Jan 6, 2010 -- 7:04PM, MisterC wrote:

I think I will hang out here more, if you would like to discuss the issues, one at a time.

If one is interested in historical Jesus research, just as in research about any other portion of history, no questions about it should be off limits.

In Antiq. XX, Josephus makes reference to a "Jesus, who is termed Christ" and a "Jesus, son of Damneus" in one and the same section.  Can anyone here come up with two other Josephus examples of similar proximity in which two different descriptive catch phrases are self-evidently applied to the same person?  Please?

Thanks,

Walther

Feb 3, 2010 -- 7:01AM, MisterC wrote:

I don't see any evidence that they were the same. If anything, the author has given them different titles. There are over a dozen "Jesuses" (Joshuas) in Josephus. As far as where people or events are placed in Josephus, if one looks to closely at some of that, one gets a headache...

I would agree that there is scant evidence that they reference one and the same.  Furthermore, a search by someone else on the Net seems to indicate that on no occasion does Josephus apply two different terms to the same person, a sentence or two apart, without directly referencing the alternate term (will be happy to supply the details if asked).  But that's what Josephus would have to be doing in the Antiq. XX passage I referenced, IF -- IF -- the "Jesus termed the Christ" reference and the "Jesus son of Damneus" one both reference the same person. Some have speculated that they do apply to the same person, the "Christ" term here, literally meaning "anointed", referencing the same son of Damneus referenced later, not the crucified carpenter, since the son of Damneus was in fact made a High Priest and therefore anointed. But if Josephus _appears to_ never invoke two different terms in this separate a way elsewhere without directly referencing its alternate in the same sentence, the conclusion seems more likely than not here that these two descriptions -- the "Jesus termed the Christ" reference and the "Jesus son of Damneus" one -- reference two different people instead.

This may, then, dispose of one occasional argument that's been sometimes used to bolster the notion that no reference to Jesus the crucified carpenter is intended by Josephus here.  Unfortunately, for mythers, if Jesus the Christ here is indeed different from the son of Damneus after all, it would then be an unlikely coincidence and a half to suppose that there are two Jameses who happened to be executed, who happened to have a brother called Jesus, and whose brother was sometimes termed the "Christ"!  It's more likely than not then that this James who was stoned in Josephus was a brother to the very same notorious Jesus, who was a carpenter, who was popularly termed the "Christ", and who was crucified.

Walther

Feb 4, 2010 -- 2:43PM, Dennis wrote:

The fact that there are two Jesuses so close together would bolster the argument that "brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ" was an interpolation.

Doesn't work.  If it's all interpolated, it makes very poor sense to suppose that Josephus does not get around to identifying whatever James he's referencing until the point when Jesus Damneides is mentioned at the paragraph's close -- when he doesn't even bother to hark back to James at all when doing so! And since James needed an identification of some kind anyway, we already have a problem if we restore "the brother of Jesus" alone without "called Christ", since that still does not take care of the coincidence of a double James/Jesus brother pair in two separate textual traditions, together with the James half in both cases just happening to be the one threatened in both cases with stoning by a Temple priesthood........... In any case, James needed an identifier of some kind, and if even "the brother of Jesus" alone is to be discarded also(!), what possible identifier is left for this James? None?!

Feb 4, 2010 -- 2:43PM, Dennis wrote:

"Jesus the carpenter" was, as likely as anything, a slur against Jesus, seen in the context of Mark. (Matt tried to soften it by making Jesus the son of a carpenter.) A "tekton" was not high on the occupational scale in Palestine. It could have also had to do with creating a Jesus who had an humble beginning, like the heroes Moses and David of the Hebrew scriptures. (Certainly not naming a father played into that.)

