This blog is part of the Sign Prophet hypothesis for Jesus.

The governors of Judaea often knew what was going down, not just from their own informers but from the informers of their collaborators – that is the network belonging to the collaborating High Priest, an office controlled by the governors. The High Priest had been controlled since Herod the Great and the Romans, this was done by placing their special vestments under lock and key:

when Herod came to be king, he rebuilt this tower, which was very conveniently situated, in a magnificent manner; and because he was a friend to Antonius, he called it by the name of Antonia. And as he found these vestments lying there, he retained them in the same place, as believing, that while he had them in his custody, the people would make no innovations against him. The like to what Herod did was done by his son Archelaus, who was made king after him; after whom the Romans, when they entered on the government, took possession of these vestments of the high priest, and had them reposited in a stone-chamber, under the seal of the priests, and of the keepers of the temple, the captain of the guard lighting a lamp there every day; and seven days before a festival they were delivered to them by the captain of the guard, when the high priest having purified them, and made use of them, laid them up again in the same chamber where they had been laid up before, and this the very next day after the feast was over. (Josephus, Ant. 18.92-94)

It was Fergus Millar, a Roman historian that showed that it was the gospel of John, as opposed to the Synoptics that was most in touch with historical reality of the times. As Millar says, “Caiaphas makes his first appearance, described as ‘‘archiereus [high priest] of that year,’’ and utters the proposition that one man should die for the sake of the people.”[1]

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” (John 11:47-50)

This reflects the precarious position of the High Priests, either do the Romans bidding or lose your job by violent force.

Josephus provides many examples of movements just like the movement of Jesus that were stopped in their tracks. Small groups just like the Jesus group who gathered crowds were easily tracked by the various governors. Let us examine other Sign Prophet movements also stopped in their tracks where the Judaea governor seemed to be one step ahead.

In the group of the Samaritan that had gathered in Tirathaba, Pilate was ready to prevent them gathering at Mt. Gerizim:

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

Fadus was fully aware of Theudas plan to gather at the Jordan in order to split the river (like Moses):

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

Felix prevented a gathering by a Sign Prophet in the wilderness:

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

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

Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons, and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. (Ant. 20.171)

So also with the Jesus movement, Jesus simply got caught with a little help from informers and got handed over. Paul reports after Jesus’ last Supper he got handed over. (1 Cor. 11:23-25). As Burton Mack says, “In this case the mythic features are that Jesus himself explained the symbols and that it happened “on the night he was handed over.” Handed over was a term taken from the history of warfare and used in martyrologies to indicate the shift in power that set the situation up for a martyrdom. It did not need any narrative elaboration.”[2] The etymology of the term paredideto– παρεδίδετο is to “give over something that you posses (even if it is yourself) against your will. (against = παρά, give = δίδω). It is used for “deliver over” and for a militaristic “surrender.” Bart Ehrman says Paul uses handed over [by God, to face death] and that this “passage that might suggest that Paul did not know about Judas and his betrayal.” [3] Ehrman uses a passage in Romans as an example:

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

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

A more plausible view is to see this passage in a narrow sense, condemning the Jewish leaders and their followers but not the Jewish people in general. Several facts support this view. First, the persecution spoken of in 2:14 was intraracial. Paul commended the Thessalonians because they were able to endure persecution at the hands of their “countrymen” even as the Jewish churches did at the hands of other Jews. The word συμφυλέτης, a hapax legomenon, is an ethnic term meaning “of the same tribe or race.[4]

I have shown before in one of my papers why 1 Thess. 2:14-16 is no longer seen as an interpolation, mainly because the wrath of God does not refer to Temple Destruction.[5] The authentic line in the Testimonium Flavianum meshes very well with this: “And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross.” (Ant. 18.64). The gospel of John also says Jesus suspected informers:

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

Gary Greenberg says Paul or his followers are unaware of Judas betraying Jesus, it is only the gospel of Mark is the first to say so. Jesus’ post crucifixion appearance to Judas is relayed here –  “and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve,” (1 Cor 15:5). Greenberg observes “If Paul consciously intended his reference to ‘The Twelve” to mean that Jesus made a post crucifixion to all twelve disciples at the same time, including Judas, it would strongly suggest that at about 56CE, twenty to thirty years after the death of Jesus, Judas had not yet been identified as a villain within the mainstream Christian community.”[6]

