Echoes of Paul in Josephus

[stephan happy huller]

I am sorry but I have always thought that the text of Josephus we have now was edited or redacted by a Christian author in the second century. This seems to confirm my suspicions. Thoughts?

γενναῖον γὰρ ἀνελεῖν ἑαυτόν, φήσει τις. οὐ μὲν οὖν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀγενέστατον, ὡς ἔγωγε καὶ κυβερνήτην ἡγοῦμαι δειλότατον, ὅστις χειμῶνα δεδοικὼς πρὸ τῆς θυέλλης ἐβάπτισεν ἑκὼν τὸ σκάφος. [369] ἀλλὰ μὴν ἡ αὐτοχειρία καὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἁπάντων ζῴων φύσεως ἀλλότριον καὶ πρὸς τὸν κτίσαντα θεὸν ἡμᾶς ἐστιν ἀσέβεια. [370] τῶν μέν γε ζῴων οὐδέν ἐστιν ὃ θνήσκει μετὰ προνοίας ἢ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ: φύσεως γὰρ νόμος ἰσχυρὸς ἐν ἅπασιν τὸ ζῆν ἐθέλειν: διὰ τοῦτο καὶ τοὺς φανερῶς ἀφαιρουμένους ἡμᾶς τούτου πολεμίους ἡγούμεθα καὶ τοὺς ἐξ ἐνέδρας τιμωρούμεθα. [371] τὸν δὲ θεὸν οὐκ οἴεσθε ἀγανακτεῖν, ὅταν ἄνθρωπος αὐτοῦ τὸ δῶρον ὑβρίζῃ; καὶ γὰρ εἰλήφαμεν παρ᾽ ἐκείνου τὸ εἶναι καὶ τὸ μηκέτι εἶναι πάλιν ἐκείνῳ δίδομεν. [372] τὰ μέν γε σώματα θνητὰ πᾶσιν καὶ ἐκ φθαρτῆς ὕλης δεδημιούργηται, ψυχὴ δὲ ἀθάνατος ἀεὶ καὶ θεοῦ μοῖρα τοῖς σώμασιν ἐνοικίζεται: εἶτ᾽ ἐὰν μὲν ἀφανίσῃ τις ἀνθρώπου παρακαταθήκην ἢ διαθῆται κακῶς, πονηρὸς εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ ἄπιστος, εἰ δέ τις τοῦ σφετέρου σώματος ἐκβάλλει τὴν παρακαταθήκην τοῦ θεοῦ, λεληθέναι δοκεῖ τὸν ἀδικούμενον; [373] καὶ κολάζειν μὲν τοὺς ἀποδράντας οἰκέτας δίκαιον νενόμισται κἂν πονηροὺς καταλείπωσι δεσπότας, αὐτοὶ δὲ κάλλιστον δεσπότην ἀποδιδράσκοντες τὸν θεὸν οὐ δοκοῦμεν ἀσεβεῖν; [374] ἆρ᾽ οὐκ ἴστε ὅτι τῶν μὲν ἐξιόντων τοῦ βίου κατὰ τὸν τῆς φύσεως νόμον καὶ τὸ ληφθὲν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ χρέος ἐκτινύντων, ὅταν ὁ δοὺς κομίσασθαι θέλῃ, κλέος μὲν αἰώνιον, οἶκοι δὲ καὶ γενεαὶ βέβαιοι, καθαραὶ δὲ καὶ ἐπήκοοι μένουσιν αἱ ψυχαί, χῶρον οὐράνιον λαχοῦσαι τὸν ἁγιώτατον, ἔνθεν ἐκ περιτροπῆς αἰώνων ἁγνοῖς πάλιν ἀντενοικίζονται σώμασιν: [375] ὅσοις δὲ καθ᾽ ἑαυτῶν ἐμάνησαν αἱ χεῖρες, τούτων ᾄδης μὲν δέχεται τὰς ψυχὰς σκοτεινότερος, ὁ δὲ τούτων πατὴρ θεὸς εἰς ἐγγόνους τιμωρεῖται τοὺς τῶν πατέρων ὑβριστάς.

