Was there a Historical Jesus (differences, resurrection, crucifixion, disciples)

[TimONeill]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

It doesn't persuade me.There is no mention of how it was a misfortune for the Jews.

A wise man who taught the people good things was killed. That's a misfortune.

If that was Josephus' intention, he should have explained it to his readers.

He does. A wise man who taught the people good things was killed. A misfortune. I can't work out why you are finding this so hard to grasp. It's bleeding obvious.

It is a parenthetical insertion with no relation to the rest of the text but 'Pilate'.

And "Pilate" is enough of a connection, along with misfortunes suffered by the Jews at his hands. This really isn't very hard to grasp either. And since you claim to have read all of Josephus, I also find it strange you have such a problem with his characteristic parenthetical style. Look at his account of Honi the Circle Drawrer (Ant. XIV.21-28), the Galilean brigands (Ant. XIV.415-430), Judah son of Hezakiah (Ant. XVII.271-272), Simon of Peraea (Ant. XVII.273-77), Athronges (Ant. XVII.278-84), Tholomaus (Ant. XX.50), Theudas (Ant. XX.97-8), Eleazar ben Dinai (Ant. XX.161), The Egyptian prophet (Ant. XX.169-171), another unnamed prophet (Ant. XX.188) or Eleazar the exorcist (Ant. 8.46-49). You could remove any of those and their surrounding contexts are written in such a way that the text, when read with the passage absent, can still can be read sensibly and without any sign that something has been removed. This is just Josephus' style. It's strange that you haven't noticed this if, as you say, you've read all of Josephus.

point 1. Ok, I agree that Josephus might have said that about a Jesus he did not believe in. The point was more to show the order of description in Josephus was the same as in Luke. Which you say is an expected coincidence and I say is still a bit too coincidental

How is the "order similar"? The term "a wise man?" is somehow "similar in order" to "a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the peoples"? I fail to see any similarity at all.

point 2. apart from the skeptical tone, the passage looks to be endorsing the miracles. You let me off easily here, given that at least one remark is spurious, it is permissible to be suspicious of others that sound a bit too approving.

If Jesus had a reputation as a faith healer (and those later miracle stories must have come from somewhere), then this is just reporting some kind of "paradoxical deeds", not "endorsing" them. παραδοξων means "paradoxical, hard to interpret, unusual". As I said, it has sceptical overtones. And "a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly" is a Greek translation of a Hebrew expression of approval, which would explain why we find similar expressions in the gospels. Josephus was a Hebrew-literate Aramaic-speaking Jew, remember.

point 3. You are a stout fellow! But that is a bit of a reach. Rather he would say that many 'Greeks' (any Hellenized gentiles, really, as you say) had become Christians. Which calls into question the talk of the 'tribe' (as though it was a racial group) of the Christians. To say that Jesus won them over does sound like a Gospel -believing Christian view.

I don't understand this at all. He does say precisely that. So what is your point? And "phyle" is used by Josephus in several places to describe distinct groups that have nothing to do with race, including in one place a whole gender and in another a swarm of locusts. So that fails too.

point 4. Thank you. Then suppose Josephus is just referring to the Christian group, it would be wrong to say that Jesus had won over many Greeks,and it is more likely to be a slip by a Christian writer than by Josephus. And, come to think of it, if this is spurious it is spurious by someone who is trying to sound not spurious, so 'called the messiah' could be spurious. But that is too baroque for me, and in fact is your best point so far and I shall have to look that up.

I can't see how that could be "wrong". He's simply saying that (he believed) Jesus' teaching won over both Greeks and Jews. That Christians generally were a distinct group ("phyle") without any ethnic connotation fits this perfectly - it was a group made up of both Greeks and Jews. You seem to be working very hard to find things to object to.

point 5.Ok you meant 'Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the messiah'. So accepting that I'll have a look at a 'corrected' Josephus and see how it strikes me.

What the hell else could "called the Messiah" mean? You've only just grasped this?

How it is 'backward' is to argue that Hegesippus is believable even if (as you seem to conceded) the story 'grew in the telling'.

"Believable"? The extra details in Hegesippus may or may not be in any way historical. They may be. Or they may be the kind of additions made in hagiography. It doesn't matter. The crux of the story is that the Temple priesthood executed James by stoning him. As Josephus mentions. Why you are getting so fixated on the other details I have no idea. They are clearly a brief reference to (Josephus) and a later story about (Hegesippus) the same thing.

