Robyn Faith Walsh, a professor of New Testament studies at the University of Miami with a Ph.D. in religious studies from Brown University, has recently hit the circuit promoting her “controversial” thesis (building on her dissertation at Brown) that the Gospels are deliberate literary creations, and not happenstance collections of oral lore. I just completed her book on this point, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture (Cambridge University 2021). And it’s excellent work. Here I’ll summarize its points and merits.
I put the word “controversial” in quotes above because, of course, not just me but many scholars (and the more, the more lately) have been arguing the same thing for many years now. She isn’t alone; and she knows it: her bibliography is full of concurring scholarship. But until now no one has written so comprehensive and persuasive a case for this point than she has. Moreover, as she notes and documents, her position is the norm in all other fields of ancient literature. Biblical studies is the lone holdout now. So her turn toward dismantling that last bastion of resistance is really just a mopping-up operation. I honestly think this is the death knell to all rational opposition. Irrational opposition will remain rampant of course. Because time makes more converts than reason. But the fact is, resistance to her thesis isn’t at all well-founded and remains more of an emotional artifact of institutional inertia. Like Luke Skywalker clinging to a sky-terminal screaming, “Noooo!” Sadly common in Jesus studies.
What does make this seem “shocking” in the field, though, is that it comes right on the heels of a recent contrary craze for applying “orality” and “memory” studies to the Gospels. Precisely the angle Walsh is pretty much lighting on fire. Although her book does pertain (as its title suggests) to the entire New Testament (and Christian writing beyond), its principal focus throughout is the Gospels. And her primary objective is to answer the simple question: who could have written these things; and why? Not specifically, but generally: what kind of people would they have to be, and what kinds of objectives and methods must they have had, given what we know of ancient authors and writing and literature? In other words, Walsh puts the context back into answering this question; a context too often ignored.
The Walsh Thesis
The first I encountered this thesis was in graduate school, when I read Keith Hopkins’ now-famous article “Christian Number and Its Implications” in the 1998 edition of the Journal of Early Christian Studies (as soon as it came out, on a tip from my dissertation advisor William Harris; they were close colleagues), which despite its title is really about the fact that we need to take seriously the question of who could even write the books we find in the New Testament. Because not just the literacy, but the advanced skills involved in literary composition it required were available to only very few people then, people who would have had very particular social positions and interests. That article is in Walsh’s bibliography. I went on to find this point articulated, and impressively proven in various ways, by numerous scholars since, from Randel Helms to Thomas Brodie, Dennis MacDonald, David Gowler, Robert Price, Richard Pervo, and beyond. Again and again, demonstrations have been made that the Gospels (and Acts) thoroughly evince literary composition, according to the very tropes and tools we know were taught (and indeed only taught) in the ancient equivalent of graduate schools in Greek (see my discussion in Science Education in the Early Roman Empire and chapters nine and ten of On the Historicity of Jesus).
For too long this groundswell has been ignored or resisted in the field. Yet it extends even to specific motifs the authors of the Gospels employed. As Walsh refreshingly admits:
Scholars have long noted parallels between the canonical gospels and works like the Greek novel or the Satyrica, including the shared topoi of ritual anointing, crucifixion, a disappearance off the cross, a cannibalistic fellowship meal, (implied) resurrection, and the motif of the empty tomb; yet comparisons between these ancient corpora are few and far between.
Origins, p. 8
She exaggerates. There actually have been quite a few (her own list is but a fraction). But she is right that they have mostly been ignored. The wheel keeps getting reinvented. The facts keep getting noticed. The same results replicated study after study. Yet most scholars just don’t want to acknowledge it; or simply dismiss it, for wholly perfunctory reasons; mere handwaving. Which indicates that the dominant voices in Jesus studies don’t want this to be true; but have no actual case to make that it isn’t.
Walsh thus takes issue with the long trend in Jesus studies to explain the content of the Gospels as produced by mostly illiterate “communities” (an idea based on no evidence, only conjecture) rather than by the one community we know for a fact produced them: the literary elite. Once you admit this, it becomes clear we cannot understand the Gospels, or their authors or content, until we understand that community. And we have a great deal of data on that community, and how they operated and produced, and why; vastly more than we have for any early “Christian” community, much less such as could have generated the literary artifacts of the Gospels. So Walsh sets out to look at that data, everything we know about the literary elite and their agendas and techniques, and to point out all the ways that this informs, and indeed must inform, our understanding of the Gospels, and their origins and contents.
Walsh outlines the usual romantic notion of the early Christians as illiterate simple-folk who somehow commissioned the Gospels into existence, and explains that there is actually no evidence for it. In fact, all evidence is to the contrary:
That the gospel writers might actually represent Roman literary elites writing about supernatural interests and foreign and bucolic landscapes and peoples seems contrary to how we have imagined Jesus’s followers for millennia. But this idealized version of the early Christian story confuses the subject matter of the gospels with their authors.
Origins, p. 9
In fact, ancient literary elites often wrote material like the Gospels—and we can explain their entire content by reference to what the literary trends of the era already were. They are not strange or unique. They are typical. As Walsh says:
[W]hen compared with other first-century literature, the Jesus of the gospels can be fruitfully compared with the Cynics, Aesop, the pastoral heroes of the Greek novel, or witty underdogs in the biographical tradition, the subject of [my] Chapter 5. Moreover, many of the topoi used by the gospel writers convey Jesus’ special standing, but they do so through familiar literary allusions—the empty tomb, for instance, is found throughout Greek and Roman literature and material culture (e.g., the novel and numerous paradoxographical fragments) to indicate supernatural status. Even strategic omissions, like anonymity, are common tricks of the trade among imperial writers [especially Jewish writers, pp. 156-57] and can be understood without associations with memory traditions or communal authorship, as I discuss in [my] Chapter 4.
Origins, p. 10
In those chapters Walsh also discusses how ordinary and innate to ancient literary method mimesis was, and that continued resistance to the idea that the Gospels are emulating Homeric and Jewish literature must be abandoned. They obviously were doing this; just as all authors were taught to.
