Freethought & Rationalism Archive

PhilosopherJay · 09-17-2011, 11:15 AM

Thanks to AndrewCriddle and AA5874 for pointing out my mistake about Eusebius not referring to the James passage in Book 20. This proves once again that one should not write posts around midnight when one is exhausted and not thinking clearly.

On the other hand, the thought that led me to the conclusion that Eusebius could not have mentioned the Josephus passage in book 20 along with the contradictory death description passages in Clement and Hegesippus.

Eusebius, in his Hegesippus account tells of scribes and pharisees 1) suddenly getting angry at a speech by James defending Jesus, 2) throwing James from the summit of the temple, 3) stoning him, and 4) a fuller killing him with a staff.

Eusebius, In his Clement account, says that "the Jews" 1) frustrated by Paul being sent to Rome) 2) got James to deliver a speech about Jesus, 3) suddenly killed James when he defended Jesus, and 4) this was done at the time after Festus had just died. Eusebius adds that Clement also said that "he was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple, and was beaten to death with a club" [Church History 2:23.3].

Eusebius then puts in his account of Josephus' description of the death of James:

Quote:

21. And the same writer records his death also in the twentieth book of his Antiquities in the following words: But the emperor, when he learned of the death of Festus, sent Albinus to be procurator of Judea. But the younger Ananus, who, as we have already said, had obtained the high priesthood, was of an exceedingly bold and reckless disposition. He belonged, moreover, to the sect of the Sadducees, who are the most cruel of all the Jews in the execution of judgment, as we have already shown.

22. Ananus, therefore, being of this character, and supposing that he had a favorable opportunity on account of the fact that Festus was dead, and Albinus was still on the way, called together the Sanhedrin, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ, James by name, together with some others, and accused them of violating the law, and condemned them to be stoned.

23. But those in the city who seemed most moderate and skilled in the law were very angry at this, and sent secretly to the king, requesting him to order Ananus to cease such proceedings. For he had not done right even this first time. And certain of them also went to meet Albinus, who was journeying from Alexandria, and reminded him that it was not lawful for Ananus to summon the Sanhedrin without his knowledge.

24. And Albinus, being persuaded by their representations, wrote in anger to Ananus, threatening him with punishment. And the king, Agrippa, in consequence, deprived him of the high priesthood, which he had held three months, and appointed Jesus, the son of Damnæus.

Whereas the killing of James is a sudden spur of the moment thing done by scribes and Pharisees in reaction to James' defense of Jesus according to Eusebius-Hegesippus, and a sudden spur of the moment thing done by "The Jews" in reaction to James' defense of Jesus according to Eusebius-Clement, it is a deliberate attempt by the High Priest Ananus to get rid of a rival by bringing charges against him in front of the Jewish High Court - the Sanhedrin.

As DC Hindley pointed out, it is apparent that Christians have confused passages in Josephus about the death of the high Priest Ananus with passages about the death of James Damneus, the brother of the High Priest Jesus Damneus.

This shows that early Christians played around with the text of Josephus in the same way that they played around with the the text of the Hebrew scriptures to get a certain queer reading that in some way promoted their mythology.

We have only to figure out now the order of the changes.

The main mark of the Josephus James interpolation is that it took passages having nothing to do with the Jesus of Nazareth stories and changed them into being a reference to them.

We may assume the same methodology in the TF. Whatever was written there originally by Josephus had nothing to do with the Jesus of Nazareth stories.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

TedM · 09-17-2011, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

We may assume the same methodology in the TF. Whatever was written there originally by Josephus had nothing to do with the Jesus of Nazareth stories.

This would be an argument in favor of a 'clever interpolator', would you agree?

Toto · 09-17-2011, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Christopher Price wrote an interesting article on Bedes site http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm that provides a number of evidences for the partial interpolation theory for the TF, which by implication can also be seen as against complete silence. ...

Price used to post on these boards as Layman (Bede posted as Bede and later under his own name as James Hannum.) You can find his posts in the archives. He wasn't very persuasive then. He is a lawyer by profession, not a historian or a neutral observer.

Quote:

. .
Unless we know how Price came to that conclusion we cannot say that he is being impartial. He may well have studied the methodology of the scholars and determined it is for the most part sound. If that is the case, then their-and his conclusions are extremely valuable. I do not know that this is the case.

