Mod+ 241. JOSEPH ATWILL RESPONDS TO CAESAR’S MESSIAH CRITICS

[gilius2k14]

No, we don't know; but it's plain enough that's what Atwill thinks and what you concur with.

Huh? Are you saying that "walking" consists of accepting Atwill's thesis uncritically?

Good grief. The example of the sermon on the mount, probably one of the most notable episodes in the NT, possibly the the most concise summary of Christianity, is vague? Atwill should spend at least a whole chapter on it. You can't hand wave it away as if it's trivial.

I disagree, it is necessary to cover everything; if one doesn't, one lays oneself open to accusations of selecting only those things that can conceivably support the hypothesis: like I said, cherry-picking. The claim is a big one: that the Romans created the NT, so that should include annoying bits that don't readily fit in.

With sufficient logic, humour and research into the evidence presented by Atwill you can know the origin of Christianity was created by the Flavians.

Walking consists of understanding the design of the parallels (1) before understanding the satire behind their design (2) and then, in turn, using that to run with a proof for the Flavian invention of Christianity (3). You can't understand (3) without first understanding (1) and (2).

Atwill can't cover the entire history and aspects of Christianity in one book, but can prove the origin of Christianity with minimal data. One does not even need to quote all the 40+ parallels. This is not a hypothesis where we are trying to build up a best case scenario that explains everything until otherwise disproven. It's mathematical proof by reverse engineering the psychopathic design of the gospels and Wars of the Jews. It's equivalent to DNA evidence that I'm the father of my son. But he isn't the Lord, and I don't look at myself as being God. So get a grip on reality and start scrutinising those parallels!

 

[Michael Larkin]

The fact that the Sermon on the Mount is in the Gospels, but rather unlike what any Roman emperor would produce (I agree with Michael here), strongly suggests that the causation is from the Gospels to Titus and Josephus.

I accept that there are many parallels, probably too many to be ascribed by chance (I provisionally accept Atwill's list of correspondences, since I have not done any independent investigation).

But correlation A with B does not imply causation. And certainly, if it is taken to imply A causes B, then we must equally well consider the opposite possibility (B causes A) before making up our minds.

Excellent point that correlation does not prove causation: it's similar to the controversy about scans proving the brain generates consciousness rather than acting as a transducer. And thanks for appreciating my point about the Sermon on the Mount (just one example: there are the parables too, which bear deep and spiritual interpretation which I don't think would have interested the Romans).

 

[gilius2k14]

The fact that the Sermon on the Mount is in the Gospels, but rather unlike what any Roman emperor would produce (I agree with Michael here), strongly suggests that the causation is from the Gospels to Titus and Josephus.

I accept that there are many parallels, probably too many to be ascribed by chance (I provisionally accept Atwill's list of correspondences, since I have not done any independent investigation).

But correlation A with B does not imply causation. And certainly, if it is taken to imply A causes B, then we must equally well consider the opposite possibility (B causes A) before making up our minds.

But what is stopping you from considering, at this stage, that both A and B were interactively written by the same source? Again, the parallels are not linear and they work both bi-directionally and in combination.

So you admit the books are similar? But can you spot how explicitly similar the patterns are? Or do they just appear vaguely similar? Can you see that the parallels have been deliberately lined up by design with identical names, locations, verbatim and concepts? Are you noticing there seems to be like an underlining signature to the way names are deliberately being corrupted and patterns within patterns are occurring??

 

[gilius2k14]

(just one example: there are the parables too, which bear deep and spiritual interpretation which I don't think would have interested the Romans).

My Manager's manager isn't interested in how databases are designed or coding used to make programs or how to market a website, but he hires a team of people who each specialise in their own field to produce the company package. Do you think the Flavian elite did not have resources at their disposal for government projects like this?

 

[Ian Thompson]

But what is stopping you from considering, at this stage, that both A and B were interactively written by the same source? Again, the parallels are not linear and they work both bi-directionally and in combination.

So you admit the books are similar? But can you spot how explicitly similar the patterns are? Or do they just appear vaguely similar? Can you see that the parallels have been deliberately lined up by design with identical names, locations, verbatim and concepts? Are you noticing there seems to be like an underlining signature to the way names are deliberately being corrupted and patterns within patterns are occurring??

