Did Josephus say that Jesus was called Chrēstos?

[Ken Olson]

I am suggesting a single conjectural emendation that would remove the entire TF from the Antiquities,

Am I reading this correctly - that you want to remove the entire TF from Antiquities ?

Yes. I have argued that there is good evidence that Eusebius wrote it and no good evidence that Josephus wrote any of it. I have two peer reviewed published papers on this. One of them can be found here:

https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/5-a-eus ... e%20empire.

The link has been posted many times on this forum. It is baffling to me why you should think I (and presumably others) should take your unargued claims seriously while at the same time you do not engage seriously with the arguments I (and others) have made.

I can understand why Jesus historicists would want to retain the TF as it is. I can understand why some mythicists might want to remove it. I don't know what your position is on the historicity of Jesus question - hence I don't know where you are coming at the TF issue from. An interpolation, on its own merits, a particular interest of yours?

Yes, exactly. I am arguing for interpolation on its own merits. If I am correct, the consequence would be that Josephus (and particularly the Testimonium) cannot be used as evidence for the historical Jesus under the criterion of multiple attestation. But the arguments themselves stand or fall on their own merits. While it is true that the position that Josephus did not mention Jesus has been popular in recent years with Jesus mythicists, the position has been held by various mainstream (i.e., not Jesus mythicist) scholars for over 400 years. Please stop using arguments from motive and deal with the data.

Anyway, for what its worth, I think the Jesus historicists position, those who believe the TF supports a historical Jesus, is unfounded. I think that mythicists seeking to remove it or reach for interpolations, are not only mistaken but are throwing away the opportunity to move forward the search for early christian origins

You do seem to presuppose that your unsupported opinion is worth something.

An alternative position is to view the Josephan TF, the James passage and the John the baptizer passage, not as 'official' historical support for the gospel Jesus story but as support for the gospel stories - as allegories - with links to Hasmonean history. In other words - Josephus is offering a key to unlocking the history that lies behind the gospel Jesus story.

Yes, that's an alternative position. Why should anyone take it to be true (and I am asking about evidence, not motive here)?

For instance:

1) The TF is placed within a context of 19 c.e. That date is 49 years from 30 b.c. - which is the date Josephus has used for the death of Hyrancus - after whose death Herod seeks a meeting with Octavian following the battle of Actium.

You have repeatedly asserted that the TF is placed within a 19 CE context, but never offered a reasoned argument for it. This seems to be based on a naive (and easily falsifiable) belief about Antiquities 18 that proposes that Josephus is simply narrating events in the chronological order they happened. Could you deal with Daniel Schwartz's argument that Josephus has organized his text into blocks? I have previously quoted what he says about the location of the Testimonium Flavianum. Could you explain why we should reject his argument and accept your assertion?

Why is it relevant that this would be 49 years after the death of Hyrcanus? Every event that takes place after the Hasmonean era is some number of years after events that took place during the Hasmonean era. What does this prove?

2) The John the baptizer passage around 36/37 c.e. That date is around 100 years from 63 b.c. The civil war between two Hasmonean brothers involving Pompey and Aretas III (the army of Aretas III suffering a defeat - Josephus reverses that defeat in his allegory, his replay, in 36/37 c.e.)

We don't know the date at which John the Baptist was put to death. It is told in a flashback as an event that happened before the main event that Josephus is narrating.

And what would it prove if the execution of John the Baptist took place X number of years after an event that took place in the Hasmonean era? Can you show that the execution of John is an allegory for the Hasmonean brothers? How?

3) The James and Jesus passage set around 63 c.e. That date is around 100 years from 37 b.c. A year that saw the end of the Hasmonean dynasty with the Roman execution of it's last King and High Priest, Antigonus. His brother, Alexander, was previously beheaded by order of Pompey, around 47/48 b.c.

Why is it relevant that the execution of James took place around 100 years after the execution of Antigonus?

