Did Jesus Christ Actually Exist?

[joelr]

Not only rulers, for example Antinous

Osirus was the dying/rising demigod however, not Antinous.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinous

Numerous mystery cults were based around real people.

And some were not. So what?

Paul thought Jesus to be a man, with a human mother and a brother he had met. The exact point he was deified is open to debate, but is fairly early.

We cannot prove Paul thought Jesus had a brother. The word he uses for brother is the Greek word for "brother in the Lord".

Paul may have thought Jesus went through his passion in the celestial realm, same as one version of Asension of Isaiah had it.

Ehrman and James the Brother of the Lord • Richard Carrier Blogs

On the matter of the historicity of Jesus, Bart Ehrman has replied to what I recently summarized about the problems with Paul’s reference to brothers of the Lord in the Epistles. In Carrier and James the Brother of the Jesus (already distorting his facts in the title; Paul never uses the phrase...

www.richardcarrier.info

Paul also never says Jesus had biological brothers. Brothers by birth or blood appear nowhere in Paul’s letters. He only knows of cultic brothers of the Lord: all baptized Christians, he says, are the adopted sons of God just like Jesus, and therefore Jesus is “the firstborn of many brethren” (OHJ, p. 108). In other words, all baptized Christians are for Paul brothers of the Lord, and in fact the only reason Christians are brothers of each other, is that they are all brothers of Jesus. Paul is never aware he needs to distinguish anyone as a brother of Jesus in any different kind of way. And indeed the only two times he uses the full phrase “brother of the Lord” (instead of its periphrasis “brother”), he needs to draw a distinction between apostolic and non-apostolic Christians (more on that below; but see OHJ, pp. 582-92).

Carrier still counts this as a positive for historicity, but we cannot know.

Perhaps I should have said 'gods' who are written about by their contemporaries as real living humans, tend to be humans who were deified later. AFAIK, entirely no entirely mythological gods, rather than deified humans, have ever been written about in this manner as they exist in a mythical time or a distant past.

The key point was that they are written about as humans by contemporaries (and most scholars believe Paul and Josephus were indeed referring to his actual brother, not a metaphorical or fictive brethren).

No there are good arguments against Josephus,

Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can’t Cite Opinions Before 2014​

Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can't Cite Opinions Before 2014 • Richard Carrier Blogs

On whether Josephus actually ever mentioned Jesus, usually you hear people claim “the consensus is” or “such-and-such renowned Josephus expert said” that he did, so shut-up already, nothing more to see here, “move on!” Well, there are two reasons you can’t do that anymore. General Principles...

www.richardcarrier.info

"Christian apologists (and an inordinate number of even non-Christian historians in the Biblical Studies field) have a sad tendency to keep citing, even quoting, expert opinions from ten, twenty, even fifty years ago, as if those opinions had any value anymore. But all too often, they don’t. Because so much has happened, so much has been discovered, in just the last ten years—much more so the last half century—that the only expert opinion worth citing now, is one that is based on having evaluated all that new information.

In the case of the historicity of Jesus, until experts actually read the peer reviewed literature of their own field (especially once its results have been confirmed by a second independent study), they are not citeable authorities on the subject anymore. Just like that scientist who didn’t know about the latest peer reviewed research on data storage technology. Their opinion isn’t worth anything. Only when they are up-to-date, and can respond honestly to the evidence and discoveries recently published on a subject, do they have an opinion that can at least claim to be informed. Whether that opinion is correct is another matter; but it can’t even claim to be correct until it’s at least based on up-to-date information."

Carrier goes over papers that demonstrate:

• The content, concepts, and sequence of the TF matches the gospel summary in Luke 24 (Goldberg 1995).
• The style of the TF is more Eusebian than Josephan (Olson 2013; Feldman 2012).
• And the narrative structure of the TF is not even remotely Josephan, but is a perfect match for Christian creedal statements (in respect to the treatment of time, story, emplotment, and apologetic: Hopper 2014).

There are also arguments on the James reference:

• This James passage was unknown to Origen (despite his explicit search of Josephus for Jesus material in his answer to Celsus). All claims to the contrary until now have been mistaken on that point.
• Because in fact, it’s objectively evident that Origen mistook a story about James in Hegesippus as being in Josephus (a kind of mistake I document Origen sometimes made).
• All other accounts of the death of James the brother of Jesus do not match this one in Josephus; they therefore had no knowledge of this passage being about the Christian James (Eusebius is the first author to ever think so; and the first to ever quote it from Josephus).
• We know Acts used Josephus as a source text for historical color, yet the author of Acts never noticed this passage as being about Jesus Christ (which is inexplicable, given that if it was, then it shows Jews being punished for persecuting Christians, exactly the kind of thing the author of Acts strove to include; instead, Acts never mentions this James even being martyred).
• If Josephus had written this passage as about the persecution of Christians, he would have explained things, as is his style consistently in all his historical writing; only a Christian would just assume all those obscure things were already known to the reader (like what a “Christ” was; that James was a Christian; that Jews sought to kill Christians; and why, we must then suppose, the Jewish elite and Roman authorities opposed the killing of James if he was a Christian).
• The words tou legomenou christou, “the [one] called Christ,” is for these and many other reasons most likely a marginal note (by Origen or Pamphilus, or another scribe or scholar in the same Library of Caesarea), expressing belief rather than fact (possibly trying to find the passage Origen claimed he’d seen here but mistakenly saw instead in Hegesippus).
• That marginal note was then accidentally interpolated into the manuscript produced or used by Eusebius (which would have been a copy of the one used by Origen), a very common form of scribal error.
• Possibly by replacing ton tou damnaiou, “the son of Damneus,” in the same place. That same line is repeated at the end of the story. Repetition of that identical phrase a few lines after may have led a scribe to suspect the marginal note was correcting a dittograph (an accidental duplication caused by a previous scribe skipping some lines by mistake, starting at the “wrong” Jesus in the story). But more likely, that duplication is exactly what Josephus meant: Ananus is punished for killing the brother of Jesus ben Damneus by being deposed and replaced by Jesus ben Damneus.

 

[joelr]

Not quoting texts because you are short of time and on a phone is quite common though and doesn't mean they have never actually read anything on the issue.

Now that I have a computer and a little time to waste:

That makes it even weirder that you gaslight me for using a specialist?

