Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

John2 wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:16 am Excellent responses, Ben. I will take everything into consideration, but I only have time to respond to one part at the moment.

But what else on that list would give him priestly privilege? I am merely taking your insight to its logical conclusion: not one thing on that list about James ought to convey this privilege, nor does any combination of things on that list convey such a privilege.

That part that says, "He was holy from his mother's womb; and he drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. No razor came upon his head."

Three of these elements pertain to his naziritism, and we already agree that nazirites had a priest-like status.

And yet... they were not priests. The priesthood was by blood, and James lacked that blood.

Additionally, his vegetarianism may have also had priest-like connotations (or in any event was at least related to ritual purity), since this is something priests engaged in to maintain their purity, as Josephus mentions in Life 3:

At the time when Felix was procurator of Judea there were certain priests of my acquaintance, and very excellent persons they were, whom on a small and trifling occasion he had put into bonds, and sent to Rome to plead their cause before Caesar. These I was desirous to procure deliverance for, and that especially because I was informed that they were not unmindful of piety towards God, even under their afflictions, but supported themselves with figs and nuts.

Add linen, and James seems exceptionally "holy," enough so, it appears to me, to enter the "holy place" in front of the Holy of Holies....

This is what I was saying. Hegesippus thought that James was so holy that an exception was carved out for him. But that is, to use your phrase, wacky... unless you can produce some corroborating evidence for this kind of thing being done.

The people in that quote from Josephus were priests. Vegetarianism may have made them exceptionally holy, but they did not need vegetarianism to gain access to the holy place; their priesthood did that for them.

To me it's kind of like interpreting Mt. 27:51-52. There appears to be no "non-wacky" way to interpret this. I get the impression that Matthew means exactly what he says there, that dead people came back life and went into Jerusalem and were seen by people. That's because, in my view, and in this respect, Matthew was "wacky," and I can accept that. Yet in Hegesippus's case, it seems to me like a "wacky" interpretation is being read into him, because there is (or seems to be) a perfectly "non-wacky" way to interpret him, which is that James was so holy, so priest-like, that he alone (of Christians and/or laypeople) was allowed to enter the "holy place" with the real priests.

That is wacky! It is sooo obviously the kind of wish fulfillment one would expect in a hagiographic legend of this kind.

That is wacky! It is sooo obviously the kind of wish fulfillment one would expect in a hagiographic legend of this kind.

Well, less wacky than going into the Holy of Holies, then.

This is what I was saying. Hegesippus thought that James was so holy that an exception was carved out for him. But that is, to use your phrase, wacky... unless you can produce some corroborating evidence for this kind of thing being done.

I guess I hadn't thought of the idea of a nazirite entering the "holy place" (meaning not the Holy of Holies) as being wacky, but maybe there is no corroborating evidence for it, only speculation (along the lines of Bauckham, Chilton and Lange). I will look into it.

John2 wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:40 am

That is wacky! It is sooo obviously the kind of wish fulfillment one would expect in a hagiographic legend of this kind.

Well, less wacky than going into the Holy of Holies, then.

This is what I was saying. Hegesippus thought that James was so holy that an exception was carved out for him. But that is, to use your phrase, wacky... unless you can produce some corroborating evidence for this kind of thing being done.

I guess I hadn't thought of the idea of a nazirite entering the "holy place" (meaning not the Holy of Holies) as being wacky, but maybe there is no corroborating evidence for it, only speculation (along the lines of Bauckham, Chilton and Lange). I will look into it.

I basically agree with Painter, at least so far, who relies on earlier critics:

John2 wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 10:40 amI guess I hadn't thought of the idea of a nazirite entering the "holy place" (meaning not the Holy of Holies) as being wacky, but maybe there is no corroborating evidence for it, only speculation (along the lines of Bauckham, Chilton and Lange). I will look into it.

You mention Bauckham and Chilton, and this is what Bauckham has to say in Chilton's and Evans' book about James:


Bauckham also argues that Hegesippus' account of James' death is shot through with allusions to the canonical gospels; he lists more than I had ever noticed on my own.

