How Wrong Is Carrier About Antiquities 20.200 Scholarship?

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How Wrong is Carrier About Antiquities 20.200 Scholarship?

Poll ended at Mon Apr 24, 2017 3:03 am

Completely Wrong
2
25%
Almost Completely Wrong
0
No votes
Mostly Wrong
2
25%
Somewhat Wrong
0
No votes
Somewhat Right
2
25%
Mostly Right
1
13%
Almost Completely Right
1
13%
Completely Right
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 8

Giuseppe
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Re: How Wrong Is Carrier About Antiquities 20.200 Scholarshi

Post by Giuseppe »

Paul the Uncertain wrote:
Given that Origen gives no indication that he intends to be quoting anything from Josephus verbatim
I would disagree. Really Origen gives indication that he is quoting Josephus ''verbatim'', from the point of view of a Christian apologist, and precisely from the larger context of Antiquities 20:200.

Read this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1540


Therefore all what Origen had to do is to interpolate ''called Christ'', the typical Matthean construct to be used when:

1) a biological member of the family of Jesus is mentioned (see Matthew 1:14)

2) a not-Christian person has to refer to Jesus (see Matthew 27:17 or John 4:25)

3) a clear irony is implicit: who is only ''called'' Christ by a not-Christian, he IS really THE Christ.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Paul the Uncertain
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Re: How Wrong Is Carrier About Antiquities 20.200 Scholarshi

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Giuseppe

Perhaps at a later time when we can both post URLs, we will have occasion to revisit our differences. In the meantime, only a fool takes on as able an opponent as yourself with one hand tied behind his back.

Another time, then.


MrMacSon

Right. I don't know that Carrier is wrong. I question his confidence, when there is no need and little use for a marginal note to account for the evidence in hand under an "innocent interpolation" hypothesis.

There is no foundation to think that Origen was working directly from any text of Josephus' when he wrote about the James trial. There is every reason to suspect he was working from memory instead. Origen's memory of what Josephus wrote failed him badly on several points, not just (very possibly) about which Jesus was poor James' brother.

It suffices that Eusebius believed Origen's report for Eusebius to write out a "corrected" version of the passage (the only part of Origen's elaborate misrecollection that actually did pertain to anybody named James in what Josephus wrote). Once Jerome concurred with Eusebius, any Christian scribe then had two saints telling him that if his exemplar said something different from "Jesus called Christ," then his exemplar was wrong.

A "marginal note," if it existed and pointed in the right direction, wouldn't hurt, but would add little to the testimony of two saints, nor to the recall of their source who seems not to have been consulting a text in the first place. There is no direct evidence for any such note, either.

For these reasons, I characterized Carrier as being overly confident about the existence of that note. Not wrong, just overly confident.

Obviously, interest in how early the note got "incorporated" is proportional to confidence that the note ever existed.
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DCHindley
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Re: How Wrong Is Carrier About Antiquities 20.200 Scholarshi

Post by DCHindley »

andrewcriddle wrote:IF one wishes to argue that Jesus the son of Damneus was the brother of the James executed by Ananus and was made High Priest as a response to the killing of James, then I think one must see the execution of James as political not personal. I can't take seriously the idea of someone being made high priest as a consolation for the death of his brother.

More specifically I think one must regard the execution of James as a measure taken by Ananus as a Sadducee against James as a non-Sadducee (probably a Pharisee). In this case Jesus the son of Damneus must also have ben opposed to the Sadducees. (In order for his appointment to have been an act in support of the opponents of Ananus outraged by the killing of James).

The idea of Jesus the son of Damneus as an opponent of the Sadducees is difficult to reconcile with the importance of Ananias son of Nebedeus during the high priesthood of Jesus. (The clear implication of Acts 23 is that Ananias the high priest who wished to condemn Paul was a Sadducee and that Paul responded by appealing against Ananias to the Pharisees.)

It is more likely that Jesus the son of Damneus was appointed due to being uninvolved in the controversies of Ananus' high priesthood, than that he was appointed as a representative of one of the factions.
Perhaps in an ideal world ...

Due to a general lack of specifics, it is hard to say how the HP was chosen from the pool of possible appointees among the high-priestly families. Examples might be: Did the applicant offer bribes? Was it his willingness to be submissive? We have a H.P. (Ananus) who was appointed by a governor who then immediately dies. If Ananus did not expect the new governor to confirm his appointment (maybe he exhausted his ability to bribe on the deceased governor), he might resort to settling personal feuds, knowing he was outbound anyways. Who better to lash out at than a competitor for the High Priestly honor? If it was too daring to actually try to convict Jesus son of Damnaeus, then a non-conforming brother will do, especially if vocally critical of Ananus. We must live with the uncertainty.

