Why Are Historicists So Certain That Jesus Existed?

[Giuseppe]

Thank you but where precisely do you cite this footnote in this thread? And what is DCH adding to that footnote (that is already per se surprising, in my view)?

Here you are.

In context (footnote 2): http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:c ... ng1:20.9.1

DCH actually knows Greek and gives an explanation on his own.

Ulan, I was asking you where you had already said that, according to you, James was not killed by Ananus by stones (see above my answer to Iskander).

You didn't click on the link, did you? Also, my statement was that I "cited the footnote from perseus.org that claims exactly this", with "this" being your question "That James the brother of Jesus ''called Christ'' was not even killed by Ananus but only ''handed over''?" The footnote makes exactly this claim. It explains why James was not killed during this event.

Let's quote this again, in order to have the full argument together:

"2 Of this condemnation of James the Just, and its causes, as also that he did not die till long afterwards, see Prim. Christ. Revived, vol. III. ch. 43-46. The sanhedrim condemned our Savior, but could not put him to death without the approbation of the Roman procurator; nor could therefore Ananias and his sanhedrim do more here, since they never had Albinus's approbation for the putting this James to death"

It's basically a legal argument taken from the text. The text doesn't explicitly mention that James actually died. The reason why Ananias got into trouble was not for the appropriation of the death penalty, but simply for calling the sanhedrim together without permission. I guess someone put these two statements into context.

Thanks for the clear explanation. So these Fathers 'read' the death of James in the text, and now DCH would raise the concrete possibility that James wasn't stoned by Ananus because the text says only that Ananus "handed over " him "in disposition". This explains why Jesus son of Damneus has no problem to become friend of Ananus later. Afterall, he was not the killer of his brother.

[iskander]

Handed over in disposition

Josephus doesn't describe James' stoning and thus doesn't provide any details about what happened to James,

[Giuseppe]

Handed over in disposition

Josephus doesn't describe James' stoning and thus doesn't provide any details about what happened to James,

Thanks. So also John2 likes 'to read' in Josephus that the fate of James was the death by stoning, even if himself recognizes that that death is only a possibility, since James could even be freed.

In this latter case the late alliance between Ananus and Jesus son of Damneus is more plausible.

In the latter case it is explained also why Ananus is simply replaced and not killed by the king: the his death would be the right reward for the his presumed illegal stoning of a man of equal condition. But Ananus is only removed from his role. Thetefore probably he didn't kill James.

[iskander]

Handed over in disposition

Josephus doesn't describe James' stoning and thus doesn't provide any details about what happened to James,

Thanks. So also John2 likes 'to read' in Josephus that the fate of James was the death by stoning, even if himself recognizes that that death is only a possibility, since James could even be freed.

In this latter case the late alliance between Ananus and Jesus son of Damneus is more plausible.

In the latter case it is explained also why Ananus is simply replaced and not killed by the king: the his death would be the right reward for the his presumed illegal stoning of a man of equal condition. But Ananus is only removed from his role. Thetefore probably he didn't kill James.

The translation of Whiston is very good and that is the only conclusion to be drawn from statements like the one made by John2 .

[Ulan]

As I said, I don't think the argumentation in that footnote is strong. It basically depends on the notion that the sanhedrim couldn't possibly have violated the rule against ordering capital punishment, although the whole scene depends on the premise that they broke another rule to even get to this point. My original idea was that this somewhat nitpicky story that "James wasn't killed this time" was based on the urge to make all the different stories about James that we know true, which cannot be if you take all of them literally.

Plus, I brought this up again as DCH is obviously not the first to suggest such a solution.

[Giuseppe]

Plus, I brought this up again as DCH is obviously not the first to suggest such a solution.

But surely DCH is the first to raise the Great Question:

Can λευσθησομένους be a variant form of λύω?

If the answer is yes, then even Whinston's translation is put in doubt, pace iskander.

[outhouse]

I explained how it could have started without a historical Jesus right here.


Kapyong

Not credible and unsubstantiated. It changes nothing.

It is not a working hypothesis. It has failed top gain any traction what so ever. It has always been A failed idea. You cannot keep something alive that never lived.

[outhouse]

A celestial angel ended up becoming fully humanised (ie. personified; reified as a human; anthropomorphized).

Unsubstantiated rhetoric. That's not what the text posit.

The text posits in context, A Galilean who was crucified under Pilate and Caiaphas at the temple, all historical times places and people.

