Toto

You said you hadn't heard of a case against it, so I gave you the url. I'm not pretending that this is a majority view.

Tacitus was not writing in the first century. Check out the recent Tacitus thread for reasons why this reference might be a forgery, or might be a 2nd century perspective used to describe a first century phenomenon.

But - given that marginal glosses were common, it is a possibility, and does explain how the phrase got there.

I don't think that this is Doherty's strongest work. But you asked for "an actual argument."

Gooch's dad

Yes, Toto, those are good points. I tend to think that Josephus did include a description of the Jerusalem Christian church--after all, he included descriptions of a lot of Jewish revolutionary leaders, such as The Egyptian. And that description was excised by the early Christian church.

The smaller reference is what remains. I don't trust any of the Testimonium at all. But I see no reason at all to distrust the 20.9.1 And the fact that early church fathers such as Origen, far earlier than Eusebius (and much to early to claim Christian tampering with the text) refer to a mention of Jesus in Josephus, is quite convincing. Josephus mentioned Jesus and James.

What history can we extract? Precious little. That the man Jesus existed, and was the source of stories that Paul picked up and marketed so brilliantly. That this man was from the Galilee, was baptized by John, had a small group of followers, preached a Kingdom of God on earth, and was crucified by the Romans for some sort of insurrection. That's about it.

Again, none of that is extraordinary.

Oh, about Tacitus. I don't consider it to be much as a historical reference supporting Jesus' existence. I merely mentioned it as support that Romans, 30 years before Josephus wrote, were supposedly in Rome. So it seems quite likely that Josephus' readers wouldn't be thrown by his use of the term "the so-called Christ".

MortalWombat

Note that Tacitus was writing about 20 years after Josephus wrote, about events that occurred 30 years before Josephus wrote.

He also gets Pilate's title wrong, claiming that he was a procurator, when actually he was a prefect. There wasn't a procurator in Judaea until 41 AD. If Tacitus wasn't up to speed on this fact, how can we be sure he got his info correct about the burning of Rome?

GakuseiDon

Think about it. Benny Hinn is a very well known, "miracle healing" televangelist. How many history books is he going to appear in? None is my guess, nor should we expect him to, unless he murders someone, launches a revolt or gets heavily involved in politics.

Why should Josephus have mentioned Christians? The only times Christians are referred to in the first century or so was when they were being arrested or killed, or their "crimes of atheism" against the Roman gods were discussed. The early Christians were still nominally Jewish, and didn't launch into revolts or political actions so weren't really worth putting into Josephus's histories.

Toto

Benny Hinn may not make the history books, but Rev. Moon should, Jim Jones has, Pat Robertson certainly should.

If Josephus discussed John the Baptist, and Jesus had a similar movement, it would seem that Josephus might also mention Jesus. Especially if the Romans were worried enough about him to bother crucifying Jesus.

spin

Hey, ya know, despite the fact that this thread has been viewed 100s of times, we only have 27 votes thus far. Are people aware of the polling system which is found at the top of the web page?


spin

spin

Where exactly were xians referred to in first century literature?


spin

rlogan

Spin, I use those terms in their ordinary meaning rather than allowing your imputed motive to define the act. In the first place I am referring to chirch history as a whole and not merely what has been canonized.

The list of forgeries is too long to place here, and I'll only refer to a couple of the more monstrous ones - The Donation of Constantine, abd the False Decretals. I'm sorry, but they have all appearance of being motivated by power and greed, not Christian charity. What does the Catholic encyclopedia say about the donation of constantine? Forgery The very title of the second leaves no question about the consensus.

From the Pentateuch onward we see what you refer to - books not written by the purported authors and also not describing real events but claiming to be the true word of God. Eusebius and Tertulian. The hand that doctored the TF - where can we look for a completely truthful accounting?

There is no question about interpolations and redactions, only the extent. You excuse the Pseudo-Pauline letters because they are written with "reverence". But forgery and deception are acts, not motives. Second - you don't know the motive.

How many examples of fake faith healers and such would you like as evidence that the most pious proclamations are but a veneer for greed? Control of the church is a source of power and fabricating documents brings you that power. All the better to cloak them with the most noble intentions.

This long history must absolutely be incorporated in any evaluation of a case being made for the HJ. We see no primary evidence presented, and what hearsay is offered by Paul the Obscure, for example, is tainted by a swirling cloud of forgery and deception.

A polite disagreement Spin.

Vinnie

It was not a good point. Radically changing a text to fit one's view of the texts is not good. Q is not extant but for Thomas, there are a whole bunch of "Jesus saids", and about a half a dozen figures mentioned, some of which are found in numerous other works.

The claim that Thomas originally did not consist of HJ sayings is laughable. Paul faced a faction with Thomasine sayings in Corinthians 1-4. Exorcising an HJ from Thomas is just nonsense.

Vinnie

spin

My problem is that these words can't be used in this day and age to a wide audience without the illegal/deception connotations oozing out of them. I don't think that there were such connotations in the literature.


spin