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The most important consideraton in the reject of the Gospels accounts comes from the Epistles: their silence.
The Epistles are earlier than the Gospels, shouldn't they know of Jesus? But they are essentially silent.
NON-BIBLICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS
Although this subject is covered in page 3, the following material from different sources on the internet will add to this. As they are from different sources, there
is obviously some overlap and repetition and difference of opinion on certain issues.
{AN ADMITTANCE THAT JOSEPHUS PASSAGE NEEDS EDITING!--JK]
But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was
of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all
the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity,
as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought it before the
brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers,
he delivered them over to be stoned. While Origen refers to this passage in his Commentary on Matthew
10.17, this remains inconclusive. The fact that the passage was referenced by Origen around 200 is not evidence for the authenticity
as it still leaves well over a century when the passage could have been interpolated.
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. Unlike Josephus' shorter reference to Jesus, this passage is naturally controversial.
Most scholars suspect there has been at least some tampering with the text on the basis of some or all of the italicized sections.
Thus scholarly opinion can be divided into three camps: those who accept the entire passage as authentic; those who reject
the entire passage as a Christian interpolation into the text (perhaps authored by the fourth-century church historian Eusebius);
and those who believe that the original text contained an authentic reference to Jesus but was later embellished by Christian
copyists. NB. It should be noted that the extant Greek manuscripts of Josephus' Antiquities
all date to the tenth century or later. The reasons why it should be rejected are:
The precocious Josephus had studied all the Jewish religious sects before
the age of 19 when he decided to become a Pharisee. He became a clerk to the Sanhedrin and at 26 went as an envoy to Rome
to plead for some priests sent to Nero by Procurator Felix for trial. With the help of Poppaea, the Empress, who was possibly
a Jewish proselyte or at least a godfearer, he succeeded. He was thus in Rome at much the same time as Paul the apostle. In Jerusalem in 64 CE, revolt was simmering. Josephus had witnessed the
power and extent of the Empire and knew that rebellion was futile. When the war broke out Josephus was made a general by the
Sanhedrin and fought in Galilee with John of Gischala, the Zealot leader of the Galilaeans. Vespasian captured him after the
town of Jotapata had been besieged for 47 days and decided to use him as an interpreter. Vespasian asked Josephus to write an account of the war for his campaign
Triumph, a Roman victory parade. It was to be a warning to the people of the East not to try to defy Roman might. It should be noted that provincial governors had to dispatch, to the Emperor,
'acta', official reports of all that occurred under their jurisdiction. Important trials such as those requiring the death
penalty had to be filed, particularly if the trial concerned an attempt at insurrection against Imperial rule. On the evidence
of the gospels Pilate must have filed an account of the trial of Jesus, and one must have existed in the Roman archives. We
know that Tiberius had an almost obsessive reverence for the legal and civic reforms introduced by his predecessor, Augustus,
and paid meticulous attention to the governance of the provinces. Officials had to take care not to step outside of their
powers and particularly not to oppress their inferiors. Taxation was light and the policy in frontier regions was to avoid
conflict. It is inconceivable that Tiberius should not have been informed of the trial of a man [as portrayed in the Gospels--JK]
charged with riotous assembly and treason. Josephus had access to the Acts of the Governors and he would have
required this to obtain an accurate view of events between 6 CE when his earlier source, the books of Nicholas of Damascus,
court historian to Herod the Great ended, and about 55 CE when his direct experience as a scribe to the Sanhedrin would have
become relevant. [He, like Tacitus, would have access to the Imperial LibraryJK.] So for the period of about 50 years, which covered the ministries of John the Baptist
and Jesus, Josephus's main source would have been Roman and Herodian archives.
In versions of the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, are two passages
describing Jesus. Neither is in the Jewish version of the Josephus's Antiquities. The longer passage, the so called
Testimonium Flavianum (18:3:3), is cited by Christians as independent confirmation of Jesus' existence and resurrection. [This
is the same second passage quoted in full aboveJK]. It reads: [Now there was] about this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed
one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth
gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of
the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did
not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied
these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to
this day not disappeared. Though this passage was quoted by Eusebius writing in about 320 CE, earlier
Christian writers make no reference to Josephus's remarkable commendation of Jesus despite its value to them, as they would
have surely done had it existed. Indeed Origen, writing in about 250 CE puzzled: Though he [Josephus] did not admit our Jesus to be the Christ he none the
less gave witness to so much righteousness in James. Elsewhere he adds: Although [Josephus] disbelieved in Jesus as Christ thereby contradicting the extant text. Plainly Origen's version of Josephus's
works did not have the passage to which we are referring, but by 340 CE the version used by Eusebius did. Jerome's Latin version
has the insertion but it is less assertive, rendering 'He was the Messiah' to 'He was believed to be the Messiah'. This clearly
shows that the text of Josephus has been altered.
So he [Ananus, son of Ananus the high priest] assembled the Sanhedrin of
judges, and brought before him the brother of Jesus, he who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others (or some
of his companions) and when he had formed an accusation against them, he delivered them to be stoned. This too should be disregarded because firstly, the stoning of James is
not recorded in Acts; secondly, Hegesippus a Jewish Christian, writing ca. 170 CE, says that James was killed not by stoning
but in a tumult and by being clubbed; thirdly, when Origen refers to Josephus' mention of James, the text he is using is clearly
not the one above (in fact the text that Origen uses is not found in any extant MSS giving further evidence to the fact of
interpolation and tampering with Josephus' writings). Josephus no doubt did refer to a James and the words 'the brother of
Jesus' have been added.
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 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. However for more than two hundred years, the Christian Fathers who were
familiar with the works of Josephus knew nothing of this passage. Had the passage been in the works of Josephus which they
knew, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen an Clement of Alexandria would have been eager to cite it to their Jewish opponents
in their many controversies. Indeed, Origen, who knew his Josephus well, expressly affirmed that that writer had not
acknowledged Christ.
Everything demonstrates the spurious character of the passage in Antiquities.
It is written in the style of Eusebius, and not in the style of Josephus. Josephus was a voluminous writer. He wrote extensively
about men of minor importance. The brevity of this reference to Christ is, therefore, a strong argument for its falsity. This
passage interrupts the narrative. It has nothing to do with what precedes or what follows it; and its position clearly shows
that the text of the historian has been separated by a later hand to give it room. Josephus was a Jew and yet this passage
makes him acknowledge the divinity, the miracles, and the resurrection of Christ, that is to say, it makes an orthodox Jew
believe as a Christian. Josephus could not possibly have written these words without being logically compelled to embrace
Christianity. All the arguments of history and of reason unite in the conclusive proof that the passage is an unblushing forgery. For these reasons every honest Christian scholar has abandoned it as an
interpolation. Dean Milman says: 'It is interpolated with many additional clauses.' Dean Farrar, writing in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, says: 'That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it now stands no sane critic can believe.' Bishop Warburton
denounced it as 'a rank forgery and a very stupid one, too.' Chambers' Encyclopaedia says: 'The famous passage of Josephus
is generally conceded to be an interpolation.'
Some comment must be made on the issue of 'independent confirmation'. Even if a reference to Jesus in a text is authentic, and not a later Christian insertion,
that text may not provide any new information. For instance, if a writer is merely repeating what he was told by Christians,
who in turn derive their information from the New Testament, then the text in question does not provide independent confirmation
of the New Testament, as the claims involved are ultimately derived from the NT. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing during the second half of
the first century CE, produced two major works: History of the Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews. Two apparent
references to Jesus occur in the second of these works. The longer, and more famous passage, occurs in Book 18 of Antiquities
and reads as follows (taken from the standard accepted Greek text of Antiquities 18:63-64 by L. H. Feldman in the Loeb
Classical Library) [the second passage quoted in full 3 times above]: [Now] about this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought
to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.
He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest
standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up
their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these
and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day
not disappeared. This passage is called the Testimonium Flavianum, and is sometimes cited
by propagandists as independent confirmation of Jesus' existence and resurrection. However, there is excellent reason to suppose
that this passage was not written in its present form by Josephus, but was either inserted or amended by later Christians.
Many Biblical scholars reject the entire Testimonium Flavianum as a later
Christian insertion. However, some maintain that Josephus's work originally did refer to Jesus, but that Christian copyists
later expanded and made the text more favorable to Jesus. These scholars cite such phrases as 'tribe of Christians' and 'wise
man' as being atypical Christian usages, but plausible if coming from a first century Palestinian Jew. Of course, a suitably
clever Christian wishing to 'dress up' Josephus would not have much trouble imitating his style. So he [Ananus, son of Ananus the high priest] assembled the sanhedrin of
judges, and brought before him the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others (or some
of his companions) and when he had formed an accusation against them, he delivered them to be stoned. (Antiquities
20.9.1) Opinion about this passage is mixed. Some scholars believe that it is a
later Christian insertion, like the Testimonium Flavianium, but of course much less blatantly so. Those who argue for Jesus's
non-existence note that Josephus spends much more time discussing John the Baptist and various other supposed Messiahs than
he does discussing Jesus.
Firstly, Josephus, as an orthodox Jew, could not have written such obviously
Christian words, and that, if he had believed all that they affirm, he would not have restricted his comments to this brief
paragraph (and to a single phrase in the other, shorter passage). Hence the very most that can be claimed is that he here
made some reference to Jesus which has been retouched by a Christian hand. It should be noted that the earliest MSS (for this part of the Antiquities)
dates from the eleventh century, and hence may derive from an interpolated copy. This historian was popular with Christians
partly because he stressed the superiority of biblical ethics to Graeco-Roman morality, and since the relevant MSS are late,
and since the copying was done principally by Christians, there was plenty of time and opportunity for an entry about Jesus
to be inserted. In the passage in Josephus' The Jewish War parallel to the one in
the Antiquities about Pilate, there is no mention of Jesus, despite the fact that the account of Pilate in the War
is almost as full as the version in the Antiquities. This corroborates our suspicion that there was either no passage
about Jesus in the original text of the Antiquities or that it had a different form. (It should also be noted that
Justus of Tiberias, the great contemporary and rival as historian of Josephus, also made no mention of Jesus). Even if Josephus did make some (perhaps uncomplimentary, or at best neutral)
reference to Jesus that has been reworked in the longer passage into the present eulogy by a Christian hand, the date of the
work in which both passages occur (ca. 93 CE) makes it too late to be of decisive importance for the historicity of Jesus;
for at least some of the gospel accounts, placing Jesus in Pilate's Palestine, were in written form by then, and Josephus
could, like Tacitus, have taken his information from what Christians were by then saying. This would be quite in accordance
with his largely uncritical attitude to his sources in this late work where they are often employed not only negligently,
but also at least where it is possible to check them - with great freedom and arbitrariness, with only occasional evidence
of any critical attitude towards them. Apart from the two questionable passages in Josephus, Jewish literature
is totally unhelpful concerning Jesus, as is widely admitted. We cannot, then, be surprised that efforts have been made both
to salvage some mentions of him from this historian, and to insist that these were not uncritical repetitions of what Christians
were at that time claiming, but were based on independent information.
Josephus, a Jew, is made to say [again the quote, 5 times aboveJK]: '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.' Now, it is hardly likely that a Jew would show such a respect towards Jesus,
who was known among his own people as a seditious person; and talk about his teaching 'the truth.' Further on he is made to
say: 'He was the Christ, and when Pilate ... 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.'
One of the arguments made is that this passage is present in all the extant
manuscripts. However, our Greek manuscripts date from no earlier than the 10th century, and we do not have a manuscript tradition
as rich as that of the New Testament where comparison of texts and their families can reach back into the 3rd century. It
is true that we have a direct quotation of the Antiquities 20 passage by the church historian Eusebius who wrote in
the early 4th century, and it does not essentially vary from the extant one. But this is still over two centuries from the
composition of the Antiquities, leaving more than sufficient time and scope for emendation to have taken place in some
quarters. As to the non-survival of variants showing differences in the passage under
discussion, something often appealed to, it is virtually an axiom in textual criticism that where widely-known passages in
a given writer, or passages common to different works, are concerned, scribes will often gravitate toward a common expression,
to bring one copy into line with another. That is, a reference or turn of phrase may be changed to reflect the version that
is most widely familiar (e.g., a change of some of the teachings in the Didache's 'Two Ways' section to agree with the wording
in Jesus' mouth found in Matthew), and this can extend to the very presence of such elements. This would particularly apply
to the two passages in Josephus, since in Christian hands, those references to Jesus would not only have become universally
known, they would have constituted the principal raison detre for Christians continuing to show any interest in Josephus
at all. In fact, it would be amazing to discover a manuscript which did not contain
those passages more or less as we now have them (unless literally unearthed from some early time). One can be quite certain
that long before the 10th century no manuscript of the Antiquities worked on by a Christian could fail to contain the
phrase 'brother of Jesus, the one called (the) Christ' in connection with James in 20.9.1.
