Why Not Engage the Evidence for Historicity?

[clarkgoble]

43 minutes ago, champatsch said:

It turns out, however, with the emergence of several relevant digital databases in the last decade and a reliable critical text, that the Book of Mormon is not (pseudo)biblical or modern in almost all of its (morpho)syntax—it is extensively archaic (here the focus is the verb phrase, not the noun phrase).

I think this is important and strong evidence against Joseph as author. It doesn't cover everything such as pockets of archaic speech in the New York region. However we should be able to control for that by comparing/contrasting Joseph's non-Book of Mormon texts with his Book of Mormon ones. Say the JST or original Book of Commandments. If Joseph was lapsing into unconscious speech with these archaic elements it shouldn't only be in the Book of Mormon but also the Book of Commandments and the significant expansions to Genesis.

[Analytics]

21 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I wouldn't say "have nothing to do." I'd say they don't have solely to do. So I still disagree strongly with Wright on some elements. More or less I think if there's a connection between two texts (plates, KJV) then the translator quotes the KJV. In some cases on the plates there's already modifications. (That targum/pesher aspect to Nephi's small plates as commentary/expansion of the texts) The translator then further expands upon this either to clarify for the audience elements (such as Isaiah 29 and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon) or for theological reasons....

Is it possible to create a testable theory based on this? In other words, is this theory falsifiable in any way? It comes across as an ad hoc rationalization.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Again, any misunderstanding of your intent was not deliberate. I’m sorry you believe I intentionally misrepresented you. 

Oh gosh.

Familiar sounding for some reason.

Edited June 30, 2018 by mfbukowski

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh gosh.

Familiar sounding for some reason.

Doesn’t make it untrue. 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

This will be my last comment on this. There really is little point in unreliable communications. If anyone has any interesting archaic usage that dates between 1701 and 1829 relating to the earliest text of the Book of Mormon, feel free to email me or Royal Skousen, who can send it on to me.

I just realized how, with the above statement, jkw turned his earlier mischaracterization on this board of a previous personal communication into something else. This makes me look unfair. Anyone can go to some of my earliest posts on this board to see what I'm talking about.

Also, I'll play along this time with what jkw wrote above about not knowing what conclusions to draw from the data, for the benefit of anyone who may not be aware of or fully comprehend the issues.

Native-speaker syntax and grammar flow from the subconscious. To a very large degree, native speakers express themselves according to accumulated subconscious knowledge. Joseph Smith grew up with New England and upstate New York English, as well as King James English. That informed his mental grammar, his implicit linguistic knowledge.

The King James Bible and pseudo-biblical texts act as a control for the (morpho)syntax Joseph might have produced in dictating the Book of Mormon text, as he presumably attempted to be biblical in his expression. In addition, his personal writings as well as hundreds of thousands of (near) contemporaneous documents give us an idea of the specific and general contours of his native grammar and syntax. It turns out, however, with the emergence of several relevant digital databases in the last decade and a reliable critical text, that the Book of Mormon is not (pseudo)biblical or modern in almost all of its (morpho)syntax—it is extensively archaic (here the focus is the verb phrase, not the noun phrase).

Hence, anyone who isn't ideological on this point, who is willing to follow a huge amount of linguistic evidence, reasonably concludes that Joseph could not have been the English-language author of the Book of Mormon text. It has nothing to do with his presumed genius—that is inconsequential (his linguistic talent or genius is something that various Book of Mormon antagonists continually assert, and very recently by jkw). It has everything to do with tacit knowledge and the human inability to generate unknown (morpho)syntax. Put another way, the vast majority of the Book of Mormon's verbal system, many of its ways of expression, and a fair amount of lexical usage (50 or so items) were a foreign language to Joseph Smith.

The 1829 dictation is well documented; the non-Mormon Michael Morse corroborated what others said about it. Therefore it is likely that the Lord carried out the translation and delivered it to Joseph in 1829 (2n2719,22,24; 3n2111). From that it is one small step to historicity. The Lord commanded Moroni to visit Joseph and tell him that the (translation of the) Nephite record that the Lord carried out was a faithful record of real events. Because the Book of Mormon's (morpho)syntax is hard linguistic evidence that is massively represented and amenable to uncontroversial interpretation, it's unlikely that there is any stronger objective evidence regarding the matter. From what I can tell, all other objective evidence is inferior.

(There are a couple potential dialectal items I didn't get into here, as they are minor details. Dialectal overlay was of course possible in the dictation, even with read-back; we all know this from scriptural readings in church.)

Thanks for this brief summary of your position. I have not followed it closely perhaps due to its complexity, nor fully comprehended some of its possible consequences.

It is a fascinating mystery, even for those who do not necessarily accept the spiritual content of the Book of Mormon, yet again we must judge its spiritual content as we always have by the spirit alone, as we always have.

As you perhaps suggest it has always been my opinion that we have to judge the historicity of the book as much by the spirit as its spiritual content.

I accept the Book of Mormon as a historical document that "really happened", but I accept that as a spiritual proposition and not necessarily a historical one that can be confirmed.

 

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

Is it possible to create a testable theory based on this? In other words, is this theory falsifiable in any way? It comes across as an ad hoc rationalization.

To answer that requires a bit of a tangent. I know this might seem like I'm being willy and avoiding the question. But it's actually pretty important to the question.

When you look at appeals to testability, particularly in science, it's a type of argument by surprise. So a theory predicts some new phenomena, people look and there it is. What that in turn requires is the ability to be surprised. However if there's no new data coming, you simply can't be surprised. So you end up arguing about drawing nuance from text which is what most of the historic textual criticism amounts to in Biblical studies. There's simply no new data since all the data is pretty well known. Further the appeal to surprise really is about either the individual's or community's knowledge. 

I don't mind you saying Wright was offering testable theories because in the late 80's and early 90's there were still a lot of discoveries going on about the Book of Mormon text. Particularly its relationship to the KJV text and contemporary commentaries like Clarke. I don't want to say there are no new things to learn about the Book of Mormon. There clearly are. However are there the sorts of things one could test relative to our discussion that would be new? I'm not sure. 

What I'm saying is that we have to distinguish between what's in theory testable from what's testable with current sources and expected sources. For the former of course it's easy to come up with ways to test the theory. We find some metal plates in the broadly Palestinian region that are in a shorthand of the sort I predict. But is it fair to expect that to appear any time soon? Probably not.

