maryhelena wrote:. Josephus a real historical person? I have my doubts. 'Josephus' might just be a pseudonym. If this is so then the story about a figure called 'Josephus' is as much fiction as is the NT story about a 'Paul'.
The answer to the question of this OP - Was Paul Josephus? - is NO. Paul and Josephus are not historical figures. Both are literary creations. 'Paul' wrote epistles. 'Josephus' wrote history - and pseudo-history. Yes, someone wrote the epistles of 'Paul', and someone wrote the writings of 'Josephus'. That this someone, or some people, were named 'Paul' and 'Josephus' is hardly likely.
There are several permutations about Josephus -
1/ what is stated about Josephus is [mostly] real & the Josephean-writings we have today are reflections of [most of] what he wrote
2/ What is stated about Jospehus is, say, 35-70% embellished, as are the writings attributed to 'him'
3/ It is mostly or all embellished - ie. 70-100% embellished.
maryhelena wrote:That there are many parallels between 'Paul' and 'Josephus' does not equate these two literary figures to be one and the same figure. The connection, the correspondence, serves not to identify that these two literary figures are one - it serves to demonstrate that both figures derive their existence from the same source. It is searching for that source that should be uppermost in our concerns.
or, what we know about their existences was also later embellished & conflated ie. redacted together
maryhelena wrote:Attempts to short-circuit the Paul and Josephus parallels as though these parallels are nothing but an example of paralleomania serves only one purpose - preserving the status-quo in NT studies - either from the historicist position or the Carrier-Doherty mythicist position.
maryhelena wrote:Josephus, as I've written many times over the years, is the roadblock to finding, to understanding, early christian origins. The writings of 'Josephus' have to be put to the same rigorous testing as any NT writing.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Tue Aug 19, 2014 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
MrMacSon wrote:5. Josephus tells that he knows many ancient dramas. In Acts, there's an episode that narrates Paul's "conversion"; and the saying "hard to kick against the goad", which has its origin in a drama written by Jospehus, is used - Acts 26:14
Is there a citation for the drama in which "hard to kick against the goad" originates?
I need to have the title of the drama and passage in which the term appears if you could please.
neilgodfrey wrote:It's in the play Josephus wrote about Banus. He wrote it under the name of Euripides and called it Bacchae; and conservative reactionary scholars have been fooled ever since. It's around line 795.
Jayson wrote:Strictly speaking; I am unfortunately left with an undetermined result by grammatical comparison due to the entries of proposal being too short for a unique identifier to exist from which to apply comparison.
The only means by which I can conceive to draft a form of comparison is by comparing how Acts and Bacchae employ the 2nd person.
At cursory review, it appears to me that in Acts 26 the hand employs the 2nd person directly and overtly employs "you" (σε) more often than employing the accusative.
... Bacchae ... appears to employ the accusative more often, and also appears to employ "you" less often than Acts.
This is not a solid case, even if verified by another, as context could be argued for the differences. If there are any others capable, I would appreciate a second opinion of this comparison.
As it stands currently; they appear independent of each other - more seeming as one who is familiar with the phrase employing it into the text than one copying directly from one to the other or being of the same hand.
Cheers, Jayson
neilgodfrey wrote:. It could have been a saying that free-floated; just as many sayings from Shakespeare do today.
What adds weight to its ultimate derivation from Euripides is the larger similarities of Bacchae found in Acts. The theme of the drama and motifs of the unrecognized god coming to his own people and being rejected - and also his followers being persecuted unjustly by authorities - has obvious resonances with the gospel and Acts narratives; and then we have the prison escape scenes in Acts that have often been noted for their similarities to the escape of Dionysus in Bacchae.
When seen in this broader context the likelihood of [the] saying also deriving from the play increases. It doesn't have to be a literal copying. One can be influenced by literature/live theatre that one has read/seen some time before, or that is simply well-known and referenced among the literate elites; as Shakespeare is among similar groups today.
Jayson wrote:That seems to me to be a very sensible understanding of the relationship between the texts.
In so doing, does this present a queer relationship in comparing Paul of Acts to Josephus, in that Paul is a character within the story; such as Dionysus in Bacchae, whereas Josephus is external of the Bacchae tale?
This would seem as though we are stating that Ragle Gumm is William Shakespeare because Time Out of Joint clearly draws from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Would it not be more appropriate to compare Paul to a character of the Bacchae in this comparison, rather than the author?
Cheers, Neil & Jayson.
re ".. Paul is a character within the story .." - which story are you referring to, Jayson? the Pauline texts? or Acts? or ...?
.
I doubt that Mary Helen has read Josephus' "Wars" completely through. Anyone who does would not say that it is a product of Josephus' imagination or an embellishment of the facts.
In the NT there is an epistle to Titus, overseer/supervisor of "Paul". How do we know this is not a letter from Josephus to his supervisor, emperor Titus?
ghost wrote:In the NT there is an epistle to Titus, overseer/supervisor of "Paul". How do we know this is not a letter from Josephus to his supervisor, emperor Titus?
neilgodfrey wrote:Does it make any difference to your suspicions if it turned out that Titus was one of the most common names in Roman history? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_(praenomen)
Yes, because the more Tituses there are, the less probable it is that this is the Titus. But then I also think that the more famous a Titus, the more probable it is that it was that Titus who was used as a base for a literary character.
neilgodfrey wrote:Does it make any difference to your suspicions if it turned out that Titus was one of the most common names in Roman history? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_(praenomen)
Yes, because the more Tituses there are, the less probable it is that this is the Titus. But then I also think that the more famous a Titus, the more probable it is that it was that Titus who was used as a base for a literary character.
You should try your probabilities on the full range of options. But that would be rather tedious, I suppose.
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