Grog

I know that this topic probably elicits a collective groan. In this thread, I want to explore how historians come to the conclusion that the most likely solution to the problem of the TF in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, 18.3.3 (sorry, I have Whiston, so I still use the old fashioned method of citation) is that an original Josephan reference was later tampered with, perhaps minimally. The discussion I want to consider for a close analysis is that of Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz in their book The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. I am using this discussion because 1) I have it, 2) I think their work as a whole is well-reasoned and, as the subtitle suggests, comprehensive. It is one of the better books considering the evidence for the historical Jesus, in my opinion.

Theissen and Merz introduce three hypotheses related to the TF:

1) The hypothesis of authenticity: that the TF is wholly authentic, the words as written by Josephus.

2) The interpolation hypothesis: the TF is not authentic, but entirely an insertion by a later Christian forger.

3) The revision hypothesis: that our extant TF is the result of an authentic core statement by Josephus that has been tampered with by a Christian editor.

Unfortunately, I do not have the time available to type in huge chunks of their argument. Also, I am not going to include their discussion of the complete authenticity argument. The authors dismiss it as "rarely put forth now." I will accept that. If you have this book, I am looking at the discussion of the TF at pp. 65-74.

Here is a link to the text of the TF, purposely not isolated from the rest of the chapter. You must scroll down to Chapter 3, the third paragraph.

So let's start at the interpolation theory. As the authors write, "Reformed and Lutheran philologists recognized that the Testimonium contains so many clear confessions of Christian beliefs that it could not come from a Jew..." Thus, "it seemed obvious that a Christian copyist must have forged and interpolated the section." They list as "good arguments" for this thesis:

[Below are extracts of more detailed discussion.]

Context: The authors write that "E. Norden has demonstrated by a detailed analysis of the context that the Testimonium is an isolated block that disrupts a carefully constructed whole."

Testimony of the church fathers: "None of the Apologists of teh second and third centuries quotes the Testimonium, though they use Josephus as a source of information about the exegesis of the Old Testament."

Content and language: "At least three statements are so clearly Christian that they cannot be attributed to a Jewish author..." They list the following (summarized here):

"if indeed one ought to call him a man"
"he was the Messiah"
"for on the third day he appeared to them restored to life."

That is the main extent of their characterization of the interpolation hypothesis. The authors quickly dismiss both the authenticity and interpolation theories:

They list the following elements of Josephus' terminology which they believe provides sufficient cause to dismiss the interpolation hypothesis (my summaries here):

1. The designation of Jesus as a "wise man" is not characteristically Christian, but does correspond to Josephus' usage.

2. "accept the truth gladly"--the authors argue that this term is used ironically, like calling them gullible.

3. "He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks."

4. "Pilate...had him condemned to be crucified." The authors argue here that Christians attempted to distance Roman guilt, but here guilt is put on Pilate. [Just a note here: this doesn't seem very far removed from the actual Gospel story, so my opinion is to be very skeptical at the outset on this one.]

5. "and the tribe of Christians" is possibly derogatory.

[Just to point out, the authors actually lay out these terms before discussing the interpolation theory, if you are trying to orient what I am writing with the book.]

The Revision Hypothesis

The authors, already committed now to some form of revision, consider three possibilities, eventually selecting the "neutral and objective" core TF which was later tampered with. I am not going to discuss this in detail because my interest is in the arguments for rejecting the interpolation theory. We already have the arguments put forth for that (also, it's a nice cool day and I want to put some finishing touches on my backyard chicken coop deluxe).

Observations:

1. The authors state that Norden "has demonstrated by detailed analysis" that the TF is an "isolated block." While rejecting the interpolation theory, they never provide an argument against Norden. It appears that they accept that the TF is an isolated block that is not characteristic of Josephus' style. Indeed, they state, "only in the section on Jesus are this topic [calamities] and the key corresponding key words missing." This is a clear indication that this passage in its entirety is an insertion.

2. The reason for dismissing the interpolation hypothesis, based on the terminology which they argue is characteristic of Josephus is questionable.

