gregor

Has anyone tried to tie in two disparate arguments regarding Josephus and Luke/Acts - and their mutual modifications.

1. I have read of Mason's argument that Luke borrowed from Josephus in writing this gospel.

2. I also think I have read the assertion that Tertullian (or was it Eusebius) modified Luke/Acts to include anti-Marcionite passages.

3. Finally, Olson is proposing that Eusebius wrote the interpolation for the TF.

Could it be that the same person wrote (or modified) Luke/Acts and inserted the Jesus references in TF? Could one person have done all three duties? It would serve three purposes: (i) heavily editing Luke, with the help of Josephus, (ii) inserting anti-Marcionite philosophy, and (iii) revising Josephus to reinforce his prior forgeries.

Layman

Somehow I doubt that Josephus was an expert in "discourse analysis" or thought himself bound by its canons. Of course, since you've laid no foundation for the incredible analytical powers of this "discourse analysis" it really is a moot point. Certainly it does not prove that an often sloppy writer like Josephus must have written with the literary precision you seem to demand. In any event, viewed with some knowledge that ancient writers had these kind of digressions because they did not use footnotes, there really is nothing strange about the inclusion of the TF at this point in the narrative. Nor in how it or its surrounding passages are introduced.

What is telling is that the TF opens with a phrase Josephus typically uses in the latter part of Antiquities to introduce digressions or shifts in direction of the narrative. As Steve Mason explains in Josephus and the New Testament, "[t]he opening phrase 'about this time' is characteristic of his language in this part of Antiquities, where he is weaving together distinct episodes into a coherent narrative." Examples of such usage are at Ant. 17.19; 18.39, 65, 80; and; 19.278.

There is no mystery here. Josephus is describing several events around the same time. Some happened under the reign of Pilate and were calamities. Since he was discussing events during the reign of Pilate he adds a description of Jesus there. It is the most natural place in the narrative for such a description. He notes that it is a digression by introducing it with the phrase "Now about this time." He wants to continue the narrative of events occurring in Jewish history at this time so he notes another change in direction by using the phrase again, "Now about this time, also..." It would not have been natural to list this new "calamity" prior to the TF because it is not linked to Pilate and takes place in Rome, not Palestine. The only link is one of time and the "calamitous" nature of the event.

I might agree that there was some point to this argument if the TF interrupted a list of calamities inflicted by Pilate, but that is not the case. Here is the sequence:

1. Josephus describes how Pilate imposed a calamity by moving pagan troops into Jerusalem with the Emperor's image on their Ensigns. A clear povocation.

2. Then Pilate took money from the Temple to build an aqueduct. Again, a clear provocation.

3. Then he digresses to discuss Jesus' execution. Not a provocation against the Jewish people, but it was an act of Pilate that occurred during this time period. He signals this change in focus by the use of the typically Josephan phrase "about this time."

4. Then Josephus goes on to narrate events that involved Jews that occurred around this time but were not actions by Pilate. He again shifts the change in direction by using the phrase "about this time, also." This event occurred in Rome and involved the Temple of Isis. It had nothing to do with Pilate. In fact, we do not return to Pilate until more than 20 verses later when Josephus tells us of the tumult that befell the Samaritans.

1 and 2 occur during Pilate's reign in Jerusalem, are calamaties for the Jewish people, and were actions taken by Pilate. 3 occurs during Pilate's reign in Jerusalem and was an action taken by Pilate. It was not necessarily a calamity for the Jewish people. 4 occurs during Pilate's reign but not in Jerusalem and not as a result of Pilate's action, but it is a calamity for the Jewish people. There simply is nothing strange about the placement of the TF here, nor the shifts in direction that Josephus clearly introduces. Mason is right. Josephus is just weaving together several different events loosely connected by time and their relation to the Jewish people.

rlogan

The problem again though is that there are so many, many things wrong - not just the disjointed nature of the insertion.

If you take on each item individually - absence of an Origen reference, the gushing over "christ", the ten thousand wonders, etc. - then we can "excuse" each one with an explanation.

But we're dealing with the argument of best explanation for the whole and that would be

...total interpolation...

Layman

Actually, the partial interpolation theory is the best explanation. It explains why there is clear Josephan language and statements that Christians would have been unlikely to make, as well as why there are clearly blatant Christian expressions that can be quite reasonably severed from the whole (thus eliminating the "gushing" and "ten thousand wonders" problems).

As for the lack of earlier references, I agree with the co-founder of the Secular Web for this one:

Assuming that contemporary reconstructions of the passage are accurate, it is difficult to imagine why the early church fathers would have cited such a passage. The original text probably did nothing more than establish the historical Jesus. Since we have no evidence that the historicity of Jesus was questioned in the first centuries, we should not be surprised that the passage was never quoted until the fourth century.

Jeffery Lowder.

spin

One doesn't need to be a lawyer to break the law either.

However, when you see someone crossing with a green light, you would have no qualms in saying that they are obeying the law.

