On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

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Giuseppe
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by Giuseppe »

Here the Vermeiren's thesis finds an unexpected supporter: Richard Carrier.

Carrier wrote explicitly in OHJ (from memory) that if the Gospels are 2° century CE productions, then their value counts zero for historicity of the Jesus crucified by Pilate. Not even 1/2.

I am here to ask for the bill, then. :cheers:

He neglected (and continues to do so) the possibility raised by Vermeiren: that a Jesus active during the First Revolt of 70 has more chances to be objectively remembered by a gospel from second century CE, than an obscure Jesus from Pilate's era, or even more so from the remote Asmonean period.
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maryhelena
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by maryhelena »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 4:32 am Here the Vermeiren's thesis finds an unexpected supporter: Richard Carrier.

Carrier wrote explicitly in OHJ (from memory) that if the Gospels are 2° century CE productions, then their value counts zero for historicity of the Jesus crucified by Pilate. Not even 1/2.
It's a story, Giuseppe, a story. The crucifixion under Pilate is not referencing a historical crucifixion under Pilate....it's a story. It's an allegory, a political allegory that is set in the time of Pilate. Consequently, time-shifting the Josephan figure of Jesus b. Saphat, a figure you maintain is a historical figure, back to the time of Pilate makes no sense whatsoever. The gospel Jesus figure is a literary figure, a composite literary figure set in the time of Pilate.

I am here to ask for the bill, then. :cheers:

He neglected (and continues to do so) the possibility raised by Vermeiren: that a Jesus active during the First Revolt of 70 has more chances to be objectively remembered by a gospel from second century CE, than an obscure Jesus from Pilate's era, or even more so from the remote Asmonean period.
A nobody who was a rebel in the Jewish Roman war of 70 c.e. - a figure without ancestry - without birth or death stated - and you want to suggest that memory of this nobody is more relevant to Jewish history than the memory of a Roman execution of a King and High Priest of the Jews.... :banghead:

==================

Irish history - in song

Boolavogue

"Boolavogue" is an Irish ballad commemorating the campaign of Father John Murphy and his army in County Wexford during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It was composed by Patrick Joseph McCall in 1898, the centenary of the Rebellion.

The ballad covers the victories of Father John Murphy of the village of Boolavogue in County Wexford as he led his parishioners in routing the Camolin Cavalry on 26 May 1798, to defeat the British at Oulart Hill, as well as at Enniscorthy. The Wexford insurgents fought bravely against professional troops, and were eventually defeated at the Battle of Vinegar Hill on 21 June. Father Murphy and the other leaders were hanged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolavogue_(song)

A song written 100 years after the event - a man remembered, a lowly parish priest. And you want to suggest that the execution of the King and High Priest of the Jews would not be remembered - by Josephus himself with his crucifixion story of an unnamed man of 94/95 c.e.. And by the gospel writers with their crucifixion story set around 33 c.e. - 70 years after his death. (37 b.c. to 33 c.e.)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNHhQ1Q_nk
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maryhelena
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by maryhelena »

I wrote earlier:

Missing links ? Methinks your theory has a rather large void between Josephus's War and his Life. Your Jesus b. Saphat, assumed by your theory to have been taken down alive from the cross....what did he do from 70 c.e. - Josephus makes no mention of his death. Did he have a change of heart and begin to offer the other cheek ....strange, now that I think of it.....that sounds very like Josephus himself....from an enemy of Rome to collaborator. Man of War to Man of Peace. Oh you might say.....time-shifting the story of the 70s Jesus b. Saphat back to the time of Pilate allows his Man of War image to be cleaned up...sidelined for the now Prince of Peace. Possible of course, people do change their minds - but what a story Josephus could have been writing about Jesus b. Saphat in 94 /95c.e. - yep, he missed the boat on that one...he saved a man who changed the world.....and keeps his mouth shut...



I've been waiting for Giuseppe to provide some evidence or argument as to what Jesus b. Saphat was doing in the years since 70 c.e., (when, re his theory he was taken down alive from the cross) and when Josephus updated his Jesus b. Saphat story in Life, around 95 c.e. That's a good 25 years after the crucifixion survival. Did Josephus not think it worth mentioning how many more years of life the lucky Jesus b. Saphat managed to live - or, since Josephus makes no mention of the death of Jesus b. Saphat - the man is still alive when Josephus is writing Life......and possibly then survived Josephus himself....Since no birth date is given for Jesus b. Saphat he could well have, since Josephus does not mention a death in 95 c.e., survived long after Josephus - into the second century.

