Johann_Kaspar

I am wondering.
Why the TF in Antiquities is - as Toto is mentioning it in another thread - discussed in details and time and again, while the Slavonic War is (almost) never - as far as I know - the subject of a discussion? IMO it is much more interesting than the TF. And it leaves xians with no other choice but to admit that Josephus was tampered one way or the other, while they had the control of the texts for so many centuries (= destroying what was not supporting their dogmas).

A last comment about TF though. A quick survey of the crucifixions by the Romans in Josephus seems to indicate that he is regularly mentioning the whipping as well, ... except (?!) in the TF.

andrewcriddle

FWIW Eusebius did not create the TF Involved discussion of one of the puzzling features of Slavonic Josephus, the parallels between it and the Latin paraphrase of Josephus known as Pseudo-Hegesippus.

In general non-Greek versions of Josephus seem to have often been rewritten to a much much greater extent than the Greek versions have been.

Andrew Criddle

Peter Kirby

I have received this message from Dr. Steve Mason (concerning my site):

Steve Mason
> A quibble, however. In your helpful piece (I guess it is yours) on
> the testimonium flavianum, you cite the Slavonic Josephus to
> challenge my statement that if a scribe had created the paragraph
> from whole cloth, that would be an act of unparalleled audacity.
> With respect, this is rather misleading. The Slavonic Josephus
> (like Hegesippus, Josippon, and other late adaptations of Josephus)
> is NOT merely the act of scribes, those who copied the texts for
> posterity, but rather of creative thinkers. See for example the new
> Brill synopsis of the Slavonic and Greek. Of course, all of those
> later adapters expanded and rearranged Josephus to suit their
> purposes. The same is not true of the scribes, whether in the Greek
> or the Latin manuscript traditions. Among such copyists we have no
> parallel of such a major interpolation -- a whole paragraph in
> dispute.
> Sincerely, Steve Mason

I suppose that part of the problem (less attention to this version) has been that the Slavonic Josephus hasn't been available in translation in full until recently (and even then only in an expensive edition [Brill?]), and the original language is not one common among NT or classical scholars.

best,
Peter Kirby