Friday, August 8, 2008
The Writings of Josephus are Corrupt
I have always thought that the writings of Josephus have corrupted. As such I wonder whether Ananus (the repentant high priest who Josephus says realized that peace with Rome was better than war after the rebellion started) is one of those people who cite Agrippa's speech later in the narrative?
In any event I found what I think is a Marcionite theological understand of the war identifying the War as a consequence of the Jews 'choosing Barabbas' (i.e. Agrippa?) over Jesus. It replaces Ananus' speech in favor of surrender to the Romans found in other manuscript traditions:
What remedy is being searched for, when the proposer of the remedy is not reconciled? What were you thinking would happen, when with your own hands you put your salvation on the cross, with your own hands you extinguished your life, with your own voices you banished your supporter, with your own attacks you killed your helper, except that you also put your hands against yourself? You have what you sought, you have snatched away from yourself the patron of peace, you sought for the arbiter of life to be killed, for Barabbas to be released to you … Thus salvation departed from you, peace went away, calm left off, rebellion was given to you destruction was given. Recognize you that Barabbas is alive today, Jesus is dead … now faith withers and piety is buried and the emulation of all virtue has gone away. It is not a wonder if the people, who have withdrawn from god and follow a wicked spirit of contradiction, are divided among themselves, for how were they able to hold their peace who rejected the peace of god? Christ is the peace of god who made both one. Deservedly therefore from one people many have been made against themselves, because divided they were unwilling to follow Jesus uniting them in fellowship, but joined together they followed the dividing spirit of madness. You paid therefore, Jerusalem, the price of your faithlessness, when you yourself with your own hands destroyed your defenses, when with your own swords you dug out your entrails, so that the enemy felt pity, that he was lenient that you might rage. Indeed he saw that god was fighting against you and was engaged on behalf of the Romans, and you yourself were bringing in a voluntary betrayal … A military camp in the temple, warfare on the threshold, death on the altars, themselves to see those things about to happen which they had not believed the prophets announcing … For at that time gentiles came into the heirship of god, who would snatch away all things … What else could befall them, who were not accepting divine precepts? They mocked the announcements of the prophets, they spurned every command of heaven, They did not believe the things about to be, which that they should take place they themselves hastened. For there was an ancient and repeated saying that the city of Jerusalem would then be ruined and the sacred things destroyed. when the strife of war attacked the law and domestic hands should contaminate the temple of god. Not even this did they understand; indeed how many times was the house of god destroyed, how many times was there rebellion, how often blockade, how often war! Never was that city destroyed, unless when truly they fixed the temple of god to a cross with domestic hands. And about that temple, let them hear: break up this temple and in three days I will rouse it again. And indeed what was it other than sacrilege, when they extended irreverent hands against the source of salvation, when they stoned him, when they scourged him, when they seized him, when they killed him? Then truly the divine fire consumed their sacred things. For when they were burned by the Babylonians they were afterwards renewed, destroyed by Pompey they were restored again, but they were thoroughly burned, when Jesus came, broken up by the heat of the divine spirit they vanished. It was necessary with a certain abundant lamenting for us to recite certain funeral rites of our ancestral rituals, and as it were to follow a certain funeral procession and to loosen the funeral rites with the customs of our ancestors.
In any event I found what I think is a Marcionite theological understand of the war identifying the War as a consequence of the Jews 'choosing Barabbas' (i.e. Agrippa?) over Jesus. It replaces Ananus' speech in favor of surrender to the Romans found in other manuscript traditions:
What remedy is being searched for, when the proposer of the remedy is not reconciled? What were you thinking would happen, when with your own hands you put your salvation on the cross, with your own hands you extinguished your life, with your own voices you banished your supporter, with your own attacks you killed your helper, except that you also put your hands against yourself? You have what you sought, you have snatched away from yourself the patron of peace, you sought for the arbiter of life to be killed, for Barabbas to be released to you … Thus salvation departed from you, peace went away, calm left off, rebellion was given to you destruction was given. Recognize you that Barabbas is alive today, Jesus is dead … now faith withers and piety is buried and the emulation of all virtue has gone away. It is not a wonder if the people, who have withdrawn from god and follow a wicked spirit of contradiction, are divided among themselves, for how were they able to hold their peace who rejected the peace of god? Christ is the peace of god who made both one. Deservedly therefore from one people many have been made against themselves, because divided they were unwilling to follow Jesus uniting them in fellowship, but joined together they followed the dividing spirit of madness. You paid therefore, Jerusalem, the price of your faithlessness, when you yourself with your own hands destroyed your defenses, when with your own swords you dug out your entrails, so that the enemy felt pity, that he was lenient that you might rage. Indeed he saw that god was fighting against you and was engaged on behalf of the Romans, and you yourself were bringing in a voluntary betrayal … A military camp in the temple, warfare on the threshold, death on the altars, themselves to see those things about to happen which they had not believed the prophets announcing … For at that time gentiles came into the heirship of god, who would snatch away all things … What else could befall them, who were not accepting divine precepts? They mocked the announcements of the prophets, they spurned every command of heaven, They did not believe the things about to be, which that they should take place they themselves hastened. For there was an ancient and repeated saying that the city of Jerusalem would then be ruined and the sacred things destroyed. when the strife of war attacked the law and domestic hands should contaminate the temple of god. Not even this did they understand; indeed how many times was the house of god destroyed, how many times was there rebellion, how often blockade, how often war! Never was that city destroyed, unless when truly they fixed the temple of god to a cross with domestic hands. And about that temple, let them hear: break up this temple and in three days I will rouse it again. And indeed what was it other than sacrilege, when they extended irreverent hands against the source of salvation, when they stoned him, when they scourged him, when they seized him, when they killed him? Then truly the divine fire consumed their sacred things. For when they were burned by the Babylonians they were afterwards renewed, destroyed by Pompey they were restored again, but they were thoroughly burned, when Jesus came, broken up by the heat of the divine spirit they vanished. It was necessary with a certain abundant lamenting for us to recite certain funeral rites of our ancestral rituals, and as it were to follow a certain funeral procession and to loosen the funeral rites with the customs of our ancestors.
Email stephan.h.huller@gmail.com with comments or questions.