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

[Chrissy Hansen]

Early on, Valliant decided not to allow that any part of the Testimonium was interpolated.

Does anyone aside from him hold that view?

Some people are very close to that position, but most of those, like Alice Whealey and Serge Barrdet, allow a word or two here and there may be interpolated or omitted.

Valliant floats the idea that Josephus was a Christian, and there I cannot think of a single Josephan scholar of the last century or more who agree with him. His authority is William Whiston's 18th century translation of Josephus with appendixes.

The interesting thing about that approach to the TF is that it (1) pretty much admits that the TF is a christian text and (2) gives up the only first century non-Christian witness to the historicity of Jesus, because he turns out to be a Christian after all.

Best,

Ken

I can only find a tiny handful who think the TF is totally authentic.

Garnet, P. 1989. If the Testimonium Flavianum Contains Alterations, Who Originated Them? In: Livingstone, E. A. (ed.) Studia Patristica Vol. XIX: Papers Presented to the Tenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 1987. Leuven: Peeters, 57–61.

Garnet, from what I understood, argued that Josephus wrote two versions of the TF 18.3.3 and circulated them. The first was a reduced variant, and then he later produced, himself, a pro-Christian variant.

Ulrich Victor, if I'm understanding the German correctly (I'm a bit rusty), argues that what we perceive as interpolations are actually just a result of us not understanding the climate that Josephus wrote in (?). So I think he is saying the whole TF is authentic? See:

Victor, U. 2010. Das Testimonium Flavianum: Ein authentischer Text des Josephus. Novum Testamentum 52, 72–82.

These are the only two I'm currently aware of, but I know there are others.

Curiously enough, in his Letter to a Deist, Edward Stillingfleet in the 1600s seemed to be sympathetic to total authenticity as well asking why Josephus couldn't have just been incoherent with his own beliefs and principles.

[gryan]

I'll attempt a synthetic rationalization of what I think he thinks: He believes that there was a Gentile or Pauline Christianity before 70, but this was very different from the form of Christianity that existed in Judea before 70. I think he believes in an historical Jesus and an historical Hames [sic: I think "James" is intended], but that their form of Judaism was more nationalistic and anti-Roman, perhaps akin to the Sicarii and Zealots or perhaps the Essenes (he's vague or has changed his mind on this). He thinks that the canonical Gospels were a product of the non-Judean, generally pro-Roman, Pauline and Gentile form of Christianity and had little to do with the actual Jesus or James or their Judean followers. Thus far, I don't think he's crazy. This is close to what I think and I may be overinterpreing his ideas through the lens of mine.

Where I part company with him is where he argues that the Gentile form of Christianity in the Gospels were invented by the Flavian emperors and their circle, including especially Josephus, in order to 'domesticate' Messianic or nationalistic Judaism. I think that's a wild speculation and the evidence we have is against it.

Dr. Olson:

Should I think of you as being in the camp of Reza Aslan (Zealot:The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth 2013)?

Or could you suggest another relatively well known book that would better represent your views?

Thanks!

[MrMacSon]

Fourth what's the point of doing the videos? Are they going to budge the scholarly needle as John T put it? Probably not much, at least not directly. But I expect my scholarly work might and the videos might get people, including scholars, to read those. There is still a large amount of scholarly work on the Testimonium that does not engage with me at all, and some of it that does considers only my 1999 CBQ paper. Also, perhaps videos from the other side, like the two John T. linked to, will engage with my arguments and maybe even stop repeating fallacious claims that have been circulating for some time now (and that too might encourage scholars to read or take another look at my work).

So what I'm primarily interested in is the reception of my work among scholars. It's not that I don't appreciate having a popular audience, it's that I'm actually trying to overturn a scholarly consensus (partial interpolation) and change what's taught as the standard view in introductory works and classes on the New testament and Early Christianity. And that means producing academic papers such as I published in Catholic Biblical Quarterly and in Johnson and Schott's book on Eusebius (which began as a paper presented in the Eusebius section of the Society for Biblical Literature).

Best,

Ken

PS Youch! That's a lot of text. Thanks to everyone who is staying with me through all that.

I think most people realise you're trying to engage with and achieve a wider reception of your scholarly work. As are other scholars engaging with Jacob, Derek and Neal (and others) who, through their YouTube channel's engagements, are attracting a demographic very interested in delving into what [else] might have been happening behind 'the scenes' beyond what modern orthodoxy, riffing on the orthodoxy of late antiquity, have so far 'staged' for us all.