How the Gospels Became History
M. David Litwa;



By contrast to the Christian, eschatological notion of ‘salvation’ which did not develop until much later, soteria to the Greeks was strikingly this-worldly in nature. ‘Saviour’ gods and soteria in ancient Greece were almost without exception always concerned with immediate help, protection, deliverance, and well-being in this life.8 From what we have seen, soteria normally involved well-defined and short-term goals; it lacked permanence and had to be secured from the gods time and again. The appeal of ‘saviour’ gods lies in fact not in any miraculous power on their part to transform life or death once and for all, but precisely in their ability to respond to the most basic and personal needs of worshippers in everyday situ- ations: good health, physical survival, economic security, safety on land and at sea, the well-being of crops and livestock, safe return home, and so on...

So deeply ingrained is the earthly character of Greek soteria that, even when the concept was adopted and adapted in early Christianity, well-being in the here-and-now remained part and parcel of the Christian notion of soteria.

Saviour Gods and Soteria in Ancient Greece - TSF Jim

Petra Pakkanen, Interpreting Early Hellenistic Religion (1996), determined 4 trends seen in all mystery religions, Christainity fomfirms to all 4:

- Syncretism: combining a foreign cult deity with Hellenistic elements. Christianity is a Jewish mystery religion.


- Henotheism: transforming / reinterpreting polytheism into monotheism. Judaism introduced monolatric concepts.


- Individualism: agricultural salvation cults retooled as personal salvation cults. Salvation of community changed into personal individual salvation in afterlife. All original agricultural salvation cults were retooled by the time Christianity arose.


- Cosmopolitianism: all races, cultures, classes admitted as equals, with fictive kinship (members are all brothers) you now “join” a religion rather than being born into it


According to Dr Carrier:

All Mystery religions have personal savior deities


- All saviors


- all son/daughter, never the supreme God (including Mithriasm)


- all undergo a passion (struggle) patheon


- all obtain victory over death which they share with followers


- all have stories set on earth


- none actually existed


- Is Jesus the exception and based on a real Jewish teacher or is it all made up?


Specialist J.Z. Smith concluded salvation was a big part of Hellenism. Personal salvation. And puts Christianity square into this group.


Hellenistic religion - Beliefs, practices, and institutions


-the seasonal drama was homologized to a soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.


-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.


-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.


-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme

-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new, cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become acute.

-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)


-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophy, theology, and mysticism through the 18th century

- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.


-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.

-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)


-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)

- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries


The basic consensus is what I have been saying:


-During the period of the Second Temple (c.515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire. Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.


Dr James Tabor is another specialist in Hellenism and the NT borrowings from it. He also backs all this up.

 

[1213]

...Christianity is known to have borrowed all of these concepts.

I don't have any good reason to believe that.

Doctrines taken from Persia into Judiasm.

Why do you believe Jews copied something from Persia?

 

[joelr]

I don't have any good reason to believe that.

It's been demonstrated with good evidence. You don't have to believe anything, you can live in a made-up fantasy world.

Why do you believe Jews copied something from Persia?

It's standard knowledge in academia. I gave you some information from scholar who is considered the authority in the Persian religion and it's influence on Judaism. You haven't offered evidence against that, you are just doing the typical apologist denial thing. Ok, so truth isn't important to you. Ok?

Apocalypticism | Eschatology, End Times, Judgement Day | Britannica

Apocalypticism, eschatological (end-time) views and movements that focus on cryptic revelations about a sudden, dramatic, and cataclysmic intervention of God in history; the judgment of all men; the salvation of the faithful elect; and the eventual rule of the elect with God in a renewed heaven and

www.britannica.com

apocalypticism, eschatological (end-time) views and movements that focus on cryptic revelations about a sudden, dramatic, and cataclysmic intervention of God in history; the judgment of all men; the salvation of the faithful elect; and the eventual rule of the elect with God in a renewed heaven and earth. Arising in Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion founded by the 6th-century-BC prophet Zoroaster, apocalypticism was developed more fully in Judaic, Christian, and Islāmic eschatological speculation and movements.



Old Testament Interpretation Yale Divinity Lecture

Professor John J. Collins

12:10 a possible inspiration for Ezekiel treatment of dead (valley of bones) was Persian myth


14:20 resurrection of dead in Ezekiel, incidentally resurrection of the dead is also attested in Zoroastrianism, the Persians had it before the Israelites. There was no precent for bodily resurrection in Israel before this time. No tradition of bodies getting up from the grave. The idea of borrowing can be suggested.

In Ezekiel this is metaphorical.

The only book that clearly refers to bodily resurrection is Daniel.

17:30 resurrection of individual and judgment in Daniel, 164 BC. Prior to this the afterlife was Sheol, now heaven/hell is introduced. Persian period. Resurrection and hell existed in the Persian religion.
Resurrection of spirit. Some people are raised up to heaven, some to hell. New to the OT.


Another scholar:


The Iranian Impact on Judaism


excerpted from N. F. Gier, Theology Bluebook, Chapter 12


It was not so much monotheism that the exilic Jews learned from the Persians as it was universalism, the belief that one God rules universally and will save not only the Jews but all those who turn to God. This universalism does not appear explicitly until Second Isaiah, which by all scholarly accounts except some fundamentalists, was written during and after the Babylonian exile. The Babylonian captivity was a great blow to many Jews, because they were taken out of Yahweh's divine jurisdiction. Early Hebrews believed that their prayers could not be answered in a foreign land. The sophisticated angelology of late books like Daniel has its source in Zoroastrianism.3 The angels of the early Hebrew books were disguises of Yahweh or one of his subordinate deities. The idea of separate angels appears only after contact with Zoroastrianism.


The central ideas of heaven and a fiery hell appear to come directly from the Israelite contact with Iranian religion. Pre-exilic books are explicit in their notions the afterlife: there is none to speak of. The early Hebrew concept is that all of us are made from the dust and all of us return to the dust. There is a shadowy existence in Sheol, but the beings there are so insignificant that Yahweh does not know them. The evangelical writer John Pelt reminds us that “the inhabitants of Sheol are never called souls (nephesh).”4


Saosyant, a savior born from Zoroaster's seed, will come and the dead shall be resurrected, body and soul. As the final accounting is made, husband is set against wife and brother against brother as the righteous and the damned are pointed out by the divine judge Saosyant. Personal and individual immortality is offered to the righteous; and, as a final fire melts away the world and the damned, a kingdom of God is established for a thousand years.7 The word paradis is Persian in origin and the concept spread to all Near Eastern religions in that form. “Eden” not “Paradise” is mentioned in Genesis, and paradise as an abode of light does not appear in Jewish literature until late books such as Enoch and the Psalm of Solomon.



