Was Josephus a Christian?

[DCHindley]

SA,

As I once said of you: “You are out of your mind, SA! Too much learning is driving you insane!”

DCH

[DCHindley]

John2,

I think I pinpointed the start of the commentary:

viewtopic.php?p=82345#p82345

SA was also pushing his Shiloh angle as the source of the "ambiguous oracle" mentioned by Josephus.

I was quite skeptical myself at first, that the ambiguous oracle referred to passages in Daniel.

While aware that Dan 9 and other passages of Daniel are frequently dated to around 164 BCE, and that some early Christians had considered Jesus as the "christ" there mentioned, when I took apart passages from Dan 7 & Dan 9 as found in the Old Greek version (mid 2nd to late 1st century BCE) and Theodotion, I concluded in my oh-so-wrong way that the order of the elements relayed in the Hebrew had been modified by Theodotion, apparently to apply the prophecy to <<<drumroll>>> Vespasian in late 1st century CE.

There is uncertainty about the date of composition of the Theodotion Greek translation. While I know that OG Daniel and some variants to the other OG books had been preserved in strictly Judean/Jewish circles, I do not know if this extends to Theodotion's translation as well.

As usual, I am probably wroooong.

DCH

Regarding the Shiloh = Vespasian idea, in ARN 4.5, R. ben Zakkai applies the word addir (אַדִּיר)

You can't tell the difference between what Josephus figured out about a living person who ACTUALLY RULED THE WORLD and took the scepter away from Judea and this shit?

Ben somewhere in the misty past made a better case that Josephus had Dan. 9 in mind, given that Josephus says the world ruler would arise "about that time." The Shiloh prophecy is vague, saying only "until Shiloh comes" or such, nothing that would indicate that it would happen around 70 CE like Daniel.

9:25: Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress.

26Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing.

Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed. 27And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week,i but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.

If I can find Ben's thread I'll link to it here, because I came away from it convinced that Josephus had Dan. 9 in mind.

[Secret Alias]

How else other than a letter by letter transposition from Latin into Hebrew would be appropriate for the ruler of the world.

[Secret Alias]

What part of ואספאסיאנוס is objectionable?

[Ken Olson]

We also have three records of a prediction or prophecy made (or delivered) by Josephus himself:

Josephus Jewish War 3.399:

[399] When Josephus heard him give those orders, he said that he had somewhat in his mind that he would willingly say to himself alone. When therefore they were all ordered to withdraw, excepting Titus and two of their friends, he said, "Thou, O Vespasian, thinkest no more than that thou hast taken Josephus himself captive; but I come to thee as a messenger of greater tidings; for had not I been sent by God to thee, I knew what was the law of the Jews in this case? and how it becomes generals to die. Dost thou send me to Nero? For why? Are Nero's successors till they come to thee still alive? Thou, O Vespasian, art Caesar and emperor, thou, and this thy son. Bind me now still faster, and keep me for thyself, for thou, O Caesar, are not only lord over me, but over the land and the sea, and all mankind; and certainly I deserve to be kept in closer custody than I now am in, in order to be punished, if I rashly affirm any thing of God." When he had said this, Vespasian at present did not believe him, but supposed that Josephus said this as a cunning trick, in order to his own preservation; but in a little time he was convinced, and believed what he said to be true, God himself erecting his expectations, so as to think of obtaining the empire, and by other signs fore-showing his advancement. He also found Josephus to have spoken truth on other occasions; for one of those friends that were present at that secret conference said to Josephus, "I cannot but wonder how thou couldst not foretell to the people of Jotapata that they should be taken, nor couldst foretell this captivity which hath happened to thyself, unless what thou now sayest be a vain thing, in order to avoid the rage that is risen against thyself." To which Josephus replied, "I did foretell to the people of Jotapata that they would be taken on the forty-seventh day, and that I should be caught alive by the Romans." Now when Vespasian had inquired of the captives privately about these predictions, he found them to be true, and then he began to believe those that concerned himself. Yet did he not set Josephus at liberty from his hands, but bestowed on him suits of clothes, and other precious gifts; he treated him also in a very obliging manner, and continued so to do, Titus still joining his interest ill the honors that were done him.

