What counts as a historical Jesus?

[maximara]

There's a problem in there somewhere? I'm afraid I can't see it. Josephus, who was a contemporary of James and who was either in Jerusalem at the time of his execution or returned there from a mission to Rome very soon afterwards, says that the Sanhedrin "sentenced (James and some others) to be stoned" but gives no account or details of the execution beyond that.

No problems with the James in Josephus and the one of tradition separated by a period of some 7 to 8 years?! Our own President was ridiculed for getting September 7, 1941 mixed up with December 7, 1941 a period of months.

Yes. And? I'm assuming you're trying to imply that this means that "Jesus who was called Messiah" is the same person as "Jesus, the son of Damneus" because the latter was anointed as High Priest.

News flash for you here Messiah (as in savior king) is NOT the same as Christ.

"First, the word "Christ" (Greek christos) would have special meaning only for a Jewish audience. In Greek it means simply "wetted" or "anointed." Within the Jewish world, this was an extremely significant term because anointing was the means by which the kings and high priests of Israel had been installed. The pouring of oil over their heads represented their assumption of God-given authority (Exod 29:9; 1 Sam 10:1). The same Hebrew word for "anointed" was mashiach, which we know usually as the noun Messiah, "the anointed [one]." Although used in the OT of reigning kings and high priests, many Jews of Jesus' day looked forward to an end-time prophet, priest, king, or someone else who would be duly anointed.

But for someone who did not know the Jewish tradition, the adjective "wetted" would sound most peculiar. Why would Josephus say that this man Jesus was "the Wetted"? We can see the puzzlement of Greek-speaking readers over this term in their descriptions of Christianity: Jesus' name is sometimes altered to "Chrestus" (Suetonius, Claudius 25.4), a common slave name that would make better sense, and the Christians are sometimes called "Chrestians."

Since Josephus is usually sensitive to his audience and pauses to explain unfamiliar terms or aspects of Jewish life, it is very strange that he would make the bald assertion, without explanation, that Jesus was "Christ."

(Mason, Steve (2002) ''Josephus and the New Testament'' Baker Academic; 2 edition ISBN 978-0-8010-4700-8 pg 228)

It gets even worse when you realize that Josephus was writing for Romans to Romans In Roman society olive oil as used as much as a cleaning aid as a food. Also wrestlers in ancient Greece and Rome were anointed with oil to make it harder for them to get a good grip on each other.

So for the Roman audience Josephus was writing for the term "christos" would leave them scratching their heads in puzzle meant on the order of 'this Jesus guy was a wrestler or had just taken a both? What?'

It would be like if I talked to the average citizen of the US about the Roman Emperor being a numen or the Japanese believing in kami. If you know their proper meanings (and not the over simplified and wrong 'god' they usually are translated into) you have a way different understanding.

But Josephus was writing for and to people who had next to no clue as to what christos even meant.. This is a key point the apologist avoid--Josephus was using a term his target audience (Romans of c90 CE) wouldn't understand.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I think there is another problem with Josephus writing that "who was called the Christ" even if he had assumed Romans and Greeks would know what he was talking about.

The problem is that he'd use that exactly for the messiah pretender that he forgets to mention anywhere else.

Think about it. Josephus actually makes a point of describing every single failed messiah or wannabe minor prophet or forgettable rabble rouser he knows of. It's kind of his hobby. Not the least because he was trying to set up his patron, the emperor Vespasian as the Messiah. In fact, probably not many know, but that's how the captured rebel Josephus earned his freedom and even a Roman citizenship and a good life, instead of being crucified on the spot or sold into slavery: he told Vespasian point blank that he, Vespasian, was the messiah, and Josephus has the prophecy to prove it.

So, you know, Josephus then kinda makes a point of picking apart any lame messiah pretender, so Vespasian remains as the true messiah. Wouldn't want anyone to be in the dark as to which was the real messiah, and all that.

So here if "who was called Christ" actually means what Christians think it means, we have Josephus mentioning some Jesus who's not just another guy who tried to be the messiah, but apparently was actually called THE Messiah... yet Josephus somehow forgot to even mention him, much less pick him apart like he did with the others. In fact a messiah which exists only as a side-note for his brother.

Mind you, it's possible that Josephus not only forgot to mention Jesus in the first place, but even after writing that second paragraph, he still doesn't go "duh, I forgot that one, I'll have to add a paragraph about him somewhere." But as a weak indication, I'd say it's more plausible that Josephus just wasn't knowing of any such messiah in the first place.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, that leaves us with the fly in the ointment that can be summarized as 'what if the Testimonium Flavianum isn't a complete interpolation?' Although at this point no serious scholar actually says that, but at least our TimONeil2 seems to think there's something to it at the end of message #362.

Well, then Josephus WOULD have a messiah he already mentioned, but let's look at that paragraph:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.​

There are serious problems even in that it is in the wrong place, and the next paragraph comes out wrong after this, but flows more naturally after the previous one. But let's take out the things that Josephus wouldn't have said:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man;(1) for he was a doer of wonderful works(2), a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. (3) He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.(4) He was Christ.(5) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us (6), had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (7) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. (8) And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (9)​

1) A Jew would not gush over Jesus like a lame fanboy and wonder if it's even lawful to call him a man. Even most Christians wouldn't make Jesus fully divine, so, yes, he was a man even for most early Christians. For a Jew he couldn't be anything else than just a man like any other.

2) Josephus generally isn't into miracles, and again, if he thought that a messiah was actually doing miracles, he'd be following that messiah.

3) Nor would someone who didn't follow Jesus gush over how great are those who did.

4) It's both wrong -- as basically even the Church doesn't say that Jesus drew over any Gentiles himself: that was Paul -- and uses the wrong word Gentiles, which Josephus doesn't use anywhere else. It wouldn't even make sense to use it when writing for a Roman audience, so he uses Greeks or Syrians or such instead when he means other people than Jews.

5) Josephus wouldn't just say he was the messiah and still not convert.

