Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

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andrewcriddle
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by andrewcriddle »

The text in translation (Agapius Pseudo-Hegesippus) seems particularly uncontrolled. It might be better to limit the discussion to Greek sources only.

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arnoldo
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by arnoldo »

According to Jerome O'Conner the original core text was a hostile witness. .

https://books.google.com/books?id=aDbaq ... us&f=false

Elsewhere I've read that if not for the christian interpolations in the works of Josephus his works wouldn't of been preserved.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

andrewcriddle wrote:The text in translation (Agapius Pseudo-Hegesippus) seems particularly uncontrolled. It might be better to limit the discussion to Greek sources only.
Some of the Latin translations (Rufinus and Jerome), however, follow the Greek along virtually word for word (taking into account concrete linguistic limitations such as the lack of a definite article in Latin). On the other side, there are plenty of Greek paraphrases and (sometimes extreme) summaries to consider (the Dialogue, Malalas, Sozomen, Glycas), and even some of the Greek renditions which nail every other part of the passage will leave off the last sentence about the Christian tribe persevering (Symeon, Cedrenus, Gregory). So I do not think that language is a very real indicator of paraphrastic tendency here; there is far too much overlap in the middle between exact Latin and inexact Greek.
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Roger Pearse
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by Roger Pearse »

Let's remember that "Agapius" is actually modern extracts from the inedited 13th c. Christian Arabic writer, al-Makin.
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by Roger Pearse »

andrewcriddle wrote:The text in translation (Agapius Pseudo-Hegesippus) seems particularly uncontrolled. It might be better to limit the discussion to Greek sources only.
In an exercise of this nature, where the object is to make an argument based on what is NOT mentioned, the use of Arabic versions may involve risks not attached to other versions; not even to Syriac.

As some will know, some years ago I created an English translation of Agapius, from the French version in the Patrologia Orientalis, with the idea of promoting wider interest in the work, and in Christian Arabic literature in general. I have more recently been creating an English translation of his 10th century contemporary Eutychius, in much the same manner, and for the same reasons.

What impressed me most in both cases was the presence of storytelling and dialogue. I am not a specialist, but the material seemed clearly introduced, anachronistic, and invented.

Now I have not enquired into the sources for both histories, so I do not know to what extend these features might be present in other texts in the same period in other languages. But I do wonder whether these are characteristics of Arabic historical literature?

This is, after all, the period of the "Thousand and One Nights". We are in a period where the word we render "philosopher" is "hakim" - he may also be a "doctor", or just a learned man, or maybe even a magician. We are not in the ancient world, or anything like it.

I also noted in Eutychius (aka Sa`id ibn Bitriq) definite signs of the suppression of ideas which might be unwelcome to Muslim readers. This may affect Agapius (or Mahboub ibn Qustantin, as we may call him here) also.

Arabic Christian histories also seem prone to expansion by later readers. Several exist in more than one version; one much larger than the other. This is where Pines made the mistake with Al-Makin, of presuming that material about Josephus in Al-Makin "must" be borrowed from no longer extant versions of Agapius. But if we look at Eutychius, we do have portions of the autograph; and the vulgate text of it has been expanded all over the place.

I have no idea how all this affects the argument, as I have not looked at Ben's marvellous table of witnesses with attention. But may I make a plea for considerable caution in using this language group for studies where verbal exactitude is required? It seems unlikely to me, based on my limited knowledge of the area, that the texts will bear this.

All the best,

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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by DCHindley »

Roger,

If I understand it, we really have English translations of either a French translation of, or the original Arabic of, the following sources:

Source
Agapius bp. Of Heirapolis (Mahboub of Menbidj):
al-Makin [Girgis] ibn al-`Amid:
al-Makin [Girgis] ibn al-`Amid:.
Whiston's E.T. of the T.F. in Ant 18 Kitab al-ʻunvan = universal history. (century X, Roger Pearce's ET of the T.F. citation in Vasiliev's 1910-1915 French tr of the Florence ms.) al-Magmu` al-Mubarak 'The blessed collection,' a universal history (century XIII, Martino Diez' E.T. of the T.F. from the longer form of the account, as found in ms. Paris ar. 4729) al-Magmu` al-Mubarak 'The blessed collection,' a universal history (century XIII, Schlomo Pines' E.T. of the T.F. from the longer form of the account, as found in Paris BNF ar. 294, f.162v-163r). He was convinced at the time that this was a citation from Agapius.
1. And there is about this time 1) At that time there was 1) in those days, there was 1) At this time there was
2. Jesus, a wise man, 2) a wise man named Jesus, 2) a wise man named Jesus. 2) a wise man who was called Jesus.
3. if indeed it is necessary to say that he is a man; - - -
4. for he was a doer of miraculous works, 3) whose life was perfect, 3) He lived a good life, 3) His conduct was good,
5. a teacher of men who receive true things with pleasure, 4) his virtues were recognized, 4) distinguishing himself by his learning, 4) and he was known to be virtuous.
6. and many Jews, and also many of the Greek element, he led to himself; 5) and many Jews and Gentiles became his disciples. 5) and many people, as many Jews as of other nations, became his disciples. 5) And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples.
7. this man was the Christ. 9) Maybe he was the Messiah, 9) Perhaps he was the Messiah 9) accordingly he was perhaps the messiah,
8. And, when on the accusation of the first men among us Pilate had condemned him to a cross, 6) And Pilate condemned him to death on a cross, 6) Pilate condemned him to crucifixion and death. 6) Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die.
9. those who had first loved him did not cease; 7) and those who had become his disciples, preached his doctrine. 7) But those who had become his disciples did not cease to be so, 7) But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.
10. for he appeared to them on the third day living again, 8) They claimed that he appeared to them alive three days after his passion. 8) and affirmed that he had appeared to them three days after the crucifixion and that he was alive. 8) They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive;
11. the divine prophets having said both these things and myriads of other wonders concerning him. 10) about whom the prophets had spoken of miracles. 10) of whom the prophets speak. 10) concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.
12. And even until now the tribe of Christians, named from this man, has not been lacking. - - -

