Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 05-21-2007, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Josephus had not directly made this connection, but I have already pointed out (as has Andrew) how a Christian reader like Origen might easily connect the dots between that statement in the section about the Levites and the statement in our present pericope about the punishment of Ananus.

How do you connect the dots in this case? Is Jesus and his brother James suddenly not from the tribe of Judah, but, umm, from Levi?? Origen who doesn't remember the passage he is supposed to be quoting from ties a passage about Levites in a passage several sections later to James? Origen would have known that was impossible given Jesus's, and thus James's, ancestry. Got any more straws?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

This would handily explain what Origen says about Josephus seeking the cause for the fall of the city; Josephus is indeed making a connection in this very section between Jewish breaking of the law and the Jewish calamities that followed. He is, in fact, seeking a cause for the fall of the city.

Do connect the dots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

It is not coincidental at all. Jesus was the one (the only one of which we can be sure, in fact, unless we take the scissors to all the various passages you do, such as those in Tacitus and Suetonius and even in the Pauline epistle to the Romans) whom the Romans called Christ. I know that you are reluctant to accept that the Romans called Jesus by that name before, say, the middle of century II, but you have no business assigning my view to coincidence on this point. There is simply no coincidence.

You are making a mockery out of this. Jesus -- based on the gospel indications -- simply didn't fit the bill as the messiah. He may have been the coming messiah, but he clearly didn't have the prerequisites to be messiah in the appearance outlined in the gospels. He did not come in power to restore the Jews. It's that plain. Jesus was simply not a messiah. No devout Jew would have called him a messiah, if he'd done what the gospels tell us. This would of course require one to look at Paul's confusion in calling Jesus the christ. If you are interested, check out the Psalms of Solomon 17.32 and 18.5-8 for a pre-Pauline messiah, a king who had the rod of discipline.

So who gave Jesus this nickname of "christ"? The evidence we have is that Pauline christianity was not mainstream at least in the first 100 years of the religion. It was through Marcion that we had Paul preserved.

Josephus, who avoided the term, certainly would have known, had he known about Jesus, that he did not have the prerequisites to be the messiah: Jesus it seems was dead, crucified.

At best this use of the term for Jesus was a redefinition.

The first contemporary account referring to Jesus from a pagan author was Pliny in 120 CE, writing from Bithynia, so, at best, you are guessing that the Romans had heard of, let alone knew well, the nickname of Jesus as christ.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

I am quite certain he did not blankly state that Jesus was the Christ, as the so-called vulgate version has it. Whether he said something to the effect that he was thought to be the Christ, as Jerome and Michael the Syrian (as well as Agapius, indirectly) have it, or even something far more negative, is still an open question for me.

Perhaps they were conflating the two Jesus references in Josephus. :Cheeky:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

So a Christian copyist inserted the part about Christianity being a depraved superstition in order to get to the better parts later on?

I guess you think that they would have thought it ok to write a glowing testimonial for christians in a author who was staunchly pagan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

If Origen had not at least picked up a copy of Josephus at some point, why did he state so blankly that Josephus did not think Jesus was the Christ? What was he going on here?

He was probably told that Josephus was a Jew.

Have you read anything by Richard Dawkins? If not, what are hi s religious beliefs?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

But it is one of your criteria. On the one hand, you cannot even imagine Josephus having written something about Jesus that could possibly be interpreted even somewhat favorably (that he was called Christ), yet on the other hand you have no trouble imagining a Christian writing something as unfavorable about Christianity as that it was a depraved superstition.

This is troubling. Don't you get what christ/messiah meant to a Jew of Josephus's era? Jesus died. Any Jew would have known what that meant. Calling Jesus the christ was not writing something favorable about Jesus, but something factually incorrect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

He found it in his copy of Tacitus and used it as it stood. The question is not whether Christians could use unfavorable passages from pagan or Jewish authors; of course they could. The question is whether Christians would have invented unfavorable passages for those authors.

I mentioned Sulpicius Severus to show that your favorability criterion was not reasonable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

I already answered this. I think he got it from Hegesippus.

So, all he got in the CC 1:47 passage was five words, four of which were straight from Mt 1:16.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

This is true for Against Celsus, but not for On Matthew.

He must have remembered better the second and third times around.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

In all three cases, given a necessary change of case in one of them.

As I pointed out, in CC 1:14 he didn't have the first definite article, so there were only five words, not six from his supposed source. It's not the necessary change in case, but the lack of the first word I was referring to with the parenthesis. What you'd be arguing about there is that while Mt had Ihsous o legonenos christos, Origen must have got his adelfos Ihsou tou legomenou christou from Josephus, because it has the extra word brother -- and James was after all supposed to have been the brother of Jesus --, which is found in the current state of the Josephus passage.

Your whole case is based on the fact that Origen in CC 1:47 has one word more than Mt 1:16, so it must have come from Josephus, despite the fact that he seems to know almost nothing about what Josephus wrote and that extra word is purely descriptive of what he was talking about. You ought to publish this one for its finesse.

spin

spin · 05-21-2007, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

IMO it is reasonably clear that Josephus did not say he was the messiah in the TF or even he was called the messiah in the TF. (IMO the earliest form of the TF did not contain the word Christ at all and I would still think this probable even if the TF is entirely an interpolation).

Hence we only have one relevant usage of Christ/Messiah in Josephus.

Now this is a much much weaker argument than two usages.

A large minority of an author's total vocabulary will be words used once and once only by that author. By definition such words have to be used in only one context. For many of them one could plausibly argue that the author was more likely to use them in another context than the one in which they actually occur. This is not a good argument.

If however a word is used twice in one context and not at all in any other this is a real ground to suspect something may be wrong.

Sorry Andrew but this makes little sense to me. I have already pointed out that Josephus actively avoided the term. He didn't mention it while alluding to messianic prophecy which he connects with Vespasian. He didn't use it for two obvious failed messianic candidates -- you know, "he tried to make himself out to be the christ". He actively avoided it, yet you want people to believe that he used it for a plainly inadequate candidate for messiahship. It's not on.

spin

Amaleq13 · 05-21-2007, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

I have already pointed out that Josephus actively avoided the term.

He avoids using the term in describing "messianic" activities but does that mean he would even avoid using the term only as a alias?

mountainman · 05-21-2007, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

It's significant that the first use of "Jesus called christ" was conveniently in Origen's commentary on Matthew, where unstrangely we find the exact phrase (in genitive). Origen then copies this idea from his own commentary to CC adding the epithet "the Just" to James's name. Origen used the erroneously recorded account three times and a scribe aware of Origen's work -- and Origen was rather popular -- would recall how Origen had linked the Matthean phrase to Josephus's statement about James.

Just how popular was Origen outside the ecclesiastical tradition?
Is he mentioned by non-christian commentators, for example, and
then in what capacity?

JoeWallack · 05-22-2007, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

You are making a mockery out of this. Jesus -- based on the gospel indications -- simply didn't fit the bill as the messiah. He may have been the coming messiah, but he clearly didn't have the prerequisites to be messiah in the appearance outlined in the gospels. He did not come in power to restore the Jews. It's that plain. Jesus was simply not a messiah. No devout Jew would have called him a messiah, if he'd done what the gospels tell us. This would of course require one to look at Paul's confusion in calling Jesus the christ. If you are interested, check out the Psalms of Solomon 17.32 and 18.5-8 for a pre-Pauline messiah, a king who had the rod of discipline.

JW:
"Mark's" "Messianic Secret" is probably a Reaction to the Historical witness that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. The only historical witness we have to Jesus, I think, is Q which makes little or no Messianic claim, just Wisdom sayings. As usual "Mark" is confirmed by Paul here who has no historical Messianic claims of Jesus to give us.

"Mark's" "Messianic Secret" story can not be historical as it is not believable that Jesus would never have been able to make his Disciples understand that they were only supposed to Affirm Jesus as Messiah after his Passion. It could certainly be historical that they didn't believe Jesus but considering they were Disciples after all, who traveled with Jesus for an extended period and that for Jesus this was the most important thing for them to understand, than for Jesus to be incapable of at least making them understand, even if they didn't believe it, is not believable.

It's relatively difficult to find this type of explanation in Professional scholarship but if you go back about 50 years you can find it here:

The Blindness of the Disciples in Mark
Joseph B. Tyson
Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 80, No. 3. (Sep., 1961), pp. 261-268.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=002...3E2.0.CO%3B2-3
Journal of Biblical Literature is currently published by The Society of Biblical Literature.

Tyson's Conclusion is worth rePetering:

Quote:

In summary, Mark consciously differs with the original disciples
along two lines: (1) He feels that they have a narrow view of the
Messiahship of Jesus which involves an inflated understanding of their
own position; (2) He feels that they do not have a profound enough
understanding of the significance of the death of Jesus. In this light, it
is possible to maintain that the Gospel of Mark ended exactly as we now
have it. Even the resurrection is not understood by Jesus' associates.
They were in a position to see and to proclaim, but they told no one,
for they were afraid. Although only three women are mentioned as
seeing the empty tomb, surely the disciples are in Mark's mind, as 16 7
indicates. Moreover, it may be significant that Mark does not describe
an appearance of the risen Jesus to the disciples. Here is the climax of
the gospel, and, although Mark looks forward to some kind of experience
on the part of the "disciples and Peter," these are not the first to hear the
news of Jesus' resurrection. What a strange ending for our earliest gospel,
and yet what an appropriate and significant one if one of Mark's chief
purposes was to call attention to the ways in which the disciples fell short
in their understanding and proclamation of the Christian gospel.

