What did Josephus know but choose to leave out?

[StephenGoranson]

Some posts assert what they think did *not* happen, sometimes, it seems, being more vague about what *did* happen.
A recent (2019) book attempts to address what may have been deliberate silences in Josephus. That is tricky: arguments from silence are often quite weak, if not worse.
Josephus writing on his role in the revolt against Rome is famously unreliable.
But, unless one explains away his mentions of John Baptist, James and Jesus—even if the last was altered from, roughly, some folks thought he was Christ to he was Christ—Josephus , by the 90s CE was aware of Christians.
Josephus, Paul, and the fate of early Christianity : history and silence in the first century
•
• Asiedu, F. B. A., author
• Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, [2019; pb 2021]
argues that Josephus likely knew about Paul but chose not to include him.

Maybe; maybe not…

the Blurb:
Flavius Josephus, the priest from Jerusalem who was affiliated with the Pharisees, is our most important source for Jewish life in the first century. His notice about the death of James the brother of Jesus suggests that Josephus knew about the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and in Judaea. In Rome, where he lived for the remainder of his life after the Jewish War, a group of Christians appear to have flourished, if 1 Clement is any indication. Josephus, however, says extremely little about the Christians in Judaea and nothing about those in Rome. He also does not reference Paul the apostle, a former Pharisee, who was a contemporary of Josephus’s father in Jerusalem, even though, according to Acts, Paul and his activities were known to two successive Roman governors (procurators) of Judaea, Marcus Antonius Felix and Porcius Festus, and to King Herod Agrippa II and his sisters Berenice and Drusilla. The knowledge of the Herodians, in particular, puts Josephus’s silence about Paul in an interesting light, suggesting that it may have been deliberate.


In addition, Josephus’s writings bear very little witness to other contemporaries in Rome, so much so that if we were dependent on Josephus alone we might conclude that many of those historical characters either did not exist or had little or no impact in the first century. Asiedu comments on the state of life in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian and how both Josephus and the Christians who produced 1 Clement coped with the regime as other contemporaries, among whom he considers Martial, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and others, did. He argues that most of Josephus’s contemporaries practiced different kinds of silences in bearing witness to the world around them. Consequently, the absence of references to Jews or Christians in Roman writers of the last three decades of the first century, including Josephus, should not be taken as proof of their non-existence in Flavian Rome.

[GakuseiDon]

In addition, Josephus’s writings bear very little witness to other contemporaries in Rome, so much so that if we were dependent on Josephus alone we might conclude that many of those historical characters either did not exist or had little or no impact in the first century. Asiedu comments on the state of life in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian and how both Josephus and the Christians who produced 1 Clement coped with the regime as other contemporaries, among whom he considers Martial, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and others, did. He argues that most of Josephus’s contemporaries practiced different kinds of silences in bearing witness to the world around them. Consequently, the absence of references to Jews or Christians in Roman writers of the last three decades of the first century, including Josephus, should not be taken as proof of their non-existence in Flavian Rome.

Others have noted the same thing about Plutarch, with one describing this approach as trying to give a "timeless" feel to the literature:
https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2004/2004.04.32/

But again we return to the problem that Plutarch rarely adverts directly to the contemporary world (the allusion to Domitian at Publicola 15, discussed by Stadter, is a rare and striking exception). For two contributors to this volume, his writings are notable not for their engagement with issues of contemporary currency but for their avoidance of them. Thomas Schmidt explores points of contact between Plutarch’s representation of barbarians and those of contemporary Greek (Dio, Chariton) and Latin (Tacitus, Pliny) authors, and also Trajanic public representations of Parthians and Dacians (on coinage and on the column). Schmidt’s conclusion is that Plutarch’s approach is entirely traditional and reflects nothing of the contemporary world: he is wholly insulated by literary confabulation from contemporary politics. Chris Pelling, meanwhile, argues that the Caesar is carefully written to avoid the many resonances it might have had, so that the text might have a timeless rather than a contemporary feel; overall, he suggests, the Lives strategically aim for an immemorial rather than a time-specific feel.

I see the same approach in the Gospels, the letters in the NT and much of the literature in the Second Century CE apologists, to the point that it is the presence of direct references to events that stand out, rather than the absence of such references.

[Irish1975]

Yes, the silence of Josephus about Paul does put his silence about Paul in an interesting light.

