RUmike

Yes but when Paul says "brothers" elsewhere, he never says they are Jesus' brothers, just simply "brothers". Biological kinship seems to me to be the best explanation for Gal 1:19.

I understand what you're saying. I would need to do some more research on dating of Paul's letters. If they can be dated independently of the gospel accounts and on their own merit, then my opinion stands. Until then, I'm undecided I guess.

Ben C Smith

It certainly implies that the cult was wrong, does it not?

Both Josephus and Tacitus mention that the sect was Judean in origin, and both Josephus and Tacitus immediately turn to state that it had a wider appeal than just within Judaism. How is that a stretch? It is a legitimate parallel. You might disagree with me about the implications of these parallels (maybe they are completely natural), but that they are indeed parallels seems irreducible.

Indeed, the name of the sect is so logically deduced from the name of the founder that to make the connection explicit is unnecessary. Pliny, for example, repeatedly refers both to the Christians he is investigating and to the name of their founder without ever explicitly connecting the two. If Chrestus means Christ in Suetonius, then he too mentions both the Christians and Christ without explicitly making the name connection. Why? Because, as you point out, it is obvious. So why did both Josephus and Tacitus happen to make the link explicit?

This is the kind of unnecessary datum that I like to look for when seeking signs of dependence.

You would prefer that I make a case for Tacitus having copied from Josephus without arguing that Tacitus most likely knew the works of Josephus? Granted, it does not prove anything by itself, but I cannot erect the pillars of my case without it. So it is hardly irrelevant.

I was writing of the information contained in each statement. To expand a bit so as to avoid confusion, the information contained in the passage presently found in Tacitus does not exceed on any side the information contained in the passage presently found in Josephus. Better?

Perhaps my reading was too modern; I do not know. But it will not matter once it is noticed that (the passage in) Josephus presupposes a gap of at least two days between the execution of the founder and the reason for the continued love. It stands to reason that, if the very reason for the continued love had not transpired, the love would not in fact have continued.

First, no evidence that Josephus himself was first? Josephus finished the Antiquities in 93. Tacitus wrote about three decades later. If you really meant the (interpolated?) passage in Josephus I have no idea why you specified Josephus himself.

Second, read my statement again and I think you will agree that this time I got my wording right, since it is indeed true that all that made it into the Annals can be drawn from Josephus. Not should be, but can.

That is true, and I already stated as much when I said that the information in Tacitus does not exceed the information in Josephus (with the exception of the Christians in Rome).

Which would explain why Tacitus would not have copied all that he found in Josephus, who went into more detail than necessary about the actual content of the superstition.

Let me get back to you on direction of dependence.

Ben.

Amaleq13

Do you really think Paul would have considered James to have a "biological kinship" with the risen Christ?

Here's an interesting thread on the subject:

Brother of "kyrios" = brother of Jesus?

You might want to take a look at this thread as a start:

How do we date the Pauline corpus from scratch?

RUmike

Does James stop being Jesus' brother after he dies? Would I stop referring to my mother's mother as "grandmother" simply because she's dead?

Thanks for the links, I will have to read through them later. Right now I find it likely that James was Jesus' biological brother, but I admit I need to do more reading on the subject. Perhaps my conclusion will change. For now though I'm heading into NYC for New Years. Speaking of which, have a great night all of you

Chris Weimer

But that's not gullibility.

No, but arguing that Tacitus must have known the part of Josephus is assuming that the part of Josephus existed before Tacitus. You're assuming the conclusion.

The interpolated passage should be the subject here, not Josephus.

If I hadn't responded to the other parts, it's because I agree so far. But this may be more interesting.

Amaleq13

He still had been the brother of Jesus but it is difficult for me to imagine Paul, given his stated views on the differences between living people and those who enter heaven as well as his veneration of the resurrected Christ, considering him the brother of the risen Lord. It simply makes no sense to me to suggest that Paul would choose to refer to James in this fashion. We are either misunderstanding what he meant or it is not original to Paul.

Do you believe your living grandmother was an "appearance of flesh" taken on by a pre-existent divine entity whom you venerate? If not, then this is not analogous.

Doug Shaver

Assuming for the sake of argument that Jesus of Nazareth was a real preacher of some sort, with a brother named James and some disciples. . . . Pilate for some reason gets spooked and orders his execution. Sometime thereafter, his disciples somehow get it into their heads that rose from the dead, and they start a new religion seeking to convince the whole world that Jesus not only rose from the dead but was actually God incarnate.

How likely is it that Jesus' brother would have been barely an afterthought in that religion's subsequent history? He is barely visible in Christianity's paper trail. Would the discples have treated a man they considered God's own kid brother as just one of the guys?

Ben C Smith

James appears in Galatians as the most influential Christian of his generation (he does not get a lot of airtime in Paul, but there are very discernible reasons for that). He appears (by all appearances) in Josephus. The gospel of Thomas asserts that he is the reason heaven and earth came into being. Hegesippus has an exceedingly hagiographic account of his death. He figures large in the pseudo-Clementines.