I can consider it, as a third possibility.
However, on this option, that same source would have to have written all the content of both the gospels and Titus+Josephus. And to show this, you do have to take into account material, such as that Michael mentions, that is extremely unlikely to be written by the Romans.
Because of that problem, which is severe, we do not yet have an account of the origins of Christianity.

 

[gilius2k14]

You seem to have a low opinion of the Romans. Having less vocations meant there were many who made their careers from philosophical writings. There were no computers around in those days, so literature was one of the few ways of testing people's intelligence using typology, etc. The Romans were in control of the entire Mediterranean through their harsh system of administration. If they wanted to get the best writers from Alexandria then they had the power and means to do so, and they did. I doubt Titus very much sat down and did the writing but he would have had a helping hand reviewing it no doubt, as well as constantly remoulding his requirements, but the gospels were his vanity piece during that dynasty. In retrospect, the Roman elite were HIGHLY intelligent, but they did make one or two mistakes with the gospels and Josephus that exposes them--no film company is immune to the same kind of goofs!

Anyway, I'm not convinced you guys have really looked at the parallels or tried to make sense of them yet. And without doing that you can't honestly say that you disagree with Atwill and the evidence he presents for the origins of Christianity. You would rather take the blue pill and stay inside the matrix where you feel comfortable.

 

[Michael Larkin]

With sufficient logic, humour and research into the evidence presented by Atwill you can know the origin of Christianity was created by the Flavians.

Walking consists of understanding the design of the parallels (1) before understanding the satire behind their design (2) and then, in turn, using that to run with a proof for the Flavian invention of Christianity (3). You can't understand (3) without first understanding (1) and (2).

Atwill can't cover the entire history and aspects of Christianity in one book, but can prove the origin of Christianity with minimal data. One does not even need to quote all the 40+ parallels. This is not a hypothesis where we are trying to build up a best case scenario that explains everything until otherwise disproven. It's mathematical proof by reverse engineering the psychopathic design of the gospels and Wars of the Jews. It's equivalent to DNA evidence that I'm the father of my son. But he isn't the Lord, and I don't look at myself as being God. So get a grip on reality and start scrutinising those parallels!

Well, obviously, being illogical, lacking in humour and incapable of research, I necessarily will have to roll over and accept the compelling force of Atwill's thesis. Are you Atwill, by the way? You're as insistent as Darwin's Bulldog, Thomas Huxley, was, and I'm also extremely sceptical about Darwinian evolution's explanatory power, by the way.

If I am to accept Atwill's thesis ultimately merely because he/you express complete confidence in it, let me say that's nowhere near enough. Nor am I impressed by 40+, or 400+ parallels, for that matter. All can be explained by a different thesis that doesn't require me to accept his typological schema. I've not denied that the NT may have been contaminated by various agents with political motives, but it's a question of who and when and why.

Atwill hasn't provided mathematical proof as far as I can see, nor detected certain proof that the whole of the NT was engineered by the Romans. He's come up with a hypothesis which at best would only prove some Roman corruption of it. If the Romans were wholly responsible for the NT, then he necessarily has to explain all the bits for which there are no parallels, and I won't let him or you get away with hand-waving or insults as to my logicality, humour, ability to do research, or to grasp reality. That's called ad hominem and doesn't strengthen the case, but actually weakens it.

As to the design of the Gospels being psychopathic, on the contrary, I think much of the content is sublimely spiritual, even though I'm not a conventional Christian; in fact I'm an atheist when it comes to the Abrahamic God (who doesn't make much of an appearance in the NT). That's one reason I have such a hard time accepting Atwill's thesis. What Roman emperors knew about spirituality could be written on the back of a postage stamp, and yet there's a great deal of it in the NT. That has to have come from somewhere, and it hasn't come from the OT in my judgement. Matter of fact, I don't think the OT should be included in the Christian Canon: any bits in the NT that seem to confirm the link between the two seem suspect to me, but I don't think the Romans had anything to do with those: more likely the ecclesiastics of the early church anxious to portray Jesus as the fulfilment of prophesy, thereby lending it more authority/credibility.