The kiss of Judas is only the dramatic story telling of Mark and Matthew. (Mk. 14:43–45 and par).  The only dealings the Roman administration would have with a movement like the Jesus movement is through the payment of informers, whether Judas is a literary invention or not – that is what he represents. The gospel of Matthew says Judas did it for the money (Mt. 26:15), Luke’s gospel says Satan uses Judas to get back at Jesus. (Lk. 22:3). In Johns gospel Judas comes with a cohort of soldiers. Tom Dykstra sees Judas used by Mark (Mark being a Paulinist downplays Jesus’ family and the twelve) to emphasize the 12 before Paul were inferior. “The most straightforward interpretation is that the evangelist wanted to place extra heavy emphasis on the fact that Judas was one of the twelve; or, in other words, he wanted to leave no possibility that his hearers would miss the point that one of the twelve betrayed Jesus. The reader must naturally infer that mere membership in the ranks of “the twelve” – or, in the context of a Pauline epistle, mere status as one of “the apostles before me” -should not automatically confer authority on anyone.”[7]

Many scholars today think that Iscariot means “man of Kerioth,” as the “Is” in Hebrew means “ish” in English, implying Judas was Keriothish (transliteration of IsQeriyot). It can also be a  Greek rendering of the Sicarii, (an assassin group who had small daggers under their clothing on the pretense of a sacrifice), this implying the name meaning “man of the daggers.” Judah Sicarii became Jude Iscariot, then Judas Iscariot – sicarii after their knife (sicae-Latin/ sikkah-Aramaic)[8] Jesus betrayed by his own disciple “Judas”, who shares the name of the patriarch who gave his name to the whole nation of Judaea i. e. the Jews. In this scenario Iscariot could denote the sicarii.

The best way to evaluate Judas Iscariot is through memory studies. Chris Keith claims that the memory technique[9] as espoused by scholars such as Alan Kirk[10] are far superior (or at least should be the framework for criteria) to the historical criteria tools that were the major part of the third quest. A new quest for the historical Jesus is now launched and dubbed the “next quest.”[11] This next quest will use everything such as background history but will also involve memory studies. Memory studies in a nutshell are how the gospels understood Jesus and then proceeded to build stories around that. They involve that many repeated claims, such as the re-occurrence technique used by Dale Allison (i. e. what keeps re-occurring such as Jesus as a prophet). Allison’s method consisted of what kept re-occurring in the gospels more than likely came from historical sources told in a literal and theological way in the gospels.[12]

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

Then one of the Twelve who was called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, “What do you wish to give me, if I hand him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from then on he was seeking an opportunity to hand him over (Matt. 26:14–16).

The thirty pieces of silver alludes to Zech. 11:12-13, this in turn alluded to payment for killing a slave, Ex. 21:32.

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Some commentary from my FB Group-

Russell Gmirken:

Judas the informer’s fate: Hung himself in the throes of remorse (Matthew 27:3–5)? Disemboweled in a fall (Acts 1:18–19)? Divinely punished (Papias)? In any case, all accounts, however late their date, agree that the unfortunate yet well-deserved death of the Judas ensued almost immediately after his act of betrayal.

Call me a cynic, but there were a number of prominent traitors in antiquity regarding whom ancient or modern sources hotly disputed whether their subsequent fate was suicide or in fact murder: Demosthenes, Brutus, Mark Anthony, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Seneca the Younger, among the most famous. One can extend this list with many other historical examples down to the near present when it was expedient to chalk up an act of violent political retaliation as an unfortunate case of suicide. An entertaining possibility in the NT which few, however, are willing to entertain.

My Answer (Dave Allen):

Russell Gmirkin as “Judas described” is an invention (whether there was a historical figure or not as I argue in my blog) – I’d be very willing to entertain what that description was based on. In the blog I see Judas as representing a historical memory of a movement full of informers and spies.

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[1] Fergus Millar, “Reflections on the Trials of Jesus”, chapter 7 in Rome, the Greek World, and the East volume 3 of The Greek World, the Jews, and the East, Fergus Millar, Edited by Hannah M. Cotton and Guy M. Rogers, (2006, The University of North Carolina Press), p.146.

