spin

Viv, I think you are kidding about Josephus's hypothetical use of "prophet" for the hypothetically non-named person in this hypothetically Josephus written passage. Josephus is a devout Jew -- let me stress this fact. In the last six books of AJ he only uses "prophet" twice, both in Bk 20:

Josephus doesn't claim that either was a prophet, just that they said they were.

Obviously, the term "prophet" as used by Josephus had special value. He mainly uses the term to describe those people named as prophets in the Hebrew bible. The only exception I've found is in 13.11.2 where he discusses the accuracy of a prediction made by Judas the Essene, and the question of the veracity of usage is analysed, though the prophecy came true and the term was left. Thus again the term is not used lightly.

It is highly unlikely that Josephus would indiscriminantly use the term "prophet" with some unnamed person who didn't even prophecy.

How the term "prophet" got into a parenthesis of Origen's is inconsequential to an understanding of Josephus, when the questioned passage doesn't use it.

Check here for the strange syntax and attempts to explain it away. The other argument of course is the expression "Jesus called Christ" are the same exact words as Mt 1:16, while considering Josephus doesn't use the term xristos at all... except in the TF and James witness.

You can postulate whatever you like, but unless, there is some evidence for what you postulate, you're urinating into the wind and wondering what the spray is.

Given this bare reconstruction (below) of the material that Origen seems to be relating to Josephus, how can you add in the bit about the prophet, so it is not also a part of Origen's explanatory gloss?

"Now this writer, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, says nevertheless that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just."

There is nothing to indicate that Origen attributes the material in his explanatory glosses to Josephus. I have shown that there is a simple main idea in the sentence, which relates relatively closely to Josephus, while there is material which Origen supplies to his readers, ie the explanatory glosses.

I think you're plain wrong, with nothing to justify your position, not able to show how "prophet" fits into what Origen gets from Josephus (if he actually gets it directly, and not filtered through some other scholar's work, as is often the case), and of course not even having this word in the original text under discussion.


spin

Vivisector

As usual, I should have been clearer; I might have done better to ask, do you think that James said (or believed) the things Hegesippus reported? I think it would have been easier for Paul, precisely because he seems never to have known Jesus in the flesh, but more unlikely for someone who actually walked and talked with him. But I think you've answered - as I understand you, James wasn't Jesus's brother, and yes, he could have said/thought those things. I'm willing to leave it there for another day.

Yes, I understand your position on both. Regarding the gloss - would you have an idea of when you think this might have occurred?

Are you implying that the gloss occurred and was incorporated by the time Origen obtained his copy of Antiquities? As to the remainder - I find it extremely doubtful that Josephus considered Jesus a bona fide prophet. Spin gives excellent reasons for doubting that Josephus would have considered Jesus a prophet. Are you suggesting that Origen would not have had the same difficulties in believing Josephus would have considered Jesus a prophet?

Regards,

V.

Vivisector

And I can provide another passage in support of your position from Wars 6.5.2 (concerning an unnamed "false prophet") and and a "so what" passage concerning a Judas the Essene, whom he seems to have considered a prophet (Ant. 13.11.2 and Wars 1.3.5). But it's neither here nor there, because I am (and thought I was previously) agreeing with you - I don't think Josephus considered Jesus a prophet. I don't think Josephus wrote about "Jesus, a prophet" or "a prophet named Jesus." My suggestion was that Josephus reported that Jesus called himself a prophet or that he was considered by others (but not Josephus) to be a prophet. Anything along the lines of the Theudas or Egyptian passages would suffice for what I'm suggesting.

I don't know that we disagree on our understanding of Josephus and how he would and wouldn't have used "prophet." Where we seem to differ is your consideration of Origen's "prophet" as parenthetical, and my consideration of it as a strange choice for Origen (to say nothing of Origen's "called Christ"). To be reasonably sure it's parenthetical, it seems one would have to establish that it's the kind of thing Origen would have said about Jesus.

Thank you.

Is it necessary that a Josephan origin for Origen's "prophet" be located in this specific place?

Yes, you have shown this, and quite well. But when some of the gloss material seems out of character for Origen, then it raises the question of whether that questionable material is true gloss. If you were to apply the methods you used against the originality of "brother of Jesus called Christ" to Origen's use of "who was a prophet" in the material you consider gloss, and if you concluded that Origen would not have written the phrase, how would you explain the existence of Origen's "who was a prophet?"

