RE: For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus
March 13, 2013 at 4:05 pm
(This post was last modified: March 13, 2013 at 4:15 pm by EGross.)
It appears more like a tree. Which is why Dr. Deutsch focused on the oldest three we got, and with a difference in a century or two, several generations, there is some common thread, although, granted, the oldest truely is "fragments", and only a few words here or there are available. But once you pass the third edition (two different ones are competing for that one), they branch out and branch out. And while there is a commonality, the one in the Muslim world, where they praise Mary, that disparaging things about here are less intense than the spanish version of the same period (there's a difference between having your work burned for heresy or getting you head lopped off!), so there were definately cultural influences. The comparison chart that Dr. Deustch has in his essay is 12 pages long in 3 columns, showing a few common ideas and then the break-aways.
So the version that you see on the internet, based on this, are none of these three. The most famous later editions are:
9th century edition translated by Agobard of Lyon
1681 edition as translated by Johann Christoph Wagenseil
1705 edition translated by Johann Huldrych (most likely latin. I am having trouble finding anything about him. The last name could be misspelled, since I am translating from the Hebrew, which is often a challenge for foreign names! - יוהן הולדריך - YOHN HOLDRICh)
And each of these are quite unique from one another.
Compare it to reading one of the first editions of of Sleeping Beauty, where the prince finds her sleeping, had repeated sex with the sleeping woman, she gives birth to twins, who immeditely climb on her to suckle, one sucks the poison from her finger and she awakens. That's the old version. Now compare that to Disney! lol
At which point, it is no longer about "which is the real story", since it is fiction, but which one is the better story! And THAT is how one should approach Toldot Yeshu - good fiction, a fun read, and an insight to the times, but as real as Sleeping Beauty.
So the version that you see on the internet, based on this, are none of these three. The most famous later editions are:
9th century edition translated by Agobard of Lyon
1681 edition as translated by Johann Christoph Wagenseil
1705 edition translated by Johann Huldrych (most likely latin. I am having trouble finding anything about him. The last name could be misspelled, since I am translating from the Hebrew, which is often a challenge for foreign names! - יוהן הולדריך - YOHN HOLDRICh)
And each of these are quite unique from one another.
Compare it to reading one of the first editions of of Sleeping Beauty, where the prince finds her sleeping, had repeated sex with the sleeping woman, she gives birth to twins, who immeditely climb on her to suckle, one sucks the poison from her finger and she awakens. That's the old version. Now compare that to Disney! lol
At which point, it is no longer about "which is the real story", since it is fiction, but which one is the better story! And THAT is how one should approach Toldot Yeshu - good fiction, a fun read, and an insight to the times, but as real as Sleeping Beauty.
“I've done everything the Bible says — even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!"— Ned Flanders
