May 262024
 

Did you know?

The website at earlychristianwritings.com has been online since 2001.

I was only 20 years old when I put the website online. That’s right, not even old enough to get a drink!

The layout was designed by my brother-in-law Andy. It hasn’t been touched in over twenty years.

WordPress didn’t exist. Every single web page – hundreds of them – is hand-crafted HTML code.

Like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with its comforting “DON’T PANIC” on the cover, the website has always had one simple advantage over all others. An orderly chronological listing on the homepage.

That website has served millions and has been linked or cited thousands of times online and in print.

But it’s been showing its age for a while, even in the basics. No SSL? No responsive layout? Yikes. Even enthusiasts of old websites built by hobbyists must admit it’s a painful experience on the phone.

It’s time for an upgrade!

Here’s what I am working on:

  • Creating a simpler look that puts the texts front and center for easy reading.
  • Adding more translations to the website.
  • Adding more original language texts to the website.
  • Using a responsive web design that works as well on the phone as on the desktop.
  • Securing the website with SSL and getting a faster hosting provider.
  • Using a modern web framework like Django, to make updates easier and faster.

The focus of the first update will be to get everything we currently have into the new website design. But I’ve been thinking about these things for a long time, and I have lots of interesting ideas for the website that I’d like to explore when that’s done.

For example, there’s been an e-Catena feature that I developed as a part of the website… but why shouldn’t these kinds of cross-references be built into the website and link you directly between reading the church fathers and reading the New Testament?

If you want to get an idea of my vision for the future of the website, the Gospel of Thomas Commentary is basically its prototype. Notice how each saying of the Gospel of Thomas is linked to other parallel passages, accompanied by the original language texts, and has additional commentary resources, even visitor interaction. This is the kind of thing that I’ve always wanted Early Christian Writings to be.

Joining the Waitlist

With early access to the upgraded website, you can test out the new features and the new design.

If you have ideas for the future of the website, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a comment below or send me an e-mail at peterkirby@gmail.com with your ideas!

Why Now?

Early Christian Writings has always been a labor of love and a one-man show. I developed most of it when I was young, in college, and had plenty of time. But then I graduated with a degree in mathematics and took a job at Apple, where I worked as a software developer and machine learning engineer. I learned a lot working for a big company on difficult projects, but it didn’t leave much time for developing the site.

In the back of my mind, I always wanted to take the time to do it right. Recently I left my job at big tech, moved out to Arizona, and set up a little home office where I can work on this full time. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now. I’m excited to get started.

Let me know what you think, and join the waitlist to follow along!

Jun 092015
 

featherOf all the techniques that could be used to study ancient texts, there are a few that stand out as being both very important and largely understudied, being either ignored in practice or taken on faith due to the lack of relevant expertise or accessible tools. The ones that come to my mind right now are these:

  • Paleography. Understood in general terms and largely regarded as a matter of deference to the experts, this may not have an abundance of practitioners but is at least widely respected and has a huge impact on historical studies. The other two mentioned may be envious of such wide respect and acceptance.
  • Computer-Aided Textual Criticism. There are those who truly believe that completely-thoroughgoing eclecticism is the only answer, there are those who would like to do something more but have no idea how yet, and then there are the few who come back from their tours through the land of “CoherenceBased Genealogical Method” textual criticism and try to convince the other two that it’s really worth visiting sometime.
  • Stylometry. Of the three, perhaps the most confusion surrounds these techniques, and a large part of it is due to the confusion and unresolved questions that still persist among the experts. Due to a combination of widespread superficial familiarity with the studies and the contradictions from those using some kind stylometric method to reach controversial conclusions, stylometric “results” are most often cited with some degree of skepticism (except, of course, when credulously cited as a conversation-stopper).

The first of these two subjects truly are fascinating in their own right, and there are no doubt some others like these that I didn’t mention. But let’s talk about stylometry.

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May 212015
 

010-john-baptist

While not nearly as much ink has been spilled over the reference to John the Baptist found in Antiquities 18.116-119 (Whiston’s chapter 18.5.2), when compared to the case of the Testimonium to Jesus, there is still a debate to be found in the literature over the authenticity of the reference to John the Baptist in Josephus’ text. Several have ventured to postulate that the passage on John the Baptist, as well as the passage on Jesus, represents an interpolation. The arguments have not been surveyed and discussed as frequently as they should be.

