J.P Holding's case against Luke relying on Josephus

In an online article entitled Luke and Josephus, Internet apologist J.P. Holding makes the case against Luke borrowing from or relying on Josephus. I'd like to explore this article and show what Holding's conclusions are. 

Why is this important? If this problem isn't solved,

then a good case can be made to date The Book of Acts to the late first century. This is because The Antiquity of the Jews by Josephus wasn't written until 93 or 94 A.D. according to the Wikipedia entry, which cites Biblical scholar David Noel Freedman's The Anchor Bible Dictionary. If Luke relied on this book, then we have to date Luke/Acts to these dates, and not the traditional mid-60's date. 


 

Holding sites a book by Biblical scholar Steve Mason called Josephus and the New Testament. In it, Holding says:

We will look in some detail at Mason's arguments, which have been used to claim that this would constitute proof that Luke is fabricating history, merely borrowing it from Josephus and tailoring it for his purposes.

First, Holding notes certain parallels pointed out by Mason between Luke/Acts and Josephus: 

. . . he notes generic parallels which derive from commonality of Luke and Josephus as historians of their time (e.g., both use historical prefaces) and place (e.g., both are influenced by the OT). Such parallels Mason derives no case from, and does not claim that it adds to or supports his more direct evidence, as indeed it does not. 

 So far, so good. This shows that Mason is critical in his choice of parallels. 

Second, consulting New Testament scholar Ben

Witherington III's book The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, Holding is critical of Mason's preference for using Josephus as a "measuring rod to evaluate Luke's work" (Witherington). Also, Mason has a "tendency to give Josephus the benefit of the doubt on historical matters" (Witherington). Witherington provides good reason to discontinue the preference. First, since Josephus wrote in Rome:

"where the rhetorical concerns of the more sophisticated historians were strongly affecting the writing of history to the point of distorting the truth in various ways" (Witherington). 

Second, citing Witherington, Holding says:

Josephus also offers "frequent contradictions in names, numbers and the order in which events are reported"

 This isn't "an error or sign of untrustworthiness"; it's just something scholars today should keep in mind when "comparing Luke and Josephus" (Holding). Thus, we have two good reasons Mason shouldn't use Josephus as a "measuring rod" by which to judge Luke/Acts. 

Now, we can take a look at specific examples of alleged borrowing or reliance: the census, the Egyptian, Theudas, and Judas the Galilean. 

Mary and Joseph register for the census before Governor Quirinius.

1. The Census - The crux here is whether or not Luke and Josephus were referring to the same census. Holding thinks not:

Luke's grammar may refer rather to a census before the famous one taken under Quirinius.

If this is true, Mason's 'bad-memory' argument,

according to which Luke mistakenly forgot the details of the census, or slovenly glossed over the details, is undercut, since the 'grammar argument' goes to Luke's use of grammar to refer to an entirely different census. On the other hand, Mason's underlying assumption of 'Lukean reliance' operates in the background with little in the way of critical analysis; the assumption guides the research, instead of the research guiding the assumption. If we reverse it, assuming 'anti-Lukean reliance', different explanations arise. As long as we start with Mason's assumption, the 'Lukean reliance' hypothesis becomes 'unfalsifiable', according to Holding.
  

In such a case, the theory has an answer to every disproof, and is therefore epistemically useless.

Richard Carrier

Richard Carrier, in using Mason's thesis, advances a parallel, which Holding deems strange. Carrier argues: 

Josephus uses the census as a key linchpin in his story, the beginning of the wicked faction of Jews that would bring down Judaea (and the temple), whereas Luke transvalues this message by making this census the linchpin for God's salvation for the world, namely the birth of Christ (which also would result in destruction of the temple). 

 Carrier assumes that the 'linchpin' applies to Luke and Josephus in the same way: namely, that the explanatory cause of the temple's destruction was Christ's birth. This may be the case with Josephus' literarly/historical purpose; but with Luke, it's (1) Christ's death and (2) His subsequent rejection by the Jews. Therefore, Holding argues that the 'parallel point', which assumes Carrier's 'linchpin' idea, is strained, and therefore can't be used as justification for 'Lukean reliance'. 

Was this Census even a historically noteworthy event? Carrier doesn't think so. But even Mason is against Carrier here. First, Holding notes that Mason called the census 'famous'. Second, Mason's 'suspecting' that other historians didn't think the census noteworthy isn't a good enough reason to think it wasn't historically noteworthy. We have two historical sources that say it was noteworthy; and no historical sources saying it wasn't noteworthy. To use the latter to justify that it wasn't is an argument from silence. Recalling Holding's reference to the 'grammar argument' justifying Luke's distinguishing his census from 'the famous one' that Josephus chronicles, Luke was drawing attention to another census before 'the famous one' that didn't 'cause as much seditious activity' (Holding). 

Luke's associating the census with Judas the Galilean in Acts 5:37 is something that Josephus does as well. Mason believes this might be more evidence of Lukean reliance. The undercutting defeater for this reliance is that Judas was a 'major political figure' (Witherington). If Judas was famous, it's likely that Luke and Josephus could have discovered him independently, and unlikely that this automatically renders more probable the idea of Lukean reliance.