Now speaking only for myself back in the early 90's when I was first coming up with this theory it certainly was testable in the fashion you want. I didn't know about peshers or targums. I didn't realize there was an extant type of translation much like I was suggesting the Book of Mormon used. So to me it was testable and when I found this was an actual way Jews wrote - admittedly a few centuries after Nephi but still in the ancient period - I was pretty surprised.

What I'd love to find are pre-Roman shorthand methods. So far as I know though there is nothing like that out there yet. But certainly we should expect to find them if we discover large collections of new texts. But the next big test is finding ancient shorthand.

Again the main problem is the near total lack of pre-exilic texts, the paucity of pre-Aztec extended Mayan texts, and the relative abundance of 19th century texts. So in a certain sense the question of testability is akin to the old joke about a person looking for their keys under the street lights because that's the only place they can look. How significant that is can be undermined when you take a step back. 

Edited June 30, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

11 hours ago, Gray said:

You're asking me to prove a negative. No one has to point it out because the idea is absurd. Can you point out any critical scholarship saying that Christianity predates the first century?

Christian theology, to the extent that it differs from Jewish theology, is not found in the OT. Theological eisegesis notwithstanding.

For those who don't know the sources (which I have cited), it will always seem  that nothing in the OT is a precursor to Christianity.  Along with that, one has to deny that the Essenes ever existed, so that we don't need to explain them.  The bifurcation has to be total in order to satisfy our need to deny any connection.  One dare not admit any exceptions in order to maintain the fantasy.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, Gray said:

What parts of Christian orthodoxy would you identify as Hellenistic? Mormonism has more in common with mainstream Christianity than it does with very primitive Christianity, which was really just Judaism.

Substantive scholars do not share your view.  Nor do the denominations which consider Mormonism to be a major heresy.  Perhaps you are simply not conversant with that debate, and have no background in theology or philosophy.  Either way, you are simply wrong.  Astonishingly so. You probably need to begin with the small books by Sterling McMurrin on the theological and philosophical foundations of Mormonism.  I could go over the major disjunctures right here right now, and have done so in the past on this board, but (without the McMurrin intro) you couldn't hope to understand the issues.

6 hours ago, Gray said:

Bart Ehrman takes visions seriously. He has no doubt at all that the early apostles experienced visions of the risen Jesus. That doesn't mean that they think visions are a source of historical data. The visions themselves are the historical data, rather than what the visions revealed to the people having them. That's why I said "in a sense". So a vision after the death of Jesus wouldn't give us historical data about Jesus, but it would give us information about what the person having the vision believed and experienced.

Why not simply say that you and Ehrman consider all such visions to be mere internal fantasies.  Michael Shermer was even on Radio West today speaking about the biological basis for such visions (interviewed by Doug Fabrizio, http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/heavens-earth-0 ), and he noted that such visions can be induced with drugs.  Since this is obviously true, there is no need for further inquiry. Right?

As I have pointed out on this board several times, atheists are a very closed-minded group.

[Nevo]

13 hours ago, kllindley said:

I am asking for a specific reference so that I can personally read the types of evidence and logic that inform that consensus, rather than simply accept anonymous claims on the internet about consensus. 

You don't need to take my word for it that scholars locate the origins of Christianity in the first century AD. Virtually any book on Christian origins will tell you as much. If you're looking for a specific reference, try Jonathan Knight's Christian Origins (T&T Clark, 2008).

Regarding the early Christian tendency to read Jesus into the Old Testament, here is Larry Hurtado (a critical biblical scholar):

Quote

From the earliest moments of the Christian movement, believers turned to the scriptures of the Jewish tradition to find resources for understanding Jesus and for expressing and defending their claims about his significance. This wide and deep appropriation of the Old Testament continued through the closing period of earliest Christianity (ca. 70–170), and is one of the key characteristics of proto-orthodox circles. . . .

The idea that eschatological events and figures, including the Messiah, were foretold prophetically in the Scriptures was hardly exceptional in the Jewish tradition of the time. But the particular claims that Jesus was the Messiah, that his execution was part of the divine plan and his work as Messiah, and that God had proven Jesus' messianic status by raising him from the dead—these certainly amounted to innovative notions that required energetic effort to validate as fulfillment of Scripture. . . .

The second major way in which proto-orthodox circles of the first two centuries used the Old Testament to support claims about Jesus may be termed "typological." In the citation of proof texts, the Old Testament was mined mainly to identify predictive prophecies, for which the books of the prophets and the Psalms were found particularly fruitful. In the typological approach, however, a much wider array of figures, events, and statements from practically all writings of the Old Testament were cited as "types" (from the Greek typos), that is, divinely intended models that anticipated and foreshadowed Jesus. Once again, this approach clearly has its earliest Christian examples in the New Testament, where it is pervasive.

(Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity [Eerdmans, 2003], 565–566, 569; emphasis mine)

You will note that Hurtado considers the idea that Jesus fulfilled OT prophecy and was prefigured by OT "types" to be a Christian "innovation" that arose in the first century AD.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Nevo

[clarkgoble]

34 minutes ago, Nevo said:

You will note that Hurtado considers the idea that Jesus fulfilled OT prophecy and was prefigured by OT "types" to be a Christian "innovation" that arose in the first century AD.

This seems odd and almost true by definition. His emphasis in your quotes is whether Jesus fulfilled those roles. But since Jesus isn't known until the 1st century of course his fulfilling those roles is a 1st century innovation. The bigger question is whether a dying messiah who was executed as part of a divine plan predates Christianity, not whether Jesus was that figure. Most debating that issue end up referring to 1Qlsa in the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Roughly their version of Isaiah 52-53) John Collins of Yale has a great paper on this "A Messiah Before Jesus?" that focuses in on those issues. 

Admittedly in 1 Nephi there is the idea that the name will be Jesus or Joshua but that's presented as a unique vision to Nephi and not something known by Lehi and Jeremiah.

Now of course it's fair to critique 1QIsa as relevant to pre-exilic Lehi. But if the question is just whether it's original to 1st century Christianity then the key features clearly are not. It's worth asking how much of that can be dated to before the second temple period but that seems a different question.

Edited June 30, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

 But since Jesus isn't known until the 1st century of course his fulfilling those roles is a 1st century innovation.

