Against a Tim O’Neil's specific point

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Giuseppe
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Against a Tim O’Neil's specific point

Post by Giuseppe »

Tim O’Neil addresses a specific point of Carrier about Antiquities 20:200, and precisely so:
In this fourth argument Carrier says that the phrase could not be original to Josephus because the passage in Antiquities XX.200 says the Jews were outraged at the death of this James. So, he argues, it is “inexplicable” and “makes little sense” that this outrage would be on the behalf a member of a sect that was both “hated” and “illegal”, and so this James cannot be any Christian and must be someone else. There are multiple problems with this argument. To begin with, we have very little idea how “hated” the Jesus sect was in the 60s AD or even how distinct a “sect” it was within the Judaism of the time. Even Acts, written some decades later and with the polemical purpose of showing the Jesus sect to be persecuted by the Jewish authorities, depicts its members preaching openly, teaching in the Temple itself, taking part in Jewish rituals there and being defended by at least some of the Sanhedrin. The idea that the sect was actually “illegal” is even more difficult to defend since while the author of Acts plays up the afflictions of the Christians at the hands of the Jewish authorities, not even he claims they were anything but occasionally censured.
But leaving these unsubstantiated claims about Christians being “hated” and their sect being “illegal” aside, we can still read the reported outrage as making sense if this James was indeed a Christian. After all, Josephus says that the action against Ananus was taken by “the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws” because “they disliked what was done”. So the text tells us that it was the “breach of the laws” that was the problem for these equitable citizens and even if the Jesus sect was “hated” or even “illegal”, it’s still perfectly reasonable that “equitable citizens” would object to them being treated in a way that was itself illegal. Especially if some of these citizens also had a political beef with the High Priest and wanted a way to remove him. So the text makes perfect sense as it stands.
https://historyforatheists.com/2018/02/ ... -the-lord/
I doubt very strongly that ''the text makes perfect sense as it stands'', since what O'Neill is arguing essentially is that a presumed brother of Jesus, James, was killed by Ananus because this James was someway against the Jewish Law. And he says all this when we have clear evidence that a Pillar named James sent spies in Galatians to ''persecute'' Paul in the far Galatia insofar Paul was abandoning the Jewish Law.
Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
(Gal 5:11-12)

It is very absurd that :
1) the emissaries sent by James were persecuting Paul even if Paul was still preaching circumcision
2) Ananus was persecuting James even if the point 1 is a fact.

What would be decisively more expected is a persecution by Ananus of Pauline Christians, not of a Torah-centered Jewish-Christian like James.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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