Josephus: Tf And James Passage

[Joshpantera]

This was an aside in the NT as mythology thread, worthy of it's own thread in any case. So I'd like to see if we can get through this to any worthwhile resolve free and clear of letting the issue get too personal for any one. One thing to start things off would be to look at how many Jesus's appear in Josephus. And starting with the question of whether or not it was possible that Christians used this looking for where their Jesus ought to be among the many, and could have inserted him into the text according to where they thought that he should have been mentioned: http://www.freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2441&start=15

 

Here are the many Jesus's mentioned by Josephus throughout his works along with citations: 

1. Jesus, son of Phabes – High priest. Ant 15.322
2. Jesus, son of Ananus – Common man prophesied destruction of the temple. War 6.300
3. Jesus, or Jason – High priest. Ant 12.239
4. Jesus, son of Sapphias – Governor of Tiberias. War 2.566, War 2.599; Life 1.066, Life 1.134
5. Jesus, brother of Onias – High priest. Ant 12.237, Ant 12.238, Ant 12.239
6. Jesus, son of Gamaliel – High priest. Ant 20.213, Ant 20.223
7. Jesus, no patronym – Eldest high priest after Ananus. War 4.238, War 4.316, War 4.325
8. Jesus, son of Damneus – High priest. Ant 20.203
9. Jesus, son of Gamala – High priest & Josephus’ friend. War 4.160; Life 1.193, Life 1.204
10. Jesus, [or Joshua] son of Nun – Successor to Moses. Ant 03.049, Ant 03.308; Ant 4.459
11. Jesus, son of Shapat – Principal head of a band of robbers controlling Tiberias, sallies against Vespasian's messenger Valerian. War 3.450
12. Jesus, son of Thebuthus – One of the priests, delivers to Titus precious things deposited in the temple. War 6.387
13. Jesus, son of Josadek – High priest. Ant 20.231, Ant 20.234
14. Jesus, no patronym – Galilean at head of a band of 600 followers, sent by Ananus & Jesus to depose Josephus. Life 1.200
15. Jesus, no patronym – Condemned to cross by Pilate. He was [the] Christ. Ant 18.063
16. Jesus, no patronym – Captain of those robbers who were in the confines of Ptolemais, allies with Josephus. Life 1.105
17. Jesus, brother of Jacob – Called the Christ. Ant 20.200

Ant.
03:049 (numerous) Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun.
11:298 Jesus, (son of Eliashib), brother of John – friend of governor Bagoses.
11:299 Jesus, [son of Eliashib] – slain by brother John, the High priest.
11:300 Jesus, [son of Eliashib]
11:301 Jesus, [son of Eliashib] – slain by brother John, the High priest.
12:237 Jesus, brother of Onias III – High priest.
12:238 Jesus, brother of Onias III – Deposed as High priest in favor of Onias = Menelaus
12:239 Jesus, younger brother of Onias = Menelaus – High priest.
12:239 Jesus, brother of Onias III – Renamed Jason. Revolts against Onias = Menelaus.
15:041 Jesus, (brother of Onias III)
15:322 Jesus, son of Phabes – High priest.
17:341 Jesus, the son of Sie – High priest.
18:063 Jesus, no patronym – Condemned to cross by Pilate. He was [the] Christ.
20:200 Jesus, brother of Jacob – Called the Christ.
20:203 Jesus, son of Damneus – High priest.
20:205 Jesus, [son of Damneus] – High priest.
20:213 Jesus, son of Gamaliel – High priest.
20.213 Jesus, son of Damneus – Deposed as High priest.
20:223 Jesus, son of Gamaliel – High priest.
20:234 Jesus, son of Josadek – High priest.

