Ben the Amateur Exegete has another nothingburger roundup

Here's the link.

Contra Robyn Faith Ehrman Walsh, no, it's not "striking" that the gospels don't describe Jesus' appearance. We don't know for sure Apollonius of Tyana looked like. Many later Cynic philosophers are unknown to us. Within his own tradition, we don't know what John the Baptizer looked like. Etc., etc. Someone more famous in his own time than Jesus and John? We don't know what Josephus looked like, either. No external source tries to describe any of the three and Josephus doesn't try to describe himself. Worse? Walsh did this same schtick last year, per another post by Ben. Worse yet, in that same post, is a piece claiming Jesus was "Ugly," because Isaiah 53 and something Irenaeus said 150 years after Jesus lived. I've had enough of various thoughts of John Nelson to reject that one, too. (And gack, his PhD thesis bled an alleged 100,000 words over that, he says. [No follow on that link enacted.])

The bible doesn't exist, but only as an intellectual formulation? A nothingburger to those who know the formation of the canon of the Christian Old and New Testaments. 

The intertextual bible (giving it a separate link) actually sounds interesting enough that Ben, other than posting Charles Kuffner like snippets, should actually write a post about it. 

 ==

Gack! Going through his posts, he believes in a historical Moses. 

Panthera: Christian creation, not Jewish?

So claims Christopher Zeichmann, in this excerpt from a new book. The basic gist is that this was a Christian anti-Jewish polemic:

Early Christian writers placed the accusation in the mouths of fictional or stylized Jewish opponents to defend the virginal conception, police Christian belief, and portray Jews as hostile outsiders. Rabbinic references to the “son of Panthera” are late, fragmentary, and too ambiguous to support the idea of an organized Jewish anti-Christian polemic.

INNteresting. 

My first counter-thought is, then how did it wind up in the Toledoth Yeshu? Did rabbis forget entirely about its Christian origin? (Zeichmann doesn't claim the whole TY is a Christian creation, or even with largely Christian roots. He knows that's simply not possible.)

Zeichmann notes that its first Jewish reference is in the third century CE, in the Tosefta. He also notes the Tosefta refers to a "heretic" named Yaakov, who invokes the name of Yeshu to try to heal someone from snakebite. Is this a play on "Yohanan the Dyemaker" in Toledoth Yeshu, generally regarded as John the Baptizer? Both it and the Jerusalem Talmud's story play off the idea of Jesus the Magician, which appears to be a strain of thought from early on in the TY.

Second, why did it already arise in the second century? Wasn't Christianity still too small to be issuing bank-shot anti-Jewish counterblasts, at least ones with enough legs to get the attention of Celsus? 

Zeichmann says:

[T]here are two major flaws with the prevailing opinion that the Panthera legend was the product of Jewish slander and largely perpetuated by Jews. First, Christian texts claiming that real, historical Jews were the primary articulators of the Panthera legend are deeply unreliable. Second, it is not clear that the earliest Jewish references to “Yeshu son of Panthera” refer to the Christian figure of Jesus. Let us consider these issues in turn.

Well, let's see now. 

He goes on to claim that since we don't have Celsus' own words, who claims to be quoting a Jew, we can hardly know what Celsus actually said. Well, that's true of ANYTHING where Celsus is being refuted by Origen.

He then claims the Jewish Yeshu has but few points of comparison with Jesus. 

Yes, but isn't that the whole point? The TY, for example, is largely a scurrilous screed. Zeichmann approaches the Jesus Seminar's use of the "criterion of dissimilarity," or perhaps its overuse.

As for unreliability of texts? Are the texts he critiques MORE unreliable than others, and if so, how much more? Not stated in this excerpt. 

Zeichmann then says it's the Babylonian Talmud that conflates ben Stada and ben Panthera, and after the conflation, makes the new person to look more like Jesus. That said, at least in this excerpt, he does no further analysis of the conflation.

Interestingly, Zeichmann only references the TY twice.

I just don't buy the idea that some Christian, pre-170 CE, would have made this story up to kneecap Jews and specifically over a dispute about Mary's virginity or not.

Going beyond that, Zeichmann claims this is Christian projection of doubt about the virginal conception. Also unlikely, if not highly unlikely.

Plus, this is not the only time Zeichmann has had an "out there" interpretation. (Among other things, he posits a gay relationship between the centurion and servant of Jesus' healing in Matthew 8/Luke 7, though his focus is more on the interpretation history of the passage. Where he really goes wrong, on that link, beyond that, is the assumption this is based on a historical event. The idea that Capernaum, largely Jewish, had an actual centurion, per both Matthew and Luke and presumably Q behind it [I take John as derivative from Luke] is simply a non-starter. Yes, Antipas had elements of his army partially, and in places, organized on Roman lines, but that's not a guarantee. Besides, at no more than 1,000 people there, Antipas would have had no more than a small constabulary. Zeichmann has a much more detailed discussion of the discussion, and pros and cons, here.)

Finally, an author who five-star ratings-bombs his own book before it appears in print, as Zeichmann did on Goodreads? (I one-star rating-bombed in response to set the scales back to even.) 

Top blogging of April-June 2026

 This is, per Blogger stats (which may or may not include bot hits) the most-read posts of the last three months. That does not necessarily mean they were written in the past three months, and "evergreen" posts will be noted.

The usual counting backward, per Tom Lehrer and Wernher von Braun:

 

No. 10 is about the ahistoricity of the last one-quarter of Acts, even when judged by the historicity of the rest of the book and is from 2022.

No. 9 is about what John Drinkwater got wrong on Nero, Tacitus and early Christianity, in his bio of Nero and is from 2021. 

No. 8 is new, from within the last couple of months, about what Texas Observer got wrong vis-a-vis Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico's liberal Presbyterianism within larger Presbyterian, and mainline Protestant, denominationalism.

No. 7 ties broadly to No. 10, but is new; it's about Berenice, sister of Agrippa II, and it is more specifically about reality vs legend in her life. 

Four straight posts about wrongness of others' interpretations, eh? 

No. 6, also new, continues the trend, as I excoriate an article about "Catholic" "womenpriests." That's scare quotes for both because per the excoriated article, both are earned. It's also raised my skeptical antennae about the site that posted the original link.

No. 5, is also new, and my take on a great article by Bruce Chilton talking about "godfearers" in Acts. In this case, it's him pointing out what others have gotten wrong. 

No. 4 relates to No. 10, and also to the theme here. I call out Adam Gopnik for a semi-fail on his understanding of the historical Paul.

No. 3? Even more so. I refudiate philosopher friend Massimo Pigliucci over his defense of determinism. (More refudiation is upcoming, related to the Stoicism and neo-Stoicism that is a prime driver of his determinism.) 

No. 2? An oldie but a goodie: "More proof the Buddha was no Buddha." Indirectly, it's also a refutation of Robert Wright. It's from way back in 2007.

No. 1 is about fascism, or "lutefash," in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and of added importance with appeaser LCMS incumbent president Matthew Harrison just being elected to another term, with a whole 50.1 percent per this Substack. It's from 2023.

And, of course, besides the countdown idea in general, Lehrer's piece ties well with No. 1 on the list. 

No "book of Leviticus" eh?

Here's an interesting post from "The Amateur Exegete". about the The SBL (Society for Biblical Literature) Study Bible's Leviticus volume, noting that the Torah was put into five scrolls as is because of scroll length and that Leviticus, at least, doesn't stand out as a separate book.

I pull quote what Ben the Amateur has: 

Despite having its own title, there is really no “book” of Leviticus in any meaningful sense. Leviticus never existed as an independent literary or textual unit at any stage of its development or incorporation into biblical canon. The Pentateuch is not five independent books cobbled together but rather a single literary work presented in five volumes, the division having been based on the material limits of scroll technology. The essential continuity of Leviticus with what comes before and after is apparent from both a broad perspective and from a close reading. The very first words of the book, literally “He called to Moses,” lack an explicit subject in Hebrew; the English addition of “the LORD” is assumed from preceding verses at the end of Exodus. Who Moses is, where and when the events of Leviticus take place, what the nature and historical background of the relationship between Israel and its deity is – none of these are explained in Leviticus itself but are dependent on the story that has been told from the beginning of the Pentateuch to this point.

Interesting, per the author, no translation of Leviticus puts "The LORD" in square brackets at the start of Leviticus 1:1, not even the new RSV.

That said? Here's the end of Exodus 40:

34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 36 Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey, 37 but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. 38 For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud[a] by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.

