EarlDoherty

You're missing the point, of course, because you've set up a concrete wall around your brain, unwilling to let anything in that could possibly upset your applecart.

It wouldn't matter where Origen got this, or thought he got it, even if it was on the underside of a bottlecap. He tells us three times that Josephus made this connection. The fall of Jerusalem was due to the Jews' murder of James. Once that idea is in his mind, he should have been led to think of Josephus 'other' account of the death of James, which would have been in stark contradiction. He did not, and did not bring up the subject of Antiquities 20 at all, which reasonably leads to the deduction that no such reference was in there.

Everything you've said above does not in any way address this point. In fact, it's all filler and fluff. You're very good at that. Just spew out words and you might create the impression that you know what you're talking about and are supplying some kind of counter-argument. But you don't fool anybody.

Earl Doherty

LegionOnomaMoi

Of the type some notable Jewish scholars (Vermes, Neusner, etc.) are also guilty of. Because if you aren't out there fighting an imaginary hegemony, well, what good are you?

Yes, on the lips of Pilate twice, and only once in the NT is it not said by someone else: Matt 1:16. And when we look at how this passage was talked about or edited by scribes over the years, well before are Josephan manuscripts date from, we find scribes altering it so that it no longer reads "Jesus called christ" but "Jesus Christ" or something similar.

Good point. Origen does use this formula...when referring to what Josephus wrote.

Where is it used in non-christian ways is a much better question, since so many non-christian sources do not survive or are quite late. In virtually every instance. When scribes alter references to Jesus (and we know of hundreds and hundreds of instances), how do they do so? Do they ever add "called"? No. Do they delete it? Yes" Matt 1:16. They one place where it seems like it is used in a "christian" sense.

How many hundreds and hundreds of times do Christians refer to Jesus and use other method? Virtually every time. How often did the "called" get inserted into our manuscripts in known variants? None. How often did it get deleted/altered? At least a dozen times in Matt 1:16 alone. So... what basis do we have for thinking a scribe would insert this phrase? None.

Yes, your brilliant invention, almost as wonderfully without merit as your linguistic treatment of Josephus. Origen uses Josephus' wording, and you use this as a basis for "creeping marginalia".

LegionOnomaMoi

Actually, it seems you are missing the point, or are just making things up as you go along. He didn't cite book 20, he simply referred to it. And because he linked it to something Josephus didn't, you claim his reference is a "lost passsage." But knowing what we do about how the later "fathers" (and, actually, a great many historians and authors quite apart from christianity), the fact that Origen cites AJ 20.200 about James and freely connects this with something not in book 20 at all is no reason to think he's referring to another passage. This happened all the time.

You think he is linking to some other account, not to book 20, because he discusses things that don't happen there. Why? It would be quite within the range of normal use of sources for Origen to have referred to book 20 in the passages you claim refer to some "lost passage" and connect these to the fall of Jerusalem.

aa5874

Once you introduce Origen as evidence for an Historical Jesus then you might as well give up and "run away".

Origen claimed Multiple Times in Multiple Writings that Jesus was FATHERED by a Holy Ghost and had NO human father.

Against Celsus 1 The Peface to De Principiis It is a FATAL error to use Origen's writings to support an historical Jesus.

The writings of Origen OBLITERATE an HJ and confirm that Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 is a forgery.

Celsus did NOT use Antiquities to argue that Jesus had a human father.

GakuseiDon

Actually, I think Origen IS referring to something that Josephus wrote, just before the James reference at Ch 9.1. Origen wrote that Josephus mentioned James "in seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple". So I wondered exactly what Josephus thought was the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Not far before the James passage, I found this:

Ch 8.5:

Now as for the affairs of the Jews, they grew worse and worse continually, for the country was again filled with robbers and impostors, who deluded the multitude...

Certain of those robbers went up to the city, as if they were going to worship God, while they had daggers under their garments, and by thus mingling themselves among the multitude they slew Jonathan... and slew others, not only in remote parts of the city, but in the temple itself also; for they had the boldness to murder men there, without thinking of the impiety of which they were guilty. And this seems to me to have been the reason why God, out of his hatred of these men's wickedness, rejected our city; and as for the temple, he no longer esteemed it sufficiently pure for him to inhabit therein, but brought the Romans upon us, and threw a fire upon the city to purge it; and brought upon us, our wives, and children, slavery, as desirous to make us wiser by our calamities.

