Did Jesus Exist?

[SkepticalDaniel]

Lol, I have a topic about Josephus on TheThinkingAtheist's forum page, it's gotten a lot of troll activity.

 

I however, believe in the Historical Jesus.

[qadeshet]

6 members, 46 guests, 1

 

Know Thyself! Know Thyself! Know Thyself!

 

Pleasant Greeting Daniel. Don't you see that you are slipping back into Belief. Daniel I want you to Know, not Believe. Wouldn't you rather be a Philosopher?

And it doesn't even matter if some Jew had a few Followers, got in trouble with the authorities, and got killed. It's still a Myth. We're with you Daniel. Just relax, ok? Cheers!

[qadeshet]

6 members, 59 guests

 

Thanks again Brother Blood. Great work! Cheers everyone.

 

You need the Key to lock the Door To Perception on the way out; in order to protect the Treasure!

 

Ali Baba

 

Ali Baba and his wife borrow his sister-in-law's scales to weigh their new wealth. Unbeknownst to them, Cassim's wife puts a blob of wax in the scales to find out what Ali Baba is using them for, as she is curious to know what kind of grain her impoverished brother-in-law needs to measure. To her shock, she finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her husband. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal the secret of the cave. Cassim goes to the cave, taking a donkey with him to take as much treasure as possible. He enters the cave with the magic words. But in his greed and excitement over the treasure, he forgets the words to get out again. The thieves find him there and kill him. When his brother does not come back, Ali Baba goes to the cave to look for him, and finds the body quartered and with each piece displayed just inside the cave's entrance, as a warning to anyone else who might try to enter.

[SkepticalDaniel]

6 members, 46 guests, 1

 

Know Thyself! Know Thyself! Know Thyself!

 

Pleasant Greeting Daniel. Don't you see that you are slipping back into Belief. Daniel I want you to Know, not Believe. Wouldn't you rather be a Philosopher?

And it doesn't even matter if some Jew had a few Followers, got in trouble with the authorities, and got killed. It's still a Myth. We're with you Daniel. Just relax, ok? Cheers!

Please, don't worry! I'm fine!

[Blood]

I guess True Scotsman is on vacation. I was expecting some lively debate here, but instead ... silence. 

[qadeshet]

I guess True Scotsman is on vacation. I was expecting some lively debate here, but instead ... silence. 

7 members, 45 guests

 

Hi Blood, doing well I trust?

 

I don't think he has anything but couple of disputed referrences in Paul.  It's like he thinks we haven't already examined his evidence. I just don't see that he has anything but his Bible Scholars. And why did he think that we should put faith in their consensus? I'm still working on Genesis...but here it is. Adam means Man as in Mankind. Eve is the Mother of All Living, Mother Earth,  and Life itself. And the Elohim said "Now that the Man has become like one of Us, knowing Good and Evil,  let us cast him from the Garden lest he also partaketh of the Tree of Life and gain Immortality. Pretty much like Pandora's Box...lets blame it all on woman. Cain represented Agriculture while Able represented Herding. Agriculture killed Herding lifestyle. It is an allegory. How can anyone take it literally? I would still like to see TrueScotsman try to defend his position,,,which keeps changing.

 

It is probable the Bible contains no more history than Gone With the Wind. Cheers!

[qadeshet]

Know YourSelf! is...
Know Your Self!

 

Thanks for joining me, Astrea(Austere)!

