Layman

Pease has an online version of Against Hierocles which I printed out yesterday. Part of my hold-up on your last two points is Olson's arguments about Eusebius' apologetic purposes. I think there are inherent weaknesses in determining that someone engaged in such a complete fraud based on an argument that the passage assisted his apologetic purposes, but I wanted to evaluate his characterization of Eusebius as well.

Still have not found the ED anywhere.

Peter Kirby

Layman writes: Still have not found the ED anywhere.

The ED is the Demonstratio Evangelica, which is the Proof of the Gospel, which was translated into English in 1920 by Ferrar (republished 1981). As I said, I have ordered a copy and may find time to transcribe the translation onto the internet. If you like you could order the book from a used book dealer such as Alibris.com or AbeBooks.com.

best,
Peter Kirby

Layman

Thanks a lot for the tips. I've splurged my book budget for the month, but this goes to the top of my book list.

On another note, I heard back from Professor Feldman. He notes that the table of contents and its English translation for Books 18-20 are available in his edition of Josephus, Loeb Classic Library, vol. 9, at 534-555 [now republished as vol. 10].

Professor Feldman described the Table of Contents, thus:

Not terribly helpful for us, except that it is only a "rough" table and the summary is "very brief."

What I did find out that I believe has much more significance for our discussion is the fact that the Table of Contents also leaves out events important to Christians that you and I agree were original to the text. As Professor Feldman notes, "The Table of Contents, in both the Greek original and in the Latin translation does not refer to the Testimonium Flavianum or John the Baptist or James, the brother of Jesus."

Peter Kirby

The nine-volume LCL edition of Josephus is available at the university library. I hope to be able to consult it in a couple weeks. I am especially interested to know how the table of contents treats the surrounding passages.

I have said that I am persuaded to regard the "brother of Jesus" and John the Baptist passages as authentic. But I am not dogmatic about them; by evidence these opinions are made, and by evidence they can be taken away. If I become convinced that the balance of arguments point to inauthenticity for the 20.200 phrase, then so be it. But I do not want to make any additional statements concerning the table of contents before I have a chance to look at it for myself.

best,
Peter Kirby

Layman

I actually did not doubt that you would be willing to claim that the JtB and James refererences were also complete interpolations if you thought the evidence pointed to it. But since I knew that you favored their authenticity, I thought you would find it interesting that the Table of Contents also did not mention them. Can we agree that if we accept the JtB and James references as genuine that the failure ot the Table of Contents to refer to them as well as the TF suggests that the "failure" to include the TF does not indicate its nonexistence.

And I noticed another significant fact about the Table of Contents over the weekend. The translation was done by the School of Cassidorous. And as we know from above, Cassidorous himself quotes the TF early in the Sixth Century. Again suggesting that the significance of the "failure" to mention the TF is low -- if it has any significance at all.

Layman

Regarding the medium used. I believe the historical evidence suggests that any Christian scribe would have likely used the codex rather than the scroll. Christians began using the codex very early, even for non-Biblical documents.

All the literature of the period was written on scrolls....; yet apparently from the very begginning Christains did not use the scroll format for their own writings, but rather the Codex.

Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament, at 75-76.

Whereas among surviving Greek manuscripts of pagan texts, whether literary or scientific writings, only 14 of 871 items dated to the second century are in the form of a codex, all the surviving Christian Biblical papyri of the same period are in Codex format (11 in number). Of the approximately 172 Biblical manuscripts or fragments written before A.D. 400 or not long thereafter, it appears 158 came from codices and only 14 from scrolls. During the same period the code is preferred for non-Biblical Christian literature; of 118 such texts, 83 are from codices; the remaining 35 are rolls. There seems tehrefore to have been a remarkable uniformity in the practices of Christian scribes from the earliet times in preferring the codex format.

Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, at 260-61.

It seems, therefore, likely that a Christian scribe copying Josephus would have used the codex rather than the scroll.

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]</p>

Peter Kirby

Some information on the manuscripts of Josephus can be found here:

<a href="http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/josephus_antiquities.htm" target="_blank">Josephus: the Manuscripts of "Antiquities"</a>

I have no idea why Palatinus, the earliest Greek manuscript, stops short with book 17 but includes the Life.