IIRC, there is at least one other place in Josephus' works where he deviates from his normal course to give patronymic type details when introducing characters in his telling of events, doing so afterwards instead. This came up in a 6/21/16 post here
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... sus#p55784

There I cited a personal e-mail exchange with Steve Mason (who gave permission to post it):
The Iesous in Tiberias (from Life 271) is the archon, or council-president (278-79) -- a case of mentioning the name shortly before giving the identification. That also happens occasionally in War. I have wondered whether it is not a deliberate narrative technique: provoking the reader to wonder who this guy is, and then supplying the identification after a few sentences (the way the films frequently raise such questions -- Who is this person? -- and only later supply the answer).
I also quoted Shaye Cohen's Josephus in Galilee and Rome, and on this subject of uneven method he states:
"The uneven method of introducing and re-introducing characters and places is particularly conspicious in V[ita]. Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria is mentioned first in V 23 but his title does not appear until V 30. [Then] V 49 and 214 record only the name, [yet] V 347 and 373 add the title [again]. [...] Jesus ben Sapphia is introduced in V 134 as if he were a new character although he appeared at least once before (V 66). We meet Ananias, a member of the delegation, in V 197, but Josephus describes him in V 290 as if for the first time. Elsewhere, too, Josephus employs this same non-technique. The monuments of [Queen] Helena [of Adiabene] are mentioned in BJ 5.55 and 119, but Helena is not identified until 147 and 253. John of Gischala appears first in BJ 2.575, but is introduced only in 585. Antioch is described in BJ 3.29 although it was mentioned frequently in BJ 1 and 2. Judas the Galilean, the son of Ezekias, is introduced twice (BJ 2.56//AJ 17.271 and BJ 2.118//AJ 18.4). [fn 44: Assuming the identity of Judas the Galilean with Judas son of Ezekias.] Antipater the father of Herod is described as if a new character in BJ 1.180-81//AJ 14.121. Any deductions about Josephus' sources based on these inconcinnities are unreliable. [fn 45: The sloppiness of Josephan procedure was unappreciated by Schemann 19 (on Helena); Drexler 305 (on John); Marcus note f on AJ 14.121 (on Antipater). A complete study of this problem is needed.]"


So it does happen. This only partly addresses your assumption that political appointments would be made as consolation prizes. Ananus had just usurped his authority, and there are always those considered qualified to take his place. Jesus son of Damnaeus was perhaps at the top of that list. Rivalries among the high priestly families became evident during the Judean war. In a case like this, Political versus Personal may have been irrelevant.

DCH
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MrMacSon
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Re: How Wrong Is Carrier About Antiquities 20.200 Scholarshi

Post by MrMacSon »

Paul the Uncertain wrote:
MrMacSon

Right. I don't know that Carrier is wrong. I question his confidence, when there is no need and little use for a marginal note to account for the evidence in hand under an "innocent interpolation" hypothesis.

... I characterized Carrier as being overly confident about the existence of that note. Not wrong, just overly confident.

Obviously, interest in how early the note got "incorporated" is proportional to confidence that the note ever existed.
Yes, good points. As I said in my first post on this thread: "part of the problem with reading and dealing with Carrier is that he is often not clear on the way he first lays out his arguments" and this leads one down a bit of a rabbit-hole trying to come to terms with them, and that can lead one to not look outside the metaphorical rabbit-hole.
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MrMacSon
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Re: How Wrong Is Carrier About Antiquities 20.200 Scholarshi

Post by MrMacSon »

Paul the Uncertain wrote:
There is no foundation to think that Origen was working directly from any text of Josephus' when he wrote about the James trial. There is every reason to suspect he was working from memory instead. Origen's memory of what Josephus wrote failed him badly on several points, not just (very possibly) about which Jesus was poor James' brother.

It suffices that Eusebius believed Origen's report for Eusebius to write out a "corrected" version of the passage (the only part of Origen's elaborate misrecollection that actually did pertain to anybody named James in what Josephus wrote). Once Jerome concurred with Eusebius, any Christian scribe then had two saints telling him that if his exemplar said something different from "Jesus called Christ," then his exemplar was wrong.

A "marginal note," if it existed and pointed in the right direction, wouldn't hurt, but would add little to the testimony of two saints, nor to the recall of their source who seems not to have been consulting a text in the first place. There is no direct evidence for any such note, either.

For these reasons, I characterized Carrier as being overly confident about the existence of that note. Not wrong, just overly confident.

