Third new article on TF

[ficino]

Many thanks for the link to Nodet's discussion of Slavonic Josephus, maryhelena. I just read it. Here's another language I don't know!

I can't say Nodet has convinced me to set aside my initial skepticism about the historical value of Slavonic Josephus for 1st century events. I'll give comments for those who may be interested - but if they're really interested, they should read Nodet themselves and perhaps find fault with what I say. Sorry, this post gets a bit long.

To start, I note that Nodet w/o citing authorities puts the time of Mara bar Serapion's letter after 165, when he says the Romans sacked Seleucia. That makes more sense to me, given the tenor of that letter, than the often-found date of close to 73 (accepted by Ramelli). Makes more sense because, as Peter Kirby said, it looks like a later rhetorical exercise, and fictional letters of rhetorical bent were common during the Second Sophistic - cf. the pseudonymous letters of Socrates and Socratics.

As to Slavonic Josephus: Nodet notes passages where it gives a shorter version of something in our Greek BJ, others where it gives details not found in our BJ. Two of those he seeks to prove as ancient by drawing parallels to the Qumran texts.

It's a bit disingenuous of Nodet to insinuate that Eisler's esteem of Slavonic Josephus was not accepted because of confessional commitments of other scholars. He does not mention Solomon Zeitlin's blistering critique - Zeitlin even traveled to Russia. And he does not come clean whether he himself, attached to the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, has confessional commitments that might color his judgment. (Of course I have biases, too. I'm an atheist.)

In sum, his hypothesis is this:
Josephus tells us (BJ 1.3) that he wrote the War in "our" language, then translated it into Greek, then had assistants clean up the style of the Greek.
Nodet hypothesizes that at first, c. 67, Josephus had a retrospective enthusiasm for the worker of miracles (sc. Jesus) who was crucified, and a severe view of consequences of his clumsy execution. On the assumption that Slavonic Josephus -- which expresses enthusiasm -- preserves parts of Josephus' first edition BJ, this enthusiasm was presumably expressed in the Aramaic BJ, which circulated – as Mara ben Serapion shows us – and in first Greek draft that Josephus made. Then around 75, when he realized that the active followers of Jesus were the Christian rabble who posed a threat to Judaism, “this may have led him to withdraw quickly the copies of his work which were already in circulation and to ‘cleanse’ the dossier which he entrusted to his assistants.” He received Titus’ formal approval for this final, stylistically superior Greek version of BJ, implying it was read by censors. Finally, when he completed the AJ under Domitian, ca. 93, Christianity had expanded in Rome and he was obliged to make some mention, but he did so prudently, isolating the movement from every Jewish school. I.e. his mention was the TF and the reference to James at AJ 20.200.
This hypothesis of an urgent recall explains the textual differences betw the Slavonic and our Greek text and enables us to avoid postulating unusual creativity on the part of Byzantine or Slavonic redactors/translators. The hypothesis that some copies of the first edition managed to circulated would explain later Christian claims that Josephus had linked beginning of troubles in Judea to death of Jesus.
The first draft of the Greek BJ must have survived in Byzantium, since Photius “seems to have known an echo of this text, with regard to the children in Bethlehem.” That is, Nodet quotes Photius, Bibliotheca 238 for Herod's massacre of the infants. Bibl. 238 is Photius' description of the contents of the AJ.

Before I give my reaction to his overall hypothesis -- as an educated reader but not as a specialist -- I'll say that I'm interested in Nodet's claim that originally, the term Christianos was criminological, referring to messianic enthusiasts who began uprisings when Caligula tried to put a statue in the temple. They are the ones Claudius expelled from Rome (Suet. 25). Nodet thinks "Christiani" originally was not a name for followers of Jesus.

Nodet's overall hypothesis seems to me less simple, less parsimonious than the hypothesis that Slavonic Josephus is both abridged and interpolated. We are supposed to believe that Josephus wrote about an inscription in the temple that commemorated the execution of Jesus? etc? Nodet has to postulate both that enough Aramaic and 1st edition Greek copies circulated for "memories" in later authors to trickle down about Josephus' laudatory writings about Jesus (as an unnamed wonder worker) BUT that none of them survived, as against the whole Greek manuscript tradition that did survive. We have to imagine this "recall" - can he be serious? And so on.

I'll also note that Nodet makes unwarranted conclusions about Photius. Photius' reference to the slaughter of the infants comes right after he has written that "Christ our God was born for our salvation from a virgin’s womb." Photius doesn’t claim that Josephus wrote that. He’s sticking in his own observations on events of Herod’s reign as they impacted gospel history.

Nodet doesn't go into the TF much except to say that its tone is negative. He translates φῦλον, usually rendered "tribe," as "wretched group." [i.e. that's the English transl. of Nodet's french] Of the reference to the stoning of James the Just by Ananus, who Nodet says saw James as a rival, Nodet pulls in Hegesippus, as quoted by Eusebius, to say that some believed James should be or was high priest. And identifying James by his brother, the so-called messiah, makes his brother really important! " ... and this means that Josephus is not saying all that he knows." I don't know where Nodet is going with this. Seems confused. We are to think that James' and Jesus' family was priestly?

[maryhelena]

Thanks, ficino, for reading Nodet's article and giving your comments.

For my part I'm not so interested in Nodet's specific use of Slavonic Josephus - it's the fact that he used it at all that interested me.

A scholar prepared to 'have a go' at Slavonic Josephus is to be commended.....The more publicizing of the Slavonic Josephus material can only be a good thing for NT research.

Many thanks for the link to Nodet's discussion of Slavonic Josephus, maryhelena. I just read it. Here's another language I don't know!

