It has been noticed that the most loved Jesus story, inspirational and depicted in all Jesus movies was not halakhic and contradicted Deutronomy (Deut. 22:22-27; 17:6-7, 8-13). To this end the Chinese have rewritten an ethics book in 2020 for secondary school kids changing the story. In the Communist version of the story, Jesus does not protect and forgive the adulteress, instead he waits for the Pharisees to leave and then stones her himself, saying: “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead”.[1]

That’s all very fine but makes Jesus out to be another small minded Neanderthal coming from the ethic low bar of sheep hoarders. This would make the story unremarkable and not worth recording. Thus makes it more likely that the Chinese have got this wrong.

A much better and solid approach in providing a critical analysis is done by the textual critics in academia. The textual critics have noticed the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11) known as the Pericope Adulterae (PA for short)  does not appear in the earliest manuscripts. One of the great textual critics Bruce M. Metzger had the following to say:

The account is lacking in the best Greek manuscripts: it is absent from P66, P75, א, B, L, N, T, W, X, Δ, Θ, Ψ, 33, 157, 565, 1241, and fam. 1424. Codices A and C are defective at this point, but it is highly probable that neither contained the section as there would not have been space enough on the missing leaves to include it along with the rest of the text. The Old Syriac (Syrs,c) and the Arabic form of Tatian’s Diatessaron betray no knowledge of the passage, nor is it contained in the early manuscripts of the Peshitta. Likewise, the old Coptic Churches did not include in their Bible, for the Sahidic, the sub-Achmimic, and the older Bohairic manuscripts lack it. Some Armenian manuscripts as well as the Old Georgian version omit it. In the West, the passage is absent from the Gothic version and from several Old Latin manuscripts (a, f, l*, q).[2]

 And this is from Dan Wallace blog:

The earliest manuscripts with substantial portions of John’s Gospel (P66 and P75) lack these verses. They skip from John 7:52 to 8:12. The oldest large codices of the Bible also lack these verses: codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, both from the fourth century, are normally considered to be the most important biblical manuscripts of the NT extant today. Neither of them has these verses. Codex Alexandrinus, from the fifth century, lacks several leaves in the middle of John. But because of the consistency of the letter size, width of lines, and lines per page, the evidence is conclusive that this manuscript also lacked the pericope adulterae. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, also from the fifth century, apparently lacked these verses as well (it is similar to Alexandrinus in that some leaves are missing). The earliest extant manuscript to have these verses is codex Bezae, an eccentric text once in the possession of Theodore Beza. He gave this manuscript to the University of Cambridge in 1581 as a gift, telling the school that he was confident that the scholars there would be able to figure out its significance. He washed his hands of the document….. except for Bezae (or codex D), virtually all of the most important Greek witnesses through the first eight centuries do not have the verses.[3]

In the introduction to Tommy Wasserman and Jennifer Knurst book To Cast the First Stone, a fascinating textual history of the PA is done, including this gem: “an eighth- or ninth-century corrector of an Old Latin Gospel book, noticing that the story was missing from the seventh- or eight-century Codex Rehdigeranus (11, l), copied Jerome’s translation in the margin. At a later stage, the pages were trimmed, but this part of the margin was retained and folded.”[4]

Not only that but when the pericope finally starts to be included it is shown to be unstable. Several manuscripts that do have the passage mark it off with asterisks.  The pericope adulterae has all the hallmarks of a pericope that was looking for a home. Those that contain the pericope adultery normally have it after John 7:52, but  places like MS 225 have it after 7:36.  Others have it after 7:44, some place it in John 21:25 (Miniscule 1,565, 1076, 1570 and 1582). Tommy Wasserman has said it was placed at the end of John by an editor around 500 CE. An entire family of manuscripts (Family 13) has the passage at the end of Luke 21:38, while another family places it at the end of John’s Gospel. Other manuscripts place it at the end of Luke (eg Miniscule 1333c) or in various places in John 7 (eg Miniscule 225 after Jn. 7:36)

It only took up permanent residence, in the ninth century, in the middle of the fourth gospel (Jn 7:52 – 8:12). Chris Keith has suggested why an interpolator placed the passage into John was because the story highlighted that Jesus could write (Jn. 8:6, 8).[5] This would obviously exalt Jesus to meet his enemies such as the scribes on level terms and would add to the narrative of John. It would also help to answer John 7:15. (Historically speaking, Jesus, similar to other Sign Prophets like Theudas may not have been literate, but would still have used the scriptures to mobilise his movement. “the point is that he would not need to be able to read the Jewish holy text in order to appeal to it and appropriate it. Under some circumstances, uneducated text-brokers may have had more popular appeal among uneducated audiences”.) [6]

So the canonicals were late in picking up this gem of a story but there are hints of its existence in the second century from competing Christianities! According to Rayan Joel Lobo there is an allusion to it in the second century in:

a.Protoevangelium Iacobi

b.Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord by Papias.[7]

What Lobo missed and should have put as point c:

c.The Gospel of Hebrews.

So according to point a. The Infancy Gospel of James may allude to it here:

“If the Lord God has not made your (pl.) sin manifest, neither do I condemn you (pl.) And he let them go (Protev. Iac XVI.3).” This suggests that this evangelist had a version of the PA as a source. It parallels John 8:11. In the words of Tommy Wasserman:

As William Petersen has argued, the Proto-Gospel of James, a second-century infancy Gospel, recounts an episode involving Mary and Joseph that recalls themes and sayings associated with the story, and in a version known from later copies of John. [*]

Accused of sexual sin, Mary and Joseph submit to a test designed to demonstrate either their guilt or their innocence. When they are found to be innocent, the priest declares, “If the Lord God has not revealed your sins, neither do I condemn you” (16.2), a possible allusion to Jesus’s last statement in the Johannine pericope adulterae. As might be expected, however, the source of the saying “neither do I condemn you” is not specified. [*1]

The Papias mention is related by Eusebius in his book, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.17. – “And he [Papias] relates another story of a woman, who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews.” 

This leads onto point c. and suggests that it was indeed the Protodox competition that had this juicy story of Jesus. Both Papias and Didymus the blind attribute the story to the Gospel of the Hebrews.

Papias testimony establishes that a story of a woman accused before Jesus was circulating in the apostolic era and that it came from the Gospel of Hebrews. (Although a later writer Agapius of Hierapolis says Papias wrote a treatise on the Gospel of John, where he included the story within the Gospel itself – but that is later evidence than that of Eusebius and shows that this was wanted to back up where the story was found in Agapius’ day). Now let’s discuss the citation by a fourth-century Alexandrian scholar, Didymus the Blind, (c. 313 – 398) a Greek speaking theologian from Alexandria who provides another telling of the same story. In this version, the Jewish leaders intend to stone a woman without explicitly stating her offense. Also, the text presents Jesus as the one who initiates the confrontation by intervening on the woman’s behalf. Didymus the Blind believed that the Gospel According to the Hebrews (ca. 150) contained this version of the story.

Didymus the Blind, in his commentary on Ecclesiastes recounts the pericope of the woman caught in adultery and says it is found “in certain gospels.” (Didymus, Comm. Eccl. 223.8-13). The reference “certain gospels” are other gospels that were not the canonicals! Jerome came to Didymus for a month in order to have his doubts resolved with regard to difficult passages (including PA) of Scripture.

Here is Didymus citation as quoted by Holmes:

We find, therefore, in certain gospels [the following story]. A woman, it says, was condemned by the Jews for a sin and was being sent to be stoned in the place where that was customary to happen. The Saviour, it says, when he saw her and observed that they were ready to stone her, said to those who were about to cast stones, “He who has not sinned, let him take a stone and cast it. If anyone is conscious in himself not to have sinned, let him take up a stone and smite her.” And no one dared. Since they knew in themselves and perceived that they themselves were guilty in some things, they did not dare to strike her. [8]

Wasserman and Knurst acknowledge this popular story starting to make it big in the west in the fourth century: “Absent from early copies of the Gospels and rarely cited, it finally emerged as a popular tale only in the fourth century, and then largely among Latin-speaking authors. Writers like Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–67/8), Pacian of Barcelona (ca. 310–91), Ambrose of Milan (ca. 339–97), Gelasius (d. 395), Rufinus of Aquileia (ca. 345–411),Jerome (ca. 345–420), Augustine of Hippo (345–430), Peter Chrysologus (ca. 400–450), Leo the Great (d. 461), Sedulius (active ca.450), and Cassiodorus (ca. 485–580) referred to it, often in great detail, and in versions similar to what is printed in modern editions of the Gospel of John. The Greek writer Didymus the Blind (ca. 313–98), a fourth-century theologian and teacher living in Alexandria, also knew this story but in a slightly different version and probably not from John.[9]

Here the citations:

Jerome Pelag. 2.17.16-18 text found “in many of both the Greek as well as the Latin copies in the gospel of John.”

Augustine Incomp. nupt. (Adulterous Marriages) 2.7.6 – made up an excuse why it was missing. It was deleted so men would not commit adultry as Jesus had gone soft on adultry 😃. (Textual criticism actually shows the opposite, as soon as scribes became aware of the story, they were keen to include it).

Ambrose Abr.1.4.23 used the story to say to those guilty that you must commit adultry no more.

Origin (third century), Nonnus (fifth century), and Cosmas of Jerusalem (eight century) appear unaware of the story’s existence.

Tertullian and Cyprian (both third century) do not even allude to the story despite their written suggestions on how to treat adulterous women.[10]

So although the other christianities had the story, it started to make its way into the Orthodox Church by the fourth century. Evidence for PA in the orthodox tradition is from the Didascalia Apostolorum (from the first half of the third century). In the words of Tommy Wasserman:

There is indeed a wide scholarly consensus that the story was not originally a part of the Gospel of John, but on the other hand, it may well go back to a very early tradition about Jesus and a woman accused of many sins, which gradually found its way into John. The earliest reference to such a story is found in the Didascalia Apostolorum, a third-century book of instructions on living a Christian life, which survives in Syriac:

“But if you do not receive him who repents, because you are without mercy, you shall sin against the Lord God. For you do not obey our Savior and our God, to do even as He did with her who had sinned, whom the elders placed before Him, and leaving the judgment in His hands, and departed. But He, the searcher of hearts, asked her and said to her: “Have the elders condemned you, my daughter?” She said to him: “Nay Lord.” And He said unto her: “Go, neither do I condemn you.” In this then let our Savior and King and God, be to you a standard, O bishops, and imitate Him.” (Did. apost. 7; transl. by Arthur Vööbus)[11]

Didascalia Apostolorum exhorts its readers to practice the same mercy as demonstrated by Jesus in the adulteress story. A later work the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles II.24 (c. 380), made use of the Didascalia Apostolorum and Luke 7:47.

Bart Ehrman has suggested John’s Gospel is in fact a conflation of two earlier stories, one found in Papias and the Didascalia, and the other found in Didymus and the Gospel of the Hebrews. Erhman noted that all of the Lukan features of PA John are found in these sources.[12] Kyle R. Hughes has studied the Lukan features of the PA (remember some Luke manuscripts had the PA) and the “Lukan special material (the so-called “L” source, which is that material unique to Luke’s Gospel) have remarkable similarities in their style, form, and content. Citing distinctive parallels in each category, Hughes conclude in his article that “in terms of style, form, and content, PA East so closely resembles the L material that PA East almost surely would have been part of an original L source” (p. 247). Given a shared Syro-Palestinian provenance, he contends that a single line of transmission from L to the Didascalia is in fact quite plausible.”[13]

The history of this story making its way into the gospels shows the ancients had no such bias as a canonical bias or a synoptic bias when it came to Jesus history. They recognised some of their competition who wrote other gospels may have had in fact preserved some Jesus history. They did the practical thing, and took what is perhaps the best Jesus story and took it as their own. We moderns could learn from this- when it comes to historical evidence it gets splattered like a thrown tomatoe all over the various sources. In historical Jesus studies we too must recognise this!

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[1] See this article: https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/research-reports/articles/stories/china-ethics-textbook-changes-ending-of-famous-bible-story/

[2] Bruce M. Metzger & Bart D. Ehrmann, The Text of the New Testament: It’s Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 319-320.

[3] Dan Wallace, My Favorite Passage that’s Not in the Bible in Bible.org

[4] Tommy Wasserman and Jennifer Knurst, To Cast the First Stone, The Transmission of a Gospel Story, (Princeton, 2019), pp.1-9.

[5] Chris Keith, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus, (Brill, 2009).

[6] Chris Keith, Jesus against the Scribal Elite, The Origins of Conflict, (T & T Clark, 2020), p.29 and n.49.

[7] Rayan Joel Lobo, A Johannine Reading of the Pericope Adulterae A Narrative-Intertextual Reading Of John 7,53–8,11, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2.Reihe, (Mohr Siebeck Tübingen 2026) p.14

[*] W.L Peterson, “ΟΥΔΕ ΕΓΩ ΣΕ (ΚΑΤΑ) ΚΡΙΝΩ. John 8,11,The Protoevangelium Iacobi, And the History of the Pericope Adulterae, Sayings of Jesus, Canonical and Non-Canonical (ed. W.L. PETERSEN– J.S. VOS– H.J. DE JONGE) (NovTSup. 89; Leiden – New York –Cologne 1997), p.218.

[*1] Wasserman and Knurst, To Cast the First Stone, p.64.

[8] Translated in Michael William Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), p.558

[9] Wasserman and Knurst,  To Cast the First Stone, p.2.

[10] Gary M. Burge, “A Specific Problem In The New Testament Text And Canon: The Woman Caught In Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)”,  Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27.2 (1984), pp.142-143.

[11] Tommy Wasserman, Does the Woman Caught in Adultery Belong in the Bible?

Does the Woman Caught in Adultery Belong in the Bible?

 

[12] Bart Ehrman, “Jesus and the Adulteress,” New Testament Studies 34 (1988), pp. 24–44.

[13] Kyle R. Hughes, “The Lukan Special Material and the Tradition History of the Pericope Adulterae,” Novum Testamentum55.3 (2013): 232–251. Quote from article https://danielbwallace.com/2013/06/26/where-is-the-story-of-the-woman-caught-in-adultery-really-from/

 

This blog is reinstated due to requests. Hansen states that she is defending the minority position of the Testimonium Flavianum (TF) being created ex nihilo by Eusebius. [1] Ken Olson is the leading scholar on this and has helped Hansen with many of her arguments in her response. Hansen is naturally attracted to this position just as she is attracted to the full interpolation of the Baptist passage.[2] Hansen has shown her super skeptic stance by thinking the Baptist passage did not exist. I find the position of the Baptist passage as a full interpolation unlikely, none of the arguments hold up. One of the papers Hansen sites for this is by Rivka Nir yet this paper only provides evidence of meddling with the Baptism, even though Nir tries to make a case for full interpolation, the evidence does not take her there. More likely there was an original passage there to meddle with. Other super skeptics (i. e. making claims without justification) historians question the authenticity of the Baptist passage and favour its ahistoricity such as Rivka Nir, NPL Allen and CM Hansen. The likes of NPL Allen just thinks everybody back then were cartoons and the three passages concerning Christianity in Josephus were wholesale interpolations.[3] Even Richard Carrier does not belong to this group and like me thinks the bit on Baptism was tampered with.[4] Clare Rothschild does not belong to this group either as she only tests the authenticity and does not come to a conclusion one way or the other. She only tested the passage internally and rightly states we don’t have full proof capability of determining one way or the other of the passage existence.[5] Externally it becomes more likely it existed given that Origen himself says he’s using Antiquities 18 and attests to the passage-  “For in the 18th book of his Antiquities  of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist” (Contra Cels. 1.47).

Hansen apparently did not read the manuscripts of the Slavonic as she claimed Jesus was named when he actually wasn’t!

Extract from my own paper:[6]

Hansen also tries to paper over the cracks of her thesis by offering a reason for the Slavonic dropping Jesus due to literary reasons but there is no literary reason to drop it. The Slavonic naming Jesus elsewhere shows there is no literary reason and also misses the point- naming Jesus is missing in the exact passage, which means it was missing in the source used by the chronographer. Hansen goes on to say:

“The first [argument made by Dave Allen] is mitigated by the fact that while the Separated Edition (i.e., the later redaction of the Church Slavic War) omits Jesus’ name, the older editions of the Church Slavic edition retain it (Leeming and Leeming 2003, 261 note for 174b).”[7]

“On inspection of these manuscripts and the footnote of Leeming and Leeming’s book for 174b, it shall be noted that Jesus was not named in the exact passage- it clearly says that it was only in the heading before the passage that the following was written: “Josephus writes about Christ.” The reason the chronographer had to put in that heading before the passage is that the name “Jesus” was missing from the passage!”[8] (So no Jesus named there).

The so called “expert” was not only wiped by me but Schmidt also wiped her off the floor in his appendix of his book- Hansen didn’t even realize Muslims actually believe in Jesus as messiah.

The Arabic recension of the TF is more primative than the Greek manuscripts and is part of the puzzle in sorting out the trajectory of the TF.  

