Ganging up On Josephus James Ganghymn Style. The Argument Against Josephus James.

[ABuddhist]

So, too, with Origen. He cites Josephus, and I have no difficulty locating a similar passage in Josephus. That's why I think Origen misremembered something about that passage, because I can compare what nearly matches what he's talking about, found where he told me to look, with what he said.

Do you think that the misremembered passage from Josephus included the phrase "called Christ"? Because I can understand a situation in which Origen, having read a passage in Josephus in which James brother of Jesus is said to have been killed by a high priest, assumed that the Jesus was Jesus called Christ based upon Christian traditions (such as are found in Acts and Hegesippus). Certainly, such a conflation would be much milder than Origen's actual apparent conflation about Josephus's text, in which Josephus supposedly ascribed Jerusalem's destruction to Jesus Christ's brother James's death.

[Paul the Uncertain]

So, too, with Origen. He cites Josephus, and I have no difficulty locating a similar passage in Josephus. That's why I think Origen misremembered something about that passage, because I can compare what nearly matches what he's talking about, found where he told me to look, with what he said.

Do you think that the misremembered passage from Josephus included the phrase "called Christ"? Because I can understand a situation in which Origen, having read a passage in Josephus in which James brother of Jesus is said to have been killed by a high priest, assumed that the Jesus was Jesus called Christ based upon Christian traditions (such as are found in Acts and Hegesippus). Certainly, such a conflation would be much milder than Origen's actual apparent conflation about Josephus's text, in which Josephus supposedly ascribed Jerusalem's destruction to Jesus Christ's brother James's death.

Personally I think it more likely than not that Eusebius inserted the phrase and that the original passage mentioned a different Jesus instead. Origen doesn't claim that called Christ is a direct quote from Josephus. It may be his own descriptive phrase (maybe he found it in Matthew) chosen so as not to undercut his arguments about the "neutrality" of the non-Christian Josephus as a trustworthy historical source about the Christian hero James.

I think Origen sincerely recalled Josephus's defendant James being the man whom we call James the Just. Whether Origen believed he recalled any of the very words of Josephus is impossible to say, IMO.

[Ken Olson]

So, too, with Origen. He cites Josephus, and I have no difficulty locating a similar passage in Josephus. That's why I think Origen misremembered something about that passage, because I can compare what nearly matches what he's talking about, found where he told me to look, with what he said.

Do you think that the misremembered passage from Josephus included the phrase "called Christ"? Because I can understand a situation in which Origen, having read a passage in Josephus in which James brother of Jesus is said to have been killed by a high priest, assumed that the Jesus was Jesus called Christ based upon Christian traditions (such as are found in Acts and Hegesippus). Certainly, such a conflation would be much milder than Origen's actual apparent conflation about Josephus's text, in which Josephus supposedly ascribed Jerusalem's destruction to Jesus Christ's brother James's death.

Personally I think Eusebius inserted the phrase, and the original passage mentioned a different Jesus instead. Origen doesn't claim that called Christ is a direct quote from Josephus. It may be his own descriptive phrase (maybe he found it in Matthew) chosen so as not to undercut his arguments about the "neutrality" of the non-Christian Josephus as a historical source about the Christian hero James.

I think Origen sincerely recalled Josephus's defendant James being the man whom we call James the Just. Whether Origen believed he recalled the very words of Josephus is impossible to say, IMO.

I agree that the most probable explanation for the presence of 'who was called Christ' in Ant. 20.200 is that Eusebius inserted the phrase there, though I would specify that he did so when he quoted Ant. 20.200 in HE 2.23, and it later made it into the texts of the Antiquities from the Ecclesiastical History (as did the Testimonium Flavianum). Eusebius based his insertion on Origen's testimony as to what Josephus said in his Commentary on Matthew and later in Contra Celsum. I think 'brother of Jesus' probably came from Origen as well, as he is discussing the' brothers of Jesus' (plural) in his Commentary on Matthew 10.17 when he first brought up the supposed Josephan passage.

ABuddhist - what particular tradition(s) found in Acts do you think might have played a role here?

Best,

Ken

[ABuddhist]

ABuddhist - what particular tradition(s) found in Acts do you think might have played a role here?

Best,

Ken

I refer to the claim in Acts 12:1-5 that James the brother of John was killed by Jewish authorities, which could easily have been conflated with or derived from a tradition that James Jesus's brother was killed by the Jewish high priest. I hope that this is not a bad reference in your mind.

[maryhelena]

ABuddhist - what particular tradition(s) found in Acts do you think might have played a role here?

Best,

Ken

I refer to the claim in Acts 12:1-5 that James the brother of John was killed by Jewish authorities, which could easily have been conflated with or derived from a tradition that James Jesus's brother was killed by the Jewish high priest. I hope that this is not a bad reference in your mind.

A connection between the James killed with the sword in Acts and the James 'delivered ..to be stoned' in Josephus Antiquities. ?

You might find this Steve Mason video interesting.

