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)
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:
At this time there wasa wise man who was calledJesus.(Agapius, Kitâb al-‛unwân 2:15) [4]
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. (MS British Library Add. 14.639 (sixth century)).
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 15th century). The other Slavonic manuscripts are known as the ‘separate’ versions.[*]
As scribes did not see Jesus’ name – the variant “whose name is Jesus” was added. 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 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.
[4] Shlomo Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and its Implications, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, (Jerusalem,1971), p.16.
[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). This shows 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 TFbefore 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 Studies52.2 (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.
[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). 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.
[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. hereis 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.
[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:
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)
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)
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.
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.
[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:
– 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 1st century rather than 2nd.[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 youare 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.
[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.?
[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.
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.
[1] Dale Allison, The New Moses, A Matthean Typology, (Wipf & Stock, 1993), pp.145-6
In this post I track the evolvement of various minor movements and where Jesus fitted into to this current. This will help to make historical Jesus history intelligible.
In book 17 of Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus writes about four minor groups in quick succession causing havoc. Before Josephus introduced these groups he explained the rebellious state of Judea-
Now at this time there were ten thousand other disorders in Judea, which were like tumults, because a great number put themselves into a warlike posture, either out of hopes of gain to themselves, or out of enmity to the Jews. (Ant. 17.269)
Josephus in a cute way describes these minor rebels as enemies of the Jews and a theme of his book is that these few fanatics and some bad administration by Roman Govenors were the real causes of the Roman Jewish war. Josephus puts into the mouth of a Jewish embassy to Caesar –
whether they be really a seditious people, and generally fond of innovations, or whether they would live in an orderly manner, if they might have governors of any sort of moderation set over them. (Ant. 17.314)
There were many minor risings before Roman General Varus was called in to quell the various revolts in Roman Judea. (Yes that same Varus that was treacherously betrayed by Arminia and not only lost 3 legions at the Teutoburg Forest in 9CE by Germanic tribes but also his own life).
As Menahem Mor states:
the composition of the auxiliary forces in Judaea from the year 6 CE and onwards consisted of six units (five cohorts and one cavalry unit), in which three thousand soldiers served, most of whom were recruited from Caesarea and the surrounding area.( Ant. 19.356–366; War 2.238; Ant. 20.121, 176; War, 3.66). These units were based on six units that were originally from the army of Herod. In the course of the Varus rebellion, these units joined those of the Roman army that had been brought to the country by Varus to suppress the revolt after the death of Herod in 4 BCE. (Ant. 17.266; War 2.52, 58, 63). [*]
As seen from this blog trouble was there before Herod died too, but the Romans thought with the strong man gone, they would have to deal with this directly. So in 4 CE Varus the Roman legate to Syria, moved two legions from Syria to join the one legion that was in Judea- and that was the end of the Judea revolts. (III Gallica, VI Ferrata, X Fretensis were the three legions). Varus had made sure Judaea was “full of fire and of slaughter” (Ant. 18.290) to quell the rebellions. Many slaughterings such as Sepphoris burnt to the ground (Ant. 17.289) in response to Judas son of Hezekiah – a city that was near where Jesus was from and within living memory. Or such as the infamous 2000 Jews crucified by Varus as they revolted between Herod and Herods son Archelous rule (this happened during Roman procurator Sabinus who took over after Herod’s death in 4 BC as an interregnum (Ant. 17.295). Or the burning of Emmaus because of Athronges and his brothers had had attacked Romans there (Ant. 17.282,291). With Varus show of strength, 10,000 other Jews just gave themselves up and that was the end of sedition for now (Ant. 17.297).
Many groups were inspired by the recent autonomy of Isreal by the Maccabees, in the words of David de Silva-
[The Maccabees] thus served as a model of piety to later generations oppressed by the power of Rome. The great hope, in light of Maccabean success, was that the restoration of Israel could be inaugurated or achievedmilitarily by warriors whose piety matched their prowess—a combination of attributes that characterized no less a person than Israel’s first king and God’s messiah, David.[*1]
Taking the sentiment of how the Maccabees came to power, being the underdog also inspired these minor groups. As it says in its own propaganda “Victory in battle does not depend on who has the largest army; it is the Lord’s power that determines the outcome.” (1 Macc. 3:19). This underdog sentiment obviously goes all the way back to the David v Goliath saga.
