DCHindley wrote:
Hello Andrew,
Personally, I do not think that the text of
Ant. 20:200 as it survives is 100% by Josephus, if only because the word "christos" with the meaning "anointed person" is evident only here and the TF in 18:63, "this man was the Christ."
The phrase as it stands in Ant 20:200, "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, [τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ Ἰάκωβος ὄνομα = the brother of Jesus, the one called Christ, Jacob by name], seems out of keeping with Josephus' avoidance of the term "christos" even when describing anointed priests or rulers.
At very best it seems to me that to be "called anointed" would be a technical term to describe a former high priest (say, Jesus son of Phabes of 15:322, or Jesus the son of Sie of 17:341) or a member of a pool of persons deemed suitable high priestly designates (say, Jesus son of Damneus of 20:203 appointed by Agrippa II in 62 CE, or Jesus son of Gamaliel of 20:213 who was a high priest appointed by Agrippa II in 63 CE, and may be same as Jesus son of Gamala of
War 4:160, and likely the same Jesus who gave the speech to the Idumeans in
War 4:238-270).
Josephus, in [i]Jewish War[/i] book 4 wrote: 135 ... the captains of ... troops of robbers ... 147 ... took upon them [selves the power] to appoint high priests. 148 ...[T]hey ... disannulled the [usual order of] succession, according to those families out of whom the high priests used to be made ... 153) ... [and] they undertook to dispose of the high priesthood by casting lots for it, whereas, as we have said already, it was to descend by succession in a family.
However, Josephus prefers to refer to this latter class of men as members of the aristocracy associated with ruling families, not as men with special anointing beforehand. As far as I can tell, he never refers to even High Priests or ex-High Priests as "anointed." The only other place in all of Josephus' works where the word χριστός is used is
Ant. 8:137 where it is used as an adjective to designate the plaster dabbed onto the exterior of the upper deck of Solomon's temple (ὸ δὲ ἄλλο μέχρι τῆς στέγης χριστὸν ἦν).
Josephus, even while saying outright that Vespasian was the world ruler predicted by Judean sacred scripture, never even alludes to him as an analogue to Cyrus the Persian, which the author of
Isaiah 45:1 calls the Lord's "anointed" [τῷ χριστῷ μου] in the Old Greek of the Christian Old Testament. Cyrus is mentioned something like 38 times in the works of Josephus, without mention of Isaiah's prophesy except in the case of
Ant. 11:3-6, where Cyrus is made to paraphrase Isaiah's prophecy of 44:26-45:1, but only says God "approved" (ἀποδείξας) of him to release the Judean captives and restore the city again.
Assuming then that the phrase "called Christ" is foreign to
Ant. 20:200 and likely an interpolation, I am more inclined see the Christian process of adding to the legend of James the Just as the result of some misunderstanding of a comment about Josephus' portrayal of Ananus son of Ananus in
Ant. 20:200, which was in polar opposition to what he says of him in
War 4, where he is an extremely just man whose ignoble death became the cause for the destruction of the city.
Christians appear to have come to associate this James who was brother of a certain Jesus with Jesus the Christian "Christ" on the basis of tradition also found in
Gal. 1:19 "James the Lord's brother" and also reflected in Clement of Alexandria's lost
Hypotyposeis book 6 (per the fragment preserved in Eusebius'
Church History 2.1.3-6), which also cites
Gal. 1:19, and of course Hegesippus who links James the Just with "Jesus as the Christ" (again, per the fragment preserved by Eusebius in
Church History 2.23.3-19).
But where would such a tradition come from? There needs to be more than a question about the appropriateness of attributing the destruction of the city to the death of Ananus for Christians to misunderstand as if referring to James the brother of Jesus Christ. I think that the same writer of the marginal question, or perhaps someone later (I am not going to get all dogmatic about it), also offered an alternative, the high priestly Jesus who gave the speech to the Idumeans on the wall, who was also killed with Ananus and shared the same ignoble treatment. This may be where the term "anointed one" was used to further identify this Jesus as already an ex-high priest or was soon to be appointed one. The vocabulary of such a commentator, who was under no constraint to appear diplomatic, will not necessarily be the same as that employed by Josephus in works dedicated to his Roman patrons, but also sure to be read by Diasporic Judeans.
Now there would be two somewhat ambiguous comments, which if taken out of context or interpreted by someone unfamiliar with Josephus' War, furnishes all the materials necessary to make a Christian think that "Josephus" said that James was a high priest, that he was very just, that he gave a speech on the wall, was killed, his death was the cause of the destruction of the city, and that Josephus would have been more correct to attribute the destruction the death of Jesus (assumed to mean Jesus Christ).
It may not be as "clean" as assuming the present text of 20:200 is 100% genuine, but it doesn't require assuming that Josephus wrote the anomalous "called Christ," using a noun that is only used of the unnamed miracle worker executed by Pilate who "was the Christ" in
Ant. 18:63, which almost nobody thinks is 100% genuine, and at the same time gives a reasonable source for ALL later Christian tradition about James the Just and a motive for adding "called Christ" to
Ant. 20:200 and the TF to
Ant. 18:63-64.
DCH