 

[Wendybird]

Before I get to the topic of the parallels/prophecies, I want to provide a disclaimer, lest anyone think I’m some Christian fundamentalist who reads the Bible literally and believes it’s inerrant and that Jesus died to atone for our sins and is the only way to Salvation, blah, blah, etc.: I am not a Christian in any traditional sense. I’m very liberal or progressive. In fact, a lot of mainstream Christians would say I’m a heretic/not a Christian. There’s plenty in the NT that I don’t agree with theologically, but having read much over 20 years on the historical Jesus and early Christianity, I do follow the teachings of Jesus, not church doctrine. I’m not invested in a particular religious belief system; that I do think there was an historical Jesus at the core of Christianity (maybe not as we have it today), is due to all my reading of academic books. I see Jesus as an enlightened Jewish rabbi (teacher/preacher) and apocalyptic prophet (in the vein of mystical revelation) who began a “Kingdom” movement (with no intent to start a new religion). He taught more about how he saw or understood (via “apocalypse”= mystical revelation) the relationship of man to God and the process of spiritual awakening (rebirth) and transformation, with the goal of bringing the “Kingdom”/heaven/God’s way to reign TO EARTH (“Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”) by transforming one heart at a time. That’s how the new world is now coming/will come. I see Jesus as an enlightened teacher similar to Buddha, Mohammad, Rumi, Gandhi, etc. – to paraphrase from a post above – the colors may vary, but the chameleon is still a chameleon. Same universal, spiritual message of transformation/alchemy, but couched in Jesus’ time, Abrahamic faith, and a Jewish-Palestinian context. It was others who came later (maybe even some of Jesus’ own disciples) who didn’t fully understand his message and twisted his teachings and contorted them to suit their own theologies/ideologies and selfish/controlling/political purposes. Yes, I’d count the Romans in there, too, but not until much later.

Regarding the parallels Atwill has “discovered” (like some kind of Bible Code) -- I think scholar Tom Verenna does an excellent job of rebutting Atwill’s book and his parallels:

http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/no-joe-atwill-rome-did-not-invent-jesus/

(See also what info he adds in the comments.)

He discusses intertextuality – how ancient authors commonly used each other’s works, which is not new to scholars -- and Atwill’s lack of socio-cultural context with regard to going back to the original Greek of Josephus and the Gospels:

“I have published a real book … which, interesting enough, delves into intertextuality (the term used to describe the function of the ‘parallels’ you mention below) and the use of certain terms found in Josephus (that includes going back to the original Greek, discussing links between concepts, socioculturally, etc…)–none of which Atwill has done in his ‘real book’.”

“None of Atwill’s parallels are convincing, least of all this one [the “fishing for men” parallel]. Does he analyze them philologically? I doubt it, since he has no grasp of Greek or Hebrew. His biggest failure is that he fails to recognize that correlation does not equal causation. Parallels can exist but have no direct relationship between the two objects under comparison. That is one of the biggest challenges of literary criticism. Atwill doesn’t deal with this, he presumes his case and marches on.”

“Correlation does not equal causation” (that was my emphasis above. We also use this term a lot on Skeptiko, but it’s a double-standard not to apply it in this case as well. I would agree with Verenna that the conspiratorial parallels Atwill sees are vague and are words cherry-picked out of context—and these are Atwill’s English translations. Apparently he doesn’t take the reader back to the original Greek of either text(s) for a full exploration of meanings within context.

Also, it’s clear from the list provided above that only the Gospel of Luke follows Josephus closely. You rarely see Mark or John. Mark’s was the earliest Gospel, written around/just after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD – so his was possibly written BEFORE Josephus wrote WOJ c. 75AD. Luke and Mathew both copied from Mark. Luke is dated from 90AD-130AD; Matthew is dated from 80-100AD. It’s possible that Luke had a copy of Matthew also, which can account for the overlap there (or that both used “Q” as a source). And recent scholarship does point clearly to Luke having a copy of Josephus on hand when he sat down to write his gospel. It’s not so clear for Matthew, and very likely not for Mark (written earlier than WOJ) and John (very different, dated 80-120AD). For dating of the gospels see www.earlychristianwritings.com .

Two scholars draw heavily on the work of history professor Steve Mason (http://www.amazon.com/Josephus-New-Testament-Steve-Mason/dp/0801047005 ). Richard Carrier does a very good job showing how Luke used Josephus here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html . However, Carrier also trashes Atwill’s thesis here: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4664 . So the fact that Luke and Josephus have a bit in common doesn’t equate with some huge Flavian conspiracy/dark satire. Christian scholar Greg Herrick does a good and fair/balanced job of showing how Josephus is related to the NT writings here: https://bible.org/article/josephus’-writings-and-their-relation-new-testament

What stands out for me is how Herrick illustrates where Josephus and the NT gospels do NOT agree, especially with regard to John the Baptist, in that Josephus is pretty general; the gospel writers seem to have been privy to more details regarding John’s theology and baptismal rites, etc., perhaps from eye-witness accounts (either directly or handed down in the gospel writer’s communities). Most scholars agree that Jesus was a disciple of John before going off on his own public ministry (which differed from John’s in a few aspects). Jesus took some of John’s disciples with him, and there is evidence in the gospels of a rivalry between John’s disciples and those of Jesus. So it makes sense that the gospel writers’ accounts of John the Baptist are more accurate than Josephus’s. This evidence goes against Josephus/the Flavians being the authors of the gospels. Again, it points to them USING Josephus for historical content, but they are using other sources as well.

More in part 2....

 

[Wendybird]

Part 2...

Regarding the prophecies – ancient Jews did this all the time – an event would occur, and they’d go back into the OT and find the proof text to support their various theological beliefs/claims that the “prophecy” had been fulfilled. Josephus was a Jew, he did it, so did the NT authors, who if not Jews, they knew Judaism. Christians still do it today! It’s not new. Maybe Luke liked what Josephus had already done with Vespasian/Titus, and just applied the same proof texts to Jesus in his Gospel.

I suspect, in many cases (maybe not all), that the early Christian communities likely put the words of the ancient prophets into Jesus’ mouth after the events had occurred so as to fulfill the prophecies and support their belief that Jesus was Messiah. OTOH, if Jesus was psychic, as I think he was (in agreement with Andy and others on that), Jesus may well have said what he did in some cases. Almost all scholars (except for the mythicists) accept that Jesus was viewed by his followers as a prophet who spoke/channeled God’s will/words; Jesus even refers to himself as a prophet (that is much more likely to come from Jesus than claims that he was the only son of god or the only way to salvation – those are theological words of evangelistic propaganda put into Jesus’ mouth in hindsight).

I know this is long, but a couple of good points others have made as to why Atwill’s thesis is nutty are these:

1) If the Romans were so clever, why not use this same tactic of creating a new religion to calm rebellious subjects on others besides the Jews? The Gauls gave Rome a lot more trouble than the pesky Jews. Why is this tactic used on no-one else?

2) Domitian was a terrible persecutor of Christians. He was also a Flavian and seems to have no knowledge that his family invented Jesus and this new religion. If it was supposed to point to Titus as Messiah, it failed miserably.

3) Luke of all the gospels, was written by (likely) a Gentile Christian for a Gentile (read Roman) audience. He was sympathetic to the Romans and made Jews look like the bad guys (Matthew and John did this too). They wrote in GREEK, not the native tongues of the Jews (Aramaic and Hebrew). So please explain how that helps the Flavians’ cause to subdue the Jews and make them docile servants of Rome? Gentile audiences were already friendly toward Rome. For the mostpart, Jews did NOT accept a pacifist Messiah crucified by the Romans for sedition. Total failure if the Flavians concocted this conspiracy and directed the writing of the NT gospels.

Going by Ocham’s Razor, the most parsimonious explanation is that Luke (and maybe Matthew) used Josephus when he wrote his Gospel, along with other oral and written sources about a real man named Jesus, to give it a more authentic air of historicity. It does not imply that it’s all fake or made up. That’s just a huge leap of supposition and creative imagination.

 

[Michael Larkin]

My Manager's manager isn't interested in how databases are designed or coding used to make programs or how to market a website, but he hires a team of people who each specialise in their own field to produce the company package. Do you think the Flavian elite did not have resources at their disposal for government projects like this?