What's the point of wanting to time-shift this nobody figure back to the time of Pilate?
Seems to me to be somewhat of a desperate - and futile - attempt to find a historical gospel Jesus.

Giuseppe has written, earlier in this thread, regarding his Jesus b. Saphat theory that : ''Nevertheless I, and please note my humility, am perceptive enough to recognize that Jesus b. Sapphat is the true historical Jesus, abandoning my previous profession of mythicism in a flash.''
Giuseppe
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by Giuseppe »

maryhelena wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:29 am What's the point of wanting to time-shift this nobody figure back to the time of Pilate?
Seems to me to be somewhat of a desperate - and futile - attempt to find a historical gospel Jesus.
it depends much from seeing the things from the correct perspective.
  • The First Jewish Revolt was probably the origin of Christianity even if a Jesus never existed.
  • Paul could be the herodian gangster named Saul mentioned by Josephus even if a Jesus never existed.
  • Even if Paul was not Saul, he is probably post-70 (per Detering).
Hence, finding a historical Jesus lived within that precise period of time (66-70 CE) who gave rise to Jesus legend of Christian memory, is not so different from finding an apple extremely near to its tree from which it is fallen. Hardly a coincidence.


Image

This justifies fully my view before:
maryhelena wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:29 am Giuseppe has written, earlier in this thread, regarding his Jesus b. Saphat theory that : ''Nevertheless I, and please note my humility, am perceptive enough to recognize that Jesus b. Sapphat is the true historical Jesus, abandoning my previous profession of mythicism in a flash.''
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maryhelena
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by maryhelena »

Still waiting...

I've been waiting for Giuseppe to provide some evidence or argument as to what Jesus b. Saphat was doing in the years since 70 c.e., (when, re his theory he was taken down alive from the cross) and when Josephus updated his Jesus b. Saphat story in Life, around 95 c.e. That's a good 25 years after the crucifixion survival. Did Josephus not think it worth mentioning how many more years of life the lucky Jesus b. Saphat managed to live - or, since Josephus makes no mention of the death of Jesus b. Saphat - the man is still alive when Josephus is writing Life......and possibly then survived Josephus himself....Since no birth date is given for Jesus b. Saphat he could well have, since Josephus does not mention a death in 95 c.e., survived long after Josephus - into the second century.

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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by Giuseppe »

After his unexpected survival, Jesus b. Sapphat did probably what Josephus said Niger did after his survival:


so all the rest of them ran away, and with them Niger, who still did a great many bold exploits in his flight. However, they were driven along together by the enemy, who pressed hard upon them, into a certain strong tower belonging to a village called Bezedel. 26However, Antonius and his party, that they might neither spend any considerable time about this tower, which was hard to be taken, nor suffer their commander, and the most courageous man of them all, to escape from them, they set the wall on fire; 27and as the tower was burning, the Romans went away rejoicing, as taking it for granted that Niger was destroyed; but he leaped out of the tower into a subterraneous cave, in the innermost part of it, and was preserved; and on the third day afterward he spake out of the ground to those that with great lamentation were searching for him, in order to give him a decent funeral; and when he was come out, he filled all the Jews with an unexpected joy, as though he were preserved by God’s providence to be their commander for the time to come

.
(Josephus, 2.3. The War of the Jews)

Jesus b. Sapphat was himself the first to propagandize the good news of his "resurrection", just as Niger of Perea did with his own "resurrection".

Hence, very probably, he died in combat personifying the role of a Joshua redivivus.

Hence Josephus could well write, after the end of the war:

And it was Jesus, the son of Sapphias, who principally set them on. He was ruler in Tiberias: a wicked man; and naturally disposed to make disturbances in matters of consequence. A seditious person he was indeed, and an innovator beyond every body else. He then took the laws of Moses into his hands, and came into the midst of the people, and said, “O my fellow citizens, if you are not disposed to hate Josephus on your own account, have regard however to these laws of your countrey; which your commander in chief is going to betray. Hate him therefore on both these accounts; and bring the man who hath acted thus insolently to his deserved punishment.”

