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Originally posted by darwin alogos

TD,before you go on celebrating like you refuted one piece of probative evidence thats been presented you should acknowledge your bonehead blunder when you confused the passages in Josephus ...

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Originally posted by darwin alogos

My my you go away for a year and all kinds of REDACTIONS to what I said are alleged by you skeptics

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Originally posted by darwin alogos

My my you go away for a year and all kinds of REDACTIONS to what I said are alleged by you skeptics

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Sounds like you've been through a tough period. Are you doing OK?

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Originally posted by darwin alogos
Instead of tar and feathers I' getting welcomed at SFN so things are looking up.

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Originally posted by darwin alogos
I agree Kirby's cite is very balanced.He seems to think while there some additons to the original text most is genuine,how about you?

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Kirby:While the argument concerning the non-commital nature of the reference isn't quite conclusive, it is certainly quite suggestive. The significance of the references to "called Christ" in the New Testament is exaggerated. Van Voorst observes:


For the few occurences of the phrase "called Christ" in the New Testament, see Matt 1:16 (Matthew's genealogy, where it breaks the long pattern of only personal names); Matt 27:17, 22 (by Pontius Pilate); John 4:25 (by the Samaritan woman). Twelftree, "Jesus in Jewish Traditions," 300, argues from these instances that "called Christ" is "a construction Christians used when speaking of Jesus" and therefore an indication that this passage is not genuine. He also cites John 9:11, but there the phrase is "called Jesus" and so does not apply to this issue. But if these passages are indicative of wider usage outside the New Testament, "called Christ" tends to come form non-Christians and is not at all typical of Christian usage. Christians would not be inclined to use a neutral or descriptive term like "called Christ"; for them, Jesus is (the) Christ.
Furthermore, I note that no extracanonical works in the second century use the phrase "Jesus who is called Christ," even though this would be the period when an interpolation would have to have been made.


John P. Meier argues:

...the way the text identifies James is not likely to have come from a Christian hand or even a Christian source. Neither the NT nor early Christian writers spoke of James of Jerusalem in a matter-of-fact way as "the brother of Jesus" (ho adelphos Iesou), but rather -- with the reverence we would expect -- "the brother of the Lord" (ho adelphos tou kyriou) or "the brother of the Savior" (ho adelphos tou soteros). Paul, who was not overly fond of James, calls him "the brother of the Lord" in Gal 1:19 and no doubt is thinking especially of him when he speaks of "the brothers of the Lord" in 1Cor 9:5. Hegesippus, the 2d-century Church historian who was a Jewish convert and probably hailed from Palestine, likewise speaks of "James, the brother of the Lord" (in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History 2.23.4); indeed, Hegesippus also speaks of certain other well-known Palestinian Christians as "a cousin of the Lord" (4.22.4), the "brothers of the Savior" (3.25.5), and "his [the Lord's] brother according to the flesh" (3.20.1). The point of all this is that Josephus' designation of James as "the brother of Jesus" squares neither with NT nor with early patristic usage, and so does not likely come from the hand of a Christian interpolator. (p. 58) This argument is a strong one. A search of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, the extracanonical writings, and the New Testament will produce no instance in which James is identified as "the brother of Jesus." It is thus not likely to be a phrase to come from a Christian pen when identifying James.




Conclusion
Proverbs 18:17 may well have been commenting on arguments concerning the Testimonium: "The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him." The present author was once firmly convinced that both references in the Antiquities were authentic. After reading the study of Ken Olson that shows the vocabulary of the Testimonium to be not Josephan but rather Eusebian, I was inclined to regard both references as spurious. But now that I have found evidence that the reference in 20.9.1 does not require an earlier reference to Jesus, I am presently persuaded to regard the shorter reference as authentic.

Even if one is convinced that the passages are interpolated, there is a satisfactory explanation for the silence of Josephus on Jesus and Christianity. W. D. Davies explains:


But it is still more likely that the silence of Josephus is due to the character of his work: his career suggests what his aim was in his writings. He desired to remain in the good graces of the Roman Emperor: to do so he avoided in his history all that might offend Roman susceptibilities. To mention Christianity, a Messianic movement that proclaimed another King than Caesar (Acts 17:7), would be to expose Judaism, which in Rome might not be distinguished from Christianity, to "guilt by association." Perhaps Josephus would not cavil at discussing a dead Messianic movement, which no longer offered any threat to Rome, but Christianity was alive and militant. The part of prudence was to ignore it. (p. 66)
Maurice Goguel offers a similar explanation for what would be silence of Josephus:


So complete a silence is perhaps more embarrassing for the mythologists than for their opponents. By what right, indeed, should it be permissible to conclude from it that Jesus never existed, and not permissible to deny that a Christian movement existed in Palestine prior to the year 70? Since Josephus has been silent not only concerning Jesus, but also concerning Christianity, how is his silence to be explained? Uniquely by the character and the object of his work. The writer desired to flatter the Romans and gain their good graces. To do this he expunged from the picture he drew everything likely to offend or to excite their apprehension. Thus it is that he has scarcely at all spoken of the Messianic cult which nevertheless constituted the center of Jewish thought in the first century. That he did so was because this cult was a menace to Rome, for the Kingdom of the Messiah could only be built upon the ruins of the Empire. (p. 36)
But assuming that at least the shorter reference is authentic, what can we conclude from this? It shows that Josephus accepted the historicity of Jesus. Simply by the standard practice of conducting history, a comment from Josephus about a fact of the first century constitutes prima facie evidence for that fact. It ought to be accepted as history unless there is good reason for disputing the fact. Moreover, it is reasonable to think that Josephus heard about the deposition of Ananus as soon as it happened. Ed Tyler points out in correspondence, "The passage is not really about James, but about Ananus. It's the tale of how Ananus lost his job as High Priest. So why would Christians in Rome be the source for the tale of how a High Priest lost his job? Josephus was close at hand when it happened, and was a man of some standing in the Jewish community. I can't imagine that he missed it when it was news, and didn't find out about it until he talked to some Christians about 30 years later." Thus, Josephus' information about the identity of James brings us back to the period prior to the First Jewish Revolt. If Josephus referred to James as the brother of Jesus in the Antiquities, in all likelihood the historical James identified himself as the brother of Jesus, and this identification would secure the place of Jesus as a figure in history.

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Originally posted by darwin alogos

... the main point is that he accepted the historical existence of Jesus of whom James was the brother.My point is that Kirby is using correct logic here and demonstrates a balanced approached unlike some of the responses I've seen on this cite.

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Simply by the standard practice of conducting history, a comment from Josephus about a fact of the first century constitutes prima facie evidence for that fact.

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Was Josephus always correct? Certainly not. His inaccuracies range from vagueness to blatant exaggeration. Shaye Cohen accuses him of "inveterate sloppiness". The index to Cohen's book goes so far as actually to include entries for "exaggeration", "inconsistency and sloppiness" and "corrupt transmission of names and numbers". Indeed, even if it is accepted that copyists were responsible for not a few of his mistakes (some of which have been hinted at already), it still cannot be denied that he was by nature somewhat negligent.

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