DCHindley

Ken makes a big adoo about "Pseudo-Hegesippus" (scholar-talk for the anonymous author of a 3rd century Latin work). I wonder if this is what Vorkosogian is talking about, although I was referrng to the 2nd centuy writer Hegesippus.

jjramsey

But not very well. You are presuming that the copyist is not only trying to "fix" his own copy, but presuming that his copy will be used in a contemporary debate where one could cite Josephus saying "Jesus called Christ." Considering that the copy isn't necessarily going to reach debaters on either side, this is quite a presumption.

We would certainly expect that the documents produced by the losing debaters would be destroyed, either by neglect or more active efforts like burning. However, that doesn't account for the disappearance of documents containing the relevant polemic of the winners. With other heresies, we have a record because the polemic from the winners has been preserved. Yet with this one, everything from both sides has apparently vanished.

Doug Shaver

I am not presuming to know exactly what he though would happen to the document he was creating, but your argument would prove that no copyist ever intentionally altered any document. I believe the relevant experts have established beyond reasonable doubt that a great deal of doctrinally motivated alterations were made to a substantial fraction of the documents that were eventually canonized as the New Testament. Ergo, the precedent exists.

Yes, we have documents from the winning side of those other debates, but we don't know what fraction of the original output they represent. If the historicity debate was brief relative to those other squabbles and engaged relatively few champions of what became orthodoxy, it would not be improbable for the entire record to have vanished.

Furthermore, it's one thing for the church to have wanted to preserve records of arguments about what people should think about Jesus. I think it probable that records of debates about whether he even existed would have prompted a lot of thinking along the lines of "Nobody needs to know about this." We should not forget that for us to know about them today, those records had to survive for several centuries during which the church was the sole guardian of its own history. For almost a millennium, if church officials didn't think it was worth copying, then it didn't get copied.

jjramsey

Nonsense. I was discussing before the copyist who intentionally altered Josephus' work to create the TF as we know it, and indicated that his motive could easily have been to honor Jesus. With that motive, he need only expect the all-seeing Jesus, and possibly some vague posterity, as his audience. The problem comes when you have as a motive a need to manufacture evidence in a contemporary debate, since the copyist probably would not find it feasible to get the doctored evidence into the "right" hands. What use is a subtle doctoring to add a brief mention of "Jesus called Christ" when that subtle doctoring will likely just lay in a library?

But why should the historicity debate have been brief compared to those other squabbles, when it would hardly be any less inflammatory than they were?

Minimalist

Yeah...and these people NEVER refer to themselves as "Father" "Mother" "Sister" and "Brother", do they?




Who is to say that "Brother" of the lord was not simply a title?

Ben C Smith

Oh, but I am. If orthodoxy is what is on your mind, then the very real problems that orthodoxy had with Jesus having literal brothers (which Amaleq13 alluded to) must also be on your mind. If it is not, then that is not to the credit of your theory.

Yes. Of course. All practitioners of the HJ do, even amateurs like me.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Guess the Doherty expectations bug has bitten you, too, eh?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Name one other historical personage who could ever be referred to as Christ without further explication.

Peter Kirby:

The simple fact is, there is no good evidence that anyone, anywhere was ever referred to as "Christ," with the exception of course of Jesus himself. One searches the extant Jewish literature in vain to find some example of a messianic pretender who had actually been called "Christ" by anyone. Jesus was unique in being called "Christ," and so it is not surprising that this term is only used when identifying Jesus. Josephus could have used it in the sense of a nick-name, not as a title, and thus there would be no need to explain the meaning of the name. Josephus may have simply assumed that his readers would have heard of this "Christ" of the sect called "Christians" and left it at that.

Ben.

TedM

Except that my expectations are always completely reasonable. (tongue in cheek) Have a Merry holiday season!

ted

hatsoff

I see your point, and indeed it is a thoughtful one, but I don't think it's quite as convincing as you seem to believe. If there was such a contemporary debate, a copyist's passions may have been inflamed such that he was compelled to pay homage to his position through forgery. He need not believe that it will make any persuasive difference to his opponents to have that motivation.

Because if it took place, it must have been prior to the turn of the second century, when the total number of Christians--the pool of potential authors to document such a disagreement--were comparatively few. Moreover, certain extant texts may in fact be reactionary, without explicitly mentioning any controversy.

Despite this, I should note that I find the MJ hypothesis to be insufficiently backed by evidence. Furthermore, I agree that the lack of any clearly identifiable documentation of such a movement does constitute evidence against its existence. However, neither do I think that the HJ alternative is entirely certain.