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

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

[4] Michael A. Rydelnik, “Was Paul Anti-Semitic? Revisiting 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16”, BSAC 165.657 (2008),  p.63.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The fruition of my studies on both the Testimonium Flavianum and the Sign Prophet hypothesis for Jesus are examined in this open accesss peer review paper (it shows how Jesus was one of the Sign Prophets).

Here is the podcast of my paper from the academia site:

Today we have a thought provoking episode ahead as we explore a fascinating paper by David Allen titled “How Josephus really viewed Jesus.” Josephus, a Romano- Jewish first century historian is a key figure for anyone studying the historical Jesus and the context for early Christianity. His work provides a crucial link of Jewish history to early Christian writings. [(The same can be said of the Dead Sea Scrolls) Outside of Josephus mention of Jesus in the Testimonium Flavianum (TF) these sets of literature are crucial in studying the mindset of these people and help to explain the rise of Christianity].

There is perennial debate in how Josephus depicted Jesus specifically in the TF, which is the key question here. Was Jesus seen as a radical eschatological figure? Was the passage tampered with by later scribes? And if so, to what extent? Why is this significant? Well Josephus’ writings contain one of the few outside the Bible references to Jesus from his time period. Understanding Josephus’ perspective helps us discern historical facts from later interpretations or embellishments that may have occurred as Christianity grew and spread. In this paper Allen tackles the TF with detective like precision dissecting text variants and historical context. He aligns Jesus with Jewish Sign Prophets, charismatic figures of the era who promised eschatological signs and divine interventions. They often led followers into re-enactments of great scriptural events expectant of divine intervention that never quite materialized. This characterization offers intriguing parallels between Jesus and other figures such as Theudas or the Egyptian who Josephus also wrote about. Allen’s reconstructs how Josephus might have originally described Jesus suggesting layers of later Christian tampering which obscured the original portrayal. He discusses how Christians interpolations, additions in other words might have seeped into the passage over the centuries. For instance some Christian scribes added phrasing like “he was the Christ” [missing from Origen, Pseudo-Hegisippus and the Slavonic] to re-enforce theological narratives. These additions would not reflect Josephus’ view of Jesus. Digging deeper to get the real Josephan view of Jesus, you will find many of the Sign Prophets promised radical change with divine acts similar to the Exodus or other pivotal events in Israel’s history described in the Torah. These promises were expected to signal the end times. Allen’s work suggests Jesus could have been perceived similarly, leading followers to Jerusalem in a re-enactment further backed by eschatological hope. Early forms of the TF did not even name Jesus which is similar to how Josephus described these other sign Prophets- [he hardly even knew their names. He could name one or two, but didn’t know the names of the rest]. The opening of the TF, Jesus was described as a ‘certain man’. To enquire about Jesus through the lens of Josephus invites us to examine history in its raw unpolished form.

Here’s the link:

https://www.revistabiblica.com/ojs/index.php/RB/article/view/364/411

After years of research (3 peer review papers and 3 popular market papers), this is my conclusion to what the Testimonium Flavianum (the passage Josephus originally wrote about Jesus) looked like.

Post updated 1 July 2025.

This is my latest model taking all factors into account including how Josephus described other figures that are comparable to Jesus.

Here is the Model Reconstruction of Ant. 18.63-64 that I provisionally accept for now:

Josephus’ Original Testimonium Flavianum:

There arose about this time a certain man, a sophist and agitator. He was a doer of strange works.

[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.

Reconstructed model Ant. 18.63-64

Here is the appendix of the English and attic Greek.

A few notes on this model.

“There was about this time a certain man”

The Syriac translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History has “certain man” in place of Jesus. As Schmidt in his new book Josephus and Jesus observes: “In terms of their translations of the TF, the Syriac translator of the Ecclesiastical History does a better job witnessing to the ambiguity of the TF. He preserves the possibly derogatory ‘a certain Jesus’ (Ἰησοῦς τις) as ‘a certain man’ (ܓܒܪܐ ܚܕ)” [*] This reading is supported by a Greek variant in one of the Greek manuscripts of Eusebius – Codex A Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.11.7 quotes the TF and has tis after Iēsous referring to ‘a certain Jesus.’ This tis is the same reading as the Slavonic. ‘The Slavonic Josephus offers a trace of the same pronoun: the phrase muzi nekij retroverted into Greek would correspond to anēr tis (certain man).”[*1] Having this phrase also in the Syriac translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History makes it a certainty that this was the original reading. Having the variant “certain man” in a very early Syriac translation of Eusebius shows us that “certain man” was originally in Eusebius’s rendition. On the word tis (‘certain’) “It was probably common knowledge in Justin Martyrs time that Josephus did in fact use tis. Justin Martyr can imagine how Trypho would caricature Jesus, writing Iēsous tinos (Martyr, Dial. Trypho 108)^[1].”

