Chris Weimer

Yep. You and Stephen are right. My apologies.

Amaleq13

I don't know if it is a question of "must always" but it appears to be true that Josephus never uses this structure anywhere else and identification by brother is rare, in general.

You might have a point if that was how the phrase read but it clearly includes the grammatical antecedent.

Without an example of Josephus actually varying from this practice, your doubt appears to have no basis.

jjramsey

The fact that if you lop off "a man of Gischala" from the phrase "a man of Gischala, the son of Levi, whose name was John," you get a phrase with a similar structure to "the brother of Jesus called Christ, whose name was James" suggests that the latter is not so obviously un-Josephan. The lack of a grammatical antecedent to "the brother of Jesus called Christ" is interesting, but the force of it depends on expecting Josephus to never vary his constructions even slightly, which is an expectation more befitting of a robot than a human being, which is why I doubt the force of the grammatical objection.

yummyfur

The event that Seutonius talks about Chestus, is in Claudius's reign, not Nero's, and it is in regard to expelling Jews from Rome. He does mention Christians being punished in Nero's reign, but does not seem to associate them with the fire at Rome. Seutonius uses the term Christians, not Chrestians in this comment about them in Nero's reign.

Amaleq13

...absolutely nothing with regard to understanding how Josephus wrote or what is "compatible" with how he wrote.

Speculation about implied robotic tendencies notwithstanding, to my knowledge there is no other example of this peculiar structure anywhere in the works of Josephus.

Hence, my question to Stephen about how the language in the short reference can be understood as "compatible" with Josephus.

andrewcriddle

One possible explanation of the way Josephus refers to James is that he is assuming an audience who will have some sort of knowledge of who Jesus called Christ is, but no knowledge whatever about James.

IE the primary identifier is 'the brother of Jesus called Christ' with the fact that his name was James being a piece of secondary information.


Andrew Criddle

jjramsey

Partial similarity between two texts purportedly by the same author suggests absolutely nothing?

And that would be meaningful if the structure were a radical departure from Josephus' usual style, rather than a more slight variation.

S.C.Carlson

You're right, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. For people less familar with the material, your clarification should be more helpful than my cryptic comments.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

On the question of modifying what every surviving manuscript reads (conjectural emendation), textual critics have required a fairly burden of proof. Paul Maas, in his short little book Textual Criticism, p. 11, states: Maas, p. 12, also warns: In the case of the shorter reference, though it is singular in some respects, it is not something that Josephus could not have written or written different, if some form of the Testimonium that mentions both Jesus and Christians is genuine. I agree that, if the entire Testimonium in Book 18 is spurious, then the shorter reference in Book 20 ought to be considered anomalous and be removed by conjecture.

However, what the singularity of the shorter references means for us is that it is not independent evidence for the whole of the longer reference. They stand or fall together.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

That's a good point.

Stephen