Those closing chapters are preceded by crucial background. Walsh’s first chapter deconstructs “The Myth of Christian Origins.” Her second chapter details the faulty origin of the “Romantic” trend in imagining how the Gospels were produced, which she traces back several centuries to obsolescent folklorists, a fancy still far too popular in the field given what she proves to be its entirely baseless foundation. Her third chapter then surveys what we actually know about ancient authors and their social and educational and literary milieu, because that’s who must have produced the Gospels. Her fourth and fifth chapters then apply all of these findings to show that the Gospels fall into a category of ancient elite literature called “Subversive Biography,” an often fictional or pseudo-historical genre that “commonly features a marginal or subversive figure forced to succeed through the use of their wits or wonder-working skills” (Origins, p. 13) as well as their (usually untimely) deaths; in some cases they are even unjustly executed by state or religious authorities. Once we understand that, everything falls into place: in outline the Gospels’ entire purpose and content is predicted and explained. In this she is not far from where experts on the genre of the Gospels have already been heading. What is conspicuously missing from all this is any substantive concern with oral lore. Collecting and mediating that simply isn’t what the authors of the Gospels are doing. There is no evidence it ever really was. (Hence its complete absence, for example, in the Epistle of 1 Clement.)
Walsh even agrees that the gospel and kerygma came by revelation (directly or through scripture), not “oral lore” originating with Jesus (Origins, p. 39); and that the escalating Gospel moves to “pretend” otherwise was a commonplace literary device of the time. Just as, for example, in the “gospels” (and even passion plays) of the mythical Romulus, the names of witnesses would be given, an obvious invention. Hence:
Whether Jesus or Romulus, a risen figure required bystanders. These bystanders are not necessarily “real” but woven into the fabric of the storytelling in order to confirm the writer’s account and add authenticity to their work. Claiming the authenticity of eyewitnesses, divine knowledge—or even authorial anonymity—was a strategic move on the part of the ancient writer to give weight to their work and attention to their claims. Indeed, the anonymity and divine status invoked by the gospel writers fit well within this strategic paradigm.
…
In this respect, the claims of the gospel writers combine to generate an authorizing “anti-intellectualism” that simultaneously embraces the tactics of history and bios writing along with the idealism of bucolic or utopian fiction. Thus, these features of the gospels—eyewitnesses and anonymity—are not evidence of the manner by which these writings were produced or their uniqueness among other literature of the age. They are a commonplace, rhetorical invocation on the part of the gospel author.
Origins, pp. 154-55
In fact, she points out, “Spurious claims to eyewitness testimony are commonplace in Greek and Roman history; paradoxography similarly attempts to link fantastic or miraculous events to place and local lore in order to lend credibility to its anonymous claims,” such that, for example, Luke 1 referencing an anonymous eyewitness tradition “need not signal the hallmarks of community—oral tradition and cohesive groups—but, instead, are demonstrative of clever writing” (Origins, p. 156). Indeed, faking lives and histories (even letters) was the norm in religious communities then (I considerably expand on her list of examples in Element 44, Chapter 5, in On the Historicity of Jesus). Even playing up or inventing the “illiteracy” of the first Christians would be a recognized device for establishing the miraculous provenance of their knowledge and the moral superiority of their social status, being “of the people” (Origins, pp. 167-68; cf. OHJ, pp. 263-64, 293, 440). Overall, Walsh is skeptical that any oral lore exists in the Gospels, but even if there is, she says, such “elements are irretrievable to us” behind a rather thorough mask of authorial creativity and invention (Origins, pp. 156 and 194).
In the end, Walsh makes a point Jesus scholars really need to heed:
Assuming that all shared material in the gospels and Paul stem[s] from the same oral tradition is what has fostered faulty notions about early Christian communities and their exceptionalism, severely limiting our understanding of Christian beginnings. In short, by accepting the Romantic reconstruction of the gospels, we fail to acknowledge the degree to which these writings fit perceptibly within a larger trajectory of imperial literature.
Origins, p. 169
Key examples she cites include some I’ve referenced to this same point myself: Plutarch’s Life of Romulus, the Lives of Aesop, the Lives of Homer and the Lives of Moses, Jewish tales like Tobit and Joseph and Asenath, Esther and the book of Daniel and the Kings narratives of Elijah and Elisha, even fiction spun as history about Socrates (by Plato and Xenophon) or even about such luminaries as Cyrus or Alexander the Great, and of course the Satyricon and other novels—Jewish, Greek, and Roman. Very apposite, she and I have both noted, are the accounts of Socrates, and the Lives of Aesop (see Element 46, Chapter 5, in OHJ). The latter are likewise anonymous, exist in multiple redactions over time (just like Matthew redacts Mark; and Luke, Matthew), and feature an unjustly executed hero (indeed for the same crime, of blasphemy), who is of low social status yet possessed of miraculous powers who verbally spars with the religious and political elite, exemplifying in result his moral and cultural superiority over their haughty elite standards, ending in his unjust execution by their hands.
Walsh also denounces the usual “differences eliminate similarities” apologetic—which you will find only in Biblical studies; in Classics, such an argument would be laughed out of court, as flippantly dismissing the entire form and function of literary and genre studies as a subject (Origins, p. 193). For example, she quotes one scholar insisting “similarities in form do not outweigh differences in content,” yet (as she notes) that is absurd: the entire point of “genres” and “tropes” is to use a similar theme or format to represent new content. Differences in content are the point of employing common tropes and generic structure (“genre”). If these things weren’t being deployed in novel ways, you wouldn’t have a new text but just a copy of an old one. Hence the whole point of creatively generating new literature is to devise new and clever ways to instantiate tropes and genres. This is likewise the point of mimesis (literary emulation) and religious syncretism (merging two religious traditions to create a new one): the similarities are what is being borrowed and commented on; the changes are the point of doing that: developing something new, and marketing that new message to replace, comment on, or supersede the old. If a new religion did not differ from the models influencing it, then it wouldn’t be a new religion, just a continuation of the old one. So it is impossible that “differences in content outweigh similarities in form.” Anyone who says that literally knows nothing about how new religions or literature are produced. Walsh, coming as I do from a strong background in ancient religious and literary studies outside the Bible, concurs.
The bottom line is: scholars who look at the Bible through blinders, ignoring the entire literary and cultural context in which (and by which) it was produced, are doomed to get everything about it wrong. And on that faulty foundation they will fail to correctly apprehend or reconstruct the real origins and development of Christianity and its claims and ideas. Walsh aims to correct this grave error and get the field back on the correct track. I’m right there with her.
Disagreements
I pretty much endorse everything Walsh says and argues in this volume. It’s well-said, well-demonstrated, and correct. There are but a few exceptions, and they don’t affect her thesis.