The Arabic gave no hint to the divinity of Jesus, nor made an assertion that Jesus was the Christ. The Arabic is a valuable witness in diminishing the assertion that Jesus was the Christ as it is unlikely that this recension would have downgraded this. As T. C. Schmidt refuting Hansens arguments, showed Muslims actually call Jesus the Messiah (Quran 4.171).[9] Similarily Jerome’s mention saying “he was believed to be the Christ” would be a copy from an earlier form of the TF rather than a downgrade of this phrase. Christians don’t usually downgrade their claims of Christ. So there would have been no softening of claims here. The Arabic also stated the resurrection as a report rather than a fact.

Aside from this Hansen has framed her argument that my reconstruction relies on Tacitus (which it does not), she goes on to state that I must prove dependency (which I do not need to do as I do not use Tacitus to prove an earlier form of the TF). This actually renders Hansen whole paper as moot, as she tries to say unconvincingly that as dependency cannot be proven on Tacitus that this somehow knocks out my actual arguments why I see an earlier form of the TF. As Hansen says herself  “This also calls into question other parts of the reconstruction as well, including what justifications Allen has for utilizing specific sources.”[10] It’s very simple to see the justifications of using the variants of the TF, these variants are actual quotations and allusions to the particular copy of the TF that the various authors used. I actually track various stages of composition of the TF by using the variants. So again as the title of this blog suggests, Hansens probing is actually “much ado about nothing” and renders her paper basically moot.

As Chrissy’s scholarship on the TF is not very strong, and really does not need a peer review response, this blog will be sufficient, to show you point by point what is actually wrong.

“The sections in brackets were Allen’s own creations, which he posited were likely there as otherwise the reconstruction would be ‘vacuous’, as he states.”[11]

First off, I never attempted a textus restitutus as we cannot know what was originally there, this I made very clear and suppressed by Hansen, so from the very word go, Hansen gets this wrong. I never claimed the sections within the brackets were there, (they were reconstructions).[12] All Hansen had to do is look at the title of my paper- A model reconstruction.

Next Hansen goes on to show the differences between Tacitus and the TF. These differences are valid which is why I never used Tacitus as a proof of an earlier TF. Also it does not negate that Tacitus could not have seen the TF, it just shows that Tacitus could have multiple sources and this I had already stated within my own paper.[13]

It is likely that Tacitus got his information about Christians from his friend Pliny the Younger, but that was not his only source. F.F. Bruce notes that Tacitus’s information best aligns with Greco-Roman polemical sources on Jews, yet he also said, ‘It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that both Tacitus and Suetonius depended here, directly or indirectly, on Josephus’, in regards to the oracle applied to Vespasian (compare Tacitus, Hist. 5.13 to Josephus, War 6.312-313; cf. Suetonius, Vesp. 4.5). [14] Tacitus most probably read Josephus given the similar comments on Vespasian as the fulfilment of Jewish prophecy. Tacitus had multiple sources such as Pliny, other Greek and Roman sources and Josephus—a polemical original TF would have also served Tacitus’s purposes well. Having multiple sources would explain why Tacitus would contradict Josephus in certain points.

(David Allen, A Model Reconstruction, p.139)

These points still stand and were unsuccessfully tackled by Hansen. Hansen then goes on to say, just because we can show Tacitus using War does not mean Tacitus used Antiquities. And Hansen can justify this how? A weak argument from silence. The rest of Hansens paper just finds silly faults such as why I did not use procurator (not every Pilate passage in Josephus had the word procurator) in my reconstruction or why Tacitus didn’t use “first men” (Tacitus would have looked down his nose at these men) which just goes to show Hansen really did not understand the reconstruction. The reconstruction was not using Tacitus exclusively, it was taking all factors into consideration such as Josephus does not call Pilate procurator in every Pilate passage, or that Tacitus would be unlikely to use the phrase first men even if he saw this in the TF. It’s funny how Hansen questions how could we “distinguish that this figure is Jesus”[15] given he is not named in my reconstruction- does crucified by Pilate ring a bell?

Hansen then goes on to use Ken Olson argument from Olson’s blog[16]:

Allen argues that Cels. 1.47 ‘contradicts the TF statement “he was the Christ,” showing that that statement was not in the earlier version of the TF’. This is, of course, a faulty argument for it would be easily surmised by any Christian that a Jewish author like Josephus would not consider Jesus the Messiah.[17]

I also easily counter Ken Olson imported argument that Origen wanted to find a non Christian to support his argument, therefore he emphasised that Josephus did not believe Jesus was the messiah for this effect. It was common knowledge that Josephus was non Christian so there is no need for Origen to do this. More than likely what happened is that Origen digressed onto the TF.

In order to make his argument Olson uses Cels. 6.41 to equate this with the statement “although not believing in Jesus as the christ” with “Moiragenes … , who is not a Christian, but a philosopher ^[18]

Let us examine this passage in detail

“Origen is trying to argue against the following accusation by Celsus:

having become acquainted with one Dionysius, an Egyptian musician, the latter told him [Celsus], with respect to magic arts, that it was only over the uneducated and men of corrupt morals that they had any power, while on philosophers they were unable to produce any effect, because they were careful to observe a healthy manner of life. (Origen, Cels. 6.41)

Origen answers with the following:

that any one who chooses to inquire whether philosophers were ever led captive by it [i. e. Magic] or not, can read what has been written by Moiragenes regarding the memoirs of the magician and philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, in which this individual [Moiragenes], who is not a Christian, but a philosopher, asserts that some philosophers of no mean note were won over by the magic power possessed by Apollonius, and resorted to him as a sorcerer; and among these, I think, he especially mentioned Euphrates and a certain Epicurean. (Cels. 6.41)

There is no such argument in Cels. 1.47 to argue against like we have in Cels. 6.41, on why Origen should bring up the phrase “not believing in Jesus as the Christ.” In Cels 6.41 Origen had to state Moiragenes was not a Christian and was a philosopher to counteract Celsus and break Celsus’ argument! Celsus would have seen Christians as uneducated, so Celsus is throughly debunked by Origen. The imported interpretation of Olson is that Origen stated he was not a Christian as a “by the way” whereas he had to state this as an integral argument against Celsus. Origen has to state that Moiragenes is not a Christian to counteract the accusation of Celsus [that Christian’s are easily taken in by magicians] and so Moiragenes is not “one of those easily taken in Christians” and reports on philosophers that were taken in by Apollonius of Tyana. This shows Celsus was wrong, and uses a person “who was not a Christian” to prove his case. This is not what’s going on in Cels. 1.47. And what’s going on in Cels. 6.41 is not what is going on in the Commentary on Matthew either. This is why Feldman noted the following, “More­ over, it makes no sense for Origen to express wonder (Commentary on Matthew 10:17) that Josephus did not admit Jesus to be the messiah if Josephus did not even mention him^”[19]

Of course this is backed up when we realize that the Christian Pseudo-Hegesippus probably using the same source TF made the same complaint. A Christian author like Pseudo-Hegesippus would consider Jesus the Messiah, having the phrase missing from his source (probably the same TF Origen saw), shows it was missing from a copy of the TF still circulating.

Of course this argument does not work against the Christian Pseudo-Hegesippus when he has the same complaint, (it can just as easily be surmised that Origen was looking at the same TF that Pseudo-Hegesippus was) as highlighted by Nussbaum here:

In De excidio Hierosolymitano 2.12, Pseudo-Hegesippus paraphrases the TF, omitting the statement that Jesus was the Christ. He then vehemently criticises Josephus that he testified of Jesus but did not believe in him as the Christ. It can be concluded that Pseudo-Hegesippus must have read a kind of TF, otherwise he would not have screamed that Josephus did not believe despite his report on Jesus. The situation is reminiscent of Origen writings—he wrote that Josephus did not believe in the messiahship of Jesus.[20]

So another faulty argument from the ex nihilo guys.

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[1] Chrissy Hansen, “Reception of the Testimonium Flavianum: An Evaluation of the Independent Witnesses to Josephus’ Testimonium Flavianum”, New England Classical Journal 51/2 (2024); Hansen, “A Response to David Allen’s ‘A Model Reconstruction of What Josephus would have Realistically Written about Jesus”, JGRChJ 19 (2023).

[2] Hansen, Response, p.101; cf. Rivka Nir, ‘Josephus’ Account of John the Baptist: A Christian Interpolation?’ JSHJ 10 (2012), pp. 32-62.

[3] Rivka Nir, “Josephus’ Account of John the Baptist: A Christian Interpolation?“,  JSHJ 10 (2012), pp.32-62; NPL Allen, Clarifying the Scope of Pre-5th Century C.E. Christian Interpolation in Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaica (c. 94 C.E.), (North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015), Hansen, Response, p.101

[4] Richard Carrier, Mason on Josephus on James. Carrier discussed the Baptist passage on this blog: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16715

[5] Clare K.Rothschild, “Echoes of a Whisper: The Uncertain Authenticity of Josephus’ Witness to John the Baptist”, in D. Hellhom et al. (eds), Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (3 vols.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), I, pp. 255-290.

[6] David Allen, Exposing the Pre-Eusebian strata of the Testimonium Flavianum, JHC forthcoming 2026, section 3

[7] Hansen, Reception, p.65

[8] Allen, Pre-Eusebian Strata, Section 3.

[9] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the one Called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.229.

[10] Hansen, Response, p.95.

[11] Hansen, Response, p.96; David Allen, “A Model Reconstruction of What Josephus would have realistically written about Jesus”, JGRChJ 18, (2022), pp.113-143,(132).

[12] Hansen, Response, p.96

[13] Allen, Model Reconstruction, p.139.

[14] F.F. Bruce, ‘Tacitus on Jewish History’, JSS 29 (1984), pp. 33-44 (42)

[15] Hansen, Response,p.102

[16] Ken Olson, “Why Origen said Josephus was unbelieving in Jesus as Christ.” retrieved from link here:

Why Origen said Josephus was unbelieving in Jesus as Christ

[17] Hansen, A Response, p.102

[18] Olson, “Why Origen said Josephus was unbelieving.

[19] Louis Feldman, Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, Hata and Feldman (eds),(Detroit: Wayne Stste University Press, 1987), p.56.

[20] Johannes Nussbaum, ‘Das Testimonium Flavianum: Ein authentischer Text des Josephus’, NovT 52 (2010), pp. 72-82.

 

Going out on a Saturday night and attempting to get up on a Sunday morning was described by my mother as the raising of Lazarus. This miracle is popular with the general public, it is up there with walking on water (Mk. 6:45-52, Mt. 14:22-33, Jn. 6:19) or the turning of water into wine (Jn. 2:1-11).

Lazarus is a given name and surname. The Greek name is derived from the Hebrew אלעזר, Elʿāzār (Eleazar) meaning “God has helped”. The name John picked would have come from a popular figure in the Bible. Eleazar emerged as a key leader in the book of Numbers – With Tabernacle duties (Num. 4:16), as a censor (Num. 26:2-4). Eleazar succeeded his father Aaron for the High Priest and walked beside his uncle Moses (Num. 20:26-28). Even in the evangelist day the name would have evoked a Jewish nationalism. The the raising of Lazerus in John could reflect the Jewish nationalist spirit. Reflecting Eleazar ben Ya’ir at Masada last stand during the Great revolt (66-72CE). Even later the name could invoke nationalist feelings with the inscription of Eleazar the Priest on the coins of the Bar Kokbha revolt.[1]

Lazarus is a pivotal character in John’s story; his spectacular resurrection is the reason for Jesus’ arrest and execution (11: 45-53;12: 9-11). Being the last of the Signs miracles, (where some scholars see a separate source for these miracles), gives it a special place, ch 11 is a transformative chapter, finishing with the signs miracles yet a precursor of what’s to happen with Jesus’ resurrection.

In the words of Eve-Marie Becker:

John 11 builds many interconnections, or narrative links, to the rest of the gospel narrative: (1) in terms of its macro-context, John 11 can be seen as the climax of Jesus’ public ministry, and hereby, it basically sums up chapters 1–10; (2) in John 11, vv. 4, 8, 16, 25, 40 refer to the passion story, 13 and thus prepare the reader for chapters 18–19; (3) John 11.25–26 appears to be the climax of ἐγώ εἰμι [I am] -words in John; and together with (4) the miracle story, more specifically: the topic of resurrection in John 11 points to the Easter stories in John 20; (5) the raising of Lazarus alludes to discourses about resurrection in John 5–6; 14 (6) especially a verse like John 11.2… by either presupposing the knowledge of the tradition among his readers (Mk 14.3–9; Mt. 26.6–13) or simply by preparing his audience already for the later reading of chapter 12.[2]

But despite that, bizarrely enough, Lazarus doesn’t even appear in the other gospels –except as the name of a fictional beggar in a parable told by Luke’s Jesus (16: 19-31). John could have taken Luke’s queue from Luke 16:27-31, where Luke says there is no point raising poor Lazarus because nobody will believe Lazarus’ report of bad things waiting for them on the other side! John decides to raise a historical Lazarus, to help with belief! 

Another possibility is that Luke was familiar with an earlier layer of John, some traditions are earlier in John than in Luke. I find the Synoptics problem is much more complex than any of the modern theories can explain (eg Farrier/Goulder, two source, MPT or even Matthian posteriorty). I think this is due to the cross pollinations between different layers of each gospel making the Synoptics problem much more complex than any scholar can explain or to put into a theory. The Fourth Gospel is the work of two or more authors and has several editions, the first quite early and the last quite late. Luke could have had access to the first edition. On this possibility Luke could have wanted to parody the resurrection of Lazarus and that is why he is the only character in a parable with a name.

A major theme of ch.11 is that Jesus loved Lazarus and his family (Jn. 11:3,5) and thus raised him. Lazarus is the first person in the gospel that Jesus loved, introduced even before the famous  ‘Beloved Disciple” of the fourth gospel. Lazarus is like the pre-cursor of everybody raising on the last day (Jn. 11:24). Thus Lazarus and his family are the ideal Christian family whom Jesus loved and can expect favors from. Lazarus is the practical example of what will happen Christians in the last days of being risen up to enjoy the new kingdom of God. The Lazarus episode is actual evidence that these claims of resurrection will happen. There were other revivcation stories in the gospels but John which may have used these infers a connection by surpassing them.

Another interesting theme is that you don’t have to be from the inside 12 to be part of this Christian movement, that those that Jesus loves are better than the twelve. This is highlighted when in this episode when the criticisms of Judas are rebuked. Mary wasting ointment oil, a show of love contrasts our feelings towards Judas being called a thief. (Jn. 12:6)

In John’s gospel Lazarus is interjected into the Mary and Martha scene from Luke 10:38-42. Luke portrays Martha as fretting while Mary is doing the one necessary thing- listening to Jesus. John also ties one of the sisters Mary to the Mary found in Matthew 26 that anoints Jesus, also a scene that happened in Bethany (just like in the gospel of John – Martha and Mary’s house is now in Bethany,  the house of Simon (Mark/ Matthew) as the scene setting is changed to the house of Mary and Martha). John also makes Lazarus a brother of these two sisters. This is the scene where Jesus gets anointed. Matthew named the annomyous woman that was found in Mark’s anointing Jesus. Mark originally had come up with this story probably from his knowledge of Homer as recounted from Denis MacDonald:

As Eurikleia recognises Odysseus she spills water from the dish (Homer, Odyssey 19) parallels the anonymous woman who anoints Jesus with costly perfume bard. This woman breaks the Alabaster jar and spills the expensive lard. As the disciples give out to Jesus the clue that this is dependant on the Eurikleia scene is in Jesus answer: Mark 14:9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed  κηρυχθῇ throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” Eurikleia’s name means “far flung glory”.

Eurycleia enjoyed “far-flung renown” for having recognized Odysseus from his scar, but her renown pales next to that of the woman who recognized that Jesus must die and accordingly anointed him: “wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” She will have ευρυκλεος.[3]

Like in Luke, it’s Jesus’s feet that get anointed instead of his head. This is because only live people get anointed on the head but as this cult realizes- Jesus was dead before he was made a King/messiah- a kinda contradiction in terms (God would have never let a messiah just die!) So instead Luke and John just link the anointing to Jesus’ own death, you would never anoint a dead person but you would anoint the feet of a corpse. [4]

John next used the raising of Lazarus in his narrative plot to explain why the Jewish authorities had it in for him (Jn. 12:10-11). Jesus was getting too popular (Jn. 12:19)! At the meeting of the Sanhedrin it was said “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” (Jn. 11:48) to which Caiaphas astutely said, “it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”(Jn. 11:50). This was a common theme among popular charismatic leaders, the same was said of John the Baptist by Josephus. John the Baptist gathered a crowd making Antipas nervous, who then decided to cut off his head. “Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion” (Josephus, Ant. 18.118). Same happened with more unnamed prophets at the time of the procurator Felix, Josephus said they were “procuring innovations and changes of the government” so “Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt” (Josephus, War 2.260). Jesus was just one in a line of Sign Prophets that made the authorities nervous, he was crucified as a threat to Roman security. Therefore John’s plot line is in keeping with historical background reality.

the raising of Lazarus as an event that prefigures Jesus’ own resurrection forms the basis of the final decision to kill Jesus. Having been informed of Jesus’ miraculous deed, the Pharisees (!) gather the Sanhedrin with the chief priests and discuss their course of action, given the potential political consequences of Jesus’ growing number of followers. Caiaphas, the ἀρχιερεὺς τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου, prepares for the selection of the one who must die for his people (v. 51: . . . ἵνα εἷς ἄνθρωπος ἀποθάνῃ ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ ἔθνος ἀπόληται . . .); this is the council’s final decision regarding Jesus’ fate (v. 53) [5]

Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples (Jn. 11:54).

