Duke Leto

The following title was written by Stephan Huller at the top of this thread:

Another Demonstration that Josephus is a Myth

Please note his use of the word "myth". If your interest was ONLY in whether Josephus was a Pharisee why did you assert he was a "myth"?

Watch your back moving the goalposts, those things are heavy.

stephan huller

It's also in the targumic literature which closes the book on Palestinian Jewry.

stephan huller

But if (a) all Palestinian texts of 1 Samuel (Hebrew and Aramaic) retain 1 Samuel 18:1 - 5 and (b) Jewish Antiquities does not know this section, then it is likely a myth that Josephus wrote this text or at least this section of text. Its author was not a Pharisee from Palestine. 'Josephus' is usually used to denote the writings associated with him in the same way people say 'Paul,' 'Mark,' 'John' etc.

So again - just for Duke Leto - the point here is to argue that Jewish Antiquities commonly ascribed to Josephus could not have been written by Josephus because Josephus was a Palestinian Pharisee and the author of Jewish Antiquities was not. Is that clear enough for you (there is a limit to the length of the title of these threads - something like thirty or forty characters).

Accusing someone of giving bad names to their threads is absurdly nit-picky

Duke Leto

Hmmm... interesting form on that attempt to worm your way out of self-contradiction. I wonder what the judges will think:

Judges? 4.9 3.2 7.4 Pi -1

Well, it appears the Romanian judge has gotten transcendental again! Those scores will not make the final and the Gold for "worming your way out of self-contradiction" goes to JP Holding! Thanks for playing though, Stephan.

Seriously, though, there is the possibility that Josephus would have thought LXX was more historically accurate because of its greater antiquity. If he were looking to construct a chronology, which he was, he'd have gone with the older document since I'm given to understand the years add up better in the LXX. If he decided that LXX was more reliable than whatever Hebrew he had for numbers then he may have extended that to passages as well.

If that makes him a non-Pharisee then I see nothing wrong with that. He could either be lying in claiming to be a Pharisee or have had different standards then his contemporaries that allowed him to think he was still a Pharisee.

There's another possibility you haven't thought of though. You're assuming he had the entire Torah and Tanakh committed to memory, which seems unlikely, or that he had a Hebrew Text for reference. It's possible that neither was true and all he had to refresh his memory while writing was LXX.

stephan huller

Why don't you get a girlfriend? At least when you get bored and decide to slap her around you end up in jail.

Duke Leto

As noted Stephan, you can claim now that you're isolating yourself JUST to discussing Josephus' use of LXX or MT in Antiquities when it's obvious to everyone that you're looking to build on your previous threads on Josephus. Fine by me.

I am going to keep an eye on the thread and when, as you certainly will, you switch tacks again and state your findings prove that Josephus was a Christian forger, I am going to call you out on it.

Meantime, have fun talking to yourself!

Vorkosigan

The obvious way to attack this is to look at all other cases where Masoretic has A and LXX has B and see how Jos handled them. Can you produce a list, Stephen?

Vorkosigan

Toto

This thread is not about Paul. Paul's claim to have been a Pharisee lacks basic credibility.

tanya

I like it!
However, one requires, in my opinion, a third column for DSS.

I disagree with those who suggest that LXX is "older" than masoretic text, or more this, or more that, than....

To me, and perhaps, only me, the LXX is corrupt. I write that because of reading YHWH, not adonai, in DSS, contrary to the reference to the single most important word of the tanakh in LXX.

So far as I am concerned, until someone can show me evidence to the contrary, I remain convinced that our extant copies of LXX, e.g. Codex Sinaiticus, represent Christian influenced and manipulated text.

For me, reading this or that about Josephus is silly. The whole story is so improbable. What, the Romans let this guy go, or, what?, the jews decided to kill themselves, so that Josephus could face down the Romans alone? What rubbish.

The whole of Josephus is some kind of 2nd-4th century fairy tale. I have no idea when the stories were written, but I have no doubt that there were many educated Jews wandering about, after 130 C.E., looking for gainful employment.....

Duke Leto

@tanya: Meh.

I've seen some lists itemizing cases where the DSS corroborate LXX where both disagree with MT. I'd link one but they all seem to be on religious sites that I don't totally trust.

My impression is that when numbers are concerned the LXX is more "trustworthy" since these seem to mutate and get corrupt more easily. Weighing whether LXX or MT is more "reliable" is somewhat life discussing the comparative honesty of Republican politicians.

I'll agree that Josephus' story of his own life is implausible, and I strongly suspect he's lying through his teeth about some details, particularly his surrender and absorption into the Flavian entourage. His stated numbers for populations and combatants are childishly absurd. Some of his individual episodes are ridiculous. So I can understand the impulse to dismiss him entirely. I think it's dangerous to do this, however. Josephus is all we've got with respect to the military maneuvers in the First Jewish War as far as I understand, and for a lot of Herodian history. Throwing him out entirely destroys any knowledge we have of the area. (And allows silly people to make foolish theories.)

And extremely weird cases of military/cultural turncoats do exist. Kim Philby might be a good example of a traitor who thought he was acting for the good of his people while being massively self-serving and getting compatriots killed. Benedict Arnold was a little too culturally akin to the British he betrayed the colonists to. Harpagus the Mede from Herodotus is another example, although his existence is questionable and it's debatable how culturally distinct the Medes were from the Persians. Gaius Marcius Coriolanus would be another, assuming he even existed. There's Bob Dylan if you REALLY like Folk and REALLY hate Rock. Joe Lieberman is a pretty good example of politician who completely betrayed all of principals for the sake of maintaining power...

IF the Josephus story was a myth it coalesced by 150 at the latest since Luke contains material that matches Josephus and Justin Martyr alluded to this material. It can't have been hacked together after both Matthew and Luke were in existence by a Christian author since that would mean the author deliberately created a contradiction between Matthew and Luke where none existed. It continues to amaze me that Stephan refuses to understand this obvious problem. It might have been written by a rabbinical author trying to discredit the gospels, but then Stephan's objections about the LXX definitely pertain.

Stephan's entire theory, which this thread is about however much he feels like backpedaling from it, is preposterous because it requires Christian forgers who were simultaneously ingenious and retarded.