Yes, exactly.

Quote

The bigger question is whether a dying messiah who was executed as part of a divine plan predates Christianity, not whether Jesus was that figure. Most debating that issue end up referring to 1Qlsa in the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Roughly their version of Isaiah 52-53) John Collins of Yale has a great paper on this "A Messiah Before Jesus?" that focuses in on those issues.

And I think the key takeaway from Collins's paper is on page 34: "In fact, we have no evidence that Isaiah 53 was understood in terms of vicarious suffering in pre-Christian Judaism." Collins is even blunter in his criticism of Knohl's thesis in The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography: "The evidence that a messianic figure before Jesus was construed as the suffering servant, and believed to have been raised from the dead, is flimsy at best. Yet the attempt to find an exact prototype for Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls has fascinated people repeatedly for more than sixty years. The fascination of this mirage is obviously theological or ideological . . ." (117).

Quote

Admittedly in 1 Nephi there is the idea that the name will be Jesus or Joshua but that's presented as a unique vision to Nephi and not something known by Lehi and Jeremiah.

Lehi envisions a coming Messiah that will redeem the world (1 Nephi 1:19).That idea would have made zero sense to a pre-exilic Jew. So would the idea of "the fall of man" (2 Nephi 2:4), whereby "all men . . . were lost because of the transgression of their parents;" a "devil" who seeks "the misery of all mankind" (2 Nephi 2:18); and a Messiah who "offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law" (2 Nephi 2:7). These are all clear anachronisms.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Nevo

[Robert F. Smith]

On 6/29/2018 at 9:11 PM, Nevo said:

You don't need to take my word for it that scholars locate the origins of Christianity in the first century AD. Virtually any book on Christian origins will tell you as much. If you're looking for a specific reference, try Jonathan Knight's Christian Origins (T&T Clark, 2008).

Regarding the early Christian tendency to read Jesus into the Old Testament, here is Larry Hurtado (a critical biblical scholar):

Hebrew Yēšûˁâ  “Jesus, Salvation; He-Will-Save,” is found throughout the OT, both as an explicit name (1 Chronicles 24:11, 2 Chronicles 31:15), as well as a powerful religious term in both the OT and NT (Matthew 1:21, Luke 1:69, 2:11,21,27,30-31, 3:6 [Isaiah 52:10 yĕšûˁat ‘ĕlōhēnû  ǁMosiah 12:24, 15:31], where it clearly provides the soteriological etymology of his name) and Book of Mormon (Mosiah 3:8-9; cf. 3:17-18, 4:6-8); the same applies to “a Saviour, Jesus” in Acts 13:23.  Not only does the prophecy in Luke 1:31 to “call his name Jesus” hark back to Isaiah 52:10, however, but the name is clearly both divine and salvific: Isaiah 12:2 (ǁ2 Nephi 22:2) ʼēl yĕšûˁātî “God is my salvation, God is my Jesus,” as more explicitly in the poetic tetracolon in 2 Nephi 33:6 with “I glory in my Jesus,” which should be considered equivalent to Hebrew bišuˁati “in my Yešuˁa (Salvation),”[1] as in Isaiah 25:9, Psalms 20:6, 22:2, 35:9, 38:23; cf. Exodus 15:2, 2 Samuel 22:3 (=Psalm 18:2, Luke 1:69),47, Micah 7:7, Habakkuk 3:18, Psalms 25:5, 116:6,13, 118:14; Alma 9:28. 

---

[1] Deuteronomy 32:15 ṣûr yĕšūˁātô, Psalm 89:26[27] ṣûr yĕšûˁātî  “God, . . the Rock of his salvation/my salvation”; cf. Jacob 7:25.  

Quote

You will note that Hurtado considers the idea that Jesus fulfilled OT prophecy and was prefigured by OT "types" to be a Christian "innovation" that arose in the first century AD.

How odd that all this supposed "innovation" is actually the reuse of long established forms and patterns (including antitype and type).  Thus the Transfiguration in Mark 9 takes place according to the standard format in Ex 24 & 34.  That is the standard Proclamation and Call format known from the Old Testament.  Lohfink presents it as follows in Luke 1:26-38,

Proclamation & Call..................................Proclamation...................................Call
1) heavenly being appears........................Gen 16:7-12,
2) birth of a son announced.....................17:15-19,
3) his name is determined........................Lk 1:13-17,31-33  
4) his future is revealed         
-----------------------------------------
5) doubt is expressed.....................................................................................Ex 3:10-12
6) explanation removes doubt.......................................................................Jer 1:4-10
7) sign of ratification    

The infancy narrative parallels are similarly set in stone.  It is all quite opaque to those not part of that cultural milieu.

On 6/29/2018 at 11:07 PM, Nevo said:

...................And I think the key takeaway from Collins's paper is on page 34: "In fact, we have no evidence that Isaiah 53 was understood in terms of vicarious suffering in pre-Christian Judaism." Collins is even blunter in his criticism of Knohl's thesis in The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography: "The evidence that a messianic figure before Jesus was construed as the suffering servant, and believed to have been raised from the dead, is flimsy at best. Yet the attempt to find an exact prototype for Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls has fascinated people repeatedly for more than sixty years. The fascination of this mirage is obviously theological or ideological . . ." (117).

Just so, we have mainstream scholars disagreeing with one another on whether the Messianic Suffering Servant was a prominent figure in Essene literature.  In fact, we have Essene (Qumran) texts which allow for not much else:

1Q28a/1QSa 2:11-12 "when [God] has fa[th]ered the Messiah," i.e., God "fathered, begat" (Hebrew yôlîd) the Messiah of Israel[1] 21 Nephi 10:17, 11:7,18,21, 13:40, 2 Nephi 25:12-19, 26:3,9, Jacob 4:5,11, Alma 5:27,48-50, 7:11-13, 9:26-27, 12:33-34, 13:5-9; Mormon 5:14; cf. 2 Nephi 17:14 (=Isaiah 7:14), 19:6 (=Isaiah 9:6), Psalm 2:7 "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee" (2:2 "his anointed" ǁActs 4:26 “his Christ”).

