Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Bracer · 07-29-2002, 08:29 AM

Pardon me a bit for chiming in from the peanut gallery, but I feel compelled to say, in perfect sincerity, that this is a fascinating and incredibly informative thread. I don�t believe I�ve ever come across a discussion of this passage before that approached it from this angle and I�m learning a lot just listening by in. You guys rock.

godfry n. glad · 07-29-2002, 12:41 PM

Greetings, Vorkosigan, Peter, et al...

This is a topic which received a fair amount of coverage on the JesusMysteries group back in May 2001.

Here's one quote, from Kelly Wellington:

Quote:

Most revisions I have seen completely excise the "He was the Christ" line from the TF, which, of course, would make the idiosyncratic
translation using "aforementioned" totally nonsensical.

The problem here is that if we include this mention of "Christ", we still have the question of why the term is used only TWICE in all of
Josephus' works, both in relation to this one person and without any definition of any kind?

Keep in mind that _AofJ_ was written for a Graecophonic Roman audience, most of whom would have no idea to what the term referred. And what would they have thought of this "Christ," had the undefined term been included as it is in modern translations? Well, lacking as I am in proficiency with Koine Greek, I sought assistance from others in understanding how the term might have been understood by the gentile audiences that Paul and his competitors might have
addressed. Another poster was kind enough to send me this:

"The term meant "Ointment" or "linement". Outside the Jewish-Christian sources, it was never used for a person on whom ointment had been put, "an anointed one". As far as I have been able to tell, the following statement by C.F.D. Moule (The Origin of Christology, Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 31-2) is correct: "The Septuagint seems, thus, to have introduced a new technical term ... when Biblical Greek uses _christos_, not for the ointment ('for
external application') but for an anointed person or thing, this is a new usage." (fn. 37): "in secular Greek _christos_ is applied to the
ointment, never, it seems, to the one anointed: it means 'for external application' or 'externally applied', as against something
that is drunk and used internally."

"Essentially the same view is expressed by Hess in Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 9, p.495: "Christos is never related to persons outside the LXX, the NT, and dependent writings." In other words, as far as we know it was not used as a title of any sort outside the Judaeo-Christian sphere of influence. To someone with some knowledge of Judaism or Christianity it meant "anointed person", i.e. person marked out for some special role by
anointing. I have found no evidence at all that it was used by other Graeco-Roman religious groups."

So, unless one were a member of the small minority group of the far-flung Jewish communities of the 1st century Mediterreanean, or the even smaller minority of the germinal Christian communities, the chances are that one might think that Josephus was referring to "Jesus, called the ointment"....or "called the linement."

I'd say that would distinctly call for an explanation, or at least a definition of what a Jewish speaker meant by using the phrase. Yet,
such seems to be entirely absent from _Antiquities of the Jews_ or any of Josephus' other works.

The thread runs for some distance (starting at 2776 and ending somewhere near 2831) and in it, too, Ed Tyler has his say and basically pulls the rug out from underneath Kelly with commentary that the Greek construction of the phrase describing James wouldn't allow excision without leaving it nonsensical, in Greek, of course. Of course, Kelly didn't even think to mention that it might have replaced another descriptive phrase, like "brother of Jesus, son of Damneus".

In the discussion, someone (Kelly, again, I think) points out that Josephus is generally credited with naming Vespasian as the subject of the Hebrew superstition that foretold that a "ruler of the world" would arise from Judea. Josephus declines, even there, to use the term "messiah" or "christ" to decribe the "true Christ" (in his mind, at least). Why then would he use the term in passing to describe the brother of the ill-fortuned James?

Also, another poster in the midst of that discussion made the claim (which no one challenged) that Josephus describes _all_ the other Jesuses in his works with "son of..." descriptors. Thus the "called the Christ" descriptor is a glaring exception. Can anyone confirm this?

godfry n. glad

Amen-Moses · 07-29-2002, 01:35 PM

Sorry for butting in but couldn't the original have said "Jesus, son of Joseph, whose name was James" referring to the Joseph having just been deprived of the high preisthood?

Maybe James was only half brother to Jesus so that he couldn't say "James, son of Joseph" or some reason like that?

Then some scribe looking through this writes "The Christ?" in the margin an a later copyist decides that it would read better theologically by replacing the "Son of Joseph" with "Called the messiah".

Only a thought.

Amen-Moses

Ted Hoffman · 07-30-2002, 02:08 AM

I think Vorkosigans suggestion, which Ed Tyler relegated to "special pleading", was good but weak as Kirby pointed out "it requires a deliberate modification of the passage that is not fully explained". One thing that is not explained is why the scribe would think that this could be his Jesus - it explicitly said otherwise" - in a way its haphazard, but it also gets rid of the questions "called Christ by who", "what does Christ mean". In addition to that, it can resolve the incongruity that arises between Antiquities 20 and Origens' writings as I have explained below.

