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Goodbye Jesus

Flavius Josephus


Mythra

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Like I said. Only through the eyes of the faithful.

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Now, you're speaking a blatant untruth or from naive ignorance.

 

Because there are many, MANY christian theologians and historians who acknowledge that this passage is not genuine.

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Scholars have spent entire careers pondering the Testimonium. Why waste time on it? Even if it could be proven to be authentic, it wouldn't matter to me. Josephus was not alive during the time that Jesus supposedly lived. He wrote his Jewish histories in 93 AD. There is not one single contemporary historical reference in existence. Josephus is only of interest because his works are the source of the Gospels.

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Like I said. Only through the eyes of the faithful.

 

Like I said. Only through the eyes of the unfaithful.

 

Nice.

 

Weren't you talking about humility in the other thread there Pacha?

 

Nice.

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Think about it - Josephus believes that some miracle worker arose from his people, possibly the messiah and/or the son of Yaweh. And this is all he wrote about it? For something like that you'd think he'd write a chapter on it, if not more. Or at least another paragraph. :shrug:

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Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonders. He drew many after him. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).

Wait a second here. This is how the full quote is:

3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

How could a professing Jew say "He was the Christ", and also "for he appeared to them alive", and "foretold" etc with reference to his own religions prophets? It would be like you Sub_Zer0 referring to Mohammed as "heard from God through the angel Gabriel" and "Mohammed a true prophet from God" etc. You would never do that! So why do you think Josephus ever would preach a Christian gospel if he was a Jew and considering it a false cult (as any Jew would then and now)?

 

This verse is extremely suspicious.

 

By the way, how would he know for such certainty that Jesus was the Christ, making all this miracles when Josephus never saw Jesus!? How do you explain that, without also making an illfunded implicit assertion that Josephus was a Christian?

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Think about it - Josephus believes that some miracle worker arose from his people, possibly the messiah and/or the son of Yaweh. And this is all he wrote about it? For something like that you'd think he'd write a chapter on it, if not more. Or at least another paragraph. :shrug:

 

Perhaps this passage was inserted into the works of Josephus later. HanSolo makes a good point that it would be unlikely that Josephus, being a Jew, would have referred to Jesus as the Christ. My opinion would be to readily agree that these original teachings of Jesus have been tampered with in every single generation. *sigh* However All Gods Fail, I do think these works Jesus did, if he were an actual person, only seemed as miracles because those people didn't understand the dynamics of these methods and techniques he used. Almost all these things reported that Jesus did can be replicated today, described in more detail in the manuscript from which the translation was taken, except for things like stopping the wind/storm. (I've not researched that one.) Many people use forms of 'hypnosis' to accomplish many astonishing healings and get no recognition today!

 

Would it make sense that an average person wandering the streets, with a new concept that was liberating the people from an old oppressed mentality, probably viewed by many as a mad man, would get any recognition? It might be after he was gone, that someone was reading/learning these teachings finally saw the true benefits of these beliefs. Paul? NOTHING supernatural at all!!! Just a very liberating philosophy ahead of its time! IMO, 'Christ' is referring to a nature that anyone can attain, like the 'Buddha' nature, etc... AND there seems to be a respect associated with this nature.

 

It may be similar to Galileo who was ridiculed for believing in a solar system. Later, someone found real merit in it... and now he is well respected for these beliefs. Maybe in the new-found popularity of these foundational teachings of Jesus, they were used to superimpose others' agendas onto them as a way of manipulating nations? IMO, rational explanations can be made of these teachings... unlike the fundamentalist approach.

 

My question is, why would anyone come up with these wonderful core messages and philosophies and attribute them to a fictitious person? This doesn't make sense to me...

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Josephus makes two references to Jesus. The one in the Testamonium is contentious, but the one in book 20 of Antiquities (20.9.1) is not. We must admit that Jospephus had as a minimum heard about 'Jesus Christ'.

 

So let's just take that much as a given.

 

If Jesus were pure myth, it stands to reason Josephus would have still heard about him and would have had no reason to question the existence of a historical Jesus.

 

Does that fact that Josphus had heard about Jesus destroy the Jesus myth premise? No, because it is completely consistent with the Jesus myth premise. Does it lend credence to the case for a historical Jesus? No, because it is hearsay written decades after the purported fact. Even worse, Josephus records all kinds of fantastic and impossible things throughout his writings, demonstrating he was not diligent about tracking down facts.

 

So, while getting to the root of whether or not the passage about Jesus in the TF is authentic or not is of historical interest, it really is irrelevant to the historical Jesus debate.

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My question is, why would anyone come up with these wonderful core messages and philosophies and attribute them to a fictitious person? This doesn't make sense to me...

