spin

BJ 4.160 (4.3.9). Fils.


spin

andrewcriddle

Hi Spin

I've been reading in context the passage in Jewish War about the death of Ananus leading to the fall of Jerusalem and I don't think Josephus means to say that God caused or permitted the fall of Jerusalem because of his righteous anger over the murder of Ananus.

(Obviously it is easier to read Josephus that way than to read him as saying that the cause was God's righteous anger over the death of James but I don't think it is what Josephus means.)

The death of Ananus (and his colleague Jesus) causes the fall of Jerusalem through secular causation by leaving the revolt in the hands of incompetent bloodthirsty fanatics. In fact in book 4.323 Josephus claims not that the anger of God against Jerusalem was brought about by the nurder of Ananus but that the anger of God against Jerusalem brought about the death of Ananus with its dreadful consequences.

In general in BJ Josephus relates the anger of God against Jerusalem to atrocities blasphemies religious irregularities associated directly with the temple. Although the text of 4.314-318 is not unambiguous Ananus seems to have been murdered outside the temple and it might not qualify as a cause of God's anger (as distinct from a result.)

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

So are you now saying that Origen had seen a copy of Josephus? How can he be a witness to the current state of the text without having even seen that text?

That Origen thrice has the same phrase about James, brother of Jesus called Christ, in three contexts where he claims he is quoting Josephus (and only in those contexts) is proof positive he thought Josephus had written at least that phrase; if you cannot see that, I cannot help you. Yet he still thinks Josephus denied that Jesus was the Christ.

The simple unavoidable fact is that you are sliding by a crucial distinction. Saying that Jesus was called Christ is simply stating a fact. Saying that Jesus was Christ would indeed violate what Origen says about the text of Josephus.

For my money, Origen knew what Josephus meant about Vespasian. The fact that Josephus attributed what was obviously one of the old messianic prophecies to Vespasian would be signal enough that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Christ. The Romans might not understand much about messianism, but Origen would have.

The alternative is that the Testimonium was originally antagonistic to Jesus and openly denied he was the messiah. But I am not hanging my hat on that. Vespasian is enough.

I cannot imagine why. Jesus was the only one with that nickname; therefore, Jesus was the only one Josephus used that identifier for.

I have said before that Jesus called Christ can be interpreted in three different ways. Positive, neutral, negative. Context is king.

That is correct. The words themselves are ambiguous.

That Jesus was called Christ.

That was how the Romans knew the founder of Christianity; they knew him as Christ.

Identifying James by his brother, the reputed founder of the Christian sect that Nero had come down on, is the most natural thing in the world.

We might expect such a qualifier in this case to keep the two men named Jesus distinct.

Josephus does it elsewhere.

The only one that even requires a further explanation is number 4.

Indeed it is.

Tacitus claims and Suetonius implies that the Christians were known by that name in Rome in the sixties.

Yes, I meant Origen. :blush:

Not sure I understand the question.

Sure, but Matthew uses the phrase in a completely different part of the gospel than that on which Origen is commenting.

Not many of the phrases between the three passages in question (one from the commentary on Matthew, two from the books against Celsus) match up with one another. This one does all three times. Origen certainly thought it came from Josephus.

And this is virtually the only idea that he copied verbatim from his own commentary. Most of the rest is verbally different. Why is that?

So he recalled the exact phrase, brother of Jesus called Christ (only part of which occurs in Matthew), but did not care about the meat of the assertion, that Jerusalem fell on account of the execution of James. This is part of what, I think, Andrew Criddle meant in the OP when he said he found this scenario unlikely.

Ben.

spin

No. You miss the point. He didn't receive any information that Josephus said "Jesus called christ" from Josephus, did he?

You are forgetting the fact that this started with the commentary on Matthew, the gospel which contains the source phrase "Jesus called christ". That one didn't start of with the additive "(James) the Just". After he constructed the brief discourse the first time he referred back to copy it when he wrote CC and added to it, then basically repeated the new piece again.

Origen didn't even know the content of what Josephus wrote about James.

This is why I have talked about KISS. Instead you are doing the HJ approach of salvaging without knowing that there is anything to salvage.

Try to imagine how it would come about in Jewish circles. Then you'd realize it didn't.

You saw how Josephus handled Theudas for example (gohs tis aner Qeudas onomati -- another figure without family it seems). This messianic figure led off "a great part of the people", though, while not referring to this messiah, again Josephus shows his feelings about the idea. One could look at his treatments of Judas the Galilean, who is obviously both a religious and military leader, and obviously another messianic figure, yet for whom Josephus doesn't apply the term. Yet you would have us all incredulous that for some reason, which has you blur the boundaries between Jewish messianism and christianity, Josephus seriously applies the term to Jesus commentless. He has plainly avoided the term on at least three prime occasions. No "he was called a christ" for either of the Jewish contenders and no mention of it with regard to Vespasian,... the Jews had a prophecy about the messiah...