Jesus had to seek refuge after resurrecting of Lazarus as this brought him to the attention of the authorities who now feared his popularity.

John a gospel fond of speeches, turns many Jesus’ pithy sayings into long discourses[6] – yet does not give an utterance to Lazarus of Bethany. He may have turned a fictional parable figure into an actual figure in his narrative yet John gives him no words. This adds to the universal attributes of this figure. It highlights the miracle that could happen to anybody, me or you could identify with this symbolic figure.[7]

Of course Jesus could have come earlier, as noted by his sister ““Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (Jn.11:32) but the narrative just wanted to hack up the miracle so the four days become significant.

In the miracle itself- physically the body would have started rotting on the fourth day. (Jn.11:38). John picking the fourth day could be due to some Jewish superstition- We read in Jerusalem Talmud: For the first three days after death the soul floats above the body, thinking that it will return to the body. When the soul sees the body, that the appearance of the face has changed, it leaves the body and goes its way. (Yevamot 16:3)

Eve-Marie Becker has suggested Jesus’ delay could have helped to explain the delay of the parousia itself, and provide comfort to John’s readers not to worry. John provides a resurrection story within Jesus’ earthly ministry so as to comfort those that this has already happened and they should not worry. It also adds to the power of Jesus- Jesus does not have to hurry to heal Lazarus as he can revive him! When Lazarus was finally resurrected a very important point emerged: resurrection is not something that Jesus does, resurrection is something that Jesus is (John 11:17-40).

 

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[1] Menahem Mor, The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132–136 CE, (Brill 50,2026), pp.281-282.

[2] Eve-Marie Becker, “Beyond History: How John Transcends Mark and Ancient Historiography” ch.8 in Eve-Marie Becker, Helen K. Bond and Catrin H. Williams (eds), John’s Transformation of Mark, (t&t Clark, 2021), p.94.

[3] Dennis MacDonald The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, (Yale, 2000), p.119

[4] Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John (I-XII) 1996, p.454

[5] Michael Labahn, “The Plot to Kill Jesus in Mark and John: Reflections on the Literary Relationship between Two Early Christian Theological Biographies of Jesus on the Basis of a Detail in Their Storytelling” ch. 17 in Eve-Marie Becker, Helen K. Bond and Catrin H. Williams (eds), John’s Transformation of Mark, (t&t Clark, 2021), p.239.

[6] Paul Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, Modern Foundations Reconsidered, (t & t Clark, edition 2007), p.52-53.

[7] Philip F. Esler and Ronald A. Piper, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, Social-Scientific Approaches to the Gospel of John, (Fortress, 2006), ch.1.

 

 

Recent scholarship has shown the Testimonium has been translated wrongly.

Take the first line, Louis Feldman translated this in the standard translation from the Loeb Classical Library as “At this time there lived Jesus, a wise man” like as if it was a mythicist/ historicist debate. ^[1]

I mean the Greek is much more exciting- it should be: there arose about this time Jesus (Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς).

And from the Slavonic there is evidence that Josephus originally wrote:

“there arose about this time a certain man”

The ‘certain man’ reading is supported by the earliest physical manuscripts that contain the TF- the Syriac translations of Eusebius. Take the example – “there lived in this time a certain wise man named Jesus.” (MS British Library Add. 14.639).

So this variant in the Syriac manuscripts – “named Jesus” or “whose name was Jesus” was probably tacked on by Eusebius.

Josephus was good at reporting exciting things. His book is much more interesting encyclopedic local gossip and the only reason he mentioned Jesus at all, is the trouble Jesus caused, how he was caught and executed just like all the other Sign Prophets. Josephus loved to report minor troublemakers as it suited his narrative as explained by Rebecca Gray here:

[Josephus shifts] 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. ^[2]

Although to outsiders the Sign Prophets and bandits were lumped into this narrative as fanatics, Josephus still made a distinction between the Sign Prophets and the bandits. Josephus introduces these Sign Prophets with the remark that they had “purer hands” than the Sicarii (War 2.258), … (i.e. religious fanatics) … One other feature of Josephus’ report deserves comment. In War 2.259 he states that these unnamed figures acted “under the pretense of divine inspiration.” ^[3] Jesus being more like the Sign Prophets would be also included among those that were symptomatic of Josephus’ narrative about the troublemakers and Pilate would have been seen as symptomatic of those maladministration that led to the cause of the Great Revolt (66-70CE). (Eg. The Samaritans had to send an embassy to complain of Pilate, (Josephus, Ant. 18.88)

By opening his report on Jesus as “there arose at this time” shows Josephus recognised Jesus as the one day wonder he became, a flash in the pan and easily squashed by the Roman administration. This in turn generated a report by Pilate and was later picked up by Josephus.

Even with the TF being translated wrong we have evidence of an earlier form of the TF. This we know from variants of the TF. Here are two variants that seem to witness earlier forms of the TF:

Firstly the Arabic- “At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. (Agapius, Kitâb al-‛unwân 2:15) ^[4]

Next Michael the Syrian- “In these times there was a wise man named Jesus.” (Michael the Syrian, Record of Times 5.10).

Now let us examine the earliest physical manuscripts that contain the TF, the earliest of which were an anonymous syriac translation of Eusebius’ Church History:

The first treatment of the Greek TF in these eastern languages can be found in the Syriac translations of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History (c.313 CE) and his Theophany (c.325/ 6 CE). …  [The] translation date sometime in the fourth century, perhaps during Eusebius’ own lifetime. The manuscript tradition of the Syriac Ecclesiastical History is extremely ancient, being witnessed by a fifth-century manuscript.[5] (MS Russian National Library Siriyskaya novaya seria 1 #24 (462 CE) f. 16a right col, line 26).

There is Syriac variant translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History that has “certain man” in place of Jesus. The phrase is : ““there lived in this time a certain wise man named Jesus.” (MS British Library Add. 14.639 (sixth century)). By acknowledging that the Slavonic may have preserved that Jesus was not originally named in the passage but had “certain man” in place of Jesus- The syriac manuscript bears witness that “certain man” was an original phrase to the passage. This supports that Jesus may not have been originally named and that “named Jesus” was tacked on!

Take a look-

Greek manuscripts of Antiquities (textus receptus)
“There arose at this time Jesus”

(Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς)

Codex A of Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7 

“There arose at this time a certain Jesus”

(Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς τις)

Syriac manuscripts translating Eusebius EH

“there lived in this time a certain wise man (“named Jesus” ܝܫܘܥ appears in the line but looks like it was tacked on.

ܓܒܪܐ ܚܕ ܚܟܝܡܐ ܕܫܡܗ ܝܫܘܥ

Looking at the slavonic manuscript next it looks like the bit “wise” and “named Jesus” was added later.

Slavonic TF:

At that time there appeared a certain man (muži nĕkij)

(Jesus” is not named in the exact passage of the Slavonic TF).

My reasoning is taking the evidence of the Slavonic and Syriac manuscripts together.
The Slavonic does not name Jesus probably working off a very early Greek exemplar and the Syriac shows us what probably happened/ the phrase “whose name was Jesus” was probably added to the original passage. Like there is literary no reason to drop the name Jesus or John (as in the case of the Slavonic manuscripts) but there is every reason to add “named Jesus” (as in the case of the Syriac manuscripts). Well there you have it, you have to take all manuscripts into account in order to try and recover the earlier version of the TF.

The early manuscripts lend support that Jesus was probably not named. The Slavonic also shows that this is what happened to John the Baptist passage too. And this is exactly the way Josephus described other similar characters too.

As Schmidt in his new book Josephus and Jesus observes: “In terms of their translations of the TF, the Syriac translator of the Ecclesiastical History does a better job witnessing to the ambiguity of the TF. He preserves the possibly derogatory ‘a certain Jesus’ (Ἰησοῦς τις) as ‘a certain man’ (ܓܒܪܐ ܚܕ)” ^[6] This reading is supported by a Greek variant in one of the Greek manuscripts of Eusebius – Codex A Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7 quotes the TF and has tis after Iēsous referring to ‘a certain Jesus.’ This tis is the same reading as the Slavonic. ‘The Slavonic Josephus offers a trace of the same pronoun: the phrase muzi nekij retroverted into Greek would correspond to anēr tis (certain man).” [7] Having this phrase also in the Syriac translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History makes it a certainty that this was the original reading. Having the variant “certain man” in a very early Syriac translation of Eusebius shows us that “certain man” was originally in Eusebius’s rendition. On the word tis (‘certain’) “It was probably common knowledge in Justin Martyrs time that Josephus did in fact use tis. Justin Martyr can imagine how Trypho would caricature Jesus, writing Iēsous tinos (Martyr, Dial. Trypho 108).” [8] A description that would have been easily gotten from the TF and shows anti- Christian polemicists making better use of the TF rather than their Christian counterparts.

In really early Syriac manuscript [the Syriac translations are the earliest we have of a physical copy of the TF] of Eusebius Church History, instead of saying Jesus the passage starts out calling him a ‘certain man’ – wow right, that’s a lot less specific, and it kinda lines up with Josephus’ vibe when he talks about other trouble making prophets.

Let’s take a look at the textual criticism of this phrase “whose name was Jesus” and practically track to see this was added to “certain man”. I will examines manuscripts that contain this phrase “whose name was Jesus”

Lets do the textual criticism of “certain man” where you can practically track the changes!

[About this time there arose a certain man] Syriac EH– MS British Library Add. 14,639 (6th century); Slavonic War II.IX.3(b)

[certain wise man whose name was Jesus] Michael the Syrian, Record of Times 5.10, from MS Edessa-Aleppo Codex f. 50r left column. Schmidt says Jacob of Edessa (c. 708 CE) was the source (Schmidt, 2025:68 and n.37)

[a wise man whose name was Jesus] Arabic recension by later Arabic writer, al-Makīn Ǧirǧis ibn al-ʿAmīd (c.1080 ce), who quotes Agapius quoting the TF in full. (Schmidt, 2025:49) from manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Or. 323

[About this time there arose  Jesus, a wise man (Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς σοφὸς ἀνήρ)]
All Greek manuscripts of Antiquities.

Let’s track this.

“A certain man”, was in place of “Jesus” in two different transmission lines
A Syriac translation of a Eusebius Church History

The manuscript is MS British Library Add. 14,639 (6th century)

“A certain man” is also in Slavonic Josephus, written in Old Church Slavic language.

• The Slavonic preserves the fact Jesus was not named and opens with “At that time there appeared a certain man (muži nĕkij)”
• Many manuscripts including the most valuable being Vilna Chronograph (16th century), Archival Chronograph (end of the 15^th century). The other Slavonic manuscripts are known as the ‘separate’ versions.[*]

As scribes did not see Jesus’ name – the variant “whose name is Jesus” or “named Jesus” was added as witnessed by all Syriac manuscripts. Example: In the following manuscript”

“certain wise man whose name was Jesus”-Michael the Syrian, Record of Times 5.10, from MS Edessa-Aleppo Codex f. 50r left column. Schmidt says Jacob of Edessa (c. 708 CE) was the source (Schmidt, 2025:68 and n.37)

This post has shown you layers in the first line of the TF, it shows the Greek version found in all the Greek manuscripts of Josephus Antiquities. It also tracks an earlier form of this line as witnessed by manuscripts centuries earlier than these Greek manuscripts. This post shows you that when ancient scribes saw Jesus was not named, they added the phrase “whose name was Jesus” to the passage. It also shows the word “certain” probably dropped out of the passage during transmission. This is normal textual criticism. This earlier version shows the TF actually was much more like other passages that Josephus wrote on other Sign Prophets. This was very common for Josephus not to name minor figures such as Sign Prophets and other messianic figures. Case in mind is the ‘Egyptian’ (War 2.261-263; Ant. 20.169-172) who led a revolt of thousands according to War or 600 according to Antiquities and yet he could only call him the ‘Egyptian’. Same goes for the ‘Samaritan’. (Ant 18.85-87). He was known as ‘“A man who made light of mendacity’ (Ant. 18.85). The Sign Prophet under Festus was known as ‘certain man sorcerer’(tinos anthrōpon goētos) (Ant. 20.188). And as this paper shows the earlier reading of the TF opened with “There arose about this time a certain man” (Ant. 18.63 original reading as witnessed by Syriac EH variant inMS British Library Add. 14639, Slavonic II.IX.3(b)).[9] The Slavonic has also preserved the earlier reading of the opening line of the Baptist passage, “And at that time a certain man” Slavonic II.VII.2(b).[10]  So originally we have textual evidence that Josephus did not name both Jesus and John the Baptist. This is within keeping with how minor these figures were historically. This all shows the comparative passages with the TF ( i. e. The other Sign Prophet passages) are very similar to the original TF penned by Josephus. They were all very minor figures where Josephus hardly even knew their names.

As I explained to my good friend Peter Stanbridge, who made the following point

Yes he [Carrier] has. I think though that Carrier who can be thoroughly rational and detailed comes off the rail sometimes and the book is disappointing in not making a proper critique of your case against Mason. I like the point you make about the opening phrase of Josephus. While we have to be careful in saying what someone would have or should have said or believed etc. it strikes me as rather odd for a fully interpolated passage on Jesus to begin that way. But easy to see how an interpolator could have missed the implications of keeping it.

And my answer:

Yes my textual criticism of the first line – which is still in development makes Carriers book obsolete (excuse the pun). And Carrier describing my argument as similar to 3 Cor. is false. 3 Cor. is homogenous, as if by one writer- the TF is not, it has the signs of two to three different hands – this is the hallmark of forgary and not wholesale interpolation. It’s when the Syriac manuscripts support the Slavonic reading of a ‘certain man” instead of Jesus that you really get evidence that an earlier form of the TF was actually written by Josephus.

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[1] Louis H. Feldman, The Loeb Classical Library.

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

[3] Rebecca Gray, Prophetic Figures. p.119-120.

[4]  Shlomo Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and its Implications, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, (Jerusalem,1971), p.16.

[5] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus,p.46.

[6] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the one Called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.46.

[7] Fernand Bermejo-Rubio, “Was the Hypothetical Vorlage of the Testimonium Flavianum a “Neutral” Text? Challenging the Common Wisdom on Antiquitates Judaicae 18.63-64 Journal for the Study of Judaism, 2014, 45.3, p.358.

[8] David Allen,, “How Josephus Really viewed Jesus”, RevBíb 85.3-4, p.346. Tinos is the genitive feminine singular form of tis.

[*] Henry Leeming and Kate Leeming (eds.), The Slavonic Version of Josephus’s Jewish War, A Synoptic Comparison of the English Translation by H. St. J. Thackeray, with the Critical Edition by N. A. Meščerskij of the Slavonic Version in the Vilna Manuscript translated into English by Henry Leeming and L. Osinkina, Arbeiten Zur Geschichte Des Antiken Judentums und des antigen Judentums und des Urchistentums 46, Boston: Brill 2003, pp.7-17.

[9] Leeming and Leeming (eds.), The Slavonic Version of Josephus’s Jewish War, p.261.

[10] Leeming and Leeming (eds.), The Slavonic Version of Josephus’s Jewish War, p.248.

Just like Tacitus mention of Christus (Ann. 18.44), Josephus reference to Jesus (Ant. 18:63-64) was generally not liked and not cited by Christians. ^[1]

It was Paget that noted, “in contrast to Christian interpolations of the LXX, it is difficult to see within an ancient context to what obvious use the TF could have been put. Any suggestions that the passage could be used to support a particular doctrinal position are unconvincing.” ^[2]

Expert after expert on the TF have reiterated this fact. This is sumed up in a point made by Jossa: “Josephus’ judgment of Jesus could not satisfy the Christian readers (which explains both the silence of the Fathers before Eusebius and the intervention of the unknown interpolator)^[3].” In fact Schmidt’s latest reception history of the TF has shown it was not much liked by the church fathers. He gives a good example of Cassedorius translation into Latin where he didn’t like the Greek of the TF. ^[4] As the TF was not much use it was not generally cited before Eusebius touched it up. Yet in Christian circles this was not even unusual – they did not use Josephus to back up anybody in the New Testament. Alice Whealey observed that no Christian before Origen apparently found it worthwhile to cite Josephus as a relevant authority on anything in the New Testament including figures such as John the Baptist, King Herod or indeed Jesus^[5].

