Josephus on Jesus

This article is part of the Jesus and history series of articles.

In 93, the Jewish historian Josephus published his work Antiquities of the Jews. The extant copies of this work, which all derive from Christian sources, even the recently recovered Arabic version, contain two passages about Jesus. The one directly concerning Jesus has come to be known as the Testimonium Flavianum. Its authenticity has been disputed since the 17th century, and by the mid 18th century the consensus view was that it was a forgery. This conclusion was questioned in the 20th century and the intellectual controversy will probably never be resolved. The other passage mentions Jesus as the brother of James, also known as James the Just. The authenticity of this latter passage has been disputed by Emil Schürer as well by several recent popular writers.

Testimonium Flavianum

The following passage appears in the Greek version of Antiquities of the Jews xviii 3.3, in the translation of William Whiston:

^3.3 Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

As usual with ancient texts, the surviving sources for this passage are Greek manuscripts, all minuscules, the oldest of which dates from the 11th century. It is likely that these all derive from a single exemplar written in uncial, as is the case with most other ancient Greek texts transmitted to the present in medieval copies, and have come down through the hands of the church. The text of Antiquities appears to have been transmitted in two halves — books 1–10 and books 11–20. But other ad hoc copies of this passage also exist.

The first to cite this passage of Antiquities was Eusebius, writing in about 324, who quotes the passage in essentially the same form.

Authenticity

The topic of the Testimonium's authenticity has attracted much scholarly discussion. Louis Feldman counts 87 articles published during the period of 1937-1980, "the overwhelming majority of which question its authenticity in whole or in part".

Arguments against authenticity

Origen

The Christian author Origen wrote around the year 240. His writings predate both the earliest known manuscripts of the Testimonium and the earliest quotations of the Testimonium by other writers. In his surviving works Origen fails to mention the Testimonium Flavianum, even though he was clearly familiar with the Antiquities of the Jews, since he mentions the less significant reference by Josephus to Jesus as brother of James, which occurs later in Antiquities of the Jews (xx.9), and also other passages from Antiquities such as the passage about John the Baptist which occurs in the same chapter (xviii) as the Testimonium. Furthermore, Origen states that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ" "he did not accept Jesus as Christ" , but the Testimonium declares Jesus to be Christ. Because of these arguments, some scholars believe that the version of Antiquities available to Origen did not mention Jesus at this point at all.

On the other hand, while this argument asserts that Josephus could not have written the Testimonium in its current form, it also demonstrates, according to some scholars, that the version of the Antiquities known to Origen must have written something about Jesus, for otherwise Origen would have no reason to make the claim that Josephus "did not accept Jesus as Christ." (While the claim that Josephus "did not accept Jesus as Christ" can be based on the fact that he was by all accounts a traditional Jew, this fact would make his nonacceptance of Jesus go without saying; the fact that Origen said it at all suggests a context of Jesus existed in Josephus' work.) Presumably whatever he did write was sufficiently negative that Origen chose not to quote it.

However, there are other arguments as to why Origen would have said Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Christ and is it worth noting that no "sufficiently negative" Josephus quote has ever surfaced. It may have been Josephus’ silence on the matter as well as his Judaism that led to Origen’s comment. Or it could be Josephus's statement in Jewish War 6.5.4, where he declares that the Jewish messianic prophecies were really about the victorious emperor Vespasian that led him to believe Josephus did not accept anyone as a messiah. Since Origen makes no mention of negative comments by Josephus it can be argued that if Origen had read these comments he would have attempted to rebuke them and not chosen to ignore them in his writings. The fact that he did not do so gives credibility to the argument that no such writings existed at the time, but were a later interpolation.

