Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

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John T
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Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by John T »

Perhaps you recently followed on this forum a thread started by Ken Olson who shamelessly plugged his take on the Testimonium Flavianum debate.

For those who do not automatically determine guilt or innocence based on your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) I will try to briefly present the other side.

Here are two YouTube videos discussing whether or not Josephus mentioned Jesus and his brother James in his historical writings

Fist up is the traditional understanding at what we are looking when we read Josephus', Testimonium Flavianum (TF). Specifically his brief historical account of Jesus along with his confirmation that he had a brother named James.
https://youtu.be/f9J599VBEZI

The last video addresses the current view held by mythicists like Richard Carrier and why they got it wrong.
Spoiler alert...I fall in the camp of Dr. Ehrman.


https://youtu.be/5CbDOsB8gKM

Yes, I will answer respectful and germane questions. Smart-alleck attacks, not so much. :popcorn:
ABuddhist
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by ABuddhist »

No one disputes that the surviving manuscripts of Josephus mention Jesus and James his brother. But the claim that such references were interpolated by a later author is not unique to mythicists - or even to non-mythicist amateurs.

Consider the following lists.
Chris Hansen wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 8:00 am None of these are mythicists, btw, to my knowledge.

Allen, N. P. L. 2015. Clarifying the Scope of Pre-5th Century C.E. Christian Interpolation in Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaica (c. 94 C.E.). PhD. Diss. Potchefstroom: Potchefstroom Campus North-West University.

Allen, N. P. L. 2020. Christian Forgery in Jewish Antiquities: Josephus Interrupted. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Dugyu, Zafer. 2017. Nasıralı İsa’nın Erken Dönem Yahudi Literatürüne Yansımaları. Mukaddime 8.1, 155-172. (doubtful there was ever an original TF)

Eve, E. 2014. Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition. Minneapolis: Fortress. (highly partial to Olson)

Feldman, L. 2012. On the Authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum Attributed to Josephus. In: Carlebach, E. and Schachter, J. J. (eds.) New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations: In Honor of David Berger. Leiden: Brill, 13–30.

Hansen, C. M. 2021. Jesus’ Historicity and Sources: The Misuse of Extrabiblical Sources for Jesus and a Suggestion. The Journal of Biblical Theology 4.3, 139–162.

Hopper, P. 2014. A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:63. In: Fludernik, M. and Jacob, D. (eds.) Linguistics and Literary Studies: Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 147–71.

Olson, K. 1999. Eusebius and the ‘Testimonium Flavianum’. Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61.2, 305–22.

Olson, K. 2013. A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum. In: Johnson, A. and Scott, J. (eds.) Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations. Cambridge: Center for Hellenic Studies, 97–114.

Parente, F. 2000. Sulla doppia trasmissione, filologica ed ecclesiastica, del testo di Flavio Giuseppe: Un contributo alla storia della ricezione della sua opera nel mondo cristiano. Rivista di Storia e Letteratura religiosa 36, 9–25.

Prchlík, I. 2018. Ježíš řečený Christos‘ u Iosepha Flavia: Jistota nejistoty. In: Fraňo, P. and Habaj, M. (eds.) Antica Slavica. Trnava: Univerzita sv. Cyrila a Metoda v Trnave, 77–152 and 280–6.

Rivkin, E. 1984. What Crucified Jesus? Nashville: Abingdon.
Chris Hansen wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 3:12 pm I've been collecting bibliographic references to academics who challenge the authenticity (at least partially) of Josephus' Antiquities 20.200 (20.9.1) on James the brother of Jesus. I regard the passage as inauthentic myself, as I've noted elsewhere. But I've been trying to survey to see who else takes this position. Here is a collection I've come up with of references since 1960 in English, French, and German.

Anyone know any other references? Please feel free to add to my list.

Yakov Lentsman, L’Origine du Christianisme (Moscow: Editions en langues etrangeres, 1961), 66

Michael Grant, The Ancient Historians (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1970), 263 says "the remarks about Jesus, and probably portions of the other passages as well [referring to John the Baptist], do not in fact go back to Josephus at all, but are insertions by a later hand."

Tessa Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and His Society (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 131

Léon Herrmann, Chrestos. Témoignages païens et juifs sur le christianisme du premier siècle (Bruxelles: Latomus, 1970), 99–104

R. Joseph Hoffmann, Jesus Outside the Gospels (Amherst: Prometheus, 1984), 55 refers to the passage as "mutilated" by Christians

Graham Twelftree, “Jesus in Jewish Tradition,” in David Wenham (ed.), The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), 289–332 considers the James passage an interpolation but the Testinomium Flavianum partially authentic.