Despite what Olson thinks^[6], we know Eusebius did not write it from a variant found in a Syriac translation of Eusebius’ of Ecclesiastical History. A very early Syriac variant of ‘certain man’ in the place of ‘Jesus’ in a TF recension translated from Eusebius original copy of EH, proves we had a pre-Eusebian form of the TF. ^[7] The variant “certain man” is witnessed by the following manuscript: MS British Library Add. 14,639).

The Syriac manuscripts that translate Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History  has “certain man” in place of Jesus and the phrase “whose name is Jesus/ named Jesus” is tacked on! The phrase is : ““there lived in this time a certain wise man named Jesus.” (MS British Library Add. 14.639 (sixth century)). This supports that Jesus may not have been originally named and that “named Jesus” was tacked on! 

Take a look-

Greek manuscripts of Antiquities (textus receptus)
“There arose at this time Jesus”

(Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς)

Codex A of Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7 

“There arose at this time a certain Jesus”

(Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς τις)

Syriac manuscripts translating Eusebius EH

“there lived in this time a certain wise man (“named Jesus” ܝܫܘܥ appears in the line but looks like it was tacked on.

ܓܒܪܐ ܚܕ ܚܟܝܡܐ ܕܫܡܗ ܝܫܘܥ

Looking at the slavonic manuscript next it looks like the bit “wise” and “named Jesus” was added later.

Slavonic TF:

At that time there appeared a certain man (muži nĕkij)

(Jesus” is not named in the exact passage of the Slavonic TF).

This supports the evidence of the Slavonic a “certain man” instead of Jesus was copied out of Eusebius. If Eusebius made up the TF he would never have used that phrase- this shows Eusebius copied it from a version of the TF circulating at that time. Eusebius would never have written ‘certain man’ if he was responsible for making up the TF from scratch. So we actually know there was an earlier form of the TF that was used by Eusebius.

Having the variant “certain man”  witnessed by the Slavonic, the Syriac translation and partly witnessed (“certain” tis) by a Greek manuscript variant (Codex A of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7), and an Armenian translation to boot, makes this case too strong for the creatio ex nihilo hypothesis to be tenable. “certain man” in the Syriac translation happens to be one of the earliest physical manuscripts we have that contains the TF. This variant alone blows the ex nihilo by Eusebius hypothesis out of the water. This phrase ‘certain man’ was copied out of Eusebius by the Syriac translater, proving this phrase was copied out of a TF circulating in Eusebius’ time.

Let’s take a look at the textual criticism of this phrase where at first the phrase “whose name was Jesus” was added to “certain man”.

Forgot to add the textual criticism of “certain man” where you can practically track the changes!

[About this time there arose a certain man] Syriac EH– MS British Library Add. 14,639 (6th century); Slavonic War II.IX.3(b)

[certain wise man whose name was Jesus] Michael the Syrian, Record of Times 5.10, from MS Edessa-Aleppo Codex f. 50r left column. Schmidt says Jacob of Edessa (c. 708 CE) was the source (Schmidt, 2025:68 and n.37)

[a wise man whose name was Jesus] Arabic recension by later Arabic writer, al-Makīn Ǧirǧis ibn al-ʿAmīd (c.1080 ce), who quotes Agapius quoting the TF in full. (Schmidt, 2025:49) from manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Or. 323

[There was about this time Jesus, a wise man (Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς σοφὸς ἀνήρ)]
All Greek manuscripts of Antiquities

I found for me Josephus really helped me contextualize Jesus historically.

Josephus answers the following:

Like why did he mention him at all?

Answer: because of the minor trouble he caused and the report that Josephus picked up that was generated by his execution at the hands of Pilate. The gospel propaganda cutely says Pilate washed his hands of this trouble- I would not believe a word of that! Time and time again you can see Josephus follows reports generated by the various govenors of Judea. Like all other Sign prophet groups, Jesus got easily squashed by the local Roman administration.

It is necessary to try and get at the original TF as the TF does not only show that Jesus was a historical figure but also shows who he was and his comparable figures – namely the Sign Prophets. Seeing the phrase ‘certain man’ instead of ‘Jesus’ in the original TF lets us see who Jesus really was.

In really early Syriac manuscript [the Syriac translations are the earliest we have of a physical copy of the TF] of Eusebius Church History, instead of saying Jesus the passage starts out calling him a ‘certain man’ – wow right, that’s a lot less specific, and it kinda lines up with Josephus’ vibe when he talks about other trouble making prophets.

A sum up of one of my papers.

This was very common for Josephus not to name minor figures such as Sign Prophets and other messianic figures. Case in mind is the ‘Egyptian’ (War 2.261-263; Ant. 20.169-172) who led a revolt of thousands according to War or 600 according to Antiquities and yet he could only call him the ‘Egyptian’. Same goes for the ‘Samaritan’. (Ant 18.85-87). He was known as ‘“A man who made light of mendacity’ (Ant. 18.85). The Sign Prophet under Festus was known as ‘certain man sorcerer’(tinos anthrōpon goētos) (Ant. 20.188). And as this blog shows the earlier reading of the TF opened with “There arose about this time a certain man” (Ant. 18.63 original reading). This all shows the comparative passages with the TF ( i. e. The other Sign Prophet passages) are very similar to the original TF penned by Josephus. They were all very minor figures where Josephus hardly even knew their names.

Josephus got his information from imperial or more local army records independent of Christians, for Josephus was on very good terms with Titus and the imperial secretary Epaphroditus. Schmidt has noticed from the way Josephus phrases the following line- “And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross.”(Ant. 18.64):

For Josephus does not simply say in the TF that it was the ‘first men’ (πρώτων ἀνδρῶν) who accused Jesus, but that it was the ‘first men among us’ (παρ’ ἡμῖν). This is an important clue, since, as it turns out, the phrase ‘among us’ (παρ’ ἡμῖν) is common in Josephus’ writings, where it is used fifty-one other times. And combing through every one of these fifty-one instances makes it plain that the phrase marks a subject with which the speaker was directly familiar. In other words, Josephus appears to be claiming in the TF that he actually knew some of those who accused Jesus. ^[8]

Something similar had happened to Jonathan the Weaver, “those of the greatest dignity among them informed Catullus, the governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, of his march into the desert, and of the preparations he had made for it.” (War 7.439). This is similar to what happened in the TF, “when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross” (Ant. 18.64). ^[9]

Josephus also consulted the records (just like he did for Jesus) for the ‘Samaritan’ (Ant. 18.85-87) and Theudas (Ant. 20.97-99) who were not important enough to make into his first book, The Jewish War, but on consulting records included them in his more detailed second book Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus would have viewed Jesus as one in a series of these two Sign troublemakers. This solves the puzzle why Josephus did not mention Jesus in the War book, Josephus thought no more of Jesus than what he thought of other similar Sign Prophets such as Theudas and the Samaritan Te’heb.

Thomas Schmidt demonstrates in his book on the Greek alone that Josephus could have written the majority of it with the exception of one or two phrases. And he’s right arguing this on the Greek alone. This collapses most skeptic arguments. He has partly shown this by inquiring into the reception of the TF. Similar to arguments put forward by Paget and Whealey.  he shows that scholars really have translated this wrong and negative translation would reflect the ambiguous words used in the TF.

As I stated before “The original negative TF would have portrayed him badly— even the tampered TF was not of much use. Put yourselves into the shoes of these church fathers and ask yourself, if you were discussing Jesus, would you use those histories in the gospels that painted Jesus in the best possible light or would you use the TF (especially as I argue the original TF was negative)?” ^[10]

All this would make the TF much more useful to anti Christian polemicists rather than Christians themselves.

Here is are extracts from two of my latest papers on the TF: ^[11]

Anti- Christian Polmicists were the ones who made greater use of the TF in the early days!

it was the anti- Christian polemicists who were using the TF and this seems likely as certain phrases like paradoksen were picked out of the TF by anti-Christian polemicists  describing Jesus as a wizard. In Proof  (Dem. ev.) Eusebius defends Jesus of being a wizard against Porphyry’s arguments. “The negative connotations of παράδοξα are most explicitly pointed out by Eusebius, who, in his discussion of the TF, says there are those who ‘admit that Jesus performed incredible deeds (τὰ παράδοξα), but that he did so with deceptive magic directed at the onlookers, such as by a conjurer or sorcerer, to dazzle those who stood by’. (Eusebius, Dem. Ev. 3.5.110)”^[12]

The anti-Christian polemicists may have got the impression that Jesus was a γόης (goēs) from the original TF containing παραδόξων. Celsus picks out that exact word describing Jesus as such in Contra Cels. 1.6. Other anti Christians also suspected Jesus of magic such as the Jew interlocutor of Justin Martyr (Dial. 69.7). Geza Vermes argued in 2009 that the expression “surprising feats” (paradoxon ergon) (example used in Ant. 12.63) is repeatedly used by Josephus in his works to describe many miracles associated with the Old Testament (such as the burning bush and the miracles of Moses and Elisha). ^[13] So the word in itself is not negative (just like many words in English), but in context it can be negative. There is an example of this when Josephus describes the miracles of Pharoahs court magicians. Josephus “makes Pharaoh say that the ‘wise’ (σοϕῶν) magicians of Egypt employed their dark arts (μαγείας) to perform a παράδοξον before Moses by turning their staffs into snakes” (Ant. 2.285–6). ^[14]  Originally Josephus would have seen Jesus as a gōes (wizard) and this would be reflected in the phrase ‘doer of strange works.’ This phrase is argued convincingly by Schmidt to be original but read negatively.^[15]  A common theme for Josephus is to describe the Sign Prophets like a gōes and this is reflected in the phrase ‘doer of strange works.” Theudas under Fadus was described as γόης τις (“certain magician”)(Ant. 20.97). Under Felix a load of Sign Prophets were described as γόητες καὶ ἀπατεῶνες (“imposters and deceivers”) (Ant. 20.167). Also under Felix the Egyptian Sign Prophet was referred to as γόης καὶ προφήτου – goēs κai prophēton (sorcerer and prophet) (War 2.261). Josephus described the Sign Prophet under Festus who promised them freedom and divine deliverance from their miseries as a τινος ἀνθρώπου γόητος – tinos anthrōpon goētos (‘certain man sorcerer’) (Ant. 20.188).

We can see evidence of the anti-Christians using the word tis (‘certain’) from the TF. It was probably common knowledge in Justin Martyrs time that Josephus did in fact use tis. Justin Martyr can imagine how Trypho would caricature Jesus, writing Iēsous tinos (Martyr, Dial. Trypho 108). Josephus could have also described Jesus as a sophist and a later scribe changed this to teacher. Josephus usually uses the expression σοφὸς ἀνήρ ‘a wise man’, as his highest praise for people. This is the phrase in the Greek manuscripts of the TF but I think that was added by Eusebius. There is only two cases where Josephus uses it: King Solomon and the prophet Daniel; it is not a phrase he uses for the messianic leaders or Sign Prophets he reports. Usually it is not sofos (wise) but sofistēs (sophist) such as Judas the Galilaean who is described as a sofistēs idias aireseos (sophist of his own sect) (War 2.118). Anti Christian polemic that could have been working off the original TF suggest that the word sophist was used to describe Jesus, Justin Martyr counters his interlocutor- “He was no sophist, but His word was the power of God.” (1 Apol. 14). Lucian wrote in his satire called The Passing of Peregrinus referred to Jesus as “crucified sophist” (Lucian, Peregr. Proteus, ch. xiii).

The opponents of the church father apologetics all seem to be working off an original TF. For example, Justin Martyr answers his opponent, “He was no sophist, but His word was the power of God.” (1 Apol. 14 Cf Lucian, Peregr. Proteus, ch. xiii.). Justin’s interlocutor has got his charge that Jesus was described as a sophist, probably information that was contained in the TF. Judas the Galilean was also described as a sophist by Josephus at War 2.118 σοφιστὴς ἰδίας αἱρέσεως (sophist of his sect) and War 2.433:

“In the meantime one Manahem, the son of Judas that was called the Galilean (who was a very cunning sophister, and had formerly reproached the Jews under Cyrenius, that after God they were subject to the Romans), (War 2.433 cf War 2.118).

As Steve Mason says on his commentary on Josephus War book 2:

“Josephus will continue to call both Judas (War 2.433) and his son Menachem (War 2.445) sophists (σοφισταί). This is significant because he uses the word sparingly, reserving it with Platonic associations (cf. the Gorgias) for teachers who incite the young to rebellious action: War uses it otherwise only of the teachers who instructed their disciples to topple Herod’s golden eagle (1.648, 650, 655, 656; 2.10; cf. Ant. 17.152, 155). The only other application in Josephus is to the anti-Judean writers of Egypt, who are “reprobate sophists, deceiving the young” (Apion 2.236). ^[16]

The influence of the TF meant Christian opponents saw Jesus as a magician and a rebel.

Origen was uneasy with the TF, he was sparring with Celsus and it was Celsus would make better use out of the TF, as the TF would show Jesus was much more like those other Sign Prophets that got easily squashed by the Roman governor. “A prophet would be regarded as a rebel by outsiders and this as is seen in later anti Christian polemic (Minucius Felix, Oct. 29; Lactantius, Inst. 5.3) Celsus also seems to be under the impression ‘that in the days of Jesus others who were Jews rebelled against the Jewish state and became His followers’ (Cels. 3.7). The line between rebel and sign prophet is so thin that Josephus had to make a distinction, in that what they did was “not so impure in their actions (War 2.258). The TF analysis helps show Jesus as just one of a series of Sign Prophets that were reported in Josephus works” ^[17]

We can see Celsus using Josephus Antiquities and the TF in a bundle of passages Against Celsus 3.5 – 3.8, in comparing Jesus to Moses as a rebel. For example:

“Immediately after these points, Celsus, imagining that the Jews are Egyptians by descent, and had abandoned Egypt, after revolting against the Egyptian state, and despising the customs of that people in matters of worship, says that “they suffered from the adherents of Jesus, who believed in Him as the Christ, the same treatment which they had inflicted upon the Egyptians; and that the cause which led to the new state of things in either instance was rebellion against the state.” (Origen, Contra Celsum 3.5)

“Hebrews, who had been unjustly treated, had departed from Egypt after revolting against the Egyptians” (Origen, Contra Celsum 3.6)

“that the Hebrews, being (originally) Egyptians, dated the commencement (of their political existence) from the time of their rebellion,” so also is this, “that in the days of Jesus others who were Jews rebelled against the Jewish state, and became His followers;

[And Origen does not deny revolt as the beginning of the movement!]

And yet, if a revolt had led to the formation of the Christian commonwealth, so that it derived its existence in this way from that of the Jews,” (Origen, Contra Celsum 3.7)

Josephus had told of the “Egyptian army had once tasted of this prosperous success, by the hand of Moses,” (Ant 2.10.2) and that he “might be the General of their army. (Ant. 2.10.1) When the Egyptians had drowned “Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians, which were brought to the camp of the Hebrews, (Ant 2.16.6) and established a Hebrew state, Moses had fought the Amorite King in Ant 4.5.2.

Celsus is under the impression that Jesus was the leader of a seditious movement as described by Origen in following  passages here:

Their union is the more wonderful, the more it can be shown to be based on no substantial reason. And yet rebellion is a substantial reason, as well as the advantages which accrue from it, and the fear of external enemies. Such are the causes which give stability to their faith.” (Contra Celsus 3.14)

“Again Celsus proceeds: “If you should tell them that Jesus is not the Son of God, but that God is the Father of all, and that He alone ought to be truly worshipped, they would not consent to discontinue their worship of him who is their leader in the sedition…..[Origen denies what Celsus has just said by adding the following]… Jesus is, then, not the leader of any seditious movement, but the promoter of peace….”(Contra Celsum 8.14)

Let’s see how the TF probably influenced these anti Christian polemicists.

Here are some more examples that will build a picture of how the anti Christian polemicists viewed the Jesus movements. Firstly a quote of the pagan Caecilius Natalis written by one of the earliest of the Latin apologists for Christianity, namely Minicius Felix: 

“that a man fastened to a cross on account of his crimes is worshipped by Christians, for they believe not only that he was innocent, but with reason that he was God. But, on the other hand, the heathens invoke the Divine Powers of Kings raised into Gods by themselves; they pray to images, and beseech their Genii.”(Minucius Felix, Octavius ch. 29).

And:

 “he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.” (Minucius Felix, Octavius, ch9)

From those two quotes we can see the Romans viewed Jesus Christ as a criminal with his cross.

Lactantius a Christian writer and an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I, complains about his interlocutor Sossianus Hierocles:

“But he affirmed that Christ, driven out by the Jews, gathered a band of nine hundred men and committed acts of brigandage’: ‘Christum … a Iudaeis fugatum collecta nongentorum hominum manu latrocinia fecisse.’ (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, Book v. Ch. 3.)

 He also stated in the same chapter:

 “If Christ is a magician because He performed wonderful deeds, it is plain that Apollonius, who, according to your description, when Domitian wished to punish him, suddenly disappeared on his trial, was more skilful than He who was both arrested and crucified.” And of course Lactantius hits back at these pagan critics, “…than from that very cross which you as dogs lick”. (Lactantius, Div. Inst. v.3).