They doubtless had pots of money. I can just see the job ad they put in the daily newspapers of the time:

Wanted: people with expertise in fabricating a new religion.​

Those people get hired, and not only have they expertise in deception, but they are also, paradoxically, capable of creating sublime spiritual passages. Or, if not of creating them, of recognising and appropriating them from prior sources. Wait. Here's a new hypothesis: unbeknownst to the Flavians, the new employees sneaked into the NT some genuinely spiritual material. They were actually double agents who put one over on their psychopathic overlords.

 

[Ian Thompson]

Anyway, I'm not convinced you guys have really looked at the parallels or tried to make sense of them yet. And without doing that you can't honestly say that you disagree with Atwill and the evidence he presents for the origins of Christianity.

I am looking at the WOTJ from http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0037-0103,_Flavius_Josephus,_De_Bello_Judaico,_EN.pdf. Is that version ok?

I must admit, when I have looked (so far) for entries from your post "Here's a good 70% of the parallel data", the contexts are completely different and hardly convincing.
Your name similarities, for example, are rather weak arguments.

Consider your line "Chorazin produces the Coracin fish (Luke 5:10 linked to Matt 11:21 vs. WOTJ 3, 10, 520-527)".

1. WOTJ bk 3, ch 10, para 8 has : "The people of the country call it Capharnaum. Some have thought it to be a vein of the Nile, because it produces the Coracin fish as well as that lake does which is near to Alexandria "
2. Luke 5:10 has "and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men."
3. Matt 11:21 has "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes"

Is there supposed to be some compelling parallel here? I see 'fish', clearly. It was a fishing town.
But I see nothing compelling about the origin of the gospels!

 

[Michael Larkin]

You seem to have a low opinion of the Romans. Having less vocations meant there were many who made their careers from philosophical writings. There were no computers around in those days, so literature was one of the few ways of testing people's intelligence using typology, etc. The Romans were in control of the entire Mediterranean through their harsh system of administration. If they wanted to get the best writers from Alexandria then they had the power and means to do so, and they did. I doubt Titus very much sat down and did the writing but he would have had a helping hand reviewing it no doubt, as well as constantly remoulding his requirements, but the gospels were his vanity piece during that dynasty. In retrospect, the Roman elite were HIGHLY intelligent, but they did make one or two mistakes with the gospels and Josephus that exposes them--no film company is immune to the same kind of goofs!

Anyway, I'm not convinced you guys have really looked at the parallels or tried to make sense of them yet. And without doing that you can't honestly say that you disagree with Atwill and the evidence he presents for the origins of Christianity. You would rather take the blue pill and stay inside the matrix where you feel comfortable.

There you go again with the ad hominem. As it happens, I don't have a low opinion of Romans in general, but I do have a low opinion of the spirituality of Roman emperors/ruling elites. That doesn't mean that they weren't intelligent or incapable of hiring the services of others. But if that's what they did, the Flavians let pass a lot of material that gainsays Atwill's thesis. You're speaking as if the objective, despite this being a vanity project, was to make sure that the truth of it wouldn't come out, and it was only slip-ups by people like Josephus that, a full 2000 years later, have given the game away. Why the intrigue and the secrecy if these guys wanted to portray themselves as the bees' knees?

 

[Wendybird]

I am looking at the WOTJ from http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0037-0103,_Flavius_Josephus,_De_Bello_Judaico,_EN.pdf. Is that version ok?

I must admit, when I have looked (so far) for entries from your post "Here's a good 70% of the parallel data", the contexts are completely different and hardly convincing.
Your name similarities, for example, are rather weak arguments.

Consider your line "Chorazin produces the Coracin fish (Luke 5:10 linked to Matt 11:21 vs. WOTJ 3, 10, 520-527)".

1. WOTJ bk 3, ch 10, para 8 has : "The people of the country call it Capharnaum. Some have thought it to be a vein of the Nile, because it produces the Coracin fish as well as that lake does which is near to Alexandria "
2. Luke 5:10 has "and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men."
3. Matt 11:21 has "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes"

Is there supposed to be some compelling parallel here? I see 'fish', clearly. It was a fishing town.
But I see nothing compelling about the origin of the gospels!

Chorazin was a city, not a fish. Some parallel.