6) Josephus never does this kind of "we Jews are to blame." If someone had someone else executed, he just says who and whom.

7) Again, if Josephus thought someone could just rise from the dead, he'd think that guy IS the messiah and the messianic age had begun. The whole point is that the Jews never thought that the resurrection actually happened.

8) The only prophecies of this kind Jews were interested in were of the messiah, especially if he'd think there were tens of thousands of such references to Jesus. But, again, not only Josephus didn't convert, but he was trying to set someone else up as the messiah, and thought that the valid prophecies applied to that one.

9) Calling it a tribe is the wrong word altogether for a Jew, not to mention that Christianity wouldn't be anywhere near tribe sized at that point.

Now even trying to cherrypick something still true in a paragraph THAT clearly full of bogus stuff the author wouldn't have written, would be daft in its own right, but let's look at what's actually left afterwards:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a teacher. And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him.​

That's it. For a guy who supposedly was called "THE Messiah", Josephus fails to mention what he taught, why was he crucified, what he did, or anything. In fact, Josephus wouldn't even have any reason to write that.

And it still doesn't read like Josephus. Everywhere else Josephus does say what a guy did or said, and how it played in the historical narrative he's building, while here we'd have a vague glossing over some guy without actually saying anything about him, nor having any obvious reason to mention him, because it has no importance and ties into nothing else.

I mean, look at the paragraph on John The Baptist for example, for how an actual paragraph by Josephus reads. It tells you who that guy was, what the king feared, and why he was killed. Furthermore it ties in with the narrative at that point, and there is a reason for Josephus to mention that. Some people were blaming a failure of the king on his earlier execution of JTB.

It's completely different from the useless and pointless crap that remains when you 'un-interpolate' the Testimonium Flavianum.

So probably Josephus didn't write even that.

Which gets us back that then we're asked to believe that when talking about James he would qualify someone as "who was called the Messiah" and yet somehow he mentioned that messiah nowhere, and feels no need to elaborate on that.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But it gets worse. Not only does this odd reading of XX.9.1 go against everything we know about how Josephus delineated the figures he mentioned, it also makes no sense in the context of his narrative. If, as this reading requires, "Jesus who was called Messiah" is also "Jesus, son of Damneus" then Ananias is deposed and replaced with the brother of the man he had unlawfully executed. That there would be this kind of internecine feud within the priestly families and Josephus only mentions it, in passing and highly obliquely, in these few sentences is remarkable. He usually devotes whole chapters to this kind of thing and here, we're supposed to believe, he's lightly referring in passing to such a major clash just three years before the outbreak of the Jewish War and he barely mentions it?

But this stretches credulity even further if we do what many Mythicists don't bother to do and read the rest of the chapter rather than this quarrelled-over snippet at the beginning of it. Josephus tells us that, despite being deposed, Ananias doesn't fade from the scene and contiues to weild great influence. This is because he is rich ("a great hoarder up of money") and so he uses his rich gifts so he "cultivated the friendship of Albinus, and of the high priest". But hang on - "the high priest" at this point is "Jesus, son of Damneus". If the High Priest is simply another Saduccee aristocrat like Ananias, this cosy-if-corrupt behaviour makes sense. But according to your odd reading, the High Priest is the brother of the guy Ananias had unlawfully executed. And now he's taking bribes and doing his brother's killer favours? That makes no sense.

However you cut it, you reading doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It doesn't fit how we know Josephus handled people with the same name in the same chapter, it doesn't fit his care in differentiating people if there is any scope for confusion and it doesn't make sense as a political scenario.

This is why no-one reads this passage this way. No-one except Jesus Mythers because ... well, we can all see why they have to find a way to spin it. Unless they do, their whole thesis collapses in a heap.

It helps to actually know the material.

I'm not sure how it follows. History is full of people who didn't care much about a family member's well being, and even killed a family member or manipulated to have him/her killed if they could get some advantages in the process. Especially when that brother is prominent in a competing sect, and thus basically an opponent or at least a problem. History is full of people who even had such brothers killed themselves, not just didn't try to protect and avenge such brothers.

Political alliances and power games were routinely more complex than some blind rage to get vengeance. Especially someone as rich and influential with other people as Josephus tells us Ananus was, would not be easy to dispose of and would give a lot of people good reason to rather have as an ally than an enemy.

And if there's something that history shows is that the kind of sociopaths who made it to the top in such power games, were actually exactly the kind who'd make a deal even with the devil himself. If an alliance with Ananus could help strengthen one's power AND get a lot of money in the process, AND it's not particularly easy or as advantageous to get rid of him instead, then just about half the political figures in history would go for the alliance.

I.e., not only it's nothing more than an argument from personal incredulity that a political figure at the time wouldn't do that, but it's special pleading too.

 

[pakeha]

...
Think about it. Josephus actually makes a point of describing every single failed messiah or wannabe minor prophet or forgettable rabble rouser he knows of. It's kind of his hobby. Not the least because he was trying to set up his patron, the emperor Vespasian as the Messiah. In fact, probably not many know, but that's how the captured rebel Josephus earned his freedom and even a Roman citizenship and a good life, instead of being crucified on the spot or sold into slavery: he told Vespasian point blank that he, Vespasian, was the messiah, and Josephus has the prophecy to prove it. ..

Josephus' relation to the Imperial family was a fascinating one and I was glad to have an excuse to re-read the online sources for what we know about it.
As a small thank you gift:

 

[TimONeill2]

No problems with the James in Josephus and the one of tradition separated by a period of some 7 to 8 years?!

Okay, I genuinely have absolutely no idea what the hell you're on about here. Say what?

News flash for you here Messiah (as in savior king) is NOT the same as Christ.

"First, the word "Christ" (Greek christos) would have special meaning only for a Jewish audience. In Greek it means simply "wetted" or "anointed."

Okay.

But for someone who did not know the Jewish tradition, the adjective "wetted" would sound most peculiar. Why would Josephus say that this man Jesus was "the Wetted"?

