spin

It is sufficient for me to show

1. that there was more than one possible trajectory;
2. that the one you are banking on is in no respect necessarily the correct one, nor have you attempted to justify it in respect to others;
3. that you cannot show that Origen actually had read AJ (especially when he seems to confuse it twice with the two books of Contra Apion);
4. that you have shown no way of choosing what exactly Origen may have got from his hypothetical reading of Josephus (rather than from a reading of a florilegium or other source);
5. that you fasten on the incomplete phrase (the complete phrase being "the brother of Jesus called christ, who is called James") that you assume must have come from Josephus in order for Origen to have used it (ie assuming your conclusion);
6. that you discount what seems to be the likely christian origin of the phrase "brother of Jesus called christ", especially when James is seen by christians to have been the brother of Jesus and that christian scripture talks of Jesus called christ; and
7. that you give no heed to the fact that Origen consistently misrepresents the content of what Josephus does say about James.

What need do I have to get my hands dirty with your problems? You need to fix up your own show.

Did Josephus know anything about Jesus? More assuming of conclusions.

The only thing that Origen actually says about Josephus's comment on James is that he wrongly ascribes the cause of the woes to the death of James.

Three times. And yes, statistically, it does seem to be his usual way of introducing reference to this James.

You persist in this meaninglessly rehearsal of the manuscripts, when all the manuscripts of Josephus are so late and you've not in any way dealt with the relationship between those manuscripts. If in their lateness they all belong to the one family and originate from the one exemplar, they are in fact just one witness.

AJ 20.9.1 actually has a longer phrase which you don't acknowledge at all: "([they] brought before him [Ananus]) the brother of Jesus called christ, James his name". Origen never has this syntax. He always places James first. Another nail in your coffin.

As long as you keep telling only part of the story, you won't give yourself much chance of getting it right.

Just as you misinterpret Origen, not aware of what Origen may actually have added by way of comment, an ancient scholar could have made the same misinterpretation and went looking for it in AJ only to be disappointed and so corrected his obviously defective AJ. Why do you have to make a straw man of the choice you hadn't chosen?

As Origen copied nothing else from Josephus, not even a less than steroid-hyped version of the TF, it is mere conjecture on your part that he found this -- to a Jew -- misguided phrase in the work of a practising Jew. Without considering the supposed writer of the phrase and only choosing that part of the phrase that you find in Origen, I'm sure you get great explanatory power: the power to explain away things you don't want to consider.

Option C: that in the development of a christian florilegium of classical references to Jesus (Jerome seems to use one as well, maybe the same tradition) the phrase was evolved, that Origen got it from such a source, which mangled the excerpt from Josephus in its transmission, until its currency won out over the real text of Josephus, which had to be corrected.

Option B.1: that the form of the phrase as developed by Origen was thought to have been correct and that the available AJ manuscript was deemed defective and corrected.

Option B.2: that someone thought that the Origen phrase suited the Josephan passage and so it was added.

There are probably more trajectories. However you have opted to supply your one trajectory, plus a straw man variety of a second.


spin

The Bishop

What I find shallow is this characterisation and arguing with Ben C. Smith's illustrative arguments, when what Ben was doing was demonstrating the inapplicability of legal standards of acceptable testimony when doing history. He wasn't arguing against a fully formulated evidence-backed debating point. He was illustrating that some investigators spuriously invoke standards for believability that do not or aren't expected to apply in studying other distance ancient periods or places or people. Spin questions Ben's use of the phrase "reject without further ado" and enjoins him to read the tired-argument archives. As if Ben was accusing Spin of having done that - you don't need to read the archives to know that Spin has expended a great deal of keypress on this issue, but Ben wasn't necessarily talking about him. Or was he? Because this whole thread started with a quote of Spin's, as follows:That certainly seems to be an argument that Josephus is corrupted and therefore not worth bothering with. Isn't that where this whole flyspeck metaphor came from? So how is it that Ben is shallow for making reference to one particular anti-Josephus argument? Surely, pace the argument which has actually continued above, this is not actually supposed to be about the Josephus itself, but on what MJs consider to be acceptable historical evidence of the Gospel story compared to the norms of historical investigation. A discussion, it seems to me, which extends beyond Josephus and Eusebius or Origen, but to the acceptability of the Gospel and Epistolatory texts themselves.

andrewcriddle

Stephen's blogpost http://www.hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2...stimonium.html Argues that Tacitus' statement about Christ is based on Josephus.

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

Now I'm really glad I didn't edit it. I completely skipped over "Tacitus" when I read his post. Thanks. :redface:

Ben C Smith

How would we know whether or not Josephus knew anything about Jesus? Would not such knowledge virtually have to come from the text? If Josephus wrote something about Jesus, then it stands to reason that Josephus knew about Jesus. If Josephus did not write anything about Jesus, then we may never know.

This is why the text itself (and getting the text right) is important. The conclusion that Josephus knew Jesus can come only from the text. It is not assuming that conclusion to first establish the text that might lead us to that conclusion.

That is the outright claim, which in this case is false; however, the historian often has to deal with inferences. In this case the claim in question carries as its inference that Josephus did write something about the death of James. That inference is correct. When we look at that account and compare it to what Origen wrote, a surprising thing happens; we discover that Origen agrees in wording with the description of James found in Josephus.

Had we looked to Josephus and found nothing of the sort, that would have been the end of it. But verbal agreements of this nature, even if found not in the outright claim but in the inference, call for explanations.

You are correct. Thank you. I have been neglecting Against Celsus 2.13:

But at that time there were no armies around Jerusalem, encompassing and enclosing and besieging it; for the siege began in the reign of Nero and lasted till the government of Vespasian, whose son Titus destroyed Jerusalem on account, as Josephus says, of James the Just, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ....

For convenience, here are Against Celsus 1.47 and On Matthew 10.17 as well:

Now [Josephus], although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, 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 Jesus called Christ....

Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ.

I did mention, I believe, that it was not his usual way of referring to James or to Jesus. But we can start with James, no problem.

So let us peruse the texts for references to this James. Thrice we have brother of Jesus called Christ as his way of referring to James. Aside from these three instances, how does Origen refer to this James? From On Matthew:

And James is he whom Paul says in the epistle to the Galatians that he saw.

And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise....

...he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great.

In these instances Origen refers to James as just plain James, no mention of family relationship to Jesus.

There are, of course, other instances in Origen in which James is referred to by family membership. Among these are several in On Matthew...:

Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

But of the other apostles I saw none, except James the brother of the Lord.

Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James.

...and the following from On John 6.7:

...as reported in the gospel: Is not this the son of the carpenter, is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

Interestingly, each of these mentions of James by family relationship comes from a discernable source. The sources are Matthew 13.55, Galatians 1.19, and Jude 1. It makes one wonder what the source might be when Origen thrice mentions the brother of Jesus called Christ.

And now for Jesus. I can find countless examples of Origen referring to Jesus, to Christ, or to Jesus Christ. But I find exactly our three of Origen referring to him as Jesus called Christ. Is that your count as well?

It does not matter if the manuscripts all date from 1971. That they share a peculiar phrase with Origen, who happens to be talking about what Josephus wrote at the time, must be explained.

Origen always places James first. True. What does that matter? He still agrees with the phrase brother of Jesus called Christ. It does not matter how many times Origen disagrees with Josephus; it is the agreements that must be accounted for.

It does not matter how many times Mark does not to allude to Psalm 22; the line in Mark 15.34 that looks like that in Psalm 22.1 must still be accounted for.

Could have. But, if that is your hypothesis, it is up to you to defend it.

Tell me what straw man I erected, and I shall burn it at once.

As Acts copied nothing else from Cleanthes or Aratus, the connection of Acts 17.28 to either of these is mere conjecture....

There is no rule that one author must quote another at least twice. Once is allowed, too.

Besides, we can gather several things about Josephus from Origen:

1. Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. This line is what for me definitively rules out the he was the messiah phrase from the Testimonium; a negative statement like this also presumes either (A) that Origen had read enough of Josephus to commit to a negative statement or (B) that he had read a negative statement in Josephus, such as the Vespasian passages, perhaps. (Had you noticed, BTW, that by your reckoning Origen is no longer a witness against the Testimonium?)

2. In book 18 Josephus writes about John the baptist. A true statement. In fact, after Origen has already said that John baptized for the forgiveness of sins (a notion derived from the synoptic gospels, of course), when writing about what Josephus had written he says that John promised purification. Why did Origen use that word for it? IMHO because he found a form of that word in Josephus, Antiquities 18.5.3 §117, supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.

