PhilosopherJay

Hi Maryhelena,

Thanks for putting these two accounts together.

I once considered that we were getting an earlier, unvarnished account in Slavonic Josephus, but I now consider it more likely that we are just dealing with a medieval writer with a great deal of imagination who is twisting and turning his original material to tell a better story. He is developing his material from the gospels

This King is Jesus Christ and "he himself would be humbled by no one" reminds one of the saying by Jesus that no man is greater than John.

The original Josephus has the problem that Josephus talks about baptism, but doesn't explain what it is:

Only somebody who knows the Christian Baptism ritual already would know what the sentence meant. It is also making a theological point that would only be of interest to Christians that the baptism was not for "some sins" but for the purification of the body. This diminishes John even further, turning him into a gym coach interested in the body and somebody unconcerned about spiritual matters, the kind of slander that Christians typically made about Jews.

The way it looks to me now is that both these accounts are dependent on the gospel accounts rather than the gospel accounts being dependent on either one of them.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

maryhelena

So, perhaps the Christian interpolation in Antiquities is simply the words” “… not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only]”. Once this forgiving of sins element is removed, put aside, then there is surely no connection in Antiquities with the gospel account of JtB. Without the reference to ‘sins’, Antiquities is more in agreement with the picture of JtB that is in Slavonic Josephus than it is with the gospel storyline.

I can’t, for the life of me, understand how an imaginative Slavonic Josephus writer, having the gospel accounts in front of him, leaving out in his own story, the big issue in the gospels storyline - that JC was baptized by JtB. I can’t imagine a Christian doing such a thing. I can imagine a Christian writer taking the Slavonic Josephus storyline re JtB and developing it - as seems also to have been the case re the possible Christian interpolation in Antiquities re ‘sins’. In other words; I see a development from Slavonic Josephus into the gospels storyline where JC and JtB become connected re baptism - rather than the gospel storyline being cut in half, so to speak, in Slavonic Josephus where JC and JtB have no connection.

(I also can’t see the Slavonic Josephus writer, with Antiquities in front of him, so obviously contradicting Antiquities re Herodias being married to Philip. Which would indicate that Slavonic Josephus was written prior to Antiquities. Slavonic Josephus does not seem to indicate when JtB dies. He is alive when Philip dies - dating here is problematic. Earliest copies of Josephus have the 22nd year of Tiberius, which would be around 36 ce. A date that is in line with the JtB storyline in Antiquities regarding the war with Antipas and Aretes. The gospels, of course, can’t decide on 30 ce or 33 ce…)

Regarding the question of baptism itself. Its interesting that only two of the gospel accounts, Mark and Matthew mention JC actually coming up out of the water. Luke and John seem to want to take a pass on the water side of things. Strange if the water baptism was such a big issue...

Antiquities makes reference to Herod being concerned re a ‘rebellion’. Methinks, maybe, this whole baptism scenario is not the whole story involved with the JtB character.

aa5874

It is almost certain that John the Baptist could not have been baptizing Jews for the REMISSION of Sins. John the Baptist would have been probably stoned to death.

Jewish Laws provided for the ATONEMENT of Sins for Jews and it would have been regarded as Blasphemy for a man to offer the forgiveness of sins through baptism. See Leviticus for Jewish Laws for Atonement of Sins.

It would appear that the John the Baptist character was used to HISTORICISE Jesus who was NOT a man in the NT.

maryhelena

:thumbs:

PhilosopherJay

Hi Maryhelena,

Compare the treatment of the Jesus story in Slavonic Josephus to the treatment of John the Baptist. To me, they are quite similar. In the Jesus story, he retells it in a similar wild fashion, bringing together and rearranging all sorts of stories, changing and expanding on them in his own manner.

Just as he leaves out John's baptism of Jesus, he leaves out the resurrection of Jesus and the empty tomb except for this statement about the disciples, "they spake to the people about their teacher,—that he is living, although he is dead," This statement would be quite confusing for anybody unfamiliar with the gospel/Christian tradition. Would Josephus have assumed his readers were familiar with the Christian resurrection tale as this author does?

We tend to think of history writing as it is today for the most part, just an orderly recitation of the facts with listed sources. Apparently, in medieval Russia/Ukraine, the writer was given the freedom of the novelist to arrange and embellish and even invent the facts, in order to tell a good story. I think that is what we see in Slavonic Josephus.

Notice that he is using Josephus with the TF as a source, but editing and adding bits and pieces from the gospels and other sources, and even changing important elements of the story. In 26-28, It is Pilate, not Judas, who receives the thirty talents and it is the Jews themselves who crucify Jesus. This is a playful retelling of the tale, meant to emphasize the corruption of the bribe-taking Romans and the guilt of the Jews. Josephus would hardly have wanted to antagonize his Roman and Jewish readers this way.


Notice that in the Treatment of the First Christians: 8-10, he is paraphrasing, Gamaliel in Acts: 38-40
Also notice in 11 where the writer says, "11. But afterwards, becoming pestered by them, they had them sent away, some to the Emperor, but others to Antioch, others again to distant lands,—for the testing of the matter," it is evident that he is familiar with Paul's adventures in Acts and with other stories of the adventures of the the disciples.

