Sex, Lies and Dead Sea Scrolls - those early years surrounding Christianity (Page 5)

ghostgeek: So, if you don't follow the herd, you can't be taken seriously?

ghostgeek: Ever noticed how Biblical scholars regularly contradict each other? For instance, about the Testimonium Flavianum. Is it genuine, is it an interpolation or is it something in between? Pick your scholar and you'll get the answer you want.

ghostgeek: As for spiritual auras, if there was one floating around the nineteenth century it took a nosedive when it hit the twentieth.

Zanjan: Yes, it did - there's a time and a season for everything.

Zanjan: Let the scholars have fun with the ancient past - it won't bring anyone through the present or prepare them for the future. Yes, I do like history but not enough to dig inside tunnels or open any graves.

edmund_carey: The Testimonium Flavianum isn't Biblical. And I believe most scholars consider it to be genuine (i.e. written by Josephus) but not pristine (i.e. touched up by Medieval copyists).

ghostgeek: And if you remove it from Josephus' account you don't miss it in the least. Add in the fact that early Christian writers never mention it and it's easy to see why some consider it a later addition.

ghostgeek: Which pretty much leaves Paul's letters as the only confirmation that there ever was a Jesus who was crucified during Pilate's governorship. Throw away the Gospels and he all but disappears.

edmund_carey: Some consider it a later addition, but, a decided minority, was what I was saying. And even a quick perusal of Bart Ehrman's book on the subject would apprise you that experts consider that there is much more reason to know that Jesus of Nazareth was historical than the Testimonium Flavianum. The Gospels, which are studied as historical sources by those who know how to do so (like reading Greek and Hebrew) being among them. No reason to throw that away.

ghostgeek: Jesus of Nazareth? Did Paul say anything about Nazareth? Did Josephus or any other historian from those times? Study James and it doesn't seem that he ever went near the place, presuming it even existed in the first century. So why should anyone think that Jesus hailed from those parts?

ghostgeek: • Nazareth is not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. The Book of Joshua (19.10,16) – in what it claims is the process of settlement by the tribe of Zebulon in the area – records twelve towns and six villages and yet omits any 'Nazareth' from its list.

• The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.

• St Paul knows nothing of 'Nazareth'. Rabbi Solly's epistles (real and fake) mention Jesus 221 times, Nazareth not at all.

• No ancient historian or geographer mentions Nazareth. It is first noted at the beginning of the 4th century.

None of this would matter of course if, rather like at the nearby 'pagan' city of Sepphoris, we could stroll through the ruins of 1st century bath houses, villas, theatres etc. Yet no such ruins exist.

[ https://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html ]

ghostgeek: 1955-1960 Excavations conducted by Father Bellarmino Bagatti (Professor, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum at Flagellation, Jerusalem). Beneath his own church and adjoining land, Bagatti discovered numerous caves and hollows. Some of these caves have obviously had a great deal of use, over many centuries. Most are tombs, many from the Bronze Age. Others have been adapted for use as water cisterns, as vats for oil or as 'silos' for grain. Apparently, there were indications that Nazareth had been 'refounded' in Hasmonean times after a long period when the area had been deserted. Yet overwhelmingly, archaeological evidence from before the second century is funerary. Obliged to admit a dearth of suitable evidence of habitation, none the less, Bagatti was able conclude that 1st century AD Nazareth had been 'a small agricultural village settled by a few dozen families.'

With a great leap of faith the partisan diggers declared what they had found was 'the village of Jesus, Mary & Joseph' – though they had not found a village at all, and certainly no evidence of particular individuals. The finds were consistent, in fact, with isolated horticultural activity, close to a necropolis of long-usage. ...

Yet one point is inescapable: the Jewish disposition towards the 'uncleanliness' of the dead. The Jews, according to their customs, would not build a village in the immediate vicinity of tombs and vice versa. Tombs would have to be outside any village.

[ https://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html ]

ghostgeek: 1996 -1997 Dr. Pfann (Franciscan School of Theology) digs at Nazareth. In November 1996 Stephen Pfann of the Center for the Study of Early Christianity began an investigation of agricultural terraces in the grounds of Nazareth Hospital. What Pfann and his crew came up with was a vaguely-dated winepress, described as 'ancient'. Potsherds were also found on the surface of the terraces, dating from various periods 'beginning with the early to late Roman periods.'

An archaeological survey of the surface of the land adjacent to Nazareth Hospital was conducted between February and May 1997 by Pfann and a team, all from the Center for the Study of Early Christianity. Two distinct areas were identified which are defined by the type of terracing found there. Yet dating by traditional stratification was not possible.

With typical Christian zeal Pfann was able to conclude that 'Nazareth was tiny, with two or three clans living in 35 homes spread over 2.5 hectares'. It was just unfortunate that all evidence of the homes was razed by later invaders.

In truth, the scanty evidence is consistent with the site being used as a single family farm over many centuries – and a single family farm does not make a village.

