I know nothing about this topic and have no expertise to offer. But here are the facts as I see them:
1. an "anointed one" would have struck the ears of Greeks as unusual and would have required some sort of explanation.
2. a "Chrestos" would be a more familiar title and would not have required explanation.
3. Josephus does not explain the terminology to his audience (as best as I can recall).
4. Josephus would not have used nomina sacra, this came from the scribal convention of Christian monks.
5. Josephus might have abbreviated words in the convention of his time. It seems unlikely that "Chrestos" was common enough an epithet to be abbreviated.
6. the earliest Christian gospel does not explain who Jesus is, what his mission is or why he is the Christ.
7. Justin and the Marcionites see concealment as critical for the success of his mission (i.e. his need for "disguise" concealing he is the "man of war" with a meek appearance to secure crucifixion and descent into the underworld to liberate the souls who died without the Law). If Josephus is a Jewish general and the Josephan corpus a development of something written by him, he would not have been interested in concealing the identity of Jesus.
8. if the references to Jesus are secondary, i.e. written by someone other than Josephus, searching for "Josephus's intent" is a waste of time as the forger would only be imitating "reasonable intent" on the part of Josephus.
9. if the forger believed that Jesus was the Christ one could imagine having "Josephus" witness Jesus as the Christ, it would undoubtedly have been abbreviated in the manner of Christian manuscripts and it would have little relevance to a discussion of what first century Christians believed.
I don't know how much further to go with this. But here is an important observation (I hope). At the core of Jewish vs Christian debates about the messiah (the Christ) there is the juxtaposition between "someone like David" i.e. a victorious general and a son of David who is basically a wimp.
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The Christian understanding for the "messiah" is impossible. To believe the Christians you would have to assume that Daniel was talking about an actual "anointed one" rather than the chrism disappearing but moreover that "the prophets" as such predicted a failed "anointed one" who dies for some "secret" reason that isn't immediately apparent to the "world rulers." That Josephus a Jewish general matter of factly reported on a stupid interpretation of prophetic writings seems absurd in itself i.e. that he just "let slip through" an implausible belief about a messiah who gets sand kicked in his face in order to die for some secret purpose. The historical Josephus would have laughed or worse been very upset with this formulation.
As I see it there are only one of two possibilities:
1. the references to Jesus were added later and "the Christ" could have been associated with Jesus by an interpolator who presumably was a Christian
or
2. Josephus wrote the reference and he witnessed contemporary beliefs regarding Jesus as the "Chrestos" a title he didn't understand and let pass because he wasn't interested in what Christians had to say about Jesus.
Josephus would have taken issue with the Christian notion of "all the prophecies" leading to a loser.
1. an "anointed one" would have struck the ears of Greeks as unusual and would have required some sort of explanation.
2. a "Chrestos" would be a more familiar title and would not have required explanation.
3. Josephus does not explain the terminology to his audience (as best as I can recall).
4. Josephus would not have used nomina sacra, this came from the scribal convention of Christian monks.
5. Josephus might have abbreviated words in the convention of his time. It seems unlikely that "Chrestos" was common enough an epithet to be abbreviated.
6. the earliest Christian gospel does not explain who Jesus is, what his mission is or why he is the Christ.
7. Justin and the Marcionites see concealment as critical for the success of his mission (i.e. his need for "disguise" concealing he is the "man of war" with a meek appearance to secure crucifixion and descent into the underworld to liberate the souls who died without the Law). If Josephus is a Jewish general and the Josephan corpus a development of something written by him, he would not have been interested in concealing the identity of Jesus.
8. if the references to Jesus are secondary, i.e. written by someone other than Josephus, searching for "Josephus's intent" is a waste of time as the forger would only be imitating "reasonable intent" on the part of Josephus.
9. if the forger believed that Jesus was the Christ one could imagine having "Josephus" witness Jesus as the Christ, it would undoubtedly have been abbreviated in the manner of Christian manuscripts and it would have little relevance to a discussion of what first century Christians believed.
I don't know how much further to go with this. But here is an important observation (I hope). At the core of Jewish vs Christian debates about the messiah (the Christ) there is the juxtaposition between "someone like David" i.e. a victorious general and a son of David who is basically a wimp.
The Christian understanding for the "messiah" is impossible. To believe the Christians you would have to assume that Daniel was talking about an actual "anointed one" rather than the chrism disappearing but moreover that "the prophets" as such predicted a failed "anointed one" who dies for some "secret" reason that isn't immediately apparent to the "world rulers." That Josephus a Jewish general matter of factly reported on a stupid interpretation of prophetic writings seems absurd in itself i.e. that he just "let slip through" an implausible belief about a messiah who gets sand kicked in his face in order to die for some secret purpose. The historical Josephus would have laughed or worse been very upset with this formulation.
As I see it there are only one of two possibilities:
1. the references to Jesus were added later and "the Christ" could have been associated with Jesus by an interpolator who presumably was a Christian
or
2. Josephus wrote the reference and he witnessed contemporary beliefs regarding Jesus as the "Chrestos" a title he didn't understand and let pass because he wasn't interested in what Christians had to say about Jesus.
Josephus would have taken issue with the Christian notion of "all the prophecies" leading to a loser.
Statistics: Posted by Secret Alias — Wed Feb 07, 2024 8:53 am