And, the start of Leviticus 1:

1 The Lord summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When any of you bring an offering of livestock to the Lord, you shall bring your offering from the herd or from the flock.

There you are. It is a "flow" of sorts. 

I do think Baden overstates his case, though.

Genesis as seen today was presumably a separate unit. It stands separately, being pre-Egypt times except for the tail end. Only the Tesserateuch, to riff on Tatian, is really a single unit. (On biblical criticism, I still believe in some version of the old documentary hypothesis. I believe that there is a separate E source, and that it and J were written, revised, edited and updated in response to each other in a sort of scriptio continua, to riff on the Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant lectionary term. There is of course no D material until Deuteronomy, and there, there's multiple D layers, with perhaps the earliest being what Moses Wilhelm Shapira found, per Idan Dershowitz. Or, Genesis, a "Triteuch" then Deuteronomy. See also Dershowitz and my take on the documentary hypothesis in general. And, per a 2009 book by him that's a revision of his PhD thesis, he appears to broadly agree with me.

On the matter at hand, I don't know if Baden addresses this, but the issue is WHY the Exodus-Leviticus division is where it is on modern scrolls. Exodus 35, after the second giving of the tablets of the Ten Divarim, gets to Yahweh's instructions for the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant and such. Breaking Exodus after chapter 34 and attaching the rest to Leviticus makes much more sense.  

The truth about Berenice, sister of Herod Agrippa II

 As in the Berenice mentioned with him late in Acts.

Per Bruce Chilton, not only will you not find it in Acts (shock me), you also won't find it in Josephus.

First, background. Given Paul's accusation of taking goys into the Holy Place, when he said it was for Jews fulfilling a Nazirite vow, Chilton notes that a couple of years later, she completed her own such vow, complete with shorn hair. That was after Florus replaced Festus. He then notes it was Berenice, not Agrippa II, who appealed to Florus, head still shorn, at this point. Josephus will tell you that, as he'll later tell you that she started an affair with Titus, which drew the ire of later Roman historians such as Dio Cassius.

But, he'll also claim Berenice and Agrippa II had an incestuous relationship. That said, he attacks her morals, not his, in a mix of sexism and probably some sort of political triangulation.

Chilton later scores him on that issue.

This is part of a new book by Chilton. In a later paragraph, he explains why:

Part of the enjoyment of conducting research was that Berenice made an impact on Roman sources, and evaluating them made a break from the attention to Aramaic texts that has preoccupied me in recent years. Yet whether in Latin or in Greek, whether or not pagan, and whether Christian or Jewish, the ancient sources are palpably wary of Berenice. Acts is not the only writing that doesn’t let her come to voice. (Oddly, Luke in Acts 24:24 does not even mention that Drusilla, the wife of Festus’ predecessor Felix, was Berenice’s sister.) Other members of the Herodian dynasty were also controversial, Herod the Great most of all. But Herod had an apologist, Nicholas of Damascus, who permitted that vicious but effective king to come to voice in the pages of the Jewish historian Josephus. Berenice had no such defender, and Josephus—who might reasonably have taken her part—joined in the rumor that Berenice engaged in incest with her brother, Agrippa II (Antiquities 20 §§ 145-146). In regard to Berenice, Josephus showed himself more the partisan of Rome than he was the advocate of Judaism that he liked to pose as. Indeed, he becomes incoherent in his desire to please his Roman patrons, ridiculing Berenice as libidinous but extolling Agrippa II, her alleged sexual partner, as noble. A woman who provoked the pushback that Berenice received from so many quarters obviously deserves attention, and tracing antipathy to her is an education itself.

Indeed, she deserves more attention. 

That said, Chilton adds that Josephus' rumor may have started with Cynic critics in Rome, perhaps in an attempt to block a marriage to Titus. It worked, as most biblical and classical historians know. Titus dismissed her when he took the imperial throne. She died sometime not too long after his own death, it appears. He dismissed her once earlier, in the mid-70s, and may have intended to recall her again in a couple of years. 

That said, the last one-quarter of Acts is far more nonhistorical than Chilton mentions. I discuss that in much more detail. 

Revisiting the "god-fearers" of early Christianity

An excellent piece by Thomas A. Robinson at the University of Arizona's Biblical Interpretation website, an underutilized source for biblical criticism.

Thesis is stated right at the top:

The widely accepted “god-fearer” thesis rests on weak foundations: the ancient terms are not clear technical labels, the evidence is sparse and often overstretched, and the model relies too heavily on assumptions about synagogue-associated Gentiles supposedly primed for Christian conversion. Early Christianity did not require a large class of literate, well-connected god-fearers to explain its growth, and this thesis has significantly shaped, and likely distorted, modern reconstructions of the movement’s origins, membership, and leadership.

Followed by five main points, all apparently taken from a book he wrote on the subject last year. 

The first point delves deeper into the "labeling" issue, looking at the two most common terms, and how and where in Greek they were used in the Septuagint. He concludes that by noting, while "god-fearer" is technically correct, whether as a dynamic translation we should even use that.

Second point? He says there's little evidence of the phenomenon from Jewish, Christian or pagan literature.

Third? He references the "Christianizing" of the Septuagint — including an overreading of how much, vs how little, Paul directly uses it, as a veil of sorts (my idea, riffing on Paul talking about the veil of Moses and analogizing from it) over clearer understanding of the LXX on this issue. He notes that the vast majority of the population was illiterate and so had no familiarity with it anyway.

Fourth point plays off the third and gets directly to Jewish vs Christian interpretations of the phenomenon, and larger Christian vs Jewish differences. He says, or indicated, there's a lot of assumptions at work here that have little standing. One is that Christianity would have been perceived as the only option for any actual god-fearers when a Christian preacher showed up. Another is whether, or not, circumcision was a real hurdle. Third is that conversion to a tiny cult would likely have been offset by a loss of Jewish friendships.

Fifth is the question of how long any significant body of god-fearers were around as a potential tool of converts.

Finally, his conclusion starts with this:

Almost every detail of popular and scholarly reconstructions of early Christianity is affected by the god-fearer thesis, from an emphasis on the economic, social, and intellectual resources of its membership and leadership, to its urban (and urbane) character, and its Jewish-tutored background. Such focus on god-fearers as a vital component in the early Christian movement tends to overlook how flimsy the evidence for god-fearers is and how unnecessary the god-fearers are to the developing Christian movement.

Give the whole thing a read. It's worth it.

Assuming he's right, this means that large swathes of Christianity would have been of a fully Hellenized, or Hellenized/Syriacized (sic) nature by no later than, say, the time of Marcion if not a full generation earlier, without "godfearer" intermediaries. OR, it means, given that we have moved well beyond Josephus on varieties of Judaism, that even more of Christian metaphysic than we have thought has Jewish roots. This, in turn, has implications for Christian development of Christology and related matters. 

 

 

Coming up: One red heifer, without blemish or spot? (No, on either story or cows)

Per the old bible verse of Numbers 19:2, Texas Monthly reports on the efforts of rancher Jerome Urbanosky and businessman Byron Stinson to raise just such animals. (Another rancher, Ty Davenport, eventually has his ranch looped in by Stinson, too.)

Stinson is a Christian Zionist wingnut. Urbanosky raises Santa Gertrudis, which caught his eye. The story says Stinson also looked at Red Angus.

The entire red heifer and purification water ceremony is in Numbers 19. Not all Christian Zionists, nor all religiously Orthodox Jewish Zionists, believe the red heifer is necessary to build a new Jewish temple, but many do. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are generally non-Zionist to outrightly anti-Zionist; their stances on temple rebuilding in general as well as the need for a red heifer can vary. Within Christianity, amillennial Christians reject the entire temple rebuilding nuttery as being necessary to bring on the apocalypse. On paper, this is the official stance of Catholicism, Orthodoxy and all mainline Protestant churches. In reality, it's not so clearcut among the laity. Outside of this, postmillennialists also generally reject this.

Shockingly, the Monthly gets several things wrong.

First, technically, it's to enter the tabernacle, not the temple. TM quotes Numbers 19 as saying "temple"; it does not.

Second, as with much of Numbers, there's no indication on how much this was ideal and aspirational vs being real, per Yonathan Adler's book.

Third, it was for general purification as much as anything. 

Fourth, there's no indication in either the Tanakh or the New Testament that it was specifically necessary for temple rebuilding. (The Monthly does note that Orthodox Judaism sees a temple already ready to come down from heaven; see also Revelation.)

