For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Minimalist]

Two points you both need to consider are:

1- At a time when barely 10% of the population could read at all there was probably 1% that could read/comprehend advanced philosophical/historical/theological texts at all. The audience for what they were writing was limited. The vast bulk of the people were told what to do - and what to believe - orally.

We are considering the fact that there was a specialised audience for the books and talking about the people who could read. 1% of everyone in the area covered by the Roman Empire was still a lot of people and there were a number of competing factions. If Faction A was trying to fool everyone else it's members would have to operate on the assumption that the other factions had men with the same level of expertise as themselves.

2- On the morning of Oct. 27, 312 xtianity was a suspect doctrine recently the victim of Diocletian's persecution. By that afternoon they had backed the winning horse at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and were duly rewarded for their support by Constantine.All of this crap about Constantine seeing signs in the sky and having his troops write xtian bullshit slogans on their shields came from two xtian writers, Lactantius and the ubiquitous Eusebius.

Which is just the kind of thing that an emperor sympathetic to Christianity would want to hear. Everyone loved stories about signs and wonders etc so he wouldn't have been very pleased if accounts of the battle hadn't assigned any to him.

The paperwork explosion of xtianity begins after 312.

Does that mean more people were able to read and write advanced stuff then or the 1% were extra busy?

Whether or not Eusebius actually forged documents ( why bother?) or merely took oral traditions, edited them to suit his current need, and wrote down what he wished, is unknown and will probably never be known.

Forging a few documents would be useful for fooling some of the 1% who could read if his faction was going to fool others. There's still the question of why Eusebius's faction should invent a bishop etc.,though, just to produce First Clement which doesn't say that Paul was beheaded and Peter crucified when Eusebius recorded this as being known in his time. What would be the point?

Somebody wrote First Clement at some time but it would be for a reason which had a point to it.

How much better for the world had Maxentius won the battle and gone on to exterminate those xtian fucks!

What became the Christian world would have remained pagan but the pagan Romans weren't exactly gentle hippie types. It could also have led to modern atheists being unable to believe in all the pagan deities and religions which the majority of the population still believe in.

Shit.

I had 3/4 of a reply done on this and lost it. I'll have to see if I can work up the enthusiasm to try again.

Fuck.

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The claim that 1 percent of the Romans could read is not a supportable number. The number is likely to be at least 5 percent and may be closer to 10 percent of the Roman population.

I did not say that 99 percent were illiterate. The Romans taught their legionaries and auxillia basic Latin - many were foreigners - for military purposes including keeping the legion's or the auxilliary cohort's books.

However, being able to recognize your name on the Latrine Cleaning duty roster is not exactly the same as being able to read/comprehend a philosophical treatise written in Greek. Then, as now, there were degrees of literacy.

[EGross]

While Toldot Yeshu is not a historical work, but more like "fan fiction", it is a hobby of mine, and I was doing some research today, at a more acedemic level than one might suppose.

Some of the fragments of some early Toldot Yeshu are in the Russian National Library. While doing an internet search for the frament group marked "Evr. I 274", based on Dr. Deutsch's work New Evidence of Early versions of Toldot Yeshu", I came across a good paper on Toldot Yeshu at this site It is well written, delivered at a symposium at Princeton, and some of Dr. Deutsch's work is included, and titled "Judeo-Arabic Versions of Toldot Yeshu".

Arabic? Why not? It is also in Latin, Persian, French, and our old standby - Yiddish. But the Arabic version is significant in that it shows the influence of the Islamic culture on the Jews who lived there, even taking their literary style. (see below)

Ah, the fun never ends. Here is a snippet from the end of the document, noting a bit of the the Arabic version - the preface anyhow:

Praised be God, the God of Israel, creator of the heavens and the earth with his power and greatness, [who] destroyed the infidel tyrants and showed preference to the beloved righteous. Master of masters, motivator of all heavenly forces, liberator of the bound, mover of clouds, ruler of rulers, the all-powerful and the staunch, the clear truth, the destroyer of the polytheists and humbler of the infidels and destroyer of the oppressors and exterminator of the wicked. Protector of those close to him and the righteous, who saved the children of Israel from the Pharaohs, who are the Christian infidel people, and who gave them the cursed Jesus the Nazarene, and who caused them to follow his severe blasphemy in his great ignorance, and caused their leaders to perish by means of cursed counsel and caused them to worship wood and idols, and God, the blessed and exalted, caused him to perish within a short time because of his blasphemy and overstepping of bounds. And Israel suffered great difficulties on his account and they tried to return him [to the correct path], but they could not, because in our sources, every place where it is written wayyehi indicates great difficulties, as it is said, “In the time (wayyehi bi-ymei) of Tiberias Caesar [and] his minister Herod,” in those days there was a man of the line of King David, of blessed memory, and his name was Yoh˙anan, and he had a beautiful wife whose name was Miriam. Her husband was a God-fearing man, and was one of the students of Rabbi Shim’on ben Shatah', of blessed memory. He had a wicked neighbor named Yosef Pandera, and that wicked man was quite dishonorable, and he was always looking at the women. He coveted the wife of that Yoh˙anan, and it was the month of Nisan immediately after the beginning of the Passover, and that righteous man (Yoh˙anan) would rise to go to the yeshiva at night. So one night he arose to go the yeshiva, locking the door....