:angel:

The term messiah/christ wasn't.

So you'll argue by assuming that part of the phrase in question was veracious. It's not a case of Josephus "couldn't say", but one of the devout Jew dealing with a very hot word, which he has avoided all over the place -- for as I've said it's used 40 times in the LXX and he hasn't used it regarding other messianic candidates. You just want to believe that Josephus would nonchalantly use the term unadorned, unqualified with his feelings about it.

At the time Josephus was writing you cannot say that.

Then, christians or messianists??

And you want Josephus to use the term christ as though he didn't know what it meant, when you can see that he actively avoided it.

We chase our tail here. We deal with one questionable passage and get responded to with another. Until you can have the forthrightness to deal with the fact that all these texts were preserved through the christian scribal system and therefore look at each individual case without attempting to taint one with another, you'll continue to have the appearance of doing glorified apologetics.

It should be sufficient to use another qualifier, rather than qualify the qualifier. You know, like a father. It's not important to Josephus who the father was, just that he had one. He often leaves out the family relation, as I've pointed out.

Try to find a good analogous example. You may look back at B.Mueller's uproarious attempts on this forum.

No. Divide and conquer doesn't work here. These are all difficulties which together create a geometrically more difficult total. You have to face them all together, that they would all manifest themselves in the one occasion.

You had just made the claim: The most unusual part, the parenthesis James was his name, is (ironically) a part you are willing to keep. It's not that I'm willing to keep it and that fact was explained to you. It's that I cannot provide anything more accurate, though you are willing to conjecture on it for me with gay abandon. But you know that. I'd already said that it is easier to locate the disturbance than to reconstruct what had been disturbed.

The texts of these writers, though both writers were writing at least 50 years after the fact, we don't know it the writers actually wrote these testimonies, or if, like the TF, a christian hand was at work, a hand which seems obvious to me.

If "[Origen] conflated Josephus and Hegesippus", "then who conflated James with Ananus?" Someone has conflated the claim about Ananus's death with James. Was that according to your speculations Origen as well?

I'm sure you can see that Origen never had his hands on Josephus.

Umm, so he forgot it while writing "the brother of Jesus called christ", right?

Only "James, the brother of Jesus called christ" which became "James the Just, the brother of Jesus called christ" which then got copied. The process is simple. He wrote it once in the commentary, then he copied it for CC, adding "the Just" and then he copied the result again for CC.

Actually he didn't copy it verbatim unless you arbitrarily choose what you are dealing with. You want to forget that it's "the brother of Jesus called christ, James by name", though Origen has James (the Just), the brother of Jesus called christ", but let's forget about the full phrase and we've back with a description that Origen got from Matthew added when he wrote about James.

As you can see, Josephus didn't have the bit about Jerusalem falling on account of the execution of James, so Origen didn't get that from Josephus, and Josephus wouldn't have said it, for he had already applied the idea to Ananus. You just want to believe, despite not knowing what Josephus actually said, that Origen got "the brother of Jesus called christ" verbatim, rather than the more probable scribal side note (about James being "the brother of Jesus called christ" derived verbatim from Origen), being included in the text by a later scribe. At least you know that sort of thing happened. You should find it difficult to quote from a text you didn't know.

I think I indicated that I didn't find Andrew Criddle's analysis likely. I find it more likely that Origen constructed the phrase "James, the brother of Jesus called christ" while writing his Matthew commentary and that it was penned in the margin of Josephus. Do you have problems with the banality of such an event? Then it crept from the margin into the text.


spin

the_cave

spin, if you don't think that Origen ever read Josephus first-hand, what implications do you think this has for the TF (Ant. 18.3.3)? The absence of the TF in Origen's writings is sometimes seen as evidence that it wasn't present in Josephus yet--but if Origen never read Josephus in the first place, for all we know the TF was in Antiquities at the time of Origen. (Note that this is different from saying that Josephus wrote the TF--I am just talking about whether or not it was in copies of Antiquities by the beginning of the third century.)

spin

The easiest and probably best answer to this is: "none".

For all we know the TF could have been inserted any time after it left Josephus's hands, though I'd find it difficult to conceive of such testimony, if available, not being mentioned by anyone.


spin

Ben C Smith

You are correct; I am missing your point. On the one hand you seem to want Origen as witness to the current state of the text, to use your words, but on the other you think Origen had never cradled a copy of the text in his life.