Why would Josephus use an almost identical phrase to say Agrippa gave the high priesthood to "Joseph, who was called Cabi". Why was this Joseph called "Cabi"? What does "Cabi" mean here? Josephus never explains, he just uses this cognomen to differentiate this particular Joseph from the many others he refers to, including two others in the same book ("Joseph, the son of Cantos" in XX.1 and " Joseph, the son of Camydus" in XX.5) So he uses a cognomen of Jesus in the same way, using a similar phrase for the same reason, with a similar lack of explanation? Yes, he does. Big deal.

We can see the puzzlement of Greek-speaking readers over this term in their descriptions of Christianity: Jesus' name is sometimes altered to "Chrestus" (Suetonius, Claudius 25.4), a common slave name that would make better sense, and the Christians are sometimes called "Chrestians."

Yes, we do. To his audience the significance of Jesus' unexplained cognomen would be about as significant as "who was called Cabi" or any number of dozens of other such odd words he introduces without explanation using the word 'λεγόμενος ("called"/"named"/"so-called"). I can give you a whole list of them if you like. You'd know this if you actually had a detailed grasp of the source material which, as I demonstrated in detail in my last post, you clearly don't.

Since Josephus is usually sensitive to his audience and pauses to explain unfamiliar terms or aspects of Jewish life, it is very strange that he would make the bald assertion, without explanation, that Jesus was "Christ."

This is simply wrong. As I've been here before, I have at my fingertips a 30 page word document listing every single use of this 'λεγόμενος ("called"/"named"/"so-called") phrase in the whole of Josephus' corpus where he refers to all kinds of people, places and things which are called various names, many of them unfamiliar, odd or even incomprehensible to his non-Jewish audience and he does not explain them in any way. You would know this if you actually had a real grasp of the source material instead of making bold assertions and then crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

It gets even worse when you realize that Josephus was writing for Romans to Romans In Roman society olive oil as used as much as a cleaning aid as a food. Also wrestlers in ancient Greece and Rome were anointed with oil to make it harder for them to get a good grip on each other.

So for the Roman audience Josephus was writing forthe term "christos" would leave them scratching their heads in puzzle meant on the order of 'this Jesus guy was a wrestler or had just taken a both? What?'

See above. Lots of Josephus' many unexplained references and names would have been odd to his audience. This one less than an untranslated Hebrew name like "Cabi", since the fact it meant "anointed (one)" was clear to any Greek speaker even if the reason for this nickname was not.

But Josephus was writing for and to people who had next to no clue as to what christos even meant.

Wrong. They would understand it meant "anointed (one)", they just probably wouldn't grasp the significance of that term.

This is a key point the apologist avoid--Josephus was using a term his target audience (Romans of c90 CE) wouldn't understand.

Wrong - see above. But your argument seems to have drifted. A few posts ago you were trying to argue that the "Jesus who was called the Anointed one" referred to "Jesus, the son of Damneus", who was anointed as High Priest. But I ripped that to shreds in my last post, in a detailed textual analysis that you have quietly snipped and ignored in the hope that everyone wouldn't notice (not so fast!) So now you seem to be falling back on Plan B and hoping to argue that "who was called the Anointed one" isn't original to Josephus (Myther Rule One: When backed into a corner, pull a fire alarm and shout "INTERPOLATION!!")

Perhaps you need to make up your mind exactly what you're trying to argue, because you're currently all over the shop and it isn't a good look.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

You know, one thing I find amazing is that there seems to be an inverse correlation between how well someone supported anything and how eager they are to claim that they won the thread or 'ripped the opposing argument to shreds', and verily everyone who didn't address some nonsense was just fleeing before their mighty intellect

IOW, let's stick more to what the evidence is, and less to polishing one's own statue

So let me do just that: while Josephus does mention nicknames, the fact is that nowhere else does he use a meaningless translation like that. There is a difference between just occasionally mentioning nicknames, and... taking the effort to actually translate one to something meaningless in Greek. I mean, if he said "Jesus who was called Mashiach", ok, I'd see your point. But actually going through the extra step of translating it as the meaningless "the wetted" term is what raises eyebrows.

And especially since he avoids calling someone "the messiah" or "the Christos" anywhere else than that and the Testimonium Flavianum forgery, even when he is clearly talking about the messiah.

E.g., in The Wars Of The Jews, book 6, chapter 5, paragraph 4, he is clearly arguing about Vespasian being the prophecised messiah, yet strangely enough he doesn't actually use the word "Christos". He just explains what the prophecy means, in terms that his audience would understand. Especially, he talks about it as an emperor, rather than a Messiah. So we can have a decent idea what words he used elsewhere for Messiah, and it's not the same as in that paragraph or the Testimonium Flavianum.

 

[TimONeill2]

You know, one thing I find amazing is that there seems to be an inverse correlation between how well someone supported anything and how eager they are to claim that they won the thread or 'ripped the opposing argument to shreds', and verily everyone who didn't address some nonsense was just fleeing before their mighty intellect

Yes, I'm sure Maximara just accidently snipped away all the detailed argument I made that showed Josephus never calls one person by different referents in the same passage and that this is actually the precise opposite of how he ensures he avoids confusion in a text where a lot of people he discusses have the same names. And I'm sure, having snipped this out and ignored it in his reply, he then changed tack for no reason at all.

IOW, let's stick more to what the evidence is, ...

Yes, let's. I'm more than comfortable drawing on a careful and detailed knowledge of the source material. But, as we're seeing, the kind of bold assertion that has been your cocky stock in trade doesn't cut it in the face of thorough knowledge of the evidence. You've been able to get away with pretending you know the material before - those days have ended.

So let me do just that: while Josephus does mention nicknames, the fact is that nowhere else does he use a meaningless translation like that.

