Existence of Jesus

[Kyuuketsuki]

Well actually if you read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus , you will see that while what is today in Josephus almost certainly is an emendation by later scribes, it is considered likely that Josephus did say something about Jesus, which was probably the basis of this emendation.

Wikipedia? A useful starting point sure but hardly a real reference.

All this is debatable, I readily concede. But it is misleading to say that the text in Josephus is "fake."

Indeed it is debatable

Those who believe in the existence of Jesus Christ like to quote him as being a first century direct witness but there's a problem (apart from the fact that he was born AFTER Jesus Christ is supposed to have died) ... the part specifically is this (and I stress I had to get this off the web, I can check it later in my copy of "Antiquities of the Jews"):

"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 received 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, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, 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."

Now, men like Herodotus and Josephus wrote extremely well in terms of style & content (a huge part of the reason why they are considered so credible) but the writings of Josephus that refer to Jesus Christ are considered by many historians to be false (a later interpolation). They simply do not fit with the known style & normal kind of content of the writer and they are introduced in places in his work where they simply should not be. According to one historian Josephus' writings are like reading "War & Peace" by Tolstoy and then all of a sudden it starts talking about Jesus Christ like something out of a "Wish You Were Here" TV holiday guide!

I am not sure that this is the part Origen refers to but no matter, there is a second reference in Book 18 of "Antiquities Of The Jews" which says:

"But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought it before 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."

In favour of it being genuine is the fact that it doesn't go overboard as the other strongly suspected interpolation did, that Origen mentions this passage (which allows over a century for the passage to have been interpolated) and the claim that the words reflect Jewish rather than Christian usage are inconclusive. Another objection to this passage is that the Greek does not contain the concept of "so-called" so the actual phrase would be "Him called Christ" which then raises the interpolation spectre again.

Further it is worth noting that the historicity of Jesus is not widely doubted among historians of the classical period. Why would it be? There is some presumption that he lived; there is on the other side mere doubt that he did not. But how much evidence could possibly come down from A.D. 40 clearly demonstrating the existence of any particular non-patrician Roman, indeed a non-Italian and non-citizen? It's worth noting that to Romans, Jesus would have been a nonentity during his life; only much later, as Christianity spread, did he become a figure of any significance to Rome (by then a historical one, of course).

Sorry but I don't accept that to be true ... my understanding is that many historians reject the first passage entirely as a later interpolation where others maintain the passage was altered not inserted and whilst not pro-Christian did refer to Jesus Christ. The second passage is fairly weak even if it was genuine. If either of these passages could be demonstrated to be genuine then they would, I suppose, constitute possible evidence for the existence of a literal Jesus but claims to his existence are far from certain and the incredible lack of hard confirmatory evidence weighs heavily against him ever being real.

Kyu