Well David M., you are probably familiar with the story of Josephus in Vita (420-421) in which Josephus sees three acquaintances crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem. According to his story, he went to Titus in tears and got the three taken down from the crosses and given medical attention by the Romans. It was too late for two who died from their ordeal, but one, Josephus says, lived.
Not everyone will interpret that story in Vita the same way but here is how I read it. I think Josephus's story appears in legendized form in the later Gospel story of the three crucified one of whom lives. I think Josephus bar Matthias appears as the character Joseph of Arimethea, the leading figure among the Jews said to be secretly a supporter of Jesus who carries out the identical function of having one of the three taken down from the cross to live again. I think the Josephus Vita story and the later Gospel crucifixion story are versions of the same--one developed from the other--and that the origin of the Passion story of Jesus, so central to Christianity, is no earlier than the time of the siege of Jerusalem, 70 CE.
What Josephus does not tell in Vita is the identity of the one Josephus saved from death on the cross other than Josephus’s claim that he knew him. Here is the speculative leap, that the name given to the figure in the Gospel version, Jesus, may reflect the name of the one Josephus saved in Vita, based on a backward reasoning that if the three-and-one crucifieds of Vita and in the Gospel version correspond, and if Josephus appears as a character under his own name, by analogy the name of the central figure in the legend, Jesus, could similarly reflect the proper name of the one saved from the cross in Vita. The major Jesus figure at the time of the Revolt, terror to the Romans and Roman-sympathizers, active in Galilee at the same time as Josephus who worked with him and covered up personal dealings with him,* was Jesus ben Sapphat, whose fate after the Roman conquest of Galilee is untold by Josephus. q.e.d. a person of interest.
(*According to Josephus, governing in Galilee, he had secret dealings with Jesus ben Sapphat active in Galilee in the runup to the Roman arrival. But when Josephus later responded in Vita to accusations that he had destroyed the palace of Herod in Tiberias, Josephus gave an “I was only giving orders” defense, blaming Jesus ben Sapphat for doing that.)
Then a lot else converges on the First Revolt as the context underlying the founder-figure claimed by Christians. The era of the apostles seems to be about this era, on the basis of Papias and Philip's daughters, as well as stories in Papias of persons healed by Jesus living into the time of Hadrian. I suspect the "pillars" of Jerusalem at Gal. 2:1-9 may be the government of Jerusalem during the later stages of the Revolt, Simon bar Gioras, James b. Sosa, and John of Gischala, and that Paul appears in Josephus as Saul the Herodian kinsman of Agrippa II of the 60s--that Eisenman got that one right. That is, ancient diplomacy and realpolitik underlying the legends and rhetoric of the visit to the pillars.
It is already uncontroversial that much of the Gospels' Jesus material reflects First Revolt-era contexts--the rending of the temple veil; the signs in the heavens; the Olivet prophecy; the denarius tribute story, and on and on, to which for reasons just given the crucifixion and bodily resurrection of Jesus may be added. It is not such a great leap therefore to consider that the whole of Jesus-story origins, not just some of it, may be from that date era and that the earlier Pilate time-setting is mistaken and anachronistic as told in Christian origin traditions set in texts in the second century CE. Unless there is a sound basis to know that Christian belief in a crucifixion and bodily resurrection of a Jesus was held by persons pre-70, why not consider?
Whereas there is no significant Jesus known in the 30s external to Christian legend, there is this Jesus active at the time of the First Revolt who has some similarities to Jesus of the Gospels and whose name would be in agreement with the backward argument for the name “Jesus” as the name of the one who survived the cross of 70. This is largely uncharted territory--so uncharted that it never occurred to Mr. Carrier to consider or refute in his voluminous Bayesian analysis work dealing with the Jesus question, and apparently incapable of reasoned or at least civil response, he responds now with invective (on his blog). (Spock arched-eyebrow here.) Lena Einhorn, A Shift in Time, argues for artificiality of the 30s date setting of the Jesus stories in the Gospels and that those stories reflect contexts of the later procurators closer to the time of the First Revolt.
