2) JOSEPHUS FLAVIUS, TESTIMONIUM FLAVIUS - Extrabiblical evidence for the historicity of Jesus Christ

 Extra Biblical records of Jesus of Nazareth

Much debate has been going on regarding the authenticity of the quote from Josephus’ writing, mentioning Jesus!

At present there are three scholarly consensus regarding the authenticity of this quote, which is known as the Testimonium Flavius

First lets see a little bit about josephus

 

He was Jewish ruler who was born around 36 AD (date of birth and his Mother’s name are unknown, his early life details are unknown! Why am I mentioning this here! Just noting that just because of these facts, no one argues that Josephus is a mythical creature! That’s all!) and died around 100 AD

He was originally Joseph Ben Matthias , a jewish ruler who was defeated by the Roman forces in the first Jewish – Roman war at Galileo. There is an interesting back story about how he surrendered and was accepted by emperor Vespasian and acquired the roman citizenship and the name, “Flavius” (which was a roman name!)and so on, which I wont be going into details here..

Josephus was a prolific writer and had written three major works. Which were the Jewish wars, the Antiquities of the Jews and Against Apion.

 

Though he was considered a reliable historian, nonetheless he was a man of his times, and had his bias and varying sources for his claims and history, so most scholars may not place him on par with that of tacitus or other more prominent historians

At the first we need to note that there are two instances where Josephus mentions Jesus the Christ. Ofcourse he mentions ‘other’ Jesuses and deciphering which one is Christ and which is not is not even debated at this point amongst scholars, its clear that the two passages that speak of Jesus, is the Jesus mentioned in the gospels

In this article I would like to talk on only one of those passages which is disputed and considered to be a fraudulent interpolation, the Testimonium Flavius …. “TF”

There are three scholarly views of seeing the TF (Book 18, Chapter 3 of Antiquities of Jews) 

1) Completely authentic writing of josephus

2) Completely fabricated by Christians

3) Partially authentic and was later touched upon by Christian scribes

It is interesting to note here that the very first few scholars who doubted the authenticity of TF were Christian scholars (in 1592 by the Protestant scholar Lucas Osiander! And by Louis Cappel (15 October 1585 – 18 June 1658), a French Protestant churchman and scholar) and most of the scholars from wide range of backgrounds accept the 3rd possibility. Scholars who accept this view - John P. Meier, Steven Mason, Paula Fredrikson, E.P. Sanders, Geza Vermes, John D. Crossan, Paul Winter, S.G.F. Brandon, Morton Smith, James H. Charlesworth, Carlo M. Martini, Wolfgang Trilling, A.M. Dubarle, Robert Van Voorst, R.T. France, F.F. Bruce, Craig L. Blomberg, Ben Witherington III, James D.G. Dunn, Darrell L. Bock, Alice Whealey, Luke Y. Johnson, J. Carleton Paget and Graham Stanton. – 

THIS IS NOT A GROUP OF APOLOGISTS OR CHRISTIAN DEFENDERS AS “SOME” CLAIM!

So before we jump into discussing this viewpoint we will analyze the minor positions and this will help you make a rational conclusion bases on the pros and cons

Was it completely authentic -  very unlikely!

Reasons being

1) Josephus was an Orthodox Jew and he would not have called Jesus as the Messiah , but it is possible that he reported as “jesus was considered a Messiah by his followers” or something of that sort, so its certainly not possible for him to call him Messiah or Christ directly

2) Origen who mentions the writings of Josephus does note that, he mentions about Jesus in his writings, but adds the fact that he did not call him or consider him a Messiah! (which might be a point in favour of the limited authenticity of TF actually)

3) Josephus was neutral when addressing other characters like John the Baptist, the excessive adjectives like resurrection or fulfillment of divine prophecies when addressing Jesus is unlikely from his hand!

Now coming to the objections to the wholesale forgery of the TF, the proponants like Esther Dhanraj, Richard Carrier, Robert Price is as follows

1) “The writing is not typical of Josephus!”

Not necessarily 

Is the wording similar to josephus or not? The consenses is not clear, as there are good arguments and scholars on both sides!

Prof Carleton Paget and Prof Alice Whealey have argued that It is far more likely that the core of the passage actually does go back to Josephus himself

- The term “wise man” is used by Josephus to denote both Daniel and Solomon in AJ 10.237 AND AJ. 8.53 – this is unlikely for a Christian to say or use! Christians would have called something more than just “wise man”!

- The use of term “paradoxical work” to denote the miracles of Jesus is consistent with Josephine wordings. Used in prophet Elisha (AJ IX.183) as denoting something doubtful or skeptical.

- Several other words like ‘receive the truth with pleasure’, ‘principal men’

- Christians did not use the term “tribe” to denote their group! This is similar to what Josephus does in other places like AJ II.306 (to refer to a swarm of locusts) or XIII.430 (to refer to the female gender). Josephus calls Christians as ‘tribe’. Which is unlikely for Christians to say

- Mention of Jews and Greeks following Jesus during his lifetime also attests to Josephan understanding, but this is not accurate as only jews followed jesus during his lifetime, which the Christians would have known easily.

2) “Bizzare brevity of the Text”

The fact is, this is brief even for Christian interpolators! Why did they not mention about more stories from the gospel as part of the interpolation.. probably because it was not possible and only a part of it could be altered or changed later on! Pointing to a original Josephan TF

We see Christian interpolations in other places of Josephus, which is extensive but why was this one limited? 

As J.C. Paget notes:

Where we can be certain of the existence of Christian additions to Josephus as well as glosses, they strike a more aggressively Christian note. In this respect I would draw attention to the pseudo-Josephan passage about James, the Slavonic Josephan passage about Jesus and some Christian glosses of Josephan manuscripts.

