Historian explains why Jesus ''mythers'' aren't taken seriously by most Historians

[TheMessiah]

Well, hey, maybe you have a different angle...which passages from either are we considering?  I wouldn't want to spend too much time arguing some point you aren't making........that -other- point, from earlier, btw..any more clarity on that? In the meantime, trot em out - lets see the text in question.

The two passages, explained:

---

Josephus

The Jewish priestly aristocrat Joseph ben Matityahu, who took the Roman name Flavius Josephus, is our main source of information about Jewish affairs in this period and is usually the only writer of the time who makes any mention of Jewish preachers, prophets and Messianic claimants of the First Century. Not surprisingly, he mentions Jesus twice: firstly in some detail in Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.3.4 and again more briefly when mentioning the execution of Jesus' brother James in Antiquities XX.9.1. The first reference is problematic, however, as it contains elements which Josephus cannot have written and which seem to have been added later by a Christian interpolator. Here is the text, with the likely interpolations in bold:

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call
him a man; for he was a doer of paradoxical deeds, a teacher of such men
as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the
Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ And when Pilate at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross,
those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared
to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold
these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the
tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

There has been a long debate about what parts of this reference to Jesus are authentic to Josephus or even if the whole passage is a wholesale interpolation. Proponents of the Jesus Myth hypothesis, naturally, opt for the idea that it is not authentic in any way, but there are strong indications that, apart from the obvious additions shown in bold above, Josephus did mention Jesus at this point in his text.

To begin with, several elements in the passage are distinctively Josephean in their style and phrasing. "Now (there was) about this time ..." is used by Josephus as a way of introducing a new topic hundreds of times in his work. There are no early Christian parallels that refer to Jesus merely as "a wise man", but this is a term used by Josephus several times, eg about Solomon and Daniel. Christian writers placed a lot of emphasis on Jesus' miracles, but here the passage uses a fairly neutral term παραδόξων ἔργων - "paradoxa erga" or "paradoxical deeds". Josephus does use this phrase elsewhere about the miracles of Elisha, but the term can also mean "deeds that are difficult to interpret" and even has overtones of cautious scepticism. Finally, the use of the word φῦλον ("phylon" - "race, tribe") is not used by Christians about themselves in any works of the time, but is used by Josephus elsewhere about sects, nations or other distinct groups. Additionally, with the sole exception of Χριστιανῶν ("Christianon" - "Christians") every single word in the passage can be found elsewhere in Josephus' writings.

The weight of the evidence of the vocabulary and style of the passage is heavily towards its partial authenticity. Not only does it contain distinctive phrases of Josephus that he used in similar contexts elsewhere, but these are also phrases not found in early Christian texts. And it is significantly free of terms and phrases from the gospels, which we'd expect to find if it was created wholesale by a Christian writer. So either a very clever Christian interpolator somehow managed to immerse himself in Josephus' phrasing and language, without modern concordances and dictionaries and create a passage containing distinctively Josephean phraseology, or what we have here is a genuinely Josephean passage that has simply been added to rather clumsily.

As a result of this and other evidence (eg the Arabic and Syriac paraphrases of this passage which seem to come from a version before the clumsy additions by the interpolator) the consensus amongst scholars of all backgrounds is that the passage is partially genuine, simply added in a few obvious places. Louis H. Feldman's Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1984) surveys scholarship on the question from 1937 to 1980 and finds of 52 scholars on the subject, 39 considered the passage to be partially authentic.

Peter Kirby has done a survey of the literature since and found that this trend has increased in recent years. He concludes "In my own reading of thirteen books since 1980 that touch upon the passage, ten out of thirteen argue the (Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.3.4 passage) to be partly genuine, while the other three maintain it to be entirely spurious. Coincidentally, the same three books also argue that Jesus did not exist."

The other mention of Jesus in Josephus, Antiquities XX.9.1, is much more straightforward, but much more of a problem for Jesus Mythicists. In it Josephus recounts a major political event that happened when he was a young man. This would have been a significant and memorable event for him, since he was only 25 at the time and it caused upheaval in his own social and political class, the priestly families of Jerusalem that included his own.