These three stories, allegories, in Josephus, are indeed supporting the gospel story. But it's not the gospel story as history that is being supported, it's the gospel allegory that is being supported by Josephus. He has done so by using elements of the gospel story to point right back to the root of that gospel allegory - Hasmonean history.

That is a huge claim.

No christian interpolator would place the TF, the JtB and the Jesus and James stories within the context in which they are found in Antiquities. Only someone with a keen sense of Hasmonean history would be interested in doing so. Hasmonean history, Jewish nationalism, is not something Christians would be interested in - their position is neither Jew nor Greek. Josephus, in contrast, claims descent from the Hasmoneans through his mother. He is therefore prime suspect - and to fail to interrogate him is to give him a blank check - thus allowing all the ink spilled over these three stories to fill more pages than his three short stories - allegories.

This is a bold assertion of your opinion as fact.

*If* questions are necessary regarding Josephus - perhaps only then can the *why* questions be faced.

Crank ? Maybe - but at least this alternative position has it's feet firmly on Jewish ground and not in Greek grammar, Roman conspiracies or outer space illusions.

Are you dismissing the arguments I have made as 'Greek grammar'? Again, why do you expect other people to take your claims seriously when you don't take their arguments seriously?

Peter Kirby has set up this forum so that posters have wide latitude for the claims they make. If you wish for your claims to taken seriously, perhaps you could post them in the Academic Discussion branch of the forum along with supporting evidence that they are (at least probably) true, rather than just constantly asserting your opinion and (apparently) expecting others to accept them as facts.

viewforum.php?f=7

Best,

Ken

P.S. I do take Peter Kirby's argument on the possible reading of chrestos in Ant. 20.200 seriously and GakusieDon's argument that Origen my have combined material from Josephus and Hegesippus in his statements citing Josephus seriously. It would probably be wise of me to devote more of my time and attention to those claims.

[andrewcriddle]

I once ran across a man while conducting business one day, who was absolutely sure that Josephus was a Christian and had actually testified about Jesus Christ in Antiquities (the subject of James never came up).

When I asked where he had seen that stated, and he referred me to the essays that Whiston had included at the end of his Works of Josephus.

That was the first time I had read those "Dissertations" (they are, let's face it, kind of kooky), as Whiston was absolutely as convinced of this "fact" as that man was.

DCH

Whiston along with other dubious ideas attributed to Josephus the clearly Christian Discourse Concerning Hades
It is probably by Hippolytus.

Andrew Criddle

[maryhelena]

I am suggesting a single conjectural emendation that would remove the entire TF from the Antiquities,

Am I reading this correctly - that you want to remove the entire TF from Antiquities ?

Yes. I have argued that there is good evidence that Eusebius wrote it and no good evidence that Josephus wrote any of it. I have two peer reviewed published papers on this. One of them can be found here:

https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/5-a-eus ... e%20empire.

Goodness, I'm simply astounded at your position - that you would seek to remove the entire TF from Antiquities. Simply astounded. While I have read some of your post to this forum regarding your argument for Eusebius interpolation - this was the first time I read that you would like the entire TF removed from Antiquities. Well, what can one say - best of luck attempting to get such a removal of the TF past Josephan scholars......methinks you would be far better off spending your energy elsewhere.

The link has been posted many times on this forum. It is baffling to me why you should think I (and presumably others) should take your unargued claims seriously while at the same time you do not engage seriously with the arguments I (and others) have made.

I reject your TF interpolation argument because it offers nothing of value for researching the roots of early Christianity. Even if you are right and Eusebius did a whole cloth interpolation into Antiquities - the gospel story still stands - and it is that story that needs addressing. Interpolations, by whoever or whenever, do not change the gospel story. Whether Josephus did it or Eusebius did it is a secondary issue. If Josephus did it then there is opportunity for researching early christian origins. If Eusebius did it - then it's a dead end for research into early christian origins. We may as well close shop and go home...

