What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Anomalocaris]

I use to think he wasn't a bad guy, but then I saw 'the passion'.. (Which illustrates a biblical truth I did not fully grasp.) after finding Jesus innocent, he had him scourged.

Congrats for basing historical opinions on such reliable sources.

Pilate, the real Pilate, was a corrupt governor, a politician. And that's as much knowledge as we get from real historical sources. There's no record of any Jesus trial or punishment. And since there's no record, we don't know if and how that person was punished, since even his existence is up for debate.

Plus the fact Christian agenda has changed over the years. Once upon a time the Christianity saw itself inheriting the corpes of ordered world that it was rotting from within, and saw it expedient to ease its burrowing by suck up to the Romans and bash the Jews so as to better access the circle of power. So pilatus was good if irresolute character and the Jews the villisns.

Now orderly human progress has nonetheless left Christianity in the dust and Christianity has gone form being the masters of the institutions of progress to being its waste discarded out the back end, all of a sudden pilatus, a symbol of the ordered human institution of progress for that era that more or less works, is the villain and a bunch of religiously besotted and stagnant Jews gets favorable mention.

[Mudhammam]

Of a related curiosity, a fragment of Mark's Gospel that scientists are dating to 80 C.E. was recently found. This would make it the oldest copy of any gospel passages yet discovered.

[watchamadoodle]

Of a related curiosity, a fragment of Mark's Gospel that scientists are dating to 80 C.E. was recently found. This would make it the oldest copy of any Christian gospel yet discovered.

Wow, that's really old. I hope the Christian treasure hunters will not destroy information that would interest archaeologists.

[Minimalist]

Doesn't that kind of make the possibility of his freeing an actual criminal and putting to death a religious heretic, by toying with the mob and forcing them to vote---during Jerusalem's most holy festival---a bit more credible?

No. Coupled with the handful of references in Josephus to Pilate what we see is a rather iron-fisted bastard who wouldn't give two fucks what a mob of jews called for. And there is no precedent at all for the utter nonsense of a criminal being released at Passover. That's just a plot device to make the jews look bad. Total bullshit.

Philo's repeated references to Tiberius ignores the reality that for much of Pilate's tenure the Empire was ruled by Lucius Aelius Sejanus on a day-to-day basis while Tiberius lived in semi-retirement at Capri. Since this began in 26 AD and coincided with Pilate's appointment it is fairly safe to say that Pilate was Sejanus' appointment, not Tiberius'. When Sejanus fell in 31, Pilate would have lost his "rabbi," so to speak.

[abaris]

No. Coupled with the handful of references in Josephus to Pilate what we see is a rather iron-fisted bastard who wouldn't give two fucks what a mob of jews called for. And there is no precedent at all for the utter nonsense of a criminal being released at Passover. That's just a plot device to make the jews look bad. Total bullshit.

The whole Jesus trial story leaks at every corner. The jewish priesthood was appointed by the Romans at that particular time. So they had everthing to lose, most of all a lavish lifestyle if they didn't follow Romes bidding. Also the story of offering the people a choice between Jesus and Barabas is bullshit of the highest order. If Jesus really declared himself King of the Jews, the Roman governor would have executed him without a moment's notice for being yet another insurgent. He certainly wouldn't have offered that guy for a possible amnesty.

[Minimalist]

Yeah...I wonder where they got the gist of the story from.

Oh, right.

But a further portent was even more alarming. Four years before the war, when the city was enjoying profound peace and prosperity, there came to the feast at which it is the custom of all Jews to erect tabernacles to God, one Jesus, son of Ananias, a rude peasant, who suddenly began to cry out, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against all the people." Day and night he went about all the alleys with this cry on his lips. Some of the leading citizens, incensed at these ill-omened words, arrested the fellow and severely chastised him. But he, without a word on his own behalf or for the private ear of those who smote him, only continued his cries as before. Thereupon, the magistrates, supposing, as was indeed the case, that the man was under some supernatural impulse, brought him before the Roman governor; there, although flayed to the bone with scourges, he neither sued for mercy nor shed a tear, but, merely introducing the most mournful of variations into his ejaculation, responded to each stroke with "Woe to Jerusalem!" When Albinus, the governor, asked him who and whence he was and why he uttered these cries, he answered him never a word, but unceasingly reiterated his dirge over the city, until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and let him go.