If we accept the story in Josephus without the tower and clubbing and Christian speech, then those elements in Hegesippus have 'grown in the telling' and in fact are unreliable. That's why we should scrap Hegesippus and just use Josephus.

Why should we "scrap Hegesippus"? That makes no sense at all. See above - those other elements may be unhistorical or may be historical. We can't tell. But it actually doesn't matter because the story is clearly about the same thing.

And if we do that the only reason to connect that with the Gospel James in the addition of 'The messiah or Called the messiah, as you argue. One might ask why he did not then say James, brother of Jesus of Nazareth, or at least Jesus the Galilean, or Jesus son of Joseph? It is more common to identify Jews by their patronym of place than by a title that Josephus dd not in fact accept.

There is no need to "do that". And yes, the main connection between the Jesus of Ant.XX.200-203 and Jesus of Nazareth is the phrase "who was called Messiah". You use the word "addition", but Origen's mentions show is was original to the text. And Josephus identifies people in lots of ways - he refers to them by a more famous brother in at least one other place, by what they were "called" in several instances and often by their fathers. But he usually does the latter when their father was someone famous, such as a king who was the son of a king or a priest who was the son of a priest. Whereas James' father would have been a nobody. So he refers to James by reference to his better known brother and uses the same phrase about Jesus that he seems, on the textual evidence, to have originally used back in Bk. XVIII.

You might argue this is again Josephus reading back a later view, but in fact that would be more what a Christian editor would do than Josephus writing about people and events of his own time.

I don't understand this at all. If Jesus was called the Messiah, it makes perfect sense to refer to him as "that Jesus who was called Messiah". Especially because it helps differentiate him from the different Jesus who is mentioned a few sentences later - Jesus ben Damneus.

it strikes me that there might be a reason for Josephus to say 'son of Damneus' a second time, because this the Jesus was selected by Albinus to be High priest and had to be differentiated from other persons called Jesus who weren't. I would have expected Josephus then to say 'Jesus bother of James, or that James who had been killed' But then, giving the Patronym would be simpler. I am not convinced myself, but it seems possible under those particular circumstances.

I've already told you that Josephus never used the same identifier twice in the same passage. I can give you multiple examples where he identifies someone by an appellation - " X called Y" or "X son of Y" - and then for the rest of that passage just calls them "X". He only repeats the appellation if there is someone else in the same passage with the same name. So that attempt fails.

I am glad that you do understand the material and can explain it. But I have already commented on scholarly concensus. If they tend to see the TF as not parenthetical when it has no relation to the rest of the text but "Pilate".

You are simply wrong on that.

And the argument that it was a 'misfortune' for the Jews doesn't work, because Josephus doesn't explain how - it would be absurd to suggest that he can assume that his readership already knew enough to work this out for themselves.

His readership would have to be pretty thick if they couldn't work out how a wise man who taught the people well being killed by Pilate was a misfortune. I'm certainly wondering why you can't figure that out.

P.s I particular have to comment (again, as I recall) on this sort of thing "The crux of both stories is the same - Jewish priests had James stoned to death. The later hagiographical details in Hegesippus' account is precisely what we'd expect, but the essence is the same."

This is simply picking the bits of the story that fit and ignoring the discrepancies - and in this case they are significant. That the Hegesippus version (for whatever reason) has frankly unbelievable elements (like the Christian speech) that makes it unreliable. So we have to ignore it and go with Josephus, which is essentially what you are saying anyway - just use the bit of Hegesippus that agree with Josephus and ignore the rest.

That makes no sense at all. The "discrepencies" are just extra details of the kind we would expect in a longer, later version of an event that Josephus mentions in passing. They are not reason to reject Hegesippus at all - he is just telling a longer, later story about the same even that Josephus alludes to in passing with a few words. Josephus' version is one brief sentence - "And, when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned." To expect detailed overlap between that brief mention and a much longer account from 150 years later is totally ridiculous. And to reject that the longer account is about the same event on that basis is even more so.