It isn't "meaningless". The translators of the Septuagint used Χριστός to translate "the anointed one" throughout the OT because they knew it would be understood. As I said, Josephus' audience would probably not understand why Jesus was called this, but they would understand "Jesus, who was called 'the anointed one'". Josephus simply refers to him by his cognomen to differentiate him from the three other guys called Jesus mentioned in the same book, two of whom are mentioned in the same chapter - Jesus, the son of Damneus (XX.9.1, XX.9.4), Jesus, the son of Gamaliel (XX.9.4, XX.9.7) and Jesus, the son of Josadek (XX.10.1). As I've clearly shown, this is the way he uses cognomens, patronymics and gentilics.

And, as usual, your claim above is flatly wrong, as you would know if you had a real grasp of the material. Josephus is quite happy to translate a foreign name into Greek with no explanation as to why something or someone was "called" this. And he uses the same phrase we see here ("Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ"). For example:

" ... he should find them between Jerusalem and the ascent of Engedi, at a place called 'the Eminence', and that he should not fight against them."
(λεγομένης δ᾽ Ἐξοχῆς)
(Antiquities IX.1.2)​

" ... Pacorus left with Herod two hundred horsemen, and ten men, who were called 'the Freemen' ..."
(δέκα τῶν λεγομένων ἐλευθέρων)
(Antiquities XIV.13.5)​

"Jonathan and his colleagues .... raised a report of their own contrivance, that Roman horsemen were seen at a place called 'Union', in the borders of Galilee ... "
(κατὰ τόπον λεγόμενον Ὁμόνοιαν)
(Life 54)​

His readers may, of course, know, guess or work out why the place was called "the Eminence" or why the Parthian unit was called "the Freemen" or why the place in Galilee was called "Union", but in each case Josephus translates a foreign word (Hebrew/Aramaic and Persian) into Greek and gives no explanation as to why they are called these things. Ditto for "Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ".

So much for your "never".

There is a difference between just occasionally mentioning nicknames, and... taking the effort to actually translate one to something meaningless in Greek. I mean, if he said "Jesus who was called Mashiach", ok, I'd see your point. But actually going through the extra step of translating it as the meaningless "the wetted" term is what raises eyebrows.

It isn't "meaningless". Its meaning - "the anointed (one)" - was perfectly explicable just as "the Eminence" or "the Freemen" or "Union" were. And, as in all of those examples the reason these people and places are called these things is unexplained. Josephus just says they were called these things because that's what they were called.

And especially since he avoids calling someone "the messiah" or "the Christos" anywhere else than that and the Testimonium Flavianum forgery, even when he is clearly talking about the messiah.

Can you find me where he is talking about someone we know from other sources was called the Messiah? Good luck with that.

As with your friend Maximara, readers of this thread will be able to see a pattern developing here. You guys make arguments based on reading a few fragments of Josephus, largely parroting the usual Myther suspects. You then make bold statements about what you've decided Josephus might be doing and even more bold declarations about what Josephus does and doesn't do in his works. Then I come along and ... how can I put this politely? ... show you that you are both completely and utterly wrong by careful reference to the source material that you simply know nothing about.

And then we get the kind of desperate wibbling we see in your first paragraph above. Comical.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

The translators of the Septuagint were working for people who were, you know, into Judaism. Same as the translations of the Bible are for Christians and don't elaborate on terms which would be peculiar for anyone else.

At any rate, I'm still not sure why you still think Josephus's using OTHER words, which actually would be pretty clear to a Greek audience, is the same thing as his translating a very specific religious term which wouldn't and which he uses nowhere else even when talking about the messiah. It's like saying that we know Jack had a dog, therefore it stands to reason he has a cat too. No it doesn't.

In fact, not just for Greeks, but even for Septuagint readers, it wouldn't be immediately clear at all that the term Christos actually means the messiah, unless they were also initiated in the whole theology that was forming at the time around that messiah. The term was used for high priests and the like, and it wouldn't be clear at all that this time it's about the messiah for a change, unless you knew the elaborate reading-between-the-lines they were doing about that messiah.

The requirement that basically it doesn't count unless it's explicitly about someone else who was called a messiah, is a silly restriction, and ultimately an argument from ignorance. Not knowing which of those messianic pretenders was actually called a messiah by anyone, isn't really saying anything.

At the end of the day what remains is that Josephus talks about one person who HE considers the messiah, and tries to set up as the messiah, yet he never uses the word Christos for that one. He talks about a false oracle incensing the Jews in the same paragraph, and he still doesn't say Christos. He also talks about people who were obviously trying to set themselves up as messiahs and trying to enact messianic stuff, and he still doesn't use the word Christos, although obviously that's what was happening there.

It is weird then to see him actually mentioning someone's Christos epithet although he has no mention of such a person, nor feels a need to mention exactly what did that person do to merit such a title. Although, again, elsewhere we see him very interested in even the lamest pretenders.

Putting weird "but it must also fit condition X or it doesn't count" restrictions, strikes me more as a silly trick then anything legitimate.

And finally, again, I'm not impressed by your polishing your own statue and singing your own victory. Postulating who's read what, unless you've actually won Randi's money for reading minds at a distance, is nothing more than ego-wanking. Might make you feel better, but ultimately it's irrelevant to the truth of a proposition or how well it's supported. And especially since really you didn't demolish anything and all you did in the message we were talking about was a complete nonsense argument that boiled down to not believing that a completely corrupt kleptocrat of the worst sort would not be nice and caring about his relatives. Trust me, one doesn't need to feel any defeat to ignore such personal confabulations.

 

[TimONeill2]

The translators of the Septuagint were working for people who were, you know, into Judaism. Same as the translations of the Bible are for Christians and don't elaborate on terms which would be peculiar for anyone else.

Whether they were "into Judaism" or not, the translators would not use Χριστός unless the Greek speakers in their audiences would hear Χριστός and think "anointed one". So the claim that the word would be "meaningless" to Greek speakers/readers is garbage.

At any rate, I'm still not sure why you still think Josephus's using OTHER words, which actually would be pretty clear to a Greek audience, is the same thing as his translating a very specific religious term which wouldn't and which he uses nowhere else even when talking about the messiah. It's like saying that we know Jack had a dog, therefore it stands to reason he has a cat too. No it doesn't.

