joshephus on jesus...?

Question

i often hear people refer to josephus, a jewish historian who was alive near the time of jesus' alleged existence, when arguing on the existence of jesus. after reading the passages from the antiquities which reference jesus, aka testimonium flavianum, two things occured to me. one, if jesus was alive, he and josephus were not alive at the same time and/or they did not know each other personally. and two the wording of the testimonium flavianum (depending on which translation you read) tells of jesus as being more of a folk loric hero, than an actual person. he references only what other people said of him, and nothing of his own personal account. so why do those who attempt to validate the existence of jesus so often cite josephus when making their arguments?

Answer 1

Most scholars--even the Christian ones--acknowledge the fact that the "Jesus" section of Josephus' writings is fraudulent, added well after Josephus' death by (presumably) Christian scribes. There's very solid reasoning and objective evidence to support this claim.

Answer 2

Josephus was born in A.D.37. Josephus provides probably 300 times as much info about Herod the Great as does the Gospel of Matthew. Josephus speaks about Herod and John the Baptist. Josephus calls Jesus a wise man who was good and He was known to be virtuous. He said many people among the Jews and the other nations became His disciples.
He clearly stated that Pilate condemned Jesus to be crucified but his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.

This is the most famous passage in Josephus, Antiquities XVIII, 63 reads as follows:
"About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For He was the achiever of extraordinary deeds and was a teacher of those who accept the truth gladly."

I agree with you. Josephus is writing what he heard about Jesus because Josephus couldn't hop a flight and visit Jesus especially since he wasn't born until 37AD. He is just a historian writing about what he heard. The disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote what they heard and saw.

Even though I agree with you, I certainly appreciate anything that is found written about Jesus the Christ, my Lord and Savior.

Answer 3

With all due respect, since when do historians have to be the contemporaries of their subjects? People are still writing about George Washington. They are still writing about Abraham Lincoln. Heck they are still writing about the history of the Roman Empire. Are you saying that they didn't exist? Most of history is written long after the fact.

And why would the people be talking of a man who didn't exist? He was reporting what the people accepted as fact.

There will always be the critics, the doubters. So I wouldn't be surprised to find that there are those that would question the validity of Josephus' writing. Funny they should just question that one passage.

Ask yourself this question, if you were going to make up a piece of history and insert it somewhere, wouldn't you insert it in the works of a contemporary historian to give it greater validity and thus avoid questions like the one being raised here?

Answer 4

Most people who use Josephus in their arguments don't realize the dates. Jesus' death is Guestimated to be around 33 AD... Josephus was born in (I believe) 37 AD. I know, it's only a few years difference between Jesus' death and Josephus' birth, but Josephus wasn't born with a pen in his hand, automatically writing about this. In fact, most of his writings were about the Wars against the Jews, which most happened in 70AD... so he wasn't even writing till he was almost 40 and probably didn't have a bit of a concern for someone named Jesus, or else more of his writings outside of a few references would be about him. And most scholars agree that the references given for Jesus in his writings were added later (as many of the older manuscripts leave them out completely).

Answer 5

I sent a letter to the editor recently saying that Jesus' existence was in doubt. I mentioned Josephus in it. Some people replied that historians mention Jesus, and as I expected, Josephus was mentioned again, but some wrongly said he was Roman. As several people here have mentioned, it is thought that the parts about Jesus were later additions to Josephus' histories. He does not say much about him, and he lived after Jesus' time, if we can even determine that time. One Bible part says Jesus was born in the reign of Herod who died in 4BC. Another part of it says he was born during Quirinius' census that was in AD 7, so there is a conflict of at least 11 years about the date of Jesus' birth. There are many other contradictions in the accounts of him in the Bible, so there is good reason to doubt that he ever existed.

Answer 6

First of all, Josephus was born (37 AD) around or after the time that Jesus is supposed to have died... they ware NOT contemporaries.

(The following is from the referenced source, below... not my commentary...)