Yitshak Mamo, Stinson's partner, is an ultra-Zionist Israel settler colonialist nutter. 

Related to that, the Monthly does tell you this:

Urbanosky told me he knew “doodley-squat” about the significance of a perfect red heifer. “You’re Christian, and they’re Jews,” Urbanosky said to Stinson. “So when the Temple gets built, who’s coming back, Jesus or the Jewish messiah?”

There you go. Millennialist Christian Zionist and Zionist Jews figure that, like other things, they'll fight it out after they kill the last Palestinian and finish making Eretz Israel Arab-rein. 

Cut to the chase: Five heifers eventually got sent to Israel in 2022. (The Monthly and other sites have reported on this before.) Hamas noticed and mentioned this in early 2024, after the start of the current intifada; and the Israeli rabbi who will have the last word on making the purity call says they're not.)

According to [Rabbi Joshua] Wander, Rabbi Azria Ariel, of the Temple Institute, is the world’s foremost authority on the red heifer and perhaps the only figure with the clout to compel the necessary consensus to move forward. Ariel wasn’t satisfied with the candidates. “At this moment, it is unclear whether we have in our possession in Israel a red heifer that is verifiably kosher and suited for the ceremony,” Ariel announced in March 2025. One of the five heifers had sprouted white hairs; another grew warts on the side of its neck.

There you are. Perhaps it's a stall tactic, too. 

It gets nuttier from there, with Stinson eventually finding some Israeli Jews, including an alleged priest raised for this moment, to do a practice red heifer ceremony. From there, Stinson goes MAHA with the ashes.

The author does note that the claims of Stinson and his ilk are rejected by mainstream scholars, but not until the last paragraph, and without any of the details I note. Never let a "good" story stand in the way of (or demote) the truth, Texas Monthly.

More r/AcademicBiblical moronity

I'm doing this less and less, in part because I've weaned myself from there more and more.

Nonetheless, stupidities still pop up and again, not just from the peanut gallery.

Take James McGrath (aka "ReligionProf") in this piece. Tell me how we know, outside the Christian gospel claims, that John the Baptizer styled himself as Elijah? Answer: We don't, and I hope you didn't claim that we do in your book about John.

In reality, as you should know, this is Christian appropriation of the Baptizer movement, or an attempt at it. 

My Goodreads review system

 

Since the much-self-heralded overhaul of the Yellow Satan-owned book review website a little over a year ago failed to give us partial-star review options, unlike places like Storygraph, where my account has pretty much gone dormant, and my regional library, both of which have nowhere near Yellow Satan's money, I finally figured I'd knock out a piece here about how I use partial stars.

I'll look at non-fiction first, as what middlebrow or whatever fiction I read has a different review system and is of less depth. I'll also add comments about particular types of non-fiction as needed.

Side note to begin: Lack of an index on a non-fiction book can cost you up to one full star. 

Second note: I, like Goodreads friend Marquise, have become a more critical reviewer as I've gotten older. Books from a decade or more ago would probably in many cases rank a half star or more lower today. 

5 full stars:

Rare. For history, the book must have a good thesis, be well presented if it's controversial, etc. For military or diplomatic history, good analysis needed. Good and legible maps needed if the book needs them. Good photos, on plate pages, preferably, as needed. NO factual errors. Political science/political history? Minus the maps angle, pretty much the same. Science? Good info, at a non-dumbed down public level. Charts, graphs etc., as parallel to maps in things like military history, are a must. Again, they should be legible as well as explanatory. Critical religious studies? On biblical criticism and exegesis, new thought is fine, but anything flunking Ockham's Razor or even approaching that is not. This is even more the case on archaeology, anthropology and other social sciences.

Within 5 stars, you may get on my "worth buying" shelf if you truly nail all of this.

4.75 stars:

No obvious failures. May have minor, trivial and totally non-essential errors, but usually, I won't allow that. Usually, this is because the book just falls short of the pinnacle, and, in a Major League Baseball reference, re the Hall of Fame, I don't believe in a "big hall."

4.5 stars:

History? Very solid, informative, but not quite compelling. A less than fully-compelling narrative may be part of why. Maybe you fell short on picking up ideas hinted as in your thesis. Biblical criticism: Somewhat the same. Ditto on social sciences. "Hard" sciences: Maybe, especially in biology and evolution, the narrative wasn't quite there. Physics? You probably didn't sell me on just how important the idea is.

4.25 stars:

In all nonfiction areas, you've got something good, but it's not that new, not that broad beyond what I already know, whether in terms of information, or ideas, or narrative, or value. Or, if newer, you didn't sell it well enough.

4 stars:

In history, military history and political science, you either definitely didn't move enough beyond what's already out there, or else you had either a poorly formed thesis or else a poorly defended one if new. You also, where not only warranted but called for, were inadequate on maps, charts, photos, etc. And, if you have an index, but it's partial or inadequate, and the book was very good otherwise, you'll be here. 

3.75 stars:

Same as above, but you also may have become tendentious. This is also the case in biblical criticism, social sciences, etc. And, if you have an index, but it's partial or inadequate, and the book was pretty good otherwise, you'll be here. 

3.5 stars:

On history and related, usually, you're not that much more than conventional or received wisdom, but tidbits and nuggets here and there make this of some value. In the hard sciences, as well as to a lesser extent in the social sciences and some humanities, like philosophy, you probably did not do good work explaining items that needed explanation. Related may be that your writing was too dense, or quasi-academic.

3.25 stars:

Not used that often, but similar to the above, only with more problems on writing, whether narrative style, poor explanation, or more. Serious lack of the peripherals, of charts, graphs, photos, maps, etc., may get you here. Total lack of an index, combined with other problems, will get you here or worse.

3 stars: 

Basically, you're average in my take on average, per all of the above.

2.75 stars: 

Probably used even less than 3.25. Per becoming a more critical reviewer with age, and per "ars longior, vita brevis," I'm less likely to waste quarter-star nuance on you.

2.5 stars:

History and related? If your book needs a thesis, it's probably poorly written and poorly defended as well. You're also surely missing some of the peripherals above. Biblical criticism? You're getting either too close to fundagelical territory, or if Christian New Testament criticism, too close to either that or Jesus mythicism. Sociology, anthropology and some political science? For this leftist who's a skeptical leftist, you may also be getting too far into identitarian-based ideas. Or, you may be getting too far into "-isms"; this can be true with philosophy and philosophy of history type books, too. On hard science books, you probably haven't done a good job of explaining concepts and such well to educated laypersons, or similar. This is going to be especially true in things like serious "pop" physics. If I need half a hand, at least, on quantum gravity, and a full hand on your sub-version, and you don't supply it, for example, you'll be here. Archaeology, anthropology? Poor explanation of relations between different peoples, cultures, etc. can also get you here.

2.25 stars:

Might use this a bit more than 2.75. Basically, it says your book is near the fairly bad territory, but not quite there. Or, that it is fairly bad for me, but some people may find moderate redeeming value. 

2 stars:

Your book is fairly bad for several of the reasons above. In history, you may be over your head, on a poor thesis which isn't new, along with bad narrative plus not being able to organize raw information into history.

1.75 stars:

Used rarely. Basically, your book is falling into really bad territory, but it's not quite totally there.

1.5 stars:

Your book is pretty much really bad. It has no truly redeeming qualities, even for people less informed than me. In the hard sciences, you're at least flirting with pseudoscience. Ditto in health and medicine. In history, you're over your head, or at least flirting with the edge of conspiracy theories. On political science, some types of history, and some social sciences, you're getting strongly into identitarianism, or other isms. I may like crushing you.

1.25 stars:

Very rare. Possibly a charity rating half the time.

1 star:

You're more into conspiracy theory, in history and political science, even if not a central part of your thesis. You're into quack levels of pseudoscience. You're into hard-core identitarianism. You're failing on trying to defend things. I probably like crushing you.

Less than 1 star:

I review-bombed your conspiracy theory book is the usual. Or you write a book that appears to be knowledgeable, but in reality has a self-undercutting pseudo-thesis that isn't what the book is actually about, like Sapolsky's "Determined."  If it's not a review-bomb review, I totally like thoroughly crushing you.

==

Middlebrow fiction?

Something like Tony Hillerman's murder mysteries, or Ursula LeGuin's fantasy?

I use a three-part rating, looking at plot, narrative and characters. I then average out the three, with weighting toward one of the three areas as necessary. 