Nonsense. Χριστός was as meaningful as Ἐξοχῆς or ἐλευθέρων or Ὁμόνοιαν. They were understood to mean "anointed (one)", "eminent", "freemen" and "union" respectively. WHY these people and places were called these things is not relevant. Josephus just tells his readers that this is what they were called, translating a foreign word into Greek when he does so (you know, the way you claimed, wrongly, he "never" does).

In fact, not just for Greeks, but even for Septuagint readers, it wouldn't be immediately clear at all that the term Christos actually means the messiah,

It doesn't matter if Josephus' non-Jewish readers didn't understand that it means "the Messiah". He's just telling them what this Jesus was called. They would probably have no more idea why he was called "the anointed one" than they would understand why a place in Galilee is called "the union". It doesn't matter - he's just identifying someone or someplace by what it was referred to.

The requirement that basically it doesn't count unless it's explicitly about someone else who was called a messiah, is a silly restriction, and ultimately an argument from ignorance. Not knowing which of those messianic pretenders was actually called a messiah by anyone, isn't really saying anything.

Way to completely miss the point. You said Josephus doesn't refer to anyone else using this word. That's because he doesn't refer to anyone else who was called "Messiah". Unless you've now found an example where he does refer to someone who was called "Messiah" but doesn't use Χριστός about them. Have you? No, didn't think so. You don't seem to grasp the key word here is λεγομένου .

It is weird then to see him actually mentioning someone's Christos epithet although he has no mention of such a person, nor feels a need to mention exactly what did that person do to merit such a title. Although, again, elsewhere we see him very interested in even the lamest pretenders.

Unless, of course, the mention of Jesus at XVIII.3.4 isn't a wholesale interpolation, as the scholarly consensus agrees. But "even the lamest pretenders"? Every single one of those pretenders he mentions elsewhere had followers in the thousands, requiring the mobilisation of troops to disperse. It's Jesus who is "lame" compared to Theudas or the Sarmaritan Prophet - you've got things backwards.

And finally, again, I'm not impressed by your polishing your own statue and singing your own victory. Postulating who's read what, unless you've actually won Randi's money for reading minds at a distance, is nothing more than ego-wanking.

I'll let others read my posts and then yours and your friend's and decide who has a detailed grasp of the material and who is just faking it and then bumbling around making excuses for their patent errors.

Might make you feel better, but ultimately it's irrelevant to the truth of a proposition or how well it's supported. And especially since really you didn't demolish anything and all you did in the message we were talking about was a complete nonsense argument that boiled down to not believing that a completely corrupt kleptocrat of the worst sort would not be nice and caring about his relatives. Trust me, one doesn't need to feel any defeat to ignore such personal confabulations.

"All I did"? Read that post again. That was one point among many and not the most important. Misdirection like this won't help you. Nor will your normal bluster. You are now well and truly out of your depth and it's only going to get much, much worse.

Speaking of which: what exactly is the point you're trying to make with all this crap about the word being "meaningless"? Your friend was trying to argue that it wasn't "meaningless" and that it referred to "Jesus, son of Damneus", which I've shown doesn't fit with how Josephus uses identifying referents. He now seems to be changing tack. But what point are you trying to make by saying it's meaningless? Are you trying to argue it's a later interpolation?

Think very carefully before answering - the ice under your skates is starting to crack and creak dangerously.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

It seems that responding to all the claims being made in this thread at such a remarkable rate would be a full time job, and I already have one of those, but I'll try to get back to as many of at least the more substantiated ones I haven't responded to already. Of course, that tends to generate more replies with even more such claims, making these kinds of threads an almost endless labour.

It took more time to write that than answering the question would have, if you actually had evidence.

It was something you promised to do, and used that empty promise in support of an argument, so you can't blame someone who calls your bluff.

It's pretty clear you don't have evidence for first century authorship of any gospel, otherwise you would have provided it instead of making a phony promise followed by excuses.

 

[TimONeill2]

It took more time to write that than answering the question would have, if you actually had evidence.

It was something you promised to do, and used that empty promise in support of an argument, so you can't blame someone who calls your bluff.

It's pretty clear you don't have evidence for first century authorship of any gospel, otherwise you would have provided it instead of making a phony promise followed by excuses.

Patience. One thing at a time. And laying out the reasons all scholars accept a First Century date of composition for gMark will take rather more time than it took to write the two sentences you quite above, so please don't say such silly things.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Nonsense. Χριστός was as meaningful as Ἐξοχῆς or ἐλευθέρων or Ὁμόνοιαν. They were understood to mean "anointed (one)", "eminent", "freemen" and "union" respectively. WHY these people and places were called these things is not relevant. Josephus just tells his readers that this is what they were called, translating a foreign word into Greek when he does so (you know, the way you claimed, wrongly, he "never" does).

The claim was that he didn't use meaningless ones, not that he doesn't use any. Skipping the place names as irrelevant, as it's not like he had any other names for those to give, you're left with stuff like "the free men" which actually he even tells you what those are. Only here is a "Jesus called blah-blah" where there is no obvious reason to use the term, nor does he hint anywhere else at what it means, or what did a Jesus do to earn it.

It doesn't matter if Josephus' non-Jewish readers didn't understand that it means "the Messiah". He's just telling them what this Jesus was called. They would probably have no more idea why he was called "the anointed one" than they would understand why a place in Galilee is called "the union". It doesn't matter - he's just identifying someone or someplace by what it was referred to.

Yet even when he tries to actually say what messianic pretense things someone did, or set someone up as the messiah, he never uses that word.

Way to completely miss the point. You said Josephus doesn't refer to anyone else using this word. That's because he doesn't refer to anyone else who was called "Messiah". Unless you've now found an example where he does refer to someone who was called "Messiah" but doesn't use Χριστός about them. Have you? No, didn't think so. You don't seem to grasp the key word here is λεγομένου .

