PhilosopherJay

Hi Johnny Skeptic,

I think all the evidence points in Eusebius' direction. I think there is a relatively small possibility that an earlier Christian writer or scribe put it in and Eusebius just accepted it. To quantify my feelings, which I hope is based on a fair reading of the arguments, I would say that the chances for the TF being authentic are about 1, the chances that another Christian added it is 9 and the chances that Eusebius did it are 90.
Of course, all we have to do is find somebody else who knows the passage, some one who wrote between 95 and 310 and Eusebius is exonerated. The fact that it has not happened in the last two hundred years makes me suspect it is unlikely to ever happen.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

ynquirer

Therefore, your verdict is: According to Olson’s argument, Eusebius forged the whole of paragraph 3 while Josephus in the remaining bk.18, ch.3 wished to convey the message “poor Jews, those unfairly persecuted people,” isn’t it? If that is what Olson has to contribute, it is just a big, empty hole. I mean, it may be good only for people that have not read War of the Jews.

ynquirer

No, he obviously was not a Christian. Christians, for instance, would never have revered Vespasian and Titus, as Josephus did.

JoeWallack

JW:
Just to summarize, regarding the question of whether the TF is original we have the following major categories of evidence:

Discovery
It's generally agreed that Eusebius is the first known reference to the TF about 200 years after it would have been written. My related thread Say It Ain't So Joe. Testimonium Flavium. Will Eusebius Be Convicted In Civil Court? demonstrates:

1 - Probably most, if not all, Church Fathers would have heard of/been familiar with Josephus as he was the official historian of 1st century Israel where they thought Jesus was from.

2 - For Church Fathers with a minimum of extant writings, most refer to/quote from Josephus and he is actually the most referred to non-Christian author of the early Church.

3 - If Josephus had mentioned Gospel Jesus it would have been noted in these two hundred years.

4 - After Eusebius some major Church authors still don't refer to the TF. Presumably because their copies don't have it.

5 - Eusebius appears to have discovered the TF during his career.

6 - The Scriptorium at Caesarea (They Shoot Sources, Don't They?).

Language

1 - Ken Olson has demonstrated that the language is Eusebian.

2 - Others, including spin here, have demonstrated that the language is not Josephan.

Credibility

1 - Eusebius has a general credibility problem regarding sources. We have numerous instances where the problem is somewhere in between creating/editing/hiding the source:

Was Eusebius A Truth Challenged Advocate For Jesus? - The Argument Resurrected

Authority

Last and least, authority confesses to us that the TF is not original.

Other lesser categories are placement and variation which both are evidence for forgery but are relatively minor arguments compared to the above.

The objective student should note especially how the categories of evidence here:

1) Discovery

2) Language

3) Credibility

4) Authority

Co-ordinate. There is no category of evidence that favors originality and we have actual solid evidence that goes an order of magnitude beyond concluding just what was forged. Who did it.

Thus we have it on good authority that the TF is likely not original and in the words of the Fathers, Eusebius receives a bad report.

Methinks this would be a good subject for Dr. Carrier to write a professional article on as evidence that we can have a conclusion of unoriginal without any extant manuscript lacking the offending passage.



Josephus

ErrancyWiki

PhilosopherJay

Hi ynquirer,

What in "War of the Jews" precisely makes you suspect that Josephus wrote the TF?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi JoeWallack,

Good points, nicely put together.

It is hard to believe that nobody in the Christian community from circa 95 to circa 315 would have noticed and discussed this passage extensively. It suggests that Christians were incredibly uninterested in historical accounts of Jesus and that the book did not circulate beyond a few copies held by a small circle of people. It is much easier to believe that Eusebius forged it. Of course, one can always forget the whole thing and inscribe "In Eusebius We Trust" on their intellectual coin.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

JoeWallack

Hi PJ. As Dennis said in the classic Sponge Bob movie, "Perhaps I've said too much." Actually there is a category of evidence which [understatement]favors[/understatement] originality, the Manuscript evidence.

