Quote:Everybody agrees that TF is at least partially forged,
OK. You do understand that there is not a shred of evidence for the "partial forgery" hypothesis, right? We have nothing indicative of such a reference prior to the 4th century and then, with Eusebius, we get the whole thing in all it's bullshitting jesus-freak glory. As D-P notes, the TF stands out like a sore thumb in the midst of the passages on either side of it. It has nothing to do with either of them and totally interrupts the flow of the story.
Further, in the mid 3d century a xtian writer named Origen wrote a work called Contra Celsus in which he specifically referred to Book XVIII of Antiquities of the Jews and correctly noted the John the Baptist reference BUT HAS NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT THE TF AT ALL. This, in spite of the fact that it would have clinched the point he was trying to make.
Bishop Warburton called the TF a "rank forgery "rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too." Warburton died in 1779 but he had it right.
What the TF is at this point is a desperate attempt by (mainly) protestant bullshit artists to try to breathe life back into a corpse and for the same reason that Eusebius originally forged it: They are embarrassed that their precious godboy made no mark on history.
The Jthe B passage does not support the xtian fairy tale. There is no reference in it to John's alleged anger about Antipas' marriage to Herodias being the cause of anything. Moreover, Josephus places John's execution, which all the gospel bullshitters cite as the beginning of jesus' ministry, far too late to do him any good.
D-P has already trashed the "Jamesian reference" and while we disagree slightly about the nature of the forgery - I find it a rather innocent mistake by a well-meaning scribe - Jesus Bar Damneus is named at the end.
