LegionOnomaMoi

Obviously we wouldn't have christianity without the O/T. But it is one thing to assert that the gospels and other early "christian" texts rely heavily on interpretations, re-interpretations, and elaborations of Jewish beliefs and texts, and quite another to say that the entirety of the Jesus tradition/sect was created out of these wholecloth.

Duvduv

As a matter of fact there is no contradiction here. They can be built on the O/T and also be based on the person of Yeshu ben Pandera.

EarlDoherty

But that was not the basis on which I suggested in my books that the word order is suspect. It is suspect on the basis of the particular circumstances of the scenario present in Antiquities 20. As usual (and you did it in regard to the business of whether Greek letter writing could use "Lord" as a mark of deference to the addressee instead of the latter's name) your detailed argumentation is virtually irrelevant, because it doesn't address the particular problems of the Antiquities 20 case, which are overriding.

All of Josephus' examples of similar syntax to that of Antiquities 20 (and they are only in some cases, as you admit) and dismissing the latter's word order as simply another example of that syntax, do nothing to address those problems. I outlined them earlier, but you have ignored them.

The same goes for the letter-writing business. A person calling a respected figure "Lord" instead of by his name, is nowhere on the same level as Paul using "the Lord" to refer to a cosmic Son who is the creator and sustainer of the universe, or a "Lord of glory," or a "Lord" whose mystical body spans heaven and earth. Especially when that sort of thing is the exclusive application to be found in the epistles, with never an example of "the Lord" being used as clearly descriptive of a human man on earth--except by begging the question, which historicists are quite adept at doing. (I deal at length with this topic in my latest installment on Vridar, to be published in a day or two.)

Your arguments are irrelevant because they are too insufficiently suitable comparisons to cast light on the unique Pauline and Josephan cases.

Earl Doherty

DCHindley

:eating_popcorn:

LegionOnomaMoi

I thought Spin's objection to my post was the use of introduction, in that as James had already been introduced, this was not an introduction. He may think this as well, but whatever his problems with calling my quotation an "introduction", as worded now my original post does not say what I meant it to, and Spin was correct at least in pointing this out. Unfortunately, I know what I had meant, and didn't bother to go back and re-read it because I was so certain he was objecting to the use of "introduction" here. At least my mistakes are getting better (more serious). The last debate we had he went on about my typos.

spin

Why did you bother, you naughty person? I've already been through the first erroneous claim, then the bait and switch to "re-introduce", then the blunders over Nicolaos of Damascus and John's brother Jesus, and with each failure we get a larger text wall with further efforts to wrangle some footing to justify his a priori claim that there is nothing unexpectedly marked in the word order of AJ 20.200. I reached the elastic limit some time ago. Now you recycle another text wall which attempts to make some new claim about word order being required because of "by name X", when I already work on the idea that the simplest original text is ανερ Ιακωβος ονομα αυτω και τινας ετερους ("a man by the name of James and some others") before the interpolation. His is a wag-the-dog approach if ever there was one.

While we are here, I may as well say how I think the interpolation got there. Origen, working from Hegesippus who gave Origen the idea that the fall of Jerusalem was related to the death of James, wrote his James material (Eusebius quotes the stuff in EH 2.23), confusing Hegesippus with Josephus (not uncommon in antiquity). A scribe finding αδελφος Ιησου λεγομενου χριστου missing Josephus "re"-inserted it in AJ 20.200, giving us the marked order not found in Origen.

Now don't do it again.

LegionOnomaMoi

I didn't ignore them, I responded to your post:

You compare English to Greek, and made some comment about any language, despite the fact that the enormous flexibility in Greek makes your argument about what comes first problematic a priori. Then there is the way referential modifiers work in Greek normally (i.e., more often preposed) and the way Josephus uses them when he uses the phrase "by name X" or "whose name was X" (which are similar to AJ 20.200). Moreover, as I noted by quoting Mason (and he is not alone here, as there are a minority of analyses of Josephus which argue that the TF is an interpolation, not a corruption of an original passage about Jesus, but like virtually everyone else, they still find the reference in AJ 20.200 to be authentic), from a discourse functional standpoint the preposed identification construction can serve other perposes. Mason suggests it could be a hint concerning what James and "the others" were on trial for, or it could be as simple as the fact that, as his kinship to Jesus seems to be so much an identifier for James that it is practically a nickname, the part that is secondary (and perhaps even unnecessary) is the "James by name". Or it could be the variety that Mason refers to, or awkwardness caused by Josephus' use of sources which Schwartz spent so much time on.

There is also Josephus' appreciation not just for variety (i.e., changing names or the way he refers to someone or something), but for "syntactic sophistication" (Mason's words), which (as any reader of Thucydides knows, often enough means syntactic complexity, novelty, and deviance. In fact, this he doesn't even limit this to syntax, but lexical choice as well. In book 1 of JW alone, there are at least for rare neuter substantives Josephus uses only once, and a number of other words (again, restricting this to just book 1) rarely found in Greek literature. Some words and phrases Josephus used are first attested to in his works, but then appear later, which means he may very well have introduced them.


