>>>> On Nov 6, 11:03?pm, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:26:23 -0800 (PST), Tim Norfolk

>>>>> <timsn...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On Nov 6, 4:59?pm, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>>> I have been to St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai, the supposed
>>>>>>> site of the burning bus. ?<snip>
>>>>>> Is the burning bus some modern miracle?
>>>>> If you grow up learning Cockney English, you tend to drop your
>>>>> haitches!
>>>> I did, and I don't.
>>> I didn't and, by the rules of logic, if the premise is false then any
>>> conclusion whatsoever is possible.

>>> As an aside, that principle of logic is the foundation for all the
>>> creationist arguments.

>> But you need more than merely false premises, you need logically
>> inconsistent ones.

> Not really.  The problem is compounded by many creationists by
> taking the Bible literally in every respect.  

> That's the error.  The Catholics gave this up about 1700 years ago.
> Mostly because their religious leaders were smarter than the
> average creationist and *knew* that the Bible could not be taken
> literally but instead needed to be carefully interpreted.  Jews
> had come to the same idea about the same time.  Hence the auxilliary
> books such as the Talmud used by Jews to help understand the Bible.

> The major reason why the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages did
> NOT want the laity reading the bible for themselves was exactly
> the fear that some in the laity would misunderstand it.

> And that's exactly what happened.

>>> r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:50:11 -0700, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:59:30 -0500, r norman
>>>>> <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:

>>>>>> On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:39:45 -0700, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:

>>>>>>> On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:34:01 -0500, "Steven L."
>>>>>>> <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>>>>>>>> Hatunen wrote:

>>>>>>>>> In the past, particularly in the 19th century, a great many
>>>>>>>>> devout churchmen traveled to the Sinai to follow the path of the
>>>>>>>>> Exodus and been chagrined to realize there is simply no way the
>>>>>>>>> Sinai could have supported a group of wanderers that large,
>>>>>>>> Isn't that why the Biblical account mentions Manna, a magical food that
>>>>>>>> appeared to nourish the Hebrews?
>>>>>>> Calculate how much would be required for upwards of a million
>>>>>>> people for forty years.
>>>>>> Once you buy into the miracle thing, then nothing can ever be a
>>>>>> problem. Adam's creation, Moses' manna, Noah's flood, Joshua's sun
>>>>>> stopping are all explained in a poof.  The only problem comes when
>>>>>> people are so silly as to try to find naturalistic explanations for
>>>>>> all of these.  Sap exudations or some weird insect process just
>>>>>> doesn't cut it for the manna.
>>>>> I don't beleive the Biblical narration includes all the water
>>>>> required.

>>>> It also doesn't mention the toilet facilities.  But narratives seldom
>>>> do.  Once again, it doen't make the slightest difference -- once you
>>>> have miracles working for you then anything is possible.

>>> It is touching to realize that folks, even more or less educated
>>> folks, take ancient numbers as gospel.  The Bible was not written
>>> as a history book.  It was written to extol the glories of God.
>>> it is loaded with metaphoe and analogy.  And it is loaded with
>>> numbers.

>>> We know about the numbers because the ancient usage persisted
>>> down to the late Middle Ages.  The Bible says 600,000, sure.
>>> Who counted them?

>>> Numbers such as five or ten doubtless mean five or ten.  Numbers
>>> such as "dozens" mean "a small group".  Numbers in the hundreds
>>> mean "a larger group".  Numbers in the low thousands mean basically
>>> "the entire army" or, for civilians "the entire group".  Numbers
>>> beyond that mean the same as today's "ginormous" or "humungous".

>>> This same numerical problem afflicts medieval manuscripts,
>>> especially those written by clerics.

>>> The basic point is not that the ancients and the medievals
>>> were innumerate, they weren't.  But large numbers did not mean
>>> the same things to them that they do to us.  It is like the
>>> old canard about the "primative" tribe that counted "1, 2, many"
>>> which actually means 1, 2, or a large number not worth counting.

>>> As for the rest of it, I will only say that every group likes
>>> foundation myths.  Look at George Washington and the cherry tree
>>> as an example.  Or Good Ol' George standing up in a small boat
>>> crossing the Delaware.  Try it, but wear a lifejacket when you
>>> do.

>>> My favorite of that sort is the idea that the US was founded as
>>> a "Christian Nation".

>>> The Bible must be read in the same way.

