COUNTERACTING THE CLAIM THAT JOSEPHUS ALLUDED TO JAMES AS JESUS' BROTHER
Josephus the historian of Jesus's time seems to have not known of Jesus and his references to him are suspicious. A testimony that reads like a Christian creed appears but it is obviously doctored or a complete insertion by a faker. In his Book 20 of Jewish Antiquities he writes of James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ. That seems on the face of it to be a persuasive reference. It would suggest however that as James was not considered a potential Christ that Jesus had no royal bloodline. He was a fake Christ period for the Christ had to be a real king.
The suggestion that James really was the brother of Jesus does nothing to rule out the notion that Jesus was an unknown person and visions of him happened after he was nailed and now he is some kind of post-mortem saviour and prophet and messiah and manifestation of God. It would only destroy the feeling that Jesus was thought to have lived centuries long before James’s time.
Light from Hebrews
The New Testament's Epistle to the Hebrews may be from 70AD or shortly before
the Temple was destroyed. It was written to Jewish Christians because the
argumentation against priests and Temples and sacrifices in it and its extensive
use of the Old Testament would not have been deployed for Gentile Christians who
were unfamiliar with this ritualism and scripture. It would have been written to
Jewish Christians in Palestine for that is where most of them were. The letter
was known as the Epistle to the Hebrews from the first meaning it would have
been sent to Jerusalem the HQ of the Jewish Christians for it was for all of
them. It was written to Jewish Christians in Palestine but meant for Jewish
Christians everywhere and there were some of them in Rome.
Hebrews 12:3 tells them to think of Jesus who endured a lot of abuse from
sinners so that they may feel stronger knowing Jesus went through worse than
they did at the hands of hostile people. Verse 12:4 tells us something very
interesting. It says that none of them have resisted this abuse until their
blood was shed. This tells us that the account in Josephus about James dying at
the hands of a lynch mob over religious differences in 64 AD and the Book of
Acts saying about the other James dying in 42AD by the sword of Herod’s emissary
are both lies. It also indicates that the stories in Acts about the murderous
persecution of the Church and its claim that Paul was a murderer of Christians
are fiction. Basically it means that some Christian inserted in Josephus the
entire stuff about James the brother of the so-called Christ being persecuted to
death.
Levi pays tithes to Melchizidek!
Abraham paid money to Melchizidek. The book of Hebrews tries to invest the latter with a priesthood that is somehow more "real" than that of Levi. It says that one may say that Levi who was in Abraham's loins, as a future descendant, recognised Melchizidek as priest and gave paid him money as a tithe, a religious tax. This is saying that the man carries the eggs not the woman! One wonders if the story of Jesus being conceived by the holy spirit makes the spirit his egg donor. Did James get assumed to have come from that spirit too? If so then that deals with the concern that the data seems to say that James and Jesus were real blood brothers.
Apocalypses of James
The heretical apocalypses of James are deemed to know of some traditions about James. They say James was in hiding in Pella when the Romans invaded Jerusalem in 70 AD. Josephus stated that James was eight years dead by that stage. Eusebius said the same thing but he does not count for he took the information from Josephus. Theudas is named as the father of James. So there was a tradition that James was not the son of Jesus' father or his foster-father. There was a tradition that Josephus might not have been accurate.
We conclude that even if the reference to James is valid it has competition so at best we cannot rely on it.
BOOKS CONSULTED
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undated
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North Carolina, 1971
Concise Guide to Today's Religions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture
Press, Bucks, 1983
Conspiracies and the Cross, Timothy Paul Jones, Front Line, A Strang Company,
Florida, 2008
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1995
Encyclopaedia of Unbelief, Volume 1, Ed Gordon Stein, (Ed) Prometheus Books, New
York, 1985
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press
Foundation, Bucks, 1995
He Walked Among Us, Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, Alpha Cumbria, 2000
In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1996
Introduction to the New Testament, Roderick A F MacKenzie, SJ, Liturgical Press,
Minnesota, 1965
Jesus - God the Son or Son of God? Fred Pearce Christadelphian Publishing
Office, Birmingham, undated
Jesus - One Hundred Years Before Christ, Professor Alvar Ellegard Century,
London, 1999
Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984
Jesus Hypotheses, V Messori, St Paul Publications Slough 1977
Jesus Lived in India, Holger Kersten, Element, Dorset, 1994
Jesus the Evidence, Ian Wilson, Pan, London, 1985
Jesus the Magician, Morton Smith, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1978
Jesus under Fire, Edited by Michael F Wilkins and JP Moreland, Zondervan
Publishing House, Michigan, 1995
Jesus, AN Wilson, Flamingo, London, 1993
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Nag Hammadi Library, Ed James M Robinson HarperCollins New York 1990
On the True Doctrine, Celsus, Translated by R Joseph Hoffmann, Oxford University
Press, Oxford 1987
Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco,
1994
Runaway World, Michael Green, IVP, London, 1974
St Peter and Rome, JBS, Irish Church Missions, Dublin, undated
The Bible Fact or Fantasy, John Drane, Lion, Oxford, 1989
The Case For Christ, Lee Strobel, HarperCollins and Zondervan, Michigan, 1998
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The Early Church, Henry Chadwick, Pelican, Middlesex, 1967
The First Christian, Karen Armstrong, Pan, London, 1983
The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, Penguin, London, 1990
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The House of the Messiah, Ahmed Osman, Grafton, London, 1993
The Jesus Event and Our Response, Martin R Tripole SJ, Alba House, New York,
1980
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Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1986
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1985
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Paulist Press, New York, 1973
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London, 1876
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Gerhard, Eerdman's Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, 1976
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Ltd., London, 1992
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The WWW
Who is GA Wells? Rev Dr Gregory S. Neal
www.errantskeptics.org/G_A_Wells.htm
The Silent Jesus
www.askwhy.co.uk/awcnotes/cn4/0325SilentJesus.html#Justin
Apollonius the Nazarene, The Historical Apollonius versus the Historical Jesus
www.apollonius.net/bernard1e.html
Why Did the Apostles Die? Dave Matson,
www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4Why97.html
How Did the Apostles Die?
