The historicity of Jesus Christ

[kallipolis]

If Josephus believe Jesus was the Messiah, don't you think he would have said more than the the paragraph he did write? How could he believe he was the Messiah without also believing in the Resurrection?

Here we are dealing with primary sources such as James, the brother of Jesus, and the Apostle John who was exiled to the Greek island of Patmos, where he died sometime in his nineties. Josephus relied upon the evidence provided by these two very close contemporaries of Jesus.

Here's what Josephus did say (translated from the Greek by J. P. Meier) per Greek Testimonium Flavianum (“TF”).

There is an issue here for Josephus was a Jew who never converted to Christianity leaving one to question the authenticity of his alleged words. This remains a source of debtate in academic circles.

About this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.

This reference is sufficiently scholarly for me to recommend its deep analysis of the Josephus testimonial.

http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm

That Josephus accepted Jesus as the Messiah is sufficient evidence that he was satisfied by the evidence provided by James, the brother of The Lord, and the Apostle John.

As you correctly indicated earlier in this thread it is likely that the Jesus' band of brothers would have disintegrated into nothingness had the resurrection, and appearances on the road to Emmaus, and at Emmaus before his traumatised friends not occurred.

Josephus did not meet Jesus before his execution, nor after the resurrection leading me to appreciate, that he left the question of the resurrection open.

 

[Jacquemar]

For those seeking the OTHER side of the argument.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Josephus

 

[kallipolis]

For those seeking the OTHER side of the argument.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Josephus

The two citations that I have placed here on Josephus are very clearly willing to discuss various opinions, and claims that dispute the Josephus testimonial.

Your citation merely amplifies what has already been said here...that there is a big question mark on the authenticity of Josephus' alleged testimonial.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Don't know about you, but I'd call someone our calendar era is named after "historical", to say the least.

 

[kallipolis]

Don't know about you, but I'd call someone our calendar era is named after "historical", to say the least.

For many atheists there is a willingness to accept that Jesus of Nazareth was a living, breathing human person, despite not accepting him as a divine revelation of the creator.

I've already stated that two thousand years after its foundation Christianity remains a potent reminder that someone who did not exist could not possibly have founded a way of life that today, registers the overwhelming influence of the words spoken by Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[Spensed]

I thought the Shroud of Turin had been radiocarbon dated to medieval times.

To say the obvious, beliefs can be held for centuries and still prove false.

The mythology of Christ is no surprise in the context of prophets and magic workers that he came from. I don't think it much matters whether he actually existed or not or whether he was the son of some anciently worshiped sky God. The underlying message attributed to him speaks for itself.

 

[kallipolis]

I thought the Shroud of Turin had been radiocarbon dated to medieval times.

It has. Nevertheless the so called experts tell us that the sample of the shroud provided for analysis was not sufficient to offer a conclusive outcome. I gather that a larger sample is being sought, but thus far, no authorisation has been received.

 

[Mariatenebre]

Don't know about you, but I'd call someone our calendar era is named after "historical", to say the least.

While Jesus most likely existed just because our calendar era is named after him means nothing. Our months are in fact named after Pagan Roman deities. March after Mars, May after Maia, June after Juno etc.

 

[Benvolio]

While Jesus most likely existed just because our calendar era is named after him means nothing. Our months are in fact named after Pagan Roman deities. March after Mars, May after Maia, June after Juno etc.

July for Julius Caesar, August for Augustus.

 

[TX-Beau]

September seven, October, eight, November nine December ten. So what.

Christians are not evidence of Christ. Someone saying there are Christians in the Empire, pro or con is no evidence of Christ. There is no evidence of Christ as advertised, there is no evidence of anything even resembling the accounts in the gospels.

IS it likely that there was someone named "Christ?" No, because Christ is not a name. There could have been one preacher who was the inspiration, there could have been several, there could have been an absolute fabrication for reasons lost in the dust of antiquity.

Only people with vested interests claim to have the answer - and as always I repeat, that it doesn't fucking matter, Christians now are the ones with who we have to live, and whether there was an actual Christ is entirely moot.

 

[opinterph]

… it doesn't fucking matter, Christians now are the ones with [whom] we have to live, and whether there was an actual Christ is entirely moot.

“Christ” represents a designation of some sort – not a given name, correct?

 

[TX-Beau]

"The Anointed One" or so I've been told, and yeah, it's a kind of title, not a name. I have no idea how important that was in Classical Judea, but it could apply to a number of personages for a number of reasons.

I'd be far more impressed if Josephus had said that Cletus of Hillbilly was the son of heaven, and then Tacitus had asserted that Cletus the Redneck was crucified for impertinence (and the wearing of abhorrent Camo!)

 

[zoltanspawn]

Only people with vested interests claim to have the answer - and as always I repeat, that it doesn't fucking matter, Christians now are the ones with who we have to live, and whether there was an actual Christ is entirely moot.

Minus the tone, I will agree with you. The sacred principles that ought to illuminate a religious life don't include a deeply-held commitment to historical details. With the example of Christ, I would think his messages of love etc, should be sufficient to sustain a faith.

 

[kallipolis]

Messiah derives from the Hebrew word mashiach meaning “anointed one,” or “chosen one.”

