Freethought & Rationalism Archive

gracebkr · 05-08-2007, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Aren't they controversial to you?

spin

The parts that are controversial, which we should all intelligently acknowledge is that Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian so he would not have referred to Jesus as Divine in Josephus' beliefs. He did mention Jesus though and explained who he was, Josephus didn't think Jesus was the Messiah the way it was stated. It should be still considered and extra biblical account of Jesus. The rest of the writing scholars agree, sounded like Josephus, just the parts where he considers Jesus Divine is disputed.

Ben C Smith · 05-08-2007, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Aren't they controversial to you?

Surely, spin, even you can aver that the manner in which aa [insert numbers here] asserted his point of view was disingenuous.

Ben.

Hex · 05-08-2007, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gracebkr

The parts that are controversial, which we should all intelligently acknowledge is that Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian so he would not have referred to Jesus as Divine in Josephus' beliefs. He did mention Jesus though and explained who he was, Josephus didn't think Jesus was the Messiah the way it was stated. It should be still considered and extra biblical account of Jesus. The rest of the writing scholars agree, sounded like Josephus, just the parts where he considers Jesus Divine is disputed.

Not exactly true ... The passage itself is questionable ... and it's not a new claim ...

Quote:

In all the outstanding editions and even manuscripts which we possess of the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, we find that Josephus mentions Jesus twice. In one, the well-known Christian passage, he relates the story of Jesus and his crucifixion; the other passage is in connection with the trial of James before the Sanhedrin. The first passage reads as follows:

"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of
the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first ceased not, for he appeared to them
thereafter again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And even now the tribe of Christians so named from him is not extinct."'

In this passage Josephus names Jesus as the Christ. This paragraph, as is well known, has been rejected by scholars of note as not authentic. Josephus, according to their opinion, could never have written of Jesus as the Messiah,
and Origen twice states that Josephus did not admit that Jesus was the Messiah. Some scholars throw doubt only on a part of this narrative and are of the opinion that the words "Jesus was a Messiah and arose on the third day" are a later Christian interpolation, while other scholars, though a very few, are of the opinion that the whole passage is genuine.

...

Now Origen not only does not quote the Christian passage, but he uses such language as to make it impossible to maintain that the words "he was the Christ" appeared in the text, for he says: Though he (Josephus) did not believe in Jesus as the Christ, he none the less asseverates that the calamity of the destruction of the Temple came upon the Jews for putting to death James, who was most distinguished for his justice.' If the Christ passage really appeared in Josephus, it would be hard to believe that Origen, who quotes the James passage, should not know the other passage, which is recorded in the same chapter.

Besides, a consideration of Josephus' political outlook and his social standing at the time, indicates that he could not have admired Jesus and his followers, the Christians, for as we know, they stood for political as well as for social reform; they were against the rich as well as against the lordship of man over man. Being an aristocrat, of a family of priests, and under the influence of the might of Rome, he could look upon the Christians only as wicked and as madmen. He expresses this view in another passage on the Apocalyptists
who are the forerunners of the Christians:

"There was also another body of wicked men gotten together, not so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their intention, and they laid waste the happy state of the city more than did these marauders. These men deceived and deluded the people under pretense of divine inspiration, but were for procuring innovations and changes of the government, and this prevailed with
the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them in the wilderness, pretending that God did there show them the signals of liberty."

...

Hence, if in the so called Christian passage Josephus had mentioned Jesus, he would have stated in his way of writing, in the second passage, that that is the Jesus who was crucified at the time of Pilate. Therefore we must assume that this so-called Christian passage was not written by Josephus, and we may add that Josephus had no knowledge of the existence of Jesus. For if he had, he would have referred to him exactly as he does refer to Judah of Galilee, the author of the Fourth Philosophy, who had the same idea as the early Christians about the equality of man, and of no lordship of man over man, but who used a different method for carrying out his idea. Also, as pointed out above, the Apocalyptists mentioned by Josephus, but not Jesus. Hence Josephus cannot be a witness to the historicity of Jesus, even in an unfavorable way to the Christians; and this passage was later interpolated by a Christian.