Astrea, I'm going to explain this on one of my threads...it will take me a while. God is the Infinite Light. No one can get to the Light because Nothing can travel at Light Speed. Not even the gods have the answer to the question...Does God exist? But the gods exist within us. The gods should be loved and respected, but not worshiped. Remember Narcissus? He loved his Self. We should all love our Self. All the Sacred Myths are reversed, to protect them. The Qabbalists have a name for the Infinite Light-Kether, the Supreme Crown(God). You can only approach the Infinite Light, never reach it. Not even the gods know what it is! Christians lost half of the Christian Mysteries 2000 years ago. Dear ficino reminded me this morning of the Mithraic Mysteries. These were for men only! Followers of Paul knew only knew the Women's Mysteries-of Yeshua's Mysteries! I would like Brother Blood to find out what happened, and how this split occured. Both Mythras and Yeshua should be loved, but not worshiped. Mythras is in men, while Yeshua is the Inner Woman. The gods are in us! There is nothing spiritual about this. The Mystery Schools were Schools of Philosophy! Know or Not, but do not Believe!(Yoda was right)So, for our friend TrueScotsman, the Historical Jesus could have been based on several Yeshua's, but not "Jesus of Nazareth". For "Jesus of Nazareth" is found only in Sacred Myth. Philosophy is Science, Religion is Belief. Religion was intended to guard the Inner Mysteries and to redistribute wealth. How much wealth has the Catholic Church stored here on Earth. Probably enough to feed everyone on Earth many times. What you call spirituality, why not call it by it's rightfull name? It is time to resore the Mystery Schools-mine is the Academy.  Philosophy. Cheers!

 

Love the Light! But do not worship it!

[Storm]

I regularly see the experts make reference to verses in the bible that help support the Jesus existed theories. For example, Bart Ehrman uses the text in Galatians that Paul wrote that mentions him meeting "James the Brother of the Lord" as evidence that Jesus likely existed. But how credible is the bible itself? Is a statement by "Paul" in a book that is clearly propaganda still considered a valid source?

 

We clearly know that the bible is full of embellishments and stories that never happened, so how is using the "information" provided in a questionable book as evidence considered Scholarly? If you eliminated the bible altogether, would there actually be any evidence whatsoever that a man named Jesus existed? As far as I can tell, no.

 

So essentially, I am interested in knowing if the bible, despite its clearly pointed out flaws is still considered a valid source of information that can be used to verify the existence of Jesus in the academic world?

[pratt]

 

I guess True Scotsman is on vacation. I was expecting some lively debate here, but instead ... silence.

 

7 members, 45 guests

 

Hi Blood, doing well I trust?

 

I don't think he has anything but couple of disputed referrences in Paul.  It's like he thinks we haven't already examined his evidence. I just don't see that he has anything but his Bible Scholars. And why did he think that we should put faith in their consensus? I'm still working on Genesis...but here it is. Adam means Man as in Mankind. Eve is the Mother of All Living, Mother Earth,  and Life itself. And the Elohim said "Now that the Man has become like one of Us, knowing Good and Evil,  let us cast him from the Garden lest he also partaketh of the Tree of Life and gain Immortality. Pretty much like Pandora's Box...lets blame it all on woman. Cain represented Agriculture while Able represented Herding. Agriculture killed Herding lifestyle. It is an allegory. How can anyone take it literally? I would still like to see TrueScotsman try to defend his position,,,which keeps changing.

 

It is probable the Bible contains no more history than Gone With the Wind. Cheers!

why does cain need to kill abel for a allegory?

[qadeshet]

Know YourSelf!

 

Thanks Storm.

 

All Religious Texts are Sacred Myths. They were never intended to be taken literally. This is not the same as fiction. "Paul" was not even a man!. Did you know that Hypatia was killed by Saint Cyrus? Hypatia was "Paul". Hypatia was a great Philosopher...so she had to guard the Women's Mysteries! This was to protect the Mysteries from the passage of time. Do you know why the Church has been storing vast wealth?

 

 

 

 

I regularly see the experts make reference to verses in the bible that help support the Jesus existed theories. For example, Bart Ehrman uses the text in Galatians that Paul wrote that mentions him meeting "James the Brother of the Lord" as evidence that Jesus likely existed. But how credible is the bible itself? Is a statement by "Paul" in a book that is clearly propaganda still considered a valid source?

 

We clearly know that the bible is full of embellishments and stories that never happened, so how is using the "information" provided in a questionable book as evidence considered Scholarly? If you eliminated the bible altogether, would there actually be any evidence whatsoever that a man named Jesus existed? As far as I can tell, no.

 

So essentially, I am interested in knowing if the bible, despite its clearly pointed out flaws is still considered a valid source of information that can be used to verify the existence of Jesus in the academic world?

