Grog

goalposts moved again.

Grog

Instead of asserting out of hand that an argument is a "hare-brained mythicist" argument, you might want to present a coherent discussion that reveals you are even cognizant of what the argument is and what the evidence presented for it is.

I don't have an opinion on a Eusebian hand in the TF. I do hold an opinion that the entire TF is an interpolation, based first on Norden's original observations that the passage is a seam in the text. Those arguing for a tampered TF do not address this point. Pines' discovery of an Arabic text does not rescue the TF (even Pines was cautionary and I recommend Morton Smith's review of Pines).

So the passage came from somewhere, why not from Eusebius? What is so "hare-brained" about it?

Solo

This is naive in the extreme: of course, Ehrman wants to argue for the historicity of TF - that is why he lays a preposterous charge saying:

"Mythicists have argued, however, that the entire passage was made up by a Christian author and inserted into Josephus."

This is as nonsensical and misleading statement as saying for example that the communists have popularized the theory of evolution. (This has been in fact argued !). It is not "mythicists" who have first argued that the whole of TF is forged. The first to argue that TF was forged were maedieval Jews, who apparently had copies of Hebrew Iosippon (compiled in the Middle Ages out of unknown sources) without the insert. A Lutheran scholar by the name of Lucas Osiander challenged the whole testimonium in 1592. Voltaire laughed it off in his Dictionary. Emil Schuerer dissected both frauds in Josephus in early 1900's. Where would these people be "mythicists" ?

Ehrman hedges his bets - as he always does - knowing the perils of arguing for a document that everyone knows has been at least partially manipulated. This is where Roger Viklund's argument is very much apropos. Ehrman wants to enforce the strict regime of textual proof (he is after all a student of Metzger) regards NT interpolations. The standard explanation, which of course has some merit, is that without textual proof the whole matter of identifying interpolations becomes a tug of subjective opinions which has no basis in fact. But, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Ehrman, does not have the option of arguing "partial interpolation" in TF as he surely attempts to do, hoping to score some points. He just does not have the good sense of Schweitzer, who dismissed the TF as of unreliable origins and thus having no probative value whatsoever.

Best,
Jiri

mountainman

When Bishop Warburton of Gloucester, in 1762 wrote that the TF is "a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too", was Bishop Warburton of Gloucester a mythicist? There are a long line of people between this time and the 20th century who classify the TF as a common forgery. For some of the names and details see the Chronological Censure of the TF.

The modern apologetic financial environment supported a reasonable tenure for top calibre defence apologists who become attorneys for Jesus in the Testimonium Flavianum Stakes. They argue strenuously for at least partial authenticity on the basis that it keeps the heat off Eusebius, the church historian, who forged the letter of Jesus to King Agbar. Big E is being defended by the best we have. We can all sleep well. Amen.



If the Testimonium and the Jesus to Agbar letter were forged by Big E.
are we helped in our quest to know whether Jesus lived?
If Big E. forges his own historical materials he is guilty of pious forgery.
This may be a very important clue in our quest to know whether Jesus lived.

Iskander

I haven’t read DJE, but I will buy it after reading this post.

Solo

You could argue that, but it will not be a convincing argument. There are all sorts of problems with 14 & 15 which you would have to address in defending its authenticity. Right in the first phrase "be imitators" we have a problem. The verse says 'ὑμεῖς γὰρ μιμηταὶ ἐγενήθητε ἀδελφοί τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν τοῦ θεοῦ' - (you have become the imitators of brothers of the churches of God). There seems to be a Freudian slip in Ehrman's translation, as "be imitators" is a rather important verse of 1 Cor 11, which says 'μιμηταί μου', be imitators of me (as I am also of Christ). So Ehrman, deservedly a famed expert in Orthodox Corruptions of the texts, is likely aware that this paraphrase looks like a ripoff of another verse and tells us that via brain fart. The second big issue with 2:14 is that it presupposes a 'Gentile church' in Judea, which is, well, laughable, given that the Jews also forbade the saving of Gentiles. Only a real anti-Jewish fanatic from well after the war would have concocted such a sentence. It is quite surprising that Ehrman would not see through such a nut-headed ploy.

The beatings Paul testifies to in 2 Cr 11 most likely do not relate to any persecutions of proto-Christian congregations but to Paul being disruptive of the social functions of the synagogues or other places where Jews socialized. He is a self-admitted furiosus (2 Cor 5:13) and we know that scourging was a time-proven method in antiquity of bringing an ecstatic to his senses. It didn't seem to work with Jesus the son of Ananus (Josephus, Wars 6.5.3), but evidently not for lack of diligent effort. At any rate, Paul knew that his florid displays were despised by most people, (Gal 4:14) and even among some brothers less friendly to the raw productions of pneuma, as witnessed by his plea on behalf of Timothy in 1 Cor 16:11.