Now let us examine the four minor groups Josephus writes about in quick succession. First he writes about 2000 retired disbanded Herod troops (Ant 17.270). This was the chaotic aftermath of Herod the Great’s death in 4BCE. They decided to get together and fight the royal troops. As they were skilled they were able to drive the royal troops to the mountains.
Next Josephus writes about the son of a chief bandit, Hezekiah. (This was the son of the famous Hezekiah, the arch bandit who was captured and executed by Herod the Great in 47BCE). This son who was Judas Ben Hezekiah would continue this banditry into the next generation. Judas Ben Hezekiah who was active in Sepphoris in Galilee, stole arms and caused trouble there (Ant. 17.271-272). He had raided the governments palace and took money and arms and was able to arm his movement. Varus burnt Sepphoris in response to this.
Next Josephus moved onto Simon of Perea who was in some position of power as he was a servant of Herod. He broke away and burnt the palace at Jericho (Ant. 17.274). He was stopped by Gratus after a long battle. Simon escaped but Gratus managed to catch him and cut off his head. Even so, the group without a leader still managed to continue on and burn the palace at Amathus (Ant. 17.277).
Isreal Knohl thinks this Simon may possibly be connected to the messiah stone. If that is true Simon of Peraea would have been called the King of the Jews and believed to be a Messiah. This is seen from line 72 which reads “David the servant of YHWH).
The latest on the translation of line 80 of the Gabriel stone is Ronald Hendel’s reading of “In three days, signs, I Gabriel command you” and has gained widespread support.[1]
The text of the stone seems to draw heavily upon the Book of Daniel. Scholars know from the work of Josephus that many Jews immediately before and during the time of Jesus focused on the Book of Daniel because of his prophecies related to a messiah coming to usher in a Kingdom of God. We also see this in the gospel of Mark- Mark is heavily dependent on Daniel (abomination of desolation, martyrdom, kingdom of God etc).
The book of Daniel told us to expect a messiah, Daniel “reworked” Jeremiah’s 70 year prophecy by reinterpreting the seventy years of Babylonian captivity into a more detailed, future-oriented prophecy of “seventy years of weeks” (70*7 = 490 years) in Daniel chapter 9. This reinterpretation brings us to around the time of Jesus and other leaders who thought themselves as prophets and may have been understood as messiahs by their followers.
As Marc Z. Brettler said on Daniel 9 handling of the prophecy in Jeremiah:
from one of the latest texts of the Hebrew Bible, Dan.9. The background of this text is the earlier prophecy in Jer. 25:11, which suggests Babylon will be given dominion over the world for seventy years; Jer. 29:10 builds upon that prophecy, suggesting that after that seventy years Isreal will be restored. This presented a serious problem for the author of Dan. 9 living during the reign of the (Seleucid) Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes who persecuted Jews and forbid them to follow the most fundamental laws. In this period, between 167 and 164 BCE [We know the book of Daniel was written then, as its predictions are super accurate for this period only] it seemed that Jeremiah’s word, which claimed that a complete restoration would transpire, was false. … [Heres how Daniel changed it!] the seemingly unambiguous ‘seventy years’ (Heb. Shib im shanah) was “correctly interpreted” by angel Gabriel to ‘seventy weeks’ (Heb. Shabu im shib im). The consonants of Jeremiah’s Shib im (“seventy”) are read twice. First as shabu im (weeks)then as Shib im (years).Hebrew at this time was written with consonants only, so the same word could be pronounced and understood as different words with different vowel sounds.[*2]
All these messianic movements claimed their line from King David. (We know this from the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q174 III: 1-9; Pauls epistles, Romans 1:3; 15:12; Cf Jeremiah 23:5; b.Talmud Rosh Hashanah 25a and still claiming at the time of Eusebius, Church History 3.12).[2]
Isreal Knohl now views Simon’s death, according to the inscription, as “an essential part of the redemptive process. The blood of the slain messiah paves the way for the final salvation”. [3]
Thinking forward to Jesus, a lot of people wonder how a nobody gathered supporters- why he could have been called a messiah,
Yet this kind of thing was happening all over Judea.
But because Athronges, a person neither eminent by the dignity of his progenitors, nor for any great wealth he was possessed of, but one that had in all respects been a shepherd only, and was not known by any body; yet because he was a tall man, and excelled others in the strength of his hands, he was so bold as to set up for king (Ant. 17.278) … while he put a diadem about his head (Ant. 17.280)
Atheonges the shepherd who had attacked a Roman company at Emmaus (Ant. 17.282) – these bandits were all more like the Jewish idea of a messiah, a military leader to restore Isreal.