In the next passage quoted in full below Celsus makes the following claims, that Christ and members of his church have been put to death in a way appropriate to robbers and Celsus also asks what makes the two “robbers” crucified with Jesus any different from Jesus. Bear in mind the term ‘robbers’ (lestai, λῃσταί:sing; λῃστής, lestes: plural) was a term used by Josephus to mean brigands.

“Celsus in the next place says, with indescribable silliness: “If, after inventing defences which are absurd, and by which you were ridiculously deluded, you imagine that you really make a good defense, what prevents you from regarding those other individuals who have been condemned, and have died a miserable death, as greater and more divine messengers of heaven (than Jesus)?” [Origen interjects here]: Now, that manifestly and clearly there is no similarity between Jesus, who suffered what is described, and those who have died a wretched death on account of their sorcery, or whatever else be the charge against them, is patent to every one. For no one can point to any acts of a sorcerer which turned away souls from the practice of the many sins which prevail among men, and from the flood of wickedness (in the world). But since this Jew of Celsus compares Him to robbers, and says that “any similarly shameless fellow might be able to say regarding even a robber and murderer whom punishment had overtaken, that such a one was not a robber, but a god, because he predicted to his fellow robbers that he would suffer such punishment as he actually did suffer,” it might, [Origen tries to answer the charge by Celsus] in the first place, be answered, that it is not because He predicted that He would suffer such things that we entertain those opinions regarding Jesus which lead us to have confidence in Him, as one who has come down to us from God. And, in the second place, we assert that this very comparison has been somehow foretold in the Gospels; since God was numbered with the transgressors by wicked men, who desired rather a “murderer” (one who for sedition and murder had been cast into prison) to be released unto them, and Jesus to be crucified, and who crucified Him between two robbers. Jesus, indeed, is ever crucified with robbers among His genuine disciples and witnesses to the truth, and suffers the same condemnation which they do among men. And we say, that if those persons have any resemblance to robbers, who on account of their piety towards God suffer all kinds of injury and death, that they may keep it pure and unstained, according to the teaching of Jesus, then it is clear also that Jesus, the author of such teaching, is with good reason compared by Celsus to the captain of a band of robbers. But neither was He who died for the common good of mankind, nor they who suffered because of their religion, and alone of all men were persecuted because of what appeared to them the right way of honouring God, put to death in accordance with justice, nor was Jesus persecuted without the charge of impiety being incurred by His persecutors.” (Origen, Contra Celsum 2.44).

It is quite likely the two who died with Jesus were followers. John says flat out that they were subject to arrest. The Synoptics show it was only Jesus, not the disciples, who was arrested — the conviction for blasphemy, the dramatic kiss of Judas which isolates Jesus only as the one to be arrested and led away, the invention of the moral corruption of the two who died with him. The remarkable thing is that the idea that the disciples were subject to arrest, and the inference that two may have been crucified with Jesus, survives in the gospel of John.

Hoffman has the following opening in his translation of Porphyry’s Against the Christians, taken from extracts in Macarius Magnes’ Apocriticus:

“The words of Christ, “I came not to bring peace but a sword. I came to separate a son from his father,” [Matt. 10.34] belie the true intentions of the Christians. They seek riches and glory. Far from being friends of the empire, they are renegades waiting for their chance to seize control. “ (Apocrit. II.7-II.12). ^[18]

The Christian apologist obviously reinterprets Porphyry’s charge, “This objection is clear from the thrust of Macarius’ insistence that Christ is speaking of spiritual warfare against the power of sin.” ^[19] Porphyry of course is insinuating that the current followers were the same as the original Jesus followers of the sword.

I suspect many of the anti Christian pagans preserved in the apologetics of church fathers made use of an original negative TF before Christians had the power to change the wording of the original books. The TF may have been the source of later anti-Christian traditions. It was known to anti-Christians like Lucian of Samosata and Celsus, in the mid-second century, understood that Jesus had been a “fomenter of rebellion”, and Sossianus Hierocles c.300, that Jesus had been leader of a robber band of 900, as reported by Lactantius. (Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.3). It was the opponents of Justin Martyr and Origen made use of the original TF.

 

 

 

---

[1] Ivan Prchlík, Ivan, Tacitus’ knowledge of the origins of Christianity, Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philologica 2/ Graecolatina Pragensia, (2017), pp.96 ff.

Under UV light it showed that Tacitus had originally written ‘Chrestiani’. Ivan Prchlík says “Tacitus’ orthography of the names Chrestiani and Christus, as occurring in the passage … emphasized that the form Chrestiani had been the popular one.” Prchlík suggests Tacitus knew the originator of the movement had been Christos. He did not use the name Jesus. “In contemporary Greek, however, <ι> and  <η> were already pronounced in the same manner, and so the pagans, or at least a majority of them, coming across the title Χριστός certainly considered it a personal name“ just like the name Χρηστός is.

[2] James Carleton Paget, “Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity,” Journal of Theological Studies 52.2 (2001),  p.602.

[3] Giorgio Jossa,  “Jews, Romans, and Christians: From the Bellum Judaicum to the Antiquitate”, in Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi (eds), Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 104, (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden 2005), p.342.

[4] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the one Called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.42-44.

[5] Alice Whealey, Josephus on Jesus: Historical Criticism and the Testimonium Flavianum, Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times, (PhD diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1998), p.13.

[6] Ken Olson, “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum” in Eusebius of Caesarea Tradition and Innovations, Edited by Aaron Johnson Jeremy Schott, (2013), pp.97-114.

[7] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the one Called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.47

[8] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the one Called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.6

[9] David Allen, “Josephus on Jesus, New Evidence for the one called a ‘certain man’”, JHC 2026 forthcoming.

[10] David Allen, “The use of the Testimonium Flavianum by Anti-Christian polemicists’”, JHC 16.1, 2021

[11] David Allen, “Josephus on Jesus, New Evidence for the one called a ‘certain man’”, JHC forthcoming; David Allen, “Want to know what Josephus wrote about Jesus?” JHC forthcoming.

[12] Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, p.75.

[13] Geza Vermes, Jesus in the Eyes of Josephus (2009) https://standpointmag.co.uk/jesus-in-the-eyes-of-josephus-features-jan-10-geza-vermes/

[14] Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, p.75.

[15] Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, pp.74-76.

[16] Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus: Judean War 2, translation and commentary, Volume 1b, (Brill, 2008), p. 83.

[17] David Allen, How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus,  REVISTA BÍBLICA 85/ 3-4(2023), p.354.

[18] Porphyry’s Against the Christians: The Literary Remains. Edited and translated with an introduction and epilogue by R. Joseph Hoffmann, (Prometheus, 1994), p.29.

[19] Porphyry’s Against the Christians: The Literary Remains. Edited and translated with an introduction and epilogue by R. Joseph Hoffmann, (Prometheus, 1994), p.29 fn.2.

 

Matthew 27:52-53
52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

We have a zombie apocalypse in Matthew (Matt. 27:52-53), which stages a future event of the second age that has started (in the future but portrayed as the past, (Star Trek mind warping stuff) where the dead are the first to rise in the new kingdom established here on earth. You can see here, that the second age (aion) has commenced in Matthew! (cf 1 Thess. 4:14-17; Daniel 12:2; Psalms 18:7; Psalms 68:8). The Johannine Jesus understands this:

²⁸ “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. (John 5:28-29)

This is very apocalyptic writing which was all the fashion when the gospels were composed- and there are many instances within the gospels that make complete sense when understood within this genre. Even in its immediate context- the darkness, earthquake, torn temple veil, and mass resurrection of saints all fits this genre.

^–At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split (Matt. 27:51)

This understanding answers the question- where have the zombies gone? They haven’t gone anywhere because they were only a poetic licence, objectifying an apocalyptic fantasy.

Litwa has explained that the gospels used the trope of objectification as dreams, visions and divine intervention that were narrated in such a way as if it happened externally. In Paul’s epistles Jesus’s resurrection appearances were experienced as visions. In the gospel retellings the body became ‘flesh and bone” (Luke 24: 39), able to be poked and prodded by eyewitnesses—including the famous “doubting Thomas” (John 20: 24–28). [1]  Luke has the resurrected body eating fish (Luke 24:42)! This trope of objectification suited the apocalyptic worldview of the times. As Dan Merkur explains, “Ancient Jewish accounts of otherworldly journeys and places portray visual images as real perceptions of ordinarily invisible beings and sceneries of heaven, paradise, hell, and distant locations on earth. In these apocalypses, seeing was believing. Their seers assumed that what they saw in their visions existed objectively in a spiritual manner.” [2]

We have much of this in Revelation which is a gory fantasy against the Roman Empire. The book gives hope to those living under Roman oppression. [3] God will get them back for you!

In short, Dan. 12:1-2 confirms the end-time, messianic resurrection theme of Isa. 2:19! The eschatological underpinning of this particular Danielic motif further supports the twofold premise of the Messiah’s resurrection at the time of the end, followed by the general resurrection of the dead. The Matthean text indicates that the resurrection of the dead commences shortly “after” Jesus’ resurrection (Matt. 27:51). each time the “redeeming work” of Messiah is mentioned, it is almost invariably followed or preceded by some kind of reference to judgment (e.g. “day of vengeance”), which signifies the commencement of his reign on earth (see Isa. 63:4).

Many amateurs and FB commentators don’t seems to know how to read the gospels, all modern literal readings are not how the gospels should be read. They weren’t written that way, so why should we read them that way!

While most scholars recognise this, it is amazing why some evangelical scholars take the events in the gospels as what actually happened. JD Crossan has always maintained that anybody who takes the gospels as literal history has missed the whole point. In his excellent book The Power of Parable he has shown that the collection of stories told by Jesus contained in the gospels are all allegory. Crossan goes on to say that the gospel themselves follows the allegory of the parables and what made him cop onto this was watching a play with the trial of Jesus- it is narrated as a dramatic play where Jesus is being completely in control of proceedings rather than the historical reality, of an easily condemned man. [4]

Starting with Mark the gospels narrations are describing that we are living in a time where the kingdom of god is already starting (again the Kingdom of God is not the next world but this world transformed- modern thinking does not work). The gospels describing a kingdom of god that Jesus was ushering in. A land of milk and honey where everybody gets healed and fed. (This is appealing to the starving oppressed poor, and the reason for the historical traction of the gospels).

Matthew continues this and says the dead have already risen because this is what’s to happen in the kingdom of god.

So Matthew was not reporting what actually happened but like a modern art house film is describing in his own way that the kingdom is already initiating.

Nobody, Christians nor Christian polemicists seems to actually know how to read the gospels as they were meant to be read in their day.

Matthew is taking his queue from Paul, saying the holy ones were resurrected. According to Paul’s mystical view our souls whether we are Jews or Gentiles are put to death in Baptism, and resurrected into new life (with a new transformed body) in Messiah Yeshua by the power of the Holy Spirit, this will happen when the new age starts – any minute now! In line with apocalypticism Paul has a “firm belief that he lived and worked in history’s final hour is absolutely foundational, shaping everything else that Paul says and does… asserting the nearness of the End: “You know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to awake from sleep. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand” (Rom. 13.11–12).” [5].

Acts understands the difference between the two concepts – “kingdom of god” and “heaven”.

⁶ So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?”⁷ He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” ⁹After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. ¹⁰ As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. ¹¹ “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!” (Acts 1:6-11)

The kingdom the apostles were talking about was kingdom of god that was supposed to established right here on earth, as this did not happen when acts was written, Acts puts an excuse into Jesus’ mouth that only god knows this but don’t worry it will happen. The second part of the passage quoted deals with heaven which us literally above their heads up there in the clouds.

In Jesus’s day only divine beings were there, not humans but throughout Jewish literature we do have exceptions for righteous people, and Jesus was one of those exceptions. (Eg.Enoch walked with god, (Gen. 5:24), Elijah went to heaven in a magic Chariot Merkavah, (2 Kings 2:11-12)).

Concepts of Heaven can be seen in Mesopotamia as being held up by a dome and was a place for divine beings and celestial bodies such as stars. For Egypt the goddess Nut was this dome and heaven was entered through the underworld and you had to have your heart weighed against a feather. Plato had an influence on heaven concepts with his immortal soul, he transformed it into a spiritual realm and earth was the material realm where everything dies, this influenced Paul’s platonic thought and concepts. Also at this time multiple layers of heaven started to be envisioned (eg 2 Cor. 12:2-4; As.of Isaiah).

In the Bible as you read it, heaven was above your head and the mountains intersected where earth meets heaven. Hence why holy temples got built on mountains. (You could feel gods presence if a cloud descended on the Temple).

Most Jewish people when they died went to Sheol a concept that developed out of a tomb, the imagery for Sheol was from the tombs but to the Jewish mindset it definitely developed into a place. You can see this when the earlier books of the Bible said he slept with his ancestors (ie the king was dead) to the later expressions- he walks with his ancestors.

When Enoch died it said he walked with God making Jews think that Enoch was one of the exceptions of going to heaven instead of Sheol. Heaven really was originally only for divine beings.

Anyway that’s the impression you get when reading the Bible from cover to cover.

In the gospel of Matthew, there is an attempted conflation of these two concepts, he calls the kingdom of god, the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 3:2). Already we see a change of meaning in natural Jewish concepts.

Let us stop the internet debates asking “ where are all those zombies”, gospels debunked stuff. Instead why not recognise the gospels for the masterpieces that they are, the artistic depictions, let’s just sit back and enjoy the artistic dramatics just as they were enjoyed in their own day.

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[1] M. David Litwa, How the Gospels became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths, (Yale, 2019), Ch2.

[2] Dan Merkur, “Cultivating Visions through Exegetical Meditations” in Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov (eds), With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior, (Gruyter, 2011), pp.68-69

[3] Bart D. Ehrman, Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End, (Simon & Schuester, 2023).

[4] John Dominic Crossan, The Power of Parable: How fiction by Jesus became fiction about Jesus, (SPCK, 2012).

[5] Paula Fredriksen, Paul, The Pagan’s Apostle, (Yale, 2017), Preface.

This post plans to do a revisionist history of Judas Iscariot. This will be achieved by using the latest methods that are now applied to the historical Jesus. The latest quest for the historical Jesus (dubbed the ‘next quest’) now recognises we can only get an outline of Jesus. A side view by studying basically everything from the time- background history, anthropology, archaeology and basically everything we can know. ^[1] Underpinning this next quest are memory studies. By critically examing Judas in the next quest- ie using all the background history and memory studies you will find Judas (turned informer) is a literary representation of all those spies that the Jesus movement was riddled with. The evangelists were very crafty and knew a named insider was a thousand times more interesting than historical reality- namely that the Jesus movement was informed on by nameless spies. To get an idea of how the evangelists crafted their gospels I want to recommend Dr Richard Miller showing that the gospels were written with Greco Roman tropes and conventions that were common to this time period. For example he shows the empty tomb was a common trope in order to apotheosise Jesus.^[2] It was common in classical literature to have disappearing bodies to explain the apotheosising. The gospels were part of Greco-Roman literature fabric of other apotheosis works, using well known tropes in order to translate Jesus to a Mediterranean God. What I love about Richard’s book is that he would teach you how to read the gospels, which turns out to be very helpful when applying the ‘next quest’ and memory studies in order to extract actual history from the gospels.

Let me now start by applying this next quest on Judas Iscariot by firstly examining historical background history on what happened to other similar groups like the Jesus movement. Firstly I will take an extract from my paper on memory studies found in the gospel of John: ^[3]

Pilate then went back inside the Praetorium, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this yourself or have others ἄλλοι spoken to you about me?” (John 18:33-34)

John added on to the parallel Synoptics pericope (Mk. 15:2; Mt. 27:11; Lk. 23:3). Notice the added bit to this narrative by the gospel of John – “or have others ἄλλοι spoken to you about me?” This added bit shows John is more in tune with historical reality. Jesus’ answer tells a lot (whether Jesus said this or not does not matter – it’s how the fourth evangelist understood the situation which reflects actual history). So who are the others ἄλλοι? We find in Josephus many movements just like the Jesus movement (i. e. Sign Prophet movements) that were riddled with informers and stopped in their tracks). The plan of action made by all the various Sign Prophets were tracked by informers. (Eg.  here is the plan of action by Jonathan the Weaver- “those of the greatest dignity among them informed Catullus, the governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, of his [Jonathan the Weaver] march into the desert, and of the preparations he had made for it.” (Josephus, War 7.439). Jesus also like the other Sign Prophets had a plan of action. This was the reason Jesus was heading to Jerusalem after gathering a crowd (Triumphal entry), he was about to carry out his plan of action at the Temple. In the Jesus movement this tracking was enabled by others ἄλλοι (John 18:34) – spies and informers that were in the govenors pocket or Sanhedrin’s network. In this case the gospels knew the Jesus movement was riddled by spies, by applying memory studies to the gospels you will see it was Mark who built the Judas Iscariot story around this fact as it would suit Marks narrative and genre to build an inside informer. It is only in John that this historical memory is brought to the surface in John 18:34. Let us examine other Sign Prophet movements also stopped in their tracks where the Judaea governor seemed to be one step ahead.