www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4/4front97.html
The "Historical" Jesus by Acharya S
www.truthbeknown.com/historicaljc.htm
History's Troubling Silence About Jesus, Lee Salisbury
www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=102
Steven Carr discusses the Christian and apostolic martyrs
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs.htm
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs2.htm
Challenging the Verdict
A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsOne.htm
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsTwo.htm
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsThree.htm#Twelve
The Martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, Peter Kirby
http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/
The Martyrdoms: A Response, Peter Kirby
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs3.htm
A Sacrifice in Heaven,
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/supp09.htm
The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/partthre.htm
The Jesus of History, a Reply to Josh McDowell by Gordon Stein,
www.infidels.org/library/modern/gordon_stein/Jesus.html
Josh McDowell's Evidence for Jesus - Is It Reliable?, by Jeffrey J Lowder
www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html
A Reply to JP Holding's "Shattering" of My Views on Jesus
www.infidels.org/secular_web/new/2000/march.html
Robert M Price, Christ a Fiction
www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/fiction.html
Earliest Christianity G A Wells
www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/earliest.html
The Second Century Apologists
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/century.htm
Existence of Jesus Controversy, Rae West
www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/littleton/gm1_jesu.htm
Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story by Richard Carrier
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/index.shtml
Jesus Conference, www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_hall.html
Jesus Conference, www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_stuckenbruck.html
The Testament of Levi Concerning the Priesthood and Arrogance
www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-08/anf08-07.htm#P378_53868
Sherlock Holmes Style Search for the Historical Jesus,
www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/bp/890/history.html
The Ascension of Isaiah,
www.earth-history.com/sacred-ascension-Isaiah.htm
Apollonius of Tyana: The Monkey of Christ? The Church Patriarchs, Robertino
Solarion
www.apollonius.net/patriarchs.html
What About the Discovery of Q? Brad Bromling
www.ApologeticsPress.org
Wells without Water, Psychological Buffoonry from the Master of the Christ-Myth,
James Patrick Holding
www.tektonics.org/JPH_WW.html
Critique: Scott Bidstrp [sic] on The Case for Christ by James Patrick Holding
www.tektonics.org/bidstrup02.html
GA Wells Replies to Criticism of his Books on Jesus
www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/errant.html
The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Acharya S
www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm
Biblical Discrepancies, Todd Billings
www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/archive/billings_bd.html
The Testament of Josephus
www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9623//index.html
This site gives the text of the Testament and the surrounding material in the
chapter that contains it with a commentary:
www.theistic-evolution.com/josephus.html .
Josephus Unbound by Earl Doherty
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/supp10.htm IT CANNOT BE OVERSTRESSED HOW IMPORTANT
READING THIS SITE IS. One major point it makes is that Josephus would not have
called James the brother of the so-called Christ for he never explained to his
readers who would have been unfamiliar with the title Christ what a Christ was.
Evidence from Origen and Eusebius who referred to a missing line from the place
where this reference occurs indicates that tampering did happen here. Josephus
might however not have meant that Christ was a man. James could have been the
brother of a Spiritual Christ meaning that James was a spiritual being incarnate
and literally the brother of this being but not a biological brother. Josephus
speaks of this Christ in concrete terms not because he was a man but because
many said they had visions of him so Josephus believed in his existence. I add
another possibility. Perhaps brother of the so-called Christ was James'
nickname? Perhaps it was a mock title given to him by his Jewish enemies? This
could be poking fun at his honouring a non-existent Messiah. He was writing for
some Jews though it was mainly Romans so it is possible. Josephus might not have
been mocking James but stating his nickname as an irony. Josephus did do things
like that at times. We have seen that he did not explain the nickname Christ.
Historical References to Jesus, His Miracles and His Resurrection, Outside the
New Testament
www.british-israel.ca/Historical.htm