Early Christian writers other than Origen

The absence of clear references to the Testimonium is consistent throughout the work of the Christian writers and apologists of the years 100-300 A.D.Feldman (1989), p. 431</ref> It is never clearly mentioned by any author of those two centuries, Christian or otherwise, although it is possible that Origen alludes to it indirectly (see above). For example, in the Dialog With Trypho the Jew , written about a hundred years after the death of Jesus, is Justin the Philosopher's account of a dialog between himself and a Jewish rabbi named Trypho. In it two men debated about whether Jesus was the promised Messiah: Trypho arguing that Christianity is based merely upon rumors. Justin makes no mention of the Testimonium in his efforts to persuade the rabbi, although it would have been an "extremely effective answer to Typho's charge".

However, it is also not clear that any Christian before Origen had read 'Antiquities' at all, and none before Origen makes any clear reference to Book 18 of Antiquities. For example, although it is has been shown by Michael Hardwick that Tertullian (ca. 193) had read Josephus' 'Against Apion' it is not clear that he knew 'Antiquities.' Tertullian's reference to "antiqitatum Judaicarum" (Apol. 19) is not a reference to 'Antiquities,' but rather a reference to 'Against Apion,' which in ancient times was known as "The antiquity (i.e. ancient-ness) of the Jews."

Hardwick has also argued that contrary to the assumption of some older scholars , not only is it is not clear that Tertullian had ever read 'Antiquities' but it is not clear that any other writer of the Western church other than Tertullian was directly acquainted with any of Josephus' works at all. . Although one catena fragment attributes a citation of Book 2 of 'Antiquities' to Irenaeus, its authenticity is debatable because catenae were often miscopied. In any case, even if the attribution to Irenaeus is accurate, it is clear that Irenaeus was unfamiliar with Book 18 of 'Antiquities' since he wrongly claims that Jesus was executed by Pilate in the reign of Claudius (Dem. ev. ap. 74), while Antiquities 18.89 indicates that Pilate was deposed during the reign of Tiberius, before Claudius. As for writers of the Eastern church, Clement of Alexandria vaguely refers (Strom. 1.147) to Josephus' historical writings in a way that indicates that he knew directly or indirectly the claim of Jewish War 6.440 that there were 1179 years between David and the second year of Vespasian. Direct familiarity with 'Antiquities' is, however, unclear in this passage. Clement's claim that there were 585 years between Moses and David may be based on Antiquities 8.61, which says that there were 592 years between the Exodus and the Temple, if one assumes that he subtracted the four years of Solomon's reign, and that a copying error was responsible for Clement's text reading 585 instead of 588. But what this conjectural explanation for Clement's claim about 585 years, a figure that does not explicitly appear in 'Antiquities,' shows is that it far from clear that Clement had direct acquaintence with Josephus' 'Antiquities.' Similarly, Whealey argues that there is no clear evidence that any Christians before Origen were familiar with Book 18 of 'Antiquities,' where the Testimonium appears, although some early Christians did know of the other works of Josephus, namely 'Jewish War' and 'Against Apion.' Moreover, it has also been shown by Whealey that ante-Nicene Christians are not known to have used Josephus' works in apologies directed at Jews. The earliest undisputed citations of the Testimonium by known church fathers--that by Eusebius of Caesarea and that by Jerome--are not made in apologies directed at Jews like 'Dialog with Trypho.' The earliest use of the Testimonium for anti-Jewish disputation appears in an anonymous late fourth century Latin text, known conventionally as Pseudo-Hegesippus's 'De excidio Hierosolymitano.' There is no evidence at all that the real Justin Martyr had read any of Josephus' works. A Pseudo-Justin text 'Cohortatio ad Graecos,' wrongly attributed to Justin Martyr, which according to current scholarly consesus does not date before the mid-third century, alludes vaguely to the fact that Josephus wrote about Moses, but even this Pseudo-Justin text does not show any familiarity with Book 18 of 'Antiquities' where the Testimonium appears. Against this, Feldman writes that "no fewer than eleven church fathers prior to or contemporary with Eusebius cite various passages from Josephus (including the Antiquities) but not the Testimonium".