Joshua Efron, Studies on the Hasmonean Period (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 333

Ken Olson, “Eusebius and the ‘Testimonium Flavianum’,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61, no. 2 (1999): 305–22

Hermann Detering, Falsche Zeugen: Außerchristliche Jesuszeugnisse auf dem Prüfstand (Aschaffenburg: Alibri Verlag, 2011), 22–29

Jürgen Becker, “The Search for Jesus’ Special Profile,” in Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (4 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2011), vol. 1, 57–89 declares that both references to Jesus are likely interpolations (59)

Petr Pokorný, “Jesus Research as Feedback on His Wirkungsgeschichte,” in Holmén and Porter, Handbook for the Study, vol. 1, 333–359 in the same volume argues it is likely a Christian interpolation

Sabrina Inowlocki, "Did Josephus Ascribe the Fall of Jerusalem to the Murder of James, Brother of Jesus?" Revue des études juives, 170, no. 1–2 (2011): 21–49 (thanks Ken!), argues that Origen's version was the original and the textus receptus is therefore inauthentic

Richard Carrier, “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20 (2012): 489–514

James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici, The Jesus Discovery: The Resurrection Tomb that Reveals the Birth of Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 235 argue that "called the Christ" was an interpolation

Dennis R. MacDonald, Two Shipwrecked Gospels: The Logoi of Jesus and Papias’s Exposition of Logia About the Lord (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2012), 548 argues that “who was called the Christ” is an interpolation, but that Jesus may have been mentioned in book 18.

Robert M. Price, Killing History: Jesus in the No-Spin Zone (Amherst: Prometheus, 2014), 243–4 argues it likely referred to Jesus ben Damneus.

Raphael Lataster, “Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories—A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources,” Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies 6, no. 1 (2015): 63–96

Nicholas P. L. Allen, “Josephus on James the Just? A reevaluation of Antiquitates Judaicae 20.9.1,” Journal of Early Christian History 7 (2017): 1–27

Ivan Prchlík, “Ježíš řečený Christos‘ u Iosepha Flavia: Jistota nejistoty,” in Peter Fraňo and Michal Habaj (eds.), Antica Slavica (Trnava: Univerzita sv. Cyrila a Metoda v Trnave 2018), 77–152 and 280–6.
In general, I prefer my arguments in written form rather than in youtube videos.
ABuddhist
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by ABuddhist »

John T wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 11:49 am For those who do not automatically determine guilt or innocence based on your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) I will try to briefly present the other side.
Ironic that you would make this comment, given how much you have claimed (in other threads) that mythicism is only believed by atheists, apparently as a way to sneak atheist propaganda to people who would normally be against it.

Also ironic because you have claimed (in other threads) that only mythicists doubt the TF was authentic.

Finally, I note that you are not presenting the other side; rather, you are directing us to youtube videos which present the other side without even summarizing their arguments.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by Ken Olson »

John T wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 11:49 am Yes, I will answer respectful and germane questions. Smart-alleck attacks, not so much. :popcorn:
Okay, this post was sort of shocking. I can walk you through it if you're willing and have some patience. It may take a while.

So first off, have you read my 2013 'Eusebian Reading" paper (to which I referred in the History Valley video and which gryan and I gave links in the Shameless Plug thread.

https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/5-a-eus ... e%20empire.

Or this guest post on a blog:

http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot ... s-and.html

I'm guessing you have not read my first paper "Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum" from Catholic Biblical Quarterly, but that unfortunately is not freely available (unless you have access to JSTOR or some other database).

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43723559

Best wishes,

Ken
ABuddhist
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by ABuddhist »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 1:28 pm I'm guessing you have not read my first paper "Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum" from Catholic Biblical Quarterly, but that unfortunately is not freely available (unless you have access to JSTOR or some other database).

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43723559

Best wishes,

Ken
The fact that a Catholic periodical was willing to publish your argument strongly suggests that doubting that the TF is authentic is not limited to mythicists or atheists.
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John T
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by John T »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 1:28 pm
John T wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 11:49 am Yes, I will answer respectful and germane questions. Smart-alleck attacks, not so much. :popcorn:
Okay, this post was sort of shocking. I can walk you through it if you're willing and have some patience. It may take a while.

So first off, have you read my 2013 'Eusebian Reading" paper (to which I referred in the History Valley video and which gryan and I gave links in the Shameless Plug thread.

https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/5-a-eus ... e%20empire.

Or this guest post on a blog:

http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot ... s-and.html

I'm guessing you have not read my first paper "Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum" from Catholic Biblical Quarterly, but that unfortunately is not freely available (unless you have access to JSTOR or some other database).

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43723559

Best wishes,

Ken
No. I have not read your 2013 paper, nor will I. Let's just proceed with the understanding that I have a sufficient basic understanding of the subject. If you still don't know what that is, I recommend you actually watch the short videos that I linked. Besides, Richard Carrier says not to bother with opinions before 2014, which of course nullifies your paper. If that makes you upset take it up with him.