But the emperor, when he learned of the death of Festus, sent Albinus to
be procurator of Judea...But the younger Ananus who, as we have already said, had obtained the high priesthood, was of an
exceedingly bold and reckless disposition... Ananus, therefore, being of this character, and supposing that he had a favorable
opportunity on account of the fact that Festus was dead and Albinus was still on the way, called together the Sanhedrin and
brought before them the brother of Jesus, the one called (the) Christ [ton adelphon Iesou tou legomenou Christou],
James by name, together with some others and accused them of violating the law, and condemned them to be stoned. But those
in the city who seemed most moderate and skilled in the law were very angry at this, and sent secretly to the king, requesting
him to order Ananus to cease such proceedings...And the king, Agrippa, in consequence, deprived him of the high priesthood,
which he had held three months, and appointed Jesus, the son of Damnaeus. It is commonly argued that Josephus likes to identify for the reader's sake
a freshly introduced figure by some sort of explanatory description. This is his first (and only) reference to James, and
thus the identification of Jesus as his brother serves this purpose. There are a number of potential flaws in this position. There is no certainty that the identifying phrase as it stands now must
have come from Josephus' pen, for he may have described James by some other reference which was subsequently changed by a
Christian copyist. That the latter was the case is suggested by the fact that the second part of the extant phrase is suspiciously
identical to the one which concludes Matthew 1:16 (ho legomenos Christos: the one called (the) Christ, though the Josephan
phrase is in an oblique case: tou legomenou Christou). Even in the face of this match in Matthew, it is often claimed that the
phrase is not Christian because it is not found anywhere else in Christian writings. This observation does not change the
fact that it does appear at least once, in the most popular and widely known Gospel of all from the mid-second century on,
and could thus have exerted an influence on a Christian copyist inserting a phrase into Josephus. Suggestions that Josephus
was a Jewish-Christian is hardly logically compelling. If we are not to beg the question itself, we must ask: if, for the sake
of argument, one postulates that Jesus did not exist, could not Josephus have identified his James in some other way? (The
question could be asked even outside the context of the historical Jesus debate.) It cannot be ruled out a priori that
he would have had no way of doing so, for he may have had some other nugget of information available to him. It may even be
possible that he offered no descriptive identification for James at all. If Josephus did use some other phrase, one having no connection to Jesus,
let's say, it is entirely within the realm of possibility, even probability, that, given Christian practices of emendation
evidenced in their own documentary record, a copyist would have felt Josephus' original identification inadequate or even
undesirable, and thus substituted a phrase of his own, namely the one we see today. Once again, an argument in favor of authenticity is rendered inconclusive
or even invalid. But something else could have happened, other than the replacement
of a different original phrase. Josephus may have liked as a rule to provide a little description for a new character,
but suppose that here he chose not to because he felt it unnecessary, or perhaps was unable to do so because he knew so little
about the man? Could either of these alternatives be possible, and might they be suggested by the evidence itself? The possibility that Josephus knew virtually nothing else about James is
suggested by the fact that he never tells us anything (outside the disputed phrase) beyond the fact and basic manner of his
death. (Note the difference between this and the long, detailed and somewhat contradictory account in Hegesippus preserved
by Eusebius!) Josephus does not even attach the common cognomen 'the Just' to James, something which a Christian copyist would
have felt no necessity to remove. (Yes, the fact that the postulated interpolator did not himself insert James' common nickname,
which presumably would have been known to him, could perhaps be appealed to by dissenters. But it's a minor point, and might be explained by saying that the words
used of James by Josephus wouldn't have accommodated inserting 'the Just' too well.)
If Josephus did know nothing more, then he would have been forced to introduce James with no identifying enlargement.