The table of contents for the Antiquities was originally in Greek, and Feldman's _Josephus_, volume 9 of the LCL edition, gives the Greek original and the English translation of the table of contents for books 18 to 20 (earlier volumes gave the epitomes for earlier books). I do not know how early the table of contents was written for the Antiquities, although it must be ancient because, as Feldman notes, it was "already referred to in the Latin version of the fifth or sixth century." It does not seem that there was ever a separate Latin table of contents but rather a Latin translation of the Greek table of contents, as part of a translation of the Antiquities as a whole, with a few differences of no great length.

The Greek of the table of contents is available through Perseus.

<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0145&layout=&lo c=18.1" target="_blank">Niese's Greek Text of Table of Contents for Ant. 18</a>

Here is the English translation taken from Josephus, v. 9, with notes by Feldman.

----
(i) How Quirinius was sent by Ceaser to make an assessment of Syria and Judaea and to liquidate the estate of Archelaus. [§1. Some mss. add "after Judaea had changed from a kingdom to a procuratorship."]

(ii) How Coponius, a man of equestrian rank, was sent to be procurator of Judaea. [§2]

(iii) How Judas the Galilean [Some mss. add "and certain others."] persuaded the masses not to register their properties, [Some mss. add "and many followed their advice."] until Joazar the high priest induced them to give heed to the Romans. [§4. Some mss. add "and to give an evaluation of their properties."]

(iv) What and how many were the philosophical schools among the Jews and what rules they had. [§11]

(v) How Herod and Philip the tetrarchs founded cities in honour of Caesar [Augustus]. [§27]

(vi) How the Samaritans scattered bones of the dead in the temple [Some mss. add "during a festival."] and thus defiled the people for seven days. [§29]

(vii) How Salome the sister of Herod died leaving her estate [For "her estate" some mss. have "Jamnia and its territory, together with Phasaelis and Archelais."] to Julia the wife of Caesar. [§31]

(viii) How Pontius Pilate sought secretly to introduce busts of Caesar into Jerusalem, and how the people rose up against him and refused to permit it. [§55. For "how the people rose up against him and refused to permit it" some mss. have "how the people, having learnt of it, rose up against him until he withdrew them from Jerusalem to Caesarea." The table omits special mention of Jesus and of Paulina (§§63-80).]

(ix) What happened to the Jews in Rome about this time at the instigation of the Samaritans. [§81. Some mss. have in, in place of "at the instigation of the Samaritans," "arising from the destruction in Samaria, and how Pilate slew many." Regardless of the reading, there is some confusion, since the troubles of the Jews in Rome arose not from the Samaritans but from certain unscrupulous Jews living in Rome who misled Fulvia, a Roman lady (§§81-84).]

(x) The bringing of charges against Pilate by the Samaritans before Vitellius, and how Vitellius compelled him to proceed to Rome to render an account of his actions. [§88. Some mss. add "The ascent of Vitellius to Jerusalem and the honour accorded him by the people, and how he thereupon permitted them to keep under their own control the sacred robe that lay in Antonia in custody of the Romans" (§§90-95).]

(xi) The war of Herod the tetrarch with Aretas the king of the Arabians and Herod's defeat. [§109. The table omits special mention of the listing of Herod the Great's descendants (§§130-142) and of Agrippa's upbringing in Rome, his voyage to Judaea, and his proposed suicide (§§143-150).]

(xii) [This section and section xiii belong before section xi.] How Tiberius Caesar sent instructions to Vitellius to induce Artabanes [Artabanus in the text of this book (§§48 ff.).] the Parthian to send hostages to him and make war on Aretas. [§96]

(xiii) The death of Philip and how his tetrarchy became provincial territory. [§106. The Latin version adds "Concerning John the Baptist" (§§116-119).]

(xiv) The voyage of Agrippa to Rome [Some mss. add "to Tiberius Caesar."] and how, after being accused by his own freedman, he was thrown into chains. [§155. The table omits special mention of the thwarting of Tiberius' scheme to bestow the succession to the empire upon his grandson Gemellus (§§205-223).]

(xv) How he was released by Gaius after the death of Tiberius and became king of the tetrarchy of Philip. [§237.]

(xvi) How Herod, upon making a trip to Rome, [Some mss. add "and after being accused by Agrippa."] was banished, and how Gaius presented his tetrarchy to Agrippa. [§240.]

(xvii) The civil strife of the Jews and Greeks in Alexandria and the dispatch of delegates by both groups to Gaius. [§257.]