3. Josephus was seeking a reason for the fall of Jerusalem. A true statement, especially in Antiquities 20.

4. Josephus found the reason for the fall of Jerusalem in the death of James. A false statement; however, it carries as its inference that Josephus somewhere wrote of the death of James, which is true.

It is plain that Origen has consulted some form of the works of Josephus.

I am not certain, BTW, what to do with his reference to the two books of Josephus on the antiquity of the Jews. But one thing seems quite clear: Origen was not referring to the Antiquities, for two reasons. First, he uses two different Greek words for the two works. Second, we know that he knows that there are twenty books, not two, of the Antiquities. If Origen is showing us his ignorance of a Josephan work, that work is not the Antiquities.

You and I already know that we disagree on whether Jesus called Christ are plausible words of Josephus. Any time our arguments boil down to this point, then, the debate will come to a screeching halt. I prefer to keep things moving by seeing what other arguments we can muster for or against the phrase in question. Agreed?

You would have to argue specifically for the evolution of the phrase; just saying that it may have evolved does not mean it did.

This option, however, is actually a subset of my own preferred trajectory. Imagine the best case scenario, that archaeologists actually dug up this very florilegium near Alexandria and dated it to before Origen. Imagine that this text of excerpts from Greek authors included an excerpt from Josephus on the death of James that included our phrase. What would this text be but a pre-Origenic witness to the text of Josephus?

My own trajectory is that Origen had a copy (for I do not imagine he had the original autograph) of the Antiquities with brother of Jesus called Christ in it. Your proposal would be that Origen had a florilegium that had copied a passage from the Antiquities and had brother of Jesus called Christ in it. These two options are really the same trajectory with slight modifications.

I do not know why you labelled this one as B1. It sounds like what I called B.

Oh, I think I see. You are haggling over the precise reason for the addition to the manuscripts. Again, however, this is not its own trajectory in and of itself. It is just a version of my B trajectory; your honing the reason down does not create a new trajectory. It is still phrase in Origen to phrase in Josephus.

If your idea of trajectory was including the very motives for copying or modifying the phrase, no wonder we were speaking past each other. When I use that term I mean only whether text A was derived from text B or vice versa.

Here are some key questions and my own answers:

Why does Origen thrice use the same phrase, brother of Jesus called Christ, and why does he write of Jesus called Christ these three times when he never elsewhere refers to Jesus that way? Because he was thrice referring to what his copy of Josephus had, and his copy of Josephus had brother of Jesus called Christ.

Why do those three instances of this phrase always come in a discussion of the death of James? Because the copy of Josephus that Origen had used that phrase in a discussion of the death of James.

Why do those three instances of this phrase always come in a discussion of what Josephus had written? Because Origen was using a copy of Josephus that had that phrase.

Why does Origen say that Josephus blamed the killing of James for the fall of Jerusalem? He read his own wishful thinking into Josephus.

I am wondering what your answers would be to those questions, and how they might stack up against my answers.

Counting the trajectories contributes nothing to solving the problem of which one is most probable.

Hopefully any such shortcomings in my presentation have been remedied above.

Whatever confusion there may have been in Origen about the two books concerning the ancientness of the Jews (περι της [των] Ιουδαιων αρχαιοτητος, Against Celsus 1.16; 4.11), it does not appear that this confusion extended to the twenty books of the Judaic antiquities (της Ιουδαικης αρχαιολογιας, Against Celsus 1.47).

And Origen obviously read enough of the Antiquities to know about the baptist pericope in book 18 and the death of James in book 20.

Sure I do; those verbal agreements have to be accounted for somehow, and it is rather clear that Origen himself was not their source. If he was freely composing, what reason would he have had to write brother of Jesus called Christ three times, and each time connect it to the death of James according to Josephus?

See above.

I agree with what Peter Kirby has written on this topic:

Van Voorst observes:

For the few occurences of the phrase "called Christ" in the New Testament, see Matt 1:16 (Matthew's genealogy, where it breaks the long pattern of only personal names); Matt 27:17, 22 (by Pontius Pilate); John 4:25 (by the Samaritan woman). Twelftree, "Jesus in Jewish Traditions," 300, argues from these instances that "called Christ" is "a construction Christians used when speaking of Jesus" and therefore an indication that this passage is not genuine. He also cites John 9:11, but there the phrase is "called Jesus" and so does not apply to this issue. But if these passages are indicative of wider usage outside the New Testament, "called Christ" tends to come form non-Christians and is not at all typical of Christian usage. Christians would not be inclined to use a neutral or descriptive term like "called Christ"; for them, Jesus is (the) Christ.