Why are people surprised, studying history shows this is what was happening to many small groups that gathered crowds and were suppressed fairly quickly. King figures would have dashed their forehead with oil, anointed …
In fact this was rife!
The interesting thing about Atheonges is that he managed his group with his brothers all tall strong men. Many ancient groups from kings to bandits tried to keep their movements together with family members. This was examined by Stauffer, who compared this with the Jesus movement and seemed to see the remains of a Caliphate of James.[4]
Josephus reports many messianic figures who had also hoped to become king and often declared a king by their followers. This was the century before Jesus you had traditional messiah figures. All these were messiah figures.
Judas son of Ezekiel had ‘ambitious desire of the royal dignity’ (Ant. 17.272). Simon of Peraea, a slave of Herod the Great ‘dared to put a crown on his head’ (Ant. 17.273) and Athronges the shepherd ‘dared to aspire to be king’ (Ant. 17.278). They were declared King (βασιλεὺς) at a drop of a hat.
And now Judea was full of robberies; and as the several companies of the seditious lighted upon any one to head them, he was created a king immediately, in order to do mischief to the public. (Ant. 17.285).
Novenson shows Josephus interprets Judaism for non-Jews in the Graeco- Roman world and reasons why Josephus calls the Jewish insurgents “diadem-wearers” and not “messiahs.” Josephus was aware of messianism as seen when he recounts the “ambiguous oracle” that drove them to war.[5]
In that passage Josephus sees Vespasian as the messiah, so he obviously would not see anyone else holding this title (War 3.12-13, cf Num. 24.17-19).
The Jesus movement would have gathered a crowd but in the light of many failures – (well no revolt could succeed when Varus had three legions in Judea). Judas son of Ezekiel (Ant. 17.272). Simon of Peraea, (Ant. 17.273) and Athronges the shepherd (Ant. 17.278), a basic revolt fighting the Romans was out of the question. As mad as these Sign Prophets were, they weren’t that mad! (Deluded by their apocalyptic beliefs maybe but not mad). Jesus belonged to a type of movement that would have relied more on Gods help, the Sign Prophets knew they couldn’t beat the Romans and hoped for divine intervention. This was an innovation since John the Baptist.
All these movements too were easily squashed. As explored by Allen in his paper “Jesus Realpolitik”, all these movements failed due to informers and spy rings.[*2] In the gospels the evangelists crafted a narrative about Judas Iscariot who represented the reality of informers. All the Roman govenors knew exactly the plan of action all the Sign Prophet movements (including Jesus and his movement) had in mind.
All the failures by the minor revolts before Varus turned up meant that by the century Jesus lived in, these minor movements hoped for more of gods help. Before Herod the Great died, Judas son of Sepphoris along with Matthias pulled down a golden eagle erected on the Temple because it contradicted their laws of no images. Herod had them both burned (Ant. 17.149-168; War 1.646-656). Let’s examine Judas the Galilean, a leader who incited a revolt against a Roman census and taxation in 6CE said we should have God as lord only. (This hope for divine intervention was even more developed by Jesus’ time – the messianic figures and Sign prophets were more reliant and hoping that Yahweh would break in, in a new age. (This cosmic hope was possibly influenced by realization of how futile it was to try and fight the Romans). The High Priest of the time Joazar Ben Beethus (Ant. 18.3) was persuading the opposite of Judas- that they should pay the taxes. Judas movement was causing “robberies and murder of our principal men” (Ant. 18.7). Josephus blamed the burning of the Temple on the fourth philosophy (zealot movement) founded by Judas and Sadduc (Ant. 18.8,23). These Sign Prophet movements became more reliant on their apocalyptic beliefs- they were millennial movements. James McGrath thinks it was John the Baptist that influenced all subsequent Sign Prophets. Jesus was just one in a line of Sign Prophets.
Coponius was the first prefect of a newly created Judea province, the Romans had decided to remove the incompetent client King Archelaus, Herod’s son because of all the trouble and revolts that happened after he took over. (Archelaus was proving too costly for the Romans- gathering money in taxes was hampered severely with revolts). Under Coponius, we find a more organised resistance as Judas the Galilean with Sadduc, a Pharisee had started the zealot movement. The innovation of Judas is that he would rely more on Gods help.
