Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

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Ken Olson
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Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

Post by Ken Olson »

Gary Goldberg has published a new argument for his thesis that Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum is dependent on a Christian source also preserved in the Emmaus story in Luke 24 in The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (2021):

Abstract
The controversial account of Jesus in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, has puzzling similarities to Luke 24.18–24, a portion of the Emmaus narrative. This article proposes an explanation based on established research into Josephus’s methods of composition. Through a phrase-by-phrase study, this article finds that the Testimonium can be derived from the Emmaus narrative using transformations Josephus is demonstrated to have employed in paraphrasing known sources for the Antiquities. Precedents are identified in word adoption/substitution and content modification. Consequently, I submit that the Testimonium is Josephus’s paraphrase of a Christian source. This result also resolves the difficulties that have raised doubts about the Testimonium’s authenticity, with implications for the understanding of the historical Jesus.

At present the article can be read online or downloaded in PDF here:

https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/ao ... 10003.xml
Best,

Ken
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billd89
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Re: Goldberg on the Testimonium Flavianum

Post by billd89 »

So: Josephus, composing in 93 AD, had a Q-Luke (or Luke 24?) before him.

The implication(s) being:
1) Since Josephus would not have had a brand-new Xian work in hand, but smthg which had circulated for years, reasonably 10-20 years, so Q-Luke was likely composed c.70-85 AD.

2) Q-Luke (85 AD) based on an earlier Mark would also suggest 5-15 yrs difference, Mark c.60-80 AD. (This isn't necessary, but to address overall Markan Priority, it still fits.)

3) Josephus accessed what amounts to a Q Gospel to explain the Jesus Phenomenon (which HAD to be significant to Josephus!?!).

I accept traditional dating of the Gospels, but this seems highly implausible. Rather, the TF as a later interpolation based on Luke 24 (or even that theoretical Q material) seems more likely.

If I am understanding what is proposed.
Last edited by billd89 on Sun Nov 28, 2021 5:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

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Ken Olson wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:17 am Gary Goldberg has published a new argument for his thesis that Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum is dependent on a Christian source also preserved in the Emmaus story in Luke 24 in The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (2021):

Abstract
The controversial account of Jesus in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, has puzzling similarities to Luke 24.18–24, a portion of the Emmaus narrative. This article proposes an explanation based on established research into Josephus’s methods of composition. Through a phrase-by-phrase study, this article finds that the Testimonium can be derived from the Emmaus narrative using transformations Josephus is demonstrated to have employed in paraphrasing known sources for the Antiquities. Precedents are identified in word adoption/substitution and content modification. Consequently, I submit that the Testimonium is Josephus’s paraphrase of a Christian source. This result also resolves the difficulties that have raised doubts about the Testimonium’s authenticity, with implications for the understanding of the historical Jesus.

At present the article can be read online or downloaded in PDF here:

https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/ao ... 10003.xml
Best,

Ken
Well, if his hypothesis be accepted as true, then would this not remove Josephus from the list of useful sources about historical Jesus? I mean, one of the major reasons for his acceptability within that list is that he supposedly represents a non-Christian, independent source about Jesus.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

Post by Ken Olson »

Goldberg has been arguing this thesis for years, first in "The Coincidences of the Emmaus Narrative of
Luke and the Testimonium of Josephus", in The Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13 (1995) pp. 59-77, online here:

http://www.josephus.org/GoldbergJosephusLuke1995.pdf

Then on his Josephus web-page:

http://www.josephus.org/home.htm

His work has received very little attention in published academic works (Richard Carrier being the notable exception, if you count him as an academic, which I do), but has received a lot of attention in internet discussions of the Testimonium. IMHO people have been inclined to accept his statistical case without really examining it.

I just discovered the new paper this morning and haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Best,

Ken
Last edited by Ken Olson on Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ABuddhist
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Re: Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

Post by ABuddhist »

Ken Olson wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 5:13 am Richard Carrier being the notable exception, if you count him as an academic, which I do
Well, whatever his conduct and his theories, Dr. Carrier has a Ph. D. and has published peer-reviewed material, so I see no problem regarding him as an academic. Even if he be motivated by anti-religious bigotry, how is such a bias fundamentally different from the biases from the many Christians who dominate Biblical studies (either as living figures or as respected dead authorities)?
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Re: Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

Post by maryhelena »

ABuddhist wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 5:00 am
Ken Olson wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:17 am Gary Goldberg has published a new argument for his thesis that Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum is dependent on a Christian source also preserved in the Emmaus story in Luke 24 in The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (2021):

Abstract
The controversial account of Jesus in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, has puzzling similarities to Luke 24.18–24, a portion of the Emmaus narrative. This article proposes an explanation based on established research into Josephus’s methods of composition. Through a phrase-by-phrase study, this article finds that the Testimonium can be derived from the Emmaus narrative using transformations Josephus is demonstrated to have employed in paraphrasing known sources for the Antiquities. Precedents are identified in word adoption/substitution and content modification. Consequently, I submit that the Testimonium is Josephus’s paraphrase of a Christian source. This result also resolves the difficulties that have raised doubts about the Testimonium’s authenticity, with implications for the understanding of the historical Jesus.

At present the article can be read online or downloaded in PDF here:

https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/ao ... 10003.xml
Best,

Ken
Well, if his hypothesis be accepted as true, then would this not remove Josephus from the list of useful sources about historical Jesus? I mean, one of the major reasons for his acceptability within that list is that he supposedly represents a non-Christian, independent source about Jesus.
I think you have hit the nail on it's head! If Josephus has used gLuke's Emmaus narrative for the TF then, re Goldberg, the TF is evidence for a historical Jesus from a non-Christian source. However, if Josephus has used gLuke's Emmaus narrative in cooperation with the Lukan writer, then Josephus is not an impartial source for the historical gospel Jesus.