>> In ancient Hebrew and Aramaic or whatever else the original texts may
>> have been writter in, numbers and letters use the same symbols.  That
>> is, words have numerical value and numbers can be interpreted as
>> words.  Omitting all the vowels also introduces an enormous amount of
>> ambiguity in the reading.  So one interpretation is that the Torah has
>> two very different meanings.  One is the usual reading of words that
>> tell fanciful stories. A second interpretation of the same symbols is
>> the true, "hidden" meaning that only the adept can decipher.  A modern
>> version of this notion is the basis for the "Bible Code".  That is the
>> reason that copies of the Torah must be absolutely letter perfect --
>> any deviation will destroy the hidden meaning even if the superficial
>> meaning remains intact.   That is also why translations of the
>> original can not be considered authentic in any way; only the
>> superficial meaning is translation and even that translation is
>> necessarily very imperfect.

>> This explains the long lists of names and the very specific use of
>> numbers in the original text.  They were necessary in order to present
>> the hidden text.
>Which reminds of a joke you may have already heard:
>There are two monks sitting in a monastery. One says to the other "These
>documents we're always hand-copying...they've always been hand-copied,
>right?"
>"Well, yes...of course," says the other monk.
>"So, what if, in the past 2,000 years," said the first monk, "Somebody
>misspelled something or got a word wrong, and we've been copying that
>mistake ever since?"
>"well, that's a good question," says the second monk, "That could really
>be a problem. Wait a minute, I know we have the original documents
>somewhere in the basement. Tell you what--stay here and I'll go see if I
>can find them."
>So the second monk goes down into the basement. After waiting several
>hours, the first monk decides to go look for him.  He goes down there,
>and sure enough, he sees the other monk. But he's crying.
>"Why are you crying?" he asks.
>"It says CELEBRATE."

>> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 01:54:46 -0800 (PST), All-seeing-I

> <snip to preserve my sanity, but see synopsis below>

> All-seeing-I wrote a long post quoting from his precious "ancient
> documents" purporting to disclose evidentiary proof of the Exodus.

> Augray posted a thoughtful point-by-point analysis showing that this
> is not at all evidentiary proof of the Exodus.  Mike Dworetsky and
> wf3h also responded similarly.

> I would add that it is quite possible, very likely even, that the
> story of the Exodus and many other tales from Genesis and other
> biblical books may be based in part on fact so that there is very
> likely to be good archeological evidence that agrees in part with some
> aspects of the Bible.  This relates to the non-supernatural parts of
> the biblical narrative, the parts involving miraculous divine
> intervention are quite another story.

> There is some considerable doubt as to whether the Hebrews or
> Israelites ever were a completely nomadic people as described in the
> Bible.  All historical accounts we know were of well citified peoples
> of course with agricultural and animal husbandry accompaniments.
> Still, all peoples derived originally from hunter gatherers or
> pastoral types in the early days of the development of civilization
> and cities.  Whether or not an Abrahamic-type of nomad was part of the
> actual Hebrew culture, such peoples really did exist and tales of
> their adventures no doubt made it into the popular culture and myth of
> the tiime.  There were, indeed, wanderings into Eqypt and there were,
> indeed, slaves, and no doubt there were quite probably individual
> small groups of slaves who revolted and fled and wandered around
> aimlessly before forming a group strong enough to starting off to
> conquer somebody else's land to settle in.  

> When the early Hebrews sat down to manufacture a cultural history to
> establish a separate national identity, there must have been a lot of
> lore passed down orally over the centuries to choose from.  Some of it
> might well have been originally based on historical fact. So all those
> ancient documents might well contain accounts from other people of
> those same original historical facts.

> The same arguments apply to notions like "The Flood", a well
> hashed-over topic here.  Certainly there were small-f floods and even
> really massive Floods.  There is some controversy about the
> possibility of a really Huge Flood associated with the Black Sea.  So
> flood tales about the "Really Big One" should not be absent from
> ancient lore and are found in Ancient Documents.  That does not prove
> that the Noachic Flood as described in Genesis actually happened.  In
> the same vein, evidence of Hebrews in Egypt cannot be used to prove
> that Moses and the Exodus actually happened.  Nor can evidence of
> revolutionary and radical religious reformers being crucified in
> Jerusalem some 2000 years ago be used to prove that Jesus as Son of
> God and Messiahn really existed.

>Did Charlemagne's copiests make mistakes?  In cases where we have
>copies from other souces the answer is clear -- YES.  But which
>manuscript has the error?