I don't expect you to know anything about it, Layman. Linguistics has never been your field. But if you want to peep out of your sty of contentment for a moment, google "discourse analysis" and you'll find a nice new academic horizon ahead of you.

I demand no precision. I am observing the evidence, unlike you. You have to refuse to look at the linkage between 18.3.2 and 18.3.4 before you can continue your argument. What I have said is that when such linkages exist, you have to take note of them. Please check out how Josephus uses the anaphoric references I noted at the beginning of this thread.

But you demand that when Josephus uses such specific devices, we are not to take him seriously. At least give him the benefit of the doubt while checking him out.

As this is only dealing with half the evidence in vacuo, and Mason was only dealing with the TF and not what followed it, the examples are useless. Although I have already granted two categories of usage for the expression in its various manifestations, in the case under analysis it must be read with the other, rather specific, cohesive device mentioned.

Actually no he isn't. First he describes an event about a calamity which happened to the Jews, then he relates it to another calamity which happened to the Jews, linguistically linking them with the words "another sad calamity put the Jews in disorder". Yet, interposed, is the TF, which cannot be construed as a sad calamity which happened to the Jews, but as an opportunity to give a synthetic witness to the Jesus tradition. The TF is both out of place and disruptive in its present position.

(Does this get a grin for optimism?)

Excuse me, Layman, but Pilate has nothing at all to do with the anaphoric reference in question. Look at it again:

About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome.

Do you see anything about Pilate? No. But you do see at about the same time another sad calamity befell the Jews. About the same time as what? In this case Josephus is clear, at about the same time as Pilate was involved in putting down Jews in Jerusalem. Now, if it was at about the same, we should expect a change in scene, because two things don't usually happen in the same place at the same time with the same protagonists. Lo and behold, true to the cohesive markers (yes, back to discourse analysis), we have a change in venue for about the same time another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome.

The location of the TF is acceptible to the xian interpolater, who is aware that Jesus's death was attributed to Pilate, so anywhere within the section in which Josephus deals with Pilate is acceptible. But, hang on, let's put it in with these calamities which befell the Jews!

Your efforts to make the TF fit in seem not to have taken notice of what Josephus actually said, preferring to opt for Mason instead.


spin

Johann_Kaspar

Probabl?! Guess work. Like that, it is possible to go on and on. For instance, Josephus was describing a Yeshua who was taking military action against the Romans and was crucified for his deeds. Of course such narration would not fit the xian revisionnists. Josephus would have described that Yeshu as a false messiah, because he failed to restore the independance of Israel. Sure you will not like such guess work...

spin

Hopefully a reader will have noticed that I left out a word in one of my final paragraphs. In an effort to prevent any confusion I give the paragraph below with the missing word inserted in bold. (Sorry if this was obvious. I could no longer edit the text.)


spin

rlogan

If one starts with the presumption of an HJ. Then yes. One expects Josephus to at least mention him.

I believe this is the crux of the matter as far as the partial vs. full interpolation goes.

GakuseiDon

Should we expect Josephus to mention Christians as a group? Since he doesn't, should we assume there were no Christians up to 90 CE?

I don't know how it affects the TF, but if Josephus doesn't need to mention Christians, then there would be no reason to mention Jesus.

rlogan

Were they to have been as significant as the gospels claimed, then yes. Speaking before multitudes sufficient to cause the Temple politicos to fear him.
I infer the gospels vastly overstated the case for his alleged following, at a minimum.
In Book XVIII (Ch I) he does discuss four sects of the Jews. The Essens, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and a fourth he accredits to Judas the Galilean. He goes on at length about the rise of this fourth sect:

Such were the consequences of this, that the customs of our fathers were altered, and such a change was made, as added a mighty weight toward bringing all to destruction, which these men occasioned by their thus conspiring together; for Judas and Sadduc, who excited a fourth philosophic sect among us, and had a great many followers therein, filled our civil government with tumults at present, and laid the foundations of our future miseries, by this system of philosophy, which we were before unacquainted withal, concerning which I will discourse a little, and this the rather because the infection which spread thence among the younger sort, who were zealous for it, brought the public to destruction.

.....

These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kinds of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord. And since this immovable resolution of theirs is well known to a great many, I shall speak no further about that matter; nor am I afraid that any thing I have said of them should be disbelieved, but rather fear, that what I have said is beneath the resolution they show when they undergo pain. And it was in Gessius Florus's time that the nation began to grow mad with this distemper, who was our procurator, and who occasioned the Jews to go wild with it by the abuse of his authority, and to make them revolt from the Romans. And these are the sects of Jewish philosophy.


From time to time Josephus mentions troublesome would-be prophets too. He gives lengthy discourse on them.

So Gak - I do find it additionally suspicious that the Christians are not mentioned save for the TF. It does look like Josephus concerned himself with major and minor figures or movements in Judaism over the period, and there was no shortage of them.

So I conclude this is just more evidence for having made the "pedigree" for Christianity up after the fact.