In 62 AD the Roman procurator of Judea, Porcius Festus, died while in office and his replacement, Lucceius Albinus, was still on his way to Judea from Rome. This left the High Priest, Hanan ben Hanan (usually called Ananus), with a freer reign than usual. Ananus executed some Jews without Roman permission and, when this was brought to the attention of the Romans, Ananus was deposed. This deposition would have been memorable for the young Josephus, who had just returned from an embassy to Rome on the behalf of the Jerusalem priests. But what makes this passage relevant is what Josephus mentions, in passing, as the cause of the political upheaval:

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so (the High Priest) assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Messiah, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

This mention is peripheral to the story Josephus is telling, but since we know from Christian sources that Jesus' brother James led the Jesus sect in Jerusalem in this period and we have a separate, non-dependent, Christian account of James' execution by the Jerusalem priesthood, it is fairly clear which "Jesus who was called Messiah" Josephus is referring to here.

Almost without exception, modern scholars consider this passage genuine and an undisputed reference to Jesus as a historical figure by someone who was a contemporary of his brother and who knew of the execution of that brother first hand. This rather unequivocal reference to a historical Jesus leaves Jesus Mythicists with a thorny problem, which they generally try to solve one of two ways:

(i) "The words "who was called Messiah" are a later Christian interpolation" -

Since it is wholly unlikely that a Christian interpolator invented the whole story of the deposition of the High Priest just to slip in this passing reference to Jesus, Mythicists try to argue that the key words which identify which Jesus is being spoken of are interpolated. Unfortunately this argument does not work. This is because the passage is discussed no less than three times in mid-Third Century works by the Christian apologist Origen and he directly quotes the relevant section with the words "Jesus who was called the Messiah" all three times: in Contra Celsum I.4, in Contra Celsum II:13 and in Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei X.17. Each time he uses precisely the phrase we find in Josephus: αδελφος Ιησου του λεγομενου Χριστου ("the brother of that Jesus who was called Messiah"). This is significant because Origen was writing a whole generation before Christianity was in any kind of position to be tampering with texts of Josephus. If this phrase was in the passage in Origen's time, then it was clearly original to Josephus.

(ii) "The Jesus being referred to here was not the Jesus of Christianity, but the 'Jesus, son of Dameus' mentioned later in the same passage."

After detailing the deposition of the High Priest Ananus, Josephus mentions that he was succeeded as High Priest by a certain "Jesus, son of Damneus". So Mythicists try to argue that this was the Jesus that Josephus was talking about earlier, since Jesus was a very common name. It certainly was, but we know how Josephus was careful to differentiate between different people with the same common first name. So it makes more sense that he calls one "Jesus who was called Messiah" and the other "Jesus son of Damneus" to do precisely this. Nowhere else does he call the same person two different things in the same passage, as the Mythicist argument requires. And he certainly would not do so without making it clear that the Jesus who was made HIgh Priest was the same he had mentioned earlier, which he does not do.

Mythicists are also still stuck with the phrase "who was called Messiah", which Origen's mentions show can't be dismissed as an interpolation. They usually attempt to argue that, as a High Priest, Jesus the son of Damenus would have been "called Messiah" because "Messiah" means 'anointed" and priests were anointed with oil at their elevation. Since there are no actual examples of any priests being referred to this way, this is another ad hoc argument designed merely to get the Mythicist argument off the hook.

So the consensus of scholars, Christian and non-Christian, is that the Antiquities XVIII.3.4 passage is authentic despite some obvious later additions and the Antiquities XX.9.1 passage is wholly authentic. These references alone give us about as much evidence for the existence of a historical "Jesus, who was called Messiah" as we have for comparable Jewish preachers and prophets and is actually sufficient to confirm his existence with reference to any gospel or Christian source.

Tacitus

The mention of Jesus in the Annals of the aristocratic Roman historian and senator Publius Cornelius Tacitus is significant partly because of his status as one of the most careful and sceptical historians of the ancient world and partly because it is from what is obviously a hostile witness. Tacitus absolutely despised Christianity, as he make clear when he mentions how the emperor Nero tried to scapegoat them after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. He also gives an account to his readers as the origin of the Christian sect and their founder in Judea:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.
(Tacitus, Annals, XV.44)

Again, this clear reference to Jesus, complete with the details of his execution by Pilate, is a major problem for the Mythicists. They sometimes try to deal with it using their old standby argument: a claim that it is a later interpolation. But this passage is distinctively Tacitean in its language and style and it is hard to see how a later Christian scribe could have managed to affect perfect Second Century Latin grammar and an authentic Tacitean style and fool about 400 years worth of Tacitus scholars, who all regard this passage and clearly genuine.

