Toto

Flavian Hypothesis has been split off and merged in here

Vivisector

I agree with those who suggest that Josephus wasn't quite as effusive in his account of Jesus as the Testimonium currently reads; he almost certainly never referred to Jesus as the Christ, for example.

It seems just as likely to me, though, that he did write something about Jesus. There are any number of more neutral reconstructions of the Testimonium available on the web. More telling to me are Origen's (a Christian scholar par excellence who wrote in the first half of the third century CE) references to the works of Josephus, preserved in his Commentary on Matthew and Against Celsus. In Against Celsus, for example, Origen states: "Now this writer [Josephus], although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless-being, although against his will, not far from the truth-that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus called Christ,--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice." In the version of Josephus available to Origen, then, Josephus attributed the fall of Jerusalem not Jesus's crucifixion, but James's lynching. The omission of this and similar passages, as well as the current form of the Testimonium, strongly suggests to me that early Christian scribes edited Josephus in accordance with their doctrine, perhaps out of a sense of embarrassment from having the original passages used against them.

My suggestion: let's be careful we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater

Amaleq13

Welcome to IIDB!

Does the fact that various individuals can imagine a more neutral construction actually make it more "likely" that one existed?

Some have argued that the fact a "reduced" Testimonium is still coherent is meaningful but I don't see why that is necessarily so. It is consistent with the claim but no more conclusive than the fact that Josephus reads quite well without any Testimonium at all.

But we don't know if there is a baby at all! We know that at least some parts of the alleged baby are artificial and that there is no conclusive reason to assume a real baby was ever placed in the bath. All we have, beyond the alleged infant, is a brief note on the dresser mentioning a baby but we aren't even sure whether the note was added by a later author or if it was written by the baby's alleged mother.

mike_decock

Since early Christian writers like Origen scoured through Josephus to paraphrase or quote a small passage, wouldn't it be safe to assume that they would have done the same with Roman records had they existed?

-Mike...

Vivisector

Hi, and thanks for the welcome. I've been very impressed with the level of scholarship demonstrated in the posts, and I look forward to learning a lot from all of you.

In answer to your first question, I think the answer is obviously "No." The first question here might be, "Did Josephus write anything at all?" Based on the evidence of Origen alone, I think that he did. The next question might be, "What did Josephus write?" Now we have my earlier conclusion that he wrote something, the evidence of Origen, and the Greek and Arabic versions of the TF. I don't think we can say what he wrote in the case of the lost material that Origen refers to; we can only get at its sense. Considering the positive evidence of the Greek and Arabic TF versions in the larger context of Josephus's works, I would conclude that he did not write those words as preserved. This is all a very long way of getting to an honest, "I don't know" on this point. If we ask, though, "Could he have written something similar to the TF?" then my answer would be, "Yes," based on my earlier conclusion that Josephus wrote something and that we do have the evidence of two similar versions of the TF. I see the reconstructions as basically hypotheses that are consistent with (a) a conclusion that Josephus wrote something, (b) the evidence of Origen with regard to the character of what Josephus wrote, (c) the existing versions of the TF, (d) Josephus's writing style and (e) Josephus's Jewish faith.

You're absolutely right! My way of making sense of it, though, has been to conclude that Origen didn't fabricate the Josephan material (if he were going to make up something for apologetic purposes, it seems he could have done much better), which leads to the conclusion that Origen had at least some version of Josephus available to him 150 years or so after its composition, and more than 100 years prior to Eusebius's History. At the very least, we've gotten a little closer to the alleged birthdate of the alleged baby with no reason for supposing that the alleged baby wouldn't have looked the way Origen described, assuming an alleged birth! (Man, this doggoned baby/bathwater metaphor is getting way too hard for me!)

Vivisector

Hi Mike, and thanks for the reply. Ancient Christian writers do, indeed, seem to have made the most of available sources, and the omission of reference to "Roman records" would be consistent with the hypothesis that such records were not available to the ancient Christian writers. It would also be consistent with a stronger hypothesis that such records never existed. However, it would also be consistent with a hypothesis that such records existed but were deemed too embarrassing to be preserved (they could have said, for example, that Jesus was crucified as a bandit or insurrectionist).

Personally, I'm unconvinced that such records ever existed (can you imagine a legion of scribes trailing Titus's army to record the vital information of the thousands who were crucified?). I'm not comfortable with a positive conclusion on the basis of Origen, though, because it seems too much like an argument from silence to me.

Amaleq13

How do you determine which portions of that passage are things Origen read in Josephus and which are his own comments? For example, couldn't everything below in red be attributed to Origen?:

"Now this writer [Josephus], although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless-being, although against his will, not far from the truth-that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus called Christ,--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice."

If that were the case, then all Origen's copy of Josephus had was an attribution of the Fall to the murder of James the Just.

Bede

Just out of interest, could someone point me to where official records of summary provincial justice are used by a Roman author? I can't think of such an occasion myself. We have Pliny's letters to Trajan and he does not mention every case that comes before him. Why do we assume Pilate would have bothered? Why do we think detailed records existed? Are there any examples of such records? Have any survived and are any used by historians? Justin Martyr appeals to records but there is no reason to believe that actually exist. It is likely just to be rhetoric.

Yours

Bede

funinspace

Why, they were in the file cabinet right beside his desk...filed right after "property tax collections" in "Prophets, dead"

ok, more seriously, uh "biggest political trial in the Roman Empire". How exactly do you reach this conclusion? A far away province, where no record outside of Christendom ever even noticed anything... If the Gospels be true in any way, he was purportedly less thought of by the Jewish crowd, than a common crook.

Vivisector

Thank you for still another very good point. My answer is, some of it seems very likely to me to be Origen's commentary (too bad those guys didn't use quotation marks!). As to how to differentiate between quotation and commentary, it seems the best we can do is to consider what we know (or assume to be true) and see where it guides us.

My crack at the specific passages you highlighted would be:

" ... although not believing in Jesus as the Christ"

I think this was Origen's commentary. However, Origen makes a positive statement, and Origen was a very bright and capable (even if superstitious) fellow. Therefore, I think Origen's commentary was based on something - something relatively specific - present in Josephus's writings that convinced Origen that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Christ. I wouldn't attempt to reconstruct what it was from this passage alone.

"... whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet."

I would propose that the first half of the above is Origen's commentary; Origen is telling his readers what Josephus should have said (Origen has to say it, since Josephus didn't). The last phrase is very telling, though: the passage refers to Christ being a "prophet." Mere "prophet" status would not have sufficed for Origen. Therefore, it doesn't seem likely that Origen would have quoted only "who was a prophet" from Josephus, because this would imply denial of a greater status. It makes more sense to me that the phrase "who was a prophet" would have been connected to more Josephan material. To my thinking, that additional material would have most logically included Jesus, his being put to death, and possibly by the Jews as a result of a conspiracy.

"..who was a brother of Jesus called Christ."

I think this passage is faithful to Josephus, and my reason is the single word, "called." To Origen, Jesus was the Christ; to Josephus, however, Jesus would have only been "called" or "so-called" (a term Josephus uses often in his work) Christ. In the context of the larger passage, it makes little sense to me for Origen to have taken only "called Christ" from Josephus and a lot of sense for the larger passage to have been reproduced from Josephus.

A perhaps related but weaker point is that, not all early Christians were particularly comfortable with the relationship of James to Jesus. If this passage were a Christian interpolation, it seems it would have made more sense to have omitted the reference to this relationship entirely.

An interesting exercise - I'll look forward to your reaction.