Iosephiana

[Secret Alias]

More evidence (see Finkelstein in the link) https://books.google.com/books?id=NnpvX ... 22&f=false of the pattern attested among the Samaritans viz. the miqvaot appear with John Hyrcanus.

[MrMacSon]

I think the argument for the existence for 'John the Baptist' is weaker than the crucifixion referenced in the gospel. Because the crucifixion is presumably the historical event around which a demonstrable religion developed ...

lol. as if 'the gospel' is historical. Which fucking gospel are you referring to?

[MrMacSon]

.. No trace of 'John the Baptist' or any tradition associated with him. The Mandaeans do not qualify.

Which is not true.

[Secret Alias]

The Mandaean legends associated with John associate him with the destruction of the temple (c. 70 CE). The historical association has long been questioned by scholars.

[Secret Alias]

I've always said, the question of whether the god of the Christians is historical is a different question as to whether there was a historical crucifixion especially when the oldest tradition specifically associated with the gospel of Mark (Adv Marc 3.11.7) says that there was a man and a god (Jesus and Christ) leaving open the possibility that the man was someone other than 'Jesus.'

[MrMacSon]

The Mandaean legends associated with John associate him with the destruction of the temple (c. 70 CE). The historical association has long been questioned by scholars.

"The historical association [of John with the destruction of the Temple] has long been questioned by scholars" with justification.

[Secret Alias]

It is difficult to argue against the reality of a historical crucifixion being at the heart of the Christian religion given that this inspiration could have come from anyone, anywhere and is not limited to a man named Jesus under this (ignored) heretical reading of the gospel of Mark.

[Secret Alias]

To argue that Mark or whomever you think wrote the gospel couldn't have picked a crucifixion and assumed a god named Jesus came down from heaven 'united' with the crucified one and then left before the crucifixion is an absolute absurdity. It would seem more likely than not that a historical gospel 'inspired' the gospel narrative. That seems to me to be the most reasonable position. The absolute mythicist position is ridiculous. The writer didn't need a crucifixion in 21 CE to 'justify' the 'truth' of the gospel. But why not? What's the reason for denying the likelihood that something like that inspired the gospel? It doesn't have to be true but why not?

[Secret Alias]

But by contrast the idea that Jews stripped off their clothes, men naked beside women and children out in the open to purify themselves from 'sin' (not clearly defined) in the river Jordan is far less likely to be true. I am in fact quite sure it never happened as described in the gospel and Josephus. That there was a 'baptism of John' is universally attested - the ritual immersion associated with John Hyrcanus.

[MrMacSon]

I've always said, the question of whether the god of the Christians is historical is a different question as to whether there was a historical crucifixion especially when the oldest tradition specifically associated with the gospel of Mark (Adv Marc 3.11.7) says that there was a man and a god (Jesus and Christ) leaving open the possibility that the man was someone other than 'Jesus.'

off topic (as are your subsequent post about 'the crucifiction')

As is this -

... It is generally acknowledged that Josephus altered the gospels and the gospels (with their claims about Jesus) influenced Josephus (Testamonium Flavianum).

Where is there evidence that "Josephus altered 'the gospels'" ????.

re Jesus in the TF -

G.J. Goldberg, “The Coincidences of the Testimonium of Josephus and the Emmaus Narrative of Luke,”
in the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha (vol. 13, 1995), pp. 59-77

• Goldberg demonstrates nineteen unique correspondences between Luke’s Emmaus account and the Testimonium Flavianum, all nineteen in exactly the same order (with some order and word variations only within each item). There are some narrative differences (which are expected due to the contexts being different and as a result of common kinds of authorial embellishment), and there is a twentieth correspondence out of order (identifying Jesus as “the Christ”). But otherwise, the coincidences here are very improbable on any other hypothesis than dependence.
  
  Goldberg also shows that the Testimonium contains vocabulary and phrasing that is particularly Christian (indeed, Lukan) and un-Josephan. He concludes that this means either
  
  • a. a Christian wrote it, or
    b. Josephus slavishly copied a Christian source,
  [Richard Carrier says, contrary to what Goldberg, the latter is wholly implausible: Josephus would treat such a source more critically, creatively, and informedly.]

and
Ken Olson has published a devastating analysis that all but clinches the case that the TF was forged and inserted by the Christian historian Eusebius (the first author ever to notice and quote the TF, in the early fourth century) -

• “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum,” in Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations [Harvard University Press, 2013], pp. 97-114.)

Olson has also blogged about how the most common arguments against Christian authorship of the TF are ironically among the best arguments for its forgery by Eusebius (a Christian) -

• The Testimonium Flavianum, Eusebius, and Consensus.
  
  (Carrier postulates that Pamphilus may have been the forgery, rather than Eusebius)

Stephan, sometimes your lack of current knowledge about biblical criticism and history is glaring.