Here are some fascinating passages, that include that phrase.

I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. 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. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless — being, although against his will, not far from the truth— that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ), — the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.  Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine. If, then, he says that it was on account of James that the desolation of Jerusalem was made to overtake the Jews, how should it not be more in accordance with reason to say that it happened on account (of the death) of Jesus Christ, of whose divinity so many Churches are witnesses, composed of those who have been convened from a flood of sins, and who have joined themselves to the Creator, and who refer all their actions to His good pleasure.

Origen, Contra Celsum 1.47

But at that time there were no armies around Jerusalem, encompassing and enclosing and besieging it; for the siege began in the reign of Nero, and lasted till the government of Vespasian, whose son Titus destroyed Jerusalem, on account, as Josephus says, of James the Just, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, but in reality, as the truth makes clear, on account of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Origen, Contra Celsum 2.13

 

And James is he whom Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians that he saw, “But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.”Galatians 1:19 And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James.

Origen, Commentary on Matthew 10.17

We do have an instance where Justin Martyr uses the term “called Christ” (Martyr, 1 Apology 30) but he unlikely he got that from Josephus. Origin may have got “called Christ” from Martyr instead of Josephus.

In this post I discuss the phrase “James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus called Christ.”

But lest any one should meet us with the question, What should prevent that He whom we call Christ, being a man born of men, performed what we call His mighty works by magical art, and by this appeared to be the Son of God?

Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 30.

In the hands of Origen and Eusebius, this incident, defined as “the martyrdom of James,” became, through Christian historiosophical interpretation, the main cause for the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple. Moreover, they went so far as to say that Josephus himself regarded this catastrophe as just punishment for the execution of James—a statement not supported by the text reproduced above [that is Josephus, Ant. 20.9.1] or by any other extant version.[1]

As Feldman said, “More­ over, it makes no sense for Origen to express wonder (Commentary on Matthew 10:17) that Josephus did not admit Jesus to be the messiah if Josephus did not even mention him.”[2]

Let us now reproduce the James passage from Antiquities

AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.

Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1

What happened here? Origen saw a passage about a James, (my position is that this was mistaken identity of a high priests son- James ben Joseph)

mentioned close enough to the Destruction of the Temple and jumped to the conclusion that was a divine cause for the Temple Destruction.

This was the sort of thing happening often among church fathers.

Richard Carriers’ claim that the James passage in Antiquities contains an interlinear scribal error.[3] I do think it was an inter linear scribal error just like Carrier suggested but I do not agree with the Jesus ben Damneus hypothesis. Josephus would never have introduced Ben Damneus twice (he is introduced at the end of Ant. 20.9.1) as Carrier suggests. On Carriers’ hypothesis he would be introduced twice. The first time where Carrier speculated that it should read “James the brother of Jesus Ben Damneus.” The second time at the end of the passage. It also violates Josephus’ naming conventions. When Josephus references people to be a relation to siblings, it is because their parents are unknown or they had different parents. For example:

“brother of his, by the father’s side, whose name was Eliakim” (Antiquities 10.5.2).

So the Damneus idea is stretched.

If instead of the following line:

“the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James” 

the original James passage had the following:

“James, son of Joseph” 

Why didn’t Josephus say this which is the proper Jewish form of address? Actually at the start of Ant. 20.9.1 there is a high priest Joseph mentioned who was deprived of his position by Agrippa:

“But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood.” (Ant. 20.9.1).

Perhaps it was originally written “James, son of Joseph” instead of “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”.

This Joseph had been given the high priesthood by King Agrippa:

When the king heard this news, he gave the high priesthood to Joseph, surnamed Cabi, the son of Simon the former high priest. (Ant. 20.8.11).

Instead of >>”brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”<< Josephus could have originally written >>”James son of Joseph”<<

If a scribe came across what could have been originally written by the hand of Josephus-  “James son of Joseph”, he would automatically think “the brother of Jesus”. Origen may have also automatically thought this was the same James that was “the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ” and wrote that phrase in the margin of the column or a scribe familiar with Origen’s writings could write this very phrase in the inter-linear column. Later scribes would mistake this as part of the text and may have added “who was called Christ”. This “James son of Joseph” may have got Origen thinking that this is James the Just when he did his exegesis in attributing it to the fall of Jerusalem. If the interpolation was of Origen school, he may have been influenced by what Origen has written 

“For the Jews do not connect John with Jesus, nor the punishment of John with that of Christ’ (Cels. 1.48). In Antiquities it does not connect the Baptist movement with the Jesus movement. Also in Antiquities, the execution of John (beheading) is different from the execution of Jesus (crucifixion). Therefore, these two passages taken together (Cels. 1.47, 48) show that Origen used Antiquities in his fights with Celsus.”[4]

 

Johanne Nussbaum notices some parallels of Pseudo-Hegesippus reference and Origen’s reference:

In De excidio Hierosolymitano 2.12, Pseudo-Hegesippus paraphrases the TF, omitting the statement that Jesus was the Christ. He then vehemently criticises Josephus that he testified of Jesus but did not believe in him as the Christ. It can be concluded that Pseudo-Hegesippus must have read a kind of TF, otherwise he would not have screamed that Josephus did not believe despite his report on Jesus. The situation is reminiscent of Origen writings—he wrote that Josephus did not believe in the messiahship of Jesus.[5]

 

This shows Pseudo Hegisippus and Origen were both looking at an earlier version of the TF for their sources.

 

Here’s Pagets comment on this earlier version of the TF circulating:  (commenting on Pseudo-Hegisippus):

“It is not easy to see why he should have omitted any reference to Jesus as the Messiah if it was in his version of the received text. After all, he appears to exaggerate the significance of the TF, most blatantly in his claim that even the leaders of the synagogue acknowledged Jesus to be God.”[6]

This post shows here it is just as easy to surmise that Origen was looking at an earlier form of the TF.

OLSONS OBJECTIONS, let’s take a deep dive into Cels. 1.47

Cels 1.47

“I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist”

So Celsus source, the Jew attests John’s historicity.

“who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus.”

Origen says this as if Josephus attested to *both John and Jesus.* So Origen makes the claim here John the Baptist is also attested by Josephus who lived soon after John and Jesus. This is the second attestation from Origen’s sources and would be what we modern historians call multiple attestation. Now I suspect Celsus is also using Josephus as a source for his literary creation of the Jew. This would put both sources alluded to here by Origen as going back to an original source- Josephus. This brings us back down to single attestation for the historicity of John the Baptist but double attestation for the Baptist passage. This lets us know that Celsus is also using Josephus.

“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 is firstly referring to the Baptist passage, which he sees in his own copy of Antiquities. Origen notes that the Baptism involved purification- which fits the Mikvah baptism as ritual purity.

“Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet”

Olson imports the argument that Origen wanted to find a non Christian to support his argument, therefore he emphasised that Josephus did not believe Jesus was the messiah for this effect. It was common knowledge that Josephus was non Christian so there is no need for Origen to do this.

Josephus acts as a foil to Celsus Jew whether Origen states Jesus was the messiah or not. So that’s a non argument by Olson. More than likely Origen is referring to the Testimonium Flavianum (TF) where the phrase “He was the Christ” was not in this version. He takes what he can from the passage, Jesus was believed to be a prophet and powerful Jews managed to have him executed. This is what we do find in the TF.

A similar incident happened to Pseudo-Hegisippus

In De excidio Hierosolymitano 2.12, Pseudo-Hegesippus paraphrases the TF, omitting the statement that Jesus was the Christ. He then vehemently criticises Josephus that he testified of Jesus but did not believe in him as the Christ. It can be concluded that Pseudo-Hegesippus must have read a kind of TF, otherwise he would not have screamed that Josephus did not believe despite his report on Jesus. The situation is reminiscent of Origen writings—he wrote that Josephus did not believe in the messiahship of Jesus. – Johannes Nussbaum, ‘Das Testimonium Flavianum: Ein authentischer Text des Josephus’, NovT 52 (2010), pp. 72-82.

So we gave two atteststions, (Origen Cels. 1.47 and Ps-Hegisippus Excidio) where in their sources it was missing the line “He was the Christ.” The TF without the phrase “He was the Christ” was circulating. As Paget noted, “It is not easy to see why he [Ps-Hegisippus] should have omitted any reference to Jesus as the Messiah if it was in his version of the received text. After all, he appears to exaggerate the significance of the TF, most blatantly in his claim that even the leaders of the synagogue acknowledged Jesus to be God.”- Paget, Some Observations, p.567.

Origen’s mention about Jesus, was more than likely Jesus was mentioned in his copy of Antiquities missing the line “he was the Christ” Another reason we know Origen was aware of the TF was his remark that the Jews do not connect John with Jesus nor the punishment of John with that of Jesus:

“For the Jews do not connect John with Jesus, nor the punishment of John with that of Christ.” (Contra Cels. 1.48). 

In Antiquities it does not connect the Baptist movement with the Jesus movement. Also the execution of John and Jesus are not related or connected in any way. Just as Antiquities reports it, the execution of John was different from the execution of Jesus. 

These two passages taken together (Cels.1.47,48) show that Origen was using Antiquities in his fights with Celsus and it is clear that the TF passage in some form existed in Origens’ copy. 

So here is Celsus quote in Cels 6.41 that Olson was on about.

“in answer to Celsus, we shall say of magic, that any one who chooses to inquire whether philosophers were ever led captive by it or not, can read what has been written by Moiragenes regarding the memoirs of the magician and philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, in which this individual, who is not a Christian, but a philosopher, asserts that some philosophers of no mean note were won over by the magic power possessed by Apollonius, and resorted to him as a sorcerer” (Cels. 6.41)

There is no such argument in Cels. 1.47 to argue against like in Cels. 6.41, on why Origen should bring up the phrase “not believing in Jesus as the Christ.” It is common knowledge that Josephus is not a Christian, so it is a non argument by Olson.

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

And Origens refutation

When Origen states “although not believing in Jesus as the Christ” he is not answering any such argument in Cels 1.47 as he is directly answering in Cels 6.41. This passage Cels. 6.41 attests to Moiragenes’ memoirs about Apollonius just as Cels. 1.47 attests to Josephus’ Antiquities. We can deduct from Cels. 1.47 that Origen saw the Baptist passage, digressed onto the TF passage and spoke of the James passage.

Therefore equating saying Josephus did not believe Jesus as the messiah with Moiragenes is not a Christian is not relevant as Origen is not answering any such arguments made in cels 1.47.

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[1] Zvi Baras, “The Testimonium Flavianum and the Martyrdom of James, ch. 16 in Feldman and Hata (eds) Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p.341.

[2] Louis Feldman, Introduction in Feldman and Hata (eds) Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p.56

[3] Richard Carrier, “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200” in the Journal of Early Christian Studies  20/ 4, 2012), pp. 489-514.

[4] David Allen, A Model Reconstruction of what Josephus would have Realistically Written about Jesus, JGRChJ 18, 2023, p.120; Alice Whealey, “Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the Testimonium Flavianum” in Christoph Böttrich and Jens Herzer (eds.), Josephus und das Neue Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), pp. 73-116 (84).

[5] Johanne Nussbaum, Das Testimonium Flavianum Ein Klassisches Beispiel Einer Echtheitsdiskussion”, Novum Testamentum 52 (2010), pp.72-82.

[6] J. Carleton Paget, ‘Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity’, JTS 52 (2001), p.567.

Within the New Testament the theme of Jesus as a King is attested by both his supporters and his opponents. Jesus’ supporters hailed him as King in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mk. 11:1–11; Mt. 21:1–11; Lk. 19:29–44; Jn. 12:12–19). The Romans recognised Jesus as a false king with all with royal mockery such as a crown of thorns, the robe and the Titulus Crucis (Mk 15.16-20; Mt. 27.28-31; Jn 19.2-5). In Mark’s brief description of Jesus’ trial, the title “King of the Jews” comes up six times.[1] “βασιλεὺς [King] is seen as the confirmation of a claim that had political connotations and was liable to punishment as an attempt at rebellion.”[2] The “titulus was meant to refer to the crime of laesa majestas ….The claim to be a king was according to this view eo ipso a challenge to the emperor.”[3] Royal titles (messiah, Christ, king, “son of God” eg. John 1:49), royal competition (Herod was alarmed in Mt 2:3; Jesus seen as a rival to Caesar in Jn 19:12), royal signs (star story, Balaam prophecy, dignitaries bearing valuable gifts, angelic proclamations, seer’s comments) all demonstrate that Jesus was seen as a King by the evangelists. The evangelists even gave Jesus a burial fit for a king. The rolling stone burials were for the elite such as the Herodians. Later on (according to Acts), James rules in Jesus’ absence while seated on a “thronos”. All discussion ceases once James declares “krino”, “I judge”. Even in the earliest layers of the New Testament Paul has references to Jesus’ kingdom, βασιλείαν, which indicates that he was somehow considered a king (1 Cor. 15.24-25 cf. 6.9-10, 15.50, 4.20; Rom. 14:17)[4]

 

Yet Jesus was not the only one seen as a King at this time. Not only that but many apocalyptic Jewish movements of the time claimed royal lineage for their messianic leader. The messiah was going to be of “the seed of David” i.e. somebody descended from the line of David. All messianic movements claimed their line from King David. As Dr. Winchester in his debate with Dr Carrier said “The primary focus of ancient Judaism is the restoration of the Davidic line. 4Q174 III 1-9 is a Midrash on 2 Samuel 7:10-14 (and the use of Exodus15:17-18, Amos 9:11) for the restoration of Davids house (dynasty). The branch of David is going to rise as somebody in Zion (Jerusalem) as an interpreter of the law. This branch is going to be the righteous messiah. 

Like other apocalyptic Jews, early Christians thought that Jesus was the messiah that came from the branch of David. (Rom. 1:3; 15:12)

Jews went to these two verses in the Hebrew Scriptures to say that the messiah would come from the branch of David:

“bless the house of your servant, that it may be in your presence forever—since you, Lord GOD, have promised, and by your blessing the house of your servant shall be blessed forever” (2 Samuel 7:29).

“For this is what the LORD says: ‘David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel” (Jeremiah 33:17).

All 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, History 3.12) [5]

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.

(Jeremiah 25:11; 29:10).

The Daniel 9:24-25 – 70 week Prophecy:

24 “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the wrongdoing, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

25 So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.

THERE WERE 2 DECREES TO REBUILD JERUSALEM:

• 1-King Cyrus: Ezra 1:1–4, 2 Chronicles 36:22-23, Isaiah 44:28, 45:13

• 2-King Artaxerxes: Nehemiah 2:1-9

• (7+62=69) 69 weeks of years = 483 years.

CYRUS’S WORD:

• First year of Cyrus 539/538BC

• 539/538BC – 483 = 55/56BC

• If 465BC was his first year, then the 20th year of Artaxerxes is 445BC. 445BC-483=38AD.

• HOWEVER, there is solid evidence that the first year of Artaxerxes is in reality 474BC making the 20’th year 454BC, not 455BC.

• 454BC-483=28AD is on the button for Jesus.

