Dave Allen: an analysis

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Giuseppe »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:29 pm
Giuseppe,

How do you know this? I think both of the cases I cited are fictional - the case of Festus probably, the case of Satan nearly certainly.

Can you give an example of a non-Christian work referring to the Christian Jesus as "a certain Jesus"?
Assuming there is not a such example explicitly in evidence, can the Pagan appelative of Jesus as 'a certain Jesus' be inferred from Acts's use of the expression on the mouth of Festus ? I think that the answer is yes insofar we assume a late dating of Acts, since it would make Acts itself a work written in the light of what outsiders (Pagans and Marcionite Christians) thought. At any case, you are right: it doesn't prove nothing.

Are you going to confute the possibility of Tacitus's use of the original Testimonium ? In my eyes, that appears to be prima facie a good argument pro authenticity and especially for the absence of the name 'Jesus' in the original.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

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Giuseppe wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 9:52 pm Are you going to confute the possibility of Tacitus's use of the original Testimonium ? In my eyes, that appears to be prima facie a good argument pro authenticity and especially for the absence of the name 'Jesus' in the original.
Am I going to try to prove the impossibility of Tacitus's use of an original Josephan Testimonium?

No. I don't usually waste my time trying to demonstrate things to be impossible.

I see in Dave Allen's paper he claims to have shown that Tacitus used Josephus on p. 72, but it's hard to see where he did that. He cites Franz Dornsieffas having held that position and points out that Tacitus agrees with Testimonium on four points, which he does not then enumerate, and cites Stephen Carlson as the most recent defender of the position (p.43 n. 1). This does not amount to much of a positive case and I don't feel the need to respond to it. I have in the past responded to Carlson, but the X-Talk archives on Yahoo Groups have now been deleted. Ben Smith has his interaction with me on the Tacitus-Testimonium issue up on his Textexcavation site. That was, incidentally, my first interaction with Ben.

I could lay out the positive case for Tacitus use of the Testimonium myself and then refute it, but that sounds like too much work for me. If you (or anyone else on the list) want to lay out the case yourself, I will explain why I don't find it compelling (unless of course I do!). But I'm not going to try to refute your unsupported claim that there appears to be prima facie a good argument for it. I'd need to see the actual argument.

Best,

Ken
Giuseppe
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Giuseppe »

Ken Olson wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:10 amHe cites Franz Dornsieff as having held that position and points out that Tacitus agrees with Testimonium on four points, which he does not then enumerate, and cites Stephen Carlson as the most recent defender of the position (p.43 n. 1).
Dornieff's article is available online.

While Carlson has exposed his case apart (possibly different from Dornieff's case) for Tacitus based on the TF and defended it from Meier's criticisms:

http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2004/08/ ... onium.html
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Ken Olson »

Stephen Carlson on Tacitus Annales 15.44 possible dependence on Josephus’ Testimonium Flavianum from Ant. 18.63-64:

http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2004/08/ ... onium.html

Taking Carlson’s case as read, here are some problems I have with it:

1) Carlson argues that Tacitus (and Pliny the Younger) moved in the same circles as Josephus in Rome after the war (i.e., the court of the Flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian) and points out the similarity between Tacitus Histories 5.13 and Josephus Jewish War 6.312-313 in describing the Judean prophecies or oracles that foretold the rise of Vespasian. He might have included this passage about Vespasian from their contemporary Suetonius as well:

When he consulted the oracle of the god of Carmel in Judaea, the lots were highly encouraging, promising that whatever he planned or wished however great it might be, would come to pass; and one of his high-born prisoners, Josephus by name, as he was being put in chains, declared most confidently that he would soon be released by the same man, who would then, however, be emperor. (Suetonius, Vespasian 5.6)
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/ ... sian*.html

There is an important distinction, however, that Carlson fails to acknowledge. Suetonius, and probably Tacitus and Pliny, knew of Josephus as a defeated Jewish prisoner and may well have known of him later as a sycophant at the Flavian court. This does not mean they read his books.

Josephus acknowledges that he used Titus’ journals as a source, and Tacitus probably knew them as well, either directly or through Pliny the Elder’s now lost Continuation of the History of Aufinus Bassus. We do not need to posit a direct literary link between Josephus and Titus as they had common sources. It is very unlikely that Josephus’ account of the prophecies foretelling the accession of Vespasian in the Jewish War (written in the 70’s) was the first time the story had ever been told. It is a piece of Flavian propaganda that almost certainly circulated at the time Vespasian was campaigning for the throne. Nor it is likely that Josephus originated it. As we have accounts of other prophecies foretelling the rise of Vespasian, he more likely saw the advantage of jumping on the Flavian bandwagon. Suetonius description of Josephus is likely dependent on Flavian propaganda rather than on Josephus account itself. Unless Josephus invented his account of his own involvement later to include in the Jewish War, it would seem most likely that the Flavians would have taken advantage of propaganda value of the Jewish prisoner who foretold the accession of Vespasian at the time Vespasian was campaigning for the throne, alongside several other oracles and prophecies.

2) Tacitus tends to rely on pagan Latin authors as sources. We have no particular reason to think he would have read the work of a Jew writing in Greek. His passage on the origins of the Jews in Histories 5.2-5 shows no acquaintance with Josephus Antiquities. He recounts outsider accounts of Jewish origins and does not exhibit any knowledge of the Jews’ own account of their origins.

