Jesus is Caesar deified

[steve43]

The beginning of the Mishnah is in the later part of the second century, derived from the oral traditions of the Judaeans. That's early enough.

No. It's not.

[neilgodfrey]

The beginning of the Mishnah is . . . derived from the oral traditions of the Judaeans.

Perhaps more accurate to say ostensibly derived from the oral traditions of the early Judeans. How accurate or true to those traditions we have no way of knowing. Oral studies, moreover, tell us that what is passed on by this method is of relevance to contemporary situations, audiences. Oral transmission changes with the times. Authors claim authority for their written words by appealing to mythical traditions, even sometimes claiming to be ancient mythical persons. We have no way of knowing . . . . at least none of which I am aware.

[ghost]

So to some extent the Jewish sources can be important, not only for Biblical criticism in general, but as well for the Caesar theory. The Septuagint is important to see which Jewish passages the editorial teams of the NT used to anchor the Roman histories in their new Palestinian context, which is a rather small amount in Mk anyway. But those are just flavors, it's editorial stuff, it has nothing to do with the original transposition of the story. For that original diegetic transposition, you don't need the Septuagint, the Mishnah etc., you only need the Christian sources and the Caesar sources.

How do you know it's not plagiarism instead?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=617&start=10#p12696

[Jay]

In order for the position of the Mishnah on chickens in Jerusalem to conflict with the Gospels, it is necessary not only that a group of pre-70 CE Jews held this position, but that all pre-70 CE Jews held this position (or at the very least those who held this position forced the others to comply.) […] (It has been argued that archaeology supports the presence of chickens in Jerusalem at the relevant period

It's not necessary for all pre-70 Jews to have held that position. Quite often we only deal in probabilities. A passage in the Mishnah about a ban of keeping/raising/farming chicken in Jerusalem is important. In the book you linked to, there's another source on the Qumran community which seems to have had a similar rule. (Thank you btw.) So that's two sources, one strong, one a little weaker, because it's a bit corrupted. To counter the hypothesis that raising chickens in Jerusalem was allowed, official etc., one would have to present some kind of a source, written, archaeological etc. I don't know of any, so at the moment it's way more likely that there was a ban. That they found chicken bones has no relevance, because those were found in the ancient garbage heaps, i.e. it only tells us something about sustenance, diet. (Eating chicken wasn't forbidden, and I assume that they had chicken farms right outside the city walls, if there was an urban farming ban, which I think is likely. If however they found not only chicken bones in garbage dumps, but several whole chicken skeletons in what could have been an enclosed compound within the ancient city walls, or at least a compound with chicken manure deposits, then I'd say there would be something to the argument against the existence of such a ban.)

But to recap: The main reason I brought this up, was to give an example in order to show that Jewish sources (incl. the Talmud/Mishnah) can actually be important.

[Jay]

So to some extent the Jewish sources can be important, not only for Biblical criticism in general, but as well for the Caesar theory. The Septuagint is important to see which Jewish passages the editorial teams of the NT used to anchor the Roman histories in their new Palestinian context, which is a rather small amount in Mk anyway. But those are just flavors, it's editorial stuff, it has nothing to do with the original transposition of the story. For that original diegetic transposition, you don't need the Septuagint, the Mishnah etc., you only need the Christian sources and the Caesar sources.

How do you know it's not plagiarism instead?

Because for plagiarism you need copyright laws. There were no copyright laws in antiquity.

[Jay]

The beginning of the Mishnah is in the later part of the second century, derived from the oral traditions of the Judaeans. That's early enough.

No. It's not.

Sure it is. It's based on earlier traditions, which would then tell us something about for example the 1st century. And if you have other sources to support something from the Mishnah (like the Qumran source which could support the assumed Jerusalem chicken farming ban), then why shouldn't it count as a valid source? That's the way modern historians deal with antiquity all the time. You have to weigh the evidence, of course. Ancient historians often wrote after-the-fact, wrote about something that happened two centuries or so ago, or they copied from earlier sources, which eventually got lost, etc.… but still their works have a lot of relevance, especially if you have more than one source. Vice versa, contemporary witnesses could be distorting events, because they had an agenda, had a certain political leaning. If we only relied on contemporary sources (or even contemporary manuscripts) then we wouldn't be able to know very much.

[The Crow]

The beginning of the Mishnah is in the later part of the second century, derived from the oral traditions of the Judaeans. That's early enough.

No. It's not.

Sure it is. It's based on earlier traditions, which would then tell us something about for example the 1st century. And if you have other sources to support something from the Mishnah (like the Qumran source which could support the assumed Jerusalem chicken farming ban), then why shouldn't it count as a valid source? That's the way modern historians deal with antiquity all the time. You have to weigh the evidence, of course. Ancient historians often wrote after-the-fact, wrote about something that happened two centuries or so ago, or they copied from earlier sources, which eventually got lost, etc.… but still their works have a lot of relevance, especially if you have more than one source. Vice versa, contemporary witnesses could be distorting events, because they had an agenda, had a certain political leaning. If we only relied on contemporary sources (or even contemporary manuscripts) then we wouldn't be able to know very much.

That's the way modern historians deal with antiquity all the time.

I thought it had more to do with probability.

[Jay]

I thought it had more to do with probability.

Yeah. So?

[The Crow]

I thought it had more to do with probability.

Yeah. So?

Yeah that could be to.

[steve43]

All ancient history is speculation.

We have to decide what is REASONABLE speculation, in order to justify the spending of time on these sorts of studies.

I hate to pimp Hagan, but I think he has it right. Hagan defined his default sources- in other words, sources that should be accepted as fact unless there is SUBSTANTIAL contra-evidence at hand.

Hagan speculates in his works, of course, but he speculates using information that is CONTAINED IN HIS DEFINED PRIMARY SOURCES- namely the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Philo, Suetonius, the New Testament, and a small number of others.

So there is an integrity there. And I think the highest level that can be achieved for events of 2000 years ago.

But going fishing centuries later with the Talmud, or the early Church fathers, is fraught with uncertainty, and represents a far lower level of certainty and integrity.

In the Talmud, my previous criticism stands- we don't know who the writers were, and what the heck they were referring to in the vast majority of cases.

Remember, we are talking about pre-A.D. 70 events here. In the interim, the Jewish religion/race underwent to hugely important cultural dislocations. One was the revolt which began in A.D. 66 which was brilliantly documented by Josephus, and another during the reign of Hadrian in about A.D. 129-134. The second could have been easily as earthshaking as the first, but we have no Josephus-level historian to document it.

So pay your money and take your choice.

Here might be a pertinent analogy.

That William Shakespeare wrote the works traditionally attributed to him was never doubted in his own time and for two centuries later. It was only after 200 years that the conspiracy folks turned up with their theories- that the plays of Shakespeare were actually written by another (usually Francis Back or the 7th Earl of Oxford.)