Steven DiMattei: Case Against Mythicists

[Solstice]

Except for Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Josephus

Not to throw this OT, but back on FRDB there used to be a good counter-rebuttal to Josephus/Tacitus/Seutonius. If anyone kept a copy, could you kindly repost it here on this forum as a new discussion thread? Thanks.

Carry on...

[ficino]

There is a lot, esp. about Tacitus, on the "when was the term 'Christian' first used?" thread.

[spin]

Except for Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Josephus

Not to throw this OT, but back on FRDB there used to be a good counter-rebuttal to Josephus/Tacitus/Seutonius. If anyone kept a copy, could you kindly repost it here on this forum as a new discussion thread? Thanks.

Carry on...

Some people just clutch onto the hope that christian scribes will not do naughty things like interfere with classical texts, though it is clear that the TF has been interfered with and that Julian's works have been interfered with.

If we were to take the christian references in Annals 15.44 and Nero 16 as kosher, they would have no evidential weight, as they would certainly not be primary. That allows us to look at them and, as I have shown elsewhere over quite a while, they do not stand up as veracious. Link the three sources together, "Except for Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Josephus", is trying to assert the veracity of all three without looking at them.

[maryhelena]

If what you are to proposing is that the created figure of the gospel Jesus was based upon a real flesh and blood figure, you have actually not taken this debate anywhere. It's historicity that is under discussion in the historicist verse ahistoricist/mythicist debate not existence. The historicicts can claim existence for their Jesus figure, however imagined, they cannot claim historicity i.e. they cannot produce historical evidence for their claim. They might argue plausibility but that does not move forward the search or understanding of early christian origins.

Except for Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Josephus, and excluding actual historical reconstruction from Jesus traditions and Paul, but I think you'd like to dismiss those a priori since they're Christian.

Josephus? Methinks the Josephan writer would have the last laugh on today's NT scholars...

Preface to the War of the Jews, ch.1.par.6

...many Jews before me have composed the histories of our ancestors very exactly;......... But then, where the writers of these affairs and our prophets leave off, thence shall I take my rise, and begin my history.

War, Book 3 ch.8

“….he called to mind the dreams which he had dreamed in the night time, whereby God had signified to him beforehand both the future calamities of the Jews, and the events that concerned the Roman emperors. Now Josephus was able to give shrewd conjectures about the interpretation of such dreams as have been ambiguously delivered by God. Moreover, he was not unacquainted with the prophecies contained in the sacred books, as being a priest himself, and of the posterity of priests"...

Know your enemy says that old adage...nowhere is that more pertinent than dealing with the Josephan writer...

Dreams and Dream Reports in the Writing of Josephus, A Traditio-Historical Analysis by Robert Karl Gnuse.

Josephus’ prophetic role as historian merits special attention.....In War 1.18-19 he declares that he will begin writing his history where the prophets ended theirs, so he is continuing this part of their prophetic function. According to Ap.1.29 the priests were custodians of the nation’s historical records, and in Ap.1.37 inspired prophets wrote that history. As a priest Josephus is a custodian of his people’s traditions, and by continuing that history in the Jewish War and subsequently by rewriting it in his Antiquities, he is a prophet. For Josephus prophets and historians preserve the past and predict the future, and he has picked up the mantle of creating prophetic writings. Perhaps, in his own mind he is the first since the canonical prophets to generate inspired historiography....

Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine: The Evidence from Josephus: by Rebecca Gray.

There is no denying that the picture we now possess of Josephus as a prophet has been refined and developed in various ways. For example, the ideas that he claims first came to him in a moment of prophetic revelation at Jotapata – that God was punishing the Jews for their sins and that fortune had gone over to the Romans - have become major interpretive themes in the War as a whole. Josephus also sometimes reinforces the prophetic claims that he makes for himself by subtle changes in his presentation of the ancient prophets. And it is probable that, with the passage of time, Josephus’ image of himself as a prophet became clearer in his own mind.