[thrillobyte]

Originally Posted by TimONeill

If Jesus had a reputation as a faith healer (and those later miracle stories must have come from somewhere), then this is just reporting some kind of "paradoxical deeds", not "endorsing" them. παραδοξων means "paradoxical, hard to interpret, unusual". As I said, it has sceptical overtones. And "a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly" is a Greek translation of a Hebrew expression of approval, which would explain why we find similar expressions in the gospels. Josephus was a Hebrew-literate Aramaic-speaking Jew, remember.

The miracle stories of Zeus, Krishna, Osirus, and Dionysus had to come from somewhere too, didn't they?

[TimONeill]

Originally Posted by thrillobyte

The miracle stories of Zeus, Krishna, Osirus, and Dionysus had to come from somewhere too, didn't they?

Sure. And if we had a letter dated to 20 years after these figures were supposed to be on earth mentioning meeting one of their brothers and two historians writing about them as recent historical figures within a century of their alleged deaths on earth, with one of them alluding to their miracles, then we'd be right to conclude these figures were based on a person who was perhaps a faith healer. As we do with Jesus. I'm not aware of that material existing for Zeus, Krishna, Osirus, or Dionysus though. We do have that material for Jesus, which is why the scholarly consensus is that the "Jesus Christ" of Christianity is based on a Jewish preacher who was probably a faith healer.

[Rafius]

Originally Posted by thrillobyte

The miracle stories of Zeus, Krishna, Osirus, and Dionysus had to come from somewhere too, didn't they?

I'm still wondering how ragged-arsed, itinerant preacher warranted the attention of the dude governing Judea...not even a Roman! Would he have even been entitled to a trail??

[TimONeill]

Originally Posted by Rafius

I'm still wondering how ragged-arsed, itinerant preacher warranted the attention of the dude governing Judea...not even a Roman! Would he have even been entitled to a trail??

Whether he warranted a "trail" or not, he may or may not have warranted a trial. But plenty of "ragged-arsed, itinerant preachers" warranted "attention" from the Roman prefects and procurators over the course of the first century - Theudas, Athronges, the Egyptian prophet, the Samaritan prophet and many others. The Romans tended to give "attention" to anyone who seemed to them to be talking about some kind of nationalist sedition against Rome and weren't very discriminating when it came to the theological niceties of what these "ragged-arsed, itinerant preachers" were saying. Causing a disturbance in the Temple at Passover would be more than enough to get you nailed up by a occupying force that thought nothing of crucifying 2000 Jews at a time if provoked.

[thrillobyte]

Originally Posted by TimONeill

Sure. And if we had a letter dated to 20 years after these figures were supposed to be on earth mentioning meeting one of their brothers and two historians writing about them as recent historical figures within a century of their alleged deaths on earth, with one of them alluding to their miracles, then we'd be right to conclude these figures were based on a person who was perhaps a faith healer. As we do with Jesus. I'm not aware of that material existing for Zeus, Krishna, Osirus, or Dionysus though. We do have that material for Jesus, which is why the scholarly consensus is that the "Jesus Christ" of Christianity is based on a Jewish preacher who was probably a faith healer.

I beg to differ. There's lots of ancient writings that dealt with the gods of various religions, otherwise how do we know about them what we know all these millennia later?

Ovid's Metamorphoses deals with the history of our civilization from the creation of the world to the deification of Julius Caesar and hundreds of gods in between

Book I – The Creation, the Ages of Mankind, the flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha, Apollo and Daphne, Io, Phaëton

Book XV – Numa and the foundation of Crotone, the doctrines of Pythagoras, the death of Numa, Hippolytus, Cipus, Asclepius, the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, epilogue

These writings are just as authoritative as the gospels if you just let them speak to you.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by TimONeill

A wise man who taught the people good things was killed. That's a misfortune.

Come now.That's amisfortume for Jesus, but not for the Jews. That is what Josephus' topic is. and Jesus being killed has no part in that story, not even Pilate being a bad man since the Sanhedrin (according to the TF and Gospels) were behind the accusation.

He does. A wise man who taught the people good things was killed. A misfortune. I can't work out why you are finding this so hard to grasp. It's bleeding obvious.

A misfortune for Jesus, but not for the Jews, i it was in some way related to the Jewish war, Josephus doesn't explain it. I don't see how you fail to grasp the distinction.