I hardly think that James was ever treated as just one of the guys.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

No, because that part of the argument goes to the connection. Now for the direction of influence.

I agree with G. J. Goldberg that there is some kind of connection between Luke 24.19b-21, 25-27 and the testimonium in Antiquities 18.3.3 §63-64. The connection is not principally verbal; it is structural and thematic:

Luke: And they said to him: The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who became [what kind of man?] a prophet-man [both words and deeds] mighty in work and word before God and [the people] all the people, and how [the leaders] our chief priests and rulers delivered him to [crucifixion] a judgment of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that it was he who was about to redeem Israel, but indeed, along with all these things, it is now [three days] the third day since these things happened. [...] And he himself said to them: O fools, and slow of heart to believe upon all the things that the prophets said! Was it not necessary for [messiah] the Christ to suffer these things and [death not the end] enter into his glory? And, beginning from Moses and from all [the prophets] the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things written [about him] about himself.

Josephus: And there was about this time Jesus, [what kind of man?] a wise man, if indeed it is necessary to call him a man, [both words and deeds] for he was a doer of paradoxical works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure, [the people] and many Jews on the one hand and also many of the Greeks on the other he drew to himself. This man was [messiah] the Christ. And when, [the leaders] on the accusation of some of the principal men among us, [crucifixion] Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first loved him did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them [three days] on the third day, [death not the end] living again, [the prophets] the divine prophets having related both these things and countless other marvels [about him] about him. And even till now the tribe of Christians, so named from this man, has not gone extinct.

Now, one could perhaps get away with ignoring the structural parallelism here (the only part out of order is the messiah part), chalking it up to coincidence or the natural flow of things (but, then, if it is so natural, does it appear elsewhere?). However, it is not just a list of parallels that convinces me.

The fact is that quite independently of this passage we have good reason to suspect a connection between Luke and Josephus. I for some time thought that Josephus had copied from Luke, or that both had used some lost writing; I am now leaning strongly in the direction of Luke having known the works of Josephus. It is, moreover, equally true that, as Carlson points out, we have good reason (again independently) to suspect a connection between Tacitus and Josephus (to wit, Tacitus knows the interpretation of the Jewish oracles that Josephus claims he himself revealed to Vespasian, among other things).

Furthermore, Josephus is the middle term between Luke and Tacitus; I do not think that Luke and Tacitus agree, as it were, against Josephus in any detail (and a direct link between Luke and Tacitus would seem odd, at any rate). That Josephus is the middle term is on its own merits compatible with two very different scenarios:

1. The testimonium was made using both Luke and Tacitus.
2. The testimonium was the basis for both Luke and Tacitus.

If we hold to the first, we have to face a scenario in which an ancient forger would have selected two works that look to us as if they used Josephus as a source. I do not think the ancients tended to think in those terms (consider all the patristic testimony to the synoptic gospels that completely ignores the question of literary dependence); such a selection would be a very modern thing to do.

Rather, it seems far more likely to me that Tacitus, whom we can be rather certain knew of Josephus anyway, and Luke, whose dependence on Josephus is becoming more and more attractive to me for completely different reasons, both used the testimonium as a source.

Finally, it is generally agreed that there are three phrases in the testimonium that Josephus just could not have written. Of those three phrases, Luke supports the second and third, while Tacitus supports the second only. But Tacitus probably would not have written out the third at any rate, as you noted, since he would not want to advertise the content of the superstition (the resurrection). Therefore, in broader terms we have support for the second and third but not for the first.

Interesting, then, that there is textual evidence for a different wording for both the second and third phrases. Agapius rewords the third, making the resurrection the subject of a report, not an absolute event. Jerome and Michael the Syrian reword the second, making the messiahship of Jesus the subject of a belief, not an absolute conviction on the part of Josephus. I find it hard to believe that these later Christian authors intentionally toned down the wording of the testimonium at a time when nobody was questioning the testimonium. Rather, it seems more likely to me that this more conservative wording (Jesus was thought to be the Christ, they reported that he was alive again) was original, and the equivocations were later removed by Christian copyists.

Well, that is my story, and I am sticking to it. At least until you shoot it full of holes.

Ben.

(Oh, one more thing. You mentioned that you thought that the reference in Antiquities 20.9.1 looks like a marginal gloss. Surely, then, you can see how if indeed one ought to call him a man also looks like a marginal gloss, a feeling supported by my other points.)

Chris Weimer

Wow, Ben, quite some work here. This is what I've been waiting for. It'll take me a while to fully collect my thoughts, but let me address a couple of minor points in the meantime.

What are those three phrases, might I enquire? I just want to make sure we're on the same page here.

I did think this at first. There was a thread at another forum a long time ago when I espoused this theory (without external evidence, of course). The surrounding material of Josephus' story happens to be what convinced me contrary. Maybe I'll have to revise this.

Until then,

Chris