4Q246 (4QpsDan A^a, 4QSon of God) Aramaic I "[He] shall be great upon the earth.... and all shall serve [him]...the [g]reat..," II "and by his name shall he be hailed (as) the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High"[2] =Luke 1:31-32,35 =1 Nephi 10:17, 11:18, 2 Nephi 25:16,19, Mosiah 15:2, Helaman 14:2,12, 3 Nephi 11:17; cf. Alma 7:10; Hosea 11:1 =Matthew 2:15.

4Q252 (Jacob's Blessing, Midrash on Gen 49:10) Jacob prophesied the coming of the righteous Messiah of David[3]; cf. 4Q175 (Testimonia)[4]; cf. 2 Nephi 1:6 - 3:25, 4:3-11 (Blessing of Lehi).[5]

4Q285 (4QPierced Messiah/4QMessianic Leader-Nasi/4QWar Scroll^g/4QMilama frag 5, Midrash Isaiah, Aramaic)[6] "the staff" ǁ"the scepter," "shoot, root of Jesse" ǁ"branch of David" ("Prince of the Congrega­tion"), "piercings" ǁ"wo­unds," etc., specifically quoting "Isaiah the Prophet"; cf. 2 Nephi 21:1-2,10 (=Isaiah 11:1-2,10), Jacob 2:25, Mosiah 14:2-12 (=Isaiah 53:2-12, Suffering Servant, Son), 15:9; 2 Samuel 7, Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15, Zechariah 3:8, 6:12 ("Branch" = "rising Sun" Luke 1:78 [Malachi 3:20/4:2]), 12:10, Psalm 69:26, Matthew 3:16-17, 8:17, John 19:37, 1 Peter 2:24, Revelation 1:7; cf. 4Q174 I (Messianic Flori­legium, Midrash)[7]; 4Q161 frags 8-10 (Kittim crushing the humble ones); 4Q171 (Psalm 37:32); 11QMelch 18-21 (Daniel 9:25-26, Isaiah 61:2-3).  John Collins translates frag 5 line 4 as "the Prince of the Congrega­tion, the Branch of David, will kill him",[9] against Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise's primary reading of "they will put to death the Leader of the Communi­ty, the Bran[ch of David]," though they offer the alternative favored by Gaster and Martinez.[10] Charles­worth notes that Greek pais theou means both "servant of God" and "child of God," which is not the case in Semitic.[11]

4Q541 (4QAaronA/4QAhA) (24 [25] frags dated to ca 100 B.C.; a second copy in 3 frags is 4QTestLevi^c) frag 9 "He will atone for all the children of his generation, and he will be sent to all the children of his [pe]ople. His word is like a word of heaven, and his teaching is in accordance with the will of God. His eternal sun will shine, and his light will be kindled in all the corners of the earth, and it will shine on the darkness... They will speak many words against him, and they will invent many [lie]s and fictions against him and speak shameful things about him. Evil will overthrow his generation..."; frag 24 "Do [not] grieve for [him]...God will set many things right...many revealed things...Ex­amine and seek and know what the dove (Jonah) sought and do not afflict the weak by wasting or hanging [crucifixion].... [Let] not the nail approach him. So you will establish for your father a name of joy, and for your brothers a proven foundation.... You will see and rejoice in the eternal light, and you will not be an enemy"[12]; cf. Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 (4th Suffering Servant poem), 1 Corinthians 15:13; J. Starcky and E. Puech consider this to feature a Suffering Servant or Suffering Messiah theme; J. J. Collins disagrees and sees no more than an Eschatological Priest modeled on the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness.  See also 11QT 64:6-13, below, and 4QPesher Nahum (4Q169) frags 3-4, 1:6,9.

[1]  Wise, Abegg, and Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, 147; G. Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 4th ed., 121 and note.

[2] G. Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 3rd ed., 275; 4th ed. (332); H. Shanks, ed., Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, 203-204; J. J. Collins in BAR, Mar/Apr 1990; J. J. Collins, "A Pre-Christian 'Son of God' Among the Dead Sea Scrolls," Bible Review, 9/3 (June 1993):34-38,57; Eisenman & Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, 68-71.  See also Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God; Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism.

[3] Wacholder & Abegg, Preliminary Edition, fasc. 2.

[4] Both are translated in Gaster, Dead Sea Scriptures, 3rd ed., 443-446.

[5] See Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh: The Messiah Concept in the Old Testament and Later Judaism; James Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity; Charlesworth, "Messianism in the Pseudepigrapha and the Book of Mormon," in Reflections on Mormonism (reprinted by FARMS CHA-78); Donald H. Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Augsburg Fortress, 1998).

[6] Biblical Archaeology Review, 18/4 (July-Aug 1992):80-82.

[7] Gaster, Dead Sea Scriptures 3rd ed., 446-448.

[8] So Florentino Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, 124, frag. 5, line 4; see recent debate in BAR, 18/4 (Jul-Aug 1992):80-82; James Tabor in 18/6 (Nov-Dec 1992):58-59; Robert Holst in 19/1 (Jan-Feb 1993):66-67; Bible Review, 14/6 (Dec 1998):14.

[9] James Charlesworth & Walter Weaver, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Faith.

[10] Eisenman & Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, 29, frag. 7, line 4.

[11] Charlesworth & Weaver, eds., The Old and the New Testaments: Their Relationship and the "Inter­testamental" Literature, 65.

[12] J. J. Collins, "The Suffering Servant at Qumran?" Bible Review, 9/6 (Dec 1993):25-27,63.

Quote

Lehi envisions a coming Messiah that will redeem the world (1 Nephi 1:19).That idea would have made zero sense to a pre-exilic Jew. So would the idea of "the fall of man" (2 Nephi 2:4), whereby "all men . . . were lost because of the transgression of their parents;" a "devil" who seeks "the misery of all mankind" (2 Nephi 2:18); and a Messiah who "offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law" (2 Nephi 2:7). These are all clear anachronisms

If one pointedly ignores all the dying and rising god myths in the ancient Near East, and even the virgin birth and divine paternity of so many demi-gods under a new star, yes, one can insist that such things were virtually unknown to ancient Israel.  But wait, why do we have the same divine paternity tales in the Bible and pre-Christian pseudepigrapha?  

Noah is son of both God and Lamech (Genesis Apocryphon [1QapGen] 2:1-26, 3:3, 5:3-4,9-10,24-27; I Enoch 6:6, 106:1-3,18, 107:3; Jubilees 4:15, etc.); and, of course, Jesus is divine because the son of God, but King of the Jews because son of Joseph (C. H. Gordon, "The Double Paternity of Jesus," Biblical Archaeology Review, 4/2:26ff.).  Isaac is also divine because he is the literal son of God and Sarah (Gen 21:1-2, Judg 15:1, paqad "coitus, visit"), though also the heir of Abraham. 