My take on this is: Antiquities 20 is about Ananas, and how he lost hos position. NOT about how James died or about Who Jesus was.
As Doherty says Crossan suggested "a man called James" would have been sufficient instead of the syntactically cumbersome "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James".

It is therefore important to explain why Josephus could have been compelled to put such a long, ambiguous expression just to say "a man called James". In the absence of such an explanation, the passage seems to have been tampered with.

Besides, Origen in Against Celsus 1.47 and in Commentary on Matthew 10.17 said that
Josephus believed the Calamities befell the Jews because they had killed James. Antiquities 20 has Josephus saying the Jews did NOT kill James, in the face of this conflict, Vorkosigans suggestion would provide a solution to this incongruity because it would mean the James in Antiquities 20 was another James, NOT James brother of Jesus. So maybe Vorkosigans idea just needs legitimacy and it will be right on!

Concerning

Quote:

A search of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, the extracanonical writings, and the New Testament will produce no instance in which James is identified as "the brother of Jesus" (let alone "the brother of Jesus called Christ"). It is thus not likely to be a phrase to come naturally from a Christian pen when identifying James.

What about Galatians 1
19 But I did not see any other of the apostles except (1) James, the Lord's brother.

Vorkosigan · 07-30-2002, 03:12 AM

<a href="http://bible.crosswalk.com/History/BC/FlaviusJosephus/?book=War_6&chapter=1" target="_blank">Online searchable Josephus War and Ant., search form on bottom</a> (Whiston translation)

My apologies for the rambling repetitiveness of this post.

Now you could agree with me and say that you actually have something in your left pocket (marginal gloss), or you could agree with Tyler and say that you actually have something in your right pocket (excisement and replacement). But you cannot say that to both of us.

I disagree. Tyler's argument is that Jesus should be identified more obviously: "..Jesus, son of Damneus." I agree. That is a weak argument in favor of an excision rather than a marginal gloss; if Josephus always behaves in manner X, and suddenly in a highly suspicious place deviates from manner X, we are right to suspect a deletion/substitution. Unless we find an original manuscript, we will never get the truth, and this will remain speculation.

"The thing that I don't like about the new hypothesis is that it requires a deliberate modification of the passage that is not fully explained. One thing that is not explained is why the scribe would think that this could be his Jesus - it explicitly said otherwise - while this is no problem for the original hypothesis.

This is not a problem for the excision hypothesis, which, as you suspected, I actually favor. The scribe is reading Josephus and sees the reference to "the brother of Jesus son of Damneus, by the name of James" and then irritably corrects what he parses as an 'error': Josephus has carelessly misidentified the brother of Jesus, Christ.

In other words, excision makes psychological sense not as a malicious deletion, but as an innocent correct of error.

Another thing that is not explained is why the scribe would go for this odd way of referring to James when he was already altering the passage and could have used a more traditional idiom.

What odd rhythm? What could be more natural than to have Jesus the Christ come first? Besides, he is not indulging in malicious rewriting but in pious error correction.

Another thing that is not explained is that it is unclear what the interpolator gained from the modification, while on the original hypothesis it was just a mistake.

Context. The interpolator was correcting an error. Suppose it's the second or third century. You've got in front of you a manuscript of Josephus in greek which you know is a copy of a copy of a copy. Every scribe knows that errors are inevitable. So there you are, pious Bob the Monk, and you scowl and say to your Brother: "Look, some chowderhead has accidently put "Jesus of Damneus" in here instead of the right Jesus. You're putting it back to the correct version." Maybe the scribe is learned enough to know that other copies of Josephus have "Jesus Damneus" there. Maybe not. But think: you're in the librarian in Caesarea, and you get wind that another scroll of Josephus has "the so-called Christ" where yours has "Jesus son of Damneus." What are you going to do? Correct your scroll, of course.

Of course, I have no way to prove that it happened this way. But your objection on psychological grounds can be met on psychological grounds. Ed's are rather tougher, now that I have thought about them a little more.

Of course, even though the excisement hypothesis comes up empty in my estimate, the marginal gloss hypothesis may remain plausible - except if there is evidence against it.

Let's go look...

I would have to go to the university library to look up Sch�rer, but Tyler's claim here can be evaluated through some search of Josephus. I will quote the identifying references that are most relevant: mentions of other people named 'Jesus' in the last five books of the Antiquities

Ant. 17.13.1. "Nor did this Eleazar abide long in the high priesthood, Jesus, the son of Sie, being put in his room while he was still living."

Ant. 20.9.4. "And now Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, became the successor of Jesus, the son of Damneus, in the high priesthood, which the king had taken from the other; on which account a sedition arose between the high priests..."

Ant. 20.10.1 "...at which time Jesus, the son of Josadek, took the high priesthood over the captives when they were returned home."

