Can Antiquities of the Jews be proof of Jesus existence and divinity

[Statilius the Epicurean]

As is often the case when you post about this, there's a great point buried underneath your signature posting style. Historical-critical scholars are almost universally of the belief that Pilate was much more bent on executing Jesus than the Bible suggests and that the Gospels stressing the culpability of the Jewish leadership instead was a writerly choice with political and strategic dimensions to it.

The strongest evidence for this hypothesis is that in Mark, Pontius Pilate is not shown to be as hesitant as he is in the other, later Gospels.

The strongest evidence is that crucifixion was a punishment for rebellion against the Roman state. If the Jews had been involved in Jesus' execution then he would have been stoned according to Jewish law.

As for the Testimonium Flavianum, it's a forgery. The argument for Jesus' existence is why would he be made up? It's not like prophets claiming to be the Messiah and founding cults were particularly unusual for the time period. Occam's razor really.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

As is often the case when you post about this, there's a great point buried underneath your signature posting style. Historical-critical scholars are almost universally of the belief that Pilate was much more bent on executing Jesus than the Bible suggests and that the Gospels stressing the culpability of the Jewish leadership instead was a writerly choice with political and strategic dimensions to it.

The strongest evidence for this hypothesis is that in Mark, Pontius Pilate is not shown to be as hesitant as he is in the other, later Gospels.

The strongest evidence is that crucifixion was a punishment for rebellion against the Roman state. If the Jews had been involved in Jesus' execution then he would have been stoned according to Jewish law.

Its my impression that while the death penalty technically existed in Jewish Law, it was a dead letter at the time. Is that not accurate?

I think so yes, but the point is that crucifixion was a punishment for rebellion against the Roman state. To have been crucified Jesus would have to have done something against the Roman government in Judea, not merely trespass in some internal Jewish religious dispute Pilate wouldn't care less about.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The strongest evidence is that crucifixion was a punishment for rebellion against the Roman state. If the Jews had been involved in Jesus' execution then he would have been stoned according to Jewish law.

To the contrary - even the English did not allow their ecclesiastical courts to sentence people to death. The back and forth of court authority is itself, at least in part, probably accurate. The Roman priesthood had been merged with the Imperial authority only with Augustine, and it is unlikely that any consistent difference between ecclesiastical and administrative had by then been confirmed.

The point is that crucifixion was not a punishment for blasphemy or anything the Jewish priesthood would have cared about convicting Jesus for.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The point is that crucifixion was not a punishment for blasphemy or anything the Jewish priesthood would have cared about convicting Jesus for.

The point I was making was that the Gospels make clear that Roman law prohibited the Jewish priesthood from putting anyone to death. Furthermore, some commentaries have indicated that both the trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate were outside Jewish and Roman law - an important point to note that under the laws of man, the crucifixion was not justified.

In the Gospels there are multiple differing accounts of the trial of Jesus. Later commentators are doing just that, commentating without any special historical information. I'm not sure the relevance of any of this anyway. Crucifixion was a punishment specifically for insurrectionists against the Roman state, not anything Jews would have cared about. Roman governors weren't crucifying people for intra-Jewish religious disputes.

The point is that crucifixion was not a punishment for blasphemy or anything the Jewish priesthood would have cared about convicting Jesus for.

The point I was making was that the Gospels make clear that Roman law prohibited the Jewish priesthood from putting anyone to death. Furthermore, some commentaries have indicated that both the trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate were outside Jewish and Roman law - an important point to note that under the laws of man, the crucifixion was not justified.

Of course, a non-Roman citizen had no right to appeal or anything under Roman law.

It's why St. Paul, who WAS a Roman citizen, had such a complicated execution story and survived way longer than he otherwise would have.

(Arrested in Jerusalem in ~57... I want to take my case to the Emperor! ... Finally sent to Rome in ~60... Nero's incredibly busy and Paul gets to spend literal years in Rome doing his thing before Nero gets around to hearing his appeal and having him killed in ~64)

We don't know if Paul was a Roman citizen as he never mentions it in his letters. In Acts it serves as a plot device to get Paul to Rome and another way to highlight one of the author's favourite themes, that Rome = good Jews = bad.