In the group gathered by the Samaritan Te’heb that had met in Tirathaba village, Pilate was ready to prevent them gathering at Mt. Gerizim:

So they came thither armed, and thought the discourse of the man probable; [the ‘Samaritan had told them Moses vessels were buried there] and as they abode at a certain village, which was called Tirathaba, they got the rest together to them, and got ready to go up the mountain in a great multitude together; but Pilate prevented them, however, by seizing the roads with a great band of cavalry and infantry (Josephus, Ant. 18.86-87).

Another governor other than Pilate, was Fadus who was fully aware of Theudas plan to gather at the Jordan in order to split the river (like Moses): (Notice that the various plans of action initiated by various Sign Prophets were usually inspired by the scriptures. And what was the plan of action? – Force God to turn up and initiate his new kingdom).

Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt: but sent a troop of horsemen out against them. Who falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem (Ant. 20.98).

And another Judaean governor Felix prevented a gathering by a Sign Prophet in the wilderness:

[This unnamed Sign Prophet] went before them into the wilderness, as pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty. But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen both armed, who destroyed a great number of them. (War 2.259-260).

Felix also knew of the plans of the ‘Egyptian’ Sign Prophet:

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 (Ant. 20.171).

So also with the Jesus movement, Jesus simply got caught with a little help from informers and got handed over. Paul reports after Jesus’ last Supper he got handed over. (1 Cor. 11:23-25). As Burton Mack says, “Handed over was a term taken from the history of warfare and used in martyrologies to indicate the shift in power that set the situation up for a martyrdom. It did not need any narrative elaboration.”^[4] The etymology of the term paredideto- παρεδίδετο is to “give over something that you possess (even if it is yourself) against your will. (against = παρά, give = δίδω). It is used for “deliver over” and for a militaristic “surrender.”

Bart Ehrman says Paul uses handed over [by God, to face death] and that this “passage that might suggest that Paul did not know about Judas and his betrayal.” ^[5] Ehrman uses a passage in Romans as an example:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but handed him over [paradidomi] for all of us—how will he not give us all things with him? (Rom. 8:32)

This would be a cute way of saying when Jesus was caught- that it really was gods plan where god had let it happen. Paul blamed his own people for the crucifixion of Jesus by Roman soldiers (1 Thess. 2:15). In the words of Michael A. Rydelnik:

A more plausible view is to see this passage in a narrow sense, condemning the Jewish leaders and their followers but not the Jewish people in general. Several facts support this view. First, the persecution spoken of in 2:14 was intraracial. Paul commended the Thessalonians because they were able to endure persecution at the hands of their “countrymen” even as the Jewish churches did at the hands of other Jews. The word συμφυλέτης, a hapax legomenon, is an ethnic term meaning “of the same tribe or race.^[6]

I have shown before in one of my papers why 1 Thess. 2:14-16 is no longer seen as an interpolation, mainly because the wrath of God does not refer to Temple Destruction.^[7] The authentic line in the Testimonium Flavianum meshes very well with this: “And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross.” (Ant. 18.64).

Out of this historical memory Mark built the Judas Iscariot as the inside informer. This works much better in Marks narrative than nameless informers. The kiss of Judas is only the dramatic story telling of Mark and Matthew. (Mk. 14:43–45 and par).  The only dealings the Roman administration would have with a movement like the Jesus movement is through the payment of informers, this is what Judas represents. The gospel of Matthew says Judas did it for the money (Mt. 26:15), Luke’s gospel says Satan uses Judas to get back at Jesus. (Lk. 22:3). In Johns gospel Judas comes with a cohort of soldiers.

Yet Paul is unaware of Judas betraying Jesus.  Bart Ehrman says Paul uses handed over [by God, to face death] and that this “passage that might suggest that Paul did not know about Judas and his betrayal.”^[8] Gary Greenberg says Paul or his followers are unaware of Judas betraying Jesus, it is only the gospel of Mark is the first to say so. Jesus’ post crucifixion appearance to Judas is relayed here – “and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve,” (1 Cor 15:5). Greenberg observes “If Paul consciously intended his reference to ‘The Twelve” to mean that Jesus made a post crucifixion to all twelve disciples at the same time, including Judas, it would strongly suggest that at about 56 CE, twenty to thirty years after the death of Jesus, Judas had not yet been identified as a villain within the mainstream Christian community.”^[9] Tom Dykstra sees Judas used by Mark (Mark being an offshoot of the Paulinist wing downplays Jesus’ family and the twelve) to emphasize the 12 before Paul were inferior. “The most straightforward interpretation is that the evangelist wanted to place extra heavy emphasis on the fact that Judas was one of the twelve; or, in other words, he wanted to leave no possibility that his hearers would miss the point that one of the twelve betrayed Jesus. The reader must naturally infer that mere membership in the ranks of “the twelve” – or, in the context of a Pauline epistle, mere status as one of “the apostles before me” -should not automatically confer authority on anyone.”^[10]

It is still more likely Judas Iscariot existed as it would make Marks crafting much more powerful to write about a real insider of the Jesus movement. But just because he existed does not mean his story is any less a creation of Mark.

And now for an extract from my Jesus realpolitik paper: ^[11]

Many scholars today think that Iscariot means “man of Kerioth,” as the “Is” in Hebrew means “ish” in English, implying Judas was Keriothish (transliteration of IsQeriyot). It can also be a  Greek rendering of the Sicarii, (an assassin group who had small daggers under their clothing on the pretense of a sacrifice), this implying the name meaning “man of the daggers.” Judah Sicarii became Jude Iscariot, then Judas Iscariot – sicarii after their knife (sicae-Latin/ sikkah-Aramaic)^[12] Jesus betrayed by his own disciple “Judas”, who shares the name of the patriarch who gave his name to the whole nation of Judea ie the Jews. In this scenario Iscariot can also denote the sicarii.

The best way to evaluate Judas Iscariot is through memory studies. Chris Keith claims that the memory technique^[13] as espoused by scholars such as Alan Kirk^[14] are far superior (or at least should be the framework for criteria) to the historical criteria tools that were the major part of the third quest. A new quest for the historical Jesus is now launched and dubbed the “next quest.”^[15] This next quest will use everything such as background history but will also involve memory studies. Memory studies in a nutshell are how the gospels understood Jesus and then proceeded to build stories around that. They involve that many repeated claims, such as the re-occurrence technique used by Dale Allison (I.e. what keeps re-occurring such as Jesus as a prophet). Allison method consisted of what kept re-occurring in the gospels more than likely came from historical sources told in a literal and theological way in the gospels.^[16]

Here by using the background history of small movements riddled with spies, the gospels are shown through memory studies to remember that the Jesus movement too suffered from such an infliction. This memory technique shows us that the gospels built a villain, in this case Judas Iscariot as the inside informer that gave the game away. Matthew’s gospel reflects how easy it was for governors to recruit informers- among poor people offering money for information was standard:

Then one of the Twelve who was called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, “What do you wish to give me, if I hand him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from then on he was seeking an opportunity to hand him over (Matt. 26:14–16). The thirty pieces of silver alludes to Zech. 11:12-13, this in turn alluded to payment for killing a slave, Ex. 21:32. If you dig underneath these theological spins, you get at the real history, that is the history of all these Sign Prophet movements stopped in their tracks by informers.

Early Christian history made Judas into an ultra villain. Papias used a common biblical trope of grotesque divine judgment against him having worms emanate from his body. ^{Papias lovely description has Judas’ “genitals enlarged and filled with pus and worms.” [17]} Such descriptions were used on Antiochus in 2 Macc. 9:9 and Agrippa I in Acts 12:23. And basically all Israel’s enemies in Judith 16:17. Matt. 27:5 has Judas hang himself, Acts 1:18 has Judas body bursting open after he hung himself.

Yet all this type of history has to be revised in the face of common tropes. We can start by recognising the gospel of John reveals a spy network working against Jesus, continues Marks crafting of Judas Iscariot as the inside informer, making Judas in charge of the funding of the movement. John crafting of narratives is the likely result of using historical memories to craft these stories. The new quests will make better use of these memories and producing actual history of what happened.

In conclusion, it is more likely that Judas (who probably existed), was given a bad name yet this was only an invention of Mark. He was only crafted into a villain by the gospel of Mark as an insider informer because this is much more interesting than nameless spies. The second reason for crafting this story was stated by Tom Dykstra and that was to help with Marks trope that all the disciples of Jesus were inferior. One of these inferior disciples was seen to betray him. Dennis MacDonald examines this in his memises criticism where he suggests Mark got his idea of this from the inept sailors of Odysseus. The disciples of Jesus and Odysseus retinue are all made to look foolish, more of a literary technique to enhance the greatness of the hero. ^{[18] MacDonald compares “}Melanthius’s role in the epic resembles that of Judas in Mark. Judas, too, switched loyalties for greed; the authorities promised to give him money if he would betray Jesus to them.” [19]

^{It’s time we gave Judas a break and recognise he may have not been such a bad guy after all. It is time to revise his history and see that he was only the invented villain to make a better story for Mark! In the words of Helen Bond,}

We need to tread carefully here: just because the disciples have counterparts in the real world does not mean that they are any less Markan creations. They are still “paper people,” cut by our author to fit the needs of his literary product. [20]

Judas Iscariot probably existed because Marks crafted story is much more powerful and works much better told about an actual person from the inner circle of Jesus. I also have not argued for Judas as a spy. I argue Jesus was ratted out by nameless spies and Judas, a real historical character was made into an informer by Mark. Mark invented this story on the historical memory that Jesus’ movement like other movements from this time was riddled by spies and informers. I think those are the type of questions historians should be asking. It’s only this type of probing that brings you closer to what actually happened. The memory study I have used is the memory of other groups similar to Jesus were all full of informers. This is the memory Mark used when he crafted his Judas Iscariot story. This is not a modern perspective but a perspective from what was happening at this time as reported by various passages Josephus has on other Sign Prophets. All my post does is ask probing questions without saying that I can know if it is true but show how this hypothesis coheres with what was happening at the time.

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[1] James Crossley and Chris Keith (eds), The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus, (Eerdmans, 2024).

[2] Richard Miller, Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity, (Routledge, 2017).

[3] David Allen, “Memory studies and the realpolitik in John’s Gospel (memories we can determine from Josephus)” in Anderson, Just and Thatcher (eds) John, Jesus and History, (SBL,forthcoming).

[4] Burton L. Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament?, (HarperCollims, 1996), pp.91ff

[5] Bart Ehrman, The Lost Gospel of Judas, A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed, (Oxford, 2006), p.16.

[6] Michael A. Rydelnik, “Was Paul Anti-Semitic? Revisiting 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16”, BSAC 165:657 (2008),  p.63.

[7]David Allen, A Model Reconstruction of what Josephus really said about Jesus” JGRCHJ 18, (2022), p.138, n.76: Most of the arguments proposed for interpolation were done on theological grounds. Most of Carrier’s analyses are only applicable to the passage when ‘But wrath has come upon them at last!’ is applied to the Temple destruction (see Richard Carrier, Hitler Homer Bible Christ: The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier 1995–2013 [Scotts Valley, CA: CreativeSpace, 2014], pp. 203-11). Yet that is only a retrospective fallacy as Jewett has shown many local catastrophes (see Robert Jewett, ‘The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation’, NTS 17 [1971], pp. 198-212 [205 n. 5], who writes, ‘Furthermore, Paul’s statement in I Thess. ii. 16, “but God’s wrath has come upon them at last”, may refer to the disturbance which occurred in Jerusalem during the Passover of 49 when twenty to thirty thousand Jews were supposed to have been killed. Cf. Josephus, Ant. 20.112 and War 2.2247. Since this disturbance was instigated by Zealots [War 2.225], Paul could well have interpreted the massacre as punishment for the persecution against the Christian in Judea’). This is not the only disaster as Judea also suffered famine in 45-47 CE (Ant. 20.49-53). For a full set of the arguments, see Matthew Jensen, ‘The (In)authenticity of 1 Thessalonians 2.13-16: A Review of Argument’, CBR 18 (2019), pp. 59-79.

[8] Bart Ehrman, The Lost Gospel of Judas, A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed, (Oxford, 2006), p.16.

[9] Gary Greenberg, The Judas Brief, Who Really Killed Jesus?, (Continuum, 2007), p.136

[10] Tom Dykstra, Mark Canonizer of Paul, (Ocabs Press 2012), p.117.

[11] David Allen, Jesus Realpolitik, JHC forthcoming.

[12] John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), pp. 118 ff.

[13] Chris Keith, Jesus Against the Scribal Elites, The Origins of the Conflict, (T & T Clark, 2020), p.83

[14] Alan Kirk, Jesus Tradition, Early Christian Memory and Gospel Writing: The long Search for the Authentic Source, (Eerdmans, 2023).

[15] James Crossley and Chris Keith (eds), The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus, (Eerdmans, 2024).

[16] Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, Millenarian Prophet, (Augsburg Fortress, 1998).

[17] Papias, Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord, 4th book, now lost. Preserved in a long version and a short version in Greek catenae on Matthew (collections of extracts from biblical commentator). See Tony Burke and Geoffrey S. Smith, “Death of Judas according to Papias.” In Tony Burke, New Testament Apocrypha, pp.309-312, e-Clavis: Christian Apocryphal. https:// http://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/egerton-gospel/

[18] Dennis MacDonald, Homeric Epic and the gospel of Mark, (Yale, 2000).

[19] MacDonald, Homeric Epic, p.39.

[20] Helen Bond, The First Biography of Jesus, Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel, (Eerdmans 2020), p.263

In examining what was going on in Jesus’ day, by studying similar figures and movements, it looks like Jesus had his day in history, his notoriety probably lasted only one day, enough time to generate a report by the prefect of Judea, who happened at this time to be Pilate. Such reports were generated by other Sign Prophets too, who gathered crowds, made the prefects / procurators and client Kings of this Jewish geopolitical area of the Roman Empire, nervous of the trouble they brought. Most Sign Prophets hoped for the restoration of Israel, the arrival of the Messiah, and the end of Roman rule. How they expected that in reality beats me, but these leaders were not thinking of reality but divine intervention. They easily gathered followers by re-enacting scriptural events such as parting rivers in the case of Theudas (Josephus, Ant. 20.97) or toppling walls like the Egyptian Sign Prophet (Ant. 20.170) and often promising new freedom or justice. Of course promising a reversal of their dire circumstances in the new Kingdom of Yahweh and re-enacting some great scriptural event made these leaders popular. The gospels say “the Kingdom of God” is coming and that was their banner call. (Eg Mark 1:15, Luke 17:20). Yes these troublemakers all prompted the Roman rulers to act immediately to deal with this threat of Roman security. The problem was that these leaders (Sign Prophets including Jesus), got easily squashed by the all powerful Roman governor. Gathering a crowd was a dangerous business. Here are some examples:

1. John the Baptist
   “Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion” (Ant. 18.117)
2. With the unnamed prophets under Felix, Josephus said they were “procuring innovations and changes of the government” so “Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt” (War 2.260)
3. After the ‘Samaritan’ Sign Prophets fiasco, (slaughter at mount Gerizim where the Samaritan Yahweh Temple previously existed), an embassy went to Vitellius, to complain Pilate to his boss, Vitellius-  “for that they did not go to Tirathaba in order to revolt from the Romans, but to escape the violence of Pilate.”(Ant. 18.88). So here again Pilate had suspected revolt, and Pilate would have reported that to Vitellius. Thus you have the Samaritan envoys denying this.
4. Jesus the Galilean: The same would have happened Jesus’ gathering and incident in the Temple, Pilate would have suspected revolt and sent troops. This is the reason Jesus got a mention at all in Antiquities. At least this historical reality is reflected in John 18:12 where he claims Romans soldiers speira arrested Jesus.

A report made by Pilate was picked up later by Josephus. Such reports made by other Prefects/Procurators on other Sign Prophets were picked up by Josephus too. In the case of the Galilean, Josephus was able to further investigate by talking to the Jewish Aristocrats and High Priest if they had heard of this guy. On recollection they would have rattled their brains and remember Jesus accused at his trial years previously. We know this from the line “first men among us” written in the Testimonium Flavianum (Josephus, Ant. 18.64). Schmidt is right to say that when Josephus says “first men among us” he would have known of them which brings Josephus himself closer to the Jesus case. Here is what Schmidt says:

 For Josephus does not simply say in the TF that it was the ‘first men’ (πρώτων ἀνδρῶν) who accused Jesus, but that it was the ‘first men among us’ (παρ’ ἡμῖν). …  In other words, Josephus appears to be claiming in the TF that he actually knew some of those who accused Jesus.… some of those ‘first’ men of Jerusalem would have also been numbered with ‘the first men among us’ whom Josephus says accused Jesus … years before. ^[1]

“Something similar had happened to Jonathan the Weaver, “those of the greatest dignity among them informed Catullus, the governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, of his march into the desert, and of the preparations he had made for it.” (War 7.439). This is similar to what happened in the TF, “when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross” (Ant. 18.64) ^[2]

Of course the relationship between “the first men among us” and Jesus was not equal and would explain why he didn’t bother to mention Jesus in his earlier War book but only included him in his Antiquities book (a much more comprehensive book) when he went over the records. This was normal with Jesus’ comparative figures such as Theudas or the Samaritan Ta’heb, who were also only mentioned in Antiquities.

