Terrific, doctoral level work as usual, Rook! Leaps and bounds over the immature, ignorant tripe spewed out of christian universities. I personally hold that the AFS alone dooms christianity; there's no way to reconcile a jesus who both inspires a religion and yet goes completely unnoted by history. But I agree with your point that there's much more than the AFS anyway....

Kudos!

I was half expecting you to comment in the vein that you did.  That was part of the reason I linked to your Silence that screams thread.  I would agree.  But an AFS alone does not make a case.  Which is why I answered the way I did.  I'm glad to see you around more.  Hope you take the time to dig through some of my newer articles, I'd love your critique.

This is a fantastic summary Rook.  Very well written, easy to understand for the layman and of course has all the links to the more in-depth looks at each area which is fantastic.  I really enjoyed that read, and glad that you have had such an active year.

I am also glad to see this shift away from what and into the why.  It has been a lot more enjoyable to read, and a great look at historical Christianity in general.  Loving it.  Keep up the great work!

Very cool. The part that was newest for me was the focus on Dionysus and Orpheus and the move away from other saviour gods. I notice you didn't mention Mithras at all in this overview. Mithras was the first of the other gods I read about that made the mythicist position more plausible to me. Where would you place the influence of Mithras on the probability scale? Close to 0, 100, or somewhere in between? Also, what do you make of the idea that maybe there was no direct scriptural influence by these other gods, but that the idea (or meme) of dying and rising gods was floating around because of these other god myths and may have indirectly influenced the Jesus character even if there's no unambiguous evidence in the texts?

By the way, at the beginning you write "My debtors also include". I think debtors is the wrong word, making it look like they owe you something. Maybe you meant 'creditors' or 'I also owe a debt to'. Could give the wrong impression otherwise.

Thanks brother.  =)

Thanks again.  My Paul article was the one I'm most proud of so far. 

I don't feel Jesus was composed of any ideas from Mithraism.  The ideas that are found in Mithraism (which did not really take off until the turn of the second century) were already extent in Orphism as early as 500 BCE.

I would place it close to nil.  I don't think there is a strong enough case to be made that Mithraism influenced Christology.  It may have influenced Christian traditions in the second century, which would make sense being that both Christianity and Mithraism were competing with each other in that period.  But it would not have been a competitor in the first century.  Orphism, however, was certainly a competitor in Paul's day.

I would say that may be possible, but how would you even go about proving it?  Remember that correlation does not equal causation.

Fixed.  Thanks, I must have missed it.  =)   I hope you stay around and keep reading. 

Great job, rook.  Not only are your facts and documentation impeccable, but your writing style has improved a lot.  This is very easy to read and comprehend, and flows nicely.

Thanks! I didn't know that, and it certainly answers my question.

I don't think it's relevant for your endeavour which requires a strict evidentiary case. It's more of a speculation on memes, and you wouldn't be able to prove it until a solid theory of memes is developed. Even then it would be more of an inference (extrapolation from theory) than a direct proof. Just curious what you thought.

I certainly will.

  "My Paul article was the one I'm most proud of so far." 

----------------------------------

shit yeah .... and it's all good ,

Thanks so very very much ROOK ,  just what the doctor ordered !  Xlint.  Now would the Paulines please go home and think it over ..... You rock dude !

I O U

Thanks Hamby!  I could really use some reviews of my Jesus and Paul articles.  I know they're long but they're the most important to revise.  =)  (This goes to anybody willing to sit through them.)

That is a very well thought out summary, and very pleasant and easy to read.  Awesome job.

Rook, if the early Christians did not believe in a historical Jesus, but understood the gospels as edifying fictions -- is it still consistent to interpret them as believing in a literal physical future coming of Christ to earth?

One of my favorite bits of evidence for the ahistoricity of Jesus is in the talk of his future coming.  The New Testament frequently mentions Jesus coming in the future to judge the nations.  The weird thing - a problem, I think, for the historical Jesus interpretation -  is that it does NOT describe it as a RETURN or SECOND COMING, the way modern Christians do.  The coming of the Christ to earth is rather described by the early Christians merely as a long awaited event.  And the early Christians felt they had a special revelation/warning that it would be happening soon.  As I see it, whenever the NT talks about the coming of Christ, the particular choice of phrasing used makes it appear even less likely to me that the author of the passage thought Christ was on earth recently before.

If there is anything on this line of thought that Rook can correct or expand on, I'd love to read it.

Sure, but I do not believe that is what Paul felt when he said Jesus would come soon.

Paul believed that Jesus came to those who were mature.  I feel that there wasn't a death, an ascension and then another coming in Pauline theology but rather a continuous mediation between man and God through Paul's Christ.  In other words, Christ has come, is coming, and will continue to come for all eternity.

Jesus is our savior i love him he died for us u should be greatful

I have a couple questions about Paul not knowing of a historical Jesus but "instead believed in a spiritual Jesus which he considered to be both a mediator between God and man as well as a revealer of knowledge and the mysteries of God."

What is your take on 1 Cor. 15:3-8?

Paul said that after Jesus' ressurection He (Jesus) appeard to over 500 people including the apostles.

What about Paul mentioning the Lord's brother in Gal. 1:19?

Paul mentions James, a physical person, as being the Lord's brother.

What specific doctrine and message of Christianity did Paul disagree with Peter?

"Paul even says that he has talked to some of the apostles, but not only does he still remain ignorant, he flat out disagrees with Peter on doctrine and the message of Christianity!"

Could you exand on what you meant in your article "On Paul and Identity" when you said "I would question the logic behind this, as this rest entirely on speculation and an ignorance of the context behind Paul's theology" concerning Christians saying that the "intent of his letters were not to establish Jesus as historical nor to write a biography but to establish church doctrine to specific locations throughout Christendom at the time"?

Thanks man. Later.

I believe, first, that Paul is definitely exagerating here.  Why the number 500?  What signifigance is it?  Further, why didn't Paul name any of them?  (Can you?)  But these points are only surface problems and more of an irrelevance.

The key to interpreting this verse is to recall what it means for Paul when he says Jesus was "revealed to" somebody.  Gal. 1:1-11 is a great indicator of exactly what this means.  Paul recounts (and uses the same language) that Jesus revealed himself to him, not as a man but through direct revelation (apocalypse).  In 1 Cor. 15, Paul says that Jesus appeared to the 500, the elders, etc...and lastly himself.  He includes his experience among theirs, and just as he does this, does not make any distinction between his experiences and theirs.  Indicating that Paul believed they shared a similar revelation of Jesus.  This does not indicate that Jesus was walking around (or through walls) in the flesh.  Paul does not believe this, and I make this point very clear in my article on Paul as well.

