He first appears making trouble for people (Job and his family) with God's full approval.
Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus
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The character or name Satan does not first appear in Job. Satan appears in 1 Chronicles.
Ha, ha ... oh, dear ... Well that does indeed appear to be about the standard of the pro-HJ arguments here.
Obviously you will not understand the following, but just for the record -
- if Tacitus was not even born until after Jesus had died, and he then writes about what Jesus did without quoting that from a named traceable informant, then what he is writing is by definition “hearsay”. And in his case, where he gives no indication of any named eye-witness to what he says about Jesus, it’s also anonymous hearsay.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hearsay
Hear·say
1. Unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.
2. Law Evidence based on the reports of others rather than the personal knowledge of a witness and therefore generally not admissible as testimony.
The fact that in other general statements within his writing (ie not specifically in the few brief sentences where he makes mention of Jesus) Tacitus may say that he is taking trouble to avoid “hearsay”, does absolutely nothing to change the fact that if he is giving details of Jesus which he himself could not possibly know and which he obtained from some other unknown unnamed person/persons, then that is “hearsay”.
Example (for the sake of anyone else who does not understand this) - if I’m giving witness “evidence” (i.e. testimony) in a court, and I start my statement by saying “I will never tell you any hearsay” and then I proceed to say “the defendant shot the victim, and I know that, not because I saw any such thing, but because someone else said that they saw the shooting”, then that is “hearsay”, and it does not matter at all that I began by saying that I would not be telling hearsay stories … it would just be an example, as it is with Tacitus, of claiming that the story was not hearsay, when in fact it most certainly was hearsay.
By that BIZARRE definition, all history is hearsay. You've just discounted all history, lock, stock and barrel. Many historians NEVER witness any of the things they chronicle. They go to earlier sources. Hearsay in the real world of ancient historiography, IanS, indicates just what the historian garners. It's his perspective that determines the hearsay, not the reader's! Sheesh! By the reader's perspective, all history is often hearsay -- if we go by your ignorant definition here.
Tacitus specifies up-front that everything he takes is from first-hand sources for him, unless otherwise specified (and it happens that he does so specify numerous times). He doesn't so specify for the execution of this one rabbi during the Tiberius years. So the logical conclusion is that this account doesn't come from hearsay. Tacitus had a first-hand source for him for umpteen different data points including this execution during Tiberius. If you jump up and down over Tacitus's birth date(!!!), you've just discounted 99.9% of all chronicles that have ever survived from the ancient world! That's sheer ignorance.
Stone
You have not even read the links that you provided.
In the very link you provided James the Just may have died c 69 CE which would mean James the Just would NOT be James in Josephus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_the_Just
Please, at least read those links before you dump them on the thread because they are FILLED with discrepancies, historical problems, implausible events and characters that was NOT or could not be James in Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1.
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Belz...
Fiend God
Did IanS just AGAIN pretend that history is like law in terms of evidence ?
Yes, there is a kind of equivocation over scientific evidence, legal evidence, and evidence as used in historical method. They seem to be quite different, so it's a bit odd to conflate them, as if they are the same thing. For example, I think that ancient historians do look at hearsay stuff, partly because there is so little material to utilize. It doesn't mean that they simply accept hearsay, but they take it into account.
It is time that HJers realize that their HJ does not make much sense.
1. The Jews have NO history of worshiping crucified victims as Gods.
2. The Romans have NO history of worshiping crucified Jews as Gods.
3. The Jews have no history of worshiping human beings as Gods.
4. The Romans have no history of worshiping sacrificied victims as Gods.
The HJ argument is contrary to the historical evidence of Jews and Romans.
At precisely the time of Tiberius and Gaius, the Jews would rather DIE than worship even the Emperors of Rome as Gods.
In the supposed time of Paul, the Romans hated the Jews and crucified thousands of them.
It is virtually impossible that a dead obscure Jew was the fundamental impetus for the Jesus cult of Christians if he was EXECUTED by the Romans and REJECTED by the Jews.