We have many examples of messianic figures that were seen as a king figure. Bar Kockba in his letters referred to himself as a prince.[6] Josephus calls the Egyptian a tyrant. The ‘Egyptian’ may have called himself “king Messiah”, because Josephus uses the Greek verb τυραννεῖν (to be sole ruler)(Josephus, War 2.262). 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 as already discussed the Egyptian prophet saw himself as a ‘tyrant’ (War 2.262). The gospels saw Jesus as a ‘King Messiah’ (Lk 23.2) and ‘King of the Jews’ was the charge nailed to his execution cross. The movement of Jesus were a sect of Jewish messianists. As Horsley said, ‘For just at the time of Herod and Jesus, several significant movements emerged among the Judean and Galilean people that were headed by figures acclaimed by their followers as kings or by figures who promised to reenact the deliverance of Israel from foreign rule in Egypt.’[7] The Slavonic passage on Jesus tried to deny that Jesus was ‘desirous of kingship’ which may have preserved that that phrase was original to the Testimonium Flavianum. Social conditions ensured “why so many hundreds, even thousands of Jewish peasants, were prepared to abandon their homes to pursue some prophet into the wilderness, or to rise in rebellion against their Jewish and Roman overlords when the signal was given by some charismatic “King” or to flee to the hills to join some brigand band. Peasants generally do not take such drastic action unless conditions have become such that they can no longer pursue traditional ways of life.”[8]

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.[9]

Jesus belongs in a class of eschatological prophets known as the Sign Prophets whose charisma and visions stemmed from the hope that they themselves fulfilled an eschatological hope. We have an abundance of evidence as Dale Allisons states:

 

As for Second Temple Jewish texts in which a divinely appointed human being rules as the eschatological king, they are just as numerous. Indeed, we have here an embarrassment of riches, for every passage that awaits a Davidic Messiah is expecting the eschatological advent of a royal human figure. 4Q174 1:11–13 cites 2 Sam 7:11–14, which is about King David’s heir, and applies it to the “Shoot of David,” who will arrive “at the end of days.” CD-A 7:15–21 interprets Num 24:17 (“A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel”) with reference to “the prince of the congregation,” an eschatological figure for the Qumran sectarians. 4Q252 5:1–4, in interpreting Gen 49:10 (“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his”), looks forward to the “Messiah of righteousness, the Shoot of David,” who has “the covenant of kingship.” Psalms of Solomon 17:32 foretells the coming of “the Lord Messiah,” who will be “a righteous king.” And so it goes. Jesus’ Jewish world was quite familiar with the idea of a human being serving as eschatological king and/or judge.[10]

The King theme of the gospels reflect a mimicry of Roman power, it taps into the oppression of the poor and promises social upheaval and reversal of fortune. A kingdom of god gives Jesus great power to heal (Mt 12:28; Lk 11:20), Jesus as a charismatic healer would be the start of his exaltation in his life time. Cognitive dissonance (disbelief that God did not intervene as Jesus promised) and apocalyptic worldview (resurrection as described in Daniel) would transform Jesus into an ends time savior (described as the ‘son of man’ in the gospels) in the aftermath of his execution.

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[1] Christopher Lawson, What if the historical Jesus was the heir to the throne? A reconstruction based on the First Century Dead Sea Scrolls, (Freedom Publishing, 2019), p.18, fn 6.

[2] Paul Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, (De Gruyter, 1974), p.138.

[3] E. Bammel, “The Titulus” in Ernst Bammel,  C. F. D. Moule (eds) Jesus and the Politics of His Day, (Cambridge, 1984), p.357.

[4] Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, La invención de Jesús de Nazaret, (Siglo XXI de España Editores, S. A., 2018),Kindle, ch 1.

[5] Dr. Winchester taken from the debate here:

This is the original debate here: https://www.facebook.com/SouthernevangelicalSeminary/

[6] “Shimon Bar Koziba, Prince of Israel” – this is how Bar Kokbha referred to himself taken from the letter from Wadi Murabba, see Józef Tadeusz Milik, Papyrus No. 24.

[7] Richard A. Horsley, ‘Messiah, Magi, and Model Imperial King’, in Richard Horsley and James Tracy (eds), Christmas Unwrapped Consumerism, Christ and Culture, (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001), pp. 139-61, (141).

[8] Horsley, Richard A. and Hanson, John S., Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs, Popular Movements in the time of Jesus, (Winston Press, 1985), p.50

[9] Matthew V. Novenson, The Grammar of Messianism: An Ancient Jewish Political Idiom and Its Users (Oxford, 2017), p.147-8

[10] Dale Allison, Constructing Jesus, p.252-3

As Jesus was leaving the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”

“Do you see all these great buildings?”, replied Jesus, “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

Mark 13:1-2

Once the Roman Jewish War (66-70CE) kicked off it started to become obvious, or at least much closer to reality that the Temple could get destroyed. This is usually a consequence to those on the losing side of war, their culture is also attacked. After all this had already happened and painfully remembered by the defeat at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BCE. Josephus reports that such a prophecy of Temple Destruction were circulating:

For there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple of God. Now, while these zealots did not [quite] disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the instruments of their accomplishment

Josephus, War 4.388

This is important because it shows such a prophecy was circulating among the general public without knowledge of who originated such a prophecy.

In another instance Josephus also reports on a Jesus Ben Ananias also predicting the Temple and Jerusalem city Destruction:

A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people! This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city

War 6.301

Since the first Temple Destruction and its rebuild, it was never far from people’s minds that this could happen again. Many would have recalled the passages of Jeremiah, a prophet credited with predicting the first Temple Destruction. “Jeremiah predicted that Jerusalem would be captured and the Temple destroyed, and his fixation on these predictions caused many to conclude that he was “out of his mind” Ant. 10.114) … the similarities between [Josephus’] portrayal of Jesus [Ben Ananias] and his portrayal of Jeremiah suggest that Josephus thought that the two men were similarly inspired by God.”[1] The same turn of phrase is used by Jesus’ relatives when they exclaimed “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:20-21), this is a midrash reflecting the evangelist seeing Jesus as a prophet.[2] As a side note this phrase also served the purpose as a polemic against Jesus’ family and brother James, after all Marks gospel takes Paul side in his dispute with the Jerusalem leadership. Some of the apocryphal gospels have James as their pride in place (Gos. Thom 5; Gospel to the Hebrews Fragment 5 cf. Jerome, On Illustrious Men 2) but the canonicals suppress the leadership of James.

So prophecies of Temple destruction were circulating, we know of at least two Jesus’ that are attributed the prophecy, Jesus Christ and Jesus ben Ananias.

The trial of Jesus (Mark 14:57-59) people falsely accuse Jesus of threatening that he will destroy the Temple and rebuild it:

Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’

Mark 14:57-58

Temple Destruction caused major reactions to emerging Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. All you have to do is compare the letters of Paul which assume the Temple cult is still standing (1 Cor 10:18; 1 Cor. 3:16-17) and Jerusalem still populated (Gal. 1:18), all pre 70CE yet Paul does not bother to retell an important prophecy of Jesus. Of course a failed prophecy is nothing to brag about. Yet as James McGrath suggests Paul may have alluded to a transformed saying on Temple Destruction. Any failed prophecy would have to be transformed. Here is what McGrath has to say:

Paul twice uses the image of the “Temple” in ways that echo the saying from the Gospel tradition found (among other places) in John 2:19. In 1 Cor. 3:17, paul writes that if anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy that person, and in 2 Cor. 5:1–4 paul speaks of a tent or tabernacle being pulled down (using the same verb as in Mark 14:58) and the existence of a house not made with hands (again using the same word as in Mark). … Paul was familiar with a transformation of the saying along the same lines as would much later be incorporated into the Gospel of John, in which the saying was applied to death and resurrection and where the agency for the destruction of the temple is attributed to others rather than to Jesus himself.[3]

This all suggests that when the Temple actually got destroyed the gospels use this and recall that Jesus may have made such a prediction. As a literary device the gospels show that they were uncomfortable with a failed prophecy of Temple destruction (Mark 13:1-31).[4] When the Temple actually got destroyed in 70CE Mark included it in his gospel, but with the qualifier that it was a false report (Mark 14:57-58) to counteract why it didn’t happen in Jesus’ day. Playing along with this literary device it was only a failed prophecy in Jesus’ own day but not an ultimately failed prophecy in Mark’s readers day – let the reader understand!

John 2:19 also had this prediction of destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days. Mark is in denial about the prediction whereas John spiritualized it. Stephen’s speech in Acts chapter 6 also has a version of the Temple prediction: 

They produced false witnesses, who testified, ‘This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us’

Acts 6:13-14

Even the Gospel of Thomas has this prophecy, saying 71: “I will destroy this house, and no one shall be able to build it again.” [As a side note this saying actually dates the gospel of Thomas after the Bar Kokbha revolt of 135CE, as it was only then that people realized that the Temple would not be rebuilt].

When the Temple actually got destroyed by the Romans, a prophecy of this nature would have been so potent. Mark has Jesus on the cross while people mock him about a prophecy he made:

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the Temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him 

Mark 15:29-32 [5]

Jesus making the claim of the Temple being destroyed and restored miraculously is exactly the type of claim other Sign Prophets made as seen from their actions. So whether the Temple Destruction prophecy is a literacy devise and could be a historical memory (and we cannot rule it out, Paul may even have alluded to it), it still shows the gospels understood Jesus in the same manner as other Sign Prophets who all promised scriptural re-enactments to force Gods intervention. Yet the evangelists still tried to disassociate Jesus from these other sign prophets (Mt. 24:11, 24-26; cf. Mk. 13:22)

Theudas and the ‘Egyptian’ re-enacted scriptural events hoping Yahweh just like the old days would intervene and initiate a new age. “The scriptures inspired the Sign Prophets to model themselves on past prophets.”[6] The signs promised by these prophets were scriptural re-enactments and these were the great eschatological signs that were promised. That walls would come tumbling down, waters would part or some other such sign. These signs by other prophets were exactly similar to Jesus’ prediction of Temple destruction and restoration not made by human hands. Later during the governorship of Cuspius Fadus (44–46 CE), Theudas … promised to split the Jordan River and lead his followers into freedom.[7] Why this could be “categorised as ‘millenarian’ is because it envisaged radical transformation through a dramatic action by tapping into well-known themes from Jewish ancestral traditions about Moses”.[8] The ‘Egyptian’ promised the walls of Jerusalem would come tumbling down, a clear allusion to Josh 6. In “key moments in the birth of the nation, these signs prophets signalled the eschatological nearness of final redemption.”[9] As can be adduced, we have evidence of other eschatological prophets that also risked their lives, mostly like Jesus ending up in their executions as well.

Even though the promises of the Sign Prophets are absurd, we can see in Johns gospel an attempt to take the edge off this absurdity:

John’s understanding of Christian memory is perhaps most evident in the Fourth Gospels version of the temple incident, the story of Jesus’ disruption of animal vending and currency exchange in the temple courts during a Passover festival (John 2:13–22). John’s account of this episode portrays “the Jews” demanding a miraculous sign from Jesus to authorize his radical actions. Jesus responds by inviting them to “destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it” (John 2:19). Here, as elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, the Jews can only point out the absurdity of Jesus’ proposition: “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it in three days?!?” The denouncement of this heated exchange is, however, truncated, for the narrator is compelled to break in with an explanation of Jesus’ words: “But he said this about the ‘temple’ of his body. Then when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said these things, and they believed the Scriptures and the word that Jesus spoke” (2:21–22). From the perspective of narrative criticism, this explanation is entirely satisfactory, serving as a coherent foreshadowing of John 19:42–20:1. Jesus’ dead body will, indeed, lie in the tomb three days—from the Day of Preparation (Friday) until the first day of the week (Sunday)—before being “raised^[10].”

You can see that Johns gospel spiritualizes Jesus prophecy of Temple Destruction and Restoration. By spiritualising Sign Prophet claims, you counteract the obvious objections of the time, why these signs did not happen. As Thatcher pointed out the Jews from Johns gospel (i e the objections from the time), that the restoration of the Temple in three days was absurd. If you spiritualized all the Sign Prophet signs, these absurd objections disappear- you can explain why the Jordan did not split for Theudas or the walls did not fall for the ‘Egyptian’ or the Temple was not restored for Jesus in three days.

Jesus and the Temple Incident in Mark.

To finish out this blog, here is an extract from my paper[11]

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city (Mark 11:15-19). The Tanakh allusions of this table overturning passage has eschatological implications and reflects the action of a typical Sign Prophet from this time. Mark is steeped very deep in reaction to Temple destruction of 70 CE. To see what Mark is alluding to in the table overturning passage we will first examine Deuteronomy. Deut. 14:24-26 shows the workings of the Temple where most Jews would sell 10% of what they have for the pilgrim festivals. They would spend that money and eat it in the presence of the Lord. The Temple court would buy and sell sacrifices among other things. [12] Mark is alluding to Zechariah by having Jesus disrupting the workings of the Temple, “And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite (or merchant) in the house of the Lord Almighty” (Zech. 14:21) Jesus disrupting the normal practices of the Jewish Temple in getting rid of the merchants is enacting Jewish eschatological expectations. As Paula Fredrikson says of the whole passage: In sum: Jesus’ gesture (overturning tables in the Temple court) near the archetypical holiday of national liberation (Passover) in the context of his mission (“The Kingdom of God is at hand!”) would have been readily understood by any Jew watching as a statement that the Temple was about to be destroyed (by God, not human armies, and certainly not literally or personally by Jesus himself), and accordingly that the present order was about to cede to the Kingdom of God[13]. Next we will examine the phrase: “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?’ But you have made it ‘a den of robbers’”. Amy Jill Levine examines the allusion to Isaiah 56:6-8 where at the end of the world, foreigners and Jewish diaspora will join with the Jewish to offer sacrifices to Yahweh.[14] The Temple will become a house of prayer for all nations, an eschatological image by Isaiah. This is joined with the phrase ‘den of thieves’ which is taken from Jeremiah 7:8-11. The passage in Jeremiah about those doing abominations coming back to the Temple thinking they are absolved to those abominations are likened to these collaborating priests. So, Jesus’s depicted action in the Temple was expecting gods intervention at the end of the present world. All this table overturning scene is within a Markan sandwich about the fig tree. The fig tree and the temple are bound in the narrative in such a way as one could be seen as a metaphor for the other. This Markan sandwich being based on Hosea 9. The fig tree represents the Jewish temple cult, and its withering represents what God allowed to happen to it, and why (as a result of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.) The gospel of Mark is right on the mark showing Jesus’ actions in Jerusalem was supposed to be an initiation of an eschatological event, just like the other Sign Prophets. Barker in his dissertation has examined the role the Temple has played as a pivotal point in eschatology reflected in second temple literature.[15]

Hengel noticed in the Rabbinic literature centuries later that we have disapproving rabbis of the sign prophets who were trying to force the end.[16] Jesus was one in a line of Sign Prophets and “It is also important not to overlook the social reason underlying their struggle and their hopes. The economic conditions of the country had been thrown into disorder by Herod’s maladministration and the position had been made worse by famines. The situation had been interpreted as an expression of the eschatological distress and what was expected of the time of salvation to come was a reordering of property ownership which was in accordance with the original will of God at the time of the taking possession of the land.[17]

In this economic distress Jesus would have fulfilled a role occupied by other eschatological prophets of the time: 

… [we can] detect a few roles that were very much alive in popular circles. Josephus’s accounts of the prophets Theudas and “the Egyptian” are evidence of prophets like Moses and/or Joshua who led movements of renewal of Israel at the popular level. The credibility of this role is enhanced by parallel evidence from the scribal level, in the “prophet like Moses” in Deuteronomy and the Moses-like portrayals of the Righteous Teacher in Qumran literature. Josephus’s accounts of Jesus ben Hananiah (and perhaps of John the Baptist) provide evidence of oracular prophets among Judean (and Galilean) peasants. Moreover, the accounts in Josephus and rabbinic literature of popularly acclaimed “kings” or “messiahs” such as Judas son of Hezekiah, Simeon, and Athronges in 4 BCE, Simon bar Giora during the great revolt, and Simon bar Kokhba, leader of the Bar Kokhba revolt, provide convincing evidence for the role of popular messiahs leading movements of independence and renewal.

Richard Horsley [18]

The crowds he gathered believed in an eschatological sign promised by the Sign Prophet, and actually believed Yahweh would intervene. Collins sees Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem has the hallmarks of the Sign Prophet gathering crowds.[19] The prediction attributed to Jesus that the Temple would be destroyed and rebuilt not with human hands belongs in the realm of Sign Prophet promises, and eschatological signs. When Jesus got to Jerusalem at Passover Dale Martin says he “was expecting an angelic army to break through the sky, engage the Romans and their Jewish clients in battle, overthrow the Jewish leaders and Roman overlords, and establish the kingdom of God on earth, all under his own leadership as God’s Anointed.[20] Like other Sign Prophets Jesus was a threat to Roman security gathering a crowd, and mimicking a rival Kingdom, (King of the Jews). Like other Sign Prophets he hoped to initiate the kingdom of God, i. e. force the end. Like other Sign Prophets he was hunted down to be executed.