Compare that with Origen's "Against Celsus", 1.47:

But he himself, though not believing in Jesus as Christ, in seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these things happening to the people, since they killed the prophecied Christ, even says, being unwillingly not far from the truth, that these things befell the Jews as vengeance for James the just, who was a brother of Jesus who is called Christ, since they killed him who was most just.

It wouldn't take much for Origen to see Josephus making the connection that the cause of the destruction of the Temple was "bad people killing good people", with James being one of the good people whose death contributing to what happened.

I found later that others had offered the same reasoning, but if we see Origen 'reading into' other texts in the same way, then this would offer support to the above.

spin

So, in short, you simply assert that "Origen uses Josephus' wording" (which is blatantly wrong, given that Origen puts the head word first) and a bunch of other guys (including Jewish scholars like Feldman) agree with the other assertion about "called christ".

Your original claim that "called christ" is "not a christian phrase" is still merely empty rhetoric that has no substantive evidence at all behind it. And, boy, are you confused over your job: it doesn't matter that it didn't get later generative support, when it is evidently found only in christian sources (and christian preserved Josephus).

At least you didn't try to peddle that other conservative crock: "so-called christ". We may be thankful for small mercies.

(And I'll be back with your other crud in due course.)

LegionOnomaMoi

"sadly, Louis Feldman." Perhaps the greatest Josephan scholar ever, a classicist with a doctorate from Harvard, who is Jewish, has alas himself become a victim to Spin's insidious "hegemony" by misunderstanding that Origen, in CC 1.47, wasn't using Josephus' words (brother of Jesus, called Christ) but was actually using Christian terminology (or something; maybe unmarked christian structural bracketing).

Origen, in CC 1.47, Origen references book 18 of Josephus and John the baptist. He then begins a new line of thought, signaled by his use of particles (which abound in Greek, particularly because word order is so free). He uses the particle de, beginning this new line of thought with ho d' auotos/"And this same person [Josephus]..." This is followed by a quick aside (made clear by the absolute construction) "even though not believing in the messianic status of Jesus", and then Origen's long and rather convoluted description of Josephus' work, Jesus, and James. He begins by describing how Josephus sought to know the cause for the fall of Jerusalem (zeton ten aitian tes ton Iersolumon ptoseos), and says that Josephus ought to have known the cause was Christ's execution. According to many commentators, here Origen refers to the much disputed Testimonium Flavianum, mainly because of he states that Josephus did not believe Jesus was "the christ" but his description of Jesus being a "prophet" is also perhaps either original to the TF, or a paraphrase of it. On the other hand, it's quite possible that Origen isn't referring to the TF at all (and that it didn't exist) and is instead solely relying on AJ 20.200 for his belief about Josephus' opinion of Jesus' christ-status. Either way, he says that the calamaties (or disasters) which befell the Jews were (according to Josephus) the result of the death of "James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus called Christ."

The wording of "brother of Jesus called christ" is virtually identical to Josephus in AJ 20.200. The one difference is that "brother" in Origen is in the nominative, rather than the genitive. The "Jesus called Christ" is identical to Josephus. But, as Doherty points out, Josephus never connects the incident with James to the fall of Jerusalem or the Temple. So why think that he is referring to AJ 20.200 at all here?

First, there is the context for all of Origen's use of this phrase "called Christ": Josephus. For example, immediately after he uses the exact wording (brother of Jesus called christ) we find in Josephus, Origen to refer to James as "the brother of the Lord" reflecting Paul's usage (and citing him). Origen then uses the connection between James and Jesus to further push his already strained beyond belief reliance on Josephus for his (Origen's) account of the fall of Jerusalem to Jesus' death. In fact, although Origen refers to James several times in his works, he only uses the phrase "called Christ" after citing Josephus.

In other words, he begins with Josephus account of John the Baptist as a starting point (similar to the beginning of the account in the gospels), and then proceeds to use Josephus as evidence that even an unbeliever connected the fall of Jerusalem with the treatment of Christians. However, as Josephus didn't do any such thing, Origen cites the one connection to Christianity in Josephus which he can lay at the feet of a Jewish priest (after all, even if some part of the TF is genuine, it refers to Pilate's execution of Jesus). He uses this little aside in Josephus and links it with Josephus' general condemnation of Jewish actions leading to the fall of Rome, and further uses James' link to Jesus to get the result he wanted in the first place: blaming the Jews for the fall of Jerusalem because of their treatment of Jesus Christ (an unfortunate anti-semiticism which was to continue for century after century).