Paul considers every Christian a brother of the Lord.  The word "brother" here is the same word Paul uses when he addresses "brothers in Christ" or the "brethren," the word adelphos.  To Paul, James is the Lord's brother, just as Paul is the Lord's brother.  Because everyone is alive in Christ, and has been reborn in Christ; they are reborn as sons of God.  I also explain this in my article on Paul. Carrier also explains these two points brilliantly in his three chapters in The Empty Tomb. 

Gal. 2:11-14, "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?"

Paul then goes on to explain where Peter erred, and expresses his disinterest in whatever teachings Peter taught unto the circumcised (Jews).  I believe this is why Paul referred to himself as having a mission unto the gentiles.  He just didn't like the way the Jewish Christian church was doing things.

I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.  Basically, the position is specious as it ignores the content of Paul's letters.  It also rests on an assumption: That Paul was preaching a historical Jesus, which is a doctrine which Paul seems adamantly against. 

Good read, Rook. It's all stuff I've read before in greater detail, but since the RRS has some notability, people who might not have read the sources I have might find out about this stuff.

Btw, have you read or are you planning to read Conspiracies of the Cross by Timothy Paul Jones and Dinesh D'Souza? I looked through it, and read some Jones' arguments in response to the influence and/or similarity of other deities to Jesus, and as they weren't very well-argued, I'd love to see you dismantle his canards.

I am convinced that the most you can do is prove  that the non existence as well as the existence of a Historical Jesus cannot be proved.

I mean, originally and for a long time Jesus was simply one of the many "heretic" rabbies funders of a new belief with a few hundred followers who existed in Palestine. And the Christians in the first century were only a small group, one of the many exothic religion the Roman Empire imported from the four corners of the World. Christianity came unnoticed untill it became the craze of the Roman Empire and invaded it.

Another messiah was John the baptist, who has followers in the ME still today.

The Gospel seems to incorporate John's church too as it claims Jesus himself recognized John's authority.

AS I see it, though it is possible that Jesus never existed, it is highly probable that he did.

Perhaps next time you post you can give me something that isn't all based on nonsensical speculation?

Great summary.
It breaks a lot of content down into easy reading with links to articles for more depth and detail.
I've decided to bookmark it.

Thanks!  The more the merrier.  Feel free to pass it around. =)

Rook,

I am disappointed in the fact that you have overlooked other extra-biblical sources: Tactius (Vehement critic of Christianity) and Pliny the Younger.  Each of their writings does not have any interpolations and are accecpted to be authentic.  Pliny the Younger when writing to the Roman emperior, he details some of the Christian practices and reference to Christ as god.  It is very possible that this writing was around 110 AD, less than a century before Christ died.   Regarding Joesphus there is also another  extrabiblical source you have overlooked! Let us set aside from the Testimonium Flavianum, there is still another reference to the historical Jesus from Josephus found in Antiquities 20.9.1 which references the trial of James, the brother of Jesus who was the leader of the early Jerusalem church.  Then finally the New Testament which has been around for 2,000 years that people like you and others spent their life trying to denouce and attack its authenticity!  The sobering reminder is that you and I will die and the New Testament will still be here.  You will never change that.   Thanks for your time!

Those texts simply talk about christians with a reference or two as to what christians at the time believed.  I don't think anybody here doubts that there were christians in 110CE.  Unless of course you want to tell us that the existence of followers proves the existence of what they follow, in which case every single god ever fathomed is real.

The section in Antiquities is even more convoluted and out of place in its entirety than the one in Testimonium Flavianum.

The new testament is extra biblical?  Well I'll be.

I must question whether you adequately read this article.  A cursory look above would show you I overlooked nothing, and indeed it is you who seems to have failed to do your research.

You speak of Tacitus and Pliny but clearly you have not read them.  What is interesting is that the way Pliny recounts his persecutions of the Christians in Bithynia c. 110-113 CE.  He never relates any historical information about "Christ" (he does not call him "Jesus" ), and in fact says all he has learned is "depraved, excessive superstition." ("Nihil aliud inveni quam superstitionem pravam et immodicam." Letters 10.96.8 )

Digressing: It is interesting that Pliny considers the practices superstitious here, but he also believes in ghosts and haunted houses!

Back to the subject, I am sure Christians by this period did believe the stories of Matthew and Mark's Gospels, because Tacitus (probably learning his information from Pliny, or perhaps from Christians, or from others recounting what they thought about Christians; although far more likely he learned it from Pliny since they corresponded on everything, such as the Vesuvius eruption) claims that the Christians are followers of one who was killed by a Roman prefect, Pilatus. (It is interesting that around this time, the Christians are saying it was the Jews, but Tacitus—seeming to recount this story as if he heard it from the Gospels—blames Pilatus) But again, I am not suggesting that later Christians didn't believe the Gospel accounts.  Remember that for the Greeks, the Argonautika and the Trojan War were both dateable and understood to be real historical events too.  (The so-called Parian Marble or Marmor Parium) But this is really irrelevant, since nobody is suggesting that later Christians did not believe these things.  They certainly did.  But they didn't always, nor did they from the beginning.

Please go back to the list and read (6) on Josephus.  Read the whole article, and then read the other links I posted below for further reading.  I suggest you go back and read everything, in fact.  Because before you start accusing me of ignoring certain evidences, perhaps you should first do your homework and see if I have addressed them elsewhere. 

That is sort of irrelevant.  Oh noes!  The Homeric Epics have been around for 1200 years orally, and 800 years scripted, before anything ever written in the New Testament!  That must mean it's real, and all the events happened!  The Cyclops lives!  Please.  Could you be any more pathetic? kthxbai

Rook,

Drury,

(1) Get an account.

(2) Learn to use the quote function.

(3) Don't change the color of things it is difficult to read.

(4) Cite your sources or have your post deleted.

(5) Please read the links before assuming things.  I've already addressed everything you said in the original post.

If you've not already, I hope you'll take a look at the work of John M. Allegro en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Allegro

It's been decades since I read his book 'The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross', which makes the extraordinary suggestion that Christianity was originally an Amanita Muscaria-eating cult with roots going all the way back to the earliest-known monotheisms. It sounds dotty at first, but it sure sheds light on the Tree of Knowledge story.