There is nothing in the term that says it can only come in a "who was called X" construct, so it still seems to me like special pleading.

Unless, of course, the mention of Jesus at XVIII.3.4 isn't a wholesale interpolation, as the scholarly consensus agrees.

Other than the religious historicity apologists, almost nobody uses the Testimonium Flavianum as anything but an interpolation. And I just discussed above what the problems with that are.

But "even the lamest pretenders"? Every single one of those pretenders he mentions elsewhere had followers in the thousands, requiring the mobilisation of troops to disperse. It's Jesus who is "lame" compared to Theudas or the Sarmaritan Prophet - you've got things backwards.

All the more reason to think that at least some of their followers even by chance alone would think they're the messiah, yet Josephus never uses that word for them.

I'll let others read my posts and then yours and your friend's and decide who has a detailed grasp of the material and who is just faking it and then bumbling around making excuses for their patent errors.

Well, that's what I was asking you to in the first place. Cut it out with the whole mud-slinging contest, because it's getting tiresome.

"All I did"? Read that post again. That was one point among many and not the most important. Misdirection like this won't help you. Nor will your normal bluster. You are now well and truly out of your depth and it's only going to get much, much worse.

Again, I asked for logic, not for more just postulating who's out of their depth. If you actually have an argument, just slinging mud won't make it any more true. But I do notice that that's a favourite tactic of people who DON'T actually have much more going than such sophistry attempts.

That said, yes, you also claimed that Josephus wouldn't do what was common practice in Greek, and... what he does right in the same and next paragraph anyway. You know, since you accused US of not reading that.

E.g., he doesn't repeat "Ananus son of Ananus", but in the same paragraph he says just "when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity" or, "Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done", or in the next paragraph, "as for the high priest, Ananias (25) he increased in glory every day". The idea that Josephus would only identify a person in the same construct every single time, e.g., that "Jesus son of Damneus" would ONLY be talked about as "Jesus son of Damneus" to avoid confusion, even when there's no other Jesus until 3 paragraphs later, is patently false. Josephus, or any other author, never had that kind of consistence.

So again, that nobody answered, isn't a reason to just unilaterally proclaim that everyone was in awe of your claim. I have a finite time, and can't possibly address every single piece of falsehood or unsupported personal conjecture. Sometimes I have to leave some for later, or just ignore it, for sheer lack of time. Jumping to unilaterally proclaiming victory and singing your own praises as soon as anyone missed anything, is just getting silly.

Speaking of which: what exactly is the point you're trying to make with all this crap about the word being "meaningless"? Your friend was trying to argue that it wasn't "meaningless" and that it referred to "Jesus, son of Damneus", which I've shown doesn't fit with how Josephus uses identifying referents. He now seems to be changing tack. But what point are you trying to make by saying it's meaningless? Are you trying to argue it's a later interpolation?

Think very carefully before answering - the ice under your skates is starting to crack and creak dangerously.

Ho-hum. And more BS attempts at verbal intimidation. Trust me, I'm still not impressed.

That said, actually the problem is that there is no One Truth that MJ is about. It's not about claiming to prove that B happened instead of A. The whole point is that there are possibilities A, B, C, D, E and so on, and not much more than weak personal plausibility considerations behind the one pushed as what everyone should take as the historical version.

Even when occasionally someone actually admits that they don't and can't have more than such personal guesses and confabulations, it's nevertheless built up as something you nevertheless somehow can't doubt, or not without going through some arbitrary loops and accepting a reversal of the burden of proof. And it just doesn't logically work that way.

But to return to the point of this exercise, the point is exactly that you don't really know with any degree of accuracy WHAT Josephus would mean with that word, nor IF he'd use it at all, given that he doesn't anywhere else.

It's not our duty to agree on one, it's your burden of proof to support your claim to the point where it reasonably excludes all those other possibilities. Yes, some of those can't all be true at the same time, but that's not a problem of those objections. It just means the argument has more serious holes and doesn't really exclude a broader range of other possibilities.

The existence of more than one possibility that your argument didn't cover, isn't meaning you somehow win, it just means it's that much weaker supported. An argument isn't swiss cheese, so having more holes doesn't mean it's better. YOU have to cover all the holes to support the positive claim, not us to decide which is the one true hole.

That is, if you still want to say that there's no objective reason to doubt all that weak handwaving done for a HJ. If you want to take it as just what is plausible to you, and everyone else is free to think anything else, then, sure, you have no real claim and no real burden of proof.

 

[maximara]

Patience. One thing at a time. And laying out the reasons all scholars accept a First Century date of composition for gMark will take rather more time than it took to write the two sentences you quite above, so please don't say such silly things.

The reality is by the standards of Provenance there is no rational reason for gMark as we know it to be dated any earlier then c180 CE and there are enough temporal snafus in Irenaeus' claims (a 50+ old Jesus, Him being crucified no earlier then c42 CE) that one wonders if he is quoting from the versions we know.

 

[grahbudd]

The reality is by the standards of Provenance there is no rational reason for gMark as we know it to be dated any earlier then c180 CE and there are enough temporal snafus in Irenaeus' claims (a 50+ old Jesus, Him being crucified no earlier then c42 CE) that one wonders if he is quoting from the versions we know.

I am sorry that I've been away for a few weeks, and a thousand posts have appeared, many of which would be good or entertaining to respond to.

I wrote a posting on the dating of the gospels a few weeks ago that could be easily dug up. Suffice it to say that if Mark was employed, as most people think, by Luke and Matthew independently, and Irenaeus in around 180 knows all three, then of course Mark must predate this. And, as I wrote before, it is clear that Justin Martyr knew these works and a harmonized version as well. So all three predate JM as well. Etc

More important still is the style of thinking about these problems - and I would of course encourage critical thinking. Critical thinking does not, however, mean automatically plumping for the most super-skeptical position imaginable. But what it does imply is digging hard and thoughtfully into the information we have.

The point here is that whenever people talk about these dating issues, and indeed the reliability, sources, provenance etc of the gospels, they inevitably must take in hand some view of the synoptic problem - the relationship between Matthew, Mark and Luke, and indeed, between these three and John.