I really am curious as to your view on the existence of an original Josephan passage that described a belief that the FOJ was linked to James's death.

Regards,

V.

Amaleq13

I think there is sufficient evidence to accept that a highly respected and devout Jew in Jerusalem came to believe in and preach a Risen Christ. I tend to doubt that Hegesippus is preserving a historically accurate depiction of that man's death though he may very well have been stoned to death.

Paul never speaks of James (nor anyone else for that matter) as one who has walked and talked with a living Jesus. Even the singular "brother" reference, if assumed genuine and assumed to be referring to Christ, seems more appropriately understood as identifying the Risen Christ than the living Jesus (i.e. he only came to be called or recognized as "Lord" after the resurrection). The Gospels do not tell a consistent story with regard to James the Just so I see little reason to assume he knew the living Jesus any more than Paul. The latter certainly seems to suggest that he had no greater claim to authority than experiencing the Risen Christ earlier in time.

Assuming that Andrew is correct and Origen's comments are based on the extant short reference rather than a "lost reference", yes. If, on the other hand, there was a "lost reference" then the phrase was moved some time between Origen and Eusebius.

Yes. Origen's comment is either his own speculation about what Josephus believed about Jesus (given nothing to the contrary and, perhaps, granting Josephus the benefit of the doubt) or a Christian interpolation attributing such a position to Josephus. Either way, Origen seems willing to believe it of him. I tend to favor the former option over the latter if only because of the fewer number of necessary assumptions.

gregor

Not hardly.

"Known to be true" - No such animal exists. Pick up Ehrman's the Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

"Non-contradictory" - The bible has enough internal contradictions on its own. I agree we should stop this derailment, though.

spin

I guess you missed my comment on Judas in my last post.

Hold it now, you seem to think that Josephus didn't mention xristos, nor Jesus, nor even "prophet" in the passages under review. Is that right?

The TF context doesn't allow this neither does the James witness.

What I asked you to do last post was to show where and how the specific mention of the prophet could have been attached to Origen's original source. This is important because where it stands now, it is clearly attached to something that is an explanatory gloss. I'd recommend that you go back to post #90 and see the real problem: Origen is saying that Josephus gets it wrong because he didn't attribute the events to Jesus who was a prophet. Now try to fit the "prophet" into the material from Josephus as cited in Origen. Make the effort.

Yes, of course. It cannot be a secondary clause of an explanatory gloss.

This is your problem. You are trying to show that it must have come from Josephus without knowing how it got tagged on the end of an explanatory gloss.

When a text has been disfigured as the James witness has, it's not so easy to reconstruct the original. The particular passage doesn't mention Jerusalem at all. If Origen actually got his material about James from here, then we know that the text has been further mangled, probably by the one who interpolated "the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ".


spin

Vivisector

In my rush to agree with you, I did indeed miss it - my apologies.

I'm honestly not trying to play a shell game with you. With regard to Ant. 20.9.1, I think that it currently reads pretty much as Josephus wrote it. I don't think any missing material connecting James's death to the FOJ would have appeared here. Yes, I did read the material in the thread you were kind enough to point me to, but more on that later, I hope.

With regard to Josephus overall, I don't think he anywhere referred to Jesus as a prophet of equal standing with the traditional prophets. I'm doubtful that he wrote of Jesus even as a prophet with the same standing as Judas the Essene. But even if I accept "prophet" as parenthetical, the term strikes me as uncharacteristic of Origen. If it's uncharacteristic of Origen, we should ask why he used it. I think he used it because Josephus used it. No, not in the sense of "Jesus the prophet" but in the Theudas/Egyptian sense. And no, not in 20.9.1, but elsewhere. Where elsewhere? Somewhere in the vicinity of the TF.

I agree (see above) on the James witness. But I don't understand how you can say the TF context doesn't allow it - can you help me with this one?

Maybe I give up too easily, but I was ready to agree with you last night on this. It seems clear at a glance that there's no graceful and credible way of working it in and preserving the flow and main idea. I hope the reason for my question as to location is clearer now; I don't think that Origen got "prophet" from 20.9.1, but I do think he got it from Josephus.