Under him (Coponius) a Galilean named Judas incited his people to rebel, calling them cowards if they paid tax to the Romans and let themselves be ruled by mortal men, having formerly served God alone. (War 2.118)
In his other book Josephus reports that Judas’ movement said “that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord.” (Ant. 18.23). From this we can see Judas the Galilean prefered a kingdom of God to a kingdom ruled by Romans. This Kingdom of God became the banner call of many subsequent Sign Prophets including Jesus. In the words of Martin Hengel “God would only help them if they worked actively with him to liberate themselves.” [6] (Ant. 18.5).
None of these movements succeeded, while Josephus does not tell how Judas died he later relates how Judas’s sons, James and Simon were executed by procurator Tiberius Julius Alexander in about 46. This resistance became a generational thing because later Menahen suspected to be his grandson although Josephus calls him son, was a major actor in the Roman Jewish war. And Menahems cousin Eleazar Ben Ya’ir was the last resister at Masada! The raising of Lazarus sounds much more subversive in this light! (John 11:1-44).
All these movements were squashed with overwhelming force, so steps in another messiah figure, this time as conventional rebellion was not working- the new tack involved more involvement by god and his army of angels. This can be seen from the War Scroll, which showed Gods angels would intervene and help the sons of light. We have hints that John was seen as a messiah figure (Martyr Dialogue, 88.3; Lk. 3:15; people believing he was the one to come Mt. 11:2-6; Lk. 7:18-23).
The success of John the Baptist and all subsequent Sign Prophet groups would rely on Gods intervention. James McGrath believes it was John the Baptist that has influenced all subsequent Sign Prophet groups.[7]
These Sign prophet movements had no intention of being a major resistance groups but instead were expecting an eschatological God event. The Samaritan group had only armed in defense of Pilate (Ant. 18.88). He was trying to revive the Temple at Gerizim. The vessels the Samaritan was hoping to dig up were probably instruments used for Temple duties and would connect this Samaritan figure to Moses (Deut. 27:1-2)(Ant. 18.86-7)
This was where Jesus fits in. He was one in a line of Sign Prophets, gathered a crowd going to re-enact some great scriptural event (at the Temple), a millennial prophet promising God would turn up just like the old days. By triangulating the Sign prophet passages and the gospels, this becomes apparent. In the gospels, Jesus expecting the Temple to be rebuilt without human hands is very Sign Prophet territory there. It is similar to the unlikely claims of other Sign Prophets such as Theudas saying he would part the Jordan (Ant. 20.97) or the Egyptian saying Jerusalem walls would fall (Ant. 20.170).
Sign Prophets gathered a crowd to re-enact some great scriptural event. Two obvious examples reported in Josephus were Theudas splitting the Jordan (Ant. 20.97; cf. Exod. 12:29-14:30; Josh. 3-4) or the Egyptian saying the walls would fall (Ant. 20.170; cf. Josh. 6:20). It is the scriptures that drove these Sign Prophets on[8]. … Theudas was operating under Fadus in the 40’s and wanted to gather a crowd to witness a scriptural reenactment of splitting the river so they could walk through. Crossley and Myles class this “ as ‘millenarian’ is because it envisaged radical transformation through a dramatic action by tapping into well-known themes from Jewish ancestral traditions about Moses.”[9]
So we see a change from the century before Jesus, where traditional Jewish messiah figures tried to revolt and got squashed. By the turn of the century more of gods help was expected as with Judas the Galilean hoping for a kingdom of God. But the real change came from another messiah figure who wanted to rely only on Gods help. It was the Baptist that spawned a series of Sign Prophets movements. This is where Jesus fits in History (Under Pilates prefectorship). The mistake most people make is thinking that Jesus’s group was any bigger than all the movements mentioned in this post. It wasn’t!
[*] Menahem Mor, The Second Jewish Revolt,The Bar Kokhba War, 132–136 CE, (Brill, 2016),p.35.
[*1] David de Silva, “Jewish Martyrology and the Death of Jesus: 2 Maccabees and the Lives of the Prophets” in ch.7 in The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, (Oxford,2012).
[1] Ronald Hendal (2009), “The Messish son of Joseph: Simply Sign”, BAR 35.1. p.8
[*2] Marc Z. Brettler, “The Interpretation of the Bible: The Hebrew Bibles interpretation of itself” in The New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV, (5th Ed) (Oxford, 2018).
[6] Martin Hengel, The Zealots, Investigation into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I to 70 AD, (translation by David Smith), (Edinburgh 1989), p.76.