As both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism were a reaction to Temple Destruction, enjoy John Nelson’s blog on Marks use of Temple Destruction and why Mark has Jesus predict it before anybody else!

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[1] Rebecca Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine, The Evidence from Josephus, (Oxford, 1993), p.30

[2] David Allen, “How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus”, RevBíb 85.3-4, (2023), p.350.

[3] James McGrath, “‘Destroy This Temple’: Issues of History in John 2:13–22  in Anderson, Just and Thatcher (eds) John, Jesus and History II, Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, SBL, p.37-38.

[4] E. P. Sanders,  Jesus and Judaism, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), pp.61-76.

[5] David Allen, “The use of the Testimonium Flavianum by anti-Christian polemicists”, JHC 16/1,(2021), pp.56-57.

[6] David Allen, “How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus”, RevBíb 85/3-4, (2023), p.340.

[7] I. W. Oliver, “Are Luke and Acts Anti-Marcionite? ” , in J. H. Ellens – I. W. Oliver, et al (eds.), Wisdom poured out like water: studies on Jewish and Christian antiquity in honor of Gabriele Boccaccini, series: Deuterocanonical and cognate literature studies 38, Boston 2018, p.508.

[8] James Crossley and Robert Myles, Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict, (Zero, 2023), p.4-5 (5).

[9] Paula Fredrikson, When Christians Were Jews: The Firdt Generation, (Yale,2018), p.177f.

[10] Tom Thatcher, “Why John wrote a Gospel: Memory and History in an Early Christian Community” in Kirk and Thatcher (eds), Memory, Tradition and Text, Uses of the Past in Early Christianity, 2005 SBL, p.82

[11] David Allen, “How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus”, RevBíb 85/3-4, (2023), p.351-352.

[12] E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63BCE-66CE, (Unkno, 1992), pp. 46-69.

[13] Paula Fredrikson, From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ, , 2^nd ed. (Yale, 2000),p.113.

[14] Any-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandel of the Jewish Jesus, (HarperOne. 2007), pp.151-155.

[15] BARKER, “The Eschatological Role of the Jerusalem Temple”, 1-409.

[16] 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.124.

[17] Hengel, Zealots, p.312.

[18] Richard Horsley, “Jesus-in-Context, A Relational Approach” in Holmén and Porter (editors), Handbook for the study of the Historical Jesus, (2011), p.227-228.

[19] J. J. Collins, “Millenarianism in Ancient Judaism”. Retrieved from http://www.cdamm. org/articles/ancient-judaism.

[20] Dale Martin, “Jesus in Jerusalem: Armed and Not Dangerous”, JSNT 37/1, (2014), p.6-7.

Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’

Mark 14:57-58

As the title of this post suggests we have evidence that both Jesus and John were not named in an earlier form of Antiquities written by Josephus. The earlier form of the respective “Christian” passages found in Josephus show that Jesus or John the Baptist were not that important to Josephus who did not even know their names. This is what initiated the tampering of the passages in order to soup up those passages.

An earlier form of Josephus’ book Antiquities did not name either Jesus of Nazareth or John the Baptist. I have an Appendix at the end of this blog to show both passages as they appear in Antiquities and as the corresponding passages appear in the Slavonic. As Curran hypothesized using the Latin witnesses of the Testimonium Flavianum (TF), a more primative version of the TF made its way east[1] and this I see influenced the insertions of the Slavonic. The Russian chronographer of the Slavonic inserted both the Baptist and Jesus passage (TF) into his adaption of Josephus War Book. There are numerous sources to track especially in regard to the additions inserted and added to Josephus’ War book by the Russian chronographer in creating the Slavonic. Meschersky has rightly stated that one of the sources for the insertions of the Slavonic came from Hamartolus. The full passage about Jesus and a shortened form of the passage about John the Baptist (containing only Ant. 18.116 and part of 117, omitting the rest of 18.117-119) are found in one of the Chronographer’s sources, that of Hamartolos (‘the sinner’) AKA George Monachus (‘the monk’) in Book 8, chapter 4. Hamartolos likely used Eusebius Ecclesiastical History as John is found almost immediately before the Testimonium in Hamartolos’ text, as it is in Eusebius’s work, and, more importantly, Hamartolos quotes not just the Testimonium but also the next five words that follow immediately after it in Eusebius’s History. But this does not mean it was the only source. The Slavonic version of the TF and the Baptist passage does not name Jesus or John and instead refers to Jesus as “a certain man” and references John by stating: “And at that time a certain man”. Meschersky (Mečerskij) is at a loss of why the Slavonic dropped Jesus’ name in the exact TF passage and merely asserts unconvincingly that it was to make it less Christian, unlikely given how Christian the passage already is.[2] The same has happened to the Baptist passage. John’s name is dropped. Josephus sometimes named the Sign Prophets, on Meschersky’s assertion it makes no difference whether Josephus named Jesus/John or not to make the passage more authentic. As observed by Kate Leeming, “Jesus is rarely referred to by name … elsewhere he is the “wonderworker” or the “king who did not reign” or some other term. Why would a Christian be reticent about naming Jesus?”[3] The Slavonic also does not have John the Baptist named in the exact passage inserted into the Slavonic War, simply referring to him as the Baptist.[4] The Baptist passage merely opens with – “And at that time a certain man” … Again, dropping the name John from a source text used by the Slavonic does not make sense unless the source was from a more primitive version of Antiquities that did not have the Baptist named and was used for the insertion. The old Russian translator/adapter of the War obviously knew who the passage were about and named Jesus and John at different points. This chronographer had used a more primitive source for the insertions into the War that did not originally name Jesus or John.

Apart from Byzantium historians Hamartolus and Malalas, I find a different transmission line going east which would have also influenced those insertions.

The Russian chronographer was highly educated and had lots of sources. One possible source could have been a pre-Eusebian manuscript that went east. This is a witness of interest that used a version of the TF before Eusebius tampered with it: namely the source of the Slavonic. The Slavonic has a number of insertions added to its translation and adaption of Josephus’ War. It is much easier to explain if this variant of the TF used a Greek examplar circulating in the east that escaped Eusebian tampering. This examplar did not have the name Jesus or title Christ added. Jesus not being named in an earlier form of the TF is taken from the evidence of the Slavonic.[5]  

While the Slavonic is a very late witness, the Syriac translation of Eusebius is the earliest we have and we also have the variant ‘certain man’ in one of the Syriac manuscripts as well. You can read all about that here.

There are numerous sources to track especially in regard to the additions inserted into the War book. This was very common for Josephus not to know the names of various Sign Prophets (comparative groups to Jesus), after all most were very minor figures. This makes Josephus report on Jesus and John the Baptist much the same as many of the other Sign Prophets. Here Josephus did not know most of the names of these people as they were not famous enough. There are a few exceptions such as Theudas and Jonathan the Weaver. Jonathan’s name was known because of a personal accusation made against Josephus by the Lybian governor Catullus. Josephus is accused along with other prominent Jewish leaders of being implicated in the Jonathan plot (War 7.488).

I also see James as a mistaken identity in Ant.20.200 due to Hegesippus and Clements history on the martyrdom of James. Both these histories don’t match but have a James killed in different circumstances. Also the group described in the James passage in Ant. 20.200 do not sound like the James movement in Paul’s letters. “James and “the certain others” were charged with lawlessness. If “the certain others” were Christian Jews like James this reference can be taken to mean that the Jerusalem church did not keep the natural law of Judaism and was considered lawless, … This hardly fits the understanding of the Jerusalem church derived from the letters of Paul and Acts.”[6]

I have a previous blog how this mistaken identity came about. So I don’t see Jesus originally named there either.

Reconstruction of the Baptist passage:

Before we reconstruct I have one point to make on the meddling of Baptism contained in the passage.

The following on baptism was meddled with:

“For in exactly this way one receiving the baptism appeared to him not to be obtaining a payment for their sinful deeds, but for purification of the body, inasmuch as the soul was already completely purified by righteousness.”[7]

This also agrees with Eusebius Church History (E. H. 1.11.5)

“for baptism would appear acceptable unto Him when they employed it, not for the remission of certain sins, but for the purification of the body, as the soul had been already purified in righteousness.”

Christians did not like that baptism atoned for sins, (it’s as if this would bypass Christ), so they negated the passage by putting in the word “not” and “but”. We have textual evidence where Rufinus’ Latin variant reverses the meaning of the Greek by saying that baptism can serve to wash away sins. In Origen’s copy it hadn’t been interpolated yet: “John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins” as reported in Cels 1.47.

Acts 19:4 has “Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance.” which has the same meaning as what the more primitive John the Baptist passage in Josephus as attested by Origen and Rufinus.

       In the DSS community rule we have an example where Jews were ambiguous on baptism (1QS 3:6–12 , 1QS 4:20-22, Cf 4Q414 and 4Q512 which discuss the purification, repentance and atonement in more detail). Elsewhere in Life 11, Josephus says of Bannus “washing with cold water day and night frequently for sanctification, and I became his zealot.” 

This shows that there was originally a passage there that Christians had to “fix”, just like the TF, Christians would not have meddled with such passages if they did not originally exist. The Slavonic preserves the earlier version on baptism- “he did nothing else for them, except to immerse them in Jordan’s stream and dismiss them, bidding them to refrain from their wicked deeds.” 

What follows is a realistic reconstruction of the Baptist passage using both the Slavonic and Antiquities:

And at that time a certain man was going about Judaea, (dressed) in strange garments. He donned the hair of camel on those parts of his body which were not covered with his own hair. And he was wild of visage. And he came to the people and called them to freedom. And all Judaea and the environs of Jerusalem were following him. And he did nothing else for them, except to immerse them in Jordan’s stream, and dismiss them, bidding them to refrain from their wicked deeds. Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure to him.

This is an amalgamation of the Slavonic, the textus receptus of Antiquities and Rufinus. Slavonic II.VII.2(b), follows on from War 2.110; also reconstructed from Ant. 18.116 and part of 117.

The Baptist passage was a side show, a memory tripped by Josephus when the real story was about a war over a border dispute between two Roman client Kings- Aretas and Antipas (Herod) (Ant. 18.113). When Antipas lost the war, Josephus remembered the common talk of the people about a bad happening that would have come on Antipas for executing John the Baptist. (Ant. 18.116). That bad happening was the treachery of Antipas brothers soldiers (Herod Philip) who had switched sides in the war resulting in the loss (Ant. 18.114) This Baptist passage was not told chronologically but as a throw back memory after the telling of the war. “Oh yeah, he lost the war because of what he did to John”. How we know it was a throw back memory is that John was executed in Machaerus castle by Antipas – a castle under the control of Aretas. (Ant. 18.112 cf. Ant. 18.119). So that execution must have been well before the war.

Reconstruction of the Jesus Passage:

As I have numerous blogs on how I came about to do an evidenced reconstruction of the earlier form of the TF I will just provide a link to the blog:

And there is about this time a certain man, a sophist and agitator.

[some eschatological sign similar to other sign prophets;

For they said he was a prophet and the Temple would be destroyed and restored in three days]

Many of the Judaeans, and also many of the Galilean element, he led to himself in a tumult; he was desirous of Kingship: Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands.

[So Pilate sent forces, footmen to slew them and seize a number of them along with the certain imposter.]

[Josephus may have mentioned Jesus as a pseudo prophet here but it has been replaced with the Emmaus passage found in Luke]

And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross. Yet this tribe has until now not disappeared.

My own Model reconstruction of Antiquities 18.63-64.

Please note the major argument of this blog is taken from my paper: David Allen, “How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus”, Revista Bíblica 85 3-4, (2023), pp.337-339.

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[1] CURRAN, J., “‘To Be or to Be Thought to Be’: The Testimonium Flavianum (again)”, Novum Testamentum, 59/1, (2017), 71-94.

[2] LEEMING H. – LEEMING K. (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 H. Leeming and L. Osinkina, in Arbeiten Zur Geschichte Des Antiken Judentums und des antigen Judentums und des Urchistentums 46 (Boston: Brill 2003), p.19.

[3] LEEMING K., “The Slavonic Version of Josephus’s Jewish War” in CHAPMAN and RODGERS (eds.) A Companion to Josephus, Oxford, 2016,, p.395.

[4] LEEMING H. – LEEMING K. (eds.), Slavonic Version, p.248.

[5] David Allen, A Model Reconstruction of what Josephus would have realistically written about Jesus, JGRChJ 18, (2022), pp.125-126

[6] John Painter, Just James, The brother of Jesus in History and Tradition, 2nd ed., p.138.

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

 

 

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APPENDIX

You will notice when you compare the exact passages both the names Jesus and John are dropped from the Slavonic. This is more likely if the source of both passages in the Slavonic did not have the names Jesus and John as there is no reason for consciously dropping both names.

TF in Antiquities

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was a doer astonishing deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of Greeks. He was the Christ. Pilate, on the accusation of the first men among us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day, he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared (Ant. 18.63-64).

Ant. 18.63-64

Now for the Slavonic TF

At that time there appeared a certain man, if it is proper to call him a man, whose nature and form were human but whose appearance was more than human and whose deeds were divine. And he worked wonderful and powerful miracles. Therefore it is impossible for me to call him a man. Then again, in view of his common nature, I shall not call him an angel [either].

And everything, whatever he did, he did by some unseen power, by word and command. Some said of him: Our first lawgiver has risen from the dead and has been demonstrating many cures and skills. Others thought that he was sent from God. But he was in much opposed to the law and did not observe the sabbath according to the ancestral customs, yet did nothing dirty, unclean, nor with use of hands, but worked everything by word only. And many of the people followed and listened to his teachings.

And many souls were aroused, thinking that by him the Jewish tribes would free themselves from the hands of the Romans. But it was his habit rather to remain in front of the city on the Mount of Olives; and there he also [freely] gave cures to people. And there 150 servants and a multitude of people joined him, seeing his power, how by word he did everything he wished. They bade him enter the city, kill the Roman troops and Pilate, and reign over these. But he did not care [to do so].

Later, when news of this came to the Jewish leaders, they assembled to the chief priests and said: We are powerless and [too] weak to oppose the Romans, like a slackened bow. Let us go and inform Pilate what we have heard, and we shall be free of anxiety; if at some time he shall hear [of this] from others, we shall be deprived of property, ourselves slaughtered, and [our] children exiled. And they went and informed Pilate. And he sent and killed many of the people and brought in that wonderworker. After inquiring about him Pilate understood that he was a doer of good, not of evil, [and] not a rebel, nor one desirous of kingship; and he released him. For he had cured his wife, who was dying.

And he went to the usual places and performed his usual deeds. And again, as more people gathered around him, he became renowned for his works more than all [others]. Again the lawyers were struck with envy against him. And they gave 30 talents to Pilate that they should kill him. And he took [it] and gave them liberty to carry out their wishes themselves. And they sought out a suitable time to kill him. For they had given Pilate 30 talents earlier, that he should give Jesus up to them. And they crucified him against the ancestral law, and they greatly reviled him.

Now for the Baptist passage in Josephus’ Antiquities

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God as a just punishment of what Herod had done against John, who was called the Baptist.

For Herod had killed this good man, who had commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, righteousness towards one another and piety towards God. For only thus, in John’s opinion, would the baptism he administered be acceptable to God, namely, For in exactly this way one receiving the baptism appeared to him not to be obtaining a payment for their sinful deeds, but for purification of the body, inasmuch as the soul was already completely purified by righteousness

Now many people came in crowds to him, for they were greatly moved by his words. Herod, who feared that the great influence John had over the masses might put them into his power and enable him to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best to put him to death. In this way, he might prevent any mischief John might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late.

Accordingly John was sent as a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Machaerus, the castle I already mentioned, and was put to death. Now the Jews thought that the destruction of his army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure with him.

