Bleachers: Josephus and the Historicity of Jesus Christ - Page 2

Harvey1 · #11 (**permalink**) 17th February 2008, 02:59 PM

As for (C4), There also good reasons to think that Christians would not have written the Meier TF:

Quote:

If we bracket the three clearly Christian passages, the "christology" of the core statement is extremely low: a wise man like Solomon or Daniel who performed startling deeds like Elisha, a teacher of people who gladly receive the truth, a man who winds up crucified, and whose only vindication is the continued love of his devoted followers after his death. Without the three Christian passages, this summary description of Jesus is conceivable in the mouth of a Jew who is not openly hostile to him, but not in the mouth of an ancient or medieval Christian. Indeed, even if we were to include the three passages I designate as Christian, the christology would still be jejune for any Christian of the patristic or medieval period, especially if, as many suppose, the Christian interpolation would have to come from the late third or early fourth century. By this time, whether one was an Arian or an "orthodox" Catholic, whether one had incipient Nestorian or Monophysite tendencies, this summary about Jesus' person and work would seem hopelessly inadequate. What would be the point of a Christian interpolation that would make Josephus the Jew affirm such an imperfect estimation of the God-man? What would a Christian scribe intend to gain by such an insertion?

(...)

A final curiosity encompasses not the Testimonium taken by itself, but the relation of the Testimonium to the longer narrative about John the Baptist in Ant. 18.5.2 (Section 116-19), a text accepted as authentic by almost all scholars. The two passages are in no way related to each other in Josephus. The earlier, shorter passage about Jesus is placed in the context of Pontius Pilate's governorship of Judea; the later, longer passage about John is placed in a context dealing with Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee-Perea. Separated by time, space, and placement in book 18, Jesus and the Baptist (in that order!) have absolutely nothing to do with each other in the mind and narrative of Josephus. Such a presentation totally contradicts - indeed, it is the direct opposite of - the NT portrait of the Baptist, who is always treated briefly as the forerunner of the main character, Jesus. Viewed as a whole, the treatment of Jesus and John in book 18 of The Antiquities is simply inconceivable as the work of a Christian of any period. (Meier, 1990)

Harvey1 · #12 (**permalink**) 17th February 2008, 03:00 PM

As for (C5), Meier gives a very thorough examination of the vocabulary/grammar consistencies between the revised TF and Josephus:

Quote:

