Amaleq13

Thank you very much for the link. I don't know why, but I keep forgetting to bookmark Bernard's website. I have done so now.

One thing neither of you address is the fact that Ambrose's reference lacks the name "Jesus". I thought that was more significant that the absence of "called Christ". It makes no sense to suggest he would omit the name so, by your own reasoning, we can only conclude that its presence in Eusebius' and Jerome's versions is as an addition. Without the name, Toto's suggestion that a passage may have existed that had nothing to do with "Jesus Christ" seems to gain credibility.

After reading Muller's entire treatment of the exact same topic, I have to say I find his arguments and conclusion far more credible than your own. In fact, he answered many questions I was intending to ask you and confirmed several of my own doubts about some of the asserted opinions. Turns out, you don't have to question the historicity of Jesus to reject your arguments.

Once even the reduced TF is rightly recognized as inauthentic, I tend to agree with your sources in the section discussing the short reference (20.9.1):

"Josephus does not feel that he must stop to explain who this Jesus is; he is presumed to be the known fixed point that helps locate James on the map. None of this would make any sense to Josephus' audience, which is basically Gentile, unless Josephus had previously introduced and explained something about him." (Meier, A Marginal Jew, Volume 1, p.62)

"If . . . Josephus referred to James as being 'the brother of Jesus who is called Christ,' without much ado, we have to assume that in an earlier passage he had already told his readers about Jesus himself." (Paul Winter, "Josephus on Jesus and James," in History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, ed. Emil Schurer, Edinburgh, 1973, page 432).

Layman

If that was all the partial interpolation theory had going for it, I'd not think it very persuasive. So I do not think it merits a "must."

The difference is between altering an existing text and creating a reference out of whole clothe. The picture we see from the partial-interpolation theory is one of a Christian scribe leaving out a small phrase, "thought to be," and another one adding a phrase to clarify "wise man," and perhaps another leaving out the word "according to his followers." These marginal glosses got incorporated into the textual tradition.

And as I discuss in my section against a brilliant interpolator, we have no reason to expect the interpolator(s) to choose the most cunning strategy. Or at least what New Testament scholars would find to be the most cunning strategy 2000 years later.

This seems unlikely. If the TF is false, the references to James still proves Jesus' existence as far as most historians are concerned. Even if Josephus did not mention Jesus, the historical Jesus remains supported by a large amount of Christian literature that predates Antiquities. But, if the TF is valid, the Jesus Myth ship sinks by one blow.

Rigorous science of mythicists? Like Acharya S?

Very funny.

spin

I read your paper, sport. And I don't agree.

As you assume the passage is fundamentally correct, then you can assume upon that assumption. To me that is ultimately empty verbiage.

That says nothing. I can use phrases that I wouldn't normally ever use. They wouldn't represent my language though. One who doesn't know me might be more inclined to put such words in my mouth.

Or suggests an interpolation from Daffy Duck. It's strange and stands out as an anomaly.

Yeah, and you should have looked at them all before making your original statement. [insult deleted - MD]

Not in the way Josephus often uses it.

Oh, please spare me these silly conjectures.

The point is that the usage is not rare in the literary world of the time. Do you get it now? You can't pin anything special on it -- unless you'd care to do a survey on all the literature [insult deleted - MD].

Don't do the work yourself. Trust Vermes.

And you cannot seriously speculate about what a xian interpolator would or would not have done.

Who actually did the bits that you accept were interpolations?

Again, why no middle ground. Why must the interpolator be either an idiot or a genius? Scribes learnt a lot of important skills over many years.

The old "most scholars" pitch. Most scholars thought Copernicus was wrong. Most doctors thought Semmelweiss was wrong. Most physicists thought Michelson and Morley were right. Most people thought Hitler was controlable. Most people thought Richard Nixon would be a good president. Do you get the point? You aren't saying anything meaningful for this discussion.

Most people prefer this brand over the top brand anyway. It's all in the taste test.

You'd hope. You haven't given much in the way of evidence at all, though you have rehashed a few old scholars. It's not what they say, it's what they base it on that counts.

You mean here that you don't think that a xian interpolator would use "legomenou". I already know you don't think that. But what's so strange about it to you in comparison to the way it is used elsewhere in Josephus and other writers?

Consider Josephus AJ 20.2.2,

"and bestowed on him the country called Carra"

kai chôran didôsin Karrôn legomenên

(20.6.1 a village that was called Ginea,
20.9.1 who was also himself called Ananus.)

Does this help you understand a simple use of lego? It makes you see this as nothing a xian wouldn't write.

"Jesus called the Christ"

Iêsou tou legomenou Christou

You wanna make something out of these uses of lego? Naaa.

Especially consider Mt 1:16

Iêsous o legomenos Christos

What more do you want.

It's a non-argument. Do the research yourself.

You haven't really done any linguistic work yourself. And potted culling of secondary sources isn't very compelling, I must admit.

It's been an interesting rescue attempt.


spin

spin

This phrase, "o legomenos Christos" is used four times in the nt, Mt 1:16, 27:17, 27:22 and Jn 4:25, the Mt references are all "Iêsous o legomenos Christos". It seems an eminent xian phrase to be inserted in Josephus. There is nothing untoward about the phrase, no negative connotation toward Jesus. This is just another plain xian interpolation, displaying a well-used xian phrase.

Layman, your aplogetic is dead in the water.


spin

Steven Carr

Luke saw Jesus as fully human. (Was Luke a heretic?) He also saw him as having to grow in wisdom, just as he grew in stature.