Whatever the connection between the Lukan writer and Josephus is - it's there - and needs to be more fully investigated rather than sidelining Josephus in favour of later church 'fathers'.

It's a long video - almost 4 hours.

[andrewcriddle]

Additional Notes on early Christian transmission of the passage about James in Antiquities 20.200.

Eusebius Demonstratio 3.5:

Afterwards James, the Lord's brother, whom of old the people of Jerusalem called "the Just" for his extraordinary virtue, being asked by the chief priests, and teachers of the Jews what he thought about Christ, and answering that He was the Son of God, was also stoned by them. (trans. W. Ferrar 1.134).

Eusebius information appears to have come from the passage in Hegesippus that he quotes in HE 2.23. though Hegesippus reports that James referred to Jesus as the Son of Man, not the Son of God, but that is a very minor difference and Eusebius is paraphrasing, not giving a quotation.

Interestingly, in the Demonstratio, unlike the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius does not refer to Josephus having said anything about James. He refers to, paraphrases, or quotes Josephus 16 times in the Demonstratio by my count. He quotes the Testimonium Flavianum on Jesus in DE 3.5 and cites it to Book 18 of the Antiquities. He quotes the beginning, though not the entirety, of the passage about John the Baptist in DE 9.5 (Ferrar 2.163) where he is discussing John. It is at least slightly odd that he does not mention that Josephus wrote anything about James when he discusses James. This is, arguably, because the text of the Antiquities did not identify the man put to death in Ant. 20.200 as the brother of Jesus who was called Christ at the time the Demonstratio was written and that Eusebius only later made the identification himself in the Ecclesiastical History. The Theophany, which is later than the Demonstratio and the HE and survives only in a Syriac translation, also contains the Testimonium and cites in to Ant. 18. It mentions James without commenting that Josephus had said anything about him and does not mention John the Baptist at all.

Although I agree that the source of Josephus on James in the Demonstratio is Hegesippus he does not say so. The account is given without sourcing either Hegesippus or Josephus. This possibly avoids the difficulty in reconciling the two accounts of the death of James.

Andrew Criddle

[JoeWallack]

Searching for clues at the scene of the crime

JW:
As KK Knows, Motive & Opportunity are sometimes enough to make a decision in criminal cases. As an X-Curses, let's compare the Two with Eusebius (you say "Eusebias", I say "Eusebs") and Morton Smith regarding Jesus in Josephus and Jesus in Secret Mark:

Suspect	General Motivation	Specific Motivation	Christian Internet Bible Scholars Who Accuse	Commentary
Eusebius	-	-	-	-
Smith	-	-	-	-
Stronger	-	-	-	-

Joseph

EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

The New Porphyry

[JoeWallack]

Searching for clues at the scene of the crime

JW:
As KK Knows, Motive & Opportunity are sometimes enough to make a decision in criminal cases. As an X-Curses, let's compare the Two with Eusebius (you say "Eusebias", I say "Eusebs") and Morton Smith regarding Jesus in Josephus and Jesus in Secret Mark:

Suspect	General Motivation	Specific Motivation	Christian Internet Bible Scholars Who Accuse	Commentary
Eusebius	Wants to promote his version of Jesus	-	-	-
Smith	Scholar of ancient writings, mostly Christian/Jewish	-	-	-
Stronger	Eusebius	-	-	-

Joseph

EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

The New Porphyry

[Paul the Uncertain]

Additional Notes on early Christian transmission of the passage about James in Antiquities 20.200.
Eusebius Demonstratio 3.5:

Greetings, Ken

I don't have much to say about the absence of Josephus from the Proof's mention of James in III.5 beyond wondering what Josephus would have added to the argument Eusebius is making there.

That argument is garden-variety "would they die for a lie?" and James is listed as one of several "them." As is (IMO) typical of apologists who resort to that line, Eusebius treats the martyrs' calamities as if they were factual givens rather than fact claims which themselves ought to be proven.

Antiquities 20.200 says nothing that would connect James's death sentence with any specific belief or practice. Acts is the only quasi-historical work cited by name in Eusebius's litany of suffering.

Jerome On Illustrious Men, Chapter 2:

It is not clear to me what Jerome is claiming about the relationship between his named sources and the long story he tells. If all he means is that his story reflects some combination of Clement's Outlines and Josephus's Antiquities, then for all we know (the Clement book being lost) that much is true.

The last bit is possibly more interesting:

This same Josephus records the tradition that this James was of so great sanctity and reputation among the people that the downfall of Jerusalem was believed to be on account of his death.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2708.htm

That's one of Origen's claims from Commentary on Matthew as you say. But Origen claims there both that Josephus himself attributed the fall of Jerusalem to the James affair and also this related but distinct claim, that Josephus reports that other people held that opinion (with Jerome's possible hedge that Josephus may have treated even that much as a tradition rather than a fact about public opinion).

It is interesting (to me at least) that Jerome declines to contradict the actual recorded opinion of Josephus about the cause of Jerusalem's fall, but goes along with this. Without exhaustive checking, Jerome might have sincerely believed on Origen's say-so that Josephus had noted somewhere that others held this opinion.