The Testimonium and Josephus
The usage of Josephus presents a totally different picture. With regard to "wise man" (sophos aner), Josephus calls Solomon (Ant. 8.2.7 [section 53]) and likewise Daniel (Ant. 10.11.2 [section 237]) a "wise man," while no NT writing ever predicates the adjective "wise" (sophos) directly of Jesus. Kata touton ton chronon and similar time references with kata + chronon are frequent in Josephus (see, e.g., Ant. 13.2.3 [section 46]; 18.2.4 [section 39]), but the NT never uses kata + chronon in any connection; paradoxos occurs 50x in Josephus (1x in NT), including two cases where it modifies erga, as here (Ant. 9.7.6 [section 182]: thaumasta gar kai paradoxa epedeixato erga [of Elisha the prophet]; Ant. 12.2.8 [section 63]: ergon kainon kai paradoxon); paradoxon touto poion (Ant. 12.2.11 [section 87]) also occurs. Poietes is used elsewhere in Josephus only in the sense of "poet"; but Josephus (or his secretary, according to Thackeray) has a fondness for resolving a simple verb into two words: a noun expressing the agent and the auxiliary verb (e.g., writes einai for the simple krinein). Moreover, Josephus uses such cognates as poieteos, "that which is to be done," poiesis, "doing, causing" (as well as "poetry, poem"), and poietikos, "that which causes something" (as well as "poetic"). Didaskalos occurs 16x in Josephus (59x in NT); anthropos, needless to say, is extremely common in Josephus. Hedone is used 128x by Josephus (5x in NT), who uses it in both positive and negative senses; hedone in the dative is used in the sense of "with pleasure," "gladly," as here. (Thackeray sees in this "receive with pleasure" locution the hand of a particular secretary of Josephus, "the Thucydidean hack" ["Josephus and Christianity," 141, 144]; I prescind from theories of secretaries, since my only concern is to show that the language is Josephan. Moreover, Thackeray's position about helpers in the composition of The Antiquities has not been universally accepted. Heinz Schreckenberg [Rezeptionsgeschichtliche und textkritische Untersuchungen zu Flavius Josephus (ALGHJ 10; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 173-74] stresses Josephus' command of Greek and the unity of his style in The Antiquities. The differences in style that exist in The Antiquities are to be attributed to Josephus himself, who over many years wrote The Antiquities, using various sources and influenced by various classical authors he was reading.) Alethes occurs 150x in Josephus (26x in NT); more importantly, Josephus frequently uses the crasis forms talethes and talethe, which never occur in the NT (note the phrase talethe kai ta dikaia labon in Ant. 8.2.1 [section 23]). Dechomai is used 221x in Josephus (56x in NT). Indeed, language very similar to the Testimonium is found in Ant. 17.12.1 (section 329): ton anthropon to hedone dechomenon tous logous; moreover, hedone is used remarkably often with dechomai in Josephus (never in the NT). Hellenikos occurs in Josephus 25x (NT 1x). Epago is used 106x in Josephus (3x in NT); unlike the NT, Josephus does use it in the middle voice to mean "attract, persuade, motivate, induce"; see especially J.W. 7.6.1 (section 164): pollous eis apostasian epagagetai; and Ant. 17.12.1 (section 327): Ioudaion hoposois eis homilian aphiketo epegageto eis pistin. Endeixis is used once in Josephus in the sense of "denunciation, charge, accusation" (Ant. 19.9.16 [section 133]); but the NT never uses it in this sense. Hoi protoi andres occurs some 6x just in The Antiquities (allowing for different word order); slightly variant forms of the same phrase occur three more times in the same work. Especially interesting is the fact that there is a high concentration of this phrase or very similar phrases in book 18: 18.1.1 (section 7); 18.4.4 (section 98,99); 18.5.3 (section 121); 18.9.9 (section 376). While there is no exact equivalent to the full phrase ton proton andron par' hemin, Ant. 18.9.9 reads: ton proton par' hekaterois andron, "the leading men on both sides"; closer still are Ant. 20.1.1 (section 2): chords gnomes tes ton proton par' autois, "without the consent of their leaders"; Ant. 20.9.1 (section 198): hoper oudeni synebe ton par'hemin archiereon, "which happened to none of our high priests"; and Ag. Ap. 2.12 (section 136): peri de ton par'hemin andron gegonoton, "but concerning our own men of past history." (For further examples, see Eisler, IESOUS BASILEUS, 73.) Epitimao is used 13x in Josephus (29x in NT), including a number of instances where it means "to sentence" or "to fix (a punishment)," a sense never found in the NT; note the perfect active forms in Ant. 18.5.6 (section 183); Ag. Ap. 2.32 (section 239). The one difference from the other texts is the unusual accusative of the person and dative of the punishment, but such a construction would be unusual in any Greek author; and amid so many examples of typical Josephan style some minor variations are to be expected. Eisler (ibid., 74), noting the similarity to Tacitus' reference to Jesus' death (Annales 15.44), suggests a literal translation of a technical Latin juridical phrase. Agapao in Josephus can mean "to like, love, value, welcome; to content oneself; to tolerate, accept." Passages dealing with God, parents, children, justice, etc. make it clear that Josephus does use the word in the sense of affective love; vaguely reminiscent of our passage is J.W. 1.1.12 (section 30): tois ge ten aletheian agaposin, alla me pros hedonen anegrapsa. Hence it is hardly justified to claim that agapesantes is "specifically and technically Christian" (so A. von Gutschmid, quoted by Bammel, "Zum Testimonium Flavianum," 11 n. 22). Thackeray ("Josephus and Christianity," 147) prefers here the sense of "to be content with," but only because he insists on seeing an originally hostile sense in the Testimonium. Pauo occurs 170x in Josephus, in both active and middle, the meanings of the middle including the sense witnessed here, "to stop (doing something), to give up"; the NT has only one example of the active and 14 of the middle, the middle regularly meaning "to stop (doing something)." The words eis, eti, te, and nyn are all very common in Josephus, but their conjunction here is unusual. The Testimonium is the only passage in Josephus where Christianoi appears; but then it occurs only 3x in the NT. Onomazo occurs in Josephus 62x (10x in NT). Josephus often uses the phrase onomazo apo tinos in the sense of "to name something after someone," which occurs in the passive as well as the active voice; see, e.g., Ant. 1.15 (section 241); 1.6.1 (section 123); note the exact form of the perfect passive participle in Ag. Ap. 1.26 (section 245). The onomazo apo tinos construction does not occur in the NT. Hode is used frequently by Josephus. While epileipo occurs only 1x in the NT, in the sense of "time will fail me" (Heb 11:32), it occurs 40x in Josephus, including the sense of "stop, cease, become extinct, die out"; note Ant. 2.9.3 (section 210): dedios hyper tou pantos ethnous, me spanei tes epitraphesomenes neotetos epileipe. While Josephus uses phyle more often than phylon, he does use the latter 11x, usually in the sense of "tribe, people, nation"; note J.W. 2.15.4 (section 397): anairesein de pan hymon tophylon. (Meier, 1990)