I can understand why Jesus historicists would want to retain the TF as it is. I can understand why some mythicists might want to remove it. I don't know what your position is on the historicity of Jesus question - hence I don't know where you are coming at the TF issue from. An interpolation, on its own merits, a particular interest of yours?

Yes, exactly. I am arguing for interpolation on its own merits. If I am correct, the consequence would be that Josephus (and particularly the Testimonium) cannot be used as evidence for the historical Jesus under the criterion of multiple attestation. But the arguments themselves stand or fall on their own merits. While it is true that the position that Josephus did not mention Jesus has been popular in recent years with Jesus mythicists, the position has been held by various mainstream (i.e., not Jesus mythicist) scholars for over 400 years. Please stop using arguments from motive and deal with the data.

Lots of work Ken - with no possibility of furthering research into early christian origins. It is Josephus that provides opportunity not Eusebius. A TF written by Josephus does not support a historical gospel Jesus - it supports the gospel allegory, a literary gospel Jesus.

Anyway, for what its worth, I think the Jesus historicists position, those who believe the TF supports a historical Jesus, is unfounded. I think that mythicists seeking to remove it or reach for interpolations, are not only mistaken but are throwing away the opportunity to move forward the search for early christian origins

You do seem to presuppose that your unsupported opinion is worth something.

Obviously - otherwise why would I go to the trouble of posting it...

An alternative position is to view the Josephan TF, the James passage and the John the baptizer passage, not as 'official' historical support for the gospel Jesus story but as support for the gospel stories - as allegories - with links to Hasmonean history. In other words - Josephus is offering a key to unlocking the history that lies behind the gospel Jesus story.

Yes, that's an alternative position. Why should anyone take it to be true (and I am asking about evidence, not motive here)?

People can do their own investigation - my investigation suggests gospel allegory alongside allegory in Josephus.

For instance:

1) The TF is placed within a context of 19 c.e. That date is 49 years from 30 b.c. - which is the date Josephus has used for the death of Hyrancus - after whose death Herod seeks a meeting with Octavian following the battle of Actium.

You have repeatedly asserted that the TF is placed within a 19 CE context, but never offered a reasoned argument for it. This seems to be based on a naive (and easily falsifiable) belief about Antiquities 18 that proposes that Josephus is simply narrating events in the chronological order they happened. Could you deal with Daniel Schwartz's argument that Josephus has organized his text into blocks? I have previously quoted what he says about the location of the Testimonium Flavianum. Could you explain why we should reject his argument and accept your assertion?

Yep, a context, a 'block' of text from the death of Germanicus in 19 c.e. to the removal of Jews from Rome under Tiberius in 19 c.e.

Why is it relevant that this would be 49 years after the death of Hyrcanus? Every event that takes place after the Hasmonean era is some number of years after events that took place during the Hasmonean era. What does this prove?

19 c.e. is 49 years (7x7) years from when Herod had Hyrancus killed. It is human nature to remember the past - from remembering our day of birth to remember all those fallen in past wars.

2) The John the baptizer passage around 36/37 c.e. That date is around 100 years from 63 b.c. The civil war between two Hasmonean brothers involving Pompey and Aretas III (the army of Aretas III suffering a defeat - Josephus reverses that defeat in his allegory, his replay, in 36/37 c.e.)

We don't know the date at which John the Baptist was put to death. It is told in a flashback as an event that happened before the main event that Josephus is narrating.

Perhaps, but 36/37 c.e. is when Josephus remembers the history of 100 years ago - 63 b.c.

FIRST WORLD WAR CENTENARY

In 2014 the Tower of London marked the centenary of the outbreak of The First World War (WWI) with the commemorative art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, which saw the moat filled with thousands of ceramic poppies.