The explanation of this silence is, naturally, that Josephus knew about Paul and deliberately chose not to say a single word about him.

Brilliant scholarship.

[neilgodfrey]

But, unless one explains away his mentions of John Baptist, James and Jesus—even if the last was altered from, roughly, some folks thought he was Christ to he was Christ—Josephus , by the 90s CE was aware of Christians.

This is a common way of framing questions even within scholarly exchanges but it is in fact nothing less than ye olde "poisoning the well" fallacy. The framing implies that any response to take up the challenge will be a dismissable, eye-rolling ad hoc explanation. The first task of a historian is to establish the nature of the sources and that is not done by attempting to poison those who are more sceptical than us.

But I think some of us will be interested, as I was, in what Asiedu has to say in his Introduction about the argument we are about to read.

pages 1-2 he writes:

Why does he say so little about the Christian Jews whom he certainly knew, since he mentions the judicial murder of James the brother of Jesus in 62 CE at the instigation of the High Priest Ananus son of Ananus?

page 2:

But the fact that Josephus does not mention Paul is not proof that he did not know Paul or anything about Paul just as the fact that he does not mention Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, or Martial is not proof that he did not know them, or know of them, in Rome.

Paul is mentioned in a number of episodes of this nature in the Acts of the Apostles. Therefore, unless [Josephus's father] Matthias was somehow hermetically sealed off from anything that involved Paul during his time in Jerusalem, Matthias would have had some knowledge of Paul who is variously linked to officials of the Temple and the Sanhedrin by the writer of Acts.

Whatever we make of the merits of Acts as a historical narrative, the references in Acts cannot be dismissed as inconsequential for our assessment of Josephus’s knowledge or ignorance of Paul and the earliest Christians.

page 4:

Interestingly, the description [by Josephus] of Ananus as the champion or captain of their salvation (hegemona tes idias soterias auton) resonates with New Testament language about Jesus Christ and his followers in the Epistle to the Hebrews: that the captain of their salvation (archegon tes soterias auton), Jesus Christ, was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10). Later in Hebrews 12:2, Jesus is described as the author and finisher (or perfecter) of their faith. Paul, of course, writes incessantly that Jesus Christ died for the salvation of the world.

page 5:

Throughout this work I shall have very little to say about Acts. But, it needs to be kept in the background.

pages 5-6:

Those early years of his [=Josephus] public life (55–59 CE) would have coincided with the last few chapters of Acts that are centered on Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem. It would, therefore, have been easier for Josephus to know about Paul’s arrest than for the writer of Acts, to have known about Josephus, even if the author of Acts was in Jerusalem at the time.

Consequently, we cannot insist or maintain with any historical credibility that under no circumstances could Josephus or his father have known anything then or subsequently about the arrest of Paul in Jerusalem in the period between 55 and 59 CE. Thus, the burden of proof is upon those who insist that under no circumstances could Josephus or his father have known anything about Paul, not on those who surmise or conjecture, based on Josephus’s own language about his involvement in Jerusalem politics, that Josephus and his father must have known something about Paul. We simply cannot presume as a matter of historical verity that the eighteen- to twentytwo- year-old Josephus (c. 55–59 CE), who was affiliated with the Pharisees in Jerusalem, who was a priest and the son of a priest, and whose father was among the leading men of Jerusalem, would not have known about the arrest of Paul in Jerusalem that involved leaders of the Temple and eventually led to Paul being sent to the procurator Felix in Caesarea Maritima . . . .

page 6:

The irony, of course, is that while Josephus is not mentioned in the Talmud, there are a few allusions to a character in the Talmud who looks like Paul.

page 8:

To speak of Josephus’s silences concerning Paul and the earliest Christians is also to gesture in part to the Herodians, and in particular to three of the four children of Herod Agrippa I, king of Judaea from 41–44 CE. Marcus Julius Agrippa (27/28–92/93 CE?), Berenice (b. 28 CE), and Drusilla (38–79 CE) all encountered Paul, if we are to believe the Acts of the Apostles; and all three are featured in Josephus’s narratives.

page 9:

Agrippa II also knew the apostle Paul, if we are to believe the account in Acts 25:13–26:32 that has Paul appearing before him as he waited to be sent to Rome for trial. This means that Agrippa II knew of both James the brother of Jesus and Paul the apostle in a way that makes it impossible to argue that he would have been ignorant of the Christian Jews.

