Flavius Josephus About Jesus?

[dogsgod]

Most people for most of civilization believed the world to be flat so it's not surprising in the least that a lot of people are convinced by the church that this Jesus character actually existed and that Josephus actually wrote of him in spite of the fact that it's well known that his writings were tampered with. Bandwagon theories are useless, not to mention void of sound reasoning.

 

[logician]

Josephus wasn't a trained historian. At the time history wasn't even an established discipline. Primary sources, hearsay and rumors didn't always didn't always sort themselves into different degrees of confidence.

Nor, does it seem, was he a particlularly good one, or he was forged, his short rambles about a Christ were so out of context for a Jewish historian, and out of context of the passages it was with, it looks to many like the text was added much after the fact.

 

[Ben Masada]

Interesting. You claim on the one hand that the oral traditions behind the gospels are unreliable, although they are seperated from the events described by a few decades at most, while on the other hand you defend texts based on oral traditions which are seperated by centuries from the events and so forth contained in them(mishnah and talmudim). So basically oral tradition
, even when this oral tradition was handed down over centuries. But if it is oral tradition handed down from one or two generations, not many centuries as with the mishnah and talmudim, then it becomes "a gigantic snowball" of inaccuracy.

The unreliability of the gospels is not related to the time but to the fact that they were written by Hellenistic Gentiles with a very poor knowledge of Jewish culture and customs. You missed the point Oberon.

 

[Ben Masada]

The point being that for historical purposes, only WRITTEN RECORDS have any real meaning, and even then only if they can be substantiated by secondary or more sources, and can be proven NOT to be forgeries. Such is NOT the case in any of the very few so-called historical accounts of the suppose Jesus.

No wonder the struggle of the Fathers of the Church with their "pious forgeries" to interpolate Josephus into the historicity of Jesus.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

No wonder the struggle of the Fathers of the Church with their "pious forgeries" to interpolate Josephus into the historicity of Jesus.

"Pious forgeries" implies intent. You have no evidence for such a claim.

 

[Oberon]

Josephus actually wrote of him in spite of the fact that it's well known that his writings were tampered with.

Do you know WHY it is well known? These NT scholars you scoff at looked at Josephus critically over a century ago and thought that the longer passage almost certainly couldn't be completely genuine Josphus

Bandwagon theories are useless, not to mention void of sound reasoning.

Right. "Bandwagon" theories. I'm sure that Vermes analysis of Josephan vocabulary in the longer reference to Jesus is just a "bandwagon theory." And the idea that a Jewish historian would know about a trial that took place during his lifetime and concerned Jesus' brother is bogus too, given that it displays no typical christian themes and there is no reason to suppose it isn't genuine.

When NT and Judaic scholars use critical analysis to determine that the longer reference to Jesus is almost certainly tampered with, it isn't "bandwagon" but when the same critical analysis is applied to the passage on James it is.

You simply have no idea what you are talking about. You have shown again and again you have next to no knowledge of either ancient history or historical Jesus research. Your use of sources is just sad, the latest error indicative of your lack of relevant knowledge:
quote=dogsgod;1696682]Here is one example of a pagan parallel:
An example of a better attested parallel is the tradition that Dionysos turned water into wine at a wedding—his own, with Ariadne. This is mentioned by Walter Otto in his Dionysos: Myth and Cult, p.98, and is derived from Seneca's tragic play Oedipus. Thus there can be no doubt about this one being a legitimate parallel. Might the author of the Gospel of John have consciously copied this tradition in his similar miracle of the wedding at Cana? We don't know. The Dionysian myth is tied to the common claim that at festivals of Dionysos, wine would miraculously appear in empty vessels, or that water set out overnight would be changed to wine by morning.jesuspuzzle.com[/quote]

Where exactly does Seneca mention the marriage of Dionysus?

You scoff at genuine scholarship, which has almost universally determined after centuries of critical analysis that their is plenty of evidence of a historical Jesus, and instead use sources like that above.

 

[Oberon]

The unreliability of the gospels is not related to the time but to the fact that they were written by Hellenistic Gentiles with a very poor knowledge of Jewish culture and customs. You missed the point Oberon.

My mistake. Everything you deem "Jewish" is reliable, and everything not Jewish is suspect. This is your methodology? I will ad this to the rest of your "tools" for uncovering exactly what you thought to begin with.

