Lena Einhorn wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:03 pm
Ulan wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 3:18 pm
the trial of Jesus in the gospels seems to be based on the trial of Jesus ben Ananias in Josephus.
Ulan, my aim is not to put down other theories on the identity of the Historical Jesus. I just have one comment: most of the theories put forth hone in on one or two, or perhaps three, similarities -- in the case of Jesus ben Ananias it would be the name, and the fact that this person was brought in front of the Roman governor and flayed. At the same time, the differences are numerous. And the similarities are not unique.
Do you have any other trial stories that match the Jesus trial in the gospels, including the refusal to say anything as defense? He also predicted the destruction of the city, and Ben's link shows quite a few other similarities in the details.
The trial issue, or the lack of anything related to death and resurrection are of course major holes in your theory. The Egyptian was never arrested or personally faced any consequences of his deeds. As a parallel, he's lacking some major topics of the gospels. I don't say the parallels you saw are not there - they certainly are and I already said I appreciate that you point them out - but you only found one puzzle piece that, if you look closely, isn't such a good match for the whole gospel story, either (none of the figures in Josephus is a perfect fit). For Simon bar Giora for instance, I listed several similarities where he definitely is a better fit. You just picked the Gerasene scene and discarded the Jesus similarities in his case, because those don't fit your proposal.
Note that I didn't say Jesus ben Ananias or Simon bar Giora
are the gospel Jesus. I suggested that the gospel Jesus absorbed parts of many messianic figures. If there were only one good fit, people would have probably picked up on the Egyptian similarities much earlier, time shift or not. As I said, he's lacking in that whole "trial, death and resurrection" department. Using several figures as basis, we may even have some insight into the development of the text, if we look at a merging of accounts from different messianic figures.