Josephus and other contemporaries on Jesus

[Angrboda]

One issue with dating Mark as late as 130 A.D.
is that we have a fragment of John from c. 125-175 A.D. which could cause some overlap in the dating.

Correct. There have been no discoveries of 1st century manuscripts. In fact P-52 is, iirc, the oldest known manuscript we have. I know its 2nd century. The earliest date people initially gave it was 100 AD but that's been re-evaluated recently to 125-175 AD, which could put it closer to the 3rd century. I'm not contesting that point.

However; this does not mean that P-52 is the original of John.

Although Rylands P52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among scholars. The original editor proposed a date range of 100-150 CE; while a recent exercise by Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse, aiming to generate consistent revised date estimates for all New Testament papyri written before the mid-fourth century, has proposed a date for P52 of 125-175 CE. But a few scholars say that considering the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows the possibility of dates outside these range estimates, such that "any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries."

Wikipedia || Rylands Library Papyrus P52

Your fragment might conflict with a late dating of Mark if we had a solid date for the fragment and that date actually conflicted with dating Mark to 130 AD. Unfortunately, you really don't have either. So what you have is a speculation that if you take the lowest of a range of possible dates for P52, and consider that range itself reliable, then we have a conflict.

Regardless, I don't know that many argue for that late a date for Mark. Were you replying to some specific claim?

[Succubus]

Where do you stand?

On the James mention? I think it's authentic. From basic reading it seems like scholars are split on this and even the TF.

Scholars you say?

Pinky.  

I never thought about your HISTORICITY.  

You mean................Virtually all New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain...........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Gee there is always something to learn Pinky.

In-fucking-deed there is. There's fuckall on the telly so lets take a closer look at some* of these bible scholars.

Clinton E. Arnold: president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

C. K. Barrett: Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham.

Richard Bauckham: “the Gospel of John is written by an eyewitness”

Gregory K. Beale: Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology.

Craig Blomberg: Professor of the New Testament at Denver Seminary.

Darrell Bock: evangelical Christian and New Testament scholar.

Rudolf Karl Bultmann: Lutheran theologian and professor of New Testament.

Gary M. Burge: ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church.

D. A. Carson: Evangelical theologian and professor of the New Testament.

John H. Walton: professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College

James Dunn: Lightfoot Professor of Divinity.

Gordon D. Fee: Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies.

Simon Gathercole: Director of Studies in Theology, Fitzwilliam College.

Joel B Green: Dean of the School of Theology Fuller Theological Seminary.

Robert Horton Gundry: professor of New Testament studies and Koine Greek.

Martin Hengel: Emeritus Professor of New Testament.

Larry Hurtado: Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology.

Karen Jobes: PhD from Westminster Theological Seminary.

Craig Keener: Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary.

George Eldon Ladd: Baptist minister and professor of New Testament exegesis.

Richard N. Longenecker: Professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College.

Howard Marshall: Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis.

Scot McKnight: professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Bruce M. Metzger: professor at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Douglas J. Moo: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois.

Leon Morris: ordained to the Anglican ministry in 1938.

Grant Osborne: degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Archibald Thomas Robertson: Southern Baptist preacher and biblical scholar.

Frank Stagg: Ph.D. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Graham N. Stanton: Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity Cambridge.
University
Robert L. Thomas: president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Francis Watson: Christian scholar and professor of New Testament Exegesis.

Rikk E. Watts: Master of Divinity Gordon-Conwell.

Michael J. Wilkins: M.Div., Talbot Theological Seminary.

Ben Witherington III: ordained pastor in the United Methodist Church.

Nicholas Thomas Wright: New Testament scholar, and retired Anglican bishop.

---

Now then trivial Rik. Do you see a pattern here? Every one of these 'bible scholars' is a priest/theologian. You know; people who's livelihoods depend on this idiotic story being true. And not a history degree between them, masters of divinity (Whatever the fuck that is) plenty, a masters in history, none. Not fucking one! Now here's a challenge for you. find me a comparative list of bible scholars that are>

a) Not priests.
b) Not theologians.
c) Has a degree in history.

*For every one you can name I will present another list of wankers as long as this one. And these are only the REMFs, I haven't listed any of the big guns yet.

Good luck.

Linkey.