Walsh does not make it a centerpiece of her thesis, but a few times she does suggest that the Gospels might not have even been authored by Christians, but just the literary exercises of playful auteurs (e.g. pp. 28, 35, 111, 133). She doesn’t insist on this; she merely says that if you wish to maintain these authors were Christians, and advocating a position (perhaps even a position they believe their “community” shares or that they want it to share), you need to present evidence for that, not just presume it. Which is fair enough. One should be able to present evidence to believe that.
I am certain we have. The Gospels’ designs are thoroughly propagandistic and thus only make sense coming from an interested party intent on controlling or advising the behaviors and doctrines of the faithful. And their knowledge of Christian theology, organizing principles, and the Jewish scriptures and apocrypha undergirding it all, does not seem likely to be the product of idle pastime. Mark builds his entire story to sell the Christian mission out of the Epistles of Paul, for example (a point with which Walsh concurs: Origins, p. 132; indeed her list of examples I have added to my article); his comparable employment of the Septuagint indicates more than mere literary interest in the material; and his pervasive argument justifying Paul’s mission to the Gentiles through an extended tale of Jesus himself foreshadowing it evinces a specific sectarian goal. Matthew, in turn, is quite intent to defend the Torah-observant Christian faction against Mark’s design; and Luke, to unify and harmonize those warring factions; and John, to blow up the whole affair with wholesale religious reform. These are obviously concerned missionaries; not idle auteurs.
Another disagreement I have is with Walsh’s push to argue that the Satyricon was written in the second century to parody the Christian Gospels, rather than being written before the Gospels to parody religious adventure novels generally (as most scholars I think would still maintain). G.W. Bowersock sets the context well enough in Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (University of California Press 1995). If there were already trained dogs acting out mock deaths and resurrections in comedy stage plays in the time of Vespasian (Plutarch, “On the Cleverness of Animals,” Moralia 973e-974a), we clearly have a genre so commonly recognized it was already regularly being made fun of, far too soon for “the Gospels” to be inspiring it.
I think Walsh might not be aware, for example, that the novel Callirhoe, which seems one of the likely targets of the Satyricon’s parody (Origins, p. 152), most definitely predates the Gospels (it is mentioned as an already-popular work of pulp fiction in a poem of Persius; and Suetonius reports in his Lives of the Poets that he died in 62 A.D.). We even have a papyrus that appears to contain a Greek predecessor to our Latin of the Satyricon, suggesting an even older provenance than even theories of Petronian authorship would suggest (P. Parsons, “A Greek Satyricon?” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 1971). So our Satyricon could even be a second century redaction of an earlier work. But either way, as Walsh admits, these motifs were all over religious adventure novels of the time, both before and after Christianity began (and not only in novels: “empty tombs and the resurrected dead were particularly popular conventions of paradoxography, a genre that experienced a resurgence in the first and second centuries,” Origins, p. 149); and this is based on the examples that survive. There will no doubt have been others. So we needn’t appeal to the Gospels as the Satyricon’s referent, no matter what its date.
Walsh does not commit to this thesis either (she admits there are other ways to read the data, e.g., Origins, pp. 16-17). But she seems personally convinced. I am not as persuaded. The parallels she surveys in Chapter 4 are indeed remarkable, but they are too random; they lack sufficient specificity or interpretability to connect to any of the Gospels. Mimesis served to comment on (or in parody, to make fun of) the target of emulation, to mock or honor or transvalue it; and there just isn’t any of that here. Brodie and MacDonald developed mimesis criteria for a reason. Walsh’s findings score too poorly against them for this to qualify as a case of it, in either direction (for a contrasting example see my discussion in Proving History, pp. 192-204). I don’t think the Satyricon knew the Gospels; nor the Gospels, the Satyricon. But that does leave only one alternative: these motifs were so widespread in satires and novels of the time that the authors of the Gospels were most definitely riffing on the trend. And we would indeed have a better understanding of their authors’ intentions and designs if we had access to the exemplars they were transvaluing. I just think we don’t. Whatever work, say, Mark was lifting from and commenting on has simply been lost. We only see echoes of it in the Satyricon’s general parody of the whole genre.
Lastly, a minor point: Walsh says “cannibalism … as a specific theme in invective against Christians” appears in Tacitus and Pliny (p. 145). In fact neither author mentions this. Pliny says the Christians claimed their meals were “ordinary and innocent” but does not specify what else he might have thought them to be. Tacitus never mentions meals at all. The idea of Christians specifically being accused of cannibalism exists only in Christian apologetics; we actually have no early pagan source ever accusing them of such a thing. I suspect Christian apologists often fabricated accusations made against them. For example, no pagan author ever accused the Christians of atheism, but rather the opposite: superstition, an excessive or irrational fear of the gods. That no Christian apologetics ever responds to this, the actual accusation we find in pagan sources, but instead converts the accusation into “atheism,” to create an easy straw man to rebut, demonstrates Christian mendacity (see Not the Impossible Faith, pp. 156-57). We should thus doubt the cannibalism accusation was ever real as well.
On a couple of other points I can give her an assist. Walsh apologizes for relying on Bart Ehrman’s pop-market work Forged, evidently unaware of the publication of his later thorough and excellent peer-reviewed monograph on the subject, Forgery and Counter-Forgery (Oxford University Press 2012). I recommend readers update her footnote accordingly (Origins, p. 157 n. 80), as it removes any need for her comments in defense of his thesis. It is now an established conclusion in the academic literature. In another instance, Walsh discusses a common feature of subversive heroes in ancient fiction: their physical unattractiveness (particularly noted of Socrates and Aesop; even in the Alexander Romance, Alexander the Great is portrayed as disarmingly short, in ways echoing the same trope). She notes this is not found in the Gospels but the same trope is carried there with other features, such as Jesus’s low social status and associations (Origins, p. 192). She evidently isn’t aware that Christian tradition did in fact attribute physical ugliness to Jesus, exactly on trope (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 88; Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 9; Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3.1; Origen, Against Celsus 6.75; and indeed with “scriptural” support: Isaiah 52:14 and 53:2-3).
Conclusion
I have few disagreements with Walsh; and those are relatively trivial. And even where we disagree, she ably presents the data, which is of value in itself. The rest of her book is an excellent piece of extended argumentation, more than adequately establishing its case with cited evidence and scholarship throughout. It will not only persuade, but it will educate you on how Biblical studies ended up in the dead-end of romanticism, the pit Walsh is trying to drag it back out of; and on how much can be learned from reversing course back down the path of understanding the Gospels that we should have been on all along. Anyone who wants to better understand who the authors of the Gospels were in general, what their techniques and agendas and literary environments would have been like that influenced their every decision in constructing those texts, simply must read this book. As must anyone who wishes to resist its thesis and insist the Gospels are collections of oral lore and not the deliberate creative products of individual, elite authors; or insist the Gospels are unique and special, rather than quite typical examples of popular counter-cultural fiction of the time. If that is you, and you are the sort of person who responds rationally to evidence and argument, this book will disabuse you of those notions.