Ant. 18.116-119

Now the parallel Baptist passage in the Slavonic

And at that time a certain man was going about Judaea, (dressed) in strange
garments. He donned the hair of cattle on those parts of his body which were not
covered with his own hair. And he was
wild of visage. And he came to the Jews and called them to freedom, saying, “‘God has
sent me to show you the lawful way, by
which you will be rid of (your) many rulers. But there will be no mortal ruling (over you), only the Most High, who has sent me.”
And when they heard this, the people were joyful. And all Judaea and the environs of Jerusalem were following him. And he did nothing else for them, except to immerse them in Jordan’s stream, and dismiss them, bidding them refrain from their wicked deeds, and a king would be given to them, saving them and bundling all the unsubmissive, while he himself would be humbled by no one.
Some mocked his voices, others believed them. And when he was brought before Archelaus and the experts of the Law were assembled, they asked him who he was and where he had been up till then. In answer he said. “I am a man. Where the divine spirit leads me. I feed on the roots of
reeds and the shoots of trees.” When those (men) threatened him with torture if he did not cease those words and deeds, he said,
“It is you who should cease from your foul deeds and adhere to the Lord your God.” And arising in fury, Simon, an Essene by origin (and) a scribe, said, “I’ve read the divine scriptures every day, and you have (just) now come in like a beast from the woods dare to teach us and to lead people astray with your impious words.” And he rushed forward to tear his body apart. But he, reproaching them said. “I am not revealing to you the mystery which is (here) among you, because you have not wished it. Therefore, there will come down on you an unutterable calamity, because of you .” Thus he spoke and left for the other side of the Jordan. And as no one dared to prevent him. he was doing just at he had done before.’

Slavonic II.VII.2

One of the most fascinating passages in one of the most explosive letters of the New Testament has got to be the Antioch incident. This incident is told in Galatians 2, a most revealing chapter of this letter. Here is Paul’s side of the incident:

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?”

Paul in his letter to the Galatians 2:11-14

The Antioch incident of Gal. 2:11-14, is the scene where a major rift between Paul and the Jamesian sect flares up. It is the dietary laws (Kashrut) that caused this incident. Paul tells us Peter was happy to eat with the Gentile Christians, but when “men from James” observed this, Peter withdrew from table-fellowship with the Gentiles.

To see what bothered “the men from James”, about this incident we have to appreciate “the limits of acceptable table-fellowship. These limits would be determined partly by the explicit laws in the Torah, particularly concerning unclean foods (Lev. 11:1-23; Deut. 14:3-21), and in differing degrees by the multiplying halakhoth of the oral tradition concerning tithes and ritual purity.”[1] This fascinating passage shows when tensions between Paul’s mission and James Jerusalem mother church boiled over in what is now known as the Antioch incident. When Cephas started out with Paul, he knew that sharing a table with new converts would forge a better bond and success to the mission. This is seen from Paul’s remark that he was perfectly alright to share table fellowship until this latest set of envoys sent by James. Paul also was more in tune with the movement when he started out as well. He originally had been on the team of the circumcism as seen from Gal 5:11. “Brothers, if I still proclaim circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.” (Gal. 5:11). According to Campbell “Paul proclaimed a fully law-observant gospel to pagans that included circumcision, but then later revised his praxis.” [2] Yet the Jamesian leadership were alright with the way Paul conducted his missionary activities, they had accepted that Titus need not be circumcised (Gal. 2:3). The real story is that at first the Jerusalem council was not bothered about circumcision at the start, (Gal 2:3) but later on they got more zealous and started demanding it. We have the same circumcision debate with the missionaries in the court of Adiebene (Ant 20.34-45). Paul was able to work independently as an apostle for fourteen years until the controversy arose. It began when certain Jewish Christians came to the Gentile communities where Paul had developed his own gospel (doctrine) separate from the Jerusalem Assembly that proved to be very popular among the gentiles (non Jews). Paul complains he’s being watched and his missionary work being interfered with – “Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?” (Gal. 5:7). Paul was much more successful when he “offers up a Jewish God stripped of Jewish ritual.”[3] His success was his message that was simplicity itself. In order to gain immortality, one had only to state one’s belief in Christ who died and rose to heaven. (Romans 3:28). He got this from Hanukkah 2:4. Paul offered the grace of Christ (this had a Greco-Roman connotation of gift as seen from Barclay’s book below), and his converts would experience this as Christs’ spirit would possess them (hence why they were referred to as “in-Christ”). This was a spirit possession cult. Christ would enable his converts to be justified (justified by faith rather than following the Jewish law [Torah]) and righteous (this would make them right before God in their salvation plan). It was Paul’s vision of resurrection and consultation with Christ (in those visions) that secured Paul’s authority.[4] Yet this was being questioned as seen from the tension contained in these letters. You can tell that Paul’s personal credentials were being questioned especially as he was diverging from Jewish Law (or at least relegating it down a peg or two). Paul wanted to show that his gospel is of superior quality to those super apostles before him, that he got his gospel from a higher authority.

Yet making it easier for Gentiles to convert put Paul on a confrontation course with James and company. This was especially true when in the intervening years there was a nationalist swing to stricter observance among the Jerusalem keadership. Robert Jewett hypothesis sees the political background in Judea stimulated the swing to stricter Torah observance by the Jerusalem leadership. “The background of the missionary movement which touched Galatia may be found in the troubled political situation in Judea and Galilee during the period from the late forties until the outbreak of the Jewish War in A.D. 66. It was during this period that the Zealot campaign to undermine Roman control through terror tactics was increasingly effective. During the procuratorship of Ventidius Cumanus (A.D. 48-52), the resistance movement felt strong enough to rob an official Roman courier on the main highway from Jerusalem to Caesarea (Josephus, Ant. xx, 113) and shortly afterwards to arouse the whole countryside into a revenge attack against Samaria which could only be put down by use of most of Cumanus’ forces (Ant. xx, 118). The frequency of such incidents reported by Josephus makes plain that for practical purposes the countryside was in the control of the Zealot underground movement by the late forties. This meant that persons in the villages of Judea or Galilee who maintained close relationships with Gentiles or who did not zealously seek the purity of Israel were in mortal danger.” [5]

To Paul the “men from James” represented a completely intolerable view that threatened the essence of his own gospel message which he immediately launched into, stating a justification by faith rather than justification by works of the Law (2:15-17). Both the envoys James sent and the agitators in Galatia were singing from the same hymn sheet- “In short what James and then Peter attempted to do in Antioch, to introduce circumcision and the whole Torah to the Gentile community there, was precisely what Paul’s opponents in Galatia were doing.”[6]

Paul gives out about those preaching a different ‘gospel’ to his own (Gal. 1:6-9), or even a different interpretation of Jesus to his own. (2 Cor. 11:4). Pauls ‘gospel’ is what survives today but the original ‘gospel’ of the Jerusalem church can only be reconstructed from Pauls polemic views of it.

Some mirror reading by Barclay will illuminate this further:

The Galatian believers, largely of non-Jewish background (4:8), are being persuaded to adopt key elements of the Jewish cultural tradition — most dramatically (for the menfolk), circumcision (5:2-6; 6:12-13; cf. 5:12). Paul warns them of the implications of this move: a commitment to observe the whole Law (5:3). But it seems that Torah-observance is precisely what many of them want (4:21). Naming this trend in general terms, Paul speaks of people being “considered righteous in the Law” (5:4), a phrase that implies their assessment that the Torah defines God’s criteria of value (see below, 12.5). There is a hint in 4:10 (“you observe days, months, seasons, and years”) that some are inclined to observe the Jewish calendar, embracing the Torah in its alignment with the structures of nature. This trend is influenced (“compelled,” 6:12) by people Paul labels “your troublers” (1:7; cf. 5:10). It is not clear how they themselves viewed Paul, and it may be only from his perspective that they were his “opponents.”There are indications that these other missionaries in Galatia were also believers in Christ. Paul refers to their message as “another good news” ( , 1:6), a label he was unlikely to employ unless these others were at least speaking of Christ. Moreover, Paul’s discussions and disputes with Jewish believers in 2:1-14 were probably recounted because of their parallels to the dispute in Galatia (see 2:5). It is uncertain whether the other missionaries originated from, or were influenced by, the church in Jerusalem; it is possible that they followed Paul from Antioch (2:11-14), or were local believers of Jewish origin, or were newly circumcised themselves (6:13). What is most significant for our purposes is that they saw no reason why the Christ-event should reduce or relativize the authority of the Torah. If they too appealed to Abraham, the patriarch could have modeled for them, as for Philo, the “migration” from idolatry to piety, and from vice to virtue (later given written articulation in the Mosaic Torah). From this perspective, there was every reason for Gentiles, once converted to the worship of the true and only God, to adopt the Abrahamic mark of circumcision and to obey the commands of God integral to the Abrahamic-Mosaic covenant. The Christ-event constituted the climax of the covenant, the final chapter in God’s plan to redeem the world. The Galatian converts had begun well, but Paul had left them half-converted (3:3).[7]

It appears that they did not plan to oppose Paul or his theology directly but instead to offer a completion to it. This is evident in Gal. 3:3 where Paul angrily asks, ‘ Having started out with the Spirit, are you now finishing up with the flesh?’[8]

FUND RAISING

We can see from the following passages, as noticed by Goodacre that Galatia dropped out from the fund raising efforts as reported in 1 Cor. and by the time 2 Cor.was written. [9] This shows that Paul had lost the allegense of Galatia.

Gal. 2.10: Only they would have us remember the poor, which very thing I was eager to do.

1 Cor. 16.1-4: Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. 2 On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. 3 And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. 4 If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me.

2 Cor. 9.1-4: Now it is superfluous for me to write to you about the offering for the saints, for I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year; and your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I am sending the brethren so that our boasting about you may not prove vain in this case, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be; lest if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we be humiliated – to say nothing of you – for being so confident.

Paul could not raise money from Galatia after the Antioch bust up. This is seen at the mention of Paul raising funds issue between 1 Cor and 2 Cor. Galatia was not mentioned in 2 Cor or Romans.

“The blowup with Peter was a total failure of political bravado, and Paul soon left Antioch as persona non grata, never again to return.”[10]

 

LETTERS OF AUTHORITY (This is taken from the scholarship of Robert Eisenman)[11]

There are certain passages in the epistles that explain the letters of authority that attempted to control Paul within this organisation.

In fact James shows a clear pattern of intervention whereby he sent on a number of occasions messengers to Law-free churches with the message that Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised and to observe the Torah. The initial intervention was in Antioch which initiated the apostolic council, and this was followed by a second intervention in the same city after the council which resulted in the incident that ended in a public brawl between Peter and Paul. Then we have a further intervention in Galatia. Francis Watson has argued that in Gal 1:9 Paul seems to have expected the arrival of another gospel in Galatia and if this is correct then it confirms the suspicion that James’ strategy of intervention by way of envoys was well-known to Paul. Paul knew he was being watched and checked up upon “This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. (Gal. 2:4).

The following excerpt from Psuedoclementines (AKA the ebionites Acts of the Apostles) explains about the LETTERS:

 

“Observe the greatest caution, that you believe no teacher unless he brings the testimonial of James the Lord’s brother from Jerusalem, or whomever comes after him. Under no circumstances receive anyone or consider him a worthy and faithful teacher for preaching the word of Christ unless he has gone up there, been approved, and, as I say, brings a testimonial from there. (Ps Rec 4.25)

‘the Highest Apostles’ who, according to 2 Cor. 10:12, write their own letters of recommendation.

On Apostleship and lack of either direct appointment or letters of recommendation from James, Paul says that he has direct appointment from Jesus.

“The fact is, brothers, and I want you to realize this, the Good News I preached is not a human message that I was given by men.” (Gal 1:11)

“Even if to others I am not an Apostle [here, Paul certainly recognizes that there are those who do not accept his Apostolic credentials], without doubt I am to you. For you are the seal of my Apostleship in the Lord.”(1 Cor. 9:2)

 

 

In 2 Cor. 3:1

“Do we start again to recommend ourselves? Unlike some who need either LETTERS to you or from you to recommend themselves, you are our letter, having been inscribed in our hearts, being known and read by all men, showing that you are Christ’s Letter served by us, not being written with ink, not on tablets of stone, but with the Spirit of the Living God on the fleshly tablets of the heart.”

 

2Cor3:6 “for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

 

In Hebrew an apostle (a Greek term) is a shaliaḥ ‎שָלִיחַ, and they were agents sent out by the great Sanhedrin to carry out its orders. The missionaries sent out by James were carrying out his orders.

From this you can see Pauls contempt for the authority of the Jerusalem Assembly, let us now see through the epistles how raw this rift was:

“After three years I went up to Jerusalem to make Peter’s acquaintance, and I remained with him for fifteen days, I but did not see any of the other Apostles, except James the brother of the Lord. (Gal1:18–20)”

Paul lists ‘James, Cephas and John’ as the Central Triad of Pillar Apostles.”(Gal2:9).

 

The goal of Paul was to keep up his success of converting without the interfering family of Jesus who would hamper this success with stricter Torah observance especially Circumcision (from Paul’s point of view).

Theissen was right in defining these tensions were due to the gentile problem. Matthew Theissen in his book Paul and the Gentile problem discusses five major positions that all different sets of divergent Jews would take in relation to gentiles converting. Here I will discuss two opposing positions that Paul and his opponents took.

This is the reason for the major rift seen through the epistles and it all boils down to Pauls dealings with the gentiles. Two major issues, that of circumcision and purity laws flare up in a major rift that occured at Antioch.

Paul describes the Jews as ‘the circumcised’ and the gentiles as the ‘uncircumcised’ as seen from the following sentence in his epistle:

“For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.” (Gal 2:8).

The rift and polemics contained in Paul’s epistles all have to do with the gentile problem!

Paul argues that God provides a way for gentiles to become descended from Abraham apart from circumcision. Although Romans 4 does not contain an explanation for the way in which faith makes one a son of Abraham, Galatians 3 makes it clear that faith leads to the reception of Christ’s pneuma.

Continuing to use Theissens’ scholarship we will now discuss all the divergent Jewish attitudes to the gentile problem.[12]

 

1.Eschatological:

In 2nd century BCE the Animal Apocalypse provides a striking example of this pattern: at the eschaton, God transforms the gentiles, who are portrayed as unclean animals, into white bulls, that is, clean animals (1 Enoch 90.37–38).

Still they stay as gentiles.

For those called “Righteous gentiles”, there was the Noahide law that didn’t expect circumcision, nor did they have to follow anything but to live a righteous life and follow the seven Noahide laws and were assured a place in the hereafter.  

God does not transform them into Jews (sheep). They remain gentiles, but have now undergone a miraculous genealogical purification that makes them acceptable to God.

 

2. Conversion:

The Jamesian arch, Pauls opponents and only seen in Pauls polemics had a different solution to the gentile problem. According to those who held this view, gentiles could and should become Jews, joining Israel in its worship of the one true God and adopting the entirety of the Jewish law as one’s way of life.

“As later rabbis observed, Genesis 17 links circumcision to God’s covenant with Abraham in an unparalleled way by mentioning ברית thirteen times in connection with the institution of circumcision (m. Ned. 3.11).”

The fact that Abraham figures prominently in both Galatians and Romans, Paul’s two letters that are most concerned about the possibility of gentiles adopting the Jewish law and the rite of circumcision, suggests that he was responding to a message that pointed to Abraham and his circumcision as a model for gentiles-in-Christ

 

3. Exclusion:

Another set of Jews with a different solution.

As seen in Ezra-Nehemiah, which portrays the expulsion of the foreign wives of Jewish men, as well as the offspring of such marriages, from the Jewish community. The work assumes that gentiles can never become part of the Jewish community, regardless of their desire to worship YHWH. 

Since Lev 19:19 commands, “You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seeds.

Christine E. Hayes argues that 4QMMT’s reference to the pollution of the holy seed with women whom they were forbidden to marry is also a condemnation of the marriage of Jews to gentiles (Lines B75–82), specifically “intermarriage between Jews and converted Gentiles—those persons of profane seed who are assimilated through circumcision and intermarriage.”[13]

The Testament of Levi condemns priests who “take wives from the daughters of the gentiles, purifying them with an unlawful purification” (14.6; cf. 9.9–10).

