ergo, Josephus was a Justin Bieber fan

[stephan happy huller]

Greco-Roman culture was superior to barbarian Jewish culture, to the better part of the people of Rome anyway, and the gig paid well.

But such a proposition was explicitly denied by contemporary Pharisees. Think the Taliban cheering on the 2008 implosion of the stock market (and what religious types will inevitably say when it happens again). The glory of man is the rejection of God and vice versa. It also stands against the spirit of much of early Christian writings including Origen's rebuttal against Celsus.

[Peter Kirby]

Let's say it again then. Jews are not all the same in the first century AD. (gasp, shock)

[stephan happy huller]

But Josephus started out as the fiercest of Taliban and then ends up covering Justin Bieber all to prove that Judaism was compatible with Justin Bieber and moreover contemporary Judaism and its interest in Daniel was wrong. Doesn't require a conspiracy of sorts? Isn't that implicit in your comments?.

[Peter Kirby]

What's implicit is that Josephus became a big Justin Bieber fan, which, I suppose, explains a lot.

[stephan happy huller]

The analogy was the Taliban is to Bieber what a Pharisee was to Roman Antiquities. Whether or not that's a good analogy is open to debate. Perhaps the Taliban becoming a contributor to Fox News would be more appropriate

[Peter Kirby]

No, let's stick with the Bieber analogy. It's good. Greco-Roman culture was the "pop culture" of the Roman empire. It was known, to greater and lesser extent, and in various ways, from Spain to Syria, Egypt to Gaul, which is a stark contrast with the barbarian cultures, which, with few exceptions (Jews and Christians being among the most notable), got play within their ethnically divided regions. If you were going to assimilate to something, especially as a client to the patron Emperor himself, you were going to assimilate to the dominant values of the Roman elite. Josephus doing history after the style of the Romans is like a former Afghani Taliban member who finds a better life studying at Oxford and listening to Top 40. It's so banal and to-be-expected, it actually hurts a little.

[Peter Kirby]

Split from Bernard Muller's megathread:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=131

[arnoldo]

My interest is why the editor of the New Testament decided to go with the Aretas story. I think Josephus was edited to support a number of ludicrous stories in the New Testament. I just can't figure out why. If you are going to make up shit about Paul why not make up shit within the confines of accepted history? Why make up a story that defies history?

Haven't you talked yourself into your own dilemma? I agree to the two interpolations about Jesus. But there's nothing else in Josephus that's really apologetic... and if you did want one that were infused with Christian legends, you'd end up with something closer to the Slavonic Josephus. It's seems more elegant just to vote in favor of the hypothesis that you yourself make more sense out of, that the NT writers adorned their stories with existing tidbits of the known world.

Don't forget that literary remains aren't everything. Having actual people in your story means that people who can't read (most people) will know about your characters, something that isn't true if you just insert it into a copy of Josephus gathering dust somewhere.

I found out something interesting the other day. Gallio, proconsul in Corinth, that old bedrock of Pauline chronology. Wow, what a neat little coincidental detail, surely this is a sign of authenticity! I remember thinking so the first time I heard of him, probably in a Josh McDowell book in a municipal library many years ago. But what I was just reading about Gallio is this: Gallio was the brother of Seneca. Interesting! He was known for his charm and was involved in politics under Nero. Most interesting, though, is that he seems to have been forced to commit suicide after being accused of conspiracy under the reign of Nero. So here we have an innocent man, well-beloved, who has been made victim of the cruelties under neurotic Nero, passing judgment on another innocent man, well-beloved, who is soon to appeal his case to Caesar. Part of the aim of Acts is to exonerate Paul from any taint of guilt for his activity, as also seen from the later seen in which three different people cannot convict him. What we actually see here is that Gallio is an earlier reminder of the same thing, a man who is known for his eloquence, who was himself judged wrongly, who cannot find anything wrong with Paul. This doesn't work if you don't pick a Gallio and instead choose someone lesser-known.

Another parallel which readers of this account would recognized is between Pilate's and Gallio's reluctance to pass judgment at the request of the Jews. Readers would also recall that a possible consequence of both Pilate and Gallio's actions (or inactions) was that they both did not complete their terms of office. Pilate was recalled back to Rome in 37 A.D and Gallio left his office approximately in 52 A.D. Gallio's brother, Seneca, writes that Gallio left office due to "feeling bieberish."

