dog-on

The historicity of the character "Jesus" is, itself, the question. There is already enough mythical BS to wade through, whatever your position happens to be. Why add more unsubstantiated crap to the dung pile?

It won't end up any smelling any less bad...

As a mythicist, one can take the writings at face value, fantastical events and all, no problem.

As a historicist, one must simply start making excuses...

angelo

The historicity of Jesus, outside of the NT, is practicly non existent. Unlike Plato, Aristole, Thales 625bc, Pythagoras 500bc, Hippocrates 460bc, ect, who all have evidence of historicity in our history books of ancient times. For Jesus?
Apart from an obscure reference in Josephus, not a word exists in any history book of that period of time. I deduct from that, that the man had no existence. :banghead:

ph2ter

Because it is very strange that the name of the most known Jew of all the times is never mentioned in his supposed native language.
Other people called Iesous in Josephus are so insignificant when compared to Jesus Christ, that if they are never mentioned in the Aramaic form, then this is not very big surprise.

Vivisector

There are two things I'm having trouble understanding. The first is how Greek vs. Aramaic form of Jesus's name bears on the OP, but that's a minor point.

It seems to me that the failure to use the Aramaic form of Jesus's name is very understandable given the large - even decisive - influence that Greek speakers had on the direction of the "Jesus Movement." If you combine the fact that the earliest texts are Greek, Paul's missions and letters, and the pagan accretions, you can come to the conclusion that any Jesus Movement only caught fire as a religion after it crossed over into Greek speaking communities, resulting in the blurring or total loss of any historical or Jewish underpinnings. If this is the case, and I personally think it to be so, then the real question should be, why should any NT authors have referred to Jesus by his Aramaic name form?

Cheers,

V.

JoeWallack

JW:
The fact remains that we don't know what that man's given name was. Point Doherty.



Joseph

dog-on

Of course, if we are actually dealing with a group of non-Jews reading their Hellenic beliefs into the Septuagint, maybe any "historical or Jewish underpinnings" were never really there to begin with...

Vivisector

Always a possibility, but my working hypothesis is that (a) there was a "Jesus Movement" (for lack of a better term, and not necessarily a massive one) that was largely, if not totally, Jewish in character, (b) James and the other "Pillars" were Jesus's genuine and most immediate successors, (c) the movement jumped to Greek speakers at an early stage (perhaps first among Greek-speaking Jews, then to "God Fearers," then to pagans), and (d) after a variety of events (namely the first Jewish War), the Greek flavor became more successful than the Jewish flavor of the original movement. Greatly simplified, I know, with several imporant questions yet to be answered.

Cheers,

V.

dog-on

or...

a) There was "Paul" who came up with a Soter figure based on his reading of the Hebrew scriptures (in Greek) and put them into a Hellenic context.

b) Later in-fighting between different sects resulted in one sect coming up with Apostolic Succession, (using a story by the evangelist known as Mark, later expanded by other writers, to justify their claims), to trump competing sects.

c) A period where one group redacted another's ensued.

d) The winner was eventually decided by imperial decree.

and the rest, as they say, is history...

Vivisector

There's a lot I can agree with in here. It's obvious, for example, that there great differences of opinion regarding whose views were most consistent with the meaning of Jesus's life and/or death (e.g., Paul vs. the Jerusalem group). It also seems obvious to me that one of the items on the evangelists' agenda was to portray some of those closest to Jesus as inferior successors or as somehow missing the point (e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus's family and disciples). Self-serving editing and imperial decree, absolutely. It still seems to me, though, that the actual Paul inherited (hijacked?) events in progress rather than originating them.

Cheers,

V.

spamandham

Saul/Paul.

So we have at least 2 examples of using both forms, and both examples happen to be related to 2 of the most important names in early Christianity. Yet for the single most important name in early Christianity, we see only the Greek form. Without a reference or an exhaustive check, I don't buy the claim that all names in the NT other than Peter/Cephas ,Paul/Saul, are in their Greek form. Surely some of the begats in Matthew/Luke are not Greek foms.

Your glossing over this as if it were irrelevant by making references to the writings of a non-Christian Greek historian.

Josephus is irrelevant to setting expectations for the NT writings, unless your position is that the NT writings were based somewhat on Josephus' writings.

You have not addressed the question as to how/why the central figure in the NT, the one individual whose name every early Christian would have heard repeatedly and been intimately familiar with, would we changed to Greek form from what would otherwise be the form familiar to them - the Aramaic. This has nothing to do with scrambling. It has everything to do with thinking carefully about the pieces of the puzzle.