Nor is Prof Allegro the usual green-ink loony, as his biography on Wikiped will show. He bases his strange assertions on a deep knowledge of ancient languages, which gives him a knowledge of the times that often seems to be lost in translation to modern English.

Anyway - good luck with the excellent work.

CD

Wasn't John Allegro one of the committee to translate the Qumran scrolls?

Seems like I remember hearing about him.  He was the one non-religious guy on the panel, and (whether related to that or not) was dismissed?

I have.  I don't buy into his hypothesis.  To me, it takes a lot for granted.

It's actually very dotty.  Especially since early Israelites were not monotheists. 

Not really.  The Tree of Knowledge has roots in the Goddess Asherah-Athirat.  Which dates back to early Canaanite mythology.  She was the consort of El, and in the Israelite pantheon, El-Yahweh.  She has generally been depicted as a tree (not a plant or 'shroom or even a shrub), much like a palm tree.  The symbolism of the tree is also found in Sumerian epics and later Babylonian tablets. 

I don't think he's a loony.  He knows his material.  But I feel he has just made large leaps in logic to fit his hypothesis together.  His conclusions contradict a great deal of evidence and data that we currently have.

I would question how many ancient texts he has actually read.  The Dead Sea Scrolls only represent a small history of semitic language, and certainly that does not give him expertise in cuneiform.  

Thank you!  I hope you continue to hang around and read what I have to say.

The best,

Rook

[MOD EDIT] First, let me state that my article was a well thought out, reasoned FAQ.  I am not happy that not only did you not address a single point, but copy-pasted (without posting a source for it) this tripe without even considering the information and how it relates to this article. Second, you've been taken to task on this message board for being a troll, who basically posts this drivel and leaves.  Hit and run theist.  I will not allow you to derail this thread with this crap.  Take your posts to trollville where they belong. [/END MOD EDIT]

1. I would say,"HAHAHAHA!!! What a lame argument!"

I don't know if you are aware of this, but the heart doesn't think, it doesn't have subjective consciousness. The brain is the root of our subjective consciousness which you are attributing to the heart. When someone gets a heart transplant, and their heart dies, then thats it. Its over. It is the strategy of the non-thinking person to say, "don't look for evidence anywhere, but withing."

This style of argumentation concedes that all evidence refutes your assertion, but the feeling you think you have inside your mythical "heart" outweighs any evidence to the contrary. This is ludicrous. It is an appeal to emotion and a definitive non sequitir. Actually, the most infuriating thing about the lameness of this argument, is that people like yourself actually find it compelling.

Read a book about anatomy, pay special attention to the parts that deal with the heart and the brain. Either reword your language or resolve yourself to the fact that you are deliberately trying to delude yourself. Good Day!

Rook please go and sort out Richard Dawkins , he keeps on saying that Jesus probably existed as a person.

I've no idea if has researched the question I doubt it as its not really his area of expertise but I would love to know where he came to that conclusion from. I would have thought a better answer would have been 'don't know'

Me personally as there is no real evidence whatsoever for the existance of god jesus is a bit irrelevant to anyone but ancient historians

Rook and I have been discussing this a lot lately, and frankly, I'm a little baffled by the staunchness of some non-Christians.  Granted, I'm the farthest thing from an ancient historian.  I don't have the knowledge to say with any authority that I believe there was or wasn't a historical Jesus.  However, I've been lucky enough to have the chance to become a very astute reader and a good critical thinker, and for my life, I can't understand why everyone gets the Jesus question backwards.

It's patently obvious that there are no contemporary records corroborating a historical Jesus.  If we find some, fine, but until then, we have to go with what we have, and that is zero.

The trouble with Jesus is that the religion built up around him (or his legend) has gained so much authority that it seems like a no brainer that there must have been such a person.  However, we can draw parallels that prove this assumption hasty.  Romulus and Remus come to mind.  You don't see historians getting into pissing matches about whether or not they were real.  (At least I've never seen it.)  Romulus was the son of Mars in legend, but there could very well have been a historical figure that the Romulus story was based off of, right?

But people aren't shitting their pants to refute anyone who claims that he might just be a legend.

Some people claim that Jesus mythicists must come up with a plausible alternative to the historical Jesus, and this seems backwards to me.  With all other figures of mythological status, especially in the Greek and Roman pantheons, we assume that they are just myths until we get some indication that  they might have had an actual earthly inspiration.

Dawkins is a very, very intelligent man.  He's also a zoologist.  I take his opinion of the historical Jesus as having the same authority as any other very intelligent person who hasn't spent a lifetime studying the question.  It's a lay opinion.  It's a damn shame that more people don't recognize lay opinions for what they are.  It's also a damn shame that so many experts take so many lay opinions seriously.

For my money, I'm going on the default position that I'll wait for evidence that he might have been real.  Until then, it sounds made up.

Hey you lot at the RRS have all the big wig contacts couldnt you ask Richard Dawkins?

I can think of 3 reasons why he might say jesus existed

1) Politics. He has said Jesus probably existed, if he was to say he probably didnt exist and some new evidence came along to prove he did (a low possibility but not zero) it could undermine the rest of his work. Not an unreasonable position for him to take as a politican (which his role currently is)

2) He has read evidence/consulted with other experts who opinions disagree with Rook. I'm interested to know what this evidence is

3) He hasnt really thought about it or even its the default position he was brought up with (everyone is human even stars of Dr Who)

In "God is not Great", Hitchens concedes that jesus may be modeled on an actual individual, because of the Nazareth connection.  While one would expect the Betlehem and Jerusalem references in order to bear out messianic "prophecies", Hitchens finds the gospel machinations to place jesus in Nazareth unnecessarily awkward for a pure myth.  As I recall, Ahura Mazda used this to argue for a historical jesus in another thread.

Yet regardless of whether jesus is a myth pulled from thin air, or a kludge with a real person at its kernel doesn't change the fact that jesus is irrelevant to history.  While there are several individuals with myths attached to them (such as Alexander or Genghis Khan), their presence in the historical timeline cannot be denied.   jesus, on the other hand, is fully disposable as a historical figure; he might as well as never existed.

I hear this argument a lot.  The problem, of course, is that Jesus had to be of the Nazirites, because of the allusion the author of the Gospel intended to get across. Just as Bethlehem was used, as well as Jerusalem, because of the intertextual connections.  I would say that this is similar, in effect, to Odysseus being from Ithica, or Apollonius being from Tyana, or Paul from Tarsus (although in the last two instances, the characters were probably real people).   Locations of birth and heritage are as dear to myth as those without them. 