I think that it could be said that Josephus took some care in distinguishing between the different persons named Jesus at the moment that each came up in the narrative, as 'Jesus' is a relatively common Jewish name of the era. Failure of Josephus to wrote 'son of Damneus' when first mentioning Jesus tends to go against the normal procedure of Josephus.

Yes, but Josephus isn't identifying Jesus, he's identifying JAMES. This argument is invalid because it focuses on the wrong aspect of the passage. It is incredibly common for Josephus to introduce people by reference to their relatives, who are then left unexplained -- Damneus is nowhere defined. He is simply a marker for Jesus. Is he defined somewhere else in Ant.? I couldn't find it. So the first reference is the usual Josephus reference form:

"...the brother of Jesus, James by name..."

Further, Joseph does not always identify his Jesus-s by such appellations. In War a Jesus makes a speech in Chap 4 of Book 4; he is identified as the second-eldest of the high priests and his name, Jesus, twice used in the same passage. Note that he is a high priest, like our Jesus Damneus. (He might even be Jesus Damneus but I'm having some trouble working out which ones are which).

Now, an argument against this is that Josephus either identifies people by their positions (jesus the high priest) or their father. He never identifies them by their brother unless the brother is already known.

However, the sequence of events here is not the normal one. Normally the brothers of famous people become important because the one got famous. But nowhere else that I can find does the opposite happen. The sequence of events here is out of kilter from all the other ones related by Josephus, at least in the way I have proposed it.

However, with all that said, after reading both War and Antiquities, I believe Ed is probably right even on the excision, because the most common identifier is "son of." Most commonly, James should be identified as "James, son of Damneus" or else "James son of Josephus" assuming him to be the son of the carpenter.

Unfortunately the reference continues to puzzle me, because "Christ" is refered to some time ago, and Josephus almost always reminds the reader when there is some gap in the narrative, as when he waits 4 chapters to reintroduce Onias the son of Onias.

Tyler writes: "Neither, of course, is the proposal that Josephus wrote a very lengthy passage in which the various relationships of the men involved are not made explicit until the very end. Josephus characteristically establishes his identifications immediately. He certainly would not say 'the brother of X, whose name was Y' and then skip a few pages before telling just you who 'X' is."

Yes, this is usually true; in fact is by far the more devastating the two arguments. Given what I am arguing, my reply would be; where else does Joseph identify action by insignificant brother A resulting in brother B ascending to historic post? I've been looking. I think this is the only passage in either Antiquities or War. In other places prominent brothers have problems with characters introduced as their brother after they appear. Here the action by the nobody brother causes the appearance of the somebody brother in history.

[postscript: have located possible parallel, where Simon son of Boethus' daughter is loved by Herod. Daughter triggers father's fame, but is not even named, whereas Simon is well described. Argument collapses in flames? Although not quite the same situation]

However, Tyler's argument here is much stronger, and may leave this idea in tatters.

All we would need is a different location in which Josephus said "the brother of X, whose name was Y" and then informed us as to who X was later on. I would also accept "Y, son of X" where X is identified later on. Or you can see what you dig up, and we will see whether it is a good analogy for what you suggest that Josephus may have done here.

I'm working on it. But I think this is the wrong approach; in all other cases people are famous in their own right. In this case, the first person introduced is merely the trigger of events, at least the way I read the passage.

I don't think that this takes sufficient account of all the conditions for a successful argument from silence: the extensiveness and variety of the authors supposed to be silent, the surety of actual silence in the authors, the surety that the authors would have mentioned the fact if the fact were known, and the surety that the fact would be known if it were true. I think the last condition holds up well, as I think that Paul for one would have known that James were the brother of Jesus if it were true. I think that the second-to-last condition is arguable, as it is difficult to presage the kinds of things that a person should write, but in any case I do not see an overwhelming reason for the authors in question to mention the fact.

So, the epistle of James and Jude, both of which would be brothers of Jesus if this relationship were true or commonly known, do not count here? Can you explain your position more fully?

The extensiveness and variety criterion is not met; the only documents written before the Antiquities that mention James are Paul and the Epistle of James (and possibly the Gospel of Thomas depending on its date), which gives us a base of two or three authors, given that the existence of authors who do not refer to James at all count for little.

Epistle of Jude does not identify James as a brother of Jesus.

BTW, I assume you mean "the only writings besides the gospels" or else you've revealed some unorthodox position of your own here...

But we should not use one set of evidence to discredit the other; each set of evidence should be evaluated on its own terms for its strength, and then a comparison should be made after such individual evaluation.

Ok. But the Ant 20.200 passage is one of the reasons for accepting that there was a James the brother of Jesus.

Basically, the passage says that Ananus made arrangements for the death of these men by means of stoning. The passage does not imply in any way that the plans of Ananus in this regard were frustrated, but neither does it explicitly mention the actual death of these men.

Hmmm......well, since no evidence either way, no argument either way.

