As always, I am not trying to be argumentative in a negative sense. You are constructing a Consistent Structure from your evidence and that might be all we may achieve - Giuseppe, of course, being the exception...
Not Nicholas of Dasmascus! He was Rome's Political Control Officer over Herod and he was there for 20 years and more. Further, his brother was Ptolemy and Ptolemy carried Herod's Seal, a fact important to the four or five days after Herod's death!Stuart wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:02 pm I do agree that the NT source includes Josephus, but not at all for the reasons you think.
There was no deliberate plot in their usage, but rather that the writers of the NT --and I mean specifically the Gospels and Acts, which are after the letters for the most part-- had essentially zero knowledge of the Palestinian region.
I am not necessarily a Greekie and NoD is the main reason. He COULD have written the Main Material that became the NT, even if wasn't aware of it. He certainly had knowledge, as well as Means, Motive and Opportunity. He furnished much of what Josephus wrote about, Josephus' material falling off at the point where NoD's descriptions of Archelaus ends.
Evidence but not Proof but there were people who KNEW about the area and its History. I believe that much of their knowledge has been hidden.
I think you may have overstepped your data here. Suppose Nicholas - or Zakkai! - are under orders to complete a Religion that results in the Picture of a savior/god loyal to Rome. There may have been an overwrite of a Story found in the rubble of Jerusalem or a work of Fiction created by Nicholas of Damascus. Perhaps the document was Cut 'n Pasted by Mark and later by John? I am overstepping my evidence here but at least there are evidences that there WERE people who were there at that time.And equally they had no real information about the actual founders and their lives. So they drew names and places from these sources to fill in the blanks. And filing in the blanks and placing the leaders origins in Palestine was critical, since they drew their authority from a figure and a religion (Judaism) based there.
Mmmm, maybe. More likely, to me, is that Judaism was a Threat- and a different Type of Threat - than Hannibal or that Parthians. Hannibal did not attack Rome. Fifteen years is a long time to occupy foreign soil and not finish the job. The Parthians are another story.In truth the founders were largely anonymous, and I suggest not even Jewish ethnic, but disciples of earlier Jewish ascetics who had founded monastic like communities in the Greek speaking regions of the Mediterranean.
OHHH, there most certainly is! BIG TIME!!! "Could there be a way to get the Jews to worship Caesar without them even knowing it?"There is no logic in Flavian Rome creating a replacement religion.
Disagree completely.Christianity's beginnings are the result of some offshoot in the sticks, far from the two places (Palestine and Rome) where it would have been shot down before it started...The founders of Christianity were similarly "nobodies." There is no need for any conspiracy, no need for close Palestinian connection, no need for important people of the day to be involved in some skunk works religious start up project.
Agreed. The argument is over how Christianity got to the position it has. There is, to me, overwhelming evidence that the NT was written by people who knew what had happened. They were there and wrote Obliquely of what they saw. There is overwhelming evidence, to you, that this accretion of what became seen as truthful Testimony, was a product of a Culture that created a religion 150 - 200 years after the supposed events occurred.We read important people into Acts from Josephus, not because they were, but because the writers of Acts and the Gospels borrowed characters from Josephus. It's literary fiction.
Consistent Interpretation is about as far as we can get - unless we could agree as a beginning about the "Facts on the Ground".
Any opinion on "Nicholas of Damascus" as a start?
Best,
CW