Carrier on the sources of the Christian Gospel

[Stephan Huller]

And remember Carrier wants 'Jesus' to be the name of the Philonic Logos. It would imply that Philo had enough familiarity Hebrew to do any of this. This theory of Carrier's was stupid from the get go. Bad idea to attempt something in a language you don't know very well.

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

You can theorize, as Carrier has done, but how about a serious real world example of the theory manifested in "X the son of Y"?

I agree with spin with respect to 'X son of Y' names.

Well now, Carrier's idea has had a fair shake here, but I've come to agree that he is wrong - it doesn't make sense to translate and expand names like that.

I did have a look for any examples, but there are many thousands of examples of 'X son of Y' and none that I looked at had anything like Carrier suggested.

It would imply that Philo had enough familiarity Hebrew to do any of this.

Note that I did find this interesting quote from our friend Philo :

...Benjamin is an emblem of young and old times; for being interpreted his name means "the son of days," and both young time and old time are measured by days and nights.

Here is Philo writing in Greek about a name's meaning in Hebrew - suggesting he knew at least some Hebrew. It's not what we were looking for, but it's a small step in that direction.

Kapyong

[John T]

And remember Carrier wants 'Jesus' to be the name of the Philonic Logos. It would imply that Philo had enough familiarity Hebrew to do any of this. This theory of Carrier's was stupid from the get go. Bad idea to attempt something in a language you don't know very well.

I'm trying really hard to follow all of this but I don't see what Carrier is trying to prove.
I take it from Huller that Carrier is trying to prove that Philo created his own Jesus myth based on his understanding of the Logos?

"Some scholars hold that his [Philo of Alexandria] concept of the Logos as God's creative principle influenced early Christology. Other scholars, however, deny direct influence but say both Philo and Early Christianity borrow from a common source."...wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo

The Hebrews, Christians, Greeks and Gnostics all had a slightly different view of the Logos. To say that Jesus is a myth because the gospels have bits and pieces of all the different views of Logos is not proof that Jesus was a myth.

All it proves is people had great difficulty in understanding/explaining how a Messiah would have the power to raise the dead and rule the world.

Sincerely,
John T

[MattMorales]

Besides, wouldn't Jehozadak translate to "Yahweh is righteous/righteousness?" rather than "Yahweh the Righteous?" From what I've read about ancient Hebrew names, that seems to be the common schema, but I stand to be corrected.

[Kapyong]

Gday Bernard,

I have a blog post about someone called "Rises" here: http://historical-jesus.info/17.html

I read your blog post and have some comments.

Firstly, I note you use the translation 'Rises' (or 'Rising' or 'Dawn') for the Branch. You might like to take account of what spin has said about W. Rose's analysis of this word leading to the conclusion it should be 'Grows' or 'Growing'

Secondly, you quote the passage from Philo and then say

So where is "Jesus" in all that? Nowhere to be seen in the quote."

I think that's a bit rough on Carrier - there is no Jesus to be found in Philo, everyone knows that. But there is one to be found in Zechariah, and Philo is clearly pointing to that by quoting the phrase he did.

Thirdly, you say :

"My first argument: How could Zechariah be considered a companion of Moses, who allegedly lived almost a millenium before the prophet?

But isn't your argument there with Philo, not Carrier? Anyway the phrase 'companion of Moses' could simply mean a latter-day Moses or something similar.

Fourthly, you say :

My second argument: Philo said he heard of the saying, and not claimimg he read it from the OT prophetic writings. However Philo might have plucked the "the man named Rises" from Zechariah 6 but he did not want to admit it, therefore avoiding "the man named Rises" to be associated with its context in 'Zechariah' (because no man called "Rises" is said to have rebuilt the temple in the Jewish scriptures). That allowed Philo to apply the name ("novel appellation") to God's incorporeal firstborn.

I see some claims, but your argument seems to be "might have". How does your last sentence follow? "That allowed..."

Fifthly, you say :

... and wait for a still undeclared man ("Rises") ... Then the future (human) king (named the "Rises"), the one that Carrier thinks Philo referred to, is not Jesus (son of Josedec) but someone else.

Well I don't read Zech 6:11 et seq that way - Jesus is introduced, then we get a set of 'He' passages, but they clearly seem to refer to that Jesus because he is called a high priest, and one of the He passages says : "And He shall be a priest upon His throne".

I don't see "someone else" there, just Jesus, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest.

I agree with andrewcriddle: the son of Joseph in the Talmud is a reference to Jesus of Nazareth.

I agree too.


