David Deas

It is well known that the passage in Book 20, chapter 9 contains the phrase "Jesus called (the) Christ", or "Jesus (the) aforementioned Christ", or "Jesus (the) said Christ", or however one prefers to translate it. The issue I'm interested in and have come to ask about is the complete scholarly argument for its authenticity.

As the issue presently stands, the majority of scholars think the reference to Jesus in 20.9 is authentic. However, although not all critics and scholars, most informed scholars and critics are well aware of the problem created by the suggested authenticity of this passage.

Indeed, John Meier describes:

Second, once we have decided that the reference to "the brother of Jesus-who-is-called-Christ, James by name" is an authentic part of the text in book 20, some earlier reference to Jesus becomes a priori likely. Significantly, in Ant. 20.9.1 Josephus thinks that, to explain who James is, it is sufficient to relate him to "Jesus-who-is-called-Messiah." Josephus does not feel that he must stop to explain who this Jesus is; he is presumed to be the known fixed point that helps locate James on the map. None of this would make any sense to Josephus' audience unless Josephus had previously introduced Jesus and explained something about him.[38] Of course, this does not prove that the text we have isolated in Ant. 18.3.3 is the original one, but it does make probable that some reference to Jesus stood here in the authentic text of The Antiquities --John Meier

Earlier in the publication, Meier had to say of the authenticity of 20.9:

Not so easily dismissed is a reference to James, the brother of Jesus, in book 20 of The Jewish Antiquities. This short passage occurs in a context where Josephus has just described the death of the procurator Festus and the appointment of Albinus as his successor (A.D. 62). While Albinus is still on his way to Palestine, the high priest Ananus the Younger convenes the Sanhedrin without the procurator's consent and has certain enemies put to death. The key passage (Ant. 20.9.[Section 200]) reads: "Being therefore this kind of person [i.e., a heartless Sadducee], Ananus, thinking that he had a favorable opportunity because Festus had died and Albinus was still on his way, called a meeting [literally, "sanhedrin'] of judges and brought into it the brother of Jesus-who-is-called-Messiah [ton adelphon Iesou tou legomenou Christou], James by name, and some others. He made the accusation that they had transgressed the law, and he handed them over to be stoned." -- John Meier

Robert Van Voorst also describes:

"An overwhelming majority of scholars holds that the words 'the brother of Jesus called Christ' are authentic as is the entire passage in which it is found. -- Robert Van Voorst

Voorst later goes on to add, in reference to 18.3:

Leaving aside the issue of how intelligible this statement ["He was the Christ"] would be to Josephus' gentile audience....Josephus uses "Christ" only of Jesus, here and in 20.9.1, and does not explain the title to his Roman readers despite the difficulty they had understanding it. -- Robert Van Voorst

Louis H. Feldman writes:

That, indeed, Josephus did say something about Jesus is indicated, above all, by the passage - the authenticity of which has been almost universally acknowledged - about James, who is termed the brother of "the aforementioned Christ."-- Louis H. Feldman

Feldman adds:

We may comment, however, that it is hardly in character for Josephus to mention someone, especially someone with such a curious surname as Christos (the only one with that title in all of Josephus), without describing the implications of this word or giving an anecdote to illustrate it. The fact that Josephus does not add any such explanation would seem to indicate that he had already informed the reader about him....we may reply that it would hardly be in character for Josephus to mention someone as Messiah without describing the implications of this word or giving an anecdote to illustrate it. -- Louis H. Feldman

To a degree, this recognition leads an interdependent relationship between 20.9 and 18.3, whereby scholars fit into four distinct categories.

John Meier explains:

If we judge this short passage about James to be authentic, we are already aided in the much more difficult judgment about the second, longer, and more disputed text in The Antiquities, the Testimonium. Amid the myriad hypotheses, four basic positions can be distilled: (1) The entire account about Jesus is a Christian interpolation; Josephus simply did not mention Jesus in this section of The Antiquities. (2) While there are signs of heavy Christian redaction, some mention of Jesus at this point in The Antiquities--perhaps a pejorative one--caused a Christian scribe to substitute his own positive account. The original wording as a whole has been lost, though some traces of what Josephus wrote may still be found. (3) The text before us is basically what Josephus wrote; the two or three insertions by a Christian scribe are easily isolated from the clearly non-Christian core. (4) The Testimonium is entirely by Josephus.