Suetonius Vespasian 5.5-7:

5 He dreamed in Greece that the beginning of good fortune for himself and his family would come as soon as Nero had a tooth extracted; and on the next day it came to pass that a physician walked into the hall​15 and showed him a tooth which he had just then taken out. 6 When he consulted the oracle of the god of Carmel in Judaea, the lots were highly encouraging, promising that whatever he planned or wished however great it might be, would come to pass; and one of his high-born prisoners, Josephus by name, as he was being put in chains, declared most confidently that he would soon be released by the same man, who would then, however, be emperor. 7 Omens were also reported from Rome: Nero in his latter days was admonished in a dream to take the sacred chariot of Jupiter Optimus Maximus from its shrine to the house of Vespasian and from there to the Circus. Not long after this, too, when Galba was on his way to the elections which gave him his second consul­ship, a statue of the Deified Julius of its own accord turned towards the East; and on the field of Betriacum, before the battle began, two eagles fought in the sight of all, and when one was vanquished, a third came from the direction of the rising sun and drove off the victor.

Dio Cassius Roman History 65.1

1 Such was the course of these events; and following them Vespasian was declared emperor by the senate also, and Titus and Domitian were given the title of Caesars. The consular office was assumed by Vespasian and Titus while the former was in Egypt and the latter in Palestine. 2 Now portents and dreams had come to Vespasian pointing to the sovereignty long beforehand. Thus, as he was eating dinner on his country estate, where most of his time was spent, an ox approached him, knelt down and placed his head beneath his feet. On another occasion, when he was also eating, a dog dropped a human hand under the table. 3 And a conspicuous cypress tree, which had been uprooted and overthrown by a violent wind, stood upright again on the following day by its own power and continued to flourish. From a dream he learned that when Nero Caesar should lose a tooth, he himself should be emperor. This prophecy about the tooth became a reality on the following day; and Nero himself in his dreams once thought that he had brought the car of Jupiter to Vespasian's house. These portents needed interpretation; 4 but not so the saying of a Jew named Josephus: he, having earlier been captured by Vespasian and imprisoned, laughed and said: "You may imprison me now, but a year from now, when you have become emperor, you will release me."

For these three passages, does Josephus say any more than that he foretold that Vespasian would become emperor (i.e., do we need a Messianic interpretation here)?

Best,

Ken

Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, like Josephus, is said to have predicted that Vespasin would come to be emperor. According to a story in the Talmud, he was able to escape Jerusalem by faking his own death and being carried out in a coffin. He made his way to the Roman lines where he met Vespasian and told him:

in truth, you are a king, if not now, then in the future. As if you are not a king, Jerusalem will not be handed over into your hand, as it is written: “And the Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one” (Isaiah 10:34). And “mighty one” means only a king, as it is written: “And their mighty one shall be of themselves, and their ruler shall proceed from the midst of them” (Jeremiah 30:21), indicating that “mighty one” parallels “ruler.” And “Lebanon” means only the Temple, as it is stated: “That good mountain and the Lebanon” (Deuteronomy 3:25). And as for what you said with your second comment: If I am a king why didn’t you come to me until now, there are zealots among us who did not allow us to do this. (Gittin 56b)

The quotation and the larger story it is taken from can be found here:

https://www.sefaria.org/Gittin.56a.18?l ... l&lang2=en

This is interesting for two closely related reasons. First, like Josephus, Yoḥanan ben Zakkai predicts that Vespasian will become king (emperor). There is no suggestion that he acknowledged Vespasian as the Messiah. Second, he finds scriptural support for his claim in Isaiah 10.34, quoted as 'And the Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one', and then decodes Isaiah by going to other scriptural passages to interpret Lebanon and 'mighty one'. He is employing the rabbinic principle of exegesis that scripture interprets scripture, and he uses Jeremiah 30:21 to show that 'mighty one' indicates ruler (or king) and Deuteronomy 3.25 to show that Lebanon means the temple.

The point is that his exegesis of the scriptures has nothing at all to do with what we might call the plain sense of the text. If we didn't have the steps of the interpretation written out for us, it is very unlikely we could reason backward from the conclusion to the premises. Interpreting what the scriptures say is a creative endeavor.