While many Jews may not have concerned themselves with the question of gentiles, Paul and his opponents did, and in fact actively promoted what they believed to be the divine remedy to the gentile problem.

 

So the major tension between Paul and the Jerusalem leadership was in their solutions to the gentile problem, Paul belonged to position one above (Eschatological) in contrast to the Jerusalem leadership which held position two (Conversion).

Letters written in James’ name.

As seen from the rift explained above, James and Paul were at loggerheads due to the problem of what to do with gentile converts. This rift is played out even better in the pseudo clementines where a legend developed that Paul attempted to murder James on the steps of the Temple (Psuedoclementines Recognitions Book1,ch LXIX, LXX). The Epistula Petri describes Paul as “the man who is my enemy.” ( Letter Of Peter to James 2.3-5, this letter appears as a preface to Psuedoclementines Homilies).

Paul speaks out against James’ teaching.

A forged letter in James’ name speaks out against Paul’s teaching.[14] The letter of James is a forgery by somebody who wanted to use James’ name as he represented the teachings of the Jewish Christians more closely.

 

How we know the book of James is a forgery:

 

“The book is thoroughly concerned about the “Law,” but not about the aspects of the Law that James himself is reported to have been invested in. Here, in the book of James, the Law more or less involves the love commandment (2:8) and the Decalogue (2:10–12). There is nothing about ritual. Or cult. Or kosher food laws. Or Sabbath or feast days. Or circumcision. Or anything at all involving Jewish ethnic identity.

          The real James was interested in “works of the Law,” not “good deeds”. In Paul’s day, and James’s, the pressing issues had to do with the relationship of believers in Jesus to the “works of the Law.” Only later, as we will see more fully below, did that concern migrate into a conflict over the importance of doing good deeds.

        “Another indication of a late date is the concern over ostentatious wealth in the community. Wealthy people have come into the congregations and caused problems, both by their very presence (the problem of favoritism, 2:1–5) and by their actions (dragging the poor into court, 2:6).”

 

Bart Ehrman shows the dependence of James on Paul’s epistles showing a tight overlap of the Greek:

 

James 2:21 and Rom. 4:2 (and Gal. 3:7):

 

James2:21 Ἀβραὰμ ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη

Rom4:2 εἰ γὰρ Ἀβραὰμ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη,

 

As you can see a precise verbal overlap and the concept of justification and the example of Abraham appear completely out of the blue in Jas2:21.

Moreover, both James 2:23 and Rom. 4:3 quote Gen. 15:6 in order to establish their (contrary) views about Abraham in relationship to his justification.

 

James 2:24 and Gal. 2:16 and Rom. 3:28:

 

James2:24 ὁρᾶτε ὅτι ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος καὶ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον.

Gal2:16 εἰδότες δὲ ὅτι οὐ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἐὰν μὴ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,

Romans3:28 λογιζόμεθα γὰρ δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου.

 

One is insisting that a person is justified not by “works” of the Law but by faith, the other that a person is not justified by faith alone but by “works.” The passages are far too close to have been accidentally created in such similar yet contrary fashion.

 

James 1:25; 2:12 and Gal 4:24; 5:1; 3:10):

 

“James’ reference to “the perfect law that gives freedom”(Jas1:25; cf. 2:12) seems to stand in sharp contrast to Paul, for whom the Law is a matter of slavery (Gal. 4:24; 5:1) and brings a curse (Gal. 3:10).

 

Faith V Works:

 

             For James a person is justified by works, not by faith alone; for Paul a person is justified by faith, not by doing the works of the Law. The problem is that Paul and James appear to mean different things by both “faith” and “works.”

         Faith, for Paul, refers to a trusting relationship with God through Christ, or a trust in Christ’s death for justification. It is a relational term. But not for James. When James speaks of “faith” he refers to an intellectual acknowledgment of theological claims: “You believe that God is one? You do well. Even the demons believe, and they shudder” (2:19).

           But what he means by “works” also differs from Paul. Paul’s “works of the Law” are the demands that the Law makes on Jews qua Jews. In Paul’s view, justification does not come by keeping these demands.

          Pauline notion that “works of the Law” cannot justify was eventually transformed precisely in the Pauline tradition itself into a teaching about “good deeds.” We have seen this already in both Eph. 2:1–10 and Tit. 3:5–8.

James is attacking a position that could be read out of the Deutero-Pauline epistles.”

 

Another letter clearly on the Jamesian side is Jude, claims to be a brother of James rather than Jesus, hoping to make the distinction.

 

 

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[1] James Dunn, “The Incident at Antioch (Gal. 2:11-18)”, JSNT 5/18, (1983), p.12.

[2] Douglas Campbell, “Galatians 5.11: Evidence of an Early Law-Observant Mission by Paul?,” New Testament Studies 57 (2011): 325–47.

[3] Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Kosher Jesus, ch1.

[4] Markus Vincent, Christ’s Resurrection in Early Christianity: And the Making of the New Testament, p.27.

[5] Jewett, Robert, The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation, New Testament Studies 17/02 / January 1971, p. 204

[6] David C. Sim, “The Family of Jesus and the Disciples of Jesus in Paul and Mark: Taking Sides in the Early Church’s Factional Dispute” in Paul and Mark (deGruyter, 2014), p.81.

[7] John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, (Eerdmans 2015), ch.11.

[8] Jewett, The Agitators, p.208.

[9] Mark Goodacre, https://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/dating-game-ii-getting-pauls-letters-in.html

[10] White, L. Michael (2004). From Jesus to Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco. p.170.

[11] Robert Eisenman, James the brother of Jesus, ch.7.

[12] Matthew Theissen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, pp. 20-24.

[13] Christine Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities, pp.82–89.

[14] Ehrman, Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery, The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics, ch10.

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This post will link seven recent posts I made to actually tell you who exactly Jesus was. As a historical post these posts will cut underneath the theological claims, to tell you the historical person and how he compared to other charismatic figures from that time. These posts will also show how this executed man fits into history. It will show the common worldview of the time, apocalypticism and show how this worldview helped by visions inspired by scriptures, actually drove Jesus to do what he did to get executed. And he wasn’t the only one! It will also show many others had attempted the same things as Jesus in trying to “force the end” and failing.

The movements Jesus headed seemed to be one of the baptizing groups.

Mandaeans (the legacy modern name for the group that spawned off of John the Baptist), Qumranians (Dead Sea Scroll fame) and Nazoreans were just three of the many movements that were baptising sects that started near the Jordan river. Josephus reports living with an Essene ‘Banus’, a hermit and Baptist in his biography Vita ii. A form of baptism existed in Judaism using the Mikveh. Mikveh means a ritual bath, many such baths were cut out at the Qumran site. The Mikveh is based on a Hebrew Mosaic law that requires bathing during certain religious events and times, performed by orthodox Jews still to this day. Josephus describes John baptising, “for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it…” (Josephus, Antiquities 18.117). By doing the baptizing for others was so distinctive that he became known as the Baptist. Some people think the Suba Cave with an underground reservoir is connected to the Baptist but at least we know baptism took place here since the days of Isaiah. (The reservoir was constructed 7th century BCE). Those groups had to have cult leaders, perhaps the legends are based on them, the Gospels, the Mandaean literature or the Dead Sea Scrolls are all reflections using theological arguments.

Now we explored the type of group Jesus belonged to let us now go through a series of blogs explore who Jesus was and what drove him to do what he did to end up on a cross.

Part 1 Jesus’ Social Classification.

Part 2 Jesus was not the only eschatological Prophet of his time, you know …

Part 3 Jesus wanted to “Force the end!”

Part 4 Jesus and the Sign Prophets.

Part 5 Jesus Group Armed or not?

Part 6 Christiani or Chrestiani?

Part 7 Survival of the Jesus Movement.

Part 8 Jesus and Temple Destruction.

Just a quick response to a recent article by Chrissy Hansen, which won’t take long as it only needs a few issues to be clarified. Chrissy seems to have missed within my own article the actual reason for thinking the Testimonium Flavianum (TF) was originally negative. Chrissy argues that tis does not necessarily have a negative connotation but that argument could be made about any Greek words. They are only words at the end of the day and the only way to determine if any word is negative or not is due to context. I wish to show that none of her arguments actually argue against an original TF, nor do they prove that tis cannot have been part of this original TF. They don’t even prove that Josephus was not derogatory in using the phrase tis. The word refers to unimportant people so to a Christian scribe- the word has to go.

These following points will show very quickly where Chrissy goes wrong. (Well she’s totally wrong really as this is easily demonstrated) .

1. Tis (‘certain’) was not used to show the TF as negative (by me). I gave a whole section in the paper explaining why the TF was originally negative.

2. Tis, not being negative does not rule it out from being in the original TF.

3. Most important: as tis is attested in three different variants of the TF and both from different transmission lines, this increases the likelihood of it being the original reading.

4. A summary dismissal of tis cannot be so easily dismissed as it is already attested in another variant.

5. The way Josephus uses tis and the way Christian scribes use tis are two different things, and it does not make my case worse that tis meant nothing to Christians.

6. Josephus uses the phrase whether negatively or not to denote somebody unimportant- therefore to Christian scribes thus descriptive had to go!

Anyway the textual criticism of the TF proves Chrissy wrong! She argues that this unremarkable word just snuck in by scribes. The textual criticism shows us the opposite and shows that tis is the earlier reading! Here is the evidence as T.C. Schmidt shows:

It is little wonder then that Christian scribes omitted the word from all Greek manuscripts of Josephus’ Antiquities, and that the only reason we are aware of its existence is because it is preserved by Eusebius via manuscript Codex A of the Ecclesiastical History [fn. 34 MS Paris Grec 1430 (tenth century) f. 26b line 3. Further pictures may be found at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10722779g/f32.item.zoom.%5D and in its ancient Syriac ( ܚܕ ) [fn. 35 MS British Library Add. 14639 (sixth century) f. 14b left col, line 29; MS Russian National Library Siriyskaya novaya seria 1 #24 (462 ce) f. 16a right col, line 26; BL.Add.12154, f. 151r line 20 (eighth/ninth century) and Armenian (մի) translations. [fn. 36 MS HMML 7640 (Codex Mechitaristarum Vindobonensis 49 (70C)) f. 15a line 22.] Michael the Syrian’s version of the TF was derived from Jacob of Edessa (c.708 ce), also preserves ‘a certain wise man, whose name was Jesus’ ( ܓܒܪܐ ܚܕ ܚܟܝܡܐ ܕܫܡܗ ܝܫܘܥ ) [fn.37 Michael the Syrian, Record of Times 5.10 [91] found in MS Edessa-Aleppo Codex 50r left col, line 17.] And according to Bermejo-Rubio, the Slavonic recension of Josephus’ work contains vestiges of this word with the phrase muži nĕkij, which may be ‘retroverted into Greek’ as ἀνήρ τις. [fn.38 Bermejo-Rubio, ‘Hypothetical Vorlage’, p.358.] [*]

 

Now to show you the bit Chrissy missed from my paper is the main reason why we should think the TF was originally negative and that this has nothing to do with the word tis. In a section in my paper which I call The Negative Original, I test the arguments for the neutral model and find they do not stand up to scrutiny.[1] Then I give the best reason for thinking this passage was originally negative as cited by Paget who gave a critical analysis of Norden:

Norden noted that the section running from Ant. 18.55-90 was united not by chronology—the two events reported after the TF, the expulsions of the Isis cult and of the Jews from Rome, concern events traditionally held to have taken place in ad 19 (Tacitus Annales 2.85), some time before Pilate’s tenure of office in Judaea. Rather they are united by the fact that they all conform to disturbances or θόρυβος (‘tumult’), that is disturbances of a particular kind (either the noun θόρυβος or the verb θορυβεῖν is found in the description of each incident). Such a bunching together of θόρυβος was, Norden noted, a well-known ancient historical ploy, and it is possible that Josephus had access to a source which characterized Pilate’s tenure of office as a succession of θόρυβοι (‘tumults’) … Norden appeared to exclude arguments that assumed some tampering with an originally more negative passage which would have fitted more easily into the ‘thorubic’ context he outlined … If one adopts the view entertained, amongst others, by Thackeray and Eisler, that in the original account of the TF the word θόρυβος did in fact appear. Such an observation would also serve to counter Norden.[2]

Schwartz also had same argument as explained in one of my papers:

Schwartz has observed that Josephus often kept disparate narratives and sources in unity, he did this by use of a leitmotif. Schwartz gave many examples of other leitmotifs but here is what he had to say of Pilates tenure: … of Josephus’s reports about the days of Pontius Pilate use verbs or nouns of the Greek root thoryb- thus characterizing the events as “tumults” (18.58, 18.62, 18.65, 18.85, 18.88). This creates a chapter with that theme, and as if to make sure it is noted Josephus begins the last of the episodes by introducing it as follows: “The Samaritan nation too was not free from tumult (thorybos)” (18.85). The use of this leitmotif both creates unity among materials that are quite diverse, including some that have nothing to do with Pilate and apparently come from what has been termed a Roman “scandal-chronicle”[3]

Of course, if the TF was not ex nihilo this argues that this word tumult must have been expunged from the original TF.

And now to show people how I use the tis argument in my latest paper without any suggestion of it being negative:

One word that is attested in the variants is the word tis (‘certain’). In Codex A of 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). While this word tis made no difference to Christian scribes who use it for heroes or villains, it just so happens that Josephus often used this descriptive to say somebody was unimportant. A certain so and so. 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 (Dial. Trypho 108). Josephus used this descriptive for many of the Sign Prophets and messianic figures to show they were unimportant to the Jewish people and for propaganda reasons to show the Romans many were nothing but troublemakers. He had another ‘certain Jesus son of Saphot’ as head of a band of robbers. (War 3.450). This certain Jesus had a triumphant entery into Tiberias on up to fifty Roman horses (War 3.452). This phrase tis was also used for Judas the Galilean (War 2.118), Theudas (Ant. 20.97) and the unnamed prophet under Festus (Ant. 20.188). The original TF would also have described Jesus as a ‘certain man’.[4]

 

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[*] T.C. Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the One Called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.68.

[1] David Allen, “A Model Reconstruction of What Josephus would have really written about Jesus”, JGRChJ 18, (2022), pp.121-123.

[2] Eduard Norden, ‘Josephus und Tacitus über Jesus Christus und eine messianische Prophetie’, Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche Literatur 31 (1913), pp. 637-66. Cit. op. . Carleton Paget, ‘Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity’, JTS 52 (2001), pp. 579-580.

[3] Daniel R Schwartz, “Many Sources but a Single Author Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities”, in Chapman and Rodgers (eds) A Companion to Josephus, Oxford 2016, p.45. Taken from my paper- David Allen, “A Proposal: Three Layer Redactional Model For the Testimonium Flavianum”, RevBíb 85 1-2 (2023), p.222.

[4] David Allen, “How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus”, RevBíb 85 3-4, (2023), p.346.

Seutonius mentions that  Claudius, “banished from Rome the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus.” (Suetonius, The Deified Claudius 25.4). What probably happened here is that Jews were shouting Christ and Seutonius picked up a source that mistook this title for a common name of the time, Chrestus.[1] This would be easily done as we have archaeological evidence of Chrestus in Italian ceramic from this time period. Corpus Vasorum Arretinorum nº 698, Pisa/Lyon (10 BCE. – 30 CE). Casa del Mitreo (Mérida). This shows a potter named Chrestus. This shows that this was a proper name at this time and Seutonius reference may have had nothing to do with Jesus.

