Gospels Cut from Jewish Scriptures, #3

11 thoughts on “Gospels Cut from Jewish Scriptures, #3”

1. By amazing coincidence, this post begins with a point made at the end of discussion on Nazareth: Josephus commenting on his names sake, Joseph (of the coat of many colors). And the uncertainty of both their insights, claims, to greatness; based in mere “dreams.”

   Both turned their back on their native Jews to some extent; Joseph came to work for the Pharoah, and Josephus for the Romans. But out of their partial betrayals, came an allegedly great son. Joseph himself, the patriarch. Then Josephus: Jewish governor of Galiee, then liason with Rome.

   So was the story of yet another, third “Joseph,” a dreaming father to a great son of God, related to the story of Josephus, and the earlier patriatch; being part of the origin of the Jesus of Joseph story?

   And how reliable were any of them?

   Josephus seems interested in the story of the original patriarch; and a greatness founded in nothing but mere dreams. Or fantasies? Or allusions and illusions.

   (And what’s the link to the Moses story specifically? Yet another renegade Jew come to work for a while for the enemy Pharaoah?).

   They all seem somewhat interrelated. And not entirely reliable; based as they were in dreams.

   Reply

   1. I am reminded of all the clues, all the signs, all the dropped hints, that people could conjure and point at to “prove” that Paul McCartney was dead. So much “evidence”….

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_is_dead

      https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/paul-mccartney-is-dead-conspiracy-897189/

      Reply

      1. Might be more plausible, if we suggest that chronologically successive persons named “Joseph ” are superstitiously, more or less copying some of their earlier namesakes’ behavior; persons with the same name, from old stories, in earlier histories?

         As suggested by the only semiparordical theory of “nominative determinism.”

         Or Structuralism, Raglan, telling us that many hero stories follow essentially the same story line?

         One common structural element here might be native sons making deals with foreign powers, sires?

         Very speculative here to be sure.

         Reply

         1. Some parallels are explicable. We can discern clear reasons for the parallels and they are explicable by means of intertextuality and/or “midrashic” exercises. We stick with those that we can explain with a hypothesis that is simple and likewise found in other literature of the time. But to go beyond that, to leap to seeing significance in other parallels that call for grand conspiracy theories of some sort and that are otherwise unparalleled in ancient literature, is to take us into “palallelomania” and worse.

            Many parallels can be explained quite simply and usually without any need to find a direct influence or common authorship.

            Before getting on board with Josephan authorship of gospels we need to first familiarize ourselves with the works of Josephus — study his works as a whole, and in some depth to know about the author and his work; and then to do the same with the gospels. The more we learn about each set of literature the less attractive ideas of common authorship will become, and the more reasonable other simpler and more common explanations will be.

            Reply

            1. Yes Neil to this!!

               “Before getting on board with Josephan authorship of gospels we need to first familiarize ourselves with the works of Josephus — study his works as a whole, and in some depth to know about the author and his work; and then to do the same with the gospels. The more we learn about each set of literature the less attractive ideas of common authorship will become, and the more reasonable other simpler and more common explanations will be.”

               A great collage of comments about the necessity and encouragement to follow careful methods of investigation… regardless of how emotional and political and otherwise the issues might be….

               These thoughts here apply to much broader domains and sources than Josephus….

               Thanks Neil,,, hope you are doing well and so just keeping connected.. to all here… Stay Safe and Sane during this time 🙂

               Great stuff to read and interact with during this time.

               Marty

               Reply

2. Well, I definitely wouldn’t see Josephus as the main author of the gospels. Or even a secondary author. But?

   I might though, see him as one of dozens of sources that 1) early folk rumors about Jesus picked up. And 2) one that the early and later writers and editors of the gospels might have used, to fill in a detail or two about Jesus; like his a) problematic genealogy . And b) possibly even his crucifixion.

   A source they might have well reasonably questioned themselves, moreover.

   Thanks for your excellent blog.

   Reply

   1. • Per Josephus as one of dozens of sources.