I haven’t read Walsh’s book yet, so, I can’t really comment on anything she says, specifically. But, I’ve long had (roughly) similar thoughts about the Gospels, musing that they were something like “novelettes about Jesus”, but including theological/doctrinal points. In any case, I’ve never really bought into the idea that they were ever intended as any kind of “historical” writings (like a biography).
But – the thing I balked on (as I thought about it) was this: Let’s consider the Sermon on the Mount. And, let’s just say that the writer simply created that whole thing from his imagination.
That sermon is a marvelous bit of prose that represents a variety of theological, doctrinal and philosophical points that seem to show the writer had some “depth” to his thoughts.
My thought was “why doesn’t this guy (the writer) just write his own stuff, from his own point of view, as a ‘teacher’ of those things, rather than putting those words into the mouth of Jesus”? Why does he decide to write a “novelette” – one which he doesn’t even sign, and one which he’s not ever going to profit by – rather than just writing “I, Ralph, (or whatever his name was) write to you things which the Lord has shown me: blessed are the poor…. (etc)” (with whatever changes would be necessary to show the writer, not Jesus, as the “origin” of what was being said).
I totally “get” that Shakespeare (for example) was writing marvelous orations and putting them in the mouths of his characters – but, at least Shakespeare was making a living by doing so (and, crediting himself with the work). But I just can’t figure what the motivation of (say) the writer of Matthew was for writing that Gospel, and not even crediting himself as the writer.
Your thoughts?
The answer is the same for why the Torah law (and even the Mishnah, the so-called Oral Torah) was all credited to ancient superheroes, and not to the individuals who actually made it all up. Even in the Mishnah, individual Rabbis are only credited for interpretations of the law, not the law itself.
The idea that individual mortal human teachers can be reliable sources of wisdom was rejected by most people then. The idea of rationally arguing for a conclusion, and claiming credit for coming up with it yourself, was an elite project largely disdained and rejected by the masses (indeed, Socrates was executed in part due to this: some of the charges against him were questioning religious traditions and teaching people to “make the false seem true,” i.e. teaching people logic and rhetoric).
I cover the anthropology of this and the scholarship on it in Chapter 10 of Not the Impossible Faith. The entire model seen in the Bible, of prophets claiming their ideas came directly from God (even in forgeries like Daniel), exhibits this mindset: that was the only way to sell reforms. If you went around saying “I have a great idea, hear me out” people would dismiss you as another arrogant, unreliable, fallible human whose opinions aren’t worth shit next to God’s. Even Paul does this: he attempts rational persuasion a lot, but when he wants to make absolutely sure people agree with him, he claims the Lord told it to him, or cites Scripture, which was perceived as the same thing.
This is what the Gospels are doing. Just as you have to claim Moses said it, and God told it to him, so you have to claim Jesus said it, and God told it to him (which you can trust because he was God’s right-hand-man).
This is also one reason the Gospels began anonymous, just like most other Biblical and Jewish Apocryphal literature: to claim authorship would be to suggest an arrogant, fallible human is trying to sell their own petty mortal ideas, and pridefully claiming ownership of them, which would be an automatic fail. The book would go straight in the trash. You had to humble yourself by claiming no ownership, giving the impression this all came from God, not you.
This is what Walsh is talking about vis-a-vis the community of “anti-intellectualism” that the Gospels come from (see my hyperlink there for more on that). Although she thinks auteurs could still do this on a lark (emulating the genre and procedure to impress friends who would be “in the know”), I noted I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. The authors of the Gospels are true believers. They want to persuade communities of Christians to adopt their models and teachings. So they are using these tropes on purpose, not on a lark.
Thank you for the thorough summary Richard!
Dr Carrier, you need your links in your articles to open in another page. In that way I can read the article, close the page (or leave open to return later) and then return to where I was on the preceding page. A suggestion.
You do know you can just right-click on a link and do that yourself?
…or on mobile: tap and hold, then select e.g. ‘open in new tab’.
or click on it with the scroll wheel of your mouse
Excellent article. I have questions:
Who at the turn of the first century were more elite than the Julio-Claudians?
Who had the most to gain from uniting Jews and non-Jews under one religion?
Why would they not have composed a script to introduce a uniting deity as had succeeded previously, i.e, Sarapis?
Linguistic evidence suggests the story of Joseph the Nazar and the Baker of LHM (Gen 40) was the foundation of the story of Joseph’s son “YaH-Zeus the Nazarene,” also associated with LHM. The inscriptions on the Baker’s Tomb in Rome, correctly interpreted, identify the authors of the original Passion Play. Joseph’s mother, LHM, “Goddess the Mother,” was sentenced to be crucified but is saved when her son YaH-Zeus the Nazarene takes her place on the cross. She then prepares healing herbs and spices to save her royal son from death. Who but patriarchal Jews would need to hide this version of YaH-Zeus the Nazarene and his Mother and replace it with a modified version of Judaism: the blood of a goat or sheep is replaced by the blood of a Jewish man? Would that script not be destroyed and its authors identified as heretics, as the Nazarenes were?
Walsh discusses the entire population of the literary elite. They numbered in the millions. So there is no such thing as “more or less” elite than the Julio-Claudians; they are a fringe minority in this population group, and didn’t produce anywhere near the scale of literary output of the era. Vast numbers of highly capable literateurs inhabited the empire then.
For example, population estimates put the empire between sixty and a hundred and twenty million people. If the literary elite comprised just 3% (the minimum estimate), that’s between two and four million literary elites. The Julio-Claudians are dwarfed into irrelevance by this.
Even if we only counted Roman citizens, we know from inscriptions there were around 14 million of them at the time, making nearly half a million literary elites. And that’s a lowball, because citizens were disproportionately wealthier and privileged and thus more will have had access to the requisite education than generally; and as Walsh notes, “the literary elite” actually included a substantial number of non-citizens and privileged slaves and freedmen.
