Bingo the Clown-O

Yes.

Of course it is.

He simply used the LXX.

outhouse

Stephan understands clearly.


no need to split.


you have heard of the "woes of the pharisees" ?


Stephan was asking about pharisees and josephas, its my intention that some god fearers claimed themselves as Pharisees

which solves some of Stephans question

Duke Leto

Fair points. I was under the impression that his angle was that the Temple had to be destroyed because the Zealots had irredeemably profaned it. It's also worth noting that the incompetent governors who needlessly enraged the populace were probably the enemies of the Flavians to a certain extent, or at least agents of Nero. I gather the further subtext was the message to the Jews: "The misgovernment that caused the Revolt was Nero's fault, we'll do a better job." Praising the bravery and dedication of their enemies was something the Romans had no problem with. Caesar and Tacitus both did it.

Actually, that's EXACTLY the view Stephan wants us to adopt.

For those who missed the last exciting thread, this is what Stephan believes about Josephus:

The "original" Josephus was written as an Aramaic biographical sketch by the historical Flavius Josephus.

This Aramaic outline made its way into the hands of a Christian historian who may have called himself Josephus but subsequent Christian writers called Hegesippus, who wrote the Greek Text as Christian chronicle of history from a purely Christian point of view. He cites as evidence two quotations from what appears to be Josephus by Church Fathers that extend a chronology down to 147 CE (I don't give their names because I don't feel like looking them up and I have a total contempt for Church Fathers) despite the fact that the orthodox consensus is that an actual Christian scholar named Hegesippus who wrote a chronicle based on Josephus that these Church Fathers are quoting. Only one of them cites the same quote as belonging to Josephus, and when it is suggested that the quote was Hegesippus paraphrasing Josephus which the Church Father misattributed to the original Josephus Stephan doesn't acknowledge the suggestion. He had claimed that Hegesippus is obviously a garbling of Josephus since Hegesippus isn't a real name. I pointed out that there was an actual 4th Century BCE Athenian Hegesippus, and he has never acknowledged this, although I haven't seen him claim Hegesippus was a fake name since.

Anyway, this "Christian History" was used when the Gospels were put in their final form to add material to Luke... Stop right there, Stephan is claiming the Church Fathers DELIBERATELY inserted the Infancy Narrative chronology contradiction into Luke.

After being used to make the Gospels the text was modified again on the orders of Eusebius to remove everything Christian in the narrative except the Testimonium and the "brother of Jesus the Christ" bit to create the Greek Text of Josephus we know and love. The reason for this: :huh:

Various other versions continued to exist and mutate in Christian monastic and even Arabic hands, which diverged from the original to a large degree. A "Pseudo-Hegesippus" was written in the 4th century that Stephan would say was based on the 2nd century original "Hegesippus" that was the "real" Josephus, rather than the usual assumption that it was based on Josephus and was misattributed to the Christian Hegesippus Stephan would have us believe was the "real" Josephus.

I think that's a fair summary. I have noted a tendency in Stephan to back off some claims temporarily only to reassert them as obvious fact as if they were never contested later on. Stephan seems to have developed this idea about Josephus because he needs to throw out a bunch of events and people attested in Josephus to make his theory about Agrippa work.

And before you complain that your Josephus/Agrippa theories aren't relevant to the thread, Stephan, you didn't title the thing "Interesting problem with the use of LXX in the Josephan texts, let us discuss.", you named it "Another Demonstration that Josephus is a Myth." (Interesting in that it suggests the previous demonstration was effective.)

Duke Leto

Which part of the words "The Masoretic Text is different from the 1st Century Hebrew Text and the Septuagint may be closer to the 1st Century Text." are you failing to understand? Would you like a diagram?

It's a VERY simple inference. Texts change and get corrupted. The Hebrew text we have from the late 1st Millennium is probably different from the Hebrew texts in circulation when the LXX was compiled. With the LXX being older, even though it is a translation its contents might very well reflect what the lost Hebrew original from that period looked like.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

Duke Leto

outhouse's zeal for smiting stupidity leaves him little time for spelling, grammar, or page layout.

Toto

Or he has you on ignore.

I have not seen a connection between that part of the gospels and Josephus.


I guess it is your contention, but your intention is still unclear.

outhouse

he had made a claim about Josephas wasnt acting like a pharisee, well paul wasnt acting like one either.

we have a few possibilities

A. either romans were claiming to be Pharisees, as im sure there were a few genrations of well learned romans who did not convert to judaism but were well versed within the OT

or

B. they were just making it up

or

C. they were jews and romans



and I highly doubt that

stephan huller

No it isn't. I just don't think a first century Pharisee from Palestine wrote the Jewish Antiquities. Any solution(s) to the problems raised is/are welcome.

stephan huller

If we don't make excuses for Josephus, he confirms his Pharisaic origins in his last known work (Vita) in such a way he must have retained this identity up until that point in his life (= the end) while at the same time ALLEGEDLY (a) employs the LXX and (b) positively references Jesus in his middle works. How is this possible? I think any explanation is welcome but the most likely explanation is that the 'assistants' manufactured Jewish Antiquities independent of Josephus's participation.

stephan huller

Keep in mind Shaye Cohen's thesis that "the central portion of V(ita) is a copy of this (Aramaic) hypomnema." In other words, there is/are a core Josephan composition written in Aramaic but layered over with additions and countless editorial reconstructions in Greek.