Help! Joseph of Arimathea.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

He doesn't mix them up here in this article: http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_midrash1.htm

42. Joseph of Arimathea (15:42-47)

Joseph is surely a combination of King Priam, who courageously comes to Achilles’ camp to beg the body of his son Hector (MacDonald, p. 159) and the Patriarch Joseph who asked Pharaoh’s permission to bury the body of Jacob in the cave-tomb Jacob had hewn for himself back beyond the Jordan (Genesis 50:4-5) (Miller, p. 373). Whence Joseph’s epithet “of Arimathea”? Richard C. Carrier has shown that the apparent place name is wholly a pun (no historical “Arimathea” has ever been identified), meaning “Best (ari[stoV]} Disciple (maqh[thV]) Town.” Thus “the Arimathean” is equivalent to “the Beloved Disciple.” He is, accordingly, an ideal, fictive figure.

[Minimalist]

The full text of "Luke" ( or whoever ) says:

"50 And a man named Joseph, who was a member of the Council, a good and righteous man 51 (he had not consented to their plan and action), a man from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of God;"

Even allowing that the word "polis" can mean something less than a "city" as we know it the simple fact remains that there is no such city/town of the Jews. It was not known in antiquity and it is not known to archaeology.

It's fiction.

Now, what can we say about someone from a "fictional" town?

[King_Charles]

lol, you don't even read my post do you Minni. It's OK they're a bit complicated anyway.

[Minimalist]

No, that would have meant going back too far..... I tend to click on "last post."

Is it really worth my while?

[King_Charles]

Haha, I like your honesty buddy.

[Epimethean]

Wait until you get a full dose ...

[Cato]

Though the Gospel accounts are biased, they cannot be discounted as non-historical.

Why not? What evidence is there to the contrary? Do you give the same credence to the Homeric epics and the story of Gilgamesh?

If you claim that the accounts in the Gospels give us insight to ancient culture, custom and other societal attributes I would agree; however, to claim that the events can't be discounted without corroboration is disingenuous.

This 'could' be equivalent to saying 2000 years from now James Michener was a historian that documented events in the South Pacific, Hawaii, and Alaska (among others). The 'could' part is that we will pass along the knowledge that Michener's work was fiction. There is no such proclamation, aside from assumed veracity, that comes with the Gospels. Just because Bart says so doesn't make it so.

[Angrboda]

"It's deja vu all over again." ~ Yogi Berra

Same shit, different day.

It might be plausible, given the supposed deference Pilate gave to the Jews in Christ's arrest & conviction that, contrary to the common Roman practice of guarding the crucified to prevent their removal, some deference in the disposition of his body was given. Then again, they might not have. I'd have a lot more comfort in entertaining such notions if the biblical account squared with the rest of what we know of Jewish legal, funerary and other customs of the time. But it doesn't. And just what is the point in citing a document that you admit is biased and unreliable as a source? A source of what? Error? Misguided apologetics? Badly done exegesis?

I sure hope Jesus come along soon. I tire of apologetics.

[Minimalist]

It might be plausible, given the supposed deference Pilate gave to the Jews in Christ's arrest & conviction that, contrary to the common Roman practice of guarding the crucified to prevent their removal, some deference in the disposition of his body was given.

Of course, those accounts could have been cast in such a way as to make Pilate look innocent and the jews guilty. Certainly that has been a common xtian theme down through the centuries.

If you take the position that this jesus-shit got going in the middle of the 2d century it just so happens to be the time when the Jews had lost the 3d of 3 revolts and been relegated to the Roman permanent shit list.

[Polaris]

I dispute your contention that the bible was translated into Greek.

It was written in Greek.

Well you are correct in that some books were first written in Greek...some were written in Latin, others Hebrew, and a few in Aramaic (accounting for some weird imagery between the different languages), but they were codified into the Greek and later Latin.