Reply #243: Logic I believe favors the side that the quote is real - the only question [View All]

[papau]

is the portion refering to "3rd day" - and even that may be real.

Frankly, I think you are just too credulous - But I respect those that have faith in their enlightment (I dare not use belief or religion for those who are atheist if I want to avoid being called a bigot and hurtful).

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:hPQv0f-o4dcJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_the_Just+Jesus,+the+son+of+Damneus&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2

According to a passage in Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" met his death after the death of the procurator Porcius Festus, yet before Clodius Albinus took office (Antiquities 20,9) — which has thus been dated to 62. The High Priest Ananus ben Ananus took advantage of this lack of imperial oversight to assemble a Sanhedrin who condemned James "on the charge of breaking the law," then had him executed by stoning. Josephus reports that Ananus' act was widely viewed as little more than judicial murder, and offended a number of "those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the City, and strict in their observance of the Law," who went as far as meeting Albinus as he entered the province to petition him about the matter. In response, King Agrippa replaced Ananus with Jesus, the son of Damneus.

Though the passage in general is almost universally accepted as original to Josephus, some challenge the identificaton of the James whom Ananus had executed with James the Just, considering the words, "who was called Christ," a later interpolation.

The ragged structure of Antiquities involves frequent disruptions to the narrative, not least because it was mainly composed by a number of scribal assistants. Linguistic analysis has not proven conclusive when compared with other passages in Josephus which likewise exhibit unusual features. The supposed confession of Josephus relies on the standard text. But a recent study by Alice Whealey has demonstrated that a variant Greek text of this sentence existed in the 5th century—"He was believed to be the Christ." The standard text, then, has simply become corrupt by the loss of the main verb and a subsequent scribal "correction" of the prolative infinitive. In any event, the audience for the work was Roman, and the Romans always referred to Jesus as "Christus", which would make this merely an identification. Finally, it has been pointed out that every line of the passage can be objected to, or supported, by one argument or another.

The Testimonium Flavianum was treated with suspicion as long ago as the times of Archbishop Ussher (1581–1656), and by the early 20th century, it was generally believed by scholars to be an interpolation. However, over the last century, the consensus of scholars has moved, not least under the influence of manuscript discoveries.


Arabic version
In 1971, professor Shlomo Pines published a translation of a different version of this passage, quoted in an Arabic manuscript of the tenth century. The manuscript in question appears in the Book of the Title written by Agapius, a 10th century Christian Arab and Melkite bishop of Hierapolis. Agapius appears to be quoting from memory, for even Josephus' title is an approximation:

For he says in the treatises that he has written in the governance of the Jews: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders" - Shlomo Pines' translation, quoted by J. D. Crossan
Pines suggests that this may be a more accurate record of what Josephus wrote, lacking as it does the parts which have often been considered to have been added by Christian copyists. However, Pines' theory has not been widely accepted.

Pines also refers to the Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian in his World Chronicle. It was left to Alice Whealey to point out that Michael's text in fact was identical with that of Jerome at the most contentious point ("He was the Christ" becoming "He was believed to be the Christ"), establishing the existence of a variant, since Latin and Syriac writers did not read each others' works in late antiquity.


Modern consensus
Over the last century, the consensus seems to have changed, and the subjective nature of many of the arguments used in the 19th century has been recognized. Judging from the 2003 survey of the historiography, it seems that the majority of modern scholars consider that Josephus really did write something here about Jesus, but that the text that has reached us is corrupt to a perhaps quite substantial extent. In the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Flavius Josephus, "The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations." There has been no consensus on which portions are corrupt, or to what degree.