A more common way of dismissing this passage is to claim that all Tacitus is doing is repeating what Christians had told him about their founder and so it is not independent testimony for Jesus at all. This is slightly more feasible, but still fails on several fronts.

Firstly, Tacitus made a point of not using hearsay, of referring to sources or people whose testimony he trusted and of noting mere rumour, gossip or second-hand reports as such when he could. He was explicit in his rejection of history based on hearsay earlier in his work:

My object in mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous example, to put down hearsay, and to request that all those into whose hands my work shall come not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in preference to genuine history.
(Tacitus, Annals, IV.11)

Secondly, if Tacitus were to break his own rule and accept hearsay about the founder of Christianity, then it's highly unlikely that he would do so from Christians themselves (if this aristocrat even had any contact with any), who he regarded with utter contempt. He calls Christianity "a most mischievous superstition .... evil .... hideous and shameful .... (with a) hatred against mankind" - not exactly the words of a man who regarded its followers as reliable sources about their sect's founder.

Furthermore, what he says about Jesus does not show any sign of having its origin in what a Christian would say: it has no hint or mention of Jesus' teaching, his miracles and nothing about the claim he rose from the dead. On the other hand, it does contain elements that would have been of note to a Roman or other non-Christian: that this founder was executed, where this happened, when it occurred {"during the reign of Tiberius") and which Roman governor carried out the penalty.

We know from earlier in the same passage that Tacitus consulted several (unnamed) earlier sources when writing his account of the aftermath of the Great Fire (see Annals XV.38), so it may have been one of these that gave him his information about Jesus. But there was someone else in Rome at the time Tacitus wrote who mixed in the same circles, who was also a historian and who would have been the obvious person for Tacitus to ask about obscure Jewish preachers and their sects. None other than Josephus was living and writing in Rome at this time and, like Tacitus, associated with the Imperial court thanks to his patronage first by the emperor Vespasian and then by his son and successor Titus. There is a strong correspondence between the details about Jesus in Annals XV.44 and Antiquities XVIII.3.4, so it is at least quite plausible that Tacitus simply asked his fellow aristocratic scholar about the origins of this Jewish sect.

---

[The Grand Nudger]

Gee, I dunno, maybe their claims that he had a human father and mother? (The former whom they said practiced carpentry). That he had brothers and sisters? (one mentioned by Josephus). That he was baptized by John, a character also confirmed by Josephus to be historical, a point all the Gospel writers go through pains to explain in the context of their theology? That he died by crucifixion... a claim so central to the Christian ethos that it turns up on almost every page? (Hint: celestial beings don't usually die a common criminal's death by known historical executioners).

I'm not sure why you think that any of those narratives require that there be an actual person Nestor. I could rattle off a handful of stories (dracula included) that probably won;t garner the same conclusions.  

 
Need I say, "derp"?

probably...yeah, after your last response.

When the mythicist is not creating a story out of thin air, he relies on the same texts that historists do to construct his narrative. So which part should I oblige? The texts about Jesus' divinity and post-mortem celestial existence, the texts about Jesus' humanity that mythicists dismiss ad hoc, or their silly and groundless explanations for why the texts say what they do?

What other texts -would- a mythicist rely on when discussing the christ myth?  You understand that the christ myth and the historical christ are such different entities that what is suitable as evidence for the one may not be suitable as evidence for the other, right?  The particulars of christ myth only requires that a story exist, the historical jesus needs more.  The story exists, no assumptions required....agreed? There -is- a christ myth...available to either of us....agreed? Where do we find that myth.......? The Merck Index?

[Mudhammam]

---

Gee, I dunno, maybe their claims that he had a human father and mother? (The former whom they said practiced carpentry). That he had brothers and sisters? (one mentioned by Josephus). That he was baptized by John, a character also confirmed by Josephus to be historical, a point all the Gospel writers go through pains to explain in the context of their theology? That he died by crucifixion... a claim so central to the Christian ethos that it turns up on almost every page? (Hint: celestial beings don't usually die a common criminal's death by known historical executioners).