One reason this particular passage involving Ananus sticks out is that it totally revises the picture of Ananus from the one given in War, where he is presented as a great and good man. The whole passage is strange -- yet another reason to suspect the reference.

Scratch everything....I think I may have found the reference sequence you'd consider a smoking gun, although this one just gives off puffs rather than fully smokes. Consider the Theophilus sequences in these chapters:

Antiquities: Book: 17 Chapter: 4.2

Matthias son of Theophilus is appointed high priest by Herod

Antiquities: Book: 18 Chapter: 5.3

A Theophilus shows up as Jonathon's brother under agrippa

Antiquities: Book: 19 Chapter: 6.2

Another theophilus, the son of ananus,

Antiquities: Book: 20 Chapter: 9.7

Another matthias the son of theophilus, but much too late to be related theophilus???

Are the first three theophilus-s (theophilii?) the same person? if so.....that would undercut Ed's argument

Vorkosigan

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

godfry n. glad · 07-30-2002, 10:25 AM

I would still like an explanation from those who argue for the authenticity of the 20.200 cite of James as the brother of "Jesus, called the Christ" as to why Josephus would use the term "christos" in reference to this character and not offer up a description to his readers as to what the term meant.

(Can't you see it?..."Jesus, called the greasy"..."Greasy"...hmmm...I wonder why he was called that? An athlete perhaps? Or, an olive press operator? Or, maybe he was good at "lubricating" deals with us Romans? Damn! I wish this windbag would tell us what these curious Hebrew nicknames were all about.)

If we assume that the reference to Christ in the TF was a later interpolation, then Josephus used this critical term, laden with incendiary meaning, once and only once in his entire corpus.
It's meaning would _not_ be clear to his Graecophonic readers, yet he fails to offer even the most rudimentary of descriptions. In fact, when it has been suggested that he _was_ making reference to the messianic prophecy, in reference to Vespasian, he does NOT use the term.

The phrase is also that which has been placed on the lips of known unbelievers in other Christian texts, why not on the pen of a known unbeliever who was reputed to have lived near that time and, if the gospels are anywhere near the truth of the matter, whose father may well have been a member of the Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus? What better witness? Thus, Josephus becomes the ideal post-facto witness to the historicity of Jesus...and...just about the time it was a bone of contention betwixt the gnostic types and those who would become the orthodoxy.

I cannot help but think of such circumstances as indicating a later interpolation, whether by marginal gloss or excision and replacement. It was a term placed there when the significant readership would make the expected connection _without_ a description or explanation of the term....after the mid-second century.

godfry

Vorkosigan · 07-31-2002, 03:14 AM

I would still like an explanation from those who argue for the authenticity of the 20.200 cite of James as the brother of "Jesus, called the Christ" as to why Josephus would use the term "christos" in reference to this character and not offer up a description to his readers as to what the term meant.

Yes, Josephus was generally in the habit of reminding his readers when he had referred to someone before. Also, when Josephus signaled someone, he generally put the appellation "son of..." after the name, and if the father had a descriptor, it fell after that. However, there are a few times when he does follow the order in this passage. I saw some the other day, I'll try and track them down.

Vorkosigan

godfry n. glad · 08-01-2002, 09:23 AM

Vorkosigan:

It's not just that he didn't use the term before; it's that he used this particular term ("christos") _at all_, without defining it.
To the average reader of AotJ (Graecophonic Romans), the term would have had little or no meaning beyond a term for ointment or linament for external application to the body. I would postulate that the Roman reader, coming across the singular usage (since it's agreed that the "christos" reference in the TF most probably was NOT present and it's not found _anywhere_ else in his works) would have read it as "called the ointment" and wondered why he was referred to in that fashion, who referred to him in that fashion, and why the author thought it important to describe this otherwise unknown James as being related to this Jesus character that was called "ointment", rather than his usual "son of" format.

Then, if you assume that Josephus' readers _did_ know the meaning of the term (as Ed Tyler will vociferously argue), you still run into problems. The Roman reader would still have to wonder why it was used here to describe an otherwise unknown person; why Josephus never supplied a fuller explication of the "ambiguous oracle" of "one who would become governor of the habitable world" (JW 6.5.4, which follows fast upon the description of the madman Jesus, son of Ananus, prophet of the destruction of Jerusalem in JW 6.5.3)and relate it to the term "christos"; why it was not used when Josephus described Vespasian as the true subject of that same messianic oracle; who would have claimed that this otherwise unknown personage was on par with the Emperor Vespasian; and...why Josephus did not explain any of this.

All this leads me to give credence the hypothesis that suggests that the reference replaced another reference; that it is the result of excision and replacement by an interpolator with an agenda to provide supportive evidence for the corporeal existence of Jesus.

godfry n. glad

P.S.- Here's a question: Is the Jesus, son of Ananus, the scouraged madman who prophesizes the imminent destruction of Jerusalem in JW 6.5.4, the son of the same Ananus who is responsible for the arrest and condemnation of James, brother of Jesus, "called the Christ" in AotJ 20.9.1?