[Storm]

 

Know YourSelf!

 

Thanks Storm.

 

All Religious Texts are Sacred Myths. They were never intended to be taken literally. This is not the same as fiction. "Paul" was not even a man!. Did you know that Hypatia was killed by Saint Cyrus? Hypatia was "Paul". Hypatia was a great Philosopher...so she had to guard the Women's Mysteries! This was to protect the Mysteries from the passage of time. Do you know why the Church has been storing vast wealth?

 

 

 

 

I regularly see the experts make reference to verses in the bible that help support the Jesus existed theories. For example, Bart Ehrman uses the text in Galatians that Paul wrote that mentions him meeting "James the Brother of the Lord" as evidence that Jesus likely existed. But how credible is the bible itself? Is a statement by "Paul" in a book that is clearly propaganda still considered a valid source?

 

We clearly know that the bible is full of embellishments and stories that never happened, so how is using the "information" provided in a questionable book as evidence considered Scholarly? If you eliminated the bible altogether, would there actually be any evidence whatsoever that a man named Jesus existed? As far as I can tell, no.

 

So essentially, I am interested in knowing if the bible, despite its clearly pointed out flaws is still considered a valid source of information that can be used to verify the existence of Jesus in the academic world?

 

Thanks for your answer, but I cant say that you answered my question. Just because they are myths doesn't mean that they don't contain truth. My question regards how much credibility do we give the bible in regards to things like I asked in my previous question. The stories in the bible may be myths, but we know that many of the cities were real, some of the events actually did happen, and that there may be truth about some of the people mentioned. But how does modern scholarship address this information and how can this information be used to verify other parts of the bible?

[Blood]

I regularly see the experts make reference to verses in the bible that help support the Jesus existed theories. For example, Bart Ehrman uses the text in Galatians that Paul wrote that mentions him meeting "James the Brother of the Lord" as evidence that Jesus likely existed. But how credible is the bible itself? Is a statement by "Paul" in a book that is clearly propaganda still considered a valid source?

 

We clearly know that the bible is full of embellishments and stories that never happened, so how is using the "information" provided in a questionable book as evidence considered Scholarly? If you eliminated the bible altogether, would there actually be any evidence whatsoever that a man named Jesus existed? As far as I can tell, no.

 

So essentially, I am interested in knowing if the bible, despite its clearly pointed out flaws is still considered a valid source of information that can be used to verify the existence of Jesus in the academic world?

 

 

First of all, Ehrman is a textual scholar in the field of Theology, e.g. the study of the New Testamentum. He's not a historian. He has no degrees or qualifications in the field of history. Ehrman studies anonymously-written religious texts of the Ancient Near East. He does that well, but it's a subject only tangentially related to the larger subject of History. 

 

You are perfectly correct to note that using one part of the Bible to "prove" another part of the Bible, though simply an enlarged version of the begging the question fallacy, is a favorite tactic of religious studies professors. 

 

To answer your third question, the answer sadly is Yes. But this "proves" nothing but our own need for self-deception. You see, the Western mind cannot wrap its head around the idea that Biblical writers were not historians. This is due to the catastrophic error in judgement made by our distant relatives 1,000-2,000 years ago, who were seduced by the book's compelling narrative into believing that the Bible really was the history of the world, and that its "god" was the real god. It has taken us a ferocious and monumental struggle over the last 400 years to prove that this assumption was, in fact, grossly in error, and that the Bible is no more "historical" than the Necronomicon. But Western culture is in serious denial, and cannot accept that this is true -- that our ancestors were completely wrong on the biggest questions facing them and us. And so academia lumbers on, pointlessly trying to extract what little meaning and relevance it still can from this mausoleum of a subject. It's a pretend-game of mammoth proportions, undertaken to save us from the embarrassment of having to admit once and for all to having been hood-winked by a few clever religious fanatics in ancient times. 

[Blood]

"Christ is worthless to us except as his myth is mixed up in our childhood memories ... he is of value only as the half-Italian, half-Flemish thin man whom we see in pictures ... we don't know yet whether or not any such one person really existed ..."