An OBSCURE HJ makes no sense at all.
1. The Jews have NO history of worshiping crucified victims as Gods.
2. The Romans have NO history of worshiping crucified Jews as Gods.
3. The Jews have no history of worshiping human beings as Gods.
4. The Romans have no history of worshiping sacrificied victims as Gods.
The HJ argument is contrary to the historical evidence of Jews and Romans.
At precisely the time of Tiberius and Gaius, the Jews would rather DIE than worship even the Emperors of Rome as Gods.
In the supposed time of Paul, the Romans hated the Jews and crucified thousands of them.
It is virtually impossible that a dead obscure Jew was the fundamental impetus for the Jesus cult of Christians if he was EXECUTED by the Romans and REJECTED by the Jews.
An OBSCURE HJ makes no sense at all.
Foster Zygote
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There was an episode of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World in which, during the closing monologue, he says something like, "If you do happen to come across a mysterious creature, then by all means shoot it. But please, with a camera, not a gun". What you're doing is equivalent to arguing that the first sentence is clearly an indication that Clarke was advising his audience to shoot any mysterious creatures they might encounter, because, well, "Sentence 1 says to shoot mysterious animals". You are giving the impression that you cannot model a simple concept from multiple sentences in which various qualifiers come in later sentences. Your argument is completely asinine and I will participate no further in your obstreperous performance piece.
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An historical Jesus who was worshiped as a God by Jews and Romans since 37-41 CE makes absolutely no sense especially in the time of the Emperor Gaius 37-41 who himself demanded that he be worshiped as a God by Jews and Roman citizens.
If any person in the Roman Empire worshiped any man, dead or alive, as a God, such a person would have been destroyed by Gaius.
The Emperor Gaius was GOD c 37-41 CE.
Gaius HATED the JEWS and would KILL them every where in the Roman Empire even on the SEA.
Antiquities of the Jews 19
At around c 37-41CE, People in the Roman Empire supposedly had a Choice, either worship the Emperor GAIUS as a God or a DOCUMENTED dead Jewish preacher who was EXECUTED by the Romans and REJECTED by the Jews.
Plus, the Jewish Temple was still standing c 37-41 CE--the Jews had no need to worship a DEAD Jew for Remission of Sins
I am afraid, the OBSCURE DEAD HJ makes no sense whatsoever historically and theologically.
If any person in the Roman Empire worshiped any man, dead or alive, as a God, such a person would have been destroyed by Gaius.
The Emperor Gaius was GOD c 37-41 CE.
Gaius HATED the JEWS and would KILL them every where in the Roman Empire even on the SEA.
Antiquities of the Jews 19
At around c 37-41CE, People in the Roman Empire supposedly had a Choice, either worship the Emperor GAIUS as a God or a DOCUMENTED dead Jewish preacher who was EXECUTED by the Romans and REJECTED by the Jews.
Plus, the Jewish Temple was still standing c 37-41 CE--the Jews had no need to worship a DEAD Jew for Remission of Sins
I am afraid, the OBSCURE DEAD HJ makes no sense whatsoever historically and theologically.
Belz...
Fiend God
A pity that IanS will not understand the parallel.
TimCallahan
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Actually, the character in Job isn't Satan. Rather, he is ha satan, Hebrew for "the adversary" or "the accuser," ha being the definite article in Hebrew. He is not so much the devil as the devil's advocate, i.e. he's God's prosecutor. Ha satan isn't a name; it's a title. Unfortunately, most Christian Bibles are a bit sloppy about this. If you read a Jewish bible, you will find him identified as either "the accuser" or "the adversary."