[ https://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html ]

ghostgeek: The expression 'Jesus of Nazareth' is actually a bad translation of the original Greek 'Jesous o Nazoraios' (see below). More accurately, we should speak of 'Jesus the Nazarene' where Nazarene has a meaning quite unrelated to a place name. But just what is that meaning and how did it get applied to a small village? The highly ambiguous Hebrew root of the name is NZR.

The 2nd century gnostic Gospel of Philip offers this explanation:

'The apostles that came before us called him Jesus Nazarene the Christ ..."Nazara" is the "Truth". Therefore 'Nazarene' is "The One of the Truth" ...'

– Gospel of Philip, 47.

What we do know is that 'Nazarene' ( or 'Nazorean' ) was originally the name of an early Jewish-Christian sect – a faction, or off-shoot, of the Essenes. They had no particular relation to a city of Nazareth. The root of their name may have been 'Truth' or it may have been the Hebrew noun 'netser' ( 'netzor' ), meaning 'branch' or 'flower.' The plural of 'Netzor' becomes 'Netzoreem.' There is no mention of the Nazarenes in any of Paul's writings, although ironically, Paul is himself accused of being a Nazorean in Acts of the Apostles. The reference scarcely means that Paul was a resident of Nazareth (we all know the guy hails from Tarsus!).

[ https://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html ]

Zanjan: Maybe you should broaden your search of archeology in Israel. Everything was small. They built towns and villages on top of each other, sometimes 13 layers deep, rather than expand.....height was important for safety.

The ancient Nazareth, which is plugged into the side of a hill, is deep underneath the current city. It's about 3,000 years old. I can't imagine why the OT would mention it, since it had no historical significance then and probably hadn't reached the size of a village until the time of Jesus.

They called Him Jesus of Nazareth to indicate which person from Gallillee they were referring to - Yeshua was a popular Jewish name, translating to Joshua. Nobody had last names so the place He came from had to be pretty small to have only one Yeshua living there.

A Nazarite and a Nazarene are different things. The former is one who takes a vow of abstinence for a time and dedicates themselves to serve God. The latter is a resident of Nazareth.

There's no reason one couldn't be both; however, the Bible doesn't say Jesus took a vow - He was baptized then anointed by God.

Zanjan: Coincidentally, the name of Christ is the same as Joshua, Moses' successor, who brought the people into the promised land.

ghostgeek: Mmm ... let's return to James for a bit of light relief. How come this supposed hick from somewhere nobody had ever heard of ended up moonlighting as the High Priest in Jerusalem for thirty years? That's quite a career change for somebody the Gospels dismissed in a few lines.

ghostgeek: Arguably James was more influential than Jesus and certainly more savvy.

Zanjan: Ciaphas was the Jewish high priest. Priests belonged to a hereditary cast - James didn't so he couldn't have been a priest at all.

At best, he may have been a Rabbi before becoming a Christian because he was really strong on maintaining Jewish practices and laws. Consequently, he was popular with the Jews.

Paul called James an Apostle but not one of the 12......he attributes James's conversion to Christ's resurrection. Three years after Paul had converted, James was a pillar of the church in Jerusalem.

There wasn't any hierarchy in the church after the crucifixion but it did have a wee bit of structure. The leaders were the Apostles, bishops and elders. By the end of the second century, church bishops were called priests but ordination didn't begin until the third century. Priests had wives and families like everyone else until after the first millennium.

ghostgeek: How do we know James didn't belong to a family of priests. He wore the linen robes of a priest, entered the temple regularly and was holy from the day of his birth. And if you are right about the family tomb of Jesus being near Jerusalem, that only supports the idea that both brothers came from an hereditary priestly clan.

ghostgeek: As stated before, the Dead Sea Scrolls community had a council of twelve headed up by three priests. And from Paul, we know that James, Cephas and John were the three most prominent members of the Jerusalem based Jesus movement and there was also something called the "Twelve". This latter group, be it noted, was distinct from the Apostles. So yes, there was a very distinct hierarchy in the early church.

edmund_carey: What Dead Sea Scrolls community? There is a historical record of that?

ghostgeek: I've been scratching my head over that statement that James' conversion was due to Christ's resurrection. Where do you get that from?

ghostgeek: Somebody wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls and hid them in caves.

ghostgeek: The Rule of the Community is the book of regulations of the Jewish community that lived in Qumran on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea from sometime in the first century BCE until 67 CE. At that time, there existed in Qumran the first "monastic" community in the Western world that used to "eat in common, pray in common, and deliberate in common." The scholarly consensus is that this was a group of Essenes, belonging to one of three major Jewish religious movements of that period.

The scroll deals with such matters as acceptance of new members, conduct at communal meals and assemblies, and punishment for infringements of the rules. A long passage elaborates the Essenes' main theological principle in which they differed from mainstream Judaism - their belief in predestination. The caves preserved no less than twelve copies of this book, of which this is the most complete.

[ https://www.imj.org.il/en/collections/231103 ]