(xviii) The charges brought against the Jews by Apion and his fellow delegates on the score of their permitting no image of Caesar. [§257.]

(xiv) How Gaius in his resentment sent Petronius to Syria as governor [Some mss. add: "giving him orders to collect a force and ..."] to open hostilities against the Jews if they did not agree to accept an image of him. [§261. The table omits special mention of Agrippa's successful plea with Gaius to give up the proposal of setting up the statue in the temple (§§289-301). It also omits Petronius' escape, through the intervention of Gaius' death, from the death penalty for insubordination.]

(xx) The disaster that befell the Jews in Babylonia because of the brothers Asinaeus and Anilaeus. [§310.]

This book covers a period of thirty-two years.
----

I am interested in defining how "rough" this table is and how "very brief" the summary is in numerical terms. In order to do so, I need some kind of metric.

There are 289 Greek words in the table of contents as given by Niese. There are 15,577 Greek words in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities as given by Niese. At first, this does not seem very promising. But comparing simply the number of words is not a very useful metric for our purposes. If the summary said as little as "Concerning Jesus" at the appropriate point, then we would know that a form of the Testimonium was present in the manuscript used by the epitomizer, even though only a couple words would have been used to refer to the passage. We are concerned with the level of passages, because the table of contents refers to passages with a few words on each passage mentioned, and because we wish to discover the probability that the empitomizer would have passed over a form of the Testimonium passage entirely if he knew of it. We do not care how "brief" or wordy the summary is for each portion mentioned, but we are concerned about how "rough" the table is and how many portions are skipped.

In the Whiston translation, there are nine chapters and fifty-seven sections within chapters. We are concerned with the sections within chapters, as the Testimonium is one such section (18.3.3). Now I will indicate which portions we can deduce to have been in the epitomizer's manuscript from the references given in the table of contents.

(i), (ii), and (iii) refer to 18.1.1.

(iv) refers to 18.1.2-6.

(v) refers to 18.2.1.

(vi) and (vii) refer to 18.2.2.

18.2.3 receives no mention (building of Tiberias).

18.2.4 receives no mention (murder of Phraates and rise of Artabanus).

18.2.5 receives no mention (death of Antiochus).

(viii) refers to 18.3.1.

18.3.2 receives no mention (Pilate's use of Temple funds for an aqueduct).

18.3.3 receives no mention (testimony to Jesus Christ).

18.3.4 receives no mention (incident with Paulina).

(ix) refers to 18.3.5.

(x) presupposes 18.4.1 and refers to 18.4.2.

The Latin translation and the AMW manuscript family (Ambrosianae, Medicaeus, Vaticanus 984) refer to 18.4.3.

(xii) refers to 18.4.4-5.

(xiii) refers to 18.4.6.

(xi) refers to 18.5.1.

The Latin translation refers to 18.5.2 with the words "de baptista Iohanne" between (xiii) and (xiv).

18.5.3 receives no mention (preparation for war between Vitellius and Aretas).

18.5.4 receives no mention (descendants of Herod), although there is a sentence that ties this explanatory passage to the subesequent narrative on Agrippas.

Chapter 6 forms a continuous, seamless narrative and an interesting one at that. (xiv) presupposes 18.6.1-2 and refers to 18.6.3-7. (xv) refers to 18.6.8-11.

(xvi) refers to 18.7.1-2.

(xvii) and (xviii) refer to 18.8.1.

(xix) refers to 18.8.2.

18.8.3-9 receive no mention (protest of Jews to Petronius, request of Agrippa before Gaius, death of Gaius).

(xx) refers to 18.9.1-9.

If we include the variations that refer to 18.4.3 and 18.5.2, and if we include the presupposed passages of 18.4.1 and of 18.6.1-2 (but exclude 18.5.4), we calculate that the outline of 42 sections out of 57 is provided by the table of contents. Leaving 18.3.3 aside as it is the unknown variable, we arrive at a 75.0% chance that any given passage would be encompassed by the table of contents for book eighteen. If we exclude the passages attested in the variations and if we disallow the counting of the three mentioned sections that are merely presupposed, we still arrive at a figure greater than one half, or exactly 66.1%. Such a figure means, in other words, that it is about twice as likely that a section chosen at random from the eighteenth book would be shown to have been part of the epitomizer's manuscript from the references in the table of contents than that the section would be passed over.

