The Myth of the Jesus Myth: Evidence from Secular History: Josephus

Today in our series, we will be looking at one notable secular historian who mentions Jesus twice. That would be Flavius Josephus.

Josephus mentions Jesus twice. The first is called the Testimonium Flavianum. He says in Antiquities of the Jews:

“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 strange 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 tribes of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” [Josephus, 18.3.3]

Until the mid 18th century, this passage was regarded as wholly genuine and a beautiful attestation to Jesus divine nature and miracles. Charges of this passage being a forgery now run rampant in skeptical literature. [Drews, 121] [Doherty, 207]

Origen, in the second century CE, says that Josephus was not a Christian.
[Origen, I, XLVII] This is in stark contrast with the current version of the Testimonium. This is a clear contradiction that must be resolved.

There are also vocabulary issues that arise. In passages seeming to make Josephus look like a Christian, the vocabulary is at odds with the rest of the Antiquities of the Jews. [Mason, 169] This is another problem that must be resolved.

When the evidence is examined in this manner, it appears a logical conclusion that this passage is forged. In fact, this is the conclusion that most skeptics come to. However, historians come to a different conclusion. Most scholars hold to the view that this passage is partially genuine, but with some Christian interpolations.
The passage most likely originally read like this:

“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. He was a doer of strange 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. 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. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

Not only does this solve the problems of Josephus sounding like a Christian, but it also resolves the vocabulary problem.[Meier, 63] This is either a remarkable coincidence, or remarkable evidence that some of this passage is genuine.

Still, there are some objections that need to be properly dealt with before we conclude the value of this passage.

We will deal with the “out of context” objection, the lateness objection, and what I will call the “Pleasing Pilate” objection.

The out of context objection is an old and outdated objection that has been abandoned by all but the most ardent of Christ mythers. It states that the passage is out of context with the surrounding text. This objection is without merit. Josephus was indeed very sloppy in his placement. [Meier, 8] Further, this passage is not even out of context! The surrounding text is all talking about events relating to Pontius Pilate, and Jesus, being crucified under him, definitely relates.

The lateness objection argues that the Testimonium is too late to be of any worth. This is utter nonsense. Antiquities was published in about 94, which makes it postdate Jesus by about sixty years. Considering the time gap between other Jewish rabbis, in the hundreds of years, this is an excellent time difference.

The “pleasing Pilate” objection asks why Josephus would write negatively about Pontius Pilate. However, Josephus had no need to please dead leaders! He was writing for the current leaders. He would have been in trouble had he upset them, but insulting Pilate was not offensive.

To sum up the discussion of the Testimonium Flavianum, it is an extremely valuable passage, and it confirms that Jesus existed, was crucified under Pontius Pilate at the suggestion of the Jews, aka “the principal men among us”, and that he still had a following at the time of writing.
Josephus’ second reference to Jesus is called the “Jamesian reference”. It is extremely short, but it does confirm a few things. It says this,

“James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ”

Note that Jesus is only called the “so-called Christ” instead of “the Christ” so that is not subject to Christian interpolations. No scholar worth his salt disputes the authenticity of this passage.

Josephus provides a considerable amount of evidence for the historicity of Jesus. Tomorrow we will look at the evidence that the Roman historian Tacitus provides us.

Works Cited:

Doherty, Earl, The Jesus Puzzle, Age of Reason Publications, 2005
Drews, Arthur, The Christ Myth, Prometheus Books, 1998
Josephus, Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, The Roman Empire, 90 CE (approximately)
Mason, Steve, Josephus and the New Testament, Hendrickson Publishers, 1992
Meier, John P, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Doubleday, 1991
Origen, Contra Celsum, Self-Published, mid third century