The Silence of Jesus part 2

First of all dear readers, I have to tell you that your humble author is not a happy camper!

Instead of spending the morning doing some productive work, or even just sitting down and watching Discovery Channel, I find myself involved in all sorts of research to answer this troublemaker.

Jerry Melisaratos wrote;

Concerning your article "The Silence of Jesus," what about Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, or Tacitus in his Roman Annals, or Sucetonius. They all wrote of the existence of THE Jesus, and not of some average Joe?

Did these people just make all that up too, or do any of you, living 2000 years after the fact, actually have some evidence that He didn't exist.?

(To answer your questions! Yes and YES -Ed.)

Allan Janssen wrote;

First of all my friend, as I wrote in my book; "The Plain Truth About god-101" (What the church doesn't want you to know!) NO actual copies of these works you quoted exist, and we only have translations and copies made hundreds, and even thousands of years later.

Just like the Bible AND the Koran.

Which brings us back to the same problem as the bible itself!

They are interpretations and conjecture!

Writings laced with the agenda of the writer!

Jesus of Nazareth is possibly (but not probably) mentioned in the work The Antiquities of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus, written in the late first century AD.

One passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, discusses the career of Jesus, but the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum has been disputed since the 17th century and is generally considered a forgery.

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 wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst 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 ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Naturally, we don't have this manuscript, or even a copy of it.........., no sir!

It is only talked about much later!

The first to cite this passage of Antiquities was Eusebius, writing in about 324,

BUT! Even this does not exist any longer.............!

As usual with ancient texts, the surviving sources for The Antiquities of the Jews are Greek manuscripts, all minuscules, the oldest of which dates from the 11th century.

(And that's the same as the explaination of why everyone in the Bible speaks in Medieval English. Most of the stuff, like the King James version of the Bible, comes to us from hundreds, not thousands of years ago!)

The topic of the Testimonium's authenticity has attracted much scholarly discussion.

This discussion generally falls into three camps of:

Those who defend the entire authenticity of the passage;
Those who reject the entire passage;
Those who believe the passage has an authentic core but also includes later embellishments by Christian scribes.

Louis Feldman counts 87 articles published during the period of 1937-1980, "the overwhelming majority of which question its authenticity in whole or in part".

Leaving all this aside, we are still depending on copies of copies the original since there is no actual Testimonium Flavianum in existence. We are just taking the word of people who interpreted the work and that can be summed up this way;

The Testimonium Flavianum.

This is the only direct discussion of Jesus to be found in the writings of Josephus.

Unfortunately, the text, as we have it in extant copies of Josephus' Antiquities, appears to have been dramatically re-written.

The writings of Josephus were brought down to us from antiquity not by the Jewish community, but by the Christians.

The claims that Tacitus and Sucetonius mentioned Jesus are even more far fetched.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH.

I DO!

I just think that all that stuff about the miracles and coming back from the dead was made up after.........., you know, to spice things up a bit.

Don't forget, being a miracle worker was in fashion back then.

Which brings us back to the question............!

"Is the bible is the word of God?"

I hate to break it to you kids, but the bible is not the inspired word of God.

It was written by a bunch of desert baked primitive nomads who ate bugs and honey, so of course they saw God!

There ya go bunky, a believer will cling to any shred of evidence, or even make something up, rather than have his / her faith questioned.

The scientific method requires everything to be questioned, while faith requires that nothing be questioned!

P.S. The book "The Silence of Jesus" is a terrific read. It's all about the actual sayings of the historical Jesus rather than what is attributed to the Bilical "Christ!"

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E! and H E R E! And as a paperback H E R E ! and H E R E !