Toto

Mythicists such a Richard Carrier do not try to strip Jesus of his Jewishness. They point out that the NT is derived from the Hebrew Scriptures - so much so, that Jesus appears to be constructed out of them.

19th Century mythicists (of the sort that Acharya S wants to rehabilitate) saw Jesus as a pagan god. But the Christianity of the time also saw Jesus as essentially anti-Jewish.

That was then, this is now. Everybody now loves the Jews and thinks that Jesus was at least marginally Jewish. I understand that James Crossly's new book Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New American Century (or via: amazon.co.uk) has some pertinent comments on the whole issue, although I have only read a review or two.

Toto

Perhaps describing Jesus as merely a man is part of Celsus' or the Jews' attack on Christianity?

Besides, we only know of Celsus' arguments from Origen. You have to assume that there might have been some selectivity in what was preserved.

No Robots

As Price has said, New Testament scholarship has done it's best over the last 60 years or so to completely skewer the mainstream 'take' on the origins of Christianity *away from* its non-Jewish roots and precedents.--Earl Doherty.

Toto

This quote, taken out of context, has to do with Christianity, not Jesus.

No Robots

He writes about attempts "to synthesize that old scholarship which presented the case for seeing the Christ Savior as based on an 'ideal type' that was rampant in the ancient world."

aa5874

What is really Jewish about Jesus when all his so-called Jewishness was taken out of context.

The so-called prophecy of his birth was erroneously interpreted and not in agreement with Jewish tradition.

In Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew exposed the error of this Jewishness.

Dialogue with Trypho LXVII And Clement of Alexandria shows the error of his Jewishness, it was a pagan practice to sacrifice humans to gods.

Exhortation to the Heathens 3
Jesus was placed in Judaea, but his Jewishness was a gross error.

No Robots

In fact, no real comprehension of Jesus' sayings in the New Testament is possible without a thorough familiarity with the Talmud and Midrash.--"The Attitude of Christian scholars toward Jewish literature" / Kaufmann Kohler.

aa5874

Not at all.

No comprehension of the myth Jesus is possible without first realising that he was pagan masked as a Jew. Without understanding or being familiar with Paganism a person may be tempted to think that because Jesus was placed in Judaea he was Jewish.
.
His execution for blasphemy, as the story goes, betrays his paganism.

It is not Jewish for a Jew to claim he is God, only Pagans do that.

Like the Emperors of Rome.

gentleexit

The problem with this chicken is why would it make a Jewish egg? Why would Hellenes make god-man from a poor Jewish carpenter? And if they did such things, you would find more of this type of character but you don't. Above all else, this discordancy is why Jesus must be a product of diaspora Jews, Hellenistic but not Hellenes. Theirs is a deviant Judaism, not a Hellenistic fantasy. Judaism was far from rigid until the Rabbi's took full ownership. Morphing and experimenting was possible.

p.s. Toto - yes, we know Celsus from Origen but he prints perjoratives (bastard!). I don't see why he would suppress an accusation of non-existence.

Toto

If Jesus was a god, the ultimate insult would not be that he didn't exist (there seems to have been no real concept of a god not existing.) The ultimate insult would be that their god was just a human, low class, bastard carpenter who got crucified.