Josephus himself justifies going over to Vespasian because of dreams God had sent him and interpretations he made of unspecified scriptures while in an ecstatic state:

[350] Now as Josephus began to hesitate with himself about Nicanor's proposal, the soldiery were so angry, that they ran hastily to set fire to the den; but the tribune would not permit them so to do, as being very desirous to take the man alive. And now, as Nicanor lay hard at Josephus to comply, and he understood how the multitude of the enemies threatened him, he called to mind the dreams which he had dreamed in the night time, whereby God had signified to him beforehand both the future calamities of the Jews, and the events that concerned the Roman emperors. Now Josephus was able to give shrewd conjectures about the interpretation of such dreams as have been ambiguously delivered by God. Moreover, he was not unacquainted with the prophecies contained in the sacred books, as being a priest himself, and of the posterity of priests: and just then was he in an ecstasy; and setting before him the tremendous images of the dreams he had lately had, he put up a secret prayer to God, and said, "Since it pleaseth thee, who hast created the Jewish nation, to depress the same, and since all their good fortune is gone over to the Romans, and since thou hast made choice of this soul of mine to foretell what is to come to pass hereafter, I willingly give them my hands, and am content to live. And I protest openly that I do not go over to the Romans as a deserter of the Jews, but as a minister from thee."

Best,

Ken

[John2]

This is interesting for two closely related reasons. First, like Josephus, Yoḥanan ben Zakkai predicts that Vespasian will become king (emperor). There is no suggestion that he acknowledged Vespasian as the Messiah. Second, he finds scriptural support for his claim in Isaiah 10.34, quoted as 'And the Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one', and then decodes Isaiah by going to other scriptural passages to interpret Lebanon and 'mighty one'. He is employing the rabbinic principle of exegesis that scripture interprets scripture, and he uses Jeremiah 30:21 to show that 'mighty one' indicates ruler (or king) and Deuteronomy 3.25 to show that Lebanon means the temple.

The point is that his exegesis of the scriptures has nothing at all to do with what we might call the plain sense of the text. If we didn't have the steps of the interpretation written out for us, it is very unlikely we could reason backward from the conclusion to the premises. Interpreting what the scriptures say is a creative endeavor.

But "mighty one" is interpreted as "the Messiah" in other Jewish writings (the DSS and 2 Baruch), as discussed in chapter 13 of Bauckham's The Jewish World Around the New Testament ("The Messianic Interpretation of Isaiah 10:34"), and I would feel comfortable betting that ben Zakkai was aware of this interpretation given that the DSS existed in his time and his experience of being trapped in Jerusalem by Jews who applied the ambiguous oracle to themselves.

Regarding the DSS on pages 195-196:

Isaiah 10:33-34 are then taken [in 4QpIsa] to refer to the final battle in which the Kittim are destroyed. The Messiah identified in Isaiah 11:1-5 is therefore the one whose victory over the Kittim has already been described at the end of chapter 10 ...

The precise interpretation of v 34b ('and Lebanon will fall by a powerful one') is again not entirely clear in either text [of 4QpIsa], but careful attention to both texts reveals that probably 'by a powerful one' (בְּאַדִּ֥יר) is understood to refer to the Prince of the Congregation ... An interpretation of אַדִּיר as the Messiah would have been assisted by the fact that this word is used of the messianic ruler in Jeremiah 30:21.

This messianic reading is confirmed by 4Q285, fr. 5, which quotes v 34 along with at least the first half of 11:1, and presumably interprets both verses together in the fragmentary text (lines 3-5) about 'the Prince of the Congregation, the Branch of David'.


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

[Ken Olson]

This is interesting for two closely related reasons. First, like Josephus, Yoḥanan ben Zakkai predicts that Vespasian will become king (emperor). There is no suggestion that he acknowledged Vespasian as the Messiah. Second, he finds scriptural support for his claim in Isaiah 10.34, quoted as 'And the Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one', and then decodes Isaiah by going to other scriptural passages to interpret Lebanon and 'mighty one'. He is employing the rabbinic principle of exegesis that scripture interprets scripture, and he uses Jeremiah 30:21 to show that 'mighty one' indicates ruler (or king) and Deuteronomy 3.25 to show that Lebanon means the temple.