In 2018 the Tower once again became a site of commemoration, marking 100 years since the end of WWI with Beyond the Deepening Shadow. The nightly candle lighting ceremony in the moat was led by the Yeoman Warders and created a circle of light radiating from the Tower as a symbol of remembrance.

Both commemorative events at the Tower were part of the world-wide, First World War centenary commemorations that began on 28 July 2014 and ended on 11 November 2018.

And what would it prove if the execution of John the Baptist took place X number of years after an event that took place in the Hasmonean era? Can you show that the execution of John is an allegory for the Hasmonean brothers? How?

The Josephan story deals with the war between Aretas IV and Herod/Antipas. This story is placed 100 years after 63 b.c. when Aretas III and Pompey fought in the civil war between Hyrancus and Aristobulus. In the Josephan allegory John is killed. (Hyrancus was killed much later) What was 'killed' in 63 b.c. was Hasmonean sovereignty.

SETTING THE STAGE: THE EFFECTS OF THE ROMAN
CONQUEST AND THE LOSS OF SOVEREIGNTY
Nadav Sharon

A Neglected Era

Despite the enormous amount of scholarly work on the Second Temple Period it seems to me that the period of 67–37 bce, and the dramatic change it brought upon Judea, have been somewhat neglected in modern historical study. The events of this period brought about the end of the eighty-year-old independent and sovereign Judean state, established by the Hasmoneans in the aftermath of Antiochus Epiphanes’ religious decrees and the ensuing revolt. In fact, these events resulted in the almost complete annihilation of that prestigious priestly house. In 63 bce the independent Hasmonean state, with its large territorial gains, found itself suddenly under the domination of the expanding world empire, Rome, and downgraded to a small semiautonomous vassal state.

3) The James and Jesus passage set around 63 c.e. That date is around 100 years from 37 b.c. A year that saw the end of the Hasmonean dynasty with the Roman execution of it's last King and High Priest, Antigonus. His brother, Alexander, was previously beheaded by order of Pompey, around 47/48 b.c.

Why is it relevant that the execution of James took place around 100 years after the execution of Antigonus?

Why? History, remembered history - is of interest to those who came before us as it is to us today.

These three stories, allegories, in Josephus, are indeed supporting the gospel story. But it's not the gospel story as history that is being supported, it's the gospel allegory that is being supported by Josephus. He has done so by using elements of the gospel story to point right back to the root of that gospel allegory - Hasmonean history.

That is a huge claim.

Well - it's rather interesting is it not - that Josephus has three stories that deal with figures within the gospel story. So - Josephus is historical evidence for the historicity of the gospel story - or christian interpolations to provide evidence for their historical interpretation of the gospel story. Rather than take sides in this endless debate - I prefer to interrogate Josephus, to put him in the dock.

No christian interpolator would place the TF, the JtB and the Jesus and James stories within the context in which they are found in Antiquities. Only someone with a keen sense of Hasmonean history would be interested in doing so. Hasmonean history, Jewish nationalism, is not something Christians would be interested in - their position is neither Jew nor Greek. Josephus, in contrast, claims descent from the Hasmoneans through his mother. He is therefore prime suspect - and to fail to interrogate him is to give him a blank check - thus allowing all the ink spilled over these three stories to fill more pages than his three short stories - allegories.

This is a bold assertion of your opinion as fact.

*If* questions are necessary regarding Josephus - perhaps only then can the *why* questions be faced.

Crank ? Maybe - but at least this alternative position has it's feet firmly on Jewish ground and not in Greek grammar, Roman conspiracies or outer space illusions.

Are you dismissing the arguments I have made as 'Greek grammar'? Again, why do you expect other people to take your claims seriously when you don't take their arguments seriously?

I don't know any Greek - as far as I can see your arguments are indeed all about Greek words.

Peter Kirby has set up this forum so that posters have wide latitude for the claims they make. If you wish for your claims to taken seriously, perhaps you could post them in the Academic Discussion branch of the forum along with supporting evidence that they are (at least probably) true, rather than just constantly asserting your opinion and (apparently) expecting others to accept them as facts.

