Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ApostateAbe · 01-27-2008, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

... Is Origen likely to report that Josephus rejected Jesus as the Christ if Josephus did not explicitly say so?

Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian. That means that he did not accept Jesus as Christ. That's all Origin needed.

Quote:

And is it likely that Christians would insert a passage about Jesus that was entirely invented rather than just partially revised? One option is more likely than the other.

Once you admit, as you have to, that the TF passage has been tampered with, you have to admit that you don't know how it read originally. It might have mentioned Jesus, in an unflattering light. It might have mentioned some other person. Or the whole passage might have been inserted. There is no way of saying that one option is more likely.

OK, I think you are right then. Maybe I don't have a case.

DCHindley · 01-27-2008, 01:31 PM

Actually, that is not true. The (English) name Josephus is written IWSHPOS in Greek, but also IWSIPPOS in some manuscripts. This is, I believe "Iosippus" in Latin.

This is what became corrupted into Egesippus or Hegesippus in the case of a 4th century or later re-write of Josphus' _War_ attributed to Pseudo-Hegesippus, which was in 5 books rather than 7, in a manner resembling Hegesippus's 2nd century CE five volume work on early church history which also seems to have been loosely based on Josephus' _War_.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Why do you believe that Origen was merely quoting from Hegesippus?

Because of what Origen says. I don't think he intentionally messed it up, I think he accidentally attributed a passage from Hegesippus to Josephus.

Origen's quote of "Josephus" is not to be found in any writing of Josephus, but the same basic statement in made in a text by Hegesippus. In ancient Greek the two names were almost identical, and they are known to have been confused by other people.

jjramsey · 01-27-2008, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

I address the matter in some detail here:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ty_of_the_Jews

And there is an IIDB thread on that matter, too: http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=232288

Ben C Smith and I both noted this weakness in your theory:

Quote:

if the Jesus at this point is the son of Damneus, why is he identified as the son of Damneus only a couple of paragraphs later? Where else does Josephus suspend the patronymic like this?

DCHindley · 01-27-2008, 06:06 PM

I think the problem with this approach is that I am not aware of any studies that trace out the history of *all* names used in Josephus to see if there is some sort of general rule that new characters are introduced by patrilineal descent the first time they enter the narrative, and even of there is such a rule (I'll grant that this is likely the norm) are there any (other) exceptions to it.

We had already done this with the name Jesus and found the general rule to be followed with the exception of Jesus the 2nd ranking chief priest beside Ananus who made a joint speech to pacify the crowd in the face of the War radicals, and I think something similar with a Jesus who ruled Tiberias in the latter part of the revolt.

I find it hard to believe that no one has ever done this, if only to carefully trace out the persons mentioned in _War_ and/or Josephus' _Life_, _Antiquities_, or _Against Apion_.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjramsey

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

I address the matter in some detail here:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ty_of_the_Jews

And there is an IIDB thread on that matter, too: http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=232288

Ben C Smith and I both noted this weakness in your theory:

Quote:

if the Jesus at this point is the son of Damneus, why is he identified as the son of Damneus only a couple of paragraphs later? Where else does Josephus suspend the patronymic like this?

Solitary Man · 01-27-2008, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian. That means that he did not accept Jesus as Christ. That's all Origin needed.

This is unsupported assertion. What are the linguistic and cultural reasons for such a reasoning? As far as I know, there aren't any. Can Toto give us additional support?

Quote:

Once you admit, as you have to, that the TF passage has been tampered with, you have to admit that you don't know how it read originally. It might have mentioned Jesus, in an unflattering light. It might have mentioned some other person. Or the whole passage might have been inserted. There is no way of saying that one option is more likely.

OK, I think you are right then. Maybe I don't have a case.

That's a BS argument. All ancient documents have been tampered with. Toto would have you believe then that you couldn't trust anything that Caesar said, or that Josephus said. What of Carlson's "mini-synoptic"? Toto has never dealt with that effectively enough for such an outright and misleading dismissal.

aa5874 · 01-27-2008, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Once you admit, as you have to, that the TF passage has been tampered with, you have to admit that you don't know how it read originally. It might have mentioned Jesus, in an unflattering light. It might have mentioned some other person. Or the whole passage might have been inserted. There is no way of saying that one option is more likely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solitary Man

That's a BS argument. All ancient documents have been tampered with.

Your assertions are baseless and have no meit, if a passage has been altered, it is obvious that it would be difficult to know what the unaltered text contained without a verified original.

So, tell me what was tampered with in the Gospels and the "Pauline " epistles, since you know all ancients documents have been altered?

And, when did you see all the original unaltered ancient documents?

