gmx wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:32 am
Thanks for the detailed reply Ken.
How do your points 4, 5 and 6 above account for the absence (among the extant manuscripts of Josephus) of Eusebius' reference to the avenging of James the Just (Book 2, Church History) ? If Eusebius corrupted the source documents of Josephus' Antiquities to provide a witness to the historical Jesus where none previously existed (ie the Testimonium is a Eusebian forgery in its entirety), that implies he was intimately familiar with the content of Antiquities (what it said and what it didn't say).
Therefore, these two points seem at odds:
* Eusebius quotes a non-existent passage from Josephus' Antiquities concerning Jesus (Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3.3), and interpolates it into Antiquities in such a way that it becomes the only textual witness -- in order to legitimize his quote.
* Eusebius quotes a non-existent passage from Josephus concerning James the Just (Church History, Book 2, Chapter 23.20), and is assumedly content to have Josephus' works transmitted minus the quoted passage.
Do you see any issue with the above from the perspective of Eusebian interpolation of the Testimonium ?
gmx,
I need to clarify a few points about what it is I'm arguing before I answer your question, so please bear with me.
(1) I am arguing that Eusebius composed the Testimonium Flavianum as an outside witness to the truth of a particular Christian understanding of Jesus, not to establish that Jesus existed, which was not an issue in his time (perhaps I have to say 'not a major issue' on this forum). Also, in a way he was writing a speech-in-character for what he thinks Josephus would have written about Jesus since he considered Josephus, like Philo, to be a Hebrew and not just a Jew, and understood the spiritual sense of the Old Testament scriptures.
(2) As I wrote in the post to which you are responding, I am undecided whether Eusebius himself oversaw the insertion of the Testimonium into the text of the Antiquities or whether some later Christian scribe or scribes saw the the Testimonium quoted in the Ecclesiastical History, accepted it as a an authentic Josephan text on Eusebius' authority, and corrected their manuscripts of the Antiquities by inserting it into its present position in that text.
So, let me move on to the subject of the two passages about James which Eusebius ascribes to Josephus in HE 2.23. One of these is found in our surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities and the other is not.
(1) The passage that claims 'these things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just' is not found in our manuscripts of Josephus Antiquities, and Eusebius does not locate it to any particular book, which is unusual. Most likely, he did not find it in his text of Josephus but accepted that Josephus had said such a thing on the authority of Origen Contra Celsum 1.47. Eusebius quotation of Josephus appears to be Origen's indirect claim rewritten as direct speech. This is a widespread, if not the majority, opinion of commentators (Henry Chadwick, Steve Mason, John Painter, and me).
(2) The second passage about James that Eusebius ascribes to Josephus is the one found in our manuscripts of Josephus at Ant. 20.197-203, and Eusebius locates it to Book 20. In this case, I think there was a passage about a man put on trial by Ananias, whose name may well have been James (the 11th most common male name among first century Judeans), and that more likely that not (I admit to some uncertainty here) Eusebius took the man put on trial there to be the Christian James and identified him as such in his quotation of the passage for the benefit of his Christian readers. Eusebius version of the James passage was then adopted by scribes copying the Antiquities, along with the Testimonium Flavianum. (I have previously pointed out that there is a passage in which Eusebius is quoting Josephus on the Hasmoneans and adds the gloss 'those called the Maccabees' into his quotation for the benefit of his Christian readers. In that case, however, the copyists did not alter the text of Antiquities to match what Eusebius wrote).
If I may anticipate a further question, why would Eusebius, or a Christian scribe under the influence in Eusebius, interpolate the Testimonium Flavianum into Book 18 of the Antiquities and add the identifier of the James put on trial in book 20 as being the brother of Jesus called Christ to Book 20, but not add the passage about these things happening to avenge James the Just?
The short answer is that, unlike the Testimonium, which Eusebius locates to Book 18 and the time of Pilate, and the passage about James being put on trial by Ananias, which Eusebius locates to book 20 (and there really was a passage about Ananias putting James on trial already there), Eusebius gives no guidance on where the passage about vengeance for James the Just is to be found in Josephus' works.
Best,
Ken