Orthodox Christians have never objected to Jesus being called 'wise' or a 'man'.

Naturally, Paul regarded the wisdom of non-Christians as foolishness. This does not mean that he regarded the wisdom of Christians as foolishness. Christians praise wisdom in the NT. Christians say Jesus had wisdom. Christians compared Jesus with the wisdom of Solomon - which you say the interpolation does.

Pharisees, by and large, did not compare Jesus with Daniel and Solomon.

Who is more likely to interpolate that Jesus was a wise man, if indeed he was not more than a man?

Steven Carr

1 Corinthians 6:5 'I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?'

The word for wise is 'sophia', exactly the same word used in the Testimonium.

Paul praises Christians who have 'sophia', yet Layman tells us that 'sophia' was regarded by Christians as men's wisdom, not God's and had pejorative connotations.

Where are the pejorative connotations in 1 Cor. 6:5? Why did Layman not include the verse in his 'thorough' essay? did he just cherry-pick verses he liked?

He picked verses where Paul despises the wisdom of non-Christians. But no Christian thought the wisdom of Christians was foolishness, or that 'sophia' was derogatory when applied to Jesus.

Tertullian wrote 'For even the weakling has no strong dread of death as a debt he knows is due by him; while the wise man does not look with contempt on pleasure, regarding it as a precious gift--in fact, the one blessedness of life, whether to philosopher or fool.' DE SPECTACULIS Chapter 3

So Christians can praise 'wise man' and 'pleasure'.

Layman writes 'Finally, an often overlooked argument about the use of "wise man" is that it would have a "pejorative connotation" to Christians.' Where does Layman find the 'pejorative connotations' in what Tertullian wrote about 'wise man'?

Layman writes 'Van Voorst agrees, "because Christians generally avoid a positive use of the word 'pleasure,' with its connotation of 'hedonism,'.....'

Where does Layman find Tertullian avoiding the word pleasure and not using it favourably?

Layman's logic seems to be that if he can find one Christian who uses the word in a negative context, he can guarantee that all Christians for 300 years (even ones he has never heard of, has no writings of to check) would have used it negatively.

This is a huge argument from silence, based on nothing more than a few proof-texts.

Steven Carr

LAYMAN in his essay 'The reference to "principal men" is very common in Josephus, but has no counterpart in the Gospels or in any other early Christian literature. A Christian would be much more likely to refer to "the Jews" or "the Sanhedrin", or even the "Sadducees" and/or "Pharisees." '

CARR
Josephus's phrase 'the principal men' (ton proton andron) is mirrored in Luke 19:47 - 'the leaders among the people' (hoi protoi)

And Layman's logic that Christian interpolators were restricted to exact phrases found in the Gospels is hard to follow. Why would they be so restricted?


Luke writes 'But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him.'

This is NOT by a Christian who be much more likely to refer to "the Jews" or "the Sanhedrin", or even the "Sadducees" and/or "Pharisees." '

Amaleq13

"At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following among many Jews and among many of Gentile origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians (named after him) had not died out."

What "Jewish sources" or "Roman records" could have contained such a favorable view of Jesus?

Even if we assume the references to Jesus in the Talmud are authentic, they are consistently negative in their portrayal.

The earliest known Roman sources (e.g. Tacitus, Pliny) never use the name "Jesus" and are also quite negative in referring to Christians.

It is simply not credible that Josephus found this information somewhere in either of your suggested "sources".

rlogan

Thank you for your civil responses Layman. I'm chopped liver as far as scholarship goes on this stuff. But I'm most interested in this subject matter - and so much hinges on Josephus. Digging up an early copy would be an enormous breakthrough. My response here is that it is not the only thing the partial interpolation has going against it. Others are carrying the flag on such issues.

Let me try again: Our thesis here is that a full Christian interpolation would have resulted in an avalanche of glorified Christ-speak. However, a partial interpolation by a Christian would be limited to such drab tinkerings. I'm just pointing out that this is an inconsistent line of reasoning.

A more consistent line of reasoning is that a partial and a complete interpolation would have similar characteristics instead of dramatically different characteristics.

A fox can be cunning. I wasn't implying brilliant.

Quite true about falsifying the myth.

The James passage is strange. Unlike the Jesus passage, James is in the index. Like he was known for something on his own. It is weaved within the text, so it doesn't stick out as a lonesome paragraph as does the Jesus passage. It raises the question why Jesus doesn't get mentioned in an index whereas James the lesser figure does. How odd, the disparate treatment.

One possible explanation is that there were other Jesus' mentioned in Antiquities who were in fact rebels and leaders of revolts. Just changing a few words here from Jesus, son of XYZ to Jesus who is called the Christ, would completely corrupt this passage.


I was having fun. Thought you'd appreciate it.

Layman

I think Jewish sources are much, much more likely than a Roman one. All Josephus could have learned from Roman records was that Jesus was executed by Pilate at the charge of the Jewish authorities. And since neither Tacitus or Plinty were writing from Rome it is not surprising that they may not have had the same access to such records as Josephus.

The Talmudic references, if authentic, were shaped by hundreds of years of conflict between Christians and Jews. Retrojecting them back to Jesus' time is not very persausive of an argument.

I dealt with some of this in my response to Carr. Josephus notes that James, the brother of Jesus seemed to have a good reputation among his fellow Jews in Jerusalem. Acts records that many Pharisees joined the Jerusalem Church--an odd admission for a Christian writing in the first or second century.