[roman]

ALB, if you really want to learn about textual criticism, go to a University, or Seminary Library, and look up some textual criticism on Paul's Epistles, you don't go to the daily mail writing about a guy who looked at one codex … these silly news stories are plenty and cheap, go to real scholarship.

[roman]

ALB wrote:

I fail to see why analysis of the texts has become outdated unless of course there has been some further tampering with them by christian pious fraudsters, that is.Ok, I was wrong about Jesus being supposed to have been born in Nazareth: according to the myth, he was only supposed to have been brought up there.You may not be able to confuse "Nazarite" and "Nazarene" (but I see you introduce a third variant "Nazarean", presumably to avoid this) but those who wrote the "gospels" were and so were some of their translators. According to JM Robertson's ancient work, one uses "Nazarene" (Mark), another "Nazarite" (John), a third both (Luke) (he must be refrring to early, un-redacted versions). I must confess I'm confused too. I think "Nazarite" is supposed to refer to a Jewish sect (or monastic movement), "Nazarene" to someone from Nazareth (your "Nazarean")? Apparently,  references to either of them in the early original  versions have been changed in Latin and Greek to be "Nazarene" and translated as "of Nazareth".With all your vast knowledge of the matter can you confirm this?

It would be updated because of further work, new archeological finds, new texts, new work on textual criticism, new sociological theories and exegetical methods, as well as advances in linguistics, and knowledge of oral societies and so on. In physics it's not like Einstein had more data than past physicists, it's that there was more work done and more analysis, in NT and early Christianity studies there ARE more data and more work done.The is no historical data about Jesus' birth, matthew and Luke record two different traditions about Jesus being born in bethleham, and they are likely based on an oral tradition, but most scholars see that as not being historically reliable, I tend to agree.Jesus was a Nazarene, meaning from Nazareth, we can only assume he was born there also.Nazarite IS a monastic movement in Judaism, a quite old one, you see it laid out in Numbers 6. (Nazirite) (it's not transliterated in the LXX, it's just rendered as "he who vows").Nazarene almost alwasy refers to the place, a person from Nazareth, it's spelled slightly different in different places (Mark uses forms of Nazarene, Matthew and Luke uses Nozorene, I don't think John ever uses Nazarite … Although many have argued that John the Baptist was a nazirite, even though the word isn't used.The reason the spelling is different is becuase of different sources being used, also it wasn't a greek word, they were transliterating a semetic word, when you do that you're going to get different spellings. But they always refer to the place.The one place it get's a little sketchy is Matthew 2:23 where Jesus being from Nazareth is tied to some prophesy to him being called a "Nazorean" … there is no such prophesy, However what Matthew is probably doing is wordplay using the Hebrew term "sprout" (which in Hebrew can sound rather like Nazori") in Isaiah 11:1 – this fits with Matthews overall picture of Jesus, especially in the introduction of Mattthew, of making Jesus the New King David, or the ultimate King David.The fact that Matthew is spinning the fact that he is from Nazareth to try and fit some kind of prophesy, resorting to word play to make it fit, is pretty damn good evidence that he was actually from there,.As far as the "unredacted" version, the Nestle Alaand is THE critical text, that's basically 99% of the original text, textual critical work has been done a ton on the NT, and very little is disputed. Unless you're talking about the pre-gospel sources, (Q, special M, Special L, signs gospel and so on) which are all hypothetical reconstructions based on the critical text.But there is no "un-redacted" version, other than the actual critical text.

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

There is a new Bible which tries to correct and re insert the interpolation made in the Bible, wrong translation. It is known as the New Israelite Nazarean Bible. The writer worked for 30 years using the original documents ( Masoretic )  and it shows all the lies and interpolation that were inserted in the Bible. The New Testament is called Nazareans scriptures. It is going to create a lot of fight among the Christians sects and God is called as Adonai

EVERY OT translation uses the Masoratic text as a base (except for the ones based on the LXX, some catholic and orthodox translations).