 

That isn't the way myths form usually, although it certainly is possible. None of the teachings attributed to Jesus were really very unique. They were variants of teachings and philosophies that predate Christianity by at least 150 years, possibly much longer. His miracles were not unique either. Similar stories for most of these predate Christianity as well.

 

The Jesus myth (which is independent of the question of a historical Jesus) is an amalgamation of pre-Christian ideas.

 

One thing that many myths and legends have in common is that the name of the legendary figure has meaning relative to the core themes of the character. The modern name "Jesus" derives from the Hebrew "YHWH saves". Here we have the savior god, and his name is "god saves". Apropos.

 

In the case of Jesus, we have enough information to piece together how the myth might have formed. There isn't enough information be certain, but there is enough to fill in the holes with plausible scenarios that refute the claims that such myth formation are not plausible.

 

Paul's writings are the earliest writings about Jesus. But if you read Paul's writings exclusive of the rest of the New Testament, you do not see an earthly human Jesus, you see a spiritual being, who always was a spiritual being, and who's sacrifice was made in the spiritual domain before the begining of time.

 

Paul indicates that he himself has been chosen as the one to reveal the mystery of Jesus that had been hidden prior. Does that sound like he's talking about a physical fleshy human? No. Paul's ideas were not totally unique either, they were a variant of the Logos concept popular at the time. Of course, Paul was not the author of these concepts, as his writings are mostly letters of persuasion to other Christian churches. By the time Paul wrote, these mystical ideas were already popular.

 

We also have the teachings of the Essenes about their unnamed teacher of righteousness which closely parallel the teachings of Jesus.

 

We also have John the Baptist, for whom there is significant contemporary historical evidence, who died about the same time Jesus is said to have died. John had a significant following, who would have been devastated by his death, and would be expected to continue to meet and discuss John's teachings after his death.

 

The following is speculative, but demonstrates how such a myth could form.

 

The failure of the Jewish messiah to ever show up got John and others like him thinking that perhaps Christ was never meant to be a physical leader, but a spiritual leader. The Jewish scriptures were read in this light and the mystical concept of Logos applied to result in a new revelation of the messiah as a spiritual savior rather than a Jewish king. John gave the apropos name "god saves" to his mystical messiah.

 

By Paul's time, the message had changed somewhat. Jesus was still a spiritual being, but the idea of sacrifice, death, and resurrection had been tacked on. Whereas John taught that righteousness was the source of forgiveness, sacrifice theology had replaced it. Paul brought his message to the gentiles (Greeks).

 

But the Greeks didn't appreciate Jewish mysticism, and so as they spread the story, Jesus was assumed to be a real live human who had lived recently. Pre-existing miracle stories were attributed to Jesus, as were Essene teachings, which had made their way into Greek culture and were simply assumed to have been the teachings of Jesus.

 

This is the Jesus Josephus wrote about.

 

As the decades continued, more and more detail about the life of Jesus was added, tacking on the birth story, lineages, etc. The gospel writers combined all this and forced it to fit the Pythagorean astrological perspective they were familiar with.

 

Later writings about Jesus were based off these as the myth continued to evolve. By the 4th century, all this had been completely forgotten, and Jesus was presumed to have been a real live flesh and blood human much as he is known today. Christianity was now a political force as well as a religion, and the stakes were high. There were numerous holes in the story, which began to be filled in. Evidence was invented whole cloth to support a historical Jesus, the long lost city of Nazareth was conveniently found, the reference in TF is mentioned for the first time in a third party writing, and a campaign to suppress dissenters and destroy all competing evidence was undertaken.

 

From this point, we have sufficient historical records to understand the continued evolution of Christianity.

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:)Spamandham, thanks... and I can truly appreciate your perspective. Although, it seems to me that many myths have a realistic component to them. Let's take the story of Santa Claus. St. Nicholas was a real person, a great endearing true story, however... you can see where it went with time. :(

 

Perhaps, Jesus was a real man. A man with no more capabilities than you or I or anyone else. He, himself, supposedly said that we could do everything he did... and even greater things! So how could they be miracles as such? Maybe people ran away with these stories... such as with St. Nicholas.

 

I have no doubt that Jesus, if he is real, did take these teachings from other resources and put them all together. He never said they were all his original ideas... as the story goes. I see teachings from every direction into these teachings of Jesus. I think the clear intent is the reconciling of ALL people. It seems like a wonderful goal to harmonize all the ideas in which people fight wars over.