It is worth noting that Bauckham also explains the detail in Hegesippus about James alone being allowed into "the holies" as the result, not of historical tradition, but of exegetical deductions based upon Ezekiel 44 and Psalm 118.19. Many of the details in Hegesippus' account of James' death, in fact, Bauckham ascribes to exegesis and legendary development of Psalm 118, Ezekiel 44, Judges 13, and Numbers 6. The parts about the Rechabites he derives from a hopeful exegesis of Jeremiah 35. To very little of the pericope does Bauckham seem willing to assign true historical value; most of it succumbs to literary analysis, not to historical analysis.

You pointed out that Eusebius does not mention the gospels as among Hegesippus' sources, but I believe there may be an explanation for that besides Hegesippus' ignorance of them. Hegesippus probably dates from a time when references to the gospels were not yet standardized. Papias, for example, calls them "logia," as well you know. Justin Martyr, as another example, calls them the "memoirs of the apostles," but it is difficult even to keep track of exactly which texts he has in mind, since most of the allusions come in the form of harmonized statements and some of the details are found only in what are now considered noncanonical gospels (especially the infancy gospel of James and the gospel of Peter). Justin clearly knew gospel texts at least similar to the gospels we now possess, yet Eusebius nowhere mentions that Justin knew the canonical gospels, possibly because Justin does not refer to them by name in the same way that Irenaeus, for example, would do only a generation or two later. So it seems quite possible that Hegesippus used the gospels in a way similar to how Justin Martyr uses them, a way which does not draw Eusebius' comments on the use of canonical gospel materials.

Bauckham has the following to say about James' words concerning Jesus coming on the clouds:

We are fortunate in having several ancient accounts of the death of James.

I would argue that the fact that the Church allowed a number of conflicting legends about James to exist at a very early date implies to me at least that he was utterly insignificant to this very Church. They could allow Hegesippus and Josephus and Clement to say stupid and inconsistent and unbelievable things about James - because no one really cared about James.

Ben wrote:

I basically agree with Painter, at least so far, who relies on earlier critics:

[box=]John Painter, Just James, page 120: Martin Dibelius and Heinrich Greeven assert that "the narrative of Hegesippus reveals a large number of typical legendary motifs (not to mention some problems with regard to content), so that this narrative must already be viewed with scepticism as to its reliability." .... Dibelius and Greeven rightly conclude that "this legend from Hegesippus cannot be considered a serious rival to the short, clear, and prosaic statement of Josephus."[/box]

I may be the only guy in the world (and make of it what you will, if so) who finds Hegesippus' account and Josephus' account to be compatible. I don't think one is better than the other, I think they both write about the same event with a different focus. Josephus is interested in Ananus and his illegal trial and the reaction that "the most equitable of the citizens" had to it, whereas Hegesippus, of course, is interested in James; who James was, what he said (or what he imagines he would have said), and the details (or how he imagined them) of his stoning. Josephus doesn't give any details about James' stoning, he only says that James was handed over to be stoned. Both of them agree that people had assembled together to stone James, and Hegesippus uses the same word for it that Mark uses to describe how Jesus was brought to trial.

Mk. 14:53:

They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law came together.

EH 2.23.10:

... there was a commotion among the Jews and Scribes and Pharisees, who said that there was danger that the whole people would be looking for Jesus as the Christ. Coming therefore in a body to James ...

And both accounts agree that "those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done" (Ant. 20.201).

EH 2.23.17:

And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, 'Stop. What are you doing? The just one prays for you.'

Ben wrote:

It is worth noting that Bauckham also explains the detail in Hegesippus about James alone being allowed into "the holies" as the result, not of historical tradition, but of exegetical deductions based upon Ezekiel 44 and Psalm 118.19. Many of the details in Hegesippus' account of James' death, in fact, Bauckham ascribes to exegesis and legendary development of Psalm 118, Ezekiel 44, Judges 13, and Numbers 6. The parts about the Rechabites he derives from a hopeful exegesis of Jeremiah 35. To very little of the pericope does Bauckham seem willing to assign true historical value; most of it succumbs to literary analysis, not to historical analysis.

I will check out the Bauckham chapter you cited, but in the meantime, if you happen to know, does Bauckham consider the idea of James (or a Nazirite) entering the "holies" (in the sense of not the Holy of Holies) as being implausible? I don't get the impression that he does here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=OdAVD ... es&f=false

What Christian writing isn't hagiographic and doesn't use the OT to create/shape/color their account of Jesus (or whoever)? I will take a closer look at the evidence of literary dependence between Hegesippus and Mark, but thus far I'm thinking that Hegesippus was like Mark only in the sense that both of them applied particular verses from the OT that Christians liked to a particular person, just like Hegesippus says in EH 2.23.7 about James' nickname (which was "in accordance with what the prophets declare concerning him") and in EH 2.23.15 about James' stoning ("they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, 'Let us take away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings' "). In my view Hegesippus and Mark are just doing what Christians do.