I already pointed out that copying is exactly what Origen did not do... except for this little phrase. When I have time I hope to put together a synopsis of all three Origenic passages about Josephus and James; right now I just have circles and other marks on my own copy, showing that Origen does not overlap his exact wording very much between these three passages, with the notable exception of brother of Jesus called Christ, thrice.

IOW, on your hypothesis, when the time came for Origen to repeat in Against Celsus the substance of what he had written in On Matthew, the thing that stuck out the most for him was brother of Jesus called Christ (despite the fact that the whole thrust of the passage is Jerusalem, James, and divine payback); then again, when the time came for some Christian scribe to scribble in the margin, the thing that stuck out the most for him was brother of Jesus called Christ. It is almost as if, on your view, those six Greek words had some magical influence on the minds of all who read them; their context (Jerusalem, James, vengeance) was consistently ignored in favor of getting the description of James just right.

Perhaps our scribe had done a comparative analysis on those three Origenic passages similar to the one I am planning to do in synoptic format? Perhaps he noticed that Origen had thrice agreed in wording on the descriptor for James? But if our scribe had seen all three passages it is interesting that he decided against including the just, which appears in the two from Against Celsus.

I think he was writing from faulty notes and confused Josephus with Hegesippus.

:huh:

Right. Josephus does for Theudas what he does not do for James (in the expurgated text); he gives him a description beyond the name (γοης). Again, I am sure it is possible to find examples of Josephus omitting any such description beyond the name, and it may even be possible to find examples of Josephus not carefully distinguishing figures of the same name, but what I find interesting is that our Christian copyist, in inserting an exact phrase from Origen, happens to distinguish this James from others and then Jesus from the son of Damneus.

True, true. Have you any evidence that Theudas and Judas the Galilean were called Christ? Especially in Rome?

True, true. Have you any evidence that these Jewish contenders and Vespasian were called Christ? Especially in Rome?

Indeed we do!




It should be sufficient to use another qualifier, rather than qualify the qualifier. You know, like a father. It's not important to Josephus who the father was, just that he had one. He often leaves out the family relation, as I've pointed out.

I am not familiar with his attempts on this forum, but I had provided several close examples, which you rejected by successively raising the bar, not unlike keeping baseball stats as specific as leading the league in ground-rule doubles on odd-numbered Thursdays.

It seems obvious to you that Christian scribes both praised Jesus in the Testimonium and knocked Christianity as a depraved superstition in Tacitus.

Well, yes, I think so. But I am not sure it was not a byproduct of Origen conflating Josephus with Hegesippus.

No, I cannot see that. I am not sure why you see it, either. Origen correctly places the John the baptist pericope in book 18. He also says that Josephus did not think of Jesus as the Christ, a weird sort of claim if he had not read Josephus somewhat extensively. (I can certainly understand claiming favorable information from books one has not read, but unfavorable?)

These six Greek words are the longest phrase that appears verbatim between the three passages, are they not? There is nothing arbitrary about that.

Ben.

spin

Thanks for making your quandary clearer. As I understand it, Origen is not a witness to the state of the text. This is shown by his wrongly linking James to the destruction of Jerusalem. Also had he had a copy of Josephus, as reflected today, he might have been more reflective of that text with its contorted syntax, though I note you seem to be happy with the highly irregular placing of "the brother of Jesus called christ" before the person being introduced (despite the fact that this Jesus had not recently been mentioned to justify the inversion).

Ironic, isn't it? Origen didn't copy at all,... well except for this little phrase. No, not ironic, convenient, when you don't get the idea that Origen had seen the passage at all. Well, did he? Did Josephus actually say anything about the connection between the death of James and the calamity which followed (a connection which had earlier been made for the death of Ananus)?

This ironic little phrase is of course the one that is in doubt though. We have at least two way that both Origen and the current text of Josephus has it.

To use your argument, the notable exception is the phrase "Jesus called christ" three times as exactly found in Matt 1:16, if you want to be reductionist. Remember that Origen doesn't say "the brother of Jesus called christ, James he was named", but "James (the Just), the brother of Jesus called christ". There is nothing remarkable about calling James the brother of Jesus and there is nothing particularly remarkable in a commentary on Matthew about calling James the brother of Jesus called christ. It's only a matter of copying and improving from there.

But Josephus's passage isn't Jerusalem or payback, though Origen doesn't know that, so it is just as unlikely that Origen knew anything else from the passage.

Yeah, magical. Three of them came from directly from Matthew and appear in the commentary Origen wrote about Matthew. Perhaps you see a more magical influence.

Hey, why not? Anything's possible.

How would such a nickname have originated within Jewish circles? I don't think you can seriously imagine how.