Agreed.

That's one of the things that has really nags at me about the Jesus story.  As vehemently as people want to believe in Jesus as a real person, yanking him out of the history books doesn't cause any problems at all.  We certainly can't say the same thing for the other characters people use to compare historicity  (Alexander the Great is a favorite example.   We'd have a lot of 'splaining to do if he wasn't real.)

Since this exchange on James in Josephus has now pretty much run its course(?), I figured I might chime in now without derailing any other exchange.  I'm on the fence myself when it comes to the historicity of Jesus the human being with no special powers, while I don't really credit the notion that a Jesus with special powers ever existed at all.  And I'm impressed with what you've assembled here, having found it quite useful.  Thank you.

The history of the James passage in Josephus is always an intriguing topic, and I was grateful for the chance to follow up with some of the extra links you provide on Josephus (unfortunately, the second of the two links provided after your own take on the Testimonium is no longer operative).  Candidly, in reading the first of those two links and the section there on Origen's take on both Josephus and the fall of Jerusalem, I did become sincerely curious as to your own personal take on the James passage in Josephus.  Please, how do you yourself personally view the James passage in Josephus?  Thanks.

The first article you link to suggests that James in this passage may really have been brother to Jesus son of Damneus, but since this Josephus passage re James does refer (and dismissively?) to James's brother as having been _called_ Christ (thus not really _being_ Christ as seems stated in the more suspicious Testimonium), I'm wondering now if that article's suggestion -- that it's really the son of Damneus's brother here -- totally holds up, since no one (that I know) would probably term the son of Damneus as Christ.  Also, the apparently offhand tone of Josephus writing that the brother has been _termed_ Christ seems more in accord with Josephus elsewhere than with the suspicious Testimonium.  And of course, Origen's reference suggests that this James passage has a longer textual history than the "Johny-come-lately"(?) Testimonium.

Since I'm now having second thoughts about the first article's explanation re Damneus's son, this is what has made me especially curious as to whether or not you yourself have your own specific take on this -- what I sometimes view as the poor cousin -- relatively neglected Josephus passage.

Again, I have no axe to grind here myself beyond incorrigible curiosity about all puzzles like this in general and the plain fact that I'm just an addictive and hopelessly omniverous reader who probably needs therapy on that count  Whether or not Jesus the human being ever existed interests me less, frankly, than do the nuts and bolts of the best arguments, pro and con, which can be made, since they constitute the only interesting reading matter here, IMO.  Hope that doesn't seem too cold-blooded.

BTW, I came across an MP3 of a Bart Ehrman interview where he addresses -- among many other things -- the historicity matter.  I've come to respect him somewhat, since he writes from the standpoint of an agnostic, not a Christian apologist.  So I was wondering re your thoughts on the two sections addressing historicity versus mythicism here: They are at 26:55 - 41:50 and 46:10 - 53:25, and this MP3 is at

http://media.libsyn.com/media/infidelguy/Tape428_bart_ehrman.mp3

Looking forward to your thoughts on all this,

Stone

You're welcome.  I hope you take the time also to visit my book page on the site, and read my online book on the intertextuality of the Gospels, as looked as through the lens of contradictions.  I think it will shed a lot of light on the subject.

You can find that by click here.

How odd.  I'll have to figure out what the problem might be.  Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I would recommend reading my post about it on this site.  Click here.

Well, be careful with that thought.  Remember that "Christ" did not just mean "messiah" - to a Roman or Greek such a term meant only "wetted" or "anointed" and it was the process that every High Priest had to be anointed upon taking office.  Please read my article linked above.

Not really.  Again see my article.  There is sufficient reason to think this passage may have been altered.

We don't necessarily know what Origen is referring to.  All we know is that he says that Josephus didn't consider Jesus the Christ.  We don't even know if such a passage even exists, at all.  It could just as well be Origen referring to the fact that there is no reference to Jesus at all in Josephus.

It isn't as neglected as you think.  I would again refer to my article on it linked above.

Unfortunately I couldn't hear it.  I do not know why but it would not play for me (I tried in flock and in firefox).  In any event, I know all of Ehrman's arguments for historicity and I do not find them convincing.  Ehrman, by the way, is an agnostic-atheist.  I would say that although I have a lot of respect for Bart (he certainly is a top notch historian and textual critic) I do not think he understands the position I hold, nor do a lot of scholars growing up in a post-Bultmannian and post-Albrightian world.  I imagine that will all change with the publication of my two books on the subject.

Thanks for the first link.  I've started reading through the first chapter you now have up on line.  I have to say, though, that I've always taken the Gospels as intended works of fiction anyway, so reading your first chapter was like "preaching to the converted".  I've no doubt the symbolic nature of practically all that you've detected there is quite conscious and a shaping force in all four narratives.  I hope this does not come with a bad grace, but frankly the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Virgin Birth, the water-into-wine stunt -- all the elements plainly concentrated at the beginnings and ends of these narratives and exclusively obsessed over by Paul -- are precisely the elements of these narratives that interest me least.  What interests me far more are what scholars make of the day-to-day activities of this Jesus "feller" as a grown adult before his death (whether of natural causes, crucifixion, hanging on a tree, whatever).  So I'm eagerly awaiting your chapters on the day-to-day activities.

Since the Gospels are plainly works of fiction, and my chief interest is history, I would prefer to concentrate this exchange, if we can, more on the accounts like the Roman ones and so on, outside both the canonical and non-canonical Gospel accounts and outside of any of the canonized works of Scripture.  I know myself too well not to realize that sooner or later your first chapter will bring to mind all sorts of questions from me in a day or two.  But still, the extra accounts outside of the canon and the Gospel tradition remain my chief interest.  Hey, I outgrew fiction way back in college

I read the post you link to showing your exchange with Stephen.  After reading the exchange with him, I perused the two links you give there to

http://rookhawkins.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/josephus-whats-the-deal/

and

http://www.rationalresponders.com/josephus_and_the_testimonium_is_it_evidence_of_jesus

It's a stimulating discussion with Stephen, and I regret that the exchange seems to have dried up(?).  As for the accompanying article at the two additional links (I didn't make a line-by-line textual comparison of the two, but they appear to be entirely identical[?]), it's very thorough and my sincere compliments.