In the Greek of the Septuagint, the Jewish scriptures translated into Greek, he is called ho diabolos, which means either "the accuser" or "the slanderer." You can probably tell from the word diabolos that it's the source of our word diabolical and, eventually, by way of the Old English deofol (sp.?), of "devil." By various corruptions the Greek diabolos, by way of Syraic, eventually became the Arabic Iblis (pronounced ihb-LEES), the rebellious jinn who refused to obey God's command to the angels and jinn (beings of fire) that they bow down to Adam.
In the Book of Enoch, probably written in the middle of the second century BCE, the leaders of the angelic revolt are variously Shemihazi and Azazel. Enoch doesn't mention anyone named "Satan." In fact, "Satan" didn't become a name until it was used as such, transferred without being translated, into the Christian Scriptures, written in Greek.
I have seen a lot of claims regarding what these Church fathers wrote...enough that without a reference to what they exactly said I don't take any claim regarding their works as being worth a plug nickel.
For example, I have seen sources claim that Origen complained about Josephus giving more regarding James then Jesus and nothing about there being a "negative assessment" regarding Jesus.
Early Christian Writings has translations of all these Church fathers so presenting references backing up your claim of "Josephus gave a negative assessment of Jesus" shouldn't be hard.
For example, in Against Celsus 1.47 Origen states
"For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice."
However there are there are seven years and four High Priests between the death of the James in Josephus and the "the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple". More over, Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History, Book III, ch. 11 clearly writes "After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed..."
Eusebius expressly puts the death of James the Just near 69 CE and Origen implies that the time between death of James the Just and "the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple" is short; certainly neither jives with the seven years and four High Priests between the events that is related in Josephus as it exists now. Moreover, Origen implies these events are related in the "18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews" (why else lead off with that sentence?) but the closest thing we have is in the 20th book.
I think that we have some other James in Josephus that some copier using Origen's reference glossed as being the brother of Jesus and this gloss found itself into the main text.
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I should point out even people we have reasonable good information on like John the Baptist the apologists have dates all over the place. I have seen death dates as early as 28 CE for John the Baptist presented and there is evidence in Josephus putting it as late as 36 CE.
Dejudge does have a point; there is nothing other then a questionable phrase reference to connect the James in Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 to any of the James in the Bible.
Belz...
Fiend God
Well you know what they say about broken clocks.
Unfortunately, while I appreciate your stepping forward this way, you show that what I wrote previously was still not clear. I am saying that, in the real world, what appears in a chronicle like Tacitus's is mostly _not_ hearsay, even though Tacitus himself -- or any other respectable chronicler of the time -- may not necessarily be a witness to each and every data-point in the material. This is because in the real world -- read: the world of professional academic historical research -- hearsay is understood to be that which the historian has garnered from sources that were in turn hearsay themselves at the time.
So when Tacitus makes a point of specifying when something is hearsay, he is not indicating which data-points he has not personally witnessed. Heck, those latter data-points might well cover 99.9% of the whoooooole #%$#*%*$$*#$ chronicle!!! Instead, he is indicating which ##$%*^*$%^#^* data-points are derived from source accounts that are themselves from a hearsay perspective in turn.
There are two different types of source accounts that Tacitus bends over backwards to specify as forming the basis for his own chronicle: source accounts from a first-hand perspective versus source accounts from a hearsay perspective. So in the bulk of his #&#^*#%$#%^# chronicle, whenever he is basing certain #^&#*^*%#$% data-points on source accounts that are themselves hearsay in turn, he invariably spells that out and warns the reader specifically. But when other data-points are based in turn on first-hand accounts, he will sometimes specify as much and sometimes not -- as duly spelled out in the %^$%^&%$%^#$ introductory material.
No such flag for hearsay is raised by Tacitus in the source account used for the data-points related to this particular execution of the instigator of Christianity under Tiberius. Consequently, since Tacitus raises such a flag a-plenty at other times, the only logical conclusion is that the individual data-points here, related to this particular execution, are sourced from a first-hand account.
