Duvduv

So maybe the two versions of the story simply refer to two different Drusillas.

Duke Leto

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By your logic Nero Caesar must be the same as his nephew Nero and Drusus Caesar must be the same as his first cousin once removed... Drusus Caesar. The one was murdered by Tiberius and the other was Tiberius's son who was murdered, CLEARLY confusion about the same person. While we're at it, Tiberius and Claudius must have really been the same emperor! Both were born "Tiberius Claudius Nero", and their father/grandfather must ALSO have been emperor, since he also had the same name!

They're ROMANS! They recycle names like aluminum cans! Felix was actually Marcus Antonius Felix and his brother was Marcus Antonius Pallas. Are they the same person? They only got the "Mark Antony" stamp because they had belonged to Antony's daughter (Claudius's mother).

But NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Can't be right, MUST be that Tacitus and Suetonius were just 3rd century fabrications! (Never mind that Dio Cassius agrees with them on most important points and he actually IS early 3rd Century. (I think.))

What's motivation behind this idiotic hypothesis? You find Josephus offensive somehow? If some Christian writer HAD systematically fabricated Josephus' histories, don't you think he could have gone to the effort of making them a bit more CHRISTIAN? Why would Christian readers even care about the details of the First Jewish War? Christ destroyed the Temple with Titus as his instrument exactly the way he said he would, BAM! All you need to know.

This "solution" raises more questions than it answers.

stephan huller

But he was married to the two Drusillas at the same time:

The story of the marriage to Drusilla Agrippa not only happens at the same time but it shows common features which could only have been written by a Christian. Felix is 'lustful' and uses magic from Simon Magus to entrap Drusilla. This sort of nonsense appears throughout the heretical narratives of the Church Fathers. It is simply not credible historical information. It is a loose retelling of the story in Tacitus adapted with stock characters from the heresies.

The only reason scholarship accepts this nonsense is that the story appears in the 'holy' book of the Acts of the Apostles. But the idea that the author of Acts copied the forged Antiquities of Joseph is more likely than Tacitus got the information wrong. Isn't it? Or I am expecting too much from people?

He only ruled in Judea for about eight years at most. How is any of this believable? Two marriages to princess of the same name where he is described as 'lustful' and 'barbaric.' My God.

James The Least

The whole of Josephus are corrupted texts. People like to focus only on the TF because they desperately need a "first century Jewish historian" to be a reliable witness on contemporary events, and like to pretend that only one paragraph in his work was ever so slightly tampered with. The scenes in "The Jewish War" where the Josephus character tells the brave resistance forces that they have betrayed the traditions of their ancestors reads exactly like Stephen's speech to "the Jews" in Acts.

stephan huller

But the important thing I am trying to show here is that this wasn't simply added to a first century original. This was fundamental enough (and earlier enough) that the author of Acts took it as credible history (or tried to make it so by including in another 'first century' text = Acts). My feeling is that the early Catholics were trying to reshape history with all these 'first century' witnesses. The same thing helped reshape the cult of Apollonius of Tyana in the third century.

The Empress Julia Domna just 'discovered' a disciple of Apollonius had written a previously unknown hypomnema. The same thing happened with Luke and Josephus a generation and generations earlier.

Tenorikuma

At this point, it seems more plausible that there were two Drusillas than that Josephus in its entirety is a late forgery. I don't see the problem. Not every coincidence is a conspiracy.

stephan huller

So where is evidence of this other Jewish princess named Drusilla outside the Christian tradition?

stephan huller

And why is a 'conspiracy' to assume that the author of Acts improperly used a source to invent an event that never happened? Do you honestly believe that Felix hired Simon Magus to make a non-existent Jewish princess to fall in love with him? Now Simon Magus is a historical figure too?

Tenorikuma

No need to get excited. I have no idea if there's any other evidence for Drusilla, and I don't think Josephus was above making stuff up or repeating silly legends.

stephan huller

And I am not suggesting that Josephus was a late forgery. I think that the core text developed from 'Hegesippus's Hypomnemata which is mentioned by Clement and a host of other writers as being written 147 CE (the seventy seventh anniversary of the end of the Jewish War 70 + 77 = 147 CE). How appropriate.