I'm not sure why you think that any of those narratives require that there be an actual person Nestor. I could rattle off a handful of stories (dracula included) that probably won;t garner the same conclusions.  

 
Need I say, "derp"?

probably...yeah, after your last response.

When the mythicist is not creating a story out of thin air, he relies on the same texts that historists do to construct his narrative. So which part should I oblige? The texts about Jesus' divinity and post-mortem celestial existence, the texts about Jesus' humanity that mythicists dismiss ad hoc, or their silly and groundless explanations for why the texts say what they do?

What other texts -would- a mythicist rely on when discussing the christ myth?  You understand that the christ myth and the historical christ are such different entities that what is suitable as evidence for the one may not be suitable as evidence for the other, right?  The particulars of christ myth only requires that a story exist, the historical jesus needs more.  The story exists, no assumptions required....agreed?

---

[The Grand Nudger]

I said it, I stand by it.  Sorry to disappoint.

[Mudhammam]

I said it, I stand by it.  Sorry to disappoint.

No need to discuss anything with you further then. You clearly enjoy your dishonesty or your obstinance and I wouldn't want to invest more precious time trying and failing to disrupt that.

[The Grand Nudger]

-@ Messiah. Ah, good, so it is the same reference as usual.  -Ignoring- fraud or interpolation...to be kind, then both accounts are simply the narrator relating things that they were told...and no one is disputing that people, like the experts, say things.  Next?

(also..aren't you a lazy shit...lol?, quotewalled me)

[The Grand Nudger]

So, still haven't seen fit to bring any historical jesi /w you to the thread Nestor?  Still haven't seen fit to address a mythicist position? We can dance all day baby! 

[TheMessiah]

-Ah, good, so it is the same reference as usual.  -Ignoring- fraud or interpolation...to be kind, then both accounts are simply the narrator relating things that they were told...and no one is disputing that people, like the experts, say things.  Next?

If you had read the passage, you'd have seen that the interpolation was blatantly and explicitly addressed; all of your ''concerns'' such as Tacticus repeating claims were addressed and offered with context to as why it is considered reliable.

I think by this point you are just wasting my time.

[The Grand Nudger]

I ignored interpolation and fraud..why are we discussing it now?  Do you want to introduce it?  I already told you that I found the authors argument less than compelling....I asked you to present it yourself, what you found compelling about it.  I'm not sure what it is you think I'm disagreeing with (or that the mythicist position must disagree with), in that context?  I'm comfortable, and the mythicist position is comfortable, for example, with tacitus recording history in a (reasonably)reliable manner.  Again, the mythicist position is -not- that no one told these stories, that no one believed these stories, that there were no christians, or that christianity doesn't have a history. The mythicist position does actually -rely- on their having been a moment in time where the doctrine calcified towards an actual, physical christ......and people who held to that doctrine.....you fuckers* just consistently show that you have never, in your lives.......familiarized yourself with the mythicist position.

What, exactly, did you expect?

*In the general, whomever we wish to attribute these arguments too.......

[Secular Elf]

There was a Jewish ''messiah'' years after Jesus who actually was a threat to Roman rule, because he was a fighter who attempted a militant uprising; the Romans disposed of him like dog-meat, that's not the case with Jesus.

Pontius finding no fault in a man who is non-violent is probably quite accurate to a degree, that's a testament to how desperate the priests were.

So assuming he lived, what gives you the impression he wasn't disposed like dog meat? The gospels? Bible proving bible?

Read up on Roman history. Non violent doesn't figure in the Roman equation. Trouble maker does. And if he was a trouble maker, who according to the bible even said to Pilates face he was the king of the jews, the dog meat treatment is the only possibility. Not only for Jesus to be clear, but for all of his followers and family.