War
2:566 Jesus, son of Sapphias – Governor of Tiberias.
2:599 Jesus, son of Sapphias – Governor of Tiberias.
3:450 Jesus, son of Shapat – Principal head of a band of robbers controlling Tiberias.
3:452 Jesus, [son of Shapat]
3:457 Jesus, [son of Shapat] – Departs Tiberius to Taricheae
3:467 Jesus, [son of Shapat]
3:498 Jesus, [son of Shapat]
4:160 Jesus, son of Gamala – Best esteemed, with Ananus ben Ananus, of High priests.
4:238 Jesus, no patronym – Eldest high priest after Ananus.
4:270 Jesus, no patronym – [Eldest high priest after Ananus].
4:283 Jesus, no patronym – [Eldest high priest after Ananus].
4:316 Jesus, no patronym – [Eldest high priest after Ananus].
4:322 Jesus, no patronym – [Eldest high priest after Ananus].
4:325 Jesus, no patronym – [Eldest high priest after Ananus].
4:459 Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun.
6:114 Jesus, no patronym – High priest, deserts to Vespasian.
6:300 Jesus, son of Ananus – Common man prophesied destruction of the temple.
6:387 Jesus, son of Thebuthus – One of the priests, deserts to Titus.

Life
1:066 Jesus, son of Sapphias – Governor of Tiberias.
1:067 Jesus, son of Sapphias – [Governor of Tiberias.]
1:105 Jesus, no patronym – Captain of those robbers in the confines of Ptolemais.
1:108 Jesus, no patronym – [Captain of those robbers in the confines of Ptolemais.]
1:109 Jesus, no patronym – [Captain of those robbers in the confines of Ptolemais.]
1:110 Jesus, no patronym – [Captain of those robbers in the confines of Ptolemais.]
1:134 Jesus, son of Sapphias – Governor of Tiberias.
1:178 Jesus, no patronym – Brother of Justus of Tiberias.
1:186 Jesus, no patronym – Brother of Justus of Tiberias.
1:193 Jesus, son of Gamala – High priest & Josephus’ friend.
1:200 Jesus, no patronym – Galilean at head of a band of 600, sent to depose Josephus.
1:204 Jesus, son of Gamala – High priest & Josephus’ friend.
1:246 Jesus, no patronym – Owned a house big as a castle. Governor of Tiberias?
1:271 Jesus, no patronym – Governor of Tiberias.
1:278 Jesus, no patronym – [Governor of Tiberias.]
1:294 Jesus, no patronym – [Governor of Tiberias.]
1:295 Jesus, no patronym – [Governor of Tiberias.]
1:300 Jesus, no patronym – [Governor of Tiberias.]
1:301 Jesus, no patronym – [Governor of Tiberias.]

[Joshpantera]

Strange, Jacob Brother of Christ. That's the James passage. Let's zero in on that: 

 

17. Jesus, brother of Jacob – Called the Christ. Ant 20.200

 

“Iakob” and “Iakobos” 

The transliterated form of “Jacob” (Iakob) is used twenty—seven times in the NT, twenty-five times of the patriarch Jacob and twice of the father of Joseph the supposed father of Jesus (Matt. 1:15-16; in Luke 3:23 the father of Joseph is named “Eli”). The other forty-three references in the NT use the Hellenized form Iakobos, which in English editions is translated as “James.” About half of these identify James the brother of John and son of Zebedee. About one fourth of them probably refer to James the brother of the Lord. The remaining references relate to figures often difficult to identify or distinguish.
...
In addition to the patriarch Jacob, Josephus mentions four other people named Iakobos. The names of these four are translated as "James" in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Josephus. Yet Josephus uses the same Hellenized declinable form of the name for the patriarch Jacob! The other four are James the son of Judas the Galilean (Ant. 20.5.5 §102), James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ (Ant. 20.9.1 §200), James the bodyguard of Josephus (Vita 18 §96; 46 §240), and James the Idumean leader and son of Sosas (J.W. 4.4.2 §235; 4.9.6 §§521-28; 5.6.1 §249; 6.1.8 §92; 6.2.6 §148; 6.8.2 §380). These four are more or less contemporaries of Josephus. This is no justification for translating their names as anything but "Jacob."

-James and Jude (Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament) by Dr. John Painter and Dr. David A. deSilva.
Emphasis added.

