dog-on

You don't think that verifying that James of Acts/Galatians fame as an actual sibling of JC, by a non-christian source would have helped the Orthodoxy in their battles with their competitors for authority? You can't be serious.

If you have other groups claiming that the Jewish connection was basically a fraud, such a reference would not have helped the orthodox argument in the least? hmmm...

You mean the story of the exorcist that raises the dead, walks on water and feeds 5000 with a Slim-Jim? Yea, that story is, in my mind at least, quite fictional. You got another one?

Amaleq13

I've already pointed out that Eusebius didn't seem to think so but, IIRC, at least one early Church Father (and many Christians since) considered a literal blood relationship more of a problem to be explained away.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ted,

Regarding the question of if the passage reads as if James/Jesus was executed, I think the passage only reads that way because we are told by Eusebius that James was stoned. When we read the passage without the ending, we really do not know what happened to James/Jesus. It only tells us that he was "turned over" for stoning. The passage only becomes ambiguous after the interpolator changes Jesus to James. This is an unintended consequence of the interpolation. It makes what was perfectly clear -- that Jesus was rescued -- into something unclear -- What happened to James?

Here is a parallel case of replacement of the name in a text:

The judge sentenced Jill to death. People complained and the judge was removed. Jill replaced the judge on the bench.

Here it is clear that Jill did not die. Now, let us assume that you are a friend of Jill's and do not want people to know that she was ever condemned to death. To hide this fact, you change the name of the condemned person.

The judge sentenced Jack to death. People complained and the judge was removed from the court. Jill replaced the judge on the bench.

In this statement, it is now ambiguous if Jack was executed or not. That was not the purpose, but the unintended result of the change.

Regarding other objections:

1. Paul's letters are falsified. In fact there are only a few references to Jesus' crucifixion in his letters. Earl Doherty believes that he is refering to an event in heaven. Others suppose that these passages are later interpolations. I think that the references are meant metaphorically. (I hope to write more about this in the near future.)

2. I agree that the New Testament gospel accounts that we have were written long after these events in 62 C.E. (probably 150-220). However some of the material, including the passion story, I believe refer to events happening much earlier to someone named Simon.

3. In regards to Josephus' knowledge of the passion story, I believe he referred to it his work, but as it referred to someone named Simon, it was rewritten as the TF by Eusebius.

4. No, I do not think this inspired the passion story. It may have reflected it a bit and influenced the rewriting of the passion story. While high profile trials by the Sanhedrin would not have been common, there could easily have been two. Think of the fact that there was an attack on the World trade Center in 1992 before the 2001 incident, or the current O.J. Simpson trial follows a more famous one in the 1990's.

5. I think the interpolator was more concerned with other people confusing the two accounts. If the first Sanhedrin trial discussed by Josephus did not involve someone named Jesus and followed the gospel narratives closely and the second Sanhedrin trial did involve someone named Jesus, but did not follow the gospels, it would be necessary to correct both in order to bring them into line with the more accurate biblical text. That, I assume, was the thinking of the interpolator.

6. I believe that the James the Just tradition was a creation of the interpolator Eusebius.

These are excellent questions. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

Your assumptions are erroneous, neither in Annals or Pliny's letter to Trajan are the words, Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of Galilee or Jesus son of Mary.There is no indication whatsoever in Pliny's letter or Annals that the Jesus of the NT was known as Christ to Pliny or Tacitus and even Suetonius, all Roman writers.

And in Tacitus Histories 5.13, Tacitus indicates that the Jews expected one from their soil to rule the world sometime around 70CE. This passage, in Histories 5.13 reduces or eliminates the notion that Christus in Annals 15.44 was ever considered to be the Messiah or Christ.

This is Tacitus writing about events that occurred around 70CE.
So there was a common belief among the Jews that the universal ruler from Judaea will begin his rule sometime around 70CE, Christus in Annals 15.44 was already dead 30 years before.

patcleaver

The kings and high priests and leaders of the Jews were all anointed and called messiahs by the Jews. Jesus bar Damneus would have been called messiah because he was a high priest. The Greeks did the same thing - anointed their leaders and called them Christs. There were probably thousands of people called Christ, there were probably lots of leaders and gods referred to a Jesus Christ.