While the comments and live-chat things, however, are often far less than scholarly than one might hope, I think we can all appreciate that podcasts and vodcasts are an increasingly important media for engagement, even if such engagement is sometimes a little rocky and less than ideal.

[JoeWallack]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGEgB8XclUY

JW:
Zeitlin, Solomon. “The Slavonic Josephus and Its Relation to Josippon and Hegessippus.” The Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 20, no. 1, 1929, pp. 1–50. JSTOR

Josippon Paris Manuscript:

"In these days there were many fights and great quarrels in Judea between the Pharisees and the lawless ones in Israel who went after Jesus, the son of Pandera th[e] Nazarene who performed great wonders in Israel until the Pharisees overpowered him and hanged him on a tree".

Compare to the TF:

Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63 (Based on the translation of Louis H. Feldman, The Loeb Classical Library.)

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

It's understandable why a Jewish author would not use the TF but why use anything? Most Jewish writings ignore that guy from the Christian Bible whose name escapes me at the moment but I think starts with a "J" or "Y'. The few Jewish writings subsequent to the Gospels that seem to refer to Jesus flip the credentials with Jesus being the bad guy backed by the Bad Guy (the source of his power). It's generally thought that these Jewish writings are mainly a reaction to the Gospels and not a serious historical attempt.

Possible reasons for French Judas kiss above:

• 1) The Josephus source had no Jesus mention and the author felt obligated to add one.
  
  2) The Josephus source had something like what is in Paris.

Just like cops have the best dope, counter-missionaries have the best apologies. The best bad argument for original mention of Jesus may be that it originally was primarily negative so Patristics ignored it posturing that it could not have been the Gospel Jesus. The Jewish writings historically generally accept for the sake of argument that Jesus had a Teaching & Healing Ministry but the Jewish complaint was that Jesus was lax towards the Law. Eusebius, being a collector of Christian assertion, may have saved the Teaching & Healing Ministry and Pharisee opposition and used related Patristic commentary and added a few phrases of his own to flip the tone.

What's especially interesting here is once you concede that the positivity of the TF is not original, how far the other way do you go? Just to neutral or all the way to negative. And if you are Christian and want some, any TF, just to make the atheists shut the TF up, now you have an exponentially larger historical problem. The only extant premier, generally thought to be be reliable, historian of the setting, contradicts the Gospels. Ouch! A Cathechism-22.


Joseph

Cooking The Manuscripts - Add three cups of wine, two blocks of wood and a pinch of actual history. - Eusebius

The Israeli/Arab Conflict - The Balfour Declaration - 1917

[Paul the Uncertain]

@Ken

... it's that I'm actually trying to overturn a scholarly consensus (partial interpolation) and change what's taught as the standard view in introductory works and classes on the New testament and Early Christianity.

Assuming that the current consensus view favors both "partial Flavian Testimony ("FT") interpolation" and "authentic Antiquities 20.200," then that is a stable equilibrium: the two positions are both substantively and also epistemically complementary. To move the consensus to "complete FT interpolation" would need to overcome the drag of "authentic 20.200."

A familiar argument for a substantive dependence between the FT and Antiquities 20.200 is that "Jesus called Christ" is much less awkward if Josephus had previously mentioned such a Jesus. However, there is also an epistemic argument that seems to distinguish "complete FT interpolation" from "partial FT interpolation" theories.

All "corrupted FT" theories place heavy weight on the ability of Eusebius's witness to a passage of Christian interest to be adopted as the eventual standard text against whatever, if anything, Josephus originally wrote there. Treating similar cases similarly, Eusebius's witness to a mention of the Christian James would then be a sufficient or nearly sufficient explanation of the current state of the 20.200 text.

"Complete FT interpolation" theories commit their holders to a "thoughly unreliable Eusebius." That is, in brief compass, either he was working from an already corrupted copy of Antiquities or he was knowingly untruthful about what he'd read in his copy. In contrast, "partial FT interpolation" theories need carry no commitmment to any special unreliability of Eusebius as a witness to what he read (although of course anyone might hold such a view anyway for any number of reasons).

The drag of "authentic 20.200" would therefore be expected to persist even if proposed substantive explanations of why Josephus would single out James and distinguish his brother from other Jesuses in this possibly unhelpful way (from the perspective of Josephus's first audience) were accepted.