Josephus - The Jewish War Bk VI, Chapter V

[DeistPaladin]

It doesn't even make it that far, Nestor.

Josephus' TF is so over the top, it's not even subtle about being a Christian insertion. Reading the previous and next paragraphs, it's clear the TF sticks out like a sore thumb. The paragraph itself reads like a frantic bullet point list of all the salient Christian beliefs fired off in rapid succession to cram it into one paragraph.

The "Jamesian Reference" spells out who it is: Jesus Bar Damneus. (son of Damneus)

Jesus was a common name.

---

Just on the surface, there are 25,000 different manuscripts of the bible dating back to the end of the second to the beginning of the third century. We have more copies of biblical manuscripts than we do of any other event in history of the time period combined. To question the validity of the bible is to question all that we know of that time period.

What exactly is the point of this oft-repeated canned apologetic argument. Is a story repeated many times and well preserved a true story?

Which is not to say that this argument is true. I know of at least one major revision to the NT and that is the ending of Mark 16. The resurrection story, a story, if true, should have been remembered correctly by any witnesses for its amazing nature. However, the story originally ended at verse 8 and the rest was a later add-on.

Regardless, a story repeated many times is still just a story.

[watchamadoodle]

It doesn't even make it that far, Nestor.

Josephus' TF is so over the top, it's not even subtle about being a Christian insertion. Reading the previous and next paragraphs, it's clear the TF sticks out like a sore thumb. The paragraph itself reads like a frantic bullet point list of all the salient Christian beliefs fired off in rapid succession to cram it into one paragraph.

The "Jamesian Reference" spells out who it is: Jesus Bar Damneus. (son of Damneus)

Jesus was a common name.

So based on wikipedia, there are three references. Everybody agrees that TF is at least partially forged, but the other two references are generally accepted. I don't pretend to know more than what I read on wikipedia. I'm just including this for background to the discussion.

(1) James the brother of Jesus

Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" and has rejected its being the result of later interpolation. Moreover, in comparison with Hegesippus' account of James' death, most scholars consider Josephus' to be the more historically reliable. However, a few scholars question the authenticity of the reference, based on various arguments, but primarily based on the observation that various details in The Jewish War differ from it

(2) John the Baptist

Almost all modern scholars consider this passage to be authentic in its entirety, although a small number of authors have questioned it. Because the death of John also appears prominently in the Christian gospels, this passage is considered an important connection between the events Josephus recorded, the chronology of the gospels and the dates for the ministry of Jesus. A few scholars have questioned the passage, contending that the absence of Christian tampering or interpolation does not itself prove authenticity. While this passage is the only reference to John the Baptist outside the New Testament, it is widely seen by most scholars as confirming the historicity of the baptisms that John performed.

(3) Testimonium Flavianum

While before the advent of literary criticism most scholars considered the Testimonium entirely authentic, thereafter the number of supporters of full authenticity declined. However, most scholars now accept partial authenticity and many attempt to reconstruct their own version of the authentic kernel, and scholars such as Geza Vermes have argued that the overall characterizations of Jesus in the Testimonium are in accord with the style and approach of Josephus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

[Minimalist]

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.

[DeistPaladin]

Everybody agrees that TF is at least partially forged,

There are those who argue for it's "partial authenticity". What they do is take out all the glaring evangelical parts, which wouldn't have been written by a Jew who remained so until the day he died. It's a classic case of Agent Maxwell Smart's tactic, "Would you believe...?"

There is no evidence for partial authenticity. They only construct a more plausible insertion and slap the label on it "it coulda happened therefore we say it did".

(1) James the brother of Jesus

...is a reference to Jesus Bar Damneus (Jesus son of Damneus). Q.E.D.

(2) John the Baptist

...is a curious character. Supposedly, his whole ministry was a warm-up act for Jesus. He even supposedly told his followers this on no uncertain terms. Yet, strangely, Josephus tells us that JtB had a successful ministry with no reference to it just being a warm-up act for someone else. His followers considered JtB to be the messiah and still do to this day. How odd he told them to follow Jesus and they just didn't get the memo.

...or maybe the whole thing about him kneeling before Jesus is just a propaganda piece the Christians made up about their arch rival at the time. Kind of like what the Muslims would later do with Jesus.