JoeWallack

JW quoting Carrier:
"What about that obscure textual variant? Finegan's only source for this claim is a mysterious, unpublished speech given by David Beyer.[17.3]"


JW:
This Apologetic article gives more background on Beyer's original report:

http://www.ctsfw.edu/events/symposia...6steinmann.pdf

"In 1995 David W. Beyer reported to the Society of Biblical Literature his personal examination in the British Museum of forty-six editions of Josephus’ Antiquities published before 1700 among which twenty-seven texts, all but three published before 1544 read “twenty-second year of Tiberius,” while not a single edition published prior to 1544 read “twentieth year of Tiberius.” Likewise in the Library of Congress five more editions read the “twenty-second year,” while none prior to 1544 records the “twentieth
year.” It was also found that the oldest versions of the text give variant lengths of the reign for Philip of 32 and 36 years. But if we allow for a full thirty-seven-year reign, then “the twenty-second year of Tiberius” (A.D. 35/36) points to 1 B.C. (1 year B.C. + 36 years A.D. = 37 years) as the year of the death of Herod.41

41 Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 301, §518. Beyer’s report is David W. Beyer, “Josephus Reexamined: Unraveling the Twenty-Second Year of Tiberius,” (Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature: November 19, 1995),"


JW:
So the title of Beyer's talk was "Josephus Reexamined: Unraveling the Twenty-Second Year of Tiberius", exactly the same as the reference in the Book. Maybe it was published in the book, or maybe it was just referred to. Only one way to find out for sure (I've ordered it).

The point here is you are using Beyer as an argument from Authority to doubt the dating of Herod the Great's death to 4 BCE. Carrier though points out that the conCensus of Authority is Josephus originally wrote "twentieth year of Tiberius". Carrier also explains why the consensus of Authority is Josephus originally wrote "twentieth year of Tiberius".

To coin a phrase, so to speak, do you even know who Jerry Vardaman was? God knows what he "saw" in Beyer.


JW quoting Carrier:
".Second, all scholarly editions agree: the word for "twentieth" (eikostô) exists in all extant Greek manuscripts worth considering."


JW:
Of course not. It looks like there are even more Greek manuscripts with 22 than 20. But what counts is quality and not quantity, right?

Generally I think it's more likely that any ancient writer including Josephus made more false claims, unintentional and intentional, than the average person thinks. Not a problem for me since I Am a Skeptic. But for someone who thinks that we should just assume that anything written 2,000 years ago is true...

It's possible that Josephus did originally write 22 here. But even if he did, since all the other information still points to Herod the Great dying in 4 BCE, wouldn't it be more likely that Josephus simply made a mistake here, rather than this being correct and all the other information being wrong?


Joseph

STORY, n.
A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

spin

As I said, Beyer gives names without citing the texts. Thanks for supporting my point, praxeus. We don't even know what language the individual text was written in, Latin or Greek. If Greek, is it a retranslation from Latin? So much for citing text.


spin

spin

The only way you can get here is to avoid much of the evidence.

1. Luke talks about a registration, not an oath. These are not the same and require different terminology. The oath of loyalty to Caesar in AJ 17.2.4 (17.42-44) is similar to the oath of loyalty to Herod in AJ 15.10.4 (15.368-370): one cannot infer anything more than what it says: it's an oath of loyalty, notwithstanding what someone writing 400 years later says.
2. Luke talks of a registration under Quirinius, not Varus or any other person.
3. Luke specifies that Quirinius was governing Syria at the time, which eliminates any other time before his appointment. That time was 6 CE.

The arguments that you have acquired, such as this ramble about the oath, are from people who are willing to distort the original text so that it means anything but what the words in concord say, in order to escape the confines of the problem that the original words lead to. You've seen this sort of thing numerous times and have been guilty of it yourself (eg gowra). One cannot resolve a problem by falsifying the data.


spin

the_cave

FWIW, I think maybe the real question here (whether people realize it or not) is: what did Luke have in mind when he wrote the Birth Narrative? Was he thinking of the oath-taking, and confusing it with the census, or was he thinking of the census, and confusing it with the oath-taking?

spin

I don't see how one can connect oath taking to Luke at all. Can you make the connection? because I can't see it there. Besides, how does an oath of loyalty motivate going back to one's town of origin?


spin

Jack the Bodiless

I think Luke was thinking of the 6 AD census, because he needed a plot device to get Joseph and Mary "of Nazareth" to Bethlehem. He was trying to reconcile contradictory traditions. Compare with Matthew's Jesus (born in Bethlehem "to fulfil the prophecy") and John's Jesus (born in Galilee and NOT Bethlehem, despite an expectation that he should be: "out of Galilee ariseth no prophet" (John 7:52)). John was written later, but it's a pretty clear indication of a problem that needed "solving" somehow.

Of course, it's still a stretch to say that a census would require this sort of journey: but it's even more of a stretch to suggest that an "oath-taking" would. Luke did the best he could with what he had.

judge

Yes I tend to agree. Why did he word itnthe way he did?
Why did he mention the "first". Why include this word?
Why wouldn't he just say it was the census that occurred when Quirinius was govenor of Syria?

Casper

I have a question about years in Josephus and other texts.

Does Josephus use a strictly solar year?

judge

If the people enrolled or registered during an oath taking then the connection is easy to see.

judge

Who, do you imagine, would have been retranslating a Latin text back into ancient greek?