*If* there were an acceptable (to you) extant TF that mentioned prophet - in the Theudas/Egyptian sense - would you say it was impossible, or even unlikely, that Origen would have chosen "prophet" on the basis of that Josephan use of the word? I know, there isn't an existing TF or even a reconstructed TF that's acceptable to you or me. And I know that I've by no means demonstrated that there ever was any sort of TF. I'm just trying to understand your position, which is (if I have it write) that if Origen got "prophet" from Josephus, he must have gotten it from 20.9.1; since "prophet" isn't in 20.9.1 and likely never was, Origen didn't get the term from anywhere in Josephus. [added all after semicolon to clarify]

It seems a rather tall order, so I'd obviously prefer not to view the challenge that way. So can we suppose for a moment, we're not discussing "prophet," but rather "brother of Jesus, called Christ?" The reason is, this is something that's already come up, and the situation is similar to (different in key respects, I know) that of "prophet." The BOJCC issue seems to begin with a passage with no particularly remarkable characteristics, a passage that seems to be no worse attested than any others. In fact, one might even say it's better attested. You hypothesize that Josephus didn't write a specific pair of phrases amounting to five words in this relatively lengthy passage. You then mount an impressive case pointing to the improbability that Josephus wrote these five words. I wonder, though; if you applied your reasoning to Matt. 1:16, would you conclude that "Matthew" didn't write "Jesus called Christ?" But that's a rhetorical question.

I believe that the method/principles you used in the BOJCC discussion are of such a nature that you could apply them to any number of passages in Josephus, and draw similar conclusions: Josephus didn't write it. I think your method would be more powerful if it were accompanied by more of an explanation of how BOJCC got in there in the first place. I don't think this method alone is sufficient to overturn an established reading without an alternate explanation for the reading, and especially without application to control passages.

I didn't see much discussion of how BOJCC made its way into the text, considering that the bulk of the discussion was related solely to syntax. You seem to imply that a (Christian?) scribe interpolated it on the basis of Matt 1:16, when I'm sure that you already know that Matt 1:16 is unique in the "NT" in its use of "called Christ" (more below*) This is putting aside the issue of how to explain Origen's use of 20.9.1. My read of your posting was that Origen included it as explanatory material, noting that it read just as well without BOJCC as it did with it. The converse, though, is also true. It reads just as well with BOJCC as it does without it. In addition, those words are in the extant passage, and this phrasing would seem to be as anomalous for Origen as for Josephus - or for Matthew, for that matter.

Restating, I don't think it's sufficient to apply a methodology such as yours to a textually uncontested reading and to conclude (without testing it against control passages and demonstrating its accuracy; if you've done this, it would be interesting to see the results) that the reading is not authentic without an explanation of its presence. I agree with you that "prophet" is my problem (didn't you mention earlier that I had a prophet problem?) in the sense that I need to demonstrate how its use would have been uncharacteristic of Origen. I'll probably do the same with "called Christ" while I'm at it. I'll most assuredly use your approach. But before I take this on, I really am curious: what should you and I conclude regarding the Origen's source for the phrase/word if it turns out that we agree they are uncharacteristic of Origen? Or is it simply sufficient to say, "We don't know - Josephus didn't write it, and Origen didn't write it?"

*Instances of "called Christ" in the "NT" (NIV)

Matthew 1:16: and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Matthew 27:17: So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?�

Matthew 27:22: “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?� Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!�

John 4:25: The woman said, “I know that Messiah� (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.�

I must again apologize for my lack of clarity. I'm not trying to get you to speculate on the form of any reconstruction, but rather to speculate as to whether there was anything originally present to reconstruct toward. I'll try again. In Comm. Matt., Origen reports Josephus as saying that people thought their misfortunes (including razing of the Temple) were connected to what happened to James. In Against Celsus, Origen adds the FOJ to the misfortunes. Nothing like this is present in Josephus's surviving writings. My question is, do you think Josephus ever wrote anything connecting misfortunes, the FOJ and/or the destruction of the Temple to James's death?

Vivisector

So many interesting issues, so little time. I hope you can find it in you to forgive the brevity.

Hoping you'll pardon the confusion, it sounds as though you're saying:

1. Origen's copy had "brother of Jesus, called Christ" connected to James.
2. The connection in Origen's copy occurred as currently preserved in Ant. 20.9.1, in a "lost passage," or both.
3. Regardless of the location(s) of the connection in Origen's copy, it was not original to Josephus; Origen's copy of the reading represented the incorporation of one or more "brother of Jesus, called Christ" glosses.

Have I accurately described your position? If so, does this not seem like a relatively short timeframe for the annotation and subsequent incorporation of a gloss to occur?