The Josephan writer as a prophetic historian - now then - what does that do for attempts at understanding the Josephan writings?


my bolding

[steve43]

You can't take Josephus out of context. Certainly, he thought of himself as a sort of prophet- he had prophetic dreams, and helped the Romans thinking that the Romans were God's chosen instruments for punishing the Jews. Their crime? Corruption to the point of slaying the High Priest Jonathan in the Second Temple courtyard in A.D. 56. The Temple sanctuary building was where God was thought to dwell. After the slaying, Josephus believed that God left it in disgust.
Time spent reading Josephus is time well spent.
You might want to read Hagan's "Year of the Passover" and "Fires of Rome" to put Josephus in perspective. Instead of a Daniel-like prophet, Josephus could easily have been a self-serving opportunist, who helped the Romans far more than he admits to in his "Wars", and so deserved the label of traitor that many contemporaneous Jews placed on him.

[Chris Weimer]

though it is clear that the TF has been interfered with

That much is clear, although to what extant is under debate. I lean toward the "fixed up nicely" camp, although as some have pointed out, the stark difference between our current TF and the Arabic one shows what a much less interpolated passage looks like. With only the exception of the last line, none of it actually favors Christians in any way.

If we were to take the christian references in Annals 15.44 and Nero 16 as kosher, they would have no evidential weight, as they would certainly not be primary. That allows us to look at them and, as I have shown elsewhere over quite a while, they do not stand up as veracious. Link the three sources together, "Except for Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Josephus", is trying to assert the veracity of all three without looking at them.

Er, not quite, but good attempt! What they do show, along with Pliny, is that the statement that there is no historical evidence for the existence of the man behind Jesus Christ is patently false. And that's not even to examine Paul or the earliest Christian traditions.

The Josephan writer as a prophetic historian - now then - what does that do for attempts at understanding the Josephan writings?

Absolutely nothing, for you're confusing ancient conceptualization of writing with modern ones. You cannot make a bigger mistake.

[ficino]

If we were to take the christian references in Annals 15.44 and Nero 16 as kosher, they would have no evidential weight, as they would certainly not be primary. That allows us to look at them and, as I have shown elsewhere over quite a while, they do not stand up as veracious. Link the three sources together, "Except for Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Josephus", is trying to assert the veracity of all three without looking at them.

Er, not quite, but good attempt! What they do show, along with Pliny, is that the statement that there is no historical evidence for the existence of the man behind Jesus Christ is patently false. And that's not even to examine Paul or the earliest Christian traditions.

Er, not quite. None of those three writers says anything about a Jesus. Second, you have not dealt with the problems associated with the TT. Third, Pliny's "evidence" merely boils down, presumably, to what he learned from "Christians" at the time of Trajan, so it does not form a bridge to the man behind "Jesus Christ." Fourth, even Louis Feldman inclines toward crediting Eusebius with the TF: cf.

http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot ... s-and.html

[Chris Weimer]

First, that argument is akin to saying that a reference to Peliades is not a reference to Achilles. As far as I know, there isn't anyone else who was called "Christos/Christus". Second, I have indeed dealt with Tacitus in this very thread. Do reread. Finally, Pliny's evidence provides precisely the affirmation that Christianity very early on in its life worshiped a man "as if" a god. Not Pliny doesn't actually say he's a god, he says that sing to him "quasi deo". It's entirely consistent with the current evidence.

And again you ignore Paul and Christian traditions, neither of which have room for a "heavenly crucifixion". It does look awfully similar to other divinized historical figures. I mean, I hope you don't think Vespasian doesn't exist because he cured someone's blindness with his spit.

Finally: neither Feldman nor Olson are the final word, and no academic dispute ought to be settled by appeals to authority. Otherwise the entire Mythicist debate would be over already.

[stephan happy huller]

Chrêstos is a literal translation of Shiloh.

[Tenorikuma]

As far as I know, there isn't anyone else who was called "Christos/Christus".

1. Many people are called Christos in the Septuagint.
2. Chrestus (frequently conflated with Christus) was a common name, and Suetonius attests to such a person causing a ruckus among the Roman Jews under Claudius.
3. Paul himself says that other leaders were teaching other Christs.