Josephus' reference to Jesus

[mike]

I thought this was an interesting article about something I've heard of, but don't know much about. I've heard people say Josephus isn't really a reliable source in general. But apparently somebody has written a book with the thesis that Josephus' scant reference to Jesus may not be spurious as has generally been suspected.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/revi ... -evidence/

The contested passage in Josephus goes as follows:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. For he appeared to them alive again on the third day, the divine prophets having foretold these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

Apparently the common modern view has been that the affirmations of Jesus as Messiah were added by scribes later, in an attempt to provide more historical proof for Jesus. I'm curious what your thoughts are.

[Bootstrap]

I think Flavius Josephus is generally regarded as a valuable historical source.

He has clear biases - he is trying to flatter the Romans and make himself look good - but historians rely on Josephus extensively and consider him reliable, especially when he says things that can be confirmed elsewhere.

On the passage you quote, I think most scholars would agree that some portion of it almost certainly goes back to Josephus. I suspect most would also say that it has been edited by later Christian scribes, but that's hard to prove. We do not have earlier versions of the text that are significantly different for that passage, so we can't use the text history to know if this is true. They are not saying that it is spurious, but that it probably did not say, for instance, that Jesus was the Messiah. They think it might have said something more like this:

About this time there was Jesus, a wise man. He performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of people who gladly accept the truth. He won over many Jews and also many Greeks. When Pilate, upon an accusation by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him from the beginning did not cease. And to this day the tribe of Christians named after him has not disappeared.

The main argument for this is that some of the early Fathers knew Josephus well, and did not think he believed Jesus was the Messiah. For instance, Origin says this:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nic ... Chapter_17

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. And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James.

I hate that translation. Let me ask GPT to translate it more readably ...

James had such a strong reputation among the people for righteousness that Flavius Josephus—who wrote The Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books—when he tried to explain why the people suffered such terrible disasters, even to the point that the Temple was destroyed, said that these things happened to them as God’s judgment because of what they dared to do to James, the brother of Jesus who is called Christ.

And the remarkable thing is this: even though Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Christ, he still testified that James was extraordinarily righteous, and he says that the people themselves believed they suffered these calamities because of James.

[mike]

Thanks. Maybe 'spurious' wasn't the right term, but the professor who wrote the article said he had always viewed parts of that passage as 'dodgy' and had taught it accordingly, but might now need to apologize to his past students.

I thought this part was really interesting as well, where the book author made a case that Josephus was personally connected to people involved in both the death of Jesus and the death of James, which means he had very close ties with people who knew all about Jesus and the early church.

Insider Connections

When I interviewed Schmidt for the Undeceptions podcast, he told me he’d initially planned to leave the book as simply a fresh way to read the manuscripts and language of the Testimonium Flavianum. Yet, he told me, one day he ventured down a rabbit hole. He started to ask, What relationships did Josephus personally have with the “first men amongst us” in Judea in the AD 40s, 50s, and 60s when he was in Judea and Galilee? The results might be the most significant part of the book.

I’ve often cautioned my students that, while Josephus probably wrote a neutral or skeptical sentence or two about Jesus, we could never know where he got his information—public rumor, Christian sources, or some official non-Christian channel. Schmidt may have found the most plausible answer. He has mapped Josephus’s remarkable network of relationships with the very Jerusalem elites present at both Jesus’s trial (around AD 30) and the later execution of his half-brother James (in AD 62, an event Josephus records in Antiquities 20).

As Schmidt argues, it turns out Josephus moved within the priestly dynasty directly connected to both deaths. His wartime commander was Ananus II (Ananus the Younger), the high priest who ordered James’s execution. Ananus II was the son of Ananus I, Ananus the Elder, the former high priest who presided over Jesus’s interrogation (known as Annas in John 18:13). Ananus the Elder’s daughter married Caiaphas, the high priest named in the Gospels. Ananus II was therefore Caiaphas’s brother-in-law. Luke 3:2 and John 18:13 place Ananus and Caiaphas together at the apex of the priestly establishment.

Josephus twice calls Ananus II “the oldest of the chief priests” and notes his death in AD 68–69. Ananus II was likely in his 70s or 80s when he died, making him in his 30s or 40s around AD 30, fully adult and influential at the time of Jesus’s trial.

Therefore, Schmidt plausibly speculates that Ananus II (the Younger) might even have been a member of the Sanhedrin that handed Jesus over to Pilate. Whatever we make of that suggestion, Schmidt is right to note that Jewish law required families to keep the Passover meal in the patriarch’s house. This means Ananus II would have been at his father’s house on the night Jesus was brought there for questioning (John 18:13). Therefore, Schmidt writes, “Ananus II surely would have observed the portion of the proceedings held in his family’s patriarchal residence” (192). That seems solid to me.

The upshot of this complicated discussion of priestly family connections is that when Josephus wrote in the Testimonium Flavianum that Jesus had been accused by “the first men among us,” he was plausibly drawing not on Christian rumor but on the recollections of Jerusalem leaders he knew personally.

That all sounds fairly plausible to me and is quite fascinating.

[Bootstrap]

FWIW, there is also an interesting Wikipedia article on this question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

[mike]

FWIW, there is also an interesting Wikipedia article on this question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

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 Ecclesiastical History. Writing no later than 324,[53] Eusebius quotes the passage[54] in essentially the same form as that preserved in extant manuscripts. It has therefore been suggested by a minority of scholars that part or all of the passage may have been Eusebius' own invention, in order to provide an outside Jewish authority for the life of Christ.[55][56] Some argue that the wording in the Testimonium differs from Josephus' usual writing style, and that a traditional Jew would not have proclaimed ὁ χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν ('he was the Christ', at Josephus' time simply meaning 'Messiah'.)[57]

So about that last sentence, apparently the new book referenced in the article I posted makes the case that the wording in the Testimonium does in fact harmonize with Josephus' writing style.

[mike]

Bootstrap, I'm curious what you think of the Grokipedia article.

[Bootstrap]

Bootstrap, I'm curious what you think of the Grokipedia article.

In general, I like it. It is more in-depth than the equivalent Wikipedia article. I suspect AI has been used to construct it, at least in some sections, FWIW.

[mike]

Bootstrap, I'm curious what you think of the Grokipedia article.

In general, I like it. It is more in-depth than the equivalent Wikipedia article. I suspect AI has been used to construct it, at least in some sections, FWIW.

'Grokipedia' is 100% AI. The article looks like summaries of scholarly articles on the topic. One has to wonder which is more reliable - human written open encyclopedias editable by anyone or AI generated encyclopedias.

[Bootstrap]

Bootstrap, I'm curious what you think of the Grokipedia article.

In general, I like it. It is more in-depth than the equivalent Wikipedia article. I suspect AI has been used to construct it, at least in some sections, FWIW.

'Grokipedia' is 100% AI. The article looks like summaries of scholarly articles on the topic. One has to wonder which is more reliable - human written open encyclopedias editable by anyone or AI generated encyclopedias.

Good to know. This is the first time I have ever looked at Grokipedia.

[barnhart]

Josephus was an in-house writer for the Romans so it's fair to look at his text from the perspective of what pleased his benefactors. I would expect him to show Jesus as a focus of social unrest to justify his execution.