Plot: The scale runs from plausible to implausible. On mystery-type books, don't be either a Captain Obvious, or on the other side, offer up bizarro twists.

Narrative: Don't give me stilted dialogue, or stilted narrative moving the plot along, either. And, if your book is part of a series by you, do a reasonable job at book-to-book consistency.

Characters: Are they plausible as individuals, on psyche, personhood related to job and other situations in the book, and interactions with other characters? If part of a series, do they grow from book to book? Is the growth and changes reasonable?

On the sum of the parts, how am I being entertained? 

==

Highbrow fiction?

If it's philosophical fiction, whether Plato, Hume, or Camus, you're getting a mix of the three-elements judging plus how I would judge your philosophy as philosophy.

Historical fiction? Less emphasis on the three-elements judging, but not nonexistent by any means, and plausible history. I'm not expecting maps here, but if an Alison Weir, etc., photos/paintings of photos, of course. And, within your historical fiction, like history, some sort of thesis, defended.

Alt-history? If it's a novel, at a minimum, be better than Harry Turtledove. If it's an alt-history essay like in the "What If?" series of books, no more than one major twist, please, and otherwise, meet the canons of history writing.

Other "highbrow"? A Thomas Mann to cite someone I've read from within the 20th century? Beyond the three-elements judging, have you moved me? Have you made me think? Have you enlarged me? Middlebrow fiction might be about entertainment; highbrow, for me, is about these things.

==

Finally, a couple of other additional notes.

First, I will call out egregiously bad reviewers, either as a class, or individuals, in some cases. That's above all in political science, modern political history and related, where I suspect low-star reviewers as individuals or a class are doing so for narrowly political reasons.

Second, I've called out much further, in a blog post, an oft-wrong history reviewer who has willfully developed a cult around himself. Don't make yourself into another History Nerd/History Toddler. 

Did Josephus really, REALLY write the Testimonium Flavianum?

Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ by T. C. Schmidt
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

If Schmidt's purpose was to convince people like me of his thesis, it actually backfired.

Could Josephus have written the Testimonium Flavianum himself, including the very Christian-looking ending?

Absolutely, technically and logically. That said, a unicorn could produce baby unicorns by farting fairy dust, too, but I'm not holding my breath over that likelihood either.

So, Josephus himself wrote the Testimonium Flavianum in the Antiquities? That’s the contention of T.C. Schmidt in his new book.

I’m not buying it, and wasn’t buying it by 40 pages into the book, due to tendentious translation, dubious text-critical claims and a variety of special pleadings.

First, as a reminder, from book 18 of the Antiquities, here is that Testimonium Flavianum, per the translation by Schmidt. That part, the end of that sentence, itself needed emphasis:

“And in this time there was a certain Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was a doer of incredible deeds, a teacher of men who receive truisms with pleasure. [My note: Why “truisms”? EVERY other translation I’ve seen, it’s “truths.” Is this designed to buttress Schmidt’s claims of the “slightly negative” aspect?] And he brought over many from among the Jews and many from among the Greeks. He was [thought to be {My note: Schmidt will claim these are “missing words.”}] the Christ. And, when Pilate had condemned him to the cross at the accusation of the first men among us, those who at first were devoted to him did not cease to be so, for on the third day it seemed to them that he was alive again given that the divine prophets had spoken such things and thousands of other wonderful things about him. And up till now the tribe of the Christians, who were named from him, has not disappeared.”

Schmidt claims that’s backed up by stylistic analysis, and he also claims that the testimony is not nearly as favorable as claimed. I'll challenge that as part of this review.

He also cites Josephus’ own claim to have known people in the trials of the apostles and even that of Jesus, by 51-52 CE. Really?

First of all, Caiaphas died in 46. So the high priest who reportedly condemned Jesus would not have been directly known to him.

Secondly, even at 51/52, Josephus is just 14 or so.

Second main point contra that is that Josephus was a braggart and self-turd polisher. Skipping way ahead in the book, we have:

“What follows is a sketch of six leading families with whom Josephus was familiar and whose members were also likely party to the execution of Jesus. These include the royal family of the Herodians, the rabbinic family of Hillel, and the high priestly families of Camith, Boethus, Phiabi, and especially Ananus I.”

From here, Schmidt goes on to make other statements, that, on the New Testament side, where connected with Herod Agrippa II, treat the last one-quarter of Acts with a hugely unwarranted degree of historicity. Also vis-a-vis Agrippa, Schmidt makes all sorts of reading between the lines and special pleadings on pages 163ff. He also assumes Jesus was “big enough” historically to have members of the House of Herod who would NOT have included Antipas or Agrippa I (both dying when Josephus was a tot) to remember him to Josephus.

Third, Acts is ahistorical enough even in its first half that we should probably largely ignore the “trials of the apostles.” See this piece of mine for a look at Acts' ahistoricity in general, focused on the last one-quarter of the book. Indeed, a 3-star reviewer here notes a relative lack of critical approach to the historicity of both Acts and the Mishnah. It’s been eons since I read the Mishnah myself, but, per the block quote above, it seems like special pleadings in this portion of the book as well. In addition, to move in the NT from Acts back to the gospels, taking every portrayal of Jesus “versus” the Pharisees at face value is also problematic.

Also related? He assumes that Jesus’ revolt, or whatever we should call it, occurred at Passover, and assumes within that that he Synoptics are right against John on what day the Passover was. (In one of his appendixes, Schmidt offers the “solution” [scare quotes!] that John was talking about the whole feast of Passover week with Unleavened Bread. Sure he was. Why haven't more biblical scholars said this, and written in depth about it?)

After this? Schmidt delves into that font of historicity, the Toledoth Yeshu, thoroughly and critically reviewed here, to claim that Ananus II, the guy who reportedly had some James, who may have been either a literal or non-literal brother of Jesus, put to death, was at Jesus’ trial. (Snark aside, the earliest elements of the Toledoth date from the second century CE. It's unlikely, though, that any first-century material is behind it. See Antiquities Book 20, Chapter 9.

Fourth? Schmidt’s claim that the Testimonium is neutral to negative? Only if you accept his one interpolation, that “He was [thought to be] the Christ.” Per Wiki, Schmidt claims these are “missing words” not an interpolation. Really? So, they magically fell out of copies of the Antiquities before its current citation? More on that, re Jerome apparently being the first to have “appeared to be,” here .

He also ignores the possibility that translators inserted these words because they thought “Josephus” looked too blatantly Christian otherwise.

That in turn means we have intellectual dishonesty, as I see it.

He goes on to claim that both Jacob of Edessa and Jerome in translation reflect what he postulates as the original indeed being so:

“Chapter 2 canvasses various western and eastern versions of the TF—in Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian—while consulting several manuscripts and correcting past transcriptions. Most significantly, a certain Syriac text shows that the most suspicious statement in the extant version of the TF, ‘he was the Christ’, instead likely read ‘he was thought to be the Christ’. This reading is found in an important Syriac translation of the TF which new evidence suggests should be traced back to Jacob of Edessa (c.708 ce), a noted translator of Greek works and one of the most educated men of his day. Jacob’s translation is crucially matched by another famous translator, St. Jerome (c.420 ce), who rendered the phrase almost synonymously into Latin as ‘he was believed to be the Christ’. This correspondence indicates that both translators had before themselves a much more ancient Greek text, a text which I argue contained the original wording of Josephus. Such a reading also explains, once again, why Origen and others asserted that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. And, furthermore, it agrees with Josephan style, thereby giving the reading a ring of verisimilitude. Be that as it may, many Christian readers still do not seem to have read the altered phrase ‘he was the Christ’ (ὁ χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν) as a confession of faith. Instead, they simply assumed that Josephus was identifying Jesus with the alternative name of ‘Christ’, much like how many ancient non-Christian writers were quite willing to call Jesus the name of ‘Christ’, without thinking that such signaled faith in him.”

Sounds like half a dozen types of special pleading.

It also, by this point, sounds like systematic theology apologetics rather than exegesis. And, there's more to bolster that idea below, in my update.

Let us also remember that even Jerome is translating 300-plus years later than Josephus, and that he is on the far side of Eusebius, whom I see as a veil of sorts on all things Josephus related to Christian history.

Fifth, how does he deal with Origen? He claims that Origin found it “risky to use.” See my note above on Schmidt’s translation. With Origin, and later, he also says that the “incredible deeds” could be seen as negative, open to the claim that Jesus was performing magic. But, that’s only if you accept Schmidt’s interpolation, which as noted above negates his whole claim. And, contra Schmidt, this will be referred to as “interpolation” and not “missing words” throughout this review. I don’t believe in magic ponies. Beyond that, Josephus uses the same words for Elisha’s miracles.