I discuss this data and other evidence regarding the expected total generational output in terms of books (literary products) in On the Historicity of Jesus (pp. 300-301). I run the numbers for just scientists in Science Education in the Early Roman Empire and as I note there, people who went into “the humanities” (literature, rhetoric) greatly outnumbered those who went into science, mathematics and philosophy.
Meanwhile, nothing you just said about “the Baker’s Tomb in Rome” is true. That’s all crank nonsense.
Robin Faith Walsh presents a strong case that the Gospels were written by a literary elite. That the founding leaders establishing Christianity in Jerusalem were illiterate seems to be a Gospel fiction.
Please comment on what the likely hood is that the founding leaders in Jerusalem were illiterate based only the evidence of writings produced before the Gospels. As an example, if James and 1 Peter are taken to be written by this founding group, that would suggest a high degree of literacy within the group and since these letters were meant to be circulated and read in widely dispersed congregations that would suggest at least some level of literacy within those congregations. The founders were not relying on the memory of a messenger to communicate their messages but felt the need to put things in writing and have them delivered by a courier. I think this casts doubt on any theory invoking a hidden oral tradition before things were finally put in writing in the Gospels.
Also, I wonder if estimates of literacy rate in first century Palestine at the 3% level are a gross underestimates especially for population centers like Jerusalem. A recent publication, Forensic document examination and algorithmic handwriting analysis of Judahite biblical period inscriptions reveal significant literacy level, suggests that the literacy rate may have been as high as 50% in a desert fort on the southern frontier of Judah at the eve of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem.
(1) In the article, I cite pages in OHJ where I discuss this.
But the short of it is: it is effectively impossible that Paul could read the scriptures and Peter et al. could not. Were that the case, he would have made hay over that point constantly, as their illiteracy would hugely disqualify them from running a scripture-based sectarian movement, and his literacy would hugely commend him as an essential member of its leadership. The whole religion began from the start on a basis of pesher readings of scripture (cf. 1 Cor. 15; Rom. 16:25-26; etc.), which is only accessible to the highly literate. So it can only have been founded by educated Rabbis. All subsequent claims to the contrary are therefore fiction.
Note that this does not mean Peter et al. weren’t fishermen; Rabbis were required to ply a manual trade, so all known Rabbis had such working class professions, in addition to being fully literate. But I do suspect their roles as fisherman is nevertheless also a literary symbolic contrivance, albeit for different reasons than the above.
(2) The founders being literate Rabbis does not rule out the concurrent dissemination of an oral tradition. There certainly would have been one, e.g. the revelations were being orally disseminated by missionaries, not just written up in letters for example.
But from the evidence we have (e.g. Paul, Hebrews, 1 Clement; even, if authentic, 1 Peter) it appears the oral tradition consisted only of a few such revelations and much more substantially a pesher, i.e. a list of passages in scriptures and their interpretations (this might also have been written, but it could have just been a cue sheet, like musicians use to get them started on any songs without the entire sheet music, or just a memorized list, although only literate specialists could maintain such a thing in memory well enough to preserve it beyond a generation).
We don’t see narratives or long sayings collections being a part of any such tradition until the Gospels. And those bear hallmarks of being fabricated (e.g. constructed from the teachings of other apostles like Paul, and only later assigning them to Jesus; or wholesale inventions: see my discussion of the Allison thesis regarding the Sermon on the Mount in OHJ). Hence Walsh doubts we can extract any true oral lore from the Gospels. If any is in there, it’s indistinguishable.
Note for example my discussion of the millstone woes in 1 Clement in OHJ Ch. 8, where “maybe” there is an orally transmitted saying that ends up (verbatim) in the Gospels, but the Gospels split it up into separate events and completely invent new contexts for them unknown at the time of Clement; and that content just as likely originates from a lost scripture instead.
(3) That inscriptional study is not usable for the purpose. Officers and scribes in a small-staffed fort will not be statistically representative of the general society. The sample size will be small and biased. The authors of that article also make a grievous error: they presume the writings there all originate from the same single tour of staff at that fort, and not traveling officers and dignitaries and messengers and watch replacements over the course of two or three lifetimes. So their statistics are bollocks.
For more reliable discussions of the data, see Harris and Hezser (cited in comments).
But in general, yes, rates are higher in urban centers than rural. And populations are large, so even “3%” is a lot of people; the more so, 10% or 20% (the more usual urban literacy rate estimates, although these are for minimal literacy, not literary elite status, which is required to compose works rather than merely get by reading an inscription or plucking out a letter).
For example, suppose there were a hundred followers at the start and they were selected at random. Statistically, that means there could be 3 members of the literate elite among them, more than enough to construct the whole pesher and launch the sect. And if the rate is 10% (after all, Paul seems to think the founding operators were Jerusalemites, not rural Galileans), that could be ten, not just three. And so on. And since the movement was certainly begun by a cabal of elite Rabbis (per above), the rate need not have been random. There could have been an over-representation of literate elites (at least Rabbinical elites; probably not yet what Walsh means by “literary elites,” but close) in leadership at the start, thinning out to societal proportions only over time as the movement grew.
By the time the Gospels get written, we are looking at a far larger pool of recruits, and the literate will have been disproportionately selected for leadership. The standard growth rate for religions is 40% per decade. So after four decades, a starting sect of 100 would have become 500 or so across three continents, and at a rate of 3% that would rake in 15 literate elites (indeed 50, if the rate is 10%); and now being in the Diaspora, we’d be looking at Greco-Roman literary elites now, not just Rabbinical. Note this math vis-a-vis the literate elite within the movement is what Hopkins introduced. He’s the one to first point this out; Walsh is essentially building on that. But the growth rates of religions worldwide is discussed subsequently by sociologist of religion Rodney Stark, based on several examples, including the Mormons. We can now combine both models to make statistical predictions even better than Hopkins’.
Richard, thanks for your informative reply.
I am now wondering if an argument like the one you presented that “it is effectively impossible that Paul could read the scriptures and Peter et al. could not” could be crafted to argue that it is effectively impossible that a historical Jesus could have been the founder of Christianity. It would go something like this: Suppose a historical Jesus was the founder and, for a time period before Paul appeared on the scene, led the group that eventually became the leaders in Jerusalem. To attract to the group the people he did, it would seem that Jesus would have had to have had a literacy level at least on par with the more educated of what became the Apostles. In addition, he would have had to exhibit exceptional qualities that would that would make his followers see him as a source of wisdom, someone they could look up to as teacher. Since Paul revered Jesus as the Son of God this would have given the Jerusalem group a powerful means of reining Paul in by saying something like: “Paul, you my have received instruction at the feet of Gamaliel but we received instruction at the feet of the Son of God.” Paul’s Epistles and the book of James suggest that there would have been occasions where the Jerusalem group would have played that card if they had it.