Best,
Jiri

Roger Viklund

Hi GakuseiDon!
Yes, by us he probably means the Christian community. Your interpretation is possible, still both he and many other members of the community are Jews so I find the language in this passage strange if it in fact was written by Paul.

Let me put it this way, there are certainly reasons that the entire passage is added. What I hope you mean to say (and hopefully that was what Ehrman also meant) is that there are better reasons that the rest of 1 Thes 2:14-16 was written by Paul than that the part about the wrath has come upon the Jews at last was written by him. This I agree with. The question is whether there are better reasons that the entire passage was written by Paul than that it was not written by him? I have made a case where I find it more plausible than not that the whole passage was added afterwards.

There are two parts of the text which I find particularly suspicious (and a few more of less importance): 1) that wrath has come upon the Jews at last and 2) that the Jews are enemies of (or opposed to) all people. One could of course then say that just these two lines were added and the rest would be original to Paul. However, that would be illogical since it involves two passages a bit apart in the same argument made by the author.

There were actually two points I wanted to emphasize in my blog post. The first was about the genuineness of the passage. This could be debated, but there is no way in which we today can know this. I have put forward those circumstances which I consider to be the strongest in support of forgery – which I also happen to believe is the case. The second was not actually to refute Ehrman (although this also was part of my reasoning) but to illuminate what I consider to be fallacies in his reasoning (irrespective of whether he is right or not).

He makes a point, and this of course is a valid approach, but he dismisses without actually dealing with the counter-arguments, jumps from a possibility to a certainty and takes his own view as a fact of certainty to claim that the mythicists (and accordingly then also others who holds the same position in this matter) are wrong and that this therefore shows not only that Paul knew that the Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus (not actually killed him, as the text says) and that this therefore corroborates the Gospel story.

Since Ehrman makes such a big deal out of the fact that we have no textual evidence that this passage was altered, I put forward two examples which to me show that Ehrman takes different positions depending on what he is arguing for. For the one he argues that other passages and entire letters were forged in the name of Paul although we have no textual support for this either. For the second I referred to the way Ehrman reasoned about Josephus and the Testimonium.

Of course, as Diogenes the Cynic argues, “Ehrman does not argue for the authenticity of the TF and specifically says it is NOT evidence for HJ”. But this does not mean that my “premise is flawed” because this was never my point of similarity. Ehrman says that it really does not matter if Josephus did mention Jesus, because he would not anyway give independent testimony to the existence of him, and there is anyway much better evidence for his existence, so Josephus is not necessary.

First of all I think Ehrman’s basic conclusion is wrong. A testimony from Josephus on Jesus would definitely strengthen the idea that he at least existed. Such a testimony would be much more important than the hearsay report from Tacitus. And besides, one of Ehrman’s strongest (perhaps the strongest) argument in favour of his existence is James, the brother of Jesus. Ehrman supports his interpretation of James as a biological brother of Jesus by referring to the James who is the brother of Jesus called Christ in Antiquities 20:200 – a passage whose genuineness depends upon the Testimonium. So, indirectly Ehrman is still relying on Josephus’ testimony on Jesus, although he downplays its importance.

I would say that Ehrman is not that knowledgeable in all areas as many seem to think. He of course is very knowledgeable in many areas, but for instance when he deals with the non-Christian “witnesses” it seems obvious that he has not spent much time considering the evidence. Since I happen to have investigated these issues for a long time (see for instance my survey on Josephus beginning here – unfortunately the translation I made is imperfect) I notice some fallacies he makes and that he often simply refers to “the experts” without making the point. He even fails to understand the arguments he claims to refute.

However, I just wanted to point out that it is illogical to simply dismiss almost every argument made that Josephus did not write the passage with the help of postulating an unknown version which has certain sentences added in the preserved text; a version that lacks all textual support, when at the same time he uses this lack of textual support to dismiss those who argue that 1 Thess 2:14–16 is also a later addition. He even accuses Doherty of being “driven by convenience” when he “refuses to allow that l Thessalonians … can be used as evidence of Paul’s view” since “he insists” that it is an insertion.

In such case I think Alice Whealey’s approach is more honest, when she says that all of the Testimonium (apart from the loss of “thought to be”) was written by Josephus. Although I find that view to be quite strange considering the content of the TF, it is still in line with the observation that there is no support for any other version and everything in the TF (including the obvious Christian parts) are in line with Josephus’ style of writing. You could of course point to certain words not being entirely typical of Josephus, but nothing impossible and the, for Josephus, “untypical” as well as typical way of writing, are equally present in the typically Christian as well as the typically un-Christian parts.