And, even if true, would this be THAT risky?

With that, let’s dig into the book further. Yes, it's getting crushed further.

When we get into how Origin understood what Josephus thought of Jesus, we face issues similar, in a reverse way, to Tacitus (and the likely interpolation of the Fire of Rome) and Suetonius. Even on the Jesus “who was called Christ” as brother of James, this is simply “Ha-Moshiach” and not a Christian title. Nor does Josephus say that everybody proclaimed him as the Messiah. It should also be noted that, because the term in Greek wouldn’t be understood by most Greeks and definitely not by Greek-speaking Romans that, while Josephus will talk about Vespasian fulfilling Messianic prophecies, he never applies this term to him. He may have had other reasons for not doing that, too. One may have been Josephan religious scruples. The other may have been, having toasted Vespasian and with Domitian now on the throne, talk of “Christ” was no bueno.

From here on out, like Schmidt, I will use TF to save time and space. He says Origen surely knew some version of the TF. If we accept that some portion of it is original, but was later interpolated? That’s not a problem for that theory and Origin offers no support for Schmidt.

He wraps up his first section with this, about the TF’s reception in Greek Christianity, namely, why weren’t the parts about the resurrection, testimony of the prophets, miracles, played up more?

“In the present book I suggest a solution to this puzzling reception history. I argue that those statements in the TF which sound so extravagantly suspicious to our modern ears seemed quite different to most ancient and medieval writers who read them as not only ambiguous, but as also quite similar to other non-Christian reports about Jesus. This explains why so many never bothered to make use of the spectacular details in the TF; for to them, the TF did not have anything spectacular about it. Instead, the TF merely presented a neutral, ambiguous, or even vaguely negative account about Jesus that was of little benefit for their purposes. Yet, that very ambiguity allowed a minority of writers—most of whom only summarized or even manipulated its content —to interpret the TF in a way that promoted various Christian claims about Jesus.”

This too sounds like special pleading.

I remain unconvinced, wholly unconvinced. The “believed to be,” to riff on Schmidt, may have been original, and removed by whomever surely interpolated the last one-third:

“He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”

The idea that Josephus wrote that himself is laughable. And, the “tribe of Christians,” if Acts is right about Christian self-naming, and when it might have happened, if Acts has an early second century dating, also puts this as post-Josephan.

Early Christian Writings — piece by Peter Kirby — still has the best roundup of evidence, above all based on it interrupting narrative flow, for the whole thing to be an interpolation. It also has a good refutation of some of Schmidt’s stylistic claims, above all the “principal men” issue, and other things mentioned above.

Per ECW? Perhaps the original version of Josephus had calamities or similar attached to his Jesus story, if he was the original author, and that what we have today is more than a partial editorial interpolation, but rather, to invent a word, even more an editorial exterpolation. On this idea, Josephus would have called Jesus a messianic pretender, like others. The calamities, per other events in Chapter 18 (same link as above), so this wasn’t originally interrupting the flow of that book, might have been inflicted by Antipas rather than Pilate, albeit with some pushing by Pilate. Per Luke, yes, Antipas maybe would have seen Jesus as John the Baptizer redivivus — as a Zealot.

Also per the link, on Section 3, the Jesus passage, note how short it currently is, as well as missing any "calamities." 

Under my theory, Josephus would eventually have written something like this:

Some time after this, there arose in Galilee a man named Jesus. He was acclaimed a wise man by his growing followers. Many cited the wondrous deeds he performed, and as proof of his wisdom, though others said he performed these things by sorcery or magic.

Some of his followers eventually talked about his as the Messiah. Perhaps in reaction to this, he went to Jerusalem during one of the festivals. The procurator Pilate, as well as Antipas the tetrarch of Galilee, who had already had experience with John, feared that he might start a tumult and even proclaim himself the Messiah.

They both interrogated him, then Pilate checked with the priesthood to make sure there would be no troubles if he were executed. Assured of their cooperation, he crucified this Jesus.

After the festival was done, Antipas searched throughout the Galilee and the Decapolis, knowing of past uprisings in this area, and brought many punishments down on the chief cities and villages of his followers.

Obviously, that would have been editorially mutilated by a combination of interpolation and extirpolation.

One big problem with this theory, though?

Celsus.

We already know Origin doesn’t reference the TF as stands as a tool against Celsus. Had the original been a highly negative narrative like this, Celsus, not Origen, would have cited it and Origin would have moved heaven and earth to refute it or try to.

My conclusion? While I don’t believe in a literal version of Bayes Theorum, because I don’t believe you can in general put precise percentage numbers on belief system probabilities, I’ll play along on the idea on this.

Before reading Schmidt’s book, I would have offered 3 percent for Josephus substantially writing the TF (MINUS the ending; if you make me include that, I’m at 1 percent); 67/69 percent that Josephus wrote some core kernel but it has moderate to extensive editorial interpolation; and 30 percent that most to all the passage is an interpolation.

Schmidt actually lost me. I’m now at 2/0 percent on Josephus writing substantially all, 58/60 percent on option THREE, and 40 percent on option TWO, flip-flopping those. That comes after pondering the “negative Josephus later exterpolated” idea and rejecting it. And, going directly against his alleged elimination of him, I’ll finger Eusebius as the most likely interpolator. (Richard Carrier seems to agree.) He was well-read in both secular and Christian history within the Empire, was at the right hand of Constantine, and had motive.

As for comments about Josephan style and the author’s stylistic analysis emphasis and claims? We’re not talking about 300 lines of text or even 300 words. The TF as received, without the “believed to be” conjecture? Just 84 words in Greek. Someone as well-read as Eusebius could have done a reasonable imitation no problem. In fact, it's arguable that 84 words is too short to do a stylometric analysis.

Let's compare it to something else that I thought of after posting to Goodreads.

That's the likely interpolation in Tacitus about the Fire of Rome and Neronian persecution of Christians for it. That interpolation, for those of us who accept it as such, contra Chris(sy) on r/AcademicBiblical and others, was likely by Sulpicius Severus. Even though it's more than half again as long as the TF, I've never seen arguments against this being an interpolation lead off with Severus (or whomever else) failing to do a halfway adequate imitation of Tacitus' style.

I'll move on briefly to other items.

First, if the TF is an interpolation en toto (I won’t follow Schmidt on the “forgery” word) then the James “the brother of Jesus” in Antiquities Book 20 is an insertion, or “gloss” as a better term, for obvious reasons. Eusebius again is most likely, especially given some questions about "where he saw" the TF within the Antiquities, if he isn't the interpolator himself. And, I disagree with Schmidt here, claiming this passage as authentic is an ambiguous to negative portrayal of Jesus, just like he does with the TF. Early Christian Writings, and other sites, address this in more detail. As for the use of “brother”? Paul repeatedly uses it in a non-literalistic sense.

More on that?

Alice Whealey, cited widely by the author? Her claim that the shorter passage on James and Jesus in Antiquities Book 20 cannot be an interpolation because Jesus having a brother had been rejected by Christians in general in the second century is laughable. (Wheatley is also where Schmidt gets his “Missing Words” idea from. Indeed, she believes that they were dropped only after Jerome, and that he saw them in Eusebius’ quote — and that Jerome didn’t read the manuscripts directly.) See this site for more. Whealey also is a historian and not a biblical scholar or related. The "brother" is refuted indirectly on one grounds, above. Other grounds for the Whealey-Schmidt claims are some version of argument from silence.

Speaking of, it seems much of Schmidt's argument really isn't original but is lifted from Whealey in many ways. (Per my update below, I have no idea if Wheatley is some sort of "traditionalist" Christianity apologist, but it wouldn't surprise me. That said, per other Carrier material, she may not be.)

Sixth, The Amateur Exegete, where I found the link, included a video interview of Schmidt by the often odious Tim O’Neill of “History for Atheists.” I'm not watching the video any more than I would listen to his podcast, contra his pleadings years ago. I suspect O’Neill likes the book because it’s contrarian and anti-mythicist if nothing else. (Regular readers here know that I am not a mythicist, nor am I a Gnu Atheist. But, O'Neill is still odious.)

If my guess is correct, then he’s fallen to general Gnu Atheist level.  Yes, Schmidt has. Just as, contra atheists in general and Gnus in particular, I don’t have to be a mythicist to be an atheist, so, too, do I not have to accept these claims about the TF to be an anti-mythicist.

