Existence of Jesus

[Kyuuketsuki]

Well actually if you read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus , you will see that while what is today in Josephus almost certainly is an emendation by later scribes, it is considered likely that Josephus did say something about Jesus, which was probably the basis of this emendation.

Wikipedia? A useful starting point sure but hardly a real reference.

All this is debatable, I readily concede. But it is misleading to say that the text in Josephus is "fake."

Indeed it is debatable

Those who believe in the existence of Jesus Christ like to quote him as being a first century direct witness but there's a problem (apart from the fact that he was born AFTER Jesus Christ is supposed to have died) ... the part specifically is this (and I stress I had to get this off the web, I can check it later in my copy of "Antiquities of the Jews"):

"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 wonderful works; a teacher of such men as received 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."

Now, men like Herodotus and Josephus wrote extremely well in terms of style & content (a huge part of the reason why they are considered so credible) but the writings of Josephus that refer to Jesus Christ are considered by many historians to be false (a later interpolation). They simply do not fit with the known style & normal kind of content of the writer and they are introduced in places in his work where they simply should not be. According to one historian Josephus' writings are like reading "War & Peace" by Tolstoy and then all of a sudden it starts talking about Jesus Christ like something out of a "Wish You Were Here" TV holiday guide!

I am not sure that this is the part Origen refers to but no matter, there is a second reference in Book 18 of "Antiquities Of The Jews" which says:

"But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought it before the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned."

In favour of it being genuine is the fact that it doesn't go overboard as the other strongly suspected interpolation did, that Origen mentions this passage (which allows over a century for the passage to have been interpolated) and the claim that the words reflect Jewish rather than Christian usage are inconclusive. Another objection to this passage is that the Greek does not contain the concept of "so-called" so the actual phrase would be "Him called Christ" which then raises the interpolation spectre again.

Further it is worth noting that the historicity of Jesus is not widely doubted among historians of the classical period. Why would it be? There is some presumption that he lived; there is on the other side mere doubt that he did not. But how much evidence could possibly come down from A.D. 40 clearly demonstrating the existence of any particular non-patrician Roman, indeed a non-Italian and non-citizen? It's worth noting that to Romans, Jesus would have been a nonentity during his life; only much later, as Christianity spread, did he become a figure of any significance to Rome (by then a historical one, of course).

Sorry but I don't accept that to be true ... my understanding is that many historians reject the first passage entirely as a later interpolation where others maintain the passage was altered not inserted and whilst not pro-Christian did refer to Jesus Christ. The second passage is fairly weak even if it was genuine. If either of these passages could be demonstrated to be genuine then they would, I suppose, constitute possible evidence for the existence of a literal Jesus but claims to his existence are far from certain and the incredible lack of hard confirmatory evidence weighs heavily against him ever being real.

Kyu

[Giff]

Also Jesus was mentioned by the classical historian Josephus, who was not a Christian. It is not impossible of course that a person would be mentioned by a historian of that day and not exist, but considering how very few people of ordinary birth get named in Roman histories (Caesar for example mentions a few common soldiers in connection with extraordinarily brave deeds during his campaigns), it would be just a little strange if someone was mentioned who did not, in fact, exist

The Josephus quote(s) tends to be regarded as a later interpolation (in effect a fake).

Kyu

Well actually if you read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus , you will see that while what is today in Josephus almost certainly is an emendation by later scribes, it is considered likely that Josephus did say something about Jesus, which was probably the basis of this emendation. Most probably what he wrote is something like this, which is a paraphrase by one Agapius of what would seem to be an unmodified, earlier and not lost edition of Josephus:

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders"

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Further Origen, a Christian author writing around 240 (Josephus wrote around 70 or 80), said that Josephus did not recognize the divinity of Jesus. This would be a rather odd thing to say if Josephus had not written something about Jesus, and what he wrote could well be lost text paraphrased above, and which does bear resemblance to the presumably amended text now found in Josephus.

All this is debatable, I readily concede. But it is misleading to say that the text in Josephus is "fake."

Further it is worth noting that the historicity of Jesus is not widely doubted among historians of the classical period. Why would it be? There is some presumption that he lived; there is on the other side mere doubt that he did not. But how much evidence could possibly come down from A.D. 40 clearly demonstrating the existence of any particular non-patrician Roman, indeed a non-Italian and non-citizen? It's worth noting that to Romans, Jesus would have been a nonentity during his life; only much later, as Christianity spread, did he become a figure of any significance to Rome (by then a historical one, of course).