If one is interested in slanging matches on the internet, and being able to crush your opponents, than it can sometimes be useful to take rigid or simplistic views on these matters. But anyone who has really looked into these issues - thoughtfully, reflectively and at length, realizes that none of them are that straightforward, and that - perhaps surprisingly, this lack of certainty can in fact undermine the super-skeptical position as much as a faith position.

For example, as I tried to hint at before, to say something like "Mark wrote a gospel, and then Matthew and Luke copied it. anything in Mark could therefore have been made up by him, and anything in Matthew and Luke not in Mark could have been made up by them" - which although a parody is close to what some here seem to be implying - is actually untenable. There are several very good reasons why this is the case - for example, there are the matters of the "Mark-Q overlaps", the questions of the relation of the ordering between the synoptics (and indeed John); the question of the tradition held in Paul (e.g. his account of the Lord's supper), the interesting question of the doublets (sayings that are in both the double and triple traditions - i.e. a saying that Matthew and Luke both got out of Mark, and another version of the same saying in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark), and so on.

We also know of countless errors of date, place, number etc in ancient historians, even in "good" ones. So pointing to particular places of Irenaeus that we can *interpret* as a flat out error (recalling once again that the textual tradition of Irenaeus is pretty appalling and in translation), tells us very little.

that's the thing, surely, that critical thinking involves more than building a superficial case against a supposed "majority view", based on a certain rather tendentious view of the material at hand. Rather, it involves stepping back from the material and trying to look at it in the round, not cherry picking one bit out of the rest and leaning on it, so that the rest of the evidence becomes contorted around it, but actually trying to take all that is known and not known into account.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Hmm? Did Justin Martyr actually quote from any of our four gospels? Can you elaborate on that a bit please?

 

[tsig]

Whether they were "into Judaism" or not, the translators would not use Χριστός unless the Greek speakers in their audiences would hear Χριστός and think "anointed one". So the claim that the word would be "meaningless" to Greek speakers/readers is garbage.



Nonsense. Χριστός was as meaningful as Ἐξοχῆς or ἐλευθέρων or Ὁμόνοιαν. They were understood to mean "anointed (one)", "eminent", "freemen" and "union" respectively. WHY these people and places were called these things is not relevant. Josephus just tells his readers that this is what they were called, translating a foreign word into Greek when he does so (you know, the way you claimed, wrongly, he "never" does).



It doesn't matter if Josephus' non-Jewish readers didn't understand that it means "the Messiah". He's just telling them what this Jesus was called. They would probably have no more idea why he was called "the anointed one" than they would understand why a place in Galilee is called "the union". It doesn't matter - he's just identifying someone or someplace by what it was referred to.



Way to completely miss the point. You said Josephus doesn't refer to anyone else using this word. That's because he doesn't refer to anyone else who was called "Messiah". Unless you've now found an example where he does refer to someone who was called "Messiah" but doesn't use Χριστός about them. Have you? No, didn't think so. You don't seem to grasp the key word here is λεγομένου .



Unless, of course, the mention of Jesus at XVIII.3.4 isn't a wholesale interpolation, as the scholarly consensus agrees. But "even the lamest pretenders"? Every single one of those pretenders he mentions elsewhere had followers in the thousands, requiring the mobilisation of troops to disperse. It's Jesus who is "lame" compared to Theudas or the Sarmaritan Prophet - you've got things backwards.



I'll let others read my posts and then yours and your friend's and decide who has a detailed grasp of the material and who is just faking it and then bumbling around making excuses for their patent errors.



"All I did"? Read that post again. That was one point among many and not the most important. Misdirection like this won't help you. Nor will your normal bluster. You are now well and truly out of your depth and it's only going to get much, much worse.

Speaking of which: what exactly is the point you're trying to make with all this crap about the word being "meaningless"? Your friend was trying to argue that it wasn't "meaningless" and that it referred to "Jesus, son of Damneus", which I've shown doesn't fit with how Josephus uses identifying referents. He now seems to be changing tack. But what point are you trying to make by saying it's meaningless? Are you trying to argue it's a later interpolation?

Think very carefully before answering - the ice under your skates is starting to crack and creak dangerously.

Patience. One thing at a time. And laying out the reasons all scholars accept a First Century date of composition for gMark will take rather more time than it took to write the two sentences you quite above, so please don't say such silly things.

The ice under your skates is starting to crack and creak dangerously.

 

[IanS]

I am sorry that I've been away for a few weeks, and a thousand posts have appeared, many of which would be good or entertaining to respond to.

I wrote a posting on the dating of the gospels a few weeks ago that could be easily dug up. Suffice it to say that if Mark was employed, as most people think, by Luke and Matthew independently, and Irenaeus in around 180 knows all three, then of course Mark must predate this. And, as I wrote before, it is clear that Justin Martyr knew these works and a harmonized version as well. So all three predate JM as well. Etc

More important still is the style of thinking about these problems - and I would of course encourage critical thinking. Critical thinking does not, however, mean automatically plumping for the most super-skeptical position imaginable. But what it does imply is digging hard and thoughtfully into the information we have.

The point here is that whenever people talk about these dating issues, and indeed the reliability, sources, provenance etc of the gospels, they inevitably must take in hand some view of the synoptic problem - the relationship between Matthew, Mark and Luke, and indeed, between these three and John.

If one is interested in slanging matches on the internet, and being able to crush your opponents, than it can sometimes be useful to take rigid or simplistic views on these matters. But anyone who has really looked into these issues - thoughtfully, reflectively and at length, realizes that none of them are that straightforward, and that - perhaps surprisingly, this lack of certainty can in fact undermine the super-skeptical position as much as a faith position.

