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Interview with Tom Schmidt on the Testimonium Falvianum
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Porphyry

1835 Posts
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July 19, 2025 - 4:54 pm

I just finished watching ** you do not have permission to see this link **, author of Josephus & Jesus:: New Evidence for the One Called Christ.

The whole thing was fun, but a few things I found particularly interesting:

1) He thinks the TF is authentic, aside from two words that dropped out. His defense of this thesis is top-rate (I haven’t checked his work, but he makes a compelling case, assuming his facts check out).

2) He points out just how remarkably well–connected Josephus was. And not just in general but also to the people who dealt with Jesus and the early Jesus movement. Whatever he tells us about Jesus is quite valuable historically.

3) At the end ** you do not have permission to see this link ** (reading deeply into his precise word choices). Those few minutes were the highlight for me (though you really need to see the earlier parts of the interview for it to carry the same weight).

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Colin Milton

1142 Posts
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July 19, 2025 - 5:26 pm

Why is the TF hard to believe as authentic when there is this?
The TF is interesting but this passage is beyond:

Book 6, chapter 5, ** you do not have permission to see this link **
3. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself. While they did not attend, nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretel their future desolation. But like men infatuated, without either eyes to see, or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star, resembling a sword, which stood over the city: and a comet, that continued a whole year.

(15) Thus also before the Jews rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crouds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] (16) and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar, and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time. Which light lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskilful: but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also an heifer, as she was led by the High-priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb, in the midst of the temple. Moreover the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple,9 which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor; which was there made of one intire stone: was seen to be opened of its own accord, about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it: who then came up thither: and, not without great difficulty, was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy: as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord: and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publickly declared that this signal foreshewed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable; were it not related by those that saw it; and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals. For, before sun setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost; as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the] temple,10 as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said, that in the first place they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise: and after that they heard a sound, as of a multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.”

J. AJ 18.3.3
Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς σοφὸς ἀνήρ, εἴγε ἄνδρα αὐτὸν λέγειν χρή: ἦν γὰρ παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής, διδάσκαλος ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἡδονῇ τἀληθῆ δεχομένων, καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν Ἰουδαίους, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ ἐπηγάγετο: ὁ χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν. [64] καὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδείξει τῶν πρώτων ἀνδρῶν παρ᾽ ἡμῖν σταυρῷ ἐπιτετιμηκότος Πιλάτου οὐκ ἐπαύσαντο οἱ τὸ πρῶτον ἀγαπήσαντες: ἐφάνη γὰρ αὐτοῖς τρίτην ἔχων ἡμέραν πάλιν ζῶν τῶν θείων προφητῶν ταῦτά τε καὶ ἄλλα μυρία περὶ αὐτοῦ θαυμάσια εἰρηκότων. εἰς ἔτι τε νῦν τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἀπὸ τοῦδε ὠνομασμένον οὐκ ἐπέλιπε τὸ φῦλον.
** you do not have permission to see this link **

ηδονη ταληθη δεχομενων is the jab phrase mentioned at 46:30
Hedonist Taliban Receivers
I’m not familiar with αληθη being spelled as ταληθη so I first thought it was Taliban.

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