A real strong argument to doubt about the Baptist Passage in Josephus by Jean Magne

[Peter Kirby]

Are there any issues with this solution or any reasons to think it may be flawed?

-edited to add: the OP is now quoted here because of the rule against direct insults:

viewtopic.php?p=168886#p168886

[Giuseppe]

Are there any issues with this solution or any reasons to think it may be flawed?

In whiletime, do you agree that this solution resolves the "problem" of the apparent impossibility of an interpolation preceding Origen ?

Since it gives pre-Origen evidence (=Acts 18:23-25) of an impulse to the interpolation.

[Peter Kirby]

Who was arguing that it was impossible for an interpolation to have preceded Origen, and what in particular was their argument? What was the "problem"? If you like, I can comment on it if I know exactly what you are talking about.

[Giuseppe]

If you like, I can comment on it if I know exactly what you are talking about.

it is not necessary an entire comment about the point.

The point is that Rivka Nir felt obliged to defend an interpolation in Josephus after Origen (i.e. her position is that Origen wasn't quoting really Josephus about the Baptist), while the Magne's solution doesn't need a such chronological posteriority. I think that I have made it clear the difference:

• Acts 18:23-25 is evidence of proto-Catholic Christians being interested to make the John's baptism a mere ritual, without not even the power of remission of the sins. This is an evolution of the view of the John's baptism in comparison to the same Gospel descriptions of the John's baptism (where a such power of remission of the sins is indeed found).

• Acts 18:23-25 comes before Origen.

• Therefore: Origen is merely evidence of an interpolated Baptist Passage in Josephus before the time of Origen (and not after, pace Nir).

[Peter Kirby]

The point is that Rivka Nir felt obliged to defend an interpolation in Josephus after Origen (i.e. her position is that Origen wasn't quoting really Josephus about the Baptist), while the Magne's solution doesn't need a such chronological posteriority.

Are you possibly confusing the way Nir argued with the way someone else - not Nir - argued?

You quoted this:

In view of the affinity between Origen's testimony and what is recounted about James in Christian sources, scholars have suggested that the Josephus text used by Origen already contained a Christian interpolation or that he confused Josephus with Hegesippus. The possibility that for the death of James Origen relied on some Christian interpolation into Josephus, or drew the James's testimony from Hegesippus, namely, from an anterior Christian source that he confused with Josephus, may suggest that his testimony about John the Baptist likewise relied on some Christian interpolation into Josephus or an anterior Christian source. That Eusebius does not make it explicit that the Baptist testimony is based on Hegesippus, as he does in the case of James, is no ground for dismissing this possibility outright, as all agree that Eusebius relied on Hegesippus much more than he was willing to concede. The fact that Origen's two testimonies are continuous, coming one after the other, may serve as indirect proof that both were borrowed from the same source and may conceivably have appeared in this order in Hegesippus.

(Rivka Nir, The First Christian Believer, pp. 40-41, your bold)

Can you show that Rivka Nir actually "felt obliged to defend an interpolation in Josephus after Origen" by showing that Rivka Nir argued specifically for this post-Origen interpolation hypothesis as the only possibility?

I would also ask why Nir thought she would "need a such chronological posteriority" but I haven't seen any clear evidence yet that Nir truly believed that an interpolation would have to be post-Origen, so there isn't room for the "why" question currently.

[Giuseppe]

It seems to me that in her conclusion about Origen, Rivka Nir betrayes a particular emphasis in postulating a conditio sine qua non, along the lines "Origen must have read a different passage":

Whatever the explanation for Origen's source of information. he was obviously unacquainted with the Baptist testimony in Josephus, and what he says contributes nothing to its authenticity.

(p. 41, my bold)

Afterall, always she had started the discussion about Origen by saying:

Contrary to the usual standpoint in research, Origen is not citing the passage from Jewish Antiquities, either wholly or partly.

(p. 47)

The reason of a such insistence is probably that she is without a good argument about why the interpolator would have worked so soon, i.e. already before Origen.

While the my solution goes to answer precisely that question. The key is Acts 18:23-25.

[Peter Kirby]

The reason of a such insistence is probably that she is without a good argument about why the interpolator would have worked so soon, i.e. already before Origen.

How do you know that?

For example, another possibility (and I don't know Nir's motivations here) is simply that Nir wanted to undermine the fact of Origen's reference as positive evidence for the presence of the passage in the Antiquities. Nir could have this motivation without necessarily believing that an interpolation would have to be post-Origen or could not have been pre-Origen.

[Peter Kirby]

So should we really believe this?

The point is that Rivka Nir felt obliged to defend an interpolation in Josephus after Origen

Is there anything like this stated, that Nir couldn't understand a pre-Origen interpolation?

[Giuseppe]

I see what Nir says about Acts 18:23-25:

Significantly then, 'the baptism of John' is an early Christian baptism preparing the baptized for the coming of the messiah, for baptism in the Holy Spirit and for the coming of the kingdom of heaven. It is inextricably tied to the message about the coming one, whose way he prepares by his proclamation and his baptism.

(p. 146)

Unfortunately, she doesn't the same point made by Magne, i.e. she realizes that Acts 18:23-25

...it is instructive on two points: that the baptism by John was insufficient for becoming completely Christian - it was not in the name of the Lord Jesus nor did it extend the gift of the Holy Spirit; and that this is no hostle or competitive group to the followers of Jesus, as evident from their consent to be baptized 'in the name of the Lord Jesus' and receive the Holy Spirit upon the laying of hands, thus becoming more complete Christians.

(p. 145)

...but she doesn't derive the conclusion that, just in virtue of the its being "insufficient for becoming completely Christian", in whiletime the John's baptism has been despoiled in Acts 28:23-25 even of the power of the remission of the sins, hence going directly against even the same Gospel incipit of Mark.

Which means that when Peter or Ken insist on the simplicity of the John's baptism as a mere ritual without no magical power as presumed evidence of authenticity of the Baptist Passage in Josephus, then they are de facto corroborating the point of Acts 18:23-25: the John's baptism was a mere empty ritual "therefore" it required to be surpassed by the superior baptism "in the name of Jesus".

It is equivalent to the argument of the early 12 apostles being illiterates: how much more divine was their unexpected success in preaching!

But the 12 apostles were not illiterates, and the John's baptism was not a mere ritual.

[Giuseppe]

I see that even Neil doesn't address really the problem of what would have motivated so soon the need of an interpolation in Josephus, already before Origen:

Peter Kirby’s first argument for the authenticity of the John the Baptist passage in Antiquities of Josephus is

(1) The Textual Witness Itself
All manuscripts contain the passage and Kirby goes one step further and states as a fact:

It is referenced already by Origen in the middle of the third century (Against Celsus, 1.47), . . .

However, anyone who has studied the problem of interpolations and textual corruptions in ancient texts (not only the biblical ones) knows that manuscript uniformity tells us nothing about whether any particular passage is an interpolation. At the most all the manuscript record can do is affirm that an interpolation took place before all surviving manuscripts. Rather than repeat the arguments here I refer anyone interested to previous explanations for why we should expect interpolations. To bias ourselves against their likelihood is to defy what scholarship knows about ancient practices:

Three Lessons from Classics for Biblical Studies? (2019-11-09)
A Case for Interpolation Does NOT Rely On Manuscript Evidence (2011-06-03)
A Literary Culture of Interpolations (2007-04-15)
The serious scholar of ancient texts should never adopt a defensive position against the possibility that any particular passage might be an interpolation.

Now Acts 18:23-25 answers to that question.