Doctor X

I am not "so concerned" other than what it would have said about your reputation.

Allow me to take a moment to redirect your attention:

The Size of the Ark

scrolleth down to my post of October 25, 2003 03:56 PM.

--J.D.

Magus55

I said an overwhelming majority said no, or didn't have a clue. By not having a clue, i meant the category of we don't know, or not enough evidence.

That total comes to: ~72%

Magus55

I'm not buying books on amazon right now to entertain your curiosity.

offa

Addressing Dr. X

I said read Josephus' autobiography's first page. I cannot teach fundies how to read Scripture through the Gospels. I am talking about the "twelve-year-rule" and I want that addressed. Look under your pillow... you got a dime ....good boy...

Vinnie

DX No flames . . . just the Fallacy Detector [Pat. Pend.--Ed.]

It is fallacious to even think you could find a falalcy in something i write

Vinnie: "Mythicism is just one big case of special pleading."
DX: "Without support that becomes an ipse dixit serving to Poison the Well. "

But you tyourself substantiate it!

Vinnie The historicity of Jesus is hardly an extraordinary claim. . . .
DX On the contrary, since the "historicity" implies the existence of a god-man--rather than some poor slob--this is quite "extraordinary."

If you spoke for mythicism as an authority that comment would pretty much substantiate my entire rant. The historicity of Jesus is equated with the historicity of a God-man and thereby, turned into an extraordinary claim by yourself.

Yet another historically ignorant tactic of the mythicist is exposed for all to see. Write it down everyone, mark the calander, take a picture. Pose for the cameras DX.


Vinnie: Unfortunately, there is a lot of evidence but the church of mythicism reinterprets and harmonizes. . . .
DX still have not seen this "lot of evidence"--ipse dixit with Poisoning the Well, not to mention sufficient Strawmen to constitute a major fire hazard.

But you have seen it time and time again in here. When shown it is countered with nonsense like "it must have been embarrassing for achilles to get shot in the heal". The counters are on par with "the rope broke and he fell and his stomach bursted open." Plus we already saw the laughable attempt to make the historicity of Jesus an extraordinary claim.

DX That is enough. You do not defend the position of a historical Junior at all. I could easily turn it around with the same fallacies to attack the "historici . . . historicicist . . . his" . . . "the guys who believe he existed."

Unfortunately you have zip by way of positive evidence (including silence!) that Jesus did not exist. On the other hand you are faced with an enormous array of positive arguments that I could supply and an all encompassing scholarly consensus.

The mythicist is forced to accept fringe aftet fringe after fringe after fringe after fringe positions in order to even seem feasible.

Of course mythicists here can't be so quick to dismiss scholarly consensuses in the area as well. Why? Because most of them wouldn't last six minutes in a debate over the authorship of the deutero-Pauline epistles or the dating of the Gospel or any other subject with a conservative like J.P. Holding. Its the good old "all scholars believe this" appeal when it suits you or argument via weblink. Since they are so heavily dependent upon them, what makes it so easy to hand-waive and dismiss them in other areas? For example, why not accept the consensus on alleged interpolations of 1 Thess 2, 1 Tim 6, 1 Cor 15, Gal 1, Josephus and so on? How many mythicists have gone further than a surface reading of some revisionist writings on these subjects?

Make sure you educate yourself before you try to overturn an entire field of scholarship. Otherwise you will only embarrass yourself.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Why isn't viewing the shorter passage as an interpolation special pleading?

"""""""If we are to play this "what if?" game, one can wonder why Josephus did not write anything more substantial about this wonderful guy. He reveals less information than John Edward."""""""

Maybe because the point of the account WAS PROBABLY NOT solely and maybe not even chiefly to describe JESUS.The point might have been "three warnings of how public disturbances and official punishments may be caused by individual religious malfeasance." Crossan, BOC. p. 12 One has to look at the context of Jospehus and these Pilate disturbances. Once can also evaluate the purpose of Josephus by comparing how he enlarges this section in Antiquities that was shorter in Jewish War. See the final paragraph on p. 11 of Crossan's BOC and the first paragraph on p. 12 if you have access to the work.

Further, scholars have already noted that it is possible Josephus thought John was much more important given his description is twice as long as Jesus'. Plus Jesus may have been thrown int oa negative context as described above.

""""""The quote from Paul is another thing entirely. Why would Paul make up a James? Clearly he lost the fight described in his Mein Kampf of Galalatians. Lk-Acts tries to smooth over the conflict.""""""

We have Paul Mark and Josephus. This is iron clad.

"""""So . . . if a brother existed . . . we can sort of assume that a historical Junior existed."""""

Sort of?

"""""""What does that tell us about the historical Junior?"""""""

That he had a brother named James. That we should trust Mark's names for Jesus' other brothers and his parents since this familiar matter is affirmed.

Vinnie

Toto

There's always the public library. Or -

Celsus has started an exposition of what Biblical Criticism and Archeology is all about. Perhaps you could start by reading that.

Introduction to Biblical Criticism and History

Vinnie

"""""""The "truth" of this does raise an number of questions. For those who assume the Historical Junior was actually executed--I am not . . . what is the word? . . . implying that it is unreasonable to believe that--they then have to wonder why James and His Merry Band were not hunted down by the rather efficient Romans. It suggests something about who "controversial" the message was."""""""

Yes. The fact that Jesus was crucified but his followers were not surely has to factor into how and why Jesus was killed. See Paula Fredriksen's Jesus of Nazareth for a good starting point on this. Her reconstruction begins with the most secure fact about Jesus. His death. That Jesus was crucified and his followers were not, and that they seemingly settled and lived without persecution in Jerusalem after Jesus was killed must be factored in.

Her methodology also focuses on using Paul and the Gospel details that overlapp.

Vinnie

Layman

Josephus may have thought that this section on Pilate was the best time to explain where those pesky Christians came from:

And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day

Vinnie

Yep. That verse is hard to explain as interpolation. It seems to presuppose surpirse at the fact that Christianity survived and was spreading and growing!

Josephus also says that the Jews who crucified Jesus were men of the highest standing among us.

Not easily attributed to a Christian interpolator IMHO.

He also says Jesus conducted a ministry to Jews and Greeks more or less. As I have shown the Gospels divide history into two periods:

Jesus to the Jews.
Gentile mission after Jesus death.

If this is an interpolation then whoever did it must be seen as going against the grain of all 4 Gospels and Paul.

Partial authenticity is by far the most reasonable position. Plus the shorter reference gives a decent indication that Josephus mentioned Jesus already. I'm not sure if Kirby fully changed his mind in his article on this one or not but I think he was clearly wrong on this before. It is very difficult to seperate the authenticity of these two passages. They seem to go together.

Vinnie