...Furthermore, I note that no extracanonical works in the second century use the phrase "Jesus who is called Christ," even though this would be the period when an interpolation would have to have been made.

….

A search of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, the extracanonical writings, and the New Testament will produce no instance in which James is identified as "the brother of Jesus." It is thus not likely to be a phrase to come from a Christian pen when identifying James.

The evidence rather suggests that brother of the Lord was the term of choice amongst Christians. And why would Origen thrice pull the phrase Jesus called Christ out just for this single purpose? Why not elsewhere too?

You need to present a working hypothesis, rather than scattershooting as if any hypothesis would be preferable to mine.

Ben.

spin

The text

Here is basically what Origen wrote, with comments by me:

Now he himself, (Origen is referring to Josephus.)

although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, (Origen is talking about Josephus's lack of belief.)

in seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, (Origen is explaining Josephus's motivation.)

whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, (Origen supplies what he thinks to be true.)

since they put Christ to death, (Origen gives his idea for the cause of the calamities.)

who was a prophet, (Origen elucidates on his own idea.)

nevertheless says, (Origen threatens to get back to Josephus.)

being albeit against his will not far from the truth, (Origen further dithers, saying the data is contrary to Josephus's will.)

that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the just, (Origen says something that he presents as approximately coming from Josephus, even though he uses an expression "James the Just" which did not originate from Josephus, but then none of the concept did either.)

who was a brother of Jesus called Christ, (Origen explains who this James was, using the phrase which it is claimed is the one phrase that he actually quotes from Josephus.)

the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice. (The first part is supplied by Whiston for ease of reading. Origen supplies an evaluation of James not from Josephus.)

Analysis

Out of these eleven clauses, only one is certainly identified by Origen as having been derived from Josephus, yet the statement underlines the fact that the content, beside the idea that James was killed, was not from Josephus at all. We see Origen commenting, Origen commenting on his comments, Origen correcting Josephus, Origen supplying motivations and Origen erring in what he thought Josephus said. What did he get from Josephus?

Modern apologist commentators say that, despite the fact that someone reading the Josephan passage has no possibility to understand how Origen could have got the source for his statement from it, Josephus was describing the events that happened which led up to the calamities and James's stoning was one, so it must be that Origen decided that it was because of James's death that the calamities happened.

However, it is not the one clause that Origen clearly, though wrongly, identifies as related to what Josephus wrote that interests us, but the comment about James being "a brother of Jesus called christ". The commentator has no way of knowing that the phrase was derived from Josephus. Origen's text does not permit one to conclude that it was derived from Josephus. What we do know is that Origen freely commented profusely through the passage and that the phrase is indistinguishable from his other comments.

It is hoped that the phrase in its uniqueness, repeated, is enough to say that we can overcome the lack of ability to show that the phrase was not written by say Origen.

The phrase

Let us look at the Josephan phrase: "the brother of Jesus called christ, James his name". Our commentators conveniently forget that Josephus 1) puts Jesus's name before James and 2) use the definite article ("the brother"). Had Origen found the phrase in Josephus, would he not have used the definite article? Our commentators, desperate to have the phrase, could say that he corrected Josephus, because Jesus had other brothers -- but then Origen does use the definite article with the phrase elsewhere. How many errors and corrections do our commentators need to reclaim this phrase and explain away wrinkles? We note that Origen, in the part claimed to derive from Josephus, calls James, "James the Just", an epithet not found in Josephus, but our commentators are not interested in what Origen writes elsewhere or how he operates.

This phrase "brother of Jesus called christ" is what they want -- well, after all he said it three times. It doesn't matter that there is nothing strange about it coming from a christian, whereas it is extremely odd coming from a Jew. They respond, but Josephus isn't calling Jesus the christ, he's merely noting that Jesus was called the christ -- though Josephus never uses the term (unless of course conveniently for Jesus alone). We have seen with figures more likely to have qualified at the time as messiahs, he repudiates them after their demises (as is the case with Hezekiah son of Judas and with Theudas), just as later Jews repudiated Simon bar Kochba.