The Greek equivalent is Christos or, in English, Christ.

In terms of its derivation, the title "Messiah" was used to describe the long-awaited "Anointed one", the agent of God who would variously cast off the Roman occupation forces, usher in a new world order, and/or renew the faith of Israel. Messianic scenarios came in different forms. For some, the Messiah would be a military leader and heir of King David; for others, he would be a prophetic figure, perhaps even the prophet Elijah returned from heaven.

Messianic scenarios were most likely the preserve of apocalyptically-charged sects, such as the Qumran Covenanters who conserved the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls and the earliest Jesus movement at Jerusalem told in Acts 1-5.

In the Qumran texts, for example (150 BC -70 AD) we find what appears to be an expectation of two "anointed" figures (e.g., 1 QS 9:10-11; CD 12:22-23) who would preside over the elect in the future: a "messiah of Israel" (probably a royal figure) and a "messiah of Aaron" (a priestly figure). For the Qumran community, the latter figure was apparently seen as outranking the royal "messiah".

In the Psalms of Solomon (late first century BC), however, hope for the restoration of Israel is tied to God's raising up a descendant of David as "the Lord's anointed one" (christos kyriou, 17:32; 18:7), and the messianism here is of a purely royal variety.

 

[TX-Beau]

Minus the tone, I will agree with you. The sacred principles that ought to illuminate a religious life don't include a deeply-held commitment to historical details. With the example of Christ, I would think his messages of love etc, should be sufficient to sustain a faith.

Curiously enough, I have more respect for religious people who don't attempt to justify their religions. I also think that the importance of questions like this, or the controversy about the Shroud of Turin and other similar kinds of relics, is a symptom of the modern era.

It might be important to me that the shroud isn't literally the cloth Christ bled on, but that was never why it was important to believers. They imbued it with importance with their faith, and trying to "prove" it arguing with people like me isn't valuable to that or necessary.

Same with Christ. We don't know. We will never know. So the next question becomes, what is the importance of knowing. Either there will be no evidence of someone that never was, and we all go right on believing what we will - or we prove there was a preacher who might or might not be God, and we all go right on believing what we will; because the germane point of Christ as a religious figure, is un-proveable BY DESIGN.

 

[Kulindahr]

Osiris and his cult inspired Egyptians to great devotion for about three thousand years, a cult in many ways very similar to Christianity; yet I don't see anyone making the case based on longevity that Osiris must have really existed, or that his story is anything other than a myth.

Another parallel of course would be that Osiris and Jesus ultimately had much political support. It's easy to keep a religion going when there are politically backed standards of heresy.

I'm not sure that the Osiris cult inspired much devotion except in the lesser priests. I read a scholarly piece a while back that argued that until Judaism came along, not many religions inspired much more than perfunctory attention, and that Christianity carried it to a new level. Interestingly, it also concluded that state religions got less devotion and more mere perfunctory acknowledgment, and that when Christianity became a state religion it suffered from that affliction, losing much of the actual devotion.

 

[Kulindahr]

Jesus ... made ridiculous statements such as that if a man lusts after a woman he is committing adultery in his own heart etc.

Are you aware of the context of that statement? It happens to be a sharp put-down of people who considered themselves far above others because they'd never actually broken the commandment by going all the way through with an adulterous act. Basically, Jesus was saying, "You think you're better? Crap, you have the same dirty thoughts as everyone else -- get over yourselves!"

 

[Kulindahr]

It has. Nevertheless the so called experts tell us that the sample of the shroud provided for analysis was not sufficient to offer a conclusive outcome. I gather that a larger sample is being sought, but thus far, no authorisation has been received.

Yes. The sample used back then was barely sufficient to get a result, and the methods not as rigorous as today's. A more certain result could be gotten with far less material, now.

There's also the issue that the material was taken from a part of the Shroud known to have been "repaired" in the past, possibly with the application of new thread resembling the old, which would throw the whole thing out. Additionally, there are smoke traces on the edges, and the smoke could have introduced carbon from an outside source. The problem at this point is that any material agreed to be not contaminated with anything introduced later would have to come from a completely undamaged section, which would mean cutting a hole, however tiny -- so the issue isn't a larger sample, it's the location from which the sample must come. The proposal being given the most consideration would actually remove a couple of centimeters of a single thread running through a portion where there is nothing of the image, but so far the caretakers aren't willing to go with even that (I've read they're hoping methods will improve to where they can get away with less than a centimeter, so I'm not holding my breath).

 

[Benvolio]

The problem is that many men were crucified in Israel about that time. Even if the shroud were shown to date from that time, it will never be possible to show that it was Christ's.

 

[Jacquemar]

I'm not sure that the Osiris cult inspired much devotion except in the lesser priests. I read a scholarly piece a while back that argued that until Judaism came along, not many religions inspired much more than perfunctory attention, and that Christianity carried it to a new level. Interestingly, it also concluded that state religions got less devotion and more mere perfunctory acknowledgment, and that when Christianity became a state religion it suffered from that affliction, losing much of the actual devotion.

I highly recommend you read Jan Assman's THE SEARCH FOR GOD IN ANCIENT EGYPT and Naydler's TEMPLE OF THE COSMOS. They will enlighten you.