Robert Drews argued “Because some Judaeans must have shouted the title Christos often and loud enough to be heard by Latin-speakers, it is likely that the Roman vulgus would have referred to those who did so as Christiani or Chrestiani.”[2] Both Christus and Chrestus would have sounded alike in Latin and in antiquity, people spelled phonetically. This would never happen in Latin where the i and e would ever get confused. But it would happen when transliterating Greek names. In Greek from around the 1st century BCE onwards, ι, ει, and η  [i, ei and ē] all represented the sound /i/. The Greek word for “Christians” is spelled Christianos Chreistianos and Chrēstianos. This led people to swap between them freely. This can be seen from some Christian funerary inscriptions, such as the following example[3]

O Jesus Chreist, aid the person who wrote this and his whole household.

IG XII,3 suppl. 1238 (undated, Melos)

In examing the inscriptions provided by G. H. R. Horsley we have examples of Χρειστός (Chreistós) and Χρηστός (Chrestós). In examining the word ‘Christian’, Χριστιανός (Christianós) – a third of these inscriptions have two variations at once: Χρηστιανός (Chrestianós) and Χρηστειανός (Chresteianós).

This later led Tertullian to exasperate “And even when it is said wrongly ‘Chrestian’ by you…” (Tertullian, Apologeticum, 3.5)

As Dunn says, “Christianoi is a Latinism (Christiani), on the model of Herodianoi (Herodians), or Kaisarianoi (Caesareans) – that is, supporters of or members of the faction which regarded the one named as their leader. This suggests that the title was coined by Roman authorities in Antioch who recognized the growing body of followers of the one known as ‘Christ’ as a significant faction within the melting-pot of Jews and Jewish adherents in Antioch.”[4]

Just because Drews successfully argued that Seutonius Claudius 25.4 was about a Christ figure still does not automatically mean it’s about Jesus. Margaret H. Williams thinks it’s problematic to identify this Chrestus with Jesus because of “both his Claudian date and his Roman location, not to mention the standard meaning of impulsor and Suetonius’s proven track-record as an onomastics expert.”[5] Suetonius would have meant what he said. There were at least 20 Christ figures that could have been candidates for the original head of this particular movement.[6] Even within Christians own literature Acts admits some were not of the Jesus movement:

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied. Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.

Acts 19:1-5

The Baptist movement had existed separately to Christianity in Asia Minor as shown in Acts.

Even though Seutonius Claudius 25.4 reference may have nothing to do with Christians, the reference in Suetonius Nero 16 mention Christians (and this time he refers to them as Christiani spelt with an ι). “As someone who is on record as referring to the Christians as Christiani (Nero 16.2), he will have taken it for granted, given the way that the Latin language works, that their name was derived from a founder-figure known as Christus.”[7]

Seutonius describes the Christiani as a superstitio as do his contemporaries Tacitus and Pliny. We first get to see this term used by Latin commentators in early second century, a term for a sect  Jewish messianists who were seen as troublesome in the Roman Jewish war as seen from Roman commentators in their descriptions of these Christiani.

Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people. The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city.

Nero 16

Seutonius here lumps the Christians in with other devious characters.

In Tacitus we have Chrestians:

So to quash the rumour, Nero produced suspects, and inflicted the most exquisite punishments on them. These people were despised for their disgraces, and popularly known as Chrestians. The name came from one Christus: during Tiberius’ reign the procurator Pontius Pilate had put him to death.

Tacitus, Annals 15.44

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. “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.[8]

Here is what the Jesus Seminar people say of this in their book After Jesus before Christ:

Christian is what the vulgus called the “partisans of Christus,” whom Tacitus took the trouble to find out had been executed by Pontius Pilatus.

Tacitus ties the term Chrestiani to the traditions of Israel. He is making a distinction within various types of Judeans. To him chrestiani is a type of Judean; any further meaning of “belonging to the party of the Anointed” or of “the good ones” is actually irrelevant to Tacitus. The association with Judea is enough. The transliteration of christianos (Greek) to christianus (Latin) is significant because it signals a Judean provenance, an association with a people of rebellion and resistance. “Christian,” in Latin, refers to yet another troublesome “group from the eastern Mediterranean. The meaning has nothing to do with who they are, but where they come from, and their resulting potential to cause trouble.

Roman writers probably understood christus in Latin as the name or title of an individual. They recognized it as a foreign-sounding word, connected with strange superstitions from Israel, a place of continued rebellion. As the name originated in this place of rebellion, they probably recognized it as signaling rebellion or resistance, for which they were on the lookout with those connected to Israel’s traditions … [9]

“Tacitus’ description in Annals 15.44 of the “Christiani’s” superstitio as dangerous (exitiabilis), sinister (atrocia), an evil (malum), etc. and Suetonius’ portrayal of the “Christiani” in Nero 16.2 as following a “new and dangerous [malfica] superstitio.” [10] Pliny the Younger (who was on about the actual Jesus sect) accuses them of being  “infected by this contagious superstition.” (Pliny the Younger, Book 10, Letter 96). 

Here is what Pliny had to say:

I had forbidden political associations. I judged it so much the more necessary to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses: but I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition.

Pliny, Epistulae X.96

Sometimes by concentrating on this area of history we can zoom in too much and miss the overall context of where Christianity fits into history. When Tacitus refers to the “pernicious superstition” of the Christians (exitiabilis superstitio, Tac. Ann. 15.44.3), what does he mean. To study Tacitus overall we get a better idea.

Within the context of Tacitus’ Annals, Superstitio refers to outside religions or cults, including the rites of the Druids, Jews, and Christians. Tacitus refers to the “pernicious superstition” of the Christians (exitiabilis superstitio, Tac. Ann. 15.44.3), and notes that the Jews are denigrated for relying on their superstitions (gens superstitioni obnoxia, Tac. Hist. 5.13.1). In Britain, the Druids are condemned and their sacred grove at Mona is destroyed as the site of their savage practice of human sacrifice (saevis superstitionibus, Tac. Ann. 14.30.3). Despite the denigration of these religions, foreign superstitions flourished in Rome under Claudius (Tac. Ann. 11.15.1). However, Nero persecuted the Christians, famously blaming them for the great fire of Rome, and his punishments were so harsh that even the Roman populace felt sympathy (Tac. Ann. 15.44.2-5).

Shannon-Henderson explains “superstitio. The term has pejorative connotations and indicates “excessive forms of behavior” or “excessive commitment to the gods,” and refers to religious practices outside the realm of the elite-dominated Roman state cult. With this term, Tacitus suggests that the Italians’ fears are “a little excessive,” and implies that they do not understand the situation properly. Much like the soldiers in the Pannonian mutiny who are filled with superstitio and give way to irrational fears during an eclipse (1.28.2), these rural Italians become overly concerned with their river gods at the expense of rationality and practicality. The proper, non-superstitio-influenced way to interpret the flood would have been to recognize it as a prodigy and expiate it according to the traditional apparatus of the state cult, an interpretation Tiberius has refused. The Italians, in their concern for their river gods, advance an alternative interpretation that is irrational, excessive, and not state-sanctioned, as Tacitus implies by using superstitio to describe it.[11] Shannon-Henderson also said “depiction of Vespasian in the Histories, whose excessive interest in astrology, described as superstitio (Hist. 2.78.1), “makes him vulnerable to manipulation” by the populace of Alexandria”[12]

Tacitus and Seutonius join Pliny the younger in thinking Christianity as a superstitio.

Tacitus’ Fragment 2

“most scholars have . . . adopted the suggestion of Bernays that Sulpicius’s source was none other than a lost portion of Tacitus’ Histories.”[13] The gap in Tacitus Histories is thought to be preserved in Sulpicius Severus Chronica 2.30.6-7. This piece that is preserved is known as: Tacitus’ Fragment 2. Laupot makes the case that Sulpicius used Tacitus as a source[14]:

“ [The] evidence takes the form of the discovery of a significant statistical relationship among the following three words: The metaphor (1) stirps (Latin for branch, descendants) used to describe the (2) Christiani (Latin for messianists) in fragment 2, and (3) Ναζωραῖος and Ναζαρηνός; (Nazorean), describing the New Testament sect associated with the Χριστιανούς (Christians) of Acts 11.26. The connecting link among, as well as the common source for, the three words listed above appears to be the Hebrew netzer (branch, descendants-apparently influenced by Isa 11.1), which both translates into stirps and transliterates into Ναζωραῖος/Ναζαρηνός;”

I will now reproduce Sulpicius Chronicle relevant passage:

(2.30.6) It is reported that Titus first deliberated, by summoning a council of war, as to whether to destroy a Temple of such workmanship. For it seemed proper to some that a consecrated Temple, distinguished above all that is human, should not be destroyed, as it would serve as a witness to Roman moderation; whereas its destruction would represent a perpetual brand of cruelty. 

(2.30.7) But others, on the contrary, disagreed-including Titus himself. They argued that the destruction of the Temple was a number one priority in order to destroy completely the religion [per Severus. Tacitus or another classical author would have used the word superstitio (alien religious belief). Compare Hist. 5.8 and Ann. 15.44 (exitiabilis superstitio)] of the Jews and the Christiani: For although these religions [i.e., superstitiones] are conflicting, they never the less developed from the same origins. The Christiani arose from the Jews: With the root removed, the branch [stirps] is easily killed’.[15]

Sulpicius, Chronicle 2.30.6-7.

Josephus gives a parallel to this account in War 6.236-243, but this is a biased account in favor of Titus. Severus has probably preserved Tacitus’ less biased account.

Like Robert Drews, Laupot doesn’t think the Christiani in Tacitus are the same Christians as “Pauls Christians” (Laupots expression).[16] As Drews thinks, “ the label Christiani, or Chrestiani, was probably used by Latin-speakers for fervent Judaean nationalists, who had little in common with New Covenant “Christians” other than their belief that Jesus had ascended into Heaven”[17]. Paul was a Jewish missionary used to getting beaten by both Jewish and Roman authorities- “ Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. [39 lashes is a Jewish punishment] Three times I was beaten with rods …[this is a Roman punishment] (2 Cor. 11:24-25). [*] This would bring out a cautious manner in Paul, and make him and his gentile converts branch away from any apocalyptic nationalist movement that he had joined. I suspect the original Jesus movement were fervent national apocalyptists just like the rest of the Messianic Jewish movements, Paul would have steered his converts away from that (Romans 13:1-7). This would have made Paul’s Christians branch away from all those Jewish apocalyptic nationalists such as those persecuted by Nero in the aftermath of the great fire. This is what leads Drews and Laupot to draw a distinction. Edwin Johnson has said in his book Antiqua Mater that the Romans used the term Christiani as a name for Jewish Messianists.[18] He shows that the Roman commentators of the time simply named any messianic Jews as Christiani. It is more than likely  that the term Christiani was a generic term for Jewish messianists. It is worth repeating the last line of the quote above in light of this:“The Christiani arose from the Jews: With the root removed, the branch [stirps] is easily killed’.” (Sulpicius, Chronicle 2.30.7).

 

Here Christiani simply meant all the rebellious Jewish messianists that caused so much trouble in the Roman war. The nazorean movement that Jesus joined only started to adopt the name Christiani for themselves in the second century as attested by their 2nd century document- The Acts of the Apostles.[19] The use of the term Christians is used anachronistically in Acts 11:26, (and also used anachronistically by Tacitus) but was more likely only adopted by this Nazorean group at the time of composition. “Christianity first appears in our sources once again in the early second century, that is, in the Apostolic Fathers (Ignatius, Magn. 10.1-3; Rom. 3.3; Phil. 6.1; Mart. Pol. 10.1).”[20]

 

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[1] Cicero mentions a person called Chrestos in his Fam. Ep. 2.8.

[2] Robert Drews, Judaean Christiani in the Middle Decades of the First Century, Journal of Early Christian History, 13:2, p.53.

[3] G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 3: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1978 (North Ryde, Australia: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, 1983), 129–36.

[4] Dunn, James D. G., The Partings of the Ways, Between Christianity and Judaism and their significance for the character of Christianity, 2nd Ed. (SCM Press, 2006) p. xv.

[5] Margaret H Williams, Early Classical Authors on Jesus in Chris Keith et al eds, The Reception of Jesus in the first Three Centuries Series 1, (Bloomsbury, 2023) , p.119

[6] https://jamestabor.com/messiahs-in-the-time-of-jesus/

[7] Margaret H Williams, Early Classical Authors, p.119

[8] Ivan Prchlík, “Tacitus’ Knowledge of the Origins of Christianity.” Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philologica 2/ Graecolatina Pragensia, (2017), pp. 96 f.

[9] Erin Vearncombe et al, After Jesus Before Christianity

[10] Laupot, ibid, p.237.

[11] Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson, Religion and Memory in Tacitus’ Annals, (Oxford, 2019), p.29.

[12] , Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson, ibid, p.51.

[13] Feldman, Louis H., Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, (Brill, 1996), p.2

[14] Laupot, Eric , Tacitus’ Fragment 2: The Anti-Roman Movement of the “Christiani” and the Nazoreans,Volume:54 (2000), Vigiliae Christianae, p.233

[15] Laupot, ibid, p.234

[16] Laupot, ibid, p.234

[17] Drews, ibid, p.54.

[*] for beaten with rods see See Digest 48. 6-7, a compendium of Roman law in The Digest of Justinian, ed. T. Mommsen, translated by A. Watson (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985).

[18] Johnson, Edwin, Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins, (Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill, 1887), ch1.

[19] Pervo, Richard I., Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists (Polebridge Press, 2006). Pervo comes to the conclusion that Acts of the Apostles has a date range of 110-120 CE due to its use of Paul’s epistles, Pastorials and Josephus.

[20] Dunn, ibid, p. xvii.   

 

 

[Updated 26/5/25]

This blog is an expansion of an argument I made in my papers- “How Josephus Really viewed Jesus”, “Exposing the Pre- Eusebian Strata of the Testimonium Flavianum” and “Want to know what Josephus Originally wrote about Jesus?” [1] In Josephus’ book, The Antiquities of the Jews we have a passage about Jesus called the Testimonium Flavianum (TF). By examining the variants of the TF it becomes clear that we are dealing with multiple redactional layers. This tiny passage about Jesus was badly and multiply tampered with, over the generations. I will show you that this tampering happened before, by and after Eusebius. Eusebius is only responsible for tampering the middle redaction shown below. As we dig down deeper to the earliest layer, certain aspects of the earliest layer bring this passage into line with how Josephus describes similar figures to Jesus – namely other Sign Prophets.

Layer 1

The TF takes a lot of untangling and to do this properly we are going to have to peel back the layers and start at the final redaction which is what we find in all Greek manuscripts of Josephus’ Antiquities. Before we peel back any layer, let’s look at the first layer which is the textus receptus of the TF (the received text as found in Antiquities).

Textus Receptus (final redaction)

There arose about this time Jesus, a wise man if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was a doer of astonishing deeds and a teacher to those who receive the truth with pleasure. And many of the Jews and many of Greek element he led to himself. He was the Christ. And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day, he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared (Ant. 18.63-64).

Witness of layer 1: Greek Manuscripts of Josephus’ Antiquities. (Earliest physical copies are 10th century).

Taking one example this redaction has the phrase “he was the Christ”. This phrase was written by a later redactor than Eusebius. See the next layer to see the earlier form of this phrase penned by Eusebius.

