When did Celsus think Jesus lived?

[StephenGoranson]

I don't know. Will have to research to see if he cared. Anyone already addressed this?

[Secret Alias]

Before Bar Kochba after Herod.

[StephenGoranson]

Probably.

[Secret Alias]

Could be narrowed further with identity of "Celsus's Jew." Seems also to be pre-bar Kochba.

[Peter Kirby]

We don't have the text from Celsus except through Origen, so it's not absolutely clear. If the question "is narrowed further with identity of 'Celsus's Jew'" and if it is allowed that in this passage Origen interprets this aspect of the source correctly:

https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ ... en162.html

This Jew of Celsus, ridiculing Jesus, as he imagines, is described as being acquainted with the Bacchae of Euripides, in which Dionysus says:- "The divinity himself will liberate me whenever I wish."

NOW the Jews are not much acquainted with Greek literature; but suppose that there was a Jew so well versed in it (as to make such a quotation on his part appropriate), how (does it follow) that Jesus could not liberate Himself, because He did not do so? For let him believe from our own Scriptures that Peter obtained his freedom after having been bound in prison, an angel having loosed his chains; and that Paul, having been bound in the stocks along with Silas in Philippi of Macedonia, was liberated by divine power, when the gates of the prison were opened. But it is probable that Celsus treats these accounts with ridicule, or that he never read them; for he would probably say in reply, that there are certain sorcerers who are able by incantations to unloose chains and to open doors, so that he would liken the events related in our histories to the doings of sorcerers. "But," he continues, "no calamity happened even to him who condemned him, as there did to Pentheus, viz., madness or discerption." And yet he does not know that it was not so much Pilate that condemned Him (who knew that "for envy the Jews had delivered Him"), as the Jewish nation, which has been condemned by God, and rent in pieces, and dispersed over the whole earth, in a degree far beyond what happened to Pentheus. Moreover, why did he intentionally omit what is related of Pilate's wife, who beheld a vision, and who was so moved by it as to send a message to her husband, saying: "Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of Him?" And again, passing by in silence the proofs of the divinity of Jesus, Celsus endeavours to cast reproach upon Him from the narratives in the Gospel, referring to those who mocked Jesus, and put on Him the purple robe, and the crown of thorns, and placed the reed in His hand. From what source now, Celsus, did you derive these statements, save from the Gospel narratives?

Then "But, [he continues,] no calamity happened even to him who condemned him, as there did to Pentheus" (quoted from "this Jew of Celsus"), according to Origen, referred to Pilate condemning Jesus.

Origen distinguishes between what the "Jew of Celsus" is said to have meant (Pilate) and how he interprets it (i.e., Origen interprets it rather along the lines that the Jewish nation condemned him).

[Giuseppe]

Then "But, [he continues,] no calamity happened even to him who condemned him, as there did to Pentheus" (quoted from "this Jew of Celsus"), according to Origen, referred to Pilate condemning Jesus.

really a calamity happened to Pilate (after the massacre of the Samaritans) hence the quote of the Celsus's Jew can't be applied to Pilate.

Titus may be a best candidate.

[Secret Alias]

Not a good suggestion again.

There seems to be a relationship between what Celsus's Jew says about the gospels and the fourfold gospel.

Μετὰ ταῦτά τινας τῶν πιστευόντων φησὶν ὡς ἐκ μέθης ἥκοντας εἰς τὸ ἐφεστάναι αὑτοῖς μεταχαράττειν ἐκ τῆς πρώτης γραφῆς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τριχῇ καὶ τετραχῇ καὶ πολλαχῇ καὶ μεταπλάττειν, ἵν' ἔχοιεν πρὸς τοὺς ἐλέγχους ἀρνεῖσθαι