Kapyong

[Bertie]

Something I remember from reading Novenson's Christ Among the Messiahs book a little while back: he argued at one point that people's names in this time period were not completely divorced from their literal meaning to the extent that they are in contemporary English. So while names like "Smith" or "Freeman" no longer have any trace of their original meaning, in NT times something like "Onesimus" (Greek: "useful") in the Epistle of Philemon could be used as both its literal meaning and its meaning as a name, and this sort of thing was apparently common enough in literature (Steven Huller apparently found another one upthread).

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

Something I remember from reading Novenson's Christ Among the Messiahs book a little while back: he argued at one point that people's names in this time period were not completely divorced from their literal meaning to the extent that they are in contemporary English. So while names like "Smith" or "Freeman" no longer have any trace of their original meaning, in NT times something like "Onesimus" (Greek: "useful") in the Epistle of Philemon could be used as both its literal meaning and its meaning as a name, and this sort of thing was apparently common enough in literature (Steven Huller apparently found another one upthread).

Thanks Bertie.
Do you have any other examples from Novenson?

Anyway, the issue boils down to whether names in the form "X son of Y" were ever translated and expanded. It appears not.

Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

Carrier claims that a straight forward reading of Daniel's seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24-27 leads to a prediction of around 30CE as the date for the Messiah being 'cut off'. (OHJ p.84)

He claims Julius Africanus is the best evidence for this, as quoted in George Syncellus' Excerpts of Chronography. (I don't suppose anyone knows an online copy of this?)

I have been able to find a modern exposition of this idea at :
http://www.davidjayjordan.com/TimeProphecy.html

It goes like this :

Daniel 9 :24 "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to
finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy."
(O.K. so seventy weeks is the length of our timeline.)

Dan 9:25 "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times."
(From this, the start of the timeline of the 70 weeks is from the time, the Jews were allowed to go and rebuild their Temple by the Medo=Persians, after it was destroyed by the Babylonians back in 586 B.C. The time of this order to allow the Jews to return and build was in 454 B.C. by Arthexertses. But as said, this was to last only seven weeks until it was accomplished by Nehemaih and others.in 405 B.C. And seeing this time period was called seven weeks and it took 49 years, then obviously a week was equal to 7 years. For even in Hebrew, the word week is Shebuah, and means 7 years.)

Dan 9:26 "And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof[shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
(Aha... now it says after 62 more weeks after 405 B.C. the Messiah would be cut off. So do the math and 62 times 7 years brings us to 30.A.D. when the Messiah was to be cut off."

The numbers do add up internally, but it all depends on the staring date - the decree to rebuild Jerusalem.
There are four possible decrees: the decree of Cyrus in 538-536 B.C. (2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4; 6:1-5; Isaiah 44:28; 45:13); the decree of Darius Hystaspes in 521 which reaffirmed Cyrus’ decree (Ezra 6:6-12); the decree of Artaxerxes to Ezra in 458 B.C. (Ezra 7:11-26); or the decree of Artaxerxes in 444 B.C. to Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2:1-8)
The closest decree seems to be 458 which is pretty close to 454 given above, so there is an error of 4 years there.
Depending which decree one chooses, one actually gets a date of either : 54BCE, 37BCE, 26CE, 40CE.

So Carrier does appear to be correct - a straightforward reading of Daniel can lead to a date of around 30CE of the Messiah being 'cut off'.

Kapyong

[maryhelena]

Depending which decree one chooses, one actually gets a date of either : 54BCE, 37BCE, 26CE, 40CE.

So Carrier does appear to be correct - a straightforward reading of Daniel can lead to a date of around 30CE of the Messiah being 'cut off'.

Kapyong

Nice - 37 b.c.e. At least we have history to rely on here. Antigonus 'cut off' by Rome/Marc Antony in that year. That history 'replayed' in the passion narrative of the literary gospel figure of Jesus around 70 years later - around 30/33 c.e.

That said - Daniel's 70 weeks is open to various interpretations - take your pick.....

[Bernard Muller]

Carrier claims that a straight forward reading of Daniel's seventy weeks in Daniel 9:24-27 leads to a prediction of around 30CE as the date for the Messiah being 'cut off'. (OHJ p.84)

He claims Julius Africanus is the best evidence for this, as quoted in George Syncellus' Excerpts of Chronography. (I don't suppose anyone knows an online copy of this?)

I have an answer on that: it is far from being straight forward, and first "discovered" by a notorious Christian apologist with the benefit of hindsight:
http://historical-jesus.info/103.html
Cordially, Bernard