[mymistake]

So that gives us a "Jesus brother of Jacob" who was anointed with oil but it doesn't tell us anything else about this Jesus.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Whoa, that is a lot of Jesuses.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I was going to start a new thread, too, but you beat me to it, Josh!  I have some different issues/questions about the TF.  I hope I can add to your thread, since I'm not coming from analysis of passages about Jameses/Jacobs.  I'll get to yours soon, though.  Cheers, Ficino

[Joshpantera]

Sure thing Ficino, I mean to collect any and everything relevant to the question of authenticity so we can continue the discussion.

 

As to the Jesus brother of Jacob, I still see how this reference could have been to a Jacob brother of Jesus Damneus, who, after his brother Jacob's death and a turn of political events became high priest.  http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Josephus_on_Jesus#James.2C_Brother_of_Jesus_passage

 

"And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for 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; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus 

 

This is considered better evidence for the NT Jesus than even the TF, probably because the TF is blatant in extent and this is more subtle. None of the mythicist's are turned off by either passage stating skepticism about both. So I'm not sure why some people use these two references supposedly as a slam dunk to win the case for historicism? 

[♦ ficino ♦]

Just a quickie for now.  Not only Ken Olson, whose expertise Sextus/Tim in his blog sort of qualified by noting that he's still a grad student (http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/the-jesus-myth-theory-reponse-to-david.html), but Louis Feldman, grand old man of Josephan studies, has written on the likelihood that Eusebius concocted the TF.  I haven't seen Feldman's 2012 paper cited in Tim's blog.

 

Tim, have you read it?  sc. Louis H. Feldman, “On the Authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum Attributed to Josephus,” in New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations, ed. by Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schachter, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012, pp. 13-30.  Feldman is less forthright than Olson in arguing for outright forgery.

 

I hope to come back to Feldman's paper later on.

 

IF the whole TF is interpolated and not just the most Christian-sounding parts of it, then it seems to me that the words "called the Messiah" at AJ 20.200 are also called into question.  Because if Josephus had not in fact written about Jesus the messiah in AJ 18, his side identification of Jesus as so-called messiah in book 20 would be a huge claim made with no explanation.  This reasoning does not prove that the two references stand or fall together, but it seems to me that plausibility inclines toward their standing or falling together.

 

That's all I can say now!  Carry on, noble Joshua.

[centauri]

But no Jesus of Nazareth is ever mentioned, despite the Gospels claiming that he was famous during his lifetime.

[Joshpantera]

"IF the whole TF is interpolated and not just the most Christian-sounding parts of it, then it seems to me that the words "called the Messiah" at AJ 20.200 are also called into question.  Because if Josephus had not in fact written about Jesus the messiah in AJ 18, his side identification of Jesus as so-called messiah in book 20 would be a huge claim made with no explanation.  This reasoning does not prove that the two references stand or fall together, but it seems to me that plausibility inclines toward their standing or falling together."

 

That stands out to me as well. Also the Pilate reference. The whole thing sounds to me like something straight out of the gospels. 

[Joshpantera]

But no Jesus of Nazareth is ever mentioned, despite the Gospels claiming that he was famous during his lifetime.

Jesus fame spread far and wide: Matthew 4:23-25, 5:1, 8:1, 8:18, 9:8, 9:31, 9:33, 9:36, 11:7, 12:15, 13:2, 14:1, 14:13, 14:22, 15:30, 19:2, 21:9, 26:55;

Mark 1:28, 10:1;

 

Luke: 4:14, 4:37, 5:15, 14:25, etc.

 

They really botched up those claims. Some scholars who do believe in some type of an historical Jesus still readily admit the problem of credible evidence supporting the belief: 

 

"The Gospels are neither histories nor biographies, even within the ancient tolerances for those genres." - Dr. John Dominic Crossan

 

"The gospels are in fact anonymous" - Dr. Craig L. Blomberg

 

"Apart from the New Testament writings and later writings dependent upon these, our sources of information about the life and teaching of Jesus are scanty and problematic"

- F.F. Bruce, a founder of the modern evangelical movement

 

"...there are very few sources for knowledge of the historical Jesus beyond the four canonical Gospels. Paul and Josephus offer little more than tidbits. Claims that later apocryphal Gospels and the Nag Hammadi material supply independent and reliable historical information about Jesus are largely fantasy. In the end, the historian is left with the difficult task of sifting through the Four Gospels for historical tradition." - John P. Meier