Now this phrase consists of a phrase found in Mt 1:16 Ihsous o legomenos christos and the relationship that James had with Jesus, ie brother and we get, allowing for the necessary possessive, adelfos Ihsou tou legomenou christou. Can you be astounded by the originality of this phrase?? It tells us that James was a brother of Jesus who Mt tells us was called christ. What I guess is astounding is not the form of the phrase, but that it is used when referring to Josephus's mention of James, yet what Origen writes betrays no knowledge of what Josephus actually said. We have seen that the one guaranteed datum that Origen attributes to Josephus is incorrect. Origen reworked his same comment on two occasions, but obviously he liked the sound of it, when referring back to his earlier version, so he used it again. Should one be astounded that Origen reworked his own statements??

Hegesippus and Eusebius

Hegesippus, according to Eusebius Bk 2 ch.23, calls James, "the brother of the lord", which any christian reader would understand as the brother of Jesus. Hegesippus ties Jesus being the christ to a narrative which links the martyrdom of James to the loss of Judea, so from Hegesippus we have nearly all the ideas in the Origen phrase. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conflate the language to end up with "brother of | Jesus | called | christ" when Hegesippus supplies all the elements except legomenos ("called"), which is both not strange as a replacement for the verb to be -- as I've shown elsewhere -- found in Hegesippus, and also an entrenched biblical construction as evinced by Matt.

Interestingly, Eusebius, that pillar of precise citation, having just cited Hegesippus, attributes to Josephus the Origen version of the tale

these things [disasters - says Origen] happened to the Jews to avenge [as a punishment for] the death of James the just, who was a brother of Jesus called Christ, the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.

which he immediately follows with the actual current form of the James passage in AJ, apparently as though Eusebius thought they were two distinct passages from Josephus. It would be interesting to know how this dual presentation happened, when the modern commentators are so sure that they were the one passage. How could Eusebius be so misguided? I guess it must have been that he misread Origen.

Everything Origen writes in Contra Celsus on James suggests that he didn't have Josephus in front of him. He certainly had his own works, which he referred to when, going over things, he later deals with James being the reason for the calamities. Origen is a witness of what he writes about James.While Origen seems unware that what he says about James doesn't come from Josephus, Eusebius is a much more convincing witness to the current state of the Josephan passage.

Conclusions

The parable of the flyshit is that unless you can remove it all, you have no idea what you are swallowing should be swallowed or not. The waiter who picks the bread up and picks off the more obvious signs of ill-adventure is simply not doing his job.

It is not enough, when dealing with a client who is complaining that the bird you'd sold him was in fact dead, to comment that it has beautiful plumage -- the equivalent of saying that Origen used an astounding phrase. While some find it so convincing that Origen must have derived the phrase from Josephus, especially because he used it three times, it seems to me that, seeing as Origen got nothing else from Josephus other than the bare information concerning the death of James, the presence of the happily christian phrase cannot be accounted for by his getting it and nothing else from Josephus here. It seems to me that, once he coined the phrase in the context of Josephus and Hegesippus, he merely referred back to it twice again. Not even Eusebius recognizes that the passage was derived from Josephus on James, which he cites separately. Nothing inspires us to see that Origen had much knowledge of Josephus, yet the pundits insist that he must have at least got "brother of Jesus called christ" from Josephus, a phrase that Josephus assuredly did not pen with its flippant reference to the Jewish messiah.


spin

Ted Hoffman

VFG spin, VFG. You make it abundantly clear. Thanks. Lets see what Ben Smith has to say.

Chris Weimer

I think Ted and I finally agree on something.

jjramsey

It's not just that he said it three times, though, but that in each of those three times, he was speaking of what Josephus purportedly said about the death of James, using the language that the extant manuscripts have Josephus saying with regard to James.

Vorkosigan

But if he has an actual copy of Josephus in front of him, or at least one near at hand, why didn't he explore the text to double check this? It must have been known by his time that Josephus did not say that. It sounds like Eusebius must not have had Josephus in front of him, but instead had some kind of precis, which he was supplementing from what earlier writers said. There's something here I can't quite put my finger on.

Unless Eusebius had a problem: in his day there were versions of Josephus that differed from each other on these points....so that he had to use prior testimony to corroborate them.

Vorkosigan