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

The name of Nazareth is not mentioned after the firs centry,,  it was not mentioned in the first century ( an arbitrary date adopted by a Cardinal ) that area was used as a cemetery for the peoples that were killed by the Roman in the wars against Japha, and that historical passage has been mentioned by Josephus.The Old Testament and Josue do not mention the existence of Nazareth, and of the tribes of Israel should have been established in that are and Josue does not mention that place, he mentions twelve places but Nazareth is not mentioned.The Talmud one of the oldest rabbinic document does not mention the city of Nazareth, and the so called Apostle of the Gentiles known as Paul does not mention it either.The city does not appear on any map of that time and it is not mentioned by any Geographer.There is a city known as Sepphoris where they always find archaeological pieces of evidence and it is located near Nazareth and it was never mentioned in the Bible.The name Nazareth is a wrong translation of the word Nazareans. According to the mythology, or the prophecy, Jesus was born in Belen Euphrates, and Mark contradicts the Bible. This thing about Jesus is a real mess

The Talmud is from the 6th century. The mishnah from the second.What "maps" of palestine from the first century exist?the OT documents were done being written centuries before jesus. Josephus didn't mention it becuase why would he? it's a tiny hamlet.Acheological diggings have found that there WAS a town there in the first century.Nazareans is taken from Nazareth."the bible" isn't a document.

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

Tarsus in Cilica was located in Turkey I did not know that the Hebrew were from Turkey unless you are following the theory of the Jews ovaries, who ever is born from a Jew is a Jew. It is the same case of myth of  Moses,  in the Bible says that he was stepping in holy ground, and he was in Egypt, ( Sinai mount )  therefore, the holy land is Egypt instead of Canaan or Palestine, and we know that Palestine is a subdivision of the Ottoman empire

Yes, Paul was a diaspora Jew … that was a historical category.

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

Therefore, you are contradicting the Bible because it said that he was educated by Gamaliel, ( a Pharisee )  and there is not any evidence that Paul was educated by the Apostles, unless he was able to have speak with ghosts, and spirits,  because they never existed either, the twelve apostles were taken from the Zodiac, there are Christian historians who have said that he never met with  the so called  apostles of Jesus and that Christian is contradicting the claim made by the Jehovah witnessess. Your sources are not definitive because one Christian source contradicts the others sources. The whole thing about Christianity is full of distortions and contradictions like the Bible itself,  and they are very ambiguous, it is a  real mess and lie prevail. The Bible contains more than two thousands contradictionsI did not say that the concept of resurrection did not exist before that ( you are misreading the idea or to desperate in your conclusions ) the concept was inserted in the so called Christianity, and in that time the whole world believed in reincarnation including many Hebrew who copied the same concept from the Babylonian and the Egyptians, and the concept was Jehovah was also copied from the Babylonians. The Christians from Rome did not believe in the resurrection because they copied their conceptions from the Egyptians and the Egyptian never supported the concept of ressurrection.You ask me to read one or two sources, and I can ask you  to read hundred of sources who will negate your allegations

I don't care what I'm contradicting, I care about historical research.he was educated by Gamaliel … and he also (later) meet with the apostles to have discussison and recive traditions. You claim the apostles were taken from the Zodiac … evidence? That there was a group of 12 people is multiply attested, as is the fact that Paul met them The fact that sources contradict each other in other things doesn't say ANYTHING about the historicity of what is being described … what it says is that they were not relying on each other as a source. EVERY historical account that is attested in mroe than one source will have discrepencies in those sources …The WHOLE WORLD believed in reincarnation??? really?I read ACTUAL scholarship, it seams like you're just reading conspirasy theories.If you're pissed at religion that's fine, but don't pretend you're doing actual history.

[roman]

ALB wrote:

I wasn't arguing that the hypothesis in Rene Salm's book that the village of Nazareth didn't exist at the time the Jesus was supposed to have been born was valid, but merely that it was further evidence of a controversy on the subject of Jesus and Nazareth.  I agree that the non-existence of Nazareth would not demonstrate the non-existence of Jesus.When I said that this was the subject of controversy over a hundred years ago I was referring to a 7-page long passage in J. M. Roberston's Christianity and Mythology. The first edition was published in 1900. I read some time ago the second, 1910 edition and have just re-read the passage.It's a detailed discussion of the difference, in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic,  between the terms for "Nazarite" and "Nazarene".  His view is that the Jesus was originally regarded as a member of the "Nazarite" Jewish sect and that later christians wanted to dissociate themselves from this (and Judaism) and so turned the "Nazar" references to references to his place of birth instead.  The Nazarites, apparently, derived their name from a passage in Isaiah in the "Old Testament" which prophesised that the Messiah would come from a branch (Hebrew "nazir") of the descendants of King David (which of course the "New Testament" tries to make out that their Jesus was). So, whether or not the village of Nazareth existed at the time, the Jesus would not have been born there (had he been born, that is). Roberston's discussion of the question can be found on pages 311-318 here.Incidentally, Robertson mentions in a footnote that