 

Moreso, I believe that a lot of myths were superimposed onto him, as is the evolution of the present Santa Claus. But how about if Jesus was a real guy, that was a unique social revolutionist, who really wanted to free people from the mental bondage held by a highly controling 'class' system... then once these liberating concepts became popular, people twisted these words for their own agenda? Why would the original real guy be so bad?

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Josephus makes two references to Jesus. The one in the Testamonium is contentious, but the one in book 20 of Antiquities (20.9.1) is not. We must admit that Jospephus had as a minimum heard about 'Jesus Christ'.

"...Astherefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was not dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned" (Antiquities, Josephus, 20.9).

 

That passage also ONLY APPEARS in Eusebius' work. Did you find some new, earlier copies with that passage?

 

Here's some good info by Rook Hawkins on the supposed secular evidence.

 

If anyone has any legitimate evidence Jesus existed, the world is dying to see it...

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That passage also ONLY APPEARS in Eusebius' work. Did you find some new, earlier copies with that passage?

 

There are none known of course, as I'm sure you're aware. The point is, that this particular off-hand reference is not contentious, like the one in TF. It does not give weight to the historical Jesus claim, but it does give weight to Josephus having heard about Jesus, which seems likely regardless of what he wrote.

 

Double regardless, it matters not what Josephus had or hadn't heard about Jesus, when the topic is the existence of a historical Jesus. The bottom line is, Josephus could not have known anything about Jesus first hand, nor did he reference his sources as witnesses (assuming he had ever heard of Jesus).

 

Josephus is 100% irrelevant in the discussion regarding mythical/historical Jesus, regardless of whether or not that which is attributed to him is legitimate! The reason for this is that what is attributed to him does not conflict with the Jesus-as-pure-myth idea, nor does it support a historical Jesus. If that point is not contended, can we please move on?

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Think about it - Josephus believes that some miracle worker arose from his people, possibly the messiah and/or the son of Yaweh. And this is all he wrote about it? For something like that you'd think he'd write a chapter on it, if not more. Or at least another paragraph. :shrug:

 

Perhaps this passage was inserted into the works of Josephus later. HanSolo makes a good point that it would be unlikely that Josephus, being a Jew, would have referred to Jesus as the Christ. My opinion would be to readily agree that these original teachings of Jesus have been tampered with in every single generation. *sigh* However All Gods Fail, I do think these works Jesus did, if he were an actual person, only seemed as miracles because those people didn't understand the dynamics of these methods and techniques he used. Almost all these things reported that Jesus did can be replicated today, described in more detail in the manuscript from which the translation was taken, except for things like stopping the wind/storm. (I've not researched that one.) Many people use forms of 'hypnosis' to accomplish many astonishing healings and get no recognition today!

 

Very true, Amanda - but the point I was making was really more about Josephus, not christ. It just doesn't seem likely that the passage in question would be all he had to say on the subject of Jesus. Considering the bombshell he drops on the reader, he moves on very quickly and never returns to the subject again.

 

Josephus was quite intelligent and very thorough in his research. Yet this one paragraph is all he had to say about a miracle worker who rose from the dead, as prophesied by his own people? He writes more about some guy who started a minor, 2-day rebellion. :shrug:

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Very true, Amanda - but the point I was making was really more about Josephus, not christ. It just doesn't seem likely that the passage in question would be all he had to say on the subject of Jesus. Considering the bombshell he drops on the reader, he moves on very quickly and never returns to the subject again.

 

Josephus was quite intelligent and very thorough in his research. Yet this one paragraph is all he had to say about a miracle worker who rose from the dead, as prophesied by his own people? He writes more about some guy who started a minor, 2-day rebellion. :shrug:

 

Josephus was a Jew and most Jews reject Jesus as Messiah, so perhaps that is the reasoning.

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Josephus was quite intelligent and very thorough in his research. Yet this one paragraph is all he had to say about a miracle worker who rose from the dead, as prophesied by his own people? He writes more about some guy who started a minor, 2-day rebellion. :shrug:

:)All Gods Fail, it is astonishing to me, that there is so little documented evidence of Jesus's existence outside the Bible!!! There are others besides Josephus, yet also quite controversial. Yet, Josephus, being a Jew, may not want to elaborate very much on a character that was threatening the status of these Jews of those times. I would be very skeptical of Josephus referring to Jesus as the Christ though. The Buddhist also have supposed documentation of Jesus being in India. More interesting is how the character Jesus is found in so many religous books! (Islamic and Buddhist) I wonder why that is?

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Very true, Amanda - but the point I was making was really more about Josephus, not christ. It just doesn't seem likely that the passage in question would be all he had to say on the subject of Jesus. Considering the bombshell he drops on the reader, he moves on very quickly and never returns to the subject again.