Well David M., you are probably familiar with the story of Josephus in Vita (420-421) in which Josephus sees three acquaintances crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem. According to his story, he went to Titus in tears and got the three taken down from the crosses and given medical attention by the Romans. It was too late for two who died from their ordeal, but one, Josephus says, lived.
Not everyone will interpret that story in Vita the same way but here is how I read it. I think Josephus's story appears in legendized form in the later Gospel story of the three crucified one of whom lives. I think Josephus bar Matthias appears as the character Joseph of Arimethea, the leading figure among the Jews said to be secretly a supporter of Jesus who carries out the identical function of having one of the three taken down from the cross to live again. I think the Josephus Vita story and the later Gospel crucifixion story are versions of the same--one developed from the other--and that the origin of the Passion story of Jesus, so central to Christianity, is no earlier than the time of the siege of Jerusalem, 70 CE.
What Josephus does not tell in Vita is the identity of the one Josephus saved from death on the cross other than Josephus’s claim that he knew him. Here is the speculative leap, that the name given to the figure in the Gospel version, Jesus, may reflect the name of the one Josephus saved in Vita, based on a backward reasoning that if the three-and-one crucifieds of Vita and in the Gospel version correspond, and if Josephus appears as a character under his own name, by analogy the name of the central figure in the legend, Jesus, could similarly reflect the proper name of the one saved from the cross in Vita. The major Jesus figure at the time of the Revolt, terror to the Romans and Roman-sympathizers, active in Galilee at the same time as Josephus who worked with him and covered up personal dealings with him,* was Jesus ben Sapphat, whose fate after the Roman conquest of Galilee is untold by Josephus. q.e.d. a person of interest.
(*According to Josephus, governing in Galilee, he had secret dealings with Jesus ben Sapphat active in Galilee in the runup to the Roman arrival. But when Josephus later responded in Vita to accusations that he had destroyed the palace of Herod in Tiberias, Josephus gave an “I was only giving orders” defense, blaming Jesus ben Sapphat for doing that.)
Then a lot else converges on the First Revolt as the context underlying the founder-figure claimed by Christians. The era of the apostles seems to be about this era, on the basis of Papias and Philip's daughters, as well as stories in Papias of persons healed by Jesus living into the time of Hadrian. I suspect the "pillars" of Jerusalem at Gal. 2:1-9 may be the government of Jerusalem during the later stages of the Revolt, Simon bar Gioras, James b. Sosa, and John of Gischala, and that Paul appears in Josephus as Saul the Herodian kinsman of Agrippa II of the 60s--that Eisenman got that one right. That is, ancient diplomacy and realpolitik underlying the legends and rhetoric of the visit to the pillars.
It is already uncontroversial that much of the Gospels' Jesus material reflects First Revolt-era contexts--the rending of the temple veil; the signs in the heavens; the Olivet prophecy; the denarius tribute story, and on and on, to which for reasons just given the crucifixion and bodily resurrection of Jesus may be added. It is not such a great leap therefore to consider that the whole of Jesus-story origins, not just some of it, may be from that date era and that the earlier Pilate time-setting is mistaken and anachronistic as told in Christian origin traditions set in texts in the second century CE. Unless there is a sound basis to know that Christian belief in a crucifixion and bodily resurrection of a Jesus was held by persons pre-70, why not consider?
Whereas there is no significant Jesus known in the 30s external to Christian legend, there is this Jesus active at the time of the First Revolt who has some similarities to Jesus of the Gospels and whose name would be in agreement with the backward argument for the name “Jesus” as the name of the one who survived the cross of 70. This is largely uncharted territory--so uncharted that it never occurred to Mr. Carrier to consider or refute in his voluminous Bayesian analysis work dealing with the Jesus question, and apparently incapable of reasoned or at least civil response, he responds now with invective (on his blog). (Spock arched-eyebrow here.) Lena Einhorn, A Shift in Time, argues for artificiality of the 30s date setting of the Jesus stories in the Gospels and that those stories reflect contexts of the later procurators closer to the time of the First Revolt.