Update: A potentially quasi-fundagelical institute, The Institute for Christian Reflection, founded and funded by some anonymous Daddy Warbucks, is behind funding Schmidt's book. That "about" link says:

Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. (Matthew 13:52) At the Institute for Christian Reflection we believe that faithful scholars should be as scribes trained for the kingdom of heaven, articulating the old truths of Scripture, while bringing forth new discoveries from them.

Such an endeavor takes much patience, the field has been well tilled, but there are still many treasures left undiscovered and unpublished—and the Institute aims to bring them to light. To this end we develop media to train believers in ageless Gospel wisdom while also sponsoring faithful scholars who are making fresh discoveries.

OK now.

Well, not OK now yet. Their "ongoing projects" page adds more:

They include new evidence regarding the extraordinary spread of ancient Christianity in East Asia, a new discovery of perhaps the earliest Christian artifact, new testimony concerning the famous darkness of the crucifixion, among others. These, we trust, will prove to be of outstanding value.

Clearly an apologetics site, and a fundagelical one if it's trying to prove the actuality of biblical signs and wonders that are really only literary devices, and thus this book is not trustworthy for that reason, which is reflected by the author.  

And, with that, I'll label the text criticism, the idea that Josephus's original had those two allegedly now-missing words, and some of the translation, as mendacious.

== 

Update 1, Nov. 17: Via doing a more academic version of this on Goodreads, David Allen, University College Cork, has responded with thoughts on where Josephus might have "slotted" a story about Jesus (he agrees with me and many others), the Syriac version of TF as necessity to reconstruct the Greek, and Eusebius' role on the TF. He says:

The harder earlier reading of ‘certain man’ is supported by a Greek variant in one of the Greek manuscripts of Eusebius – Codex A of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7 that has the word tis (‘certain’). In Codex A of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7 quotes the TF and has tis after Iēsous referring to ‘a certain Jesus.’ This tis is the same reading as the Slavonic. ‘The Slavonic Josephus offers a trace of the same pronoun: the phrase muzi nekij retroverted into Greek would correspond to anēr tis (certain man).” 6 The Armenian translation of Eusebius’ Church History also has this variant ‘certain’. 7 Having this phrase also in the Syriac translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History makes it a certainty that this was the original reading. This shows a “certain man” instead of Jesus was copied out of Eusebius.

From there, this:

The interpolation of the TF into Slavonic version of Josephus War also does not name Jesus in the passage but refers to him as “there appeared a certain man” (Slavonic War II.IX.3(b)). This was very common for Josephus not to name minor figures such as Sign Prophets and other messianic figures.

Interesting. 

Re Allen's discussions of the Slavonic, John Meier, via Early Christian Writings, says:

The clearly unauthentic text is a long interpolation found only in the Old Russian (popularly known as the "Slavonic") version of The Jewish War, surviving in Russian and Rumanian manuscripts. This pasage is a wildly garbled condensation of various Gospel events, seasoned with the sort of bizarre legendary expansions found in apocryphal gospels and acts of the 2d and 3d centuries. Despite the spirited and ingenious attempts of Robert Eisler to defend the authenticity of much of the Jesus material in the Slavonic Jewish War, almost all critics today discount this theory. In more recent decades, G. A. Williamson stood in a hopeless minority when he tried to maintain the authenticity of this and similar interpolations, which obviously come from a Christian hand (though not necessarily an orthodox one).

That's about the translation in general, not the TF, but it's written to refute a Steve Mason, who claims it would be "unparalleled scribal audacity" to interpolate this out of whole cloth. Mason himself is a skeptic about the TF being fully Josephan, though; in a review of Wheatley's book, he is almost as skeptical about finding anything of value in the Slavonic as Meier quoted above.

Allen then plumps for Josephus having written at least the core of the TF:

Schmidt makes a very convincing case that much of the TF that we see as positive would in fact been negative. He does this by examining the reception of the TF by those quoting it or alluding to it. Schmidt had noticed that the TF did not make much of an impression on many church fathers who did not make much use of the most incredible positive Christian statements. It is us modern scholars that are reading the TF with Christian’s eyes but when Josephus wrote it, it was much more in keeping with being read negatively. A phrase Schmidt has convinced me that was original to the TF penned by Josephus is παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής, (paradoksōn ergōn poiētēs)- ‘doer of strange works’. Geza Vermes argued in 2009 that the expression "surprising feats" (paradoksōn ergōn) (example used in Ant. 12.63) is repeatedly used by Josephus in his works to describe many miracles associated with the Old Testament (such as the burning bush and the miracles of Moses and Elisha). 18 So the word in itself is not negative (just like many words in English), but in context it can be negative.

His overall theory is in this suggested reconstruction:

There arose about this time a certain man, a sophist and agitator. He was a doer of strange works. [For they said he was a prophet and the Temple would be destroyed and restored in three days.] Many of the Judaeans, and also many of the Galilean element, he led to himself in a tumult; he was desirous of Kingship: Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands. [So Pilate sent forces, footmen to slew them and seize a number of them along with the certain imposter.] And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross. Yet this tribe has until now not disappeared.

Interesting. 

But, I disagree, especially with him claiming a different version of the last two sentences were still original. In my opinion, Josephus, writing just a few decades later, would not have talked about "that tribe" still being around today. This also assumes, per what I say above about Acts' phrase, that Christians were really separated from Jews at Josephus' time and that Josephus knew this. Not likely, even if not called "Christians" by an allegedly original and authentic TF core.

He may have moved my probabilities 2-3 percentage points in that direction, with my elimination of the last sentences, but no more. 

So, Allen is pushing too hard. Had he offered his reconstruction, ending either with the conjectural Pilate sentence or else the one before, OK. As is, no dice. Period. 

He still fails to explain why, since he labels Jesus a "signs prophet," there's no "calamities" as there are elsewhere in Chapter 20 of Antiquities, only his conjectural ones which are still far shorter than the other "signs prophets" material here, and shorter than what I offer up as a just-possible alternative. The major failure is that Allen has the "calamities" befall only Jesus not his followers. 

I mean, my conjectured version is far shorter than the 1,000-plus words in English Josephus has about Theudas, and the 1,100 plus about the Samaritan dispute. 

And, will all that, I smell a Part two/addendum breaking out all of this update plus some additions. 

Update 2: Via Peter Kirby, creator of Early Christian Writings, I now learn that the John the Baptizer passage in Josephus faces new scrutiny too! Kirby thinks it's authentic and I agree.

== 

Finally, rather than just quote-tweet him? Since he quote-tweets Rusty Doubit, aka Russ Douthat, calling out Adam Gopnik for claiming the TF is a forgery, I directly responded to them.

Update 3, Nov. 17: Douthat's stupidity on matters religious knows no bounds, per his new book.

 

View all my reviews

Biblical criticism roundup tidbits

' James McGrath gets called out for getting Judeophobia backward, and it's kind of hilarious, too. It's the biblical criticism version of librul identitarianism, applied wrongly. This is part of a book where the authors in general are apparently of McGrathian mindset. The bottom line, per this review, is:

Opposite the one-dimensional depiction of Judaism as positive and innocent stands a corre-spondingly one-dimensional depiction of Christianity as negative and malicious.

Oops.

That said, the review is itself spoiled to some degree by this at the end:

I confess that in this time of rising antisemitism, I have misgivings about reg-istering so dim an assessment of a volume with patently good intentionsZ

And, I say "spoiled" on the assumption the author is conflating antisemitism and anti-zionism. Schwartz is indeed Jewish, with a master's from JTS, and also one blog post on the Times of Israel AND, interestingly, with a wife who is a female Orthodox rabbi. Now, goys can do the same conflation, but Schwartz also condemned Pope Francis for his post-Oct. 7 comments. I'm reasonably comfortable in labeling him a conflationist.

==

A book that appears to do better on looking at early Christian writings beyond the New Testament, though it's purview would likely include the original Simon Magus story in Acts, challenges the "magic=heresy" idea.

==

Pilate putting a guard on Jesus' tomb, as recorded by Matthew, might have a kernel of historicity? Thanks for the laugh. Just because the Gospel of Peter may be behind it doesn't increase its chances of historicity. This guy is some sort of quasi-fundagelical.

