Jesus and Josephus

Did Josephus Mention Jesus?

Research by Kerry A. Shirts

I think in dealing with this idea of whether Jesus lived or not, I'll use my appendix to my Senior Thesis Paper on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I was dealing with the various scholarly interpretations of who the Teacher of Righteousness or Justice was. That there are parallels between the Teacher and Jesus is undeniable. That they were the same person is certainly questionable. However, the Messianic ideas concerning both are most interesting. The contemporary account of Jesus found in Josephus has been said to be doctored with the idea that Jesus was not viewed as the Messiah or Christ by Jesus' contemporaries. David Flusser acknowledges that "every biography has its peculiar problems. We can hardly expect to find information about Jesus in non-Christian documents. He shares the fate of Moses, Buddha, and Mohammad, who likewise received no mention in the reports of non-believers."1 Edgar J. Goodspeed noted in the 1950's that there were two passages in Josephus that recognized Christ as such.2 His reconciliation was that there were followers of Christ under the name of Christians in Rome by 64 A.D. as Tacitus, Pliny, and Seutonius acknowledged. Yet he also notes that the passages concerning Christ's divine nature, resurrection, and countless miracles were possibly added by pious Medieval scribes.3

Ignatius, an early Apostolic Father, reprimanded the Christians who wouldn't believe anything that couldn't be proved from the archives, telling the Philadelphians, "My archives are Jesus Christ, and they can't be tampered with." Which demonstrates not only how soon the church rested its case on documents, but also shows how early those documents began to be controlled.4

The original version of Josephus contained a very unflattering remark about Christ, for which the book was condemned. Yet Josephus is almost canonical for Christians, so how did they save it? In the oldest surviving manuscripts, the famous passage about Christ has been savagely rubbed or inked and even cut out. Nibley has pictures of the inking out of several passages in Josephus and later in Maimonides even. Yet later these passages emerged once again, but this time wonderfully altered. With the changing of a few words, a little deft insertion, the deletion of the insulting passage, it has now become a glowing character reference for Jesus from the mouth of an infidel!5 It is this type of control which has occurred in documents the world over. And it is just this type of controlling of documents that makes it so very hard to identify historic personalities. P.A. Brunt noticed the sloppiness of various authors in quoting each other, and copying each other's words down. In fact, the fecundity of adding information to other authors, because they weren't saying what later readers thought they ought to say, was also noticed by Brunt. Josephus was clearly manipulated, and was guilty of manipulating certain writings himself.6 The extent to which Christians would go to having a demonstration of a non-Christian source ascribe divine qualities to Jesus is shown by Tessa Rajak.7 In discussing Photius' Jewish Kings - a history of the kings of the Jews from Moses to Agrippa II, Photius indicates (by omission) that Justus omitted Christ. Origen remarked on Josephus disbelief in Christianity. Yet we find Eusebius, the first surviving author to have the "Testimonium Flavianum" in its present, and at least partly interpolated from, made much of Josephus as a witness to Christ. Josephus was thought to have noticed Christ. But a suitable interpolation could have been made in Justus too.8 Frederic Farrar noted the silence of Josephus concerning Herod's murder of the innocents, and comments wryly, "Why does Josephus make no mention of so infamous an atrocity?...Perhaps because it was passed over in silence by Nikolaus of Damascus, who, writing in the true spirit of those Hellenizing courtiers, who wanted to make a political Messiah out of a corrupt and bloodstained usurper, magnified all his patron's achievements, and concealed or palliated all his crimes.9 De Quincy wrote of Josephus as an historian, "His works betray some of the worst characteristics of the Oriental and the Pharisee. He may have omitted all mention of Christ out of sheer perplexity, although he certainly rejected his Messiahship (Orig. c. Cels. i, 35).10 Farrar also acknowledges that the passage in Josephus concerning Christ as such is clearly an interpolation "if not wholly spurious." He also castigates Josephus because as he saw it, "no one can doubt that his silence on the subject of Christianity was as deliberate as it was dishonest."11 But the interpolation itself was as dishonest as was the omission, something Farrar ignored. Solomon Zeitlin spelled it out in full:

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 received 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 among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first ceased not, for he appeared to them thereafter again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And even now the *tribe of Christians* so named from him is not extinct.12

This passage is the one rejected by scholars as being genuine. Clearly the words inbetween the asterisks *'s, (which are Zeitlin's), are interpolations. Mr. Thackeray says if they were a Christian interpolation, they are at least an artistic forgery. True, but artistic has nothing to do with the truth of Josephus' perception of Jesus as divine.13 Zeitlin traces down the author of the passage, not to Origen, who does not quote it, but to Eusebius. The reason is very clear. Eusebius studied Josephus diligently, and could thus masquerade as he, except when he used the word "tribe" to describe the Christians. All the literature from the Ante-Nicene Fathers show they never used the word "tribe" or "race" with reference to the Christians, was either by the Fathers or when they quoted non-Christian writers.14 Tertullian, Pliny the Younger, Trajan, Rufinus, none use "tribe" to refer to Christians. Eusebius is the first to start the practice.