Bottom line in all of this - a relationship between Josephus and the Lukan writer needs to be investigated. If there was a relationship - then Josephus as a historical source for the gospel Jesus is negated. Without a Josephan backup the Jesus historicists are facing a brick wall.

There is far more potential in a Josephus and Luke connection, for the ahistoricists, than there ever was in a Eusebius wholescale TF interpolation into Josephus. Josephus is, always has been, the key to unlocking the history of early christianity.
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JoeWallack
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Say It Ain't So Joe

Post by JoeWallack »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_RwIt3a8xs&t=8s
Ken Olson wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:17 am Gary Goldberg has published a new argument for his thesis that Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum is dependent on a Christian source also preserved in the Emmaus story in Luke 24 in The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (2021):

Abstract
The controversial account of Jesus in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, has puzzling similarities to Luke 24.18–24, a portion of the Emmaus narrative. This article proposes an explanation based on established research into Josephus’s methods of composition. Through a phrase-by-phrase study, this article finds that the Testimonium can be derived from the Emmaus narrative using transformations Josephus is demonstrated to have employed in paraphrasing known sources for the Antiquities. Precedents are identified in word adoption/substitution and content modification. Consequently, I submit that the Testimonium is Josephus’s paraphrase of a Christian source. This result also resolves the difficulties that have raised doubts about the Testimonium’s authenticity, with implications for the understanding of the historical Jesus.

At present the article can be read online or downloaded in PDF here:

https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/ao ... 10003.xml
Best,

Ken
JW:
When betting on women's tennis I always bet against the heterosexual and when reading religious articles I always start with the conclusion.
Perhaps even more difficult than determining the source of the TF is the conclusion here of Goldberg. Candidates:
  • 1) Josephus copied from GLuke/GLuke source is the solution.

    2) Josephus copied from GLuke/GLuke source is the best solution.

    3) Josephus copied from GLuke/GLuke source is a good solution.

    4) Josephus copied from GLuke/GLuke source is a solution
As a Skeptic I normally like uncertainty. But not when it's trying to figure out what someone's conclusion is.
This suggests that he is not a professional quality writer. How do these articles always get through Christian
Peer Review Ken (rhetorical).

The consensus is that "Luke" was written after Antiquities and there's already a better argument that GLuke
copied from Josephus:

"Mark's" Fourth Philosophy Source (After Imagination, Paul & Jewish Bible) = Josephus

Regarding the parallels which is more likely, that "Luke" took history from Josephus and made it non-history (supernatural) or verse-vices? See, when you don't have to be neutral on the supernatural it makes your conclusions much better.

So what I would like to know at this point (same as what I would like to know when Wasserman argues that "son of god" is original or Carlson argues that Secret Mark is not) is who/what exactly is Gary J. Goldberg?


Joseph
SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans are "endowed by their Creator" with abundant vice and folly, it is not generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist is popularly regarded as a sour-spirited knave, and his ever victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.
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Irish1975
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Re: Say It Ain't So Joe

Post by Irish1975 »

JoeWallack wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:29 pm When betting on women's tennis I always bet against the heterosexual and when reading religious articles I always start with the conclusion.
🤣
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MrMacSon
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Re: Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

Post by MrMacSon »

maryhelena wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:15 am ... If Josephus has used gLuke's Emmaus narrative for the TF then, re Goldberg, the TF is evidence for a historical Jesus from a non-Christian source
At first I wondered what you're referring to there, largely as gLuke would in this case be a Christian source.

Then I realised you might be referring to the TF—Antiquities 18.3.3/163-4—as a 'source'. If so, it'd be a secondary source.

You do allude to problems arising with your next sentence:
maryhelena wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:15 am However, if Josephus has used gLuke's Emmaus narrative in cooperation with the Lukan writer, then Josephus is not an impartial source for the historical gospel Jesus.
Another question might arise eg. why didn't Josephus write more about Jesus, and not from scripture?
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Re: Gary Goldberg's new article on the Testimonium Flavianum

Post by DCHindley »

I had tried to reach Gary Goldberg several years ago, as I had noticed that he had a section of his web pages about obtaining Loeb volumes for all the works of Josephus.

To be honest, my own inquiries had found the situation horribly muddled, as there had been "three editions" - a 9 volume edition, a 10 volume edition, and a 13 volume edition. That meant 24 separate volumes when all the configurations are worked out. I had offered to let him use the tables I had put together of the various Loeb volumes and how they related to one another, including ISBN numbers and all. There had been no response, and so I sent a follow up after a week or so, and he told me that he had a family situation that was taking 100% of his attention span. I wished him the best. When I just now looked at the web page, it looks like the section about ordering Loeb volumes was gone completely. Maybe it was just moved.

The new article, though, looks like it is polished. I remember reading his Emmaus hypothesis he had published previously because it got a lot of attention around 2014. His web page has always impressed me. I'd do a couple things differently, but really first rate.

I wish him well.

DCH
Ken Olson wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 5:13 am Goldberg has been arguing this thesis for years, first in "The Coincidences of the Emmaus Narrative of
Luke and the Testimonium of Josephus", in The Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13 (1995) pp. 59-77, online here:

http://www.josephus.org/GoldbergJosephusLuke1995.pdf

Then on his Josephus web-page:

http://www.josephus.org/home.htm

His work has received very little attention in published academic works (Richard Carrier being the notable exception, if you count him as an academic, which I do), but has received a lot of attention in internet discussions of the Testimonium. IMHO people have been inclined to accept his statistical case because without really examining it.

I just discovered the new paper this morning and haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Best,

Ken
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