aa5874

Jesus of Nazareth is a Christian messiah. His Jewish messianic role has been rejected by Judaism. There is no known independent extra-biblical confirmation of Jesus of Nazareth being a Jew, in the 1st century.

Chris Weimer

Being rejected by mainstream Jews does not negate one's Jewishness.

spin

We can eliminate Jesus as a Jewish messianic candidate at least in this incarnation. He doesn't fit the bill. For most of the others we don't have significant information. They are all mentioned in passing. However, what we do see is the is the apparent militant nature of most if not all beside Jesus. The Jesus stuff makes him the odd man out, especially starting with Paul's Jesus. What's messianic at all about Jesus that is shared with the others?


spin

gnosis92

Is there any known independent confirmation of the above figures? And is there any reason to a priori reject biblical confirmation, esp when the NT was written by many different authors, who often disagreed with one another?

gnosis92

Matthew 10:33-35

34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -

gnosis92

Flavius Josepheus, Pliny the younger, Tacitus for starters.

It's entirely possible that many other documents such as Q document, signs gospel, cross gospel, even say Pontius Pilate signing off on Jesus execution, are all lost to history.

spin

...which is in conflict with the love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, greater love syndrome which by far outweighs this, doesn't it.

gnosis92

Bart Ehrman, a professor of history, said three criteria historians use to deal with documents from antiquity include contextual credibility, dissimalarity, and independent attestation. It appears that MJ'ers want evidence beyond all re seasonable doubt, for documents and supporting documents which obviously no longer exist.

The conflict you speak of is dissimalarity, which would suggest authentic historical tradition.

Gregg

I have no idea, but that's not the point. Jesus supposedly had a much greater impact within his lifetime than any of these figures. The response to him was much larger, by many orders of magnitude, than any of these figures. This is why we look for more independent confirmation of his existence, and why we find it odd there isn't any.

No. We DON'T reject a priori biblical confirmation. If you think this, then you don't understand the mythicist case.

Gregg

The dissimilarities among the gospels are not like the dissimilarities found in separate accounts of the same incident. This is a popular explanation that seems to make sense on the surface, but my understanding is that few serious scholars today accept it.