 

Josephus was quite intelligent and very thorough in his research. Yet this one paragraph is all he had to say about a miracle worker who rose from the dead, as prophesied by his own people? He writes more about some guy who started a minor, 2-day rebellion. :shrug:

 

Josephus was a Jew and most Jews reject Jesus as Messiah, so perhaps that is the reasoning.

 

If that were true, then it seems even more unlikely Josephus would've written that passage. He would have written something much more cynical and disbelieving, and critical of this so-called 'messiah'. As it stands, the passage sounds much more like a believer wrote it.

 

At best, the passage is highly suspect.

 

Josephus was quite intelligent and very thorough in his research. Yet this one paragraph is all he had to say about a miracle worker who rose from the dead, as prophesied by his own people? He writes more about some guy who started a minor, 2-day rebellion. :shrug:

:)All Gods Fail, it is astonishing to me, that there is so little documented evidence of Jesus's existence outside the Bible!!! There are others besides Josephus, yet also quite controversial. Yet, Josephus, being a Jew, may not want to elaborate very much on a character that was threatening the status of these Jews of those times. I would be very skeptical of Josephus referring to Jesus as the Christ though. The Buddhist also have supposed documentation of Jesus being in India. More interesting is how the character Jesus is found in so many religous books! (Islamic and Buddhist) I wonder why that is?

 

Well, Dracula also appears in a large body of fictional literature, aside from the original novel by Bram Stoker. ;)

 

As for Josephus, see my above reply to sub-zero.

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Josephus is 100% irrelevant in the discussion regarding mythical/historical Jesus, regardless of whether or not that which is attributed to him is legitimate! The reason for this is that what is attributed to him does not conflict with the Jesus-as-pure-myth idea, nor does it support a historical Jesus. If that point is not contended, can we please move on?

Of course I AGREE with your main point, since Josephus was born a few years AFTER Jesus supposedly died.

As a Jewish writer who was alive and writing when "Jesus" died, Philo is the Christian's best hope of a secular reference. Apparently he was most prolific writer for Jerusalem-- but word of this Jesus guy never reached him. Very odd if the Jesus tales were true.

Why keep it a big secret until a couple hundred years later?? And then we must believe or fry for eternity??

 

On second thought, the bible DOES mention Jerusalem, and there WAS a person named Jesus who lived sometime in the past, so we can verify that some of the bible is factual. Then there's the prophecy that came true when my church called "Jesus" Immanuel, so maybe it is all true.

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Well, Dracula also appears in a large body of fictional literature, aside from the original novel by Bram Stoker. ;)

:)All Gods Fail, I did admit that in my extensive search... there is really very little concrete evidence of the existence of an actual Jesus outside the Bible. What I was saying though... is that I did find that Jesus as a spiritual teacher seems to be well received and inclusive into many other spiritual teachings! IMO, Jesus, or whatever his real name was, is NOT the fundamentalist view, he is almost the opposite! His teachings seem more harmonious with Buddhism, and seem inclusive of all other spiritual teachings... except fundamentalism!

 

So, I can still appreciate these messages attributed to this 'character we now call Jesus'. I'm still curious as to why someone would have such an aggregate of wonderful spiritual teachings and attribute them to some fictitious person? It still seems to me to be more analogous to the St. Nicholas scenario... and BTW, I think Dracula was based on a real person also... :wink:

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1. It doesn't fit with the previous passage and the following one.

 

2. It's inconsistent with Josephus' other writings.

 

3. Ancient table of contents of Antiquities fail to show this passage.

 

4. Many christian writers from the second and third centuries quote Josephus and are very familiar with his writings. NONE of them mention this passage. They are: Origen, Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Antiochenus, Melito of Sardis, Iraenaeus, Clement, Julius Africanus, Tertullian, Hypolytus, Lactantius.

 

5. Eusebius "finds" it in the fourth century. It takes 100 years before anyone mentions it again.

 

These are just a few reasons why any thinking person would come to doubt it's authenticity. It's only a convincing passage through the eyes of the faithful, who grasp at anything, even something as dubious as this, to attempt to prove their religion.

 

1. Yes it does.

2. No it isn't.

3. You mean the ancient TOC actually broke it down to every passage?

4. Perhaps nobody quoted it because it was lost, thus Eusebius finds it...

 

I am not using this to prove my religion so get that though out of your head.

Wow! What a refutation of what Mythra said. The fact that you responded to point 3 with a question shows your dishonesty in points 1 and 2. If had done actually research on Josephus then you would know about point 3. You would've also been able to provide more of a refutation for all the points. Responding with yes and no is NOT debate. It is you not willing to learn and read what others have written. You so quickly dismiss what people say without thinking about it.

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