Is Jesus A Historical Person? PT.1 Josephus

[@TheTheologizingSubject]

Keep it coming 🤓

[@zeroknowledge2446]

1:00. "The majority if not every single scholar ... believes that Jesus is a historical figure". No, not very single scholar - for example Richard Carrier and Raphael Lataster are scholars who have credible books arguing against the historicity of Jesus. Moreover, the majority of biblical scholars are (understandably) Christian and have a bias, sometimes contractually imposed on them by their faculty. I am concerned that the presenter fails to take a balanced view in his first statement about the subject. 2:30 et al. Testimonium Flavianum. It should be noted that no early Christian writer comments on this passage until the early 4th century increasing the likelihood that it is an addition in its entirety. That aside, Josephus (as far as we know) was not a direct witness of Jesus and we do not know how he came by this information - most likely it was hearsay from Christians - and so, even if a nucleus of the passage is true, all the passage can do is confirm that this is what early Christians believed, that's a very different thing from confirming that Jesus existed. 5:10 et al. James the brother. It should be noted that the section in the book is regarding the line of temple priests. Just a few sentences on from the James passage, Josephus says "...and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.". This increases the likelihood that the first reference to Jesus is also talking about the same priest and has nothing to do with the Christian Jesus and that the reference to the James being the brother of Christ is a later interpolation. I'm not saying my own comments mean that Jesus did not exist but in my view they do demonstrate that the presenter has done very little research on the subject and is not interested in presenting an unbiased view.

[@calledtodefend]

1. These videos are designed to be short responses, and it was promised that a longer video with more in-depth discussion was coming 2. Notice the statement claim begins with the majority if not every meaning there are some who disagree, but a majority of the scholarship field is in agreement 3. You do have non Christian scholars who even agree, i.e... Bart Erhman, who is not a Christian but agrees 4. Just because someone is a christian, does not mean their work is not usable or reliable. Check their sources and see if they are credible and backed by scholarship. You're actually arguing bias while having a bias against Christian researchers 5. Your second point says nothing about the dating of the actual document itself. The importance of this dating is that it is in the time period where everything he wrote can be falsified, but we have no evidence that it was. 6. There was no claim to Josephus being a direct witness, but like Luke, he discussed with those who were witnesses to various events 7. Historians today are not direct witnesses, yet you're trusting the ones you mentioned to combat against Josephus. They did not witness his writings, so your claim is unbalanced. 8. There are several Jesus's listed and james in the entirety of the document. Jesus was a popular name, hence the clarifications of one being referred to as Christ and the other referred to as a son of Damneus. The issue with your comment argument here is that it misses the clarifications that are made. The James mentioned is declared stoned before the mentioning of the Jesus you refer to. A careful read of the whole document would notice the popularity of the name Jesus like today a popular name would be Josh. 9. Early Christians lived in a time where again everything was falsifiable about what they believed. At this time, we have no documentation from the first century disproving the evidence that Jesus was a real person, that he was crucified, as well as other historical elements. 10. Your claim is essentially that our representative is intellectually dishonest and biased in his research. This document is backed by many (even non chrstians) as reason to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual person We appreciate comments from other people and will happily engage in dialog as we are right now. Do not claim that our people are not researching and taking into account objections. This might not be your intention, but it comes off as if you're claiming we are intellectually dishonest. Mistakes can be made, but that is not how your comment comes across. We appreciate your response and hope this is helpful in your search.