[Rev. Rye]

Here's one: Bart Ehrman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Jesus_...F_(Ehrman)

He's a New Testament scholar, but also an open agnostic, and even he points out that the Jesus myth hypothesis is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all. And once again, he's extremely well-versed in this area (and has written 25 books on the New Testament, including three college textbooks) and, as someone who doesn't believe (he admits that the more he looked into the Bible, the less he believed; admittedly, it's the problem of evil that pushed him into nonbelief), has enough distance that he can actually examine the evidence without trying to force the ideas he already holds into it.

So, if someone with these credentials says he probably did exist (even if the Gospels ended up embellished to the point where the real person becomes a myth, which he does point out throughout his books), I'm inclined to believe him.

[Amarok]

Bart Ehrman (despite my respect for him ) has also been trounced over and over by mythcists and his own theory of Jesus has way more issues then mythcisms

[Minimalist]

Correct. There have been no discoveries of 1st century manuscripts. In fact P-52 is, iirc, the oldest known manuscript we have. I know its 2nd century. The earliest date people initially gave it was 100 AD but that's been re-evaluated recently to 125-175 AD, which could put it closer to the 3rd century. I'm not contesting that point.

However; this does not mean that P-52 is the original of John.

A good point and worthy of further discussion. Lots of assumptions made on that score.

[JairCrawford]

One issue with dating Mark as late as 130 A.D.
is that we have a fragment of John from c. 125-175 A.D. which could cause some overlap in the dating.

Correct. There have been no discoveries of 1st century manuscripts. In fact P-52 is, iirc, the oldest known manuscript we have. I know its 2nd century. The earliest date people initially gave it was 100 AD but that's been re-evaluated recently to 125-175 AD, which could put it closer to the 3rd century. I'm not contesting that point.

However; this does not mean that P-52 is the original of John.

Although Rylands P52 is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among scholars. The original editor proposed a date range of 100-150 CE; while a recent exercise by Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse, aiming to generate consistent revised date estimates for all New Testament papyri written before the mid-fourth century, has proposed a date for P52 of 125-175 CE. But a few scholars say that considering the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows the possibility of dates outside these range estimates, such that "any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries."

Wikipedia || Rylands Library Papyrus P52

Your fragment might conflict with a late dating of Mark if we had a solid date for the fragment and that date actually conflicted with dating Mark to 130 AD. Unfortunately, you really don't have either. So what you have is a speculation that if you take the lowest of a range of possible dates for P52, and consider that range itself reliable, then we have a conflict.

Regardless, I don't know that many argue for that late a date for Mark. Were you replying to some specific claim?

I don't think it was so much a claim as it was interesting speculation (correct me if I'm wrong), but Minimalist pointed out that a Roman emperor ordered the ruins to be destroyed and a city built on it in 130 AD and that it could potentially correspond to Mark's "no stone left unturned" prophecy.

[Minimalist]

Correct.  What is really amusing about all that is that Israeli archaeologists like Ronnie Reich and Eli Shukron are digging around 30 feet below street level at the actual first century level of the city while above their heads xtians delude themselves like this!






No, no.  You're just making the tourist industry profitable which is at least the one thing that jews and arabs can agree on!

---

BTW, here's Ronnie Reich with a significant discovery made by digging under the Western Wall.  I bet the Waqf was pissed about that but it does back up Josephus' claim that the Temple Mount complex was completed by Herod's grandson Herod Agrippa II.

---

Here's one: Bart Ehrman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Jesus_...F_(Ehrman)

He's a New Testament scholar, but also an open agnostic, and even he points out that the Jesus myth hypothesis is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all. And once again, he's extremely well-versed in this area (and has written 25 books on the New Testament, including three college textbooks) and, as someone who doesn't believe (he admits that the more he looked into the Bible, the less he believed; admittedly, it's the problem of evil that pushed him into nonbelief), has enough distance that he can actually examine the evidence without trying to force the ideas he already holds into it.

So, if someone with these credentials says he probably did exist (even if the Gospels ended up embellished to the point where the real person becomes a myth, which he does point out throughout his books), I'm inclined to believe him.

I lost a lot of respect for Ehrman the first time I read that he supported the watered down variant of the TF.  He makes no attempt to figure out what happened he simply blindly follows the herd.  Someone has to answer the question of "what the fuck was Origen reading when he quoted Book XVIII of Antiquities.  And none of them do it.