Satan as the adversary or Evil One does not appear in the pre-exilic Hebrew books. In Job, one of the very oldest books, Satan is one of the subordinate deities in God's pantheon. Here Satan is God's agent, and God gives him permission to persecute Job. The Zoroastrian Angra Mainyu, the Evil One, the eternal enemy of God, is the prototype for late Jewish and Christian ideas of Satan. One scholar claims that the Jews acquired their aversion to homosexuality, not present in pre-exilic times, to the Iranian definition of the devil as a Sodomite.8


In 1 Chron. 21:1 (a book with heavy Persian influences), the Hebrew word satan appears for the first time as a proper name without an article. Before the exile, Satan was not a separate entity per se, but a divine function performed by the Yahweh's subordinate deities (sons of God) or by Yahweh himself. For example, in Num. 22:22 Yahweh, in the guise of mal'ak Yahweh, is “a satan” for Balaam and his ***. The editorial switch from God inciting David to take a census in 2 Sam 24:1, and a separate evil entity with the name “Satan” doing the same deed in 1 Chron. 21:1 is the strongest evidence that there was a radical transformation in Jewish theology. Something must have caused this change, and religious syncretism with Persia is the probable cause. G. Von Rad calls it a “correction due to religious scruples” and further states that “this correction would hardly have been carried out in this way if the concept of Satan had not undergone a rather decisive transformation.”......


In Zoroastrianism the supreme God, Ahura Mazda, gives all humans free-will so that they may choose between good and evil. As we have seen, the religion of Zoroaster may have been the first to discover ethical individualism. The first Hebrew prophet to speak unequivocally in terms of individual moral responsibility was Ezekiel, a prophet of the Babylonian exile. Up until that time Hebrew ethics had been guided by the idea of the corporate personality – that, e.g., the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons (Ex. 20:1-2).


In 1 Cor. 15:42-49 Paul definitely assumes a dual-creation theory which seems to follow the outlines of Philo and the Iranians. There is only one man (Christ) who is created in the image of God, i.e., according to the “intellectual” creation of Gen. 1:26 (à la Philo). All the rest of us are created in the image of the “dust man,” following the material creation of Adam from the dust in Gen. 2:7.

Nick Gier. Emeritus Professor of Philosophy University of Idaho Senior Fellow Martin Institute of

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I think we all know about the controversial writings of The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus and The Annals of Tacitus for example. Some say the parts about Jesus in their writings were forgeries and others think they were authentic. But these men were not even born at the time of the supposed crucifixion of Jesus that happened in 30-33AD. They were born after his death.

The only reason I might believe that Jesus existed 'possibly' is through the Pilate stone finding by archaeologists in 1961 which was dated between AD 26-37. And this is the correct time frame for the events described in the Gospels. But this is not evidence for Jesus but for Pontius Pilate.

The translation from Latin to English for the inscription reads:

To the Divine Augusti [this] Tiberieum...Pontius Pilate...prefect of Judea...has dedicated [this]...


Confirming this biblical figure's existence was crucial insofar that he played an important role in the execution of Jesus. This makes me think it's more plausible now that Pontius Pilate probably knew of a man named Jesus at the time and maybe even had a man named Jesus executed. But this is me just imagining such a scenario now. I can't ask Pilate what really happened then because he's been dead for about 2,000 years.

So, what is the evidence for Jesus?

Relax, wait for the second coming coming soon, end times must be very near.

 

[Esteban X]

Relax, wait for the second coming coming soon, end times must be very near.

For the last 2,000 years they've been coming soon. Forgive me for being dubious

 

[Augustus]

No there are good arguments against Josephus,

Strange that evidence begins in 2014 on this issue, yet you consider a 1913 paper to be highly authoritative on another one, and also a 1996 text on another issue.

Also, using your/carrier’s logic, Theodora Jim’s 2022 monograph on soteria renders all earlier works null and void because they haven’t directly responded to it.

Carrier has this hilarious tendency to just say evidence “doesn’t count” when it is inconvenient. Not simply “I think this is a better explanation” but the rejection of it as legitimate in any way and the use of it as showing ignorance and mendacity.

He then produces his convoluted personal opinion and insists this is the new benchmark standard.

That’s not the way history works unfortunately.

Carrier insists his 2012 paper negates all previous scholarship, yet if it was such a profound and devastating proof it should have had some degree of impact in the past 12 years.

I have read exponentially more scholarship on early Islamic history than early Christian. One thing you notice is there are so many competing theories on everything. Any new theory that has plausibility tends to produce significant amounts of similar scholarship.

You reach a point where you read one article and think “wow, that’s a great theory” the. You read the next one which contradicts it and think “wow that’s a great theory too”. Without specialist technical knowledge though it became impossible to evaluate competing ideas.

Mainstream scholars believe anything from the Quran is from Muhammad and the sirah is pretty much accurate minus the miracles, to the sirah is (almost) entirely fabricated and the Quran either predates or post dates Muhammad (and a few fringe scholars even doubt he existed). Not to mention all kinds of alternative theories that fall within the poles.

Offering new and innovative arguments is a way to gain kudos within a field, so diversity of perspective is to be expected. It is also to be expected that no single scholar will be getting everything right and thus over reliance on a single scholar or even school of thought will likely make you overconfident in the accuracy of their views.

One thing I notice is that nothing in this field is even remotely as convoluted as Carrier’s arguments are despite the complexity of the material and paucity of evidence at times.

At some point we need to trust some experts over others as we can’t evaluate directly.

This is where I get to with this issue too (and find it much less interesting). But there doesn’t seem to be any great degree of support for Carrier’s position, which I find strange if his arguments are even 1/4 as good as he thinks they are. Especially as there is a lot of inventive to be revisionist in history

When we judge competing arguments of purported experts that we can’t evaluate professionally we take a range of things into consideration. This will involve a combination of things like ideology, prior beliefs and heuristics used to evaluate competing ideas.

One of my heuristics is that when someone makes a series of complex and counterintuitive arguments that are out of step with most experts from a wide range of backgrounds and all these, often convoluted arguments align with the ideology and self interest of the person making them then I tend to be sceptical of them. Carrier is an apologist and a polemicist, this doesn’t make him wrong and doesn’t mean his ideas can be dismissed out of hand, but does make him less credible in many people’s eyes.

The fact remains Carrier’s paper hasn’t been persuasive to many scholars in the past 12 years in a field where revisionism is rewarded. So I don’t really see any reason to take him at his word that it is the benchmark text on this topic.

So given Jesus would be completely unique in being a “god” written about as a human by his contemporaries if he had never existed, and that other near contemporary sources have him as a human (at least according to most experts) and that no one really argued he never existed in the complex sectarian environment he emerged from, it seems more plausible that he existed.

It’s not impossible that he was a space Jesus made from cosmic jizz and that everything inconvenient was interpolated by devious scribes or means something other than what most scholars believe it means, but the odds are against it.

According to Dr Carrier:

Why do you keep referring to him as Dr Carrier btw?