With a few exceptions, this last position has been given up today by the scholarly community. The first opinion has its respectable defenders, but does not seem the majority view. Most recent opinions move somewhere-within the spectrum of the second and third positions. It is perhaps symptomatic that among sustainers of some authentic substratum (plus Christian additions, changes, and deletions) are the Jewish scholars Paul Winter and Louis H. Feldman, the hardly orthodox Christian scholars S. G. F. Brandon and Morton Smith, mainline Protestant scholars like James M. Charlesworth, and Catholic scholars like Carlo M. Martini, Wolfgang Trilling, and A.-M. Dubarle. --John Meier

The different reconstructions of 18.3 floating around scholarship are too numerous to bother listing.

John Meier's reconstruction, for example, reads:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians has not died out. --John Meier

Now. The question.

So the thinking here goes that 20.9 is authentic at least partially because of 18.3, which is in turn authentic at least partially because of 20.9. This leaves the judgment of authenticity of either passage interdependent. Without 20.9, we are not quite so compelled to reconstruct 18.3. And without 18.3, 20.9 is a back citation to a non-existent passage.

So far, so good.

The challenge I'm having difficulty with when analyzing their arguments is that, for the most part, these hypothetical reconstructions do not address the issue of the term "Christ" being undefined for Josephus' audience. The term nevertheless remains undefined even in their reconstructions. To a Greek audience, 20.9 would read "Jesus called (the) ointment", or "Jesus (the) said ointment", "Jesus (the) aforementioned ointment". This nonsensical literary quagmire is the reason for the alleged back citation in the first place. So it is expected that in scholarly reconstructions Josephus someplace explains the term to his audience. However, we do not typically find that to be the case (no doubt partially because they're relying on 'trim down methods' to edit an already existing passage).

In some literature that may have escaped my gaze, perhaps it might have been argued that the term is implicitly defined? How can that be? If it is taken into consideration that Josephus himself would have understood the Messiah to be a figure similar to Vespasian rather than a crucified preacher, the description of the term "Christ" is also not implicitly defined by Josephus in any of these reconstructed back citations.

What is the scholarly rebuttal to, or position on this?

References:

Jesus in Josephus: A modest proposal. By: Meier, John P., Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Jan 1990, Vol. 52, Issue 1.

Jesus Outside the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk) (2000) -- Robert Van Voorst.

Josephus, the Bible, and History (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1989) -- Louis H. Feldman, Gōhei Hata.

Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1987) -- Louis H. Feldman, Gōhei Hata.

mountainman

See Mythicist Essay - A summary for the case against both references is made at MYTH No. 3: Ancient historian Flavius Josephus wrote about Jesus. The minor "James" reference is generally perceived as the embellishment of a scribal margin note. (See the Essay Myth #3). Neither may be considered "authentic" to Josephus in the long run.

"A rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too",

--- Bishop Warburton of Gloucester, 1762.

The Testimonium Flavianum: A chronological summary of Censure

Eusebius Forged the TF: An article by Ken Olsen

Making Fruit Salad of the Testimonium Flavianum:
"Is the TF the genuine apple?"
"Is the TF the genuine lemon?"
"Is the TF the genuine orange?"

"A rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too",

--- Bishop Warburton of Gloucester, 1762.

show_no_mercy

I agree that if 20.9.1 is authentic, then the TF at 18.3.3 also has to be authentic. Most scholars think that the TF is inauthentic, but if it is then the Jesus introduced at 20.9.1 is even more ambiguous.

The biggest problem, as you've pointed out, is that Josephus never writes the term ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ except for the two times that he just so happens to be talking about the Jesus of Christianity. But in Antiquities, Josephus numerous times (3.8.3; 6.5.4; 6.8.1; 7.14.5; 7.14.10; 9.6.1; 9.7.2; 19.4.1) describes how Jews in positions of leadership are anointed with oil. Contextually (as in, in all of Antiquities) the reader would think that "Jesus called [noun form of 'to anoint']" was a leader of some sort.

