Thomas C. Schmidt’s Josephus on Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ (2025) is a new study of a famous passage concerning Jesus in Josephus’s Antiquities (18.63–64): the testimonium flavianum (TF). Schmidt’s energetically argued case that Josephus personally knew people present at Jesus’s trial, who became his informants for the TF, is creating an impact far beyond the academy. If valid, that claim would transform the TF from something Josephus may have partly written in the 90s (scholars usually debate which phrases are authentic) into the earliest eyewitness evidence for Jesus and his followers. This article first contextualises the TF in Josephus’s life and Judaean Antiquities, then summarises Schmidt’s case before probing its assumptions, gaps, and interpretations – of Josephus, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature. It finds that the elaborate case for the TF’s oft-doubted authenticity (in Part 1) must be taken seriously, whereas the more sensational claims (in Part 2) do not well explain the evidence.
Filing this one under ‘humor’ because the J6 fraud is a joke and this interview is hilarious. In this light, remember state-level corruption is but a fraction of national-level federal corruption. ABN
Mass migration is widely-recognized to be an act of war. Corrupt and fraudulent funding of this invasion is an act of treason, no matter how you define the word. Our so-called Western civilizational ‘suicide’ is and has been a treasonous act of covert war; covert because those who knew about it hid it while also profiting from it. ABN
Psychological, cognitive, emotional, or communicative problems cannot be fundamentally corrected by using general analyses or generalized procedures. You can teach someone to think and see differently, even to behave differently, by such procedures, but you cannot bring about deep change by using them. The reason this is so is change through generalizations does little more than substitute one external semiosis for another. The person seeking change will not experience deep change because all they are essentially doing is importing a different explanation of their “condition” into their life.
This happens with Buddhists who remain attached to surface meanings of the Dharma as well as to people seeking mainstream help for emotional problems. Any change will feel good for a while in most cases, but after some time stasis and a recurrence of the original problem, or something similar to it, will occur. You cannot become enlightened by importing someone else’s ideas. You cannot achieve deep transformation by replacing one inculcated semiosis with another. You cannot find your authentic “self” by using the static ideas of others.
The way around this problem is to use a technique that is at its core entirely dynamic. Buddhist mindfulness, which stresses attentiveness in and to the moment, is a dynamic technique. The problem with this technique in the modern world is it is not well-suited to the cacophony of signs and symbols that surround us almost all the time. Mindfulness too often entails being mindful of a cultural semiosis that is itself a tautology, a trap that does not contain within itself an obvious exit.
Mindfulness coupled with FIML practice overcomes this problem because the interactive dynamism of FIML gives partners a tool that strengthens mindfulness while at the same time affording them the opportunity to observe in the moment how their habitual semiosis operates, and why it operates that way. FIML gives partners the means to create a rational leverage-point that they can both share and use to grapple with neurotic issues that have always eluded generalized treatments.
FIML does not tell partners how to be or what to think. It describes nothing more than a technique that gives partners access to their deep “operating systems.” If you hack your “operating system” with FIML practice, you will find that you are able to eliminate neuroses (kleshas in Buddhist terms) and replace them with a semiosis (subculture) of your and your partner’s own choosing. To do FIML, partners must have a deep ethical, emotional, and intellectual commitment to each other, but it is important to recognize that these are not static or generalized ideas. They are dynamic principles upon which the transformational behaviors of FIML are built.
I have verified the shocking findings of Peter Schweizer regarding Chinese childbirth tourism and its future impact to US democracy, it is absolutely true! Even in Houston there are at least TEN Chinese birth centers (月子中心), and they are all in operation. How many are in NYC, LA and SF? In America there are hundreds! I have been involved in some WeChat discussions about this topic, some members in CA provided their firsthand experiences. It’s shocking!
The CCP backed Chinese childbirth tourism started in 1990s . Each birth center serves anywhere between 20-300 pregnant Chinese women annually, and takes full responsibility for new borns, including birth certificates, Chinese entry paperwork, etc. Depending upon where the pregnant Chinese women came to the U.S., they may or may not even need visas (such as Guam).
When those babies grow up and reach 18, they come back to America not only enjoy social benefits, like Peter said, they will vote! It is not exaggerated that by 2030 there will be ONE MILLION American-born and China-educated voters who will vote on behalf of CCP!
The CCP is invading America and changing American democracy without using guns, fighter jets or aircraft carriers. So what should American society do? Letting America become a colony ruled by CCP?
Translation from Latin: In this sign you will win. As a semiotician I like the use of Latin and the word sign. As a Buddhist I can support this ethos if it is reasonable and wholesomely unites the traditional West against those who are destroying it. As an American of Baltic extraction, gotta admit I cringe at knights in armor bearing crosses. Even still, I support Christian unity and wise resistance against the enemies of the West, many of whom are recent invaders and many of whom are ancient infiltrators. I believe a good many Eastern Europeans think the way I do. Both recent and ancient experience has taught us you have to be practical and work every angle to defeat a powerful pathocracy. ABN
This level of incompetence mixed with deliberate corruption is rife throughout USA. Most of it appears to be in Dem states which have drifted into woke emotionalism and concomitant corruption. The buck should have stopped at the governor’s office. At the national level, corruption is much the same, though much worse and more entrenched. All large organizations are susceptible to corruption and weak employees who dare not do the right thing. Many organizations can live a long time while burdened with parasites, but in the end, entire civilizations fall for these reasons. ABN
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