There's one thing you should probably know about me, though: I detest coincidence.  Consequently, although it's not impossible that one possibly fictional pair of brothers, in this case Jesus an elusive teacher and his brother James, would have the same two names as a real High Priest and his brother only a few years further on, it does strike me as fairly unlikely.  True, both Jesus and James are extremely common names of that time, and any High Priest of the time might well have been termed "annointed", but to have the two names in conjunction twice within two different families and in roughly the same generation and in the same geographical area, one of whom would happen to be entitled to an identical honorific, would seem to be stretching it a bit -- IMO, of course.

Generally speaking, I'm always more comfortable applying Occam's Razor in most historical research.  On the one hand, Occam's Razor certainly appears to favor the conclusion that there are just too many suspicious anomalies surrounding the Testimonium for it to possibly come from Josephus' own pen, but on the other, we may be piling up too many hypothetical constructs (and coincidences) to suppose that the James passage really comes from anyone else than Josephus himself or refers to anyone other than the one James/Jesus brother pair we already know.

I'm still open to being convinced otherwise, BTW, but right now, yours does not strike me as a "single" explanation (so to speak).  Unless I can see some argument against this passage's authenticity and/or its application to the one known James/Jesus brother pair in this equation that is not overly dependent on too much hypothesis and coincidence, I have to wonder still how much is wrong in simply supposing that the offhand tone of the passage and the one known James/Jesus brother pair out there already jointly reinforce the conclusion that here we have Josephus himself writing of James the brother of an eccentric teacher, Jesus.  Can we come up with a "single" explanation that would point to any other conclusion?  I'm still sincerely interested in that.  Thanks.  (Incidentally, I remain very curious as to how come Origen even knew that Josephus did not view Jesus as the Christ; that suggests a specific Josephus put-down of such a notion somewhere, and it remains possible that this James passage may be the "father" to Origen's impression.)

There are two possible problems with my Ehrman link that might be capable of a solution.  I myself bypass any browser with a link like this altogether.  Instead, I call up my WINAMP ap and copy/paste the link in there.  Also, since the type set-up here may divide the link into two lines(?), I would take each line separately and paste in each line one after the next to form a whole single line in the URL space provided in WINAMP.  That way, one prevents corruption of the link with an additional space between the two lines or (especially aggravating) a failure of the second line to paste altogether!  I don't view myself as a high-power techie, so my description of these things can be clunky in the extreme.  Regrets for that.

Best,

Stone

Before responding, Stone, I would really appreciate it if you could get an account on here.  Unfortunately, every time I want to reply to you, I have to go through the added trouble of copying your post and pasting it into a new reply screen, because without an account (and because you’re posting as anonymous) it does not allow me to quote your post directly, saving me time.  It would really help me if you could do this.  It’s free.

Where do you suppose there are “day-to-day” activities in the Gospels?  If they are fictions, as you admit, what makes you believe that Jesus throwing over the tables at the temple or Jesus discussing philosophy with his disciples is any different than the resurrection and birth narratives?  Do they not all serve a purpose in the narrative?  Are they not all created using the same thread?  How would you even know if this weren’t the case?  I would be careful falling into this trap that too many good scholars do – they assume that somewhere in the text is an inkling of historical truth.  Eissfeldt and Bultmann thought this, but their examples have fallen apart when examined from a perspective of the literary historian.   

Do you believe that authors of antiquity made such a distinction?

So you believe the Roman “whimsical” mentions of Jesus reflect history?  Do you feel that Tacitus or Suetonius were concerned with such things all the time? 

Why would you think that the apocrypha are any less fictional?  They are cut from the same cloth.  Just because they are noncanonical does not make them more true just as the synoptic tradition doesn’t make the events more true (or in this case more fictional).  Fiction is fiction.  Fiction with a different title, or fiction with a different author, does not change the fact that ultimately it is fiction.

I have to wonder if you have been reading too much of Bart Ehrman.  Again, while I respect him, he has flaws in his presuppositions (this is one of those presuppositions).  Scholars realize the lack of evidence for Christian (and Jesus) origins, so they use what they have.  The problem is that you cannot use text to validate text.  Even if (by some stretch of the imagination) the noncanonical works and the extra biblical “sources” for a historical Jesus were authentic and represented historical information, how would you go about separating (as Bultmann called it – demythologizing) the fact from fiction?  What would make the infancy narrative of Jesus’ life any more historical than the triumphant entry into Jerusalem in the synoptic tradition?  How would you even go about proving the historicity of the triumphal entry? 

Not believing in it and understanding it are two separate things.  You can outgrow belief, but you should never outgrow understanding.  (Or rather, the will to want to understand.)

Thank you. 

You know from reading my work that I always tell people that correlation does not equal causation.

You are making the mistake of assuming the case in point.  You have not shown Jesus to have existed historically.  You have not shown that he really had a brother Jesus (all accounts, canonical or otherwise, differ in opinion to James’ role – in many accounts, Jesus’ brother is never named – in Paul, James is not Jesus’ physical brother – but a “brother in Christ” as Paul is a brother to Jesus).  You are making a false correlation here.  You assume James was the brother of Jesus because you are misreading the context of another work of literature.  You are not the only person to make this mistake.

You need to remove yourself from some presuppositions I think.  It is understandable that you carry some – we were all raised with the false conclusion that Jesus had to have existed – it is in our society to think like that as it was in German society in the early twentieth century to think that all Jews were bad people.  Presuppositions are horrid things that cloud our judgments and are often hard to recognize. 

Be careful.  I never suggested there was a single explanation.  Motivations behind literature are often elusive on the surface, and generally there are more than one.

Where does Josephus refer to an eccentric teacher?  “brother of Jesus who was called Christ” does not reveal a single instance of information.  You are making a correlation yourself here that is false and without substance.  This is the problem with assuming historicity.

Second, even if this passage were authentic, and Josephus (not a contemporary, and somebody who wrote miles away in Rome before the turn of the second century) did somehow have knowledge of a story about this figure Jesus, we would still only have a non-contemporary recording a rumor.  Josephus would not be a source for a historical Jesus any more than Livy is a source for a historical Romulus.  You are completely ignoring the eponymous value of figures in antique literature.

Yes, several.

Read my blog articles.  I suspect that if you spend a few hours reading them through you will have an explanation that is more probable than the one you are giving here.

Or, Origen did not see any mention in Josephus, which might have sparked the comment.  You cannot say with any certainty, and neither can I.  He is somewhat elusive on this point.

It matters little.  Ehrman does not have enough insight into my position to correctly critique it anyway.  I, however, am very aware of his. 

