mithy73

Where did Eusebius get his information from? I read somewhere that they apparently left Jerusalem in 66, but there wasn't a citation.

Ben C Smith

Because in the first 2 books of the Wars Josephus covers the same ground that he covers in about 8 books of the Antiquities. The 2 books of the Wars must be, then, very much abbreviated.

Theudas is another individual who merits a mention in the Antiquities but fails to appear in the Wars. So is the Samaritan.

Ben.

Phlox Pyros

Good question. I do not know if there are earlier references. Perhaps someone else does.

jjramsey

What you haven't shown is that the first book in the Jewish War wasn't meant to be an accounting of the historical circumstances that led up to the war, and that thus we should expect to see stuff unrelated to that leading up, such as Jesus' ministry and death. If you want to argue that Jesus' ministry and death was related enough to that lead-up to be worth a mention in Jewish War, you will have to show evidence of why we should think that it was so.

For the sake of argument, I'll note but otherwise overlook that you are moving the goalposts from discussing why Jesus should have been mentioned in the Jewish War, which looks like a discussion relating to why Josephus would choose to say something about a particular itinerant preacher in that work, to a discussion of what members of a new religious movement did that related to that war.

Anyway, Christianity grew primarily among the Gentiles, and they weren't in a position to get involved in the conflict. Of course, Christians saw the fall of Jerusalem as a sign of the impending apocalypse, as we see in the discourse in Mark 13. There is no reason, though, to expect that Josephus would be privy to that understanding any more than we'd expect Tacitus or Pliny to do so.

Ben C Smith

Those are good points, Andrew. I shall rethink my (admittedly tentative) position that Origen was confusing Josephus and Hegesippus. Perhaps they both made parallel assumptions, with no real dependence between them.

Ben.

aa5874

Since Josephus was a Jewish historian and he wrote that Jesus was the Christ, would he not have devoted volumes to the most unprecedented phenomenon, Jesus the Christ. Any historian worth his salt would have killed just to document such historic happening since it was foretold by the prophets.

Let us assume Josephus actually wrote that Jesus is the Christ, then Josephus did not know that Jesus was not a Jew and had no link to David (a prerequisite to be the Messiah). Jesus was the Son of the Holy Ghost. Josephus erred, Jesus cannot be the Christ.

Secondly, Jesus is reported to have died before restoring the Jewish nation and the rebuilding of the Temple, Josephus , as a Jew, would have been aware of that criteria. Jesus cannot be the Christ.

Thirdly, there is absolutely no prophecy about any person that fits the life and actions of Jesus anywhere in the Old Testament. The Angel Gabriel never informed one single Priest of the imminent birth of Jesus, unlike the way he handled the birth of John the Baptist.
Josephus was a Jew, he must have known about the prophecies. Jesus cannot be the Christ.

If Josephus wrote that Jesus is the Christ , then he erred. If the words were forged, then the writings are in error. In any event, Jesus will still be a fraud.

rlogan

blah blah hlah...evade owning up to the statement you started with, which is easily falsifiable "logic"

Happy to remind you of your statement once again, and stick to that subject for which I have not strayed since my first post to you:

Why is Jesus not mentioned in the Jewish War...?

I have repeatedly falsified the implication here with counterexamples.

I don't have to do a damned thing other than show you are wrong.



*yawn*

This is what, the third time you've trotted out the straw man now?


Straw man, fourth time.

Heh. Can't do better than this?


Hey jjramsey - I know! Why don't you trot out your old straw man a few more times in your response?

spin

Isn't it interesting, Andrew, that the phrase in Origen's work which is being used as evidence that he knew Josephus was the one which we had already been debating about as spurious before we started considering Origen? Isn't it interesting that there is nothing in what Origen wrote about James that would suggest he had ever read AJ 20.9.1, especially as he references the wrong book?

Although I don't understand your use of "doubtful" in the above, I can understand the questioning of the connection. And I must admit my statement on the connection was too forceful.

and never shows explicitly any direct knowledge of Josephus. Our problem with Hegesippus in this instance is that we only have the excerpt presented by Eusebius. He does share with Origen the same logic regarding James, which is missing from Josephus.

As I said above the shared knowledge about James's death being thought to be the cause of the destruction is a sufficient connection. (Not a phrase that you cannot show to have been derived by Origen from Josephus.)

This is not an argument at all. It's hardly surprising that Origen would make a connection between James and Jesus. Is it strange to insert a legomenos in "Jesus is christ", when Mt 2:23 inserts an equivalent klhQhsetai "will be called", where Jdg 13:5 simple elicits the verb to be? 1 Sam 21:2 has a legomenw where there is nothing calling for it in the original. There is nothing out of the ordinary to derive "brother of Jesus called christ" from Hegesippus with someone as expansive as Origen.

Clearly this seems to be conjecture unrelated to AJ 20.9.1. Where in this passage involving the doings on Ananus in the turnover between Festus and Albinus, do you find anything to suggest your claim? All you find is that some of the "most equitable" citizens, those less likely to break the laws, disliked what was done.

Or less likely. You need to establish that Josephus had a good opportunity to know something about Jesus.

No. I'm using Simon to show the Jewish approach to false messiahship.

Judas the son of Hezekiah is seen by many scholars today as a messianic figure who had a substantial impact in the early struggle against the Romans, yet Josephus was highly critical of him, as he was with Theudas, another messianic figure. His approach regarding them, which reflects that of the case regarding Simon, is what one would expect if he'd heard of this Jesus called "christ", a term which he assiduously avoided.

To Jews the claim that a dead Jesus was the messiah would have been farcical, were it not for the undermining of god's authority by insulting the notion of his messiah. Jesus as messiah would have made no sense to a Jew. There is nothing messiah-like about someone who is dies executed as a criminal without the liberation of god's people. Jesus simply doesn't fit the bill. It was a misnomer to call him the messiah. The term has simply been redefined. Had Josephus known that such a person were called christ, he would have treated them as he did Judas and Theudas.


spin

mithy73

Thanks Ben. I haven't gotten around to reading Antiquities yet (I'm still on Book 3 of Wars). It's still a bit odd though - in Book 2, Josephus lists a number of sects extant at the time (Pharisees, Sadducees and two different groups of Essenes) but as far as I can tell, no Christians (or even Nazarenes, unless they're the "other Essenes" he was talking about). And we're led to believe that the Christians had a presence in Jerusalem, had been growing in numbers between 30 and 66, and at some point in this period were subject to persecution (unless Nero's pogrom failed to make it as far as Judaea), and the Christians were still allowed in the synagogues prior to the War IIRC (but apparently decided to bow out of direct involvement in it). Maybe it's not that significant, but I just wondered.

andrewcriddle

On the point of whether Josephus references the wrong book.

The Ante-Nicene fathers translation of Origen's commentary on Matthew Book 10 ch 17 has about Josephus on James whereas Whiston's translation has I don't have access to the Greek here, does anyone know which translation is right ?

If Whiston's is right it would be stronger evidence for Origen knowing something like our text of Book 20 chapter 9 than would the other translation.


20.8.5 to 20.9.6 has a general theme that the transgressions of the Jews and in particular the High Priests and other temple personnel, were a cause of the fall of Jerusalem. See particularly 20.8.5 and 20.9.4.

For a Christian reader this message that oppression by the Hgh Priests caused the fall of Jerusalem would be likely IMO to be distorted to say that the judicial murder of James by the High Priest caused the fall of Jerusalem

Andrew Criddle