Another possible forgery in Antiquities Book XVIII

Book XVIII of Josephus' Antiquities is the home of the famous or notorious Flavian Testimony, at least in parts a pious Christian forgery in its current form. Along with a parenthetical mention of Jesus in apparent (but not certainly authentic) connection with James the Just in Book XX, these are the only surviving non-Christian mentions of Jesus dated from the First Century.

Immediately following the FT in our current version of the Antiquities is a leisurely-told bawdy tale, The Seduction of Paulina. Paulina's story seems to have slipped about 600 words in the text. It belongs with the death of Germanicus, which immediately precedes Josephus' discussion of Pilate's rule.

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Even placed in the text correctly, The Seduction reads like fiction. Our current version may be an improvement on a much shorter genuine mention of the subject by Josephus (one of the theories also heard about the FT) or it may be an outright insertion (the other major theory of the FT). If it's genuine, then Josephus should have gone into show business.

One barrier to easy discussion of the FT is its religious dimension - what somebody thinks about Jesus is a good predictor of what they think about the FT. Well, unless you're into Isis, The Seduction of Paulina riases many of the same issues as the FT, without the (ir)religious commitment. At stake is the reliability of Jospehus as a historical source, and the fidelity with which his writing reaches us.

a reply to: eight bits

Any ancient writings that don't conform to the PC Secular Humanist agenda are forgeries.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: eight bits

Any ancient writings that don't conform to the PC Secular Humanist agenda are forgeries.