Peter Kirby · 08-01-2002, 03:32 PM

I wrote: A search of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, the extracanonical writings, and the New Testament will produce no instance in which James is identified as "the brother of Jesus" (let alone "the brother of Jesus called Christ"). It is thus not likely to be a phrase to come naturally from a Christian pen when identifying James.

IntenSity writes: What about Galatians 1
19 But I did not see any other of the apostles except (1) James, the Lord's brother

My statement concerned the phraseology used to identify James, and the phrase "the brother of Jesus" is not found here; here it is "the brother of the Lord."

If you had read my entire essay, you might have noticed that my comment was copied from the essay in its current revision. You would have known why Galatians 1:19 is not a counter-example but rather supporting evidence. And you would have seen this quote from J. P. Meier:

"...the way the text identifies James is not likely to have come from a Christian hand or even a Christian source. Neither the NT nor early Christian writers spoke of James of Jerusalem in a matter-of-fact way as 'the brother of Jesus' (ho adelphos Iesou), but rather -- with the reverence we would expect -- 'the brother of the Lord' (ho adelphos tou kyriou) or 'the brother of the Savior' (ho adelphos tou soteros). Paul, who was not overly fond of James, calls him 'the brother of the Lord' in Gal 1:19 and no doubt is thinking especially of him when he speaks of 'the brothers of the Lord' in 1Cor 9:5. Hegesippus, the 2d-century Church historian who was a Jewish convert and probably hailed from Palestine, likewise speaks of 'James, the brother of the Lord' (in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History 2.23.4); indeed, Hegesippus also speaks of certain other well-known Palestinian Christians as 'a cousin of the Lord' (4.22.4), the 'brothers of the Savior' (3.25.5), and 'his [the Lord's] brother according to the flesh' (3.20.1). The point of all this is that Josephus' designation of James as 'the brother of Jesus' squares neither with NT nor with early patristic usage, and so does not likely come from the hand of a Christian interpolator." (A Marginal Jew, v. 1, p. 58)

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan · 08-01-2002, 06:57 PM

The point of all this is that Josephus' designation of James as 'the brother of Jesus' squares neither with NT nor with early patristic usage, and so does not likely come from the hand of a Christian interpolator." (A Marginal Jew, v. 1, p. 58)

This is what I have claimed too, that the "brother of Jesus" is from Joseph, and "so-called Christ" is the only thing interpolated.

Vorkosigan

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

07-29-2002, 08:29 AM	#11
Bracer Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Now in North Carolina Posts: 184	Pardon me a bit for chiming in from the peanut gallery, but I feel compelled to say, in perfect sincerity, that this is a fascinating and incredibly informative thread. I don�t believe I�ve ever come across a discussion of this passage before that approached it from this angle and I�m learning a lot just listening by in. You guys rock.

07-29-2002, 01:35 PM	#13
Amen-Moses Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Portsmouth, England Posts: 4,652	Sorry for butting in but couldn't the original have said "Jesus, son of Joseph, whose name was James" referring to the Joseph having just been deprived of the high preisthood? Maybe James was only half brother to Jesus so that he couldn't say "James, son of Joseph" or some reason like that? Then some scribe looking through this writes "The Christ?" in the margin an a later copyist decides that it would read better theologically by replacing the "Son of Joseph" with "Called the messiah". Only a thought. Amen-Moses