Price identifies himself as a Christian apologist. That means that he starts with his conclusion, and looks for support. He did not study the methodology of neutral scholars; he just adopted the methodology of apologetic scholars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christopher Price
Josephus' writings cover a number of figures familiar to Bible readers. He discusses John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, Pontius Pilate, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, the High Priests, and the Pharisees.

Which, of course, may only provide evidence that the gospel writers used Josephus as a source.

Quote:

Appropriateness of context

As a sentence providing a context for which Josephus might also mention Jesus, I have no problem with this comment by Price--esp since the overwhelming majority of historians would not question its accuracy. In addition, the placement of the TF is the perfect context for an account of Jesus in all of Josephus' writings, as it is in a discussion about disturbances between Pilate/Romans and the Jews, mostly having to do with the desecration of the temple (which led to Jesus' arrest in the gospels).

Have you surveyed historians on this?

The placement has been recognized as a bit odd by most commentators.

Quote:

...
Linguistic evidence

In my mind, the more clever the forgerer would have to have been, the less likely that there was one. While it may be true that a forgerer could have mimicked Josephus, the argument implies that a single forgerer would have to have been very good at producing the 'partial passage' and very lousy at mimicking Josephus in the other parts. It clearly argues against a 'scribal gloss', and it argues against a 'dumb forgerer'. This is a strong argument against a 'whole cloth' TF.

This makes no sense. If the forger was Eusebius, he was clever; but he also didn't need to pretend to be accurate or to try to fool a document examiner. He was writing what he thought should be in Josephus, and who was going to object?

Quote:

The statement in question was "He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles." An interpolator would have had to be quite clever to have said this since it doesn't match the gospel accounts. However, what would it gain a Christian to have cleverly written something that was pro-Jesus yet anti-Christian tradition? The level of 'cleverness' here is completely unnecessary, and strikingly opposite those who saw no need to try and be clever--those who put in obvious Christian (not-Josephean) references to Jesus, such as 'he was the Christ'.

As Ken Olson has pointed out, this statement is entirely in line with Eusebius' writing, even if it does not match the story in Acts.

Quote:

...
This seems to miss the point being made. If a later Christian interpolator who believed in a historical Jesus made up the TF whole-cloth, it would have been unlikely for him to not refer to the JTB passage in Josephus, due to the strong connections between JTB and Jesus in the gospels. All four gospels start out with this connection. JTB, who was the fulfillment of OT prophecy as the 'one who will prepare the way', testified that Jesus was the Christ (implied in the synoptics, and explicit in Gjohn). The silence is more easily explained by a pre-existing text, to which an interpolator added a few choice phrases, than one created whole-cloth.

That preexisting text need not have been about Jesus. But there is no need to assume that an interpolator would have recounted the entire gospel story.

Quote:

..
Sure, some things happen only once, but that doesn't address the evidence presented against that being the case here.The evidence elsewhere in Josephus and Philo does not support blatant Christian scribal tampering . . . .
nothing in the JTB account, or any other places that suggests massive invention. James, Peter, Paul, the day of Pentecost, Jesus' prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, and the persecution of Christians--all of these Christian titans and stories could have been added in. NONE of this was added into the text. Conclusion: Christian interpolators were not in the habit of butchering Josephus to serve their theological purposes. The evidence favors a lessor offense (partial embellishment--possibly even scribal notations), over a graver offense--whole cloth invention. This same argument would also favor one interpolation over multiple interpolations.

If Christian scribes did not rewrite Josephus completely, that still does not show that they could not add a reference to Jesus invented from whole cloth.

Christians valued Josephus for his dramatic stories of the Jewish War, which they believed showed that YHWH had removed the Jews as his favorite race. They didn't need to make massive interpolations.

Quote:

...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

The passage is used by Christians in modern times as a defense of Jesus' historicity. It does not follow that it could never have had any other purpose in ancient times. The existence of other purposes is proven by the fact that Eusebius and others did quote it in contexts where Jesus' existence was not at issue.

He is not referring to the final TF here. I don't find this argument very compelling. Someone could have just felt there was a need to have something about Jesus that sounded historical. The question is whether that person would have written the passage that contains the Josephean phrases, or something else.

The existence of Jesus in the modern sense was not an issue in classical times, so the interpolation would not have been aimed at establishing that.

Quote:

Concluding thoughts: The evidence presented by Price is quite convincing against the 'whole cloth' TF theory.

