Hi Boris
Do you have evidence of manuscripts prior to the 4th century that don’t mention Jesus or Yeshua.
You are making absence of evidence arguments unless you have real evidence of different manuscripts.
Where is the evidence for this? It was said that the shroud of Turin was a forgery until they found cotton (used as a method of repair) in the section that was carbon dated.
I am confident that everyone in this conversation is happy for the questionable passages in Josephus to be regarded as having equal evidentiary value to that of the shroud.
Of course: Following is a list of important Christian authorities who studied and/or mentioned Josephus but not the Jesus passage:
Justin Martyr (c. 100-c. 165), who obviously pored over Josephus’s works, makes no mention of the TF.
Theophilus (d. 180), Bishop of Antioch–no mention of the TF.
Irenaeus (c. 120/140-c. 200/203), saint and compiler of the New Testament, has not a word about the TF.
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-211/215), influential Greek theologian and prolific Christian writer, head of the Alexandrian school, says nothing about the TF.
Origen (c. 185-c. 254), no mention of the TF and specifically states that Josephus did not believe Jesus was “the Christ.”
Hippolytus (c. 170-c. 235), saint and martyr, nothing about the TF.
The author of the ancient Syriac text, “History of Armenia,” refers to Josephus but not the TF.
Minucius Felix (d. c. 250), lawyer and Christian convert–no mention of the TF.
Anatolius (230-c. 270/280)–no mention of TF.
Chrysostom (c. 347-407), saint and Syrian prelate, not a word about the TF.
Methodius, saint of the 9th century–even at this late date there were apparently copies of Josephus without the TF, as Methodius makes no mention of it.
Photius (c. 820-891), Patriarch of Constantinople, not a word about the TF, again indicating copies of Josephus devoid of the passage, or, perhaps, a rejection of it because it was understood to be fraudulent.
The Fraud of Turin? Oh please. What is the chain of custody of this shroud? How do you prove this thing has anything at all to do with Jesus? Name it and claim it™. “We have this shroud and we don’t know where it came from so it must be Jesus!”
The Servant in Isaiah 53 is most likely Israel, not the Messiah. Nowhere in the OT is the Messiah referred to as the Servant.
Right you are Ken.
Again an absence of evidence argument.
The latest argument is that Josephus and Luke shared source material or Josephus used Luke’s gospel as a source. Dr Goldberg provides textural evidence.
I thought so based on carbon dating but now think it is probably authentic based on alternative dating methods, pollen tests, blood type matching the sudarium, and the make up of the image itself. Also both the sudarium and shroud are mentioned in the gospel of John.
Read it yourself and see if you can really assign the story to the people of Israel. In the past Rabbi’s believed Isaiah 53 was Messianic. There are hundreds of prophecies in the OT that matches one individual. If you look at Isaiah 53, 61, 6, 7, 9 they all match one individual in the writings and the gospels who is known as the arm of the Lord in Isaiah 53.
Here is one of the Messianic Jewish arguments you might find interesting.
https://jewsforjesus.org/learn/whos-the-subject-of-isaiah-53
No, they didn’t.
Isaiah 53 is the fourth servant’s song. The other 3 servant’s songs all refer to Israel as the servant. The chapters all around Isaiah 53 refer to Israel as the servant.
Read more here:
Even as a Christian, however much I might want a clear reference to Jesus in Josephus, I have to agree that the Testimonium Flavianum is probably wholly interpolated. “James brother of Jesus” in Antiquities 20.9.1 is much more likely to provide evidence for Jesus’ existence, since it mentions a first-century Messianic claimant called Yeshua.
It should not surprise anyone that the life and death of Jesus seems to be reflected in the verses of Isaiah 53 and other parts of the OT. This is not a coincidence. We have to remember that the Hebrew Scriptures came before Jesus. The authors of the New Testament used images of the Jewish Messiah they found in the Hebrew Scriptures and created their stories about Jesus to fit those images.
Which is, of course, exactly why fulfillment of prophecy (or, in some cases, of passages misconstrued as prophecy like Isaiah 53), as reflected in the NT, diminishes the credibility of the compilers of those accounts. The entire process of prophecy – this is as true today as it was in the ancient world – is just this sort of mountebankery. Anyone who wishes to rescue the credibility of these works as history has the unenviable task of overcoming the strong inference that all of the prophetic-fulfillment material is untrustworthy.
Since nobody else is talking about Isaiah 7 I will point out that the child of the prophecy must be born not long after the prophecy was given. The child’s birth is simply a temporal marker indicating that the Assyrian conquest of Aram and Israel will occur in the next few years. And that is the most significant thing about the child.
Let’s imagine for arguments sake that the Bible is all story and the authors had no real history to use. How would 44 authors of the 66 books over centuries pull this theologically cohesive story together?
Look for the change in narration from the versus you cited and Isaiah 53.
Here is a video from the Rabbi of the website you cited. He claims that two versus of Isaiah 52 and 53 are Messianic.
The story is full of contradictions. Look them up yourself or even a better idea would be to read the Bible for the first time in your life.
Cohesive? Here’s a good example of this cohesiveness: In Matthew 13:53-55 when Jesus is finished preaching in the synagogue the townsfolk are amazed. “Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? Are not his brothers James and Jospeh and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?” Where then did this man get all this?" What they should have been saying is, “Is not this is the child who was visited by Magi who brought him royal gifts, the one the soldiers were looking for when they killed all the male children?” This is a pretty good clue that the birth narrative in Matthew is a later addition because the author of chapter 13 seems completely unaware of it.
Same way countless writers and artists have created a cohesive story of Superman for over 85 years.
Which is not to concede that it is theologically cohesive. This whole business of a “new covenant” is likely a ploy to paper over the obvious theological discrepancies between the old and new testaments.
Good example, and from the same literary genre, to boot!
Hi Boris
I am talking about consistent theology. There is very little deviation from Genesis to Revelations.
Somebody just answered that: “Same way countless writers and artists have created a cohesive story of Superman for over 85 years.”
There are a myriad counter-examples, but this one came immediately to mind:
If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. [Leviticus 24:19-20]
versus
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:38-39]
The claim that “there is very little deviation from Genesis to Revelations” in terms of theology is simply a statement of blind faith.
Not sure how you can make that claim when Christians can’t even agree on what their theology is.