Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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maryhelena
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

Post by maryhelena »

Giuseppe wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:11 am This is the source of that different interpretation:

I also have considered a different interpretation of the Ant. 20 James “brother of Jesus called Christ” passage than heretofore (to my knowledge) considered. That passage, understood to tell of the death of James, is dated by Josephus at about the very same time as, independently, the trial of Jesus b. Ananias, i.e. ca. 62 or 63 Albinus. (The exact absolute date of Albinus’s start as governor is not quite certain, due to uncertainty concerning the end date of predecessor governor Festus–the dates found in standard discussions for those are reconstructed with various reasonings, but fall short of hard evidence in perhaps a ca. 1-2 yr. range of uncertainty there.) I have considered that what underlay the story of Ant 20 may have been James, “brother of Jesus”–perhaps the very Jesus who had just been tried and released?–accusing those who had been responsible for charging Jesus and unsuccessfully attempting to have him executed by the Roman governor. That is, James of Ant 20 is brought forward as the accusing witness, and it is the “others” (not James) who were the unspecified lawbreakers delivered up to be judicially stoned by high priest Ananias, on the basis of testimony leveled by witness James. James himself, in this conjectured alternative interpretation (even if the Greek text of Ant. differs or is unclear in wording on this), would not be executed in 62 ce. It is the “others” who were stoned, due to charges testified to by prosecution witness James, “brother of Jesus”. (Clan payback for the trial of Jesus?) And Josephus himself, as a further passing note, may have been absent in Rome in his trip by ship to Rome at that time, lacking personal familiar knowledge of the events and specifics transpiring in Jerusalem in his absence.

https://vridar.org/2020/12/10/another-p ... ent-125272 (my bold)

Hence, if the construct 'called Christ' is genuine, then it could refer the Jesus ben Ananias (mentioned previously as released by Albinus) or the Jesus of the Christians... ...or both!
Greg Doudna really is coming up with different scenarios.....
So, to join the party - here is another one.

Hasmonean historyChronologyJosephus
37 b.c. Antigonus executed100 years63 c.e. James stoned
30 b.c. Hyrancus executed*70 c.e. unnamed man crucified
7 year end of Hasmoneans *7 year time frame to 70 c.e.

Now, one can argue the toss as to what Josephus is doing here - but to do so without taking into account his chronological context could be a futile endeavor.
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

Post by Giuseppe »

maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:10 am Greg Doudna really is coming up with different scenarios.....
not really. Differently from G.Solomon, he identifies Jesus b. Ananias and Jesus b. Sapphat as one and the same Jesus.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

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maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 2:56 am
Peter Kirby wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 2:07 am
maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:52 am
Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:15 pm Agree or disagree, it's worth checking out:

https://historyforatheists.com/category ... mythicism/

One of the most useful tidbits from this series is the way that he dispenses with the hypothesis that "called the Christ" was a gloss added in Ant. 20.200. It's a simple and elegant argument. If this were the gloss, either the name Jesus was introduced without any context, or there was previously a context provided ("ben Damneus") that is repeated verbatim a few lines down. Yet neither option in this dilemma is tenable, from an analysis of the other references in Josephus and the way people are introduced in his works. That leaves the most likely conclusion: either the name Jesus was present with the identification standing there, or the interpolation was at least somewhat larger.

I recall that Doherty favored a hypothesis where "a certain James" stood there originally. This is one of a few ways that Doherty's slender original 1999 book The Jesus Puzzle still outshines many other attempts in the same vein, even though every more recent writer is familiar with it.
While Richard Carrier's mythicist theory might have it's faults, he has at least attempted to deal with the possibility that there was no historical gospel Jesus. Finding fault, as O'Neill does with Jesus mythicists is the easy bit - what he cannot do is establish historicity for the gospel Jesus figure. Finding fault is all very well - but things do not stop there - one moves on, one moves forward, correct errors where observed and reach out for better understanding. O'Neill is simply wallowing in his fault finding puddle.....For myself, I have more important things to be doing than splashing about in his muddy puddle....
So the biggest fault of O'Neill is that he spends too much time finding faults.
No - the biggest fault is that he has got stuck there....
His opinions are pretty boring, but he does have them.

"For over a century, scholarship on the origins of Christianity has been dealing with a fundamental issue – the Jesus in the earliest Christian texts is presented as preaching an eschatological message about an imminent apocalypse. Despite ongoing rearguard actions, the idea that the historical Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet remains the most likely interpretation of the evidence."
https://historyforatheists.com/2018/12/ ... c-prophet/

"So in the end I took the tack of trying to explain that parsimony was the key to historical analysis, showing in detail how Mythicist arguments are always less parsimonious than their alternatives and then giving some idea of the context for the historical Jesus and how that indicates he was a Jewish preacher of his time; most likely an apocalyptic prophet."
https://historyforatheists.com/2018/10/ ... mythicism/
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

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maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:52 amFinding fault, as O'Neill does with Jesus mythicists is the easy bit - what he cannot do is establish historicity for the gospel Jesus figure.
O'Neill is an atheist, so I doubt very much that he is interested in establishing the historicity of the gospel Jesus figure. It's worth pointing that out because he gets called a "secret Christian" all the time.
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

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GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:21 pm
maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:52 amFinding fault, as O'Neill does with Jesus mythicists is the easy bit - what he cannot do is establish historicity for the gospel Jesus figure.
O'Neill is an atheist, so I doubt very much that he is interested in establishing the historicity of the gospel Jesus figure. It's worth pointing that out because he gets called a "secret Christian" all the time.
If O'Neill is a secret Christian he would not tell you.
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

