offa

Doctor X's post regarding Offa,


offa:


quote:
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I said read Josephus' autobiography's first page. I cannot teach fundies how to read Scripture through the Gospels. I am talking about the "twelve-year-rule" and I want that addressed.
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As noted, since the actual texts of Mt and Lk do not support this "twelve-year rule"--and you certainly have not shown how they do--this is irrelevant.



Offa, (in reply) Where have I mentioned MT and LK? Besides, I send fundies to bed with a dime under their pillow .... no joke.
It is a tooth fairy story and its the TRUTH.

Doctor X

For the sake of precision:

I inquired about the age. He cannot be born in 7 BCE ad prove only one-year old in 6 CE. In response to this I was given a mish-mash on the "twelve-year rule."

However, the sources for both dates are Mt and Lk. Neither refer to this "twelve-year rule" and, certainly, neither are interested in this apologetic reconciliation of their dates. Both link the birth to a historical event--which is different than the other's historical event.

That is that.

--J.D.

offa

Offa,

Doctor X, you are exactly right. Pardon my impudence. And that is that.


Thanks, Offa

Doctor X

offa:

No worries . . . I originally . . . pages back . . . wondered where you could make such a definitive statement.

I have heard fundamentalists try to reconcile the Mt and Lk narratives . . . it gets really painful. Much easier to accept that one or both made them up and linked them to historical events as part of their story. The Herodian "slaughter of the innocents" seems quite implausible given that, as far as I know, no one bothered to mention it. Think someone would notice . . . someone would complain.

For what it is worth, smarter people than I [Large Set.--Ed.] indicate that the Roman census did not happen as described--you did not have to "go home"--and this is just a literary device to get Junior to key places. Take that with a scoop of NaCl since I do not have a reference for it.

--J.D.

spin

What is interesting about Ant.20 is the strange construction putting Jesus first. What we find over and over again is X the brother of Y, yet here the one time we have the brother of Y, X. This is artificial, especially with the further qualification "called Christ" to separate the relationship with the actual subject of attention. It has been added against the logical grammatical order.

What we should expect is that "Ananus... brought before them James, the brother of Jesus (called christ), and some others...".

This of course is only one reason for discounting the veracity of the phrase, but as it seems not to have been constructed before, I thought people should take it also into consideration.

I don't know about the James material, but it seems apparent that Jesus was not an original part of that material and this insertion was put before James to give him more importance.

And the "called christ" seems like ulterior scribal intervention, for when supplying relatives, the person isn't usually qualified. This case may simply be unusual, but I doubt it.


spin

Vorkosigan

There are several takes on that as an interpolation, and there is nothing difficult about explaining it.

Easily, since the Christian interpolator would likely have been anti-Jewish, and since he was working off the Bible passion fantasies, after all.

The whole thing is an interpolation. It contains a seam, legendary formulation ('at this day'), non-Josephean language, obvious Christian language, and other markers. The silence on it is total, and the ancient Table of Contents without it is decisive. The TF passage did not exist before the fourth century; indeed, as Peter pointed out in his debate with Layman, it looks as if there are authors from later years who are unaware of it. The sad fact is that if it were any other passage, about any other topic, it would be dismissed without hesitation. But since it is about Jesus, apologists will fight without scruple to save it.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

Come on, Bernard. You cannot extrapolate a general knowledge of Jesus or the meaning of "Christ" from Tacitus' description of Nero's alleged persecution. He appears ignorant of the name "Jesus" and considers "Chrestus" (I believe he spells it with an "e") his name rather than a theologically significant title. There is nothing here to suggest that Josephus' short reference wouldn't require an explanation. It is precisely this sort of ignorance that suggests to me that Josephus would have felt it necessary to provide more than a passing reference.

That Tacitus fails to repeat this reference when he discusses Nero in his earlier work unfortunately leaves open the possibility of interpolation.

Quote:

I do not think that someone called "Jesus, called Christ", a brother to a Jew in Jerusalem called James would invoke a wrestler for Josephus' audience.

I think you greatly overestimate Roman familiarity with the Jewish concept of the Messiah. Hearing "christ", they hear "anointed" and immediately think of the Jewish faith? Sorry, you'll have to provide some evidence to support that assertion before I consider it credible. Even if I assume this passage to be genuine it is clearly insufficient to allow us to assume the kind of familiarity required by Josephus' brief and unique to his work use of "christ".

Bernard Muller

spin wrote:
What is interesting about Ant.20 is the strange construction putting Jesus first. What we find over and over again is X the brother of Y, yet here the one time we have the brother of Y, X. This is artificial, especially with the further qualification "called Christ" to separate the relationship with the actual subject of attention. It has been added against the logical grammatical order.