Obviously, interest in how early the note got "incorporated" is proportional to confidence that the note ever existed.
To elaborate on that point, and other Arguments challenging the authenticity of the three passages, I quote what seems to be a comprehensive commentary in Wikipedia: -

(the sections on Early References and Variations from Christian Sources are worth reading, too)
The three passages

James the brother of Jesus

A few scholars question the authenticity of the reference, based on various arguments, but primarily based on the observation that various details in The Jewish War differ from it.[32][33]

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


Arguments challenging the authenticity of the three passages

The James passage

A comparative argument made against the authenticity of the James passage by scholars such as Tessa Rajak is that the passage has a negative tone regarding the High Priest Ananus, presenting him as impulsive while in the Jewish Wars Josephus presents a positive view of Ananus and portrays him as prudent.[91][92]

A textual argument against the authenticity of the James passage is that the use of the term "Christos" there seems unusual for Josephus.[91] An argument based on the flow of the text in the document is that given that the mention of Jesus appears in the Antiquities before that of the John the Baptist a Christian interpolator may have inserted it to place Jesus in the text before John.[91] A further argument against the authenticity of the James passage is that it would have read well even without a reference to Jesus.[91] New Testament scholar Robert M. Price speculates that Josephus may have considered James a fraternal brother rather than a sibling.[93]

Some of the arguments for and against the authenticity of the James passage revolve around the similarities and differences between the accounts of Josephus, Origen, Eusebius and the Christian accounts. Although Josephus' account of the method of death of James differs from that of the Christian tradition, this is seen as an indication that the Josephus account is not a Christian interpolation.[22][94]

John Painter states that Origen expresses surprise that given that a Josephus who disbelieves in Jesus as Christ (Commentary on Matthew Book X, Chapter 17) should write respectfully of James, his brother.[95] However, according to Painter unlike the Testimonium this issue has not generated a great deal of controversy, although viewed as a potential reason for doubting authenticity.[95]

An issue that is subject to more debate is that in Commentary on Matthew (Book X, Chapter 17), Origen cites Josephus as stating the death of James had brought a wrath upon those who had killed him, and that his death was the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem.[75][77][96] At the end of Book II, Chapter XIII Origen disagrees with Josephus' placement of blame for the destruction of Jerusalem on the death of James, and states that it was due to the death of Jesus, not James.[95]

In Book II, Chapter 23.20 of his Church History, Eusebius mentions Josephus' reference to the death of James and the sufferings that befell those who killed him. In this reference Eusebius writes: “These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus, that is called the Christ. For the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man.” However, this statement does not appear in the extant manuscripts of Josephus.[95] Moreover, in Book III, ch. 11 of his Church History Eusebius states that the conquest of Jerusalem immediately followed the martyrdom of James setting the martyrdom at c70 CE rather than the c62 CE given by Josephus.[97][98] Painter states that whether the Book II, Chapter 23.20 statement by Eusebius is an interpolation remains an open question.[95]

Eusebius does not acknowledge Origen as one of his sources for the reference to James in Josephus.[79] However, John Painter states that placing the blame for the siege of Jerusalem on the death of James is perhaps an early Christian invention that predates both Origen and Eusebius and that it likely existed in the traditions to which they were both exposed.[95] Painter states that it is likely that Eusebius may have obtained his explanation of the siege of Jerusalem from Origen.[79]

G. A. Wells has stated the fact that Origen seems to have read something different about the death of James in Josephus [ie. different to what appears to be there] suggests some tampering with the James passage seen by Origen.[86] Wells suggests that 'the interpolation' seen by Origen may not have survived in the extant Josephus manuscripts, but that it opens the possibility that there may have been other interpolations in Josephus' writings.[86] Wells further states that differences between the Josephus account and those of Hegesippus and Clement of Alexandria may point to interpolations in the James passage.[86]

22 Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. ISBN 0-8010-3114-1. p. 130.

32 Habermas, Gary R. (1996). The Historical Jesus. ISBN 0-89900-732-5.

33 Wells, George Albert (1986). Did Jesus Exist?. Pemberton Publishing Co.

75 Mizugaki, Wataru (1987). "Origen and Josephus". In Feldman, Louis H.; Hata, Gōhei. Josephus, Judaism and Christianity. Brill. pp. 325–335. ISBN 978-90-04-08554-1.

77 Painter, John (2005). Just James: The Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition. ISBN 0-567-04191-3, p. 205

79 Painter^ (2005), pp. 155–167.

86 Wells G.A. (1996) The Jesus Legend ISBN 0-8126-9334-5pp. 54–55

91 Eddy & Boyd 2007, pp. 128–130.

92 Feldman, Louis H.; Hata, Gōhei, eds. (1987). Josephus, Judaism and Christianity. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-08554-1, p. 56

93 Price, R.M. (2011) The Christ Myth Theory and its Problems, ISBN 9781578840175, p. 132,

94 But note that James the brother of Jesus is not the same as James, son of Zebedee who is killed by King Herod in Acts 12:2 with a sword [and there are 3 James in the NT]

95 Painter^^^ (2005), pp. 132–137.

96 Quoting Mizugaki, page 335: "Origen notes with favour that Josephus seeks the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in the assassination of James the Just, but gravely adds that Josephus ought to have stated that the calamity happened because the Jews killed Christ."
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