The latest questionability from r/AcademicBiblical

First, touting this historical Jesus conference hosted by Bart Ehrman. We know Bart's gotten Jesus wrong on the claim he preached JW annihilation instead of hellfire, and other things. Other keynoters? James Tabor is a whack job with his Jesus family dynasty nuttery. Dale Allison is on the conservative side of New Testament critical scholarship. Paula Fredriksen, outside of biblical scholarship, has at least a degree of odiousness, and possible Zionist background as a Jewish convert, in past comments about Palestinians in general and Palestinian Christians "running away" in particular.

==

"Are Catholics really the first Christians" is a theological question, not an exegetical one, and should have been removed by mods. 

==

Early church fathers were NOT contemporaneous with Jesus' followers, contra this goob question. OP gets plenty of other pushback, but not on the most key thing. SMH.

Top blogging, second quarter of 2025

 We're actually more than a month into the third quarter, but I still like to do these little roundups and reviews.

With that said, not all pieces were posted in the second quarter of the year; these are just what was most popular (with a bit of shading into July.) 

No. 10? From 2020, "A Lutheran college myth bites the dust." This was from MY now-closed college, the claim that alum Paul Hill wrote "Lean on Me." 

No. 9? From June, sparked by journalism analyst Corey Hutchins on Substack, "Euphemism creep and language issues." 

No. 8 goes way back to 2007, "Contra Buddhism 1," one of my earliest pieces deconstructing Buddhism, and even more, deconstructing Westerners (and perhaps some heimat Buddhists) who claim Buddhism is not a religion. Hold on to that. 

No. 7, from June, a blogger also on Substack tried to claim they had refudiated (sic) Kurt Gödel's logical proof for the existence of god. In reality, they partially failed. (They then, after this post, argued with me about it, and I moved on, sensing the possibility of a Gish Gallop.) 

No. 6 is also from 2007 and related to No. 8. I had the easy "win" of noting that, if enlightenment is ineffable, how can you talk about it? 

No. 5 is one of my top all-time posts, about "The great ahistoricity of Acts." In it, while I talk about all of Acts; I move toward the approximate last one quarter, from Paul's arrest in the Temple after allegedly bringing a goy into the inner court, and on from that, as being even more ahistorical than what comes before it, then note that this certainly means Paul didn't get to Rome.

No. 4? From June, I said "The Big Think" was missing a fourth philosopher in its piece on philosophical issues with grief. 

No. 3 was also from June, about a new round of issues at the r/AcademicBiblical subreddit. This time, it wasn't so much stupid posters or Nazi mods still being Nazis; rather, it was actual academics full of wrongness, namely, John Meier and Dale Allison. 

No. 2? Back in 2012, a geologist claimed he had geological proof Jesus was crucified April 3, 33 CE. And, on it, I picked up a fundagelical commenter who eventually went away. 

No. 1? ALSO from 2007, and one of my top posts ever: "More proof the Buddha was no Buddha." 

(No. 1, No. 5 and No. 10 are in my top 10 posts of all time.) 

And, back to the issues at r/AcademicBiblical

 The first is from a mod, not a question-poster or a regular commenter. Well, actually it's from John Meier. I've not read all three volumes of "A Marginal Jew," but I read the first eons ago and I've read enough otherwise about Meier to be kind of dumbfounded that he thinks there actually were 12 disciples. I'm neutral at best on the idea of Israel-symbolism attesting to vs. detracting from, the idea of authenticity. I can see where Meier would think that this is part of Jesus proclaiming himself as the new Israel.

That said, the mod notes that — duh — it's clear that more than 12 followed Jesus. 

So, other than symbolic value by gospelers, why would he believe that Jesus picked out 12?  

==

Why would Paul "invent" the 500 witnesses to the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, per this question? And, why does Dale Allison believe it's real? 

Dale, in reality, that's Corinth 2,000 years ago. Like some Corinthian Jesus-fearer is trekking off to Jerusalem, Judea and Galilee with a checklist asking people within the Jesus-fearer communities there "did you witness the resurrection"?

As for another post from a few years ago, the idea that 1 Corinthians 15:3b-5 was an earlier creedal statement but 6-7 may be Pauline? Per the chapter, verse 3a has Paul's "what I have received." While this does not have the added "from the Lord," the language which he uses to introduce the Eucharist, which many scholars believe he invented, it at least leaves open the possibility he's claiming divine revelation.

Beyond that, since Paul was an irregular visitor to Jerusalem and Caesarea after starting his missionizing, and as far as we know, never went to Galilee, how would he know a certain number of these 500 were still alive anyway?

Add this all up and Allison doesn't have much credibility. It should be added that, per a long-ago piece by me, Allison is at the conservative end of critical scholarship.

==

Side note: I recently left the similar (and also blocking) subreddit r/AskBibleScholars, after seeing the creator saying he was going to migrate it elsewhere or something. (His reasoning made it look self-serving, and besides, even if he moves, he can't kill the subreddit. They live forever, even if it will be a shell.) I also blocked him.

The sayings of Jesus: Do not worry

I had said at the end of Amy-Jill Levine's newest book that I wanted to take a critical look at several sayings of Jesus from  The Sermon on the Mount, and perhaps elsewhere.

My interest is not textual criticism, nor any version of higher criticism. Rather, it's common-sense secularist skepticism. And with that, let's dive into one of his most famous.

From The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:25-32, New RSV:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

OK, several issues. 

The first verses, 25-28, might be filed under "perennial wisdom," per Aldous Huxley, with verse 29 adding a particular referent from Israelite history.

But, precisely because it could be called perennial wisdom means we have nothing unique to Jesus about the insight.

That said, the saying in the second half of verse 28 is problematic. I'm sure nobody in his circle back then, and nobody outside some early Buddhists or early Jains in India, thought a lily had a "soul" or anything close. Birds have brains, and some level of consciousness, and corvids at least have lots of brains. But, analogizing off flowers makes no sense. Beyond that, lilies also have no hands, beaks, claws or anything else with which they COULD work, even if they had a brain, let alone a "soul."

Verse 30 becomes more problematic yet. Wild grasses, wheat straw, or whatever is either being used for a cooking fire or else burned in the field for clearance? Even in my religious days, wild grasses especially would never have been considered "clothed" by me. Why he didn't talk about sheep on the hillsides of Galilee growing wool, then regrowing it after being sheared, I have NO idea.

Then there's that last verse.

Plenty of gentiles, like the aforementioned Buddhists and Jains, or the likes of the Pythagoreans or Cynics closer to Jesus (including the cities of the Decapolis being home to noted Cynic philosophers at this general time) did not "seek all these things." 

Anyway, to go Jesus Seminar (and I am not sure how they rated the Sermon on the Mount in general, or this part) I'm not that sure Yeshua ben Yusuf said this.

Jesus may or may not be for everyone, but Amy-Jill Levine is definitely not for me

As is my wont, this is an expanded version of a Goodreads review.

Jesus for Everyone: Why He Should Matter More to Everyone by Amy-Jill Levine
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I had heard things about Amy-Jill Levine before. Some of what I’d read, on certain subreddits, Academia and elsewhere, indicated that she brought a lot of new insight to Jesus and his parables and teaching by looking through Jewish eyes.

And, some other insights indicated that this might be at least in part good marketing.

But, I’d not latched on to one of her books before.

And now?

“Jesus for Everyone” makes me think it is indeed — at least in part — good marketing.

First is her spending multiple pages beating down “Jews 101” stereotypes. Most people who really have all those stereotypes probably aren’t reading this book in the first place. (On the other hand, that she had to call out a piece in Sojourners, and talks about relatively critical Catholic and Protestant theologians, says maybe this is an issue.)

Second, she does blow her own horn.

Then, near the end of the opening chapter, which overviews the subject ahead, the “Family values, celibacy, marriages and divorce, adultery” subsection says “He is single and celibate.”

Is he? A fair chunk of serious NT scholars of recent years have at least partially pushed back against that. At a minimum, unlike Paul, who references Peter’s wife and thus indicates he has one, this is an argument from silence.

Wooden translations are literalistic, not literal, and as bad as Jesus Seminar’s translations of sayings of Jesus. Or, for another comparison? It’s like reading the English line of Bible Hub’s interlinear. In fact, maybe that’s what it IS, or similar.

It also comes off as pedantic, and per the title of the book, I think would lose a fair share of her target audience.

OK, I have several disagreements, theological, exegetical and sociological, with material in all the individual chapters. I have unhidden the spoiler on the original review, which started with the "Economics chapter" and went up to the "Finally, let's look at the title," and expanded the material that was hidden, as well.

Second, her insertion of queer sexuality into the Legion pericope? Laughable.

