Some Interesting Notes on the Eusebian Forgery of Josephus' Testimonium

[Chrissy Hansen]

I love doing just digging through older books to find various theories espoused. Sometimes there are really cool ones, and sometimes you find modern theories being argued long before we thought they were. I think I found a predecessor to both Olson and Zeitlin who claimed that Eusebius may have been the forger of the Testimonium, though he doesn't extensively argue for it.

In Nathaniel Lardner's preface to his volume Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion (Volume 2, published 1765), he writes the following comment about Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum.

Indeed, it is not Josephus, but Eusebius, or some other Christian about his time, who composed this paragraph.

pages x-xi (https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_ ... frontcover)

Lardner goes on to even argue how Eusebius inaccurately references Josephus on other occasions, that much of the language used in the passage seems to not be Josephan in style. He outright argues that the language is Christian and leaves us to suspect Eusebius in another place too:

Where our Lord is said to be a worker of wonderful works. [quotes the Greek] Which way of speaking is so agreeable to Eusebius, and has such similitude with his stile [ye olden variant of "style"], that I am disposed to put down some instances from him. Which must be of use to satisfy us, that the stile of this paragraph is very Christian, if it not be the composition of Eusebius himself, as Tanaquil Faber suspected.

Page xi. So we even have a small linguistic argument there as well.

This is even more helpful. So time to go digging. Apparently Tanaquil Faber (1615-1672) was a French classics scholar (for the day) and apparently wrote Flavi Josephi de Jesu Dom. testimonium suppositum esse (1655), which I assume is what Lardner here references. In which case, doubts that Josephus wrote the passage and that Eusebius was the one who constructed it go back to the 17th century.

[Sinouhe]

Interesting. Thanks

[rgprice]

I'd be more interested to see a real case as to why the TF should be considered an intentional forgery as opposed to the accidently incorporation of a marginal note. To me the TF looks like a marginal note. I've read several cases for forgery. They have their convincing aspects, but I've only ever seen arguments for forgery as opposed to authenticity. I've never seen any case presented that argues for forgery as opposed to accidental incorporation of a note.

[lsayre]

I fully agree that it has the feel of being originally a marginal note. I don't necessarily agree with it being accidental as to its having been re-positioned within the core of the text.

[Peter Kirby]

I'd be more interested to see a real case as to why the TF should be considered an intentional forgery as opposed to the accidently incorporation of a marginal note. To me the TF looks like a marginal note.

Is it a bit big for a marginal note? Serious question.

[Chrissy Hansen]

I'd be more interested to see a real case as to why the TF should be considered an intentional forgery as opposed to the accidently incorporation of a marginal note. To me the TF looks like a marginal note.

Is it a bit big for a marginal note? Serious question.

That is my thinking too. Plus, it first appears in Eusebius and uses Eusebian language, and Eusebius specifically is using it to bolster himself, so we have good reason, imo, to suspect Eusebius would deliberately create this text, especially since he also misrepresents Josephus elsewhere.

[MrMacSon]

Ulrich Schmid on scribes and variants https://www.academia.edu/13313267/Scrib ... d_Typology

[Didymus914]

Were the margins of early codices that wide? I can see the James insertion as a marginal note that was later included in the body of the text, but the TF would occupy the margins more than one page.

I fully agree that it has the feel of being originally a marginal note. I don't necessarily agree with it being accidental as to its having been re-positioned within the core of the text.

[DCHindley]

Were the margins of early codices that wide? I can see the James insertion as a marginal note that was later included in the body of the text, but the TF would occupy the margins more than one page.

I fully agree that it has the feel of being originally a marginal note. I don't necessarily agree with it being accidental as to its having been re-positioned within the core of the text.

From what I have read about methods employed to work personal letters and rough treatises and lecture notes into a form befitting publication (in other words, made the author look good), they sent copies to friends with similar interests and asked for feedback. There would be a reader and hearers, occasionally stopping so the hearers can ask questions and comment about what had just been read. Then the friend sends it back to the author, who took the criticisms to heart and improved the presentation in his working copy. Every so often he has to pare out early experiments that were not well received and incorporate the hearer responses into the work.

What kind of responses does the writer seek from his friends? Is it in form of marginal notes? Are off-camera discussions recorded somehow by short-hand scribes? I don't know of any examples of such notes (separate from the sample text, not in the original document's margins) having been found in Egyptian garbage dumps, but I can easily have missed something like that. I think that most examples of marginal notes come from medieval period manuscripts, but that is really just me shooting from the hip. I suppose it would not be unreasonable for the author to send his friend a sample manuscript with plenty of room for notes, if seeking critical comments from his literate friends was his/her aim all along. Any examples of manuscripts with wide margins? I believe so. <I thought "my goodness, how did I miss that side of a barn right in front of me?" as I slid the gun back into its holster>

DCH

[spin]

I'd be more interested to see a real case as to why the TF should be considered an intentional forgery as opposed to the accidently incorporation of a marginal note. To me the TF looks like a marginal note. I've read several cases for forgery. They have their convincing aspects, but I've only ever seen arguments for forgery as opposed to authenticity. I've never seen any case presented that argues for forgery as opposed to accidental incorporation of a note.

A marginal note relates to something specific that already exists in the text. AJ 20.200 talks about the execution of a man named James and some others, so James is there in the text to start with. It is the hook for the marginal note that this James was "the brother of Jesus called Christ". My *guess* is that the scribe who added the marginal note may have been Origen or someone who'd read Contra Celsum.

In AJ 18.62, 65, there is nothing for a marginal note to directly relate to, while 18.65 "another calamity that put the Jews into an uproar" relates back to Pilate's disaster (18.60-62), raiding the temple treasury and causing a deadly riot.

18.63-64 certainly wouldn't fit in a margin. It seems certainly an intentional addition.