Vorkosigan

See my comments above.

Vorkosigan

keyser_soze

This also seems like the tack that pagels takes, the way that a legendarily cruel personality like Pilate seems helpless in the gospels...the way the roman interaction follows a trending from oldest to newest gospel..There is to me an apparent line of progression throughout the gospels re pilate and the romans. And like pagels conclusion, it would seem to be a reduction in roman culpability to make christianity pleasing to them.

Toto

I have been reading Crossan's Who Killed Jesus? which is a rebuttal to Brown. Crossan sees the Gospel of Peter as the earliest account of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, with the canonical gospels each developing the story to put more collective guilt on the Jews.

I don't recall now why Crossan thinks that the Romans were worked into the story. Leidner thinks that the original story of the Jews crucifying Jesus was too historically implausible, because the Romans crucified people, so that Pilate's presiding over the trial and the Roman soldiers were added to the story to make it more credible.

Crossan, however, wants to date the Gospel of Peter to about 40 CE, to put it well before Mark. Leidner dates the Passion Narrative from the Gospels to later than the second part of the 2nd century, since Justin Martyr blames the Jews alone.

Leidner accepts 1 Thess 2:15, because it supports his thesis that Paul survived the destruction of the Temple in 70:

Leidner quotes (at p. 111) FC Baur who defends the passage as genuine:

Leidner's theory of the Historic Paul is that Paul became a missionary for an Essene type sect around 60. He spent 3 years as an initiate, then went to see Peter and James in Jerusalem. But then the Temple was destroyed, and it shook his faith in the law, and prompted his concern with the end times. Many Jews turned to despair after the destruction, or turned to a rigid asceticism, but Paul redefined the religion to keep his gentile followers around. He returned to Jerusalem 14 years later, after the Temple was destroyed, to fight for his new take on the religion, but did not persuade James and Peter that he was doing the right thing.

The theory makes sense (I have just touched on it), but the dating causes a problem if you think that Galatians mentions James the Just who was killed in 62. Leidner does not solve this problem. It could be that the James referred to was some other James, or that the James whose death is recorded in Josephus and/or Hegesipius was not this James.

Peter Kirby

The parabola thing was a comment. The real objection is that Leidner needs to argue for the line of development he describes. As hinted by keyser_soze, many think rather that the post-Jewish War evangelists were trying to minimize the role of Pilate in order to deflect the criticism that Jesus was a troublemaker justly executed by Roman authority and that Jesus followers must be seditious as well.

The Testimonium is a short passage, and it is made even shorter when stripped of Meier's Christian insertions: just 60 words. When this came up in my debate with Layman, the reply was that the shortness of a scribe's insertion was of equal difficulty to understand. My reply was that the behavior of Josephus is a known quantity but the loquaciousness of the interpolator is unknown (and also that the scroll may have already been purchased and restricted length). But we really shouldn't meet arguments with arguments; each should be evaluated in itself. The shortness of Josephus on Jesus, as well as Christianity, is a conundrum. One way out of the difficulty is to deny that there is any authentic core to the Testimonium; rather, the Testimonium could have fully displaced an account that was already there, or have based on it only in the loosest way. Or Josephus could have ignored Christianity altogether.

Meier mentions this; read his book to find out how he handles it. But I've never agreed with Meier. Jerome quotes the Testimonium as saying "Credabatur esse Christus." So, if there were an authentic core, it could have said "he was believed to be a Christ" or "he was the so-called Christ."

Or perhaps that conclusion serves as a reductio ad absurdum of the argument from silence for those who are sure that Paul's letters are authentic.

Certainly not all first century Christians were anti-semitic, and Josephus may have known only a form of Christianity that remained pro-Jewish. Or perhaps Yuri could use this as an argument that the Gentile revision of the NT documents had not yet taken place.

The real answer to this argument, however, is that the Christians in the first century were a bizarre, marginal cult, mostly of the hoi polloi, who worshipped an undistinguished criminal. Josephus was writing in response to educated Greeks and Romans, literary men like Tacitus (who wrote later), who had criticized the Jewish religion as uncultured. Their criticism would not be based in any way on the claims of the Christian sect, and Josephus would only insult his readers to suggest that it was. Moreover, it is quite explicable that any literature put out by first century Christians would not have been read by Josephus. Though it's claimed to be a definitive book on the subject, how many psychologists have read the Dianetics? Not many, and unless they were scientologists or perhaps actively against the cult, they wouldn't cite it in any way in their own work.

Well, if you and Toto like it so much, maybe I should read it. You might have noticed that I put your review of Wells & Price up on the Did Jesus Exist? web site. I would like to do the same for other relevant reviews that you write, with your permission.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Meier mentions this; read his book to find out how he handles it.

I just got it from Amazon. I'm saving it for last. Sanders is still ahead....

Well, if you and Toto like it so much, maybe I should read it.

I doubt you'll like it is as much as we do. It's extremely abrupt and unpolished. And you'll be familiar with most of the arguments.

I would like to do the same for other relevant reviews that you write, with your permission.

You bet!

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

It's extremely abrupt and unpolished. And you'll be familiar with most of the arguments.

Except for the one from Philo, which I am still digesting.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

BTW, I should add that Leidner's solution to Ant 20 is to drop everything about James from the passage, leaving the arrest being of unspecified "certain persons" with no James at all.

Vorkosigan

Toto

There are a number of ideas and perspectives in Leidner that are both unusual and needing of further development.

The idea that Paul survived and did most of his writing in the post-70 period was novel to me, but seems to make more sense than the standard idea that he flourished around 50 CE and wrote letters that were unknown until the next century. But it requires revising the history of the Jerusalem church headed by James. I think if Eiseman took Leidner's ideas and worked with them, the results would be interesting.

Vorkosigan

Yes, that's a good point. But Toto, I am just trying to save our reps in case Peter doesn't like it

Ted Hoffman

sorry, wrong post