aa5874

What nonsense!! Why can't you just write the facts?

Origen REPEATED FOUR TIMES that JOSEPHUS SAID the Fall of the Temple and the Calamities of the Jews was because they KILLED James.

"Against Celsus" 1.47"Against Celsus" 2.13"Commentary on Matthew" X.17 Nowhere in "Antiquities of the Jews" 20.9.1 can such words of Josephus be found.

"Antiquities of the Jews" 20.9.1 is NOT authentic since it has been MANIPULATED based on the writings of Origen.

GakuseiDon

More like, "God said 2 + 2 equals 22, and who am I to argue?" By Origen's time, Christianity has had about 150 years to get used to the idea that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple had something to do with the Jews rejecting Christ, so Origen must have had that in mind when reading through Josephus.

The tradition apparently recorded by Hegesippus was that James was told to stand on the Temple and tell the people to stop entertaining erroneous opinions about Jesus. When he declined, they threw him down from the top of the Temple and then stoned him to death. So Origen was probably aware of this tradition of James being killed on the Temple steps.

To recap then: Origen writes:

"[Josephus,] in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple...

Josephus writes in Book 20 8.5:

the robbers ... slew others, not only in remote parts of the city, but in the temple itself also; for they had the boldness to murder men there, without thinking of the impiety of which they were guilty. And this seems to me to have been the reason why God, out of his hatred of these men's wickedness, rejected our city; and as for the temple, he no longer esteemed it sufficiently pure for him to inhabit therein

Origen writes:

"[Josephus] 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 the Jesus who was called Christ, since they killed him despite his being supremely just."

Josephus writes in Book 20 9:1:

... so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others... he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done...

Josephus then writes in Book 20 9:4 how the change in high priests brought about by the death of James was one of the factors that cumulated in things becoming "worse and worse" for the people of Jerusalem.

Anyway, I can't believe that I am the first to notice this. It all fits so nicely that I am suspicious I am missing something.

And to repeat: I'm not saying Josephus believed this, but that Origen would have had assumptions about 'what really happened' when reading through Josephus.

(ETA) When I thought on the implications of Origen writing that Josephus was "seeking after a cause" for the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, I speculated that if I was right, Origen was inferring that Josephus had mentioned something about that cause near the James passage. l was pleasantly surprised to come across just that in 8.5.

spin

That people cite what they think are things in books is no indication that they have read the books.

Looking at what Origen indicates he thinks he knows about Josephus's text, what exactly did he get from Josephus and what are the indications you use to deduce it? To put it another way, what information, after you remove all the written qualifications and explanations, does Origen claim comes from Josephus?

GakuseiDon

Nothing AFAICS. Origen is reading what he wants into Josephus.

spin

What makes you think he's reading Josephus at all and not just cribbing from an intermediary source such as Hegesippus?

GakuseiDon

He could be, I guess.

pinkvoy

you're a girl?:huh:

Vivisector

Spin,

Just a couple of questions ...

1. Do you see anything at all to indicate that Origen knew (in the sense of having and studying his own copy) Josephus?
2. Do you see anything in Hegesippus that indicates knowlege of Josephus?

The possible relationships between the various texts are such that I find myself wanting to try to diagram them.

Cheers,

V.

Littlejohn

from Facebook (Acharya S)

This is simply disconcerting! .. The mere fact that Bart Ehrman calls into question the fairness and reliability about what is reported in the sacred literature of Catholics, it is for she quite to re-propose again the theory of the mythological origin of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth! .. Not only Ehrman, but the whole learned world more qualified also has never considered such a theory, given its extreme improbability! ..

Unfortunately, as I have repeatedly pointed out, when one defends to the bitter end own ideas against all logical instance, then one ends miserably in the dogma, and that of the 'deniers' of the historicity of Jesus is no less disconcerting than the one of fideists...


Littlejohn

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Littlejohn

A little help:

I translated into Italian the expression "Ehrman's playing catch-up" with "A waste of time on the part of Ehrman". Is it correct?..


Thank you.


Littlejohn

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