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      This site has only been up for about a week and a half as I am writing this, and so only a minimal amount of feedback has been generated so far (which is about what you would expect. As the WDVL site puts it, 'How in the World (WIDE WEB) will they find me,' especially with about a billion web pages out there).

      One writer brought to my attention that there are three references to Christ found in the writings of Josephus, not just the one I mentioned (as a clear forgery) in my discussion of the Christ Myth.

Just a quick note on Josephus and the lack of comments on Jesus in contemporary literature.

1) one does not particularly expect much.
2) there are three verses of interest in copies of Josephus' works.

A verse in The Jewish War, clearly a fraud.
Ant 18.3.3 S63-64: A very long passage which was probably doctored but arguably had original content refering to Jesus.
Ant 20.9.1 S200: a reference to James "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ".

I recommend Meier's Marginal_Jew_V1 for an analysis of these passages.

According to one search of the literature Josephus was not widely quoted among the early church fathers so their failure to mention Ant 18.3.3 is not terribly surprising.

      I would expect that this also supports the case that the passage I was referring to was indeed a forgery. (If Josephus was himself a Christian, as he sounds to be, then it would be the case, one would think, that we would be reading 'The Gospel of Josephus' today, along with the others.) The passage I was referring to as a fraud, is the following.

Antiquities 18.3.3. "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day."

      The following passage is a little more interesting (and like most things, there are those who take varying positions on what it should be taken to mean. Perhaps it refers to someone else, perhaps it was forged, or perhaps it was authentic. It does have the ring of authenticity to it).

Antiquities 20.9.1. "And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest."

      This site generated the following response.

The Righteous shall live by OBEDIENCE - reveiw Adam and Eve, until you get the message, please. Intesting propaganda you put out but simply does not make sense to me - perhaps because I believe The Gospel's alone.

      In response to my essay on the Virgin Birth, I received this response.

Perhaps, in your study, you should take into account to whom each author was writing. Looking at it with 20th century glasses on only clouds the issue.

      Since I received this email I have rewritten my piece on the virgin birth, and no longer think that the right way to interpret Matthew's gospel is to think that Matthew was a bigot.

Sunday October 1st

      Before I post additional feedback on this page, I thought I would say a few more words about Matthew's gospel. As I mentioned previously, I am struggling with this gospel, and one of the reasons I am struggling with it is because the Sermon on the Mount seems 'out of place'. For example, you can consider Matthew's statement on the 'infallible inerrancy' of the scriptures towards the beginning of this sermon. (For years and years now, everytime I try to engage certain Christians in a discussion of sources and traditions found in the Bible, I get that infallible inerrancy quote from Matthew tossed back at me, so it causes me extra problems for that reason. You can compare the position of Mark and Paul on this matter with that of Matthew to see that this is just one position, and simply because these words are (allegedly) coming from the mouth of Christ, it would seem that some people are willing to ignore any other scripture - a nice trick if someone can get away with it, and it seems they did. It is obvious that scripture is not infallible and definitely not inerrant, so we must decide if Paul and Mark and Jeremiah, among others, were just more clever than Christ, allowing them to figure out what evidently eluded him with his limited grasp of the truth.)

      Matthew's sermon opens with a declaration of infallibility, inclusive of both prophets and the Torah, parts of which the prophets condemned, making this statement incongruous to say the least. This is then followed by a number of rejections of Torah ideology expressed in the formula 'you have heard it said (ie. in the Torah) ... but what I say to you is this.' For example you have heard it said (in the Torah) 'an eye for an eye' but 'what I say you is this ... resist not evil ... turn the other cheek.' There are a number of such statements found in Matthew chapter five, and one has to wonder just how the Torah can be both 'infallible' and how not one rule can be relaxed, and then what follows is nullifications and rejections which go beyond mere relaxing. The formula is in the form 'you have heard it said in the Torah that you should do this, but what I say to you is don't do that, but rather do this instead.' So a good case could be made that the verse extolling Biblical infallibility was a later interpolation recognizable, as such interpolations always are, by the contradictions in doctrine they introduce. If this is an interpolation then the whole manuscript is open to question. For example the false genealogy which opens the book could have been a later interpolation. The strange prophecies that follow could have been a later interpolation. Even the Gentile dog parable could have been introduced later.

      As for problems in the manuscript, you can consider the parable where Matthew speaks of hiring on a torturer to torture a slave, and then you can consider how the church hired on torturers to torture people, and you really do have to wonder where the concept came from (Matthew) and you really do have to ask yourself how a metaphor of that type can be 'interpreted' in such a way as to be useful, instead of as harmful as it proved to be in actual practice. In otherwords, don't try these things at home, folks. For now, I think I will restrain myself and take no more additional pot shots at the gospel of Matthew until I have finally made up my mind how best to approach the document.

      I recieved the following response, which I am going to post with minimal comment. Quotes that the author took offense to are in italics.

At the same time I believe in the God who was offended enough by something at some time in the past that we were all abandoned to sow seeds God didn't like and reap a bitter harvest that we don't like.

Are you saying you believe God has nothing to do with ruling His creation?
Doesn't the scripture paint a different picture? Doesn't the scripture show that God is SUPER involved with every aspect of His creation? True enough, God didn't/doesn't run His creation the way you or I might run it BUT, it is His creation, right? He has the right to run it the way he wants it run, right? If He allowed man to run the creation, it would be like turning the physic unit over to the patients wouldn't it?

My experience is, people feel this way about God because they think they know best how the creation should be run. Since the creation is not run the way they think it should be run, they don't believe God is ruling it!!

If you leave people to their own devices this results in suffering on the earth, and then people blame God for allowing it to happen,

From the scripture, I conclude it is God who makes this happen!! There are lots of examples in scripture where God caused bad things to happen to people!!

We will try those things, reap a bitter harvest, and then we will leave this place having learned a few things about first, rejecting God

But wouldn't the ultimate rejection of God be disbelieving that God rules his creation?

but in case anyone wanted to know what 'godless' meant, now we know.

But if God is ruling his creation, it is not Godless is it?

My website , 'A Witness to Yahweh', has only been up for two days, but it is generating responses of the kind 'what is your theology' or 'have you accepted Christ as your personal savior'. I have posted a new page to attempt to deal with this issue (although I described my position briefly in the introduction. This page is a little more specific.)

My impression is, you see God only as a figurehead. A figurehead with no power and no authority. Am I missing something?

      As for God being 'super involved' this would make it neccesary for God to be 'super involved' in say, starving people in India, or stirring up punishing wars. I would suggest that the writer read the pieces I wrote on the proverbs, and then the piece on Job, and perhaps the piece on Karma doctrine. While scripture does teach that God causes all evil to happen to people, scripture also teaches that you should not listen to that sort of thinking.

      And finally this just came in.

I challenge your yahweh to face my swastika any time you can dig him up from the collective subconscious of the jewish people. Yes I am pagan.My god is Christ alone the creator of all.Christ the father not the son. Yahweh or whatever your gods name is ,is fiction and myth and deserves to be treated as such .The true god is represented by the swastika always has been. That the people tried to desecrate Christ by making him ,her human was wrong and even more wrong making him ,her child of a demon like yah will not be forgiven !