GakuseiDon

I don't think I understand your point, which seems to me to be: The passage is similar to another passage by Paul, which suggests it is not authentic to Paul?

Again, I don't think I am reading you accurately here, because the passage seems to say that the churches in Christ were being persecuted by the Jews in Judean. Wouldn't this be the Jewish Christians of James and co, rather than a Gentile church?

I suppose it is possible that the beatings and stoning was related to how Paul taught rather than what Paul taught.

GakuseiDon

I don't see why it would be strange I'm afraid. "You (Thessalians) are being persecuted by your fellow countrymen, just as the churches in Christ in Judea are being persecuted by their fellow countrymen" is the gist of it. If the "us" in the latter part are the churches in Judea, then how else could Paul describe the Judean fellow countrymen as anything other than "Jews" (Judeans)?

Yes, I would agree with that. (I'd always assumed the whole lot was an interpolation. The passage containing "killed Jesus and the prophets" seems more like something from the Second Century than the First Century)

But on your point (2) above, Paul isn't saying all the Jews are the enemies of all people, if that is how you are reading the passage. He specifies who they are: the Jews who killed Jesus and the prophets, and who forbade us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved. I agree with your earlier comment, that Paul was a Jew and so wouldn't put himself into that group. But if Paul was referring to those Jews who persecute the church in Judea and were trying to stop the spread of the Gospel message to the Gentiles so they might be saved, then that could well make them (i.e. those doing the persecuting) the "enemies of mankind" in his eyes.

Carrier makes much the same criticism, and finally having read Ehrman's book myself, I think you and he make a valid criticism.

I agree. I was also surprised that Ehrman downplays the importance of Josephus there.

Don't we have support for it, though? I thought Origen's reference to Josephus not believing that Jesus was the Christ shows that the TF we have today does not reflect the original, being either changed or inserted in toto. In fact, though Ehrman doesn't mention Origen by name, he says this very thing on page 60 (Kindle for PC version).

If I read Ehrman correctly, he is in fact being consistent here. In both cases -- Josephus' TF and 1 Thess 2:14-16 -- he has tried to identify the parts 'out of place' and not removing them based on convenience. For 1 Thess 2, Ehrman says that even if the "wrath has come on the Jews at last" phrase is out of place, in his view the rest of 2:14-16 is not, so shouldn't necessarily be removed.

Isn't that the same method that you are using, except you are arguing that the whole passage is out of place? If you decided 1 Thess 2:14-16 is arguably consistent with Paul elsewhere, would there be any evidence to suggest interpolation?

Roger Viklund

I will simply concentrate on this point for the moment. Since you do not quote Ehrman and I do not have Kindle for PC version, I was unable to find which passage you thought of. But let me deal generic with the issue.

I would say no – that Origen’s reference to Josephus not believing that Jesus was the Christ does not show that Origen had access to a different version of the TF; and even if it would show that, there still is no textual support for that version since Origen never quotes that passage, in fact never mentions it. I will simply quote from my thesis on Josephus, although excluding the more thorough footnotes. I deal with the premises in Origen’s testification of the absence of the Testimonium and with your question more explicit in Origen’s knowledge of another James passage: Did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, presented below.

Origen is accordingly twice claiming that Josephus did not accept or believe in Jesus as the Messiah. So what does this mean? There are reasonably three possible interpretations:

1) Josephus bluntly denied Jesus’ Messiahship and wrote something like: “He was not the Messiah!” This would mean that Origen knew of a now lost passage in Josephus. Even if this of course is possible, I see no reason that on the basis of this vague statement of Origen construct such a hypothetical missing text.

2) Josephus did not write any part at all of the Testimonium, and from the expression “called Christ” in the James passage quoted by Origen, that the fate of James and not of Jesus was said to be the cause of the fall of Jerusalem, and further on Josephus’ overall silence on Jesus and the Christian teaching, Origen has interpreted this as if Josephus reasonably cannot have regarded Jesus as the Messiah – for then he expressly should have said something about this. This I find to be a likely explanation.

3) Josephus wrote the Testimonium but not that Jesus “was the Messiah” (if so Origen would not have said that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah), but instead something like “he was thought to be the Messiah”, similar to how Jerome and Michael rendered the sentence.