And "Pilate" is enough of a connection, along with misfortunes suffered by the Jews at his hands. This really isn't very hard to grasp either. And since you claim to have read all of Josephus, I also find it strange you have such a problem with his characteristic parenthetical style. Look at his account of Honi the Circle Drawrer (Ant. XIV.21-28), the Galilean brigands (Ant. XIV.415-430), Judah son of Hezakiah (Ant. XVII.271-272), Simon of Peraea (Ant. XVII.273-77), Athronges (Ant. XVII.278-84), Tholomaus (Ant. XX.50), Theudas (Ant. XX.97-8), Eleazar ben Dinai (Ant. XX.161), The Egyptian prophet (Ant. XX.169-171), another unnamed prophet (Ant. XX.188) or Eleazar the exorcist (Ant. 8.46-49). You could remove any of those and their surrounding contexts are written in such a way that the text, when read with the passage absent, can still can be read sensibly and without any sign that something has been removed. This is just Josephus' style. It's strange that you haven't noticed this if, as you say, you've read all of Josephus.

The difference is that all those Failed messiahs (as far as the ones I can recall - I do have a life and cannot spend all my time reading and remembering Josephus) were related to revolts against Roman rule and so relevant to the history leading up to the Jewish war, which is really the nub of Josephus' history. If Jesus is one of those it is studiously not made clear. Thus the mention of Pilate is not reason enough to have the story in. But for a Chrstian, having the story in is essential. How could the historian of the time overlook Jesus? We had better see that he does. Find a place where Pilate is mentioned and slot the helpful addition is. Unfortunately it is far too Christian in tone, and a couple of items (as you can hardly deny) have been fabricated. For me, since the gospels are also fabricated, a potted biography that endorses them is also fake, which is why I "Know" the FT is, though that is not evidence for anyone else, of course.

How is the "order similar"? The term "a wise man?" is somehow "similar in order" to "a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the peoples"? I fail to see any similarity at all.

But I do, and that's the point. They are reasons for me to doubt, even if they aren't for you. I have explained how the other of description of Jesus and his fate in the TF and in the Cleophas speech show similarities. Not in itself reason to doubt the TF (I do like that handy abbreviation) but if one does doubt it and looks around for a source, the Luke 'bio' looks similar.

If Jesus had a reputation as a faith healer (and those later miracle stories must have come from somewhere), then this is just reporting some kind of "paradoxical deeds", not "endorsing" them. παραδοξων means "paradoxical, hard to interpret, unusual". As I said, it has sceptical overtones. And "a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly" is a Greek translation of a Hebrew expression of approval, which would explain why we find similar expressions in the gospels. Josephus was a Hebrew-literate Aramaic-speaking Jew, remember.

Remember that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and even if he reported that others called him that, to report his 'wisdom' and his doing of wonderful (or surprising) works without making the grammatical indication (that you mentioned) of skepticism a bit more explicit makes Josephus sound more approving than he actually would have been. Quite apart from implying that 'he taught he truth and they recieved it with pleasure'.
Can you give some examples of the Hebrew or Aamaic or even Greek use of the phrase 'received the truth with pleasure' as something of a stock phrase that various writers might use, rather than the term that appears in the synoptics (and surely indicates a common text they all worked from rather than independent use of a commonly used term, so I won't accept the three uses of the term in the gospels as examples). Even if it was a stock phrase, for Josephus to apply it to Jesus indicates approval of someone who taught 'truth', rather than s misleading or deluded false messiah who came to a bad end, which is more what I would expect from Josephus, who did not accept Jesus' messiahship.

I don't understand this at all. He does say precisely that. So what is your point? And "phyle" is used by Josephus in several places to describe distinct groups that have nothing to do with race, including in one place a whole gender and in another a swarm of locusts. So that fails too.

I can't see how that could be "wrong". He's simply saying that (he believed) Jesus' teaching won over both Greeks and Jews. That Christians generally were a distinct group ("phyle") without any ethnic connotation fits this perfectly - it was a group made up of both Greeks and Jews. You seem to be working very hard to find things to object to.

I did explain how the reference to winning over 'Greeks' could be wrong. It isn't what happened in the time that Josepus was writing about and we only get it as a result of Paul's mission. I am inclined to credit Tacitus saying that in his time 'Christians' were following the new religion though it isn't clear whether they are Jewish or Gentile Christians, but that is a later situation and to backdate it to Jesus' life and credit the winning over to him is misleading for a historian to do. It is (to my mind) much more comprehensible for a Christian who believes the gospel stories about great crowds from the gentile area following Jesus to write such a thing. Do you see why it makes more sense as a Christian addition that a Josephus original?