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/ ... -the-jews/

When I pointed this out to Carlson, he postulated that Tacitus had not read the Antiquities himself, but had sent a servant to find what he could on Christus and was relying on what the servant had extracted from the Antiquities.

3) The agreements between Tacitus Annales 15.44 and Josephus Antiquities 18.63-64 are not particularly striking. There is at least as much, and arguably greater, agreement between Tacitus and one passage from Justin Marty’s First Apology, which has the full name Pontius Pilate and the fact that non-Christians consider Christian beliefs madness (cf. Tacitus’ ‘mischievous superstition’ … ‘all things shameful’):

Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judæa, in the times of Tiberius Cæsar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed. (Justin, First Apology 13)
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm

When I pointed this out to Carlson he responded, naturally, that Tacitus could not be dependent on Justin, who wrote later than he did. That was, in fact, my point. Justin was my control. The level of similarity Carlson finds between Tacitus and Josephus is not enough to show literary dependence as a similar level of similarity exists between Tacitus and Justin, between whom there is no literary dependence. (Carlson did not attempt to argue for Justin’s dependence on Tacitus, but I suppose someone could).

Carlson’s claim, ‘No other source can explain Tacitus so well, and Josephus has the added bonus of existing today’ is seriously overstated. We have no reasonable basis for believing that Tacitus’ source must be extant today, nor any reasonable basis for believing that no source now lost could explain Tacitus’ text so well.

I do not think Carlson’s case for Tacitus use of the Testimonium Flavianum has met the burden of proof necessary to be considered a probable hypothesis.

Best wishes,

Ken

PS I really should start a blog or a web page to keep my stuff on so I can just refer people to what I’ve written and I don’t have to repeat myself constantly (and so I can find it myself).
Giuseppe
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Giuseppe »

Thank you, Ken.

I remain a bit skeptical about Tacitus having not read Josephus (and a bit embarrassed by the Carlson's objection appealing to a servant of Tacitus), while I concede that your objection appears more strong when you say that we have not enough parallelisms to put Tacitus's Testimonium based on Josephus's Testimonium. From the other hand, Carlson has already answered against that objection, by remembering, contra Meier, that a historian is not obliged to show so much parallelisms on another historian (afterall, Tacitus was not doing a midrash!) when the first quotes implicitly the second.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

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Giuseppe wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 7:28 am From the other hand, Carlson has already answered against that objection, by remembering, contra Meier, that a historian is not obliged to show so much parallelisms on another historian (afterall, Tacitus was not doing a midrash!) when the first quotes implicitly the second.
Tacitus, as an historian, is not obliged to follow Josephus closely enough for us to be able to prove his dependence on Josephus if he were using him as a source.

Carlson, as a scholar, is obliged to meet the burden of proof to show that Tacitus used Josephus as a source if he is going to claim that he did.

Carlson's answer, as you call it, is not evidence that Tacitus used Josephus. It's an explanation of why such evidence might not exist even if the proposition that Tacitus used Josephus were true.

Again, I am not attempting to prove that Carlson's claim that Tacitus used Josephus is definitely not true. I am arguing out that Carlson has not met the burden of proof necessary for him to claim that it is true.

Best,

Ken
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Irish1975
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Irish1975 »

Ken Olson wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 7:05 am PS I really should start a blog or a web page to keep my stuff on so I can just refer people to what I’ve written and I don’t have to repeat myself constantly (and so I can find it myself).
Yes please 👍
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Maciej
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Maciej »

Steve Mason argues that Tacitus used Jewish War. He gave some reasons why he thinks so here: (time: 57:50)
https://youtu.be/u2M3IeQLEjs?t=3471

Does anyone know if he argues this in detail in a published work?
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Maciej
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Maciej »

First let us analyze the TF word for word and set forth reasons for thinking there was an original negative TF. Whealey [4] has said Origen made an assertion that Josephus did not believe Jesus as the Christ (Contra Cels.1.47), and that it shows that his copy of Josephus’ Antiquities had a negative treatment of Jesus. It’s not good enough to say Josephus would not have acknowledged Jesus as the messiah because he is Jewish -- why would he even mention this assertion unless Jesus was mentioned? There is no reason to bring that up and weaken his own argument unless in Origen’s copy there was a mention about Jesus, missing the line “he was the Christ.”
Origene also makes this remark in his Commentary on Matthew 10.17
"though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great"

I think this is closer to what he means. "he did not accept Jesus as Christ" = he was not a Christian. To paraphrase "Although he was not a Christian, he gave testimony about James."
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dave Allen: an analysis

Post by Ken Olson »

Irish1975 wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:47 am
Ken Olson wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 7:05 am PS I really should start a blog or a web page to keep my stuff on so I can just refer people to what I’ve written and I don’t have to repeat myself constantly (and so I can find it myself).
Yes please 👍
I appreciate the vote of confidence. The first blog post I have planned is on the Matthean Priority [correction: Posteriority] Hypothesis, which I'm not sure is of great interest on this list.

Best,

Ken

Added Note: Whoops! That was supposed to be 'Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis'. I hope Neil is still interested.
Last edited by Ken Olson on Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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