Carrier proposes the NT Jesus based on Philo's Jesus angel

[Secret Alias]

You may want to refresh your understanding of the apologetic context of the writings of Philo:

https://books.google.com/books?id=_AGsQ ... gy&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Your arguments are worse than those you are trying to refute

Said by someone who embraces the arguments I have demolished and laid to rest

[Secret Alias]

I apologize that history is a complicated affair. I am sorry that it isn't just a matter of having someone invent a myth (= Philo identified the logos as Jesus) and then having a bunch of losers 'believe' in the truth of this myth. The fact that mythicists want to imitate the very pattern they claim Christianity was invented with (= mythmaking) in creating their own anti-Christian program isn't my concern. God bless them. They prove that myths are sacred truths. They prove that humans need myths to function. They pretend to stand above religious people when they are doing little more than aping their very enemies. How human!

The reality is that you have to have Philo say what you want him to say. You can't just anoint someone as the high priest of your new version of religion and 'believe' in what he tells you Philo said. Philo never says, nor could he have said or believed, that Jesus was the heavenly man who is the Logos. It's just a modern myth developed for losers to help make history 'easier for them to understand' and thereby misrepresent history. It's ironic that mythicism can be traced to the very process they condemn religion with - myths and lies.

[Secret Alias]

Carrier created the myth that Philo said that Jesus was the heavenly Logos and the mythicists who buy into this lie are little more or little better than religious believers. Just please stop with the 'superiority' of atheists. Prove to me that groups can be formed through rational means, through apprehension and shared understanding of 'the truth.' Surprise me! After all, as any cultured person knows, it is lies are more necessary for life than the truth.

Out with the lies of the Jews! Hail the new lies of mythicism!
Out with the lies of the Christians! Hail to the better lies of mythicism!
Out with the lies of all religion! Hail to the superior lies of new atheism!

[MrMacSon]

There is plenty of scholarship that Philo identified the man in Zech 6:12 as the Logos.

And Zech 6:11 had named that man.

[MrMacSon]

That doesn't mean Philo named him that, but that reference may have been the foundation for gospel writers as Charlene Moss discusses

[Secret Alias]

There is plenty of scholarship that Philo identified the man in Zech 6:12 as the Logos.

And Zech 6:11 had named that man.

Yes all of that is true. I accept that. It's a lie when people say "Philo said the man in Zech 6:12 [w]as the Logos and identifies his name as Jesus or Jesus the high priest."

[Secret Alias]

but that reference may have been the foundation for gospel writers as Charlene Moss discusses

But that's not what Carrier says.

[Secret Alias]

I have no doubt that Zechariah 6.12 influenced the prologue to Luke. But so what? Luke was manufactured in the second century.

[Secret Alias]

I have to admit if I hadn't had this silly discussion I wouldn't have been reminded of this important bit of information - that the Tetragrammaton in the oldest Greek manuscripts of the Bible was still written out in Paleo-Hebrew. This I believe finally explains how Philo's angel 'man' (anthropos) came to identified as ΙΣ in special letters in second and third century Greek manuscripts. Let's start with the evidence:

We do know, however, that Aquila's version used the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew script and not kurios. The evidence comes from the Cairo Genizah palimpsest of 3 & 4 Reigns in Greek.61 This contains Aquila's translation of 1 Kings 20:9–17 and 2 Kings 23:12–27, six pages of a codex in a 6thcentury a.d. uncial hand (Illustration5). (Thus from around the period of Justinian's novella, mentioned above.) From the same source were recovered also portions of Psalms 90–103 and a Hexapla fragment of Psalm 22, published by C. Taylor.62 In these texts of Aquila the Tetragrammaton is neither transliterated nor replaced with kurios. It is written in Paleo-Hebrew script though apparently spelled yhyh—the archaic yod and waw not being distinguished by this scribe.63 Burkitt had the acuity to observe that the paleo-Hebrew Tetragrammaton here was read (i.e. pronounced) as kurios, since in one place in the Aquila fragments where there was no room to write “in the House of yhwh,” the scribe had written (using an abbreviation ku with a macron over the u) “in the House of the Lord (kuriou).”64

This evidence concurs with the testimony of Origen, who wrote in his Commentary In Psalmos 2.2 that “in the most accurate exemplars” the divine name was written in paleo-Hebrew letters, that is, “not those currently in use, but the very oldest."65 By “most accurate exemplars,” one might assume he meant those of Aquila's version, being the closest to the Hebrew, but perhaps he refers more generally to Greek versions.66 Jerome in his Prologus Galeatus said much the same: “We find the four-lettered name of God even today written in ancient letters in some Greek texts.”67 https://books.google.com/books?id=1xyoB ... 22&f=false

If you look at the original book the author has reproduced a page from the Genizah showing what most consider to be the origin of the nomen sacrum. The reason Greek manuscripts have what are supposed to be 'short-forms' of various sacred names is because of an original habit of inserting Paleo-Hebrew in these places.

My supposition would simply be that the nomen sacrum derived from a preservation of the Hebrew word for man = IS. This is the point of contact between Philo's man who is the anatole and the Christian god. He wasn't originally called Jesus. That came later as a way of explaining away the original belief in a second Hebrew god. Thank you Giuseppe and Richard. I appreciate helping me along. I think an important piece in the puzzle was (re)discovered today. Appreciate your help. I don't expect you to ever give up your faith in the "Jesus" angel which Jews never believed in. But at least you helped move along my own research.