Textual continuity

The interruption of the narrative by the Testimonium Flavium also suggests that it is an interpolation. In its context, passage 3.2 runs directly into passage 3.4, and thus the thread of continuity, of "sad calamities," is interrupted by this passage. The context, without the testimonium passage, reads:

^3.2 So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition. ^3.4 About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome.

Vocabulary

Some of the passage fails a standard test for authenticity, in that it contains vocabulary not otherwise used by Josephus. On the other hand, "the vocabulary and grammar of the passage (after the clearly Christian material is removed) cohere well with Josephus' style and language ... almost every word in the core of the "Testimonium" is found elsewhere in Josephus---in fact, most of the vocabulary turns out to be characteristic of Josephus."

Josephus's faith

It is argued that "He was [the] Christ" can only be read as a profession of faith. If so, this could not be right, as Josephus was not a Christian; he characterized his patron Emperor Vespasian as the foretold Messiah.

However, the supposed confession of Josephus relies on the standard text. But a recent study by Alice Whealey has argued that a variant Greek text of this sentence existed in the 4th century—"He was believed to be the Christ." The standard text, then, has simply become corrupt by the loss of the main verb and a subsequent scribal "correction" of the prolative infinitive. In any event, the audience for the work was Roman, and Roman sources always write of "Christus", never of "Jesus", which could make this merely an identification.

Anachronisms

Some of the deepest concerns about the authenticity of the passage were succinctly expressed by John Dominic Crossan, in The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant: "The problem here is that Josephus' account is too good to be true, too confessional to be impartial, too Christian to be Jewish." Three passages stood out: "if it be lawful to call him a man … He was [the] Christ … for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him." To some these seem directly to address Christological debates of the early 4th century. Consequently, some scholars regard at least these parts of the Testimonium as later interpolations.

Interpolations

The entire passage is also found in one Greek manuscript of Josephus' earlier work, The Jewish War. (This Greek manuscript of "Jewish War" with an interpolated Testimonium is known as the "Codex Vossianus.") A passage about Jesus that appears to have been inspired by the Testimonium, but that differs widely from it in content also appears in an Old Russian adaptation of "Jewish War" written c.1250. Interestingly, the passage dealing with Jesus is not the only significant difference between the Old Russian and Greek versions of "Jewish War." Robert Eisler has suggested that it was produced from one of Josephus's drafts (noting that the "Slavonic Version" has Josephus escaping his fellow Jews at Jotapata when "he counted the numbers [of the lot cast in the suicide pact] cunningly and so managed to deceive all the others", which is in striking contrast to the conventional version's account:

"Without hesitation each man in turn offered his throat for the next man to cut, in the belief that a moment later his commander would die too. Life was sweet, but not so sweet as death if Josephus died with them! But Josephus - shall we put it down to divine providence or just luck - was left with one other man....he used persuasion, they made a pact, and both remained alive."

Other unique passages in the Old Russian version of "Jewish War" include accounts of John the Baptist, Jesus's ministry (along with his death and resurrection), and the activities of the early church.

Alleged fabrication by Eusebius

Ken Olson has argued that the Testimonium was fabricated by Eusebius of Caesarea, who was the first author to quote it in his Demonstratio Evangelica. Olson argues that the specific wording of the Testimonium is suspiciously closely related to the argument Eusebius makes in his Demonstratio, in particular that Jesus is a "wise man" and not a "wizard", as shown by the fact that his followers did not desert him even after he was crucified.