Unless you can show that the term Christ specifically referrers to Jesus of Nazareth, then a reference to Christ is completely ambiguous.

The Jews were hoping for someone to lead them to greatness, but so are we, so is everybody. There was no reason for Josephus to explain what Christ meant because Christ was a common term in Greek for someone who was anointed (e.g. a leader).

Jesus was a very common name, and also a common nick name / title. Josephus just wants us to know that the Jesus he is referring to was Jesus bar Damneus who was called Christ. If James was the brother of Jesus bar Damneus there is no reason to assume this is an interpretation. It just has nothing to do with any fictional Jesus of Nazareth.

The Testimonium Flavium may have originally discussed Jesus bar Damneus or Jesus bar Gamaliel. Both of them would have been called Christ because they were high priests.

There is no reason to think that the Testimonium Flavium was originally about some fictional Jesus of Nazareth who supposedly had died over 30 years previously and had nothing to do with the subject that Josephus was discussing. There is no reasonable evidence that anyone ever heard of any Jesus of Nazareth until the late 3rd century.

After the fall of Jerusalem the Romans staked thousands of people including all the priests and leaders they could get their hands on. Probably both Jesus bar Damneus and Jesus bar Gamaliel would have been staked. Probably hundreds of people named Jesus or called Jesus were staked along with them.

If Josephus included a paragraph about someone named Jesus, who was called Christ, and was staked, then the 4th century Catholics, who did not know Jewish customs, would have been strongly tempted to correct it to fit their biases.

On the other hand, the Testimonium Flavium may just be a total interpolation. Josephus has been heavily interpolated. There are thousands of differences between the Slavonic, Hebrew, Arabic and Greek versions of Josephus' works. Also, the Testamonium Flavium that appears in the Slavonic version of The Jewish Wars is clearly an interpolation.

DCHindley

No, afraid not. I did manage to locate my photocopied version of the book from its storage box in the basement, though. Like you, I found it hard to secure a clean copy of the book that I could photocopy. The Cleveland Public Library, which has considerable holdings, had a non-circulating copy, but crappy photocopiers in those days. I asked a librarian about a second story of books that were not in circulation and I was told that these were books donated from libraries that used the dewey decimal system. So I asked them to check for an uncirculated copy, and to my surprise they found one! At my request they made it a circulating copy and I was off to Kinkos Copies.

The more I look at it the more I wonder whether it really is goIng to be helpful WRT Josephus' literary quirks or his use of sources. It seems he is largely guessing what Josephus' sources must have been like, often by comparing the Slavonic version (which he thinks represents the gist of Josephus' long-lost Aramaic _Capture of Jerusalem_) to the Greek, to show a progression of knowledge obtained over the years from patrons like Agrippa II, Titus and Domitian.

Jona Lendering, who contributed an article on Josephus to Livius.org, says:
"On Josephus' use of sources, see Shaye J.D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome. His Vita and development as a historian, Columbia Studies in the Classical tradition 8 (1979 Leiden)."
http://www.livius.org/jo-jz/josephus/josephus.htm
I would recommend that direction, but cannot be sure I can secure access to this work here in the boonies where I currently live.

Interestingly, he does cite a couple of sources to illuminate the possibility that the account reflects actual practices:

He cites the "third or forth century" "Tannaite tradition" preserved in the Talmud at "Keth. 30a" (by way of "Strack-Billerbeck ii 197) to the effect: "... whosoever is guilty of being stoned either falls from the roof or a wild beast tramples him to death ..." which includes other examples of those convicted of death, when there was no power to enforce the decision, accidentally (on purpose) getting killed.

This is apparently the tractate Kerithoth in SEDER KODASHIM, but I do not have access to a modern translation of the Talmud to confirm its accuracy. I think the version is Bavli.