The star and magi go together for Jesus, as well as for the story of Balaam: Philo Judaeus terms Balaam a magus who is accompanied by two servants = three who foil King Balak's action against God's people -- just as Herod's actions are foiled by the magi coming to visit Jesus (Mat 2:1-12 ∥Num 22 - 24, esp. 24:17 on the star from Jacob), and to bring him gifts and to praise him and bow before him (Mica 5:2, Ps 72:10-11, Isa 60:6).  John Dominic Crossan goes to considerable lengths to show that the infancy narratives of Moses and Jesus (in Matthew) find their closest parallels in Midrashim of Philo, Pseudo-Philo, Josephus (all writing in the 1st century A.D.), and the Sefer ha-Zikronot.  Philo, for example, mentions magoi-advisers telling Pharaoh about the birth of Moses.  Moreover, just as Moses and Jesus escape massacres while infants, so also does Moses escape to Midian as an adult -- Jesus escaping to Egypt while yet a child (Mat 2:13-18, Hosea 11:1, Jeremiah 31:15).  Both end up at the Nile River while very young.

For his part, Samuel N. Kramer noted that over 2000 years before Christ, one finds Sumerian tales at close parallel with the "legend" of Jesus Christ, e.g., the Dumuzi-Inanna cycle (Kramer, Sacred Marriage Rite, 1969)

a. three days & three nights in Netherworld
b. thirty shekels as term of contempt
c. epithets "shepherd," "anointed," and "carpenter" (Sumerian NAGGAR = Hebrew naggar)
d. agony suffered; scourged and beaten
e. bound and pinioned
f. undressed
g. vicarious substitute for all mankind
h. virginity of Mother-goddess

Edited July 1, 2018 by Robert F. Smith

[Rajah Manchou]

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

Lehi envisions a coming Messiah that will redeem the world (1 Nephi 1:19).That idea would have made zero sense to a pre-exilic Jew. So would the idea of "the fall of man" (2 Nephi 2:4), whereby "all men . . . were lost because of the transgression of their parents;" a "devil" who seeks "the misery of all mankind" (2 Nephi 2:18); and a Messiah who "offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law" (2 Nephi 2:7). These are all clear anachronisms.

Isn't this sort of eisegesis common in Christian adaptations of earlier Jewish texts?

We've discussed this before, but in the Narrative of Zosimus, the Blessed Ones were 6th century BC Israelites presumably separated from the Christian world for centuries. Yet 5th century AD Christian monks later inserted Christian elements like the eucharist, Easter, and Christian monasticism into their Jewish narrative. These later additions don't cancel out the Jewish narrative, which seems to date back to the pre-exilic period. How is this any different from the story of 6th century BC Lehites with Christian additions made by Mormon in the 5th century AD?

I don't think we can assume that Joseph Smith's translation of Nephi's apocryphal visions recorded on the small plates were not influenced by what he had read in Mormon's abridgment of the Book of Lehi. It seems more likely that his second pass through that history would have been greatly influenced by the abridgment of Mormon, a 5th century Christian. Joseph's personal visions and interactions with angels and prophets (including Nephi and Mormon) would have also influenced the translation of the small plates.

"In all, the angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith at least twenty times. Joseph informed associates that other Book of Mormon prophets also visited him, including Nephi, son of Lehi" (Cheesman, pp. 38-60).

Let's imagine Nephi was talking to Joseph one night in 1823 and mentioned that Jesus Christ was his Messiah. Joseph, while translating the writings of Nephi, lands upon the word Messiah and inserts Jesus Christ. We know that Joseph wasn't actually translating inscriptions off "Before Christ" plates, so the narrative had to have come from somewhere else. Perhaps it came from an 1823 "in the year of our Lord" manifestation of Nephi. If Joseph was personally schooled by Nephi in the 1820s, its impossible to argue that Jesus Christ appearing in 1st and 2nd Nephi is an anachronism. But I admit, it doesn't make it any less weird.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[USU78]

7 hours ago, Nevo said:

Yes, exactly.

And I think the key takeaway from Collins's paper is on page 34: "In fact, we have no evidence that Isaiah 53 was understood in terms of vicarious suffering in pre-Christian Judaism." Collins is even blunter in his criticism of Knohl's thesis in The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography: "The evidence that a messianic figure before Jesus was construed as the suffering servant, and believed to have been raised from the dead, is flimsy at best. Yet the attempt to find an exact prototype for Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls has fascinated people repeatedly for more than sixty years. The fascination of this mirage is obviously theological or ideological . . ." (117).

Lehi envisions a coming Messiah that will redeem the world (1 Nephi 1:19).That idea would have made zero sense to a pre-exilic Jew. So would the idea of "the fall of man" (2 Nephi 2:4), whereby "all men . . . were lost because of the transgression of their parents;" a "devil" who seeks "the misery of all mankind" (2 Nephi 2:18); and a Messiah who "offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law" (2 Nephi 2:7). These are all clear anachronisms.

Just a generation or so earlier, Lehi's homeland disappeared from history. His adopted homeland just disappeared, perhaps forever, though Isaiah says some Judahites will return some day. And he's now a stranger in a strange land. And he's aware of the seeds already growing if not full grown of murder and destruction in his own family.

Yet you think it impossible that he might yearn for the healing of a world that seemed beyond healing. Or that it would take a G-d to heal it. Or that "an enemy hath done this."

 

[kllindley]

6 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Isn't this sort of eisegesis common in Christian adaptations of earlier Jewish texts?

We've discussed this before, but in the Narrative of Zosimus, the Blessed Ones were 6th century BC Israelites presumably separated from the Christian world for centuries. Yet 5th century AD Christian monks later inserted Christian elements like the eucharist, Easter, and Christian monasticism into their Jewish narrative. These later additions don't cancel out the Jewish narrative, which seems to date back to the pre-exilic period. How is this any different from the story of 6th century BC Lehites with Christian additions made by Mormon in the 5th century AD?