I do note that the epitomizer has left out the two passages that frame the Testimonium in its current location, the passage on the aqueduct and the passage on Paulina. This is interesting but not decisive, for at least two reasons. First, there is nothing that would have prevented any epitomizer from mentioning the matter of Jesus but leaving out the two passages next to it, as the passage on Jesus is not connected to the surrounding passages and because the epitomizer had included isolated sections such as in (viii) in the eighteenth book (18.3.1). Second, a Christian epitomizer would very probably not have ignored the words concerning Jesus, whose appearance would certainly have been the most significant event in the entire eighteenth book. This point is even more plain if, as I have argued, the scribe was already summarizing the narrative of more than half the book's sections.

Layman writes: Can we agree that if we accept the JtB and James references as genuine that the failure ot the Table of Contents to refer to them as well as the TF suggests that the "failure" to include the TF does not indicate its nonexistence.

Having thought it over, I will not agree to that. One could accept the 18.5.2 and 20.9.1 passages as entirely authentic yet still think that the table of contents affords evidence for the interpolation of the 18.3.3 passage. Let me explain why.

First, the attestation for the 18.5.2 and 20.9.1 passages is not exactly the same as the attestation (or lack thereof) for the 18.3.3 passage. The epitomizer does refer to the section in which James is mentioned, although no special attention is given to the incidental figure of James in Josephus, while there is absolutely no mention of the Testimonium section. This is item (xxiv) of the table for book twenty: "How, upon the death of Festus in Judaea, Albinus came as his successor." The Latin translation's table of contents does have a notice "de baptista Iohanne," but the Christian author of the table of contents who saw fit to correct the omission of John's name did not extend the same courtesy to his Lord and Savior. How odd.

Second, and most importantly, the references to James and John would not comparable in importance to a reference to Jesus in the eyes of Christians. John was not the light but came to testify to the light. James was the leader of the Jerusalem Christians in the first century, and though known for his piety, his importance was not that great in the subsequent centuries. On the other hand, to a Christian, Jesus was the Lord, the Savior, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah of Israel, the Chosen One, the Word of God, the Lamb of God, and the list goes on. For a Christian to have ignored the testimony on Jesus, any testimony on Jesus, would be practically inconceivable. Today it is the main thing, if not the only thing, for which most Christian believers remember Josephus.

Last, even if we did agree, there would still be the matter of demonstrating the authenticity of the references to the brother of Jesus and John the Baptist. A few writers have challenged the authenticity of each, although not quite so many as have challenged the Testimonium. The number of challengers decreases from Jesus to James his brother, and from James to John the Baptist. I think that the passage on John the Dunker is most likely authentic for the reasons of the quotation by Origen and the absence of any connection to Jesus, which would be unusual for a Christian writer on John. But I have not looked into this matter any more deeply than reading Meier's A Marginal Jew, and there may be counter-arguments of which I am not aware. I currently do accept the authenticity of the Baptist passage, though, and I am willing to grant it as a premise. I am less sure about the authenticity of "the brother of Jesus called the Christ" and would like some justification before basing arguments on its genuineness, at least for the sake of our readership if not for convincing me personally.

Layman writes: And I noticed another significant fact about the Table of Contents over the weekend. The translation was done by the School of Cassidorous. And as we know from above, Cassidorous himself quotes the TF early in the Sixth Century. Again suggesting that the significance of the "failure" to mention the TF is low -- if it has any significance at all.

At least one thing should be noted here. The Table of Contents was not an invention in Latin. The Table of Contents was composed originally in Greek and is preserved in our Greek manuscripts. Feldman states that the presence of the table of contents in the Latin translation made contemporary with Cassidorous indicates that the Table of Contents was in existence prior to the sixth century. It was not a Latin creation, although my reference to "the actual Latin table of contents" shows that I once labored under this false understanding.

Here is the quote from Cassiodorus as given by Norman Bentwich in Josephus, p. 245:

"As to Josephus, who is almost a second Livy, and is widely known by his books on the Antiquities of the Jews, Jerome declared that he was unable to translate his works because of their great volume. But one of my friends has translated the twenty-two books [i.e., the Antiquties and the two books of the Apology], in spite of their difficulty and complexity, into the Latin tongue. He also wrote seven books of extreme brilliancy on the Conquest of the Jews, the translation of which some ascribe to Jerome, others to Ambrose, and others ot Rufinus."

