Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

to maryhelena And you have evidence that the Essenes were historical?? Josephus and Philo of Alexandria wrote a lot about them. Also Pliny the elder mentioned them. So, all Jesus carried was a weapon for fear of thieves? Why then would the Romans send a large number of soldiers to arrest him? Where ...

therefore the crowd has no need for swords and clubs Apparently, it was OK for travelers to carry weapons: Josephus' Wars, II, VIII, 4 "... they [Essenes] carry nothing with them when they travel into remote parts, though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves." Cord...

I have a blog post about someone called "Rises" here: http://historical-jesus.info/17.html I agree with andrewcriddle: the son of Joseph in the Talmud is a reference to Jesus of Nazareth. In the Babylonian Sukkah 52 a-b, under the influence of early Christianity, he became accepted by some...

to PhilosopherJay I tend to think the Luke Skywalker model fits Jesus better than the Haille Selasie model. This is what Carrier wrote in his passage about Haile Selassie and Rastafarian faith. "Yet it's told anyway. And not just told, but believed completely by every adherent of the faith, eve...

to PhilosopherJay I think Carrier's point is that the historical man Haile Selassie had almost nothing to do with the mythological personage some of his followers created. This is one of the points Carrier is making and he even said the same can apply also to Jesus: I agree on both counts. Carrier w...

to Stephan, As always this shows us about the differences between Bernard and other scholars. Carrier is asking a question. Bernard is incapable of asking questions or at least admitting he doesn't know the answer. His mind must even systematize his dreams when he wakes up. Never allows for the poss...

to spin, Carrier poses an epistemological problem. Jesus could be like a mythologized Haile Selassie, but then again he could be like any one of the various fictitious persons that inhabit christian literature. "So which was it for Jesus?" This obviously entails the question "and how ...

to Stephan, It's a good general argument you make Bernard. It is not my argument, but Carrier's (everything in navy blue is from Carrier, not me). The first is that Ethiopians and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church don't think that Selassie was god. This is similar to the Jews and their leadership thinki...

From my blog post #106 ( http://historical-Jesus.info/106.html ): I think Carrier's piece on the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and the Rastafari religion (pages 18-20 of OHJ) is priceless and goes against Carrier's mythicist theory in a big way, despite his objections. Next I'll reproduce Carrier...

Also from Carrier's book (Preface): "Though I shall argue it’s likely… that Jesus did not in fact exist, I cannot assume it has been conclusively proved here . In fact, it may yet be proved false in future work, ..." Bolding mine. I suppose the publisher also forced Carrier to write the ab...