What we should expect is that "Ananus... brought before them James, the brother of Jesus (called christ), and some others...".

This of course is only one reason for discounting the veracity of the phrase, but as it seems not to have been constructed before, I thought people should take it also into consideration.

I noted some similar constructions in Josephus' works:

Wars, II, XXI, 1 "a man of Gischala, the son of Levi, whose name was John."

Wars, VI, VIII, 3 "one of the priests, the son of Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus ..."

Ant., XX, V, 1 "the sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; ... The names of those sons were James and Simon, whom Alexander commanded to be crucified"

Compare those above with:
Ant., XX, IX, 1 "... the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James ..."

spin wrote:
I don't know about the James material, but it seems apparent that Jesus was not an original part of that material and this insertion was put before James to give him more importance.

Maybe Josephus wanted to have that "Jesus, called Christ" well in evidence, and associated with a brother who was charged of breaking the law.

spin wrote:
And the "called christ" seems like ulterior scribal intervention, for when supplying relatives, the person isn't usually qualified. This case may simply be unusual, but I doubt it.

There are many other "Jesus" in Josephus' works, including one, Jesus the son of Damneus, at the end of the same section, about 4-5 sentences after "Jesus, called Christ".

About the mention of Jesus in Ant.20 not requiring a TF at Ant.18, I volunteer that:

a) Wars, VI, VIII, 3 "... one of the priests, the son of Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus ..."
This is the only mention of "Thebuthus" in 'Wars'. Even if this Thebuthus might not have been known to Josephus' audience, 'son of Thebuthus' identifies that Jesus as different from the other ones (they are two other 'Jesus' in Book VI alone).

b) Wars, II, XII, 8 "After this Caesar sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to be procurator of Galilee, and Samaria, and Perea ..."
This is the only mention of "Pallas" in 'Wars' (the 'Pallas' in Wars I, XXVIII, 8 is another person, the mother of one of Herod the Great's son), but is known to us through other historical records: he was a favourite in the court of Claudius, then the one of Nero. Because procurators/prefects/governors are rarely identified with father or brother in Josephus' works, the mention of Pallas can be explained because the historian felt like it!
Let's also note there is another 'Felix' in 'Wars' (I, XII, 1), a Roman commander who lived three to four generations earlier, but appears only one book before.

Best regards, Bernard

Amaleq13

I think that is assumed in my suggestion for how it got there. The original interpolation was recognized as inconsistent with Josephus' stated opinion regarding the fall of Jerusalem (it probably helped that the context suggested James might have had a greater reputation) and a Christian copyist deleted it. Eusebius was pretty well known by Christians, though, so he was stuck with his claim that Josephus contained a reference to Jesus in relation to James. He finds a reference to James (perhaps only "a" James since "the Just" seems to have disappeared) and plugs in his Jesus reference. I suppose there are many ways it could have been accomplished but the point is that there is clearly good reason to question the legitimacy of what is in our texts, today.

Quote:

Why, that late, would an interpolator have James identified as Jesus' brother, and, at the same time, in consequence, making the passage of Ant.20 dealing with the same thing as the overly Christian rendition of James' death by Hegesippus (90% different)?

Except that both stories are about a man named "James" who is killed by Jewish authorities, these stories are entirely different. Hegesippus is our earliest testimony that the murder of James resulted in the fall of Jerusalem. Given the unapologetic way he repeats this claim, apparently even Christians believed this to be true. Origen, attributing this same belief to Josephus with a reference to Jesus, takes the time to point out what should have been apparent to Hegesippus (i.e. that Jesus' death was more likely the reason). As Doherty points out, it is quite strange, within the context of an historical Jesus, that such a belief would arise amoung Christians.

If both Josephus and Hegesippus are talking about the same James, I would consider the former to be more credible and the latter to, at the very least, include a great deal of Christian "elaboration".

Hegesippus' story does not make Josephus' alleged use of "Jesus, called Christ" any more credible.

Amaleq13

The first thing I notice is that none of the examples include references to brothers. Wasn't placing a reference to the father before the son kind of a tradition? These don't really help establish that the phrasing of the short reference is not unusual. Examples of other "brother first" references would. Instead, the only "brother" reference you offered seems to support spins' contention:

b) Wars, II, XII, 8 "After this Caesar sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to be procurator of Galilee, and Samaria, and Perea ..."

This is entirely consistent with what spin claims we should expect but the opposite of how the short reference is worded.