spin

Sorry, I can't take that seriously. Your analogy is unreasonable. You don't consider the importance of this religiously loaded term and Josephus's avoidance of it (EXCEPT of course regarding Jesus, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say n'more, say n'more). The LXX uses the term at least 40 times while AJ just has it twice -- regarding Jesus. He omits the term from the LXX. He doesn't use it for other messianic contenders and here you want to believe that he uses it for someone who is supposed to have died under Tiberius and is thus certainly a false messiah and unworth of the title. And your quibbling on legomenos doesn't work. You even find the passage which contains the other use of christos suspect, which is evidence which undercuts this usage as well.

Besides, argument by analogy is no argument at all.

This seems oblivious to the notion of apologetic history.


spin

Chaucer

O.K., what about atheism versus mythicism? Do most of us here on this board really value the former as much as the latter?

Sincerely,

Chaucer

bacht

Okay I'll bite:

which methods are questionable, and what is being prosletized to whom?

which questionable things are repeated as if true?

are you really afraid of the broader social consequences of the mythicist perspective? why?

do you think Chaucer presented his case openly and respectfully, in the best spirit of disinterested debate?

Chaucer

In your opinion <shrug>.

I'm still not really convinced that Josephus is only apologetic history.

Chaucer

show_no_mercy

Josephus cited a whole bunch of "christs", explaining that the entire reason that the Jews went to war with Rome was because of the "christ" concept (thus Romans should have been weary of the term "christ"); but for some strange reason the only time he ever uses the word "christ" is when describing the Jesus of Christianity. As in the quote I cited before, Josephus thought that Vespasian was the christ and put forth is own argument for why - yet still doesn't use the word "christ". Why is that?

And then, he just so happens to say "...brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called the King of the Jews appointed by God himself, whose name was James, and some others..."

But Josephus thought that the definition in the bolded part above was Vespasian. Josephus went through the trouble of arguing and defining this role for Vespasian, but for some reason refuses to define what the word "christ" means, the same exact role.

That is incredibly suspicious. Being neutral about it I would simply conclude that Josephus didn't know what "christ" meant. But Christians have a history of tampering with texts, and them inserting the short phrase "who was called the Christ" because they got ectsatic about a Jesus and James in the same sentence wouldn't be all that far fetched.

show_no_mercy

"Peer Review" means you submit your work to a reputable Peer Review Journal. This journal has a board of experts specifically designed for reviewing submissions to their journal for publication. Once they deem your work satisfactory for their journal, they'll publish your work in their Peer Review Journal. If it's not up to the academic standards of that Peer Review Journal they send it back to you for corrections. If you've gone to Grad School or any level of education above undergrad, then the Peer Review process is a lot like defending your thesis. If a grad student/PhD candidate's work is good enough, it might actually get included in a reputable Peer Review Journal.

You seem to be equivocating between "Peer Review" as in the journal process above and "peer review" as in asking one of your buddies to look over your work. Again, your reasoning for "Peer Review" makes every single popular Intelligent Design book "peer reviewed".

Steven Carr

The phrase is the one found in Matthew 1:16 (from memory), adjusted for grammar.

I did send the following email to Bart Ehrman, who , of course, is under no obligation to answer a nobody like me.

I was reading various commentaries on Romans, and had some questions that the commentaries did not seem to me to address.

Do you know please what Paul may have had in mind in the following passages?

Romans 3
What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.

Had it been an advantage to the Jews having Jesus live among them, preaching, teaching and working miracles?

If the Jews had been entrusted with the very words of God, who had been entrusted with the words of Jesus?

Romans 10
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent?

Had any Jews heard of Jesus, in the mind of Paul, apart from through Christians preaching about him? Who does Paul think had sent Christians to preach about Jesus to the Jews?

Romans 15
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Were the words and deeds of Jesus not the primary source of hope and encouragement for Jesus? Paul just quotes Psalm 69 'the insults of those who insult you fall on me', rather than Jesus.

Romans 16
Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him

Had the Gospel been made known through the Old Testament prophetic writings? Had Jesus not come to earth so that all nations might believe and obey him, or was this belief supposed to come from the new way of reading the Old Testament, which now revealed the long hidden mystery?

On a general point, Romans is about how Jesus had changed the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, the Law and sin, between faith and salvation. Had Jesus said much that Paul thought was relevant to those topics?

Clivedurdle

We have four stories.

One has the hero meeting a god at a river and the god saying this is my son, two say the hero's dad is a god, one says the hero is some kind of wise logos - and everyone assumes we are looking at history and not a Jewish version of Greek tales of the gods and their relationships with humans?

Who was Hercules mum and dad again? Was Hercules historical? Did he take the weight of the world off Atlas's shoulders, surely a bigger miracle than a demigod resurrecting?

Loomis

But it only becomes a "more sensible notion" when you presume that Jesus was a historic human being – like you just did.

Chaucer

If Romans were as fed up with the term as you imply, then they'd hardly apply it to Vespasian, one of their own! It was a local term that ended up being applied only to one of the locals -- a disreputable carpenter who ended up on a cross <shrug>. By the time James was arraigned in Antiq. 20, the term had likely lost its specific religious connotation for many and just become for many ......... a word, and that was all. Does prima donna still have the specific connotation for all that it once had when first used?

Boy, are you over-reading the "Christ" term here! Even if we suppose that it had not become a more general epithet by then, it could easily mean, prima facie, little more than "annointed". And it's time for me to repeat what I said already: Indicating that a guy has come to be casually called a Whatever does not mean that one actually thinks or is even claiming(!) that that guy is really a Whatever!! Saying that someone is sometimes called something versus saying he really is something IS quite different, thank you. And I already read the objection to that assertion earlier. I just don't buy it. There is still a huge difference between the two.

Now that's actually an interesting conclusion I'm perfectly willing to entertain.

Thank you,

Chaucer