That doesn’t follow.
If Jesus existed, he was probably also a literate Rabbi for the same reasons (and indeed the Gospels continually call him one). His illiteracy would also then be a fiction, as much as, probably, his hailing from Nazareth (likely fabricated to match scripture even if Jesus existed; this does not mean the town itself was fabricated however: see my discussion in OHJ, index, “Nazareth”).
But it is also possible Jesus was an illiterate hick whose charismatic abilities attracted such crowds and interest that he acquired literate followers, who then built the religion around him. Certainly, scholars already agree much of what we mean by Christianity was invented after his death, including possibly the belief that he was an incarnate archangel, the belief that he even claimed to be the messiah, the claim that he died to atone for the sins of Israel and unlock the apocalypse, etc. All that is attributed to visions after he died, so it’s not likely “what he founded.” It’s just a rapid retool of what he founded.
It’s also possible Jesus was an illiterate hick whose charismatic abilities attracted such crowds and interest etc. and he was actually claiming to be an incarnate archangel who would die to atone for the sins of Israel etc. That by itself does not require a literal pesher (just hearing the scriptures preached by others could cause such beliefs or claims). A proper pesher for it could be constructed by any literate followers in his entourage, while he lived or after he died.
All three models fit trend. See my discussion of “Josephan Christs” in OHJ (Ch. 6.5 and Element 4 pp. 67-73). If Jesus existed, odds are strong he was just another one of those guys: all of them appear to have been claiming they were a “Jesus Christ” (the new Joshua and God’s Anointed) and trying to get themselves killed to fulfill prophecy in Daniel 9-12. I discuss the logic of this in my Wichita talk (slides).
I would like to know about what the literary circles were like in the Greco-Roman world. Could you recommend any books on the subject? Thanks.
There is no one-stop-shop for that. Walsh summarizes much of it, and her footnotes and bibliography identify threads of scholarship to explore. So I recommend starting there.
But for ancient education and writing in general I recommend (for their accessibility; many other works are too rare and expensive for easy consultation):
But among those too hard to access are Norton et al., Reading, Writing, and Bookish Circles in the Ancient Mediterranean and Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine.
What bothers me so much about the way the religious (and those secular scholars who effectively act as religious propagandists in this regard) approach this debate is that it’s not an either-or, so their argument is both deceptive and fallacious.
Let’s say there were elements of oral lore and tradition in, say, the Gospels. Stories from the early cult. Maybe the trial transcripts you allude to Luke possibly having, or some recollection of the specifics of those trials.
So what? All that would mean is that the Gospel writers were using that as part of their history for the propaganda of the church. Whether they were writing sacred allegory, devotional or evangelical literature, or an attempt to write a history of their church, they’re cultists . They would be getting distorted information in the first place from unreliable people who are emotionally invested, and then themselves further changing what they heard to suit their needs. It would still be Walsh is identifying. Any secular scholar who is being sincere has to admit that a person who is willing to include an account of the dead rising from their graves or make a complex ring structure for their supposed history isn’t being some kind of sober, skeptical historian of their faith literature. Because actual historians of any faith can actually do a lot better, and very often do, even when writing about their own faith’s history.
Failed rabbinical students, wannabe rabbis, rabbis in poverty, rabbis in the sticks, disreputable rabbis…all of these seem to me much more likely candidates to create a dissident movement than “elite” rabbis.
You aren’t using the academic definition of elite. And your thinking is anachronistic.
Walsh explains what the term properly means in the field. Anyone with compositional literacy was elite, by definition (even if they were a slave; the slave system had class distinctions then, it didn’t operate the same way as American slavery).
All Rabbis are elites by definition. They all went through over a decade of intense, high-cost schooling, which is why they are very rare and privileged compared to the general masses. No one earned the title otherwise.
And dissident movements were routinely run by highly educated elites. As the Dead Sea Scrolls attest. Even Paul himself is a representative case: like most dissidents he started a mainstreamer (a Pharisee) and went rogue.
I know this will shock you to your core, but the field is basically equating higher education with elite status in a political sense. This is like saying everyone today with a master’s and above is an elite intellectual. Their use may not be anachronistic, but since it misleads for any time period, I’m not sure it’s useful. It’s like equating vanity publishing, self-publishing, academic publishing and government subsidized/promoted publishing.
The notion that Paul “ran” the Christian movement is shaky, given how much of his surviving oeuvre is dedicated to stamping down opposition by non-elites. I can believe that the author of Hebrews was an “elite” in your sense but the namelessness is one piece of evidence this “elite” didn’t run things.
Even more by the way—but I suspect called into question by genuine anachronism—what of Hyam Maccoby’s arguments in The Mythmaker that Paul’s self-described Pharisaism is dubious?
I think you need to actually read the book and its scholarly references on the point before making ignorant proclamations about how we use terms like “elite.”
I actually am in this field. I have a Ph.D. in it. I studied the sociology of elites specifically in graduate school.
And I am here to tell you:
The term “elite” simply means “a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society” as any dictionary will tell you; and access to compositional literacy in antiquity was that by definition. It also put people into a common select (“elite”) culture, exactly as Walsh documents.
We have never in this field, since I have been alive, arbitrarily limited the term “elite” to the aristocracy or other economic or political elites; we have to designate those as kinds of elites. Hence “literary elite” designates a well-understood group “that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society” in the designated respect. This is standard terminology in the field (and indeed in all of history, sociology, and anthropology).
Likewise, I never said Paul ran “the” Christian movement. He launched and ran the sect that admitted Gentiles without conversion to Christianity, which sect (represented in Mark) prevailed over the original Torah-observant sect (represented in Matthew), which went extinct within a few centuries. All extant Christianities descend from Paul’s sect (with the possible exception of Islam, which may be an evolved remnant of the original sect). But none of that is relevant to my point. That the cult gained a literary elite within a mere few years of its launch, and they rapidly moved into a major leadership position steering its future, proves it had no difficulty acquiring them and suggests they tended to end up in leadership.
There are reasons to suspect there was no educational difference between Paul and the original top Apostles (identified by Paul as Peter, James and John). They must all have been Rabbinical elites. They might not have been specifically literary elites, a distinct category (we don’t know; if James and 1 Peter are authentic Epistles, they were); but the Gospels evince the cult had acquired many of those within a then-average lifetime. That’s Walsh’s point.