(Of course it's debatable, but there is the weight of probability or at least plausibility which is being debated. May I say that I am greatly enjoying this informative discussion with a civil and erudite opponent.)

What the hell else could "called the Messiah" mean? You've only just grasped this?

I've only just grasped, through looking at a few examples, that early Christian writers using the term 'Jesus who was called the Christ' makes sense as 'He was the Christ -and the history confirms it' as much as 'Josephus says 'called the messiah' rather than 'was the messiah' That is, I am not sure that they are repeating an undoctored form of the TF. Perhaps you could give your examples that we can consider in context. Or refer me back to posted refs. so I can do it?

"Believable"? The extra details in Hegesippus may or may not be in any way historical. They may be. Or they may be the kind of additions made in hagiography. It doesn't matter. The crux of the story is that the Temple priesthood executed James by stoning him. As Josephus mentions. Why you are getting so fixated on the other details I have no idea. They are clearly a brief reference to (Josephus) and a later story about (Hegesippus) the same thing.

The additions to the stoning of James in Hegesippus are not credible. It is not credible that Josephus in his ratehr full description of the events would have left out the fall from the tower (quite apart from that christian speech) but would tel a completely different sory about a condemning and stoning of a group off accused including James. Thus Hegesippus is unsound.

Why should we "scrap Hegesippus"? That makes no sense at all. See above - those other elements may be unhistorical or may be historical. We can't tell. But it actually doesn't matter because the story is clearly about the same thing.

The stoning of James is endorsed by Josephus, but not the details in Hegesippus that underline the identification of James as the gospel James. That's the point.

There is no need to "do that". And yes, the main connection between the Jesus of Ant.XX.200-203 and Jesus of Nazareth is the phrase "who was called Messiah". You use the word "addition", but Origen's mentions show is was original to the text. And Josephus identifies people in lots of ways - he refers to them by a more famous brother in at least one other place, by what they were "called" in several instances and often by their fathers. But he usually does the latter when their father was someone famous, such as a king who was the son of a king or a priest who was the son of a priest. Whereas James' father would have been a nobody. So he refers to James by reference to his better known brother and uses the same phrase about Jesus that he seems, on the textual evidence, to have originally used back in Bk. XVIII.

But you are assuming that Josephus really did refer to Jesus as 'called the messiah' which I explained in my previous post is open to doubt, even if the other fathers after Origen referred to 'Jesus who was called the Messiah or Christ). Your point:
" And yes, the main connection between the Jesus of Ant.XX.200-203 and Jesus of Nazareth is the phrase "who was called Messiah". You use the word "addition", but Origen's mentions show is was original to the text."
assumes that Origen found a mention of Jesus being the messiah in Josephus, but I am far from convinced that this is the case. As I said, if he had Origen would have made the most of Josephus mentioning that Jesus was kknown to his as a claimed messiah, rather than flatly saying that Josephus did not believe it. which 'He was 'called the messiah' hardly goes out of its way to say is a false claim.

I don't understand this at all. If Jesus was called the Messiah, it makes perfect sense to refer to him as "that Jesus who was called Messiah". Especially because it helps differentiate him from the different Jesus who is mentioned a few sentences later - Jesus ben Damneus.

What is related back is the claim that many 'Greeks' were won over by Jesus himself, not the messiahship claim. I'm sorry if i confused you my leaving out your posts. I shall include them in future, for clarity if, that is, I have to keep arguing the same points over.

I've already told you that Josephus never used the same identifier twice in the same passage. I can give you multiple examples where he identifies someone by an appellation - " X called Y" or "X son of Y" - and then for the rest of that passage just calls them "X". He only repeats the appellation if there is someone else in the same passage with the same name. So that attempt fails.