I don't think we can assume that Joseph Smith's translation of Nephi's apocryphal visions recorded on the small plates were not influenced by what he had read in Mormon's abridgment of the Book of Lehi. It seems more likely that his second pass through that history would have been greatly influenced by the abridgment of Mormon, a 5th century Christian. Joseph's personal visions and interactions with angels and prophets (including Nephi and Mormon) would have also influenced the translation of the small plates.

"In all, the angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith at least twenty times. Joseph informed associates that other Book of Mormon prophets also visited him, including Nephi, son of Lehi" (Cheesman, pp. 38-60).

Let's imagine Nephi was talking to Joseph one night in 1823 and mentioned that Jesus Christ was his Messiah. Joseph, while translating the writings of Nephi, lands upon the word Messiah and inserts Jesus Christ. We know that Joseph wasn't actually translating inscriptions off "Before Christ" plates, so the narrative had to have come from somewhere else. Perhaps it came from an 1823 "in the year of our Lord" manifestation of Nephi. If Joseph was personally schooled by Nephi in the 1820s, its impossible to argue that Jesus Christ appearing in 1st and 2nd Nephi is an anachronism. But I admit, it doesn't make it any less weird.

That is a fantastic point that many critics ignore. Again, basic historical fact, corroborated by non-Mormon historian, which is ignored as a data point by ignoring the actual text. 

Thanks!

[Nevo]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Not only does the prophecy in Luke 1:31 to “call his name Jesus” hark back to Isaiah 52:10, however, but the name is clearly both divine and salvific.

The name Jesus/Joshua was also the sixth most popular male name among Palestinian Jews between 300 BCE and 200 CE, so it's not surprising that Jesus' parents named him that. Richard Bauckham notes that five of the eight most popular male names were theophoric, or popularly believed to be (see Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, p. 76, citing research by Tal Ilan). So a large number of Jewish men in Jesus' day had "divine and salvific" names.

Quote

Just so, we have mainstream scholars disagreeing with one another on whether the Messianic Suffering Servant was a prominent figure in Essene literature.  In fact, we have Essene (Qumran) texts which allow for not much else.

You quote a bunch of proof texts out of context from the Dead Sea Scrolls to imply that they anticipated a messianic figure like Jesus, but it's important to note the significant differences. Here again, Collins is helpful:

Quote

Even if the Teacher was understood in terms of the suffering servant, however, and even understood as a messiah, how far could he be said to have anticipated Jesus? The Teacher was understood to have undergone suffering in the course of his mission. That mission was for the benefit of others. While the servant, in Isaiah 53:11, was said to make many righteous, the Teacher claims, "through me you have enlightened the face of the many" (1QHa 12:27). But the Teacher is not said to offer his life as a ransom for many, or to suffer vicariously on their behalf. In contrast, in the New Testament we are told that "the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45), and in the epistle to the Romans 4:25 we are told that Jesus "was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification." The servant of Isaiah 53 was usually understood in Judaism around the turn of the era as a paradigmatic case of humiliation followed by exaltation. (There is no clear allusion before the New Testament to the idea that his death would atone for others.) Both the Teacher and Jesus were afflicted and humiliated, and would be exalted. But the most novel aspect of the use of Isaiah 53 in the New Testament, which focused on the death of the servant as atonement for the sins of others, is not anticipated in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

— John J. Collins, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2013), 111–112; emphasis added.

Kind of important to point that out.

Regarding 4Q285, here is Collins again:

Quote

The controversy surrounding this text has by now been essentially resolved. Initial claims reported in the media, that this text reported the death of a messianic figure, have been shown to be unwarranted. What is decisive in this case is not the grammar or syntax, which can be construed in different ways, but the context. . . . In view of the association with Isaiah 11, where the shoot of Jesse will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and kill the wicked with the breath of his lips, it seems beyond reasonable doubt that the Prince/Branch is the subject of the verb to kill, not its object.

— John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1995), 58–59.

Martin Abegg has reconstructed this text as follows:

Quote

The high priest blesses God before the assembly, reflecting the imminent age of peace and prosperity (frag. 1). Fragments 6 and 4 appear to describe a campaign beginning in the mountains of Israel (6.4). The final battle is then fought on the Mediterranean (?) Sea (4.2). The evil forces are routed with the help of the angelic hosts (10.3) and the wicked leader is brought before the Prince of the Congregation for judgement (4:6). He is found guilty and put to death in fulfillment of Isaiah 10:33–11:5 (5.4). The daughters of Israel then celebrate with timbrel and dance (5.5) and the high priest orders the cleansing of the land of the corpses of the Kitians (5–6.2, 5–6).

— Martin G. Abegg Jr., "Messianic Hope and 4Q285: A Reassessment," Journal of Biblical Literature 113, no. 1 (1994): 82.

Not much there about Christ's atoning death.

The other texts you cite only establish that a variety of messianic expectations appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As an outgrowth of the apocalypticism that arose in Hasmonean period, they tell us something about Second Temple Judaism but don't give us any insight into how pre-exilic Jews saw things. Certainly they don't account for account for Lehi's well-developed Christian theology.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Nevo

[Nevo]

7 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

We've discussed this before, but in the Narrative of Zosimus, the Blessed Ones were 6th century BC Israelites presumably separated from the Christian world for centuries. Yet 5th century AD Christian monks later inserted Christian elements like the eucharist, Easter, and Christian monasticism into their Jewish narrative. These later additions don't cancel out the Jewish narrative, which seems to date back to the pre-exilic period. How is this any different from the story of 6th century BC Lehites with Christian additions made by Mormon in the 5th century AD?

Well, for starters, as you know, I don't consider the Narrative of Zosimus to date to the pre-exilic period or to describe historical events. I accept the scholarly consensus that it's a fictional story likely composed sometime in the first centuries of the Common Era.

That aside, it's certainly true that Christian scribes sometimes "Christianized" earlier Jewish texts. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs comes to mind as an example, but there are many others. But, with regard to the Book of Mormon, the plates of Nephi were supposedly separate from the plates of Mormon, so I don't see much room to posit a later Christian redaction by Mormon.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Nevo

[Rajah Manchou]

1 minute ago, Nevo said:

Well, for starters, as you know, I don't consider the Narrative of Zosimus to date to the pre-exilic period or to describe historical events. I accept the scholarly consensus that it's a fictional story that was likely composed sometime in the first centuries of the Common Era.