Tidying up the Ehrman error

I thank you for pointing out that Ehrman's miscitation of Pliny's letter to Trajan about the Christians has a longer history than I'd realized. However, his more extensive (and I believe on-topic) conflation of two pairs of letters into one pair and the creation of new material not present in either letter pair still seems to me to have been relatively recent, a feature of his popular book on the historicity of Jesus.

I obtained access to an electronically searchable example of the second edition (2000) of his textbook. Searching for Pliny, I found Ehrman's miscitation, however, his descriptions of the contents of the Christian letters seemed unremarkable and accurate, free from any cross-talk with the fire brigade letters. Searching for fire, I found no mention of the fire brigade correspondence.

In closing, let me offer a musical interlude.

[Ken Olson]

Additional Notes on early Christian transmission of the passage about James in Antiquities 20.200.
Eusebius Demonstratio 3.5:

Greetings, Ken

I don't have much to say about the absence of Josephus from the Proof's mention of James in III.5 beyond wondering what Josephus would have added to the argument Eusebius is making there.

That argument is garden-variety "would they die for a lie?" and James is listed as one of several "them." As is (IMO) typical of apologists who resort to that line, Eusebius treats the martyrs' calamities as if they were factual givens rather than fact claims which themselves ought to be proven.

Antiquities 20.200 says nothing that would connect James's death sentence with any specific belief or practice. Acts is the only quasi-historical work cited by name in Eusebius's litany of suffering.

Two points here. They're not necessarily probative for the authenticity of the James passage, by may conribute to how we think about what Eusebius is up to and how he uses his sources.

(1) I don't think there was a garden-variety 'would they die for a lie?' argument before Eusebius. I think he's the originator of the argument (or he planted the garden), as discussed previously in this thread from 2017:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3366

Like most of Eusebius's ideas, we find the seed for it in Origen:

Whereas our Jesus, who appeared to the members of His own troop — for I will take the word that Celsus employs — did really appear, and Celsus makes a false accusation against the Gospel in saying that what appeared was a shadow. And let the statements of their histories and that of Jesus be carefully compared together. Will Celsus have the former to be true, but the latter, although recorded by eye-witnesses who showed by their acts that they clearly understood the nature of what they had seen, and who manifested their state of mind by what they cheerfully underwent for the sake of His Gospel, to be inventions? Now, who is there that, desiring to act always in conformity with right reason, would yield his assent at random to what is related of the one, but would rush to the history of Jesus, and without examination refuse to believe what is recorded of Him? (Contra Celsum 3.23).

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04163.htm

But the argument that we have to trust the disciples because it's ridiculous to think they concocted the story of Jesus' resurrection and then were willing to die for a story they made up is, I believe, first expounded in DE 3.5. (If anyone knows an earlier source for the argument, please tell me).

(2) While James may be one among others who died for the lie, if his death were reported in Josephus, who Eusebius likes to cite in the DE as an outside source to back up his Christian sources, his omission here is at least a little bit odd.

Jerome On Illustrious Men, Chapter 2:

It is not clear to me what Jerome is claiming about the relationship between his named sources and the long story he tells. If all he means is that his story reflects some combination of Clement's Outlines and Josephus's Antiquities, then for all we know (the Clement book being lost) that much is true.

The last bit is possibly more interesting:

This same Josephus records the tradition that this James was of so great sanctity and reputation among the people that the downfall of Jerusalem was believed to be on account of his death.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2708.htm

That's one of Origen's claims from Commentary on Matthew as you say. But Origen claims there both that Josephus himself attributed the fall of Jerusalem to the James affair and also this related but distinct claim, that Josephus reports that other people held that opinion (with Jerome's possible hedge that Josephus may have treated even that much as a tradition rather than a fact about public opinion).

It is interesting (to me at least) that Jerome declines to contradict the actual recorded opinion of Josephus about the cause of Jerusalem's fall, but goes along with this. Without exhaustive checking, Jerome might have sincerely believed on Origen's say-so that Josephus had noted somewhere that others held this opinion.

'For all we know ... that much is true?' This seems awfully credulous.

Jerome acknowledges his debt to Eusebius Ecclesiastical History in the introduction to De Viris Illustribus ('On Illustrious Men') and it's generally accepted that he's dependent on Eusebius for most of his information on the illustrious men up to Eusebius time. Alice Whealey thinks Jerome is taking the Testimonium Flavianum from Eusebius HE (one of the places I agree with her).

I think the statement allegedly from Josephus, but actually probably from Origen, about James' reputation for sanctity that the downfall of Jerusalem was believed to be on account of his death, signals a shift from reliance on Eusebius to inclusion of other sources.

But why do you think his source for what he says about Hegesippus, Clement or Josephus (barring the one statement he takes from Origen) is anything but Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, book II? Why think Jerome is verifying Eusebius references rather than just relying on Eusebius?

Best,

Ken

Jerome, De Viris Illustribus
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2708.htm

Ecclesiastical History, book 2
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2708.htm