three valuable references of the first and beginning of the second century—the experience, namely, of the Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, the brother-in-law of Gamaliel II., with the Judaeo-Christian James of Kefar-Schechania, of whom it is said that he was a “pupil” (disciple) of Jesus, and had healed the sick in the name of Jesus. Then there is the explanation by Jesus of a difficulty in the law, which the said James put to him, and which Jesus settled by a certain verse, after the fashion of the Rabbis. Lastly, there is the doubt of the Rabbi as to the orthodoxy of Jesus and the disdain he himself incurred by becoming a Christian. But who doubts for a moment that at the close of the first century and in the first half of the second sayings and explanations of the law were current in the name of Jesus, that the name of Jesus was used in exorcisms, and that sympathy with the Jesus-sect might in certain circumstances have very unpleasant consequences for a Rabbi?^[2]

There is no room for doubt that after the destruction of Jerusalem, and especially during the first quarter of the second century, the hostility of the Jews and Christians increased, as not only Chwolson himself (Das letzte Passahmahl Christi) and Joel,^[3] but also [Samuel] Lublinski, has recently shown.^[4] Indeed, by the year 130 the hatred of the Jews for the Christians became so fierce that a Rabbi, whose niece had been bitten by a serpent, preferred to let her die rather than see her healed “in the name of Jesus.” But when Chwolson says that we see from these passages that the Rabbis of the second half of the first century, or the beginning of the second, were “well acquainted with the person of Christ” (13), he clearly deceives himself and his readers, if the impression is given that they had any personal knowledge of him.

On the other hand, the Rabbis are said to have possessed, as early as the year 71 A.D., a gospel which, according to Chwolson, “was probably the original gospel of Matthew.” About that time a judge appointed by the Romans, “undoubtedly a Judaeo-Christian of Pauline tendencies,” though he is not expressly described as such, quotes Matthew v, 17, in the Aramaic language, where it is said that Christ did not wish to abolish, but to supplement, the Mosaic law. In his work Jesus, die Häretiker und die Christen nach den ältesten jüdischen Angaben (1910, p. 19, etc.), Strack has given us a literal translation of this passage.^[5] It runs:—

Imma Salom was the wife of the Rabbi Eliezer, the sister of Rabban Gamaliel. Among his acquaintances was a “philosopher” who had the reputation of being incorruptible. They wished to make him ridiculous. Therefore she [Imma] brought to him a golden candlestick, and said: “I desire a part of the family property.” He answered them: “Divide it.” Then he [B. Gamaliel] said: “It is written for us ^[6] that, where there is a son, the daughter inherits nothing.”. He answered: “Since ye were driven from your land the law of Moses is abolished, and there is Avon-gillajon [Evangelium = the Gospel], in which it is written, ‘Son and daughter shall inherit together’.” On the following day he [E. Gamaliel] on his own part brought him a Libyan ass. Then he replied: “I have searched further in the Avon-gillajon, and it is written therein: ‘I, Avon-gillajon, have not come to do away with the Thora, but to add to the Thora of Moses have I come.’ And it is further written therein: ‘Where there is a son, the daughter shall not inherit’.” Then she said: “Thy light shineth like a candle.” And E. Gamaliel said: “The ass has come, and has attached the candle”

—i.e., someone had spoiled the effect of a small bribe by giving a larger one.