Post by maryhelena »

GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:21 pm
maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:52 amFinding fault, as O'Neill does with Jesus mythicists is the easy bit - what he cannot do is establish historicity for the gospel Jesus figure.
O'Neill is an atheist, so I doubt very much that he is interested in establishing the historicity of the gospel Jesus figure. It's worth pointing that out because he gets called a "secret Christian" all the time.
Yep, I know all that.....
I first came across O'Neill over 10 years ago on the Richard Dawkins forum (which has unfortunately closed down.....)
Those who were on that forum will remember O'Neill charging 'spin' with plagiarism ('spin' operating under a different name at the time) 'spin' took the matter to the moderators - and after a back and forth with the plagiarism charge not being taken seriously by the moderators of a public forum he ended up asking the moderators to ban him. (which they did but back he came with another name - and got himself banned....... Great pity 'spin' is not around here these days....I do miss his considerable wit.......
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

Post by Giuseppe »

O Neill is the kind of people I don not like a priori.

His historicist belief is totally unfounded.

His defamation of Carrier is too much obvious and cannot be compared minimally to the way Carrier dismisses sometimes the dialogue with another scholar.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

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Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:15 pm Agree or disagree, it's worth checking out:

https://historyforatheists.com/category ... mythicism/

One of the most useful tidbits from this series is the way that he dispenses with the hypothesis that "called the Christ" was a gloss added in Ant. 20.200. It's a simple and elegant argument. If this were the gloss, either the name Jesus was introduced without any context, or there was previously a context provided ("ben Damneus") that is repeated verbatim a few lines down. Yet neither option in this dilemma is tenable, from an analysis of the other references in Josephus and the way people are introduced in his works. That leaves the most likely conclusion: either the name Jesus was present with the identification standing there, or the interpolation was at least somewhat larger.

I recall that Doherty favored a hypothesis where "a certain James" stood there originally. This is one of a few ways that Doherty's slender original 1999 book The Jesus Puzzle still outshines many other attempts in the same vein, even though every more recent writer is familiar with it.
Thanks for posting this. I think this is the fourth iteration I've seen of this set of arguments on Josephus from Tim O'Neill. IIRC, the first was on his earlier blog (I can't verify whether this was Armarium Magnum or a previous blog), the second was here:

https://strangenotions.com/an-atheist-h ... rt-1-of-2/
https://strangenotions.com/an-atheist-h ... rt-2-of-2/

Which was discussed on this forum here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=650

The fourth was on another forum that I cannot remember precisely, but it may have been Reddit.

I had pretty much given up on O'Neill after leaving comments on Armarium Magnum (?) and then on Strangenotions that much (actually all) of the language he claimed as Josephan was also used by Eusebius, and some of it only by Eusebius, and then continued to use the same argument.

I was pleased to see on this most recent statement of his views on the Testimonium, he's backed off from that and is instead arguing (based primarily on Whealey) that the similar language in Eusebius does not necessarily show that Eusebius wrote the Testimonium. There is still a lot wrong with his presentation (details available on request), but it's a vast improvement and shows that O'Neill can, at least sometimes, be reached by rational argument. He does not seem now to be asserting that the partial authenticity of the Testimonium is a fact, but that it's the theory he prefers, and he's criticizing Jesus Mythicists for asserting it as an incontestable fact.

I'll have more to say on the topic of the mention of a certain James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ in our manuscripts of Ant. 20.200 (I agree with O'Neill that the argument that this originally referred to Jesus son of Damneus is not well founded) which you highlighted, but that will have to await another post. At the moment, I'm wondering if O'Neill has abandoned the argument that the reference to James requires an earlier reference to Jesus. I can't find that he's arguing that in his response to Richard Carrier. Can you, or anyone, tell if he's given up on that argument or if he's just not using it here because it's not directly relevant to his criticism of Carrier's theory?

Best,

Ken
Giuseppe
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

Post by Giuseppe »

In the eleventh century, the Muslim writer Ali ben Ahmad Abn Muhammed ibn Hasm reports of Josephus that he speaks favourably of John and his baptism but 'says nothing more of the history of Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, on whom be peace'.
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Jax
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Re: Tim O'Neill's Jesus Mythicism blog series

Post by Jax »

maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 11:42 pm
GakuseiDon wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:21 pm
maryhelena wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:52 amFinding fault, as O'Neill does with Jesus mythicists is the easy bit - what he cannot do is establish historicity for the gospel Jesus figure.
O'Neill is an atheist, so I doubt very much that he is interested in establishing the historicity of the gospel Jesus figure. It's worth pointing that out because he gets called a "secret Christian" all the time.
Yep, I know all that.....
I first came across O'Neill over 10 years ago on the Richard Dawkins forum (which has unfortunately closed down.....)
Those who were on that forum will remember O'Neill charging 'spin' with plagiarism ('spin' operating under a different name at the time) 'spin' took the matter to the moderators - and after a back and forth with the plagiarism charge not being taken seriously by the moderators of a public forum he ended up asking the moderators to ban him. (which they did but back he came with another name - and got himself banned....... Great pity 'spin' is not around here these days....I do miss his considerable wit.......
Amen to that. :D
spin wrote: Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:39 am Hi, my name's spin and I'm a recovering biblical pundit. I haven't flagellated anyone for several hours. I'll let you know my progress as it happens.
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