One of the people to argue for interpolation in recent years has been Frank Zindler, whose reasons were summarized by Neil Godfrey. Another argument (in “Josephus’ Account of John the Baptist: A Christian Interpolation?”) has been made by Rivka Nir, which has been mentioned by Godfrey and McGrath. There is an older discussion in English from Israel Abrahams, referencing scholars such as Gerlach and Graetz. Robert Price considers an argument for inauthenticity, which is discussed by Maurice Casey. One of the more-detailed presentations, recently, pro-authenticity, can be found by Robert Webb. A review of arguments for authenticity (in an essay sub-titled “The Uncertain Authenticity of Josephus’ Witness to John the Baptist”) has been published by Clare Rothschild. There are also threads from the old Biblical Criticism & History forum from Andrew Criddle (who noted the point I made here in 2005), Toto (on Rivka Nir), ApostateAbe (on Robert Price), and PhilosopherJay (in favor of interpolation).

According to Clare Rothschild:

Unlike the study of its Christian counterparts about Jesus (A. J. 18.63-64, the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) and James (A.J. 20, 197-203), the authenticity of Josephus’ excerpt about John is hardly debated. Without demur, theologians and historians alike rely on this passage for reconstructions of John’s life.

Let’s debate it then.

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May 072015
 

Gesta_Theodorici_-_Flavius_Magnus_Aurelius_Cassiodorus_(c_485_-_c_580)In a previous post on The Quotable Josephus, we’ve seen that Josephus was frequently used as a source for quotation (including quotation by way of Eusebius, who himself quotes the Jewish historian). In a post on Eusebius, Rufinus, and the Latin Antiquities, we saw (in agreement with Whealey and Levenson-Martin) that the Latin translation of the Antiquities created under the supervision of Cassiodorus made use of quotations from Josephus, by way of Eusebius, based on the Latin translation of Eusebius made earlier by Rufinus. In particular, a hypothesis was considered according to which the quotations from Josephus by Eusebius, in Rufinus’ Latin translation, came to the Latin Antiquities of Cassiodorus from a set of extracts of Josephus in Latin that were already made out of the Latin translation of Eusebius.

In another post on Jesus, John, and James in the Latin Table of Contents to Josephus, an argument was considered towards the probability of the conclusion that, unlike John the Baptist, Jesus was not originally mentioned in the Latin table of contents to the Antiquities.

Here’s a closer look at the passages from the Latin Antiquities based on the Latin translation of Eusebius.

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May 052015
 

Opera quae extant omnia :  nempe, Antiquitatum Judaicarum libri XX Sigismundo Gelenio interprete, De bello Judaico libri VII interprete Rufino Aquilejensi, Liber de vita sua cum interpretatione Gelenii, Adversus Apionem libri II cum versione antiqua ˆ Gelenio emendata, & De Maccabaeis seu de imperio rationis liber cum paraphrasi Erasmi Roterodami : accedit index locupletissimus : juxta editionem Graeco-Latinam Genevensem ad manuscriptos Palatinae bibliothecae codices castigatam quae nunc ˆ pluribus mendis expurgata & praeterea prolegomenis & appendice auctior redditur. by Josephus, Flavius*

Josephus’ Antiquities, Greek and Latin

In their article on “The Latin Translations of Josephus on Jesus, John the Baptist, and James” (Journal for the Study of Judaism 45, pp. 1-79), Levenson and Martin discuss the fact that four passages quoted from Josephus by Eusebius in the Latin translation of Rufinus appear with very similar wording in the Latin translation of the Antiquities conducted later under Cassiodorus (the passages on Jesus, the one on John, and two others, which mention high priests, including Caiaphas, and the death of Herod the Great). They write:

“In the Testimonium, LAJ makes only two minor stylistic changes in Rufinus’ text (et in place of –que and gentibus for gentilibus). LAJ ’s decision to reproduce Rufinus’ version of the Testimonium so precisely and the lack of any significant textual variation in the manuscript tradition of the Testimonium in LAJ might reflect a special regard for the exact wording of this passage. However, it should be noted that LAJ clearly depends on Rufinus in two other cases (AJ 17.168-170/HE 1.8.6-8 and AJ 18.34-35/HE 1.10.5). In the seven other extended AJ passages quoted by Eusebius there is no significant verbal overlap between LAJ and Rufinus.” (p. 58)

This post offers some quantitative analysis that confirms these conclusions. It goes on to ask why some passages in the sixth century translation of Josephus’ Antiquities into Latin might show this very significant verbal overlap, indicating use of the Latin text of the quotes of Josephus in the translation of Eusebius made by Rufinus, while others do not.

