The Greek Outline to Antiquities 18

[Peter Kirby]

Ken Olson asks the question: what do the facts say?

"After checking this, I don’t see how Nodet’s theory that the influence of Eusebius’ Chronikon may explain why the hypothesis of Book XVIII of the Antiquities gives 32 instead of 35 years can work. The Chronikon (as preserved by Jerome) places Quirinus in the 4th year of the 194th Olympiad and the death of Gaius in the fourth year of the 204th Olympiad. That’s more like 40 years. I wish Nodet had given more details on how he made his calculations."
-- Ken Olson

I have considerably tempered the conclusions and statements of the article. I have also added this discussion to it.

I have not been able to locate Nodet’s explanation according to which this may have happened, but I have been able to review the English translation of the Latin of Jerome’s Chronicon to see how it might have happened. The following dates appear in the Chronicon:

194th Olympiad, year 4 = “1 BC (March – Feb 1 AD)” = Quirinius’ Census (6/7 AD)
195th Olympiad, year 3 = “3 AD (March – Feb 4 AD)” = Herod the Great Dies (Mar/Apr 4 BC)
202nd Olympiad, year 4 = “32 AD (March – Feb 33 AD)” = Jesus Dies
204th Olympiad, year 4 = “40 AD (March – Feb 41 AD)” = Gaius Dies (Jan 24th, 41 AD)

If there were an accurate original reading here, it would presumably have listed the number of years between the beginning of Quirinius in Syria and the death of Gaius, inclusively, which can be reckoned as “40”-“6″+1, which would be 35, as Nodet indicates.

Now the question comes as to why someone would change that (or why someone would have originally written) 32 years. It would not seem to be based on Josephus’ text itself. Perhaps, then, it is based on the Olympiads mentioned in the Chronicon. This explanation could present itself particularly in a case where the alteration occurred after the reference to Jesus Christ were in the text, as then the alteration would have been made so that the summary here refers to the length of time from Eusebius’ date of the census to Eusebius’ date of the death of Jesus (8 olympiads, or 32 years).

Such an alteration would, presumably, not have been made by Eusebius himself but rather by someone influenced by Eusebius' Chronicon.

This is not really certain at all, but it also isn’t clear that any better explanation of the difficulty has presented itself.

[Peter Kirby]

May I add a note of caution? This analysis also presumes that the table of contents / summaries to Antiquities are authorial, rather than later compositions for unknown purposes.

I just realized that this is completely true when considering the OP of the thread.

I rewrote it to provide a more nuanced conclusion in the blog post:

"This can be said to go some way towards establishing the plausibility or likelihood of Nodet’s hypothesis regarding the original purpose of the outline to book 18 of the Antiquities, although there may also be other explanations. For example, perhaps the explanation is as simple as the idea that the things that Josephus considers important, essential, or memorable to him in this part of history, which were mentioned in his War book 2, were unlikely to be omitted from his table of contents for the Antiquities book 18. Either explanation tends to provide support for the view that this Greek outline has its origin either with Josephus or one of his assistants, due to the connection to War book 2, which is from Josephus."

There may be yet other explanations that have nothing to do with Josephus or his assistant authoring the table, as well.

[Peter Kirby]

Does anyone actually know whether "P" here refers to the editio princeps (the first printed edition) or to Codex Palatinus?

Thackeray lists Codex Palatinus (P) as ending at book 17, skipping to Life, but that might still mean that it has the first page or two of book 18, with the table of contents...

So have I misread the apparatus? Is the "P" representing the table of contents a ms. ?

[Secret Alias]

But there is something interesting here.

[Peter Kirby]

But there is something interesting here.

?

[Peter Kirby]

Does anyone actually know whether "P" here refers to the editio princeps (the first printed edition) or to Codex Palatinus?

Thackeray lists Codex Palatinus (P) as ending at book 17, skipping to Life, but that might still mean that it has the first page or two of book 18, with the table of contents...

So have I misread the apparatus? Is the "P" representing the table of contents a ms. ?

I tried to check the Codex Palatinus manuscript (housed by the Vatican -- ms. Pal. gr. 14) online, but there are technical difficulties.

[DCHindley]

I don't think Pal. gr. 14 has yet been digitized.

DCH

[MrMacSon]

Is Goldberg's article/work relevant? - http://www.josephus.org/LUKECH.html

[Peter Kirby]

Not relevant to the table of contents thing...

And it's had an outsized influence (online, mostly) compared to its actual merits.