As for Maccoby: his arguments regarding the Gospels are correct. But his arguments regarding Paul are fallacious: he erroneously thinks Paul claimed to be a Pharisee; false: he claimed to have been a Pharisee, and to have rejected Pharisaic teachings. Thus it is not possible to evaluate what doctrines Paul used to endorse by reference to his letters, because they only reflect what he endorsed after abandoning and spurning Pharisaism. The Paul we hear from in the letters is by his own admission not a Pharisee. He only used to be one; yet doesn’t discuss any details of his former life (beyond barely substantive vaguaries that would not be usable for Maccoby’s query).
Interventions into church activities are not literary but political and even economic. If you remember the foundation of new religions is itself a political and economic activity, then the focus on literary elite is not quite on target. Or to put it another way, the literary elite was the audience, but the authors of this kind of literature were elite in other senses as well. Being a dissident is not being a literary elite, but leading a religious movement makes you a kind of elite in political and economic sense. Titles like apostle and Brother of the Lord, and at some point presbyter and episkopos show this.
Plus of course much of this literature was read aloud to non-elites, yet their reception surely had major effects on what was written and even more on what was found useful, issues again that ask questions about political and economics elites. There’s a reason one pseudonymous epistle recommends Paul’s letters for doctrinal guidance but it’s nothing directly to do with literary elites.
I am going to try to find an affordable copy of the work because it does promise to shed light on the intersection with the broader literary culture of the Christian movement.
By the way, Maccoby does not think Paul was ever really a Pharisee but merely claimed to be one. It seems to me highly unlikely Paul was really a student of the famed Gamaliel. But of course it’s possible and in religious studies possibiliter is good enough? But I must admit I strongly suspect Maccoby consistently treats Pharisaism as the same as the later rabbinical schools of the period of the formation of the Talmud…which really would be anachronistic, I think.
I don’t see the relevance of any of that to what we are discussing.
No one here is claiming such silly things as “being a dissident is being a literary elite.” The only thing we are saying is that dissident movements can include literary elites; and for Christianity, we have solid proof of this. The rest follows. Likewise, we are the ones pointing out things like that what literary elites produce will affect non-elites and this may even influence what those elites write (that’s my entire point against Walsh’s idle auteur theory for example). Just as for the overlap between literary and other elites: read Walsh. She covers this.
Meanwhile, stretching the definition of “elite” to include any dissident or leader of anything is simply a violation of language and logic. To be an elite in the technical parlance of this field requires more than that. And in any event, we are talking about literary elites. None of the other kinds matter to that discussion. So trying to invent bogus new kinds of them doesn’t get you anywhere here.
As to “one pseudonymous epistle recommends Paul’s letters for doctrinal guidance but it’s nothing directly to do with literary elites” you are wrong. Those epistles are directed at elites; that’s why they are giving instructions to elders and leadership. Even when they include content directed at non-elites, it is through the intended vehicle of elite leadership (they are supposed to enforce the principles recommended). And this is why they are written: only the elite can read them; including if read to the illiterate: it’s still an elite choosing and thus needing to do that (and thus who must be persuaded to see that as worth doing; hence all these letters are acts of persuasion targeting those literate elites).
As to Maccoby, what he “thinks” is irrelevant. All that matters is what he can prove. And he has no evidence for this particular conjecture (unlike what he argues for the Gospels). That’s my point.
But yes, Maccoby also glosses over the sectarian divisions among the Pharisees when he gets to Paul (though I think he doesn’t when he treats the Gospels).
But the extent to which he over-relies on Talmudic models is debatable. I think there is excessive skepticism of their correspondence; Maccoby is not consistently wrong to see pre-War Pharisaism through the lens of post-war accounts such as we find in the Mishnah, Talmud, and other Ribbinica. One can see in Josephus and other pre-war Judaica that there were not such radical differences. There was a tremendous amount of consistency.
Even insofar as certain minor sectarian positions within the Pharisees get elided or diminished in later Rabbinica, they still often show up there, specifically cited as minor sectarian positions. See for example my discussion of the debate within the Pharisees over the nature of the resurrection body in The Empty Tomb, wherein Paul fits an actual minority Pharisee position. This is where Maccoby stumbles a bit: he focuses on majority positions when he comes to Paul, forgetting the minority positions Paul is closer to. I seem to recall Maccoby is more acknowledging of the minority positions when discussing anachronisms in the Gospels.
Finally: Note that Paul never says he studied under Gamaliel. That was a fabrication of Acts. Which rarely tells the truth about Paul or his chronology. To confuse what Paul says with what later fabricators invented about him is another methodological error.
When the Great Cameo of France was inventoried by the Sainte Chapelle circa 1279, it was referred to as “Triumph of Joseph at the Court of the Pharaoh.” It is dated to c. 23 ACE or 50-54 ACE, during the time of the transition from Judaism to Christianity. Do you have any thoughts on why the Julio-Claudians pictured on the cameo might have been associated with the story of Joseph and the Baker (Genesis 40)?
There is no such association.
You must have been duped by a crank.
No such thing is depicted on that stone (see Wikipedia).
What do your sources say is depicted on the cameo? And what are your sources?
My sources are literally all peer-reviewed discussions of the gem.
They all concur: depicted is the Juleo-Claudian Imperial family (see the link); not Joseph or any Biblical scene or character. And no bakers are present either.
I don’t know where you are getting that nonsense. But you should stop listening to cranks who can’t get anything past peer review.
I am “The Crank,” and my sources are Philo, Nicholas of Damascus, Plutarch, Suetonius, both Pliny’s, Tacitus, Mark, Matthew, Luke, Acts, et.al. I find it curious that your peer-reviewed sources have made no attempt to explain the original title affixed to the Cameo prior to someone recognizing the identities of the men and women depicted on it. “Joseph’s Triumph at the Court of the Pharaoh” piqued my curiosity, and I’m surprised it doesn’t pique yours. I’ve spent more than 20 years using “Philo’s Rules” to solve ancient puzzles that identify the Julio-Claudians as the inventors of “Jesus,” “Mary the Watchtower,” and LHM, eLa Ha eM, “Goddess the Mother.” They produced a Hebrew version of Mark, which Matthew corrupted to draw attention away from the Nazarene sect’s association with Jesus the Nazarene. At the same time, Matthew interpolated Mark, changing “Bethlehem” to “Nazareth” (Mk 1:9), thereby removing The Virgin Mother (BeTuLaH eM) and Bethlehem (BeT LeHeM). I have immense respect for your credentials, but where is your curiosity?
