Iosephiana

[Ben C. Smith]

No you should get high to stop thinking in the way you were programmed from birth and besides it's fun to see the world fresh for the first time.

Look, I know you think I am playing the role of and/or taking up the defense of "the Establishment" or whatnot here, but I really do not have much of anything invested in the currently scholarly view of Josephus and his manuscripts. I have argued before on this forum that most individual Christian gospels may well be multilayered, intermixed texts for which no absolute dating of the entire work is possible; if the evidence compels me to regard Josephus in a similarly iconoclastic manner, then so be it; I will do so.

So, if you could demonstrate that a highly Christianized version of the Antiquities came first, followed by the version in our extant manuscripts (shorn of most of the Christian elements), with various shufflings of materials in and out of place, that would be swell; it really would. I want to know such things. But a lot of the ideas you have floated on this thread just do not "do it" for me; they seem to admit of better explanations. There are still outstanding puzzles, to be sure (Photius' dating of Agrippa's death, for example), but to leap from those puzzles to the full-blown reconstructions that you erect often feels like quite a stretch, in my most honest assessment.

In other words, not to follow you down your rugged paths does not necessarily equate to stubbornness or blindness or programming from birth.

Ben.

[Secret Alias]

I just think it comes down to a cultural difference. One's not better or worse than the other. When I think of the reason why Europeans conquered the world the way they did I think it had something to do with their martial predisposition for obedience. When you look at the history of religion in the West there's this obsession with order, different factions fighting over the 'one ruler' or one rule that governed the cosmos. Ok that's fine but when you look at the gospel this isn't the concern of the original author. The gospel wasn't written to be some referendum on monotheism or monarchianism. So why did it become this way?

In any event, when most of the people in the West experimented with these substances this old religious obsession which brutalized humanity for centuries was finally lifted. There were advantages for the collective to have a massive army of drones who had no inclination about the value of their own lives - so I can't say one is better than the other. As I said it is a matter of culture. One's not better than the other. And the mind can be used to defend the status quo or uncover new realities in ignored books. There are great minds which argued for all sorts of positions. I guess the whole 'defend the status quo' is sort of out of date. But that doesn't mean that it won't be making a comeback. You know be who you are, go where you want to go, be who you want to be.

[Secret Alias]

https://youtu.be/3nDhzrSFef4

I really got to work. My postings here at the forum and general lack of focus should be used in a new "Just Say No" campaign.

[Ben C. Smith]

So we found Josephus, the historian of the capture of Jerusalem[3] (of whom Eusebius the [spiritual son] of Pamphilus[4] makes much mention in his Ecclesiastical History), saying openly in his memoirs of his captivity that Jesus served in the holy place with the priests. When we found this told by Josephus, a man of ancient times who lived not long after the apostles, we sought to find also from the inspired Scriptures the confirmation of such a discourse.

....

εὕρομεν οὖν Ἰώσηπον, τὸν συγγραφέα τῆς ἁλώσεως Ἱεροσολύμων, οὗ μνήμην πολλὴν Εὐσέβιος ὁ Παμφίλου ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησιαστικῇ αὐτοῦ ἱστορίᾳ ποιεῖται, φανερῶς λέγοντα ἐν τοῖς τῆς αἰχμαλωσίας αὐτοῦ ὑπομνήμασιν, ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ μετὰ τῶν ἱερέων ἡγίαζε. τοῦτο οὖν εὑρόντες λέγοντα τὸν Ἰώσηπον, ἄνδρα ἀρχαῖον ὄντα καὶ οὐ μετὰ πολὺν χρόνον τῶν ἀποστόλων γενόμενον, ἐζητήσαμεν εὑρεῖν καὶ ἐκ τῶν θεοπνεύστων γραφῶν τὸν τοιοῦτον λόγον βεβαιούμενον.

I agree this is a fascinating reference. It somewhat resembles what (the writer we call) Hegesippus says about James the Just: "He alone was permitted to enter into the holy place; for he wore not woolen but linen garments. And he was in the habit of entering alone into the temple...," does it not?

[Secret Alias]

does it not?


Yup

[Secret Alias]

I didn't even know it existed

[Secret Alias]

And the fact the Suda HAS SO MANY references to Josephus it can't be construed as an error. I didn't know that until I looked at the plethora of Antiquities references. But that's why I looked. The author (or authors) knew Josephus quite intimately and their citations differ from our own. Still not working ...

[Secret Alias]

And the rest of the information is quite eye-opening too. I've never see this material referenced by anyone.

[Secret Alias]

And remember what is Hegesippus's big claim to fame? Epiphanius cites him as saying that the family of Jesus went on to become the heads of the Jerusalem Church. Your point is quite astute. Wouldn't have thought of that if you hadn't mentioned it. Thanks.

[Secret Alias]

It's almost as if the Jesus reference sets up the James reference which sets up the descendants of Jesus (also reference by Eusebius in the Vespasian section in Church History) being the heads of the Jerusalem Church. If the Suda had said 'Hegessipus' here it would have been taken to be a missing piece in the puzzle that is Hegesippus's Memoirs. But now that it is clearly 'Josephus' and he makes countless allusions to his familiarity with Antiquities it has to be a reference to the manuscript known to Clement. Why? Because the 10th year of Antoninus is the date for Hegesippus's account of the end of the Jerusalem church line of the family of Jesus.