Again, I would pay more attention to the parts that document what Feldman has said.Feldman is actually quite good at parsing what scholars believe exactly(it seems he is the only one to take a mini-survey , though if you email him he will tell you that he hasnt ever taken a massive "head-count" but feeels that around 80% accept the TF as authentic Josephus comments in-part).The debate is around TF and the website (I linked to) is very much aware of that.
yes the TF is considered authentic, i never denied it, but parts of it are not considered authentic, the stuff about jesus, was in the context of history, jesus was a man, a great teacher, had followers, and was exucuted by pilate sometime before josphus lived.
but most historians know that jophus was first a jew, then a scholor, so no he would never call jesus the christ, he would consider it mimim of him to do so, and worthy of death, i mean josphus even says jesus was the christ! he wouldn't do that he was trying to keep the peace and make jews less of a target
heres an interesting thing:Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man IF IT BE LAWFUL TO CALL HIM A MAN, for he was a doer of wonders, A TEACHER OF SUCH MEN AS RECEIVE THE TRUTH WITH PLEASURE. He drew many after him BOTH OF THE JEWS AND THE GENTILES. HE WAS THE CHRIST. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, FOR HE APPEARED TO THEM ALIVE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY, AS THE DIVINE PROPHETS HAD FORETOLD THESE AND THEN THOUSAND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT HIM, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).
the lines considered by texual historians is in caps
heres an arabic version of the same text:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders
the arabic verion seems more like how a historian might write it, theres no oponion in that one, and it seems logical to me, the other one sounds like an envangelical wrote it, which flavus was not one
At the time, 10% of the 40 scholars believed it (the TF) to be 100% authentic Josephus words.That is amazing considering how extreme the statement would be.
more than likely they didn't have more than one exmaple of it, most of them came from christian priests from the 3-4 century and were exagerated and incomplete
the arabic text helps though, it does show that a person named jesus with followers, who was a great teacher existed and was cruxified.
does that mean he was the messiah or son of god or did all the things the NT says or was born of a virgin or died on passover?
no, it does not, infact it makes him a man, nothing more, with a bunch of myths sucked from other religions glued to him
edit:i reread the page again, the author of that site makes misleading and flatout wrong statements of most skeptics, most skeptics, who know a damn thing about josphus wouldn't say its all made up or wrong. they would say as i have that, he wouldn't call jesus the messiah or christ, or any of that junk, he would say people thought he was the messiah
skeptics who don't bother to do research on the texts or read what is considered true or not might consider them both frauds, but they arn't doing it because of the text, but just plain not wanting it to be true, but not every is like that
i've read everything on this i can and most if not all historians consider the lines true for the most part with christian editing later, just like a lot of texts
Edited by ReverendDG, : No reason given.
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