07-30-2002, 03:12 AM	#15
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	<a href="http://bible.crosswalk.com/History/BC/FlaviusJosephus/?book=War_6&chapter=1" target="_blank">Online searchable Josephus War and Ant., search form on bottom</a> (Whiston translation) My apologies for the rambling repetitiveness of this post. Now you could agree with me and say that you actually have something in your left pocket (marginal gloss), or you could agree with Tyler and say that you actually have something in your right pocket (excisement and replacement). But you cannot say that to both of us. I disagree. Tyler's argument is that Jesus should be identified more obviously: "..Jesus, son of Damneus." I agree. That is a weak argument in favor of an excision rather than a marginal gloss; if Josephus always behaves in manner X, and suddenly in a highly suspicious place deviates from manner X, we are right to suspect a deletion/substitution. Unless we find an original manuscript, we will never get the truth, and this will remain speculation. "The thing that I don't like about the new hypothesis is that it requires a deliberate modification of the passage that is not fully explained. One thing that is not explained is why the scribe would think that this could be his Jesus - it explicitly said otherwise - while this is no problem for the original hypothesis. This is not a problem for the excision hypothesis, which, as you suspected, I actually favor. The scribe is reading Josephus and sees the reference to "the brother of Jesus son of Damneus, by the name of James" and then irritably corrects what he parses as an 'error': Josephus has carelessly misidentified the brother of Jesus, Christ. In other words, excision makes psychological sense not as a malicious deletion, but as an innocent correct of error. Another thing that is not explained is why the scribe would go for this odd way of referring to James when he was already altering the passage and could have used a more traditional idiom. What odd rhythm? What could be more natural than to have Jesus the Christ come first? Besides, he is not indulging in malicious rewriting but in pious error correction. Another thing that is not explained is that it is unclear what the interpolator gained from the modification, while on the original hypothesis it was just a mistake. Context. The interpolator was correcting an error. Suppose it's the second or third century. You've got in front of you a manuscript of Josephus in greek which you know is a copy of a copy of a copy. Every scribe knows that errors are inevitable. So there you are, pious Bob the Monk, and you scowl and say to your Brother: "Look, some chowderhead has accidently put "Jesus of Damneus" in here instead of the right Jesus. You're putting it back to the correct version." Maybe the scribe is learned enough to know that other copies of Josephus have "Jesus Damneus" there. Maybe not. But think: you're in the librarian in Caesarea, and you get wind that another scroll of Josephus has "the so-called Christ" where yours has "Jesus son of Damneus." What are you going to do? Correct your scroll, of course. Of course, I have no way to prove that it happened this way. But your objection on psychological grounds can be met on psychological grounds. Ed's are rather tougher, now that I have thought about them a little more. Of course, even though the excisement hypothesis comes up empty in my estimate, the marginal gloss hypothesis may remain plausible - except if there is evidence against it. Let's go look... I would have to go to the university library to look up Sch�rer, but Tyler's claim here can be evaluated through some search of Josephus. I will quote the identifying references that are most relevant: mentions of other people named 'Jesus' in the last five books of the Antiquities Ant. 17.13.1. "Nor did this Eleazar abide long in the high priesthood, Jesus, the son of Sie, being put in his room while he was still living." Ant. 20.9.4. "And now Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, became the successor of Jesus, the son of Damneus, in the high priesthood, which the king had taken from the other; on which account a sedition arose between the high priests..." Ant. 20.10.1 "...at which time Jesus, the son of Josadek, took the high priesthood over the captives when they were returned home." I think that it could be said that Josephus took some care in distinguishing between the different persons named Jesus at the moment that each came up in the narrative, as 'Jesus' is a relatively common Jewish name of the era. Failure of Josephus to wrote 'son of Damneus' when first mentioning Jesus tends to go against the normal procedure of Josephus. Yes, but Josephus isn't identifying Jesus, he's identifying *JAMES. This argument is invalid because it focuses on the wrong aspect of the passage. It is incredibly common for Josephus to introduce people by reference to their relatives, who are then left unexplained* -- Damneus is nowhere defined. He is simply a marker for Jesus. Is he defined somewhere else in Ant.? I couldn't find it. So the first reference is the usual Josephus reference form: "...the brother of Jesus, James by name..." Further, Joseph does not always identify his Jesus-s by such appellations. In War a Jesus makes a speech in Chap 4 of Book 4; he is identified as the second-eldest of the high priests and his name, Jesus, twice used in the same passage. Note that he is a high priest, like our Jesus Damneus. (He might even be Jesus Damneus but I'm having some trouble working out which ones are which). Now, an argument against this is that Josephus either identifies people by their positions (jesus the high priest) or their father. He never identifies them by their brother unless the brother is already known. However, the sequence of events here is not the normal one. Normally the brothers of famous people become important because the one got famous. But nowhere else that I can find does the opposite happen. The sequence of events here is out of kilter from all the other ones related by Josephus, at least in the way I have proposed it. However, with all that said, after reading both War and Antiquities, I believe Ed is probably right even on the excision, because the most common identifier is "son of." Most commonly, James should be identified as "James, son of Damneus" or else "James son of Josephus" assuming him to be the son of the carpenter. Unfortunately the reference continues to puzzle me, because "Christ" is refered to some time ago, and Josephus almost always reminds the reader when there is some gap in the narrative, as when he waits 4 chapters to reintroduce Onias the son of Onias. Tyler writes: "Neither, of course, is the proposal that Josephus wrote a very lengthy passage in which the various relationships of the men involved are not made explicit until the very end. Josephus characteristically establishes his identifications immediately. He certainly would not say 'the brother of X, whose name was Y' and then skip a few pages before telling just you who 'X' is." Yes, this is usually true; in fact is by far the more devastating the two arguments. Given what I am arguing, my reply would be; where else does Joseph identify action by insignificant brother A resulting in brother B ascending to historic post? I've been looking. I think this is the only passage in either Antiquities or War. In other places prominent brothers have problems with characters introduced as their brother after they appear. Here the action by the nobody brother causes the appearance of the somebody brother in history. [postscript: have located possible parallel, where Simon son of Boethus' daughter is loved by Herod. Daughter triggers father's fame, but is not even named, whereas Simon is well described. Argument collapses in flames? Although not quite the same situation] However, Tyler's argument here is much stronger, and may leave this idea in tatters. All we would need is a different location in which Josephus said "the brother of X, whose name was Y" and then informed us as to who X was later on. I would also accept "Y, son of X" where X is identified later on. Or you can see what you dig up, and we will see whether it is a good analogy for what you suggest that Josephus may have done here. I'm working on it. But I think this is the wrong approach; in all other cases people are famous in their own right. In this case, the first person introduced is merely the trigger of events, at least the way I read the passage. I don't think that this takes sufficient account of all the conditions for a successful argument from silence: the extensiveness and variety of the authors supposed to be silent, the surety of actual silence in the authors, the surety that the authors would have mentioned the fact if the fact were known, and the surety that the fact would be known if it were true. I think the last condition holds up well, as I think that Paul for one would have known that James were the brother of Jesus if it were true. I think that the second-to-last condition is arguable, as it is difficult to presage the kinds of things that a person should write, but in any case I do not see an overwhelming reason for the authors in question to mention the fact. So, the epistle of James and Jude, both of which would be brothers of Jesus if this relationship were true or commonly known, do not count here? Can you explain your position more fully? The extensiveness and variety criterion is not met; the only documents written before the Antiquities that mention James are Paul and the Epistle of James (and possibly the Gospel of Thomas depending on its date), which gives us a base of two or three authors, given that the existence of authors who do not refer to James at all count for little. Epistle of Jude does not identify James as a brother of Jesus. BTW, I assume you mean "the only writings besides the gospels" or else you've revealed some unorthodox position of your own here... But we should not use one set of evidence to discredit the other; each set of evidence should be evaluated on its own terms for its strength, and then a comparison should be made after such individual evaluation. Ok. But the Ant 20.200 passage is one of the reasons for accepting that there was a James the brother of Jesus. Basically, the passage says that Ananus made arrangements for the death of these men by means of stoning. The passage does not imply in any way that the plans of Ananus in this regard were frustrated, but neither does it explicitly mention the actual death of these men. Hmmm......well, since no evidence either way, no argument either way. One reason this particular passage involving Ananus sticks out is that it totally revises the picture of Ananus from the one given in War, where he is presented as a great and good man. The whole passage is strange -- yet another reason to suspect the reference. Scratch everything....I think I may have found the reference sequence you'd consider a smoking gun, although this one just gives off puffs rather than fully smokes. Consider the Theophilus sequences in these chapters: Antiquities: Book: 17 Chapter: 4.2 Matthias son of Theophilus is appointed high priest by Herod Antiquities: Book: 18 Chapter: 5.3 A Theophilus shows up as Jonathon's brother under agrippa Antiquities: Book: 19 Chapter: 6.2 Another theophilus, the son of ananus, Antiquities: Book: 20 Chapter: 9.7 Another matthias the son of theophilus, but much too late to be related theophilus??? Are the first three theophilus-s (theophilii?) the same person? if so.....that would undercut Ed's argument Vorkosigan [ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ] [ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ] [ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ] [ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