I agree that your second option has more moving parts. But I struggle with even your first option. IIRC, your position is that Origen feels secure in inferring that Josephus is no believer in Jesus as the Christ - secure even though, in your opinion, Josephus never came right out and said it. Since I don't see you agreeing with me that Origen got "prophet" from Josephus, I'm going to make the assumption (again, correct me if I'm wrong) that you do not think Origen's copy of Josephus contained "prophet" connected in any way - positive, negative or neutral - to Jesus. But, if I understood you correctly above, Origen did have "brother of Jesus, called Christ" in his copy of Josephus. So as far as Origen knew, Josephus wrote of "Jesus, called Christ," and yet, Origen inferred that Josephus didn't believe in Jesus as Christ. As far as Origen knew, Josephus never referred to Jesus as a prophet in any (especially a true) sense, and yet, Origen inferred that Josephus did believe Jesus was a prophet. I am definitely in need of your clarification here, because I feel certain I must not understand your thinking.

spin

Perhaps but we don't really care, do we? We don't have any clear understanding of what came before Origen's statement.

I've given a number of reasons why I think the TF is bogus and also for the unprecedented word order of "the brother of Jesus called Christ, whose name was James". As I think these two are blatant interpolations, I think you position at the moment is USCWAP (up sh*t creek without a paddle).

You have the text of the TF. Unless one accepts unsubstantiated that the TF has been doctored, the text itself as it appears already talks about the divine prophets, as having fortold about Jesus. Jesus is therefore not just a prophet. If you start arbitrarily hacking at the TF I guess you can say what you like, but there is no reality check.

You might want to believe that, but of course there is no evidence to suggest that the term came from Josephus. I think you're plain wrong and that you've got no way of relating it to Josephus.

Origen is citing the passage about James which he could be conflating with the James material in the Clementine Recognitions. The TF has nothing to do with what Origen says about James (ie the Contra Celsus passage we have been discussing). So, putting aside all my reasons for rejecting the TF and accepting the hypothetical possibility that Josephus mentions that Jesus was a prophet (despite the fact that Josephus wouldn't have done that), I am left asking what has this to do withthe James passage Origen was referring to.

(This was the passage that Origen was referring to.)

Right.

Shame you won't face that one. It makes your paddleless position plain.

One of the reasons I gave against Josephus involved the presence of the expression in Mt 1:16. There is nothing out of place for a Christian writer to claim that Jesus was called Christ. There is with Josephus the Jew calling Jesus the Christ.

Perhaps you're right. Got any glaring examples??

You gotta be kidding. Why does a witness get into any text?? How did the witness to the trinity get into 1 Jn 5?? Some interested scribe stuck it there.

Established reading, eh? That sort of gives it an heir of respectability. First they take over the transmission of the text, then the scribes add a few passing comments and for the next 1600 years or so, no-one needed to consider the validity of the phrase, so I guess you do have an "established" reading -- by default alone. At some stage someone has to take an analytical approach to the subject.

If you can appreciate the idea behind Bart Ehrman's "Orthodox Corruption of Scripture" and remember that the same people responsible for some of that corruption were also responsible for transmitting Josephus, then surely you don't need to wonder.

Not necessarily on the basis of Mt 1:16.

You ignore all the other examples of the phrase form, Simon called Cephas, Simon called Peter, a high priest called Caiaphas, Thomas called Didymus, etc. The form is used quite a lot in the nt. The fact that "(Jesus) called Christ" is only used once is not much in itself for the basic form is used quite often. This gives more credence to the use "(Jesus) called Christ" in Christian circles.

The phrasing in Josephus is quite anomalous. There is nothing analogous in the texts you refer to. Josephus talks about James, but the passage doesn't talk of "James the brother of Jesus", but "the brother of Jesus called the Christ who is James". Let m,e quickly restate the problem.

You get:

• X the brother/father/son of Yor, rarely,
• blah, blah, Y, blah. The brother/father/son of Y, known as X

But you don't get the form found in the James passage without having just named Y. There is nothing similar in the rest of Josephus and nothing comparable in the nt.

I don't think you are considering my arguments, as the rest of your post shows.

You are right that Origen's use of "prophet" is anomalous, but trying to palm it off onto Josephus poses just as great an anomaly. I have already indicated that a lot of time passed between the writing of the AJ and Origen's CC. We can't know what happened in between. We can't know what Origen had just been reading, how he got to the Josephus passage (was it from reading Josephus or was it cited in some other sources or did someone tell him about it).

