please provide your take on the following:
Odds that both quotes were added sometimes later?>>
I doubt it, but some people have made a case for this. You have a surprising silence about either passage from early church writings until the 4th century with Eusebius, even though these writers were familiar with Josephus and it could have strengthened their case to mention it. The book 20 passage is unlikely to be added just because the church was already advocating the view of perpetual virginity for Mary, so they tended to downplay any mention of James as the brother of Jesus. Also, you would think that Josephus would not give such a glancing remark about Jesus in Book 20 if he had not already introduced him in Book 18.
You can read one man's argument for both being insertions here:
magi.com
But Earl Dougherty is advocating a view that Jesus never even existed at all outside of myth, so this is an extreme position that I do not buy.
All genuine?>>
Very unlikely. Even zealous defenders of Jesus' historicity such as Josh McDowell will not defend this view. Although the Book 20 passage is probably original, the book 18 passage is not. An Arabic translation of Josephus has been found that has the more toned-down translation of:
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.
This translation was assumed to have been made early enough to escape some or all of the church editing.
The best argument for discounting the book 18 passage as traditionally quoted is that the author appears to believe that Jesus actually was the messiah, in the god/man sense and not in the original Jewish sense. But Josephus was not a Christian, and many would say he was not even a good Jew. If he really thought Jesus to be the Christ, then why would he only dedicate a paragraph to him while spending much more ink on other prophets (such as John the Baptist) and even on criminals. Another argument against complete genuineness is the context of the passage, which is sandwiched in a section about the calamities of the Jews. How could the existence of a messiah be considered a calamity?
Half and half, first one OK, CAP OK ? All genuine ?>>
The book 20 passage seem original, for reasons given above (and with no other reason to doubt it). The book 18 passage cannot be original as stands, again for reasons above. So, if you take out the caps in the text in my last response, you get something close to what was probably written, which happens to match pretty well with the arabic version quoted above, which would also be consistent with the views of Josephus as expressed in the rest of his writings.
Remember that Josephus was not a contemporary of Jesus. He was born several years after Jesus died (37AD). So his testimony is more to the fact that proto-christians did exist, rather than any direct testimony about Jesus. |
