Shameless Plug: History Valley: Did Josephus mention Jesus? Ken Olson vs James Valliant

[Chrissy Hansen]

Nope.

Not all Americans are Californian citizens. But all legal citizens of California are Americans.
Got it?

Carrier is on video (San Diego Atheists) admitting mythicistism is a Trojan horse for atheism. I almost got banned for daring to provide that video on this forum. Perhaps you can did it up from the archives?

Of course you don't believe me. So, how about starting a new thread and ask how many mythicists are atheists and how many are Christians?
And just where does Olson stand?

Yep, thought so.

Mythicists are not all atheists. I know plenty of neo-pagans (polytheists) who are mythicists, and I'm a polytheist actually. Thomas L. Brodie is a devout Catholic Priest and argued that Jesus never existed. In the same book where he argues Jesus never existed, he has a long discussion on how he is still a Christian and still maintains his faith. There is actually a long history of Christians taking up mythicism. Pastor Edward van der Kaaij is another one in the Netherlands. Lots of spiritualists like Theosophists took up this position, such as Alvin Boyd Kuhn. Arthur Drews, arguably the most famous mythicist to have ever lived, was not an atheist. He was an idealism Monist. Other monists in the debate were figures like Albert Kalthoff. Likewise, there were N*zi mythicists like Hanns Obermeister, who were in the Volkisch movement, arguing that we should worship a N*zifed Wotan. There are also plenty of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Shinto, Buddhists, etc. who all take up mythicism.

Mythicism has never been exclusive to atheism.

I'd add that not all mythicists think that the TF is a forgery. Thomas Brodie's does not in his book. Neither did numerous others. Mythicism is varied enough in its theories that an authentic TF is rather inconsequential and irrelevant in the long run.

But the church of mythicisim is not corrupt in the same why? Meaning they should be the sole arbitrators of whether or not the TF is an interpolation?

I'm not a mythicist, I think its an interpolation. Ken Olson is not a mythicist. I could point to plenty of other scholars too, like Louis Feldman, Ivan Prchlík, Paul Hopper, J. Neville Birdsall, Per Bilde, N. P. L. Allen, Joshua Efron, F. Parente, H. Schreckenberg, K. Schubert, etc. These are all modern scholars btw. Eric Eve in his book Behind the Gospels seems to be very positive to Olson's work.

They aren't the sole arbiters. Mythicists and Historicists have long together held this passage was a complete interpolation. It was, in fact, generally Christian theologians who first were declaring the TF a forgery in entirety.

[lsayre]

What's up with the host always looking up at the sky? Is he legally blind? It's like he's the girl from the Queen's Gambit. Like there are these notes he's placed on the ceiling.

I've on and off speculated as to the host perhaps suffering from some form of debilitating neurological disorder afflicting his muscles. If such is the case, I wish for him a full and speedy recovery.

That said, I believe he is likely glancing up at a monitor whereby to read the 'side-bar' participant commentary or live chat and pick out the superchats.

[John T]

Interesting note: Olson's argument against the authenticity of the James the Lord's brother execution in pseudo-Josephus is not the same as Carriers argument.

To what end?

My point being, do not expect to move the needle on this forum that is dominated by Carrier's sycophants. Anything that doesn't fit their narrative will be ridiculed and lambasted.

Perhaps you would like to try and prove me wrong?

John T

Well, now that my point has been validated, let's review how I knew it would end this way all along. I knew because I have seen this B-movie before.

For those who are upset because I won't accept non-sourced scholars from hundreds of years ago as proof, don't take it out on me. I'm only doing what Carrier told you to do: "You can't trust opinions [on the TF] before uh...2014...uh...basically on this, because so much has been published since then." ...Richard Carrier

https://youtu.be/pOyZamte8Zs


If you watch all the YouTube videos available on the TF subject you should note how it is overrun by a small circle of friends promoting this canard to hock books and gain recruits. Most of them (not all) are atheists and/or mythicists.

Carrier's best guess is that someone sneaked into Origen's library in the middle of the night (was it Satan?) and inserted the interpolation. Fast forward another hundred years at the same library where a very young scribe named Eusebius pulls out the tampered scroll, blows off the hundred year old dust, and being untrained to recognize obvious forgeries, deems it as authentic.

And so it was, until thankfully, in 2014 a so-called historian discovers and is suspicious of the writing style of Josephus and declares, whoa la, Jesus never existed. You can learn all about it in his peer reviewed book, available at fine book stores everywhere.