I don't find it at all convincing.

Quote:

It appears that Doug would agree that the TF was not interpolated whole cloth by the same person due to a number of the evidences presented (please correct me if wrong). ...

The idea of two interpolators is a little bizarre. I think it is just your strawman.

Stringbean · 09-17-2011, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

All the speculations about what a Christian interpolator would write and not write is really futile.

The Church and its writers claimed "Antiquities of the Jews" was authentic and that Jesus was born of the Holy Ghost.

Examine the words of "Origen" in "Commentary on Matthew" X.17

Quote:

..... Now those who say so wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end, so that that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word which said, The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you, Luke 1:35 might not know intercourse with a man after that the Holy Ghost came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her.....

The very Origen who implied that "Antiquities of the Jews" was authentic also stated Jesus was BORN of the Holy Ghost as found in gLuke.

The authenticity of "Antiquities of the Jews" has ZERO relevance to the nature of Jesus as shown by Church writers that simultaneously claimed Jesus was FATHERED by a Ghost and that Josephus did write "Antiquities of the Jews".

Quote:

The Church and its writers claimed "Antiquities of the Jews" was authentic and that Jesus was born of the Holy Ghost.

Eusebius adovcated fraud in the interest of faith.
Had been known to tamper with Josephus works and many other writers works as well.He uses this passage in Evangelical Demonstration Book (3) page 124:

Quote:

"Certainly the attestions I have already produced concerning our saviour may be sufficent. However, it may not be amiss, if, over and above, we make use of Josephus the Jew for a further witness."

Josephus:
!st Century Jewish historian Josephus
Famous work "The Antiquities of the Jews."
Made no mention of Christ.
Church felt he should recognize Christ..
The only reference is a forgery.
200 years Church fathers were familiar with his works.
Knew nothing of the celebrated passage.

Had the forged passage been in the works of Josephus which they knew people such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and Clement of Alexandria would have thrown it at their Jewish opponents.
Forged passage did not exist.
Origen who knew Josephus well expressed that he had not acknowledge Christ.

TedM · 09-17-2011, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Christopher Price wrote an interesting article on Bedes site http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm that provides a number of evidences for the partial interpolation theory for the TF, which by implication can also be seen as against complete silence. ...

Price used to post on these boards as Layman (Bede posted as Bede and later under his own name as James Hannum.) You can find his posts in the archives. He wasn't very persuasive then. He is a lawyer by profession, not a historian or a neutral observer.

All I remember about 'Layman' is he had a thread in which he showed a huge number of items in Paul's epistles that were consistent with Acts. The forum, if I recall correctly, was highly impressed at the time.

Quote:

. He did not study the methodology of neutral scholars; he just adopted the methodology of apologetic scholars.

You seem quite smug on this point. Almost as if you know it to be true.:grin:

Quote:

Originally Posted by toto

Quote:

...
Linguistic evidence

In my mind, the more clever the forgerer would have to have been, the less likely that there was one. While it may be true that a forgerer could have mimicked Josephus, the argument implies that a single forgerer would have to have been very good at producing the 'partial passage' and very lousy at mimicking Josephus in the other parts. It clearly argues against a 'scribal gloss', and it argues against a 'dumb forgerer'. This is a strong argument against a 'whole cloth' TF.

This makes no sense. If the forger was Eusebius, he was clever; but he also didn't need to pretend to be accurate or to try to fool a document examiner. He was writing what he thought should be in Josephus, and who was going to object?

If part of being 'clever' is not in making it look authentic then I don't know what you think was so clever about one interpolator. Nor do I see why anyone would think that a TF carefully constructed to sound like something Josephus would write should contain phrases that are completely out of character with Josephus like "if it be lawful to call him a man" and "he was the Christ". Maybe you can clarify how this makes sense to you.

Quote:

As Ken Olson has pointed out, this statement is entirely in line with Eusebius' writing, even if it does not match the story in Acts.

Does Ken point to evidence that Eusebius thought Jesus had a Gentile following? If so, I would agree.

Quote:

...
This seems to miss the point being made. If a later Christian interpolator who believed in a historical Jesus made up the TF whole-cloth, it would have been unlikely for him to not refer to the JTB passage in Josephus, due to the strong connections between JTB and Jesus in the gospels. All four gospels start out with this connection. JTB, who was the fulfillment of OT prophecy as the 'one who will prepare the way', testified that Jesus was the Christ (implied in the synoptics, and explicit in Gjohn). The silence is more easily explained by a pre-existing text, to which an interpolator added a few choice phrases, than one created whole-cloth.