Another translation may be found here (Institutiones, XVII):

<a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/inst-trans.html" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/inst-trans.html</a>

It is clear that the Latin translation of the Antiquities was undertaken in the sixth century, apparently by a friend commissioned by Cassiodorus for the difficult task. But this reference should not prevent us from using the table of contents as evidence for the omission of the Testimonium Flavianum. As I already noted, a table of contents existed in Greek before the sixth century Latin translation, and this table of contents already omits mention of Jesus. It is not necessary to bring the Latin translation into the argument at all, and Feldman mentioned the Latin only to establish the terminus ad quem for the table's composition. But it is possible to mention the Latin translation as an additional argument, as its table of contents mentions John the Baptist but not Jesus. It is possible that the scribe inserted the reference to John the Baptist but not one to Jesus for no particular reason. But we do have a rational explanation available, specifically that the Greek exemplar for the Latin translation mentioned Jesus neither in its table of contents nor in its actual contents. This explanation would posit that the Testimonium was interpolated into the Latin translation by a person other than the original sixth century translator.

Against this, it might be said that the translator belonged to the School of Cassiodorus and that Cassiodorus quoted the Testimonium. To say this is to speak imprecisely. The translation was probably commissioned by Cassiodorus, but this does not mean that the translator was a disciple of Cassiodorus. More importantly, it cannot be assumed that even a disciple of Cassiodorus would be aware of everything that Cassiodorus wrote. If the Greek exemplar had no Testimonium and the translator omitted the passage in innocence, it may have been Cassiodorus himself who refused to discard the labor of twenty books for the fact of such omission and ordered that all copies contain the Testimony to Jesus Christ. This would account for the presence of the passage in all the Latin manuscripts, as well as the absence of Jesus in the Latin table of contents despite the curious presence of John the Baptist. And while it is possible and even probable that Cassiodorus would be familiar with the Testimonium from his reading of earlier church fathers, the authorities that I have found on the subject do not state clearly that Cassiodurus was the author of the Historia Tripartita.

<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05504a.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05504a.htm</a>
"Surnamed SCHOLASTICUS, or in modern terms, THE PHILOLOGIST, a translator of various Greek works in the middle of the sixth century of the Christian Era. He prepared for Cassiodorus the text of the 'Historia Tripartita', a compilation of the works of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret."

Note that Whiston refers to "Hist. Tripartit. e Sozomeno," which I will attempt to translate as "three part history from Sozomen," the other two parts being by Socrates and Theodoret. This would mean that the quotation of the Testimonium contained here may be on the part of a more ancient author, Sozomen, and translated by Epiphanius Scholasticus for Cassiodorus. Now, it is still possible but not certain that Cassiodorus had a hand in this. So I would be interested in any references you may find concerning the authorship of this passage and this work.

But Cassiodorus may have known of the Testimonium anyway, as I suggested. And it is quite possible that the Greek manuscript used for the sixth century Latin translation contained the interpolated Testimonium. This would still leave us with an original table of contents written in Greek, in which we should expect the creator to mention the notice on Jesus, for reasons I have indicated above.

In my essay, I write, "I regard this as an important and powerful piece of evidence, although one that doesn't get much attention." Now that I have looked at it in some more detail, I think that such an assessment holds up.

best,
Peter Kirby

Layman

I will have some additional comments later, but I wanted to address this a couple of issues first.

I will deal with "comparability" later, but for now, the problem with this argument is that -- since you are assuming the authenticity of the JtB and James references -- you already have a Christian scholar ignoring at least some testimony about Jesus. So the statement that a Christian scholar would not ignore "any" testimony about Jesus is clearly untrue. The reference in Antiq. 20 provides "testimony" that Jesus had a brother named James who had become the leader of the Jerusalem Church and that Jesus was known as the Christ. That is plenty to entice any Christian scholar to point to if it was his purpose to point out references to Christ.


I am confused by your last statement. You've already written an article addressing the autheniticity of the reference to James, the brother of Jesus, have you not? You concluded that it probably was written by Josephus. To that extent, the measure of probability you assign to that reference is a factor that is relevant to this point.