(J.C. Paget, “Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity”. The Journal of Theological Studies. 52 (2): 539–624, p. 600)

The Slavonic josephus version which is the Old East Slavic translation of Flavius Josephus' History of the Jewish War, has Jesus inserted into War II.174 which has heavy Christian annotations! Which is lacking in TF

Similarly the Slavonic Josephus blames the jews for the crucifixtion and death of jesus (a more probable case if Christians had interpolated it) rather than the neutral text of TF)

3) “TF is not in context”

Is the TF in context to the passage before and after it! Surprising it is!.. they speak of “disturbances” and “calamity”. Why is the execution of a “wise man” (who had many Jewish and Greek followers!) by the “accusation of the principle men amongst us” not a calamity or disturbance. 

The passages do talk about Pontius pilate and this event took place during his time!. This is certainly within the context. This is something that Bart Ehrman University of Colorado History Professor, asserts too!

Bart Ehrman considers this digressions to be normal for Josephus –

“The majority of scholars of early Judaism, and experts on Josephus, think that it was the former—that one or more Christian scribes “touched up” the passage a bit. If one takes out the obviously Christian comments, the passage may have been rather innocuous, reading something like this: 

 “At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. He was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. When Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.”

 From the book Did Jesus Exist by Bart Ehrman

Regarding the passage being unrelated to the context, Bart notes that ‘however, it was not at all uncommon for ancient writers (who never used footnotes) to digress from their main points, and in fact other digressions can be found in the surrounding context of the passage’. 

In fact, there are no less than eleven figures mentioned by Josephus whose references can be easily removed from their context without interrupting the flow of the surrounding passages:

• 1. Honi the Circle-Drawer –  AJ XIV.21-28.

• 2. Galilean Cave Brigands  – War I.304-313 and AJ XIV.415-430.

• 3. Judas son of Hezekiah – War II.56 and AJ XVII.271-272.

• 4. Simon of Peraea – War II.57-59 and AJ XVII.273-277.

• 5. Athronges – War II.60-65 and AJ XVII.278-284.

• 6. Tholomaus – AJ XX.5.

• 7. Theudas –  AJ XX.97-98.

• 8. Eleazar ben Dinai – War II.235-235 and  AJ XX.161.

• 9. The Egyptian prophet – War II.259-263 and AJ XX.169-171.

• 10. An anonymous prophet –  AJ XX.188.

• 11. Eleazar, an exorcist – AJ VIII.46-49.

(list by Historian Tim O’ Neil)

4) “Eusebius forged the TF?”

What is the scholarly consenses – Prof Sabrina Inowlocki notes Olson’s revival of the theory of Eusebian forgery for the TF and then observes “but this has not found support among scholars” 

(Inowlocki, “Josephus and Patristic Literature” in A Companion to Josephus, H. Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers ed.s, Blackwell, 2016, pp. 356-68, p. 359).

5) “None of the church fathers mention it”

Actually they do! Origen mentions about Jesus Passage which may or may not be from the TF. (Contra Celsus I.47, Commentarius in Matthaeum X.17) 

The silence of origen is evidence that the TF existed and was in an unedited format which was useless for his purposes and he does, mention about the James passage (probable) and also that Josephus doesn’t call him Messiah.

Its unlikely that the Antiquities was widely available in common useage as that of the Wars of Jews boo. So it is possible that the church fathers, atleast most of them would not have had access to this text.

One thing to note is that, Literally no one in the first 3-4 centuries of jesus doubted the existence of Jesus!

Most of the Pagan objections (including Celsus who was countered by Origen) against Jesus during this time was about the birth of jesus, his skills as a carpenter or his shameful death on a cross, and so on, so the TF in its original format might not have been of any use for the church fathers to counter these arguments!. And Origen himself quotes josephus less than 10 times in all his writings. And all other church father quotes are from the Wars of the Jews rather than from the antiquities.

Prof Wheatley clarifies that 

 “Christians do not cite Josephus for any thing in the New Testament: not only do they not cite him on James the brother of Jesus or John the Baptist .… Perhaps most surprisingly they do not name Josephus as an authority on King Herod’ …. Christians paid relatively little attention to their history in the second and third centuries.”

(Alice Whealey “Josephus on Jesus: Evidence from the first millennium” Theologische Zeitschrift 51 (1995), pp. 285-304, pp. 2887-88)

Another point to note here is that, none of the scholars who propose that TF is a wholesale interpolation are mythicists! (like Esther or Carrier or Robert Price) Lets be clear on that…

So finally coming to the conclusion,

 the partial authenticity of Josephan TF and the existence of a more neutral TF before Christian interpolations is widely accepted by scholars

- All manuscripts of Josephus contains the TF. There are texual variants, but all variants contain atleast some of the TF, including  “Pseudo Hegesippus” a 4th century paraphrase of ‘the jewish wars’ by josephus mentions TF without the Christian overtones. It doesn’t mention about Pilate sentencing Jesus to death nor the Messiah phrase. 

- No external evidence that Eusebius was the interpolator. The interpolation might probably have happened after Origen and before Eusebius

- The above points discussed shows that there was a neutral Josephan TF that spoke of Jesus ( similar to one propoed by Prof   Bart Ehrman) and it certainly attests to the 

 Historicity of jesus, 

 His miracles, 

 His Ministry

 His crucifixtion by Pontius pilate and so on

- The original TF is Josephine in its Greek writing style

- Passage is consistent with the one prior and after it, and even if it isn’t, such degressions are common to Josephan writings!

So finally, I leave the decision in the hands of the readers to come to a rational conclusion based on these facts discussed here.