Would you refer to Prof. Dr Dawkins?

No one really uses academic titles in normal discussions. Few people even use them in their own academic publications.

 

[1213]

Doctrines taken from Persia into Judiasm.

One could as well claim Persians copied from Jews.

That is a ridiculous apologetic. You have no evidence of any gods here, just people writing stories.

How is that different from you offering stories about Persians and Jews written by people?

But your suggestion is that Yahweh also spoke to the Persians.

I think it is not my suggestion, but what the Bible tells. And I think it is possible, even if they don't have exactly the same writings. They may have also had ideas that don't come from God, and have mixed them all up so that it look different. However, the original ideas that came from God, may still be the same, even if only a part of what was told to Jews.

OR, the Israelites were occupied by the Persians for many centuries and their myths rubbed off and slowly became Hebrew myths. Which is exactly how religion has always worked.

You seriously expect people to believe your claims that have no support?

end times messianic myths are borrowed from the Persians, they already had a basic version of Revelation.

I believe they borrowed it from Jews, or the same God gave the same information, if they have something similar.

But there are many things in the Persian religion that are very different. So Yahweh told them imperfect stories and completely wrong stories,

Or they have mixed up own ideas to the message that was from God.

 

[joelr]

Carrier insists his 2012 paper negates all previous scholarship, yet if it was such a profound and devastating proof it should have had some degree of impact in the past 12 years.

You didn't read his article and you are responding to something made up.

"The evidence that the Testimonium Flavianum (or TF) is entirely a late Christian forgery is now as overwhelming as such evidence could ever get..
The new article is by Paul Hopper, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:63,” in Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob, eds., Linguistics and Literary Studies: Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers (2014: de Gruyter), pp. 147-169 (available at researchgate).

So in addition to all the evidence I and other scholars have amassed (summarized, with bibliography, in On the Historicity of Jesus, ch. 8.9), including the fact that what was once thought to be an Arabic testimony to a pre-Eusebian version of the text actually derives from Eusebius (as proved by Alice Whealey), and the peer reviewed article by G.J. Goldberg that proved the TF was, as a whole unit, based on the Gospel of Luke (and thus even if Josephan, not independent of the Gospels) and my own peer reviewed article (now reproduced in Hitler Homer Bible Christ, ch. 19) that added even more evidence, including proving the other brief mention of Jesus in Josephus was also fake (an accidental insertion made centuries after Josephus wrote), and the literary evidence produced by Ken Olson that the TF is far closer to Eusebian style than Josephan style, now Paul Hopper shows that grammatical and structural analysis verifies all of this.

There is a 5 part summary here:

The Josephus Testimonium: Let's Just Admit It's Fake Already • Richard Carrier Blogs

A new article just beats this dead horse deader still. Hat tip to Vridar and Peter Kirby. Honestly. The evidence that the Testimonium Flavianum (or TF) is entirely a late Christian forgery is now as overwhelming as such evidence could ever get. Short of uncovering a pre-Eusebian manuscript...

www.richardcarrier.info

Why do you keep referring to him as Dr Carrier btw?

Because I want to.

Would you refer to Prof. Dr Dawkins?

Carrier isn't a Professor.

No one really uses academic titles in normal discussions. Few people even use them in their own academic publications.

Super.

 

[joelr]

One could as well claim Persians copied from Jews.

Not if you care about what is actually true. The evidence suggests the Persians had this theology fully in place by the time they occupied the Hebrew nation. The OT shows the Persian ideas came into the OT after they had been in occupation, and that the Persians were well liked.

How is that different from you offering stories about Persians and Jews written by people?

Because no one is claiming the Persian theology is anything but stuff made up by people.

I think it is not my suggestion, but what the Bible tells. And I think it is possible, even if they don't have exactly the same writings. They may have also had ideas that don't come from God, and have mixed them all up so that it look different. However, the original ideas that came from God, may still be the same, even if only a part of what was told to Jews.

Again, not a shred of evidence shows this is anything but man-made stories. We also know Genesis is a re-write of Mesopotamian myth. So it's already been done. We know the NT is a Hellenistic borrowing.
Now if the Quran happened to look A LOT like earlier myth from Iran and the Bible would it be logical to suggest it was borrowed from these sources OR is it logical to say the angel Gabrielle came down and gave Muhammad revelations?

Or the Angel Moroni came down and gave Joseph Smith revelations. It's almost 100% syncretic borrowings, as all religions are.

You seriously expect people to believe your claims that have no support?

No support??????????????????? It's the consensus in historical scholarship?



Sanders, Wright, Lambert:

During the period of the Second Temple (c.515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire.[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]

Carrier:

Persian religion, Zoroastrianism had ideas Judaism did not have but picked up.


- War of good God vs Evil God/light vs dark/ God vs Satan


- Bad people burn in hell, good people wait in heaven


- A river of fire will flow over the universe burning everything up (even hell itself)


- A new better world created in it’s place


- All good people will be resurrected by God to live in that new world happily ever after




Nick Gier. Emeritus Professor of Philosophy University of Idaho Senior Fellow Martin Institut

The Iranian Impact on Judaism.......



John Collins Divinity Lecture

The Apocalyptic Imagination - An Introduction To Jewish Apocalyptic Literature by Dr John J. Collins

John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School





apocalypse is a mediated revelation usually from an angel (vision or actual) or transportation to heaven or hell mediated by angel. Uses symbolic language as well.





40:43 Persian influence - Dr Collins finds example in Dead Sea Scrolls





1:01:02 one origin of afterlife in Judaism. Big uptake in belief of afterlife after the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes. In the Hebrew Bible you were told if you keep the law you will live long in the land and see your children and your grandchildren. Now a situation arose where if you keep the law you are killed. One solution to this was there must be another life. 4th Ezra, God made not one world but two.

Apocalypticism | Eschatology, End Times, Judgement Day | Britannica

Apocalypticism, eschatological (end-time) views and movements that focus on cryptic revelations about a sudden, dramatic, and cataclysmic intervention of God in history; the judgment of all men; the salvation of the faithful elect; and the eventual rule of the elect with God in a renewed heaven and

www.britannica.com

apocalypticism, eschatological (end-time) views and movements that focus on cryptic revelations about a sudden, dramatic, and cataclysmic intervention of God in history; the judgment of all men; the salvation of the faithful elect; and the eventual rule of the elect with God in a renewed heaven and earth. Arising in Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion founded by the 6th-century-BC prophet Zoroaster, apocalypticism was developed more fully in Judaic, Christian, and Islāmic eschatological speculation and movements.