(Vita 27)
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maryhelena
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

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Giuseppe wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:33 am After his unexpected survival, Jesus b. Sapphat did probably what Josephus said Niger did after his survival:
Probably? Assumption.....

(my emphasis)

so all the rest of them ran away, and with them Niger, who still did a great many bold exploits in his flight. However, they were driven along together by the enemy, who pressed hard upon them, into a certain strong tower belonging to a village called Bezedel. 26However, Antonius and his party, that they might neither spend any considerable time about this tower, which was hard to be taken, nor suffer their commander, and the most courageous man of them all, to escape from them, they set the wall on fire; 27and as the tower was burning, the Romans went away rejoicing, as taking it for granted that Niger was destroyed; but he leaped out of the tower into a subterraneous cave, in the innermost part of it, and was preserved; and on the third day afterward he spake out of the ground to those that with great lamentation were searching for him, in order to give him a decent funeral; and when he was come out, he filled all the Jews with an unexpected joy, as though he were preserved by God’s providence to be their commander for the time to come

.
(Josephus, 2.3. The War of the Jews)
Irrelevant to the issue at hand - i.e. details about the life of Jesus b. Saphat after he was, allegedly, removed from the cross around 70 c.e.
Jesus b. Sapphat was himself the first to propagandize the good news of his "resurrection", just as Niger of Perea did with his own "resurrection".

Hence, very probably, he died in combat personifying the role of a Joshua redivivus.
(my emphasis.)

Hence Josephus could well write, after the end of the war:

And it was Jesus, the son of Sapphias, who principally set them on. He was ruler in Tiberias: a wicked man; and naturally disposed to make disturbances in matters of consequence. A seditious person he was indeed, and an innovator beyond every body else. He then took the laws of Moses into his hands, and came into the midst of the people, and said, “O my fellow citizens, if you are not disposed to hate Josephus on your own account, have regard however to these laws of your countrey; which your commander in chief is going to betray. Hate him therefore on both these accounts; and bring the man who hath acted thus insolently to his deserved punishment.”

(Vita 27)
Irrelevant to the issue at hand - i.e. details about the life of Jesus b. Saphat after he was, allegedly, removed from the cross around 70 c.e.
Giuseppe
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by Giuseppe »

maryhelena wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:43 am Irrelevant to the issue at hand - i.e. details about the life of Jesus b. Saphat after he was, allegedly, removed from the cross around 70 c.e.
Jesus b. Sapphat himself could have shown his own survival as if it was a genuine resurrection. In the Gospels Jesus "explained the scriptures" to disciples concerning his own "resurrection". Explaining scriptures means basically showing how the scriptures foretold this event in his life. Niger when he miraculously survived did this: he explained that he was "preserved by God’s providence to be their commander for the time to come".

The onus probandi is on your shoulders, to prove why, given that war context and particularly the example of Niger, the described scenario couldn't happen also in the case of Jesus b. Sapphat.

Again, the correct perspective is that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree:

Image

The Asmonean apple, or the Pilate's apple for that matter, has fallen very too much distant from the tree of Christian Origins: 66-70 CE.
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maryhelena
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

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Giuseppe wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:09 am
maryhelena wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:43 am Irrelevant to the issue at hand - i.e. details about the life of Jesus b. Saphat after he was, allegedly, removed from the cross around 70 c.e.
Jesus b. Sapphat himself could have shown his own survival as if it was a genuine resurrection.
:banghead: :confusedsmiley: :banghead:

In the Gospels Jesus "explained the scriptures" to disciples concerning his own "resurrection". Explaining scriptures means basically showing how the scriptures foretold this event in his life. Niger when he miraculously survived did this: he explained that he was "preserved by God’s providence to be their commander for the time to come".

The onus probandi is on your shoulders, to prove why, given that war context and particularly the example of Niger, the described scenario couldn't happen also in the case of Jesus b. Sapphat.
Possibility does not equate to probability.....

This is your thread re the theory that Jesus b. Saphat is the historical Jesus......You have not provided any evidence, or reasonable argument, why this nobody of a man should be viewed as the historical Jesus. All you have been doing is listing one assumption after another.