That has been a failed hypothesis, that raises more questions then it answers, all while perverting the actual context written.

It has never been a working hypothesis

[Giuseppe]

Can λευσθησομένους be a variant form of λύω?

For λύω we would have had

λῠθησόμενους

That is very different from λευσθησομένους, isn't it?

What does DCH conclude?

[DCHindley]

I'm kind of thinking that λεύω alone to mean "to stone" is made up

Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!

You were so close.

Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja!

You are correct that there is a Greek verb λεύω in the L&S lexicon defined as meaning "to stone," probably from the root word λεύς (a stone).

I am not disputing that at all, but I was wondering aloud if this was actually supposed to be λυθησόμενους (future passive participle of λύω = "to be done away with" or "get their just deserts") rather than λευσθησομένους = to be stoned."

Note that the L&S lexicon defines λεύω, fut. λεύσω （κατα-) Ar.Ach.285: aor. ἔλευσα （κατ-) Hdt.9.5 [They made a ring round Lycidas and stoned him to death = κατέλευσαν βάλλοντες] , Th.1.106: — Pass., fut.
A. “λευσθήσομαι” J.Ap.2.27 [Josephus' Against Apion, actually 2.28 = section 206]: aor. “ἐλεύσθην” S.OC (v. infr.), Hp.Ep.27: (λᾶας): — stone, Th.5.60; “πέτροις λ. μνῆμα” E.El. 328; “τὸ λευσθῆναι πέτροις” S.OC435, cf. E.IA1350.

In Herodotus the crowd surrounded Lycidas, but did they throw stones at him or threw him out of town = exiled him. In one place the verb is only implied, and in others the full phrase includes the word "stones". Are we to take it the original meaning was "stoned with stones" or "executed/dispatched with stones"]?

What I was getting at is that λευσθησομένους is a "hapax" of sorts, as the specific form only occurs in Ant 20.200 or the quotation of this passage in Eusebius' HE, at least according to www.perseus.org, nor are any other passages in other writers returned when doing a Google search on that specific form.

Josephus uses the phrase "λευσθησόμενον παραδίδωσι" in Against Apion 2.28 [206]:

2:206 The law ordains also, that parents should be honoured immediately after God himself, and delivers that son who does not requite them for the benefits he has received from them, but is deficient on any such occasion, to be stoned [λευσθησόμενον παραδίδωσι, LXX Deu 21:21]. It also says, that the young men should pay due respect to every elder, since God is the oldest of all beings.

However, Deuteronomy 21:19, 21, at least in the LXX translation, says:

19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him [i.e., the stubborn & rebellious son, συλλαβόντες αὐτὸν] and bring him out [καὶ ἐξάξουσιν αὐτὸν] to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, ... 21 Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones [λιθοβολήσουσιν = "they throw stones"]

Josephus' wording could thus be indicating the "turning over" of the rebellious son to the city elders "for punishment" [disposition]. That the sentence for this is stoning is only then implied, as the LXX of the relevant passage doesn't use any form of λεύω at all, unless I missed it.

Also, in Ant 17:216, describing the rebellion in the time of Archelaus, says:

But those that were seditious on account of those teachers of the law, irritated the people by the noise and clamours they used to encourage the people in their designs; so they made an assault upon the soldiers, and came up to them, and stoned [λεύουσιν] the greatest number of them, although some of them ran away wounded

That translation (Whiston) makes it sound like the crowd pelted the soldiers with stones (happens all the time in modern Israel between Palestinian youth and Israeli soldiers), wounding some including the commander, forcing them to retreat. But if it meant that the crowd assaulted the soldiers physically, they are functionally "dispatching" them (paying them their just deserts), where a form of λύω would be appropriate.

I am of the opinion that Antiquities has been tampered with by Christians, possibly in Eusebius' time after the accession of Constantine as the single Augustus over all the Roman state, with the aim of removing inconsistencies with Christian traditions.

FWIW, BibleWorks also returns one other place where the lemma of λεύω supposedly occurs:

[... bloody sacrifices] of four-footed beasts. But they [the righteous] shall look to [λεύσουσι] the great glory of the one God ...

Yet this appears to be a present or future form of λεύσσω, "to look, or gaze upon, see, behold."

So it seems that online/software morphologies can be wrong . I am only introducing "reasonable doubt" about the traditional interpretation of this word as "to stone."

DCH