2. The Egyptian, Judas the Galilean, and Theudas - All three of these people are mentioned by Luke and Josephus. The charge is that Luke put Theudas and Judas in 'the wrong order' (Holding). Holding doesn't get into the reasons why 'the wrong order' objection doesn't work, but regarding Lukean reliance, there's no necessary or probable connection. Once again, we have Josephus being the 'measuring rod' again. There's no positive reason that Josephus is such a measuring rod. The more likely explanation is that these three people were well known, and Luke and Josephus researched independently.  

Regarding the Egyptian, Luke mentions him as a member of what's called the sicarii, which Mason sees as evidence of inaccuracy. But Holding mentions that Luke should be given the benefit of the doubt, since Josephus says the Egyptian had 30,000 followers when Luke's more conservative estimate of 4,000 is more probable. In terms of Lukean reliance, Mason wants to argue that since Josephus doesn't explicitly identify the Egyptian with the sicarii, and there's no earlier work mentioning this, then automatically Luke relied on Josephus, and due to bad memory misidentified the two. This doesn't follow at all, if our undercutting defeater against Josephus being the preferred 'measuring rod' is sound. Further, it's probable that the normal 1st century Jew could, argues Holding, add a simple suffix to sica (Latin for 'dagger'), rendering it sicarii. On top of which, Holding mentions that 'many' scholars mantain that the sicarii as a group can be traced all the way back to when Jesus lived, 'when Josephus was a toddler' (Holding). Mason's argument concludes that the Egyptian and the sicarii are distinct, since Josephus doesn't identify the two, but refers to one first, and to the group second. But without assuming the 'measuring rod' method, to conclude Lukean reliance is question begging. It's also important to consider the context in which the Egyptian is mentioned. Its mentioning is put in the mouth of a 'Roman tribune' speaking 'off the cuff' (Witherington). This implies that Luke doesn't endorse the historicity of what the tribune said, but instead accurately records whatever the tribune had said, which is two different things. 

But why, Mason protests, did Luke think the sicarii were desert dwellers? First, there's nothing unlikely about the sicarii doing this. There would be precedent, since Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist, and even Jesus went to the desert as part of their prophetic identity. Perhaps the Egyptian did the same thing to echo his own identity in this light. Second, considering the social context of the time, the desert would be 'the proper place in a Judaen context for sicarii to retreat' (Holding). 

Carrier advances what can be called 'the nickname' argument. 'The Egyptian', argues Carrier, is probably a nickname, and as such reflects the 'affectation' of the historian's style of recording. Carrier concludes it's unlikely that Luke and Josephus 'repeat the same idiom' (Carrier). Again, this arguments has the plausibility it has assuming the 'measuring rod' point. Undercutting that is the point that it's likely that this Egyptian's name wasn't known, that calling him 'the Egyptian' implies using that label for referential convenience. In social context, the Jews were a 'period of heavy stereotyping', and thus calling the relevant person 'the Egyptian' would serve the double purpose of reference and associating the reference with Egypt's 'social vices' (Holding). 

3. The minor parallels - 

What about Agrippa's death in Acts 12? The familiar pattern arises. Luke notes an event, but because Josephus does as well, the 'measuring rod' assumption is automatically applied. Carrier, however, tries to supplement the assumption with the qualifier of 'strangeness'. Carrier argues that in both accounts, Josephus and Luke mention Agrippa 'donning of the robe'. So, we have the general mentioning of Agrippa's death, but then we also have the added detail of the robe's being donned, which Carrier calls a 'strange similarity'. This, to Carrier, makes it likely that Josephus is the 'measuring rod'. But as Holding mentions, this is where it's especially important to be aware of the social context of the times. 'Donning the robes' was a high-context term in ancient times denoting 'honor' and 'position'. Thus, mentioning this would be typical in the social world of the time. Neither Luke or Josephus, argues Holding, would have seen need to unpack this for some future low-context audience. 

Why didn't Luke mention Agrippa's 'incestuous affair' with his daughter Berenice, while Josephus did? Is it because Luke didn't know? Well, that would be another argument from silence. But on top of that, we can use the high-context point again. The question assumes that Luke's immediate audiences didn't already know; and if they did (and it's likely that they did), Luke's silence implies high-context silence, not ignorance. Luke wasn't trying to write a biography of Agrippa, but chronicling St. Paul's spiritual adventures. We would expect Josephus to mention the incest, since his purposes involved biographical intentions. But Carrier's main criticism is that if we only read Luke, Agrippa would appear to be honorable, when in reality (according to Josephus) he was not. This, to Carrier, makes the scene in Acts 12 'comic sarcasm'. But then, retorts Holding, all this means is that the scene in Acts 12 was indeed 'comic sarcasm', and that's all that should be concluded. To use the 'comic sarcasm' reason as justification for Lukean reliance doesn't follow without, again, the 'measuring rod' assumption. 

Many of the other parallels (Pilate's attack, the famine mentioning, slaughtered children, the parable of the hated king, Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene, the excellent men, use of the word 'haireseis', other idioms, the Essenes) follow the same patterns of argument. Holding, therefore, concludes: 

So it is that arguing that Luke made use of Josephus requires, as indeed MacDonald required for Mark using Homer, "patience, generosity, and above all, imagination".