Toto

As I said, Layman could have politely pointed out that the late Gordon Stein's 1982 article appeared to disagree with other parts of the SecWeb library. (Although not everyone agreed with his interpretation of what Stein said.) He didn't have to bust a gasket yelling about "who's right".

I don't know that Stein was actually that far off the mark. He said that McDowell was dishonest in including the entire Testimonium as evidence of the historical Jesus, and we all seem to agree that is less than honest.

The arguments for partial authenticity of the passage are a good try, but after all is said and done, appear to be based on wishful thinking more than anything.

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

Peter Kirby

I have encountered this quote from Isaac Asimov on the internet:

"As it happens, Josephus, who mentions John the Baptist, does not mention Jesus. There is, to be sure, a paragraph in his history of the Jews which is devoted to Jesus, but it interrupts the flow of the discourse and seems suspiciously like an afterthought. Scholars generally believe this to have been an insertion by some early Christian editor who, scandalized that Joesphus should talk of the period without mentioning the Messiah, felt the insertion to be a pious act."
Isaac Asimov, _Asimov's Guide To The Bible_

Does anyone know the page number for this quote?

Does anyone know whether Isaac Asimov affirmed, denied, or remained agnostic on the historicity of Jesus? Preferrably with a page number for a statement to that effect?

best,
Peter Kirby

reklaw67

Interesting thread. I've enjoyed reading it very much.

Toto

I have an AVON paperback version. The quote appears in Vol II, page 147, in the chapter titled "Matthew", subheading "The Son".

It continues:

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

What? Like Herods baby-killing obsession? Like the earthquake that opened graves? Like the eclypse?
What the hell does he mean "...prove accurate when they discuss the background of their times"?
Very selective asessment I might say
I think acceptance proves nothing as far as the veracity of the miracles are concerned. Why does he mention it?
There also remains a "connected, non-miraculous, and completely credible and sensible story of the fate of a man called Hercules" when all the myth is filtered aside.

Is he good at Biblical criticism? I though his forte was science fiction.

King Arthur

Why refer to Isaac Asimov? Wasn't he just a an interested layman like us who decided to write a book about what he knew? Doesn't seem very scholarly to me. Did he have a history degree or something that I don't know about?

Toto

I don't know what Peter Kirby is planning on doing with this - perhaps a grand overview of Jesus' place in western literature.

Asimov was a humanist and freethinker from a Jewish background who wrote on a variety of topics including the Bible (which sounds like a good source for science fiction.) His point of view expressed in this passage was fairly common at the time he wrote - to regard the Bible as basic history with an overlay of miracles and legends.

From <a href="http://www.nobeliefs.com/freethinkers.htm" target="_blank">this bio</a>:

There is another common quote from Asimov:

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." -- Isaac Asimov

Peter Kirby

Nothing nearly so grand. Isaac Asimov just proves that one does not need to say that Jesus did not exist in order to say that the Testimonium is forged.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

It appears that Asimov would agree with Lowder's idea that the mere existence of Jesus is not an extraordinary claim, so we only need ordinary evidence to support his existence, and the non-miraculous parts of the Gospels suffice.

However, I read Burton Mack and others to say that the gospels do not even rise to the level of ordinary evidence as to the events of 0-33 C.E., which leaves uncertain references to "James the brother of Jesus" as the only indication that there was someone named Jesus at the beginning of Christianity, with no confirmation of any details about him.

godfry n. glad

Toto did state:

... That "uncertain reference" bothers me. If we accept that the TF is either a partial or total fabrication, how can we trust this reference? Can it not also be a later interpolation? Have not apologists utilized this later reference (from Book XX of _Antiquities of the Jews_) to justify the earlier reference of the TF? Lacking that Christ reference, how is it that this latter Christ reference is deemed "authentic"?

Why would Josephus introduce a potentially incendiary term to his Grecophonic Roman readers and not supply any supporting reference to explain to those same readers the meaning of the term? Were they to guess why this brother of James was "called the Christ"? Could they not have wondered why he was "Jesus Ointment", or "Jesus the Greasy"? Perhaps this hapless James' brother Jesus was the local olive press master?

Then, if Josephus avers that this Jesus was "called the Christ", why does he not enlighten us on who called him that and why?
Reams of sheepskin are expended on explaining about some of the pernicious obscure bandits which vexed Judea during the century prior to the destruction of the Temple, and yet he fails to even describe to his readers what the term "Christ" refers to, much less why this particular entity was called such?

It was also my understanding that Josephus, in his _Jewish Wars_, had earlier published that is was Vespasian who was the subject of the misinterpreted (in his view) Jewish oracle that a ruler of the world (a meshach, or messiah) would rise from Judea. If so, why would Josephus allow a term "rightly" ascribed to the Emperor Vespasian and his Flavian heirs to stand as an oblique reference to an unknown brother of a unknown victim of judicial homicide in a later tome?

godfry n. glad