Note the creeping certainty --- begins with "if", but then "this means...." and then "also knew"....

Agrippa II also knew the Emperor Claudius, and he knew Nero; and . . . .

and then Agrippa's knowledge of Paul becomes a fact....

page 10:

. . . as one of the most prominent among Josephus’s most well-placed and well-informed putative readers; and as someone who knew Paul, the apostle and missionary of the Christian movement, Herod Agrippa II could easily detect the resonances between the account of the conversion of King Izates of Adiabene narrated by Josephus and Paul’s missionary activities among the Gentiles.

Even to the point of knowing the very thoughts of Agrippa as he listened (for a fact by now) to Paul...

page 11:

Of course, Agrippa II himself would have known the story [of the conversion of King Izates] before Josephus committed it to writing. It is, therefore, most likely that as Agrippa II listened (with his sister Berenice) to Paul give his apologia and describe his mission to the Gentiles (Acts 26:1–27) he would have thought about the parallels between what Paul was saying and what he knew of the conversion of the Adiabene royals and the two Jews/Judaeans (Ananias and Eleazar), who had contributed to that process. The parallels would not have escaped a hearer like Agrippa II, neither would they have escaped both of his sisters, Berenice and Drusilla (Acts 24:24), who would have had some sense of how Paul’s activities reflected some of what obtained in the conversions of the Adiabene royals.

Nero's persecution of Christians in the wake of the fire of Rome is taken for granted as another fact:

page 12:

Surprisingly, Josephus never mentions this event [the fire] in any of his writings. I probe Josephus’s silence about this catastrophic event and its impact on a nascent group associated with one Chrestus or Christus (as Tacitus reports it).

Silences upon silences.....

page 13:

Josephus’s silence about the Fire of 64 CE may be his first most significant act about erasing the Christians of Rome from first-century history, the full effects of which will not be clear until we set his other silences in context: that he remained silent about so much while living in Rome in the last two decades of the first century.

Enter the "seven authentic letters of Paul" as historical sources.... -- a suprise, no doubt, for many Classicists...

I consider it an essential methodological premise that Josephus’s Life (his autobiography) be compared with the autobiographical elements in the so-called seven authentic letters of Paul. The next section of the chapter, then, takes aim at the parallel lives of Josephus the Pharisee and Paul the former Pharisee. Here I compare Josephus’s Life with Paul’s Letter to the Galatians as two primary sources for first-century Jewish life.

The plot then thickens....

In fact, the story about the Adiabene royals that Josephus tells sometimes reads as if it is meant as a counternarrative to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. My point here is to suggest that his preoccupation with the conversion of the Adiabene royals shows Josephus deeply interested in matters of Jewish missionary activity and the conversion of Gentiles. So at some level the missionary activities of Christian Jews, who were his contemporaries, would have attracted his attention. Yet, Josephus nowhere so much as hints at this reality. . . .

Curiously, the historical time of the Adiabene narrative parallels the most active period of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. But Josephus, apparently, knew nothing, nor heard anything after the fact even from someone like Agrippa II who encountered Paul.

And the conclusion, of course, is that from silence we learn the thoughts of Josephus:

page 14:

Josephus’s silences were intended to effect the exclusion of Christian Jews from the archives of Jewish life in the first century.

The clincher proof -- another silence!

Although Martial resorts to anti-Jewish derision, and should have attracted Josephus’s attention, if Josephus was so concerned about it to write his Against Apion, Josephus never mentions Martial. This is curious because presumably everyone was reading Martial.

On page 15 we read a further arguments why Josephus should have written about Martial and why he had no need to write, as he did, so much about Apion.... but I spare you the details here.

[Charles Wilson]

Josephus, Wars..., 2, 1, 3:

"At these the whole multitude were irritated, and threw stones at many of the soldiers, and killed them; but the tribune fled away wounded, and had much ado to escape so. After which they betook themselves to their sacrifices, as if they had done no mischief..."

Josephus, Antiquities..., 17, 9, 3:

"But those that were seditious on account of those teachers of the law, irritated the people by the noise and clamors they used to encourage the people in their designs; so they made an assault upon the soldiers, and came up to them, and stoned the greatest part of them, although some of them ran away wounded, and their captain among them; and when they had thus done, they returned to the sacrifices which were already in their hands.