What I find especially interesting here though is the relative attention of the issue by Christian Bible scholarship. Not much to be gained reputation wise by your run of the grist mill Christian Bible scholar by arguing for Eusebian forgery. Compare this to the attention for arguing Secret Mark forgery. Seriously, do a search for "Mark" + "Anachronism" and most of the hits will be Secret Mark even though this topic is relatively insignificant compared to the anachronisms in "Mark" which evidence late dating for all the Gospels.



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

ynquirer

1) War of the Jews is a serious invective against the Jewish leadership for having drawn the people into the nightmare of the destruction of the Temple.

2) Josephus wrote Antiquities of the Jews after WJ as an explanation of how the Jewish revolt was prepared by misconception of the prevalent leadership – the Pharisees – since long before the revolt itself.

3) Chapter 3 of book 18 without the TF looks like a disclaimer – as you yourself said – rather than a diatribe; that is inconsistent with the message of WJ and the purpose of AJ.

4) Chapter 3 of the book 18 with the TF looks like a scatological as well as political argument: it is not that Jesus’ death caused the prohibition of Judaism in Rome – the immediate cause was misconduct by the priests of Isis (in paragrah 4) – but bigotry of the ‘principal men among us’ (in paragraph 3) helps explain that Pilate was quite right in fighting their intolerance (in paragraphs 1and 2), while such intolerance (not specifically Jesus' crucifixion, which passed unnoticed) impressed negatively Tiberius and the Romans in Rome and paved the way for paragraph 5.

Johnny Skeptic

If Josephus was well-informed regarding the many miracles that Jesus allegedly performed, including many miracles "thoughout all Syria," reference Matthew 4:24, it is virtually impossible that he would have been so little interested in describing in detail such events that were, if true, unprecedented in human history. The same argument applies to virtually all other non-biblical, first century sources who are notably absent from confirming stories that Jesus performed numerous widespread miracles. These situations nicely complement the lack of non-biblical confirming evidence regarding the story of the Ten Plagues in Egypt, which again, if true, would have been unprecedented in human history, and even moreso than the miracles that Jesus performed are not mentioned anywhere except in the Bible. If the Ten Plagues occured, that would have been the end of Egypt as a major power in the Middle East. As history shows, that did not happen.

So we have two incredible, unprecedented news stories that by some very strange, unexplained circumstances were for the most part only of interest to Bible writers. Not likely.

Consider the following:

http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Non...ences_to_Jesus

ynquirer

No opponent to Christianity ever questioned Jesus’ historicity prior to the fourth century. That Jesus did not exist was a last resort, desperate trench dug in by pagans after Constantine declared the Christian faith to be the official religion of the Empire. Eusebius was therefore the first to feel a necessity to counter the argument on the grounds of testimonies issued by non-Christian witnesses. Before that specific moment

1) both Jews (according to Tertulian, the Talmud, and Toldot Yeshu) and pagans (Tacitus) took for granted Jesus’ historicity, and

2) Christian avoided citations of a Jewish writer as being ‘religiously incorrect’; the fashion went on even after Eusebius, not because their copies lacked the TF but because Josephus was too risky a source for thinkers less learned than the bishop of Caesarea.

Not necessarily. As said in 2) above, such a remark might be as well understood as a warning not to cite anything from Josephus as being a non-Christian, suspicious source.

On the other hand, Josephus was well used to speak of wonders performed by unexpected people, such like Cyrus the Persian, Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian, and the Romans Vespasian and Titus. Why not Jesus, a Jew by birth?

It is noticeable that the Rabbis did not even question Jesus as a wonder maker. The issue for them, according to several passages of the Talmud and the whole of Toldot Yeshu, was whether his wonders were God-caused or an effect of black magic. And why do you think they thought that Jesus did make wonders? Because Josephus said he did.