I think that these two passages should be considered interpolations based on language; simply due to Josephus never referring once to any of the other anointed Jews as "anointed one". Arguments are made that "Christ" was a proper name when Josephus wrote, but this is without any evidence. The LXX was still in use in liturgy when Josephus wrote and the LXX has multiple characters titled "christ" or "anointed one"; many of the same people that Josephus writes as having been anointed with oil. On the other hand, "Chrest[us]" was a somewhat common name and is only one iota difference in Greek.

Possibly, 20.9.1 mentioned some combination of Chrestus and James (possibly "James called Chrestus" i.e. James the Just) and a Christian scribe corrected it to read "the brother of Jesus called Christ..."

Razncain

Even though it's an older work, I still think Remsberg's arguments are valid. You probably are familiar with it, but if not, John Remsberg’s “The Christ” is worth checking out, in particularly the chapter entitled: Silence of Contemporary Writers which he devoted quite a few pages to Jospehus.

David Deas

Well yes. I'm generally familiar with the debate about the authenticity of Josephus' work when discussing Jesus. The part I'm not familiar with is the very tail end of the scholarly arguement.

They say 20.9 has to be a back citation to 18.3 because "the ointment" is nonsense to a gentile audience. But even in their reconstructions of 18.3, no place is this "ointment" nonsense suitably addressed. That's where I'm struggling.

mountainman

"They" may not be infallible.

That's where "their" argument struggles.
The two references are just as likely interpolations.
The interpolator has already been identified by many commentators.
Even Emperor Julian refers to Eusebius as "wretched"

neilgodfrey

All alternate TF proposals, Meier's included, miss the context and thematic thread that ties together all of the episodes in Antiquities (particularly books 18-20).

The TF, however reconstructed, does not explain how Jesus or his followers has anything to do with “the history of the Jews”, or their relevance to any of the themes that are elsewhere fleshed out in all the narratives of Josephus.

When Josephus tells readers about Judas and Sadduc, or Theudas or “that Egyptian” (both in Book 20), or any of the other Jewish trouble-makers or Jewish notables in Book 18, in every single case Josephus is discussing the workings of God and the natural outcomes of adhering to or violating the laws and nature of God. Sometimes gentiles are the heroes or villains, but the Jews are always centre stage because of their special contribution to the human race -- that is, their most noble of philosophies and laws that originated with Moses.

The TF is about Jesus and Christians for their own sakes. That is unlike any other anecdote of Josephus. (I have discussed each of the anecdotes related by Josephus in Books 18-20 in a series of posts, particularly this one, demonstrating this, I think.)

The TF is different from these other anecdotes in that it tells us about Jesus in a self-contained bubble. He did this, he did that, he was treated this way, and some thought this about him, and here we see his followers around us today.

There is no connection with the demise or suffering of the Jewish people. Nor is there any relevance to the piety of the Jews in the way they courageously or nobly adhered to their customs of their fathers.

It does not even work as a "footnote" equivalent. It is incomprehensible that Josephus could have written such a piece, given that everywhere else he is demonstrating to his readers the piety of his own race and peers in opposing or suffering at the hands of Pilate. They don’t just suffer from Pilate, but they suffer because of their loyalty to Moses who taught them look to the Divine Nature.

Or when Josephus writes to find fault with leaders, it is to demonstrate that their sins are the violation of the ancestral customs of the Jews. It makes no sense to think he would write "neutrally" about a person whose followers parted company with Moses.

The only way we can excuse such a portrayal is to imagine that all the Christians, both Jew and Greek, known to Josephus in Rome and "throughout the word" were anti-Pauline "Judaizers". So much for the epistles of Paul and Clement.

Discussed this in much detail beginning here.

As for the James passage, the best explanation I have seen for this is Doherty's view that most of us here are familiar with I am sure, but which is also summarized here.

Neil

gdeering

Yes, finally close textual reading, with a knowledge of the writer's audience. A classic, and a good question.


Gregg, returning to the peanut gallery.