In this instance, "Jesus the carpenter" was not a quote of anything; it was just my own shorthand to distinguish him from Damneides.  A thought occurs to me, though: if we do take "carpenter" in Mark as a possible slur that crept in by accident, one has to ask how come a slur, whether or not unintended, could accidentally slip into an account that, according to the myther high priests, is entirely fictional and hagiographic?  You can suggest all you like that paralels with the humble beginnings of Moses and David are intended.  But if so, how come Matt is so assiduous in the first place to shift over the carpentry to Jesus's father at all?

We're getting into too way many contradictions here that need too much ad hoc explaining away, getting away from the principle of Occam's Razor.

Walther

Feb 23, 2010 -- 3:25AM, Mufasa0222 wrote:

Jan 6, 2010 -- 2:29AM, Community.beliefnet.comstone wrote:

 

I think it time to talk turkey once and for all on the inherent flaws in the position taken by some that Jesus never existed, not even as a simple non-miraculous human being, let alone a supernatural one. In fact, positing that he was indeed a simple non-miraculous human being is not at all ludicrous. . . .

Reading the downright lying assertions by various mythicists -- [paraphrases]"Paul never refers to Jesus as a human being who lived and died"(!), "there are many suspicions voiced on Antiquities 20 by accredited scholars in academe"(!), "all Jesus's sayings uniformly have precedents in prior philosophies and creeds"(!) -- I can easily imagine the same Big-Lie tactics used against the evidence for the Trail of Tears, the McCarthy era, the Guantanamo gulag and so on..........

Don't let any Big Lie go unchallenged. Ever.

Walther

Allow me to compliment you on your ability to wax ad nauseam on Josephus, as well as your ability to mock the mythicist argument without dealing substantively with any of their most damaging points. (NOTE: I've only read a portion of your post; so i apologize if you've dealt with my questions elsewhere.) For instance, how do you so easily dismiss the fact that Paul, in explaining to his audiences who this Jesus is/was, and why they should swear allegience to him, never once thinks it important to mention that he was born of a virgin, turned water to wine, walked on water, healed many, fed many, raised one from the dead, etc., etc., etc.? Or again, in arguing certain points in contention, like whether Gentile converts needed to eat according to the Law, how do you so easily dismiss the fact that Paul never buttressed his argument with, "Jesus said x, y, or z," especially when the gospels record Jesus as having something to say on this? One Ockham's Razor-worthy conclusion is that Paul knew not of any of these events or sayings, because, since he wrote before the Gospels were written, these events and sayings did not yet exist.

I guess I should say that I'm not a mythicist (yet), but I have read some of their work, and I find the cogency of their argument of such merit that I can hear them quite appropriately saying as well, "Don't let any Big Lie go unchallenged. Ever."

Art

None of the things you reference showing Paul's "ignorance" appear in the earliest strata of the Gospels, canonical and/or noncanonical.  So in fact, I would not be surprised if those things were never written down or "known" until after the seven authentic Paulines.  The latest scholarly consensus is that the earliest textual strata for Jesus's doings are the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas, the double tradition in Matt./Luke and the sayings in 1 Corinthians.  Mark is a mixed bag, and the non-double-tradition material in Matt./Luke is generally unreliable, while John is -- forget it.  If we want to see what Paul does emphatically show of Jesus as a human being in the authentic Paulines, we see various details that match well the latest consensus on the earliest strata in the canonical and noncanonical Gospels --

Galatians 1 - 18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.
19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother.

Galatians 4 - 4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law,
5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Romans 1 - 3 regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David,

1 Corinthians 2 - 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

1 Corinthians 7 - 10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.

1 Corinthians 9 - 5 Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?

1 Corinthians 9 - 13 Don't you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar?
14 In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

1 Corinthians 11 - 23 The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread,
24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."
25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."

1 Thessalonians 4 - 15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

Phillipians 2 - 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!

I'm well aware that each passage here has been queried at one point or another by Netties of the past few years in thrall to the myther catechism.  But once one has encountered ad hoc arguments made up out of whole cloth addressing not one, not two, not three, but ten(!!) passages like this, one after another, the sheer coincidences attendant on such sheer numbers of improvised arguments become totally absurd.

Walther