 

Layer 2

Michael the Syrian’s recension is very important to look at the second layer, because it at least gets us back to what Eusebius originally wrote. The evidence from the variants from earlier physical manuscripts such as the Syriac translations (from the fifth century) and the Latin translations (from the sixth century e.g Jerome) are earlier than the physical Greek MSS which date from the 10th century. I will uncover how Eusebius originally wrote the example phrase I took in layer one from these variants. This is what Eusebius originally wrote: “he was thought to be the Christ.” This is close to the following variants – Jerome, Rufinus and Michael the Syrian recensions. It was Whealey that tracked the sources for both Michael the Syrian and Agapius’ Arabic recension. She determined that Michael the Syrians quotation was closer to Josephus’ original than the Arabic recension^[2]. Michael’s was a literal copy as opposed to Agapius which happens to be a paraphrase. Both recensions had a common source – Theophilus of Edessa. Theophilus in turn used the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica. According to T.C. Schmidt the common source ultimately went back to an earlier source – Jacob of Edessa (705CE). Theophilus probably used him and Jacob had also used both Josephus and the Syriac translations. [*] The implication of this is that these two variants of the TF really only go back to a version Eusebius originally had as both recensions stem from Eusebius’ work, the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica (The Syriac version of Eusebius’ Church History). According to David Allen this recension of the TF is known as the middle redaction as he has tracked at least three redactions of the TF^[3]. As stated by Allen, “In a response to Ken Olson, Whealey was under the impression that the original TF is only minimally different from the textus receptus. Ironically it was from her brilliant scholarship that this minimally changed version was proved to be from the hand of Eusebius!^”[4] Let us now reproduce this variant to see what was likely the TF after Eusebius’ touch-up:

Michael the Syrians recension: (middle redaction)

The writer Josephus also says in his work on the institutions of the Jews: In these times there was a wise man named Jesus, if it is fitting for us to call him a man. For he was a worker of glorious deeds and a teacher of truth. Many from among the Jews and the nations became his disciples. He was thought to be the Messiah [or perhaps he was the Messiah]. But not according to the testimony of the principal [men] of [our] nation. Because of this, Pilate condemned him to the cross, and he died. For those who had loved him did not cease to love him. He appeared to them alive after three days. For the prophets of God had spoken with regard to him of such marvellous things [as these]. And the people of the Christians, named after him, has not disappeared till [this] day.

Witness to layer 2: Michael the Syrian’s recension, Agapius Arabic, Codex A of Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7, Rufinus translation of Eusebius, Jerome’s recension. (Syriac translation of Eusebius’ EH is the most valuable as physical copies exist from the 5th century- earliest we have that contains the TF)

This would be close to what Eusebius wrote. Three phrases I suspected that could be added to the above recension would get us to what Eusebius penned. One is a translation issue: instead of nations, Eusebius would had the term Greeks, “Both Michael and the Syriac Historia Ecclesiastica use ‘nations’ to translate the Greek Testimonium’s, tou Hellēnikou.[5] The second phrase you could add to this recencion for what Eusebius wrote is a “certain man”. One word that is attested in the variants is the word tis (‘certain’). In Codex A of 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).[6] The most important variant, Thomas Schmidt discusses in the Syriac translation of Eusebius’ EH is ‘certain man.’ “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) and he maintains the perhaps carnal sounding ‘receive with pleasure’ with an identical phrase ‘receive with pleasure’ (ܒܪܓܬܐ ܡܩܒܠܝܢ).”[*1]

As tis is attested in both the Slavonic and two textual variants, this increases the likelihood of it being in the original TF. [Take note – the *word* tis is attested in two independent transmission lines. The objection that the phrase *Iēsous tis* is not attested is irrelevant. The Slavonic not being independent of Eusebius is also irrelevant as we are talking about the *source* for the Slavonic.] Anyway, “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.

Ken Olson’s scholarship has left no doubt that Eusebius tampered with the TF even though his arguments are not enough to show the TF was created ex nihilo by Eusebius^[7]. The ‘certain man’ variant in Eusebius original copy proves Olson wrong. This gets us closer to how Eusebius tampered with the TF. Phrases like “doer of astonishing works” has been argued by Olson as being Eusebian.[8] The word poietēs literally means ‘doer, creator’ and metaphorically, Josephus uses it to mean ‘poet’. Josephus would have used this word to refer to poets but would not have used it here.[9] Eusebius would have also added the title Christ. I suspect he added Christians as well. Feldman writes, ‘The passage refers to “the tribe of the Christians”, but it is unlikely that Josephus referred to the Christians as a new nation, distinct from Jews and gentiles. The word “Christians” is found nowhere else in the works of Josephus.[10]

 

It was Pollard that had said “the Latin manuscripts are generally much earlier than the surviving copies of the Greek original, meaning that we need to know the Latin before we can restore Josephus’ Greek^[11].” We also have to take note of Thomas Schmidt monumental work which has showed us we have to also know Syriac before we can restore Josephus Greek.

Firstly Jerome used Eusebius’ Church History when he reproduced his version of the TF: “that Eusebius Pamphilus in the ten books of his Church History has been of the utmost assistance” (De Viris Illustribus 13). This recension is earlier than the textus receptus (received text of Antiquities). Jerome’s recension has “he was believed to be Christ” which is what Eusebius originally wrote into the TF. This makes it clear the textus receptus as found in Antiquities is the final redaction which was changed after Eusebius. We can track this by noting Eusebius originally had the phrase “he was thought or believed to be Christ” (middle redaction) as opposed to “he was the Christ” (final redaction) which is in the textus receptus. For the second Latin witness we will now examine Rufinus. David B. Levenson and Thomas R. Martin observed “By far the most interesting variant in the texts we are discussing [Rufinus translation of Eusebius] is the reading et credebatur esse Christus [he was believed to be Christ] for Christus hic erat [he was the Christ], which is found in two manuscripts of Rufinus currently in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: Clm 6383 from the late eighth century and Clm 6381 from the early ninth century^[12].”

Now that we have discussed the relevant recensions for this second layer we can now move onto the pre-Eusebian strata of the TF, i. e. the third layer.

Layer 3

The third layer is shown from the following variants – Origen Contra Cels. 1.47,48), Ps-Hegesippus, De Excidio and the Russian Chronographer Slavonic. These variants are missing the example phrase taken in layer one and layer two. They are missing the phrases, “he was the Christ” or “he was thought to be the Christ”. These three variants will expose a pre-Eusebian strata in the TF. The first is Origen. As  Contra Cels. 1.47 contradicts the TF statement that ‘he was the Christ’ showing that this statement was not in the earlier version of the TF.

 

Third Layer: The Pre-Eusebian and first redaction

There arose about this time a certain man, a wise man. A teacher of men who worship him with pleasure. Many of the Judaeans, and also many of the Greeks, he led to himself; he was believed to be a King. And, on the accusation of the first men among us, Pilate condemned him to the cross. The movement again broke out with great abundance when it was believed he appeared to them alive. For the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. Those that followed him at first did not cease to worship him and this tribe has until now not disappeared. (A former model reconstruction from a paper of mine was used for this layer).[13]

Witness for layer 3: SOURCE for Origen, Contra Cel. 1.47; SOURCE for Pseudo-Hegesippus, Excidio; SOURCE for the Russian Chronographer, Slavonic War adaption, SOURCE for Eusebius.

 

Examining the first pre-Eusebian witness – Origen, it was noted by Zvi Baras, Origen contradicts what Eusebius wrote into the TF, [“he was believed or thought to be the Christ”] which shows, “a clear contradiction cannot be pushed aside; one is therefore bound to conclude that the text of the Testimonium was tampered with—a conclusion corroborated also by modern scholarship^[14].” Origen did not see the line Eusebius had in his reproduced TF, “he was thought to be the Christ.” Other observances we may take out of Contra Cels. 1.47: – 1) “Christ, who was a prophet”- Jesus described as a prophet 2) “the Jews having put him to death” – Powerful Jews plotted against him. 3) “since they put to death Christ” – They succeeded in having him executed. 4) the line “he was the Christ” was not in the passage.

The second witness to use a version of the TF before Eusebian tampering was Pseudo- Hegesippus’ quotation in his book De excidio urbis Hierosolymitanae 2.12 (“On the ruin of the city of Jerusalem”). Nussbaum notices some parallels of Pseudo-Hegesippus reference and Origens:

In De excidio Hierosolymitano 2:12, Pseudo-Hegesippus paraphrases the TF, omitting the statement that Jesus was the Christ. He then vehemently criticises Josephus that he testified of Jesus, but did not believe in him as the Christ. It can be concluded that Pseudo-Hegesippus must have read a kind of TF, otherwise he would not have screamed that Josephus did not believe despite his report on Jesus. The situation is reminiscent of Origen writings – he wrote that Josephus did not believe in the messiahship of Jesus^[16].

Nussbaum

According to Paget, “The importance of this reference lies in the fact that Pseudo-Hegesippus writes independently of Eusebius. This is made clear by the fact that he refers to Josephus’ account of John the Baptist after the TF, following the Josephan order and not the Eusebian order as we find it in HE, and at an earlier point in the same book (2.4, cf Ant.18.3.4) refers to the Paulina incident which Eusebius never mentions^[15].”

Ps-Hegesippus’ Excidio did not use Eusebius. His Christianised document had “leaders of the synagogue confessed him to be god” and would not have dropped the phrase “he was believed to be the Christ.” This is taking into account that the Excidio is a paraphrase, it would still not have dropped that phrase. A better explanation is that an already tampered TF was received by both Ps-Hegesippus and Eusebius. Having Jews and Greeks join together in any sort of movement from the time of Herod the Great to the Jewish Roman War 66-70, is extremely unlikely. Steve Mason observed in the run up to the war, the era was marked by “the appearance of charismatic prophets, militants, and sicarii; … [and] deteriorating relations with Greek cities^[17].” A more likely scenario is that a Christian scribe swapped out Galilaiou (“Galilean”) for Hellēnikou (“Greek”).

This first redaction from Josephus original was a source for both Eusebius and Pseudo-Hegesippus. This received version of the TF by both Eusebius and Ps-Hegesippus was a pre-Eusebian redaction. This is seen from the points of contact, such as the phrase Ps-Hegesippius used before his paraphrase: “However a great part of the Jews, and very many of the gentiles believed in him.” (Ps-Hegesippus, De excidio 2.12). The motivation for adding that phrase would come about from a gentile based Christianity. That phrase is a point of agreement with Eusebius and the Excidio and added before Eusebius.

 This shows that both the Excidio and Eusebius used a tampered passage. The arguments here do not accept Eusebius as the initial person to have tampered the TF. Tampering of the TF has happened before and after Eusebius. The passage received by both Eusebius and Ps-Hegesippus was already tampered with. In examining the TF quote contained in the Excidio, the points of agreement with Eusebius show that both used a tampered passage.

We will now examine the third witness that used a source before Eusebian tampering – the Slavonic. John Curran who examined the Latin texts of the TF, has shown this more primitive version of the TF went east^[18]. I see the more primative version of the TF made its way east and influenced the insertions of the Slavonic. There are numerous sources to track especially in regard to the additions inserted and added to Josephus’ War book by the Russian chronographer in creating the Slavonic. Apart from Byzantium historians Hamartolus and Malalas, I find a different transmission line going east which would have also influenced those insertions. The reason for this is that it is difficult to explain why the Slavonic dropped the name Jesus and title Christ if this passage derived from the same TF existing in the Greek my manuscripts of Eusebius. The Russian chronographer was highly educated and had lots of sources. One possible source could have been a pre-Eusebian manuscript that went east. This is the third witness of interest that used a version of the TF before Eusebius tampered with it: namely the source of the Slavonic. The Slavonic has a number of insertions added to its translation and adaption of Josephus’ War. It is much easier to explain if this variant of the TF used a Greek examplar circulating in the east that escaped Eusebian tampering. This examplar did not have the name Jesus or title Christ added. Jesus not being named in an earlier form of the TF is taken from the evidence of the Syriac translation of Eusebius and the Slavonic^[19].

This is the third layer and the first redaction by a Christian scribe.

The fourth layer: Josephus original

This is an updated model of mine and is my latest model [20] Here is the realistic Model Reconstruction of Ant. 18.63-64:

Josephus Original Testimonium Flavianum

There arose about this time a certain man, a sophist and agitator. [Some eschatological sign similar to other sign prophets could have been the following: For they said he was a prophet and the Temple would be destroyed and restored in three days] Many of the Judaeans, and also many of the Galilean element, he led to himself in a tumult; he was desirous of Kingship: Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands. [Josephus may have mentioned Jesus as a pseudo prophet here but it has been replaced with the Emmaus passage found in Luke] So Pilate sent forces, footmen to slew them and seize a number of them along with the certain imposter. And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross. Yet this tribe has until now not disappeared.

Witness to layer 4: The source for the Slavonic; (A manuscript that went east but made little impression on a whole clatter of church fathers; Context and place of the TF, the TF is in the middle of a Josephus leitmotif containing the verbs or nouns of the Greek root thoryb- (tumults). Also a comparison with other Sign Prophet passages.

Some commentary on the original phrases

Josephus usually uses the expression σοφὸς ἀνήρ ‘a wise man’, as his highest praise for people. There is only two cases where he uses it: King Solomon and the prophet Daniel; it is not a phrase he uses for the messianic leaders he reports. Usually it is not σοφὸς (wise) but σοφιστής (sophist). Example: In War 2.118, Judas the Galilaean is described as a σοφιστὴς ἰδίας αἱρέσεως (“sophist of his own sect”). There is a clue this word sophist was originally written when Justin Martyr says:

“He was no sophist, but His word was the power of God.” (1 Apol. 14). 

Justin had heard off of his interlocutor that Jesus was a sophist, information he may have got off the TF. 

Cross reference this with what Lucian wrote in his satire called The Passing of Peregrinus:

“Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once, for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.” (Lucian, Peregr. Proteus, ch. xiii).

It is common knowledge that Jesus was a sophist, information that was easily accessed and out in the public. Information easily got from Josephus Antiquities found in public libraries.

Figuring out that the TF could have said Jesus was leading two groups into a tumult, comes about inadvertently from the scholarship of somebody who dismissed the TF because it did not contain the word θόρυβος (tumult):
“Norden noted that the section running from Ant 18.55-90 was united not by chronology—the two events reported after the TF, the expulsions of the Isis cult and of the Jews from Rome, concern events traditionally held to have taken place in AD 19 (Tacitus Annales 2.85), some time before Pilate’s tenure of office in Judaea. Rather they are united by the fact that they all conform to disturbances or θόρυβος (tumult), that is disturbances of a particular kind (either the noun θόρυβος or the verb θορυβεîν is found in the description of each incident) Such a bunching together of θόρυβος was, Norden noted, a well-known ancient historical ploy, and it is possible that Josephus had access to a source which characterized Pilate’s tenure of office as a succession of θόρυβοι ……Norden appeared to exclude arguments that assumed some tampering with an originally more negative passage which would have fitted more easily into the ‘thorubic’ context he outlined……If one adopts the view entertained, amongst others, by Thackeray and Eisler, that in the original account of the TF the word θόρυβος did in fact appear. Such an observation would also serve to counter Norden [21]

The line “Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands” comes from the Slavonic and may have also been in the original. Taking our sample phrase “he was the Christ”, this layer has the Slavonic deny what was probably the original phrase- “he was desirous of Kingship”.

This line is more likely given how Josephus learned of all these Sign Prophet movements:

“So Pilate sent forces, footmen to slew them and seize a number of them along with the certain imposter.”

The governor sending out cavalry and footmen was enough to generate a report that Josephus would have picked up. This is how the TF ended up in Josephus.

Here’s a bunch of blogs from this series:

Part 1 The Original Testimonium Flavianum

Part 2 The evidence of the Variants of the TF

Part 3 Analysis of the Testimonium Flavianum

Part 5 Wanna know what Josephus originally wrote about Jesus?

Part 6 Exposing the Pre-Eusebian Strata of the TF

Part 7 Why we know there was a Testimonium Flavianum.

 

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[1] David Allen, “How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus”, Revista Bíblica 85 3-4, (2023), pp.334-338; David Allen, “Exposing the Pre-Eusebian Strata of the Testimonium Flavianum”, JHC 19 (Forthcoming). David Allen, “Want to know what Josephus Originally Wrote about Jesus?” JHC 19 (Forthcoming).

[2] WHEALEY, “Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic”, pp.573–590.

[*] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the one Called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), p.56.

[3] ALLEN, “A Proposal: Three redactional layer model for the Testimonium Flavianum”, Revista Bíblica 85 1-2 (2023), pp.211-219.

[4] Allen, “A Propsal”, p. 212, see also WHEALEY, “Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea”, pp.115-6.

[5] WHEALEY, “The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic”, p.579.

[6] BERMEJO-RUBIO, “Hypothetical Vorlage”, p.358; PAGET, «Some Observations», p.565; EISLER, The Messiah Jesus, pp.38-41.

[*1] T C Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, (Oxford , 2025), p.47.

