Josephus on Jesus

According to Louis Feldman these have proven very useful in reconstructing the Josephus texts through comparisons with the Greek manuscripts, confirming proper names and filling in gaps.

[21] One of the reasons the works of Josephus were copied and maintained by Christians was that his writings provided a good deal of information about a number of figures mentioned in the New Testament, and the background to events such as the death of James during a gap in Roman governing authority.

[23][24] Although originally hailed as authentic (notably by Robert Eisler), it is now almost universally acknowledged by scholars to have been the product of an 11th-century creation as part of a larger ideological struggle against the Khazars.

[34] One of the key prongs in her argument is that Agapius' and Michael's Testimonia share the unique peculiarity that they both explicitly state that Jesus died after being condemned to the cross, while the Greek original does not include this detail.

According to Whealey, the differences between the two Testimonia are simply due to the fact that Agapius' chronicle more freely paraphrases and abbreviates its sources, whereas Michael's version is probably a verbatim copy.

[36] Since they otherwise have no substantial disagreement from the Greek version we possess, and since that sole variant is sufficient to explain the most powerful objections to the Testimonium's integrity, she concludes that it is "the only major alteration" that has been made to what Josephus originally wrote.

The Testimonium Flavianum (meaning the testimony of Flavius Josephus) is a passage found in Book 18, Chapter 3, 3 (or see Greek text) of the Antiquities which describes the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Roman authorities.

[41] The earliest secure reference to this passage is found in the writings of the fourth-century Christian apologist and historian Eusebius, who used Josephus' works extensively as a source for his own Historia Ecclesiastica.

For instance, Jesus is called "a wise man" (and Josephus described others like Solomon, Daniel, and John the Baptist in the same fashion), which would not have been a common Christian label for Christ at the time.

In a phrase-by-phrase study, Goldberg finds that the Jesus account can be derived from Luke's Emmaus narrative using transformations Josephus is demonstrated to have employed in paraphrasing known sources for the Antiquities.

This paraphrase model, Goldberg argues, is not only a natural application of Josephus's writing processes but also resolves the questions that researchers have raised about the passage, shedding light on the origin of specific difficult phrases and accounting for its brevity and its mixture of Josephan language with a Christian creedal structure.

First, it shows Jesus was a historical figure and not a myth, based on the reasoning that Josephus's treatment of his source indicates he thought it reliable; it must have conformed with what he knew of events under Pilate.

[75][76] However, Bart D. Ehrman and John P. Meier have argued that this silence is mainly due to the fact that the original Testimonium probably had a neutral tone toward Jesus and did not contain elements that would have been useful to Christian apologetics, since it did not recognize him as the Messiah, nor did it speak about his resurrection; it was, therefore, not a useful instrument in their polemics with Pagan writers.

[30] A final argument from silence relates to Josephus' own writings and questions the authenticity of Testimonium based on the fact that it has no parallel in the Jewish War, which includes a discussion of Pontius Pilate at about the same level of detail.

[31] Craig Evans states that an argument in favor of the partial authenticity of the Testimonium is that the passage does not stress the role played by the Jewish leaders in the death of Jesus.

[53] Geza Vermes concurs, arguing that if the Testimonium had been the work of a Christian forger, it would have placed blame on the Jewish leaders, but as is it is "perfectly in line" with the attitude of Josephus towards Pilate.

[86] Andreas Köstenberger argues that a comparison of the Greek manuscripts with the Arabic quotation discovered by Shlomo Pines in the 1970s provides an indication of the original Josephan text.

[90] According to Van Voorst, scholars who support the negative reconstruction contend that the reference read something like "source of further trouble in Jesus a wise man" and that it stated "he was the so-called Christ".

[90] Craig Blomberg states that if the three elements "lawful to call him a man", "he was the Christ" and the reference to the resurrection are removed from the Testimonium the rest of the passage flows smoothly within the context, fits the style of Josephus and is likely to be authentic.

In support of this view, Feldman points out, following Olson, that the Testimonium features three phrases ("one who wrought surprising feats", "the tribe of the Christians", and "still to this day") which are used nowhere else in the whole of Greek literature except Eusebius.

[99][100] In 2014, Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor Paul Hopper wrote a book chapter in which he argued that the style and narrative structure of the Testimonium is sharply in contrast with the rest of Josephus' work.

[106] The context of the passage is the period following the death of Porcius Festus, and the journey to Alexandria by Lucceius Albinus, the new Roman Procurator of Judea, who held that position from AD 62 to 64.

[110][111][109] Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[9] (τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ, Ἰάκωβος ὄνομα αὐτῷ) and has rejected its being the result of later Christian interpolation.

In Origen's commentary on Matthew, he writes: And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews" in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ.

[114][115] Origen is attributing statements to Josephus that he never wrote in any of his extant works (such as the claim that the killing of James caused the destruction of the Jerusalem temple),[116] suggesting that he is at least partially confused.

[122] According to Robert E. Van Voorst the overwhelming majority of scholars consider both the reference to "the brother of Jesus called Christ" and the entire passage that includes it as authentic.

[22][90] Van Voorst states that the James passage fits well in the context in the Antiquities and an indication for its authenticity is the lack of the laudatory language that a Christian interpolator would have used to refer to Jesus as "the Lord", or a similar term.

[111] Bauckham states that the method of killing James by stoning, and the description provided by Josephus via the assembly of the Sanhedrin of judges are consistent with the policies of the Temple authorities towards the early Christian Church at the time.

Hence Painter states that the killing of James restarted the clock that led to the destruction of the city and that the traditional dating of AD 69 simply arose from an over-literal application of the theologoumenon, and is not to be regarded as founded on a historical source.

[137] In the Antiquities of the Jews (Book 18, Chapter 5, 2) Josephus refers to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist by order of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee and Perea.