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offence at him."

This Mark passage is in both the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus mss., the earliest known mss. of Mark.

As for Galatians, one critical text, 1:18-19, runs as follows:

"Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days; ¹⁹but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother."

It would be odd for Paul, in this context, to fail to call either Cephas or any other apostle here a brother but to still turn around and call James one, unless James's implicit tie to Jesus here is a blood tie.

The reason why I put "single" in quotes is because I didn't mean it the way you think.  I mean an explanation that is not dependent on too many suppositions -- in other words, one that abides by Occam's Razor.  So some other explanation would be "single" in that it woud be dependent on, at most, one supposition, if that, rather than several.  What disconcerts me here is an uneasy reliance on multiple hypotheses and coincidences: that there is another James/Jesus pair in real life, that one of them is entitled to the identical honorific as the Jesus in some fairy tale(?), and/or that the one so entitled just happens to be the Jesus half of the brother pair rather than the James half.  I'd like to see some other -- "single" -- argument made instead against the conclusion that the offhand tone of the passage and the one known James/Jesus brother pair out there together reinforce the probability of Josephus's merely writing here of that one known James who had that one known brother Jesus.

I wasn't quoting anyone.  I was simply coining the "eccentric" etc. turn of phrase myself in order to make my own distinction between the Jesus who appears in the Gospels and the Jesus who is son of Damneus.

Two related points: Livy is writing about something that happened hundreds of years before, whereas the events in Josephus only happened the previous generation; and we're discussing here a reference to one James in a tale where James isn't even the hero; Ananus is.  Livy glorifies Romulus to a fare-thee-well, but Josephus doesn't even break a sweat over James.  James is an incidental detail in a story about citizens' outrage over Ananus's Draconian behavior.  I don't think the two cases are comparable, frankly.

I also have the uneasy feeling that dismissing this as just a rumor may be an argument from convenience(?).  This James account does not square with certain other conclusions now reached with absolute certitude, and so one just dismisses it as rumor?  If there was the same dubious textual history here as in the Testimonium, I could very well see why.  But this dismissal does not seem to be a case of clear textual history leading one ineluctably to a certain conclusion.  Instead it may be a case of an arbitrary conclusion leading to an arbitrary dismissal regardless of the textual history being far less troubling here than in the Testimonium.  I'm just guessing that stronger and less arbitrary thought than this could be brought to bear on questioning if the James here is the same brother James who appears in Mark 6 and Galatians 1.

I remain more than ready to peruse each and every one.  I'm still on the fence as to whether or not Jesus is historical.

Candidly, I haven't come across anything more detailed than your arguments relative to the son of Damneus, and I have browsed through much of the site.  Please, if you would, could you either present me with some of those other arguments or provide links to some of them?  Thanks.  I do think that once/if this James passage is effectively debunked, some of the hardest work is done.

But I'm still not clear on how else Origen could have known that Josephus pooh-poohed the "Christ" title?  Please?

Thanks,

Stone

Stone,

Thank you so much for responding.  And I see you have an account now!  Excellent!  I appreciate you doing that.

I agree to some extent.  I am not so brash as to say there is absolutely no way at all possible that a man named Jesus existed - my argument is that the Gospels relay absolutely no historical memory about any historical person.  That is my certainty.  What this certainty tells me is that it is less probable for the existence of a historical Jesus than it is for his existence.  The authors clearly did not concern themselves with such questions.

Yet these are linked.  His arguments on the street are linked and interwoven with the multiplication of the loaves.  Consider:  The multiplication of the loaves is an allusion to Elijah, who multiplied the yeast and the oil in the lamps in in the book of Kings.  When Jesus is arguing on the streets, the author is alluding to something as well.  Take for example his discussion and teachings in Luke 10 with the Lawyer:

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.' Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."

On the surface it seems like an ordinary tale, but what is happening here is anything but ordinary.  You, as the reader, are "presented with structure, balance, clarity, and instruction by way of an elaborate rhetorical use of double questions, double textual citations, multiple double exhortations, textual hendiadys, left and right." (Gary A. Phillips, "What is Written? How are you reading?" Gospel, Intertextuality and Doing Lukewise: Reading Lk 10:25-42 Otherwise, Intertextuality and the Bible, SBL Semeia 69/70. pp. 114-115)  What does Phillips mean?  Luke is not recounting this from history, he has created this scene using allusion to create plot.  Luke is interpreting scripture.  He actually tells us this in the passage, "How do you read it?"  Jesus is "opening their hearts to the scriptures" (Luke 24).  He is telling us, in effect, how we should be reading it.  It is not an address to the Lawyer - Luke uses the lawyer, an interpreter of the law, as a way to expose our weaknesses and our failures at interpreting it by besting the lawyer.  By exposing the lawyer he exposes how we not only read the passage but his whole Gospel.  And Luke is not the only one to do it.

This narrative, the lawyer, is followed by another seemingly ordinary conversation - with Mary and Martha.  Once more Jesus is called to play a rule in Luke's narrative that will test our understanding of Jewish law.   How ironic it is (or is it?) that both of these womens name serve what their role is at this point in the narrative.  Mary, the one who seems to disobey the sister, means "rebellious" and Martha, who is serving Jesus, which means "mistress".   Luke is setting the scene for the teaching to follow.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38-42)

Jesus once again teaches us a lesson, or is it Luke?  Mary is troubling over things that are not important.  "Mary has chosen a good portion," she has chosen what to be worried about.  Her faith and God's kingdom are more important things to concern herself with than what Martha has been toiling over, that is, serving a holy man.  This is two of those "day-to-day", quotidian scenes, but what we find are that they are constructed.  Martha just "happened" to say that and the Lawyer just "happened" to say ask this question...both of which correspond with Luke's overall message and his overall question to us..."How are you reading?" 

That does not mean anything to me.  The differences in refinement and linguistic style only mean different authors from a different background with different teachers during their times at Gymnasium wrote different Gospel accounts.  It tells me they had different intentions.  It strengthens the point that these authors did not all see things the same way, which is why there are so many Gospels (not just the four canonical ones, as you will agree with me on).  The canonical Gospels are a part of the same tradition however.  I'm sure if we ever found a Greek copy of some of the Coptic Gospels we have, we would see variations in refinement and in colloquial language where they share common themes and topoi with the canonical ones. 