>>>>> On Nov 6, 11:03?pm, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>> On Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:26:23 -0800 (PST), Tim Norfolk

>>>>>> <timsn...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Nov 6, 4:59?pm, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>>>> I have been to St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai, the supposed
>>>>>>>> site of the burning bus. ?<snip>
>>>>>>> Is the burning bus some modern miracle?
>>>>>> If you grow up learning Cockney English, you tend to drop your
>>>>>> haitches!
>>>>> I did, and I don't.
>>>> I didn't and, by the rules of logic, if the premise is false then any
>>>> conclusion whatsoever is possible.

>>>> As an aside, that principle of logic is the foundation for all the
>>>> creationist arguments.

>>> But you need more than merely false premises, you need logically
>>> inconsistent ones.

>> Not really.  The problem is compounded by many creationists by
>> taking the Bible literally in every respect.

> No, I meant you need logically inconsistent statements for the principle
> of explosion "x falso quodlibet" that r norman evoked  to apply.

> From "P and not P" follows indeed in classical logic every proposition.
> But the "falso" here is a logical, not an empirical falso

>> That's the error.  The Catholics gave this up about 1700 years ago.
>> Mostly because their religious leaders were smarter than the average
>> creationist and *knew* that the Bible could not be taken
>> literally but instead needed to be carefully interpreted.  Jews
>> had come to the same idea about the same time.  Hence the auxilliary
>> books such as the Talmud used by Jews to help understand the Bible.

>> The major reason why the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages did
>> NOT want the laity reading the bible for themselves was exactly
>> the fear that some in the laity would misunderstand it.

>> And that's exactly what happened.

>> Probably a majority of the classical documents we have are due to their
>> being copied during Charlemagne's reign.  He personally ordered a
>> large-scale campaign to save them.  Up to that point the Christians saw
>> no value in pagan documents.

>> Did Charlemagne's copiests make mistakes?  In cases where we have copies
>> from other souces the answer is clear -- YES.  But which manuscript has
>> the error?

>> Sometimes it is obvious, often not.  In fact in cases where we have
>> multiple copies of medieval documents  they can often be broken into
>> families -- just as we break organisms into families based on the
>> propagation of mutations.  So one can end up with three or four
>> families, no two of which will agree on some points.

>> Often the mistakes are accidental.  Those are usually easy to note,
>> often because they make no sense.  Sometimes they were done on purpose
>> in order to enhance one family's reputation or for religous reasons.
>> The so=called references to Jesus in Josephus are thought, for several
>> reasons, to be late interpolations into the text.

> I thought that the Testimonium Flavianum, the section that now says
>"Jesus was The Christ", is generally acknowledged to be a later
>Christian embellishment of a genuine mention of Jesus. I have never
>heard that the other mention of Jesus, in the account of the death
>of James, is an interpolation. OK, maybe I've heard that from some
>extreme Jesus-myther, but never from any source that I could regard
>as impartial. Are you sure you're describing a consensus? Can you
>point me to a source?
>> History can be as much fun as evolutionary biology, and often for the
>> same reasons.  The unearthing of an ancient manuscript can shake things
>> up.  The Dead Sea scrolls are but one example.

>>>>>> On Nov 6, 11:03?pm, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:26:23 -0800 (PST), Tim Norfolk

>>>>>>> <timsn...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Nov 6, 4:59?pm, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>>>>> I have been to St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai, the supposed
>>>>>>>>> site of the burning bus. ?<snip>
>>>>>>>> Is the burning bus some modern miracle?
>>>>>>> If you grow up learning Cockney English, you tend to drop your
>>>>>>> haitches!
>>>>>> I did, and I don't.
>>>>> I didn't and, by the rules of logic, if the premise is false then any
>>>>> conclusion whatsoever is possible.

>>>>> As an aside, that principle of logic is the foundation for all the
>>>>> creationist arguments.

>>>> But you need more than merely false premises, you need logically
>>>> inconsistent ones.

>>> Not really.  The problem is compounded by many creationists by
>>> taking the Bible literally in every respect.

>> No, I meant you need logically inconsistent statements for the principle
>> of explosion "x falso quodlibet" that r norman evoked  to apply.

