Toto

That's only because you've already disowned the TF with its talk of "wondrous deeds." But what do you actually have in these texts? A reference to a crucifixion, a brother, the claim that Christians sing hymns to Christ as a god. . . where would you expect to find a discussion of miracles? You just don't have enough data of any kind to say that any topic has been avoided.

dog-on

Funny thread.

Another HJer building a house of straw.

spin

Well, (even assuming their veracity as parts of the texts in which they're now found) they are no help to you (because some would be just hearsay, others simply about christians), so I can understand why you have to perform the way you do.


spin

show_no_mercy

I asked you before about this supposed "local" term. Local to where? "Christ" is found numerous times in the LXX refering to divinely appointed high priests and kings. Any Greek speaking Jew would know what the term "Christ" was, and Greek was the lingua franca of the entire Roman empire.

So unless you're trying to argue that "local" means "the entire Roman empire" you seem to be using that to ad hoc your way out of an illogical argument.

In Antiquities 20.10.1 Josephus mentions the Persian King Cyrus, who is called "god's anointed one" in Isaiah 45. A very specific phrase. Even though Cyrus fits the role of messiah perfectly, Josephus still doesn't use that term ("anointed one" - "christ") to describe Cyrus. But he's aware that Gentiles can be "messiahs" as well, which is why he argues that Vespasian was the messiah.

Quite ironically, every single high priest is a "christ" or "anointed one" but still Josephus never uses that phrase - either "anointed one" or "christ" - in Ant. 20.10 when enumerating the high priests. He does use the verb "anoint" (χρίω) in Antiquities Books 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 19; War of the Jews Book 2 and 5. But Josephus never uses the phrase "anointed one" or "the Lord's anointed" or "god's anointed [one]". But he does use the phrase "anointed one" (christ in Greek) the two times he mentions the Jesus of Christianity.

Why is that?

aa5874

Well, once Josephus did not properly identify Jesus called the Christ why are you sputtering that Jesus called Christ in AJ 20.9.1 was the God/man who had no earthly father that was resurrected on the third day?

Are you claiming that Jerome is wrong about James? Scholars today make certain claims about the NT, are you saying that the scholars must be wrong because their findings are 2000 years later?

Jerome has contradicted the Pauline Epistles and claimed James was the son of the sister of the mother of Jesus and Church writers agree that Jesus of the NT had no earthly father or that Joseph was not the father of Jesus called Christ.

Please prove to me that Jerome was wrong about James.


But, you cannot identify who was Jesus called Christ. Once you reject Antiquities 18.3.3 as a forgery then you simply cannot come to the conclusion that Jesus called Christ in AJ 20.9.1 was already dead when James got stoned.

You cannot claim that Jesus called Christ in AJ 20.9.1 was crucified under Pilate.

You know absolutely nothing about Jesus called Christ in AJ 20.9.1 except that he had a brother called James.

Well, why are you sputtering now? I already told you that you have no evidence for a human only Jesus and now you tell me that there is no proof one way or the other.

Well, it is all over now. You have nothing. You have sputtered.

Chaucer

Because Jesus the humdrum carpenter is the only one for whom this adjective/verb ever got changed to a noun in the first place. It became a popular shorthand title applied as a noun to this Jesus character only, and it stuck -- for believers and nonbelievers alike. The fact that Josephus desists from applying this as a noun to anyone but Jesus the carpenter makes the historicist case stronger, not weaker.

Chaucer

Chaucer

You know damn well I'm "sputtering" no such thing. "Jesus called the Christ" in Josephus is the agitator and executed criminal of the Roman chronicles and the coiner of a few sayings in Thomas, not "the God/man who had no earthly father that was resurrected on the third day" -- the latter a mere concoction unique to Scriptural texts only. Besides, Josephus does properly identify this Jesus called the Christ: he's identified as the brother of this James who was threatened with stoning under Ananus. That is sufficient for the narrative at Antiquities 20.


I'm claiming that prioritizing Jerome over Josephus, or over any texts in the Nag Hammadi collection, etc., is absurd.

I never said otherwise. All I said is that you cannot prove that Jesus is either alive or dead under Ananus.

Big surprise -- and I never said otherwise. It's the Nag Hammadi texts and Thomas and the other Roman chronicles where we should go for anything beyond that.

How convenient to FLAGRANTLY MISREAD what I've said here -- IT'S JOSEPHUS WHO OFFERS NO PROOF ONE WAY OR ANOTHER AS TO JESUS'S BEING ALIVE OR DEAD UNDER ANANUS; BUT THERE ARE OTHER TEXTS, LIKE THOMAS, SOME NAG HAMMADI TEXTS AND OTHER ROMAN CHRONICLES THAT OFFER MORE THAN THAT.

Let's see you pretend not to understand that.

Chaucer

aa5874

It is completely false to claim Josephus applied a title or name only to Jesus the carpenter.

In Antiquities 20.9.1, there is NO claim that Jesus called Christ was a carpenter.

Doug Shaver

I've given up looking for him. I no longer believe there was a historical Jesus.

I noted that if there was one, he had to meet those four minimal criteria for a particular reason. I have seen historicists suggest that the gospels could have been inspired by the teachings of some Palestinian guru who could have said a few things that ended up being attributed by the gospel authors to Jesus of Nazareth but about whom nothing else in the gospels is true. That possibility certainly cannot be ruled out, but even if it's true, I don't regard it as a close enough match to make that guru "the historical Jesus."

To me it's like the historical King Arthur, who I also think never existed. I accept that there probably was a British warrior named Arthur, or something close thereto, who did something noteworthy on some battlefield during the early Medieval age. I don't think that is sufficient evidence for regarding him as any kind of prototype for the legendary King Arthur of Camelot fame.

lpetrich

Those references are so tiny that we get hardly any details about him from them, so they don't form a "critical mass" of anything?

There were some non-Xians who acknowledged his claimed miracle-working, though in backhanded ways. Some of the authors of the Talmud claimed that he worked his miracles with black magic, and they claimed that the virgin-birth story was a coverup of his real paternity. Yes, they claimed that a Roman soldier named Panthera / Pantera / Pandira was his real father; the name sounds similar to the Greek word for virgin, parthenos. Celsus, a pagan, repeated the latter theory in his critique of Xianity.

Teeny-tiny ones.

Like how Jesus Christ had been a sorcerer and how his father had been a Roman soldier?