Robert said
I did not quote Carrier as an authority. Quite the contrary, I contrasted his attitude toward you with our attitude toward you. Again, whereas he considered you insane and banned you from his site, we here still try to reason with you. If we considered you insane, we would not try to reason with you.

  

There is no “try to reason with me.” My reading comprehension, communication, and argumentation skills are excellent.

= = =

Chrestians committed abominations. They were known and hated for their abominations.
[What abominations: superstitions and evil; Paul exploiting the pious; as explained by Josephus, an analogy of Jesus who pretends to be son of a god just to sexually exploit a pious woman and an analogy of Paul who exploit a pious woman for her money for purple and gold.]

Christ suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of Pontius Pilate
then, for a moment, this most mischievous superstition was checked.
That superstition broke out again not only in Judea, the source of this evil, but even in Rome.

Robert, you are THAT desperate for evidence external to the New Testament to put that forward to reason with me?
That is unreasonable.

You have to get past:
This most mischievous superstition is: “Christ suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of Pontius Pilate.”
The evil is: the most mischievous superstition.

The text does not read: suffered the death penalty at the hands of Pilate but then there was this mischievous superstition that he resurrected.

And of course, while you have read evidence for Pilate’s execution of Jesus and Paul’s persecution, the above passage does not speak of Paul and persecution. You have no Tacitus passage on that!

Steefen
The point was to revisit the evidence of Tacitus about Jesus.
Tacitus was born after the fiction of Jesus being given the death penalty by Pontius Pilate.
Tacitus brings forth no civic record and no contemporary account of Pilate’s death penalty sentencing of Jesus.
Tacitus does put forth the hearsay of a Jesus given the death penalty. That hearsay is only a mischievous superstition
not evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus and not evidence for the existence of Jesus.

This most mischievous superstition is: “Christ suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of Pontius Pilate.”
The evil is: the most mischievous superstition.

The text does not read: suffered the death penalty at the hands of Pilate but then there was this mischievous superstition that he resurrected.

Josephus also questions the existence of Jesus on legal grounds. It is not accurate that Jesus met the legal definition of a man: “Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man.” It is not lawful to call a composite character of historical fiction, non-contemporary fiction but a fiction written at minimum, 40 years later–it is not lawful to call a fictional character a male citizen.

“Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man” obviously, does not contain questionable Christian terminology.

Robert said
There’s a couple of obvious errors there, but even if we imagine you are right about these two errors, it still has nothing whatsoever to do with my position.

  

Fine, moving on.

bizarre:

very strange or unusual, especially so as to cause interest or amusement.

You have yet to provide a less allegedly bizarre comprehension of
Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3
The Testimonium Flavianum Passage #1
The Decius Mundus and Paulina Passage #2, and
The Wicked Man Who Left His Own Country for Rome Passage and Fulvia Passage #3

Second, a critical teacher and student of History today, needs to know what the name Decius meant to Romans of Josephus’ day. For Josephus and his readers to know the name Decius from Roman military history is not strange or unusual.

To ask the question, why did Josephus change Decius Mus to Decius Mundus means what?
There is nothing strange or unusual about that.

There is nothing very strange or unusual for seeing the Paulina Passage for what it was: a story about sexually exploiting a pious person.

Jesus (Passage 1) is a son of a god who wants to have sex with a pious woman (a divine being wants to have sex with Mary, full of grace); this son of god is actually a man who sacrificed his life, his son by the same name, also sacrificed his life (Passage 2) [Jesus died but before he did, he launched a deadly theological virus that would make God turn away separating God from people [Leviticus 17: 10-11] Messiah, Messiah’s God, and Messiah’s Temple destroyed. Paul left his own country for Rome and promoted an apocalyptic religious movement [Apocalypticism is a failed hypothesis; therefore, Paul was a charlatan] (Passage 3).

Between Passage 1 and Passage 2, Josephus says Passage 1 was a sad calamity and Passage 2 was another sad calamity.

Let’s see if Robert, Stephen, JAS or anyone else, even Bart D.E. can improve this line of reasoning.

SAT Writing and Language Test

Writing Strategy will be a more difficult section to practice. It requires you to understand more abstract ideas like how the topic of a passage is best expressed through organization or structure. Understanding the distinctive features that make the organization effective, or the reasoning behind those features, is much more complicated than just memorizing a set of rules.

Even though Writing Strategy might push you further, there are still strategies that you can practice to ensure you maximize your point totals. Sometimes it doesn’t matter so much that you know the right answer on the test, as long as you can determine the wrong answers. We will keep that in mind as we talk about the structure of the test.

Robert said
We already discussed this Steefen in this very thread. You did not want to tell me further details of your allegorical reading and I do not see Josephus as using allegory. As for it being strange, suffice it to say that it is not at all the common way in which these passages of Josephus is read by scholars. But even if you do not value the work of scholars, you should acknowledge that this is not the usual way scholars read Josephus. 

  

We mentioned this already in the very thread but you are still considering it a bizarre reading comprehension.

Modern critical scholars must accept that when Josephus decided to use the name Decius, it was for an important reason.

But even if I do not value the work of scholars…

Failed hypothesis. And everyone knows it. You are not fooling anyone, Robert. The bibliography of my book is public knowledge. Scholars are valued in my work. Loeb Classical Library was thoroughly consulted. And, any critical scholar that you supposed to be championing would know Decius Mus from the Loeb Classical Library if they were to attempt to footnote Decius in Passage 2.

It is very apparent you are wrong.

Robert said
Steefen, do you not realize that you disagree with academic Josephus scholars in your interpretation of this passage?

  

Share with us what scholars have written about:

The Decius Mundus and Paulina Passage #2, and
The Wicked Man Who Left His Own Country for Rome and Fulvia Passage #3.

Then we can talk about your alleged disagreement with academic Josephus scholars, not in an interpretation of the two passages but what is found in the two passages and how they related to the TF.

When a historian writes a chapter and organizes paragraphs, readers understand the author’s craftsmanship. So, when you share with us what scholars have written about Passage #2, be sure, your scholars will be judged worthy or not based on whether or not they consulted Livy’s History of Rome for the Decius historical references to sacrifice. That will be some shoddy academic scholarship without doing so.