The latter is a popular theory among those who argue for authenticity. According to the proponents of authenticity, the expression “he was thought to be” would accordingly explain Origen’s “did not accept”. Nevertheless, this reasoning is, as previously shown in “Origen’s testification of the absence of the Testimonium“, for several reasons illogical. To claim that the Testimonium should have included the phrase “he was thought to be the Messiah”, is a modification of the Testimonium in order to more easily accept that Josephus has written the paragraph. But Origen does not mention the Testimonium, even though he refers John the Baptist and book 18, where the Testimonium now is found. On top of this we already have an expression where it is said that Jesus “was called the Messiah”. And to make doubly sure, it is a paragraph that Origen expressly says occurred in Josephus. Does not the expression “he was called Christ” express as much (or as little) skepticism as “he was thought to be Christ”?

By comparison, we can imagine that a person writes that “Nixon was thought to be president” and another that “Nixon was called president”. Is there any difference in the skepticism between these two concepts? Can we say that the writer in one case did not accept Nixon as president, but in the second case did? Both sentences describe what others might have thought, but not necessarily what the author thought. In both cases, this might be enough for a reader to doubt that whoever wrote this accepted that Nixon held the office, but one no more than the other. Why at all assume an unproven text which says the same as a text we actually have? Is it then not more reasonable to assume that when Origen says that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, and in the same breath quotes a text in which Josephus writes that Jesus was called the Messiah, it is that formulation he has in mind and not a hypothetical formulation with the same meaning? In addition, one must also assume that the Testimonium which Origen in such case had access to, differed from the received version on many more places; for instance, the divine prophets could not possibly have foretold Jesus’ deeds, since Josephus thereby would have appointed him Messiah. And even a “down-played” Testimonium would have served Origen’s purposes; if for nothing else than at least to show that some people in those days believed that Jesus was the Messiah.

A much more likely scenario is that Origen on the basis of Josephus’ oeuvre concluded that Josephus did not accept or recognize Jesus as the Messiah. There is every reason to assume that Origen was not just superficially familiar with Josephus’ works, but that he also had read the books and particularly the Antiquities of the Jews. This conclusion can be made from the fact that Origen quotes or paraphrases Josephus on 11 occasions and this in several works. This can also be inferred from the things Origen writes himself; that Josephus “wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books” and that in “in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist”. Besides, also the Testimonium occurs in book 18. The fact that Origen gives an account of the things Josephus writes about John the Baptist in Book 18 of the Antiquities of the Jews, has at least two immediate implications. 1) It shows that Origen was familiar with that particular part of Josephus’ works where the Testimonium occurs. 2) Origen should have been aware of the Testimonium if it had occurred in his manuscript of the Antiquities of the Jews, yet he does not touch upon its contents or even mention the passage. This then demonstrates that the Testimonium most likely did not appear in the manuscripts of Josephus which Origen had access to. Reasonably Origen could not have avoided referring to the Testimonium, almost regardless of what the paragraph had said and certainly not by just the small change of “he was” into “he was thought to be” the Messiah, as the divine prophets’ prediction of his actions, would have been enough for Origen’s purposes.

Also, Origen’s statement that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah indicates that he actually was aware of everything Josephus had written, and therefore had read him thoroughly. Whether he had access to Josephus’ works or not when he wrote Against Celsus and On Matthew is another matter. It is sometimes argued that Origen on one or possibly two occasions has confused Josephus’ books. However, it is far from certain that this indeed is the case, and the suspicion probably arose due to the fact that Josephus’ Against Apion originally also bore the name Antiquities of the Jews (Against Celsus 4:11). What we cannot know is if Origen looked up the things he referred to in Josephus, or if he took it from memory? A perusal of Josephus’ works makes it clear that Josephus was not Christian. Combined with Origen’s possible realization that Josephus had not written anything at all about Jesus and the Christians (besides the part which Origen quotes and where more attention is paid to James than to Jesus), this would be quite sufficient for Origen to conclude that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Otherwise Josephus should have written much more about Jesus; had come to the conclusion that the killing of Jesus and not of James led to Jerusalem’s destruction, and also have said that he was the Messiah – not just that he “was called Christ / Messiah.”

You would accordingly not have to assume that Origen had read anything by Josephus where he explicitly says that Jesus was not the Messiah. Origen might indeed have interpreted a more neutral saying in Josephus where Jesus was called or thought to be the Messiah, as if Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. But it is then more likely to assume that this expression was the actual expression which Origen said was in Josephus by this time; namely, “who was called Christ”, then to assume that there was an expression in a Testimonium which Origen does not refer to and which neither occurs in Josephus – that is to say a text with the expression “he was thought / believed to be Christ”. But perhaps the most reasonable assumption to make is that Origen did not find anything else about Jesus Christ than what was said in connection with the punishments of the Jews because of the murder of James. Origen concluded that Josephus’ lack of interest in Jesus demonstrated that he could not have thought of Jesus as the Messiah. If so, this “shortcoming” would in the future be corrected by the creation of the Testimonium.