Harvey1 · #13 (**permalink**) 17th February 2008, 03:00 PM

For his arguments for (C6) Meier compares the New Testament writings to the revised TF since this Christian interpolators would have most familiar with their own liturgy and kerygmatic expressions for Jesus. We see how unlikely from a textual point of view that the revised TF (i.e., the TF without three phrases) would come from a Christian holding to New Testament christology:

Quote:

The Testimonium and the New Testament
To take only the most obvious examples of the differences between the usage of the NT and that of the core of the Testimonium: poietes is never used of Jesus in the NT; hellenikos is used only 1x, of the Greek language, in Rev 9:11; hedone is used only 5x in the NT, and always in a pejorative sense of sensual or illicit pleasure; epago occurs 3x, but never in the middle voice with the sense of "win over" or "gain a following"; the crasis form talethe is never used in the NT; nothing even vaguely like the phrase anthropon ton hedone talethe dechomenon is ever used in the NT to describe the disciples of Jesus or those who decide to follow Jesus; endeixis occurs 4x, always in Paul, and always with the general sense of showing, manifesting, demonstrating, proving, never with the formal judicial sense of accusation, charge, denunciation, indictment; protoi andres never occurs in the NT (the closest analogue is Luke 19:47, hoi protoi tou laou, designating not all the Jewish leaders but only the elders as distinct from the high priests and the scribes; even here the phrase occurs outside the Passion Narrative; cf. Acts 13:50; 17:4; 25:2; 28:7); epitimao is always used in the NT of verbal rebukes (most often in the mouth of Jesus), never of any physical punishment, and certainly not of crucifixion; onomazo is never used in the NT in the form of the perfect passive participle and never in reference to the naming of Christians (cf. the statement of Luke in Acts 11:26); epileipo is used in the NT only once, in the transitive sense of "fail," never in the intransitive sense of "disappear, die out"; phylon is never used in the NT; the NT instead uses phyle 31x, in the sense of either (1) a tribe or the twelve tribes of Israel or (2) all the nations or peoples of the earth; the first sense is sometimes used symbolically of Christians (the clearest case in Jas 1:1), but phyle is never used directly with Christianon or any equivalent (the disciples, the brethren, etc.). No one of these differences means all that much; but the accumulated evidence of all these differences may point to an author who is not taking his material from the NT. (Meier, 1990)

tricky · #14 (**permalink**) 18th February 2008, 09:18 AM

I have to admit that i have found much of the debate difficult to follow and digest. Lots of references to scholarly opinions and translations is sometimes difficult to unravel (for me anyway). This is in no way a criticism as I accept that the nature of the debate requires this and it is the foundation of each debater's case - I just wish it didn't make my brain hurt when I read it too quickly

.

As is to be expected, there is much speculation on both sides as to the authenticity of the texts and their interpretation. As both debaters agree, in the absence of certain knowledge, speculation and probability (or 'best guessing') is all that we have to go on and it's clear that what each debater thinks is the most probable scenario based on the evidence they see, differs a great deal.

I thought Harvey's last post (2nd) was a good one and in particular, it raises an issue that I confess I hadn't considered. Up until now I thought that the weight of probability leaned towards Travis' explanation but Harvey makes the point that there are no early denials of Jesus' existence in any ancient texts / commentaries. If this is accurate (and I imagine it is as both debaters seem to know their stuff), I think it's a good point - now I'm really confused

!!.
No doubt Travis will come up with a good response to this and I'm really looking forward to the next post.

Great work guys....

vivamis123 · #15 (**permalink**) 18th February 2008, 12:18 PM

Yes, Tricky I too find this debate hard to follow and agree that Harvey has a point that has to be considered.

Eolas Pellor · #16 (**permalink**) 18th February 2008, 02:27 PM

...a fairly tehcnical debate, with lots of expert opinion trotted out, and a lot of hairsplitting. This may make it hard for some to really follow.

I think there are a couple of things to bear in mind.

Either the testimonium was (a) totally added at a later date, or (b) it was not added later.

If (b) it was not added, then either (i) it was altered, or (ii) it was not altered.

If (ii) it was not altered, then it would seem that (A) it was not present in all copies of the text known in ancient times or, (B) for some reason, various ancient authors seem to have overlooked it.

I tend to the opinion that it was not added later, but was altered...

tricky · #17 (**permalink**) 21st February 2008, 09:01 AM

In post #8, Travis says:

"I have admitted that mine is the minority position, here and in other discussions."