I'm bothered by the fact that you seem to only think that the fringe parts of the text are altered while the core remains intact.  Such is not the case.  If you read the Gospels side by side, you will note distinct chronological differences, new "teaching" scenes, similar "teaching" scenes (which you think are evidence of historicity that added and dropped by authors' whims) retold differently to reflect a new trope or moral.  The most common example of these teachings scenes that are changed is the fig tree.

In Mark, the story is simple.  Jesus curses the fig tree in Mark 11:12-14.  Note there is no triumphal entry following this scene (it happened in the previous scene).   On their way out of the city in a separate incident and time, the tree is withered (Mark 11:20-25).  In Matthew, the scene is adjusted.  Matthew had the triumphal entry, then the cleansing of the temple, and then introduces the fig tree in one incident.  Jesus goes to the fig tree, sees it lacks fruit and withers it immediately.   Matthew follows up his fig tree incident with Jesus having his authority questioned.  In the Markan narrative,  Jesus' authority is questioned prior to the fig tree withering (or at least prior to notice).  

Why did this happen?  After the triumphal entry, Jesus in Mark goes to Bethany to spend the night, along with the disciples, and outside of Bethany Jesus finds the tree fruitless and curses it.  Jesus then goes back into Jerusalem and overthrows the tables outside the temple.  Mark has Jesus and his disciples leave the city after the incident at the temple.  The next morning, walking around outside Bethany as before, they saw the tree withered.  In Matthew, however, Jesus does not go back to Bethany the night of the Triumphal entry, but goes immediately to the money changers at the Temple area following his entry.  It is only after the priests think of ways to kill Jesus that Jesus runs to Bethany, and Mark fits the two Bethany stories in Mark together into one part of his narrative, shortening the narrative in this area and removing what he saw as a needless flight to Bethany following the entry. 

Luke omits the fig tree entirely from his narrative, but in place of it he has Jesus tell a parable.  This happens not during Jesus' initial entry into Jerusalem, but much earlier in the narrative.  "And he told them this parable, 'There was once a person who had a fig tree...".  Luke is alluding to the event in Mark and in Matthew, but he recognized the narratives as moral teachings.  In Mark and Matthew, the teaching is relatively the same.  God will call to man to have faith.  The barren tree represents the fact that God will come when he is ready, even out of season.  If a person is without faith, they will be no more.  Only those who bear fruit (have faith) all the time can be ready for God's call.  Luke does not agree.  He cleverly changes it so that it is not Jesus who withers the fig tree, but rather in a parable the owner seeks to cut it down as for three years the tree has not produced fruit (in or out of season).  A servant stops him, "it may bear fruit in the future."  Luke is saying that God will continue to give chances to those who lack faith and not curse them outright for their lack of it.  Luke shows intent with altering the narrative.  He changes the event into a saying.  

The point here is that this happens all the time.  In every instance the narrative is adjusted.  The author, not a historical event or person, is writing this story.  It is their intent, not history, that produced the Gospels.

This is your own presuppositions working, determining how you interpret the text you read.  "How are you reading?"

Which also exists because people took Jesus as historical.

To me this also means nothing.  I am not G.A. Wells.  I am Rook Hawkins.  I do not see things as he does, nor do I know his reasons.  If he has unearthed elements of historicity he has failed to share them with us.  He does not explain where he got his conclusions.  Richard Carrier and I once thought the Gospels contained historical truths as well, but we were lead in this direction.  The problem with earlier mythicists is that many relied on poor scholarship to create conclusions, and when these positions were destroyed by other secular scholars, many lost their hold on mythicism.  I do not hold to that bad scholarship.  I am using what has been the consensus in scholarship for at least ten years and applying these modern methods to the Gospels to come to my conclusions.  That makes them stronger than any position that has been made previously as far as I am aware.  And nobody has been able to adequately present me with a case otherwise.  Save for speculation, as you have done.  But that is to be expected.  So much of historical Jesus scholarship is based on conjecture and speculation.

Pliny wasn't a historian.  In fact there were two Pliny's (the Elder and the Younger - I assume you are referring to the Younger?).  Pliny only wrote letters, and his letters are full of conjecture, speculation and rumor.  One incident in particular, a ghost story, which is clearly a story borrowed from elsewhere, proves he was not even removed from literary borrowing and imitation, even in something as simple as a letter.  And Pliny never says once that Jesus was a man but a God.  In fact, not even the Christians Pliny tortures ever seems to say that Jesus was killed by Pilate - at least Pliny never once indicates this and you would think such an implication would be important in a letter to the Emperor.  "Hey boss, we killed these guys leader..." should have come up somewhere.  Ironically, it doesn't.  Jesus only ever appears as a God to these Christians.  Which, by the way, clearly existed - I would not suggest Christians didn't exist.  That doesn't mean that Christ did.  Savvy?

Nobody saw anything.  There are no contemporary accounts of Jesus.  Pliny does not even speak factually of himself at all times.   Tacitus recounts a tale of Moses and the Jews that clearly is rumor not record, even though he had access to documents from Jewish leaders which would have contained Exodus.  Josephus invents things wholly from scripture as well, such as the intervention of God who stopped Alexander the Great from destroying Jerusalem - but Alexander the Great never approached Jerusalem, and the high priest (Jaddus, from the Hebrew yada-"knowing&quot, he discusses in the story was an invention of his own.

But not even the one letter from Pliny we have that discusses Jesus suggests that Jesus is a historical person.  This should raise flags.

Why?  We know Christians vigorously edited Josephus.  Have you seen translations of the Slavic versions where Jesus is edited into places he isn't in the Greek?  Christians actually put mentions of him in his Wars!  Clearly the same was done here.

You apparently never read Josephus and no authority on Josephus would agree that Josephus is any less (actually he is more) flamboyant than Suetonius.  Josephus creates things, often from scripture, which never happened.  He alters scripture and uses imitatio to create allusions the same way the Gospel authors do.  Even Josephus' account of the war he was in is not often trustworthy, he often exaggerates numbers and deflates things to his advantage.   He even TELLS us this in his introduction.  He tells us that he is writing with the hope that his histories will be accepted by the Greeks and Romans.  He is writing with the intent to corrupt his histories to better influence these cultures. 

I would say everything written in antiquity is disputable to some degree or another.  Nothing should be accepted simply because one believes the accounts to be reliable - such naivety will not bring answers only speculations.

Once more, you show an ignorance of Josephan literature.  He is wholly unreliable as a source generally.

Clearly all of the apocryphal literature we have was holy writ to somebody. 