The mythicists gotta get a new shtick and leader because the scholars ain't buying it.

The refusal to argue to the merits is a telltale sign that Olson doesn't really believe in what he is selling, other than a shameless plug for the mythicist movement.

John T is done on this thread.

[ABuddhist]

The mythicists gotta get a new shtick and leader because the scholars ain't buying it.

The refusal to argue to the merits is a telltale sign that Olson doesn't really believe in what he is selling, other than a shameless plug for the mythicist movement.

John T is done on this thread.

How convenient that you have decided that insulting Olson's honesty and willingness to debate his ideas is more important than acknowledging or responding to my efforts and efforts by Chris Hansen to show to you proof that one does not have to be a mythicist in order to regard the TF as an interpolation, nor do all mythicists regard the TF as a forgery.

[Chrissy Hansen]

Guess these are all from 100 years ago. Should have learned to count. None of these are mythicists, btw, to my knowledge. But whatevs. Guess we are all crazy and the year 2020 happened 150 years ago.

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.

[Secret Alias]

That said, I believe he is likely glancing up at a monitor whereby to read the 'side-bar' participant commentary or live chat and pick out the superchats.

So not a Queen's Gambit savant. Ok.

[lsayre]

So not a Queen's Gambit savant. Ok.

I had to look that one up. I haven't had a television for going on roughly 24 years now. And I'm still using a rather primitive flip-phone. Your guess at savant autism is indeed another possibility here.

[Secret Alias]

We got to give Ken credit here. He's picked one of the few revisionist things in the study of early Christianity that's a home run (to use the American metaphor). There's something wrong about this statement. I only wonder (because I am not as erudite as Mr Olson) whether Josephus's works are what they seem to be - i.e. a surviving account of a Jewish general who changed sides and then wrote a book that became very popular with early Christians or was it a fraud already in the early second century (Thackery). I am not a measured, cautious person so I find myself attracted to the Thackery theory about 'assistants' and in particular Cohen's understanding of a manipulated Aramaic hypomnema seen through the lens of Thackery. I think it's a fake history. By fake I mean there was a Joseph. He led the Jews into war with the Romans. He wrote something. But what we have is a many times manipulated forgery. But there are other flavors at this Baskin and Robbins store.

[JoeWallack]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_RwIt3a8xs&t=6s

JW:
The issue of whether Josephus mentioned Jesus should first be presented as a Textual Criticism issue. We then have two candidates:

• 1) Did.
  
  2) Did Not.

The first category traditionally looked at is Manuscript. Ken did a decent job of generally describing the Manuscript evidence:

Did =

• earliest Greek 11th century
  
  earliest Latin 6th century

By Textual Criticism standards this is relatively weak Manuscript support. Add to this that it's generally agreed that none of the TFs
here are what Josephus originally wrote so anything within the TF is suspect and therefore in normal Textual Criticism discussion
the Manuscript category supporting Did would have little weight.

Did not = Josippon

• Thought to have been written 10th century.
  
  Claims Josephus' writings was primary source.

No mention of Jesus in original, Expanded version mentions Jesus negatively. So very little Manuscript support for Did Not.

Manuscript Category
Favors Did but weak evidence.

The next Category normally looked at is Patristic. The Argument from Silence:

1 - No evidence for the TF before Eusebius

• 1) General silence - expectation that if the TF existed it would have been used due to its importance to Christianity.
  
  • 1 - Probably most, if not all, Church Fathers would have heard of/been familiar with Josephus as he was the official historian of 1st century Israel where they thought Jesus was from.
    
    2 - For Church Fathers with a minimum of extant writings, most refer to/quote from Josephus and he is actually the most referred to non-Christian author of the early Church.
    
    3 - After Eusebius some major Church authors still don't refer to the TF. Presumably because their copies don't have it.
  2) Specific silence - http://vridar.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/josephus/
  
  • ca.140 CE Justin Martyr
    
    • For the Cave, consider that Justin was a philosopher in
      Rome and his interests were:
      
      1) Jesus
      
      2) 1st century Israel
      
      3) Arguing with Pagan and Jewish philosophers
      
      The related question should be:
      
      Why wouldn't Justin be familiar with Josephus?
      
