Achwienichtig

If the Gospel writers got all their history from Josephus, where did Josephus get the story of Jesus?

hjalti

Please elaborate.

Toto

It was inserted into Josephus' narrative, probably in the 4th century by Eusebius. All modern non-evangelical scholars admit that at least part of the narrative was forged by a Christian interpolator, and none have a good reason for accepting part of the passage once you admit that a forger had touched it.

Josephus' work only survives because Christians liked him. They liked to read about the destruction of Jerusalem and God's punishment of the Jews.

Achwienichtig

Thanks for indulging my naiveté. I did not know that.

ApostateAbe

Don't believe it. It is among the more preposterous of myther claims, since the proposed insertion by Eusebius would require a pair of simultaneous cleverly-designed insertions into two of the writings of Origen who seemingly cited the two Jesus passages of Josephus 100 years earlier than Eusebius. It is more of a conspiracy theory than history.

Achwienichtig

Apparently I've got some research I have to do.

Toto

This is not a "myther" claim and it is not at all preposterous. Ken Olson, at the time a graduate student, and not a mythicist as far as I know, wrote an article “Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum,” CBQ 61 (1999): 305-322 (a peer reviewed journal) pointing out that the language in the section on Jesus tracks typical phrases used by Eusebius and makes the exact points that Eusebius makes. Olson went on to get a PhD, writing his thesis on this subject.

If you join the JesusMysteries group on yahoogroups, there is a copy of the CBQ article in the archives.

Origen does not in fact refer to or quote from this section. I don't know what Abe is talking about.

There is a second mention of Jesus in another part of Josephus' Antiquities, but it is a simple phrase that could easily have been a marginal note copied into the text.

There is a long essay by Peter Kirby summarizing the evidence. It is a few years old, but still a good source: Testimonium

Abe has completely misrepresented the state of the argument. He must be confusing this with something else.

ApostateAbe

The article by Ken Olsen is available on mountainman's website here:

http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_008.htm

As expected, there is no mention of the two citations of Josephus on Jesus by Origen, though that would be among the most relevant evidence for anyone who knows shit about the subject, which I am guessing includes hardly anyone on the Jesus Mysteries Yahoo! group.

That is the kind of bullshit that happens when you cite for your arguments articles that have exactly as much authority and knowledge-value as Internet urban legends. It would be far better to cite academically-accepted books or articles that have been peer-reviewed and published in reputable journals. But, go with the best you got, I suppose.

andrewcriddle

One of the problems with forgery by Eusebius, is that it requires Eusebian influence on pseudo-hegesippus the latin paraphrase of Josephus c 370 CE.
Although possible, such influence is not particularly likely, pseudo-Hegesippus shows little sign of other influence from Eusebius.

(Obviously this is not a strong argument against forgery per se, only against forgery as late as Eusebius.)

Andrew Criddle

bacht

Abe is a self-appointed anti-"myther" on some kind of mission here to expose a conspiracy of Jesus-haters (in his eyes)

There are quite a few members here who simply accept the possibility that there was no "real" Jesus behind the New Testament stories. This seems to be the only area of ancient history where such an idea is taboo :huh: