Hi Greg,
Sorry to take so long to respond, am going through some work problems.
Anyways, no I have not "published" anything on the subject of Hegesippus' "James the Just" other than posts here and apparently on FRDB that preceded it.
On these lists I had told the tale of looking for characters named Jakob (James), a Jesus, Ananus, and a door. That was when I located the story about the Idumeans, who came in five bands to assist the revolution at the rebel's request, found the gates to Jerusalem closed. Up on the battlements of the defensive wall, were the heads of the Provisional Revolutionary Government, Ananus & Jesus (his 2nd in command, also a chief priest) had stationed themselves.
They addressed them pretty rudely, Ananus saying their assistance wasn't needed. "Don't go away mad, just go away." Jesus was much more insulting to them, talking to them as half breed Judeans. It was raining and storming like mad, they were tired and wet, when the rebels (who like the Zealots were not part of the PRG), sneaked in and incapacitated the gate guards, and let them in the city. Invigorated, they rushed in, joined with the rebels & Zealots to smite the rich and powerful for being so insulting towards them. They arrested Ananus and Jesus, and summarily executed them, threw their dead bodies off the wall, and mocked them.
Later, Jakob ben Sosa, the leader of the five Idumean units that had become associated with Simon the war leader, lost faith in Simon bar Giora, and sought to surrender themselves to the Romans (make a deal). Simon's pickets caught some of the messengers and then arrested the Idumeans. They disappear from Josephus's War at this point, but I assumed that they were tried in one of the kangaroo courts the rebels and Zealots were later known for.
viewtopic.php?p=88146#p88146
Later on, I tried to find the source of the name "Oblias" that Hegesippus claims meant "bulwark or defensive-wall." The term for bulwark is not Oblias, which actually means "Leader/Teacher." From an analytical lexicon I found the actual Hebrew word for "bulwark" and searched the Hebrew scriptures for passages where the two words occur together. I found it in Psalms, in a passage where someone is leading someone to the fortified city from Idumea. Uh-oh!
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2540
I had to get a little speculative at this point. I looked up the Stalinist era show trials as he arrested all his political rivals. This included Bakunin, the person who wrote the Soviet constitution in the days of Lenin. He was interrogated and apparently confessed to all his sins against Joe Stalin, and according to his written confession, he said, apparently sincerely, that Stalin was the true leader the revolution, and he was not. I rewrote it to replace the Soviet era names and technical terms to those that may have been applicable in the War of 66 CE+, and you can almost hear his saying "I see the son of man coming in the clouds," sort of like how Bakunin admitted that Stalin was Fate's choice for the revolution.
What's funny is that there is an older book (from around 1917) that had proposed that Simon bar "Giora" called himself a "son of man." They show how such a name "Giora" was really Josephus' disparaging way to describe his real nickname, "son of man" (= a normal human being). Simon had a radical social program and he may have been trying to present himself as "the common person's choice."
viewtopic.php?p=42160#p42160 (the whole 2 page thread)
Then I thought of the Parables of Enoch in Ethiopic Enoch. As is well known, no fragment of it has shown up in the DSS, while all the other 4 Enoch books were. Of course, the question has long been debated: was it a Judean document that originated outside of the DSS circles, or a Christian composition. I was not so sure that a Christian origin was likely, but it did talk a lot about a highly exalted "son of man," who would break the teeth of the rich and powerful and take vengeance on them, and they will be replaced by the poor.
I was seeing a social agenda here, and thought of Simon bar Giora. I realized that the Similitudes might be a Propaganda document of Simon! It was likely carried by Judean refugees who had left Judea, went through Egypt to Ethiopia, where the document was later associated with the Christian redeemer Jesus Christ. Does Jesus break teeth? I don't think so. Simon bar G. was doing so.
viewtopic.php?p=58183#p58183
As far as Hegesippus goes, I think he picked up a public notice that had condemned Jakob ben Sosa, which included his "confession," from a souvenir collector. It was likely written in Aramaic and included the citation from Psalms. He wasn't very good at Aramaic or Hebrew, and perhaps the seller gave a garbled provenance that explained what it was, and he combined that with some Judean lore about capital punishment in the 2nd temple era just passed, and possibly the Ant 20:200 passage (since Ananus was the HP at that time), and came up with his very imaginative account of the death of James the Just we all love and adore.
viewtopic.php?p=55594#p55594
As spin used to say, "Nutters!"
DCH
gdoudna wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2024 5:44 pm
DCHindley wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2024 6:10 am
gdoudna wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 12:55 pm
Assume Hegesippus draws from Papias on the real tradition of James the Just’s death actually occurring during the Revolt.
...
Side comment two: possible identification of Hegesippus’s James the Just, Josephus’s James b. Sosa.)
