SqueezetheShaman

I did utfse but didn't really get a succint answer to this, so please forgive the redundancy. I know Josephus is discussed a lot in here.

I was on another forum discussing whether jesus in fact existed, and brought up why I didn't believe so. Josephus' writings, the lack of anything else secular, besides tacitus pliny, seutonius and how they speak of christians, not christ in general, the pagan beliefs prior to his time that seemed to come before etc, etc, and a poster is really riding my ass over my stating that Josephus' writing in testimonium flavianum is deemed a forgery. Saying that it isn't debated, and only the fringe "crazies" dispute it.

Can anyone elaborate for me, and specifically, I want to know, is this really a fringe belief, or is it mainstream? Am I really wrong? Has the debate that has gone on for 5 centuries really settled down now in favor of not being a forgery? I am in no way a scholar, but read on this topic a lot out of my own curiosity, and from my research it seems to be obvious, and thought about this forum, since I have really been in awe in the past of the knowledge y'all collectively have. Knew you all could help The poster hasn't contradicted me with facts, simply zealously calling me a liar and saying I am mistaken.

:huh: any advice appreciated. at this point I am just aggravated at the complete blatant ad homs and repeatedly calling me a liar and stupid, so need a bit of help.

I'll tell ya what, once those christians paradigms are questioned, they turn insane, don't they?

Toto

Practically every secular scholar and most Christians believe that at least some of the Testamonium is forged. The idea that there is a substratum that can be recovered that is not forged has a lot of adherents, and is probably the majority position today. The most prominent Josephan scholar that I have read (Steve Mason) equivocates - says that parts are definitely forged, parts may be genuine, but there is no really sure way of recovering the genuine words from the forged text.

Peter Kirby's essay is the most comprehensive look at the question:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html

but that is from 2001, and Peter tends to revise his views periodically.

Artemus

Whenever I see this come up I like to point out that the only argument I've seen presented that the Testimonium is partly genuine is that it is less obviously a forgery if certain parts are ignored. There is no legitimate evidence for the "recovered" Testimoniums (Testimonia?), at least that I've seen. This would be considered laughable in most any other area of scholarly investigation. However, the standards in this area seem to be exceedingly low.

Ben C Smith

There is legitimate evidence for a recovered testimonium. There is (A) evidence triangulated from the Emmaus incident in Luke and the passage about Nero and the Christians in Tacitus and (B) textual evidence for the absence of one offending phrase and the mitigation of two other offending phrases within the testimonium itself. (Agapius and the Religious Dialogue support the absence of if indeed it is fitting to call him a man; Jerome and Michael the Syrian support the mitigation of he was the Christ; Agapius again supports the mitigation of the line about the resurrection.)

Ben.

fatpie42

How about the fact that Josephus writes absolutely TONS on John The Baptist. If John The Baptist truly came only to herald the coming of Jesus then wouldn't Josephus have written a little more on Jesus?

Jesus was supposed to be this great figure who came into Jerusalem on a donkey to crowds of people laying palm leaves before him. How would you miss something like that and instead say simply that there's a man going about that some people call 'the Christ'. Besides how does that even tell us that it was Jesus he was talking about? Weren't there several people claiming to be messiahs around that time?

ApostateAbe

Not tons. Only about a page, twice as much as what was written about Jesus.

2. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him.

Antiquities of the Jews, Ch. 5

Artemus

Your third link repeats the claim that it is less obviously forged if you delete some of the passages. The second link says that since Tacitus listed some of the details that are included in the Testimonium, Tacitus must have read the details from a version of the Testimonium that included only those details and not the others. This is nothing more than idle speculation that would not be considered a serious argument in any more mainstream scholarly areas. The first link tries to make a stastical argument between Luke and the Testimonium. A badly performed statistical analysis can be formulated to prove anything. But even accepting that it was done properly, all it would prove is that the author of the Testimonium was familiar with Luke, not an unlikely proposition if it was a later forgery. If anything, that is an argument against the recovered Testimonium. The conclusion of the author that it would prove that Josephus and Luke used the same, earlier, Christian document as a source is again idle speculation that would not be taken seriously in almost any other discipline.

The Testimonium is tainted evidence. The burden of proof is on those who claim that useful information can be extracted from the tainted evidence. Speculation is fine, but the arguments presented are not nearly conclusive. And yet scholars have drawn conclusions on the recovered Testimonium. That indicates very low standards.

Amaleq13

Writing as one who tends to consider the entire passage a forgery, I think a compelling case for reliance on a proto-Lukan source is offered. However, I have one question and a three-part concern.

Question: If we assume that Josephus originally included a clarifying phrase like "They report...", wouldn't it belong at the beginning of the account rather than at the beginning of the last sentence?

Concerns (IIUC the following is what you are arguing to be original):

And there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, <edit> for he was a doer of paradoxical works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure, and many Jews on the one hand and also many of the Greeks on the other he drew to himself. <edit> And when, on the accusation of some of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first loved him did not cease to do so. 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. And even till now the tribe of Christians, so named from this man, has not gone extinct.

The three phrases in red are referred to by Crossan as "characteristically Josephan" and he bases this on the fact that they can be found elsewhere in his writings. However, those other uses are precisely what cause me concern. Josephus calls Solomon and David "wise", refers to Elisha's miracles in the same way, and never uses "tribe" in reference to a religious movement.

I suppose one could argue that it is simply a coincidence of vocabulary that he applied the same adjectives he believed to accurately describe highly respected figures in Jewish history to a man we all agree he would not have placed in the same category but the unique use of "tribe" remains problematic in my view.

Any thoughts?

Johann_Kaspar

And? No conclusion at all can be drawn from that. A forger will not forget to use "characteristically Josephan" words... Xian are PhD forgers. And it is not the only Josephus text they forged or edited.

Ben C Smith

Yes, repeats it precisely in order to dismiss it:

It must be emphasized, however, that [cutting out the offending phrases and retaining only what is left] is only cogent and rational. It was arrived at without the benefit of textual evidence. The method used to arrive at this conclusion was simply to stare at the paragraph for a long time, then cut out what does not look like what a Jewish historian would have written. (Rather like my uncle, a wood-carver, telling me how to carve a duck out of a block of wood: Just cut out everything that does not look like a duck.)

I am a great believer in approaching problems from a textual perspective.

The second link (A) explains the famous Tacitean mistake between procurator and prefect with reference to the generic Josephan leader, (B) lines up Tacitus with Josephus beyond just the testimonium, and (C) demonstrates that no detail in Tacitus (except information dealing specifically with the city of Rome) exceeds the bounds of the information given in Josephus.

A rebuttal of these arguments is in order, not a dismissive gloss.

I submit that no position that Adolf von Harnack endorsed should be dismissed as idle speculation. It is a serious argument, and it deserves serious consideration.

Given Luke and Josephus alone, yes, a forgery based on Luke is by no means ruled out.

Yes, it is. No one is denying that.

Correct.

The manner in which you dismissed the third link on incorrect grounds and the second link on inadequate grounds suggests to me that you are still in the preliminary stages of appraising these arguments, and not yet in a position to dismiss them as speculation.

Ben.