I'd just like to know if there is any statistical evidence to support this. Is this actually the case? Do most people think that Jesus was a real person in history?
I ask out of curiosity more than anything else as it's something I hadn't really given much thought to. I wouldn't mind seeing an IF straw poll (which would, I imagine, weigh heavily in favour of the 'yes' votes) but it would be interseting to see how many 'no's' and 'don't know's' there would be).

This is meant to be tongue in cheek Travis but when you said:

"Just to be clear, we have moved from the original interpolation suspected of Eusebius, to a hypothetical revision of the suspected interpolation (Meier), to the hypothetical improvement (Stanton) on the hypothetical revision of the original suspected interpolation".

If this is your definition of being clear, I'd hate to catch you on a cloudy day

Eolas Pellor · #18 (**permalink**) 21st February 2008, 09:20 AM

Quote:

I have admitted that mine is the minority position, here and in other discussions.

It always reminds me of Seamus Finnegan's line in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, "I'm just a poor Irish lad, with not much command of the language."

Both are, of course, an Appeal to Pity, and an informal fallacy in debate. I think it seriously undermines the validty of Travis' point.

tricky · #19 (**permalink**) 21st February 2008, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eolas Pellor

Both are, of course, an Appeal to Pity, and an informal fallacy in debate. I think it seriously undermines the validty of Travis' point.

I do get a little irritated by what I see as overused cries of "look - logical fallacy, logical fallacy!" being dragged in to the debate arena. Not just this debate, other debates on this forum or indeed formal or informal debates anywhere else. Forums are littered with accusations of logical fallacies and personally, I don't care for it too much. Cries of "strawman" and the like are quite rare in everyday life despite the fact that so called logical fallacies occur with great frequency in most areas of disagreement. Whist I accept that they can sway the opinions of the listener/ observer, they are part of the fabric of everyday communication.
This site lists not far off 100 such fallacies. Should we analyse every post we make to check the logic of our words and whether we have broken some code of righteous speaking? It could take some time.
Many logical fallacies are difficult to spot and lots of them rely on the interpretation of the reader. Was Travis making an appeal to pity? If so, was it intentional? Was Travis just trying to apply balance to comments made or inject a touch of humility? Who knows? Only Travis I guess...
Perhaps openly claiming a logical fallacy is a logical fallacy in itself for it can 'unfairly' sway the belief of observers into thinking that some underhand debating tactics are taking place.
I 'fess up to not being impressed by EH's input in the debate and his reference to Harvey's alleged misdeeds earlier on in the debate as it could be seen as a reprimand for devious behavior by the casual observer. I bet if every sentence of the debate on both sides is scrutinized, at least one more of the 90 in the list I referred to earlier could be found - heck, there's probably a few in this post of mine right now!

Personally, and this is just my preference, I don't object to any logical fallacies in the slightest. We all use them in everyday life all the time to make our case and as long as debaters don't insult one another, it's fine with me. So what if we either intentionally or unintentionally burn a few strawmen along the way...? - The facts usually bubble their way to the surface in the end.

I conceed that I do not have a problem with a debate based solely on the facts - but weeding out ALL logical fallacies would be a diificult, and rather subjective task....

Eolas Pellor · #20 (**permalink**) 21st February 2008, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tricky

I do get a little irritated by what I see as overused cries of "look - logical fallacy, logical fallacy!" being dragged in to the debate arena.

On the contrary, I think that people have become incredibly sloppy in their ability to frame arguments and debate logically. It's not bad if observers point this out...but I agree that, when those involved in the debate start hurling accusations back and forth it can be both disingenous and special pleaing: "Look at all the logical fallacies in my opponent's argument; but please ignore all the ones in mine."

But, I think it is important that others point them out; it is a good thing that both the debaters know that people see through any attempts to avoid really debating the substance of the questions, and that others, who may be swayed by cheap points and sound bite style debates, become educated in how they may be manipulated by the unscrupulous.

That is not saying that TC is being deliberately manipulative....

Quote:

I 'fess up to not being impressed by EH's input in the debate and his reference to Harvey's alleged misdeeds earlier on in the debate as it could be seen as a reprimand for devious behavior by the casual observer.

Maybe. I expressed some private misgivings to EH on that matter.

Quote:

Personally, and this is just my preference, I don't object to any logical fallacies in the slightest. We all use them in everyday life all the time to make our case and as long as debaters don't insult one another, it's fine with me. So what if we either intentionally or unintentionally burn a few strawmen along the way...? - The facts usually bubble their way to the surface in the end.

Yes, we all see how that works in politics all the time....

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