by Amazing 29 Replies latest jw friends
I think the one Josephus reference to Jesus that
is considered authentic is:
Josephus on the Death of James brother of Jesus, in 62 C.E.
Josephus, Antiquities Book 20: chapter 9
http://www.uncc.edu/jdtabor/james.html
The best source of info on this topic that
I have found so far is John P. Meier's
book, Marginal Jew. It's probably at the
library so you don't have to buy it.
Quester
Hi Uncle: I did send a long email to you. I sent it from my MSN account [email protected]. Tour email reached me and I responded several days or a week ago or more. I will resend it and see what is going on.
Hi Quester: Josephus mention of Jesus in both cases is very authentic. The one that most critics attack is where he referes to Jesus as the Messiah, and in other terms that makes it seem as if Josephus is thinking like a Christian. Josephus was a Roman mentally and a Jew physically, and would not likely have any sentiment for Christians. But, as a historian he may have presented information in his historical account to help Roman readers understand what Christ was about, not just that he founded a growing sect.
And about the time that Josephus wrote his records, andother document surfaced during Trajan's rule. The writer was a Roman official who was seeking guidance on how to deal with Christians. The new sect was at least well known enough and had enough followers that it got the attention of officials who were writing to Rome and asking Trajan. That would be like the Governor of a state or a mayor of Chicago writing to President George Bush requesting guidance on dealing with the Moonies. So, the Christian reputation was already widespread and gaining momentum, and it stands to reason that Josephus would pick up on this and try to explain it more thoroughly. - Amazing
Thanks for this interesting topic. I just have two brief things to note.
1. I believe Josephus' reference to Jesus is spurious based upon my own research which suggests he was far too anti-messianic to have made that reference. No reference at all would have been his preference. He was very secular-Jewish oriented which by the time he wrote his works would have been well-aware of Christianity.
2. All the concerns over the "historical Jesus" and the NT or even the OT and it's truth, etc. might have been fodder for debate a few years ago, but at this point, for those of the advanced JIOR anointed, we have no doubt that the NT is true and Jesus is real. That's because the NT contains many prophecies about the second coming as well which have been fulfilled, such as the detail of the "great tribulation" which was HOLOCAUST.
My point being? That those now of the advanced anointed who are witnessing miracles now have no reference for the doubts some might have for the NT. That is, they are experiencing early miracles and holy spirit activity and so have a direct reference to these things now. Most of the world, of course, are expected to catch up and all become believers....just before Armageddon, much like those of Noah's day finally became "believers" when it started to rain, only it was too late. So some of us are truly living in "a different world" now post 1947 and particularly post 1992. So this topic would be moot for anyone with direct holy spirit experience, though we understand in the absence thereof, why others still doubt and debate.
As the scriptures note, though: "For the one who has much, more will be given (i.e. those who already believe will be the ones to see the miracles), but those with nothing, even what they have will be taken away (i.e. they will get additional stumbling blocks making it even harder for them to believe).
It's nice to be in the advanced JIOR group. Topics like this, evolution, the truth of the Bible, are all non-topics for us now since we have direct, modern evidence of Bible truth and activity of God's holy spirit. So, sorry I can't contribute.
LG
On PBS a while short while ago there was a show on "The Missing Years Of Jesus." They questioned what happened to Jesus from the age of 12 until his baptism. It was interesting. There was a trail of documentation that suggested, some pretty strong, that Jesus left and went to India to study with the Monks, priests, and learned ones for those years. I am not sure if this would help your search but thought I should mention it. It was quite an extensive program.
Lindy
Amazing,
It stands to reason that if Jesus Christ were a fictitious fantasy of a few quack Christians, that the Talmud would have picked up on this to the Jew's and Rabbi's advantage.
This is a common belief, but based on a very anachronistic assumption. You'd be hard pressed to find anything resembling critical or analytical analyses of religious ideas prior to the 18th century.
When we read texts from religious sources in the period of the early church (Christian and non-Christian alike) the credulity with which even well educated authors accept supernatural claims are quite remarkable. Typically, as we can also see referenced in the Gospel of John, even starch opponents of a miracle working prophet will not claim the mircales never happened, but that they were done with the help of demons or evil spirits.