Goot times!

[Confused Ape]

Ah, the fun never ends. Here is a snippet from the end of the document, noting a bit of the the Arabic version - the preface anyhow:

He had a wicked neighbor named Yosef Pandera, and that wicked man was quite dishonorable, and he was always looking at the women.

Thanks for posting. That name sounds familiar.

So what happened after the introduction?

[EGross]

She only translated the introduction as a tease, but that are about 32 other pages, so there's a lot of meat in it. Her point is that, depending on the society, the form of the polemic will change. Notice how much it sounded like an Arab proclamation more than a jewish one due to assimilation into that culture, which is amazing.

But the other point is that it seems to merge other elements that are not in the European flavor, and that the Jews inserted things that the Muslims would certainly have objected to, since they love Mary and Joseph. Or, in other words, that the text was brought into Arab lands, was edited and played with, while the original elements remained in place. She also compares it to a Christian polemic that says that Islam was an offshoot of Christianity, with a similar Jewish one that says that Mohammed met with Christian leaders:

The Christian polemical texts modify crucial details of the meeting, and present the claim that the religion preached by Muh˙ammad was actually the result of an extended period of study with the monk. At the end of this period, Muh˙ammad composed the Qur’a¯n as a summary of these teachings in order to convey them to his kinsmen. According to the Christian polemical rewriting of the account, Islam is nothing but an offshoot of Christianity. Similarly, late medieval Jewish chroniclers report a story about Muh˙ammad’s formulation of his new religion with the help of a group of advisors including the Christian “Buh˙ayran”

So there is a nice comparison with how Jews perceived Jesus and how they perceived Mohammed, and while neither are history, one can see history through the fables. And the references are a wealth of information that I didn't already have.

Now, originally, I was researching the texts that reside in the Russian museum, which are in Aramaic, not Hebrew, which puts it at an earlier dating than the one this author is using. But it still has some socialogical intrest just the same.

[Confused Ape]

Notice how much it sounded like an Arab proclamation more than a jewish one due to assimilation into that culture, which is amazing.

I'm not familiar enough with either to be able to make a comparison.

Now, originally, I was researching the texts that reside in the Russian museum, which are in Aramaic, not Hebrew, which puts it at an earlier dating than the one this author is using. But it still has some socialogical intrest just the same.

It's fascinating how ideas and stories are influenced by different cultures.

[EGross]

One of the important keys here is that you have multiple versions going through the centuries, with one fantastic action after another added, one insult worse that the other, in multiple languages, with changes through mutiple cultures, and the story goes through one metamorphosis after another. And so, when someone says "Oh, yeah, what about Toldot Yeshu?!" you can always go: "Which one? There's more than a dozen (3 from the earlier centuries), and each one more insulting than the naxt, and all of them indicating that we are living in the 22nd century, based on those texts!

Cute, nonetheless.

[Confused Ape]

One of the important keys here is that you have multiple versions going through the centuries, with one fantastic action after another added, one insult worse that the other, in multiple languages, with changes through mutiple cultures, and the story goes through one metamorphosis after another.

People still moved around a lot in those days. Did different versions eventually merge and take off in new directions?

and all of them indicating that we are living in the 22nd century, based on those texts!

Eeek!!! I'm much older than I thought I was. hock:

[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.

[Confused Ape]

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

That's not the only foke tale that got sanitised.

Old version of Cinderella

The next morning, the prince went to Aschenputtel's house and tried the slipper on the eldest stepsister. The sister was advised by her mother to cut off her toes in order to fit the slipper. While riding with the stepsister, the two doves from Heaven told the Prince that blood dripped from her foot. Appalled by her treachery, he went back again and tried the slipper on the other stepsister. She cut off part of her heel in order to get her foot in the slipper, and again the prince was fooled. While riding with her to the king's castle, the doves alerted him again about the blood on her foot.

In the end, during Aschenputtel's wedding, as she was walking down the aisle with her stepsisters as her bridesmaids, (they had hoped to worm their way into her favour), the doves from Heaven flew down and struck the two stepsisters' eyes, one in the left and the other in the right. When the wedding came to an end, and Aschenputtel and her prince marched out of the church, the doves flew again, striking the remaining eyes of the two evil sisters blind, a punishment they had to endure for the rest of their lives.

The basic idea of the story goes back a long way - 1st Century BC in Greece - and there's also a version of it from 9th Century China

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.

Which version do you think makes the better story?

[EGross]

I always preferred less sex and more action in my stories!