Flavius Josephus About Jesus?

[Oberon]

Augustus is known for and by his historical significance, and least of all for any myths that may have evolved about him.

So what? Jesus was famous not just for casting out demons and healing (acts which historical people in the 20th century have also been credited with). He was well known for his teachings, e.g. by Josephus.

The relevant point is that being credited with miracles and magic do not bar one from being historical.

Comparing him to a character of mythology with no secular bio

There is no such thing as a "secular bio" in the ancient world. In fact, there weren't even biographies as we would think of them. There were "lives" but none of them were "secular" as the idea of seperating religion or the religious from life wasn't really around. Hence, none of the lives of the philosophers, of the emperors, and so forth, are "secular." Of course, you haven't actually read any of them, so you wouldn't really know.

the mythological status of a miracle worker to that of historical

Except he is only "mythical" because of your nearly religious faith in this concept, as well as your nearly complete lack of familiarity with both relevant primary sources and secondary scholarship. Do you have any idea how many people in ancient history have far less data about them, are also credited as wonder-workers, and are considered historical?

 

[logician]

A little more about Nazareth. Again it did not exist when the supposed Jesus lived, making the whole "Jesus story" an obvious made up myth.


"(1) The earliest settlement in the Nazareth basin was destroyed about 730 BCE during the Assyrian conquest of the Holy Land. Before that time, the Bronze-Iron Age settlement (which had been in existence for some 1300 years) was not known as Nazareth but as Japhia, a town mentioned in the Bible and in Egyptian records.
(2) The destruction of Japhia was followed by a hiatus in settlement lasting from late VIII BCE until late I CE. During those eight centuries no one lived in the Nazareth basin.
(3) Nazareth came into being between the two Jewish revolts (70 CE–135 CE). That is, the town appeared when most scholars allege that the evangelists were writing their gospels. The appearance of Nazareth toward the end of the first century CE is confirmed most significantly by the 29 earliest oil lamps (the most datable finds), which date 25 CE–135 CE. In addition, the 20-odd Roman tombs in the basin all postdate 50 CE.
(4) It is not possible that Mary, Jesus, and Joseph lived where tradition says, namely, in the vicinity of the Church of the Annunciation. Not only was Nazareth not yet in existence during the time of the Holy Family, but Jewish law mandates that domiciles not be near tombs (corpses are a source of ritual impurity). This is significant because the venerated area was part of the village cemetery and agricultural district. For over fifteen hundred years, in fact, Christian pilgrims have been visiting and worshipping at a Late Roman cemetery and wine press.
(5) Nazareth was at first a Jewish village (without the admixture of heretics or pagans). It has lasted continuously from about 100 CE to the present."

American Atheists | The Myth of Nazareth, Does it Really Matter?

 

[dogsgod]

Maybe Nazareth was always there but no one noticed it, just as no one noticed Jesus.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

There are scholars that identify Nazareth with En Nasira (Nazerat) in Galilee.

Nazareth could possible mean Sprout-Town, Jesus being called a Nazarene
(not Nazarite) could be from the Hebrew word netser for sprout.
Compare Isaiah 11:1 with Matt 2:23.

Jesus is also termed as 'Branch' Zechariah (6:12,13), and Romans (11:17-24) mentions branches. Since the natural branches (Jews) rejected Jesus, then Gentiles branches were, so to speak, grafted in to replace the 'broken off' natural Jewish branches to then become Christians.

Luke (4:29) people tried to throw Jesus off the brow of the hill. Some scholars identify it with a rocky cliff some 40 feet high located South West of the city.

dogsgod- Wasn't Nazareth (netser) noticed in the Hebrew Scriptures?
Sprout -Town (Nazareth). At Isaiah 11:1 Jesus is a rod (sprout) or branch out from the stem of Jesse?
Just like today cities and countries change names.
Do we know all the names of cities that have changed names over the centuries?

 

[Oberon]

(2) The destruction of Japhia was followed by a hiatus in settlement lasting from late VIII BCE until late I CE. During those eight centuries no one lived in the Nazareth basin.

There is no evidence for this whatsoever.

(3) Nazareth came into being between the two Jewish revolts (70 CE–135 CE).