I'm quite happy with this forum but thanks for the suggestion. Posters can take or leave my 'claims' as they see fit. Peter Kirby is to be thanked for allowing various views on his forum.

[Ken Olson]

Posters can take or leave my 'claims' as they see fit.

I am happy to leave it at that.

Best,

Ken

[Ken Olson]

I once ran across a man while conducting business one day, who was absolutely sure that Josephus was a Christian and had actually testified about Jesus Christ in Antiquities (the subject of James never came up).

When I asked where he had seen that stated, and he referred me to the essays that Whiston had included at the end of his Works of Josephus.

That was the first time I had read those "Dissertations" (they are, let's face it, kind of kooky), as Whiston was absolutely as convinced of this "fact" as that man was.

DCH

Whiston along with other dubious ideas attributed to Josephus the clearly Christian Discourse Concerning Hades
It is probably by Hippolytus.

Andrew Criddle

James Valliant, whom I mentioned earlier in this thread, has studied Whiston and takes his position, as I mentioned here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9665&p=139816&hilit ... 7s#p139816

My claim needs some qualification, because Valliant's idea of what a Christian was is very different from Whiston's. Valliant suggests that the Christian Judeans living in Roman Palestine before the Jewish War were nationalistic Messianist agitators (perhaps overlapping with the Zealots and Sicarii) and that Josephus, at the behehest of the Flavian emperors, wrote (or oversaw the creation of) the canonical Gospels in order to create a domesticated form of Judaism (i.e., Christianity) that could peacefully coexist with the Romans under Roman rule.

The first part of the hypothesis, about the Christian Judeans living in Palestine before 70, is not nutty.

Best,

Ken

[StephenGoranson]

That there were Christian Judeans living in Roman Palestine before the Jewish War seems obvious and not controversial.
That they mostly were militant zealots or Sicarii is imo nutty.

[Peter Kirby]

Goodness, I'm simply astounded at your position - that you would seek to remove the entire TF from Antiquities. Simply astounded. While I have read some of your post to this forum regarding your argument for Eusebius interpolation - this was the first time I read that you would like the entire TF removed from Antiquities. Well, what can one say - best of luck attempting to get such a removal of the TF past Josephan scholars......methinks you would be far better off spending your energy elsewhere.

It would not be too much to say Ken Olson single-handedly changed my TF essay from pro authenticity to against:

"After reading the study of Ken Olson that shows the vocabulary of the Testimonium to be not Josephan but rather Eusebian, I am inclined to regard both references as spurious."
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html

You may now react with exaggerated affect to that too.

[Secret Alias]

But what if it said that "he was an excellent man." What then? I tend to think that the entire surviving Josephean corpus was created in the early second century. Kind of like the Pauline corpus. Of course I have no level of comparable expertise. Something about the "too good to be true" aspect of the Jewish general who embraces Caesar and learns high level Greek that rubs me the wrong way. But then again we all have different "too good to be true" alarm bells.

[Secret Alias]

The problem I have with the idea that TF is a forgery (a forgery outside of the whole work being garbage) is that the narrative can be read as supporting the history of the Acti Pilati. Hard to argue that some sort of relationship exists between the two traditions. If the TF author could have plopped the "addition" anywhere why does it work out that nothing in the narrative contradicts a 20 - 21 CE appearance of Jesus. The idea of Jesus being "the Right One" the one who came at the right time fits 20 - 21 CE too. It's a Jubilee year.

[StephenGoranson]

That some have proposed that the TF was wholly an interpolation--or, others, that it was not at all--should not be news to anyone paying attention.
That whether or not it suits Josephus, his views. is disputed should not be news to anyone paying attention.
That whether or not it suits his language is disputed should not be news to anyone paying attention.
That some Jews thought Jesus to be Christ should not be news to anyone paying attention.