Hi Greg,
Long time, eh? As far as I know, I think I am the only person to suggest that James son of Sosa, an Idumean commander of a troop of Idumean volunteers, was the source of some of the details Hegesippus attributed to "James the Just." Everyone here, and in academia in general, seems to think that the James "brother of Jesus called christ" just *has* to be James the brother of Jesus of the NT.
While I think that may well be the case, I am not at all convinced that "called christ" is not a technical term for a member of one of the priestly families from which High Priests were drawn, and Jame's brother was someone like Jesus son of Damnaeus, who was in fact the next in line. IIRC, and I'll look this up, there actually are one or two cases where Josephus, apparently accidentally, makes a secondary mention of a character without introducing him/her previously in the narrative, although those occasions may not "count" per Chrissy's definition ("brother-of" type phrases only).
But I'll certainly entertain the idea that the description Hegesippus applies to his "James the Just" character was likely embellished by the deeds, and judgement, of Idumean commander James son of Sosa, mentioned by Josephus in War 4 & 6.
DCH
Hi David! Good to hear from you. Interesting that you have suggested James b. Sosa is in the picture in the Hegesippus James the Just story. If you have an article or publication or even a good citeable online discussion on that I would be interested in knowing.
What I also notice is that James b. Sosa had a brother, John b. Sosa, who with James were leaders of an Idumean army which joined forces with Simon bar Giora under Simon's command in Simon's government of Jerusalem at the time of the Revolt. Of course up to the start of the siege Simon was fighting against the John of Gischala and Eleazar factions inside the city, but after the start of the siege Simon and John ended their hostilities and allied, with Eleazar's fate unclear but apparently becoming a cooperating subcommander in the John faction.
John b. Sosa was killed by a stray Roman arrow at the start of the siege according to Josephus so he is out of the picture leaving James b. Sosa. But before that happened one can see this trio for the government of Jerusalem under Simon: Simon, James, and John (with James and John brothers). Compare for the names the identically named leadership trio in the synoptic Gospels: Simon Peter, James, and John (with James and John brothers). And there is independent argument for identification of Simon bar Giora as the figure underlying the Christian figure Simon Peter, as well as the legendary founder-figure of what the orthodox church of the late 2nd century CE called the heretical "Simonians". All of these figures I believe come out of the ca. 60s or First Revolt era, the time in which Josephus was a participant and actively wrote, and Josephus himself shows up in the Gospels' stories in several ways.
So, rather than see a confusion between distinct figures James the Just (the Christian, the brother of Jesus) and a different James b. Sosa, I say collapse the doppelgangers and identify the one of legend as derivative from the one of history, the ones of history meaning the non-fictional figures in Josephus written from contemporary witness sources.
On Jesus "called Christ", Peter Kirby has discussed this in the past I believe in support of this, but it just seems to me there is nothing at Ant 20.10 going on with Jesus "called Christ" other than that particular Jesus had that particular surname like any other person had any other surname, without expectation that the author should be expected to have explained the etymology or meaning of the surname--with that surname not applied or added editorially by Josephus (in which case Josephus would need to explain) but simply reported as part of a surname just as Josephus reports hundreds of other proper names. And the "called Christ" not interpolated at Ant 20.10 (per the reconstruction in which it is not), but a surname that simply existed for that figure among that figure's contemporaries like any other surname or nickname attached to anyone else. It would not be necessary for Josephus to even know let alone tell the meaning or etymology of that surname any more than any other surname or proper name.
"Simon called Peter" (Mt 10:2). "the man called Jesus" (Jn 9:11). "Jesus called Justus" (Col 4:11).
"legomenus", "X who called Y", like "X the son of Y", "X of <location>", "X the <trade or occupation>", "X the <gentilic or ethnic identifier>" , etc. routine way of reporting proper namings.
As I read it, "Jesus called Christ" of Ant 20.10 is the same figure who shows up in variant form as the prophet Jesus b. Ananias of War who had his capital offense trial at that same time, ca. 62 CE, according to War, 7 years and 5 months before the War story of that figure's death from a Roman catapult stone in the siege of Jerusalem of 70 (as the false report of Josephus's death from a stone in the head told by Josephus illustrates, such reports anciently may or may not have been actually true). Ant 20.10 becomes an allusion that that Jesus b. Ananias of War was surnamed--called such popularly or by some in that figure's circles--"christ". It requires no authorial explanation to the reader of the meaning of the surname, no prior introduction, simply is a reporting of a surname in use applied to that figure by contemporaries like any other figure's proper name. The figure in this particular case just happens to be named Jesus and his trial of ca. 62 CE identified by Weeden with the story of the trial of Jesus of the Christian Gospels.
