[ALB]

I wonder whether Kliman was not referring to this passage in the famous last-but-one chapter of Volume I of Capital about the "expropriation of the expropriators":

Quote:

The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on cooperation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production.

Which seems to mean that, on the basis of common ownership, individuals will have a right to a share of the collectively-produced product to satisfy their individual needs. What else could it mean?

[ALB]

Dave B wrote:

I didn’t think Josephus mentioned the Nasoreans or Nazzoreans.

No, but he does mention the "Nazarites". Just checked, as taking time off from selling Socialist Standards and pamphlets at the West London Peace Fair yesterday I bought a copy of The Works of Josephus, a 19th century reprint (1875) of William Whiston's classic 1737 translation  in a local bookshop for only £9. So, I'm equipped to re-enter the fray.Here's the notorious passage (from Antiquities, Book XVIII, chapter 3) where some pious fraudster has made Josephus write:

Quote:

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 at this day.

Josephus was writing around 93/94 AD (as the christians put it). The tampering with what Josephus might originally written (some reference to the christians and their beliefs perhaps) is blatant. A religious Jew such as Josephus would never have called Jesus "the Christ" (the Greek for Messiah) nor doubted that he would have been a man.Only a christian would have, so giving away that one of them had tampered with the text. Whiston himself, in  an appendix entitled "The Testimonies of Josephus concerning Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, and James the Just vindicated",  concedes the point that it could only have been written by a christian, and uses this as evidence that Josephus himself must have secretly been "a Nazarene or Ebionite Jewish Christian". I don't think Roman's "modern scholars" set much credence to this theory (do they?)

[ALB]

In the news this week:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4911972/Bible-passage-banning-women-speaking-added-later.htmlPious fraudsters at work again?

[ALB]

Can't the price in the basket be increased to £3.50. We have just received an order for Europe from someone who has paid £2. But, as the pamphlet weighs 200gm, this means that we won't even recover the cost of postage which, for this weight to overseas, is around £3.80 and this doesn't take into account the cost of the jiffy in which it will be packaged.£2 is even cheaper than our ordinary, shorter pamphlet and this is more a book. Incidentally, talking about books I see that neither Strange Meeting (Socialism and World War One) nor A Socialist Life (by Heather Ball) can be ordered through our website. Both of these have less pages than the Martov pamphlet and sell for more.In short, the Martov pamphlet seems to be ridiculously underpriced

[ALB]

From Thursday's London Evening Standard:Run for Communist (4)

[ALB]

Interesting talk here which touches on the subject of "neuroplasticity":http://www.taraswart.com/tedx-lse-neuroscience-nationalism/

[ALB]

roman wrote:

I would update yourself on the scholarship, many new findings and research have been done in the last 50 years; scholarship from the 19th century and early 20th century is kind of out of date.In Greek, Nazarite, and Nazarene are very difficult to confuse. The Nazarites are mentioned in the mosaic law, and are not a sect of Judaism, but a kind of monastic movement within it.

I fail to see why analysis of the texts has become outdated unless of course there has been some further tampering with them by christian pious fraudsters, that is.Ok, I was wrong about Jesus being supposed to have been born in Nazareth: according to the myth, he was only supposed to have been brought up there.You may not be able to confuse "Nazarite" and "Nazarene" (but I see you introduce a third variant "Nazarean", presumably to avoid this) but those who wrote the "gospels" were and so were some of their translators. According to JM Robertson's ancient work, one uses "Nazarene" (Mark), another "Nazarite" (John), a third both (Luke) (he must be refrring to early, un-redacted versions). I must confess I'm confused too. I think "Nazarite" is supposed to refer to a Jewish sect (or monastic movement), "Nazarene" to someone from Nazareth (your "Nazarean")? Apparently,  references to either of them in the early original  versions have been changed in Latin and Greek to be "Nazarene" and translated as "of Nazareth".With all your vast knowledge of the matter can you confirm this?

[ALB]

I know you are playing the devil's advocate, Alan, but you are coming across more as god's afvocate..

[ALB]

roman wrote:

Where did Josephus( …) even mention the Nazareans?

According to the passage from the book by JM Robertson I've just mentioned, it might be: 4 Ant. iv, 4 and 19 Ant., vi,7.

