Ben C Smith

The facts of the case as I see them:

1. Origen wrote the words brother of Jesus called Christ in On Matthew 10.17 while discussing what Josephus said about the death of James.
2. Origen wrote the words brother of Jesus called Christ in Against Celsus 1.47 while discussing what Josephus said about the death of James.
3. Origen nowhere else used this phrase, nor is it found as written in any other text before him... except in Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1 §200, discussing the death of James.

Your response, spin, to the facts of the case as I see them:

In the end, textual evidence consisting of a rare phrase found in the same contexts between two writers, one of whom claims to be citing the other, is neither your problem nor your interest.

Well, I certainly do not think so, but at any rate this appears to be the crux of the argument. I am quite happy with the state of the debate as it stands. I believe most of the relevant evidence is on the table, and trust that on its merits the reader can come to his or her own conclusion.

It has been a pleasure, spin.

Ben.

rlogan

Well of course.

My favorite Jesus, the kook running around yelling "woe unto Israel", gets lots of play, as do others. He has no following. He plays no role in the revolt. But he's tortured by Pilate and is let go on account of his relative kooky harmlessness. He's killed by one of the seige engines as the Romans are destroying Jerusalem.

Josephus covers all manner of people and groups in JW, holding the Zealots in special contempt for their instrumentality in the revolt vs. "good" Jews he defends. So the theory that only participants in the revolt will be mentioned is falsified aplenty.

It is of the utmost significance that we weigh in a forged TF alongside a complete lack of any other mention in Josephus' other works and for that matter any other contemporary historians.

What do we say when the only reference is forged?

I guess we invent a hypothetical "original"...

Llyricist

Don't forget the other mention that so many people are quite willing to claim is accepted as genuine by most scholars, though it hangs by a thread at the end of a preposition, and looks exactly like a marginal gloss. And was tacked on to the name of someone that happened to be mentioned previously in the same passage.

Peter Kirby

We should always be so willing to claim what is patently true.

regards,
Peter Kirby

spin

I've been through this with Ben C. and explained my position, ie not that christos is being treated as the divine name, but that, as the messiah is the chosen one of god, misreprepresenting the messiah is a slight on god.

True. A naming act.

Not by the text, but by the commentators. This participle indicates the situation, not that some people called the reference this (in this case not that some people called Jesus the christ), but that was the name of the reference..

The text refers that way, but did Josephus? That's the issue. I think not.

The use of language in Jewish religious contexts was highly controlled. The divine name of god was avoided in text where it was often written as a series of dots, in speech referred to as ha-Shem, "the name", the Hebrew biblical texts from Qumran show that YHWH was used in places where now the MT has adonai. Names that had the theophoric -Baal were corrupted. When Simon was shown to be a false messiah (by dying without fulfilling the task), his messianic name (bar Kochba) was corrupted.

Is blasphemy so hard to swallow? Blaspheming in christianity was highly punishable for several centuries. Thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain. This also applies to the lord's messiah at least in Judaism, given the usage of the term


spin.

rlogan

As far as I'm concerned, the James passage is part of the same forgery.

I suppose one can wonder if these were coincident or if they came at different times.

I see no reason for it to be useful until Eusebius preens around like a drag queen with the TF. Prior to that, there is no mention of either - and there was high motivation to "prove" the gospel. So it would be the same time or later.

Once you have determined that a forgery was introduced in order to "validate" a fabricated history, I don't know how someone can with a straight face come to the James passage and treat it without the highest suspicion - let alone all of the problems we have discussed here at length over the years.

jjramsey

No one was proposing that theory. Rather, I was proposing that Josephus mentioned the people who led up to the conflict. Judas son of Hezekiah, Simon of Peraea, and Athronges the shepherd from 4 B.C.E. were mentioned in the Jewish War, as was Judas the Galilean from 6 C.E. and the Egyptian prophet from 52-58 C.E. All of these, though, actually led violent rebellions. Jesus of Nazareth isn't even in the same ballpark as these guys.

spin

What we find in Origen is that he doesn't know what Josephus actually says about James, conflates the current content with other material twice and doesn't even know the source of the material about James in Josephus's work, attributing it to the 18th book of AJ and not the 20th, where the James passage actually is. It should be apparent that Origen hasn't touched Josephus on the James material, but is relying on other materials.

That's not very fair, Ben C. considering you both misrepresent what I have said by using the following as my main thrust and err in your expansion.

The expansion "[Origen and the interpolater]" is simply wrong. Hopefully a dog and its fleas would see given your previous statement:

My response, "They quite possibly did, but we would differ in the trajectory" has a "they" which refers to "the phrase [in] Origen and the phrase in Josephus". I went on later to add:

Which you didn't take up, happily hanging on to your one possible trajectory.

The implication from you is that I'm not interested in your preoccupations of the exact relationship between the two sources, though you think I should be. I have already stated that I don't think that the exact relationship can be established.

Now the main thrust of what I have argued, beside the fact that Origen gives no sign of knowing what Josephus wrote, is based on the blasphemy by a practising Jew (Josephus) entailed in the misuse of the religio-technical term christos/messiah.

In the end you have failed to show any indication that Origen has read the original text. You just rely on the fact that the current text of Josephus has the one phrase that Origen has. This should be a good indicator to you that the phrase didn't come from Josephus.

As I have pointed out there is nothing strange for Origen to have constructed the phrase "brother of Jesus called Christ", considering Hegesippus has attached "Jesus is the christ" to the James story, so who is James other than the brother of Jesus who is the christ, or called christ. Too much importance is placed on the one phrase against all the rest in the passage which argue against Origen's direct knowledge of Josephus.

Here's basically what I said to Phlox on the subject:

In my mind your reading is certainly stretching the usage of legomenos.

Have fun.


spin

Phlox Pyros

By this, I assume you are saying that when legomenou was used, Josephus was actually naming something, not just reporting how something or someone was named?

There is a spot where someone is called "The Benefactor". Do you believe that Josephus believed this or was just reporting that this person was called such?

My understanding of the word legomenou is like Ben's, and I do not think it is "stretching" the term, that it simply means called. Like Ben has said, someone can be mentioned as being called Christ without actually believing that they were Christ.

I think I read you as saying that even this act would have been verboten for a Jew. I understand the examples of Bar Kokhba's name being changed, but I think the divine names (ie. Baal being changed) are irrelevant. I, personally, wouldn't think that the early Jews would have had that much of a problem with saying that someone was called Christ but was not. Perhaps a check of early Rabbinic literature is in order (for instance, did Rabbinic literature call "Bar Kosiba" a false messiah?), remembering also that Josephus was not writing a religious text but a history of the Jews for Romans.

spin

He was saying what the name was, not what a some people called the reference.

What's the underlying verb?

I knew your position. Would Josephus commit an act analogous to blasphemy? or would he have done what rabbi Yochanan did, correcting the reported view of Aqiba?

Not so. It is emblematic of the linguistic approach which I was trying to clarify. Changing language is a normal approach in Jewish literature to perceived errors or possible acts of breaking the law even by accident. The dots for the divine name were to stop the meturgamen from accidentally pronouncing the name. Do you really think Josephus would called some person he thought had been ignominiously crucified the messiah, ie the saviour of the Jewish people, even in jest?

Your personal thoughts on the matter are conditioned by your 21st century point of view and are irrelevant to the situation we are analysing. Would a priest who had been trained in the laws of Judaism have flippantly used the term christos? All the understanding we have of the religion suggests not.


spin