Despite the best wishes of sincere believers and the erroneous claims of truculent apologists, the Testimonium Flavianum has been demonstrated continually over the centuries to be a forgery, likely interpolated by Catholic Church historian Eusebius in the fourth century. So thorough and universal has been this debunking that very few scholars of repute continued to cite the passage after the turn of the 19th century. Indeed, the TF was rarely mentioned, except to note that it was a forgery, and numerous books by a variety of authorities over a period of 200 or so years basically took it for granted that the Testimonium Flavianum in its entirety was spurious, an interpolation and a forgery. As Dr. Gordon Stein relates:

"...the vast majority of scholars since the early 1800s have said that this quotation is not by Josephus, but rather is a later Christian insertion in his works. In other words, it is a forgery, rejected by scholars."

So well understood was this fact of forgery that these numerous authorities did not spend their precious time and space rehashing the arguments against the TF's authenticity. Nevertheless, in the past few decades apologists of questionable integrity and credibility have glommed onto the TF, because this short and dubious passage represents the most "concrete" secular, non-biblical reference to a man who purportedly shook up the world. In spite of the past debunking, the debate is currently confined to those who think the TF was original to Josephus but was Christianized, and those who credulously and self-servingly accept it as "genuine" in its entirety.

To repeat, this passage was so completely dissected by scholars of high repute and standing--the majority of them pious Christians--that it was for decades understood by subsequent scholars as having been proved in toto a forgery, such that these succeeding scholars did not even mention it, unless to acknowledge it as false. (In addition to being repetitious, numerous quotes will be presented here, because a strong show of rational consensus is desperately needed when it comes to matters of blind, unscientific and irrational faith.) The scholars who so conclusively proved the TF a forgery made their mark at the end of the 18th century and into the 20th, when a sudden reversal was implemented, with popular opinion hemming and hawing its way back first to the "partial interpolation theory" and in recent times, among the third-rate apologists, to the notion that the whole TF is "genuine." As Earl Doherty says, in "Josephus Unbound":

"Now, it is a curious fact that older generations of scholars had no trouble dismissing this entire passage as a Christian construction. Charles Guignebert, for example, in his Jesus (1956, p.17), calls it 'a pure Christian forgery.' Before him, Lardner, Harnack and Schurer, along with others, declared it entirely spurious. Today, most serious scholars have decided the passage is a mix: original parts rubbing shoulders with later Christian additions."
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Answer 7

Josephus was born in 37 AD, so just after Jesus died. Obviously it would be impossible for him to give eyewitness testimony and it’s kind of pointless for you to accuse him of failing to do so.

There is nothing “folkloric” in his description of Jesus as a living man. These are his words in “Testimonium Flavianum.” “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 among 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.”

In “Jewish Antiquities,” he wrote: “...so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as lawbreakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.”

Josephus is a very highly regarded historian, whose accounts are 100% accepted on the period. Why would he insert a fictitious man into his serious historical work? It makes no sense that he would discredit his entire life’s work in order to include a couple of sentences about Jesus.

With regard to your problem that he wrote after Jesus died, albeit shortly after, I remind people again and again that 21st century history classes teach "factual" history based on less evidence than exists for the life of Jesus. We're all taught about Aristotle, but the earliest copy of his work that we have access to dates from 1,400 years AFTER he died. Sophocles, the same. Plato, 1,200 years, on and on.

Can someone please explain to my why it’s good history to accept writings from more than a thousand years post-event, but not good history to accept writing only a few years post-event?

These histories are accepted and taught in schools worldwide, but if a word about Jesus appears, the document must be faked or altered. Everything ancient historians say is correct, unless it contains the word Jesus, according to the above answers.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

Josephus's own dates put it quite a while after Jesus was alive, and he only mentions him in historical context. He didn't actually claim to have met him. No one outside the Bible does.

They site it because it is the only clear reference that is even close to the time that historians sometimes think is real.

Answer 10

All it does is prove that Jesus had become an urban legend, effectively, during the time that Josephus was alive.