Reply #267: Okay, let's take it from the top. Josephus 101. [View All]

[okasha]

"Not one single early church father/apologist mentions this passage (or the other one about James). Despite its magic bullet quality no one ever uses it. Not even apologist Origen, who used Josephus extensively for other purposes, once mentions this passage. Does this make any sense at all?"

Wrong about the James passage. Origen does mention it. Origen also mentions, quite clearly and firmly, that Josephus did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah. Now, how do you suppose Origen knew that? Was he channeling? Or did he read something in Josephus that led him to that conclusion--something that did in fact mention Jesus? More about that in a moment. Let's tidy up James first. To wit:

"As you can see, he is talking about a completely different Jesus. Jesus Son of Damneus."

No, sorry, don't see that. The two mentions are separated by a largish chunk of text. And I hate to break it to ya, but Greek references to Jews do not always use the patronymic. Jesus is commonly referred to in the gospels as "Jesus the Nazorean/Nazarene," not as "Jesus, son of Joseph." Ditto "John the Baptizer," not "John, son of Zacarias." At a guess, Josephus, like any decent history writer, was using the relationship that identified James most clearly. "James, son of Joseph" might be anyone; "James, brother of Jesus called the Messiah" can only be one person. Some experts do dispute the passage, but there's no firm textual reason to do so.

By the way, Josephus also mentions the Baptizer. That passage is certainly authentic, since its understanding of John's baptism is quite different than that found in the gospels and in developing Christian theology. It's not a matter of repentence but rather something much more like the traditional Jewish mikvah.

Okay, the TF. The Testemonium Flavium in the Slavonic Josephus has suffered interpolation of at least three phrases/sentences: "He was the Messiah;" "if indeed he can be called a man," and the reference to the resurrection. Interestingly enough, the Arabic Josephus lacks precisely those phrases and is therefore likely to be much closer to what Josephus actually wrote. Which brings us to the matter of translation.

The translation of Josephus that is normally used is very respectful of Jesus in these passages, for the simple reason that the translators were Christians. It is, however, possible to translate the passage in a much less favorable way: "worker of wonders," for instance, could equally be "mountebank" in English. Etc., etc.. My guess is that a version of the TF, interpreted in a far more derisive vein than the modern English translation, was what Origen actually saw, and the source of his assertion that Josephus was not a Christian.