I'm tempted to ask for such examples, but I should really look through myself. But the problem I pointed up is that, if the appellations have been altered by a Christian editor, we don'tk now what they were, apart from the Jesus who was appointed as High Priest being identified as the son of Damneus -who, according to your point above, would have been someone important. Was he?
If your claim that the patronym was used where the father was an important person rather than a nobody who was just a different person from some other man who was the father of someone with the same name - 'Jesus' for example, and that was the only reason to mention the father -to distinguish one Jesus from another (and that is certainly the way I perceived it being used), then you should be able to show that Damneus was a significant person. can you?

You are simply wrong on that.

I don't think I am and have explained how and why, in some detail.

His readership would have to be pretty thick if they couldn't work out how a wise man who taught the people well being killed by Pilate was a misfortune. I'm certainly wondering why you can't figure that out.

If Josephus was writing for an erudite audience who could take a series of anecdotal events and work out the significance in the Jewish history leading up to the war and capture of Jerusalem, the rest of his history doesn't seems to give that impression. He explained what the point or effect of the event was - sometimes before as well as after the event.
Just in the TF example Pilate is identified as a misfortune for the Jews and so is the discreditable business of the temple of Isis. They are not simply mentioned and let the reader work out the point for themselves.

That makes no sense at all. The "discrepencies" are just extra details of the kind we would expect in a longer, later version of an event that Josephus mentions in passing. They are not reason to reject Hegesippus at all - he is just telling a longer, later story about the same even that Josephus alludes to in passing with a few words. Josephus' version is one brief sentence - "And, when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned." To expect detailed overlap between that brief mention and a much longer account from 150 years later is totally ridiculous. And to reject that the longer account is about the same event on that basis is even more so.

I have already explained why we should discard egesippus' account as credible: because Josephus effectively contradicts it. I accept the stoning is supported, and wherever Hegesippus picked that up is a credible source, but the other details are not. In the interests of historical reliability we should discard them, but even more, because they are really the only reason to identify this James as the gospel James, apart from Josephus identifying the brother of James - Jesus- ad the one who was called the 'Christ' or messiah. Which is what is being disputed in the first place.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by thrillobyte

The miracle stories of Zeus, Krishna, Osirus, and Dionysus had to come from somewhere too, didn't they?

I am inclined to think that the stories of Jesus as a healer did indeed have to come from somewhere. And where that was, was a need by the early Christian writers about Jesus' doings that he should have miraculous powers. A Christian pal of mine argued they were not 'miracles' but 'signs'. He had a point: they were done not just out of compassion but also to show that he was approved, appointed and empowered by God as his messiah.

Originally Posted by TimONeill

Whether he warranted a "trail" or not, he may or may not have warranted a trial. But plenty of "ragged-arsed, itinerant preachers" warranted "attention" from the Roman prefects and procurators over the course of the first century - Theudas, Athronges, the Egyptian prophet, the Samaritan prophet and many others. The Romans tended to give "attention" to anyone who seemed to them to be talking about some kind of nationalist sedition against Rome and weren't very discriminating when it came to the theological niceties of what these "ragged-arsed, itinerant preachers" were saying. Causing a disturbance in the Temple at Passover would be more than enough to get you nailed up by a occupying force that thought nothing of crucifying 2000 Jews at a time if provoked.

Very good. Any half -assed purported Messiah, if he managed to assemble a bothersome following, got very quick and salutary attention from the Roman provincial governors.

[Rafius]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Very good. Any half -assed purported Messiah, if he managed to assemble a bothersome following, got very quick and salutary attention from the Roman provincial governors.

...but 'personally' old beast?? Would Pilate have even bothered to get his arse out of a chair for a half-arsed purported Messiah? Would the top honchoo of the occupying force have been personally involved in the trail of a ragged-arsed, itinerant rebel preacher. One would assume that a man of such stature as Pilate would have had better to do than be personally involved with a ragged-arsed, itinerant, rebel preacher. Would he have even signed the death warrant or would some menial have done that?

Would a two-bit, ragged-arsed, rebel itinerant preacher have been entitled to a trail in the first place anyway? I was under the impression that only Roman citizens were entitled to a trail.

[Rafius]

Originally Posted by TimONeill

Why should we "scrap Hegesippus"? That makes no sense at all. See above - those other elements may be unhistorical or may be historical. We can't tell. But it actually doesn't matter because the story is clearly about the same thing.

That's similar to Christians hand-waving away the contradiction of Judas' death by saying "It actually doesn't matter whether he died by hanging or died by his bowels falling out. The important point is - he died."