[andrewcriddle]

Our only knowledge of the end of Gallio (from Jerome's version of Eusebius' chronicle) is

Junius Annaeus Gallio, the brother of Seneca the outstanding declaimer, killed himself with his own hand,

It is speculation (even if plausible speculation) to say he was a victim of Nero.

Andrew Criddle

Correction

Cassius Dio Book 62

Thus died Seneca, notwithstanding that he had on the pretext of illness abandoned the society of the emperor and had bestowed upon him his entire property, ostensibly to help to pay for the buildings he was constructing. His brothers, too, perished after him.

Seems to support the idea that Gallio (a brother of Seneca) was a victim of Nero's paranoia.

Andrew Criddle

[stephan happy huller]

I don't know if readers on this board have any Jewish friends or acquaintances but even readers of books from antiquity will hear this charge associated with the Jews - 'hatred of the human race.' I think it appears for the first time in the Acts of the Alexandrian Martyrs but it resurfaces time and again. What is really being expressed here I think, is a negative reaction to something that anyone with passing acquaintance with any minority community will pick up on - i.e. that Jews tend to think of themselves as separate from the greater community. The same thing exists within 'black' Americans, Iranian Americans i.e. they not only take pride in successful 'brothers' who have 'made it' in the community but there is also a conscious or perhaps unconscious effort to establish a sense of 'apartness' from the greater community thus reinforcing pre-existent feelings of 'being a stranger.' This I believe is the origin for the Marcionite concept of the 'stranger God.'

In any event, it is one hurdle to believe that Josephus could have given up his loyalty to the greater cause of Jewish nationalism. Let's suppose for a moment he was like the modern David ben Gurion (יוסף בן גוריון) a figure who incidentally is understood to be related in some way (spiritually or otherwise) to the historical Josephus (= Josef ben Gurion). But let's suppose that there was a turncoat. This is not what the existing corpus is asking us to accept. In order to accept the authenticity of the Josephan corpus we have to believe that he developed an entire new theology or a reactionary theology (i.e. that modern events were NOT a fulfillment of Daniel chapter 9) and that this was written to a Gentile audience.

This is the part I have such a great difficulty with. For there is even another step you have to consider. Josephus isn't even saying - the Jewish community and the Christian community say X (= that Daniel 9 was recently fulfilled and the end times are near) and I say Y. Instead he acts as X doesn't even exist and that Jews (and perhaps by inference Christians) believe Y (= that Daniel and other prophesies point to things in the past) by virtue of the fact that he announces he is a Pharisee and the reader presumes that his theological outlook reflects normative Pharisaic views which they certainly don't. In other words it is more than a theological invention, it is a theological invention disguised as representing contemporary Jewish beliefs as such, by implication.

This is the problem I have always had with Josephus. It is a lie developed with the acknowledged 'help' of 'assistants' who are clearly not Jewish. This is the starting point of Josephus and his writings. Jews didn't believe what Josephus claims to believe as a Pharisee. It isn't just that he is a turncoat he is a religious innovator who pretends to be orthodox writing to a Gentile audience with beliefs that simply aren't representative of any Jewish community from any period - a problem which is interestingly corrected in the Yosippon because Jews couldn't believe this artificiality.

As such what we really have in Josephus is a pretend Jewish text written by 'assistants' in the name of a Jew who pretends to be a Pharisee who went over the Romans but nevertheless retained his Jewishness all the while demonstrating the compatibility of Phariseeism with the cosmopolitan ideals of the Roman state and culture by writing a conscious imitation of Dionysius's Roman Antiquities all the while admitting in Vita that he formerly forcibly circumcised Gentiles living in the Land and destroyed idolatrous images (= decorative images) in a former life.

The bottom line is that one has to agree with Shaye Cohen that Vita is next to the authentic hypomnema (probably written in Aramaic and a first century text). Jewish Wars is developed around this document (because of the parallels with Vita) and Antiquities is an overt forgery all written in the second century.