 

-- H.P. Lovecraft to James Ferdinand Morton, October 30, 1929 (printed in Selected Letters III, pg. 48)

[Guest]

 

I guess True Scotsman is on vacation. I was expecting some lively debate here, but instead ... silence. 

7 members, 45 guests

 

Hi Blood, doing well I trust?

 

I don't think he has anything but couple of disputed referrences in Paul.  It's like he thinks we haven't already examined his evidence. I just don't see that he has anything but his Bible Scholars. And why did he think that we should put faith in their consensus? I'm still working on Genesis...but here it is. Adam means Man as in Mankind. Eve is the Mother of All Living, Mother Earth,  and Life itself. And the Elohim said "Now that the Man has become like one of Us, knowing Good and Evil,  let us cast him from the Garden lest he also partaketh of the Tree of Life and gain Immortality. Pretty much like Pandora's Box...lets blame it all on woman. Cain represented Agriculture while Able represented Herding. Agriculture killed Herding lifestyle. It is an allegory. How can anyone take it literally? I would still like to see TrueScotsman try to defend his position,,,which keeps changing.

 

It is probable the Bible contains no more history than Gone With the Wind. Cheers!

 

I've been away from this forum for a bit, and it appears for good reason.  You don't seem to comprehend WHAT my position actually is, nor think that I want to invest copious amounts of time defending the existence of a man who I think was no Christ or deity.

 

My position didn't change, your misrepresentations seemed to though.  

 

You guys do understand I'm not a fucking Christian right?  I guess I was right to take a break.

[Blood]

As you stated in message #46 in the "Was Jesus Good?" thread, in response to Qadeshet:

 

Bible scholars use what is called the Historical Critical Method, which is employed on all sorts of ancient texts and IS a historical method.  What you're advocating for is a type of history that ignores what types of evidence historians are usually dealing with to piece together the facts.

 

Perhaps we could start another thread on if Jesus actually existed, and I can show you the cumulative case seems to indicate that a Jesus of Nazareth (yes Nazareth also existed, contrary to mythicist claims) did exist.  Dismissing the New Testament canonical texts as not even relevant to the discussion is not an honest historical approach if you ask me.  Duh, none of the shit they said is true about a god, but that doesn't mean they are useless historically, which is the major blind spot in your position.

 

It's as if you just dismiss Biblical Scholarship entirely, with reference to Jesus' actual life.

 

 

 

So we started the thread that you recommended, but you haven't "show(n) the cumulative case ... to indicate that a Jesus of Nazareth did exist." 

 

Are you going to now? 

 

Meanwhile I have demonstrated in multiple posts that Biblical scholars using the historical-critical method have no problem whatsoever declaring that certain Biblical books, which give the appearance (like the gospels) of being written by historians, are actually just fictional oriental tales, written for theological purposes, about the adventures of a non-existent lead character. So the question is, if this can be true of "Old Testament" Biblical writers, why can't it be true of "New Testament" writers? Why couldn't they, also, be writing theology disguised as history? 

[Guest]

As you stated in message #46 in the "Was Jesus Good?" thread, in response to Qadeshet:

 

Bible scholars use what is called the Historical Critical Method, which is employed on all sorts of ancient texts and IS a historical method. What you're advocating for is a type of history that ignores what types of evidence historians are usually dealing with to piece together the facts.

Perhaps we could start another thread on if Jesus actually existed, and I can show you the cumulative case seems to indicate that a Jesus of Nazareth (yes Nazareth also existed, contrary to mythicist claims) did exist. Dismissing the New Testament canonical texts as not even relevant to the discussion is not an honest historical approach if you ask me. Duh, none of the shit they said is true about a god, but that doesn't mean they are useless historically, which is the major blind spot in your position.

It's as if you just dismiss Biblical Scholarship entirely, with reference to Jesus' actual life.

 

 

So we started the thread that you recommended, but you haven't "show(n) the cumulative case ... to indicate that a Jesus of Nazareth did exist."