Economics chapter. Did the steward know the debtors’ debt? I’ve always thought that “show me your books” was followed by the rich man taking them.

Slavery chapter:

First, just as Candida Moss did in “God’s Ghostwriters,” she overstates the prevalence of slavery in Rome, especially outside Italy. 

She is wrong, as is Moss, on one-third or more of Rome being enslaved; in the provinces, it was no more than 15 percent. Even in Italy itself, they were no more than 30 percent the population. See Wiki, also linked in my Moss review. You’ll see occasional estimates higher to much higher, but I don’t think they’re credible. In short, contra Levine (and Candida Moss) it wasn’t that 10 percent of the Empire owned the other 90 percent or even close. 

At this point, I turned to the back and realized — no index! This itself can get a ding of up to 1 star. Also missing? No bibliography. I couldn’t find if she cited Moss. Or later, Yonathan Adler. Finally, a lesser ding than the other two? No end-of-book list of biblical passages or pericopes cited, referenced or discussed. Total ding is, say, 1.25 stars right there, meaning we’re guaranteed not more than 3 stars. It also means that when, I’m going web searches later, I can’t find the pages for what she said about an alternative etymology for “Pharisee.”

Next, she does not talk about Israelite enslavement of non-Israelites.

Centurion’s slave misses point. The story itself is about the centurion’s trust, and healing at a distance rather than in person, since such stories of magic usually relied on physical contact. It's not about whether this person is a slave or not.

Name of high priest’s slave Malchus could also come from Hebrew for “messenger.” It's not necessarily from "king." It's also irrelevant.

What’s really at issue with both Levine and partially with Moss is that they, by saying “Look, slaves” don’t do enough to distinguish Roman slavery from modern Western versions, as in, the number and type of roles slaves held. (Moss is somewhat better, on the idea that slaves were literate in terms of both reading and writing.) This came out in the parable of the vineyard. And, Ms. Levine, probably anybody this side of Peter Singer would be more concerned about the death of their son than that of slaves.

She could do better, going beyond these actual passages, to counter White-privileged modern White evangelical Christians who embrace the idea of being God’s slave with no idea of what slavery actually entails. (Incorrect interpretations of the Parable of the Talents confirm what most these people think.) That said, noting clearly that the master, per the parable, is a conniver, Levine does NOT use that to fully overthrow most Christian analogies. And, other than talking about misinterpretations, she doesn't really offer up a correct interpretation, or what she thinks is one. (I'd grokked sections of her "Short Stories by Jesus" as extracted for magazine or other reading years ago, so the problem I mention isn't new and I know that.)

Ethnicity et al:

Claim that Jews didn’t evangelize are overblown. We know that 150 years earlier, Hasmoneans evangelized at the point of a sword. And, elsewhere, like in Muslim-Christian borderlands in places like Spain centuries later, at a minimum, Jews didn’t dissuade converts. Plus, the “four abstentions” in Acts would indicate that there was some Jewish evangelism. And, Paul was a Pharaisee, was he not? Levine later “softens” by admitting that a “hey neighbor,” at least, led godfearers to synagogues.

Injecting queer sexuality into the Legion pericope? Laughable. I mean, at a point like this, we're giving anti-"woke" folks free bullets.

She does get credit for noting that Gerasa, in Mark, is likely the correct town, contra Matthew, and that Mark may have been punning. If so, maybe Moss isn't totally wrong on claiming Mark was deliberately writing "social confusion" in his mixed-up geography a chapter or two later. I am still not ready to go too far down that road.

That also said, credit where credit is due elsewhere. The section about John 4, Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar, was well handled in general.

Health care chapter:

Didn’t do much for me in general. Even more than some previous chapters, much of it was about “what most Christians, including many academics, get wrong about Jews.”

On the Jairus pericope, the note that “archisynagogos” can also appear in feminine declension is irrelevant to the story at hand. (And, for anti-"woke" people who notice that? More free bullets." Page 2 of her Goodreads writings will indicate that, with anything she stuffs under the umbrella of feminism, this is par for her course.

On Mark 1? Any good modern non-fundagelical commentary will tell you that the "healing" of the "leper" is about ritual purity, not moral. And, with that said, while not a challenge to "all Judaism," it IS best seen as a challenge to the temple cultus.

Family matters chapter:

Contra the first page of the chapter, there is no such thing as “gender reassignment surgery” as sex is not gender. With me expecting that to set the tone for the chapter as a whole, we’re pretty much guaranteed two-star territory. Tis true that ancient Hebrew, in part borrowing from Greek and Hebrew, had words for people who were intersex or similar, as well as people with fluid gender representation. But, gender wasn't sex back then, and on sex, we know some of the issues of human reproduction and sexual development which they didn't know back then.

Second: How do we know that Jesus was only metaphorically in favor of eunuchs, rather than Origin, at least allegedly, thinking he was literally in favor? Two paragraphs later, Levine herself talks about Jesus talking about it in the literal sense, in fact. Then later, it's back to metaphorical angles.

On Antipas executing John the Baptizer, is it really more plausible to follow Josephus and think this was a pre-emptive strike against John’s movement, rather than thinking John had angered him? This also presumes that John, even more than Jesus, at a minimum was perceived as a Zealot-like figure and maybe actually was one.

Also, interestingly, on modern Judaism and a husband’s refusal to grant the bill of divorce so as to block a Jewish-ceremony remarriage (Is this for Orthodox only, or all Jews? Levine doesn’t say) she overlooks the partial parallel of Catholic annulment.

Biblical criticism in this chapter? On most theories of development of the Torah, and not limited to a full documentary hypothesis, Deuteronomy was written before Leviticus and therefore, contra Levine, cannot “update” it. And by this point, I am "wondering" about her as a biblical critic in general.

Politics chapter:

On Romans 13, though it’s fun to argue it’s universal and absolutist to "submit to governing authorities," it probably isn’t. That said, it’s highly doubtful that it’s referring to synagogue rulers. Rather, I think the interpretation that it’s time and location specific, and referring to Jews in Rome recently returned from Claudius’ expulsion, has much to commend it. (I saw that on Wiki's page for Romans 13, which should again shut up people who unduly diss Wiki.)

Finally, let’s look at the title: “Jesus for Everyone.”

To do that, we have to ask “Who was Jesus,” and set aside the fundagelicals, C.S. Lewis, etc.

We have:
1. Apocalyptic prophet
2. Jewish faith healer
3. Zealot-type revolutionary
4. Jewish Cynic.

On No. 4? I’m not aware of any A-list scholar besides Burton Mack who still plumps for that. Crossan moved away again. Don’t know of any top-level younger scholars who have picked that up. That said, it’s very much detached from No. 3. Maybe not so much from 1 or 2.

Of 1-3, they’re not mutually exclusive. To pick up on “bios” type theories of Jesus, Apollonius was arguably both 1 and 2, to some degree, in the pagan world. To some degree.

But, Jesus could have been following on John the Baptizer’s lead (little mentioned here) proclaiming the immanent kingdom, while the healings were part of the “exousia” with which he taught.

That said, 1 and 3, or 2 and 3, or all three, aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe Jesus eventually felt called to, if you will, personally immanentize the eschaton? Zealot-type or zealot-like, perhaps not an open revolutionary against either Rome on the one hand or the Temple cultus on the other, but partially? As I’ve pondered before, behind Luke’s increasing hand-waving late in Acts, maybe Paul actually did bring a goy in the temple and for similar reasons, as I have discussed, also linked in the Moss review.

Anyway, does an actual secularist NEED Jesus for them, as I infer the title implies, and as the subtitle “Why He Should Matter More to Everyone” goes beyond implying? Not so much, contra Levine’s attempts to try to make him speak about health, mental health and other things.

And with that, the title, and the presumptuousness, guarantees two stars. It gets the "meh" tag, but not the "disappointing," because I wasn't expecting as much as with Moss. But, in broad ways, they have some similarities, and I'll pass on reading Levine again, just like Moss. 

On her horn-blowing? Big deal that she's written a semi-critical commentary on Luke with an evangelical like Ben Witherington. This fits an evangelical "Jewish ingathering" perspective.

And to deliberately riff on something at the time of the Jesus movement? Riffing on "godfearer" goys who hung around synagogues, I think Levine is a "Jesus-fearer" Jew.

Finally, I've been inspired to look at Jesus the purveyor of wisdom sayings. I'll take a crack at some of his more famous words from the Sermon on the Mount in weeks and months ahead.

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