<personal comment removed>

spin · 01-27-2008, 11:33 PM

The Jesus son of Damneus fudge doesn't fit the usual MO. Usually material is added without loss of substantive information already there. Whereas "a certain man, James his name and others" requires no loss of substance when changed by insertion to "the brother of Jesus called christ, James his name and others", changing "the brother of Jesus son of Damneus, James his name and others" would require the understanding that the text referred to some other Jesus and that the scribe is falsifying the original text, at best with the assumption that the text has somehow got the wrong Jesus. A relatively simple scribal insertion from a marginal note ("brother of Jesus called christ") requires no imputations.

spin

aa5874 · 01-28-2008, 09:01 AM

The real problem with AJ 20.9.1 is not James or Jesus, it is the word "Christ". It is highly unlikely that there was a Jesus called Christ in the 1st century as described in the NT.

Even after the death of Jesus, as written in Luke, certain disciples, presuming to be talking to Jesus, clearly told him that he had failed to deliver Israel, so in effect he, Jesus, could not be the Christ, he had not delivered.

Luke 24:21, " But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel; and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.

So, three days after the death of Jesus, according to Luke, Israel had not yet been redeemed. And if Jesus is dead before Israel is redeemed, he could never qualify to be the Christ.

andrewcriddle · 01-28-2008, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Origen claims that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Christ, even though the modern versions of the Testimonium Flavianum say that Josephus did believe Jesus to be the Christ.

Therefore, it can be reasoned that the works of Josephus contained writings about Jesus saying that he was not the Christ. There would be no good reason for Christians to forge the writings of Josephus having him say that Jesus was not the Christ. It can be therefore reasoned that Josephus originally wrote about Jesus.

This does not prove that Jesus existed as a human. It only proves that Josephus knew about the character of Jesus, and it should not be claimed that Josephus was used as a source for the gospels.

I expect that we all agree that Josephus did not say he was the Christ, the question for those who regard the TF as mostly authentic is what is a plausible alternative.

IIUC you are suggesting that Josephus originally wrote he was not the Christ, which seems IMO unlikely given the absence of any previous hint that Jesus might have been the Messiah. Other possibilities are he was the so-called Christ or the omission of the entire phrase. Either of these possibilities might IMO lead Origen to (sensibly) doubt that Josephus believed Jesus was the Messiah.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley · 01-28-2008, 09:09 PM

If you would like to check the "other" James in Josephus thread, I just postd some info from Steve mason in this subject.

DCH

JJR ... Tallmadge you say?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

I think the problem with this approach is that I am not aware of any studies that trace out the history of *all* names used in Josephus to see if there is some sort of general rule that new characters are introduced by patrilineal descent the first time they enter the narrative, and even of there is such a rule (I'll grant that this is likely the norm) are there any (other) exceptions to it.

We had already done this with the name Jesus and found the general rule to be followed with the exception of Jesus the 2nd ranking chief priest beside Ananus who made a joint speech to pacify the crowd in the face of the War radicals, and I think something similar with a Jesus who ruled Tiberias in the latter part of the revolt.

I find it hard to believe that no one has ever done this, if only to carefully trace out the persons mentioned in _War_ and/or Josephus' _Life_, _Antiquities_, or _Against Apion_.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjramsey

And there is an IIDB thread on that matter, too: http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=232288

Ben C Smith and I both noted this weakness in your theory:

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01-27-2008, 11:33 PM	#37
spin Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: nowhere Posts: 15,747	The Jesus son of Damneus fudge doesn't fit the usual MO. Usually material is added without loss of substantive information already there. Whereas "a certain man, James his name and others" requires no loss of substance when changed by insertion to "the brother of Jesus called christ, James his name and others", changing "the brother of Jesus son of Damneus, James his name and others" would require the understanding that the text referred to some other Jesus and that the scribe is falsifying the original text, at best with the assumption that the text has somehow got the wrong Jesus. A relatively simple scribal insertion from a marginal note ("brother of Jesus called christ") requires no imputations. spin

01-28-2008, 09:01 AM	#38
aa5874 Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: the fringe of the caribbean Posts: 18,988	The real problem with AJ 20.9.1 is not James or Jesus, it is the word "Christ". It is highly unlikely that there was a Jesus called Christ in the 1st century as described in the NT. Even after the death of Jesus, as written in Luke, certain disciples, presuming to be talking to Jesus, clearly told him that he had failed to deliver Israel, so in effect he, Jesus, could not be the Christ, he had not delivered. Luke 24:21, " But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel; and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. So, three days after the death of Jesus, according to Luke, Israel had not yet been redeemed. And if Jesus is dead before Israel is redeemed, he could never qualify to be the Christ.

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