Now, without looking too hard, it does look like the order of elements Ben C Smith segmented out of the T.F. in Josephus Ant 18, are in a different order in these citations (I have supplied this with numbers). In the translations of two variants of the longer version of al-Makin's al-Magmu` al-Mubarak, the order of elements in the T.F. of Martino Diez' translation of ms. Paris ar. 4729, as well as Shlomo Pines' translation from ms. Paris BNF ar. 294, appear to be the same.

Off hand, I have not yet checked to see if the relative order of elements in the other citations differ from Josephus' order and in what way, as Ben may have wanted to compare the elements side by side more than preserve relative order. Maybe there should be a way to do so in the rest of your table, where it differs from the order in Josephus.

Maybe I should take a closer look since I am on holiday tomorrow (it's a official government holiday, and I am an official government employee, so ...).

Is any one else's head spinning at all this hullabaloo?

DCH
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

DCHindley wrote:Now, without looking too hard, it does look like the order of elements Ben C Smith segmented out of the T.F. in Josephus Ant 18, are in a different order in these citations (I have supplied this with numbers). In the translations of two variants of the longer version of al-Makin's al-Magmu` al-Mubarak, the order of elements in the T.F. of Martino Diez' translation of ms. Paris ar. 4729, as well as Shlomo Pines' translation from ms. Paris BNF ar. 294, appear to be the same.

Off hand, I have not yet checked to see if the relative order of elements in the other citations differ from Josephus' order and in what way, as Ben may have wanted to compare the elements side by side more than preserve relative order.
Exactly so. I wrote:
Ben C. Smith wrote:I could not preserve the order of some of the passages, since some of the authors mix it up a bit, but I believe the entirety of each text is displayed in full....
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by DCHindley »

Ben,

Just for the sake of discussion, after sorting out the Agapius & al-Makin Diez vs. Pines mess in order to update your table, I created a new table from the info you recently posted. It's all in the Greek or Latin or English Translation of Syriac or Arabic, from here:
http://www.textexcavation.com/josephustestimonium.html
plus info from Roger Pearce's WordPress blog on the Shlomo Pines and Martino Diez English translations of two variant mss. of the long form of al-Makin's paraphrase of the T.F., which Pines identified as an unattributed quote from Agapius.

Ben's table included Leo Grammaticus but this Greek author was not on the page above, but I located an image PDF copy of it online so I could still check the order of phrases.

See the attached 6 page PDF of the MS Excel spreadsheet (which I can also post here if anyone asks, or send as an e-mail attachment if we exchange private e-mails via the private message feature of this board).
Ben's Table of TF witnesses, with tweaking by DCH as of 2016, Dec 27.pdf
I recommend setting View settings to View/Zoom/Set Visible
(390.82 KiB) Downloaded 672 times
Ben's Table of TF witnesses, with tweaking by DCH as of 2016, Dec 27.xls
For those of you who do NOT use 8088 computers with 20 Mb HDD and 640K of RAM
(62.5 KiB) Downloaded 683 times
I also realized that the E.T. of the Syriac translation of Eusebius' Theophania does not appear to be that of that of Samuel Lee's 1843 translation, so I do not know if you found a better translation of the TF by Lee (if so, where?), or perhaps someone else and simply did not update the web page by accident (again, what source did you use?). A new column was added for Lee's 1843 translation (see page 2, Ben's original data is at the right edge column of page 1).

Have fun with this. :notworthy:

DCH

Edit 12/27/16: replaced the PDF with one better formatted for the space available, and the original Excel Spreadsheet (the original was downloaded 4 times)
Last edited by DCHindley on Tue Dec 27, 2016 2:14 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Thanks, David. Lots of work there. I have a transcription of Leo on this forum: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2471&p=56233&hilit= ... leo#p56235.

I cannot remember where I got that translation of the Syriac for Eusebius. It appears that all online renditions of it ultimately derive from my own website, so I undoubtedly got it from some hard copy source many moons ago. I should have kept track of that, but apparently I did not.
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Re: Is there a core text of the Testimonium Flavianum?

Post by DCHindley »

Ben C. Smith wrote:Thanks, David. Lots of work there. I have a transcription of Leo on this forum: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2471&p=56233&hilit= ... leo#p56235.
Yep, that was the same one I located as well.
I cannot remember where I got that translation of the Syriac for Eusebius. It appears that all online renditions of it ultimately derive from my own website, so I undoubtedly got it from some hard copy source many moons ago. I should have kept track of that, but apparently I did not.
Since the website says you were using Lee's translation, I was surprised that the translation actually there was not Lee's, but someone else's. Search as I may, I just could not find that same translation by searching its unique phrases, nor find any other one, even for just the Testimonium Flavium (or whatever it is actually spelled like), except, as you noted, hits to your website or posts you make here.

DCH
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