Make sence what you say there. But if he was an importent person for those who believed in him during that time. Then there atleast should some evidence left.

But as you say it was very long time ago and he didn't mean anything to the romans.

I however doubt taht he lived during that time, I also doubt that he even have existed. If he would get so much attention of the judean people during that time and if he was seen as a great threat of that time by the priests and noble, then surely someone would have wrote something about him. Some author of that time would have mentioned some guy called "the king of the jews".

[chatpilot]

Most of these arguments regarding the secular evidence of the existence of Jesus such as Josephus etc. Have been proven to be inserted at a later time and not by the original author.This argument is old and outdated and is not even worth my time debating it all over again it's a pretty tired and boring subject to go over it again.I suggest you do your own independent research and familiarize yourselves with the subject matter.I refuse to get into this same old tired argument of Jesus being mentioned in Josephus etc.

[Mark]

Make sence what you say there. But if he was an importent person for those who believed in him during that time. Then there atleast should some evidence left.

But as you say it was very long time ago and he didn't mean anything to the romans.

I however doubt taht he lived during that time, I also doubt that he even have existed. If he would get so much attention of the judean people during that time and if he was seen as a great threat of that time by the priests and noble, then surely someone would have wrote something about him. Some author of that time would have mentioned some guy called "the king of the jews".

Well, they did, didn't they, and it is these records that are recounted in the Gospels. I don't consider the Bible to be divinely inspired, mind you. I merely say that the Gospels provide a fairly consistent account of a historical Jesus and that they appear to be based on early written reports (you can read about it on wikipedia). There is indeed some evidence that Luke and Josephus are based on the same report.

Just because we don't believe in God is no reason to dismiss out of hand the purported historical accounts in the Bible. Nor is it necessary to dismiss these accounts insofar as they report Jesus the man, merely because they also report preposterous miracles. The ancients were very credulous, and that includes the Romans.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Most of these arguments regarding the secular evidence of the existence of Jesus such as Josephus etc. Have been proven to be inserted at a later time and not by the original author.This argument is old and outdated and is not even worth my time debating it all over again it's a pretty tired and boring subject to go over it again.I suggest you do your own independent research and familiarize yourselves with the subject matter.I refuse to get into this same old tired argument of Jesus being mentioned in Josephus etc.

Dunno about "proven" but yeah a lot of historians seem to suspect that.

Also, aren't most of these theistic arguments a bit dated anyway?

Kyu

[Mark]

Most of these arguments regarding the secular evidence of the existence of Jesus such as Josephus etc. Have been proven to be inserted at a later time and not by the original author.This argument is old and outdated and is not even worth my time debating it all over again it's a pretty tired and boring subject to go over it again.I suggest you do your own independent research and familiarize yourselves with the subject matter.I refuse to get into this same old tired argument of Jesus being mentioned in Josephus etc.

Although I am a longtime student of Roman life and history, and I have a moderately good command of classical Latin, I certainly do not claim to be expert on the question of the historicity of Jesus or on the arguments about Josephus. But I do understand that a majority of classical scholars do not doubt that Jesus the man existed. And I do find a level of sophistication and erudition in wikipedia, on these questions, that is entirely absent in any of your posts here -- and by now, yes, I have read those above.

So I must say that your sweeping dismissal of these points is not very interesting, still less persuasive. If you don't find it worth your time to debate these points, why bring them up?

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Most of these arguments regarding the secular evidence of the existence of Jesus such as Josephus etc. Have been proven to be inserted at a later time and not by the original author.This argument is old and outdated and is not even worth my time debating it all over again it's a pretty tired and boring subject to go over it again.I suggest you do your own independent research and familiarize yourselves with the subject matter.I refuse to get into this same old tired argument of Jesus being mentioned in Josephus etc.

Dunno about "proven" but yeah a lot of historians seem to suspect that.

Also, aren't most of these theistic arguments a bit dated anyway?

Kyu

You really should read the wikipedia reference that I supplied above, before you accept chatpilot's sweeping dismissal of Josephus's account of Jesus.

In any case these are not theistic arguments, but historical and especially about Josephus and the Gospels, textual arguments.