It is possible that we really have here a reference to the text of Matthew, and this is the more likely when we consider the play upon the candlestick, in reference to Matthew v, 14-16. That there is no question of our Matthew is certain, as there is no such passage in any of our gospels that the son and daughter shall inherit together; Jesus, on the contrary, often expressly dissuades from mingling in these quarrels about inheritance.^[7] But what right has Chwolson to put the witness of this “Primitive Matthew,” which seems to be referred to in the anecdote, about the year 71 A.D.? Chwolson relies on the fact that R. Gamaliel (died about 124) was the son of the R. Simeon ben Gamaliel who is known to us from Acts v, 34, where he cleverly speaks for the Christians, and Acts xxii, 3, as a teacher of the Apostle Paul, and who was executed about 70 A.D. with other Rabbis who had taken part in the rising against the Romans. He gratuitously assumes that the passage in the Talmud refers to the quarrel about the property of the dead father, which would be divided about the year 71. This is plausible enough if there is question in the passage of a genuine quarrel about inheritance. But that is precisely what the text of the passage excludes. It is expressly stated that they wished to bring ridicule upon the “philosopher” who had an unmerited repute for incorruptibility. There is question, therefore, of a purely fictitious quarrel about inheritance, and there is no reason to suppose that this would necessarily be about the year 71. Indeed, the text itself shows that it was not, as the Jews were not yet expelled in 71; so that Chwolson finds himself compelled to change the expression “driven from your country” into “lost your country.” Hence Chwolson's statement that there is evidence of a Gospel of Matthew in 71 A.D. breaks down. Moreover, even if the existence of such a gospel at that time were proved, it would have no bearing on the historicity of Jesus. The saying in Matthew v, 17 is not at all quoted in the Talmud passage as a saying of Jesus, as one would gather from Chwolson. “We see,” says Chwolson emphatically and in large type, “from this important reference that not only was there a Gospel of Matthew in existence about the year 71 A.D., but it was already well known to the Christians of the time.” As you please; but one would like to know what this proves in regard to the historicity of Jesus.^[8]

In addition to the few first-century references quoted by Chwolson, and regarded by him as “of great historical value,” the Talmud contains a comparatively large number of references to Jesus, mostly of the third and fourth centuries. They have, of course, as Chwolson admits, “no historical value whatever” (p. 11). They are rather caricatures of Jesus, when they do plainly refer to him; though this, on account of the cryptic phrasing of the Rabbis, does not seem to be the case quite as frequently as is generally supposed. Derenbourg has shown that the much-quoted Stada or ben Sat'da is not originally identical with Jesus, and Strack also admits that the scanty material in regard to Jesus which earlier students found in the Talmud shrinks still further on more careful inquiry.^[9] Jülicher, however, has pointed out that, as the caricatures of the Jesus-story are familiar to R. Akiba, we may conclude that the Christian tradition itself is much older. Now, Akiba met his end, in old age, on the occasion of the bloody rising of the Jews under Bar Kochba, in the year 135. It is not disputed that the evangelical tradition existed in the first third of the second century, when the hostility of the Jews and Christians was at its height. What “proof” is there, then, of the historicity of Jesus in the fact that Akiba, a fierce enemy of the Christians, spoke bitterly of Jesus at that time? Certainly he regards him as an historical personage, just as the Talmud generally never doubts that Jesus had really existed. But Joel has, in this connection, shown that the Talmudists of the second century were careless about everything except the study of the scriptures and the law, and pointed out that it is “one of the most curious and astonishing consequences” of this indifference that they were so poorly informed in regard to events in the time of Jesus.^[10] The Talmud derives all that it knows of the origin of Christianity from the little that has reached it of the gospel tradition and from the impression it has of the life of Jesus from the events of the second century; and it changes its statements, as time goes on, in harmony with the changes in the Christian tradition. Thus Akiba, for instance, followed the narrative of the Synoptics in regard to the death of Jesus, and put the execution on the Feast-day. On the other hand, the somewhat later Mischna iv, 1, and the Gemaragive the later version of the Gospel of John, that the death was on the Day of Preparation for the Passover. Hence the Talmud has no independent tradition about Jesus; all that it says of him is merely an echo of Christian and pagan legends, which it reproduces according to the impressions of the second and later centuries, not according to historical tradition.^[11] That is, moreover, the view of Jülicher in Kultur der Gegenwart, where he says that the Talmud has “borrowed” its knowledge of Jesus from the gospels. The Talmud is, in fact, so imperfectly acquainted with the time and the circumstances of Jesus that it confuses him with the Rabbi Josua ben Perachja, or a pupil of his of the same name (about 100 B.C.), and even makes him a contemporary of Akiba in the first third of the second century. Can we, in such circumstances, pretend that there is any evidence for the historicity of Jesus in the fact that the Talmud does not question it?