The argument that Eusebius fabricated the Testimonium is supported by some scholars, such as Marshall Gauvin and Earl Doherty. According to Gauvin, "Had the passage been in the works of Josephus which they knew, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and Clement of Alexandria would have been eager to hurl it at their Jewish opponents in their many controversies. But it did not exist." Furthermore, according to Gauvin, Eusebius had written in his Demonstratio Evangelica, (Book III, pg. 124), "Certainly the attestations I have already produced concerning our Savior may be sufficient. However, it may not be amiss, if, over and above, we make use of Josephus the Jew for a further witness." However, Whealey has already shown that Gauvin's assumption that ante-Nicene Christians were "eager to hurl" anything from any of Josephus' works in controversies directed at Jews is unsupported by the extant evidence. Likewise unsupported is Gauvin's assumption that Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria knew Josephus' works generally and "Antiquities" specifically well enough to know of the Testimonium. Regarding Olson's arguments about Eusebian fabrication,Carleton Paget and Whealey have criticized them on stylistic and other grounds.

One of the earliest ecclesiastical authorities to condemn the Testimonium Flavianum as a forgery was Bishop Warburton of Gloucester (circa 1770). He described it as "a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too."

Frank R. Zindler commented that Eusebius simply improved "the germ of the Testimonium (that) had already begun to infect certain Christian-copied versions of Antiquities of the Jews."

Arguments in favor of partial authenticity

Until the 16th century, Christian writers took the position that Josephus wrote the Testimonium more or less in its current form.

Many writers claim that Josephus did write something about Jesus which has been corrupted in the surviving Greek text.

Arabic version

In 1971, Shlomo Pines, a Jewish professor, published a translation of a different version of the Testimonium, quoted in an Arabic manuscript of the tenth century. The manuscript in question appears in the Book of the Title written by Agapius Mahbub Qustanin, a 10th-century Christian Arab and Melkite bishop of Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij). Agapius appears to be paraphrasing, for even Josephus' title is an approximation. In addition, Agapius explicitly claims that his work was based on a lost, older Syriac chronicle by Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785). This suggests that his Testimonium is also a paraphrase of the Testimonium that appeared in Theophilus' lost chronicle. Agapius' version of the Testimonium reads:

For he says in the treatises that he has written in the governance of the Jews: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders" - Shlomo Pines' translation, quoted by J. D. Crossan

Pines suggests that this may be a more accurate record of what Josephus wrote, lacking as it does the parts which have often been considered to have been added by Christian copyists. This would add weight to the argument that Josephus did write something about Jesus.

However, Pines' theory has not been widely accepted. The fact that even the title of Josephus's work is inaccurate suggests that Agapius is paraphrasing his source, which may explain the discrepancies with the Greek version. In addition, the claim that Pilate condemned Jesus to be crucified and to die has been interpreted as a reaction to the Muslim belief that Jesus did not really die on the cross. [1].

Syriac version

Pines also refers to the Syriac version cited by Michael the Syrian in his World Chronicle. It was left to Alice Whealey to point out that Michael's text in fact was identical with that of Jerome at the most contentious point ("He was the Christ" becoming "He was believed to be the Christ"), establishing the existence of a variant, since Latin and Syriac writers did not read each others' works in late antiquity.

Literary dependence on the Gospel of Luke

In 1995, G. J. Goldberg, using a digital database of ancient literature, identified a possible literary dependence between Josephus and the Gospel of Luke. He found a number of coincidences in word choice and word order, though not in exact wording, between the entire Josephus passage on Jesus and a summary of the life of Jesus in Luke 24:19-21, 26-27, called the "Emmaus narrative":

And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. ... Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

From these coincidences in wording, Goldberg writes that 'The conclusion that can therefore be drawn is that Josephus and Luke derived their passages from a common Christian (or Jewish-Christian) source.'

Goldberg points out that Josephus' phrases "if it be lawful to call him a man," "He was [the] Christ," "he appeared to them," and "And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day," have no parallel in Luke's passage, and takes this to support the position that the first two short phrases are Christian interpolations. Luke contains the phrases "but besides all this," four sentences on the women who witnessed the tomb, and "the Christ should suffer," which there is no counterpart in Josephus' text.

Reference to Jesus as brother of James

The other reference in the works of Josephus often cited to support the historicity of Jesus is also in the Antiquities, in the first paragraph of book 20, chapter 9. It concerns the execution of a man whom traditional scholarship identifies as James the Just.

