When Josephus borrowed from other sources, he paraphrased, he did not copy verbatum. Josephus elsewhere refers to groups of people "as the tribe of". However, this only infers the existance of christians, not of Jesus. What makes you think a Jew, a parisee and a debunker of other alleged messiahs, would refer to Jesus as, "He was the Messiah"?
Well let's see , Nicodemus was a Pharisee and he believed Jesus to be Messiah and undoubtedly many of Jesus's followers including Joseph of Arimathea and others had been Pharisees. Were Pharisees required to sign an oath to never believe in Jesus?
Jesus in other historical documents...
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_STEVE7150
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Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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This is incredibly absurd. Even the most conservative christian historians acknowledge this particular phrase, "He was the Christ", as a forgery.STEVE7150 wrote:When Josephus borrowed from other sources, he paraphrased, he did not copy verbatum. Josephus elsewhere refers to groups of people "as the tribe of". However, this only infers the existance of christians, not of Jesus. What makes you think a Jew, a parisee and a debunker of other alleged messiahs, would refer to Jesus as, "He was the Messiah"?
Well let's see , Nicodemus was a Pharisee and he believed Jesus to be Messiah and undoubtedly many of Jesus's followers including Joseph of Arimathea and others had been Pharisees. Were Pharisees required to sign an oath to never believe in Jesus?
For example, Christopher Price, who is a fairly good authority on Josephus and periodically has posted on the History Channel History of Christianity board and who is a conservative christian, states:
http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htmThis is clearly an interpolation using blatantly New Testament language about Jesus. A Jew such as Josephus would not refer to Jesus as the Messiah.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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Jackal,
There may indeed be conservative Christians who believe that the words of Josephus about Jesus are a Christian interpolation—and nothing essential is lost if their theory were to be proved correct. However, some scholars have taken the alternative view that there have been certain words omitted (deliberately or not) in the copying of the passage by later scribes.
If some such words as "so-called" had once preceded the word "Christ" (as is the case in Josephus' less-disputed reference to "James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ"), and if such a phrase as "as they claimed" had once been in a couple of other spots in the paragraph, then there would be nothing about the statement that would be in conflict with Josephus' non-christian convictions.
You also say that, if Josephus depended upon a Christian source, then he does not provide an independent witness concerning Christ. This would only be true if the Christian source from which he drew was one of our canonical gospels (which you probably don't believe to have been widely circulated in his time, and were not likely to be available to him). If Josephus had a Christian source other than the four gospels, then he is indeed preserving a fifth witness.
Most historians are not eye-witnesses themselves of the history they record. They depend upon earlier sources. However, if they are responsible historians, then we assume they were discriminating in their selection of sources, so that their writings have a secondary source value even after their sources have perished.
Eusebius records facts about the writers of the gospels which he gleaned from Papias. Papias himself claims to have derived his information from painstaking inquiry among eye-witnesses and those acquainted with the apostles. Papias' sources have perished, as have the writings of Papias himself, except in the fragments found in Eusebius.
You may doubt the veracity of Eusebius' information, since Eusebius is himself a "late" source. However, there is no obvious reason why Eusebius would misrepresent the writings of Papias, which he and others in his time possessed, nor for our thinking Papias himself lied about these things.
If one wished to fabricate untrue stories about alleged authorship of the gospels, why choose obscure names, like Mark and Luke, who are barely visible in the canonical histories, or Matthew, who, apart from the tradition of his writing the first gospel, was among the most obscure of the twelve. If one wished to make-up fictional claims of authorship, why not attribute them to important authorities, like Peter or James?
To discount Josephus' record on the basis that he depended upon some (now extinct) Christian records is as reasonable as rejecting the information gained from Eusebius for similar reasons. But taking such an approach would require that we apply a stricter criterion for historical reliability to these historians than that which we apply to, say, Gibbon or Durant, in their writing about the same period. What could justify this selective skepticism, other that an a priori prejudice against conservative Christianity?
There may indeed be conservative Christians who believe that the words of Josephus about Jesus are a Christian interpolation—and nothing essential is lost if their theory were to be proved correct. However, some scholars have taken the alternative view that there have been certain words omitted (deliberately or not) in the copying of the passage by later scribes.
If some such words as "so-called" had once preceded the word "Christ" (as is the case in Josephus' less-disputed reference to "James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ"), and if such a phrase as "as they claimed" had once been in a couple of other spots in the paragraph, then there would be nothing about the statement that would be in conflict with Josephus' non-christian convictions.
You also say that, if Josephus depended upon a Christian source, then he does not provide an independent witness concerning Christ. This would only be true if the Christian source from which he drew was one of our canonical gospels (which you probably don't believe to have been widely circulated in his time, and were not likely to be available to him). If Josephus had a Christian source other than the four gospels, then he is indeed preserving a fifth witness.