One fascinating example of popular miracle worker stories is The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by one Philostratus around 220 A.D. Similarities with Jesus are very obvious, and often Christians will be challenged to explain why Jesus's miracles are credible while Apollonious' are not. In fact, we have fragments of texts written by Apollonius himself; Jesus' only seems to have written in the sand. When the Christian apologist and Church historian Eusebius wrote against Apollonius, he did not doubt that all the fantastic stories about him were really founded in fact. Instead, he argued it was trickery or, most commonly, caused by demons. Also other trick workers were automatically assumed to have existed, and the most fantastic legends were assumed to be based on true events.
The dynamics of urban legends and modern religious myth forming is quite well understood today among experts in the field, but it is still assumed by most common people that stories are usually losely based on factual events. Not necessarily true. The human mind is a great producer of fiction, and not all of it is published as such.
So, the lack of skepticism to Jesus' historicity from any quarter in the first centuries after his death tells us nothing. It is just an anachronism to expect even the most ardent critic of Christianity to assume the position of a modern scholar or skeptic.
I recommend the article "Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: a look into the world of the gospels" by Richard Carrier to learn more about the religious world into which the Christians spread their message. See http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html
CPilio:
I am familiar with the spurious account of Jesus in Josephus' work, could you share with me the more credible reference to Jesus?There are two references in extrant mss of Josephus:
One is the reference in Antiquities 20.9.1: "Ananus, therefore, being of this character, and supposing that he had a favorable opportunity on account of the fact that Festus was dead and Albinus was still on the way, called together the Sanhedrin and brought before them the brother of Jesus, the one called (the) Christ [ton adelphon Iesou tou legomenou Christou], James by name, together with some others and accused them of violating the law, and condemned them to be stoned" (bold added)
This is the version that is actually thought to be original. It is unlikely that any Christian interpolator would write "the so-called Christ", as we will see in the obvious interpolation that follows here:
The second is in Antiquities 18:3:3 "Now about this time there lived Jesus a wise man, if one ought 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 won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who in the first place had come to love him did not forsake him. For he appeared to them alive again on the third day, as the holy prophets had predicted these and many other wonderful things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, continues to the present day."
It is glaringly obvious that Josephus, an observant Jew who was no friend of any secterian movements, would never write about Jesus that "he was the Messiah." It says something about the lack of any source critical methodology that the authenticity of this absurd passage was not challenged until modern text critical methods were developed (take note, Amazing!). The modern source critical challenge has simply been to try to recostruct the original. Did the original mention Jesus at all? Perhaps. And then again, I have seen good arguments that it did not. No half serious scholar, however, seriously believe that Josephus wrote the above.
I strongly recommend reading Earl Doherty's quite detailed "Supplementary Article 10" to his "Was There No Historical Jesus?" work, where he examines Josephys to some detail. It can be read in its entirity here: http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus/supp10.htm
- Jan
--
Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]
I have been reading a book called " A case for Christ" by Len Strobel.He say this on pages 119 and 120. He is "talking" to Gregory Boyd. Where I stand on this subject....I still have not decided. Here is the quote:
~
I wasn't going to let Boyd's debating skills intimidate me. I decided to raise a more difficult issue: the seemingly stronger parallels between Jesus and a historical figure named Apollonius of Tyana.
"You know the evidence as well as I do," I said to Boyd. "Here's someone from the first century who was said to have healed people and to have exorcised demons; who may have raised a young girl from the dead; and who appeared to some of his followers after he died. People point to that and say, 'Aha! If you're going to admit that the Apolionius story is legendary, why not say the same thing about the Jesus story.
Boyd was nodding to indicate he was tracking with me. "I'll admit that initially this sounds impressive." he said. "When 1 first heard about Apollonius as a college student, 1 was really taken aback. But if you do the historical work calmly and objectively, you find that the alleged parallels just don't stand up."
I needed specifies, not generalities. "Go ahead," I said. "Do your best to shoot it down." "OK. Well, firsts his biographer, Philostratus. was writing a cen- tury and a half after Apollonius lived, whereas the gospels were writ- ten within a generation of Jesus. The closer the proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development, for error, or for memories to get confused.