"And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest."[2]

The above quotation from the Antiquities is considered authentic by the majority of scholars. Unlike the Testimonium, the passage was mentioned in several places by Origen. There is however, debate as to whether the words who was called Christ were in the original passage, or were a later interpolation. Earl Doherty has suggested that the original may have said no more than "and brought before them [a good man] whose name was James, and some others". A small minority, including Zindler, challenge the passage in its entirety, noting contradictions in both the characterization of Ananus and the chronology of his tenure between the passages in the Antiquities and the Jewish Wars.

The crucial word in this passage is the name James (Jacob in Greek and Hebrew). It is very likely that this common name was in Josephus' source material. It might even have been a reference to James the Just, who lived in the first century. Because he appears to have born the title "Brother of the Lord," it would have been natural to relate him to Jesus as the text was copied by Christian scribes. According to William Benjamin Smith's Ecce Deus, there are manuscripts which contain this passage, and there are also manuscripts which do not contain it, indicating that it might be an interpolation that took place before the time of Origen but did not succeed in supplanting the original text universally.

Kenneth Humphreys takes the tack that the Jesus James is the brother of is the 'Jesus, the son of Damneus' mentioned at the end of the passage and that the 'who was called Christ' passage was "doubtless inserted by a Christian editor" and is not the Jesus of the Bible (Jesus, son of Josheph)

Josephus does not mention the martyrdom of James in his Wars of the Jews, there he attributes the fall of Jerusalem as a consequence of someone else's death - the death of the person responsible for the death of James as mentioned in the Antiquities.

Josephus writing in Jewish Wars:

"I should not mistake if I said that the death of Ananus was the beginning of the destruction of the city (of Jerusalem), and that from this very day may be dated the overthrow of her wall, and the ruin of her affairs, whereon they saw their high priest, and the procurer of their preservation, slain in the midst of their city."

References

• Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus (Viking Penguin) 1997
• Feldman, Louis H (1989), "A Selective Critical Bibliography of Josephus", in Feldman, Louis H; Hata, Gohei (eds.), Josephus, the Bible, and History, Leiden: E.J. Brill, ISBN 9004089314
• James Carleton Paget, "Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity", Journal of Theological Studies 52.2 (2001) pp. 539-624. A survey of all the theories, all the scholars and all the evidence.
• Michael E. Hardwick, Josephus as an historical source in patristic literature through Eusebius(Scholars Press) 1989
• Shlomo Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and its Implications, (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1971)
• Alice Whealey, Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times,Peter Lang Publishing (2003). How the TF has been seen down the centuries.
• Alice Whealey, "Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the Testimonium Flavianum", in Josephus und das Neue Testament (Mohr Siebeck) 2007. Criticizes the thesis that Eusebius of Caesarea fabricated the Testimonium.
• Frank R. Zindler, The Jesus The Jews Never Knew, Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the historical Jesus in Jewish Sources (AAP), 2003

External links

• Book 18, Chapter 3 of Antiquities of the Jews
• Book 20, Chapter 9 of Antiquities of the Jews
• Interpolated references to Jesus in the Slavonic Wars of the Jews by Josephus
• Scholarship on the Testimonium Flavianum down the centuries. A paper by Dr. Alice Whealey presented at 2000 SBL Josephus Seminar: expanded into a book subsequently
• Josephus' Account of Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum
• Manuscripts
• Historicity of Jesus FAQ
• Josephus Unbound by Earl Doherty
• Collection of resources on Josephus
• "Testimonium Flavianum" an essay by Peter Kirby
• "Did Josephus Refer to Jesus? A Thorough Review of the Testimonium Flavianum" by Christopher Price
• "Jewish Light on the Risen Lord", New Oxford Review, by Frederick W. Marks
• Fuller discussion of the textual evidence
• A strong critique of Josephus' Testimonium