Subject: Re: Albert Sabin
From: rfox@charlie.usd.edu (Rich Fox, Univ of South Dakota)
Reply-To: rfox@charlie.usd.edu
Organization: The University of South Dakota Computer Science Dept.
Nntp-Posting-Host: charlie
Lines: 62

In article <1quim9INNem8@ctron-news.ctron.com>, king@ctron.com (John E. King) writes:
>
>
>rfox@charlie.usd.edu writes:
>
>>Bill, I have taken the time to explain that biblical scholars consider the
>>Josephus reference to be an early Christian insert.  By biblical
>scholar I mean
>>an expert who, in the course of his or her research, is willing to let
>the
>>chips fall where they may.  This excludes literalists, who may
>otherwise be
>>defined as biblical apologists.  They find what they want to find. 
>They are
>>not trustworthy by scholarly standards (and others).
>
>I've seen this claim about the "Josephus insert" flying around the
>net too often to continue to ignore it.  Perhaps it's true.  Was
>there only one Josephus manuscipt?  If there were, say, 100 copies,
>the forger would have to put his insert into all of them.  By the
>same token, since Josephus was a historian, why are biblical scholars
>raising the flag?  Historical scholars , I would think, would have
>a better handle on these ancient secular documents.  Can you give 
>researchers documents (page numbers, etc)?
>
>Jack

I became aware of the claim years ago.  So I decided to check it out, on my
own.  But, then, that was in BN times (Before Net).  So, here are some 
references.  See Robin Lane Fox's _The unauthorized version_, (p.284) where 
Lane Fox writes, "... the one passage which appears to [comment on Jesus' 
career] is agreed to be a Christian addition."

In my Re:Albert Sabin response (C5u7sJ.391@sunfish.usd.edu) to Jim Lippard (21
April 93), I noted that consensus is typically indicated subtly as in Elaine 
Pagel's _The gnostic gospels_ (p.85), to wit:  "A comment *attributed* to
Josephus reports ... [emphasis mine]".  Scholars sometimes do not even mention
the two Josephus entries, another subtlety reflecting consensus.

So far as I can deduce, today's consensus is built on at least three things: 
1) the long passage is way out of context, 2) Origen did not know about the
long passage, and 3) the short and long passages are contradictory. 
I don't know the references wherein the arguments which led to consensus are
orginally developed (does anyone?).

Biblical scholars as I defined them include theologians and historians.  The
former, like the latter, incorporate historical, social, technological and
ideological contexts as well as theology.  So the distinction is blurred.  I 
didn't elaborate on that.  Sorry.  (In turn, historians are compelled to
incorporate theology).

Can't say about the number of copies.  These were, however, BG times (Before 
Gutenburg).  A hundred first editions seems exceedingly high; counting on one 
hand seems more reasonable.  Perhaps those mss. without the long insert (if any,
because anything is possible) have been destroyed.  Such a practice is 
certainly not foreign to religions.  Anyway, all we have are mss. which have 
the two entries.  Lippart (in the message noted above) talks about an Arabic 
ms.  But here the ms. date is critical.

:-)

Rich Fox, Anthro, Usouthdakota
