the fold. Another faction, a more apocalyptic one, might have wanted to assimilate followers of John the Baptist and Judas the Zealot and the Egyptian. And, lo, Jesus was a cousin of John, a Galilean, born in Bethlehem, from Egypt, etc.

mountainman

In association it may also recall the "lore" of Pythagoras's Thigh

mountainman

Would anyone like to make another guess?

stephan huller

Tabernee has an excellent article on the persistence of reports of needles and tatoos in reports about Montanism in the fourth century called Polluted Sacraments

andrewcriddle

The main alternative to Alexander Jannaeus as "King Jonathan" in the DSS would be Jonathan Maccabee. See Early Roman Period.

However Jonathan Maccabee does not seem to have been formally and officially a king.

stj

Isn't there a strong probability that Pythagoras' thigh is euphemistic for penis?

mountainman

I thought the lore connected the thigh of Pythagoras to wrestling in the context of the Olympic Games. But I have not studied this.

mountainman

The idea is that the original author of the original version of the Toldoth Yeshu, is aware of the Greek new testament books. Glancing through the text of the Toldoth Yeshu we see a hotchpotch of figures and events from the New testament cobbled together to create a heretical text.

The reason that I asked whether anyone has ever conjectured there may have been a Greek original is because the original author may not have been responding to the text of a Hebrew or Aramaic version of the Greek bible, but the original Greek text itself, in Greek, precisely as did the Greek Gnostic heretics.

Most academics appear quite comfortable with the idea that most if not all of all the other "Early New Testament Apocrypha" have Greek sources, despite the recent wealth of Coptic and Syriac evidence.

Is this such a wayward idea?

Toto

The Toldoth Yesu is generally considered to have been written in late Antiquity or medieval times, and the author(s) are more likely to have heard oral stories, or perhaps to have read the Latin Vulgate. There are also references to various non-canonical works.

From Toledot_Yeshu
From Princeton Judaic Studies

maryhelena

An additional quote from that Princeton article.

It will be interesting where this goes.....

If the researchers can ditch, or at least put the assumed historical gospel JC on the shelve for a while - then perhaps this 'cloud', that hangs over research into ancient manuscripts, could be removed so that a little sunshine can enable some badly needed progress to be made.