[7] James McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith, The Quest for the Historical Baptizer, (Eerdmans, 2024), p.428-432.
[8] David Allen, “Sign Prophet Hypothesis for Jesus”, JHC 20.2, (2025), pp.75-105,(75).
[9] Crossley and Myles, Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict, (Zero, 2023), pp.4-5 (5).
To access the paper that today’s summary is on about, press Here’s the paper
Today we’ve got a truly intriguing piece to explore. Something that blends religion, history, and a hefty slice of politics, yes we are diving into Jesus realpolitic. These two concepts don’t usually hang out in the same sentence, right? Well Allen explores and makes better use of a word once coined by E. P. Sanders – that is “realpolitik” of Jesus. The core question of this paper is remarkably simple but sound. Was Jesus one in a line of Sign Prophets movements re-enacting scripture to bring about a tangible kingdom of God? And what happened when these movements were perceived as a threat? They were usually squashed by the all powerful Roman governors. This is huge because it reframes the narrative of Jesus from just a spiritual leader to a political leader in first century Judaea. What Jesus was trying to do (“gather a crowd to witness a divine event by re-enacting some great scriptural event”), what he attempted to do (“force the end, i. e. To start a new age with Gods help), what happened to Jesus (got caught and executed), how he got caught (through a spy ring) all happened to other figures such as John the Baptist, the Samaritan Te’heb, the Egyptian Sign Prophet, and other unnamed Prophets in first century Judaea. Understanding this may change how you view Jesus and the dynamics of the Roman authorities and the Jewish authorities (Roman spy rings and High Priest collaborators) of the time.
This framework of placing Jesus among the Sign Prophets is methodologically convincing: it allows to overcome both excessively apologetic and sceptical readings, and places Jesus in a typology already known in the Judaism of the Second Temple.
– Roberto Gordillo Castillo (from the Spanish historical Jesus Group).
Jesus being a Sign Prophet is not a new concept but this paper explores the historical practicalities of this concept. Practicalities such that shows how all the same Sign Prophets gathered the people to re-enact a great scriptorial event, and by this re-enacting, expected a divine intervention. Re-enacting great events from the Tanak made these events hugely popular. The oppressed peasants thought their fortunes would be reversed in a new age. Another figure similar to Jesus was Jonathan the Weaver who was a hero of the poorer classes hoping to improve their lot (War 7.438). Just like Jesus, it was the upper class that ratted him out:
The best catch by Schmidt is that Josephus would have been only one step away from people that actually met Jesus at his trial, this is known from the phrase “first men among us” (Ant. 18.64) i. e. The Jewish aristocrats including the High Priest party, people belonging to Josephus’ class. [1] These High Priest collaborators had their own spy network to rat Jesus out.[2] Something similar had happened 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).[3]
Jesus’s message that the kingdom of God is coming was not just a spiritual message. It was a banner call, bringing the people together, expecting a tangible kingdom in a new age where God would rule instead of the Romans. The Roman authorities could not ignore this and through their spy rings and the spy rings of the High Priest would prevent these planned events to take place. Let us now examine another figure that used “the Kingdom of God” as a banner call. Judas the Galilean, also wanted to establish a kingdom of god. He told his followers ‘they were cowards if they would endure to pay a tax to the Romans, and would, after God, submit to mortal men as their lords’ (War 2.118) and his movement would only accept ‘that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord.’ (Josephus, Ant. 18.23). Jesus initiated some action to achieve the Kingdom of God and that got him crucified.
The usual Sign Prophet plan of action was to gather a crowd to re-enact a great spiritual event and expect divine intervention. The crowds that followed the these Sign Prophets thought the events would actually happen! And why wouldn’t they? According to their scriptures these types of things happened before, according to the scriptures, God had intervened before, the various Sign prophets had convinced the crowds that an event like this would happen if they took events into their own hands.
