Jesus’ Comparative Figures: The Sign Prophet Series (The ‘Egyptian’)

 

Part 5 The ‘Egyptian’

 

Many of the Sign Prophets Josephus refers as γόητες –  goētes (‘sorcerers’).  Theudas is referred to as a γόης τις – goēs tis (“certain magician”)] (Ant. 20.97), the Sign Prophets under Felix  are described as γόητες καὶ ἀπατεῶνες – goētes kai apateōnes  (‘deceivers and imposters’) (Ant. 20.167) and the Egyptian was referred to as γόης καὶ προφήτου – goēs Kai prophēton (sorcerer and prophet) (War 2.261). In an earlier form of the Testimonium Flavianum (the original TF) (Ant. 18.63-64) Jesus may have been described as a γόης –  goēs prompting Porphyry to describe Jesus as a wizard. In Proof (Dem. Ev.) Eusebius tries to defend against Porphyry’s attacks about Jesus being a wizard. David Allen has shown anti-Christian polemicists making use of an original TF.[1] This would have prompted Eusebius to change such a phrase containing γόης –  goēs (‘sorcerer’) to παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής – paradoksōn ergōn poiētēs. (‘doer of astonishing works’). From Ken Olsens scholarship there is evidence of Eusebius interpolating the phrase ‘doer of astonishing works.’[2] Josephus calls the Egyptian a τυραννεῖν – tyrannein (‘tyrant’ to be sole ruler)(War 2.262) indicating that the ‘Egyptian’ may have called himself “king Messiah.” The Egyptian much like the other Sign Prophets made an incredulous claim that “at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down” (Ant. 20.170). This is similar to Theudas’ incredible claim where by “his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it” (Ant.20.97). You could put Jesus’ prophecy of Temple Destruction and Restoration “not made by hands” (Mark 14:58) as among these incredible claims. Betz saw the ‘Egyptian’s claim as a ‘sign of freedom.’ “The analogy with the fall of the walls of Jericho and the city’s conquest through Joshua, the follower of Moses (Josh. 6), was intended to demonstrate to the Jews that God was with this man and that the hour of deliverance from the yoke of the Romans had come.”[3] In the words of Dale Allison:

this unnamed leader hoped to emulate the achievements of the great Joshua, who, in conquering the Holy Land, saw the walls of a city come tumbling down (Josh 6). But the Egyptian clearly saw himself as more than a new Joshua. For the latter was himself a second Moses, and the unnamed prophet, as we meet him in Josephus, is full of Mosaic traits. His title is “the Egyptian” … He reckons himself a “prophet” (cf. Deut 18:15, 18; 34:10). He leads a crowd into “the desert” … And he conducts the people by a circuitous route (Exod 13:18; and esp. LXX Amos 2:10: … “I led you around in the desert”). Josephus says that he sought to be a “tyrant” (τυραννεῖν), and kingship is another Mosaic trait.[4]

“The great sign promised (and actually believed by his followers) was God would help with insurmountable odds, like penetrating the walls of Jerusalem. The world power of the Romans had a protracted siege in order to penetrate these, the Egyptian simply promised “at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down” (Ant. 20.170). “The walls of Jerusalem would have been all but impenetrable, as shown in the protracted, months-long Roman siege of the city a little over a decade later.”[5] “From this you can see the scriptural fantasy of re-enactment, that people actually thought this could be replicated. …  the crowd did not just think what the Sign Prophet promised was possible – they actually thought it would happen.”[6]

As seen in the last part from the Sign Prophets under Felix, Josephus tended to militerize his tellings in the War for apologetic reasons to blame the Great Revolt on a few zealous fanatics. Here in the two passages on the Egyptian the same exaggeration has happened cranking up the followers of the Egyptian. In the War it says the Egyptian was preparing a military assault on Jerusalem with Josephan exaggeration of thirty thousand followers (War 2.261), in Antiquities this has been reduced down to a more realistic six hundred (Ant. 20.171) taken from “the masses of the common people” (Ant. 20.169). As a side note in Acts the Barracks commander confuses Paul with the Egyptian, thinks he led four thousand and that they were Sicarri! If the ‘Egyptian’ movement had anything to do with the Sicarii, Josephus would have connected both of them. So Acts gets this wrong but as Martin Hengel said, “His followers are called Sicarii in Acts 21.38. This can be explained by the fact that all armed insurgents could be described, as far as the Romans serving under Felix were concerned, as sicarii or murderers.”[7] Let us now reproduce both passages:

But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to domineer over them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him. But Felix prevented his attempt, and met him with his Roman soldiers, while all the people assisted him in his attack upon them, insomuch that when it came to a battle, the Egyptian ran away, with a few others, while the greatest part of those that were with him were either destroyed or taken alive; but the rest of the multitude were dispersed every one to their own homes, and there concealed themselves.

