Star Burst wrote:
http://www.interfaith.org/forum/origins-of-jesus-christ-9273-18.html#post246481
Okay, granted I haven't read any other posts in that thread, but just reading that one post by this Opera person, which I assume is the one you were referring to, I have to say I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the post. All it sounds like to me is that this person is saying scholars have tried to approach the text with the idea that it was compiled in layers over time, like there was an original, simple root text, then more was added later, and more added later, etc. And this Opera person was saying that once scholars strip away everything that was added later, all the way down to what they think is the earliest text, that this same textual style present in the earliest text can be found in works like Josephus or the Sinaiticus codex. If this Opera person really is using this to help affirm a historical Jesus, then Opera is pulling a colossal non-sequitur.
Star Burst wrote:
Where do you read the below into Josephus?
Quote:
since Josephus writes of a lot of shit that is clearly fictional, such as soldiers fighting wars in the sky in flying chariots, a cow giving birth to a lamb, poltergeist phenomenon in the Jerusalem temple, etc., etc.
Sounds like a Jewish Nostradamus.
LOL, Nostradamus
was Jewish. But anyway-
"Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews' rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus,} [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which light lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskilful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court of the temple,] which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept notch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it, who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared, that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius [Jynr,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the J temple, I) as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said, that in the first place they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a multitude, saying, 'Let us remove hence.' " (Jewish Wars, VI-V-3).
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