Mary Boyce:


Doctrines taken from Persia into Judiasm-

fundamental doctrines became disseminated throughout the region, from Egypt to the Black Sea: namely that there is a supreme God who is the Creator; that an evil power exists which is opposed to him, and not under his control; that he has emanated many lesser divinities to help combat this power; that he has created this world for a purpose, and that in its present state it will have an end; that this end will be heralded by the coming of a cosmic Saviour, who will help to bring it about; that meantime heaven and hell exist, with an individual judgment to decide the fate of each soul at death; that at the end of time there will be a resurrection of the dead and a Last Judgment, with annihilation of the wicked; and that thereafter the kingdom of God will come upon earth, and the righteous will enter into it as into a garden (a Persian word for which is 'paradise'), and be happy there in the presence of God for ever, immortal themselves in body as well as soul. These doctrines all came to be adopted by various Jewish schools in the post-Exilic period, for the Jews were one of the peoples, it seems, most open to Zoroastrian influences - a tiny minority, holding staunchly to their own beliefs, but evidently admiring their Persian benefactors, and finding congenial elements in their faith.

I believe they borrowed it from Jews, or the same God gave the same information, if they have something similar.

The Persians had the beliefs first. Before the Persian period NONE of those concepts are in the OT. Things I already mentioned and much more.
You don't actually believe that, you want it to be true. There is no evidence to support that belief. So you do not care about what is true.

Freewill, choice
the basic Zoroastrian doctrine of the existence of free-will, and the power of each individual to shape his own destiny through the exercise of choice.


Salvation or hell
Zoroaster's teachings contained much to anger and trouble his people. In offering the hope of heaven to everyone who would follow him and seek righteousness, he was breaking, it seems, with an aristocratic and priestly tradition which consigned all lesser mortals .. to a subterranean life after death. Moreover, he not only extended the hope of salvation on high to the humble, but threatened the mighty with hell and ultimate extinction if they acted unjustly. His doctrines concerning the hereafter were thus doubly calculated to outrage the privileged; and to rich and poor alike his rejection of the Daevas must have seemed rash and dangerous, being calculated to draw down the wrath of those divine beings on the whole community. Further, the grand concepts of the one Creator, dualism and the great cosmic struggle, with the demand for continual moral endeavours, may well have been difficult to grasp, and, once grasped, too challenging for the ordinary easy-going polytheist.



Virgin born
Messiah
An important theological development during the dark ages of 'the faith concerned the growth of beliefs about the Saoshyant or coming Saviour. Passages in the Gathas suggest that Zoroaster was filled with a sense that the end of the world was imminent, and that Ahura Mazda had entrusted him with revealed truth in order to rouse mankind for their vital part in the final struggle. Yet he must have realized that he would not himself live to see Frasho-kereti; and he seems to have taught that after him there would come 'the man who is better than a good man' (Y 43.3), the Saoshyant. The literal meaning of Saoshyant is 'one who will bring benefit' ; and it is he who will lead humanity in the last battle against evil. Zoroaster's followers, holding ardently to this expectation, came to believe that the Saoshyant will be born of the prophet's own seed, miraculously preserved in the depths of a lake (identified as Lake K;tsaoya). When the end of time approaches, it is said, a virgin will bathe in this lake and become with child by the prophet; and she will in due course bear a son, named Astvat-ereta, 'He who embodies righteousness' (after Zoroaster's own words: 'May righteousness be embodied' Y 43. r6). Despite his miraculous conception, the coming World Saviour will thus be a man, born of human parents, and so there is no betrayal, in this development of belief in the Saoshyant, of Zoroaster's own teachings about the part which mankind has to play in the great cosmic struggle.

Or they have mixed up own ideas to the message that was from God.

Clearly the Persian religion had a massive impact on Hebrew theology.
Virgin born messianic saviors, free will to choose good or bad, a supreme god vs a devil, a hell, oh and Revelation:

The end battle between god/devil and a bodily resurrection and paradise on earth. Persian.

 

[Augustus]

You didn't read his article and you are responding to something made up.

Verbatim:

“But even besides that, no expert opinion on this is sound that is not informed by reading Carrier 2012, the latest peer reviewed research on this matter.”

So you also ape Carrier’s tendency to claim other people haven’t read stuff while misrepresenting them.

Btw, you didn’t explain why your 110 year old source is fine, but using 15 year old sources is not ok (according to your hero Dr Carrier anyway).

“One rule for me another for you” is the nature of apologetics though, I suppose.

Because I want to.

Oddly fanboyish, but whatever floats your boat.

 

[joelr]

Verbatim:

“But even besides that, no expert opinion on this is sound that is not informed by reading Carrier 2012, the latest peer reviewed research on this matter.”

So you also ape Carrier’s tendency to claim other people haven’t read stuff while misrepresenting them.

Btw, you didn’t explain why your 110 year old source is fine, but using 15 year old sources is not ok (according to your hero Dr Carrier anyway).

“One rule for me another for you” is the nature of apologetics though, I suppose.

Still wrong. His argument is combining all of the research of late, which you are misrepresenting as if he's saying it's all based on one article, by him, in 2012.

Jesus among the Historians: How the Manuscripts of Josephus Changed Over Time and What They Originally Said:
A Survey of Recent Scholarship Richard Carrier, Ph.D. 10 February 2017
Summary
• Manuscripts of the Antiquities of Josephus contain two refs. to Jesus Christ: the Testimonium Flavianum (in book 18) and a reference to James the brother of Jesus (in book 20).

• Recent publications by Richard Carrier, Louis Feldman, G.J. Goldberg, Paul Hopper, Ken Olson, and Alice Whealey shed new light on what happened, altering what we should conclude about what Josephus originally wrote. • All surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities derive from the last manuscript of it produced at the Christian library of Caesarea between 220 and 320 A.D.
• Both references to Jesus were probably added after their first custodian, Origen (who had no knowledge of them), but by the time of their last custodian, Eusebius (who is the first to find them there). The long one deliberately; the short one accidentally.

• The additions may have been made by, or at the direction or under the supervision of, Eusebius, or his predecessor at the library, Origen’s successor, Pamphilus.
• Reliance on the Arabic version of the TF must be discarded. Attempts to invent a pared-down version of what Josephus wrote are untenable. The TF derives from the NT, doesn’t match Josephan narrative practice or context, and matches Eusebian more than Josephan style. Previous opinions on the James passage were unaware of new research; thus need revision. Traditional Essential Bibliography James Carleton Paget. 2001. “Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity.” Journal of Theological Studies 52.2 (October): 539–624. Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz. 1996. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Fortress), pp. 64–74. Robert Van Voorst. 2000. Jesus outside the New Testament (Eerdmans), pp. 81–104. Alice Whealey. 2003. Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times (P. Lang).