Okay. That is all batshit crazy. So I can see now there is no point in conversing with you.
The iconography section of the link you provided identifies the middle row as Tiberius, Livia, Germanicus, Agrippina the Elder, etc.
…which has nothing whatever to do with the Bible, Joseph, or any Baker (much less any baker’s tomb).
The Cameo was listed on the inventory when it was received – at same time, in the same shipment – as other items described as “Relics of Christ.” The story of Joseph’s Triumph at the Court of the Pharaoh is the only crucifixion in the OT, and the alleged “victim” is Pharaoh’s baker. Philo of Alexandria’s “rules” (Jewish Encyclopedia) for identifying and solving enigmas in scripture reveal “the baker” was Nazar Joseph’s mother and that her son took her place on the cross to save the Great Mother, eLa Ha eM, “Goddess the Mother.” The return of Israel’s Goddess, Isha-Ora eLa (aka Asherah) and the introduction of her son YH-Zeus, one male deity for Jews and Romans, would unite the Roman Empire. Philo was a contemporary of the couple who played the roles of “Jesus and Mary the Magdalene,” (the MiGDaL), introduced just before Micah’s BeT LeHeM (House Bread) prophecy.
Cameo+crucifixion+LHM+House of bread = Bible, Joseph, Baker, Israel’s Great Goddess Mother. Paul and Patriarchal priests would surely have done something to stop this “Nazarene Heresy from spreading. BTW: any thoughts on why the Porta Maggiore and the Baker’s Tomb (in which married slaves were buried) were hidden under a massive structure circa 400, and uncovered by the anti-slavery Pope Gregory XVI Twenty years before the start of the Civil War?
I don’t waste time on tinfoil hat like this.
You are suffering from serious delusions here.
Please get help.
Thanks Dr. Carrier. Excellent review. Do you think that this kind of work entering the mainstream of biblical scholarship will eventually reduce the taboo of mythicist theories within the academy? Or do you think the preponderance of Christians within the field will continue to keep mythicism relegated to the fringe corners of scholarship? Just curious.
Since doubting historicity (or at least regarding such doubt as a respectable position) has quadrupled in popularity in just ten years, I think the trajectory is already clear.
But yes, works that keep knocking blocks out of the facade will make this easier over time. These may even be co-related phenomena. As scholars become more willing to abandon apologetic tropes in the field, they become inherently more willing to entertain yet other positions loathed by apologists; and as the facade holding up historicity becomes weaker, fewer historians are going to be convinced by it.
Dr. Carrier-
Thank you for bringing this text to light for me and your discussion of it. I really enjoy reading your work and thank you for your thorough analysis of complicated historical topics. A couple of questions
1) You give examples of fictional works that fit into Walsh’s thesis. Since some of the works you mention center around historically established characters, does this mean that the gospels also may have been centered around an actual person? Does Walsh’s thesis (other than discrediting the oral tradition narrative) speak to whether Jesus from the Gospels was based on an actual person living in start of the first century?
2 On its face, Walsh’s work would seem to lend credence to the Atwell notion of a Jesus created by Roman elites. What am I missing here?
Once again, thanks for your time and all the work you do on this fascinating topic.
1) Yes. Fictional biographies were written as well about historical people. So this is logically compatible with a historical Jesus. Hence plenty of scholars conclude Jesus existed but also that we can extract no useful information about him from the Gospels; Walsh may be in that category herself.
The frequency favors non-historical people though, particularly in the category of religious and culture heroes, as opposed to mere generals, philosophers, and statesmen. So, if you had no other information, a fictional biography of a culture or religious hero would indicate a fictional person more probably than not. So you need evidence to support the existence of someone in that category, besides “the existence of a biography.” I discuss this problem in my article on Hannibal.
This is why many historicists who have abandoned the Gospels as usable sources try resting their case for a historical Jesus on other evidence, e.g. Paul or Tacitus/Josephus.
2) Atwill’s thesis is full on lunacy. It does not resemble Walsh’s thesis in any relevant particular. I have already been advancing the same thesis as hers in all my work since Not the Impossible Faith. As have numerous mainstream scholars as well. As I note in my review, it’s been a mainstream (albeit minority) view for decades already. Yet by contrast I have routinely demonstrated Atwill’s thesis to be full-on tinfoil hat; it is unpublishable garbage that would never pass peer-review. So you really shouldn’t confuse these two.
Thanks for your response, I appreciate your time
In your reply you linked to a write-up you did on Atwill- thanks for that
While totally out of context, and out of your sphere, I wonder what is your opinion about catastrophic risk from AI? Many in the LessWrong community believe that the creation of AI is imminent, and it poses significant risk to mankind. How likely is that?
I don’t believe there is any existential risk. But there are real risks; and we ought to be preparing for and attending to them. In other words, AI will create annoying problems (it already is); and these will escalate into increasingly substantial harms. But it’s not going to destroy civilization or anything.
This is no different than any other technology. Every new drug or plastic or system poses possible global risks we should be concerned to prepare for and attend to; even the science of indoor gas stoves is telling as an example of the point; the history of leaded gasoline, likewise; and so on.
So, bad things will happen if we don’t take this threat seriously; but that is not the same thing as wiping out or even collapsing civilization (much less the human race, even less “all life on Earth”). One needs to attenuate their concerns to reality.
See:
Just to be clear, Richard… You don’t argue that nobody catalogged the thing as ““Joseph’s Triumph at the Court of the Pharaoh”, but rather just that it is batshit to conclude anything from the mis-catalogging?
Correct. It was given a fake description in the Middle Ages. It is now known by experts not to depict anything from the Bible but the Imperial Roman family. It also does not depict any bakers. And it has no connection whatever to the Tomb of the Baker in Rome. Nor does it support any of the other tinfoil hat here being linked to it.
It was in a shipment of artifacts labeled “Relics of Christ” that included the Crown of Thorns and the Image of Edessa.
Which were all fakes. And the fake designation of this gem was another act of hucksterism.
Also, it wasn’t in “a shipment of artifacts.” Its origin is unknown (believed to have been received in France in a payment from Byzantium at some unknown time). What you mean is, it first is mentioned in an inventory of a French royal treasury that included many mundane treasures as well (just gems and precious metals), and a plethora of bogus relics besides.