LegionOnomaMoi

So, is that a "no" about my request for any basis for your claim? You have nothing to support you statement about Josephan syntax?
So what? We have a certain Jesus identified by his brother (as in AJ 20.200), and both the relation and the brother are introduced first. Again, I've shown you several ways that Josephus introduces identifies various indivuals, that your idiotic argument about Joses having already been introduced has no weight (as Cohen says, these re-introductions are not identifiable as such), that reference modifiers in Greek are more often prenominal, and even that there are no hard and fast rules concerning syntactic order. Yet, despite all this, you continue to act as if there is some issue with the syntax of AJ 20.200 while simultaneously refusing to offer any evidence that there is any reason to. No references to Josephan specialists, no references to Greek specialists, just your little incessant whining about a re-introduction being somehow qualitatively different from an introduction.

Either offer some evidence to support your claims about "suspect" word order in 20.200 (and by evidence, I mean a reference to someone qualified), or stop being an ass and just admit you have nothing.


So you find Carrier's argument that he was in fact a procurator (and a prefect) incorrect?


Forgetting? Tacitus describes all of Nero's initial efforts, and then notes they failed. He then continues (ergo/therefore) with Nero's next effort: his persecution of Christians. The tone coheres perfectly with Tacitus' "character assassination of Nero" by describing his cruelty here, ending by maligning Nero's efforts as being for his own purposes (or rather, for one person's cruelty/saevitiam unius) and not serving the public. There is no discontinuity here. Is this another analysis for which you are relying solely on your own authority (as with AJ 20.200) or can you refer to arguments by specialists concerning the probabililty of interpolation here?




It's all relevant. My point has been and continues to be that Greek word order is quite flexible. This was the point I made to begin with:
Marked? Are we suddenly delving into the outdated theories of Jakobson (or have you at least updated to the still outdated, but at least less so, work of Greenberg)? And the reason I am so "diehard" about your claim is because 1) I study Greek, linguistics, and linguistic analyses of Greek syntax and 2) You haven't produced anything other than your claim that there is something off about AJ 20.200. Over 100 years of work in Greek philology, linguistics, and research of Josephus, and you find it hard to understand why I don't just take your word for it? Particularly after spending god knows how much time reading IE studies, various monographs on Greek syntax, greek grammars, selected papers, and on and on, not to mention dozens of papers and books on Josephus and James, and in all of that I have yet to come across a specialist agreeing with you. Even the various scholars who believe the TF is an interpolation almost without exception find that the reference to James is authentic.

I also know your knowledge of linguistics is limited. So no, I'm not going to take your word for it, because I there's nothing you've ever written which demonstrates you know more about either Greek or linguistics than I do, and you haven't referred to the work of anyone to back up you analysis.

Wrong. You've asserted some baseless crap about "re-introduction" which I responded to by citing Cohen. But, apparently immune to reason and logic, you nonetheless keep beating this dead horse about introduction vs. re-introduction. Moreover, where on earth do you get the notion that a language which (as I pointed out by citing a specialist on the topic; you might try to read some) is so flexible when it comes to syntactic structure, that counter-evidence means finding an exact parallel, rather than demonstrating the fluidity of Josephus' methods of introducing and/or identifying individuals?

Once more, I'll try to break this down for you:

1) Greek is a highly flexible language.
2) Josephus uses many different ways to introduce people and/or identify who he is talking about
3) In fact, his methods are odd enough that he appears to introduce the same person more than once
4) In Greek in general, the majority of referent modifiers are prenominal
5) In Josephus, various modifiers are used to identify, introduce, or re-introduce people with no coherent word order pattern or methodology

So what about AJ 20.200 is so suspect? Can you find an exact parallel to ὡς Φερώραν διὰ Θευδίωνος μητρὸς Ἀντιπάτρου ἀδελφοῦτοῦ βασιλέως παιδός (AJ 17.4.2) within Josephus? Is that also an interpolation?

My task is to share what I know and what I have learned and hear the same from others. And just as I hope what I say will be critically but intelligently evaluated, I do the same to others. I don't expect people to take my word for any given claim. I provide references, and I even try to avoid references which I know will be ignored because they are from Christian scholars or whatever. What you have done is continually assert something about Greek syntax. Surely my task is to test it, and (suprise suprise) surveying both specialists in Greek and Josephus (Jewish and Christian) I can't seem to find anyone who shares your view, and you continually fail to offer any references. My task is not to accept your claim about a language I can read just as well simply because you say so.

angelo

Isn't it more likely that once the myth started to spread, some of the gullible actually tried to find this guys historical links? They searched in vain for a birth place and time, a family, the place of his death, anyone who actually met the man etc. Not finding any historical links because it was just a myth, they started to historicise the myth?

spin

OK, LegionOnomaMoi, you're going to make your coming clean like pulling one of your teeth. That's fine. You can swear that you never said the erroneous "In 6.92, he first introduces this James, identifying him by his father." You can put up rubbish examples like the brother of Nicolaos of Damascus and the other clanger which you suddenly went silent on when shown they weren't able to cover the original mess. "It's all relevant", you said. Sure, it was irrelevant before you wrote it. Now you're running with the generic "Greek word order is quite flexible". That's sort of safer, isn't it? This just means that the support you can muster for the whitewashing of the unusual syntax in the given context has dissipated and you're just going with the noise factor and the buzz of generic authority to fill out the spectrum. You "study Greek, linguistics, and linguistic analyses of Greek syntax", etc.

People around here know that I don't want them to take my word for anything, so I don't expect you to take my word. I expect you to deal with the issue but you refuse to, preferring emptyhandedly to defend the status quo. You can white out the whole affair, then you can bait and switch with the whinge about markedness. You can bravely peddle the Neronian persecution. You can bait and switch onto some other syntax issue. You can claim that people won't read your text walls because you're right and they don't want to admit it. I bet your promoter isn't happy with the ticket sales.

