Why I believe the Testimonium Flavianum is not a forgery or interpolation

Posted by Anthony on May 28, 2009

The Testimonium Flavianum is a famous- or infamous- passage from Josephus that on its face appears to corroborate the existence of Jesus in a non-Christian ancient source.   The TF was accepted as genuine for centuries until the Rationalists got a hold of it.  The assertion that it is a complete forgery is common and if hyper-skeptics could get away with it, that’s where they’d leave it.  Unfortunately, this is difficult, and the consensus is that it is an interpolation, and as such provides, minimally, evidence of Jesus’ existence.

If that is the consensus it may be a surprise to hear someone (me) suggesting that it is neither forgery nor interpolation, but rather genuine and authentic.  As I am a real free thinker, those who know me I don’t think are surprised at all. 

You may wish to consult the Wikipedia page on the subject which I think does a good job of covering all the relevant arguments, with the exception of there being no attempt to connect the dots for an argument in favor of its authenticity.  This post should not be considered an attempt to speak exhaustively on the subject or an attempt to give a ‘scholarly’ look at it.

My guiding principle here is ‘what does the evidence say?’  When we turn to the textual evidence, we find that our oldest Greek copies date from c. 1,000.  Our oldest quotation of it comes from Eusebius, who quotes it more or less the same as we find it 700 years later.    A separate, c. 1100 AD Syriac translation of the quotation turns out to be identical to Jerome’s Latin translation of the Greek TF.  As Jerome did his translations  c. 380 AD we gain, possibly, another independent attestation to the quote as reflected in our oldest Greek copies. Read the rest of the entry… »

Short Story: Chronos and Old Facts

Posted by Anthony on May 5, 2008

Chronos and Old Facts

A short story by Anthony Horvath

COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The sign on the door read “Bureau for Decommissioned Facts.” I pushed the door open gingerly, almost sheepishly. My quest to find this heretofore unknown department of the Universal University was not merely a recent one, but one that was given to me and not one that I had initiated. The department chair had taken me aside in the cafeteria, and in a tone that wavered between fatherly affection and patronizing condescension, insisted that I take a trip to Building 51023414, use the elevator to go down to the lowest sub-floor, and learn what could be learned in the BDF.

Naturally, I found the suggestion extremely curious, if only because I had never heard of the BDF and had never noticed a building marked 51023414 before. From some of the remarks made by the department chair I had some inclination to think that this quest was bestowed upon me in relation to a paper that I had recently submitted for publication. It was a paper that I was particularly proud of: bold, ambitious, counter-intuitive, and well-substantiated. Yet here I was, descending into the bowels of an ungodly numbered building as though I were back in high school and being sent to the principal’s office.

I beheld a nondescript sterile-white room. A black desk was in the middle of it, standing in stark contrast to the rest of the décor. A woman I instantly dubbed in my mind the ‘Prune Woman’ stared at me behind thick black-rimmed glasses. An older lady, to put it nicely. She glared at me. “How can I help you, sir?”

“My department chair sent me here,” I offered, not really knowing what else I could say. One of her eyebrows raised in an inquisitive manner.

“Which department?” she inquired.

“History,” I replied.

“Of course,” she said. “It usually is. Right this way.” Read the rest of the entry… »