>> From "P and not P" follows indeed in classical logic every proposition.
>> But the "falso" here is a logical, not an empirical falso

>>> That's the error.  The Catholics gave this up about 1700 years ago.
>>> Mostly because their religious leaders were smarter than the average
>>> creationist and *knew* that the Bible could not be taken
>>> literally but instead needed to be carefully interpreted.  Jews
>>> had come to the same idea about the same time.  Hence the auxilliary
>>> books such as the Talmud used by Jews to help understand the Bible.

>>> The major reason why the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages did
>>> NOT want the laity reading the bible for themselves was exactly
>>> the fear that some in the laity would misunderstand it.
>******* Or the greater fear that the laity WOULD understand it - and
>recognize that the Catholic Church was nothing more than a fanatical cult!

>><snip>

>>> Probably a majority of the classical documents we have are due to their
>>> being copied during Charlemagne's reign.  He personally ordered a
>>> large-scale campaign to save them.  Up to that point the Christians saw
>>> no value in pagan documents.

>>> Did Charlemagne's copiests make mistakes?  In cases where we have copies
>>> from other souces the answer is clear -- YES.  But which manuscript has
>>> the error?

>>> Sometimes it is obvious, often not.  In fact in cases where we have
>>> multiple copies of medieval documents  they can often be broken into
>>> families -- just as we break organisms into families based on the
>>> propagation of mutations.  So one can end up with three or four
>>> families, no two of which will agree on some points.

>>> Often the mistakes are accidental.  Those are usually easy to note,
>>> often because they make no sense.  Sometimes they were done on purpose
>>> in order to enhance one family's reputation or for religous reasons.
>>> The so=called references to Jesus in Josephus are thought, for several
>>> reasons, to be late interpolations into the text.

>> I thought that the Testimonium Flavianum, the section that now says
>>"Jesus was The Christ", is generally acknowledged to be a later
>>Christian embellishment of a genuine mention of Jesus. I have never
>>heard that the other mention of Jesus, in the account of the death
>>of James, is an interpolation. OK, maybe I've heard that from some
>>extreme Jesus-myther, but never from any source that I could regard
>>as impartial. Are you sure you're describing a consensus? Can you
>>point me to a source?

>>> History can be as much fun as evolutionary biology, and often for the
>>> same reasons.  The unearthing of an ancient manuscript can shake things
>>> up.  The Dead Sea scrolls are but one example.

>There is a reasonable summary at:

>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

>The problem with the death of James is primarily that of the first
>section.  Given that the first section is a forgery, or, more likely,
>contains forged elements, why should they be the only forged elements?

>The words in dispute in the second selection are the last part of
>"the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ".  The argument is
>simple.  Why would Josephus call this Jesus the "annointed one"
>which is the primary meaning of "Christ", without explanation or
>further reference?  This is serious for a major Roman supporter such
>as Josephus.  Nowhere does he explain the title "Christ".

>><snip>

>>> Probably a majority of the classical documents we have are due to
>>> their being copied during Charlemagne's reign.  He personally ordered
>>> a large-scale campaign to save them.  Up to that point the Christians
>>> saw no value in pagan documents.

>>> Did Charlemagne's copiests make mistakes?  In cases where we have
>>> copies from other souces the answer is clear -- YES.  But which
>>> manuscript has the error?

>>> Sometimes it is obvious, often not.  In fact in cases where we have
>>> multiple copies of medieval documents  they can often be broken into
>>> families -- just as we break organisms into families based on the
>>> propagation of mutations.  So one can end up with three or four
>>> families, no two of which will agree on some points.

>>> Often the mistakes are accidental.  Those are usually easy to note,
>>> often because they make no sense.  Sometimes they were done on purpose
>>> in order to enhance one family's reputation or for religous reasons.
>>> The so=called references to Jesus in Josephus are thought, for several
>>> reasons, to be late interpolations into the text.

>> I thought that the Testimonium Flavianum, the section that now says
>>"Jesus was The Christ", is generally acknowledged to be a later
>>Christian embellishment of a genuine mention of Jesus. I have never
>>heard that the other mention of Jesus, in the account of the death of
>>James, is an interpolation. OK, maybe I've heard that from some extreme
>>Jesus-myther, but never from any source that I could regard as
>>impartial. Are you sure you're describing a consensus? Can you point me
>>to a source?

>>> History can be as much fun as evolutionary biology, and often for the
>>> same reasons.  The unearthing of an ancient manuscript can shake
>>> things up.  The Dead Sea scrolls are but one example.

> There is a reasonable summary at:

>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

> The problem with the death of James is primarily that of the first
> section.  Given that the first section is a forgery, or, more likely,
> contains forged elements, why should they be the only forged elements?