Quote:

It has been several times been urged that there is no trace outside the gospels and the Acts of such a place as Nazareth in the accepted Jesuine period.

So Salm's hypothesis is not new either.

I would update yourself on the scholarship, many new findings and research have been done in the last 50 years; scholarship from the 19th century and early 20th century is kind of out of date.In Greek, Nazarite, and Nazarene are very difficult to confuse. The Nazarites are mentioned in the mosaic law, and are not a sect of Judaism, but a kind of monastic movement within it.In the New Testament, Matthwe and Luke weave accounts to say he WASN'T born in Nazareth but rather Bethleham … due to a prophsey … why? Because he was actually FROM nazareth.But again, I would read more recent scholarship.

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

The first conspiracy theory is Jesus, his apostles, Paul and Christianity and you are defending those conceptions, so who is the real conspirator? Of course everything in regard to Jesus must be considered as a conspiracy theory, because it is a  lie who has been spread more than 2000 years in the minds of many human beings, and it is a business who have produced billions of dollars to the religious leaders, and it has been used by slavery, feudalism and capitalism to spread their own economical interests. Christianity is the religion of the liarsMost of the so called scholars that you are citing they are defenders of the Bible and the myth of Jesus, and the whole bible is just a collection of myth and fantasies and a load of craps. It does not matter if it is called a collections of books, a little book,  or a book, that is pure semanticChristianity was not born in the Middle East, it was born in Rome and it was an anti-slavery movement, copied from others mythologies, even more, in Rome it used  to be called The Sect, because there were too many Christians sects,  the so called Jesus never walked in the Middle East and he never was in the places that are mentioned in the New Testament, it is all lies.  The founders of the  catholic church who turned it into a mystic idea, and tried to attach to the New Testament, are the one making the claim of the existence of Jesus and the sainthood of a crook known as Paul,  and then the Protestants who are the band boys of the Catholic church continue spreading the same liesMany of those scholars have also said that civilization started with Christianity, it is like saying that there was no civilization before that, and I have others sources like the historians Jennings who has written that there is only one civilization which is the one which started in Africa thousands of years ago. They should have said that the idea of Christ is the inheritance of several myths from different places including Iran, Babylon and the Egyptian, Jesus did not exist as a person, but it existed as a mythologyIn Israel they are always finding archaeological  stuffs to prove their lies too, ( and other archaeologists indicate later on that they are false ) that they are the chosen of God, and that salvation will come thru them, but old documents have proven that the Egyptian said before them that salvation was coming from the Egyptians, they copied this ideas from the Egyptian, as well, the Psalms are verses from the Egyptians, and the so called book of Moises ( a person who never existed either ) is a copy of the book of the dead. They are some scholars in Israel who have discovered that the  Exodus never existed. it is also a fantasy.Jew is not a nationality or an ethnic group it is the person who professes a religion known as Judaism, and they have to say that Paul was a Hebrew because they had to tie Jesus with Judaism, and proselyte was a person who converts himself to Judaism, as well, there were many Ethiopians who were proselyte. Human being has created more than 2500 gods and thousands of religions, and Judaism is not the exclusivity of the universe, it is a pageant religion like Christianity , Voodoo, and witchcraft

You sound like one of those climat-change deniers that say stuff like "all those scientists are lying and paid for" … and then start saying stuff that these scholars supposedly said without giving any examples … you haven't read the material, nor are you giving any arguments, just spouting conspiracy theories.Again, "the bible" is NOT a historical document, it's a collection of many historical documents.Anyway, there's nothing actually here for me to argue, it's just silly conspiracy theories that have no historical basis whatsoever mixing in with anti-religous ranting, which has nothing to do with historical research.