The fact remains that the authors of the NT were in a vastly better position for understanding first century judaism than you are. And, as shown by your posts, you don't really know anything about it. Hence your insistence on reading back rabbinic judaism into Jesus' day, and the laws and rulings of the mishnah and talmudim as well.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

My mistake. Everything you deem "Jewish" is reliable, and everything not Jewish is suspect. This is your methodology?

Given that he deems himself Jewish it is a clearly flawed methodology.

 

[Ben Masada]

"Pious forgeries" implies intent. You have no evidence for such a claim.

Oh, as I can see, you are not aware that since the 4th Century the fever of forgeries and interpolations started among the Fathers of the Church. And it became an allowable activity as long as it was done in the name of piety. It became known as pious forgeries. I brought this up in the Catholic Answers Forum and I was surprised not to find many negative reactions. I took that a few of them were aware of this. Try the Encyclopedia Britanica on "Pious Forgery."

If you check also about Josephus quotations about Jesus, it was unheard of before the 4th Century. It is only obvious that they were pious forgeries interpolated in his writings by the Church.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

No wonder the struggle of the Fathers of the Church with their "pious forgeries" to interpolate Josephus into the historicity of Jesus.

"Pious forgeries" implies intent. You have no evidence for such a claim.

Oh, as I can see, you are not aware ...

Let's worry less about my awareness and focus on your evidence that the Testimonium Flavianum is an instance of poius fraud on the part of the "Fathers of the Church".

Please cite it.

 

[logician]

Even the supposed apostle Paul encouraged lying for your faith, so forging in the name of Xianity certainaly could have been considered an act for god.

 

[dogsgod]

Even the supposed apostle Paul encouraged lying for your faith, so forging in the name of Xianity certainaly could have been considered an act for god.

Eusebius's honesty has been questioned due to his own admissions of using fiction as "lawful and fitting."

"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and after wards to posterity."
Eusebius

 

[Oberon]

Even the supposed apostle Paul encouraged lying for your faith

Where did Paul advocate lying for one's faith?

 

[Oberon]

Eusebius's honesty has been questioned due to his own admissions of using fiction as "lawful and fitting."

"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and after wards to posterity."
Eusebius

A standard practice of ancient historians. It means "I'm going to talk about the important things."

 

[logician]

Eusebius's honesty has been questioned due to his own admissions of using fiction as "lawful and fitting."

"We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and after wards to posterity."
Eusebius

This was the general attitude of Catholicism and literalism, keep in that which promotes the sham of a real Christ, hide or trash anything that promotes the idea of a spirtual only Christ, or other sects of Xianity. It seemed to work.

 

[dogsgod]

It sure did, and still does.

 

[Ben Masada]

My mistake. Everything you deem "Jewish" is reliable, and everything not Jewish is suspect. This is your methodology? I will ad this to the rest of your "tools" for uncovering exactly what you thought to begin with.

The fact remains that the authors of the NT were in a vastly better position for understanding first century judaism than you are. And, as shown by your posts, you don't really know anything about it. Hence your insistence on reading back rabbinic judaism into Jesus' day, and the laws and rulings of the mishnah and talmudim as well.

Yes, you are right. The gospel writers were in a vastly better position for understanding First Century Judaism than I am. No wonder they picked up a Jew and made a demigod out of him. That's really Judaism of the First Century.
Perhaps the Judaism that you have become an expert at.

They were so aware of Jewish life and Culture of the First Century that they set Jesus celebrating the Passover before the 14th of Nisan, when the allowance in the Hebrew Scriptures was for even a month afterwards but never before. So much for Judaism of the First Century that their knowledge was "vastly" better than mine. Have mercy Oberon!

 

[Ben Masada]

Let's worry less about my awareness and focus on your evidence that the Testimonium Flavianum is an instance of poius fraud on the part of the "Fathers of the Church".

Please cite it.

Several Scholars have asserted that those quotations about Jesus in Josephus were absolutely unknown until the 4th Century, when the fever of pious fogeries by the Church started. Likewise, we don't hear anything about Jesus from Philo, who, by the way, was Jesus' contemporaneous. Philo's silence itself is an evidence that Josephus' references to Jesus were forgeries.

 

[logician]

Several Scholars have asserted that those quotations about Jesus in Josephus were absolutely unknown until the 4th Century, when the fever of pious fogeries by the Church started. Likewise, we don't hear anything about Jesus from Philo, who, by the way, was Jesus' contemporaneous. Philo's silence itself is an evidence that Josephus' references to Jesus were forgeries.

Something always deliberately ignored by the Jesus apologists.

 

[Ben Masada]

Something always deliberately ignored by the Jesus apologists.

That's faith which blinds the faithful.