The point of context here for the crux of the matter (pun intended) of where the Romans came into conflict with the Jews, and later the Christians, is both the Roman and Jewish perceptions and attitudes concerning religion as well as the threats, either real or imagined, to Roman authority, for Palestine at that time was after all a province of the Roman Empire (from the 1st Century BCE into the 7th Century CE).  One really has to take into consideration the cultural context and points of view of the actors in these events, especially when it comes to the Roman persecution of the Early Christians.  I have read much on this subject and I have written on it, so I will quote from my own unpublished work (I wrote it mostly for my own personal use in studying Early Christian history), A Summary History of Christianity Part Three: The Early Church--The Ante-Nicene Period (115 – 325 CE) :

XIII. The Importance of Roman Religion to the Roman State


Religion was an integrated part of government in ancient Rome. Gaining the favor of the gods was viewed by the Romans as critical for the well-being and survival of the Roman state and people. Many cults were seen as essential, thus the neglect thereof would be widely viewed as treasonous. The imperial period of Roman rule also knew the reign of many Emperors who either saw themselves as children of the gods or as gods themselves in their own right; some members of the imperial family also enjoyed status as having, along with the emperors, divinely sanctioned and constitutional authority of the Roman State. Therefore, they demanded to be worshipped throughout the Roman Empire.
Official Roman policy usually left their ethnic subjects alone and tolerated unusual native religious practices and observances. In many cases the Romans adopted foreign gods into their own pantheon, integrating deities such as the Persian Mitra (as Mithras) and the Egyptian Isis into Roman religion. Yet eventually the imperial cult caused difficulties for worshippers of Mithras, Sabazius (the sky father god of the Phrygians and Thracians), Jews and Early Christians.

...AND...

XIV. Anti-Judaism in the Roman Empire


Anti-Judaism is a total or partial opposition to the Judaic religion and to Jews as adherents of it, as opposed to antisemitism, which is based on ethnic or racial prejudice. Judaism is a strictly monotheistic religion; therefore Jews were prohibited by their Torah from worshiping any other god than Yahweh. Problems between the Romans and the Jews were evident during the Census of Quirinius in 6 CE and before 31 CE under Sejanus, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard (the body guard of the emperors). Yet the first open break between Rome and the Jews did not occur until the Crisis under Caligula (37-41 CE). After the Jewish-Roman Wars (66-135 CE), the emperor Hadrian changed the name of Iudaea province to Syria Palaestina and Jerusulem to Aelia Capitolina in an attempt to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the region. In addition, after 70 CE, Jews and Jewish Proselytes were only allowed to practice their religion if they paid the Jewish Tax, and after 135 were barred from Jerusalem except for the day of Tisha B’av (the 9th day of the month Av, July-August in the Gregorian Calendar, which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples). In the year 95 CE Flavius Clemens was put to death for “living a Jewish life” or “drifting into Jewish ways”, which may have been related to the administration of the Jewish tax under Domitian. The wider Roman administration had made no distinction between Jews and Christians until 96 CE, when Christians successfully petitioned Emperor Nerva to exempt them from the Fiscus Judaicus (Jewish tax) on the basis that they were not Jews.

...AND...

XVI. Roman Persecutions of Christianity


 Among the Romans was a point of view that religions can sometimes fall under what they called superstitio, that is, “doing or behaving more than was necessary,” which in modern terms would be called “religiosity.” In this sense a superstitio was an excessive devotion and enthusiasm in religious observance. When Romans perceived that a group of worshipers fell into what they considered irregular religious practices that conflicted with Roman custom, they were considered not just as different, but more importantly, corrosive to society. It was in this sense that Seneca stated it as “religio honors the gods, superstitio wrongs them.” The Romans thus began perceiving Christians as being superstitio.

 For the most part of Early Christianity’s existence Christians had escaped the notice of the Roman Imperial state. The Roman tolerance of non-Roman religions held until those religions proved a conflict with Roman rule. Roman authority ignored the religious authorities and allowed them native rule of their own internal affairs without interference from local Roman governors. Christians came into conflict intermittently with local Roman authorities on a sporadic and ad-hoc basis, more often to the whims of local communities than to the opinion of imperial authority. Therefore from the years 64 to 250 persecution of Christians had been accusatory and not inquisitive. Evidence shows that there was a great variety of trials and punishments, and sentences ranged from acquittal to death. So Roman persecutions of Christians occurred intermittently over a period of three centuries. Prior to Nero's accusation of arson and subsequent persecution of Christians in 64, all animosity was apparently limited to intramural Jewish hostility. It was not until Nero that persecution of Christians by the Roman government occurred.