Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Maryhelena. I will try to move forward with the reconstruction. The feature of Josephus' stories is that we cannot verify them. Thus, TF may be imaginary or real. But it is the same with the story of the prophet predicting the fall of the Temple - Jesus ben Ananias. I do not need to emphasize how important this prophecy in the gospels announced this time by Jesus of Nazareth is. The list of themes common to the gospels and Josephus' writings is longer.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2024 10:25 pm What may give clues supportive of the Jarek's theory is that the hypothetical TF (as reconstructed by Dave Allen) may explain the presence of the titulus crucis 'king of the Jews' in the Gospels, even more so if one follows Klinghardt about Mark replacing the Pilate's question 'Are you the Christ?' with 'Are you the king of the Jews?' by deriving the latter expression from the titulus crucis found in *Ev, which in turn would have derived the expression, as the argument goes, from the TF.

I think that the TF analyzes so far have been burdened with the assumption that Josephus, as a pious Jew, would not have used the title Christ in relation to Jesus. There are various reconstructions that try to soften the words "he was Christ" with the phrases "he was called Christ" or "king of the Jews". I don't know what to think about it and how to reduce possible reconstructions.

JarekS wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2024 4:43 amI think that the TF analyzes so far have been burdened with the assumption that Josephus, as a pious Jew, would not have used the title Christ in relation to Jesus.

Did he use it as a title, though? If he was writing to a Roman audience already familiar with the name "Christ", then perhaps he was using it as a name.

For example, Tacitus, writing in Latin, wrote:


So the TF might have been:


As with Tacitus, "Christians" are named after someone whose name was known as "Christ".

Alternatively "Jesus" was in the original of the TF, along with "he was called Christ". Either way, Josephus is treating it as a name, not a title, since he would know his audience understood it as a name. The James passage would be a refer-back to the TF: "and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James".

Josephus describes the phenomenon of messianic expectations and messiah pretenders. Peter Kirby wrote about the Christians of Pompeii, there is the testimony of Suetonius about some Christ in Rome during the time of Claudius. Christ is a form of contestation of rotten, corrupt arrangements within the monotheistic religion. A group of dissatisfied people appeal to someone to change these arrangements - the corrupt Temple, the corrupt Sanhedrin. I suspect that from time to time various groups found candidates for Christ who failed. Jesus of Nazareth turned out to be effective because it was effectively recycled 65 years after his death. Whether real or imaginary.

time jump...
313 CE Christianity becomes a legal religion. The Marcionites take advantage of their religious freedom by building a church in a small village. The first church building that we know dates back to 318CE.
325 CE Nicene Creed contains the original definition of Christ without Mary. The change takes place only in Constantinople after more than 50 years. The doctrine is consolidated for all of Christianity