Are you going to now?

Meanwhile I have demonstrated in multiple posts that Biblical scholars using the historical-critical method have no problem whatsoever declaring that certain Biblical books, which give the appearance (like the gospels) of being written by historians, are actually just fictional oriental tales, written for theological purposes, about the adventures of a non-existent lead character. So the question is, if this can be true of "Old Testament" Biblical writers, why can't it be true of "New Testament" writers? Why couldn't they, also, be writing theology disguised as history?

I don't think they were writing historical literature, but something more akin to propaganda.

 

My reason for abandoning this conversation is the incessant ad hominems employed by you and qadeshet. So yeah, won't be coming back here for awhile.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I'm disappointed. I was just getting ready to learn more.

[Blood]

"My reason for abandoning this conversation is the incessant ad hominems employed by you and qadeshet. So yeah, won't be coming back here for awhile."

 

 

Correctly pointing out that Bible scholars are theologians and not historians is considered an "ad hominem"? Apparently True Scotsman doesn't understand the definitions of either "ad hominem" or "theology." I've already pointed out that a noted Bible scholar, William H.C. Propp, made the exact same distinction during the UCSD Exodus conference in 2013.

 

The scholars I've cited in this thread (Westermann, Collins, Propp) are unquestionably great scholars in the field of Biblical studies, i.e. theology. No "ad hominems" were made against them. 

[TerranceG]

I've tried to give the "mythisist" viewpoint a fair shake. As an atheist, such a thing would be an ax to the root of Christanity rather than the usual pulling at the leaves to reveal the inconsistencies underneath. But I find that the most credible...and even more important to me...and reliable as well as transparent source for evidence regarding this is Dr Bart Ehrman.

 

Why? Because he is the only scholar that I know of who actively engaged with his critics and supporters in a public blog dedicated to early Christian history and textual criticism. Integrity is what matters to me. He has proven to me time and again that his knowledge of the subject matter is vast and deep, and that often leaves him at odds with both Christians and atheists who insist that he is only right when it fits their agenda and dogmatic belief or unbelief.

 

It is ultimately of little importance in the grand scheme of things whether or not there was an actual man named Jesus of Nazereth or not. Neither believers or unbelievers are going to change their minds because of it. Can we move on to more important and relevant issues please?

[qadeshet]

We are still waiting to see any evidence that "Jesus of Nazareth" is any different than Heracles, Adonis, Apollonius, or Horus. Celsus pointed this out 1800 years ago. Just a new version of the same old Myth. Check out Origen's apologetic.

[qadeshet]

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.tumblr.com%2F236e3869cdc3a99add2231de73615564%2Ftumblr_inline_mo2vzxwSBf1qz4rgp.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjesusbirthermovement.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F39081033913%2Fchristian-apologist-secular-source-evidence-for&docid=3B_Y-OligDRssM&tbnid=f9yL7bfAA-pBGM%3A&w=500&h=423&bih=731&biw=1600&ved=0ahUKEwjy7vT74fPNAhWGKGMKHbDsAm8QxiAIAg&iact=c&ictx=1

[Blood]

A lot of Biblical scholars say he did so it must be true.

[qadeshet]

http://www.slideshare.net/Athenagorus/who-chose-the-gospels-the-great-gospel-conspiracy

Who chose the Gospels.

 

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fimage.slidesharecdn.com%2Fwhochosethegospelsshare-140913011229-phpapp01%2F95%2Fwho-chose-the-gospels-the-great-gospel-conspiracy-62-638.jpg%3Fcb%3D1410571093&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slideshare.net%2FAthenagorus%2Fwho-chose-the-gospels-the-great-gospel-conspiracy&docid=RWJrnkngqXnPZM&tbnid=GCqiwUpDdwqGoM%3A&w=638&h=359&bih=763&biw=1384&ved=0ahUKEwjl-orM4fXNAhVMw2MKHVOYAYMQxiAIAg&iact=c&ictx=1

Memoirs of the Apostles

[Blood]

All over the Ancient Near East, it was understood that the Jews had their own written scriptures, just like the Egyptians, Greeks, and so on. Scriptures were intimately tied to ethnicity, though not exclusively. Virtually no one except ethnic Jews could read Hebrew, just like no one except ethnic Egyptians could read Hieroglyphs. Initiation into the understanding of these sacred languages was closely guarded and probably restricted by ethnicity or birthright, just as we know scribal schools in Babylon were restricted to a small elite, passed down from father to son.