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth

During the biblical time that city did not exist, it was a cemetery, there was a religious sect known as the Nazarenes. Wikipedia is written by peoples who support the mythology of Jesus and they are based on The Bible. The city is not mentioned in the Old Testament and the Talmud, and Josephus does not mention it either.  This is the real history of the city of Nazareth, and Jesus was not born in Israel or Palestine, the mythology comes from Egypt, and he never walked on the city and places mentioned in the Greek writings. The city is not mentioned on the MasoreticIf the Bible  is correct,  the Homeric mythology is correct too, we can worship Zeus and all his beautiful  women, and we can also believe the mythology of the Book of the dead

Narzareth did exist at that time, and Archeologists have found coins dating to that era, strucrtures, pottery, etc. etc., the archeology is pretty much set here, no one in modern archeology/near eastern ancient history believes that Nazareth wasn't around in the first century, becuase archeologists have found a ton of artifacts dating from the early first century.https://ehrmanblog.org/did-nazareth-exist/I don't know what "if the bible is correct" means, the bible isn't a book, it's a collection of different books of different genres.

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

The real Nazarenes were the Essenians. They were mentioned by Josephus, and the Rosicrucians, they are not mentioned in the Bible because they were enemies of the Sanhedrin, and Paul was a Pharisee educated by Gamaliel,He was the person who introduced the concept of resurrection, ( the others members of the religious sects believed in the reincarnation like the Essenians ) and he was not the person presented in the New Testament, he was one the biggest liar and crook who has ever  existed in the religious world,  He was not a Hebrew, he was a Syrian, converted to Judaism( proselyte ). he was part of the Herodian family, and Herodian Prince, and he was decapitated ( like a Roman )  because he was one of the participants of the burning of RomeChristianity should be called Paulism, although he did not write many of the so-called epistles. The question is how the so called Peter won the prize instead of Paul ? The mythological Peter made more miracles than Paul, it was needed by the Catholic to create its oligarchy. With the emerge of Paulism and Catholicism the old working class movement known as Christianity died and it became the religion of the Roman slave masters and the religion of the Feudalists and the land owners

Really? Where did Josephus mention the Nazareans with the Esseans (Philo didn't either)? Where did he even mention the Nazareans? Also why is the term "Nazareans" used as synonemous for christians everywhere we find it? (I take it you're channeling Robert Eisenman here … but you do know that his idea has been rejected by scholarship almost entirely, due to the lack of evidence and evidence pointing the other direction right?)What you're talking about is Epiphanus in the fourth century, who was probably confusing sources; since the many of the "Jewish" Christians (later the Ebionites and Nazareans) did come from Essene backgrounds, which makes sense since John was likely associated with the Essenes. But the Essenes didn't exist when Epiphanus was writing and hadn't existed for centuries.The Sanhedrin wasn't Pharisaic, it was run mostly be Suduccees, Paul being a Pharisee doesn't make him anti-Essene, or pro-Sanhedrin, and the reason the Essenes wern't mentioned in the NT is because they wern't a group that was opposing Jesus.Paul didn't introduce the concept of ressurection, ressurection was in Judaism for centuries (see NT Wrights work on the ressurection), and only SOME of the essenes believed in reincarnation, look at the DDS, many believed in traditional pharisaic ressurection; Also Paul recieved his doctrine (at least the basis for it) from the apostles.Being a Syrian doesn't make you a proselyte, he was a Jew from birth, but nontheless, there is no evidence that he was a Syrian, he was from Tarsus in Cilica. Again you're channeling Robert Eisenmann with the Herodian stuff, really all you have here is conspiracy speculation, reading things INTO Josephus that aren't there (Josephus doesn't talk about Paul), and reading into Romans 16:11 something that isn't there (herodiowna is a personal name), and ignoring the rest of the evidence.I suggest you widen your readership of scholarship, rather than just reading fringe quasi-conspiracy theory stuff. (Robert Eisenmann is a good scholar, I'm not saying he isn't, but his theories on the DDS, the Essenes, and Paul have major major holes in them and have been rejected by the vast majority of scholarship.)