Typically both the Sign Prophet and his followers were brought up on stories on how God had intervened on behalf of the Jewish people, “God had once parted the sea, had produced manna in the wilderness, had caused the sun to stand still, had brought down the walls of Jericho.”[4] God had turned up then, the scriptures had told them so and why in their hour of need, would God not turn up now? An oppressed crowd hoping for a reversal of fortune would rally around a self styled prophet using the banner call, “the Kingdom of God is coming.” Enacting key moments in the birth of the nation, these Sign Prophets signaled the eschatological nearness of final redemption. Their grounding in biblical miracle also accounts for the size of their popular followings. Scriptural authority undergirded not only their own message; it also supported the hopes and convictions of their followers.[5] A plan of action would have been formulated by the various Sign Prophets from a vision they had (obviously influenced by Scriptures). Visions were thought of by the ancients as a visitation from the divine. These visions experienced by various Sign Prophets shaped their plan of action to bring on the new age. Many plans simply involved going out into the wilderness. Lohmeyer on his study of John the Baptist sees the wilderness as a place, where like after the exodus, a close bond between God and Israel existed. It is here, then, that the eschatological coming of God himself in order to restore his people was expected [6]. This shows similarities with other prophetic figures such as Theudas, the Egyptian, Jonathan the Weaver where John chose the wilderness for his ministry. [7] We can see from Qumran and the Synoptics how the scriptures may have influenced a plan of action taking place in the wilderness – “biblical prophecy in Isa. 40:3, which speaks of preparing a way for the Lord in the wilderness and straightening his path in the desert (1QS 8:12–14; 9:18–20). The Synoptic Gospels (Mark 1:3–4//Matt. 3:1–3//Luke 3:2–4) associate the Baptist’s presence in the same Judean Desert with the same Isaian passage” [8]
Events like the splitting of the Jordan (re-enacting the Exodus) or the great big walls around the city of Jerusalem falling, just like those of Jericho, that all these events would actually happen! Theudas splitting the Jordan (Ant. 20.97; cf. Exod. 12:29-14:30; Josh. 3-4) or the Egyptian saying the walls would fall (Ant. 20.170; cf. Josh. 6:20). The gospel of Mark hints at a similar type of claim Jesus made of destroying and restoring the Temple (Mark 14:57-58) and the gospel of John actually puts it into Jesus’s mouth (John 2:19). Destroying the Temple and expecting it to be rebuilt without human hands (Mark 14:58, Acts 7:48) is very Sign Prophet territory there. Therefore the gospel of Johns understanding that Jesus made a claim like this is very fitting to the historical context and was likely. To the Romans these re-enactments were more than harmless spiritual acts, they saw them as threats and put down these movements swiftly. (In the case of the Egyptian Sign Prophet the fears of the Roman governor proved correct as a major battle ensued). All these Sign Prophets, such as Jesus faced execution because of their apocalyptic beliefs. They made all the governors nervous. Movements were quickly put down even before they got off the ground to execute their plan of action. (Theudas never got to the place where he was going to split the Jordan). Jesus trying to get some divine intervention at the Temple scene (possibly to improve Temple workings) was similar to the Samaritan Te’heb who tried to revive the Temple at Gerizim. (Josephus Ant. 18.85-87). These sign troublemakers were perceived as direct threats to Roman authority and were caught in an intricate web of political intrigue. This sheds new light on Jesus’s execution between two bandits. By studying other similar movements to Jesus, as reported by Josephus, we get a realistic reconstruction of some basic history that does not seem to be related by traditional means. The gospels in their efforts to keep Jesus innocent fail to relate why Jesus was in Jerusalem, what the hell was he doing there? What did he do to deserve crucifixion. By putting all the blame onto the Jewish authorities and Jewish people and taking the blame away from Pilate (it was a Roman execution after all. Jesus initiated some action that got him caught and executed). The gospels really covered up the fact of some basic history, like Jesus gathering a crowd to re-enact a scripture event, trying to force a new age. These historical events have been reworked in the gospel accounts. Yet the real events are included in the gospels but are broken up to cause a disconnect. In another paper, I showed the gospel stretched out the events that Jesus did that day, all which helped to keep him innocent in the gospel reader eyes, but really Jesus gathered the crowd to cause trouble and this is the real reason he got executed.
The events that the gospels stretched out but probably all happened on the same day were-
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.
In fact John moved the Temple scene far off from the arrest scene as Mark had not moved it far enough. By separating these two events causes a disconnect- so you would not think Jesus brought on his own execution by making a move causing trouble in the Temple. This all helped to keep Jesus innocent, John offers a silly reason for Jesus’ crucifixion, to satisfy a narrative reason as Jesus can’t get crucified for literally nothing – the raising of Lazarus.
