Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Judge by yourself:

https://www.academia.edu/6883079/The_Sl ... f_Josephus

The author thinks that this passage is not Christian, but authentically Josephian:


...and that that same Pilate, far from saving who would have healed his wife, had played the role of Judas, by betraying Jesus to the Jews!

What is surprising is that this same Nodet claims that the gospels were written after the 135 CE and he arrives to mention as support Detering in a footnote!

It is relatively easy to understand why a Christian Catholic scholar is so courageous in placing the gospels after the 135 CE.


He has persuaded himself that the Slavonic Josephus is genuine so Jesus would be attested not only by the Slavonic Testimonium but also by a "more moderate" entirely genuine Testimonium Flavianum (sic), where Josephus would have written "he was the Christ" without knowing what "Christ" could mean (double sic):


It doesn't end here. He thinks that "Mar Bar Serapion would be independent evidence (sic) of a historical Jesus ! When even Meier ignores it at all.


Hence it is explained why a Catholic scholar would find so much courage to place very late the Gospels (after 135 CE):

His irrational belief that the Slavonic Josephus is genuine has so much galvanized him, that he is ready to do a "kind concession" for the readers: placing the gospels after the 135 CE.

This Nodet would deserve the Oscar as "the best Christian apologist of all the times".

As to Slavonic TF, this is true serious scholarship:

(my bold)

Best Christian Apologist



Dates gospels after 135CE

It is not the first time, among apologists, that advancing a late dating of the gospels is connected very much often with an (irrational) insistence on the authenticity of the TF (or, which is identical, of the slavonic TF).

They can't have one without the other.

Nodet is to be respected for seeking a reasoned explanation for the evidence we have at hand (the TF) instead of trying to conjure a hypothetical alternative to replace the what we have before us. You have misrepresented Nodet as an apologist because of his conclusions and not given readers even a hint that he does have a logical argument for his conclusions.

We may not agree with his conclusions and we may find reasons to question his argument -- I myself disagree with it -- but it is wrong to accuse him of apologetics and to fail to acknowledge the argument he presents for his case. (Those are the tactics of rabid anti-mythicists.)

When the conclusion (= Josephus would have attested that Jesus healed the Pilate's wife, or for Josephus the meaning of "Christ" was unknown just as it was for Tacitus) is clearly too much false, then the premises are equally falsified in the same degree. This amounts to a confutation.

In addition, a serious scholar simply can not use Mara B. Serapion as independent evidence of Jesus and/or an original Slavonic Testimonium.

What has also scandalized me is that, discussing why the consensus rejects in toto the authenticity of Slavonic (with the exception of Robert Eisler and, I would add, Salomon Reinach), Nodet mentions the Catholic scolars and the Protestant scholars. No mention at all of atheist scholars. They just don't count in the discussion, for Nodet. What prevents me from thinking that he is addressing only Christians?

Another irrational claim:
From the words of Photius about Justus of Tiberias (that he never mentioned Jesus in all his works), Nodet infers that Photius read about Jesus in another book hence his angry wonder about Justus. One would think: well, he reads the TF, just as we read it. And instead he derives from this angry wonder that Photius read the Slavonic Testimonium. Absurd.

According to Nodet, a Christian interpolator would have never mentioned the Magi and the Star without connecting them with Jesus. Hence, in virtue of the same logic, when I see in a forum on Christian origins a thread where the topic is a discussion on astronomical events around the 30 CE, I should think that their authors are disinterested scientists who have merely posted in the wrong forum.

Seriously?