[roman]

gnome wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did not exist?

By the same token, why is there such a determination to declare Jesus did exist?  We hardly need to resort to mythological figures in order to bolster our case for socialism/communism.

Quote:

In no way does it affect historical materialism or Marxism or the Socialist Party of Great Britain as would be the position if the existence of God was accepted.

Actually, it does.  Isn't this character supposedly the Messiah, the Christ, and regarded by many as the worldly manifestation of God?

i didn't know the study of history was only important if it helped some political cause.whether people consider this guy the Christ/messiah or even God in the flesh has absolutely 0 bearing on his historicity (which is beyond dispute in historical scholarship). 

[roman]

https://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443 heres a popular book on why there are zero mythecists in serious historical scholarship of early Christianity/second temple Judaism. its clear to me that many of the mythecists here are just profoundly ignorant on how historical scholarship is done. A few points: are the NT documents biased and problematic? Yeah, but so is every document in history, that doesn't mean that a historian will discard it as a source, that would be simply lazy and stupid, what you do is examine the source critically. Also for a minor figure (at least when he was alive) we would expect very very little evidence, and Jesus was a very minor figure; yet there are many many pieces of evidence for him, and just because a text was canonized later doesn't make it any more or less a historical source.

[roman]

Marcos wrote:

You are going to find many journals, textbooks,  and historical websites , which are going to tell you that josephus did mention Jesus but the real historical evidences show that he didn't.  There is not any serious historian who has proven the existence of Jesus.  Only the charlatans have tried to do it and the only evidence that they have is the Bible which is not reliable source of information 

That's actually not the case at all, the scholarship majority opinion is that part of the testamonium is original and part of it is an interpolation. One reason is that part of it is something which no christian would write, and part of it is something only a Christian would write, and if you take away the latter it reads just like what Josephus would have said about Jesus, also when James is mentioned again as "James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ" the assumption is Jesus the so-called Christ is already mentioned. 

[roman]

Dave B wrote:

Yes re Q it is pretty shit Tim. I suppose it is about matching stuff up in the gospel material and back tracking it to an original hypothetical document. Roman is a bit of a non tota scriptua document on this, So my little Christian on libcom became a redactionist, He decided he wanted to dump the gospel of John for its deviant Platonism; ; which is the best in my opinion. He is a bit of an old fashioned 4thcentury orthododox Christian when it comes to that kind of thing. He got quite upset by the women caught in adultery in John 8 which as I pointed to him was highly seditious in its political content.  Although as new testament scholars have realised it was in fact probably  pulled out of Luke as a bit too dangerous and slotted back into the more leftwing John Identified as Lukan as with his habit of using classic Greek future pluperfects mixed with split infinitives etc. It is a bit like seeing a Jayne Austen passage slotted into  in a Phillip K Dick story apparently. Eusibius, who isn’t reliable, seems to suggest that there was some original ‘Georgdy’ type version of Matthew that people couldn’t work out properly. Not having vowels in badly spelt/written  lumpen Hebrew wouldn’t help.

Dave, I've gone over this with you before, sola and tota scripture are theological concepts NOT historical, I love the gospel of John as a theological document, but it is not a reliable source for the historical Jesus (at least not for the most part), yes I am a redactionist because that's how you do historical scholarship, we aren't doing theology here, if you want to talk theology that's fine, but that's a difficult subject than historical reconstructions. john 8 being an interpolation has nothing to do with its message, it has to do with textual criticism, the UBS and nestle alaand critical text have it as an interpolation, for a good reason, it was not in the earliest manuscripts of John and only appears in late Byzantine manuscripts. Nothing to do with its message, it's textual criticism.Yes, some New Testament scholars have theorized the story was based on a story in Luke, but that's besides the point. Whether it happened historically or not is anyone's guess, although given its late appearance I would argue probably not, at least not how It appears in its final form. 

[roman]

Vin wrote:

Nor am I an eary christian scholar but if :'Jesus was a communist? '   What is a communist? "We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."Marx

i don't call Jesus a communist (my interviewer does, but I think that's more for shock value) I say that he early Christians practiced communism based on Jesus' Jubilee theology.

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