> The words in dispute in the second selection are the last part of "the
> brother of Jesus, who was called Christ".  The argument is simple.  Why
> would Josephus call this Jesus the "annointed one" which is the primary
> meaning of "Christ", without explanation or further reference?  This is
> serious for a major Roman supporter such as Josephus.  Nowhere does he
> explain the title "Christ".

> Even the first part is in dispute because Jesus, though a popular Jewish
> name (Yeshua or Joshua) is nowhere explained. James is, but only in
> passing.

> Put more simply the entire passage is about Ananus.  If an anointed one
> is to be part of this, it needs explaination.

> Actually, if the entire disputed passage is replaced by "a man" it reads
> just fine.

>   "...he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them
>    a man,whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed
>    an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them
>    to be stoned..."

> The passage as given makes the secondary subject, James, a tertiary
> subject by subjugating his to an otherwise unexplained Jesus, who was
> called Christ.  Surely this Christ calls out for more explication, but
> it is not forthcoming.

> >Probably a majority of the classical documents we have are due
> >to their being copied during Charlemagne's reign.  He personally
> >ordered a large-scale campaign to save them.  Up to that point
> >the Christians saw no value in pagan documents.

> >Did Charlemagne's copiests make mistakes?  In cases where we have
> >copies from other souces the answer is clear -- YES.  But which
> >manuscript has the error?

> Once in a book I found a reference to a place in the KJV OT where
> the copyist had obviously included some proofreader's comments. I
> looked it up and it sure convinced me that it happened. I wrote
> the book, chapter and verse in the frontispiece of the Bible, but
> somewhere along the way in the last fifty years the Bible has
> left my possession. IIRC, it was in Judges.

> I'd love to find it again. I can't recall the book I read about
> it in: Robert Ingersoll comes to  mind. But I don't feel like
> reading the Bible just to find the passage.

>>><snip>

>>>> Probably a majority of the classical documents we have are due to
>>>> their being copied during Charlemagne's reign.  He personally ordered
>>>> a large-scale campaign to save them.  Up to that point the Christians
>>>> saw no value in pagan documents.

>>>> Did Charlemagne's copiests make mistakes?  In cases where we have
>>>> copies from other souces the answer is clear -- YES.  But which
>>>> manuscript has the error?

>>>> Sometimes it is obvious, often not.  In fact in cases where we have
>>>> multiple copies of medieval documents  they can often be broken into
>>>> families -- just as we break organisms into families based on the
>>>> propagation of mutations.  So one can end up with three or four
>>>> families, no two of which will agree on some points.

>>>> Often the mistakes are accidental.  Those are usually easy to note,
>>>> often because they make no sense.  Sometimes they were done on purpose
>>>> in order to enhance one family's reputation or for religous reasons.
>>>> The so=called references to Jesus in Josephus are thought, for several
>>>> reasons, to be late interpolations into the text.

>>> I thought that the Testimonium Flavianum, the section that now says
>>>"Jesus was The Christ", is generally acknowledged to be a later
>>>Christian embellishment of a genuine mention of Jesus. I have never
>>>heard that the other mention of Jesus, in the account of the death of
>>>James, is an interpolation. OK, maybe I've heard that from some extreme
>>>Jesus-myther, but never from any source that I could regard as
>>>impartial. Are you sure you're describing a consensus? Can you point me
>>>to a source?

>>>> History can be as much fun as evolutionary biology, and often for the
>>>> same reasons.  The unearthing of an ancient manuscript can shake
>>>> things up.  The Dead Sea scrolls are but one example.

>> There is a reasonable summary at:

>>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

>> The problem with the death of James is primarily that of the first
>> section.  Given that the first section is a forgery, or, more likely,
>> contains forged elements, why should they be the only forged elements?

>> The words in dispute in the second selection are the last part of "the
>> brother of Jesus, who was called Christ".  The argument is simple.  Why
>> would Josephus call this Jesus the "annointed one" which is the primary
>> meaning of "Christ", without explanation or further reference?  This is
>> serious for a major Roman supporter such as Josephus.  Nowhere does he
>> explain the title "Christ".

>> Even the first part is in dispute because Jesus, though a popular Jewish
>> name (Yeshua or Joshua) is nowhere explained. James is, but only in
>> passing.

>> Put more simply the entire passage is about Ananus.  If an anointed one
>> is to be part of this, it needs explaination.