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May 022015
 

250px-Josephus_flavius,_english_1602The works of Josephus did not survive only in complete editions of his books. Between the fact that Josephus was (and remains) eminently quotable, particularly for his relevance to the times of the New Testament, and the fact that his works were voluminous, there was often occasion for excerpts to be made from his texts.

Excerpta (or florilegia) were a common form of (subliterary) writing activity, from antiquity, through the medieval period, and into modernity. Extracts were made for personal use, in preparation for one’s own composition, for straight quotation or adaptation in other works, and even for publication in their own right. As Goldberg’s helpful web page on the New Testament Parallels to the Works of Josephus illustrates, Josephus is particularly well-suited for this kind of anthologizing.

Thackeray used two texts with extensive excerpts when editing Josephus for the Loeb edition: the Excerpta Peiresciana (excerpts “made by order of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, cent. x.”) and an epitome “E,” which was, “used by Zonaras, and conjectured by Niese to have been made in cent, x or xi.”

There are, however, many more manuscripts with excerpts from Josephus also known to us.

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Apr 302015
 

josephusmaybeThe study of the texts of Josephus, even in connection to the ‘hotly contested’ and famous passages found there, is not all wrangling. There is, it will be admitted, a slight amount of mystery as to whether a reference to Jesus originally formed part of the Latin table of contents (falling out of transmission here and there), or whether it came later and proliferated to most (but not all) of the Latin manuscripts. Aside from that, however, there is very little to tussle over here, with some interesting things to observe in the development of the textual witnesses, particularly in connection to the parts where John is mentioned.

This post would be completely impossible without the diligent and much-appreciated efforts of David B. Levenson and Thomas R. Martin, authors of “The Latin Translations of Josephus on Jesus, John the Baptist, and James: Critical Texts of the Latin Translation of the Antiquities and Rufinus’ Translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History Based on Manuscripts and Early Printed Editions” (Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume 45 [2014], Issue 1, pages 1 – 79). Their work here is invaluable, as they have presented a critical edition of these passages (and related matter), in the Latin version, for the first time.

Disclaimer: The English translations are partly based on the Loeb edition, but any errors are my own.

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Apr 272015
 

JosephusThe question of the origin of the “table of contents” and related practices in antiquity (when they began to be used, how they entered the manuscript tradition, and whether they are authorial or not in any particular case) is an involved one. There is an excellent paper by Roger Pearse providing some notes on the subject. On the question of the origin of the summaries found at the beginning of the books in Josephus’ Antiquities, some circumspect notes are offered by Joseph Sievers (“The Ancient Lists of Contents of Josephus’ Antiquities” in Studies in Josephus and the Varieties of Ancient Judaism, pp. 290-291).

1. “The author of the argumenta is ‘ostensibly’ Jewish, as Thackeray remarked. Abraham is called ‘our’ forefather (Ant. 1 #vii; cf. Ant. 1.158); ‘our’ people served the Moabites (Ant. 5 #v); Demetrius presented gifts to ‘our’ people (Ant. 13 #iv).”
2. “Christians took great interest in the Antiquities and were early on, from the third century at the latest, involved in their textual transmission.  The fact that the argumenta show no Christian influence suggests an early date.”
3. “A terminus ante quem for the argumenta of the Antiquities is their Latin translation commissioned by Cassiodorus (c. 490–c. 583 C.E.), for the Latin argumenta, attested in relatively early manuscripts, agree on the whole with the Greek ones.”
4. “Nodet’s suggestion that the argumenta constituted Josephus’ outline before he wrote the Antiquities seems to be a brilliant solution to the striking inconsistencies between argumenta and text of the work. In support of his hypothesis one may adduce that they are at times closer to the content and wording of the War than of the Antiquities, and sometimes mix elements from both works.”
5. “Yet, there are other indicators that suggest that, as in the case of other ancient authors, the argumenta were provided for the benefit of the reader and are not fortuitous remains of the author’s outline. (see Ant. 1 #vii; 13 #i).”
6. “In some instances, the argumenta reflect use of a text of the Antiquities similar to the one known to us (see especially Ant. 14 #xxxvii and 15# 1; 15 #2). It does not appear feasible to assign just these sections to a later redactor.”
7. “Thus, the author of the argumenta seems to have known different (but not all) sources and stages of composition of the Antiquities, had a fair acquaintance with Jerusalem topography (Ant. 14 ##i, xii), and had a less than perfect knowledge of the geography of Greece and/or Roman history (Ant. 14 #xxii). Whether he knew the Histories of Nicolaus of Damascus (a principal source for both the War and the Antiquities) seems an intriguing but hard-to-verify possibility.”
8. “If it is hard to see the argumenta as Josephus’ own composition, Gutschmid’s suggestion of a ‘servus litteratus’ (or Thackeray’s ‘assistant’) does not seem as farfetched as it had appeared to me when I began my research for this paper.”