 

[Michael Larkin]

You've made a couple of excellent posts, Wendybird. We seem like kindred spirits. Thanks for the links, which I'll be investigating.

 

[Szechuan]

It's not that Joseph Atwill is so clever; it's that the majority of society are so stupid as to be brainwashed by religion, culture and socialisation. They behave like sheep and don't even realise when they are being exploited.

I'm sure Geza Vermes, JD Crossan, James Dunn, EP Sanders, Will Durant, Michael Grant, and so many, many more exceptional scholars can all be broad brushed as sheep brainwashed by religon and culture.

I haven't read this whole thread (as I have little interest in pseudo-history) so I can't say for sure if this has already been mentioned, but a big elephant in the room is the documentary trail. What are the oldest extant manuscripts of NT writings? What does the family tree look like? What are the oldest extant manuscripts of Josephus and Tacitus? In all cases what time gap exists between autograph and oldest extant manuscript? Answers to these questions immediately place huge red flags over theses that require NT writers to have copied from non-Christian sources. As a relevant aside, the thesis has often been posed (and evidences shown) that in the wake of the huge spread of Christianity even under severe persecution, other religions and movements borrowed from Christianity because they were losing so many members to the church.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Christian but I have extensively studied the issue of the historical Jesus. And I don't debate mythicists so this will be my only contribution to the thread. Given that Alex has had guests like Acharya S and now Atwill, perhaps he'd like to balance the show by inviting on non-mythicist researchers like Marcus Borg or Ben Witherington.

 

[Trancestate]

As a relevant aside, the thesis has often been posed (and evidences shown) that in the wake of the huge spread of Christianity even under severe persecution, other religions and movements borrowed from Christianity because they were losing so many members to the church.

Well said, Szechuan. The late philosophy professor Ronald Nash made this point and others in an article entitled, "Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions?"

Here are a couple of relevant excerpts (but the whole article is worth reading):

STRIKING PARALLELS?

Enough has been said thus far to permit comment on one of the major faults of the above-mentioned liberal scholars. I refer to the frequency with which their writings evidence a careless, even sloppy use of language. One frequently encounters scholars who first use Christian terminology to describe pagan beliefs and practices, and then marvel at the striking parallels they think they have discovered. One can go a long way toward “proving” early Christian dependence on the mysteries by describing some mystery belief or practice in Christian terminology. J. Godwin does this in his book, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World, which describes the criobolium (see footnote 6) as a “blood baptism” in which the initiate is “washed in the blood of the lamb.”10 While uninformed readers might be stunned by this remarkable similarity to Christianity (see Rev. 7:14), knowledgeable readers will see such a claim as the reflection of a strong, negative bias against Christianity.

(7) What few parallels may still remain may reflect a Christian influence on the pagan systems. As Bruce Metzger has argued, “It must not be uncritically assumed that the Mysteries always influenced Christianity, for it is not only possible but probable that in certain cases, the influence moved in the opposite direction.” It should not be surprising that leaders of cults that were being successfully challenged by Christianity should do something to counter the challenge. What better way to do this than by offering a pagan substitute? Pagan attempts to counter the growing influence of Christianity by imitating it are clearly apparent in measures instituted by Julian the Apostate, who was the Roman emperor from A.D. 361 to 363.

Doug

 

[Szechuan]

I

like we've seen so many times before, we have to clear the brush to get at the core issue. in this case the central question is:

-- was the NT prophecy of the Messiah influenced by Josephus' historical account?

this answer is clear... it's self-evident... and we don't need a peer-reviewed paper... just look at the two and compare. there are only two possible explanations:

1. they borrowed from Josephus and wrote the prophecy after the fact.

2. it's supernatural prophecy to a degree never seen before or since.

This is the fallacy of too few options. We can also add:

3. Josephus borrowed from NT writers

4. NT writers and Josephus both borrowed from an earlier extant source

5. Later in history redactors edited Josephus to add alignments (this has a higher probability than the reverse as extant WOTJ mss are far later and massively fewer in number)

6....conceivably more but the point is clear.

So it's far from self-evident, Alex.

