youngalexander

Ah, but you are so wrong.
Nothing could be clearer, as I am sure that Gooch would aver. Mind you, I refer to Gooch (the Pooch) and not his dad who has bowled us up some googlies.
Yet it is even better. For they independently refer to Christ as well and wasn't he the 'greatest person who ever lived'? A curious nomenclature for a non christian jew such as Josephus who is so particular concerning ancestry, lineages and birthright. He is at great pains to present this information whenever he introduces a new character, eg.;

Jesus, eldest priest after Ananus War 4.4.3
Jesus, brother of Onias, high priest Antiq 15.3.1
Jesus, son of Ananus War 6.5.3
Jesus, son of Sapphias, governor of Tiberias War 2.20.4
Jesus, son of Gamiliel, made high priest Antiq 20.9.4
Jesus, son of Damneus, made high priest Antiq 20.9.1
Jesus, son of Gamala Life 38, 41
Jesus, son of Saphat, ringleader of the robbers War 3.9.7
Jesus, son of Thebuthus, a priest War 6.8.3
and of course
Jesus, brother of James, son of Joseph Antiq 20.9.1

No, he doesn't. What a pity! Would have made it so much clearer. Well, we cannot blame poor old Josephus for not knowing who James & Jesus dad was can we. Of course we know, and so did the xian interpolator!

Doug Shaver

Because that's as good as their evidence gets?

spamandham

From a secular perspective, there is no question that all the magic god-man business is mytholgy. The question is whether or not an ordinary historical human being is somehow intertwined in salient parts of the story. This is not an extraordinary claim, and it actually seems like a justified position until you really start digging into it using modern analytical techniques.

Poor old Josephus and Tacitus did not have these techniques availabe, and so could reasonably be expected to simply assume Jesus was a real person if they obtained their information about him from Christians (which they did, even if the parts about Jesus were added later!).

Ben C Smith

Is there some a priori expectation that Josephus should have referred to James by his father rather than by his brother? Granted, the patronymic approach is more common, but Josephus uses the adelphonymic approach often enough, and in this case the reason would be obvious.

Or perhaps I have misunderstood you.

Ben.

jgibson000

Aren't you forgetting to take into account the fact that virtually all the common people in Palestine in the 1st century were illiiterate?

Jeffrey Gibson

Malachi151

http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/alex_graffito.htm



We could at least expect some graffiti.

andrewcriddle

Schweitzer in the expanded 2nd (1913) edition of The Quest of the Historical Jesus has an extended discussion of mythical approaches and their weaknesses. (chapters 22 and 23 of the expanded edition.)

This has been available in English translation since 2000

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

This graffiti IIUC is thought to come from a school for teenagers being trained for the Imperial Civil Service.

Literacy would have been very different from in the Empire as a whole.

Andrew Criddle

Malachi151

I like this defense.

"The reality is that for the first 50 years all of the people who believed in Jesus were too stupid to even scratch any record of their godman into the rocks."

Boy, that gives one some real confidence :Cheeky:

jgibson000

But why would they, even if they did what you (in good question begging fashion) say they did and perceived Jesus as a "god man?

Do we have any graffitti for Theudas? For the Samaritan prophet? For Mattathias. the father of Judas Maccabeus? For Judas the Gamalian and Zadok the Pharisee? For Hillel and Shammai? For the Egyptian. For Eleazar ben Yair? For Menahem?

And even though you have claimed that Mithraism was widespread before and during the first half of the first century, do we have grafitti for Mithras prior to the second or third century C.E.?

And aren't you engaging in the fallacy of bifurcation when you claim that the only way to explain the absence of graffiti for Jesus or, for that matter, for any of the figures named above, is that the followers of these figures were too stupid to do carve some?

And don't we have writings from the followers of Jesus from before your 50 year post mortem time limit?

Jeffrey Gibson