Mathetes

Didn't know about this. Can you elaborate?

Gooch's dad

Either way, Josephus apparently mentioned this same James. Seems pretty much a no-brainer to me.

And claiming that some Christian later inserted James into both Paul and into Josephus is again special pleading. Whereas I do grant that Josephus was obviously tampered with, I don't think the majority of scholars, not by a long shot, doubt the Antiquities 20.9.1 reference.

Artemus

But if there has already been tapering there is no way to tell what was there in the first place. That makes it worthless as evidence. (I find NT scholars to be highly biased (in both directions), so appeals to authority do not carry much weight with me.)

Doctor X

Gooch's Dad:

Then you would be wrong.

However, this would be a fallacy:

and is incorrect.

You assume Paul, himself, placed the interpolation? You do not think the Christian scribe may have read Galatians?

--J.D.

Amaleq13

Not so fast. This reference from Origin no longer exists in our copies of Josephus. He is not referring to the James reference that DOES exist but to one that has been removed apparently by Christian copyists. Why? Perhaps because it suggested that the death of James rather than Jesus was believed the reason for the fall of Jerusalem. We don't find references to the extant James mention until AFTER this "lost" reference. Surely it is not too much to suggest that a Christian copyist chosen to retain a reference to Jesus and simply found another reference to a "James" elsewhere. Please note that, except for this addition of the Jesus reference, there is no reason to assume this story is talking about "our" James.

Untrue. There are good, independent reasons to suspect both as interpolation. See above for Josephus and Paul's is unique in all his writing, arguably contrary to his theology, and contrary to any alleged desire to avoid making TJC appear to have greater authority.

Many scholars consider the short reference to be authentic because they FIRST assume that a reduced Testimonium existed. There is a thread on the topic somewhere in this forum and this is pointed out in several of the scholars referenced in favor of the passage. I don't consider the reduced versions to be any more credible than the full version and sinking that, according to those scholars, takes down the short reference as well.

Llyricist

It's the Origen Reference mentioned by Amaleq13 above, and can be found elaborated upon on Peter Kirby's site.

Gooch's dad

DoctorX,

It most certainly is a fallacy of special pleading if you automatically discard two references that support each other. And no, a reference to the number of scholars who support a claim is by no means a fallacy. Note that Peter Kirby's page on the Testimonium includes exactly this sort of information, a tabulation of scholars who do and don't support the authenticity of the TF.

Gooch's dad

Odd, I just looked at Peter Kirby's Testimonium page and found no such thing. He quotes Origen's "Commentary on Matthew" for example:

He doesn't say "brother of the lord" there or anywhere else.

Doctor X

Gooch's Dad:

No.

Ipse dixit and incorrect. No one has "automatically" discarded anything.

It was an incorrect statement arguing to numbers of scholars rather than to the worth of the argument as Amaleq13 demonstrated.

--J.D.

Gooch's dad

DoctorX:

From Peter Kirby's Testimonium page, again, on the 20.9.1 reference, he says:

Sure, I'm relying on Peter's survey of the scholarship for this. What do you have to counter it?