The point is that his exegesis of the scriptures has nothing at all to do with what we might call the plain sense of the text. If we didn't have the steps of the interpretation written out for us, it is very unlikely we could reason backward from the conclusion to the premises. Interpreting what the scriptures say is a creative endeavor.

But "mighty one" is interpreted as "the Messiah" in other Jewish writings (the DSS and 2 Baruch), as discussed in chapter 13 of Bauckham's The Jewish World Around the New Testament ("The Messianic Interpretation of Isaiah 10:34"), and I would feel comfortable betting that ben Zakkai was aware of this interpretation given that the DSS existed in his time and his experience of being trapped in Jerusalem by Jews who applied the ambiguous oracle to themselves.

Regarding the DSS on pages 195-196:

Isaiah 10:33-34 are then taken [in 4QpIsa] to refer to the final battle in which the Kittim are destroyed. The Messiah identified in Isaiah 11:1-5 is therefore the one whose victory over the Kittim has already been described at the end of chapter 10 ...

The precise interpretation of v 34b ('and Lebanon will fall by a powerful one') is again not entirely clear in either text [of 4QpIsa], but careful attention to both texts reveals that probably 'by a powerful one' (בְּאַדִּ֥יר) is understood to refer to the Prince of the Congregation ... An interpretation of אַדִּיר as the Messiah would have been assisted by the fact that this word is used of the messianic ruler in Jeremiah 30:21.

This messianic reading is confirmed by 4Q285, fr. 5, which quotes v 34 along with at least the first half of 11:1, and presumably interprets both verses together in the fragmentary text (lines 3-5) about 'the Prince of the Congregation, the Branch of David'.


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

Very interesting that Bauckham wrote an article specifically on Messianic interpretation of Isaiah 10.34. I take it you think Bauckham is mistaken in what he says about בּאדיר in the passage concerning Yoḥanan ben Zakkai that we are discussing:

Among explicit interpretations of Isaiah 10:34 in extant Jewish literature,
these two Qumran texts are unique in taking בּאדיר as a reference to the
Messiah. Both the LXX of Isaiah 10:33-34 and the Targum to these verses
interpret them as referring to a battle in which the enemies of Israel are
defeated and slain, but neither understands בּאדיר as the Messiah. A different
interpretation, attributed in rabbinic literature to Yohanan ben Zakkai, takes
Isaiah 10:34 b to refer to the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.: Lebanon
is interpreted as the Temple, following a widely attested exegetical tradition
of understanding Lebanon in many biblical texts in this way, and בּאדיר
is understood to refer to the emperor Vespasian, through whom the temple
fell (Lam. R. 1:5:31; b. Gitt. 56a-56 b). A development of this tradition
concluded, by understanding 10:34 and 11:1 in close connection, that the
Messiah was born at the time when the temple was destroyed (j. Ber. 2:5a).
This exegesis shares with 4Q285 and 4Qplsa the practice of reading 10:34 in
close connexion with 11:1, but it does not take בּאדיר to refer to the Messiah.
[Bauckham, Jewish World, 197]

Best,

Ken

[John2]

Right, but then Bauckham goes on to discuss 2 Baruch and summarizes it on pg. 200:

2 Baruch 36-40 demonstrates that the messianic interpretation of Isaiah 10:34 was not confined to the Qumran community, but must have been more widely known and accepted in the New Testament period.

It doesn't matter if ben Zakkai and other rabbis didn't subscribe to this interpretation. What matters is that it existed and was surely known to them.

[John2]

The only difference between the two interpretations is that pro-Roman Jews took Lebanon to mean the Temple and anti-Roman Jews took it to mean the Romans. Both understand אַדִּיר as meaning a king or Messiah and both interpretations were "in the air" at the same time, and if you wanted to save your skin, it was better to choose the former.

[John2]

I think what the rabbis did was tone down the meaning of something they knew was being interpreted messianically by anti-Roman Jews ("mighty one"), in order to save Judaism in the face of reality. But "mighty one" still can have that sense, as the rabbis surely knew (as per Jer. 30:21).