So how about you make your best argument here today in 2022 and let's see where that goes? Surely, you can win the argument with both hands tied behind your back. I will cry uncle when you do. I promise. :cheers:

https://youtu.be/pOyZamte8Zs
ABuddhist
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by ABuddhist »

John T wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 4:15 pm Besides, Richard Carrier says not to bother with opinions before 2014, which of course nullifies your paper. If that makes you upset take it up with him.
Dr. Carrier is not the ultimate authority upon anything, and Olson is free to disagree with him about some matters. I disagree with him about some matters, and you disagree with him about most matters, I think.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

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John T wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 4:15 pm Richard Carrier says not to bother with opinions before 2014, which of course nullifies your paper

Well, if you're gonna promote Richard Carrier, you won't mind me following suit (underlining and some bold added) ...


Now Ken Olson has weighed in. Olson has long advocated the hypothesis that the TF was forged and inserted by the Christian historian Eusebius (the first author ever to notice and quote the TF, in the early fourth century). He had his critics, but only just this year took them on in a devastating analysis that all but clinches his case and knocks down every argument his critics had. (Required reading on this point is now Ken Olson, “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum,” in Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations (Harvard University Press, 2013), pp. 97-114.)

... Olson’s case is extremely robust, ensuring a very high probability that the TF is a forgery of Eusebius or Pamphilus, and occurred sometime in the latter third or early fourth century ...

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/4391 [a 2013 blog-post]




Jesus among the Historians:
How the Manuscripts of Josephus Changed Over Time and What They Originally Said:
A Survey of Recent Scholarship


Richard Carrier, PhD
February 2017


Summary

• Manuscripts of the Antiquities of Josephus contain two refs. to Jesus Christ: the Testimonium Flavianum (in book 18) and a reference to James the brother of Jesus (in book 20).

• Recent publications by Richard Carrier, Louis Feldman, G.J. Goldberg, Paul Hopper, Ken Olson, and Alice Whealey shed new light on what happened, altering what we should conclude about what Josephus originally wrote.

• All surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities derive from the last manuscript of it produced at the Christian library of Caesarea between 220 and 320 A.D.

• Both references to Jesus were probably added after their first custodian, Origen (who had no knowledge of them), but by the time of their last custodian, Eusebius (who is the first to find them there). The long one deliberately; the short one accidentally.

• The additions may have been made by, or at the direction or under the supervision of, Eusebius, or his predecessor at the library, Origen’s successor, Pamphilus.

• Reliance on the Arabic version of the TF must be discarded. Attempts to invent a pared-down version of what Josephus wrote are untenable. The TF derives from the NT, doesn’t match Josephan narrative practice or context, and matches Eusebian more than Josephan style. Previous opinions on the James passage were unaware of new research; thus need revision.


Traditional Essential Bibliography

James Carleton Paget. 2001. 'Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity,' Journal of Theological Studies 52.2 (October): 539–624.

Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz. 1996. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Fortress), pp. 64–74.

Robert Van Voorst. 2000. Jesus outside the New Testament (Eerdmans), pp. 81–104.

Alice Whealey. 2003. Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times (P. Lang).


New Essential Bibliography

Alice Whealey. 2016. “The Testimonium Flavianum,” in A Companion to Josephus in His World, eds. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (John Wiley & Sons), pp. 345–55.
  • [Which fails to take into account any of the following (except Whealey 2008 and Olson 1999), which is reflective of the problem that needs correcting.]
Richard Carrier. 2014. “Josephus and the Testimonia Flaviana,” On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (Sheffield-Phoenix), pp. 332–342.

Paul Hopper. 2014. “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:63,” in Linguistics and Literary Studies: Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers, eds. Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob (de Gruyter), pp. 147–169.

Ken Olson. 2013. “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum,” in Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations, eds. Aaron Johnson and Jeremy Schott (Harvard University Press), pp. 97–114.

Ken Olson. 2013. “The Testimonium Flavianum, Eusebius, and Consensus,” The Jesus Blog (August 13): http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot ... s-and.html.

Louis Feldman. 2012. “On the Authenticity of the ‘Testimonium Flavianum’ Attributed to Josephus.” New Perspectives on Jewish Christian Relations, eds. Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob Schacter (Brill), pp. 13–30.

Richard Carrier. 2012. “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (Winter 2012): 489–514 [Reproduced in Hitler Homer Bible Christ: The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier 1995-2013 (Philosophy Press, 2014), pp. 337–68.]

Alice Whealey. 2008. “The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic.” New Testament Studies 54.4 (October): 573–90.

Ken Olson. 1999. 'Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum,' Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61: 305–22.

G.J. Goldberg. 1995. 'The Coincidences of the Testimonium of Josephus and the Emmaus Narrative of Luke.' Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13: 59–77.

http://www.richardcarrier.info/testimonium.pdf?x23333

[continues]


Last edited by MrMacSon on Sat Jul 16, 2022 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by Leucius Charinus »

John T wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 4:15 pm
Ken Olson wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 1:28 pm https://www.jstor.org/stable/43723559
No. I have not read your 2013 paper, nor will I.
How can you argue against a paper which you refuse to read?
Chrissy Hansen
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Re: Jospehus did indeed mention Jesus and his brother James

Post by Chrissy Hansen »

Anyone who refuses to read the papers of the opposite party is someone who is too dishonest or too lazy to be worth engaging. John T is one of those people.
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