Probably not. I'll put it down to the confusion of someone, be it Origen or someone before him, mixing Josephus with another tradition, such as the Clementine Recognitions.


spin

Vivisector

Thank you for yet another set of thought-provoking observations.

I might be excluding a possibility, but the possibilities regarding the current TF seem to be: (1) Josephus wrote it, just as it is, (2) Josephus wrote nothing of the sort, and (3) Josephus wrote something that has been doctored. I think you and I agree that (1) is the least likely of possibilities; I also think we agree to the reasoning we used to come to that conclusion and the general validity of the reasoning. It seems you believe (2) is the greatest of possibilities, whereas I believe (3) is the greatest of possibilities.

As I understand your position, assigning a minimal probability to (1) most logically requires that we conclude (2). It is insufficient to simply bracket out the offending phrases that led us to conclude against (1), we must go further and bracket out the entire passage.

Am I understanding you correctly? And if so, why not apply this reasoning to 20.9.1 to omit the information on James? Indeed, why not bracket out all of 20.9.1 except for the first sentence?

Well said. This is why I find Origen's use of "prophet" so odd.

While Origen seems to have known Recognitions, this seems an incredibly random conflation, especially given Origen's scholarly abilities and demonstrated use of Josephus (the JB passage).

In my question, I specifically referred to a Jesus/prophet connection in the Theudas/Egyptian sense, not a sense in which Josephus would be implying that he regarded Jesus as a prophet. Are you saying Josephus wouldn't have referred to Jesus as someone who said he was a prophet?

Fair question. In his discussion of the passage, Origen refers to "Christ, who was a prophet." I contend that "Christ, who was a prophet" is uncharacteristic of Origen. So where did it come from? You say, "not from Josephus's James passage." I'm saying, what if Josephus had referred earlier to Jesus as someone who claimed to be a prophet; could that explain Origen's strange choice of words? I think I hear you saying, "No, even if Josephus had written something like that, it couldn't have served as the source for Origen's choice of words." So it's a little larger than simply the James passage, more along the lines of the degree to which Origen's writings were (or could have been) influenced by what was available in his copy of Josephus, regardless today's form of Josephus.

I think it *is* unusual for a Christian author to refer to "Jesus who is called Christ," and I had hoped to prove its unusual character by showing that this construction is unique in the NT. And I don't see us disagreeing on the point that Josephus wouldn't - himself - have called Jesus the Christ. The James passage doesn't read that way, and I'm not suggesting it ever did.

Not just yet; it seems best to tackle my prophet problem first.

Of course they stuck it there. But there are important differences. In the case of the CJ, we have textual evidence against its authenticity (probably decisive in itself) and a decent explanation of the "why" behind the insertion of the particular words.

You're totally right about the analytical approach, but your comment raises a question. When do you suppose the Christians took over the transmission of the text?

I think I can appreciate Ehrman's idea. What makes this discussion different from any of Ehrman's chapters, though, is a reasonable explanation of *why* the corruptions occurred. It's also worth mentioning that Ehrman also had textual support in each of his cases. I'm not screaming for textual support for an interpolated James passage, just asking for the "why." Or do you appreciate Ehrman's idea but not his methods?

I don't ignore them, I simply don't see them as relevant. "Simon called Peter" is not the same as "Jesus called Christ." There are no theological implications associated with "Simon called Peter." There are theological implications associated with "Jesus called Christ." If Christian authors didn't see this difference, then we would expect more occurrences of "Jesus called Christ." But we don't. This construction is unique in the NT.

Let's say you're right about the unique nature of the structure. Then what have you demonstrated, strictly speaking, other than that it's a unique structure? It seems you're still a considerable difference from demonstrating - with a degree of probability approaching Ehrman's in the cases he considered - that BOJCC is a Christian interpolation, because you don't have textual support or an explanation for its presence. Furthermore, you rule out (above) the NT as the source of the structure, and your model for "called Christ" is every bit as unique in the NT as it is in the extant version of Josephus.

It is not without its challenges, as anyone still reading this thread would seem certain to agree.

You and I might agree that up to 150 years passed between publication of Antiquities and CC. Whether it's a lot of time depends on what all one thinks happened in that duration. If you consider BOJCC to have been present in Origen's copy of Josephus, then maybe it's not such a long time.

I appreciate the answer. Personally, I find it strange that Origen would be confused about this one particular thing on at least two separate occasions. Does either Recognitions or Homilies attribute the misfortunes/fall/razing to the death of James?

Cheers,

V.