This shows us that Jesus was a minor one day wonder catapulted into the history when Josephus came across Pilates’ report. This is similar to Jesus’ comparative figures too- one day wonders that got about one paragraph in Josephus’s 20 book volume in his Magnus Opus on the Jewish people.

Let us now provide examples of these one day wonders:

– The ‘Samaritan’ gathered his crowd at a village called Tirathaba: “bid them to get together upon Mount Gerizzim, … he would show them those sacred vessels which were laid under that place, because Moses put them there …” but as they made their way up the mountain Pilates footmen and cavalry fell upon them. (Ant. 18.85-87)

– Theudas persuaded the majority of the masses to take up their possessions and to follow him to the Jordan River. He stated that he was a prophet and that at his command the river would be parted and would provide them an easy passage. And many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt: but sent a troop of horsemen out against them (Ant. 20.97-99)

– Sign Prophets under Felix: “These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretense of Divine inspiration, … these prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, as pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty. But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen both armed, who destroyed a great number of them. (War 2.258-60; cf. Ant. 20.167-168)

– The ‘Egyptian’ “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; … But Felix prevented his attempt, and met him with his Roman soldiers” (War 2.261-263) He claimed “at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down” (Ant. 20.169-172)

– So Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. (Ant. 20.188)

All these incidents were results of a plan of action by the various Sign Prophets hoping God would turn up, usually when the crowd was gathered they were put down within the day. The govenors through their spy network seemed to be one step ahead of all these Sign Prophets movements. They suspected revolt and easily put down these movements.

I show a spy network of both Pilates and the Sanhedrin’s would have informed Pilate of Jesus’ plan of action. “Josephus provides many examples of movements just like the movement of Jesus that were stopped in their tracks. Small groups just like the Jesus group who gathered crowds were easily tracked by the various governors. (One example of many was with the procurator Felix being informed about the ‘Egyptian’ Sign Prophet: “Now when Felix was informed of these things” (Ant. 20.171; second example: “those of the greatest dignity among them informed Catullus” on Jonathan the Weaver (War 7.439))^[3] 

It is the gospels that exaggerate Jesus’ fame. They also stretch out Jesus’ one day wonder, historical reality tells us “as soon as” Jesus caused trouble in the Temple, he was probably arrested and executed all on the one day. James S. McLaren has noted in many historical examples provided by Josephus shows that “as soon as” a disturbance happened or a crowd was gathered, the instigator got arrested (War 2.269-174, 253, 258-60, 261 etc; Ant. 18.29-30, 55-59 etc).^[4] In light of the sign prophets, Jesus gathering a crowd, leading them onto Jerusalem (Triumphal entry) and possibly onto the Temple (Temple scene) and ending in execution (arrest scene and crucifixion) , was typical of these charismatic prophets in this time period, and all happened within one day!

In this post I want to examine the Sitz Im leben of Jesus who gathered his crowd- what spurred his movement on! So I wanted to examine the slogans by the various Sign Prophets that gathered a crowd and risked their own lives- just as Jesus risked his life at the Temple incident.

Let us examine in the first person as can be inferred from Josephus, the claims made by certain Sign Prophets made in order to convince their followers with prophetic promises:

“Come follow me to the river Jordan, for I am a prophet and on my command I will divide the river like Moses so that you can cross” ~ Theudas as reported in Ant. 20.97

“Just like with Joshua and the walls of Jericho, on my command the walls of Jerusalem will come tumbling down, I’ll lead you in to conquer the city of David”. ~ The ‘Egyptian’ as reported in Ant. 20.170.

“Come to Mount Gerizim, on your arrival, I’ll show you sacred vessels that are buried there since Moses deposited them there.” ~ The ‘Samaritan’ believed to be the Ta’heb (meaning restorer, the Samaritan version of a messiah) , as reported in Ant. 18.85.

“On my command, this corrupt Temple, built by human hands will be destroyed and in three days a pure Temple will be restored not by human hands” ~ Jesus the Nazorean, (This is captured in Mk 14:58 and Jn. 2:19 and may have been part of the earlier form of the TF).

Mark tries to deny the saying while John has it out in the open. I wrote an essay showing John is much more out in the open when it comes to historical reality. ^[5]

John the Baptizer, thought the kingdom of god was held up by people’s sins, you could imagine him saying, “We’re going to go out into the desert and re-enact the exodus, waters wash your body and sins, once pure, god will come.” The baptism in the Greek manuscripts of Josephus on John the Baptist was fiddled with as the Latin manuscripts and Origen say the opposite to the Greek manuscripts.

The meddling of the Baptism is evidenced from Origen and Rufinus shows some tampering with the Baptism in the extant Greek text in Antiquities. Here is the extant Baptist passage in Antiquities:

baptism; for that the washing would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away of some sins, but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness (Ant. 18.117).

One of the first witnesses of the Baptist passage did not deny Baptism was for washing away sins like the extant passage:

the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins … For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. (Origen, Contra Celsum 1.47).

Rufinus Latin translation of Eusebius History that quoted the Baptist passage seems to agree to this earlier version, perhaps preserving what Eusebius had originally written using Josephus’ Baptist passage:

For then indeed baptism would be acceptable, if it would be taken up not only for washing away misdeeds, but also would be observed for the purpose of purity of the body and indeed for the purpose of righteousness and purification of the soul, and would be considered as a sign of all virtues equally and a certain faithful safeguard. (Literal Translation of LAJ 18.116-119 with Variants from Rufinus)^[6].

The extant version of the Baptist passage as found in the Greek manuscripts of Antiquities negated the passage by putting in the word “not” and “but”. As shown we have textual evidence where Rufinus’ Latin variant reverses the meaning of the Greek by saying that baptism can serve to wash away sins. Origen’s source of the Baptist passage had “John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins” as reported in Cels. 1.47. Another possible witness to this is Acts, which reports that “Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance.’” (Acts 19.4) which has the same meaning as what the more primitive John the Baptist passage perhaps original to Josephus as attested by Origen and Rufinus. According to Steve Mason and Richard Pervo, Acts had made use of Josephus^[7]. Mark has John “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mk. 1.4)

Of course Jesus like the other Sign Prophets was shocked that God did not turn up, resulting in his arrest and execution has the evangelist put the psalm into Jesus’ mouth precisely because that is exactly what an ancient person would do – start quoting the psalms when things go wrong.

Menahem Mor gives the following example:

Babylonian Talmud Gittin 57a (passages about the bar Kokbha revolt) there are comments that Bar Daroma kept repeating the verse from Psalms 60:12:

“you have rejected us O God; God, you do not march with our armies.” ^[8]

The point is the evangelist thought of Jesus quoting a psalm as he was dying. This is a literary reflection of what these messianic figures would do before they die. The sayings are not exact but the kinda of thing that would have been said. These are Psalms of lament and suffering, reflections of any failure from whatever plan of action Jesus did. Mark psalm is the most historically reliable as on the cross Jesus would have suffered the disillusionment that the Kingdom of God did not materialize.

Here is what E P Sanders had to say on it:

The accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion are full of quotations from, and allusions to, Psalm 22: ‘they divided his clothes, casting lots for them’ (Mark 15:24) is a quotation from Psalms 22.18; ‘wagging their heads’ (Mark 15:29) is from Psalms 22.7; Jesus’ cry, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ (Mark 15:34) is from Psalms 22.1. ^[9]

Hope you enjoyed my blog, I hope it made it very clear what actually happened to Jesus was what happened to other similar figures at this time. That this was what was going on at this time, charismatic figures gathering crowds and easily getting squashed by the Roman governors with a little help from spies. This was Jesus’ Sitz im leben.

Here is a comment from my good friend Dr Richard Miller, author of the classic book Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity, (Routledge, 2017). One of my favorite sayings of Rick Miller is that the evangelists ran away from history!

This is great, Dave. Altering the hypothesis to suppose TF and John’s entry only to be reconstructed as a matter of policy continuity with the other squashed movements arrayed in Antiquities, that is, assessing the existing entries as utterly unreliable, then we should suppose that it was not just Jesus and John targeted, but the entire groups and that the gospels (Mark especially, with the others following suit) labored long to paper over a more ugly group-wide picture of Roman response. This explains why the Gospel narratives devoted 33-50% of their content to addressing the month run-up to Jesus’ temple situation, trial, execution, and iconifying exaltation—This ugly part needed the most papering over.

In Josephus, once a prophetic movement reaches the stage of public assembly, Roman intervention is not selective but collective. The response is consistently the dispersal, killing, or capture of the gathered group. Leader-only removal appears only in preemptive contexts before a movement has visibly mobilized. The governing variable is not ideology but crowd formation.

In this, the gospels were not biographies but thanatologies (death tales) with legend-laden run-ups. Mythic thanatographies, designed to reinterpret a disgraceful execution as the founding moment of a movement. Greco-Roman biographies depict lives. The Gospels choreograph a death — and mythologize that death into a ritual cosmic victory. 

The evagelists craft a non-violent martyr figure who calls his followers to die non-violent resistance deaths (to “take up their crosses” too). [I also see part of the craft was making Jesus “fit” Tanak messianic expectations.]

Death replaces the entire Jerusalem temple cult.

And earliest circulating Christian mythologization surrounded the reverse signification of an ugly ignoble death (1 cor 15.1-4). That mythology made it narrowly about these two leaders and not the true historical broader picture.. thus shifting Roman surveillance away from the surviving movements that otherwise should and would have remained in scope. Tacitus exhibits this broader scope.

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[1]  T. C. Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for The One called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.6

[2]  David Allen, “Josephus on Jesus, New Evidence for the one called a ‘certain man’”, JHC 2026 forthcoming.

[3] David Allen, Jesus Realpolitik, JHC forthcoming.

[4] James S. McLaren, “The Perspective of a Jewish Priest on the  Johannine Timing of the Action in the Temple” in Anderson, Just and Thatcher (eds) John, Jesus and History 3, (SBL, 2016), pp.203-4.

[5] David Allen, “Memory studies and the realpolitik in John’s Gospel (memories we can determine from Josephus)” in Anderson, Just and Thatcher (eds) John, Jesus and History, (SBL,forthcoming).

[6] Levenson and Martin, “The Latin Translations of Josephus on Jesus, John the Baptist, and James: Critical Texts of the Latin Translation of the Antiquities and Rufinus’ Translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History Based on Manuscripts and Early Printed Editions”, JSJ, 2014, p.37.

[7] Luke/Acts has used Josephus as per Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), ch. 6 and Richard Pervo, Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists (Salem, OR: Polebridge Press, 2006).

[8] Menahem Mor, The Second Jewish Revolt, The Bar Kokhba War, 132–136 CE, footnote 200.

[9] E.P.Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p.274.

 

 

Passing references of Paul put these epistles in the first century. 

Here are reasons for them not being before the first century, terminus post quem.

– Paul references  Illyricum in Rom. 15.19, a province that was only added to the Empire in 27 BCE. (and was notoriously rebellious until the first few decades of the first century CE.)

– Paul’s journey to “Syria and Cilicia” in Galatians 1:21, Paul mentioning Syria and Cilicia as a single region fits into the first century- Cilicia was often attached to the larger province of Syria for administrative purposes around 1st century CE. (25 BCE to 72 CE). This not only shows the terminus post quem but also determines the terminus ante quem, as this puts the letters before the 2nd century CE.

– Paul describes his congregation as “Philippēsioi” in Philippians 4:15, a Latinism that did not exist until after the Battle of Philippi in 42BCE. [The Triumphars Mark Antony and Octavian’s victory over Brutus and Cassius republican liberation army]. Rome renamed this city- “Colonia Augusta Julia Philippensis” after this. ^[1]

 – In Philippians 1:13 Paul refers to the “praetorian guard”, (praitōriō), more than likely Roman guards, a term started to be used in the imperial period in the Roman Empire. This shows Paul’s letters fit into the first century.

– In Philippians 4:22, “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household” – this term was used for provincial government centres and imperial civil service outside Rome. This also fits with first century imperial age.

– Paul mentions the Nabataean King Aretas IV (who reigned from 9 BCE – 40 CE) in 2 Cor. 11:32. Douglas Campbell shows Paul’s King Aretus IV incident provides an anchor date for Paul’s epistles in general.^[2] It looks like Paul was ran out of Damascus, but escaped to carry on further missionaries. Richard Carrier shows that Aretas could have briefly held Damascus between 35-37 CE period. ^{[3] (For a forger, this incident about Aretas would be very silly to add to a letter, a forger would only be concerned with theological issues).}

– The authentic Paul also writes in the context of a much less organised and hierarchical church than what we see in later Christianity, including the forged ‘Pastoral epistles’.

– As Paul’s genuine letters are messy, angry and lacking context, show they are earlier than the well written pseudo Pauline’s.

– That Paul was considered authoritative enough to have later works written in his name could itself be an argument for an early date too.

– The christology is earlier too! The genuine epistles also describe the coming apocalypse as something that will happen soon. This is both something that was a focus of the earliest Christian texts but later de-emphasised (for obvious reasons), this indicates that Paul was writing relatively close to Jesus’ lifetime, since he views Jesus’ resurrection as the “first fruits” of the coming apocalypse (1 Cor. 15:20). It is also the difference between 1 Thess. and the pseudo letter 2 Thess, which used 1 Thess. as a framework while changing the apocalyptic christology as something that would happen later. The author of 2nd Thess., counsels patience in the wait for “the day of the Lord”. [some interesting facts on Thessalonians- here we have evidence of Paul’s letters were mashed together- two thanksgivings in 1 Thess shows two of *paul’s letters * were mashed together. 2 Thess. wanted to change to a delayed parousia. We know it used 1 Thess. because it also had two thanksgivings. The forger needed 1 Thess as a framework but gave away the game by going against convention and adding the two thanksgivings!]

Steve Mason shows why it is actual letters we are dealing with because they are like one sided conversations- we are dealing with actual letters. A forgery would included a context so that we could understand what they are arguing about. As the letters stand we have to try and mirror read them to try understand them. Try this blog to show you what I mean by mirror reading:

The Opponents of Paul as seen through Mirror Reading

– Robyn Faith Walsh shows Paul drawing off of 1st century philosophical thought, middle platonism and that the letters actually got right in there with first century thought. She acknowledges that the actual physical manuscripts only go back to the second century or later but that is normal in the era of transmission, the earliest copies would never go back to actual autographs. Robin Walsh shows that Paul represents first century philosophical perspective, Paul combines platonic ideas on dualities or death of the soul. The letters just fit 1^st century rather than 2^nd. ^[4]

The death of the soul in Romans 7 with stoic physics compares with how Paul thinks the spirit works. Paul is at the very crossroad when middle platonism was starting to give away to Stoicism as it did in the first century. ^[5]

– Jörg Frey shows Paul using first century Jewish concepts as attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls and not attested in the Torah: The term “works of the law” (ἔργα νόμου: Gal 2:16; 3:2, 5:10; Rom 3:20, 28) …  can be found in the Qumran library. In 1QS V 21, “his works in the law מעשי התורה ) is attested; the exact expression is found in 4QMMT (C27 8 ) works of the Torah). The phrase δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ is used in the Qumran texts: (צדקת) 1QS X 25; XI 12) and ( צדק אל ) 1QM IV 6). In 1QHa VI 26– 7, there is a parallel to the “revelation of the righteousness of God” (Rom. 1:17) ונגלתה צדקתך and your [God’s] righteousness will be revealed 1:17 before all your creatures.” The Qumran community saw itself as a “temple of humans” (4Q174 = 4QMidrEschat III 6) and “Aaron’s house” (1QS VIII 5; cf. IX 6), in which God’s holiness is present. Both in Qumran (1QS VIII 5; XI 8; cf. Jub. 1:16– 17) and in Paul (1 Cor 3:9–17) the notion of temple and building is associated with the equally broader notion of one “planting” of God (see CD I 9). ^[6]

These were first century concepts and had disappeared by the time of rabbinical literature which claims to have picked up oral traditions going back to Temple destruction.

All these terms fit right in there with first century usage as they do not exist in rabbinical literature either.

– circumcision was a first century debate among the Jews and it is a primary concern among Paul’s genuine letters. The Pseudo Pauline and Pastorials are no longer concerned with it. Later in the pseudo-Pauline letters this debate seems settled as seen from Ephesians here looking back-

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise,without hope and without God in the world.13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:11-13)

The Pseudo Pauline and Pastorials are no longer concerned with it as the debate was over by the second century.

On top of these datable clues the epistles all assume the temple cult is still standing (1 Cor. 3:16-17) and Jerusalem still populated (Gal 1:18); that Judea is not in a war, so they fit right in with the 50’s.

As a matter of interest Acts understood from Paul’s letters that Paul was active in the 50’s. Acts has Paul preaching in the 50’s where he is accused before Gallio a proconsul of Achaia. The interesting thing is that an inscription was found in Corinth showing Gallio was proconsul between 51/52 CE.