Again, the correct perspective is that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree:

Image

The Asmonean apple, or the Pilate's apple for that matter, has fallen very too much distant from the tree of Christian Origins: 66-70 CE.
The correct perspective is to think logically about what we do have.....a gospel crucifixion story set under Pilate. (dated from either 18/19 c.e. or 26/27 c.e. to 36/37 c.e. ) That's the bottom line - running ahead of yourself to something Josephus wrote around 95 c.e. is to deny the gospel writers their own setting for their story. I fail to see any reason, or logic, for the gospel writers to do this.

The answer to the problem of not finding a Jesus figure crucified in the time of Pilate is not to find a man named Jesus in the war of 70 c.e.
- then to assume that he was the unnamed man removed alive from the cross - and then backdate, time-shift, this nobody man to the time of Pilate. That's not an answer, that is avoiding the problem. To assume the gospel writers got their dating wrong - that their crucifixion story under Pilate is in error and the real deal happened in 70 c.e. is bad enough - but to then time-shift this 70 c.e. crucifixion back to the time of Pilate is simply bizarre. Reject the gospel Pilate setting by all means - but then don't use it, don't reference it. Just write your own new story based on a 70 c.e. crucifixion of an unknown man with unknown birth or death narratives. If the 70 c.e. crucifixion story in Josephus is the big deal - then run with it and leave the gospel writers to their own story set in the time of Pilate.

At the end of the day this Jesus b. Saphat theory has unsurmountable problems - of which the time-shift of Jesus b. Saphat to the time of Pilate is the minor problem. It's the time-shift of Paul that is your bigger problem. i.e. one backward time-shift re Jesus b. Saphat to the time of Pilate - and a second, forward, time-shift for Paul, to the 70s - that is if he knows about the unknown man who survived a crucifixion in that year - and if he does not know this - then you have to further time-shift Paul to post 95 c.e. when Josephus wrote his crucifixion story. That a theory requires not one but two time-shift scenarios is, methinks, pretty obviously blowing in the wind.
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Re: On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

Post by Giuseppe »

maryhelena wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:24 am The answer to the problem of not finding a Jesus figure crucified in the time of Pilate is not to find a man named Jesus in the war of 70 c.e.
in my view, you are totally unable to consider the following Celsus' words, as reported by Origen (3:7), for their genuine value:

In like manner, as the statement is false that the Hebrews, being (originally) Egyptians, dated the commencement (of their political existence) from the time of their rebellion, so also is this, that in the days of Jesus others who were Jews rebelled against the Jewish state, and became His followers; for neither Celsus nor they who think with him are able to point out any act on the part of Christians which savours of rebellion. And yet, if a revolt had led to the formation of the Christian commonwealth, so that it derived its existence in this way from that of the Jews, who were permitted to take up arms in defense of the members of their families, and to slay their enemies, the Christian Lawgiver would not have altogether forbidden the putting of men to death; and yet He nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to any one, however wicked. For He did not deem it in keeping with such laws as His, which were derived from a divine source, to allow the killing of any individual whatever. Nor would the Christians, had they owed their origin to a rebellion, have adopted laws of so exceedingly mild a character as not to allow them, when it was their fate to be slain as sheep, on any occasion to resist their persecutors. And truly, if we look a little deeper into things, we may say regarding the exodus from Egypt, that it is a miracle if a whole nation at once adopted the language called Hebrew, as if it had been a gift from heaven, when one of their own prophets said, As they went forth from Egypt, they heard a language which they did not understand.

What Celsus was accusing is that the Christianity was born only after the 70 CE, not before.

Therefore there were no Christians before 70 CE, and the only Christiani known before then, docet Laupot, were only mere Messianists.

This is true totally beyond the existence or not of a historical Jesus.

Hence, the only possible options are two:
  • (1) Christianity was born after the 70 CE and there was a historical Jesus;
  • (2) Christianity was born after the 70 CE and there was not a historical Jesus.
My point in this thread is banally that, given (1), the only best candidate for the role of the Gospel Jesus was: Jesus b. Sapphat.

There are no others and who claims that there were others, is a mere charlatan.

I have already given the reasons why it is extremely probable that Jesus b. Sapphat was just the man saved by Josephus in extremis and identified by the Gospel writers as their Jesus buried by "Joseph of Arimathea" (=Josephus).

If you are so blind that you can't consider correctly the weight of my real argument, then it is a your problem, not mine.
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