      It is likely that Mark’s Jesus figure is based/derived on a putative real earthly being attested in Josephus’ Jewish War—”Jesus son of Ananias”. Also it is likely that Mark’s “John the Baptist” figure is based/derived on a real earthly being attested in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews.

      So if the Markan author understood that Jesus son of Ananias was born 1 CE (or whatever and simply backdated to 1 CE) and died 70 CE during the “Siege of Jerusalem”. And the Markan author also understood that John the Baptist was executed by Herod Antipas c. 30 CE.

      Then the Markan author created a work of fiction by “retrojecting” the time and method of Jesus’ death to match Old Testament prophecy that foretold the temple’s destruction some X years after the shameful death of the “suffering servant” sent by Lord God.

      The timeline of this story just happens to fall on the 10 year administration of Pontius Pilate (26 to 36 CE).

      NB: Irony of ironies, even though the Markan author would of regarded Josephus’ Jesus son of Ananias and John the Baptist as historical people… they likely were not.

      • Miller, Merrill P. (2017). “The Social Logic of the Gospel of Mark: Cultural Persistence and Social Escape in a Postwar Time”. In Crawford, Barry S.; Miller, Merrill P. Redescribing the Gospel of Mark. SBL Press. pp. 207–400. ISBN 978-0-88414-203-4.

      In a monograph comparing the story of Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem and the story of Jesus ben Hananiah in Jerusalem, Ted Weeden Sr. has occasion to draw on Kloppenborg’s discussion of the Roman ritual of evocatio to argue that Josephus has himself composed the series of portents and prodigies as a theology of evocatio, obviously not in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Roman ritual, but to show that God had decided to abandon the temple because of the tyranny, false prophecy, and bloodshed of the rebels. The final portent, the oracle of Jesus-Ananias (Weeden’s shortened form for Jesus ben Hananiah) against the city, the temple, and the people represents the devotio. […] Weeden has presented an impressive list of parallels between Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem and Jesus-Ananias in Jerusalem in a Greco-Roman environment in which the penchant for mimetic writing was a central feature of literary production. —(pp. 263–264)

      • Doudna, Gregory L. (2019). “Is Josephus’s John the Baptist Passage a Chronologically Dislocated Story of the Death of Hyrcanus II?”. In Pfoh, Emanuel; Niesiolowski-Spanò, Lukasz (ed.). Biblical Narratives, Archaeology and Historicity: Essays In Honour of Thomas L. Thompson. Bloomsbury–T&T Clark. pp. 119–137. ISBN 978-0-567-68657-2.

      This article proposes that Josephus’s ‘John the Baptist’ passage in Antiquities is a chronologically displaced story of the death of Hyrcanus II, the aged former high priest, by Herod the Great in either c. 34 or 30 BCE.

      Reply

      1. Thanks

         Another term for retrojection is “prophesy after the fact.”

         Any reality, history, in myths? If there is, it has been so twisted that it seems to amount to fiction in the end.

         Manipulating timelines in particular seems extremely common in Christian myths. Trying to “harmonize” wildly divergent material; related but different stories.

         The end result is often similar to time distortions and free associationism in indeed, “dreams.”

         By mentioning dreams, maybe some biblical authors were trying to warn us that they were writing near hallucinatory, delusional “history.”

         Reply

         1. John Crossan liked the term “prophecy historicized”:

            My proposal is that Jesus’ first followers knew almost nothing whatsoever about the details of his crucifixion, death, or burial. What we have now in those detailed passion accounts is not history remembered but prophecy historicized. And it is necessary to be very clear on what I mean here by prophecy. I do not mean texts, events, or persons that predicted or foreshadowed the future, that projected themselves forward toward a distant fulfillment. I mean such units sought out backward, as it were, sought out after the events of Jesus’ life were already known and his followers declared that texts from the Hebrew Scriptures had been written with him in mind. Prophecy, in this sense, is known after rather than before the fact.

            Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p.145

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