Thursday, April 16, 2009

YH-Sh-WH the Nazorean and Miracle worker.

Josephus' first reference to Jesus here. Testimonium Flavianum:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following among many Jews and among many of Gentile origin.

Another Jewish source for Jesus' miracle working can be found in the Babylonian Talmud:

It has been taught: On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu. And an announcer went out, in front of him, for forty days (saying): 'He is going to be stoned, because he practiced sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and plead in his behalf.' But, not having found anything in his favor, they hanged him on the eve of Passover. (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a)

http://www.christianorigins.com/miracles.html

"Why should the Nazoreans be seen as identical with the ‘Essenes’ described by Josephus and Philo? The latter are clearly identical to the sectarians of the Scrolls, who refer to themselves with the same terminology that is seen for the Nazoreans in Acts. Additionally, a commune of between four and six thousand fanatics, selling everything they owned and giving the proceeds to administrators for the collective good, will pass unobserved only with great difficulty. We see a report of one case by Josephus, who was possibly influenced by Philo, and we see another very similar report in Acts, but neither observer reports both. Even some Christian commentators have come close to conceding that the two reports are of a single phenomenon, the sectarians persecuted by Paul being identified unambiguously as ‘Nazoraioi,’ in Acts 24:5. Noting that the Scrolls often refer to the sectarian community as ‘the Poor’ (‘Ebionim,’) [18], it seems that a member of either community was expected to "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor….".

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