He would have used some equivalent to 'a certain James' or 'someone named James'. Now, what in fact do we find in the Greek?
The actual words referring directly to James are: Iakobos onoma autoi. Translations render this 'James by name' or
'whose name was James' or 'a man named James' (the last by Crossan). But such a phrase, or something close to it, could have
stood perfectly well on its own (with a slight change in form), and had the reference to a brother Jesus added to it by a
Christian interpolator. Ananus, therefore . . . called together the Sanhedrin and brought before
them one whose name was James, together with some others, and accused them of violating the law and condemned them to be stoned.
But those in the city who seemed most moderate and skilled in the law were very angry at this, and sent secretly to the king,
requesting him to order Ananus to cease such proceedings... Not only does this make good sense, it does not jar within the context of
the passage. It would hardly have offended Josephus own or his readers sensibilities. The passage is not about James (much
less about Jesus). It is about the high priest Ananus and his fate. Ananus was deposed because he had executed a man named
James and certain others, an act which incensed some of the moderates among the influential Jews. The reader didnt have to
know anything further about those who had been stoned, especially if Josephus couldnt provide it. Or, Josephus may have known
something more about this James, but chose not to insert such information into an already loaded passage, because he didnt
think that his readers needed to be given that information. Remember that he is primarily writing for a gentile audience who
would not have required a detailed picture of every minor character they met along the way.
Another problem associated with the general scholarly assumption about Antiquities
20 is the question of whether Josephus would have chosen to identify Jesus by the phrase now found there. (We really
have a double identification here: one for Jamesthat he is Jesus brother, the second for Jesusthat hes the one called the
Christ.) But would Josephus have been likely to offer the latter phrase? There are difficulties in assuming that he did. Scholars are incorrect when they claim that the reference to Jesus in Antiquities
20 indicates that Josephus must have referred to him earlier. If so, his use of the phrase the one called (the) Christ would
imply that the point about the Christ was included in that earlier reference; yet, as we shall see, the very phrase in Antiquities
18 which contains it has been rejected as a later Christian insertion into the Josephan original, since it is so blatantly
Christian. Thus Josephus would be alluding to something he hadnt said! And his readers might have been left wondering what
he was talking about. (Ill come back to this problem when discussing Antiquities 18.) This objection can be broadened, however. The Jewish Messiah concept (Christ
in Greek) would not necessarily be a subject with which Josephus readers were all that familiar. If Josephus were going to
introduce the term, one would expect him to feel constrained to provide a discussion of it somewhere. In fact, the Messiah
idea was such a dramatic one, that if one of his characters had actually been designated as such by his followers, Josephus
could hardly have avoided addressing this unusual man and episode at some length. The same objections put forward above to the idea that Jews in general had
come up with the tradition that James death had caused the destruction of Jerusalem apply to Josephus himself. Would Josephus
have been willing to dump so heavily on the Jewish nation, as well as to accept the implication that God was on the Christian
side? Is Josephus likely to have held the Christian James in such high esteema man linked to a troublesome sect, one who (in
the view of my dissenters) had a brother who was executed? He spends only a handful of words talking about James in Antiquities
20, none of them even intimating such a concept. Had Josephus subscribed to such a tradition as is found in the lost reference,
he would surely have taken the time somewhere to give his readers a fuller, more laudatory account of the man over whom God
destroyed the Jewish state and levelled his own holy Temple to the ground! This interpolated passage from a Christian hand contains the phrase: brother
of Jesus, the one called (the) Christ, attached to James. First, the words are thus identified as Christian, and consequently
the claim already countered earlier that it is a non-Christian phrase collapses completely. But even more important: how do
we relate the fact of its presence in a Christian interpolation to the presence of the identical words in Antiquities
20? As Wells suggests (ibid, p.194), just on general principle its identification as an interpolation in one spot leads to
the reasonable inference that it is an interpolation in the other. But lets look at the point more closely. There are a number of theoretical
possibilities: Option 1 has inherent problems. Would a Christian copyist, interpolating
an entire new passage into Jewish War, bother to dig into the Antiquities for a phrase to describe James and
not simply come up with one of his own? In fact, it has been argued that the phrase the one called (the) Christ in Antiquities
20 is un-Christianand even derogatory!which is taken as evidence that it cannot be from the hand of an interpolator but must
be authentic to Josephus. If this were the case, surely the Christian interpolator of the lost passage, even had he thought
of it, would have tended to avoid using the Antiquities 20 phrase. If
others wish to argue that the interpolator was deliberately copying Josephus words and style to mask the interpolation, fine.