First, there is an inconsistency in their reasoning that goes unexplained. First, they accept that "a wise man" is characteristic of Josephus, not a Christian, but then regard the statement "who accept the truth gladly" as an ironic term. Clearly, Josephus, being a Jew, would not regard Christian claims regarding Jesus as "the truth." But if he is characterizing Jesus as "a wise man," then why would "accept the truth gladly" be meant in an ironic sense? Contextually, if we accept "wise man" as an indicator that this passage is partially authentic to Josephus, we then must accept that he means it when he says "who accept the truth gladly." Together, these phrases are UNLIKELY to have been written by the Jewish Josephus. For the same reason that one would question the substantial authenticity of the TF, one must reject these terms as being authentic to Josephus.

On the point that "he won over many Jews and many of the Greeks," I really do not see how that particular term could not have come from a Christian. The same is true of the fourth point concerning Pilate, as I stated above. Finally, it has been shown that at least one Christian did use the term "tribe" regularly...Eusebius (I think Jay Raskin deals with this in his book...am I right about that?), but Josephus only uses it as an ethnic designation, which "Christians" would not be (as we see even within the TF they are referred to as Jews and Greeks).

So on each point that Theissen and Merz use to justify their rejection of the interpolation theory, there are substantial questions regarding their reasons. On one of the major arguments for interpolation, Norden's demonstration that the TF is an "isolated block," the authors never address. On the third point, they accept, and so accept the excision of the offending language. However, as I have argued here, some of the language they use to reject interpolation can actually be used to defend interpolation.

My view of this is that Theissen and Merz failed to make a strong case for rejecting interpolation. There might be other, better arguments, but here, the case for revision fails. In my opinion, the simplest explanation is that the TF is an insertion in its entirety. It best explains the available evidence as laid out by Theissen and Merz. Arguments in favor of the revision hypothesis (at least this argument) fails to account for all the evidence (evidence that the TF intrudes as an isolated block in a "carefully structured whole), and can be easily explained:

--the forger of the TF emulated Josephus' style.

Ok, time is ticking and I have to get the rest of this roof up.

outhouse

He was roman and a jew, and jews considered him a traitor. he was more hellenistic then jewish and its seen in his writings.


BUT we have this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

The earliest secure reference to this passage is found in the writings of the fourth-century Christian apologist and historian Eusebius, who used Josephus' works extensively as a source for his own Historia Ecclesiastica. Writing no later than 324,[49] Eusebius quotes the passage[50] in essentially the same form as that preserved in extant manuscripts. It has therefore been suggested that part or all of the passage may have been Eusebius' own invention, in order to provide an outside Jewish authority for the life of Christ.[51][52] However, it is also possible that others, including the third-century patristic writer Origen also knew of the passage. Although Origen makes no direct reference to the Testimonium, scholars such as Louis Feldman and Zvi Baras have presented arguments that Origen may have seen a copy of the Testimonium and not commented on it for there was no need to complain about its tone.[53][54]

Of the three passages found in Josephus' Antiquities, this passage, if authentic, would offer the most direct support for the crucifixion of Jesus. The general scholarly view is that while the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus with a reference to the execution of Jesus by Pilate which was then subject to interpolation.[11][12][13][14] James Dunn states that there is "broad consensus" among scholars regarding the nature of an authentic reference to Jesus in the Testimonium and what the passage would look like without the interpolations.[15] Among other things, the authenticity of this passage would help make sense of the later reference in Josephus Antiquities of the Jews Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 where Josephus refers to the stoning of "James the brother of Jesus". A number of scholars argue that the reference to Jesus in this later passage as "the aforementioned Christ" relates to the earlier reference in the Testimonium.[





Not only that, im curious to see if the god -fearers [romans/gentiles worshipping in synagogues but not 100% jewish] considered themselves jewish. [not that it applies here]

Toto

Except that the later passage does not say "aforementioned" or anything similar. It says "called Christ."

Someone needs to update wikipedia.

I think it is clear what this consensus is based on - there is a natural tendency to pick the middle way and reject the extremes, like Goldilocks picking the porridge that was not too hot and not too cold. And there is a natural tendency on the part of those who make their living studying the historical Jesus to find some confirmation outside the gospels of the object of their study.