Not true at all.  All claims involving the character of Jesus are made with supernaturalism.  Hence why Tacitus calls it superstition.  This is why Pliny says the Christians considered him God, Suetonius does not mention Jesus. 

What are you talking about?

Forgive me, but this conclusion is irrationally drawn.  How can you even begin to make such a claim? 

Based on what?  The entry into Jerusalem as shown is clearly fictitious.  It was created using scenes from Zechariah 9:9 and from 2 Samuel.  Both accounts are interpreted scripture.  The entry of Jesus is the entry of David, both triumphantly returning from "exile".  Both stories involve a prayer at the Mount of Olives, both stories end with a crucifixion (to be hung on a tree - in the Gospels it is Jesus and Judas, in 2 Samuel it is Absalom - the false messiah).  There is no history here as there is no history in the birth narratives.  Both represent key parts of the plot, which the author devised before putting it to paper.

Well, d'uh. (forgive me) The story first appears in Mark; Matthew, Luke, and John copied it and rewrote it to fit their stories, just as they did with every other part of Mark, adding to it and adjusting it to fit their particular perspectives.  This is why so many contradictions exist between the narratives.   They were intentionally contradicting an earlier Gospel based on what they felt.

Jesus is never said to be crucified in Josephus' James passage.  In fact, there is no mention that Jesus died at all in the James passage.  He is not even talked about in the past tense.  If you mean James, you'll have to show me this is the case. 

You will have to explain your meaning more clearly here.  Are you suggesting James died the same way as he did somewhere in the New Testament?  Where?!  if Jesus, you're going to have to show me where in the James passage it suggests that Jesus died.

I've already told you, James is not the physical brother of Jesus in Galatians.  He is a brother in Christ, as Paul is a brother in Christ.  Read my "On Paul and Identity" article for more information which can be found on my blog page here.  Please stop making me repeat myself.  I really enjoy our conversations, but having to repeat myself makes me annoyed and frustrates me.

Once more this is added with purpose.  Note how his "brothers" are named here?  Now read the ending of Mark.  His mother Mary is not the one weeping at his death nor visiting the tomb the next day to mourn.  It is another Mary who fills this spot (just as another Joseph - not his father Joseph - does the fatherly thing and buries Jesus), a Mary who has two sons, James and Salome (lit. peace).  Mark is switching things up for us, as he has elsewhere.  Simon Peter, who Jesus demands to pick up his cross and follow him, is not the one who carries his Cross - it is Simon of Cyrene, who does instead.  The link Mark makes early in his Gospel all have means to come around and be explained later.  It was imperative for Mark to make note of Jesus' brothers because he would defy our expectations later by having two other brothers from a different Mary come from nowhere later. 

See above.

Wrong. So far all of your criticisms are speculative and unsupported.  Why make a position against mine with so whimsical a case?  In this instance, for example, you claim Paul does not make the relation to Cephas as a brother.  Paul does not deem Cephas an apostle.  He makes it known straightaway that "but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother" - James is an Apostle - worthy of the title brother.  Cephas may not have been an Apostle to Paul, and therefore not a part of the brethren.  Maybe Cephas was a friend of Paul's from before Paul became a Christian?  You cannot make this case because your case is not supported by anything.  Mine, however, is.  

Concerning the brothers of the Lord, it is a common title, not a designation of actual bloodly ties.  The Greek adelphe and adelphon are figurative for brother and sister.  In early Christendom it was common for Christians to call each other “brother” and “sister”. (1 Cor. 1:1, where he states that Sosthenes is “our brother;” 1 Cor. 1:10 states “I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…;” Galatians 1:2, “…and all of the brothers who are with me…&rdquo  The verse before 1 Cor. 9:5 is Paul discussing marriage between Christian sisters (adelphe) and brethren (adelphon). 

You shouldn't do that, it muddies the water.  There is a clear distinction between the two anyway - the only similarity is the mention of "Christ".  That is the only joining factor between the two Jesus' aside from the commonality of the name 'Jesus'.

It doesn't matter - the style in which they are written reflect a similar genre.  THAT is my point.  It doesn't matter if Josephus is recounting an event ten years earlier.  The manner and style are the same.

Clearly there is something there, as Josephus writes that the people despised Ananus for doing what he did, and was removed from his position after.  James is clearly the protagonist in the narrative.

That belays your ignorance of ancient literature.

But there is.  It does have a dubious textual history.

I've already given them.  You have yet to adequately address them.  Read my blog for more articles.  There are many there.

No.  All you would have is a first century-second century Jew writing about a literary character.  You are using text to prove text.  This is, once more, no different than using Livy to prove Romulus.  It is the same method, whether it represents different eras or not.

He never says anything more than that about Jesus.  Origins interest was elsewhere.  As I have described in my article.

Just so I understand:  Are you saying that the reference to jesus as "a Nazarene" is a different form of "Nazirite", and not "a person from Nazareth"?  I ask this now since I've just listened to an Infidel Guy interview with Rene Salm, who claims that based on archaeology, the city of Nazareth didn't even exist at the time jesus was supposed to have lived.

People are welcome to accept Rene Salm's conclusions, but I do not.  I think it is a travesty that he would not publish his findings in an academic journal or through an academic series.  At the very least he could have gone to an academic publisher like Equinox or T&T.  He has remained outside of scholarship, and for that he has earned my suspicion.  I have his 6 pamplets he published through American Atheist press, and while he can make compelling points, they remain outside scholarship and as such do nothing but gather dust.  The subject is never discussed openly and therefore no scholarly debate can take place.

Aside from this, I don't doubt the existence of Nazareth - at the very least i could say I'm agnostic on it until somebody can publish an article academically arguing for its nonexistence.  However, that doesn't mean that Nazareth was *not* used for this very reason.  And yes, Nazirite and Nazareth have the same root - nazar meaning 'seperate'.  When Jesus is rejected at Nazareth, this is not just a coincidence - he is seperated from the seperate.  Just as Mary Magdalene is not "Mary from Magdalla" - her name has meaning.  She is the "Rebellious Tower". 

Note: Nazar can also be read as "consecrated" and in that case it would have a whole new interpretation for Jesus and also David.  Those who are of the nazar - the consecrated - kingly. 

Rook I agree with your assessment. Your book should be interesting.

A book is already out by Rook.

In other words, Rook's book written in the nook can be given a look or bought and took from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Men-Muses-Thomas-Verenna/dp/055707312X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272928772&sr=8-1