That preexisting text need not have been about Jesus. But there is no need to assume that an interpolator would have recounted the entire gospel story.

I was referring to the 'entire gospel story'? wow. Josephus didn't reference other items that would comprise the 'entire gospel story'. But he did write a fair amount about JTB . That's the reason it would have been tempting to reference JTB. It would have been natural to do so, and have added credibility due to the appearance of internal consistency.

Quote:

..
If Christian scribes did not rewrite Josephus completely, that still does not show that they could not add a reference to Jesus invented from whole cloth.

Christians valued Josephus for his dramatic stories of the Jewish War, which they believed showed that YHWH had removed the Jews as his favorite race. They didn't need to make massive interpolations.

Once they knew of TF they referenced it. Once they knew of JTB they referenced it. Once they knew of James they referenced it. These show an interest in using Josephus to corroborate more than just the removal of Jews as his favorite race.

Quote:

The idea of two interpolators is a little bizarre. I think it is just your strawman.

Strawman? I'm just going where the evidence takes me, but clearly from the kinds of responses you have given here we see the evidence quite differently.

Toto · 09-17-2011, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Price used to post on these boards as Layman (Bede posted as Bede and later under his own name as James Hannum.) You can find his posts in the archives. He wasn't very persuasive then. He is a lawyer by profession, not a historian or a neutral observer.

All I remember about 'Layman' is he had a thread in which he showed a huge number of items in Paul's epistles that were consistent with Acts. The forum, if I recall correctly, was highly impressed at the time.

You do not recall correctly. Layman attempted to show that Acts and the Pauline letters were independent corroboration of underlying historical events. I went through his points and showed that there was evidence that the author of Acts did have access to the Pauline letters and had deliberately attempted to contain them and undermine their theology.

Quote:

You seem quite smug on this point. Almost as if you know it to be true.:grin:

I spent years here debating Layman.

Quote:

In my mind, the more clever the forgerer would have to have been, the less likely that there was one. While it may be true that a forgerer could have mimicked Josephus, the argument implies that a single forgerer would have to have been very good at producing the 'partial passage' and very lousy at mimicking Josephus in the other parts. It clearly argues against a 'scribal gloss', and it argues against a 'dumb forgerer'. This is a strong argument against a 'whole cloth' TF.

This makes no sense. If the forger was Eusebius, he was clever; but he also didn't need to pretend to be accurate or to try to fool a document examiner. He was writing what he thought should be in Josephus, and who was going to object?

If part of being 'clever' is not in making it look authentic then I don't know what you think was so clever about one interpolator. Nor do I see why anyone would think that a TF carefully constructed to sound like something Josephus would write should contain phrases that are completely out of character with Josephus like "if it be lawful to call him a man" and "he was the Christ". Maybe you can clarify how this makes sense to you.

I don't think that the interpolator (probably Eusebius) was trying very hard to convince anyone that the interpolation was genuine - because he didn't have to.

Quote:

Does Ken point to evidence that Eusebius thought Jesus had a Gentile following? If so, I would agree.

His point was that Eusebius emphasized Christians and Jews together.

Quote:

I was referring to the 'entire gospel story'? wow. Josephus didn't reference other items that would comprise the 'entire gospel story'. But he did write a fair amount about JTB . That's the reason it would have been tempting to reference JTB. It would have been natural to do so, and have added credibility due to the appearance of internal consistency.

Once again, you appear to think that the interpolator was trying to commit forgery. I don't think that the interpolator thought in those terms.

Quote:

Once they knew of TF they referenced it. Once they knew of JTB they referenced it. Once they knew of James they referenced it. These show an interest in using Josephus to corroborate more than just the removal of Jews as his favorite race.

So you agree the TF probably didn't exist until it was referenced?

Quote:

The idea of two interpolators is a little bizarre. I think it is just your strawman.

Strawman? I'm just going where the evidence takes me, but clearly from the kinds of responses you have given here we see the evidence quite differently.

I don't think you have made an independent evaluation of the evidence, especially if you start with an amateur apologetic site like Bede's.

