spin

As jjramsey frequently shown himself not to be able to deal with the philological issues, my response in this thread was not for him, but for the rest of the BC&H participants. When one goes back to the old thread he seems to like, we find that what inspires him is based on a forcing of a generalization I'd made. Such forcing is a common problem when people try to deal with generalizations as though they must necessarily apply to all cases. It's called not seeing the forest for a particular tree is in the way (and it doesn't matter if you show where the tree is in the forest).

So please forgive jjramsey for his idiosyncrasies and read the basic issue regarding the insertion into Josephus concerning the "brother of Jesus called christ whose name was James" passage in book 20 of the Antiquities of the Jews. The fact that the passage is about the treatment of James makes the reference to Jesus strange on a number of counts. To summarize the issues with the passage, they are as follows:

1. The reference to "christ" as the defining qualifier of Jesus makes us suspect it coming from the pen of a practising Jew of a priestly family, especially when the writer has clearly avoided the term. That's why we get all these silly rationalizations such as Josephus didn't mean it, or the term wouldn't have been appreciated by the reading audience, or that Jesus was simply known by that qualifier.
2. The use of "brother of" as the familial link is highly irregular and is reserved for cases in which the "father of" connection was either unknown or the brother is well-known or had just been talked about.
3. The expected word order translated into English would be "James the brother of Jesus of Nazareth" rather than "the brother of Jesus of Nazareth, whose name was James". The inverted word order which puts the familial qualifying relationship (in this case "brother of Jesus") before the topic (James) is strange and functionally requires a previous reference to either the person in the relationship (Jesus) or to the topic (James).

Summaries tend to capture the main issues and often leave aside some of the fine distinctions. It was a fine distinction that brought Ben C's interest. He soon found that nearly all his exceptions to the rule were actually covered in the details and that his only other example that of "the son of Giora, Simon" comes after the person had been named a few times earlier in the Antiquities, so it was simply not a defining statement about Simon.

We are back where I started with a problematic phrase whose difficulties some of our christian brethren want to minimize. All one needs to do is watch this recurring topic here over the years.


spin

DCHindley

I do not know if I can give you exactly what you want. Your question may be worded too precicely to yeild meaningful information. What I think we may have here is a case of uneven method. I was able to snag a copy of Shaye Cohen's Josephus in Galilee and Rome (or via: amazon.co.uk)*, and on this subject of uneven method he states:

"The uneven method of introducing and re-introducing characters and places is particularly conspicious in V[ita]. Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria is mentioned first in V 23 but his title does not appear until V 30. [Then] V 49 and 214 record only the name, [yet] V 347 and 373 add the title [again]. [...] Jesus ben Sapphia is introduced in V 134 as if he were a new character although he appeared at least once before (V 66). We meet Ananias, a member of the delegation, in V 197, but Josephus describes him in V 290 as if for the first time. Elsewhere, too, Josephus employs this same non-technique. The monuments of [Queen] Helena [of Adiabene] are mentioned in BJ 5.55 and 119, but Helena is not identified until 147 and 253. John of Gischala appears first in BJ 2.575, but is introduced only in 585. Antioch is described in BJ 3.29 although it was mentioned frequently in BJ 1 and 2. Judas the Galilean, the son of Ezekias, is introduced twice (BJ 2.56//AJ 17.271 and BJ 2.118//AJ 18.4). [fn 44: Assumingthe identity of Judas the Galilean with Judas son of Ezekias.] Antipater the father of Herod is described as if a new character in BJ 1.180-81//AJ 14.121. Any deductions about Josephus' sources based on these inconcinnities are unreliable. [fn 45: The sloppiness of Josephan procedure was unappreciated by Schemann 19 (on Helena); Drexler 305 (on John); Marcus note f on AJ 14.121 (on Antipater). A complete study of this problem is needed.]"

All I can do at this point is reiterate that Josephus, for the most part, does identify new characters (either by naming family relationships and/or significance for a particular location) at first introduction (at least those named Jesus), but also can be inconsistant in introducing and re-introducing characters. I can only propose that AJ 20.200 might represent such a case.

DCH

jjramsey

Well, there is this not so small matter of "called Christ" being a neutral phrasing.

Considering that when Romans have written about Christians, they have treated "Christ" as if it were a name, neither of those considerations is "silly."

"Father of" connection unknown? Check.

"Brother is well-known or had just been talked about." A bit marginal, but it wouldn't take a genius to make the connection between "Christ" and the new superstition of "Christians." If the TF is only partially interpolated, then we even have a case where the brother has just been talked about.

And your justification for the "functionally requires" bit is?

What happened is that your own rule, as you yourself stated it, was shown invalid, and then you modified it ad hoc. There is still the matter of why that rule should have much force. You seem to assume that authors will robotically adhere to a certain pattern, including the parts of the pattern that are pretty much arbitrary and don't have much function. It's one thing to say that Josephus tends to refer to people as "son of X" or "brother of X" as a means of making more clear who they are, why they are important, and possibly to distinguish them from others with the same name. It's another thing to, on top of this, insist that Josephus' tendency must be expressed in a certain manner, without the slightest variation.

spin

Anything new, unexpected or needy of response? Sadly no. :wave:

Doug Shaver

Some, I suppose.

But just what are you getting at? Are you saying that if it was forged, it was such a good forgery that no Christian could have been smart enough to do it? I know there are some skeptics who think all Christians are idiots, but I'm not one of them.


The TF, assuming some of it was authentic, would have had plenty of bearing on the truth of the gospels, which affirmed that Jesus was very famous throughout the region around Galilee. Josephus's failure to mention Jesus at all would have been good evidence supporting a charge like "Your Jesus was nowhere near as famous as you claim!"

My memory tricked me. You're right. Josephus says nothing at all about James' reputation. He doesn't even say what James was accused of by the high priest. What Josephus says is that there was popular outrage against James' execution. He does not attribute that outrage to anything in particular about James' character, but rather to the manner in which the execution was carried out. The people apparently were upset because they thought, as we might say nowadays, that James had been denied due process.

If you think the passage is authentic, why do you suppose Josephus failed to say why the high priest wanted James killed?

If the case against historicity must stand or fall on whether Iraenaeus mentioned, in that portion of his writings that has survived, anybody who questioned Jesus' existence, then you win. But if I remember correctly, it has been established that Iraenaeus wrote a lot of stuff that was not preserved. I have argued elsewhere that the church would not have been highly motivated to preserve references to people who entertained the notion that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. If you see a problem with that argument, then we can discuss it.

Solitary Man

This is mere speculation. Argument of what you think some ancient author would have done.

Josephus doesn't always explain everything. However, if it was forged, or glossed, wouldn't there be added incentive to elaborate? The rule is lectio brevior, after all.

I see a problem with that argument. I find it lacking of all evidence.

Ben C Smith

And yet, the obvious... Jesus was simply known by that qualifier.

Yet again, the obvious... by his post mortem followers Jesus was called son of God so much that it is hardly surprising that an outsider (perhaps even some insiders) did not know the name of his human father; his brothers were called the brothers of the Lord, not the sons of Joseph (or whoever); Jesus was well enough known as the founder of the sect of the Christians that of course that would be the natural way for an outsider to refer to James.

This contention has been disproven before, since Josephus does elsewhere place the patronymic before the main name without having mentioned either party before.

The only way to lend these objections any force at all is to overqualify the point: Josephus nowhere (A) uses the adelphonymic while (B) fronting the qualifier where (C) he has nowhere mentioned either party before.

You made a careless statement. I called you on it. You can either complain about it till doomsday or be more careful in future.

Ben.

ETA: For the sake of clarity.... Some of my above statements require the position that there was a sect in Italy known as the Christians early enough for Josephus to have known about them late in century I. Spin has, in the past, rejected most if not all of the evidence that I would use to support such a position. For example, he views Annals 15.44 by Tacitus as containing a Christian forgery where Tacitus would be saying that the crowd called certain people Christians, and he picks apart the epistle of Paul to the Romans in such a way as to leave the early Roman audience bereft of a Jesus called Christ. These affectations on his part certainly do not compel all thinking individuals to abandon century I Rome to utter ignorance of a Christian presence.

jjramsey

Not at all. I'm saying that your scenario simultaneously requires the forger to be both clear-headed and thoughtless: clear-headed enough not to let his passion spoil the verisimilitude of the supposed forgery, yet not so clear-headed as to see that his forgery would be useless to the contemporaries that he is supposedly trying to help.

The catch is that of the works of Irenaeus that did survive, one of them happens to be the very kind of work that would capture a debate over historicity.

Toto

The interesting little digression into the works of Birgit Pearson has been split off here

spin

That should be highly worrying to you. It is certainly not Jewish. It strongly points to a non-Jewish context. That gets ugly.

By Mt specifically saying that Jesus was the son of David, and by both Mt and Lk providing a Davidic line for Jesus, it is clear that the son of god stuff and the backing out of the included genealogies are a later development.

Your line of argument is again fallacious.

We are not dealing with a patronymic as you are well aware. And he only fronts the patronymic in specific situations which are basically required by discourse. The only exception you've found is not a defining phrase at all, which defeats your purpose. Your attempt to press the patronymic parallel fails.

If the patronymic fronting fails to impress, there is even less hope for the adelphonymic.

I always make careless statements. I too frequently work from memory. That changes nothing about the basic logic. When you are wrong, you cling to loopholes and other people's errors.

When the transmission of literature was in the hands of christian scribes for centuries and there are clear signs of orthodox corruption of christian texts, one must expect that there will be corruption of non-christian texts, sometimes unintentionally as in the passage about James in AJ 20, sometimes intentionally such as the TF and the passage in Tacitus with the awful errors. Such fabrication can only be expected when we find such clangers as the letter of Abgar, the correspondence between Paul and Seneca, various spurious Pauline letters. Corruption is par for the course. Ben C, you will cling to the hope that such passages are not corrupt, even though you know there are fly specks on the TF. That to me is perverse. You should learn to live with the corruption, rather than maintain the apparently partisan hope.


spin