Yes, that's the bump we keep hitting. I've made attempts to provide evidence that the Rechabite traditions are based on historical events. There is evidence of this, some is published. Some I have linked. Have you read them? There's little I can do if the evidence is ignored.

3 minutes ago, Nevo said:

But, with regard to the Book of Mormon, the plates of Nephi were supposedly separate from the plates of Mormon, so I don't see much room to posit a later Christian redaction by Mormon.

Not what I proposed. Joseph translated Mormon's abridgment of the BC period before he translated the small plates. We don't know how much Christianity Mormon attributed to the Lehites in the 116 pages. I'm saying Joseph's translation of the small plates, would have been heavily influenced by Mormon's version of events. Also, since Joseph wasn't even looking at the small plates when he dictated the translation, we can't assume it was a literal translation. It could have been something he picked up from the countless visits of Moroni and Nephi, whoever they were, in the 1820s. 

[Nevo]

22 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Yes, that's the bump we keep hitting. I've made attempts to provide evidence that the Rechabite traditions are based on historical events. There is evidence of this, some is published. Some I have linked. Have you read them? There's little I can do if the evidence is ignored.

I've browsed the Braginsky article, "Two Eastern Christian Sources on Medieval Nusantara," but I haven't quite figured out what I'm supposed to take away from it. Something about a 15th-century Russian merchant, Afanasiy Nikitin, who traveled to India and a land he called "Shabat," which Braginsky thinks is probably Sumatra. Nikitin observed that the inhabitants there are "neither Jews nor Muslims, nor Christians, but have a different—Indian—faith." So, if Nikitin and Braginsky are correct, there were no Jews on Sumatra in the 1470s. How does this support your thesis?

22 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Not what I proposed. Joseph translated Mormon's abridgment of the BC period before he translated the small plates. We don't know how much Christianity Mormon attributed to the Lehites in the 116 pages. I'm saying Joseph's translation of the small plates, would have been heavily influenced by Mormon's version of events. Also, since Joseph wasn't even looking at the small plates when he dictated the translation, we can't assume it was a literal translation. It could have been something he picked up from the countless visits of Moroni and Nephi, whoever they were, in the 1820s. 

I appreciate the clarification. So you're proposing that Mormon could have introduced Christianity into his narrative of Lehi in the 116 pages and that that could have influenced Joseph Smith's translation of the small plates of Nephi—or, alternatively, Joseph's may have introduced Christian interpolations into the text based on interactions with the postmortal Lehi and Nephi. That's an interesting speculation. But given the nineteenth-century flavor of a lot of the Book of Mormon theology, I think a modern origin is more likely.

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, Nevo said:

I've browsed the Braginsky article, "Two Eastern Christian Sources on Medieval Nusantara," but I haven't quite figured out what I'm supposed to take away from it. Something about a 15th-century Russian merchant, Afanasiy Nikitin, who traveled to India and a land he called "Shabat," which Braginsky thinks is probably Sumatra. Nikitin observed that the inhabitants there are "neither Jews nor Muslims, nor Christians, but have a different—Indian—faith." So, if Nikitin and Braginsky are correct, there were no Jews on Sumatra in the 1470s. How does this support your thesis?

There's a lot of material to cover and I always fret about threadjacking, so I'll post a clearer summary on the other thread. But if you never make it over there, the simple response is that the Rechabites had been known as Rahmans throughout Christian history. For example, the Narrative of Zosimus is known in Slavonic tradition as "Zosima's Voyage to the Rahmans" My thesis is that once you track the origins and folklore of Rahmans, you get a clearer picture of who the Rechabites were.

1 hour ago, Nevo said:

I appreciate the clarification. So you're proposing that Mormon could have introduced Christianity into his narrative of Lehi in the 116 pages and that that could have influenced Joseph Smith's translation of the small plates of Nephi—or, alternatively, Joseph's may have introduced Christian interpolations into the text based on interactions with the postmortal Lehi and Nephi. That's an interesting speculation. But given the nineteenth-century flavor of a lot of the Book of Mormon theology, I think a modern origin is more likely.

Also, the small plates were translated after everything else (right? i'll need to check on that). So Joseph and Oliver would have already worked through a lot of Jewish material that had been redacted by a Christian. My thinking is that given all the above, we should not be terribly surprised to find Christianity in 1st and 2nd Nephi. I think we both agree, Christians had been doing that to older Jewish texts long before Mormon and Joseph. 

But yes, there are the 19th centuryisms. I agree there are those.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Gray]

On 6/29/2018 at 8:49 AM, kllindley said:

So, the answer is no. You can't point out any critical scholarship arguing that Christianity could not have predated Christ. 

It's impossible to prove a negative. CFR for citations of critical scholarship that argue Christianity before the first century CE.

 

On 6/29/2018 at 8:49 AM, kllindley said:

Yes. Christianity is more. And no. I'm not talking about Messianic expectations. I'm talking about doctrines and theology found in the OT. Your condescending dismissal is a sad substitute for evidence. 

While Christian theology embraces the OT, what makes it uniquely Christian (and not Jewish) starts to form in the NT and the post-NT church fathers and creeds. This is elementary stuff, klindley.

[Gray]

On 6/29/2018 at 8:58 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

The anachronism which you are blind to is the direct equation of KJV "anointed" with KJV "Christ."  You don't see it because you object to it theologically and willfully.  The OT is filled with these equivalencies which you can't see because you don't know Hebrew & Greek.  You are basing your judgments on total ignorance and apriori assumptions -- a powerful and deleterious combination.

This is not the issue. The idea of the Messiah predates Christianity. But uniquely Christian messianic doctrines do not.

 

On 6/29/2018 at 8:58 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

Both Essenes and early followers of Jesus had the same interpretation of the coming Messiah as the Isaianic Suffering Servant, and Jewish scholars see them as the same.  You are about 50 years behind on research.

I'm really not. The BOM teaches normative Christian interpretations of what it mean to be the Messiah. The spiritual messiah who would expiate for sins. That's the anachronism. And as I'm sure you're aware, Lehi predates the Essenes.

 

On 6/29/2018 at 8:58 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

Since you are not a critical scholar and are completely unaware of the facts, you simply make the automatic assumption that Jesus was really born in Nazareth, but you know no such historical fact.  It is an assumption not supported by history.  We can even take the view that the Gospels are so late that they tell us nothing about Jesus, a minimalist and even nihilistic position.  Make your theological judgments, but don't try to dignify them as "historical."

