What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Minimalist]

That seems like a good reason to assume the TF is a complete forgery. I wonder why Geza Vermes believed it to be only a partial forgery? I assume he must have been aware of the argument you mentioned unless it is very new

Vermes was a religious scholar of varied creeds and tastes...interesting fellow. Jewish catholic priests are rare.

Nonetheless, this middle ground position seems to be popular among scholars who don't want to make too many waves in their field. None of them want to break their own rice bowl. But the evidence is not compelling no matter how much they want to believe.

So you think the scribal error was to write "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" instead of "James Bar Damneus"?

This is tricky. The Greek phrase as we have it now, is tou legomenou Christou. "The one known as Christos" is a perfectly acceptable translation. However, so is "The one called Christos" or even "the so-called Christos." So there is some ambiguity to begin with. But we don't know if Josephus wrote it - doubtful - or the scribe wrote it

Christos was the Greek translation of Moschach and it referred to someone was anointed. This was a purely Jewish rite and referred to the installation of a king or high priest. In that chapter virtually everybody except the two Romans was a king or high priest and thus a "christos" at one time or another.

Would a pharisee of a noble priestly family have equated some crucified hippie with a king or high priest of Judaea? I doubt it. Origen tells us that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Christ the odds are that this is nothing more than jesus-freak wishful thinking. But it just doesn't make sense because the word meant something totally different to Josephus.

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Of a related curiosity, a fragment of Mark's Gospel that scientists are dating to 80 C.E. was recently found. This would make it the oldest copy of any gospel passages yet discovered.

Well....let's not shit golden nickles just yet.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/living/gospel-mummy-mask/

Though it may be making headlines now, the claim that the "oldest known gospel" has been discovered is not new.

News of the fragment first came to light in 2012 when its existence was (perhaps inadvertently) announced by Daniel Wallace, founder of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts at Dallas Theological Seminary.

No one saw the text then, and no one has seen it now; though it has been mentioned repeatedly by a select group of people who evidently have been given access to it, its planned date of publication has been consistently pushed back, from an original plan of 2013 to 2015 and now, just this week, all the way to 2017.

Despite the seemingly explosive quality of the news, therefore, it is important to take a step back and consider what is actually being revealed here.

Some people are saying they have this really old and important thing, and they will show it to all the rest of us in a few years. (Essentially, this papyrus is the scholarly equivalent of "my girlfriend who lives in Canada.")

The moment you have these divinity school shits making claims like this it is best to wait. How many fucking arks have these morons found?