Grog

The thing about Carrier's argument is that he finds "procurator" the wrong term for Tacitus to use. In condemning Jesus to death, Pilate would have been acting as a prefect, not a procurator. Carrier argues that Tacitus calls Pilate a procurator as a put-down. Like referring to Kissinger as Nixon's office manager.

Carrier's argument actually convinced me of the opposite: that Tacitus would not have used procurator in this instance. Before Carrier I thought it would be a simple mistake and one that was overplayed by skeptics.

Duvduv

It's interesting that there are contradictions even in the historical narrative from all the sources, both canonical and apologetic. But if the whole story was based on someone named Yeshu ben Pandera from 65 BCE, then at least they had the bare bones to start with.

aa5874

Why is it so difficult to accept what is written by the very authors of the Jesus stories???

We accept the story of Romulus by Plutarch.

Well, Jesus is NOT based on Yeshua ben Pandera.

The Jesus character was based on ISAIAH 7.14 and the Words of the Lord by the Prophets.

Mt 1:23 The OT is "BOLTED" onto the NT.

The Church GAVE us the source of the Jesus character on a PLATTER.

Once you have a BIBLE you will have the fundamental SOURCE for NT Jesus.

Adam was MADE by the Word of God in Hebrew Scripture.

Jesus was MADE by the Word of God in Hebrew Scripture.

All this was done that the WORDS of the LORD might be fulfilled which was Spoken by the Prophets.

Duvduv

AA, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshu#T...unts_in_detail

While we're at it, check this description of Jacob the Heretic, who lived a century or so after the NT Jesus, but was a follower of Yeshu ben Pandera. Since James is the equivalent of Jacob, it would seem possible that this Jacob was the model for the James of Jerusalem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_the_Min

Horatio Parker

Randel Helms argues in "Gospel Fictions" that the first century mind didn't think that way. If Jesus was the Messiah, instead of running around looking for anyone who knew him, the best information about the Messiah is already in Scripture. Who are you going to believe, some insignificant person or the Bible?

LegionOnomaMoi

I did say that. I still say that. And the reason I say it is, having read Cohen (and, much earlier, Feldman's survey of modern scholarship) I don't make the distinction you invented about the identification of people who have been identified before. Based on my own reading of Josephus' work, along with the analysis of Josephus by others, I find no reason to treat the introduction of James in 6.92 as somehow syntactically different because he was also introduced earlier. Post after post of both references to specialists and quotation from Josephus, and you have yet to cite anything supporting your distinction of introductions/identifications of characters who have been introduced ealier, despit the explicit discription of Cohen.

If you can produce something besides your own bullshit that demonstrates that when Josephus first introduces James in 6.92, indentifying him by his father, he uses the same syntax as in AJ.200, but that this introduction is different from when he first introduces him in 4.345 because of this earlier introduction, and that furthermore there is some reason apart from your application of outdated linguistic theory which you don't even bother to explain or offer an analysis (are we dealing with the outdated prague school, or early outdated work in generative linguistics?) and which nobody seems to share, then you can do so. But instead, all we get is:

Talk about bait and switch. I'm preserving the status quo because I don't accept your application of decades old linguistic theory applied to a line in Josephus? If I defend evolution is that "preserving the status quo"? Am I doing better if I accept mountainman's theory that christianity magically appeared in the 3rd or 4th century or whatever? This ad hominem is ridiculous. There is no reason to accept your analysis simply because virtually every specialist over the last 100+ years (and we're not dealing with just historical Jesus, christian, NT, or similar scholars here, but specialists in Greek, classicists, and others) rejects your analysis. Challenging the status quo just for the sake of it isn't skepticism. It's just juvenile.


When did I go silent on it? I'm still asserting that it demonstrates the syntax in AJ 20.200 is not somehow awkward or unexpected. I've simply added more examples and more references since then. All you have done is cling to your personal theory about the fact that when Josephus first introduces James in book 6, the syntax is different because of when he first introduces him in an earlier book. Yet looking at how Josephus first introduces several characters in one section versus another, there is no standard pattern to support your theory.


No, what you do is dismiss work you don't understand or aren't familiar with, constantly use excuses like "bait and switch" or "text wall" rather than arguments, and you've now added "preserving the status quo" to your arsenal of techniques used to counter references to scholarship which refute your personal little analysis. As soon as you find yourself out of your comfort zone, confronted with work (construction grammar, greek linguistics, etc.) you are totally unfamiliar with or are lacking adequate familiarity with, you fall back on the methods (oh, and I forgot the third person address one).

And there you have it. It's a "bait and swith" because you throw out a term ("marked") without any explanation of how it applies here to defend your claim, and because I ask what exactly your are bringing up here that is somehow a bait and switch? Why not show how it is "marked" using references to the models of language which you are using when you apply this characterization?

Duvduv

I don't understand why one would exclude the other. Someone like Justin Martyr could have written about all the Tanach quotes he liked showing that Jesus was the promised biblical Messiah AND write about his own predecessors, the apostles of Jesus, his community, etc. Which of course Justin does not do.

By contrast, the interpolation of a marginal gloss (which is what I think it is) of James the Brother shows no reverence for this man who knew Jesus in the flesh, and the same epistle writer(s) could have added a word or two on behalf of the MOTHER of both men, who had been a virgin, but the fact is that the writers did not.

To me this indicates that at the time the epistles were put together there was no virgin Mary in the story. And this perspective does not require the epistles to be the product of someone who believed in a mystery/myth Jesus religion.