07-30-2002, 10:25 AM	#16
godfry n. glad Banned Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: portland, oregon, usa Posts: 1,190	I would still like an explanation from those who argue for the authenticity of the 20.200 cite of James as the brother of "Jesus, called the Christ" as to why Josephus would use the term "christos" in reference to this character and not offer up a description to his readers as to what the term meant. (Can't you see it?..."Jesus, called the greasy"..."Greasy"...hmmm...I wonder why he was called that? An athlete perhaps? Or, an olive press operator? Or, maybe he was good at "lubricating" deals with us Romans? Damn! I wish this windbag would tell us what these curious Hebrew nicknames were all about.) If we assume that the reference to Christ in the TF was a later interpolation, then Josephus used this critical term, laden with incendiary meaning, once and only once in his entire corpus. It's meaning would _not_ be clear to his Graecophonic readers, yet he fails to offer even the most rudimentary of descriptions. In fact, when it has been suggested that he _was_ making reference to the messianic prophecy, in reference to Vespasian, he does NOT use the term. The phrase is also that which has been placed on the lips of known unbelievers in other Christian texts, why not on the pen of a known unbeliever who was reputed to have lived near that time and, if the gospels are anywhere near the truth of the matter, whose father may well have been a member of the Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus? What better witness? Thus, Josephus becomes the ideal post-facto witness to the historicity of Jesus...and...just about the time it was a bone of contention betwixt the gnostic types and those who would become the orthodoxy. I cannot help but think of such circumstances as indicating a later interpolation, whether by marginal gloss or excision and replacement. It was a term placed there when the significant readership would make the expected connection _without_ a description or explanation of the term....after the mid-second century. godfry