 

"One would naturally expect that the Lord Jesus Christ would be sufficiently important to receive ample notice in the literature of his time, and that extensive biographical material would be available. He was observed by multitudes of people, and his own followers numbered into the hundreds (1 Cor. 15:6), whose witness was still living in the middle of the first century. As a matter of fact, the amount of information concerning him is comparatively meager. Aside from the four Gospels, and a few scattered allusions in the epistles, contemporary history is almost silent concerning him." - Merrill C. Tenney

[centauri]

To top it off, the amazing event of dead people being resurrected and strolling into Jerusalem is missed by all writers, except the author of Matt 27.

If that isn't evidence of embellishment I don't know what is.

[♦ ficino ♦]

To top it off, the amazing event of dead people being resurrected and strolling into Jerusalem is missed by all writers, except the author of Matt 27.

If that isn't evidence of embellishment I don't know what is.

Right.  But academics who think there was a real guy behind the gospel Jesus don't care about supernatural details like that one.  They think we can safely say there was a peasant Jewish apocalyptic preacher who assembled some sort of following and then was crucified.

[mymistake]

 

To top it off, the amazing event of dead people being resurrected and strolling into Jerusalem is missed by all writers, except the author of Matt 27.

If that isn't evidence of embellishment I don't know what is.

Right.  But academics who think there was a real guy behind the gospel Jesus don't care about supernatural details like that one.  They think we can safely say there was a peasant Jewish apocalyptic preacher who assembled some sort of following and then was crucified.

 

 

 

That hypothesis would make more sense if this preacher Jesus died a long time before Paul and the writing of the first gospel.  Preferably long enough that everybody who knew him would be dead before the wild tales began to proliferate.

 

Does the Josephus passage give us any clue when this alleged Jesus brother of Jakob/James died?

[foak]

Let's suppose for a moment that the "Bible" was not written to be an historical account of anyone.

The first thing that happens is that Christianity no longer has a foundation.

 

So if it is not history and it is not about some invisible beings that we are forever trying to get something from, then what is it all about?

Religion has certainly been corrupted and co-opted by governments since recorded history, but never once is there any evidence that these governments started a single one of them.

So who started these countless religions and why?

Certainly those who wrote these things must have known something if governments felt a need to kill the leaders and corrupt the texts.

So while i abandoned Christianity many years ago and have helped many others out of cults and various denominations, i never did abandon these questions.

What i see is that Christianity has lost it's way just as predicted.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

 

To top it off, the amazing event of dead people being resurrected and strolling into Jerusalem is missed by all writers, except the author of Matt 27.

If that isn't evidence of embellishment I don't know what is.

Right.  But academics who think there was a real guy behind the gospel Jesus don't care about supernatural details like that one.  They think we can safely say there was a peasant Jewish apocalyptic preacher who assembled some sort of following and then was crucified.

 

 

 

That hypothesis would make more sense if this preacher Jesus died a long time before Paul and the writing of the first gospel.  Preferably long enough that everybody who knew him would be dead before the wild tales began to proliferate.

 

Does the Josephus passage give us any clue when this alleged Jesus brother of Jakob/James died?

 

The reference to James as "brother of Jesus the one called Christ" or "the so-called Christ" (Antiquities 20.200) does not say anything about the death of James' bro Jesus.  It's explicit that James was stoned at the instigation of then high Priest Ananus in the time when Albinus was on his way to take over as Roman governor.  That would put the death of James in 62. Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, 2.23.18, quotes Hegesippus as writing that after one of the scribes clubbed James to death, "And right away Vespasian began to besiege them." Some critics think this text places James' martyrdom in around 69.

 

In any case, the infamous Testimonium Flavianum in Antiquities 18.63 says that Jesus was condemned to crucifixion by Pilate.  It does not give a year.  Pilate is generally held to have been prefect from 26-36.

 

Josephus' reader at Antiquities 20 can only know about this "Jesus the one called Christ" by referring to the paragraph in book 18.