One reason, among a number, why Tacitus is so important among his contemporaries is precisely his $^*$%^$%^$%^$% strictness in specifying hearsay. Few other chroniclers of his time are quite as strict in specifying the nature of any source accounts up front. Consequently, most modern professional historians view those data-points that are presented in Tacitus without comment as being effectively first-hand, and only those data-points that are specified by Tacitus as sourced from hearsay material in turn are viewed by modern professional historians as hearsay.
I think that I've made it all very $%^*$$^&$^$& clear here, and from now on, we can safely assume that anyone here who still continues to spout idiocies that flagrantly distort what I'm saying here anyway is only spouting those distortions in order to be $%^*$%^$$%$^*% cute, knowing *&$%^$%^$%^$ well just what I'm really saying here about the modern professional historian's approach to Tacitus, but choosing to ignore it all for purely dishonest rhetorical reasons -- to hell with the facts.
Stone
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So what was Origen talking about all those years before Christian Scribes had a chance to tamper with Josephus?
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen162.html
The Obscure Jewish HJ makes absolutely no sense historically or theologically.
It would appear that the assumption of an HJ was not well thought out before it was offered as a theory for the start of the Jesus cult of Christians.
Every single criteria or data to make HJ a viable theory is completely missing.
1. It cannot be shown that Jews worshiped men as Gods in the time of Pilate.
2. It cannot be shown that Jews worshiped SACRIFICIED victims as Gods.
3. It cannot be shown that Romans Worshiped Jews as Gods.
4. It cannot be shown that Romans worshiped Crucified Jews as Gods.
5. It cannot be shown what OBSCURE HJ preached.
7. The Pauline writers wrote about Hallucination Jesus.
8. The Pauline Hallucination Jesus was NOT Obscure HJ.
9. The Pauline Hallucination Jesus was the Son of God.
10. The Pauline Hallucination Jesus was RAISED from the dead.
Obscure HJ is NOT in or out the Bible.
Obscure HJ makes no sense whatsoever if Pauline writings are authentic and Gaius was GOD of the Roman Empire c 37-41 CE.
ONLY Hallucination Jesus makes sense if Pauline writings are authentic.
ONLY Hallucination Jesus can resurrect.
1 Corinthians 15:17 NAS
HALLUCINATION JESUS is the "founder" of the Christian Faith if Pauline writings are authentic.
It would appear that the assumption of an HJ was not well thought out before it was offered as a theory for the start of the Jesus cult of Christians.
Every single criteria or data to make HJ a viable theory is completely missing.
1. It cannot be shown that Jews worshiped men as Gods in the time of Pilate.
2. It cannot be shown that Jews worshiped SACRIFICIED victims as Gods.
3. It cannot be shown that Romans Worshiped Jews as Gods.
4. It cannot be shown that Romans worshiped Crucified Jews as Gods.
5. It cannot be shown what OBSCURE HJ preached.
7. The Pauline writers wrote about Hallucination Jesus.
8. The Pauline Hallucination Jesus was NOT Obscure HJ.
9. The Pauline Hallucination Jesus was the Son of God.
10. The Pauline Hallucination Jesus was RAISED from the dead.
Obscure HJ is NOT in or out the Bible.
Obscure HJ makes no sense whatsoever if Pauline writings are authentic and Gaius was GOD of the Roman Empire c 37-41 CE.
ONLY Hallucination Jesus makes sense if Pauline writings are authentic.
ONLY Hallucination Jesus can resurrect.
1 Corinthians 15:17 NAS
HALLUCINATION JESUS is the "founder" of the Christian Faith if Pauline writings are authentic.
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You appear to be arguing against a Historical CHRIST, not Jesus.
Do you not understand the difference?
Belz...
Fiend God
Wouldn't that involve distinguishing stuff ?
It is the myther's stock in trade to deliberately confound the human Jesus of history with the fanciful Christ of Christian faith. I have come to the conclusion that that stock in trade is not applied out of real confusion but from an intent to confuse others. Despicable, of course.
Stone
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