War 2.261-263

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Moreover, there came out of Egypt about this time to Jerusalem one that said he was a prophet, and advised the multitude of the common people to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it was called, which lay over against the city, and at the distance of five furlongs. He said further, that he would show them from hence how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down; and he promised them that he would procure them an entrance into the city through those walls, when they were fallen down. Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons, and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. He also slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. But the Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more. And again the robbers stirred up the people to make war with the Romans, and said they ought not to obey them at all; and when any persons would not comply with them, they set fire to their villages, and plundered them.

Ant. 20.169-172

In comparing both passages Rebecca Gray notes:

We shall see that Josephus generally tends to “militarize” the sign prophets in the War—that is, to assimilate them to, or associate them with, the armed rebels. This is probably part of his more general tendency, in that work, to shift most of the blame for the revolt onto a few individuals or parties on both sides. Among the Jews, those held to be responsible are the armed revolutionaries, who are portrayed as mad and bloodthirsty fanatics, in no way representative of official Judaism or of the Jewish people as a whole. On the Roman side, it is emphasized that it was largely the actions of a few corrupt and unrepresentative procurators (notably Albinus and Floras) that led to war. Apart from these extremists on both sides, Josephus suggests, the revolt could have been avoided.[8]

Lena Einhorne tried to identify Jesus with the ‘Egyptian’ as the ‘Egyptian’ had gathered on the Mount of Olives and Jesus was arrested there.[9] The reason Jesus sounded like the ‘Egyptian’ in some instances is that Jesus also was a Sign Prophet. He doesn’t just sound like the ‘Egyptian’, he sounds like all of the Sign Prophets. Therefore I will have to pour cold water on Einhornes hypothesis, as it should be noted that Mount of Olives was regarded as the place where God would stand on the Day of Judgment, fighting the battle against Israel’s enemies: “On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives …”  (Zechariah 14:4). This passage  talks about a messiah that would come to the Mount of Olives and enter Jerusalem, so this is a common messianic trope. The Sign Prophets generally tried to re-enact the scriptures so it is no surprise that both the ‘Egyptian’ or Jesus would initiate their respective actions there. What action did these Sign Prophets hope to achieve?- – I suspect the action these various Sign Prophets made was to “force the end”. The Mount of Olives symbolized the location from which Jerusalem would be liberated in the apocalyptic prophecy of Zechariah 14. Thus, what ‘an earlier prophet [Zechariah] had imagined’ … Zechariah’s prophecy envisions a similarly final scenario: after Jerusalem was taken in battle by a foreign nation, the Lord and an angelic army would fight to take back the city, launching an offensive from the Mount of Olives. Then, ‘never again shall it be doomed to destruction; Jerusalem shall abide in security’ (Zechariah 14:11). The foreign nations could only return to worship the king and bring him tribute (v. 16); otherwise, if they so much as hinted at war, their flesh would rot off.”[10] Collins believes the Egyptian expected the walls of Jerusalem to fall down, then his expectations can hardly be reduced to the hope that he himself would rule instead of the Romans. The miracle was surely supposed to be the prelude to a definitive transformation’.[11]

 BACK TO INTRODUCTION

 

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[1] Dave Allen, “The Use of the Testimonium Flavianum by Anti-Christian Polemicists”, R M Price, ed., Journal of Higher Criticism 16/1 (Spring 2021), 42-105.

[2] Ken Olson, ‘A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum’, in Aaron Johnson and Jeremy Schott (eds.), Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations, Hellenic Studies Series 60; (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013), pp. 97-114, (103).

[3] Otto Betz, “Miracles in the Writings of Flavius Josephus”, ch.9 in Feldman and Hata (eds) Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p.229

[4] Dale Allison, Constructing Jesus, Memory, Imagination, and History, Grand Rapids 2010, p.260-261 and fn.155

[5] Nathan C. Johnson, (2021) Early Jewish Sign Prophets In James Crossley and Alastair Lockhart (eds.), CDAMM retrieved from here: https://www.cdamm.org/assets/articlePDFs/31519-early-jewish-sign-prophets.pdf

[6] David Allen, “How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus”, RevBíb 85/3-4 (2023), p.343, 353.

[7] Martin Hengel, The Zealots, Investigation into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I to 70 AD (translation by David Smith), Edinburgh 1989, p.232.

[8] Rebecca Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine, The Evidence from Josephus, (Oxford, 1993), p.117.

[9] Lena Einhorne, A Shift in Time, How Historical Documents Reveal the Surprising Truth about Jesus, (Yucca, 2016)

[10] Johnson, (2021) Early Jewish Sign Prophets

[11] Collins, John J. 2010. The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, pp.217-18.