stephan huller

Cohen's argument is itself a development of "Laqueur's fundamental point— V(ita) contains an early nucleus written before and more reliable than BJ— gained widespread approval." [Josephus in Galilee p. 21]

stephan huller

I don't know if you are aware of what just about every Josephan expert has acknowledged - Vita and Jewish Wars are expansions of something older and more authentic. There is an underlying skeleton which comes from somewhere. If this is acknowledged why is there a question about the general idea of Josephan unreliability?

Duke Leto

So he can't have been a very pisspoor Pharisee? There's a huge variety of levels of commitment to religious teachings present in any faith, frequently within the same congregation.

Josephus understanding of his own religious beliefs and conformance to its norms might have allowed him to believe he was a Pharisee. Henry VIII died believing he was a good Catholic.

stephan huller

It is impossible to believe that a Pharisee could have used a Greek text of the Pentateuch and then the LXX's omission of 1 Samuel 18:1 - 5 should have been corrected by said Pharisee. It is an extremely significant narrative. The person who wrote Jewish Wars likely did not know it even existed because all he knew was the LXX.

Parallel example. The SP does not feature a change of name for Joshua. All references to Joshua are as 'Joshua' rather than Oshea or Hoshea. If my friend Benny is going to tell the story of Joshua to English speaking audiences he might certainly use some English translation but at the points something has been taken away or added he would alert the reader to what the 'true account' says (in contradiction to the translation). Another example is Zipporah being 'dark' (the SP reads 'beautiful'). He and I have discussed the passage and he would correct the 'misreading' in the MP.

Duke Leto

I've looked at summaries of Cohen's book and indicates that Josephus wrote an original document, a short bio, that he went back and used as the basis for the subsequent extant writings. Cohen further goes on to show how the changes and variations are explained by the historical Josephus changing his story to suit his changing agenda.

Representing Cohen's hyponema idea as supporting your own while consistently failing to mention that the full details of Cohen's theories assume a historical Josephus is more than a bit manipulative. You are trying to project the impression he supports your conclusions, and he does not.

Nobody objects to the idea that the Josephus texts are problematic and have to be reviewed with critical scrutiny. Nobody thinks that Pan appeared to an Athenian messenger before the battle of Marathon, but that doesn't mean Herodotus was a 4th Century BCE forgery. You're demanding that the Josephan texts be totally discarded.

The sad thing is that it really doesn't matter. Even if the actual author was some 2nd Century Josephus/Hegesippus, assuming this author was writing as a historian, then there's no reason whatsoever to assume he distorted the history of the Herodian dynasty, so your Single Agrippa theory is still Shit-Out-of-Luck.

stephan huller

The person who wrote Jewish Antiquities was not a Palestinian Pharisee.

stephan huller

I am not interested in the issue of whether Josephus was Hegesippus or anything to do with Agrippa. I was doing some research on 1 Samuel 18:1 - 5 and (a) was surprised to learn it is missing from the LXX and (b) noticed that it is also missing from Josephus's account of David. I thought it was an interesting parallel which challenges the notion that Josephus was a Pharisee.

stephan huller

It is also interesting to see how rarely 1 Samuel 18:1 - 5 is cited by Christian authors. Origen references it when baptizing Theodore and Athenodorus. It comes up in Basil and John Chrysostom but that's about it. Really strange given that it was once important enough to have been used in third century baptisms.

Here is Basil's reference in his fourth homily:

Duke Leto

Back to "The MT is one True Text" I see...

He must have been a Pharisee because he must have been telling the truth in saying he was a Pharisee, and he must have considered himself a Pharisee in the way you choose to understand the term.

And the Samuel passage proves that he wasn't a Pharisee as you choose to understand the term because the MT was definitely the text he'd have read the passage from in Hebrew and there was absolutely NO possibility the Hebrew text he was brought up with was any different from the MT version that wasn't attested until something like 700 years later?

Whole lot of assumptions in that transparently obvious case, tiger.

stephan huller

1 Samuel 18:1 - 5 was also found in the fragments at Qumran. It was present in all the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel.