spin

"the brother of Jesus called christ"


spin

Ben C Smith

Okay, so here is the text as it is extant:

Καθιζει συνεδριον κριτων και παραγαγων εις αυτο τον αδελφον Ιησου του λεγομενου Χριστου, Ιακωβος ονομα αυτω, και τινας ετερους.

[Ananus] assembled the Sanhedrin of judges and brought before it the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, James was his name, and some others.

Now let us remove your marginal gloss:

Καθιζει συνεδριον κριτων και παραγαγων εις αυτο [...] Ιακωβος ονομα αυτω, και τινας ετερους.

[Ananus] assembled the Sanhedrin of judges and brought before it [...] James was his name, and some others.

I am sure you will agree that this supremely ungrammatical construction does not represent the original text of Josephus. So what do you think was there?

Ben.

Riverwind

Not that I buy spin's arguments (rarely do), but what is "supremely ungrammatical" about it? Aren't there several places in the NT where a similar construction is found, assuming you are talking about the "James was his name" (or "James {is the} name to him"), something that, translated literaly sounds quite awkward in English anyway) construction. Just curious...

Peter Kirby

I think he may be picking up on, first of all, that "James" is in the nominative case in the text, while as the direct object of the verb in the emended text it would be in the accusative case (as "the brother" indeed is, in the text we have); and second of all, even supposing that James was originally in the accusative (supposing, in other words, more than just a dropping of the brother phrase, which is thus supposing that Ben is right that more is needed for the emendation theory), the other two words suppose that James is the subject of a parenthetical statement to which they are the predicate nominative.

For an analogy, take this statement:

John sentenced him whose brother Peter was called the Wolf (Bob was his name) and some others.

and amend it such that it reads...

John sentenced Bob was his name and some others.

The phrase "Bob was his name" requires the earlier phrase, which it is modifying as a parenthetical comment.

You would almost expect the reverse sort of affairs. The original would read "John sentenced a certain Bob and some others", and then the emendation would be the parenthetical part..."John sentenced a certain Bob (his brother was Peter called the Wolf) and some others."

If Josephus wanted to say "...a certain man, James by name,..." he would have written "tis anêr Ιακωβος onomati" on the analogy of the many occasions on which Josephus refers to "a certain" this or that. Note, further, that Josephus does not ever say "a certain ProperName," but always says something like "a certain person, ProperName by name." In any case, "James his name" does not make sense for the completion of the sentence in Josephus.

Riverwind

Ah...duh on my part. Thanks for the elaboration.

spin

You only asked what was in the margin, not what the scribe did with it. Why not try the KISS approach and remove say an anQtrwpon, so we end up starting with: he "brought before them a man, James by name, and certain others".


spin

Ben C Smith

That is absolutely true. Now I am asking what the scribe did with it. Is that allowed?

(No need, AFAICT, to roll your eyes at a simple question. If I am boring you, please let me know and I will put an immediate end to this line of questioning.)

(Do you call it the KISS approach because that is how Gene Simmons would have handled it? )

Okay, so now we have παραγαγων εις αυτο ανθρωπον, Ιακωβος ονομα αυτω, και τινας ετερους (brought before it a man, James was his name, and some others).

Do you think that was all that was there? Does it seem more likely that Josephus (A) just named a certain man James (a rather common name) without any other identifier or that he (B) originally included some marker (place of origin, name of father or other relative, nickname) to distinguish this James from anybody else by that name? And, if the former, why single James out from the anonymous others in the first place?

Ben.

Mr. Logic

Thanks Spin for your comments. I have e mailed myself one of your detailed posts.
Some have thought that it would be odd for James to be killed by his own, but the truth is that this happens with fanatics all the time. Traitors are hated by Fanatics. James was a Judaizer alright and their Leader, and he didn't preach the gospel, but looked to our works, but he was a Moderate Judaizer none the less. He didn't insist that Gentiles be circumcised, but no doubt insisted that Jewish converts still get circumcissed. His letter to the Gentiles telling them what THEY needed proves him a promoter of Segragation.
Thanks

Riverwind

Hey, spin, Logic is on your side, man! :notworthy:

spin

If there was much use to it, it would be a reasonable question, but we have a disturbed text with its strange syntax, using a word which is out of character for the writer and a phrasing not supported by Origen -- we only have his annotated paraphrase containing his thoughts and at least one error. Where dealing with the remains after the bull was in the china shop and you are expecting someone to be able to put the pieces back together for you.



If you have to mention that old fart as the best you can do with KISS, then you really do need to work at keeping it simple, Stanley.

I said KISS because we cannot really do what you seem to think is possible, so we do the minimum of damage in keeping it simple, Stanley. Hence an indicative minimum. More means more likely to be wrong.

You can answer these questions as well as I can.


spin