Did Jesus Actually Exist?

@Setanta,

On Wikipedia, 'editor wars' happen on the more controversial topics like the Iraq war, the Israel-Pal conflict or global warming. Sad that the attempted biography of Jesus as a human prophet become a war zone, but it IS a controversial topic so I am not surprised.

I also concede that the testimony of Joseph is debated among scholars and evidently redacted in the case of the testimonium (Ant. XVIII. 63 - 4). Remains this other passage, Ant. XX Chapter 9, 1:

But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, (23) who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. 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, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but...

Here the typical 'flow' of Josephus is unbroken, logical, political and didactic. His mention of "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" is indifferent to the person of Jesus. He's talking of his brother James ("you know Bob, the brother of Marty"). What is also telling is hoe he refers to Jesus: "who was CALLED Christ"... called by some, but not by the author! A Christian would find it unnatural to write about JC in such a casual way, while a Jew would see no problem with the expression.

This passage, to many scholars, looks authentic because Jesus is no big deal in the narrative.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

And by the way, if this passage of Ant. book 20 is genuine, one should note that it would only reflect the general Jewish attitude to Jesus at the time, characterized by a mix of indifference, contempt and curiosity, but never ever by denial.

Now, one would assume that if someone knew that the whole JC story was a myth, it would be those 1st, 2nd and 3rd century Jews... The story grew up as a total embarrassment for them, so it would have been in their interest to debunk it, had they had the slightest indication that the dude may be a myth, a pagan re-invention of Mithra or something like that.

Yet they didn’t. They never contended that Jesus did not exist… On the contrary, the Talmud has many (disparaging) anecdotes regarding the man, and later on they even wrote their own anti-gospels, e.g. the Teledoth Yeshu.

I am not saying that the Talmud has historical validity. It was written 1 or 2 centuries after the 4 canonical gospels so is even more hear-say as far as Jesus is concerned. But if there was any merit to the thesis that Jesus was a Pagan invention, that thesis would be relayed in the Talmud.

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@Olivier5,

Good reasoning and worth a bookmark. Exclamation

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Good reasoning and worth a bookmark.

You certainly have a right to consider Olivier's reasoning here to be "good", Neo, but I consider it to be suspect...and his conclusion is not derived from logic.

It could easily be that Jesus (the man) is a myth...and still not be noted in Talmud as such. There is no evidence that the Talmud gets everything correct.

To suggest that since it is not specified as a myth in the Talmud means that there is no validity to the notion...is over-reaching on a galactic scale.

Essentially, in debate, it is begging the question.

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@neologist,

Thanks Neo! Glad at least ONE poster paid attention... :-)

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But if there was any merit to the thesis that Jesus was a Pagan invention, that thesis would be relayed in the Talmud.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

There is no evidence that the Talmud gets everything correct.

That was not my point though. The point was that the long line of Rabbis who assembled the Talmud were well informed about what happened and had happened in their community, based on teacher-student transmission. And they recorded that Jesus had lived among them, that as a youth he behaved like a rather confrontational, stubborn student -- that point comes again and again, perhaps as a counterpoint to the Christian story of the Jesus boy surprising the Temple sages, or simply because so much of the pharisaic culture was about being a good student -- , that he did what seemed like magic, that he thought of himself as the messiah, that many followed him, that he died on a cross (or a stick) and that his brother James was the head of the church of Jerusalem and died as a result of persecutions years later...

Important to realise that this is a different tradition than the Christian one, a tradition that saw Christianity emerge from its own midst, and that faught against its birth and growth as much as it could. And yet, it never EVER used this argument of Jesus not existing...

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@Olivier5,

Bottom line, Olivier, is that you wrote:

Quote:

But if there was any merit to the thesis that Jesus was a Pagan invention, that thesis would be relayed in the Talmud.

That is saying that short of it being mentioned in the Talmud....there is no merit to the thesis that Jesus was a pagan invention.

That simply is faulty logic.

If you acknowledge that your words were not what you meant, we can discuss what you actually meant rather than what you wrote.

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@Frank Apisa,

Nancy and I are going to a short outdoor concert right now. Will be back later...or tomorrow.

Steel drums...I love 'em.

Have a great night everyone.

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@Frank Apisa,

I don't know what you understood but my point was clearly explained. If it's about what happened in Palestine during the 1st century (not about everything at all times, obviously...), I happen to trust the Talmud much more than I trust European anti-christian ideologues from the 19th century onward... You're welcome to place your trust elsewhere, for all I care.

I say "ideologues" because most historians specialist of the era agree that the guy did actually exist. The thesis of Jesus being a myth is motivated by malice, not facts.

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@Olivier5,

I haven't seen any facts yet. Just supposition.

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@Frank Apisa,

Said 'good', not 'definitive'. Certainly makes sense, though. Christ was an embarassment to the Jews. If they could have made him go away, they surely would have

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@edgarblythe,

Fact 1: Jesus is mentioned by the near-contemporary Jewish historian Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, in several places. The lengthier of these mentions (in book 18, chapter 63) is about Jesus' death and is called the "Testimonium Flavorium". It appears heavily redacted by Christian copists, if not inserted whole, and is therefore discredited. However, at least one other passage (book 20, chapter 9, quoted above) seems genuine on stylistic grounds: Jesus is mentioned as an ALLEGED messiah, in passim, the flow of the text is unbroken, and the passage is about the favorite topic of Josephus: politics and wars between Jews and Romans at the times.

...Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. 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, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them...

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2848

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Fact 2: many gospels and even anti-gospels (or polemic accounts of Jesus' life) flourished as a literary genre from the 2nd century on to... now, and some of the earlier ones have survived. Some canonical, other gnostic (Thomas) or from some other stripe. They all have a different take on the guy. Every angle has been tried on the character.

Including defamation, with the allegation by Celsus -- as told by Origen in his Contra Celsum, Setanta will happily confirm -- that our boy JC was the mongrel son of a roman legionary called Pantera and a young jewish whore named Myriam... That is alsox strikingly, the main thesis of the Talmud. Celsus might have heard it from the Jews, or them from him...

But never, even in the most polemic context AT THE TIMES or soon after, is the argument used that JC is/was a fiction... Strange that the Jewish community, i.e. the alleged birthplace of Jesus, would not even notice the total fabrication of an imaginary Rabbi and Messiah pretender in their very midst, and would instead have recorded a different version of a very similar character: Jesus as a bad guy. Call it the dark side of Jesus...

Quote:

o Celsus (in Origen, "Contra Celsum," i. 28) and to the Talmud (Shab. 104b), Jesus learned magic in Egypt and performed his miracles by means of it; the latter work, in addition, states that he cut the magic formulas into his skin. It does not mention, however, the nature of his magic performances (Tosef., Shab. xi. 4; Yer. Shab. 13d); but as it states that the disciples of Jesus healed the sick "in the name of Jesus Pandera" (Yer. Shab. 14d; 'Ab. Zarah 27b; Eccl. R. i. 8) it may be assumed that its author held the miracles of Jesus also to have been miraculous cures. Different in nature is the witchcraft attributed to Jesus in the "Toledot." When Jesus was expelled from the circle of scholars, he is said to have returned secretly from Galilee to Jerusalem, where he inserted a parchment containing the "declared name of God" ("Shem ha-Meforash"), which was guarded in the Temple, into his skin, carried it away, and then, taking it out of his skin, he performed his miracles by its means. This magic formula then had to be recovered from him, and Judah the Gardener (a personage of the "Toledot" corresponding to Judas Iscariot) offered to do it; he and Jesus then engaged in an aerial battle (borrowed from the legend of Simon Magus), in which Judah remained victor and Jesus fled.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8616-jesus-of-nazareth#anchor28

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

No contemporary mentions of him exist or are even hinted at. Everything written about Jesus is based on hearsay.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Fact 1: Jesus is mentioned by the near-contemporary Jewish historian Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, in several places.

Not really. What Josephus mentions is the existence of Christians, and the fact that Christians believe he existed and is the messiah. While you can technically count this as Jesus being mentioned by Josephus, it does nothing to support the conjecture that Jesus did, in fact, exist.

For analogy, consider that Josephus was farther removed from the death of the putative Jesus than you are from the homicide attempt on pope John Paul II's life. Sure, you can report that John Paul II believed that Our Lady of Fatima guided the bullet to injure him but not kill him. But would you expect to convince anyone that this was indeed what had happened? Would you expect to convince skeptics in the year 3981, on the grounds that you are "a near-contemporary of John Paul II"?

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Fact 3: Over and beyond juicy 'Yeshu ben Pandera' stories, a comparison between the Gospels and the Talmud yields a number of parallel / similar lines. 'Let your yes be a yes and your no be a no' is one; the parable of the beam and the hay in the eye is another; the essence of the Law being the golden rule a third example. There are about 15-20 or so in total, not many therefore, the Talmud being such a thick book. But for its authors, Jesus and his teachings were of course hereticissime, so a thorough editing out of JC's 'bons mots' from the text was to be expected. Remains a few striking parallel sentences, a small, but significant testimony that Jesus was a rabbi and was part of a very local, very Jewish conversation with other rabbis about 'what is the law about' or whether sinners can judge other sinners... If JC was a roman hoax, these parallels would not exist.

Arakin 16b: Rabbi Tarfon said: "I wonder whether there is any one in this generation who accepts reproach, for if one says to him: ‘Remove the speck from between your eyes,’ he would answer: ‘Remove the beam from between your eyes!’ ”

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@Olivier5,

Yep. As I said. All supposition and no evidence.

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@Olivier5,

So what? Just because two people use similar figures of speech, that doesn't mean there's any theological connection between them. In today's America for example, atheists and evangelicals alike will tell you that a stitch in time saves nine, that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and that it ain't over till the fat lady sings. Does that suggest any theological connection between American evangelicals and atheists? Of course not! They just speak the same language and avail themselves of its figures of speech. To repeat: So what?

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@Thomas,

I am not inferring anything from Josephus, really. Rather I want to show that the claim, often made by my opponents, that no contemporary writers mentions Jesus, other than Paul and a few other Christians, is technically false.

Josephus, born in 37AD, tells how a REAL DUDE called James, was arrested and contemned to death by a REAL sanhedrin, under a REAL High Priest called Ananus, in 60-62AD, technically during the lifetime of Josephus.

And he adds in passim: James, the brother of Jesus, CALLED Christ.

To me it means something... or maybe it doesn't. But it is s fact the a near-contemporary Jewish historian mentioned Jesus' name in direct relation with historical events.

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Did Jesus Actually Exist?

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