The fact that Origen doesn't connect Josephus' line about "the brother of Jesus called Christ" with an explicit passage is the norm for ancient references, unfortunately, and only with better historians (Thucydides, even Eusebius to a point) do we usually get a source reference. But, of course, Origen couldn't actually give a source reference, because Josephus was concerned with demonstrating (for his Roman patrons) the fault of the Jews in the downfall of Jerusalem for various reasons, certainly not because of the one instance Origen could find in which Josephus wishes to portray the high priest in a negative light, and uses James to do so.

Duvduv

How is it that Josephus would make a plug for the Baptist at all in writing as a government sponsored writer? The Baptist had nothing to do with any uprisings and would be of no historical interest to his readers at all among all sorts of exotic Jews in Judea.
Whoever added the passage about the Baptist to Josephus was trying to slip a pro Christian plug much later than Josephus's time, when there were no Christians around, least of all any who would be of interest to officialdom in Rome.

So it was inserted along with other interpolations showing a hint of early approval of the sect by an important Jew in the eyes of officialdom. When?
In the Constantinian era or thereafter. That's when.

Iskander

-

LegionOnomaMoi

He doesn't, actually. You'll notice that "James the Just" is in the genitive, yet "brother" is in the nominative. In other words the name doesn't have any role as head, because Josephus' wording is given in a relative clause, seperated from Origen's use of James' name, as can be clearly seen by
1) The relative hos
2) The change in case

He uses a christian method of talking about James, and then Josephus' in a clearly seperate clause. And in that clause, the word order is an exact match to Josephus.


This is pretty amusing, coming from someone who has asserted throughout this thread various linguistic theories apply to his arguments, without a single reference to linguistic research, linguists, or any "substantive evidence at all". You simply make claims about word order and pragmatics and Josephus' styles, combine them with terms from linguistics, and claim it's somehow in line with how these terms are used.


On the other hand, I have quite a bit more. Not just the references to linguistic research demonstrating the inapplicability of your claims concerning word order and structure, but about the designation "called Christ" specifically.

We have, it is true, very few references preserved which refer to Jesus outside of Christian sources, and fewer still which use his first name and the title/last name "Christ". The early sources apart from Josephus use "Christ" and later sources preserved in fragments use Jesus for the most part.

But this does not leave us in a position in which we do not know Christian usage or language. You may have incorrectly used pragmatics and discourse analysis, but these things are actually useful tools, and the fact that from Mattew's use of the phrase on Pilate's lips to the exchange between a Jew and Christian in Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila, the "called Christ" is repeatedly used as a method "outsider's" use.

Even better, we DO have hundreds and hundreds of normative methods Christians used to refer to Christ. This is in itself enough to demonstrate through any statistical model with any validity that the few uses of "called Christ" (even without discourse analysis) are not Christian. Then we have a wealth of data demonstrating how scribes altered references to Jesus, from Josephus' Antiquities 18 to the gospels to the the non-canonical literature. And here we find not just virtual complete absence of "called Christ" but in the only instance we DO have the phrase which appears Christian, we see scribes altering it and other quoting it but changing it so that it no longer reads "called Christ."

So, given both the enormity of references to Jesus we possess compared to the virtually complete absence of "called christ", as well as a more than adequate sample of Christian alterations over centuries to references of Jesus (where we find not just a complete lack of such alterations, but corrections to its use), somehow we are suppose to see that Origen, who uses this method only after referring to Josephus, is using his own construction (not Josephus'), and that somehow not only did a scribe insert this into Josephus (and, according to you, in a "marked" way), but also that unlike Matthew 1:16 and Antiquities 18, this construction went from a marginal gloss to an insertion, and nobody ever sought to re-christianize it or remove it? All it would have taken to make this a christian method of referring to Jesus is simply removing "called". This would have made it fit book 18 much better.

And if it is the result of a marginal gloss from Origen, why does he only use this construction after citing Josephus?