New Essential Bibliography

Alice Whealey. 2016. “The Testimonium Flavianum.” A Companion to Josephus in His World, eds. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (John Wiley & Sons), pp. 345–55.

[Which fails to take into account any of the following (except Whealey 2008 and Olson 1999), which is reflective of the problem that needs correcting.]

Richard Carrier. 2014. “Josephus and the Testimonia Flaviana.” On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (Sheffield-Phoenix), pp. 332–342.

Paul Hopper. 2014. “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:63.”
Linguistics and Literary Studies: Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers, eds. Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob (de Gruyter), pp. 147–169.

Ken Olson. 2013. “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum.” Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations, eds.
Aaron Johnson and Jeremy Schott (Harvard University Press), pp. 97–114.

Ken Olson. 2013. “The Testimonium Flavianum, Eusebius, and Consensus.” The Jesus Blog (August 13): http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-testimoniumf lavianum-eusebius-and.html.

Louis Feldman. 2012. “On the Authenticity of the ‘Testimonium Flavianum’ Attributed to Josephus.” New Perspectives on Jewish Christian Relations, eds.

Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob Schacter (Brill), pp. 13–30. Richard Carrier. 2012. “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (Winter 2012): 489–514 [Reproduced in Hitler Homer Bible Christ: The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier 1995-2013 (Philosophy Press, 2014), pp. 337–68.]

Alice Whealey. 2008. “The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic.” New Testament Studies 54.4 (October): 573–90.

Ken Olson. 1999. “Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61: 305–22.

G.J. Goldberg. 1995. “The Coincidences of the Testimonium of Josephus and the Emmaus Narrative of Luke.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13: 59–77.


The Handout is linked to here:

Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can't Cite Opinions Before 2014 • Richard Carrier Blogs

On whether Josephus actually ever mentioned Jesus, usually you hear people claim “the consensus is” or “such-and-such renowned Josephus expert said” that he did, so shut-up already, nothing more to see here, “move on!” Well, there are two reasons you can’t do that anymore. General Principles...

www.richardcarrier.info

post #121
"Ehrman and Carrier both look at texts and try to interpret them in a historical context."

Huh, doesn't sound like an apologist?

Oddly fanboyish, but whatever floats your boat.

I see it as weak, but if gaslighting is your thing do what you need to. Or is it just bullying, because that's super weak.

 

[1213]

The Persians had the beliefs first. Before the Persian period NONE of those concepts are in the OT.

There are two problems with that:
1) How can anyone know that the dates are correct.
2) Similarity is not necessary a proof for copying. IT is possible that people get same information from other source.

 

[joelr]

There are two problems with that:
1) How can anyone know that the dates are correct.

We have the dates for the OT, especially the parts of Isaiah and Daniel where we first see Persian influence.
The Persian myths have been dated around 1700 BCE.

But it's clear NONE of them were in the OT scripture, NONE. Everything was added during the 2nd Temple Period, all of the Persian ideas that were not part of Hebrew theology.

2) Similarity is not necessary a proof for copying. IT is possible that people get same information from other source.

Right as the Persians occupy, the following centuries suddenly all these concepts are flowing into Judaism? What source? You mean now you are sayibng a deity gave them all the Persian theology after the Persians occupied them? Which wasn't given before? Different theology was given, that contradicts it.
Yahweh had no name for the dead in Sheol. Now suddenly he changes his mind and we get hell and a devil who is at war with Yahweh? Even though earlier in the OT they often spoke and worked together?
Also this is how religions develop naturally, taking ideas over time from different religions.



I never said it was proof, it's a huge number of massive changes and our studies on the Persian religion show they were all part of that.
They were not in Jewish theology at all. Hell, a devil vs god, free-will, virgin born world savior, end-times battle, bodily resurrection and more.

The John Collins lectures point out the exact places we see the influence. That is where the scholarship is at. You are not going on evidence at all, you don't want to see the religion as a syncretic blending of cultures which is what religion is. If you decide you care more about what is actually true look into it. If not make up some silly apologetic.
BTW, it gets worse with the NT and Greek borrowing.

The same arguments can be made for the Quran, they didn't really copy myths from Iran and the Bible, it's all from real revelations and it just looks that way. One in Islam would argue that to make the possibility of their book being true. It's equally as unlikely.

 

[joelr]

There are two problems with that:
1) How can anyone know that the dates are correct.

We have the dates for the OT, especially the parts of Isaiah and Daniel where we first see Persian influence.
The Persian myths have been dated around 1700 BCE.

But it's clear NONE of them were in the OT scripture, NONE. Everything was added during the 2nd Temple Period, all of the Persian ideas that were not part of Hebrew theology.

2) Similarity is not necessary a proof for copying. IT is possible that people get same information from other source.

Right as the Persians occupy, the following centuries suddenly all these concepts are flowing into Judaism? What source? You mean now you are sayibng a deity gave them all the Persian theology after the Persians occupied them? Which wasn't given before? Different theology was given, that contradicts it.
Yahweh had no name for the dead in Sheol. Now suddenly he changes his mind and we get hell and a devil who is at war with Yahweh? Even though earlier in the OT they often spoke and worked together?
Also this is how religions develop naturally, taking ideas over time from different religions.



I never said it was proof, it's a huge number of massive changes and our studies on the Persian religion show they were all part of that.
They were not in Jewish theology at all. Hell, a devil vs god, free-will, virgin born world savior, end-times battle, bodily resurrection and more.

The John Collins lectures point out the exact places we see the influence. That is where the scholarship is at. You are not going on evidence at all, you don't want to see the religion as a syncretic blending of cultures which is what religion is. If you decide you care more about what is actually true look into it. If not make up some silly apologetic.
BTW, it gets worse with the NT and Greek borrowing.

The same arguments can be made for the Quran, they didn't really copy myths from Iran and the Bible, it's all from real revelations and it just looks that way. One in Islam would argue that to make the possibility of their book being true. It's equally as unlikely.

 

[joelr]

There are two problems with that:
1) How can anyone know that the dates are correct.

We have the dates for the OT, especially the parts of Isaiah and Daniel where we first see Persian influence.
The Persian myths have been dated around 1700 BCE.

But it's clear NONE of them were in the OT scripture, NONE. Everything was added during the 2nd Temple Period, all of the Persian ideas that were not part of Hebrew theology.

2) Similarity is not necessary a proof for copying. IT is possible that people get same information from other source.