As for opening a discussion on the authenticity of the JtB and James references, that is really broadening the scope of our discussion. Moreover, you seem to place the burden on me to prove the authenticity of these passages before incoprorating them into the argument on this point. Given that both the JtB and James, the Brother of Jesus, references exist in all our manuscripts, are cited by Origen in the third-century, and accepted by most scholars, it would be reasonable to place the burden of proof on those wishing to challenge their authenticity.

And finally, do we know if the author of the Greek Table of Contents was a Christian scribe?

[ August 06, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]

[ August 06, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]</p>

Peter Kirby

Layman writes: I will deal with "comparability" later, but for now, the problem with this argument is that -- since you are assuming the authenticity of the JtB and James references -- you already have a Christian scholar ignoring at least some testimony about Jesus. So the statement that a Christian scholar would not ignore "any" testimony about Jesus is clearly untrue. The reference in Antiq. 20 provides "testimony" that Jesus had a brother named James who had become the leader of the Jerusalem Church and that Jesus was known as the Christ. That is plenty to entice any Christian scholar to point to if it was his purpose to point out references to Christ.

It is reasonable to recognize that the absence of special mention of the phrase "James the brother of Jesus called Christ" would more underatandable than the absence of any mention of the entire passage devoted to Jesus the wise man, founder of Christianity. There is, first, the relative length of the two references. To ignore an entire passage on Jesus is not the same as to ignore a six word identification of James. This leads to the second point, which is that the passage is not about Jesus, not even about James, but about why Ananus lost his job. I am not aware of any ancient writer who mentioned this passage in the twentieth book as a testimony to Jesus; they seem to take it as a reference to James. This brings us to a third point, which is that the reference to "James the brother of Jesus called Christ" would not have much christological appeal to an ancient Christian scribe. There is the matter of whether James was actually a brother to Jesus, which contradicts the doctrine of perpetual virginity that had some currency in antiquity. And the words could easily have been interpreted as skeptical and even dismissive of Jesus' status as Christ. On the other hand, there is nothing in the Testimonium as it stands that would be offensive to a Christian scribe. As a very brief reference, to James and not really to Jesus, that could have been taken negatively by a Christian, the situation is not at all the same as the omission of the Testimonium.

Layman writes: I am confused by your last statement. You've already written an article addressing the autheniticity of the reference to James, the brother of Jesus, have you not? You concluded that it probably was written by Josephus. To that extent, the measure of probability you assign to that reference is a factor that is relevant to this point.

OK. At this present moment, 9:07 PM Pacific time on 2002-Aug-6, I am not sure that the 20.200 reference is probably authentic. That could change tomorrow, as my mood changes and my awareness of information changes. But my personal opinions should not be a factor in evaluating the authenticity of these references. The arguments themselves matter. If the arguments used to draw my conclusion are faulty, then my conclusion is faulty.

Layman writes: As for opening a discussion on the authenticity of the JtB and James references, that is really broadening the scope of our discussion.

This is relevant to our discussion of the Testimonium if we wish to use the authenticity or spuriousness of these other references as evidence for or against the authenticity of the Testimonium. If you do not wish to discuss the authenticity of the 20.9.1 or 18.5.2 passages, then I advise you to avoid arguments that assume their genuineness or inauthenticity.

Layman writes: Moreover, you seem to place the burden on me to prove the authenticity of these passages before incoprorating them into the argument on this point. Given that both the JtB and James, the Brother of Jesus, references exist in all our manuscripts, are cited by Origen in the third-century, and accepted by most scholars, it would be reasonable to place the burden of proof on those wishing to challenge their authenticity.

When I stated that I "would like some justification," I made no statement about where the burden of proof lies, and I did not exclude the possibility that your justification might be the manuscripts, quotes, and consensus on this passage as prima facie evidence that justifies one in accepting their authenticity until there is evidence to the contrary.

Is this all that can be said for authenticity? Do you object to the idea that you have to provide further argument but know of further argument, or is this the extent of the evidence? If there is more evidence, what is it?

Layman writes: And finally, do we know if the author of the Greek Table of Contents was a Christian scribe?

I do not know. I do not know anyone who has addressed the subject of its authorship. If you come across any information, be sure to post it.

