Jesus Christ?

[davefoc]

...
My brain hurts...

I can completely relate. The process of learning almost anything involves getting a few reliable data points into your mind to serve as a foundation for the rest of the new found information.

The process of learning about the possibility of an HJ rarely involves reliable data points. Mostly one learns about a particular theory, decorates it with a few new facts only to come to realize that the new theory was built on a foundation of mush and the potentially factual information that you've decorated the new theory with might be just more unjustified speculation by somebody with a particular point of view or not, because while almost nothing is provably correct with regard to this, almost nothing is provably false with regard to this as well.

I am afraid my views have come to line up with Hans Munsterman's about all this, even if they aren't as well informed as his. We know so little about the period of Christian history around the time of the hypothetical HJ, that we don't even know enough to make valid guesses about the probability of any particular theory being correct.

I'll hang my hat on the notion that I find Paul's writings to be plausible, even while admitting that the guy at Jesusneverexisted.com makes a pretty good case that they are improbable to the point of probably being just made up stuff.

And if I go with Paul's writings are plausible then the existence of a Jesus oriented Jewish Jerusalem sect that we know nothing about seems plausible and I can imagine that there might have been an HJ.

I can also imagine that some of the people participating in this thread that find something that rings true to them in the Gospels might be right. For me, there is too much chaff in them to try to figure out where the wheat is. They are the writings of a Greek speaking, probably gentile group that was just making stuff up and whether anything true happened to leak in is anybody's guess as far as I'm concerned.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

Thanks for that. Seems it isn't as straightforward as Eisenman presents it.

He seems to assume that it was removed from other versions of the Talmud, rather than added to the Babylonian version.

Catholic sensors did chop up many of the texts. But it seems the general trend of adding in "the Nazarene" to later texts would seem to imply later scribes/interpolaters reacting to Christian claims as opposed to being authentic junior references.
The older Yeshu references may be completely unrelated to the biblical jr (imo).

My brain hurts...

Well, your handle would seem appropriate then.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

Not wanting to derail the other HJ thread, I'll address the points here.

And yet the Alexander Jannaeus point is restated in scholarly works even to the present day.

"Perahia's pupil, relying on the support of Epiphanius, who sets the birth of Jesus in the reign of Alexander (Jannaeus) and Alexandra, that is, in the time of Ben Perahia or Ben Tabai." (Efrón, Joshua (1987) Studies on the Hasmonean Period - Brill Academic Pub Page 158)

The Historical Jesus: Five Views a 2009 Christian work edited by James K. Beilby, Paul R. Eddy and printed by InterVarsity Press also contains the birth of Jesus in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus thing. (Page 80)

And yes it is in Carrier's OHJ (2014)

We've addressed this ad nauseam. Mead and others of the 19th and early 20th century (a frenzied period of MJ "scholarship") are using Epi's poor, confused wording. The same Epi that stated juniors sur name was Panther.
He seems to be picking up on polemics that are floating around (and have been at least since Celsius).

Digging around I even found reference to this 'strange belief of the Jews' as far back in the 12th century CE...by a Christian! If Jews didn't believe this why did Christian believe they did and why does it keep pooping up as an actual Jewish belief in scholarly peer reviewed publications like the above Brill publication or Carrier's own OHJ.

The Wagenseil version of the Toldoth uses the BC date, yet the other (Strassburg) translation uses dates from 40 CE to 300 CE.
It's not that surprising that it would pop up in the 12th century CE as the Toldoth (at least some versions) use the Jannaeus dating. I could see a xian responding to such as a defense against a polemic versus an actual belief in that dating.
As for it pooping up (Freudian slip? ) in peer reviewed publications...you're citing fringe sources. IMO it's a misguided interpretation. Price, Carrier, et al are latching onto it and giving it more weight than it deserves.
Again Hans, Eight bits, and others have addressed this over and over again.

However, if you have a link or source to that, I'd like a peek at it.

Ask yourself this question: if this is such a well known alternate date in this field of study....why aren't mainstream scholars acknowledging this as a routine part of the conversation?"
Once you understand the answer to that question, everything else becomes clearer. I know, I know...the mainstream scholarship is wrong and the fringe scholarship is "right".

If the idea has no merit as you are claiming why does it keep presented by fringe scholars?

fi;fy

Q.E.D.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

However, if you have a link or source to that, I'd like a peek at it.

NM, I think I found the source. Would it be this?:
http://www.lost-history.com/list.php

"The Jewish history-writers say that Joshua ben Perachiah was the teacher of Yeshu ha-Notzri [the Nazarene], according to which the latter lived in the day of King Janni [Jannaeus]; the history-writers of the other nations, however, say that he was born in the days of Herod and was hanged in the days of his son Archelaus.

I had thought it might have been a promising lead, but I'm afraid it's another dead end. Once again we have a situation where the Babylonian Talumd is being mined for the ha-Notzri reference.

As stated before, only the Munich manuscript uses the ha-Notzri. So you may counter with...'yes, but xian censorship removed it from the others.'

That may be, but in any event the ha-Notzri is only appearing in the latest Talumd and not the older manuscripts. It simply looks like a scribe is adding it to the older texts as a way to smear the xian junior. The original Yeshus
(and Ben Stada's etc.) IMO have nothing to do with the xian junior.

Playing devil's advocate (pardon the pun), let's say Epiphanius's translation is correct and he's putting junior in the 100 bce time.

What is more probable....

That there is this well known "Jewish-Christian" tradition of jr living in 100 bce...

...or that Epiphanius is caught up in the polemics of the time that is using the Jewish "proto Toldoth" stories, including the Alexander J dating?
Before you answer, consider this is the same person who states that jr's family name is Panther/Panthera! Yes, the polemic about the Roman solider as the father of the bastard child.

Rather than a "Jewish-Christian tradition" what we have looks more like the
dodo Epiphanius being hammered with polemics, and he's hearing it so often that he's absorbing some of them (that's if the translation is correct, which most scholars don't accept).

I've seen people try to explain the problem away but no one denies that at one point Epiphanius does indeed put Jesus living during the time of Alexander.

The "problem" though seems to be a manufactured paper tiger that a few fringe scholars have erected and have proceeded to beat on. It's not a translation that is accepted by most scholars (AFAIK).

It's been explained many, many times but some have just dug them selves in and no amount of reasonable explanation will be satisfactory.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

It simply looks like a scribe is adding it to the older texts as a way to smear the xian junior. The original Yeshus

ETA: bold should read "later" in lieu of "older."

-thnx.

 

[Brainache]

Was Epiphanius maybe also influenced by this from the Clementine Recognitions?:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vi.iii.iii.xlviii.html

Chapter XLVIII.—The True Prophet, a Priest.
Then Peter answered, with an appearance of indignation: “What! do you suppose, Clement, that all of us can know all things before the time? But not to be drawn aside now from our proposed discourse, we shall at another time, when your progress is more manifest, explain these things more distinctly.
“Then, however, a priest or a prophet, being anointed with the compounded ointment, putting fire to the altar of God, was held illustrious in all the world. But after Aaron, who was a priest, another is taken out of the waters. I do not speak of Moses, but of Him who, in the waters of baptism, was called by God His Son.580 For it is Jesus who has put out, by the grace of baptism, that fire which the priest kindled for sins; for, from the time when He appeared, the chrism has ceased, by which the priesthood or the prophetic or the kingly office was conferred.”

That is Peter explaining to Clement why Jesus is called "Christ" and how since Jesus appeared the Jewish practice of anointing Kings and Priests has finished.

Maybe it's a stretch, I don't know.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

Fair enough. I could see 'em being influenced by that as well.