But, as Steve Mason wrote in Josephus and the New Testament, once you admit that a passage has been tampered with, you can't be sure that you can reconstruct the original.

LegionOnomaMoi

Does the English edition really spell his name like that? Huh. At any rate, the translator (or publisher) seems to have taken some liberties with the title. ein Lehrbuch might be adequately translated as "guide" but even that's a stretch (my edition of Wahrig's Deutsches Wörterbuch has, as the entry for Lehrbuch "Buch für Schulunterricht u. Studium"). It would have been much less misleading just to go with "a textbook."

The reason that each chapter begins with a huge number of references and even the very structure of the book is due to its purpose as a textbook. The book is designed as a fairly thorough review of a large number of topics on historical Jesus studies. Here, as elsewhere, the authors largely just summarize the arguments of others. For the dedicated researcher, this textbook allows her or him a decent sketch of current opinions and the a good list of references to check out. Saying their argument is unconvincing is a bit like opening up a textbook on cosmology, looking at the section on the "big bang", and then saying that it's unconvincing because it fails to adequately deal with whatever cutting-edge version of quantum physics and cosmology you happen to support.



The forger clearly didn't. Otherwise we wouldn't have virtually no proponents of complete authenticity. You can't really look at the result of the revisionist hypothesis and them claim that the use of certain remaining phrases or words are "Josephan" are because the forger deliberately wanted to sound "Josephan." The TF, as a whole, is stylistically different from Josephus. Only certain parts are supposedly characteristically Josephan. This can't be explained by saying the forger "emulated Josephus' style" because why on earth would the forger "emulate Josephus' style" in only a few places?

Grog

The synthesis. Yes, that is exactly what it is. I am interested in the justification of the position. Internally, one must feel uncomfortable arguing a position that has such holes in it. There has to be internal justification to support what one says (unless one is a liar). I think scholars like Theissen and Merz are top rank, so how do they justify accepting a weaker argument.

I have had a conversation with Carrier...his position is that Alice Whealey's own paper discredits the Syriac version of the TF as an independent witness to an alternative version that was revised. The Arabic is reliant upon Eusebius.

Grog

The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (or via: amazon.co.uk)


From the forward (English version):

"This comprehensive guide sets out to present the way in which scholars study Jesus--not only the results they arrive at but also the process by which they acquire their knowledge..."

Since what I was looking at is how scholars arrive at a consensus view, I think this work serves that purpose. Note that, for example, when I critique their rejection of the interpolation theory, they do not cite "most scholars," this does seem to be a judgment made by the authors themselves.


"Otherwise we wouldn't have virtually no proponents of complete authenticity."

With the double negative, it is hard to tell what you are saying. We do have virtually no proponents of complete authenticity. Maybe you can clarify?

I think you are presenting a false dichotomy here.

Either:

--the forger did not emulate Josephus

or

--the forger perfectly emulated Josephus.

I believe there is considerable middle ground to work with here.

aa5874

Why are people here going in around in circles?? The "TF" CANNOT help the HJ argument whether or not it is authentic.

The authenticity or non-authenticity has NO bearing whatsoever on the historical accuracy of the "TF".

The "TF" as it is found claimed it is NOT certain if it was lawful to call Jesus a human being and the Jesus character was SEEN alive after he was supposed to dead.

Clearly, whoever wrote the "TF" was NOT writing history. Jesus could NOT have been really dead and still be alive.

Secondly, It is IMPERATIVE that a 1st century copy of Antiquities of the Jews to be presented because one cannot argue for authenticity from the same QUESTIONABLE Texts.

And finally, based on Origen, the Writings of Josephus MUST have been manipulated because certain statements made by Origen about Josephus are Missing.

The "TF" is a hopeless piece of information for an HJ whether or not it is authentic.

Mandelbrot

You guys can argue anything you want about the TF but the fact remains that ANYTHING between paragraph 2 and 4 is an interpolation.

Read the entire context and that is easily seen.

Toto

I think you overestimate the quality of arguments on the part of top rank scholars in this field.

stephan huller

its like asking a gambler to be objective about gambling