Then he cites "Tosephta Kelim, i. 1. 6; Bab. kam., 1 (middle)" to the effect: "...according to an affirmation on oath of R. 'Eli'ezer, the first pupil of R Johanan b. Zakkai and therefore an inhabitant of Jerusalem contemporary with James the Just, 'even a high priest' who on entering the sanctuary is guilty of any breach of the purity laws of the precincts must have 'his skull split with a wooden club.' The barbarous punishment here threatened, like the 'fall from the roof' of the man condemned to be stoned, at once recalls the fate of the 'high priest' James, who was beaten to death with a wooden club by a man whom the Christians regarded as a 'fuller' accidentally on the spot."

Thanks to the ever writing R. Jacob Neusner, this latter citation is apparently from the Sixth Division, Tohorot (Order of Purities), Kelim Baba Qamma 1:6 H "He [R. Eliezer] said to him [R. Simon the Modest] 'By the [sacred] service! Even the high priest [who without washing his hands and feet enters the area between the porch and the alter] - they break his head with clubs.'"

Lends some credibility to Hegesippus' story, don't you think?

DCH

Vorkosigan

Hegesippus is a 3rd C. forgery, I suspect, and now you've identified a parallel in an extant literary text. Interesting....

Vorkosigan

andrewcriddle

Just to clarify: the parallel (about clubbing people) is to Tosefta Kelim Baba Qamma; Baba Qamma in the (earlier) Mishnah has nothing about this.

Tosefta was probably written down (in difficult rabbinic Hebrew) at the very end of the 3rd century and is unlikely to have been a source for the acount attributed to Hegesippus which we find in Eusebius.

If it is a genuine parallel it is more likely that they both draw on an earlier common source or oral tradtion.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

Vork sighting!!

Vork, a categorical statement that Hegesippus is a 3rd century forgery isn't going to help much. Is this your opinion, or do you have a citation to offer?

My understanding is that most critics place it in the 2nd century and would agree with Ben that it is essentially a fanciful retelling of history as layed out in Josephus' War that manages to place JtB, Jesus and James squarely ino it. I do wonder why the auhor (Hegesippus) would pick War as the lilly to gild? Why not some sort of epitome of the relevant portions of Ant? Ant is, after all, where surviving mss include mentions of Jesus, JtB and James.

Andrew is right, there is likely not any direct literary dependence. I'd have to agree that these three cited works came by their info from sources that some shared common traditions. Late sources can preserve earlier traditions. It looks like Eisler zeroed in on the attribution to a (late) 1st centuy figure. He also does not hide the fact that the Talmud tradition is preserved in comments dated to the 3rd or 4th century.

DCH

DCHindley

Below is a more thorough citation for this reference. It might help identify whether inconsistant use of patronyms, etc, is characteristic of Josephus as an author.

Josephus in Galilee and Rome : his vita and development as a historian (or via: amazon.co.uk) / by Shaye J.D. Cohen, Brill, 2002 (1979). Not sure if this represents a second edition or is a 2nd printing.
LC # DS115.9.J6 C63 2002
Dewey # 933/.05/092 B 21
OCLC # 48674584
ISBN 0391041584
LCCN 2001056690

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction 1
I Vita and Bellum Judaicum: The Problem and the Solutions 3
A The Problem 3
B The Solutions 8
II Josephus and his Sources 24
A Josephus and his Sources 24
B BJ and AJ 48
III Vita and Bellum Judaicum: The Literary Relationship 67
IV Bellum Judaicum: Aims and Methods 84
A Date 84
B Literary Technique 90
C Aims 91
V Vita: Aims and Methods 101
A V as an Autobiography 101
B Literary Technique 110
C Aims 114
D Date 170
VI Josephus in Galilee 181
VII Conclusion: Josephus in Rome 232
App. I Non-Josephan Data 243
App. II Synoptic Outline of Vita and Bellum Judaicum 261
Bibliography 264
Addenda 270
Index 272


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