It is not true, however, as has recently been stated, that no Jew ever questioned the historical reality of Jesus, so that we may see in this some evidence for his existence. The Jew Trypho, whom Justin introduces in his Dialogue with Trypho, expresses himself very sceptically about it. “Ye follow an empty rumour,” he says, “and make a Christ for yourselves.” “If he was born and lived somewhere, he is entirely unknown.”^[12] This work appeared in the second half of the second century; it is therefore the first indication of a denial of the human existence of Jesus, and shows that such opinions were current at the time.

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Witnesses_to_the_Historicity_of_Jesus/Part_1/Section_3

- when Paul came to Rome about ten years afterwards to preach the gospel, the Jews there seem to have known nothing whatever about Jesus; and, according to the account in Acts, his arrival led to no disturbance among them.

- Tacitus. In the Annals (xv, 44) Christ is expressly mentioned as an historical personage. The historian has related what measures were taken by Nero to lessen the suffering brought about by the great fire at Rome in the year 64, and to remove the traces of it. He then continues: “But neither the aid of man, nor the liberality of the prince, nor the propitiations of the gods, succeeded in destroying the belief that the fire had been purposely lit. In order to put an end to this rumour, therefore, Nero laid the blame on and visited with severe punishment those men, hateful for their crimes, whom the people called Christians [Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis affecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat]. He from whom the name was derived, Christus, was put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilatus in the reign of Tiberius [autor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat]. But the pernicious superstition, checked for a moment, broke out again, not only in Judaea, the native land of the monstrosity, but also in Rome, to which all conceivable horrors and abominations flow from every side, and find supporters. First, therefore, those were arrested who openly confessed; then, on their information, a great number, who were not so much convicted of the fire as of hatred of the human race. Ridicule was poured on them as they died; so that, clothed in the skins of beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or committed to the flames, and when the sun had gone down they were burned to light up the night [Igitur primum correpti, qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens, haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus affixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur]. Nero had lent his garden for this spectacle, and gave games in the Circus, mixing with the people in the dress of a charioteer or standing in the chariot. Hence there was a strong sympathy for them, though they might have been guilty enough to deserve the severest punishment, on the ground that they were sacrificed, not to the general good, but to the cruelty of one man.”

- There is the letter of Clement of Rome belonging to the end of the first century. According to Eusebius,^[9] it was sent by Clement, the secretary of the Apostle Peter, and the third or fourth bishop of Rome, to the community at Corinth, in the name of the Roman community; as is also stated by Hegesippus (c. 150) and Dionysius of Corinth. But what do we learn about the Neronian persecution from the letter of Clement? “Out of jealousy and envy,” he writes to the Corinthians, “the greatest and straightest pillars were persecuted and fought even to death”; as in the case of Peter, “who, through the envy of the wicked, incurred, not one or two, but many dangers, and so passed to his place in glory after rendering his testimony,” and Paul, “who showed the faithful the way to persevere to the end; seven times was he imprisoned, he was banished, stoned, he went as a herald to the east and the west, and he reaped great glory by his faith. The whole world has attained to a knowledge of justice; he went even to the farthest parts of the west, and gave his testimony before them that held power. Then was he taken out of the world and went to the holy place, the greatest model of patience.”

 - the increase and propagandist zeal of the Christians irritated the other religions against them, and their resistance to the laws of the State caused the authorities to proceed against them.”^[51]

- Tertullian tells us that in his time the Christians were accused of being “enemies of the human race” (paene omnes cives Christianos habendo sed hostes maluistis vocare generis humani potius quam erroris humani).^[52] And even the “Thyestean meals” and “Oedipodic minglings,” of which Arnold is reminded by the circumstance that Tacitus ascribes those horrors and scandals to the Christians, hardly suit the age of Nero, and have all the appearance of a projection of later charges against the Christians into the sixties of the first century—supposing, that is to say, that the writer was thinking of them at all in the expression quoted. It cannot be repeated too often that charges of this kind, if, as is usually gathered from similar expressions of Justin and Tertullian, they were really put forward by the Jews,^[53] have no ground or reason whatever in the historical relations between the two during the first century, especially before the destruction of Jerusalem. The schism between Jews and Christians had not yet taken place, and the hatred of the two for each other was as yet by no means such as to justify such appalling accusations.^[54] If, on the other hand, they are supposed to be brought by the pagans against the Christians, there is a complete absence of motive.^[55]