Just noticed that in the academia site is starting to do AI summaries of papers uploaded to the site. These summaries are quite good and handy especially if we are a way too busy in work to do blogs. The ai can be a little bit creepy as it pretends to be a human sometimes, it tries too hard giving us false memories, telling us of it’s times in Oxford. That would creep anybody out as we know it’s only AI and not an actual human. That aside I do think the summaries are good as they sum up the basic history I think everybody should know about Jesus. It sums up what I’m doing here and what I am discovering after my eight years of research who Jesus actually was, so I will reproduce the four separate AI summaries of four of my papers that really do show who Jesus actually was in history. (This research has produced three peer review papers, one SBL paper and a whole clatter of papers for Robert Prices journal to give it a boost). The image that the Christian church portrays leaves out the gritty dirty details, details that later history tries to smooth over. So the first summary is on my paper Jesus and the Sign Prophet Hypothesis so here is the summary:
We’re diving into a fascinating and pretty provocative piece of scholarship by David Allen, the Sign Prophet Hypothesis for Jesus. What is the driving question from this paper – simply put – Jesus was one of the Sign Prophets active in first century whose actions tried to prompt God to usher in a new age. Rather than seeing Jesus as a total outlier, the utterly unique founder of an unprecedented movement, Allen says hey – Let’s look at how Jesus and his followers might fit into a much wider pattern that was pretty common in his region and era. Why does that matter for you? Well, it totally transforms how you think of religious and social change, it shows how across history, movements grew and sometimes got crushed when people tried to hope for a better world right now, not someday. Allen’s core claim is that there were a lot of charismatic core leaders called Sign Prophets who gathered crowds promising God would act in some spectacular way often re-enacting, biblical miracles, parting rivers, toppling walls and often promising new freedom or justice. Allen places Jesus in the same bucket as figures like Theudas or the Egyptian Sign prophet. [As ai gets some details wrong I’ll just add what it should have said here. Theudas by splitting the Jordan hoped to transform the world of the oppressed peasants in an apocalyptic way, flipping their unfortunates into the fortunes of the upper classes. That is what the new age promised in the banner call- The Kingdom of God is coming. In the new age God would be in charge, not the Romans, God would ensure FairPlay for the peasants. These crowds that were gathered believed the instigator was a prophet, that he spoke for God. He convinced the crowds he led, that God turned up in momentous times in their history according to the Torah, and argued that God would turn up now in their time of need.] Many Sign Prophets led people out into the wilderness, Rallying the poor and oppressed. Promising God would turn up to transform their brutal status quo in the new age. Allen discusses the methods these Sign Prophets would use drawing on the collective memory contained in their history recorded in the Tanakh. Think Joshua’s conquest, Moses splitting the sea and Joshua at Jericho. They tried to replay those moments, hoping to force the end. That is get God to intervene now. According to Allen, Jesus riding into Jerusalem, making a ruckus in the Temple, leading his followers with high expectations matches patterns seen in these other Sign prophet movements.
Of course Allen is careful to point out that historians do not have access to the real Jesus and he encourages everyone including you to treat reconstructions as models, helpful but not absolute. With careful use of Josephus, Dead Sea Scrolls and Paul’s letters we can triangulate what actually happened. By recognising the gospels are carefully crafted stories softening the gritty history of Jesus’ utter failure we can get an idea of what was going on. Historical memories used by the evagelists can be determined from Josephus. One core insight is that the authorities, the high priests and the Roman governors were always watching for trouble with their spy rings. They had webs of informers and as soon as charismatic leader gathered the crowd around them they would easily stamp them out. Often brutally in just a day or two. Jesus’ arrest and execution fits this playbook pretty well. Allen draws on memory studies to show how later evangelist reshaped this history. The gospels wanted to soften Romes image and emphasise Jesus as a misunderstood innocent victim. That’s why the gospels stretch out events turning a single event into a multi scene drama. To give you an example of how the historical memories were crafted, we will give you the example of Judas. The many nameless informers do not make a good narrative for the gospel of Mark so he may have morphed all these into one single insider character- Judas Iscariot.
By comparing Sign Prophets, we see common themes, a belief in divine imminent intervention, big dreams of cosmic reversal and yeah, a constant dance with political authorities. All these hopes were shaped by ordinary people struggling under oppressive rules.