Most historians are not eye-witnesses themselves of the history they record. They depend upon earlier sources. However, if they are responsible historians, then we assume they were discriminating in their selection of sources, so that their writings have a secondary source value even after their sources have perished.
Eusebius records facts about the writers of the gospels which he gleaned from Papias. Papias himself claims to have derived his information from painstaking inquiry among eye-witnesses and those acquainted with the apostles. Papias' sources have perished, as have the writings of Papias himself, except in the fragments found in Eusebius.
You may doubt the veracity of Eusebius' information, since Eusebius is himself a "late" source. However, there is no obvious reason why Eusebius would misrepresent the writings of Papias, which he and others in his time possessed, nor for our thinking Papias himself lied about these things.
If one wished to fabricate untrue stories about alleged authorship of the gospels, why choose obscure names, like Mark and Luke, who are barely visible in the canonical histories, or Matthew, who, apart from the tradition of his writing the first gospel, was among the most obscure of the twelve. If one wished to make-up fictional claims of authorship, why not attribute them to important authorities, like Peter or James?
To discount Josephus' record on the basis that he depended upon some (now extinct) Christian records is as reasonable as rejecting the information gained from Eusebius for similar reasons. But taking such an approach would require that we apply a stricter criterion for historical reliability to these historians than that which we apply to, say, Gibbon or Durant, in their writing about the same period. What could justify this selective skepticism, other that an a priori prejudice against conservative Christianity?
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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In Jesus,
Steve
Steve
chriscarani wrote:Hey guys just thought I would chime here.
There is a popular theory that Luke was the forger and changed and added to some of the Testimonium Flavium. The theory was supposedly substantiated by a mathematical analysis of the book of Acts, Luke and the writings of Josephus. When compared statistically they were the same author, according to this theory. So that would place the "forgeries" taking place in the late first century, early second second century.
I personally don’t buy it, but just thought you might like to be prepared for that argument.
The theory is not that Luke was a forger of the Testamonium Flavium (TF). There are actually several ideas and theories concerning it.
The first is that the TF paragraph is a total forgery. This theory is supported by the language used that Josephus would never used, such as referring to someone as the Christ. It is also supported by the context of the overall chapter in which the TF paragraph appears. The paragraph before TF talks about a major persecution of Jews in jerusalem, in which Pilate had 'undercover agents', so to speak, infilitrate a crowd of jewish protestors. During the protest, on a signal that may have been misunderstood, these agents drew their hidden swords and began killing the protestors.
Then there is the TF paragraph. This is then followed by a paragraph that starts, "Then another calamity befell the Jews", and seems like it belongs after the paragraph before the TF. The TF seems to have been a sidetrack, and doesnt seem to fit in the story flow of the chapter.
Another argument is that no church father mentions the TF prior to the early 4th century. Eusebius is the first to mention it, even though a number of church bishops and other writers mentioned other parts of Josephus during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Even when writers like Origen were rebuted pagans who claimed Jesus never existed, he never relied upon Josephus's paragraph on Jesus.
There is also claims that a 16th century writer, Vossius, wrote that he had an early manuscript of Josephus, no longer extant, that did not have the TF paragraph. For whatever that's worth.
The other theory is that the paragraph in some earltier form was authentic to Josephus, but was interpolated and changed to what we have today. This again is thought to have been done during the time of Eusebius.
Luke comes in during theories of about where Josephus may have derived his material for the TF paragraph. He was born in 37, and became a pharisee around the year 55, I believe. Josephus is known to have used first-hand accounts and his own witness for events he describes after becoming a pharisee. But, before that time, he relies on just paraphrasing the works of others. For instance, his chapters on the Hasmonean and Herodian periods of Palestine history were taken from the accounts of Herod's scribe, Nicholas of Damascus.
The question then becomes, if the paragraph is at least partially authentic, and since it is of events before 55, what was Josephus's source? Deleting what most would agree were not authentic to Josephus, the remaining was analyzed by Goldman, who found a statistically significant concordance between the paragraph and the Emmaus road narrative in Luke. Based on this concordance, the theory is that Jospehus had in front of him, or had heard, the same story Luke had read or heard in drafting that part of his gospel. The point being, if it was a christian story, it does not constitute the independent, unbiased witness that some try to attribute to Josephus's account.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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_chriscarani
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"The theory is not that Luke was a forger of the Testamonium Flavium (TF)"
Got it Jackal, this is an admission I made earlier.
Got it Jackal, this is an admission I made earlier.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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WWMTLFSMM