Ben C Smith

Hi, spin.

I confess a few parts of your post confused me a bit. You ask, for instance:

I am unsure what the divine name (the tetragrammaton?) has to do with the issue at hand.

In a debate in which I am explicitly arguing that Josephus did not use the term messiah here in its usual Jewish sense, but rather as the well known alternate name of an otherwise more obscure man named Jesus, I do not understand how the usual implications would necessarily come into play.

Again I am confused. I do not understand what my use the term non sequiter, even if you did not agree that you had in fact used one, has to do with Simon bar Kochba.

But, speaking of bar Kochba, the later rabbis admitted that Aqiba had (mistakenly) called him the messiah, and they did not avoid the term messiah when doing so. Palestinian Ta'anit 68d:

When Rabbi Akiba saw Bar Kochba he would say: Behold, the king, the messiah!

Again confusing. That Josephus said that Jesus was called Christ without himself believing that he was in fact the Christ is the majority position among scholars. That fact does not, of course, prove that the position is true, but it ought to at least temper the oddity that you perceive in me accepting the majority position.

I do not understand what Suetonius has to do with this discussion. If I want to demonstrate that it is plausible that Romans knew Jesus by the name Christ I will use Pliny, of course; I do not need Suetonius.

Possibly. But once more I find your response confusing. I do not see what the age of the manuscripts, whether they date from 90 or from 1990, has to do with the seeming coincidence that (A) Origen, in the context of the death of James, uses an uncommon phrase and (B) the manuscripts of Josephus, in the context of the death of James, all use that same uncommon phrase (brother of Jesus called Christ). As I indicated before, it seems to me that you have to assume either that Origen was reading Josephus or that the purported interpolater was reading Origen. A noncommittal reconstruction would have to face this coincidence and explain it, regardless of the date of the manuscripts.

From the confusing parts to the meat of the debate....

What I realize is that the term messiah as a Jewish eschatological title would be too obscure. It would not, however, be too obscure as the alternate name of the founder of a sect. I think many Romans knew that a certain man called Christ founded a certain sect called Christianity, even if that was all that some of them knew about the topic.

A Christian or Jew can easily state that Muhammed (the founder of Islam, not the boxer ) was called the Prophet without in any way implying that Muhammed was in fact the (true) eschatological prophet of God. A later rabbi can easily state that Aqiba hailed bar Kochba as the messiah without in any way implying that bar Kochba was in fact the messiah.

I have no intention of sneaking in a so before the called. I like called just the way it is.

Agreed. And when Jesus is called Christ in Josephus, it means that this is what Jesus was called.

Agreed. This is indeed a normal way to say how something or someone was named. And we know from countless sources that Jesus was named Christ, whether deservedly or not.

I assure you the crayons will not be necessary. But thank you for offering.

Yes, I gleaned that much the first time through.

Saying that Jesus was called Christ does not entail that the person saying so thinks he really was the expected Christ. It means exactly what it says: Jesus was called Christ, which is indisputably a true statement. Paul called him Christ, the other epistles called him Christ, the gospels called him Christ, the Romans called him Christ.

But I sense that my own little way of putting it is not clear to you. Peter Kirby puts it nicely:

Jesus was unique in being called "Christ," and so it is not surprising that this term is only used when identifying Jesus. Josephus could have used it in the sense of a nick-name, not as a title, and thus there would be no need to explain the meaning of the name. Josephus may have simply assumed that his readers would have heard of this "Christ" of the sect called "Christians" and left it at that.

Yes. Twice, apparently. On Matthew 10.17:

And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ.

Against Celsus 1.47:

Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless (being, although against his will, not far from the truth) that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the just, who was a brother of Jesus called Christ, the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.

Compare our passage from Josephus:

...and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others. And, when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Why did Origen reserve this phrase, brother of Jesus called Christ, for this context (the death of James according to Josephus) alone? Why do all our extant manuscripts of Josephus also have this phrase at the point where Josephus describes the death of James? Are you quite certain that the phrase and Origen and the phrase in Josephus have nothing to do with one another?

We would know by noticing that Origen has twice used the same phrase in the context of the death of James, that Origen has no reason to use such a phrase and in fact does not elsewhere (he uses Jesus alone, Christ alone, or Jesus Christ, but not Jesus called Christ), and that our extant manuscripts of Josephus in fact bear this very phrase in the context of the death of James.