Allen takes a hard look at the historical Jesus but not the way you are used to hearing about him. Instead of treating Jesus as a totally unique phenomenon, Allen compares him to a broader category called the Sign Prophets, a term established by earlier scholars such as P. W. Barnett. To see Jesus as one among several Sign Prophets active around the time of Roman occupation of Judea, places Jesus into his actual historical context. If you really want to understand Jesus and what kind of movement he led, shouldn’t you look at other similar prophetic figures that existed at this time? Theudas, the unnamed Egyptian Sign Prophet or the unnamed Samaritan Te’heb (restorer) would gather a crowd promise some dramatic Sign or act of deliverance and you won’t be shocked by this, they would always end up with a bleak outcome- Roman authorities did not appreciate folks who gathered big excitable crowds promising divine intervention. The crowd gathered believed in real hope and truly believed that the biblical re-enactment by the Sign Prophets active around this time, would actually happen just as it did in the past according to their scriptures. It is better to see Jesus as a product of his time, immersed in hope and desperation. Really believing God could help their hopeless situations.
David Allen shines a spotlight on a fascinating variant, one piece of textual variant which may tip the scales in this debate- this is the ‘certain man’ reading. In really early Syriac manuscripts [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. Like the ‘Egyptian sign prophet (not named) or the Samaritan Te’heb (also not named). These Prophets who stirred up the people and usually ended up badly. Why is that phrase ‘certain man’ so important, well if Eusebius the church historian who quoted or maybe edited Josephus, had invented this passage from thin air, or made it up to help his fellow Christian’s [in combatting the anti-Christian polimicists] you’d think he’d call Jesus by name, right, but instead this earlier Syriac translation possibly made while Eusebius was still alive uses a kinda vague anonymity almost like Josephus’ standard way of describing controversial figures. It gets more interesting when the ‘certain man’ is not just in the Syriac manuscript, Allen points out a similar variant popping up in the Slavonic and he shows support for the ‘certain – tis’ reading in Greek manuscripts and Armenian manuscripts of Eusebius. So there is a real pile of manuscript support here. … So what’s the big take away here. When we look at Josephus and this crucial Testimonium Flavianum passage, the evidence that early versions said more generically ‘certain man’ – the story wasn’t about some uniquely special figure singled out for worship, but more about how Josephus always wrote about messianic claimants, just like that Egyptian or Theudas or Jonathan the Weaver, just troublemakers in a long crowded list. Josephus was not in the business of glorifying Sign Prophets but ultimately saw them (along with the maladadministration of local Roman govenors and High Priests violating Jewish law eg Ant. 20.216-23) as one of the root causes for the outbreak of the Roman Jewish War of 66-70 CE.] The paper argues that the most original version of the passage probably described Jesus a ‘certain man’ and that phrase fits Josephus pattern for describing minor disruptive prophets and that later scribes started adding Jesus’ name, tweaking the passage and layering on more Christian ideas [creeds].
And here is a fascinating extract from this paper:
The best catch by Schmidt is that Josephus would have been only one step away from people that actually met Jesus at his trial, this is known from the phrase “first men among us” i. e. The Jewish aristocrats including the High Priest party, people belonging to Josephus’ class. [*] These High Priest collaborators had their own spy network to rat Jesus out.[1] Something similar had happened 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).
[*] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the one called Christ, (Oxford, 2025).
[1] David Allen, Jesus Realpolitik, JHC 20.2, forthcoming.
He aligns Jesus with Jewish Sign Prophets, charismatic figures of the era who promised eschatological signs and divine interventions. They often led followers into re-enactments of great scriptural events expectant of divine intervention that never quite materialized. This characterization offers intriguing parallels between Jesus and other figures such as Theudas or the Egyptian who Josephus also wrote about. Allen’s reconstructs how Josephus might have originally described Jesus suggesting layers of later Christian tampering which obscured the original portrayal. He discusses how Christians interpolations, additions in other words might have seeped into the passage over the centuries. For instance some Christian scribes added phrasing like “he was the Christ” [missing from Origen, Pseudo-Hegisippus and the Slavonic] to re-enforce theological narratives. These additions would not reflect Josephus’ view of Jesus. Digging deeper to get the real Josephan view of Jesus, you will find many of the Sign Prophets promised radical change with divine acts similar to the Exodus or other pivotal events in Israel’s history described in the Torah. These promises were expected to signal the end times. Allen’s work suggests Jesus could have been perceived similarly, leading followers to Jerusalem in a re-enactment further backed by eschatological hope. Early forms of the TF did not even name Jesus which is similar to how Josephus described these other Sign Prophets- [he hardly even knew their names. He could name one or two, but didn’t know the names of the rest]. The opening of the TF, Jesus was described as a ‘certain man’. To enquire about Jesus through the lens of Josephus invites us to examine history in its raw unpolished form.
Dave Allens blog 