better critiques of mythicism than by Tim O'Neill

[MrMacSon]

R. G. Price opines that: "The 'minimal Jesus' is a very odd thing that...in fact it makes no sense and isn’t really supported by any data."

[Comment by R. G. Price—29 October 2019—per Godfrey, Neil (27 October 2019). "Review part 10: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Conclusion)". Vridar]

• That's true. But the next sentence —

It’s more like just a sort of personal bargaining chip that people throw out so that they can both agree that the Gospels are exaggerations that don’t tell us anything meaningful and also that mythicism is bunk."
[Comment by R. G. Price—29 October 2019—per Godfrey, Neil (27 October 2019). "Review part 10: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Conclusion)". Vridar]

• — is also dubious, tending towards Carrier-level dubious: who is "both" ??
  
  And historicists still rely on Carriers "three minimal facts on which historicity rests"

[dbz]

[T]he point I was trying to make was that Carrier and other mythicists generally provide better critiques of mythicism than by Tim O'Neill...

It would be a rather thankless and dispiriting task to correct the egregious errors of … Kersey Graves or Acharya S, but it would be unfair for the contributions of Brodie, Price, Carrier and Wells to ‘be tarnished with the same brush or be condemned with guilt by association’; indeed such scholars are generally as critical of the failings of the excesses of fellow mythicists as any others. (p. 447.)

• Meggitt, Justin J. (2019). "‘More Ingenious than Learned’? Examining the Quest for the Non-Historical Jesus". New Testament Studies 65 (4): 443–460. doi:10.1017/S0028688519000213.

[S]erious, peer-reviewed arguments against the historicity of Jesus should not be conflated or equated with amateur crank proposals of any similar kind (such as those of Joseph Atwill, James Valliant, Dorothy Murdock, or Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy). (n. 5.)

• Carrier, Richard (2020). "Jesus from Outer Space?". The Bible and Interpretation.

Some Jesus mythicists, following Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier, have taken a special interest in the Ascension of Isaiah [Asc. Isa.], an early Christian text that has been used to support (not establish, as some critics have asserted) the argument that Jesus was in an early stage of tradition believed to have been crucified by demons in the firmament above the earth.
[...]
I have long been in two minds over various hypotheses that Jesus was crucified by demons in the firmament (Couchoud, Doherty, Carrier). There are several reasons to think that the earliest Jesus myth is the most obvious orthodox one: that Jesus came from heaven, was crucified on earth, descended beneath the earth, then ascended back to heaven.

• Godfrey, Neil (27 May 2020). "Ascension of Isaiah: Questions". Vridar.

N.B.: "The Vridar blog is not a “Jesus mythicist” blog even though it is open to a critical discussion of the question of Jesus’ historicity. I do not see secure grounds for believing in the historicity of Jesus but it does not follow that I reject Jesus’ historicity. Clearly, the Jesus of the Gospels and Paul’s letters is a literary and theological construct but it does not follow that there was no "historical Jesus". [Godfrey, Neil (8 February 2020). "Interview with Thomas L. Thompson #1". Vridar.]

[MrMacSon]

This is also another example of crap by Carrier:

• Carrier, Richard (2020). Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ.
  Pitchstone Publishing, ISBN 978-1-63431-208-0.
  

  Of course, there were thousands of men named Jesus in every generation of Jews. It was one of the most common Jewish names (it’s actually, in fact, the name Joshua). And there were surely many men so named who were executed by Pontius Pilate or any Jewish court in any decade you choose. So we aren't asking about whether some Jesus got himself executed. We are asking specifically about the Jesus whose execution launched the Christian religion. And in that role, Jesus might not even have been his original name, but a name assigned him after his death. The name means, after all, “God’s Savior.” Most scholars already conclude he was not called Christ, from the Greek for Messiah (literally, “an anointed one,” hence “chosen one”), until after his death. The same may be true of “Jesus.” If after his martyrdom his closest followers, reassured by dreams and visions of his spiritual victory, started calling him “God's Savior and Messiah,” they would be calling him “Jesus Christ.” So he might not have even originally been called Jesus!
  
  So really, what we need to ask is, was there at least a Jewish man (by whatever name) who gathered a following and then was executed (whether by a Jewish court or Roman) and who had some followers, led by Peter (or “Cephas” in Aramaic), who became convinced God had resurrected and exalted him to be their Lord and Savior, the true and final Messiah for all time? If we can be certain of only just that, that would be enough to settle that there was a historical “Jesus” who started the Christian religion. Even if it turned out this all happened in the 70s B.C. Or any time and place.
  
  But there has to have been at least that. Otherwise, no such man, no such Jesus.
  
  

Carrier often craps on about people espousing the "possibiliter fallacy" but this one of several examples of where I've seen Carrier use it. ie.

..."Jesus might not even have been his original name ... "

"So Really ", Indeed

That excerpt is crap speculation. Wibble. Unscholarly.

Including the failure to adequately explain why Jesus is "actually, in fact, the name Joshua".

Or why the other name behind those names means “God’s Savior.”

The guy is as much of a fool and a tool as Tim O'Neill.

[Ulan]

Including the failure to adequately explain why Jesus is "actually, in fact, the name Joshua".

While I see your other point, isn't this kind of a given? At least in the Greek language Septuaginta, the name "Iesous" is used for both, Joshua, the alleged conqueror of Canaan, and the NT Jesus. And Christianity as we know it seems to rely heavily on the Greek language version of the text.

[MrMacSon]

Including the failure to adequately explain why Jesus is "actually, in fact, the name Joshua".