- Examine Paul's Epistles! As we shall show in the next chapter, they do not tell a single special fact about the life of Jesus. Read the other Epistles of the New Testament—Peter, John, James, Jude, and the Epistle to the Hebrews—and the letter of Clement to the Corinthians, the letter of Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas, the Acts of the Apostles, etc.

-  these documents know anything of an historical Jesus; the little that could be quoted to the contrary, such as the passage in the supposed speech of Peter (Acts, x, 38), is so obviously due to a later tampering with the text and so absurd that we cannot pay it any serious attention. The earlier Christian literature is acquainted with a Jesus-god, a god-man, a heavenly high-priest and saviour Jesus, a metaphysical spirit, descending from heaven to earth, assuming human form, dying, and rising again; but it knows nothing whatever about a merely human Jesus, the amiable author of fine moral sentiments, the “unique” personality of liberal Protestantism. 

- There is therefore nothing in the objection that no one at that time questioned the existence of such a person. Those who attach importance to such doubts simply assume the correctness of the liberal-theological view of the origin of Christianity. If this view is false, if the transformation of Jesus into an historical person only occurred at a relatively late stage (the first half of the second century), the absence of any doubt about the historical existence of Jesus before that time is quite intelligible. In any case it is logically absurd (“lucus a non lucendo”) to deduce from the circumstance that no one, apparently, expressed any doubt as to the existence of Jesus the fact that he actually existed.

- we need hardly linger over the arguments that may be drawn from other supposed relics of his time and environment. There is still at Treves the holy coat for which the Roman soldiers cast lots at the foot of the cross. There is still in the Lateran at Rome the stairway which Jesus ascended on entering the palace of Pilate. Then there are the innumerable fragments of the cross pointing to the drama of Golgotha, the innumerable holy nails, the vinegar-sponge, the veil of Veronica, the shroud in which the Saviour was wrapped, the swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus, and, last but not least, the holy prepuce. There are indeed plenty of “historical documents”—for those who wish to believe. They must be sought, however, not in literature, but in churches and chapels and other “holy places,” where they prove their authenticity by the “blessing” which flows from them 

- the genuineness of at least the four chief Epistles (Romans, Galatians, and the two to the Corinthians) is so firmly held by them that any doubt about it is at once rejected by them as “not to be taken seriously.”

- God therefore took pity on men, and sent to them Christ, his “son,” to take from them the yoke of the law. Originally a supernatural being, buried in God and co-operating in the creation of the world, Christ, at the will of his father, exchanged the glory of heaven for the poverty and straits of earth, in order to come upon the earth in the form of a slave, a man among men, for the redemption of mortals. He gave himself freely, for the salvation of men, to death on the cross. What no sacrifice had as yet been able to accomplish (a proof of the powerlessness of the law), complete delivery from sin and from death, which had come into the world with sin—was attained by the sacrificial death of him in whom was concentrated the whole being of humanity. In his death he died the death of all. By his resurrection he triumphed over death. By the rejection and casting aside of his human nature in death the God-man resumed his essential divinity. In discarding the veil of flesh and returning to his father in transfigured form, as a pure spirit and being reunited to him, he set men an example how they were to attain their true nature by the sacrifice of their carnal personality. More than this, indeed, he thereby obtained for them redemption from the bonds of the flesh, lifted them above the limitations of earth, and secured for them eternal life in and with the father. Man has only to put himself in personal relation to him, to unite intimately with him, to accept and assimilate the belief in his redeeming death (to crucify himself with Christ), and show this by a love of his fellow-men, and he will have a share in Christ's exaltation, and so attain redemption. The law therefore ceases to prescribe his conduct. By his union with Christ he is dead to the law and released from its dominion. The demons, under whose curse he had hitherto lain, have now no power over him. The life of which he has but a limited share here on earth will be enjoyed under better conditions in heaven. Christ is therefore the “mediator” between God and man, destroying the barrier between them. He is the “saviour” who heals the maladies of earthly life, corporal or spiritual, the “deliverer” from the darkness of earthly existence and death, the “God-man,” the true foundation and end of all religious action.

