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Post by timoneill on Feb 28, 2013 19:22:01 GMT
From little Artie Ziff's much anticipated first piece of peer-reviewed research since he got his PhD five years ago, which ends with this ringing declaration:
“The significance of this finding is manifold, but principally it removes this passage from the body of reliable evidence for the fate of Jesus’ family, the treatment of Christians in the first century, or Josephus’s attitude toward or knowledge of Christians. Likewise, future commentaries on the relevant texts of Origen and Josephus must take this finding into account, as must any treatments of the evidence for the historical Jesus. Most pressingly, all reference works that treat “James the brother of Jesus” must be emended to reflect this finding, particularly as this passage is the only evidence by which a date for this James’ death has been derived.”
(Richard Carrier, "Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200" in The Journal of Early Christian Studies
(vol. 20, no. 4, Winter 2012),
pp. 489-514)
So it must be, for Richard Carrier hath decreed it. Go forth and make it so, or Richard Carrier will be wroth that Richard Carrier's commands have not been obeyed. Richard Carrier has spoken! Harken unto him!
When this latest pyrotechnic display of fatuous hilarity from the little woolly-headed chap was pointed out top him on his blog, Bart Ehrman commented wryly "No timidity there!"
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Post by sandwiches on Feb 28, 2013 21:40:10 GMT
At the foot of the article it explains: Richard Carrier is Visiting Lecturer for the Center for Inquiry Institute in Amherst, New Yorken.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_InquiryThe Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a non-profit educational organization with headquarters in the United States whose primary mission is to encourage evidence-based inquiry into paranormal and fringe science claims, alternative medicine and mental health practices, religion, secular ethics, and society. CFI is dedicated to promoting and defending science, reason, and free inquiry in all aspects of human interestHmmmmm... I liked this footnote: 2. Many scholars have already proposed that the reference in AJ 20 is an interpolation; see G. A. Wells, Did Jesus Exist? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1975), 11; K. A. Olson, “Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (1999): 305–22, at 315; and Paget, “Some Observations,” 546–47 (even Paget himself entertains the possibility: 552 n. 45). I will not merely propose it; I will come as near to proving it as extant evidence will allow.There's an awful lot of confident airy assertions and assumptions in the article about what Josephus and Origen and Eusebius, would have written and not written and how subsequent copyists would have behaved. Can't see any mention (among others) of Geza Vermes who has said "The authenticity of the mention of James is the least questionable of the three anecdotes" (the other anecdotes being the references to Jesus - the Testimonium Flavianum - and to John the Baptist). |
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Post by merkavah12 on Feb 28, 2013 22:53:46 GMT
At the foot of the article it explains: Richard Carrier is Visiting Lecturer for the Center for Inquiry Institute in Amherst, New York...and the CFI promptly takes a hit right in the credibility box. What's next? Making Alejandro Amenábar the head of their historical analysis division (wherein he expounds on his thesis that, should Hypatia had lived, we would have colonized Mars in 1983, wars would have been a thing of the past, and all subsequent generations would have gained the ability to lactate Tanqueray on command)? |
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Post by sankari on Mar 1, 2013 0:07:40 GMT
I'm sure we're all hearkening.  |
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Post by timoneill on Mar 1, 2013 1:53:46 GMT
At the foot of the article it explains: Do you actually have a copy of Mr Ziff's earth shaking article? I've been making do with quotes from it by others but wouldn't mind reading the whole thing (without having to pay hard-earned cash for it). |
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Post by neodawson on Mar 1, 2013 4:18:16 GMT
Dare I ask what this article is about?
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Post by sankari on Mar 1, 2013 6:50:18 GMT
Dare I ask what this article is about? References to James and Jesus in Josephus. |
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 1, 2013 12:19:10 GMT
At the foot of the article it explains: Do you actually have a copy of Mr Ziff's earth shaking article? I've been making do with quotes from it by others but wouldn't mind reading the whole thing (without having to pay hard-earned cash for it). Can I email it? |
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Post by timoneill on Mar 1, 2013 17:43:20 GMT
Do you actually have a copy of Mr Ziff's earth shaking article? I've been making do with quotes from it by others but wouldn't mind reading the whole thing (without having to pay hard-earned cash for it). Can I email it? Please do. I'm due to start my response to Dave Fitzgerald's reply to my review of his crappy Jesus myther book this weekend. He was given access to Carrier's paper before its publication and rests his dismissal of Antiquities XX.9.1 on its argument. As he tells it, that argument has serious flaws, but I'd like to see Carrier's paper before commenting in detail. I'll PM you my e-mail address in case you don't already have it. |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Mar 1, 2013 18:32:27 GMT
So it must be, for Richard Carrier hath decreed it. Go forth and make it so, or Richard Carrier will be wroth that Richard Carrier's commands have not been obeyed. Richard Carrier has spoken! Harken unto him! Lā ʾilāha ʾillā Carrier! Amen! At the foot of the article it explains: Richard Carrier is Visiting Lecturer for the Center for Inquiry Institute in Amherst, New York...and the CFI promptly takes a hit right in the credibility box. What's next? Making Alejandro Amenábar the head of their historical analysis division (wherein he expounds on his thesis that, should Hypatia had lived, we would have colonized Mars in 1983, wars would have been a thing of the past, and all subsequent generations would have gained the ability to lactate Tanqueray on command)? They pretty much did that already when they enlisted Robert M. Price and Verenna. About their (non-existent) credibility, they won't care, for that reason. Dare I ask what this article is about? References to James and Jesus in Josephus. Yup, neodawson more specifically Carrier will definitely argue that the Testimonium Flavianum is inauthentic and that the reference to Jesus in the account of James is not genuine. Or at least that they are probably not genuine (he sometimes has the veneer of being a Historical Jesus Agnostic). He has to do that in order to remove non-Christian evidence. |
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Post by neodawson on Mar 1, 2013 20:20:44 GMT
Dare I ask what this article is about? References to James and Jesus in Josephus. Yup, neodawson more specifically Carrier will definitely argue that the Testimonium Flavianum is inauthentic and that the reference to Jesus in the account of James is not genuine. Or at least that they are probably not genuine (he sometimes has the veneer of being a Historical Jesus Agnostic). He has to do that in order to remove non-Christian evidence. ' I see. What's the consensus among scholars about the authenticity of those passages? Forgive me it's been a while since I last paid major attention to this topic. I tend to find extensive debate about this or that passage to be tedious. |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Mar 1, 2013 20:26:31 GMT
The Testimonium Flavianum is partially inauthentic while also partially original, there are just some obvious Christian interpolations in it but the original parts still refer to Jesus. The reference to Jesus in the story about James is also considered genuine.
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Post by neodawson on Mar 1, 2013 20:31:09 GMT
The Testimonium Flavianum is partially inauthentic while also partially original, there are just some obvious Christian interpolations in it but the original parts still refer to Jesus. The reference to Jesus in the story about James is also considered genuine. Thank you. That was my impression before, but I did not know if there was any major change in the scholarship. |
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Post by sankari on Mar 2, 2013 1:00:29 GMT
There certainly won't be any major changes in the scholarship as a result of anything written by Carrier. |
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Post by himself on Mar 2, 2013 1:41:24 GMT
IIRC there is an Arabic-language version of Josephus that does not have the evident copyist marginalia but does have the remainder of the passage in question. Perhaps Carrier has gotten ahold of a copy of the text that omits the passage entirely. Surely, it could not simply be "I don't believe X and so the X in the passage must be an invention." Maybe it's my background in the sciences, but I always wonder about physical evidences.
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