No evidence for this either.


In fact, almost everything in your source is wrong. In truth we know the following:

1.There is archaeological evidence of settlements where nazareth was thought to be.
2. We have references to Nazareth not long after Jesus lived, but none exactly around when he lived. However, this is what is known as an argumentum ex silentio, or "argument from silence." We have only a handful of sources outside of the NT which describe the geography of Jesus' day. The fact that Josephus doesn't mention the small and insignificant village of nazareth doesn't mean it wasn't there.

There is no actual evidence that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus' day, and there is evidence from four historical works that it did.

 

[Oberon]

Maybe Nazareth was always there but no one noticed it, just as no one noticed Jesus.

They did. Within the first century, we have more people talking about Jesus than most emperors. This includes four lives of Jesus.

 

[logician]

"Just like today cities and countries change names."

So what, it still does not refute my post.

 

[Oberon]

"Just like today cities and countries change names."

So what, it still does not refute my post.

No, the lack of evidence refutes your post. Rather than your websites, why don't we look at a work of modern scholarship, written by an actual academic and published by an actual academic press?

Sepphoris’s neighbor, Nazareth, was just a small village in the first century CE, having been founded some time in the third century BCE. By one estimate, it occupied approximately sixty acres and probably had around 480 inhabitants…Tombs from the Early and Middle Roman periods (and later) have been found around Nazareth, demarcating its ancient boundaries, as well as in the vicinity of the nearby modern city, Nazareth ’Illit. Of these, one, dating to the first or second century CE, contained an ossuary, indicating the practice of secondary burial. The tombs of Nazareth are less known among students of Early Roman Palestine than the famous Greek inscription found there, probably dating to the mid-first century CE, of an imperial decree prohibiting grave-robbing…Other especially relevant finds in Nazareth include a stepped basin, the bottom of which is decorated with a mosaic, found underneath St Joseph’s church. Bagatti interpreted this basin as a mikveh, but as Taylor has pointed out, the decoration of a mikveh with a mosaic is extremely unusual. In any case, the basin dates to the Late Roman or Byzantine period. Bagatti also refers to fragments of large (26 cm diameter), vase-like stone vessels, of uncertain date, and two stone feet, one marble and one of stone, also of uncertain date, found in a cistern beneath the Church of the Annunciation. Bagatti suggests that Crusaders may have deposited the votive feet in the church at some point. Given uncertainty regarding their place and date of origin, we cannot consider them evidence of paganism in first-century CE Nazareth.

Chancey, Mark A. Myth of a Gentile Galilee : The Population of Galilee and New Testament Studies. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. pp.83- 85.


You can quote from websites you find on google all you like. Anybody can write anything on the internet. Why don't you try quoting from an somebody with some expertise in this area? For example, Mark Chancey, quoted above, has

Ph.D., Religion, Duke University, May 1999
Major: New Testament and Christian Origins, Minors: Judaism, Greco-Roman Religion
M.A., Religion, University of Georgia, June 1992
Major: New Testament, Minor: Judaism
B.A., Political Science, University of Georgia, June 1990
Minor: Religion

 

[dogsgod]

Whether there was a huge city, a town, a village, or a graveyard where present day Nazareth is located, it was not known as Nazareth until after the Gospel story was written. There was no known Nazareth by anyone other than the unknown author of a Gospel written who knows where. It's an arguement from silence so it can be taken only so far, but the point is, it was unheard of. Anyone trying to make anymore of it than that is grasping at straws, again.

 

[dogsgod]

"Sepphoris’s neighbor, Nazareth, was just a small village in the first century CE, having been founded some time in the third century BCE."

I've read ignorant statements before but this takes the cake. I'd like to know where this village was referred to as Nazareth prior to the Gospel of Mark.

Trying to shape the evidence in order to fit a foregone conclusion is for believers. No one heard of Nazareth so look elsewhere.

 

[logician]

The gospel writers wrote about THE WORLD THEY KNEW, not the one that existed in the first 30+ years AD. They also were writing a story for a SPECIFIC AUDIENCE. That's why so many obvious mistakes were made concerning geography, customs, etc. concerning the supposed Jesus. They plain were making up the facts to fit their stories.