For example, as I tried to hint at before, to say something like "Mark wrote a gospel, and then Matthew and Luke copied it. anything in Mark could therefore have been made up by him, and anything in Matthew and Luke not in Mark could have been made up by them" - which although a parody is close to what some here seem to be implying - is actually untenable. There are several very good reasons why this is the case - for example, there are the matters of the "Mark-Q overlaps", the questions of the relation of the ordering between the synoptics (and indeed John); the question of the tradition held in Paul (e.g. his account of the Lord's supper), the interesting question of the doublets (sayings that are in both the double and triple traditions - i.e. a saying that Matthew and Luke both got out of Mark, and another version of the same saying in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark), and so on.

We also know of countless errors of date, place, number etc in ancient historians, even in "good" ones. So pointing to particular places of Irenaeus that we can *interpret* as a flat out error (recalling once again that the textual tradition of Irenaeus is pretty appalling and in translation), tells us very little.

that's the thing, surely, that critical thinking involves more than building a superficial case against a supposed "majority view", based on a certain rather tendentious view of the material at hand. Rather, it involves stepping back from the material and trying to look at it in the round, not cherry picking one bit out of the rest and leaning on it, so that the rest of the evidence becomes contorted around it, but actually trying to take all that is known and not known into account.

The problem is not any dispute about the earliest date which interested parties estimate for when they think any of the canonical gospels were written. That's not the issue.

The "issue", or rather the “question", is - what is the date of the copies which are sufficiently complete and readable to provide the bulk of the detail which is nowadays commonly quoted as the contents of the canonical gospels?

According to Wikipedia, only fragments exist before the 4th century. The implication is clearly that relatively complete and readable copies date from the 4th century onwards.

 

[TimONeill2]

I don't have time for any longer answers until the weekend, but these two posts required a brief reply

The ice under your skates is starting to crack and creak dangerously.

Have you seen me back away from providing detailed answers? Have you seen me lack the information, knowledge of the scholarship and detailed grasp of the material in any of the answers I have taken the time to provide? Do you seriously think I've prioritised other answers over the one you're so keen on because you've somehow stumped me?

The idea that gMark doesn't date to the later First Century has no support in current or even modern scholarship and it isn't even accepted by most of the players here, including the ones who try to be as hypersceptical as they can for ideological reasons. So excuse me if I've rationed my time to give precedence to slightly more important ideas. But since you seem to think it does have some basis, I'll provide you with an overview of why the consensus is that it is dated to the second half of the First Century and probably closely post dates 70 AD over the weekend. Sorry, but I have a life.

BUt I'm here going to make a prediction and prophesy that you won't be convinced by the information that convinces every scholar on the planet. Ho hum.

The problem is not any dispute about the earliest date which interested parties estimate for when they think any of the canonical gospels were written. That's not the issue.

The "issue", or rather the “question", is - what is the date of the copies which are sufficiently complete and readable to provide the bulk of the detail which is nowadays commonly quoted as the contents of the canonical gospels?

According to Wikipedia, only fragments exist before the 4th century. The implication is clearly that relatively complete and readable copies date from the 4th century onwards.

Actually the issue I've been asked about is the date of composition. The date of the earliest full MSS has not been asked about at all. And you've answered that question anyway.

But I do hope you aren't trying the weird argument that the earliest date we can assign for the composition of a work has to be close to the date of its earliest MS copy. Because if this odd criterion was adopted for all ancient works then we'd end up with some quite bizarre results.

The earliest MS we have of Tacitus' Annals is MS. plut. 68.1 from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, which dates to circa 850 AD. This means, according to you, Publius Cornelius Tacitus didn't live and work in the late First and early Second Centuries AD, but actually wrote in the Ninth Century. Except MS. plut. 68.1 is only the first six books of the Annals - the earliest MS we have of any of the remainder the 'Second Medician' manuscript in the same library (formally it's MS Laur. 68.2), which dates to the early-to-mid Eleventh Century. So was Tacitus writing about then, according to your methodology? Still, that MS is fragmentary too - only Books 11-16 - and according to you "full copies" are important (for some reason), so it seems we have no idea when Tacitus was writing, but according to your methodology it was in the Middle Ages sometime.

In fact, if we take the standard text on the manuscript traditions of all the major Latin classical texts, Reynolds and Wilson, Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (OUP, 1984) and apply your odd "method" we end up with some equally kooky results. The earliest MS of Suetonius' Vitae? That's MS Paris.lat. 6115 and it dates to around 820 AD. So, according to you, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was writing in the Ninth Century as well, keeping his medieval friend Tacitus company no doubt. The earliest MS of Lucretius' De rerum natura? That's VLF 30and it dates to the late Seventh Century. So, according to you, Titus Lucretius Carus didn't write in the early First Century at all but was actually a native of Carolingian Frankia.

Amazing. And complete nonsense.

Of course, you could avoid this gibberish by either (a) explaining why would would apply this weird rule to the dating of the gospels but not to any other ancient texts or (b) accepting that this idea makes no sense and that we have to use other evidence to determine the date of composition, since we almost always have a gap of centuries between composition and even the beginnings of a manuscript tradition. Scholars choose (b), by the way.

So what's it going to be: total gibberish, (a) or (b)?

 

[grahbudd]

The problem is not any dispute about the earliest date which interested parties estimate for when they think any of the canonical gospels were written. That's not the issue.

The "issue", or rather the “question", is - what is the date of the copies which are sufficiently complete and readable to provide the bulk of the detail which is nowadays commonly quoted as the contents of the canonical gospels?

According to Wikipedia, only fragments exist before the 4th century. The implication is clearly that relatively complete and readable copies date from the 4th century onwards.

I am fairly sure you've been party to this discussion before, but actually the "implication" is not that "relatively complete and readable copies" date from the 4th century onwards. A fragment in this context is any incomplete chunk, and some of the early papyri are very substantial. e.g. p66, etc.

veryrarelystable on RatSkep did a count of the amount of material preserved from before the great codices of the fourth century in ms, and it turned out to be that of the 270 chapters in the NT, 197 of them are in papyri that have been dated up to about 300AD, or about 76%. And on top of that, there are of course patristic quotations as well.