"Another thing is that we have four gospels, corroborated with Paul, that can be cross-checked to some degree with nonbiblical authors, like Josephus and others. With Apollonius we're dealing with one source. Plus the gospels pass the standard tests used to assess his- torical reliability, but we can't say that about the stories of Apollonius.
"On top of that, Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography in order to dedicate a temple to Apolionius. She was a follower of Apollonius, so Philostratus would have had a financial motive to embellish the story and give the empress what she wanted. On the other hand, the writers of the gospel had nothing to gain-and much to lose-by writing Jesus' story, and they didn't have ulterior motives such as financial gain.
"Also, the way Philostratus writes is very different than the gospels. The gospels have a very confident eyewitness perspective, as if they had a camera there. But Philostratus includes a lot of tentative statements, like 'It is reported that or 'Some say this young girl had died; others say she was just ill.' To his credit, he backs off and treats stories like stories.
"And here's a biggie: Philostratus was writing in the early third century in Cappadocia, where Christianity had already been present for quite a while. So any borrowing would have been done by him, not by Christians. You can imagine the followers of Apollonius see- ing Christianity as competition and saying, 'Oh, yeah? Well, Apollo- nius did the same things Jesus did!' Sort of like, 'My dad can beat up your dad!'
"One final point. I'm willing to admit that Apollonius may have done some amazing things or at least tricked people into thinking he did. But that doesn't in any way compromise the evidence for Jesus. Even if you grant the evidence for Apollonius, you're still left with having to deal with the evidence for Christ."
had died; others say she was just ill.' To his credit, he backs treats stories like stories.
"And here's a biggie: Philostratus was writing in the early third century in Cappadocia, where Christianity had already been present for quite a while. So any borrowing would have been done by him and not by Christians. You can imagine the followers of Apollonius seeing Christianity as competition and saying, 'Oh, yeah? Well, Apollonius did the same things Jesus did!' Sort of like, 'My dad can beat up your dad!'
"One final point. I'm willing to admit that Apollonius may done some amazing things or at least tricked people into thinking he did. But that doesn't in any way compromise the evidence for Jesus. Even if you grant the evidence for Apollonius, you're still'. having to deal with the evidence for Christ."
Jan,
Ya need to explain to me why the writings of Christians as to whether or not Jesus is an historical person must be suspect. There are no sources outside of the Romans themselves that refer to Gaius, Marius, yet no one doubts he was an historical person who reformed the Roman Legion.
WHy aren't the works of Philo and Tacitus mentioned?
The Talmudic references to Jesus, while not actually written down for some 300 years or so after the events, can not be dismissed as responses to Christian Myth, but, because of HOW the Talmud was developed, should be seen as Judaic counters to Christian evangelization when the seperation between Judaism and Chrisitanity was not as large.
Again, I've not read one serious historian that questions whether Jesus was a real person. The Gospels are of some historical value. For example, the bible was our only source of reference for the existence of Pontius Pilate until very recently.
Do you find it easier to dismiss Jesus as having never existed than to deal with an historical Jesus and trying to then determine who he was? Using acceptable norms of historical scholarship, there is no doubt that Jesus was a real person. The question remains, how much of that person do we really see in the bible?
Yeru
YERUSALYIM
"Vanity! It's my favorite sin!"
[Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]
Jan
Ill be interested in that as well please.
UO
JanH:
Thanks for the info and the links. I will check them out. You reaffirmed what I'd read about the spurious Josephus account of Jesus -- that an observant Jew would not call him the Messiah, which would be blasphemous to a Jew. I had also read that the text appears to have been inserted and awkwardly interrupts the text in which it appears, as well as that it is out of character with Josephus' writing to devote only two paragraphs to someone as important as the Messiah, when he devotes page upon page to many lesser unimportant individuals.
Yeru:
I don't believe Jan has ever stated that he dismisses a historical Jesus. What he dismissed is one of the two accounts by Josephus.
Using acceptable norms of historical scholarship, there is no doubt that Jesus was a real person.