      I also wonder if the Cave is even willing to concede that
      extant Church Father writings prove the Fathers could
      read and write. Maybe they just dictated, or maybe they
      became blind or maybe they were temporarily sight-
      impared while Josephus was in front of them.
    ca.170 CE Theophilus - uses Josephus
    
    ca.180 CE Irenaeus - uses Josephus
    
    ca.190 CE Clement of Alexandria - uses Josephus
    
    ca.200 CE Tertullian - uses Josephus
    
    ca.200 CE Minucius Felix - uses Josephus
    
    ca.210 CE Hippolytus - uses Josephus
    
    ca.220 CE Sextus Julius Africanus - uses Josephus
    
    ca.230 CE Origen - uses Josephus
    
    ca.240 CE Cyprian
    
    ca.270 CE Anatolius - uses Josephus
    
    ca.290 CE Arnobius
    
    ca.300 CE Methodius - uses Josephus
    
    ca.300 CE Lactantius
    
    Of the 14 Fathers here who show no awareness of the TF 10 show use of Josephus. In addition a decent argument can be
    made that a few of the 4 who show no clear reference to Josephus do have some decent parallels. Comically, Roger Pearse started this list in order to demonstrate that the Fathers in general would have no interest in Josephus and ends up demonstrating that the conclusion he disputes is correct.
    
    Note that it's not just the quantity of Patristics who show no awareness of the TF up to E (Eusebius) that is remarkable but
    also the quantity of years, over 200, with no awareness of the TF.
  The Argument from Silence is normally a weak argument but here the quality and quantity of it makes it look like, as the Brits say, The Cruncher.
  
  Regarding the start of Patristic reference with Eusebius, with apologies to Roger Pearse, in general Eusebius already lacks credibility as a witness:
  
  Was Eusebius A Truth Challenged Advocate For Jesus? - The Argument Resurrected
  
  Add to this Olson's demonstration that some of the key phrases in the TF parallel Eusebian usage and Eusebius has little weight. As the most famous Church historian in the history of Church history he then taints subsequent Patristic notice. So Patristics, like Manuscript, has little support for Did.
  
  We than move on to the potentially much more important category, The Difficult Reading Principle, whose weight is proportional to the degree of difficulty. No mention of Jesus is the difficult reading (though not as difficult as negative mention but that's not a direct candidate here):
  
  1) Intrinsic = The biggest question is what Josephus' source would have been. The Gospels look like they used Josephus as a source and there is no quality evidence that any Gospel was written before the TF. As far as ad homily witnesses, we can be certain that there was no historical witness to anything supernatural and unlikely that any historical witness claimed significant witness of the supernatural (sorry Ken but you need to emphasize that to the Believers too). As Ken demonstrated, the TF generally does not fit Josephus' style. It lacks introductory information and Josephus' style of language and placement. Also, it is primarily editorial in style, like I don't know, a Gospel, and Josephus tries to write as a historian giving what "The People" (the historical audience) thought rather than what he thought. Intrinsic favors Did Not.
  
  2) Transcriptional = More likely copyists would have added everything than subtracted everything. If it was originally sufficiently negative there is logic (and precedent) for Christians censoring it completely. Transcriptional favors Did Not.
  
  The CoOrdination (so to speak) category also favors Did Not. No evidence of any kind supporting Did until Eusebius. Eusebius inherits Origen's library which presumably supports Josephus not believing Jesus was the Christ and saying that Josephus should have mentioned Jesus in the story about the fall of Jerusalem. And in Origen's commentary on Matthew every single important comment on Jesus in a single story is paralleled in the TF. In the big picture this parallels Eusebius and The Long Ending. Eusebius testifies that the Manuscripts support 16:8 but he is the one who pivots the subsequent evidence to LE.
  
  In a historical context all of the above evidence is very weak because of the distance between it and quality evidence so uncertainty should be the conclusion. But in a Textual Criticism context which emphasizes the relative and not the absolute, the Patristic, Difficult Reading Principle and Coordination categories favoring Did Not likely outweigh the Manuscript category favoring Did.
  
  
  Joseph
  
  INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
  
  The New Porphyry

[Ken Olson]

On the other hand Valliant(not) just reminded me of the classic MP bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpAvcGcEc0k&t=85s

Joe,



I was actually thinking of that at the time: that's not an argument, that's just contradiction. I couldn't bring to mind how Michael Palin defined an argument after that - a collected (collective?) series of statements to establish a definite proposition.

Early on, Valliant decided not to allow that any part of the Testimonium was interpolated. That way he could place the burden of proof entirely on me (he didn't have to prove anything) and just sit back and say, 'That's possible, but you haven't shown it to be probable' and just contradict whatever I said.

Best,

Ken