We can see the letters are before 70CE as the Temple is still operating, this determines the terminus ante quem.

Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? (1 Cor. 10:18)

Another mention of the Temple is here:

Do you not know that you are God’s temple (naos) and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

This is similar to the sentiment of the DSS: seeing itself as a “temple of humans” (4Q174 = 4QMidrEschat III 6).

And Paul could only be referring to the Jerusalem Temple here as Jorunn Økland put it:

The statement that the spirit of God dwells in this naos (1 Cor. 3:16-17) is the expression of an idea found in the Hebrew Bible, of God’s kavod, Septuagint Greek doxa, ‘glory’ or ‘honour’ (e.g., Exod 40:34–38; 1 Kgs 8:1–11) dwelling in his sanctuary. In other words, ‘dwelling’ and naos together indicate that Paul links the ekklesia to the temple in Jerusalem. Even if a Greek temple was also thought to host a presence of the deity whose image was worshipped there, the link was far more tenuous because, first, the cult statue itself was the focal point, not the building whose function it was to house it; second, the connection was perceived as less intimate since the same deity could be worshipped under different cult epithets in multiple sanctuaries even in a single city; and, third and finally, the deities of Mediterranean polytheistic systems were frequent travellers, worshipped in numerous sanctuaries across many countries.
The God of Israel, by contrast, in the Second Temple period, at least, was thought to dwell in the Jerusalem temple only, although there were different ideas regarding how exactly this dwelling should be understood. ^[7]

Here is more on the Circumcision debate:

There was a general abhoration to the rite of circumcision in the Greco-Roman world and missionaries generally found it easier by saying the rite was not needed for gentiles. Another missionary also similar to Paul, is a merchant named Ananias, who started to convert people to Judaism in conjunction with his work. He started converting the women belonging to the royal court of Adiabene. (Josephus Ant. 20.2.3) King Izates of Adiabene took up the Jewish religion but on advice of his mother who was concerned that his subjects would not tolerate the Jewish custom of circumcision, so he decided to hold off on that bit. Ananias accepted King Izates to follow the Torah save circumcision stating his “worship of God was of a superior nature to circumcision. And added that God would forgive him” (Ant. 20.42). But another Jewish missionary Eleazar told the king that he was “injurious to God himself, [by omitting to be circumcised.]” (Ant. 20.43-44).

Paula Fredriksen noted around the time of Paul that,  “…., pagan interest in Judaism seems to have been the result of freelance, amateur, non-institutionally based efforts by individuals (such as Ananias and Eleazar with the royal house of Adiabene, as related by Josephus) or the side-effect of unstructured contact through diaspora synagogue communities.” ^[8]

Basically the argument over circumcision all had to do with what will happen to the gentiles in the eschaton. Certain passages from Isaiah show that these gentiles (non circumcised) will be destroyed:

“For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.” (Isaiah 54:3)

Yet from the same sources show that the gentiles (non circumcised) will not be destroyed in the eschaton:

“In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; …..Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion,….He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples.They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:2-4)

“On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines.” (Isaiah 25:6)

These passages say the gentiles will not be destroyed in the eschaton (except the wicked ones). Another passage in Zechariah encouraged Jewish missionaries to go out to gentiles, not necessarily to convert them to full Judaism (i.e. getting circumcised)

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’ (Zechariah 8:23). 

These not fully converted Jews, similar to God-fearers (i.e. people who are not circumcised but love Judaism) are spoken of. We also have gentiles in an eschatological time in these passages:

And Zechariah mentions these gentiles (non circumcised) celebrating booths:

“Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.” (Zecharish 14:16)

Getting back to the passage in Josephus about the two missionaries at the court of Adiabene, both missionaries say that not being circumcised is a bad thing. Ananias said that god will forgive King Izates and that not getting circumcised is acceptable (but it is still a bad thing). Eleazar said this was not acceptable as god will not forgive him. 

So we see in Galatians the argument Paul was having with the Jerusalem council, were the types of arguments Jewish missionaries were having over what to do with the gentiles in eschatological times. Paul, like Ananias thought there was no need for circumcision of the gentiles, in his heated arguments he wrote that he wished ‘the pillars’ would castrate themselves! 

As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! (Gal. 5:12)

The attempted pushback against this dating.

There are a few scholars that suggest a second century or try to explain that we can’t go back further than the second century, so we will just examine their arguments to see if there is any merit to these.

Of late there is a push to put all Christian literature into the second century, Markus Vinzent thinks Marcion wrote his gospel (*Ev) and says the oldest collection of Pauline letters was put together by Marcion (although he does admit that Marcion did not write the letters). By putting Paul’s angriest letter Galatians first helps Marcion accuse the Jews of corrupting Paul’s gospel breaking Torah requirements and circumcision for gentiles. ^[9]

Dr Livesley tried to go so far as to say the letters were a church composition in the second century taking the character of Paul from Acts. ^[10]  This is unlikely for two reasons. Firstly, Acts tries to give Paul a Jewish name -Saul, showing it was uncomfortable with a Roman name. If Paul was a literary character this would not happen, the made up letters would have used the name Saul also. (As a side note there was a famous general Paullus who conquered the Greeks for Rome). Secondly if you wrote the letters from scratch and made up a figure straight out of Acts you would make Paul out to be far more successful. 

Also her arguments are not convincing, just because there is rhetoric in Paul’s letters does not mean Paul did not write them or that he did not exist, I mean rhetoric is the modus operandi of being a missionary. She argues that fake letters have greetings and fake letters have rhetoric, so Paul’s letters are fake. How about real letters have greetings too and real letters have rhetoric too- so none of her points actually work.

Paula Fredrikson also critics Livesey’s book:

Paul’s anti-circumcision remarks are specifically about gentile circumcision. Nina acknowledges this fact on page 205, and again on page 225. But she then ignores it, interpreting the letters in effect as teaching against circumcision itself, full stop. This perforce ignores as well all of Paul’s positive remarks in the letters urging the gentiles’ law observance: their ability to fulfill the law is one of the effects of their having the spirit of Christ. It also ignores Paul’s praising Jewish law and Jewish circumcision. (Romans 3:1-2: what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way; Romans 7:12, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good; vs 14, the law is spiritual. By concentrating exclusively on Paul’s negative remarks, Nina generates the impression of the Pauline school’s consistency, but in fact the letters pull in different directions, depending on the point Paul is arguing at the time. If these letters were all written by pseudepigraphers of the same school, why were they not more consistent on this critical point? …

[Fredrickson also asks a question Livesey can’t answer] Why would mid-second century school authors embed in their pseudepigraphical letters declarations of the imminent return of Christ made by their fictive first century figure? [*]

Richard Carrier has said a forger would not add silly details like the Aretas incident, [in the second century the only details people wanted to add were theological details – nobody would be bothered to add Aretas ruling Damascas] and the letters fit the timeframe.^[11] This is what historians call an incidental incident of Paul escaping in Damascus under King Aretas. There is no need for a forger to add an unnecessary detail like that to invent a myth. Reminds me of Steve Mason reason why the 7 genuine letters are just not fake- they are too messy and angry- not beautiful treaties like fake letters would be. You can tell Paul’s letters are real because they are like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. You would not get that from literary constructs. Mason goes on to explain the difference between the pseudo and genuine letters is that the pseudo tend to be abstract with a greeting tacked on. Paul’s genuine letters are very abrupt without explaining things. Half conversation, overhearing a telephone conversation.

The letters are so messy Paul changes his mind in the middle of a sentence. – Paul says “Some belong to apollos, some belong to Paul- nobody belongs to me – I didn’t Baptise any of you, oh wait a minute I did baptise Stephanus’ house.

Also Paul becomes angry and incoherent, Apollos is building on my foundation- you want me to come! You have the super apostles, what do you want me for! ^[12] Then you have the likes of Goodacre showing Paul is trying too hard to prove his authority over James and Peter. ^[13]  Other reasons for seeing the letters as before Acts is that if you made up the letters from a figure in Acts you would make him out as far more successful. The letters may have been mashed together and repackaged in the second century but they definitely began as Paul writing or dictating back to his problematic newly formed churches in the first century. To gain a good understanding of the original letters I would recommend Hugh’s and Jewett book on the Corinthian correspondence. ^[14] To see what I mean by repackaging M. David Litwa shows the Marcionite edition is chronologically prior to the canonical edition. [*1]

Addendum

A friend of mine asked about Tertullian mention of circumcision, but Tertullian was not debating this, just using Paul’s language:

That was only a polemic, not a real debate by Tertullian. The circumcision debate was over in the second century.

I love it when Pauls fighting talk is carried on into the 2nd century:

Tertullian’s report makes it plain that in response to Marcion’s gospel, others had forged a Judaised version of it. [Tertullian, Adv Marc IV, 4] Tertullian, following Ireneaus, however, turned Marcions argument upside down and claimed not that Marcion’s opponents had ‘judaised’ but that Marcion had ‘circumcised’ scripture. [Tertullian, Adv Marc III, 11,7].

Markus Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity and the making of the New Testament, (Ashgate, 2011), p.87-8.

 

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[1] Simon Gathercole, The Historical and Human Existence of Jesus in Paul’s Letters, JSHJ 16.2, 2018, p.206

[2] Douglas A. Campbell, “An Anchor for Pauline Chronology: Paul’s Flight from ‘The Ethnarch of King Aretas’ (2 Corinthians 11:32-33).” JBL 121.2, 2002, pp. 279–302.

[3] Richard Carrier, blog entitled, How Do We Know the Apostle Paul Wrote His Epistles in the 50s A.D.?

How Do We Know the Apostle Paul Wrote His Epistles in the 50s A.D.?

[4] Robyn Faith Walsh video taking here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Ac7TdryUv/?mibextid=wwXIfr

[5] Emma Wasserman, The Death of the Soul in Romans 7: Sin, Death, and the Law in Light of Hellenistic Moral Psychology (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament WUNT 2. Reihe, 256) 2008.

[6] Jörg Frey, Qumran, Early Judaism, and New Testament Interpretation. (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament WUNT 1 Reihe, 261), 2019, p.78.

[7] Jorunn Økland, “Paul and Sacred Space” in in Handbook in Pauline studies, Eds Novenson and Matlock, Oxford 2022, p.566.

[8] Paula Fredriksen, Paul the Pagan Apostle, (Yale, 2017), p.73.

[9] Markus Vinzent, Christs Torah: The Making of the New Testament in the second century, (Routledge, 2025).

[10] Nina Livesey, The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authership, (Cambridge, 2024).

 [*] Paula Fredriksen, Review of Nina Livesey, The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context (CUP 2025). SBL 2025, p.4.

[11] Richard Carriers video

 

 

[12] Steve Mason video

 

 

[13] Mark Goodacre video

 

 

[*1] M. David Litwa, The Orthodox Corruption of Paul, 2026.

[14] Frank W. Hughes and Robert Jewett, The Corinthian, Radaction, Rhetoric and History, (Fortress, 2021).

 

 

 

Matthew’s crafted story is based on Pharaoh’s attempt to kill the Israelite children in Exodus. Much of Matthew’s gospel was modelled from the many Moses stories in the Tanak in order to make Jesus fit the Moses typology. [1] There is no corroboration or evidence that such an event occurred in history. Josephus would have loved a story like this and would have included it in his books. An argument from silence becomes stronger when it is expected that something that happened would have been mentioned if it did happen.

The magi had outwitted Herod by returning a different route (Mt. 2:12).

The court of Nero may have inspired this story of the Magi coming to Jerusalem (Mt. 2:1). As Morton Smith noted both in Apollonius of Tyana (Life I.4) and Matthews birth narrative were “inspired by the visit of Tiridates I [of Armenia] and his train to Nero that culminated in their reverencing him as a god.” [2]

There was a proxy war in Armenia between the two superpowers – Rome and Parthia, and on this occasion it was Parthia who had gained the upper hand in a battle won in Rhandeia in 62 CE. (There are two main reasons why Parthia came out on top during the start of Nero’s reign, firstly the great Roman general Corbola who was successful there in the fifties had been promoted as Syrian governor and his subordinate, Paetus was not as good tactically. Secondly Parthia had quelled its own internal revolts and had now more resources to gain control of Armenia). An arrangement was made between Rome and the Parthians, according to which the Romans recognized Tiridates as King of Armenia. This Tiridates was a brother of the Parthian king Vologeses I and Tiridates agreed to come to Rome and receive his crown from the hands of Nero.

After Nero had confirmed him as king of Armenia, ”the king did not return by the route he had followed in coming,” but sailed back a different way. [Reflects Mt. 2:12] It is significant that Pliny (Natural History XXX vi 16-17) refers to Tiridates and his companions as magi.” [3]

The significance of the gifts: (Mt. 2:11)

Gold is a gift fit for a king. Myrrh was used as an embalming ointment, a symbol of his death and frankincense an incense, as a symbol of deity. The Syrian King Seleucus I Nicator is recorded to have offered gold, frankincense and myrrh (among other items) to Apollo in his temple at Didyma near Miletus in 288/7 BC. (Greek inscription RC 5 (OGIS 214))

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. (Mt.2:16)

We also have stories of Herod trying to kill people who tried to conceal a messiah!

We have an Ossuary discovered at Giv’at Hamivtar, Jerusalem (1971) which is known as the Messiah Ossuary. [4]

This Ossuary is believed to have “belonging to the house of David” on the unusual place, the rim of the ossuary. The Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palestinae has accepted David Flusser reading which translated דוד as David. (CIIP 1.1.45). So the actual inscription שלבידוד (sheleVE daVID) is now accepted in scholarship as “belonging to the house of David.” [5]

According to Kokkinos, “In a penetrating analysis of Ant.17.43-45, prompted by the discovery of an important ossuary of an individual claiming to belong to ‘the House of David’, Flusser suggested that the ‘slave’-wife of Pheroras [Herod the Great’s brother] may have been [thought] of Davidic descent, and that the ‘Pharisees’ …. hoped that she would become the mother of the expected Messiah.” [6]

Here is the relevant passage:

In order to requite which kindness of hers, since they were believed to have the foreknowledge of things to come by divine inspiration, they foretold how God had decreed that Herod’s government should cease, and his posterity should be deprived of it; but that the kingdom should come to her and Pheroras, and to their children. 44 These predictions were not concealed from Salome, but were told the king; as also how they had perverted some persons about the palace itself; so the king slew such of the Pharisees as were principally accused, and Bagoas the eunuch, and one Carus, who exceeded all men of that time in comeliness, and one that was his catamite. He slew also all those of his own family who had consented to what the Pharisees foretold; 45 and for Bagoas, he had been puffed up by them, as though he should be named the father and the benefactor of him who, by the prediction, was foretold to be their appointed king; for that this king would have all things in his power, and would enable Bagoas to marry, and to have children of his own body begotten.” (Ant. 17.43-45).

(Isn’t that a nice prophecy promising the eunuch he would have a family, no wonder he wanted to believe it! Jesus in Matthew promised better than this to eunuchs, he promised the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 19:12)). So we have a precedent – Herod the Great was threatened by a potential messiah figure and a prophecy of the end of his dynasty – so he slaughtered everyone!

Of course those trying to cling onto the historicity of this story in Matthew do cite the viciousness of Herod on having his sons executed. This was due to Herod marrying into the Hasmonians but never losing his paronia of Hasmonian claims to the throne. 

The royal marriage problems of Herod make for a great soap opera- his public life was brilliant, becoming the best client king in the Roman influence, eventually going ahead of Cleopatra of Egypt. Herod’s private life was a poignant different story. He had the love of his life, Mariamne executed on suspected adultry reported by his sister Salome. Mariamne had come to hate Herod after his executions of other Hasmonian members. This eventually boiled over into the execution of his sons (by Mariamne) Alexander and Aristobulus who continued to plot against Herod.

“Here, Herod really did kill all the Jewish children who sought to replace him, as Matthew 2:17 would have it, but these rather were his own children with Maccabean blood!” [7]

In view of such executions, the emperor Augustus reportedly quipped, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than son” (Macrobius, Saturnalia, 2:4:11)—the joke being that, since Herod was a Jew, he didn’t eat pork and his pig would be safe.

Overall I found the gospels were like hot political potatoes ensuring their readership traction in their own time. The best of plays always reflected political truths of the day, the subtext was barely covered and easily recognised. This brilliance is what ensured popularity and preservation.

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[1] Dale Allison, The New Moses, A Matthean Typology, (Wipf & Stock, 1993), pp.145-6

[2] Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician, p.96.

[3] Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, p.174.

[4] Amos Kilmer, “A buried cave of the Second Temple Period at Giv’at Hamivtar, Jerusalem”, Qadmoniot, 19-20 (1972), pp.108-9.

[5] David Flusser, “The house of David on an Ossuary” The Israel Museum Journal, 5 (Spring, 1986), pp.37-40.

[6] Nikos Kokkinos, The Herodian Dynasty: Origins, Role in Society and Eclipse, (Spink,2010), p.173

[7] Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus, ch3