Assuming that the author were not a Christian scribe, an argument could still be made for three reasons. First, if you are correct that Christianity had some visibility by the second century, then a non-Christian scribe of the second century may easily have made notice of the reference to Jesus out of general interest, either for Christian readers or anti-Christian readers or both. Second, in my assessment, the scribe mentioned more than half of the sections in the eigteenth book. The argument from omission is surely stronger if the scribe were Christian, but the argument has value no matter what the religious inclinations of the scribe. Third, there is a separate argument concerning the Latin translation undertaken by Christians, which does not add a notice to Jesus in the table of contents, though it adds a notice to John the Baptist. This argument was explained in my previous post.

best,
Peter Kirby

Layman

I was responding to this statement: On the other hand, to a Christian, Jesus was the Lord, the Savior, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah of Israel, the Chosen One, the Word of God, the Lamb of God, and the list goes on. For a Christian to have ignored the testimony on Jesus, any testimony on Jesus, would be practically inconceivable.

And the question is really not whether they would have found the Testimonium Flavianum dramatically more important than the reference to John the Baptist and James (which is also another reference to Jesus). The more relevant comparison is between the importance of events in the Summaries to the events we know were important to Christians.

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus, the cousin of Jesus, the baptizer of Jesus, of whom Jesus said "he is Elijah" and "Amongst those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist." And the James reference does include an explicit reference to Jesus, who the author would have believed was the Son of God, God in the Flesh, blah, blah, blah.

Would a Christian scribe working from scratch think that these references were less important than the civil strife in Alexandria? Or the Parthian hostage situation? I seriously doubt it.

It is possible, of course, that the original TF was a negative one (as Eisler and Bruce argue). If it was in its negative form when the Summaries where written, that would be a motive for the Christian to avoid drawing attention to the passage. This parrallels your explanation as to why a Christian may have avoided referring to the James reference.

More and more I think the best answer is that the original table of contents were not written by a Christian or were written by a Christian who for whatever reason had no interest in highlighting Josephus' references to Jesus and Christian events.

I'm not sure what your point is. Yes, you could change your mind. You could change your mind today and think the entire TF is authentic. But I think its reasonable for me to operate on the assumption that what you have represented to me is what your present-state of mind really is.

You have gone through the evidence re: the reference to James in a rather in-depth manner and reached a conclusion. And you have done so only recently. Yes, you could change your mind. But I was counting on your existing state of mind as you have expressed it recently. If we agree that something is likely to be true, how much time should we spend arguing about it?

In this argument, I was relying on your previous statements that you did not doubt the authenticity of the JtB passage and that your found it likely that the reference to James was genuine. Based on those statements, I pointed out that the Summaries of Contents also neglected to mention them, thus indicating a general lack of interest in referring to the section in Josephus most relevant to Christianity.

Since you written in depth about the reference to James, I'm sure we can agree that there is more to the story than my few comments. As for JtB, there probably is as well, but I haven't looked into it -- mainly because I've never seen a credible argument for its inauthenticity.

Basically what I object to is having to open up new fronts of discussion when there is no credible reason offered to doubt the reference to JtB and you have already written an in depth article find that the James reference is likely authentic.

The more I look into this the more it looks like the author of the Summaries was not a Christian. And when I finally got a hold of some more information on this, I learned that Thackeray concluded that the author of the summaries was likely a Jew, and possibly one of Josephus' assistants. Professor Thackeray notes:

"Josephus himself incorporated a rough summary of the whole in his proem, and though it is improbable that these more elaborate chapter headings are the product of his pen, they may not be far removed from him in date."

Thackeray goes on to suggest that the Summaries might even have been one of Josephus' assistants because "the phraseology occasionally suggests the hand of one of the author's assistants."

All in all, Thackeray thinks that the Summaries were likely written by a Jew because of the foregoing evidence and because the summary refers to "our forefather Abraham."

Henry St.J. Thackeray, ed. and trans., Josephus, vol. 4 (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press [or London: Heinemann], 1930), at 637.

Well, my argument was that Josephus could have believed that his audience was knowledgeable enough about Christians to associate them with "Christ." That does not mean that a Jew would have highlighted the reference to Jesus in a Summary of Content, especially when Josephus himself only mentions Jesus in a digression -- and a short one at that.

All in all, if the Summaries were written by a Jew (as Thackeray thinks is likely), the silence about the sections most important to Christians becomes much more understandable. In fact, it is the most reasonable explanation. Otherwise we have to envision a Christian scribe who avoids any mention to the passages of interest to Christians (JtB and James) and highlights passages that would be of little or no interest to Christians.

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]</p>