 

There was no reason for anyone at the beginning of the first century BCE to believe this would ever change, because the texts only make sense as being written by and for Jews. 

 

Translating these rare and hard-to-read texts from Hebrew to Greek was the beginning of their absorption into popular culture and the belief that they represented universal history, and therefore could potentially be extended to all humanity. Few could read Hebrew, but millions could read Greek, including, by the first century CE, large numbers of non-Greeks who had no particular ethnic loyalty to Greek religions or Greek philosophies. 

 

We will never know who first struck upon the concept of "The Sin of Ingratitude" as being a suitable literary leitmotif for holy texts, but it was an extremely powerful idea that resonated with all its readers. Ingratitude toward one's parents was looked upon as the worst of a child's transgressions, but when you take that ethic and apply it toward the Deity and his children (humanity), it attains a power in the reader's imagination that had no parallel in previous religious concepts. But who in the Bible is singled out, continually, as being ungrateful? The Israelites, the Jews. They worship other gods and refuse to acknowledge that YHWH is the god that created not only them but all the rest of the human race. This faithlessness leads to disaster and confusion. 

 

Thus the texts had profoundly different effects on the various ethnoi that were now reading them in Greek. To the Jews, it created a continual feeling of guilt and shame in their ancestors for making the mistake of abandoning YHWH, leading to the downfall of Israel and its absorption into other empires. It was their ancestors who were to blame for these disasters, not YHWH. To the non-Jews, it created a sense of pride and opportunity: our ancestors didn't abandon YHWH because they didn't know YHWH, but the fact that the Jews were continually ungrateful to the Deity demonstrates that they don't deserve to be the guardians of his legacy -- then, or now. 

 

It is out of such a scenario that the theology and mythology of "The Christ" (a Greek word) would start evolving. This figure begins to take on a completely different meaning among non-Jews, because it meets theological needs that only Gentiles have, i.e., to de-Judaize the Bible and drive a wedge between Jews and the Bible. The Jews are a "stiff-necked" and ungrateful people -- YHWH himself says so in the text. The new readers of the Greek Bible avow not to make the same mistake. They begin creating hidden meanings that only they can detect coded within the Bible: when the Psalmist writes that his hands and feet are pierced, they must be prophesying a crucifixion. When Isaiah says that a parthenos will conceive a son, he must have prophesied a virgin birth of a human who will adopt the Christ-spirit. These supposedly "hidden meanings" take on vital importance, since it empowers Gentiles, helping them to persuade others to their ideology. It turns out, incredibly enough, that the Bible is really meant for Gentiles, not Jews. They had once been the chosen people, it is true, but that is no longer the case. And so they begin compiling long lists of such secret codes as "proof-texts." Entirely new theologies are built around these interpretations, yet they don't appear novel, because the texts are assumed to go back to the beginning of the world. 

 

So by the first century CE you have sects of non-Jews using the Greek Bible as if it had been written by them and for them; the exact opposite of what had been the case just 100-200 years earlier. Two factors had effected this momentous turnabout: the translation of the Hebrew texts into a popular language, and a dissatisfaction among some non-Jews with the religious choices of their day. These two factors alone are all that is necessary to explain the birth of Christianity. There were undoubtedly other contexts that could be considered, but the necessity of "a historical Jesus" isn't one of them. 

[★ Citsonga ★]

There is one more "so called" piece of evidence from Josephus we need to discuss. I intentionally left it out of my opening; because recently it has been pretty thoroughly debunked. This is the referrence to the death of James, brother of "the one called Christ". If Blood whould like to go into a little more detail, then that would be great. I'll just give what I'm pretty sure is what happened.  Some Scribe, making a copy, inserted a "scribal note" 'Brother of the one called Christ?' in the margins. A later scribe copied it into the text. What Josephus was saying is that a High Priest named James was killed and his brother, Jesus bar Damneus, was named high Priest. Technically this was probably not intenional forgery, simply an interpolation. Cheers!