It may also be said that it is a manly act for one to kill himself. No, certainly, but a most unmanly one; as I should esteem that pilot to be an arrant coward, who, out of fear of a storm, should sink his ship of his own accord. Now self-murder is a crime most remote from the common nature of all animals, and an instance of impiety against God our Creator; nor indeed is there any animal that dies by its own contrivance, or by its own means, for the desire of life is a law engraven in them all; on which account we deem those that openly take it away from us to be our enemies, and those that do it by treachery are punished for so doing. And do not you think that God is very angry when a man does injury to what he hath bestowed on him? For from him it is that we have received our being, and we ought to leave it to his disposal to take that being away from us. The bodies of all men are indeed mortal, and are created out of corruptible matter; but the soul is ever immortal, and is a portion of the divinity that inhabits our bodies. Besides, if any one destroys or abuses a depositum he hath received from a mere man, he is esteemed a wicked and perfidious person; but then if any one cast out of his body this Divine depositum, can we imagine that he who is thereby affronted does not know of it? And shall we endeavor to run away from God, who is the best of all masters, and not guilty of impeity? Do not you know that those who depart out of this life according to the law of nature, and pay that debt which was received from God, when he that lent it us is pleased to require it back again, enjoy eternal fame; that their houses and their posterity are sure, that their souls are pure and obedient, and obtain a most holy place in heaven, from whence, in the revolutions of ages, they are again sent into pure bodies; while the souls of those whose hands have acted madly against themselves are received by the darkest place in Hades, and while God, who is their Father, punishes those that offend against either of them in their posterity? [J. BJ 3.8.5]

[A_Nony_Mouse]

I am sorry but I have always thought that the text of Josephus we have now was edited or redacted by a Christian author in the second century. This seems to confirm my suspicions. Thoughts?

Or the simpler explanation Paul was created with Josephus as a reference. Paul's letters have an uncanny knack of addressing doctrinal issues of a century after he lived.

[stephan happy huller]

Paul was written first

[Peter Kirby]

Unless it wasn't.

Also I haven't seen any evidence of the literary dependence between Paul and Josephus.

[Blood]

Funny, it's kind of hard to find a literary precedent for the Pauline Epistles. Probably because the insane rantings of schizophrenic cult leaders weren't typically thought of as "scripture."

[Bingo]

Funny, it's kind of hard to find a literary precedent for the Pauline Epistles.

What about the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation?

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Paul was written first

What do you mean by Paul? There is Paul in Acts. There are letters which linguistic analysis suggest only the five longest were written by the same person not who that person was. Given the others were not by the five letter person, what does Paul mean even in terms of the letters? Further the Paul of the letters does not appear to be the Paul of Acts. The Paul of letters argues with Cephias to eat with the gentiles. The Paul of Acts would have said something like, remember that miracle making all food clean you told me about?

So ever before comparison with Josephus one has to define what is meant by Paul.

As to the contents there is nothing which would indicate on is older than the other. Religious traditions are not methods of dating.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Unless it wasn't.

Also I haven't seen any evidence of the literary dependence between Paul and Josephus.

It isn't so much evidence but suspicion that I have seen. Characters important enough to Josephus for him to write about just happen to be important to the story of the Paul of Acts but appear to have different personalities.

jesusneverexisted.com has a series of articles on it which I could not do justice to in summary if you want to look into it further. Scroll down in the left column. I don't remember which article includes Josephus.

[spin]

Stop feeding the troll.

---

Stephan, why have you always thought that the text of Josephus we have now was edited or redacted by a Christian author in the second century?

[stephan happy huller]

Well, I start with Shaye Cohen's work on the parallels between Vita and parts of Jewish War. http://books.google.com/books?id=XdSto1 ... ma&f=false (bottom) I accept his claim about an Aramaic hypomnema. Hypomnemata characteristically lacked speeches, dramatic episodes, digressions, and topical organization, all composed and inserted later. But who developed this proto-text to Jewish Wars?

The Greek of his Vita is less sophisticated when compared to that of his 'Jewish War' or 'Contra Apionem' Thackeray argues for a number of distinct 'assistants' who wrote the various works - the one "Sophoclean" (books 15-16 of Antiquities) and the other a "Thucydidean hack" (books 17-19) etc. I am not that sophisticated nevertheless I wonder whether Clement's mistake about a Josephus writing at the time of Antoninus is really a 'mistake.' There are parallels with Hegesippus here (which in turn is a corruption of Josephus). I think - for a number of other reasons - that a second century author reworked an original account of the Jewish War to reflect contemporary themes.

The date that Clement gives for the chronology of the second century Josephus is seventy seven years from the destruction of the temple.