James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ in Josephus

[MrMacSon]

Does anyone else wonder about these "equitable" citizens who got all worked up over the injustice done to James?

Yes

I see these citizens as consisting at least partly of "one of the priests of the sons of Rechab" mentioned in Hegesippus' account of the stoning of James the Just in EH 2.23.17.

And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, "Stop. What are you doing? The just one prays for you."

Where does Hegesippus [or perhaps just Eusbeius] get this from?

Jeremiah 35?

5 Then I set bowls full of wine and some cups before the Rekabites and said to them, “Drink some wine.”

6 But they replied, “We do not drink wine, because our forefather Jehonadab son of Rekab gave us this command: ‘Neither you nor your descendants must ever drink wine. 7 Also you must never build houses, sow seed or plant vineyards; you must never have any of these things, but must always live in tents. Then you will live a long time in the land where you are nomads.’

8 We have obeyed everything our forefather Jehonadab son of Rekab commanded us. Neither we nor our wives nor our sons and daughters have ever drunk wine 9 or built houses to live in or had vineyards, fields or crops. 10 We have lived in tents and have fully obeyed everything our forefather Jehonadab commanded us.

11 But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded this land, we said, ‘Come, we must go to Jerusalem to escape the Babylonian [or Chaldean] and Aramean armies.’ So we have remained in Jerusalem.”

eta: there's reference to Jehonadab son of Rekab in 2 Kings 10 wrt Jehu's murderous zeal for the Lord

[John2]

Where does Hegesippus [or perhaps just Eusbeius] get this from?

Jeremiah 35?

Sure, and the existence of Rechabites in James' time is supported by Rabbinic writings, which say that Rechabites served in the second Temple and that the Rechabite line continued to at least the time of Rabbi Halafta in the second century CE ("the fifth-most-frequently mentioned sage in the Mishnah" according to Wikipedia).


Mishnah Ta'anit 4.5:

The mishna details the times for the wood offering of priests and the people. These were private holidays specific to certain families, on which their members would volunteer a wood offering for the altar. There were nine such days and families ... on the seventh of Av, the descendants of Jonadab ben Rechab ..."


https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Ta'anit ... l&lang2=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_ben_Halafta

[Paul the Uncertain]

I have only seen Jesus ben Damneus suggested as an alternative explanation, and he is in the narrative at its end. But if you know about suggestions by any that Jesus ben Gamaliel was the Jesus James's brother, feel free to share them.

Josephus first mentions J. Gamaliel at 20.213. J. Damneus is "in the narrative at its end" only if the "narrative" is the trial of James et al. or perhaps better titled the fall of Ananus. In contrast, J. Damneus appears in the midst of the narrative of "Albinus's troubled procuratorship."

Logically prior to assessing which Jesus (if any) was mentioned with no direct textual evidence of any problem is to lay a foundation for rejecting the snippet of received text. Apart from (1) 4th Century Eusebius being the earliest extant witness to "Jesus called Christ" as Josephus's very words, two other top reasons are (2) the existence of at least one alternative Jesus with a connection to the trial, (3) whose father's name is the same as a name which appears nearby 20.200.

The combination of those three circumstances is complementary. Factor (3) would help a later scribe diagnose the discrepancy between Eusebius and a (hypothetical) correct exemplar as revealing a likely scribal error in the latter. It is simply not the case that Eusebius's say-so is invariably reflected in received texts (e.g. we receive no overlapping terms for Pilate and Gratus, and we can still read Josephus's stated reasons why divine wrath fell upon Jerusalem).

The force of the impeachment of the received text by (1)-(3) can only increase as the number of candidate Jesuses increases. There are at least three seriously possible candidates: Damneus and Gamaliel (as already discussed) and Ananus (a different Ananus, whose son Jesus is connected by beginning his public career shortly after his would-be "brother" was sentenced to death).

Only when the received text is impeached with substantial plausibility need we bother about which Jesus (if any) was Josephus's Jesus. All three of these candidates have their pluses and minuses, as is typical of circumstantial cases. Simply to pick one and not even mention alternatives of comparable merit can only strengthen the case for accepting the received text as is.