The Christ Passage in Josephus, by Solomon Zeitlin, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., Vol. 18, No. 3. (Jan., 1928), pp. 231-255.

spin · 05-08-2007, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gracebkr

The parts that are controversial, which we should all intelligently acknowledge is that Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian so he would not have referred to Jesus as Divine in Josephus' beliefs. He did mention Jesus though and explained who he was, Josephus didn't think Jesus was the Messiah the way it was stated. It should be still considered and extra biblical account of Jesus. The rest of the writing scholars agree, sounded like Josephus, just the parts where he considers Jesus Divine is disputed.

This is called cherry-picking. Sounds like Josephus, doesn't it Algernon? Yes, yes, of course, Bertram.

Hex has beaten me to the punch, but if you consult the archives, you'll see that I think neither of the Jesus passages survives analysis. It's bad enough that they contain the inane references to "christos" (when Josephus doesn't use any of the 40 odd references to christ found in the LXX), but, when one acknowledges that the text has been tampered with, one has the obligation, seeing as they admit that such texts were tampered with, to say how they know that any of the Jesus material is veracious, rather than simply cutting out the more outrageous stuff and pretending that they can keep the rest unchallenged.

Scholars a century ago bit the bullet and discarded the lot. Now we have a scholarly brand of apologetics which arbitrarily decides to keep what can be salvaged from the wreckage. The image that I use for this approach is of a person dropping a piece of buttered bread, butter down, on the floor, then picking it up, scraping the fly-dirt off it and finally eating it. How much fly-dirt does the person eat? (This is a question of epistemology. They can't really know.)

spin

Riverwind · 05-08-2007, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hex

Not exactly true ... The passage itself is questionable ... and it's not a new claim ...

I think he knew that the passages are questionable.

What he was saying is that the majority of the passages may date back to Josephus, while small portions are interpolations (such as Jesus being called the Messiah, etc.).

There are some studies of the Greek that show that the vocabulary and grammar of the passages are significantly the same as the rest of Josephus (minus some questionable words/phrases).

spin · 05-08-2007, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Surely, spin, even you can aver that the manner in which aa [insert numbers here]...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

...asserted his point of view was disingenuous.

I'm not a defender of aa5874, though I'm not sure that his comment was necessarily disingenuous. However, my interest was with Riverwind's "the [Flavian] passages are controversial to some." Surely you can understand my question: Aren't they controversial to you?

.

spin

spin · 05-08-2007, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riverwind

I think he knew that the passages are questionable.

What he was saying is that the majority of the passages may date back to Josephus, while small portions are interpolations (such as Jesus being called the Messiah, etc.).

There are some studies of the Greek that show that the vocabulary and grammar of the passages are significantly the same as the rest of Josephus (minus some questionable words/phrases).

Fly-specks/buttered bread.

Larsguy47 · 05-08-2007, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gracebkr

The parts that are controversial, which we should all intelligently acknowledge is that Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian so he would not have referred to Jesus as Divine in Josephus' beliefs. He did mention Jesus though and explained who he was, Josephus didn't think Jesus was the Messiah the way it was stated. It should be still considered and extra biblical account of Jesus. The rest of the writing scholars agree, sounded like Josephus, just the parts where he considers Jesus Divine is disputed.

Forget it. By now the "apostatsy" had occurred in the Christian congregation and the Judaism and Christianity were at odds. It was important to deny Christ as the messiah promised to arrive in Daniel 9. It would have been contraindicated for Josephus to mention Jesus. The best historical non-confirmation was the non-mention.

LG47

Hex · 05-08-2007, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riverwind

I think he knew that the passages are questionable.

What he was saying is that the majority of the passages may date back to Josephus, while small portions are interpolations (such as Jesus being called the Messiah, etc.).

There are some studies of the Greek that show that the vocabulary and grammar of the passages are significantly the same as the rest of Josephus (minus some questionable words/phrases).

And that some people beleive that it was inserted whole into Josephus' works.

The veracity of the whole that passage is in question, hence it's probably best to be avoided entirely. If that's the case? No real evidence, huh? :huh:

I bet you that if I read a whole bunch of Cicero and studied up on my classical Latin, for example, I could insert some stuff into De republica. It's missing fragments, if I got it close enough, and it fit in one of the gaps ... Who'd know, huh?

Ben C Smith · 05-08-2007, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Aren't they controversial to you?[/COLOR]

.

The Testimonium is controversial to me. The James passage much less so.

Ben.

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