 

[dogsgod]

"There is no actual evidence that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus' day,:bonk:




and there is evidence from four historical works that it did.":liturgy:


"Within the first century, we have more people talking about Jesus than most emperors. This includes four lives of Jesus.:bible:

 

[Oberon]

"There is no actual evidence that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus' day,:bonk:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We have virtually no sources describing the geography of Jesus' day. The fact that these few sources (outside of the NT) do not mention Nazareth means nothing.

and there is evidence from four historical works that it did

.":liturgy:


"Within the first century, we have more people talking about Jesus than most emperors. This includes four lives of Jesus.:bible:

Again, you have neither read the primary works of the classical and hellenistic area which fall into the genre history, nor the scholarship on them, so you are hardly in a position to compare the gospels to other ancient biographies or histories. Others, however, far more qualified than you have done exactly that:

The New Testament in Its Literary Environment by David Aune
What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography by Robert Burridge
Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst by Dirk Frickenschmidt
"Genre for Q and a Socio-Cultural Context for Q: Comparing Sets of Similarities with Sets of Differences" Journal for the Study of the New Testament by F. G. Downing

All of the above concluded that the gospels fit well into the genre of ancient history.

 

[logician]

""There is no actual evidence that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus' day"

This argument is equivalent to the following:

Just like there's no actual evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist.

Of course, there's no evidence that bigfoot does exist either.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Just like there's no actual evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist.

Um.... actually, there is...

 

[Oberon]

""There is no actual evidence that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus' day"

This argument is equivalent to the following:

Just like there's no actual evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist.

Of course, there's no evidence that bigfoot does exist either.

Totally different argument. Because you aren't arguing that nazareth never existed, only that it didn't exist during Jesus' day. The basis for this argument (whether you are aware of it or not) is that, in the precious few sources we have for geography in and around Jesus' day, only the gospels mention Nazareth.

So, the equivalent argument would be "we know that bigfoot existed prior to 1920, and that he was around in 2005, but as we only have a sources I don't consider reliable to attest to his existence in 1970, clearly he didn't exist then."

 

[dogsgod]

"The basis for this argument (whether you are aware of it or not) is that, in the precious few sources we have for geography in and around Jesus' day, only the gospels mention Nazareth."

The basis of this argument is that within the entire collection of OT books, which is most certainly not a precious few for such a small and otherwise insignificant area, wherein a tremendous amount of towns and villages are named as well as the fact that Josephus provided a significant list of the towns and villages within Galilee itself, Nazareth is not mentioned among them nor any other writings. It's an argument from silence, but having traveled extensively through out Galilee, it would be hard to miss any settlement in such a small tract of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

 

[Oberon]

The basis of this argument is that within the entire collection of OT books, which is most certainly not a precious few for such a small and otherwise insignificant area,

I didn't say there were only a few sources about ancient israel. I said there were precious few sources about the geography of Jesus' day in and around his day.

The OT was 1. largely NOT concerned with geography and 2. concerned with times a long time prior to Jesus.

wherein a tremendous amount of towns and villages are named

So what? Many aren't. Moroever, you are talking about a timeline of hundreds of years, while we have archaeological evidence of a very small town of "Nazareth, was just a small village in the first century CE, having been founded some time in the third century BCE" (from the academic source previously cited).

as well as the fact that Josephus provided a significant list of the towns and villages within Galilee itself, Nazareth is not mentioned among them nor any other writings.

Because there were virtually no other writings, and Nazareth was completely insignificant. And it is mentioned in the NT.

It's an argument from silence, but having traveled extensively through out Galilee, it would be hard to miss any settlement in such a small tract of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

Nobody is saying that Josephus or others "missed" it. Simply that it was unimportant enough not to be mentioned outside of the NT by what precious few sources we have describing geography in and around Jesus' day.

 

[dogsgod]

:ymca:




"All of the above concluded that the gospels fit well into the genre of ancient history."






Of course they did, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

 

[Oberon]

Of course they did, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I'm sorry, the last academic work you read on history as a literary genre in the classical and hellenistic world was what, exaclty? Heck, how many ancient "lives" have your read AT ALL, let alone secondary scholarship on them?