revel wrote:I said the Josephus part about Jesus was in dispute at the outset. As for the other about it being too late, point taken. Nevertheless, what if someone wrote about something they heard about from their parents which happened just before they were born. Would that be discredited because they were not live witnesses? After all it was, according to your calculations and I have no reason to doubt it, a mere eight years after Jesus died that Josephus was born so he was bound to know people who were contemporaries of Jesus.
I understand that. In historiography, one is taught to assign values to evidence based on proximity to events, as well as the putative interest an individual may have in purporting something for an historical fact. Josephus is often advanced as credible by christians on the basis of
cui bono, asserting that he had nothing to gain by his "account" of the putative Jesus. However, when it comes to allegations of historical interpolation, one also asks to what extent an entry is consistent with the other work of the author. In the case of Tacitus, one of the most careful of Roman historians, it is an evidence that the famous passage attributed to him would be interpolation because of reference to christians at a time when the term was not used even within the sect, and at a time when the term was unknown at Rome (the passage refers to the great fire at Rome in the reign of Britannicus--commonly known as Nero).
In applying the same scrutiny to Josephus (Titus Flavius are names he never personally used in his writing--they are names he adopted at the time he became a Roman citizen, and refer to the two Roman commanders, both later Emperors, against whom he at first fought, and to whom he later betrayed the cause in the Jewish rebellion in the middle of the first century CE), one is struck by how inappropriate the "Jesus" entries are. Josephus was a fervent believer in and promoter of Judaism. At the time he lived, the cult of Jesus was despised in orthodox, law-abiding Jewish circles (law-abiding in the sense of Jewish social and liturgical law). Josephus constantly commended Judaism to those around him at Rome, where he lived out his days after leaving Palestine. He had a modest pension from the Flavians for his assistance in the Jewish War, and would have been risking that and his status as a Roman citizen in his proselytizing for Judaism. He was very insistant upon the observance of the law as it was known to orthodox Jews of his day. In light of that, the "Jesus" entry is not only suspicious, it is positively quixotic.
Josephus does not count as a contemporary witness--so that one is still left with the conundrum of why this putative Jesus inspired so much comment in the century after his death, but not at the time he lived.
Quote:I realize people object to Paul's portions of the Bible. Personally I believe if you reject one part of the Bible it leaves the rest suspect.
I would not quibble with that--and in fact, i have a good deal more reasons than simply that for finding scripture suspect.
Quote:For a time I went through a period of questioning Paul, until I studied Paul's epistle's a little deeper and understood his mission was different than Jesus mission.
It is upon that basis that i propose, for those who believe Jesus existed, that he had a message which constituted a "new covenant" which superceded the law of the Torah (another reason to doubt that Josephus bought into such a cult contention), that the believer can have no basis for an objection to homosexuality, because no such objection appears in the four gospel cannon--whereas any epistle of Paul to the Romans or the Corinthians cannot be considered to be representative of what Jesus is "known" to have taught.
Quote:Jesus said that the gospel was to go to the Jews first then to all the world. (Or words to that effect) Paul's was to bring the Gentiles to the gospel and that is what he mainly did, consolidated the Jews, Gentiles, Greek...into one in Christ Jesus. (Or words to that effect--too early to be getting exact quotes which more than likely you are going to reject anyway, no offense intended.)
I take no offense. It is frequently alleged by christians at this site that the bobble condemns homosexuality. However, that is to be found in the old testament. When one complains of the violence and brutality of the god of the old testament, then these same christians start parroting the "new covenant" claptrap. In that case, one is left to examine what are reputed to be the teachings of the putative "Christ" (also a Pauline term--he introduced Greek scholarship as well as pagan practice). That is only to be found in the four gospel canon.
Of course i reject all of it, including the four gospel canon. I was simply explaining to Miss Eppie the lack of internal consistancy in the arguments advanced by christians on various topics of cricitism of their creed.
...