Joseph

Jesus. Name. The fleshy part of the trinity.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Ben C Smith · 05-23-2007, 05:48 AM

Sorry, spin, but I am not going to have the time to respond to your latest post in as much depth as I should like.

Suffice it to say that your reduction of my argument to only the five (or six) words is burlesque (how could you, anybody, have missed the rest of the argument?), but your correlation of the fact that Origen was commenting on Matthew with the fact that the phrase from Josephus resembles a Matthean phrase is a good one (I think Ken Olson has also pointed it out), and would require more time of me than I have right now.

Adieu (for now).

Ben.

spin · 05-23-2007, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Sorry, spin, but I am not going to have the time to respond to your latest post in as much depth as I should like.

Suffice it to say that your reduction of my argument to only the five (or six) words is burlesque (how could you, anybody, have missed the rest of the argument?),

I thought I'd dealt with each of the issues you raised in your posts, Ben C, though I'm not responsible for the weight you put on the exactness of appearance of the words in Origen you have written about so frequently.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

but your correlation of the fact that Origen was commenting on Matthew with the fact that the phrase from Josephus resembles a Matthean phrase is a good one (I think Ken Olson has also pointed it out), and would require more time of me than I have right now.

Adieu (for now).

:wave:

spin

Mr. Logic · 05-24-2007, 05:50 AM

Funny but I rejected James based on the evidence, about 12 years ago, and then 2 years later found that Luther had rejected James. A fact that is censored from most. Turns out as some of you have pointed out, that James simply wasn't an accepted book until centuries after the apostles.
Luther didn't even know who this James was! Today we can be quite sure of who he is and how Nepotism played a part in his being Honored by the Jewish "Converts" of his day who were all "Zealous for the Law" Acts 21:20
and not zealous for Paul and his grace by faith teachings!
Thanks

andrewcriddle · 05-24-2007, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Where did Origen get James the Just? It seems to be part of his understanding of what was in Josephus, for he uses it twice specifically in relation to what Josephus is supposed to have said. While Origen gets that wrong and the supposed reason for the destruction of Jerusalem, you fancy that he was somehow exact with the phrase ton adelfon Ihsou tou legomenou christou (well, in two out of three cases). This is not inspiring.

spin

FWIW I think that Origen got James the Just from Clement of Alexandria's Hypotyposes

See Eusebius Ecclesiastical History Book 2 Chapter 1 sections 2-5.
Where the murder of James the Just is quoted from Clement.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle · 05-24-2007, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Suffice it to say that your reduction of my argument to only the five (or six) words is burlesque (how could you, anybody, have missed the rest of the argument?), but your correlation of the fact that Origen was commenting on Matthew with the fact that the phrase from Josephus resembles a Matthean phrase is a good one (I think Ken Olson has also pointed it out), and would require more time of me than I have right now.

It is an interesting point However in Book 10 of the Commentary on Matthew (Where the reference to Josephus occurs) Origen is commenting on Matthew 13-14. I'm not sure that the passages in Matthew where 'called Christ' occur were particularly relevant at that point.

It would be interesting to study what the commentary on Matthew 27 says however this seems to survive only in Latin and is not online or immediately available to me offline.

Andrew Criddle

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05-23-2007, 05:48 AM	#76
Ben C Smith Veteran Member Join Date: May 2005 Location: Midwest Posts: 4,787	Sorry, spin, but I am not going to have the time to respond to your latest post in as much depth as I should like. Suffice it to say that your reduction of my argument to only the five (or six) words is burlesque (how could you, anybody, have missed the rest of the argument?), but your correlation of the fact that Origen was commenting on Matthew with the fact that the phrase from Josephus resembles a Matthean phrase is a good one (I think Ken Olson has also pointed it out), and would require more time of me than I have right now. Adieu (for now). Ben.

05-24-2007, 05:50 AM	#78
Mr. Logic Regular Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Myrtle Beach, sc Posts: 102	Funny but I rejected James based on the evidence, about 12 years ago, and then 2 years later found that Luther had rejected James. A fact that is censored from most. Turns out as some of you have pointed out, that James simply wasn't an accepted book until centuries after the apostles. Luther didn't even know who this James was! Today we can be quite sure of who he is and how Nepotism played a part in his being Honored by the Jewish "Converts" of his day who were all "Zealous for the Law" Acts 21:20 and not zealous for Paul and his grace by faith teachings! Thanks

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