We know that Origen had access to Josephus; for instance, he accurately places the discussion of John the baptist in book 18. As for the passage about James, the overlap of the phrase brother of Jesus called Christ in both Origen and Josephus is a dead giveaway.

He may well have taken Hegesippus at his word, but then he had to take the extra step of attributing what Hegesippus said to Josephus, since AFAIK Hegesippus does not himself mention Josephus. That extra step of attribution I think is best explained by confusion of memory, which confusion may even have been intentional or at least not purely accidental. A case of reading more into Josephus than was there.

According to Eusebius, History of the Church 2.23.18, Hegesippus wrote in his fifth book:

And so [James] suffered martyrdom, and they buried him on the spot, and the pillar erected to his memory still remains close by the temple. This man was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ; and shortly afterward Vespasian besieged Judaea, taking them captive.

Hegesippus appears to be engaged in a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument.

Yes, conflation was, I believe, a rather common thing.

That guess would probably be mistaken. I think prophecies were often conflated.

Twice in his discussion of the death of James our Alexandrian father happens to exactly match the same phrase our manuscripts of Josephus use while discussing the death of James.

Yes. Of course.

Hey, that sounds like a good....

Oh. Wait a minute....

I agree with the assessment of Andrew Criddle on this very thread:

Not to mention all the Christian literature attesting that Jesus was commonly called Christ among Christians themselves.

I think you are right. I withdraw my comment about connecting Christians with Christ. Josephus does not explicitly do so in this passage. Instead, the connection he is making is that between Jesus and Christ, a connection which, as Andrew has mentioned, would not be obvious on its face to a pagan readership.

Just as a matter of general interest, I do accept, based originally on what Stephen Carlson has written, some form of the Testimonium as genuine. However, I blame nobody for supposing the entire thing a forgery. The case could easily tip either way; I make my stand, but am perfectly willing to posit its spuriousness for the sake of other arguments.

No.

But he may have written the Greek equivalent of credebatur esse Christus.

I understand that, whether you see me doing so or not.

If you could provide some evidence for your position that the term messiah was seen as somehow equivalent to the divine name, I would appreciate it.

Many thanks for the lively exchange.

Ben.

jjramsey

:redface: Shows what I know about Origen. :redface: Oh, well, at least I'm learning.

Ben C Smith

I am not certain your statement was incorrect. I believe Origen would be keeping track of (what he may have mistakenly perceived as) the gist of the text. However, he also may have (A) simply remembered, word for word, the unusual way of referring to James or (B) cribbed from notes that he had taken from Josephus on the topic. Or he may even have had Josephus open before him and was simply engaging in a sort of wishful thinking (helped along by Hegesippus?) in connecting the death of James with the fall of Jerusalem.

Ben.

mithy73

Just a thought, but why does Jesus get a mention in Antiquities but not in Wars, written eighteen years earlier?

jjramsey

Probably because Jesus didn't have much of anything to do with the Jewish War of 66-70 C.E.

spin

That should help you. Remember that Simon was alive when Aqiba made his comment. And you know from the body of rabbinical work that he wasn't the messiah. In our situation Jesus had died as a petty criminal, so obviously not the messiah. Now look at the rest of the quotation:

Rabbi Yochanan ben Torta said to him, “Akiba, grass will grow from your cheekbones before the son of David will come!”

This correction is missing in the TF and the James passage.

I have repeated the following notion many times: history is not democratic. It is a tyranny of evidence.

While the majority of scholars now have taken up picking the fly shit off the buttered bread that hit the dirty floor, it doesn't mean that I should give any regard for such an act. Earlier, the majority of scholars had abandoned the TF; the difference is that an apparent way to pick the fly shit out has been provided.

The majority of scholars seem to want to wheedle "pierced" in Ps.22, which is quite odd to me... well, that they are scholars is quite odd...

I find it extremely odd that you should accept the majority position per se.


Pliny was writing at least a decade after Josephus. He was writing from Bithynia, ie well to the east and I see no way for you to use him to get back to what Josephus may have known in Rome. (The comment about Chrestus was sarcasm!)

None of the Josephus manuscripts are early. That they all have the one phrase says nothing as they may easily represent one text tradition family, all stemming from a scribal progenitor well after the time of Origen. There is no tangible contwnt in this line of thought.

I have no obligation to connect what seems to me to be a later gloss to Origen. That's merely incidental to this discussion, which you may care to be interested in. It is sufficient to see that your interpretation of Origen and what you think he thinks Josephus said has no basis in the text of Origen.