DCHindley

This has been kicked around here and academic lists such as Crosstalk2 (aka Xtalk) for a while. I think Steve Mason sides, although cautiously, on the side of authenticity of the James reference in Ant. 20:200, although he is open to the idea that the phrase "Jesus the so-called Christ" is a scribal interpolation. While Meier will always come to a safe, uncontroversial conclusion, but does review a lot of alternate positions along the way. I always check his endnotes for an annotated bibliography and his opinion about their relative worth to the question at hand.

In the Septuagint, CRISTOS is found numerous times, but in all cases, except for the instances in Daniel (which I think are references to the high priests in the time of Antiochus IV) and the Odes and Psalms of Solomon (where they refer to Jesus Christ), it clearly refers to either the people of Israel or to the anointed king.*

If the reference to "Jesus the so-called christ" in Ant 20:200 is authentic, it probably does not refer to the Jesus Christ of the Christians. In Josephus' works the term CRISTOS, besides the TF in Ant. 18:63, is only used in Ant. 20:200 (of Jame's brother Jesus) and as an allusion to stucco on Solomon's temple (Ant. 8:137). Unlike the Septuagint translation, Josephus avoids using this term directly.

I have suggested in the past that the anointed ones of Daniel are in fact Cyrus the Great (CRISTOU HGOUMENOU, 9:25) and Menelaus (CRISMA, 9:26), and I think this may also be the position of some professional critics.

What we have kicked around here is the idea that James was brother of a Jesus "who is called anointed [i.e., this Jesus would then be either a former high priest or member of one of the high priestly families]." Perhaps what the most righteous objected to was the fact that this Ananus dared charge and execute a member of a rival high priestly family.

DCH

*CRIW (to touch on the surface: to rub or anoint with scented unguents) Exod. 28:41; 29:2, 7, 29, 36; 30:26, 30, 32; 40:9f, 13; Lev. 4:3; 6:13; 7:36; 8:11f; 16:32; Num. 6:15; 7:1, 10, 84, 88; 35:25; Deut. 28:40; Jda. 9:8, 15; Jdg. 9:8, 15; 1 Sam. 9:16; 10:1; 11:15; 15:1, 17; 16:3, 12f; 2 Sam. 1:21; 2:4, 7; 5:3, 17; 12:7; 19:11; 1 Ki. 1:34, 39, 45; 5:15; 19:15f; 2 Ki. 9:3, 6, 12; 11:12; 23:30; 1 Chr. 11:3; 14:8; 29:22; 2 Chr. 23:11; 36:1; Jdt. 10:3; Ps. 26:1; 44:8; 88:21; 151:4; Sir. 45:15; 46:13; 48:8; Hos. 8:10; Amos 6:6; Isa. 25:6; 61:1; Jer. 22:14; Ezek. 16:9; 43:3; Dan. (Theodotion) 9:24

CRISTOS (to be rubbed on, of persons, anointed) Lev. 4:5, 16; 6:15; 21:10, 12; 1 Sam. 2:10, 35; 12:3, 5; 16:6; 24:7, 11; 26:9, 11, 16, 23; 2 Sam. 1:14, 16; 2:5; 19:22; 22:51; 23:1; 1 Chr. 16:22; 2 Chr. 6:42; 22:7; 2 Ma. 1:10; Ps. 2:2; 17:51; 19:7; 27:8; 83:10; 88:39, 52; 104:15; 131:10, 17; Odes 3:10; 4:13; 14:14, 27; Sir. 46:19; Ps. Sol. 17:32; 18:1, 5, 7; Amos 4:13; Hab. 3:13; Isa. 45:1; Lam. 4:20; Dan. (Lxx) 9:26; Dan. (Theodotion) 9:25

CRISMA (anything smeared on, esp. a scented unguent, whitewash, stucco) Exod. 29:7; 30:25; 35:12, 19; 40:9, 15; Sir. 38:30; Dan. (Lxx) 9:26; Dan. (Theodotion) 9:26

dog-on

Jesus, who is called annointed (a high priest) and referenced by Josephus specifically at the end of that very chapter as Jesus son of Damneus, the new high priest...