countjulian

Hey, I'm in an argument with the Muslims over at the Ummah.com forums, and in the course of the argument (over the identity of the cloudy passage mentioning a certain Dhu'l Qarneyn, "the two-horned lord") I've mentioned the Arabic copy of Josephus, which I remember from my days debating the Jesus myth theory (I wonder how Muslims might react to the idea of a "mythical Isa" ). I've tried to look this up, but have found contradictory information on this. What is the deal (please be as specific as possible).

Roger Pearse

Do you mean Agapius, who cites a version of the Testimonium Flavianum? This was published by Shlomo Pines.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

countjulian

Was that all, or do we have an early copy of an entire Arabic Josephus? If that is all we have, how old do scholars think the Arabic copy of Josephus was? This is vital information. More to the point, is it at all possible that early (circa 700-1000) era Muslim scholars would have been familiar at all with Josephus?

yummyfur

No there is no Arabic Josephus, nor is it likely that Agapius was looking at a complete text of Josephus, he was probably looking at a source or chronicle, possibly in Syriac, that merely qoutes the Testamonium Flavium. Agapius was not Muslim, he was a Melkite Christain Bishop of Arab ethnicity. There seems to be no evidence of any Arabic versions of Josephus, so I would guess that Muslims were probably only familier with the qoutes that later Christians used, if at all.

Roger Pearse

Can I ask what your source for this information is?

It is unsafe to presume that he had no access to Greek mss, since Hunain Ibn Ishaq certainly found substantial numbers in his own time. But I agree that it is perhaps more likely that he was using some Syriac source, and perhaps an anthology, in view of the significant numbers of Syriac texts only extant in that manner.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Thanks. Good thread. especial thanks to Roger.

Is it right to say that the extant Josephus is Greek and Slavonic, and that the Arabic quote is a reference. Is there much more quoted in the Arabic referencing ? Is the Slavonic parts (books) of his writings only ?

Is all this reviewed on one page on a coherent web page. In the past I have only worked with a piece here and there. Hmmm... if anyone has it, its probably Roger :-)

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Ben C Smith

My page on the Testimonium has (most of?) the relevant portions from the Slavonic Josephus translated into English; the Slavonic version is of the War, not the Antiquities, but includes tons of additional material, including much from the Antiquities, like a version of the Testimonium.

That web page also has the relevant passages from Agapius and Michael the Syrian in English translation. For commentary on these texts (my page just has the texts) I would recommend getting hold of Pines, for one.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

I note you have been called kafir!

You might want to quote this back,

http://www.themodernreligion.com/ugly/kafr.html

but I wonder if it is a more impossible task than getting fundies to eat kittens!

There is a tale of a catholic priest in Somalia - after 20 years he had three converts.....

Roger Pearse

Josephus wrote several works, so it's probably best to be clear about what we're discussing. I suspect we mean Antiquities rather than Jewish War or the Life or Against Apion.

Here are all the portions of Josephus in Greek, translated from Schreckenburg. Note the presence of large numbers of manuscripts which contain only the TF -- effectively it disseminated all by itself, and even penetrated one family of manuscripts of the Jewish War. Probably it was originally just written in the margin of a copy, and the next copyist thought it was an accidental omission by the scribe of the first ms, and incorporated it into the body of the text.

Here are some notes on the mss of Antiquities in general. A Latin version exists, for instance.

Here are some notes on manuscripts of the Jewish War. This existed in Greek and Latin, plus a rewriting in Latin (Ps.Hegesippus). A Syriac version of book 6 is extant, although I do not know if more was translated, although I expect it was. There is also the medieval Hebrew version made from the Greek (the Yosippon).

The Old Slavonic version of the Jewish War has been shrouded in obscurity. The study of N.A.Meshcherskii made clear that in fact this was not a translation, but part of a medieval Russian text, the Three captures of Jerusalem where, for the capture in AD 68, the writer had only the Jewish War plus scattered references from other sources, including John Malalas, and Antiquities, and the bible. Since he wrote in Russian no-one much knew this, but a translation of his work into English which lines up the text in parallel columns with Thackeray's translation of the original text makes the difference clear. My notes on this are here.

What I have not seen evidence of is an Arabic version. Michael the Syrian in his Chronicle in Syriac had a version of the TF similar to that of Jerome in De viris illustribus; another version of it exists in another Syriac writer. Agapius had an Arabic version of some sort. But these are all instances, as far as we can tell, of the independent transmission of the TF. Or so it seems to my amateur eyes, anyway. Does anyone know better?

I wish I knew more about Arabic literature. The handbook known to me is in German, which is not my best language.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Pines should be online. I wish I knew how to compass this. Is the chap still alive?

All the best,

Roger Pearse