Evidence for Jesus Christ?

[Minimalist]

Oh Boy.

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Minimalist...come out, come out, wherever you are...

Your Queen awaits your systematic destruction of their arguments.

Bishop William Warburton ( died, 1779 ) wrote of the Testimoniam Flavianum: "a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too."


You have to ask your xtian buddies why there is not a single reference by a xtian writer to the TF before that noted liar, Eusebius suddenly "discovered" it, in all its glory, Nap.

This nonsense about a partial reference began for the same reason that Eusebius forged the fucking thing in the first place.....xtians were embarrassed by the fact that their godboy did not appear in the historical record.
Knowing that they could not hold that the whole thing was legitimate, xtian ( mainly asshole protestants) writers began trying to salvage some of this shit so they could still claim their boy existed.

The 3d century xtian writer Origen makes specific reference to Book XVIII of Antiquities of the Jews in Contra Celsus. About 75 years before Eusebius he categorically states that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Christ. It is thus impossible to reconcile the two as the TF would have significantly helped the argument that Origen was trying to make had it existed.

Since I'm feeling charitable this morning I'll dig out the reference from Origen.

Book 1 Ch. XLVII

For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just,

The serious flaw in Origen's argument is that Josephus said no such thing. In fact, for a guy who loved to hike up the body count he never says in the text that "James'" sentence was ever carried out. What he says is that people appealed to the king ( Herod Agrippa II) and the Roman Procurator, Lucceius Albinus, and that the high priest who ordered the trial was removed from office.

In Wars of the Jews, Josephus makes clear that the destruction of the temple was god's punishment for the desecration of the temple by the zealots.

In any case, the fact remains that prior to the 4th century there is NOT A SINGLE REFERENCE TO THE TF in any xtian writings in any form.