How can you argue about what is not present in the current text? If a scribe has inserted a phrase, did he simply place it there or did he shape the text? I've already said that there is nothing there to explain what James did to incur the wrath of Ananus, yet here you are arguing about what you don't know was or was not in the text.

You are merely avoiding Josephus's avoidance of the term... ooh, yes, except for the convenience of two comments about Jesus. How coincidental! -- or was that one comment? Did Josephus write "he was the messiah" in the watered down TF? Whatever. You'll live with the difficulty.

I complained about trying to support a passage with another questionable passage. This to me was chasing our tail. You then ignored the basic idea and jumped for the easy rhetoric. :banghead:

The idea is that you take note of where the bar actually is first, otherwise you'll make an ill-directed kick. But as you seem to have kicked and missed, the posts needed to be described for you in relatively full detail. That's why I said your divide and conquer approach is not adequate.

You clearly misread the Tacitean passage. It ends with the christians earning the pity of the Romans for their suffering.

In an earlier thread I floated the possibility that he had a collection of rough quotes from pagan authors, which may have included both a statement about James and about JtB.

This criterion of favorable/unfavorable seems too vulnerable to tarnishing through bias and to irrelevance through unverifiable guessing to be of any use. Sulpicius Severus apparently didn't have trouble using the unfavorable report of Tacitus.

It's arbitrary when you don't include the reference to James which followed the phrase in Josephus, yet preceded it in Origen's version. I guess though that you will try to make a silk-purse out of this sow's ear. And wow, six words, when four of them could have been lifted straight out of Mt. (But then, it was only five words in CC 1:47, (os hn) adelfos Ihsou tou legomenou christou, four of which were from Mt. I guess the exact phrase from Josephus wasn't that important, was it?)

Where did Origen get James the Just? It seems to be part of his understanding of what was in Josephus, for he uses it twice specifically in relation to what Josephus is supposed to have said. While Origen gets that wrong and the supposed reason for the destruction of Jerusalem, you fancy that he was somehow exact with the phrase ton adelfon Ihsou tou legomenou christou (well, in two out of three cases). This is not inspiring.


spin

Ben C Smith

Josephus had not directly made this connection, but I have already pointed out (as has Andrew) how a Christian reader like Origen might easily connect the dots between that statement in the section about the Levites and the statement in our present pericope about the punishment of Ananus. This would handily explain what Origen says about Josephus seeking the cause for the fall of the city; Josephus is indeed making a connection in this very section between Jewish breaking of the law and the Jewish calamities that followed. He is, in fact, seeking a cause for the fall of the city.

It is not coincidental at all. Jesus was the one (the only one of which we can be sure, in fact, unless we take the scissors to all the various passages you do, such as those in Tacitus and Suetonius and even in the Pauline epistle to the Romans) whom the Romans called Christ. I know that you are reluctant to accept that the Romans called Jesus by that name before, say, the middle of century II, but you have no business assigning my view to coincidence on this point. There is simply no coincidence.

I am quite certain he did not blankly state that Jesus was the Christ, as the so-called vulgate version has it. Whether he said something to the effect that he was thought to be the Christ, as Jerome and Michael the Syrian (as well as Agapius, indirectly) have it, or even something far more negative, is still an open question for me.

So a Christian copyist inserted the part about Christianity being a depraved superstition in order to get to the better parts later on?

If Origen had not at least picked up a copy of Josephus at some point, why did he state so blankly that Josephus did not think Jesus was the Christ? What was he going on here?

But it is one of your criteria. On the one hand, you cannot even imagine Josephus having written something about Jesus that could possibly be interpreted even somewhat favorably (that he was called Christ), yet on the other hand you have no trouble imagining a Christian writing something as unfavorable about Christianity as that it was a depraved superstition.

He found it in his copy of Tacitus and used it as it stood. The question is not whether Christians could use unfavorable passages from pagan or Jewish authors; of course they could. The question is whether Christians would have invented unfavorable passages for those authors.

I already answered this. I think he got it from Hegesippus.

This is true for Against Celsus, but not for On Matthew.

In all three cases, given a necessary change of case in one of them.

Ben.

andrewcriddle

IMO it is reasonably clear that Josephus did not say he was the messiah in the TF or even he was called the messiah in the TF. (IMO the earliest form of the TF did not contain the word Christ at all and I would still think this probable even if the TF is entirely an interpolation).

Hence we only have one relevant usage of Christ/Messiah in Josephus.

Now this is a much much weaker argument than two usages.

A large minority of an author's total vocabulary will be words used once and once only by that author. By definition such words have to be used in only one context. For many of them one could plausibly argue that the author was more likely to use them in another context than the one in which they actually occur. This is not a good argument.

If however a word is used twice in one context and not at all in any other this is a real ground to suspect something may be wrong.

Andrew Criddle