Quite true. The issue is what basis you have for asserting that it makes any difference that Paul uses "Lord" instead of "Jesus" here, when that's how Paul refers to Jesus quite frequently. The fact that kin are frequently referred to using this word was simply to show that there's no special reason why, if Paul wanted to be understood as referring to an actual brother, he would necessarily switch to "Jesus". Moreover, you frequently refer to Paul's use of kinship terms (and it is still in your new book, which I borrowed to read) without noticing important distinctiongs. As I said in my first post, Dickey's paper looks at the use of kinship terms in papyri (including letters, and including christian writings preserved in papyri) over several centuries, including the first. What she found coheres in general coheres with what we find in Paul: when the writer uses a kinship term and it relates either to the author or to the addresseee (i.e., either "my brother" or "your sister" or "our brethren" or "we brothers" etc.) it is quite frequently metaphorical, and it is difficult to discern when a literal kin relationship is meant. The exception to this is when the author uses a kin term and uses it to relate two people (either using a possessive pronoun, as in "his brother", or the frequent genitive construction, etc.), neither one of which are the author or the addressee(s). And this is what we find with "James, the brother of the Lord". The kin term "brother" is not applied to Paul or to Paul's readers. Likewise, while we hear speak all the time of people somehow "in the Lord", including "brothers in the lord", only once does he say "brothers of the Lord", the typical way of referring to actual kin (which is not true of "in the lord"). And here too he does not connect either himself or his readers by this kinship construction.


But, as far as Paul is concerned, his Lord isn't on Earth. That doesn't mean he never was, or that he can't still have earthly relatives. For Paul, his Lord Jesus Christ is clearly not on earth and is some heavenly type of figure. But this is quite different then arguing that for Paul, Jesus was never on earth, or that somehow this means his use of "Lord" in a kinship construction is somehow indicative of a metaphorical use of "brother".

LegionOnomaMoi

Wrong (talk about bait and switch). How many time must I say the same thing? My point is, and has always been (as I said in my first post, when I discussed the flexibility of greek word order), that the variation in Josephus when it comes to introductions/identifications is vast. As I said in my last post, it even appears that Josephus introduced several words and phrases into Greek, as they appear after his work but not before. Now, it is true that when Josephus uses phrases like "by name X" or "whose name is X" we also tend to find the preposed reference modifiers as in AJ 20.200. However, it is also true that these differ from AJ 20.200 in other ways. What is relevant, however, is how many times Josephus uses not only phrases or terms only once (perhaps even inventing them) but that he also shows enormous variation in the way he refers to people. Furthermore, his method of introducing individuals stands out even among other oddities because while (in general) Josephus shows great stylistic skill, this does not hold true of his method of introducing/identifying/referring to people.

And the reason you stopped responding was because I kept asking for an analysis of your claim about markedness. And as I expected, I'll never get one.


And there it is again. It's marked, but you can't explain what linguistic theory you are using and how when you make this claim. It's just "marked". No "here's my basis for saying so" and "here is an example of the particular theory of markedness I'm talking about", just "it's marked".

Spin: "It's obviously and interpolation, it's marked."
Me: "Marked? In what way? How exactly are you using the term here, based on what linguistic work, and how does it apply?"
Spin: "What's Markedness? DUH! Here's a google scholar search where the term is used in numerous different ways, many of which can't possibly apply. There, satisfied?"
Me: "Not really. Josephus' syntax, especially when it comes to indentifications/introductions, varies widely, which is true of Greek in general."
Spin: "There you go with your bait and switch text wall. It's clearly marked. How can it not be marked. Can't you see it's Marked?"
Me: "I've shown the amount of variation, and that's my point: he varies, he uses novel phrases, etc. So why does this one seem odd such that interpolation seems likely?"
Spin:"Stop baiting and switching your text walls. Clearly your examples are different from AJ 20.200, which is marked."
Me: "HOW IS IT MAKRED DAMN IT!? Why can't you just demonstrate what linguistic work you are applying here and explain why you think it applies!!?"
Spin: ....

The rest is silence

Will Wiley

The game is to show that any reference to jesus is an interpolation. Rule #1 is that all references are forgeries, when the evidence does not support this, refer back to rule #1.
It's all a game
There is nothing wrong with such games, just in believing in them :-)

aa5874

Your statements are just pure rhetoric. There is NO evidence that shows that the Jesus story was NOT wholly fabricated.

You utterly fail to understand that we simply have at least TWO opposing sides or arguments.

1. Jesus was likely WHOLLY fabricated and Never did actually exist.

2. Jesus was likely NOT wholly fabricated and did actually exist as human.


In any event it has been EXPOSED that there is NO evidence at all from any credible sources of antiquity to support the argument that Jesus was not likely to be fabricated.

In antiquity the Myth Gods of Romans were WHOLLY Fabricated--Jesus was a God in the Bible of the Romans.