Circumstantial evidence also points to Eusebius, as he was guilty of doctoring the records of Constantine's life as well, in order that the information will not detract from the glory of his subject.15

The whole point of all this is that we must exercise caution in declaring emphatic statements concerning early Christian and Jewish beliefs, as the records have been tampered with. R. Eisler in his translation of Josephus after Marmington in the Loeb Classical Library states that the Slavonic references to Christ are no good since the translations are highly questionable, while Origen stated clearly that Josephus did not believe Jesus to be the Christ. He also notes that the ingenious theory of R. Laqueur "Der judische Historiker Flavius Josephus", that Josephus inserted the passage to secure the favor of the Christians sect at a time when he was under attack is incorrect as well. The Greek Josephus following S.G.F. Brandon's translation in his "Jesus and the Zealots", notes that it was between Origen and Eusebius that the Josephus passage was radically altered. Jesus had been aligned with the Zealots, something which Origen said would be against his Messianic character, and again, something that even Josephus did not approve of. F.F. Bruce "New Testament History" pp. 100f, notes Josephus portrayed the zealots as pious criminals.

With this review of the doubtfulness of the Josephus passage concerning Christ, it could be supposed that thus there are no contemporary writings concerning Jesus in history. Yet the Dead Sea Scrolls have caused scholars the world over to revise their views of not only Jesus and the famous Teacher of Righteousness, but of Paul, Messianism in general, etc. Entire sets of new questions are arising which is causing us to reassess the situation. This brings us to one of the most interesting new pieces of evidence for Jesus, from James H. Charlesworth. He claims that is is conceivable that Josephus did refer to Jesus, but not as told in the Greek manuscripts.16 Now we have an Arabic text of Josephus which Charlesworth analizes most interestingly! It comes from Agapius' "Book of the Title (Kitab al-'Unwan", a history of the world from its beginning until 924/2 C.E. Agapius was a tenth century Christian Arab and Melkite bishop of Hierapolis, in Phyrgia, in Asia Minor. The translation is S. Pines, a professor of Hebrew University (Jerusalem):

Similarly Josephus (Yusifus), the Hebrew. For he says in the treatises that he has written on the governance (?) of the Jews: 'At this time there was a wise man who wascalled Jesus. 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. But those who become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.'17

What is immediately obvious to us here is that the blatantly Christian passages are *not* in this Arabic version. Passages such as "if indeed one ought to call him a man", and "He was the Christ" are missing. The third and final passage, "he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive" is introduced by the words "They reported that..." Charlesworth strikes at the heart of the controversy with his observation that no Jew would say that someone "was *perhaps* the Messiah?" We understand that the Arabic is from a Syriac copy, via a Greek copy which was translated by Christians, but each successive translation drops some of the pejorative comments. The Greek has surely been altered which automatically alters any other translation whether to Slavonic, or Arabic. But Josephus ***did refer to Jesus***. (my emphasis) The significance, apart from the fat that Josephus could have admired the wise sayings of Jesus, and his arguing against the zealous revolutionaries (Charlesworth does not accept S.G.F. Brandon's idea of Jesus being involved in Roman insurrection), "The significance of the Arabic recension lies partly in the corroboration of the gospel account. Jesus was wiseand righteous, attracted Jewish and Gentile followers, and was crucified by Pilate's orders; moreover, the Palestinian Jesus movement continued after his death."18 No testimony is as important as that of Josephus concerning an historical person named Jesus, a miracle worker, wise man, gatherer of Jews and Gentiles, as well as disturber and rebellious person (according to the way a first-century Jew would have seen him), of whom some today still say didn't exist in history. This Arabic recension goes a long way in establishing an actual historica aspect to our search for this historic person, long after most thought the final verdict was in.

Endnotes

1. David FLusser, "Jesus (Jesus in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten), Hamburg, Rowohtt, (1968), p. 7.

2. Edgar J. Goodspeed, "A Life of Jesus", Harper and Bros., (1950), p. 20f.

3. "Ibid." p. 20.

4. Hugh Nibley, "Controlling the Past", in "The Improvement Era," (March 1955), p. 166.

5. "Ibid.", p. 166.

6. P. A. Brunt, "On Historical Fragments and Epitomes," in the "Classical Journal", New Series, Vol. 30, #2, (1980), pp. 477-494.

7. Tessa Rajak, "Justus of Tiberius", in the "Classical Journal", New Series, Vol. XXIII, #2, (Nov. 1973), pp. 345-368.

8. "Ibid.", p. 367.

9. Fredric W. Farrar, "The Life of Christ," Fountain Publications, (1980), pp. 62f.

10. "Ibid.", p. 63.

11. "Ibid.", p. 63.

12. Solomon Zeitlin, "Studies in the Early History of Judaism", 3 vols., Ktav Publishing, (1973), pp. 407-431, Reprinted from the "Jewish Quarterly Review", New Series, Vol. 18, (1928).

13. "Ibid.", p. 410.

14. "Ibid.", p. 414; Cf. E.H. Warmington, Ed., "Josephus," Vol. 9, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard Univ. Press, (1969), pp. 48-51; 496f.

15. Hugh Nibley, "Controlling the Past", in "Improvement Era", (March 1955), p. 154.

16. James H. Charlesworth, "Jesus Within Judaism", Doubleday, (1988), p. 94. Josephus also clearly identifies James as the Brother of Jesus, said to be the Christ (ton adelphon Jesou tou Legomenou Christou, Iakobolos onoma auto). "Josephus has identified one person in terms of another; it is logical to expect the latter to have been mentioned already by him" [Josephus].

17. "Ibid.", p. 95.

18. "Ibid.", p. 97.