Well, the question has to be answered if anything is to be done with your conjecture.
No it doesn't. 1. it doesn't sound like something a Jew would say 2. Eusebius finds it very attractive and 3. Josephus likely survives because of Eusebius and 4. Eusebius forged other parts of Josephus which he likes and cites equally fervently. Look at you. Because Morton Smith wasn't married you bought into the forgery nonsense. Don't tell me what apparatus has to be followed when you apparently take just as loose a view of 'evidence of forgery' as I do. Scholarship comes down to a popularity contest. The evidence for Eusebius forging Josephus IS A LOT STRONGER than Morton Smith secret Mark. At the very least, it wasn't Morton Smith's library ...
My views of Secret Mark have nothing to do with Morton Smith's marital status. The view I take on forgery can hardly be called "loose," especially when, in this case, I am asking precisely for more (and sound) evidence. And, if scholarship comes down to a popularity contest, then it is wrong to do so. I am not interested in being popular or in following the more (or the least) popular view. I care about what I can demonstrate.
ETA: I challenge an obvious aspect of your assertion and you go off the rails like this? You can be / ought to be / are better than this.
I am not going off the rails or at least I don't think I am. I just don't understand why in an informal forum like this I can't say I think Eusebius might have forged this. Surely once we suspect one thing about Josephus might have been forged it doesn't require as high a burden of proof as Morton Smith for whom there is no evidence for forgery. That was my point.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 6:51 pm
I am not going off the rails or at least I don't think I am. I just don't understand why in an informal forum like this I can't say I think Eusebius might have forged this. Surely once we suspect one thing about Josephus might have been forged it doesn't require as high a burden of proof as Morton Smith for whom there is no evidence for forgery. That was my point.
Nobody is stopping you from saying that you think Eusebius may have forged this. Go ahead: type it out 15 times in your next post for all I care. That is not what this is about.
But once you accept Morton Smith MIGHT have forged a text in someone else's library you ought to accept the idea that ANY EVIDENCE for ANYONE forging ANYTHING is reasonable because there is no evidence Smith forged the Letter to Theodore. I guess it just bothers me sometimes that you are capable of the same stupidity I am but aren't aware of it apparently. Anyway I like you. You are an asset to the forum. More of you is better than more of me. I will shut up and listen to my son play Fortnite for the 1000th day in a row
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 2:04 pm
he probably did not know Tacitus.
Which is the evidence that Eusebius “probably” didn't know Tacitus? Richard Carrier assumes just the contrary, since he considers surprising (=unexpected, = improbable) the fact that Eusebius doesn't mention the Great Fire of Rome and the neronian persecution of the Christians.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