[Ken Olson]

I'll attempt a synthetic rationalization of what I think he thinks: He believes that there was a Gentile or Pauline Christianity before 70, but this was very different from the form of Christianity that existed in Judea before 70. I think he believes in an historical Jesus and an historical Hames [sic: I think "James" is intended], but that their form of Judaism was more nationalistic and anti-Roman, perhaps akin to the Sicarii and Zealots or perhaps the Essenes (he's vague or has changed his mind on this). He thinks that the canonical Gospels were a product of the non-Judean, generally pro-Roman, Pauline and Gentile form of Christianity and had little to do with the actual Jesus or James or their Judean followers. Thus far, I don't think he's crazy. This is close to what I think and I may be overinterpreing his ideas through the lens of mine.

Where I part company with him is where he argues that the Gentile form of Christianity in the Gospels were invented by the Flavian emperors and their circle, including especially Josephus, in order to 'domesticate' Messianic or nationalistic Judaism. I think that's a wild speculation and the evidence we have is against it.

Should I think of you as being in the camp of Reza Aslan (Zealot:The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth 2013)?

Or could you suggest another relatively well known book that would better represent your views?

Thanks!

gryan.

No. It's been a while since I read Aslan, but (aside from his rejection of the Testimonium) I wouldn't say I am in agreement with him. IIRC he's reviving S.G.F Brandon't thesis that Jesus was an actual Zealot advocating or actually engaging in armed rebellion against Rome. If that were so I think we might have better records of Jesus than we do (i.e., non-Christian writers might have taken much more interest in him, and I don't think Paul would have become his follower and taken is message to the Gentiles. I am of the more mundane school that thinks Jesus was (or claimed to be) a prophet who preached the coming of the Kingdom of God in which the world as we know it would end and God would fulfill his promises to Israel through the previous prophets. However, most of those who share this opinion think we can know much more about the details of Jesus' life and sayings than I do.

My comment was more about the sect that came to be called Christians than about Jesus himself. Some of them may well have engaged in rebellion against in Rome, while perhaps others did not.

Best,

Ken

[Thor]

I can`t even imagine Josephus works was intended for the educated elite from Rome or Greece. You would need faith to read about some unknown people being the center of ALL things important from the beginning of existence, and not find it amusing. But I am no scholar

But I wonder still, about passages like this:

Book 6 , chapt 8

The Jews also did all together, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, "I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is that, having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind." And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city. And when he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest's direction, and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests. And when the Book of Daniel was showed him wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended.

If Josephus is who he is portrayed to be, would he write such a thing? He should know from Book 7, but it is as if it eludes him.

[Secret Alias]

With me it is the transvestite Jewish rebels who are blamed for the destruction of Jerusalem. What is this doing in a serious 'history' of the events of 70 CE?

[John T]

I'm going to address some of the questions John T. raised earlier in this thread, such as the question of why I started this thread and (shamelessly) plugged the video in which I debated James Valliant on the History Valley channel on topic of the authenticity of the two references to Jesus found in the works of Josephus and several related questions.

...John T, in his characteristically uncharitable manner, suggested I was looking only for praise and confirmation. Well, I like praise as much the next guy...

...Second, the reason I did videos on the MythVision and History Valley YouTube Channels is that the asked me. I'd be happy to be interviewed by John Dickson (or someone else) about my views on the Testimonium, but he hasn't asked me (yet).

...Third, my purpose in doing the interview videos is to promote the spread of my ideas on the Testimonium...

...So what I'm primarily interested in is the reception of my work among scholars.

Point of personal privilege.

Thank you Ken for your confession regarding your narcissist, grand-delusional and unproven crackpot theories that are rejected by main-stream scholars.
Which naturally explains why you couldn't even answer one simple basic question by little ole John T.

Got it!

And so do real Biblical Criticism scholars. Mythicists, not so much.

[Secret Alias]

John T, I don't understand the hate against Ken. You take issue with someone coming on this forum to ... get praise from other human beings. Why else would someone participate in this forum? The pay sure ain't great.

Also I would hardly characterize Ken as a 'crackpot theorist' amidst all the crackpot theorists at the forum.

As I said before arguing for the TF as an interpolation is hardly the most controversial theory to have built your scholarly reputation on. Ken presents a reasonable take on how the TF got there. You shouldn't hate someone merely because they say something you don't' like to hear.