If Slavonic Josephus does represent the original Josephus text, one wonders why no Christian ever quoted any of it in the 1800 years between its composition and discovery.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Chili

Paul could not preach baptism because there was no 'holy' water to do it with . . . if there was no Christ in history.

What you call brainwashing would be indoctrination of faith that would be based on the manifestation of Christ within the Church so that we can be reborn of water and spirit as new Testament people.

Chili

A good observation but not really strange and very telling that Matthew and Mark have a different JBap as well who thinks that dunking is good for peole because it gets them wet and washed clean, I suppose, to make it known that he missed the point completely.

I'll say again that the water represents knowledge retained by faith as set aside in Gen. 1 to provide dry land for humans to walk in faith that later in life begs to be converted when 'faith seeks understanding' prior to arriving at the New heaven and New earth where the [celestial] sea is no longer and so come full circle in life to arrive at the place we first started and know it as if for the first time. Of course Matthew and Mark has no need for that because [their] Jesus never gets there and that likely is why he never gets there or there would be no significance (intrinsic power as Sacrament) in Baptism.

maryhelena

Hi, Philosopher Jay

With the publication of ‘War’ in Greek - any earlier version, notes etc, that were not utilized in the new version would possibly be discarded. And who knows but that Josephus was hoping they would get lost.

If such notes of an earlier ‘War’ were in circulation why would they not be used by early Christian writers? Perhaps that is more a modern question than one for the early days of Christianity. Marcion, as Stephan Huller noted above, does not have any baptism of JC by JtB. Where did he get that idea from? Were not the early debates over the ‘true’ nature of the JC figure; some version of a spiritual entity or a fully divine entity. Historicity seems to have gone by the wayside very early on. Once the NT canon was up and running that is all that mattered. Anything outside would be considered beyond the pale. Orthodoxy would have been the primarily focus. And that was: JC is the son of god sent to save humanity from their sins by his sacrifice on the cross. Slavonic Josephus has nothing to offer here. Historicity is gone, finished - it’s a spiritual journey/experience that’s the big deal. Nobody is really interested in a first draft. It’s the finished product, the grand finale that reaps the accolades.

Our curious modern minds want to backtrack to find that first draft of the gospel storyline. Is Slavonic Josephus that original master copy? I think I’d bet a few dollars on that being so...

(working backwards - from the gospels to Slavonic Josephus achieves nothing in regard to a developing storyline. A storyline by some imaginative Slavonic translator is a storyline with an empty shell; a storyline that takes away from the gospel storyline rather than adding anything to it. The other way around - Slavonic Josephus to the gospels - well, that’s a developing storyline that is going places...)

Why does Slavonic Josephus get short shift in academic circles? That’s an easy question to answer. The assumed historicity of JC. With that mindset Slavonic Josephus will look to be a forgery; some unknown Slavonic translator letting his mind go a wandering...However, from a mythicist perspective, a perspective that does not accept the NT Jesus figure as being historical - Slavonic Josephus is a whole different ball game.

What a mythicists would be looking for is a developing storyline re the creation of the gospel Jesus figure. That development can be observed from Slavonic Josephus to the gospel storyline. Indeed, its a development that implicates Josephus. Josephus had the ability and the opportunity to re-write history. A re-writing that would cover up the real history of the relevant NT time period - thereby allowing the pseudo-historical gospel storyline a place in the sun.

In Antiquities Josephus has contradicted the account in Slavonic Josephus re Herodias being married to Philip. That’s a historical statement - and hence a statement that has the potential to unravel the Josephan account of Herodian and Hasmonean history. (Nikos Kokkinos has accused Josephus, in Antiquities, of being in error regarding Herodias and Philip - what’s needed of course, is not more arguments but some solid archaeological finding...)

Yes, Slavonic Josephus is an enigma - but it’s there - and methinks mythicists should not be letting the historicists have the last say on this ‘forgery’.

(Interpolations from Christians into Slavonic Josephus - perhaps. But the fundamental Slavonic Josephus storyline re the wonder worker and John the Baptist indicates a pre-Christian hand, a pre-gospel hand, in its composition.)

avi

Thank you both, Jay and MaryHelena, for such an interesting discussion.....

avi

maryhelena

Thanks for the links, avi - it's way past my bedtime so I'll give them some time tomorrow.

Sure, the Christians have had a big hand in preserving, or otherwise, all related manuscripts - but that does not mean that they always knew what value to place upon specific manuscripts. Their theological positions would perhaps compromise their objectivity. So, perhaps something like Slavonic Josephus simply got by under the radar! (albeit most likely with a little bit of doctoring re post NT storyline details). The backbone to Slavonic Josephus, re its wonder worker and JtB storyline, is a pre-gospel storyline.

And if the cap fits Josephus - then so be it! Obviously, however, a prospect that the historicists would run a mile from. With Josephus having a finger in the pie - there goes their independent historical support for JC.