S.C.Carlson

Thanks for your fine explanation, Ben. I just have one addendum. There are, actually two additional middle term scenarios:

3. The testimonium was the basis for Tacitus but was made using the Luke Emmaus report.

4. The testimonium was the basis for the Luke Emmaus report but was made using Tacitus.

Of the additional scenarios, number four is the virtually impossible. I agree with you that number one is also pretty unlikely.

Deciding between numbers two and three depends mostly on how you come out on the larger question of dependence between Luke and Josephus. which is still an open question for me pending further serious investigation. That said, number two currently seems a bit more probable to me than number three.

Stephen

Vorkosigan

Great post on the TF, Ben.

Now that you have raised some structural parallels, can you identify any linguistic ones?

I think you've neglected (3)

3. Luke was basis for TF, which was basis for Tacitus.

and also (4).

4. Luke was basis for both TF and Tacitus.

How can we choose between them? For Carlson and you both identify structural parallels. Any forger is likely working off of an exemplar. Goldberg found the exemplar. Here's the problem:

I think here you have just proved that the forger depended on Luke. Since two of the phrases are found in Luke but Josephus cannot have written them, Luke cannot be depending on Josephus for them. Otherwise you have to posit a strange forger how inserted the phrases in both Luke and Josephus. Hence, Josephus must here depend on Luke. But since Luke dates from after Josephus, QED the TF is a forgery.

I think you've done it, Ben.

Michael

Chris Weimer

Michael - Having Luke as the basis for both the TF and Tacitus posits too early a date for the interpolation to occur, in my humble opinion. Not only would the TF have to have happened within a span of a mere fourteen years, but that we would expect that Tacitus would have had a copy of that manuscript. Unless, of course, you posit that Tacitus has been altered... That issue does need to be readdressed and settled first then.

Ben C Smith

1. ...if indeed it is proper to call him a man.
2. He was the Christ.
3. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, the divine prophets having related both these things and countless other marvels about him.

Those are the three phrases that Meier excises. I doubt anyone would disagree that what is left of the passage after this surgery could have been written by a Jewish historian. The question, of course, is whether it actually was written by one. That is why I am in search of a textual basis.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Quite right. In the interest of brevity I took some inexcusable shortcuts (another of which was my omission of your explanation of the Tacitean mistake on the office of Pontius Pilate). But I doubt Chris or Vork will be tempted to run with number 3, and number 4 seems stretched.

I have a ton of questions about the relationship between Josephus and Luke... and only a couple of ounces worth of answers so far. Oh, well. If it were easy, I probably would stop pursuing it.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Thanks, Michael.

The Lucan prophet-man looks like a direct answer to the Josephan wise man.

Also, the interrupting Lucan verses in 24.22-24 are a clean break; lift them out and one would never miss a thing.

And Goldberg has this to say about the phrase third day (emphasis his, not mine):

A third day. In Christian doctrine, Jesus' resurrection occurred "on the third day," a key expression in statements of belief. The prevalent form uses the preposition "on," with "third day" the object of the preposition; in Greek, en triti himei.

But this is not the form in either Josephus or Luke. In these, "third day" is the object of a verb, and not a preposition. It's grammatical form is consequently the accusative case, triten hemeran. The verbs -- Josephus "having", Luke "spending" or "passing" -- are synonyms here, for in Greek literature echon and agein are used interchangeably when denoting the passing of time.

Yet the New Testament does not use this verbal form. Either the prepositional or nominative is used throughout, with Luke being the sole exception. As for other Christian literature, we can again search the TLG database. This time, the computer is asked to search for the phrase the third day in the accusative case, or indeed any combination of triten and hemeran within three or four lines of each other. The results are revealing: Luke's Emmaus passage and the Testimonium are the only two texts using the resurrection third day as object of a verb in all of ancient Christian literature.

Yes, I left this and one other option out. I do not think you are interested in this one, though.

I think that the testimonium being a middle term between the other two pretty much rules this one out. One would have to explain the agreements between Josephus and Tacitus.

Those two phrases cannot have been original to Josephus as they stand, but I think they were original to Josephus in the form in which we find them in Agapius (for the third), Jerome (for the second), and the patriarch Michael (ditto).

As long as these legitimate textual variants are available, one cannot make the argument that Josephus cannot have written anything along the lines of the second and third controversial phrases.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Yes, the surrounding material.... I admit there are some mysterious things to be accounted for there. There is much work to be done on Luke and Josephus all around, I think. It would probably make for a good thesis topic.

Ben.

Vorkosigan

Is there some place where Josephus and Tacitus agree against Luke (hey! the MiniSynoptic tradition! Soon to be followed by the mini-Q and the Mini-Major and minor agreements!)? it seems to me that anywhere Tacitus agrees with Jos, he must automatically agree with Luke.

Vorkosigan

Julian

I am assuming that most here are aware of this page: http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS/contAn1.htm

I find a number of faults in his methods but it is interesting nonetheless.

Julian

Ben C Smith

Josephus and Tacitus agree against Luke in naming Pilate (Luke of course has Pilate in the passion account, but not in this passage), in specifying the Judean origins of the sect before immediately mentioning its wider appeal (Luke has only before God and all the people), in noting the continuity between the original sect and its surviving form, and in explicitly stating (quite needlessly, it would seem) that the Christians derived their name from Christ.

Josephus and Luke agree against Tacitus in telling what kind of man Jesus was (Tacitus says only that he was the author of the sect), in dividing his activities up into words and deeds, in mentioning the third day, and in linking it all to the prophets.

Tacitus and Luke agree against Josephus in... well, I cannot find any real agreements against Josephus. That makes Josephus the middle term, and in fact implies (but does not prove) the relative independence of Tacitus and Luke.

Also, I know you have not yet pulled out your big guns on the issue of a double interlocking forgery (Tacitus and Josephus), but consider that the passages as they stand in the two histories push in diametrically opposite directions: Josephus casts Christ and the Christians in a favorable light, Tacitus in as unfavorable a light as possible. In fact, when comparing our various testimonia it is apparent that Tacitus looks a lot more like Pliny in stance and attitude than Josephus.

In other words, what kind of ancient Christian would ever compose what we have in Tacitus?

Ben.