It would not be too obscure either for Josephus or any Jew who read his text. The text was not only a Jewish apology, but also a self-apology. After all he's trying to justify himself at the same time.

Does it seem to much for you to accept that the messiah to a Jew was an extremely specific religio-technical term for the chosen one of god who would bring about the salvation of the Jews? This Jesus simply didn't fit the bill. The messiah doesn't die. It would be absurd to apply this term to Jesus. You are stretching legonemou too far.

But you can only make this claim by omitting the rest of the citation. It was immediately repudiated.

By which Jews?

What Jew baldly said after a referred person was dead that that person was the messiah? Your only attempt to provide one shows the reality, ie that Aqiba was immediately shown to be wrong/

No disrespect to Peter, but this is merely a string of conjectures, trying to cover all possibilities, while not considering the simple clear point that has been made Josephus the Jew would not have said it because it would have been against his religion.

And neither time showing any knowledge of what we both accept that Josephus wrote. That doesn't set the warning bells ringing. Too bad.

They both seem intent that he made the death of James the reason for calamities. This suggests that by the time Origen had his tradition about Josephus, whatever Josephus had originally written was long forgotten.

The first time as a conflation, considering that Hegesippus calls Jesus the christ and the passage in which he does so is about James. The second time, because he had done so the first time.

They quite possibly did, but we would differ in the trajectory. But again, this isn't my problem or interest.

Sorry, this is not evidence. It's only your conjecture. Sorry Origen used the phrase twice. I sometimes like the sound of things I have said enough to use them again in given circumstances.

Despite the fact that Origen has an erroneous idea of the content. That's certainly convincing as well.

You can't meaningfully conclude this: we only have what Eusebius attributes to him, nothing more.

That was my point.

And twice he was quite wrong about the content of the passage. He just happened to make the same conflation twice when referring to Josephus's text. You haven't shown me that he has any knowledge of Josephus at all. And you only provide one trajectory for the relationship between what Origen wrote and what is attributed to Josephus. Can't you think of a few more just as valid trajectories?

I was going to take Andrew to task for this but it's a matter of time...

Tacitus is writing thirty years later than Josephus. Pliny at least a decade and he was at the "front" in Bithynia. They aren't useful and the rest of Andrew's statement is conjecture.

It's all a matter of dating. We know when Josephus wrote his work.

It's as plain as the nose on your face... to me. o christos outos hn is one guaranteed sign of textual disturbance, so is the disruption of the discourse markers (*).

I think you are indulging in the art of fly shit removal. The text has clearly been interfered with and you are willing to agree. Jerome is writing much too late to be of use to us. He merely indicates that there may have been another form of the TF in circulation (along with that which Eusebius gives).

Not equivalent. The messiah is the chosen one of god through whom salvation will come to the Jews. Misrepresenting the messiah is misrepresenting god. Aqiba may have thought that Simon was the messiah, but Simon's death ended that idea. The rabbis are happy to indicate Aqiba's error. They also changed Simon's surname for obvious reasons. He was plainly not god's chosen one, just as a dead Jesus would not have been.


spin

mithy73

But Wars covers a fair amount of history leading up to the Jewish War itself. That doesn't start until the end of Book II.

Phlox Pyros

Would you mind presenting a Jewish text, before Christianity, that displays christos or meshiach abbreviated and treated as the divine name? This might add something to the case.

Josephus uses legomenou and its other case forms many times throughout his work, and it simply means that someone or something was called something.

There seems little convincing evidence to me that the term legomenou is being "stretched". Josephus simply mentioned that Jesus was referred to as Christ. I don't see how that means that he thought Jesus to be the Christ, and I don't see good evidence for assuming that Josephus could not have used the term Christ in this way.

jjramsey

True, but why should Jesus have been considered part of the history leading up to the Jewish War? There isn't much in the way of evidence that Jesus started an armed rebellion, or that he was particularly violent.

mithy73

If it was claimed of him that he was the King of the Jews, and he caused a stir at the time, one might expect something of this in the "back story" - there are after all mentions of other leaders (whether magicians, charlatans, spiritual leaders or robber-barons) who caused unrest in the area as part of the general backdrop that explains the level of unrest in the province. But neither he nor his sect are mentioned, so far as I can fathom. It just seems a little odd that Wars makes no mention of it at all. I'm not attempting to make a compelling argument from silence here, but I would have thought there'd be something.