Josephus, Antiquities..., 13, 13, 5:

"As to Alexander, his own people were seditious against him; for at a festival which was then celebrated, when he stood upon the altar, and was going to sacrifice, the nation rose upon him, and pelted him with citrons [which they then had in their hands, because] the law of the Jews required that at the feast of tabernacles every one should have branches of the palm tree and citron tree; which thing we have elsewhere related. They also reviled him, as derived from a captive, and so unworthy of his dignity and of sacrificing. At this he was in a rage, and slew of them about six thousand. He also built a partition-wall of wood round the altar and the temple, as far as that partition within which it was only lawful for the priests to enter; and by this means he obstructed the multitude from coming at him..."

WHO sacrifices in the Temple? That would be the Priests (High Priests) and the Kings, if they have both Offices. Jannaeus did and when he was pelted with citrons, he was so enraged that he murdered 6000 (!!!) and built a partition to mark a space between him and the crowds.

One may therefore infer that Josephus has left out the identity of those who performed Sacrifices in the Temple:

Luke 19: 39 - 40 (RSV):

[39] And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples."
[40] He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."

...And so they did.

[StephenGoranson]

In the OP, I attempted to introduce a book of possible interest, carefully.

Including: “That is tricky: arguments from silence are often quite weak, if not worse…..Maybe; maybe not…” Etcetera.

neilgodfrey was not pleased (surprised?) and accused me of making a fallacy of poisoning the well. Please reread the OP and decide for yourself.
And he implied that he is more skeptical than I am—holier than thou, kinda, sorta…. I think dispute about the Testimonium Flavianum is well known here.

I happen to think that Josephus, may I say so, by the time he wrote Antiquities, during the nineties CE, knew about Christians or Nazarenes. If you think differently, OK, that’s your business; I’m not the list owner. Some readers think Josephus tried hard to please some Romans. In some settings, trying to describe his bias is fair game.

[neilgodfrey]

neilgodfrey was not pleased (surprised?) and accused me of making a fallacy of poisoning the well. Please reread the OP and decide for yourself.

No Stephen, you misread me. I was referring to but one phrase and pointed out how common it is in scholarly exchanges. Please YOU re-read what I write and do try to refrain from mind-reading the rest.

My criticism was clearly of but one phrase on one single point that is a big bugbear among those who shiver in horror at the mere possibility of a mythicist thought. Reread it.

[StephenGoranson]

Me: "But, unless one explains away his [Josephus'] mentions of John Baptist, James and Jesus—even if the last was altered from, roughly, some folks thought he was Christ to he was Christ—Josephus, by the 90s CE was aware of Christians."

And you neil, and of course many others, explain away (in various ways) those appearances in the manuscripts.
Am I allowed to be not persuaded?

Who indulges in (attempted) mind reading? I do not recall a "shiver in horror."

[neilgodfrey]

Me: "But, unless one explains away his [Josephus'] mentions of John Baptist, James and Jesus—even if the last was altered from, roughly, some folks thought he was Christ to he was Christ—Josephus, by the 90s CE was aware of Christians."

And you neil, and of course many others, explain away (in various ways) those appearances in the manuscripts.
Am I allowed to be not persuaded?

Who indulges in (attempted) mind reading? I do not recall a "shiver in horror."

Hoo boy oh boy oh boy!! No, I do admit my "shiver in horror" was an exaggeration. I did not expect anyone to read it literally. I hereby declare that I was not reading your mind when I wrote that and that if I were I proved myself a total fraud in that area. Caught out! Damnnit. I'll get rid of my faulty crystal ball.

Now, your response to my arguments, you seem to affirm here that my criticism was well directed after all, is to an expression that has all the marks of well-poisoning. "Explain away" has a different connotation from "offer an alternative explanation" or even simply, "explanation" on its own. That four letter word "away" suggests kicked out of bounds, out of sight, not to be considered worthy of serious engagement.

That is value-laden and derogatory way of describing another's argument. As such, it needs to be justified. That requires argument and not a blanket disclaimer in advance.

To use the expression as you did is to suggest that any argument that would cast those passages in a sceptical light is a an ad hoc one. No serious case can be made against the basic authenticity of the core content of those passages. That's the implication.

As such, it is a fallacious approach to research. The fallacy is technically an informal one, but it is nonetheless contrary to the norms of honest and respectful intellectual exchange.