>> Actually, if the entire disputed passage is replaced by "a man" it reads
>> just fine.

>>   "...he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them
>>    a man,whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed
>>    an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them
>>    to be stoned..."

>> The passage as given makes the secondary subject, James, a tertiary
>> subject by subjugating his to an otherwise unexplained Jesus, who was
>> called Christ.  Surely this Christ calls out for more explication, but
>> it is not forthcoming.
> Origen mentions the James section twice; the citations are given at
>(URL is one line)
>http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2007/07/
>origen-james-brother-of-jesus-and.html
>Commentary on Matthew 10.17 :
>"...Flavius Josephus, who wrote the 'Antiquities of the Jews' in
>twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people
>suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed
>to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in
>accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things
>which they had dared to do against
>James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ."
>Contra Celsum 1.47 :
>"... says nevertheless-being, although against his will, not far
>from the truth-that these disasters happened to the Jews as a
>punishment for the death of
>James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus called Christ."
> "Jesus <who is> called Christ" looks to me like an indirect quotation
>of Josephus' language, rather than Origen's own description of Jesus.
> The passage is about the crimes of Ananus. I don't see why "called
>Christ" in this context calls for a digression into the story of
>Jesus. If Wells and Doherty are the only people advancing this
>argument, it doesn't deserve to be called a consensus of scholarship
>on the question.

>To some extent.  However, don't discount the number of students
>who went through church schools and who would have had an
>opportunity to read the Bible.

>> The passage is about the crimes of Ananus. I don't see why "called
>>Christ" in this context calls for a digression into the story of Jesus.
>>If Wells and Doherty are the only people advancing this argument, it
>>doesn't deserve to be called a consensus of scholarship on the question.

> It is a minority opinion.  The problem of annointing is, I think,
> serious.  I know of no other who was ever annointed.

> <g...@panix.com> wrote:
> >It is a minority opinion. The problem of annointing is, I
> >think, serious. I know of no other who was ever annointed.

> I believe British monarchs are annointed.

> --
> ************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatu...@cox.net) *************
> * Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
> * My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

> >It is a minority opinion.  The problem of annointing is, I
> >think, serious.  I know of no other who was ever annointed.

> I believe British monarchs are annointed.

>> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:20:43 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans <g...@panix.com>
>> wrote:

>> >It is a minority opinion.  The problem of annointing is, I think,
>> >serious.  I know of no other who was ever annointed.

>> I believe British monarchs are annointed.

> All the kings of the Hebrews were ceremoniously anointed. The post you
> responded to has to be satire, or perhaps by someone with no familiarity
> with the Bible.

> > John McKendry <jlastn...@comcast.dot.net> wrote:
> <snip. We're talking about Josephus mentioning James and calling
> him "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ".>

> >> The passage is about the crimes of Ananus. I don't see why "called
> >>Christ" in this context calls for a digression into the story of Jesus.
> >>If Wells and Doherty are the only people advancing this argument, it
> >>doesn't deserve to be called a consensus of scholarship on the question.

> > It is a minority opinion.  The problem of annointing is, I think,
> > serious.  I know of no other who was ever annointed.
> <snip>

> Nero was illuminating the gardens of Rome with burning Christians in
> 68 CE.

> > In article <4cqjf5l29eqjs4juh8k2qlpoa0smd6d...@4ax.com>,
> >  Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:

> >> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:20:43 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans <g...@panix.com>
> >> wrote:

> >> >It is a minority opinion.  The problem of annointing is, I think,
> >> >serious.  I know of no other who was ever annointed.

> >> I believe British monarchs are annointed.

> > All the kings of the Hebrews were ceremoniously anointed. The post you
> > responded to has to be satire, or perhaps by someone with no familiarity
> > with the Bible.

>  I can think of yet another explanation. The context of the statement is
> a discussion of the phrase "the brother of Jesus called Anointed, a man
> named James" in Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews". At issue is
> whether Josephus actually wrote "the brother of Jesus called Anointed",
> or whether that phrase was added later by a Christian copyist. Paul
> is saying, at least for the sake of argument, that "Jesus called
> Anointed" would have brought Josephus' readers up short, and
> Josephus would have added some explanation of the title, because
> nobody else in Josephus' history of the Jews was ever called "The
> Anointed".

>  You do know we're talking about Paul Gans here? "Someone with no
> familiarity with the Bible" is not my impression of Paul Gans.
> But perhaps you intended satire.

> John