[ALB]

I wasn't arguing that the hypothesis in Rene Salm's book that the village of Nazareth didn't exist at the time the Jesus was supposed to have been born was valid, but merely that it was further evidence of a controversy on the subject of Jesus and Nazareth.  I agree that the non-existence of Nazareth would not demonstrate the non-existence of Jesus.When I said that this was the subject of controversy over a hundred years ago I was referring to a 7-page long passage in J. M. Roberston's Christianity and Mythology. The first edition was published in 1900. I read some time ago the second, 1910 edition and have just re-read the passage.It's a detailed discussion of the difference, in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic,  between the terms for "Nazarite" and "Nazarene".  His view is that the Jesus was originally regarded as a member of the "Nazarite" Jewish sect and that later christians wanted to dissociate themselves from this (and Judaism) and so turned the "Nazar" references to references to his place of birth instead.  The Nazarites, apparently, derived their name from a passage in Isaiah in the "Old Testament" which prophesised that the Messiah would come from a branch (Hebrew "nazir") of the descendants of King David (which of course the "New Testament" tries to make out that their Jesus was). So, whether or not the village of Nazareth existed at the time, the Jesus would not have been born there (had he been born, that is). Roberston's discussion of the question can be found on pages 311-318 here.Incidentally, Robertson mentions in a footnote that

Quote:

It has been several times been urged that there is no trace outside the gospels and the Acts of such a place as Nazareth in the accepted Jesuine period.

So Salm's hypothesis is not new either.

[ALB]

Marcos wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth

During the biblical time that city did not exist, it was a cemetery, there was a religious sect known as the Nazarenes. Wikipedia is written by peoples who support the mythology of Jesus and they are based on The Bible. The city is not mentioned in the Old Testament and the Talmud, and Josephus does not mention it either.  This is the real history of the city of Nazareth, and Jesus was not born in Israel or Palestine, the mythology comes from Egypt, and he never walked on the city and places mentioned in the Greek writings. The city is not mentioned on the Masoretichttp://ateismoparacristianos.blogspot.com/2010/06/la-ciudad-de-nazaret-no-existia-en-el.html. ( insert it on a digital translator ) http://ateismoparacristianos.blogspot.com/2010/07/las-falsas-evidencias-arqueologicas-de.html.   ( insert it in a digital translator, the city was interpolated in the NT )

It's been known for over a 100 years that there was a problem about Jesus "of Nazareth". Recent research would seem to confirm this:From the blurb about this book:

Quote:

The Myth Of Nazareth presents convincing archaeological evidence that the town of Nazareth was not settled until after the First Jewish War, around 70 CE. Exhaustive reconsideration of ALL artifacts from present-day Nazareth shows that the site was not inhabited at the time Jesus of Nazareth and his family are supposed to have been living there. In this book researcher René Salm proves that a core element of the Jesus story was an invention of the evangelists who wrote their gospels towards the end of the first century CE — as it turns out, at the same time the village of Nazareth was coming into being. Requiring eight years of painstaking research, The Myth Of Nazareth surveys the archaeological record of the Nazareth basin from the Stone Age until modern times. It guides the reader through a stunning odyssey of discovery — one which exposes not only the true history of the site but also a scandalous history of evidentiary suppression reaching back into Early Christian Times. The here-established fact that Nazareth is a literary invention puts Jesus of Nazareth in the same class as the Wizard of Oz and implies that Jesus too is a literary invention. Coming shortly after the claim of Israeli archaeologist Aviram Oshri that Bethlehem in Judea also was uninhabited at the time Jesus is supposed to have been born there, Salm's research seems to be delivering a one-two knockout punch to the character known as The Historical Jesus.

[ALB]

I hadn't realised that in Hebrew and Arabic the word for 'christian' in 'Nazarene'. Perhaps that's what we should call them too. After all, we don't accept either that Jesus, mythical or not, is the messiah, the "anointed one".

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@ALBIt 1) corrected item in your ADM report and 2) argued … That capitalist ownership is a hindrance to production. That the small capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to that of the big capitalist. That the big capitalist enterprise is a hindrance to production compared to Socialist Production. That this supplements your Object So far as we know, I was the first to argue that this supplements your Object. And the argument was right wasn’t it Adam. 

Yes, it's coming back to me now. That fits in with something I remember you saying at a meeting on the Luddites. The Party speaker expressed some sympathy for them, but you argued that socialists should be opposed to them because they were a hindrance to the further development of capitalism and so to the creation of the material basis for socialism. A point of view.

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@ LBird,No the alternative is not just democracy as such. The alternative to the market is in Marx’ Capital here.http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#I.I.133

As elaborated on in this article "A World Without Commodities" in this month's Socialist Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2017/no-1357-september-2017/world-without-commodities

[ALB]

Also the author of this book we reviewed:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1323-november-2014/book-reviews-notes-end-history-village-against-wHe also appears on our facebook page to "like" things from time to time.Of course it's an interview with him about TA Jackson not him interviewing Jackson.

[Author]

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