Classical times are so remote that it really is quite remarkable if anyone not extremely distinguished is mentioned in the accounts of the day, still less a very ordinary (from the viewpoint of Rome) non-Roman-citizen and foreigner. Why should Jesus the man be supposed not to exist? Just because miracles are falsely attributed to him? Don't you think it rather more likely that some charismatic man did exist? The phenomenon of charismatic men starting religious or quasi-religious movements is hardly isolated in history. E.g. Joseph Smith. But you will search more recent history in vain for a religious movement centered on a supposed charismatic man who did not, in fact, exist.

[Kyuuketsuki]

You really should read the wikipedia reference that I supplied above, before you accept chatpilot's sweeping dismissal of Josephus's account of Jesus.

Here's an idea, how about you actually deal with my argument before assuming I am not in any way informed about the subject?

Kyu

[Mark]

You really should read the wikipedia reference that I supplied above, before you accept chatpilot's sweeping dismissal of Josephus's account of Jesus.

Here's an idea, how about you actually deal with my argument before assuming I am not in any way informed about the subject?

Kyu

I am sorry if I gave offense. What argument is that? I don't see an argument in the post of yours I quoted, but if you will clarify, I will be happy to respond. In the mean time, what is your reaction to the last para in the post of mine that you just partly quoted?

[Kyuuketsuki]

I am sorry if I gave offense. What argument is that? I don't see an argument in the post of yours I quoted, but if you will clarify, I will be happy to respond. In the mean time, what is your reaction to the last para in the post of mine that you just partly quoted?

First post, this page (post #81)

Kyu

[Mark]

I didn't see this, sorry.

Well actually if you read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus , you will see that while what is today in Josephus almost certainly is an emendation by later scribes, it is considered likely that Josephus did say something about Jesus, which was probably the basis of this emendation.

Wikipedia? A useful starting point sure but hardly a real reference.

As I say, I am not an expert on this subject, but my first point of reference on most things is wikipedia, which I regard as reasonably reliable. If the article in question is inaccurate to your knowledge, you are free to point out where.

All this is debatable, I readily concede. But it is misleading to say that the text in Josephus is "fake."

Indeed it is debatable

Do you agree that in light of the information supplied in the cited article, "fake" is misleadingly strong? I think it is, because it creates the impression that the entire idea that Josephus mentioned Jesus is a bogus one.

Those who believe in the existence of Jesus Christ like to quote him as being a first century direct witness but there's a problem (apart from the fact that he was born AFTER Jesus Christ is supposed to have died)

Well I have not maintained that Josephus was an eyewitness to Jesus. It remains the case that he was writing within a few decades of the supposed death of Jesus.

... the part specifically is this (and I stress I had to get this off the web, I can check it later in my copy of "Antiquities of the Jews"):

"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 wonderful works; a teacher of such men as received 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."

I also have Josephus at home, in English, but only on the Jewish War. But I see no reason to doubt that the quoted passage is in the extant edition of Josephus.

Now, men like Herodotus and Josephus wrote extremely well in terms of style & content (a huge part of the reason why they are considered so credible) but the writings of Josephus that refer to Jesus Christ are considered by many historians to be false (a later interpolation). They simply do not fit with the known style & normal kind of content of the writer and they are introduced in places in his work where they simply should not be. According to one historian Josephus' writings are like reading "War & Peace" by Tolstoy and then all of a sudden it starts talking about Jesus Christ like something out of a "Wish You Were Here" TV holiday guide!

First let me say that I have no doubt that if a passage about Jesus existed in Josephus, the above is not a fully faithful rendition of it. It is preposterous that Josephus, a non-Christian with a strong Hellenistic sensibility, would have made some of the statements here. But this does not rule out that Josephus, who was after all writing a history of the Jews and a defense of their religion, did treat Jesus in a passage moderately similar to this one.

If you read the cited article, you will see that a reasonable case can be made for that, and which it appears that many scholars accept. For example, it is widely proposed that Josephus said, "Jesus is believed to be the Christ" and the emphasized words were left out by the scribe.

Secondly if you read the cited article, you will see that it is now commonly agreed that the passage quoted, in Greek, does indeed conform both to the style and word choice customary to Josephus. Thus if it is a complete forgery, it is not a clumsy one that violates the style and use of words of the author, but a skillful one.

I am not sure that this is the part Origen refers to but no matter,

Well, it is not of no matter. The point about Origen is that he, writing 160 years after Josephus, declares that Josephus did not accept the divinity of Jesus. This would be a rather strange thing to say if Origen had not read something about Jesus in Josephus.

there is a second reference in Book 18 of "Antiquities Of The Jews" which says:

"But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought it before the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned."

