The Historical Jesus: A Survey of PositionsRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
The Historical Jesus: A Survey of Positions
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Jesus Christ -- Historicity; Jesus Christ -- Rationalistic interpretations
[144] It should be remembered that the Gospels do not specify Nazareth,
but speak simply of "his own country" (patris). Professor Burkitt,
recognizing the mass of difficulties in regard to Nazareth, suggests
that that name is a "literary error," and that the patris of Jesus
was Chorazin (Proc. of Brit. Acad. vol. v, 1912, pp. 17-18).
[145] See above, p. 147, note, as to the theory of Prof. Burkitt, that
Jesus was born at Chorazin. On that view, the unbelieving birthplace
was denounced.
[146] Strauss, in pointing to this detail in Jewish Messianism (Das
Leben Jesu, Abschn. III, Kap. i, § 112) abstained from stressing it on
the score that there are no certain traces of it before the Babylonian
Gemara, the compilation of which took place in the Christian era,
and the book Sohar, of which the age is doubtful. Principal Drummond
(The Jewish Messiah, 1877, p. 357) further agreed, with Gfrörer, that
the doctrine of a Messiah Ben-Joseph is extremely unlikely to have
been pre-Christian. The obvious answer is that it is overwhelmingly
unlikely to have been post-Christian! But that thesis is apparently not
now maintained even by orthodox scholars. Bousset, who in his confused
way suggests that the notion of a suffering and dying Messiah "would
seem to have been suggested by disputations with the Christians"
(The Anti-Christ Legend, 1896, p. 103), avows immediately that
Wünsche traces "a very distinct application of Zechariah xii, 10,
to the Messiah Ben Joseph" in the Jerusalem Talmud; and goes on to
suggest that the notions of the "two witnesses" and the two Messiahs
"may rest upon a common source, which, however, is still to be sought
further back than Jewish tradition."
[147] Against Celsus, vi, 36, end.
[148] Protevang., ix, 1; Pseud. Matt., x, 1; xxxvii, 1 sq.; Hist. of
Joseph the Carpenter; Thomas, 1st. Gr. form, xiii, 1 sq.; 2nd Gr. form,
xi, 1 sq.; Lat. xi, 2 sq.; Arabic Gosp. of the Infancy, xxxviii, xxxix.
[149] Karppe, Essais de critique et d'histoire de philosophie, 1902,
pp. 51-52.
[150] Irenæus, Ag. Heresies, i, 26; Hippolytus, Ref. of all Heresies,
vii, 21. See Baur, Das Christenthum, p. 174. (Eng. trans. i, 199.) The
fact that Cerinthus is the earliest known Christian Gnostic, being
traditionally associated with the Apostle John (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iii,
28) goes far to support Dr. Karppe's view that Gnosticism entered
Christianity from the Jewish side.
[151] Cp. Apoc. of Baruch, xxix, 3; 4 Esdras, vii, 28; xiii, 32; John,
vii, 27; Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., 8; and Charles's note on Apoc. of
Baruch, as cited, giving these and other references. See also Schodde's
ed. of the Book of Enoch, pp. 47, 57; and the Rev. W. J. Deane's
Pseudepigrapha, 1891, p. 17.
[152] Les évangiles synoptiques, 1907-8, ii, 697.
[153] The varying designations, certainly, point to repeated additions
to the text. But the question arises whether the Maria he Iose or
Maria Iose of Mk. xv, 47, may have been meant to specify "Mary the
wife of Joseph."
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