- Logos descends from his heavenly sphere and enters the world of sense, to give strength to the good, and save men from sin, and lead them to their true home, the kingdom of heaven, and their heavenly father.

-  In the prophet Daniel the redeemer is described by the Gnostic name of “the son of man.” Further, this idea of a suffering and dying saviour was unmistakably connected with the course of nature. It was expressed by a belief in a divine son and saviour, who sacrifices himself for his fellows, incurs death, descends into the underworld, struggles against the demons of hell, and after a time rises again from the tomb and brings a new life to the world. 

- In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah we encounter the form of the so-called “suffering servant of God,” who is mocked, despised, and sacrificed in expiation of the sins of his people, but rises again in glory, and is borne to the splendours of heaven.

- The “Christ-myth” regards the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah as the real germ-cell of Christianity. On it is based the Christian belief that the Messiah, whom the Jews expected, has already appeared in human form and servile lowliness, and sacrificed himself for the sins of his people, in order that thus the condition might be fulfilled without which the desired “kingdom of God” could not be established: the complete fidelity to the law and sinlessness of the Israelites.

- Paul knew nothing of an historical Jesus! His Jesus Christ was merely an “imaginary being,” the mere “idea” of a God-man sacrificing himself! There is no historical personage, no real event, behind the fact of the death on the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the central part of the Pauline system! Is not Christ described by Paul as a real man? “Does not,” von Soden asks, “his theory of redemption through Christ imply his full humanity? God sent his son in the form of sinful flesh on account of sin, and condemned sin in the flesh (Remember, Jesus was born sinless, lived a sinless liofe for 33 years, died sinless, and was risen from hell sinless, since Satan could not  hold Him in his sinful domain - Hell.).”^[6] The apostle speaks of the “blood” of Christ, by which men are justified.^[7] “In vivid language he represents to the Corinthians the entrance of Jesus into human existence in order to stimulate them to contribute generously to the funds of the early Christians (2 Cor. viii, 9): ‘For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich’; and even more vividly he represents him to the Philippians as the model of humility (ii, 5): ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man.’ How can Drews say in face of such passages (to which Weiss adds the allusions to the righteousness [Rom. v, 18, 19], the love [Gal. ii, 20], and the obedience [Phil, ii, 8] of Jesus): ‘The whole earthly life of Jesus is entirely immaterial to Paul’?” (p. 32).

- the humility, obedience, and love which abound in the son of God, when he exchanges heaven for the miseries of earth, a reflection of the compassionate and humble man Jesus? Has Paul transferred the various traits of the character of Jesus to the heavenly form? This has been affirmed, but it is not true. Christ is said to be obedient because he did not oppose the divine will to send him to save the world, although it cost him his divine existence and brought him to the cross; humble, because he stooped to the lowliness of earth: and love must have been his motive, since his incarnation and death were the greatest service to mankind. Such service is naturally inspired by the desire to serve—by love.

 Cleansing of HISTORY!!!!!

In 48 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, Julius Caesar was besieged at Alexandria. His soldiers set fire to his own ships while trying to clear the wharves to block the fleet belonging to Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy XIV. ... Whatever devastation Caesar's fire may have caused, the Library was evidently not completely destroyed. 

 -But a greater legacy was the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Launched in 288 BC byPtolemy I (Soter) under the guidance of Demetrius of Phaleron, the temple to the muses, or Mouseion (in greek), or museum (in latin) was part academy, part research center, and part library.  The first person blamed for the destruction of the Library is none other than Julius Caesar himself. In 48 BC, Caesar was pursuing Pompey into Egypt when he was suddenly cut off by an Egyptian fleet at Alexandria.