[Amarok]

Correct.  What is really amusing about all that is that Israeli archaeologists like Ronnie Reich and Eli Shukron are digging around 30 feet below street level at the actual first century level of the city while above their heads xtians delude themselves like this!






No, no.  You're just making the tourist industry profitable which is at least the one thing that jews and arabs can agree on!

---

BTW, here's Ronnie Reich with a significant discovery made by digging under the Western Wall.  I bet the Waqf was pissed about that but it does back up Josephus' claim that the Temple Mount complex was completed by Herod's grandson Herod Agrippa II.

---

Here's one: Bart Ehrman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Jesus_...F_(Ehrman)

He's a New Testament scholar, but also an open agnostic, and even he points out that the Jesus myth hypothesis is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all. And once again, he's extremely well-versed in this area (and has written 25 books on the New Testament, including three college textbooks) and, as someone who doesn't believe (he admits that the more he looked into the Bible, the less he believed; admittedly, it's the problem of evil that pushed him into nonbelief), has enough distance that he can actually examine the evidence without trying to force the ideas he already holds into it.

So, if someone with these credentials says he probably did exist (even if the Gospels ended up embellished to the point where the real person becomes a myth, which he does point out throughout his books), I'm inclined to believe him.

I lost a lot of respect for Ehrman the first time I read that he supported the watered down variant of the TF.  He makes no attempt to figure out what happened he simply blindly follows the herd.  Someone has to answer the question of "what the fuck was Origen reading when he quoted Book XVIII of Antiquities.  And none of them do it.

maybe Origen was high on hemp oil a lot of people were back then

[Succubus]

Here's one: Bart Ehrman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Jesus_...F_(Ehrman)

He's a New Testament scholar, but also an open agnostic, and even he points out that the Jesus myth hypothesis is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all. And once again, he's extremely well-versed in this area (and has written 25 books on the New Testament, including three college textbooks) and, as someone who doesn't believe (he admits that the more he looked into the Bible, the less he believed; admittedly, it's the problem of evil that pushed him into nonbelief), has enough distance that he can actually examine the evidence without trying to force the ideas he already holds into it.

So, if someone with these credentials says he probably did exist (even if the Gospels ended up embellished to the point where the real person becomes a myth, which he does point out throughout his books), I'm inclined to believe him.

Yeah. They did give us Bart Eharman. Uh, that's true. Yeah.Yeah well, alright, I take your point. But apart from Bart fackin Ermin what have the fackin agnostics historians ever done for us eh?

There is some debate as to why the millionaire author of 25 best selling books would say such a thing.

Bart Eheram states that the crucifixion of Jesus on the orders of Pontious Pilate is the most certain element about him

And this, from the author of the superb; Deconstructing Jesus?

Mu$ht be $home mi$htake.

[JairCrawford]

Here's one: Bart Ehrman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Jesus_...F_(Ehrman)

He's a New Testament scholar, but also an open agnostic, and even he points out that the Jesus myth hypothesis is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all. And once again, he's extremely well-versed in this area (and has written 25 books on the New Testament, including three college textbooks) and, as someone who doesn't believe (he admits that the more he looked into the Bible, the less he believed; admittedly, it's the problem of evil that pushed him into nonbelief), has enough distance that he can actually examine the evidence without trying to force the ideas he already holds into it.

So, if someone with these credentials says he probably did exist (even if the Gospels ended up embellished to the point where the real person becomes a myth, which he does point out throughout his books), I'm inclined to believe him.

Yeah. They did give us Bart Eharman. Uh, that's true. Yeah.Yeah well, alright, I take your point. But apart from Bart fackin Ermin what have the fackin agnostics historians ever done for us eh?

There is some debate as to why the millionaire author of 25 best selling books would say such a thing.

Bart Eheram states that the crucifixion of Jesus on the orders of Pontious Pilate is the most certain element about him

And this, from the author of the superb; Deconstructing Jesus?

Mu$ht be $home mi$htake.

I wouldn't assume it's about the money. Trust me I've read some of his blogs and the overwhelming majority of Christians would hate his views on Jesus, so I don't think he's trying to sell out to apologetics at all. I myself don't agree with his conclusions on a great many things.

I believe he is arguing from the issue of embarrassment. That Jesus was crucified falls under this category, which could give its historical probability a bump.

As for his views on the TF, I'll have to do some more reading on that. I'm curious to see his argument for an authentic Josephan kernel.