In favour of it being genuine is the fact that it doesn't go overboard as the other strongly suspected interpolation did, that Origen mentions this passage (which allows over a century for the passage to have been interpolated) and the claim that the words reflect Jewish rather than Christian usage are inconclusive. Another objection to this passage is that the Greek does not contain the concept of "so-called" so the actual phrase would be "Him called Christ" which then raises the interpolation spectre again.

Well I am no expert so I can't judge this passage. Is the Antiquities lost in the original Greek? But in any case, it would seem to require a more thoroughgoing discussion of Jesus than this to cause Origen to conclude that Josephus rejected the divinity of Jesus.

Further it is worth noting that the historicity of Jesus is not widely doubted among historians of the classical period. Why would it be? There is some presumption that he lived; there is on the other side mere doubt that he did not. But how much evidence could possibly come down from A.D. 40 clearly demonstrating the existence of any particular non-patrician Roman, indeed a non-Italian and non-citizen? It's worth noting that to Romans, Jesus would have been a nonentity during his life; only much later, as Christianity spread, did he become a figure of any significance to Rome (by then a historical one, of course).

Sorry but I don't accept that to be true ...

Well I emphasize that this part of my argument is not at all about Josephus. I have a number of histories of Rome on my bookshelf, and each one of them that deals with this period and part of the world at some point discusses the historical Jesus as a charismatic man who either actually or most probably existed. No reference of mine avers that he did not exist. So I will maintain what I say in the first sentence above.

...my understanding is that many historians reject the first passage entirely as a later interpolation where others maintain the passage was altered not inserted and whilst not pro-Christian did refer to Jesus Christ. The second passage is fairly weak even if it was genuine. If either of these passages could be demonstrated to be genuine then they would, I suppose, constitute possible evidence for the existence of a literal Jesus but claims to his existence are far from certain and the incredible lack of hard confirmatory evidence weighs heavily against him ever being real.

Yes exactly, others maintain that it was altered. There is indeed a paraphrase of Josephus in the classical literature, which I quoted in English from the wikipedia article, which sounds very much like the disputed passage but which is free of Christian belief. There is a fair degree of supposition that paraphrase was based on an early edition of Josephus in which the disputed passage had not yet been modified.

But in any case, while I think it likely that Josephus did mention Jesus in something pretty well resembling the paraphrase, I don't consider this to be the main basis of the historicity of Jesus. You have in the first place the Gospels, which purport to be accounts of this man's life. They are sufficiently consistent to suggest that such a person may have existed, and they appear to be based on prior written accounts. Granted they report absurd miracles, but that is not ground for dismissing the report of a man's existence and the broad outlines of his conduct.

More importantly, the formation of a religious movement around a charismatic preacher is hardly an uncommon occurrence in history. Amy Temple McPherson; Joseph Smith; and many others are modern examples. On the other hand, you will search modern history (e.g., since 1500) in vain to discover where any such a movement, ostensibly inspired by a charismatic preacher, arose without the actual existence of the preacher in question.

chatpilot rather strangely said that many ancient religions were based on imaginary human beings. There is of course very little evidence that Budda, for example, ever existed, but there is very scant reason to assert that he did not. Confucious is rather certain to have existed, I believe. This is not to assert that every mythical human being taken up as a demi-god by any religion necessarily existed; only that chatpilot's case that ancient religion is typically founded on the preaching of a non-existent preacher is quite weak.

At the end of the day, we do not know for certain whether the actual Joshua bar Joseph, mortal and charismatic preacher of something-or-other in Judea around 40 C.E. existed or not. But the preponderance of likelihood, which is really all that historians have to work with in such cases, is that he did. I concede that there is some possibility that he did not.

You know if you look at chatpilot's posts along this entire thread, and I have, they really reek with anti-Christian animus. Now as atheists I think it is quite fine if we debate Christians and even try to convert them to our point of view. Nor is it necessary that we respect their religion, which is an absurdity. But I think we drift off into la-la land when we allow our disputes with Christianty to cloud our judgement on questions of historical fact. My atheism has a lot to do with my desire to look directly at the world and see it for what it is. That includes human history.

Oh and lastly, there is not "an incredible lack of hard confirmatory evidence" of Jesus' existence. There is a lack, but it is hardly incredible given that Jesus was a rather unimportant person to the only people at the time who were keeping systematic records, and further given that almost all the records that they kept have been lost to history anyway. How much "hard confirmatory evidence" exists of anyone in the First Century?