07-31-2002, 03:14 AM	#17
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	I would still like an explanation from those who argue for the authenticity of the 20.200 cite of James as the brother of "Jesus, called the Christ" as to why Josephus would use the term "christos" in reference to this character and not offer up a description to his readers as to what the term meant. Yes, Josephus was generally in the habit of reminding his readers when he had referred to someone before. Also, when Josephus signaled someone, he generally put the appellation "son of..." after the name, and if the father had a descriptor, it fell after that. However, there are a few times when he does follow the order in this passage. I saw some the other day, I'll try and track them down. Vorkosigan

08-01-2002, 09:23 AM	#18
godfry n. glad Banned Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: portland, oregon, usa Posts: 1,190	Vorkosigan: It's not just that he didn't use the term before; it's that he used this particular term ("christos") _at all_, without defining it. To the average reader of AotJ (Graecophonic Romans), the term would have had little or no meaning beyond a term for ointment or linament for external application to the body. I would postulate that the Roman reader, coming across the singular usage (since it's agreed that the "christos" reference in the TF most probably was NOT present and it's not found _anywhere_ else in his works) would have read it as "called the ointment" and wondered why he was referred to in that fashion, who referred to him in that fashion, and why the author thought it important to describe this otherwise unknown James as being related to this Jesus character that was called "ointment", rather than his usual "son of" format. Then, if you assume that Josephus' readers _did_ know the meaning of the term (as Ed Tyler will vociferously argue), you still run into problems. The Roman reader would still have to wonder why it was used here to describe an otherwise unknown person; why Josephus never supplied a fuller explication of the "ambiguous oracle" of "one who would become governor of the habitable world" (JW 6.5.4, which follows fast upon the description of the madman Jesus, son of Ananus, prophet of the destruction of Jerusalem in JW 6.5.3)and relate it to the term "christos"; why it was not used when Josephus described Vespasian as the true subject of that same messianic oracle; who would have claimed that this otherwise unknown personage was on par with the Emperor Vespasian; and...why Josephus did not explain any of this. All this leads me to give credence the hypothesis that suggests that the reference replaced another reference; that it is the result of excision and replacement by an interpolator with an agenda to provide supportive evidence for the corporeal existence of Jesus. godfry n. glad P.S.- Here's a question: Is the Jesus, son of Ananus, the scouraged madman who prophesizes the imminent destruction of Jerusalem in JW 6.5.4, the son of the same Ananus who is responsible for the arrest and condemnation of James, brother of Jesus, "called the Christ" in AotJ 20.9.1?

08-01-2002, 03:32 PM	#19
Peter Kirby Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: the reliquary of Ockham's razor Posts: 4,035	I wrote: A search of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, the extracanonical writings, and the New Testament will produce no instance in which James is identified as "the brother of Jesus" (let alone "the brother of Jesus called Christ"). It is thus not likely to be a phrase to come naturally from a Christian pen when identifying James. IntenSity writes: What about Galatians 1 19 But I did not see any other of the apostles except (1) James, the Lord's brother My statement concerned the phraseology used to identify James, and the phrase "the brother of Jesus" is not found here; here it is "the brother of the Lord." If you had read my entire essay, you might have noticed that my comment was copied from the essay in its current revision. You would have known why Galatians 1:19 is not a counter-example but rather supporting evidence. And you would have seen this quote from J. P. Meier: "...the way the text identifies James is not likely to have come from a Christian hand or even a Christian source. Neither the NT nor early Christian writers spoke of James of Jerusalem in a matter-of-fact way as 'the brother of Jesus' (ho adelphos Iesou), but rather -- with the reverence we would expect -- 'the brother of the Lord' (ho adelphos tou kyriou) or 'the brother of the Savior' (ho adelphos tou soteros). Paul, who was not overly fond of James, calls him 'the brother of the Lord' in Gal 1:19 and no doubt is thinking especially of him when he speaks of 'the brothers of the Lord' in 1Cor 9:5. Hegesippus, the 2d-century Church historian who was a Jewish convert and probably hailed from Palestine, likewise speaks of 'James, the brother of the Lord' (in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History 2.23.4); indeed, Hegesippus also speaks of certain other well-known Palestinian Christians as 'a cousin of the Lord' (4.22.4), the 'brothers of the Savior' (3.25.5), and 'his [the Lord's] brother according to the flesh' (3.20.1). The point of all this is that Josephus' designation of James as 'the brother of Jesus' squares neither with NT nor with early patristic usage, and so does not likely come from the hand of a Christian interpolator." (A Marginal Jew, v. 1, p. 58) best, Peter Kirby

08-01-2002, 06:57 PM	#20
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	The point of all this is that Josephus' designation of James as 'the brother of Jesus' squares neither with NT nor with early patristic usage, and so does not likely come from the hand of a Christian interpolator." (A Marginal Jew, v. 1, p. 58) This is what I have claimed too, that the "brother of Jesus" is from Joseph, and "so-called Christ" is the only thing interpolated. Vorkosigan

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.