Peter Kirby has a much more thorough and unbiased consideration of the evidence - he actually changed his mind several times on this issue, so I don't think he started with the conclusion that he wanted.

mountainman · 09-17-2011, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I don't think that the interpolator (probably Eusebius) was trying very hard to convince anyone that the interpolation was genuine - because he didn't have to.

What precisely do you mean by the statement "Eusebius (as a probable interpolator) didn't have to convince anyone"?

TedM · 09-17-2011, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I don't think that the interpolator (probably Eusebius) was trying very hard to convince anyone that the interpolation was genuine - because he didn't have to.

Oh really? How do you know this? Wasn't he commissioned to do his work? In any case, this doesn't even try to address the question of why in the world he would go to so much trouble to mimic Josephus (the 'clever' part)?

Quote:

Does Ken point to evidence that Eusebius thought Jesus had a Gentile following? If so, I would agree.

His point was that Eusebius emphasized Christians and Jews together.

If he didn't say that Jesus had a Gentile following, then Ken Olsen is simply speculating. He needs to be able to show why Eusebius would seemingly contradict the gospels with regard to Jesus' followers. I haven't read Ken's report so have no further comments until I do so.

Quote:

I was referring to the 'entire gospel story'? wow. Josephus didn't reference other items that would comprise the 'entire gospel story'. But he did write a fair amount about JTB . That's the reason it would have been tempting to reference JTB. It would have been natural to do so, and have added credibility due to the appearance of internal consistency.

Once again, you appear to think that the interpolator was trying to commit forgery. I don't think that the interpolator thought in those terms.

Even if forgery was not his intent, it would have been tempting to reference other relevant material--especially when this and the passage about James were the only other material that would have been very relevant.

Quote:

Once they knew of TF they referenced it. Once they knew of JTB they referenced it. Once they knew of James they referenced it. These show an interest in using Josephus to corroborate more than just the removal of Jews as his favorite race.

So you agree the TF probably didn't exist until it was referenced?

I wasn't saying that, nor trying to imply it.

aa5874 · 09-17-2011, 11:40 PM

The authenticity/non-authenticity argument for the writings of Josephus is a NON-SEQUITUR argument to determine the historicity of Jesus called the Christ.

And it is clearly evident since BOTH Church writers and HJers are claiming that the writings of Josephus are authentic but make the complete OPPOSITE claim about the nature of Jesus called Christ.

It simply does NOT follow that if Josephus writings are authentic that Jesus did exist or was the Child of a Ghost.

Authenticity is NOT directly related to historicity.

Whether or not Plutarch wrote "Romulus" both Remus and Romulus are still considered myths.

Toto · 09-18-2011, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I don't think that the interpolator (probably Eusebius) was trying very hard to convince anyone that the interpolation was genuine - because he didn't have to.

Oh really? How do you know this? Wasn't he commissioned to do his work? In any case, this doesn't even try to address the question of why in the world he would go to so much trouble to mimic Josephus (the 'clever' part)?

I doubt that he went to any trouble to mimic Josephus. He naturally picked some some Josephan language from reading him. But he was guided by either the "holy spirit" or politics, and did not contemplate a literary or forgery expert examining his work. It was a later 20th century scholar who separated the text into the Josephan and non-Josephan parts.

There is an alleged Prayer Book of George Washington. It doesn't read like Washington's words. Whoever wrote it did not seem to care, and the people who claim that Washington wrote it do not seem to care, although the experts are not persuaded.

Quote:

.... I haven't read Ken's report so have no further comments until I do so.

You would do well to refrain from any comments until you do. If you join the JesusMysteries yahoogroup, there is a copy in the file section, or you can find it in a library.

"Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (1999): 305-322

Quote:

So you agree the TF probably didn't exist until it was referenced?

I wasn't saying that, nor trying to imply it.

So you say.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

09-17-2011, 11:40 PM	#19
aa5874 Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: the fringe of the caribbean Posts: 18,988	The authenticity/non-authenticity argument for the writings of Josephus is a NON-SEQUITUR argument to determine the historicity of Jesus called the Christ. And it is clearly evident since BOTH Church writers and HJers are claiming that the writings of Josephus are authentic but make the complete OPPOSITE claim about the nature of Jesus called Christ. It simply does NOT follow that if Josephus writings are authentic that Jesus did exist or was the Child of a Ghost. Authenticity is NOT directly related to historicity. Whether or not Plutarch wrote "Romulus" both Remus and Romulus are still considered myths.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.