Right as the Persians occupy, the following centuries suddenly all these concepts are flowing into Judaism? What source? You mean now you are sayibng a deity gave them all the Persian theology after the Persians occupied them? Which wasn't given before? Different theology was given, that contradicts it.
Yahweh had no name for the dead in Sheol. Now suddenly he changes his mind and we get hell and a devil who is at war with Yahweh? Even though earlier in the OT they often spoke and worked together?
Also this is how religions develop naturally, taking ideas over time from different religions.



I never said it was proof, it's a huge number of massive changes and our studies on the Persian religion show they were all part of that.
They were not in Jewish theology at all. Hell, a devil vs god, free-will, virgin born world savior, end-times battle, bodily resurrection and more.

The John Collins lectures point out the exact places we see the influence. That is where the scholarship is at. You are not going on evidence at all, you don't want to see the religion as a syncretic blending of cultures which is what religion is. If you decide you care more about what is actually true look into it. If not make up some silly apologetic.
BTW, it gets worse with the NT and Greek borrowing.

The same arguments can be made for the Quran, they didn't really copy myths from Iran and the Bible, it's all from real revelations and it just looks that way. One in Islam would argue that to make the possibility of their book being true. It's equally as unlikely.

 

[Augustus]

Still wrong. His argument is combining all of the research of late, which you are misrepresenting as if he's saying it's all based on one article, by him, in 2012.

No. I said

Carrier insists his 2012 paper negates all previous scholarship, yet if it was such a profound and devastating proof it should have had some degree of impact in the past 12 years.

he said:

“But even besides that, no expert opinion on this is sound that is not informed by reading Carrier 2012, the latest peer reviewed research on this matter.”

Insisting that an expert’s opinion cannot be sound unless you have read his article is the height of conceit.

Yet in 12 years it hasn’t had much impact.

Seems incongruous if it is as good as he thinks, given history rewards revisionist scholarship in general.

Why do you think his paper hasn’t had much impact in changing the consensus?

"Ehrman and Carrier both look at texts and try to interpret them in a historical context."

Huh, doesn't sound like an apologist?

Apologists interpret information, just they need to shape it to fit their preconceived conclusions.

They can even be correct as motivated reasoning is not necessarily wrong.

Btw, you still didn’t explain why your 110 year old source was quality evidence, but 15 year old sources should be rejected.

 

[1213]

Now suddenly he changes his mind and we get hell and a devil who is at war with Yahweh? Even though earlier in the OT they often spoke and worked together?

Spoke and worked together? By what I see, the devil was at war already in the Genesis. Do you think Genesis is from Persians?

Also this is how religions develop naturally, taking ideas over time from different religions.

Sorry, I don't believe that is true in every case.

 

[joelr]

he said:

“But even besides that, no expert opinion on this is sound that is not informed by reading Carrier 2012, the latest peer reviewed research on this matter.”

Insisting that an expert’s opinion cannot be sound unless you have read his article is the height of conceit.

Yet in 12 years it hasn’t had much impact.

Seems incongruous if it is as good as he thinks, given history rewards revisionist scholarship in general.

First, where? Please link to this statement so I can see the context. Second, I'm going on the material I linked to, a summary of all the latest scholarship, not one paper? If it was one paper I would not have presented it the same way and I don't care what he may have said about one paper. I'm interested in what the evidence looks like.

Why do you think his paper hasn’t had much impact in changing the consensus?

How do you know it didn't? You have a link to a reading list and some of it is post 2012, maybe they source his paper? Much of Carrier's blog is just summarizing many scholars on subjects.

Apologists interpret information, just they need to shape it to fit their preconceived conclusions.

They can even be correct as motivated reasoning is not necessarily wrong.

Ok, but that isn't Carrier.
"
post #121
"Ehrman and Carrier both look at texts and try to interpret them in a historical context.""

Btw, you still didn’t explain why your 110 year old source was quality evidence, but 15 year old sources should be rejected.

There are many things you have not responded too. Like my entire last post.


This is my source on Josephus. Not one Carrier article from his book. Not a strawman from 100 years ago.

Jesus among the Historians: How the Manuscripts of Josephus Changed Over Time and What They Originally Said:
A Survey of Recent Scholarship Richard Carrier, Ph.D. 10 February 2017
Summary
• Manuscripts of the Antiquities of Josephus contain two refs. to Jesus Christ: the Testimonium Flavianum (in book 18) and a reference to James the brother of Jesus (in book 20).

• Recent publications by Richard Carrier, Louis Feldman, G.J. Goldberg, Paul Hopper, Ken Olson, and Alice Whealey shed new light on what happened, altering what we should conclude about what Josephus originally wrote. • All surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities derive from the last manuscript of it produced at the Christian library of Caesarea between 220 and 320 A.D.
• Both references to Jesus were probably added after their first custodian, Origen (who had no knowledge of them), but by the time of their last custodian, Eusebius (who is the first to find them there). The long one deliberately; the short one accidentally.

• The additions may have been made by, or at the direction or under the supervision of, Eusebius, or his predecessor at the library, Origen’s successor, Pamphilus.
• Reliance on the Arabic version of the TF must be discarded. Attempts to invent a pared-down version of what Josephus wrote are untenable. The TF derives from the NT, doesn’t match Josephan narrative practice or context, and matches Eusebian more than Josephan style. Previous opinions on the James passage were unaware of new research; thus need revision. Traditional Essential Bibliography James Carleton Paget. 2001. “Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity.” Journal of Theological Studies 52.2 (October): 539–624. Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz. 1996. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Fortress), pp. 64–74. Robert Van Voorst. 2000. Jesus outside the New Testament (Eerdmans), pp. 81–104. Alice Whealey. 2003. Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times (P. Lang).


New Essential Bibliography

Alice Whealey. 2016. “The Testimonium Flavianum.” A Companion to Josephus in His World, eds. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (John Wiley & Sons), pp. 345–55.

[Which fails to take into account any of the following (except Whealey 2008 and Olson 1999), which is reflective of the problem that needs correcting.]

Richard Carrier. 2014. “Josephus and the Testimonia Flaviana.” On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (Sheffield-Phoenix), pp. 332–342.

Paul Hopper. 2014. “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:63.”
Linguistics and Literary Studies: Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers, eds. Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob (de Gruyter), pp. 147–169.

Ken Olson. 2013. “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum.” Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations, eds.
Aaron Johnson and Jeremy Schott (Harvard University Press), pp. 97–114.

Ken Olson. 2013. “The Testimonium Flavianum, Eusebius, and Consensus.” The Jesus Blog (August 13): http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-testimoniumf lavianum-eusebius-and.html.

Louis Feldman. 2012. “On the Authenticity of the ‘Testimonium Flavianum’ Attributed to Josephus.” New Perspectives on Jewish Christian Relations, eds.

Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob Schacter (Brill), pp. 13–30. Richard Carrier. 2012. “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (Winter 2012): 489–514 [Reproduced in Hitler Homer Bible Christ: The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier 1995-2013 (Philosophy Press, 2014), pp. 337–68.]

Alice Whealey. 2008. “The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic.” New Testament Studies 54.4 (October): 573–90.

Ken Olson. 1999. “Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61: 305–22.

G.J. Goldberg. 1995. “The Coincidences of the Testimonium of Josephus and the Emmaus Narrative of Luke.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13: 59–77.


The Handout is linked to here:

Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can't Cite Opinions Before 2014 • Richard Carrier Blogs​

On whether Josephus actually ever mentioned Jesus, usually you hear people claim “the consensus is” or “such-and-such renowned Josephus expert said” that he did, so shut-up already, nothing more to see here, “move on!” Well, there are two reasons you can’t do that anymore. General Principles...

www.richardcarrier.info

 

[joelr]

Spoke and worked together? By what I see, the devil was at war already in the Genesis. Do you think Genesis is from Persians?

Adam and Eve is an older story, there are many versions. An African version has the serpent telling the woman to eat the forbidden fruit.
The serpent isn't a "devil", it's a being who gives knowledge to creatures. The story is a metaphor in many ways. Heavenly gardens, first man/woman and forbidden fruit with a serpent telling them to eat. Common stories in early human culture. Far older than Genesis.

The Hebrew word is not satan or ha-satan. In the early OT Satan was the Angel of Yahweh:

The word does not occur in the Book of Genesis, which mentions only a talking serpent and does not identify the serpent with any supernatural entity.[15] The first occurrence of the word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22,[16][7] which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey:[6] "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim, and the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him."[7] In 2 Samuel 24,[17] Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval.[18] 1 Chronicles 21:1[19] repeats this story,[18] but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".[18]

Some passages clearly refer to the satan, without using the word itself.[20] 1 Samuel 2:12[21] describes the sons of Eli as "sons of Belial";[22] the later usage of this word makes it clearly a synonym for "satan".[22] In 1 Samuel 16:14–2,[23] Yahweh sends a "troubling spirit" to torment King Saul as a mechanism to ingratiate David with the king.[24] In 1 Kings 22:19–25,[25] the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven.[22] Yahweh asks the Host which of them will lead Ahab astray.[22] A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but who is analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets".[22]

Book of Job​

The satan appears in the Book of Job, a poetic dialogue set within a prose framework,[26] which may have been written around the time of the Babylonian captivity.[26] In the text, Job is a righteous man favored by Yahweh.[26] Job 1:6–8[27] describes the "sons of God" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) presenting themselves before Yahweh.[26] Yahweh asks one of them, "the satan", where he has been, to which he replies that he has been roaming around the earth.[26] Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?"[26] The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation.[28] Yahweh consents: the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh.

They are clearly friends.

HOWEVER, what I said about the Persian influence also being responsible for the modern ideas of Satan -


"During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[34][8][35] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,[8][36] the Zoroastrian spirit of evil, darkness, and ignorance."

Sorry, I don't believe that is true in every case.

People have all sorts of beliefs.
What I care about is what evidence demonstrates.

All of the Biblical material comes from older religions that the Hebrew writers made their own version of. I don't care if you don't believe what is demonstrated in history. Anyone is free to learn if they want to know what is true and how we know.


Persian expert, Mary Boyce, these ides are simply not in the early OT or in Israelite religion. These ideas shaped the late OT and became a huge part of the NT theology. There is no hell in the OT? It's mentioned in Daniel AFTER centuries of Persian rule. All of the Persian stuff starts showing up. Not hard to see what happened, they were hugely impacted by this religion. Even more so by Greek Hellenism.


Hell


The concept of hell, a place of torment presided over by Angra Mainyu, seems to be Zoroaster's own, shaped by his deep sense of the need for justice. • Those few souls 'whose false (things) and what are just balance' (Y 33. I) go to the 'Place of the Mixed Ones', Misvan Gatu, where, as in . the old underworld kingdom of the dead, they lead a grey existence, lacking both joy and sorrow.



Zoroaster was thus the first to teach the doctrines of an individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body. These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of mankind, through borrowings by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; yet it is in Zoroastrianism itself that they have their fullest logical coherence, since Zoroaster insisted both on the goodness of the material creation, and hence of the physical body, and on the unwavering impartiality of divine justice. According to him, - salvation for the individual depended on the sum of his thoughts, words and deeds, and there could be no intervention, whether compassionate or capricious, by any divine Being to alter this. With such a doctrine, belief in the Day of Judgment had its full awful significance, with each man having to bear the responsibility for the fate of his own soul, as well as sharing in responsibility for the fate of the world. Zoroaster's gospel was thus a noble and strenuous one, which called for both courage and resolution on the part of those willing to receive n.


Good vs evil


Harsh experience had evidently convinced the prophet that wisdom, justice and goodness were utterly separate by nature from wickedness and cruelty; and in vision he beheld, co-existing with Ahura Mazda, an Adversary, the 'Hostile Spirit', Angra Mainyu, equally uncreated, but ignorant and wholly malign. These two great Beings Zoroaster beheld with prophetic eye at their original, far-off encountering: 'Truly there are two primal Spirits, twins, renowned to be in conflict. In thought and word and act they are two, the good and the bad .... And when these two Spirits first encountered, they created life and not-life, and that at the end the worst existence shall be for the followers of falsehood (drug), but the best dwelling for those who possess righteousness (asha). Of the two Spirits, the one who follows falsehood chose doing the worst things, the Holiest Spirit, who is clad in the hardest stone [i.e. the sky] chose righteousness, and (so shall they all) who will satisfy Ahura Mazda continually '----1\n with just actions' (Y 30.3-5).

'----1\n with just actions' (Y 30.3-5). essential element in this revelation is that the two primal Beings each made a deliberate choice (although each, it seems, according to his own proper nature) between good and evil, an act which prefigures the identical choice which every man must make for himself in this life . The exercise of choice changed the inherent antagonism between the two Spirits into an active one, which expressed itself, at a decision taken by Ahura Mazda, in creation and counter-creation, or, as the prophet put it, in the making of 'life' and 'not-life' (that is,death); for Ahura Mazda knew in his wisdom that if he became Creator and fashioned this world, then the Hostile Spirit would attack it, because it was good, and it would become a battleground for their two forces, and in the end he, God, would win the great struggle there and be able to destroy evil, and so achieve a universe which would be wholly good forever.

God


Zoroaster went much further, and in a startling departure from accepted beliefs proclaimed Ahura Mazda to be the one uncreated God, existing eternally, and Creator of all else that is good, including all other beneficent divinities.