 

[jase]

Alex, I have enjoyed listening to almost all of your podcasts that are available online, and I appreciate very much your work on NDEs in particular. I have supported you in the forums 100%, and I have never posted anything criticizing your ideas or opinions, until now. It really saddens me that you are so enamored with this Zeitgeist-type nonsense. I have read a lot on this subject in the past, and I am interested in scholarship about the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity. I am certainly open to different theories about the origins of Christianity, and whether Paul promoted a very different idea of Jesus Christ than the original followers of Jesus based in Jerusalem, who likely saw Jesus as more of a traditional Jewish Messiah. But Atwill and Murdoch are pathetic, and I am surprised that you seem to want to believe them so much to be blind to the shoddiness of their ideas. It makes me worry that in the future you will be interviewing people who claim that 9-11 was an inside job perpetrated by Dick Cheney, the military-industrial complex, the neocons and Israel. I think that it is very unfortunate that you seem to be so attracted to the idea that Christianity was from the very beginning a myth that was invented by the powerful as a tool of manipulation and political control. I appreciate your podcast very much, but this is a subject where I must respectfully disagree with you.

 

[gabriel]

Agreed Jase. It's important to knock round ideas at the boundaries of credibility, if only to show where those borders are, but this sort of thing gives critics our head on a plate, to use a biblical allusion. Religion operates in an intellectually liminal space between history and belief, but it has its own scholarship and we need to bear that in mind when evaluating challenges to it. Atwill is not the Sheldrake or Radin of theology, and while Alex has every right to put whoever he wants on the show, we have the same freedom not to take one as seriously as another.

 

[Michael Larkin]

I'm sure Geza Vermes, JD Crossan, James Dunn, EP Sanders, Will Durant, Michael Grant, and so many, many more exceptional scholars can all be broad brushed as sheep brainwashed by religon and culture.

I haven't read this whole thread (as I have little interest in pseudo-history) so I can't say for sure if this has already been mentioned, but a big elephant in the room is the documentary trail. What are the oldest extant manuscripts of NT writings? What does the family tree look like? What are the oldest extant manuscripts of Josephus and Tacitus? In all cases what time gap exists between autograph and oldest extant manuscript? Answers to these questions immediately place huge red flags over theses that require NT writers to have copied from non-Christian sources. As a relevant aside, the thesis has often been posed (and evidences shown) that in the wake of the huge spread of Christianity even under severe persecution, other religions and movements borrowed from Christianity because they were losing so many members to the church.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Christian but I have extensively studied the issue of the historical Jesus. And I don't debate mythicists so this will be my only contribution to the thread. Given that Alex has had guests like Acharya S and now Atwill, perhaps he'd like to balance the show by inviting on non-mythicist researchers like Marcus Borg or Ben Witherington.

I checked out what mythicism was, Szechuan, here:

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

Thinking about it, I'm agnostic about whether Jesus was an entirely mythical figure: Wendybird may well be right that someone on whom the story is based actually existed, was a spiritual teacher and was crucified. I suspect that the NT is somewhat corrupted by its authors, but despite that, I very much value the essential message of Christianity because it's transparently spiritual. I think you make a splendid suggestion for Alex to consider. Something has to account for the huge success of Christianity, which still has by far the largest number of adherents of any religion, and I think that's because people can sense its spiritual if not completely literal truth. Again, even today one gets reports of miraculous conversions from people who claim to have had contact with Jesus/Mary in visions or dreams, reminiscent of Paul's conversion story.

Idries Shah might have said that it possessed baraka or spiritual power, as do all the major religions. He definitely said that there probably wouldn't be another major religion emerging. That's maybe because the next step is for people to be able to directly appreciate the Ultimate without the need for some framework to help guide them to it. That doesn't mean that they necessarily have to give up religion: at the very least, it serves a useful social function. After all, the laws and general ethical codes in developed countries owe a great deal to an underpinning in Christianity, and though many ardent atheists won't like to admit it, they too have been influenced by, and hold values consistent with, it. I suppose the Golden Rule is the most compact expression of Christianity, even though the Rule antedates it. That it could have been invented by a bunch of psychopathic cynics and despite that had the influence it has seems to me a bizarre proposition. The nearest examples we have that might actually fall into that category could be something like Communism or National Socialism, which might enjoy popularity for a while, but are soon seen through.