Robert, you should know that critical scholars who are up to snuff (even conservative ones) don't tend to take the received tradition at face value. It's not controversial that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem. The evangelists, in their invented nativities, bend over backwards to explain why although Jesus was known to have come from Nazareth, he was really born in Bethlehem. To fulfill prophesy. Are you sure you understand the difference between theological and historical? Based on your background you should, but you're reversing them in your arguments.

 

On 6/29/2018 at 8:58 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

What is clearly true is that (as in the equation of "anointed" and "Christ") the explicit  etymology of the name Jesus (Yeshua) in the NT makes nearly every reference to the Salvation (Yeshua) of God in the OT a prophecy of Jesus by name.  You don't see it because you are blind to the Hebrew & Greek text.

Relevance?

 

On 6/29/2018 at 8:58 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

I  think rather that the shoe is on the other foot, Gray.  You willfully ignore the plain meaning of texts, and certainly do not understand what constitutes history.  You do this by classifying anything you don't like as "theological," and anything you do like as "historical."  A critical scholar allows the texts to speak for themselves, and in context.

There's a difference, you know, between fundamentalism and a historical critical view of the text. What you're arguing for is the former, not the latter.

[Gray]

On 6/29/2018 at 9:26 AM, Hamba Tuhan said:

Oh no, you're absolutely right. New Testament Studies (published by the ever-obscure Cambridge University Press), Routledge Publishing (located in a place called Oxford, which I'm certain most people have never even heard of) and McMaster University (rumoured to have some standing in Canada ... as if that should mean anything) are all so far out of the academic mainstream that I should be positively embarrassed to have brought them up. I'm just glad I chose not to include all the citations from the Flat Earth Society. Mea maxima culpa!

Are you sure you carefully looked at the context of those citations?

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

This is not the issue. The idea of the Messiah predates Christianity. But uniquely Christian messianic doctrines do not.

You are ignoring the actual Qumran texts and their meaning, as though there is no continuity whatsoever from OT times down to NT times, which is a fantasy which non-scholars revel in.  The result is failure to understand texts in context, and denial of the normal process of change through time.  You emphasize change and demand t hat there be no connections because it would be too upsetting to you to accept them (as it is to most normative Christians).  You deny the stream of tradition because it demands that Judaism be given its due, something destructive of normative Christianity -- and it is normative Christianity which you are tied to in order to deny it.  If normative Chrstianaity is false, then you have nothing to deny.  How inconvenient.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

................ The BOM teaches normative Christian interpretations of what it mean to be the Messiah. The spiritual messiah who would expiate for sins. That's the anachronism. And as I'm sure you're aware, Lehi predates the Essenes.

Of course, Lehi predates the Essenes, and so does Jeremiah -- who uses the very references to yeshua "salvation," which can be read as prophecy of Jesus, along with substituting a new heart for physical circumcision, along with the "Gospel."  Isaiah does much the same, but it all escapes you because you simply don't know your OT texts,  And even when they are cited for you, you miss the point entirely.  The biblical text might just as well not exist, because it is inconvenient for you to acknowledge it, and therefore have to wrench your  mind around to face the unpleasant reality.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Robert, you should know that critical scholars who are up to snuff (even conservative ones) don't tend to take the received tradition at face value. It's not controversial that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem. The evangelists, in their invented nativities, bend over backwards to explain why although Jesus was known to have come from Nazareth, he was really born in Bethlehem. To fulfill prophesy. Are you sure you understand the difference between theological and historical? Based on your background you should, but you're reversing them in your arguments..................

There's a difference, you know, between fundamentalism and a historical critical view of the text. What you're arguing for is the former, not the latter.

On the contrary, what I am arguing for is a complete upending of the normative Christian dogma which has long maintained the primacy of Hellenistic learning and theology, even though the best scholars have known for a generation that it is moribund.  Yet you base all your assumptions on that false dogma -- so strongly propounded by the Jesus Seminar.  You have accepted that outmoded view, and have built on it a series of false assumptions which are not matched by actual history or text.  Buying into absurd and false reconstructions of the life of Jesus does not advance the historical or theological enterprise.

As in the case of the place of Jesus" birth, which is entirely a matter of faith, you put your trust in Nazareth being his place of birth, not because there is actual evidence for it (no text says so), but only because it fits an apriori schema in which the entire Christian story is and must be a fantasy.  A secular need, requiring that Bethlehem not be the place of his birth simply because it might fulfill a prophecy.  That is the nature of a systematically demythologized text, a process which you do not acknowledge.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Nevo said:

The name Jesus/Joshua was also the sixth most popular male name among Palestinian Jews between 300 BCE and 200 CE, so it's not surprising that Jesus' parents named him that. Richard Bauckham notes that five of the eight most popular male names were theophoric, or popularly believed to be (see Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, p. 76, citing research by Tal Ilan). So a large number of Jewish men in Jesus' day had "divine and salvific" names.

Of course, but my main point was that the etymology specifically given in the NT consciously and deliberately matched the OT texts, something you are plainly unaware of.  That further justifies the view that any prophecy by name in the pre-exilic BofM fits too well to be waved away as sheer nonsense.  Yet you wave that all away (along with Qumran) without a second thought.

5 hours ago, Nevo said:

You quote a bunch of proof texts out of context from the Dead Sea Scrolls to imply that they anticipated a messianic figure like Jesus, but it's important to note the significant differences. Here again, Collins is helpful:

Kind of important to point that out.

Regarding 4Q285, here is Collins again:

Martin Abegg has reconstructed this text as follows:

Not much there about Christ's atoning death.

Once again, you ignore my main point which is that mainstream scholars do not agree on how to interpret those items,.  Unlike you, I cite both sides in the debate and am well aware of the diversity of views.  You need to begin by acknowledging those differences of opinion.

5 hours ago, Nevo said:

The other texts you cite only establish that a variety of messianic expectations appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As an outgrowth of the apocalypticism that arose in Hasmonean period, they tell us something about Second Temple Judaism but don't give us any insight into how pre-exilic Jews saw things. Certainly they don't account for account for Lehi's well-developed Christian theology.

True enough, but I did cite plenty of OT texts to make my point.  Naturally, if Margaret Barkier is correct, Lehi's claims fit his era like a glove.