[7] OLSON, “A Eusebian Reading”, pp.97-114. To see a disputation of Olsen’s ex nihilo arguments see ALLEN, “Model Reconstruction”, pp.114-117.

[8] OLSON, “A Eusebian Reading”, p.103.

[9] Paget, ‘Some Observations’, p. 573.

[10] Louis H. Feldman, ‘On the Authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum’, in Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schacter (eds.), On the Authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum Attributed to Josephus: New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations (Brill Reference Library of Judaism, 33; Leiden: Brill, 2012), p.25

[11] POLLARD, “The De excidio“, pp.65-100 (72).

[12] LEVENSON AND MARTIN, “The Latin Translations”, pp.1-79 (25).

[13] Allen, “A PROPOSAL”, p.219.

[14] BARAS, “The Testimonium Flavianum“, pp.339-340.

[15] PAGET, “Some Observations”, pp.566-567.

[16] Nussbaum, “Das Testimonium Flavianum”, pp.72-82

[17] MASON, (ed.), Judean War 2, p.xv.

[18] CURRAN, “Be or to Be Thought to Be”, pp.71-94

[19] ALLEN, “Model Reconstruction”, pp.125-6.

[20] I have updated the model since writing this paper dropping the phrase “a teacher to those who receive the truth with pleasure.” Since it sounds creedal- see ALLEN, “Want to know what Josephus Originally Wrote about Jesus?” JHC 20 (Forthcoming).

[21] Norden, Eduard, 1913, ‘Josephus und Tacitus uber Jesus Chnstus und seine messianische Prophetie’, NJKA N F 31, pp 637-66 = Kleine Schnjten zum klassischen Altertum (Berlin, 1966), pp 241-75; cit op Paget, ibid, p.579-580

 

 

 

 

 

it is a matter of belief that in a dream impressions have been brought before the minds of many, some relating to divine things, and others to future events of this life, and this either with clearness or in an enigmatic manner — a fact which is manifest to all who accept the doctrine of providence.

Origen, Contra Celsum 1.48

Most actions instigated by eschatological prophets started with a vision inspired by scriptures. The promises the ‘Egyptian’ (Ant. 20.170) and Theudas (Ant. 20.97) made, the uncomfortable prophecy Jesus made on Temple Destruction and Restoration, all make this clear.

What action did Jesus initiate that resulted in his execution? In my last blog I show that Jesus was one of many eschatological prophets. In this blog and on the back of my latest research I show that Jesus was one of many that tried to “force the end.” (cf. Song_of_Songs.2.7; Ketubot 111a). That is, begin the new era, in which God would reign – his banner was called, just like many others called it – the Kingdom of God! Apocalypticism was the worldview of Jesus’ day where people thought that Satan was in charge of the world right now. This worldview developed from oppressed conquered people to explain why terrible things were happening despite the protection of Yahweh. By proclaiming the kingdom of god, Jesus was predicting that this current evil age of Satans hegemony was coming to an end and god would rule in a new age right here on Earth. The narrative of the gospel of Mark is a description of this new age, a kingdom of god is initiated. Jesus resists the temptations of Satan showing Satan no longer in charge, Jesus is able to exorcise to evil spirits that cause sickness. He is able to feed the hungry and even raise the dead. All yearnings of the poor satisfied in the new age. Jesus’ proclamation of a rival kingdom to the Roman administration would have been seen as a threat to Roman security.

Allison sees Mark 1:14-15 as a mixed source of a remembered tradition of Jesus and what the evangelist redacted. “Mark tells us that Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (1:14–15). What do we make of this unit? Many now reasonably ascribe it to Markan redaction. But those of us who believe that Jesus (a) taught in Galilee, (b) thought that the time of Satan’s rule was coming to its end, (c) proclaimed the imminence of the kingdom of God, (d) called for repentance, and (e) associated his ministry with the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah might well regard Mark 1:14–15 as a fair summary of Jesus’ proclamation. So even if it is redactional and not from Jesus, it rightly remembers some things and so is a witness to who he was.”[1] Much of what Allison sees in the gospels are a memory of Jesus’ death as an eschatological event. “if we have memory in the tradition, then the first and most likely place to look for it is not in individual sayings that our traditional criteria seemingly endorse but in themes and motifs—as well as in rhetorical strategies such as the use of parables and hyperbole — that recur across the sources.”[2] One reoccurring theme is Jesus beating Satan, the gospels as describing the new age already started. Jesus defeats Satan in the temptation scenes Mark1:12–13; Matt 4:1–11 = Luke 4:1–13, in his exorcisms Mark 1:21–28; 5:1–20; 7:24–30; 9:14–20; Matt 12:22–23 = Luke 11:14, Matt 9:32–34 and even a vision of Satan falling Luke 10:18.

Another messianic figure – 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’ (War2.118) 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. Like many of the Sign Prophets, Jesus gathered a crowd and was thus seen as a threat to Roman security. Jesus would have received some mystical vision, a vision of what to do to force the end. Usually what the vision involved was some re-enactment of scripture, this is what happened to Theudas and the ‘Egyptian’ both re-enacting a scriptural event and expecting Yahweh to intervene. The ‘Egyptian’ claims to make the “walls come tumbling down” (Ant. 20.170) in Jerusalem which is a clear allusion to the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6:20). Theudas’ claim to be able to divide the river (Ant. 20.97) is a clear allusion to Joshua 3.14-17, which has everything to do with the redemption of Israel. What drove Jesus to Jerusalem was probably a vision that involved a similar re-enactment of scripture that would “force” Yahweh to intervene and achieve an eschatological moment in time!

This was a time where dreams and visions were thought to be a meeting with the divine.

The bible itself relates dreams, visions, auditions, and the conviction that (to quote)
“When there are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams. not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the Lord.” (Numbers 12:6–8)
In the New Testament Paul’s opening words at the beginning of his letter to the Galatians appeal to an “apocalypse” rather than human authority (Gal 1:1–16). The Jesus of the synoptic Gospels too may have allowed a sense of his own divine vocation to take him to Jerusalem. it was necessary for the son of Man to suffer (Mark 8:31). The Johannine Jesus claims not to have spoken on his own authority, for “the father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore I speak just as the father has told me” (John 12:49–50).[3]

– Christopher Rowland

More than likely Jesus like other sign prophets from the time, tried to “force the end” as the Talmud describes it, by some scriptural re-enactment. The Scriptures inspired Jesus’ vision (See my quote below). It is obvious the gospels see that Jesus expected a Yahweh intervention.  Mark 14:57-58 shows the gospels uncomfortable because of the failed prophesy that the Temple would get rebuilt “not made” with human hands. This is beyond the rational realm and in line with what other sign prophets expected- god to intervene. What he got was what other sign prophets got, hunted down to be executed. Many Sign prophets of this era re-enacted some special scriptural event, thinking that Yahweh would intervene and initiate a new age. This is what was hoped for by Theudas and the ‘Egyptian’. They re-enacted scriptural events hoping Yahweh just like the old days would intervene and initiate a new age. “Later during the governorship of Cuspius Fadus (44–46 CE), Theudas caused a similar commotion [to Judas the Galilean], as he promised to split the Jordan River and lead his followers into freedom.[4] Why this could be “categorised as “millenarian” is because it envisaged radical transformation through a dramatic action by tapping into well-known themes from Jewish ancestral traditions about Moses”.[5] The ‘Egyptian’ promised the walls of Jerusalem would come tumbling down, a clear allusion to Josh 6. In “key moments in the birth of the nation, these signs prophets signalled the eschatological nearness of final redemption.”[6] As can be adduced, we have evidence of other eschatological prophets that also risked their lives, mostly like Jesus ending up in their executions as well. Rome got tough with those that gathered crowds.

Here is the relevant quote from my new paper:

Hengel noted in rabbinic literature centuries later that we have rabbis who disapprove of sign prophets who attempted to force the end.[7] R. Helbo is reported to have said: “They must not force the end; when they return from exile, they must not return home in huge mobs; they must not rebel against the empire; and they must not reveal its mysteries”[8] R. Zeira reports : “That [those who know] should not reveal the end of days; and that they should not distance the end of days [saying that it is still far away][9] Peter Schäfer’s main thesis in his book, Jesus in the Talmud shows that most mentions of Yeshu referred to different figures at different times, but these same figures were used as sophisticated counternarratives to the gospels and could have preserved an understanding of Jesus by the Jews.[10] In one such counter-narrative Simon J Joseph noted that the Babylonian Talmud (Sanh. 43a), Yeshu was “one who leads the people astray.”[11] That Yeshu was accused of witchcraft and Josephus often described the Sign Prophets as goētos (“charlatan/magician”)[12]

– David Allen, How Josephus Really viewed Jesus, RevBíb 85/3-4, (2023) page 349.

Novenson claims that some of the bandit-kings in Josephus would “have been hailed as messiahs, as the Judean bandit-king Shimon bar Kosiba was during the reign of Hadrian.”[13] In one account he compares “Josephus’s Roman-facing account with an inner-Jewish report preserved in the rabbinic midrashim. Eleazar ben Dinai, a mid-first-century CE Judean rebel who was eventually apprehended and extradited to Rome by Antonius Felix, Josephus calls τόν τε ἀρχιλῃστὴν Ἐλεάζαρον ἔτεσιν εἴκοσι τὴν χώραν λῃσάμενον, “Eleazar the bandit- chief who ravaged the country for twenty years” (War 2.253; cf. War 2.235–36; Ant. 20.121, 161). The late antique Song of Songs Rabbah, on the other hand, remembers this same Eleazar— alongside Amram, Shimon bar Kosiba, and Shuthelach ben Ephraim— among “the four generations who tried to hasten the end and came to grief.”[14]

To fully grasp the historical context of Jesus’ time I have done a comparative study with other Sign Prophets and show that Jesus’ descriptions and actions in the Christian literature have all the hallmarks of the other Sign Prophets. Collins sees Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem has the hallmarks of the Sign Prophet gathering crowds. [COLLINS “Millenarianism in Ancient Judaism”. Retrieved from http://www.cdamm. org/articles/ancient-judaism]. The prediction attributed to Jesus that the Temple would be destroyed and rebuilt not with human hands belongs in the realm of Sign Prophet promises, and eschatological signs. (Mark 14:58-58).

Here are the highlights of my paper, to give you an idea what drove these people to do what they did, and thus what most likely drove Jesus to do what he did.

From page 341-

John the Baptist use of the Jordan River may have evoked Elisha’s command to Naaman to immerse (ebaptisato) himself seven times in the Jordan in order to be purified of his lepra (2 Kings 5:14 Septuagint [hereafter LXX]). Second, it is possible that people would have associated John’s actions with some form of eschatological entrance into the land of promise, since Joshua led Israel through the Jordan in order to possess the land (Josh. 3:15; LXX uses the verb in reference to the priests entering into the water of the Jordan).[15]

From page 342-

The Samaritan sign prophet decided to show the crowd sacred vessels buried by Moses on the sacred site of Mount Gerizim, the site where the Hasmoneans had destroyed the Samaritan’s sacred Temple (Ant.18.85–87). The vessels were probably instruments used for Temple duties and would connect this Samaritan figure to Moses. (Deut. 27. 1-2). As a side note the gospel of Mark portrays “Jesus as refusing to allow “anyone to carry a vessel through the Temple,” alluding to Zech 14:20. Jesus not allowing anyone to carry “anything” through the Temple seems to refer to sacred vessels – skeuos (Mk 11.16).[16]

With the Sign Prophets under Felix Josephus makes a distinction from the Sicarii, hinting at the Sign Prophets religious fervor, they were “not so impure in their actions” (War 2.258). These sign prophets were distinctive in that they all “led their followers into (anticipated) participation in some great liberating action by God.”[17] The sign prophet under Festus “promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under” (Ant. 20.188).

From page 343-

The Sign Prophet at the Temple in 70CE promising deliverance in the midst of Roman slaughter just shows in desperate times how scriptural fantasy offered false hope. (War 6.283). Hengel sees the Temple Sign Prophet as one of many appointed by the Zealots to boost peoples morale among the horrors suffering from Roman siege warfare.[18]

Jesus was going to force the end, if Yahweh had intervened as Jesus expected, then he would not have gotten executed. “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49). So I don’t think Jesus expected to die. Yet he also probably knew the risks. I see Jesus as trying to “force the end”, to initiate a new kingdom of God. What Jesus got was not what he expected. Mark quoting the psalm has preserved this- “My god my god why have you forsaken me!” … (Jesus dying for our sins is a later apology to why Jesus got executed shamefully). Instead of a Yahweh intervention, what Jesus got was executed as he was a threat to Roman security. He was not the only eschatological prophet of this time, he was not the only one who tried to “force the end”, he was not the only one who threatened Roman security and he was not the only one caught and executed.

Hope you have enjoyed this taster from my new paper. I will close out this blog with a quote from Dale C. Allison:

We know far too little about the so-called sign prophets in Josephus, but it is credible that at least the so-called Egyptian (Ant. 20.169–72; War 2.262–63) or the Samaritan who led armed men to Mount Gerizim (Ant. 18.85–87) was in the grip of an eschatological scenario. Beyond them, some who participated in the revolt against Rome in the 60s CE must have believed that the prophecies of Daniel were unfolding in their day (cf. Josephus, Ant. 10.268; see Hengel 1989: 229–312), and that the apocalypse was to hand. Tacitus was under the impression that, around the time of the Jewish war, most Jews “were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judaea would go forth men destined to rule the world” (Hist. 5.13; cf. Josephus, War6.312).[19]

Dale C. Allison.

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[1] Dale C Allison “Traditional Criteria of Authenticity” in Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter. (eds) Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Volume 1, How to Study the Historical Jesus (Leiden:Brill: 2011), pp.13-14.

[2] Allison, ibid, p.25

[3] Christopher Rowland, “Apocalypticism and Radicalism” in John J. Collins (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, Oxford (2014), p.408

[4] OLIVER, “Are Luke and Acts Anti-Marcionite? ” , in J. H. Ellens – I. W. Oliver, et al (eds.), Wisdom poured out like water: studies on Jewish and Christian antiquity in honor of Gabriele Boccaccini, series: Deuterocanonical and cognate literature studies 38, Boston 2018, p.508.

[5] CROSSLEY AND MYLES, Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict, p.4-5 (5).

[6] FREDRIKSEN, When Christians Were Jews, p.177f.

[7] Martin Hengel, The Zealots, Investigation into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I to 70 AD (translation by David Smith), Edinburgh 1989, p.124.

[8] J. T. Townsend, Midrash Tanhuma Appendix to Devarim, Siman 3 on Song of Songs 2:7, S. Buber Recension, 1989. Available online: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.2.7?lang=bi&p2=Midrash_Tanchuma_Buber%2C_Appendix_to_Devarim.3.1&lang2=bi

[9] Steinsaltz, R. A., Koren Talmud Bavli (The Noé Edition), Jerusalem 1965, 2019, Ketubot 111a.

[10] Schäfer, P., Jesus in the Talmud, Princeton, NJ 2007, pp. 8-10

[11] Joseph Simon, J., Jesus and the Temple, The Crucifixion in its Jewish Context, Cambridge 2016, p. 21

[12] Barnett, P. W., “The Jewish Sign Prophets – A.D. 40-70, Their Intentions and Origin”, NTS 27 (1988), p.681.

[13] MATTHEW V. NOVENSON, The Grammar of Messianism, An Ancient Jewish Political Idiom and Its Users, Oxford, 2017, p.144

[14] Novenson, ibid, p.144, fn.114; Song Rab. 2.7.1, trans. Maurice Simon, Midrash Rabbah, vol. 9 (London: Soncino, 1983).

[15] THEISSEN, Forces of Death, p.23

[16] JOSEPH, Jesus and the Temple, p.115

[17] HORSLEY, “Popular Prophetic Movements”, p.8.

[18] HENGEL, Zealots, p.229

[19] Allison, “Apocalyptic Ethics and Behavior” in John J. Collins (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, Oxford (2014), p.308.

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