Id love to know that this argument is acceptable, that a Christian copyist inserting something into Josephus will deliberately
try to imitate his style and vocabulary. I could certainly use that argumentand willin connection with Antiquities
18. And the fact that the interpolator could be creative and add the Just to James, which he would not have found in Antiquities
20, suggests that he would have felt no compunction about putting in his own phrase rather than the skeptical un-Christian
one, and so we would not find the lost passage as it stands quoted in Eusebius. At best, this option is quite inconclusive.
This second insertion (the scribe is casting about for a phrase, not composing
an entire passage) may have served to satisfy someone who felt that 'a certain James,' or 'a man named James,' especially
one whom Josephus had in no way linked to Jesus of Nazareth, could not stand without enlargement. Or, if the phrase 'brother
of the Lord' (or some other description) had stood in Antiquities 20, the force of the earlier interpolation, perhaps
triggered by the common word 'brother', could have led the copyist to replace Josephus designation with one considered more
suitable. My preference now is to opt for the former. There is nothing so common in textual criticism as to recognize that
scribes insert - perhaps beginning with a marginal glossclarifications and enlargements when they think such things are needed
in the text. (In this particular case, since I am arguing for a process of imitation from the lost reference, the marginal
gloss element would not apply.) To judge by the common version of Origen and Eusebius (the one in Egypt,
the other a little further north in Caesarea), both emendations were probably made in the east, perhaps in the latter 2nd
century (or the Antiquities 20 interpolation may have been inserted a while later), to one of the few manuscript sets
of Josephus that would have been circulating in Christian circles there. It is not surprising to find the chain proceeding
from that dual emendation and ending up on the desks of two commentators working in the same area less than a century apart.
As time went on, Christians gained control of all documentation, so that common knowledge and imitation eventually ensured
that all new copies of the Antiquities would contain the now-accepted reference to James as brother of Jesus, the one
called (the) Christ.
On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu (of Nazareth) and the herald went
before him for forty days saying (Yeshu of Nazareth) is going forth to be stoned in that he hath practiced sorcery and beguiled
and led astray Israel. Let everyone knowing aught in his defence come and plead for him. But they found naught in his defence
and hanged him on the eve of Passover. (Babylonian Sanhedrin 43a). Firstly, the passage cannot even be shown to be referring to the Jesus of
the New Testament. Secondly, even if the passage does refer to that Jesus, it is of no help one way or the other in the question
of the historicity of Jesus. Ulla said: And do you suppose that for [Yeshu of Nazareth] there was any
right of appeal? He was a beguiler, and the Merciful One hath said: Thou shalt not spare neither shalt thou conceal him. It
is otherwise with Yeshu, for he was near to the civil authority. In view of the ignorance of both the date of these passages as well as the
author's sources, these offer no support for Jesus' historicity. R. Shimeon ben Azzai said: 'I found a geneaological roll in Jerusalem wherein
was recorded, Such-an-one is a bastard of an adulteress. While some choose to interpret this as a reference to Jesus, there are good
reasons to doubt that this passage represents an independent tradition about Jesus. First, the passage comes from the Babylonian
Talmud, which dates to around the sixth century. Second, the gospel of Matthew begins with the words, 'The book of the
genealogy of Jesus Christ'. This 'genealogical roll' or 'Book of Pedigrees' may have been influenced by the gospels. Third,
this passage fits the pattern of Rabbinical polemic. Thus this reference may not be based upon an independent source. Of course,
it is also possible that this passage was based on independent sources. The available evidence does not favor one view over
the other; thus, the passage is valuless as an independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus.
These words occur in Tacitus' account of the burning of Rome. The evidence
for this passage is not much stronger than that for the passage in Josephus. It was not quoted by any writer before the fifteenth
century; and when it was quoted, there was only one copy of the Annals in the world; and that copy was supposed to
have been made in the eighth century, six hundred years after Tacitus' death. The 'Annals' were published between 115 and
117 CE, nearly a century after Jesus' time: so the passage, even if genuine, would not prove anything as to Jesus' historicity.
'derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius,
had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate' (Annals 15.44) It is probable that Tacitus may just be repeating what he was told by Christians
about Jesus. If so, then this passage merely confirms that there were Christians in Tacitus' time, and that they believed
that Pilate killed Jesus during the reign of Tiberius. This would not be independent confirmation of Jesus's existence.
If, on the other hand, Tacitus found this information in Roman imperial records (to which he had access) then that could constitute
independent confirmation. There are good reasons to doubt that Tacitus is working from Roman records here, however. For one,
he refers to Pilate by the wrong title (Pilate was a prefect, not a procurator). Secondly, he refers to Jesus by the religious
title 'Christos'. Roman records would not have referred to Jesus by a Christian title, but presumably by his given name. Thus,
there is excellent reason to suppose that Tacitus is merely repeating what Christians said about Jesus, and so can tell us
nothing new about Jesus's historicity.
Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures
on a group of persons already hated by the people for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder,
one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable
superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome
itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians
were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson,
but of hatred of the entire human race. (D.R. Dudley's translation) While we know from the way in which the above is written that Tacitus did
not claim to have firsthand knowledge of the origins of Christianity, we can see that he is repeating a story which was then
commonly believed, namely that the founder of Christianity, one Christus, had been put to death under Tiberius. There are
a number of serious difficulties which must be answered before this passage can be accepted as genuine. There is no other
historical proof that Nero persecuted the Christians at all. There certainly were not multitudes of Christians in Rome at
that date (circa 60 CE). In fact, the term 'Christian' was not in common use in the first century. We know Nero was indifferent
to various religions in his city, and, since he almost definitely did not start the fire in Rome, he did not need any group
to be his scapegoat. Tacitus does not use the name Jesus, and writes as if the reader would know the name Pontius Pilate,
two things which show that Tacitus was not working from official records or writing for non-Christian audiences, both of which
we would expect him to have done if the passage were genuine.
Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus
[Emperor Claudius in 49 CE] expelled them from Rome.' (Claudius 5.25.4) Occasionally this passage is cited as evidence for Jesus's historicity.
However, there are serious problems with this interpretation. 'Chrestus' is the correct Latin form of an actual Greek name,
and is not obviously a mispelling of 'Christus', meaning Christ. The passage seems to imply that there was actually someone
named Chrestus at Rome at the time. This rules out a reference to Jesus. Even if Suetonius is referring to Christians in Rome,
this only confirms the existence of Christians, not the existence of Jesus.
Pliny's interrogations occurred ca. 112 CE By then gospels had been written,
and so the defendants may have known of the story that Jesus had lived as a man in Palestine, although Pliny does not suggest
that they told him as much. However, if his testimony is to be accepted as 'decisive' for Jesus' historicity, he must have
known of Jesus' life independently of Christian testimony and so before what he heard from Christians in 112 CE. Pliny does
not suggest that, before reaching his province as governor, he knew enough of Christianity to distinguish Christians from
non-Christians. He did not himself recognize the persons brought before him to be Christians, but questioned them only because
other people had denounced them as Christians (ad me tamquam Christiani deferebantur). The ecclesiastical historian W.H.C.
Frend states the position well: 'Pliny writes as though he knew that there were such people as Christians, and that they committed
crimes, but otherwise had to learn as the inquiry proceeded' (Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church Oxford:
Blackwell, 1965, p.220). Some of those who claimed to have already relinquished their faith told
Pliny that theirs had been a religious cult, 'the whole of whose guilt' consisted in meeting before daybreak on a certain
fixed day to sing 'a hymn to Christ as a god'. What they thereby meant to affirm was that this was all perfectly harmless
and not to be held against them as 'guilt' at all. It was the persons under interrogation, not the governor, who volunteered
the information that Christians worshipped Christ as a god. All that Pliny's response shows is that he regarded this Christ
as a fanciful addition to the traditional gods of Rome whom (as we know from other of his writings) he respected. As we saw,
his inquiries convinced him that Christianity was 'an extravagant superstition'. This does not commit him to the view that
Christ had been a historical personage.
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