The DSS similarly use the OT to describe the trial and death of the Teacher of Righteousness, Does that mean they have no "true historical value"?

But that being said, I don't think it is out of the question that Hegesippus knew Mark, and it wouldn't "bother" me if he did and I think it would make sense for other reasons if not direct literary dependence (which I might even come around to). I see Mark as being Jewish Christian-adjacent enough (I think it is derived from Peter and filtered through the lens of Mark, as Papias says) to have given Hegesippus the impression that those who presumably did use it (such as the people he met on his travels) were "orthodox" (from his point of view, anyway).

Also, about the Hegesippus-using-the-Gospel-of-the-Hebrews-and-that's-why-Eusebius-thought-he-was-a-Jewish-Christian thing. Since Eusebius knew all of Hegesippus' work, can we at least agree that nothing in the rest of his work disabused him of this notion? Would anyone come away with a similar impression about Jerome knowing the Gospel of the Hebrews based on everything Jerome wrote? And look at what Eusebius does cite from Hegesippus; I would get the impression that he was a Jewish Christian just from the fact that he wrote about James, the grandsons of Jude, and Simon bar Clopas (and not Paul). What were they if not Jewish Christians?

John2 wrote: ↑Wed May 09, 2018 11:16 amI will check out the Bauckham chapter you cited, but in the meantime, if you happen to know, does Bauckham consider the idea of James (or a Nazirite) entering the "holies" (in the sense of not the Holy of Holies) as being implausible? I don't get the impression that he does here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=OdAVD ... es&f=false

I do not see where he even discusses the plausibility of it there. This is what he says in his chapter in Evans' and Chilton's book:

Also, about the Hegesippus-using-the-Gospel-of-the-Hebrews-and-that's-why-Eusebius-thought-he-was-a-Jewish-Christian thing. Since Eusebius knew all of Hegesippus' work, can we at least agree that nothing in the rest of his work disabused him of this notion?

I can agree with that.

Would anyone come away with a similar impression about Jerome knowing the Gospel of the Hebrews based on everything Jerome wrote?

No, but Jerome's extant works are voluminous. I think there are plenty of individual works by him which would betray nothing of his ethnic heritage.

And look at what Eusebius does cite from Hegesippus; I would get the impression that he was a Jewish Christian just from the fact that he wrote about James, the grandsons of Jude, and Simon bar Clopas. What were they if not Jewish Christians?

Eusebius himself writes about James, the grandsons of Jude, Simon bar Clopas, and many other Jewish Christians. Is Eusebius a Jew? Interests do not determine ethnicity. Julius Africanus also writes about Jewish Christians, and his ethnicity is far from clear. So does the author of Acts.

I actually have literally nothing against Hegesippus being a Jew. I just do not want to assume it where there is certainly room for doubt or discussion.

Ben wrote:

No, but Jerome's extant works are voluminous. I think there are plenty of individual works by him which would betray nothing of his ethnic heritage.

True, but Hegesippus wrote five books, which covered "many other matters" besides what Eusebius cited, and nothing in them disabused (I like saying "disabused") Eusebius of the notion that he was a Jewish Christian.

And:


Eusebius himself writes about James, the grandsons of Jude, Simon bar Clopas, and many other Jewish Christians. Is Eusebius a Jew? Interests do not determine ethnicity. Julius Africanus also writes about Jewish Christians, and his ethnicity is far from clear. So does the author of Acts.

I knew you would say this. On one hand, of course how can anyone not mention Jewish Chrisitans? But the difference is that Hegesippus, unlike Eusebius and Acts, only talks about Jewish Christians (aside from the Christians he met during his travels). I get the impression that Acts only talks about them for the how-can-they-not? factor, but in my view Acts also downplays them (by not identifying that James was Jesus' brother or talking about what ultimately happened to James and Peter) and elevates Paul. And in Julius Africanus' case, even though he doesn't mention Paul (as far as I can tell), we do know he used Luke so I assume he was a Pauline Christian too.