With these observations in mind, we turn to the subject of the table of contents of Antiquities, book 18.

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Apr 192015
 

Artist’s Rendition of Machaerus

The translation in the Loeb edition of Josephus’ Antiquities 18.112 reads:

On his return after transacting his business in Rome, his wife, who had got wind of his compact with Herodias, before any information reached him that she had discovered everything, asked him to send her away to Machaerus, which was on the boundary between the territory of Aretas and that of Herod. She gave no hint, however, of her real purpose. Herod let her go, since he had no notion that the poor woman saw what was afoot. Some time earlier she herself had dispatched messengers to Machaerus, which was at that time subject to her father, so that when she arrived all preparations for her journey had been made by the governor. She was thus able to start for Arabia as soon as she arrived, being passed from one governor to the next as they provided transport. So she speedily reached her father and told him what Herod planned to do.

The footnote here says:

The reading of the mss. is “and to him who was subject to her father.”

The following notes are in the text here in the Loeb edition.

εἰς τὸν Μαχαιροῦντα τότε3 πατρὶ αὐτῆς ὑποτελῆ,4
3 τότε] ed. pr.: τῷ τε codd.
4 ed. pr.: ὑποτελεῖ codd.

The Neise edition simply reads, in agreement with the manuscripts:

εἰς τὸν Μαχαιροῦντα τῷ τε πατρὶ αὐτῆς ὑποτελεῖ

F. F. Bruce remarks in a footnote:

He appeals to the statement found in all the printed editions of Josephus, Ant. xviii 112, that Machaerus was subject to Aretas at the time of his daughter’s flight from Antipas (εἰς τὸν Μαχαιροῦντα τότε [τὸν τῷ Bekker] πατρὶ αὐτῆς ὑποτελῆ); but the manuscript tradition (εἰς τὸν Μαχαιροῦντα τῷ τε πατρὶ αὐτῆς ὑποτελεῖ) does not make this statement.

The reading of the printed texts and translations may be called a conjectural corruption of Josephus. Although it is to be found in the editio princeps of the Greek text of Josephus printed in 1544, it disagrees with the three extant manuscripts that attest to Antiquities 18 (AMW).

[Update May 2, 2015: The Latin version (and quotation of it) reads “apud Macherunta omnia pararentur quae itineris usus exposceret” and thus omits the phrase. A perceived inconcinnity in the original wording, “and to him who was subject to her father,” may explain this. On the other hand, if the original wording were the phrase “which was at that time subject to her father,” an omission by the Latin translators of the sixth century may be more difficult to explain. But if the original wording were the wording present in the Greek manuscripts, which could be considered a ‘difficult’ phrasing due to the oblique way of mentioning this person, both the omission in the Latin and the alteration in the Greek is explained.]

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Apr 062015
 

Apostle-Paul_Humanity-HealingThis post will explore some of the plausible “shorter readings” in the Apostolikon used by the Marcionites. There may be more shorter readings in the Apostolikon that are possible that are not found in this list, but this list is intended to include those that meet a minimum standard of evidence, referencing this list of criteria.

(1) Shorter readings attested as such by the patristic writers.

(2) Unattested readings that have manuscript support or patristic support for their absence.

(3) Unattested readings that were likely to be quoted by Tertullian if they were in the Apostolikon.

(4) Unattested readings that correspond to a scholarly conjecture for interpolation on grounds other than the alleged absence in Marcion’s Apostolikon.

However, this is not a list of interpolations in the letters of Paul, as such a list may be shorter or longer and would have somewhat different contents. It is a list of likely or suspected shorter readings in Marcion’s Apostolikon, compared to most extant manuscripts of Paul. The existence of such shorter readings in the Apostolikon is something mentioned (in a general way and with specific instances) by several of those who comment on Marcion’s text.

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