Solo

This is the type of theorizing that you are fond of criticizing as groundless speculation. The facts of the case are these: Origen claims to have gotten from Josephus the opinion that "the Jews" were punished for killing James, the brother of Christ. Eusebius confirms it was Josephus and actually quotes from what (he says or believes) was his text. Eusebius knows Hegesippus' story of the killing of James. He does not credit Hegesippus for the info that Vespasian began his siege 'just after' the heinous deed, nor for the opinion that the Jews were punished in this manner for killing James. Such information TMK is not found in any known fragment of Hegesippus. We do not have a copy of Josephus' Antiquities which both Origen and Eusebius appear to refer to.

Feel free to go on ignoring these facts. :huh:

None of the detail that Hegesippus provides on James martyrdom has anything to do with the view that the killing was the reason for the catastrophic events that befell the Jews shortly after. Neither is Josephus' view in JW 4.5.2 that Ananus' death was the real reason for the destruction of the city going to give you much. Ananus, in the Wars is portrayed in terms which resemble James in Hegesippus (i.e. 'venerable and very just man and besides the grandeur and nobility, and honor of which he was possessed, he had been a lover of a kind of parity, even with reagrd to the meanest of people'.) But this is not any guarantee that Hegesippus styled James on Josephus' Ananus (from the BJ), much less so that he actually expressed the opinion the Jews suffered on account of the killing of James.

Best,
Jiri

EarlDoherty

Oh? Where is it indicated in the TF that Jesus was not the Messiah? In the extant version it states the opposite. In the reduced version without the so-called Christian bits, the overall impression is anything but negative (or even neutral, in all its nice-nice about Jesus and his followers), and nothing is said in terms of denying that Jesus was the Messiah. Or is it in the frequent presumption that instead of the full extant version or even the reduced version, Josephus said something negative about Jesus which the later interpolator eliminated in his doctoring?

It seems the only option to justify your claim that Origen’s remark about Josephus not believing in Jesus as the Messiah could be based on the TF is a begging-the-question one, a reading into some non-existent and irrecoverable ‘original text’ what you would like to see there. Typical. (Nothing stops you or Don from finding whatever you want in any text.) It also makes your whole exercise circular. There was an original reference to Jesus by Josephus in Ant. 18 because Origen states that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah; and we conclude the latter referred to some original Testimonium remark to that effect because we can surmise (on no evidence whatever) that such a remark was present there…which we know because Origen’s statement reflects knowledge of such a remark…and round and round…

What is the force of this piece of fallacy when weighed against the conclusion that Origen’s statement is based on something we DO see in the text and would make eminent sense: that in JW he declared that Vespasian was the Messiah, thus ruling out Jesus?

Earl Doherty

TedM

Jerome's version 'he was believed to be the Christ'. It is reasonable to infer that Josephus did not agree, or he would have said so.


I haven't researched this beyond this link:

http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah...aimants13.html

I question whether Josephus really thought a non-Jew was the Christ. Even if he thought he had fulfilled prophecy, that doesn't mean he thought the prophecy was of the Messiah who would usher in world peace and salvation for the Jews.

If it can be demonstrated that in fact Josephus was proclaiming this Roman emperor as the Messiah for the Jews, I would say that since Josephus was a prisoner of Vespasian's he may have felt compelled to please the emperor by flattery. He had already demonstrated the ability to betray his countryman to save his skin, so why not proclaim his captor as the Messiah? IOW his credibility on this issue may have been zilch.