The first gospel was written AFTER that the Christians were the victims of a "groundless hearsay"

[Giuseppe]

NOTA BENE: I don't mean to discuss in this thread with the various historicists who deny the existence of deniers in the Antiquity.

I see that "Trypho" (Dialogue 8) is reporting an accusation about a chronological sequence in the process of acceptance of the historicist belief:

But the Christ, if he has indeed been born, and exists anywhere, is unknown, and doesn't even yet know himself, and has no power until Elijah comes to anoint him, and make him appear to all. But you, on the basis of groundless hearsay, invent a Christ for yourselves, and for his sake you are now irresponsibly doomed.

The chronological sequence is the following:

• before the Christians receive a 'groundless hearsay'

• and only after they start the "invention of a Christ for themselves".

This means that the accusation is not so much an invention ex nihilo of both (hearsay + holy fables), as rather the being victim of a previous "hearsay", followed by the real sin (the invention of holy fables).

What was that "hearsay" of which the Christians were the unaware victims, before that they became the conscious and deliberate inventors of holy fables?

The best answer: the hearsay about a Jesus being lived on the earth in the recent past, i.e. the hearsay about Jesus ben Sapphat.

[rgprice]

I think its difficult to read too much into this, since these aren't the words of a real person, but a fictional character invented by Justin.