 

I haven’t seen that one contested anywhere near as much as the Testimonium. I thought it was mostly accepted as genuine, but I thought I would throw in my two cents as to why I don’t think it’s genuine.

 

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a scholar or any type of authority on the subject. However, I do want to point out an observation that makes the reference highly suspicious to me, and it’s so striking that I’m quite baffled that I haven’t seen much dispute about this reference.

 

Let’s look at the quote in question:

 

“...Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others...” (Antiquities 20.9.1)

 

Here’s what stands out to me: In this particular clause, James is the subject and he is being identified by his relation to his brother Jesus, yet Jesus is named before James. Now let’s take a look at other nearby references and see how this sort of thing was normally written:

 

“So Claudius sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to take care of the affairs of Judea...” (Ant 20.7.1)

 

“...for Epiphanes, the son of king Antiochus, had refused to marry her...” (Ant 20.7.1)

 

“...He also gave Mariamne in marriage to Archelaus, the son of Helcias, to whom she had formerly been betrothed by Agrippa her father...” (Ant 20.7.1)

 

“...Her father was Germanicus, the brother of Caesar...” (Ant 20.8.1)

 

“...and Aristobulus, the son of Herod, king of Chalcis, was intrusted by Nero with the government of the Lesser Armenia...” (Ant 20.8.4)

 

“...He also caught Eleazar, the son of Dineas, who had gotten together a company of robbers...” (Ant 20.8.5)

 

“About this time king Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who was the son of Fabi...” (Ant 20.8.8)

 

“...As soon as the king heard this news, he gave the high priesthood to Joseph, who was called Cabi, the son of Simon, formerly high priest.” (Ant 20.8.11)

 

“...on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest...” (Ant 20.9.1)

 

“...took the scribe belonging to the governor of the temple, whose name was Eleazar, who was the son of Ananus [Ananias] the high priest, and bound him, and carried him away with them...” (Ant 20.9.3)

 

“...And now Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, became the successor of Jesus, the son of Damneus, in the high priesthood...” (Ant 20.9.4)

 

“...He also deprived Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, of the high priesthood, and gave it to Matthias, the son of Theophilus, under whom the Jews' war with the Romans took its beginning.” (Ant 20.9.7)

 

“...In the first place, therefore, history informs us that Aaron, the brother of Moses, officiated to God as a high priest...” (Ant 20.10.1)

 

“...at which time Jesus, the son of Josadek, took the high priesthood over the captives when they were returned home...” (Ant 20.10.1)

 

“...On which account Onias, who was the nephew of Onias that was dead, and bore the same name with his father, came into Egypt...” (Ant 20.10.1)

 

Does everyone see the pattern there? Over and over and over again, whenever someone being spoken of was identified by a relative, the main subject is consistently named first, and then the relative whose purpose is to help identify the main subject. That was the standard practice that we also see in the Bible, where someone is named and then followed with whomever he is the “son of” or “brother of,” which I’m sure the ex-christians here are quite familiar with.

 

Now look again at how the reference in question is stated:

 

“...Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others...” (Ant 20.9.1)

 

Now ask yourselves this: Why would Josephus deviate from the norm in this one instance and name the identifier (Jesus) first, and then the main subject (James)? What real purpose could be given that would seem likely?

 

Now ask yourselves this: Wouldn’t it seem much more plausible for Christians tampering with the text to deviate from the norm here since the identifier was their alleged Lord and Savior? Wouldn’t they have ample motivation to glorify Jesus by naming him first, even though he wasn't the main subject?

 

Thus, to me this reference is extremely suspicious. It baffles me that I’ve never seen this phraseology issue pointed out by scholars, because it sticks out to me like a sore thumb, and I honestly think that it makes this alleged historical reference to Jesus completely unreliable.