Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
I have collated 21 Vridar posts on the Testimonium Flavianum into a single page of annotated links. See the ARCHIVES by TOPIC, Annotated in the right margin. Look under Pages. Or jump straight to Jesus in Josephus: Testimonium Flavianum to see the annotated list.
Here is an annotated list of Vridar posts addressing the famous passage in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, commonly known as the Testimonium Flavianum (TF). –o0o– The Jesus reference in Josephus: its ad hoc doctoring and various manuscript lines (2009-03-06) From various sources I have set out chronologically the earliest evidence we have for knowledge of the … Continue reading “Jesus in Josephus: Testimonium Flavianum“
Reading James Crossley’s Jesus in an Age of Terror I can’t help but wonder how his thesis applies to Jesus debates he fails to address. Is it a coincidence that the shift in academic “consensus” that the Jesus passage in Jesus (the Testimonium Flavianum) is at least partly authentic appears to have roughly coincided with … Continue reading “Political context of the current Testimonium Flavianum “consensus””
I have updated my previous post’s timeline of the apparent birth of the passage about Jesus found in Josephus to include all known pre-Eusebian Christian references to Josephus. In this post I begin to discuss the detailed evidence that this passage (the Testimony of Flavius Josephus, or the Testimonium Flavianum, or TF) was composed by … Continue reading “The Testimonium Flavianum: more clues from Eusebius”
Where would one expect to find the most sound treatment of the textual and historical significance of the Testimonium Flavianum — in a work by a tried a true academic specializing in early Christian studies or in a lay outsider presuming to challenge the core working paradigm of those studies? F.F. Bruce’s “Jesus and Christian … Continue reading “R.I.P. F.F.Bruce on the Testimonium Flavianum”
–o0o– All posts in this series are archived in the O’Neill-Fitzgerald Debate –o0o– Tim O’Neill (TO) rightly says of some of the evidence for the historical existence of Jesus: After all, no-one except a fundamentalist apologist would pretend that the evidence about Jesus is not ambiguous and often difficult to interpret with any certainty, and … Continue reading “O’Neill-Fitzgerald “Christ Myth” Debate, #10: Josephus as Evidence & the Arabic Version of the Testimonium”
–o0o– All posts in this series are archived in the O’Neill-Fitzgerald Debate –o0o– Tim O’Neill (TO) expresses a most worthy ideal in an exchange with David Fitzgerald (DF): What a careful, honest or even just competent treatment of the subject would do would be to deal with all relevant positions throughout the analysis . . … Continue reading “O’Neill-Fitzgerald “Christ Myth” Debate, #9: Josephus, 1 – Dave Fitzgerald on the Testimonium”
Continuing and concluding….. Peter Kirby cites an argument for interpolation not from a source agreeing with the argument but rather from a source disposing of it. He quotes Robert Webb: A second argument is that the nouns used for ‘baptism’ in this text (βαπτισμός and βάπτισις, Ant. 18.117) are not found elsewhere in the Josephan … Continue reading “Where does John the Baptist fit in History? — The Evidence of Josephus, Pt 7”
Continuing to respond to The Authenticity of John the Baptist in Josephus. The previous two posts — 1. Where does John the Baptist fit in History? (Or, the Place of Fact and Opinion in History) 2. Where does John the Baptist fit in History? — The Evidence of Josephus, Pt 1 I would like to … Continue reading “Where does John the Baptist fit in History? — The Evidence of Josephus, Pt 2”
Continuing from https://vridar.org/2023/10/01/a-dialog-with-chatgpt-on-christian-origins/ Me: What, if anything, changes, if we introduce the need for independent corroboration? ChatGPT: The requirement for independent corroboration significantly tightens the standards for historical verification. If historians strictly demand independent sources to corroborate each event or claim, it can add more confidence to their conclusions but also presents challenges: Higher Confidence … Continue reading “Continuing Dialog with ChatGPT — historical methods”
No, this post is not about the Testimonium Flavianum, that disputed passage about the “crucified-under-Pilate-Jesus”. It is about other figures in the works of Josephus that various authors have proposed are the original persons from whom the Christian myth was derived. Possibly the most well-known one that comes to mind is Jesus ben Ananias, the … Continue reading “Finding Jesus in (or through) Josephus”
Here is the final post discussing the introductory chapter of Rivka Nir’s The First Christian Believer: In Search of John the Baptist where she sets out her case for the John the Baptist passage in the writings of Josephus being a forgery. For readers with so little time, the TL;DR version: The baptism of John that … Continue reading “John the Baptist — Another Case for Forgery in Josephus (conclusion)”
Continuing Rivka Nir’s case for questioning the authenticity of John the Baptist in Josephus’s Antiquities…. (First post is here.) Nir informs us in The First Christian Believer, By the nineteenth and early twentieth century, historians were suggesting that this passage was a Christian interpolation. (p. 42) As a general rule, I like to follow up … Continue reading “Early Thoughts on Authenticity of the John the Baptist Passage in Josephus”
Of making many posts about John the Baptist there is no end, and much discussion may weary, or stimulate, the flesh. Here’s another one. This post is the first in a series of perhaps three that intends to raise awareness of Rivka Nir‘s case for the passage about John the Baptist in Josephus being a … Continue reading “John the Baptist: Another Case for Forgery in Josephus”