I can't say Nodet has convinced me to set aside my initial skepticism about the historical value of Slavonic Josephus for 1st century events. I'll give comments for those who may be interested - but if they're really interested, they should read Nodet themselves and perhaps find fault with what I say. Sorry, this post gets a bit long.

To start, I note that Nodet w/o citing authorities puts the time of Mara bar Serapion's letter after 165, when he says the Romans sacked Seleucia. That makes more sense to me, given the tenor of that letter, than the often-found date of close to 73 (accepted by Ramelli). Makes more sense because, as Peter Kirby said, it looks like a later rhetorical exercise, and fictional letters of rhetorical bent were common during the Second Sophistic - cf. the pseudonymous letters of Socrates and Socratics.

As to Slavonic Josephus: Nodet notes passages where it gives a shorter version of something in our Greek BJ, others where it gives details not found in our BJ. Two of those he seeks to prove as ancient by drawing parallels to the Qumran texts.

It's a bit disingenuous of Nodet to insinuate that Eisler's esteem of Slavonic Josephus was not accepted because of confessional commitments of other scholars. He does not mention Solomon Zeitlin's blistering critique - Zeitlin even traveled to Russia. And he does not come clean whether he himself, attached to the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, has confessional commitments that might color his judgment. (Of course I have biases, too. I'm an atheist.)

In sum, his hypothesis is this:
Josephus tells us (BJ 1.3) that he wrote the War in "our" language, then translated it into Greek, then had assistants clean up the style of the Greek.
Nodet hypothesizes that at first, c. 67, Josephus had a retrospective enthusiasm for the worker of miracles (sc. Jesus) who was crucified, and a severe view of consequences of his clumsy execution. On the assumption that Slavonic Josephus -- which expresses enthusiasm -- preserves parts of Josephus' first edition BJ, this enthusiasm was presumably expressed in the Aramaic BJ, which circulated – as Mara ben Serapion shows us – and in first Greek draft that Josephus made. Then around 75, when he realized that the active followers of Jesus were the Christian rabble who posed a threat to Judaism, “this may have led him to withdraw quickly the copies of his work which were already in circulation and to ‘cleanse’ the dossier which he entrusted to his assistants.” He received Titus’ formal approval for this final, stylistically superior Greek version of BJ, implying it was read by censors. Finally, when he completed the AJ under Domitian, ca. 93, Christianity had expanded in Rome and he was obliged to make some mention, but he did so prudently, isolating the movement from every Jewish school. I.e. his mention was the TF and the reference to James at AJ 20.200.
This hypothesis of an urgent recall explains the textual differences betw the Slavonic and our Greek text and enables us to avoid postulating unusual creativity on the part of Byzantine or Slavonic redactors/translators. The hypothesis that some copies of the first edition managed to circulated would explain later Christian claims that Josephus had linked beginning of troubles in Judea to death of Jesus.
The first draft of the Greek BJ must have survived in Byzantium, since Photius “seems to have known an echo of this text, with regard to the children in Bethlehem.” That is, Nodet quotes Photius, Bibliotheca 238 for Herod's massacre of the infants. Bibl. 238 is Photius' description of the contents of the AJ.

Before I give my reaction to his overall hypothesis -- as an educated reader but not as a specialist -- I'll say that I'm interested in Nodet's claim that originally, the term Christianos was criminological, referring to messianic enthusiasts who began uprisings when Caligula tried to put a statue in the temple. They are the ones Claudius expelled from Rome (Suet. 25). Nodet thinks "Christiani" originally was not a name for followers of Jesus.

Nodet's overall hypothesis seems to me less simple, less parsimonious than the hypothesis that Slavonic Josephus is both abridged and interpolated. We are supposed to believe that Josephus wrote about an inscription in the temple that commemorated the execution of Jesus? etc? Nodet has to postulate both that enough Aramaic and 1st edition Greek copies circulated for "memories" in later authors to trickle down about Josephus' laudatory writings about Jesus (as an unnamed wonder worker) BUT that none of them survived, as against the whole Greek manuscript tradition that did survive. We have to imagine this "recall" - can he be serious? And so on.

I'll also note that Nodet makes unwarranted conclusions about Photius. Photius' reference to the slaughter of the infants comes right after he has written that "Christ our God was born for our salvation from a virgin’s womb." Photius doesn’t claim that Josephus wrote that. He’s sticking in his own observations on events of Herod’s reign as they impacted gospel history.

Nodet doesn't go into the TF much except to say that its tone is negative. He translates φῦλον, usually rendered "tribe," as "wretched group." [i.e. that's the English transl. of Nodet's french] Of the reference to the stoning of James the Just by Ananus, who Nodet says saw James as a rival, Nodet pulls in Hegesippus, as quoted by Eusebius, to say that some believed James should be or was high priest. And identifying James by his brother, the so-called messiah, makes his brother really important! " ... and this means that Josephus is not saying all that he knows." I don't know where Nodet is going with this. Seems confused. We are to think that James' and Jesus' family was priestly?

[ficino]

Thanks, ficino, for reading Nodet's article and giving your comments.

For my part I'm not so interested in Nodet's specific use of Slavonic Josephus - it's the fact that he used it at all that interested me.

A scholar prepared to 'have a go' at Slavonic Josephus is to be commended.....The more publicizing of the Slavonic Josephus material can only be a good thing for NT research.

I guess ... If Slavonic Josephus is the medieval reworking that the standard view holds that it is, I am not as confident as you are that it will help research to push its material. But that's the question, I suppose. We're not going to have to dissect Josippon next, I hope!