If this is true, how do you account for the debate among reputable historians as to the veracity of a historical Jesus?
The question remains, how much of that person do we really see in the bible?
Here you've hit the nail on the head for me. How much of the accounts of miracles and such can be accepted as historical fact, especially when many of these accounts reflect other older religious accounts and legends -- Egyptian, Greek, Mithrain, Zoroastrian and more? As I mentioned earlier, the Jesus Seminar, in a poll of the scholars who are members of the seminar, reached the conclusion that 80% or more of what Jesus has been attributed to have said in the Gospels, was in fact, not said by Jesus. This work is published in The Five Gospels by the Jesus Seminar. There was no consensus among the scholars, and other scholars who are not members of the seminar have differing opiniions, but the work raises interesting questions as to who really was Jesus of the Bible.
CPiolo
The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity. -- Oscar Wilde
Hello Yeru,
I feel a sense of deja vu here Why do I feel we've been through this before?
Ya need to explain to me why the writings of Christians as to whether or not Jesus is an historical person must be suspect.
Critical analysis does not reject any sources out of hand. When it coems to NT Biblical writings, Pauline letters are cosnidered most reliable. Why? because they are what they claim to be, as far as we know: letters from a known, historical person to certain others. For different reasons, other books in the NT are considered anonymous or pseudo-anonymous (ie applied to a famous person like Peter or John who almost certainly did not write it). These are late, and not very reliable.
The gospels are anonymous (except we know Luke and Acts has the same author). The authors do not claim to have seen any of the events personally. They do not even tell who did. They are applied to certain persons by tradition. When they write about the same thing, they contradict each other. Birth accounts in Lk and Mt are totally different and cannot be harmonized. All four passion narratives contradict each other on many details. The post-resurrection stories are wildly contradictory.
Even with the most reliable material, sayings attributed to Jesus, we find them as sermon on the mount in Mt and sermon on the plains in Lk. It is thus pretty unlikely that the authors based their narratives on anything resembling real recollection of events, oral or written. As has been known for a long time, a logia collection called Q (now lost) must be the basis for synoptic material common for Mt and Lu.
There are no sources outside of the Romans themselves that refer to Gaius, Marius, yet no one doubts he was an historical person who reformed the Roman Legion.
WHy aren't the works of Philo and Tacitus mentioned?Mentioned where? About what?
The Talmudic references to Jesus, while not actually written down for some 300 years or so after the events, can not be dismissed as responses to Christian Myth, but, because of HOW the Talmud was developed, should be seen as Judaic counters to Christian evangelization when the seperation between Judaism and Chrisitanity was not as large.You seem to say the same things with other words. It is not "dismissal". It is simply the way it is. The Talmud is not an independent tradition to Jesus, which is why Jesus scholars often ignore them as a source altogether.
Again, I've not read one serious historian that questions whether Jesus was a real person.It seems you have not read much. They generally come to the same conclusion, namely that it is more likely Jesus the Jew did live than that he did not. And I agree. There probably was a man called Jesus, who somehow got all sorts of fantastic stories and beliefs attached to his name. But it is certainly worth debating the question, and most historians dealing with the "Real Jesus" question do this.
The Gospels are of some historical value.
For example, the bible was our only source of reference for the existence of Pontius Pilate until very recently.Where did you get this idea? Josephus gives us a lot of information about Pilate. I have seen you say this claim before, and I pointed out back then it was totally untrue. It is worrying when you start repeating demonstrably false claims.
Of course, the Watchtower Society has made the same claim. Perhaps these are your source?
Do you find it easier to dismiss Jesus as having never existed than to deal with an historical Jesus and trying to then determine who he was? Using acceptable norms of historical scholarship, there is no doubt that Jesus was a real person. The question remains, how much of that person do we really see in the bible?This is an ad hominem.
What do you know about "acceptable norms of historical scholarship"? As we have seen above, very little.
I agree the interesting question is how much, if anything, of the mythical Christ god-man can really be tracked to an historical Jew called Jesus. I would say, probably very little, if anything at all beyond the name.
- Jan
--
Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]