... isn't this kind of a given? At least in the Greek language Septuaginta, the name "Iesous" is used for both, Joshua, the alleged conqueror of Canaan, and the NT Jesus. And Christianity as we know it seems to rely heavily on the Greek language version of the text.

It's a given for people who know, but I reckon the vast majority don't know

And there's the issue of why Iesus [Latin] became Jesus in English yet Y'hoshua/Y'shua became Joshua ie. that also helps sideline or indeed does outright sideline the issue about the origins of the name Jesus

[mlinssen]

Including the failure to adequately explain why Jesus is "actually, in fact, the name Joshua".

... isn't this kind of a given? At least in the Greek language Septuaginta, the name "Iesous" is used for both, Joshua, the alleged conqueror of Canaan, and the NT Jesus. And Christianity as we know it seems to rely heavily on the Greek language version of the text.

It's a given for people who know, but I reckon the vast majority don't know

And there's the issue of why Iesus [Latin] became Jesus in English yet Y'hoshua/Y'shua became Joshua ie. that also helps sideline or indeed does outright sideline the issue about the origins of the name Jesus

The Septuagint "feature" occurs only very sporadic, and is certainly not a rule. Every single Septuagint that we have is passed on by Christians in Christian writing and it is clear that their tried to insert Ihsous as a Tanakh source for the IS in the NT; especially Vaticanus is obvious there, see viewtopic.php?p=140575#p140575

The entire yeshua yoshua thing is a mystery to me: I can relate to the silly idiots who desperately want to depict their Geewsus in Judaic colours, but how does that work from a textual point of view?
Where is their YESHUA source? To the best of my knowledge it is just as absent as the IHSOUS source

[Ulan]

And there's the issue of why Iesus [Latin] became Jesus in English yet Y'hoshua/Y'shua became Joshua ie. that also helps sideline or indeed does outright sideline the issue about the origins of the name Jesus

That step happened during the translation from Greek to Latin, and the latter informed how English handles this. The question is simply at which step the name was transliterated. The transliteration from Greek Iesous to Latin Jesus for Jesus Christ only made "Jesus" a unique name in Catholic Christianity and its Protestant offshoots (the Vulgate uses "Josue" for Joshua). In that area, "Jesus" was usually not permissible as a name for any other person in order to preserve that uniqueness (the Latin American custom to use it as a first name is a secondary development). On the other hand, for the Greek-speaking part of Christianity, it was always clear that this is a very common name.

[Ulan]

The Septuagint "feature" occurs only very sporadic, and is certainly not a rule. Every single Septuagint that we have is passed on by Christians in Christian writing and it is clear that their tried to insert Ihsous as a Tanakh source for the IS in the NT; especially Vaticanus is obvious there, see viewtopic.php?p=140575#p140575

Just to be clear: I wasn't talking about the origins of the name "Jesus" per se, but just of the origins of the orthodox handling of this issue. This concerns late developments, like how Acts was formed. One of the central scenes in the version of Acts that we have sees the alleged leader of the Jewish branch of Christianity, James, base a formal judgment on a Bible passage that only exists in the Septuaginta. Which really stretches credulity, but illustrates where orthodoxy was born.

[mlinssen]

The Septuagint "feature" occurs only very sporadic, and is certainly not a rule. Every single Septuagint that we have is passed on by Christians in Christian writing and it is clear that their tried to insert Ihsous as a Tanakh source for the IS in the NT; especially Vaticanus is obvious there, see viewtopic.php?p=140575#p140575

Just to be clear: I wasn't talking about the origins of the name "Jesus" per se, but just of the origins of the orthodox handling of this issue. This concerns late developments, like how Acts was formed. One of the central scenes in the version of Acts that we have sees the alleged leader of the Jewish branch of Christianity, James, base a formal judgment on a Bible passage that only exists in the Septuaginta. Which really stretches credulity, but illustrates where orthodoxy was born.

Thanks for that, and I agree.
I didn't know about that passage, which is it please?
I am absolutely convinced that all of the Septuagint was produced by Churchianity alone, and that none of that existed prior to 2-300 CE. Greek fragments, sure. A letter here and a book there, sure. Perhaps even a couple although we have none of that

But my quest there is for a Greek Tanakh text that
1. Contains more than a single letter or book and
2. Isn't littered with the typical xtian scribal signs that we find from Thomas through to the middle ages: ü, ï, apostrophe and line-ending superlinear representing Nu

Yes, we can see how Justin already starts with rooting his Jesus in Judaism and fails hard there in the Trypho Dialogue (if you read beyond the rhetoric), so they just made right what was wrong and wrote their own version of the Tanakh just as they wrote their own version of *Ev

Every anomaly in the Greek version of the Tanakh when compared to the Hebrew one likely represents a Churchian motive - although there certainly will be gross mistranslations there just as there are in the NT because the Romans were as careless in their redactions as they were considerate about Chrestianity and Judaism

[MrMacSon]

...The transliteration from Greek Iesous to Latin Jesus for Jesus Christ only made "Jesus" a unique name in Catholic Christianity and its Protestant offshoots (the Vulgate uses "Josue" for Joshua). In that area, "Jesus" was usually not permissible as a name for any other person in order to preserve that uniqueness (the Latin American custom to use it as a first name is a secondary development).

Yes, I agree.

---

This is not so clear:

On the other hand, for the Greek-speaking part of Christianity, it was always clear that this is a very common name.

the

Was Iesous a common name among the Greeks? Before or After Christianity took off (or both)?

Were Y'hoshua or Y'shua common names among the Jews of antiquity?