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

“A sophist and agitatior” 

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 or Sign Prophets he reports. Usually it is not sofos (wise) but sofistēs (sophist) such as Judas the Galilaean who is described as a sofistēs idias aireseos (“sophist of his own sect”) (War 2.118). Anti Christian polemic that could have been working off the original TF suggest that the word sophist was used to describe Jesus, Justin Martyr counters his interlocutor- “He was no sophist, but His word was the power of God.” (1 Apol. 14). Lucian wrote in his satire called The Passing of Peregrinus referred to Jesus as “crucified sophist” (Lucian, Peregr. Proteus, ch. xiii).

He was a doer of strange works.

Geza Vermes argued in 2009 that the expression “surprising feats” (paradoxon ergon) (example used in Ant. 12.63) is repeatedly used by Josephus in his works to describe many miracles associated with the Old Testament (such as the burning bush and the miracles of Moses and Elisha). [*2]

So the word in itself is not negative (just like many words in English), but in context it can be negative. There is an example of this when Josephus describes the miracles of Pharoahs court magicians. Josephus “makes Pharaoh say that the ‘wise’ (σοϕῶν) magicians of Egypt employed their dark arts (μαγείας) to perform a παράδοξον before Moses by turning their staffs into snakes” (Ant. 2.285–6).[*3]

Originally Josephus would have seen Jesus as a gōes (wizard) and this would be reflected in the phrase ‘doer of strange works.’ This phrase may be original but read negatively. The anti-Christian polemicists may have got the impression that Jesus was a γόης (goēs) from the original TF containing παραδόξων Celsus picks out that exact word describing Jesus as such in Contra Cels. 1.6. Other anti Christians also suspected Jesus of magic such as the Jew interlocutor of Justin Martyr (Dial. 69.7). For a detailed discussion of this consult Thomas Schmidt new book Josephus on Jesus. [*4]

“A teacher of men who reverence truth.”

There is a variant in Eusebius Proof (Dem. Ev. 3.5) that has sebomenon σεβομένων (“who reverence”) instead of “hēdonḗ talēthē dechomenon (“who receive the truth with pleasure”), it is hard to decide whether the textus receptus or the variant is the earlier reading. “a teacher of men who reverence truth” sounds less theological than the textus receptus, “a teacher to those who receive the truth with pleasure”, as if Jesus was giving out the truth, something the Jew Josephus would probably not accept.

Latest: I think this is a creed added by Eusebius, in place of sophist. So I dropped it from the original TF.

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

The gospels all try to sanitize this prophecy, it is exactly like the promises made by a group of people in Josephus such as Theudas and the ‘Egyptian.’ Modern scholars refer to these people as Sign Prophets^[2]. 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. “Key moments in the birth of the nation, these signs prophets signalled the eschatological nearness of final redemption. … Scriptural authority undergirded not only their own message; it also supported the hopes and convictions of their followers^[3].” Taking the example of the ‘Egyptian’ Allen notes:

With the ‘Egyptian’ the great sign promised (and actually believed by his followers) was God would help with insurmountable odds, like penetrating the walls of Jerusalem. The world power of the Romans had a protracted siege in order to penetrate these, the Egyptian simply promised “at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down” (Ant. 20.170). From this you can see the scriptural fantasy of re-enactment, that people actually thought this could be replicated^[4].

The Sign Prophet (or Pseudoprophet as Josephus calls them) had a sway over the people and had convinced their following of their visions. Most had a vision influenced from great scriptural past happenings and thought they could replicate great moments instigated by great prophets. Nathan C. Johnson cannot see how the Egyptian thought he could actually succeed:  “On this account, it is unclear how exactly the Egyptian prophet envisioned succeeding: even with thirty thousand militants (a typical Josephan exaggeration), the walls of Jerusalem would have been all but impenetrable, as shown in the protracted, months-long Roman siege of the city a little over a decade later^[5].” Yet all the Sign Prophets thought they would succeed with Gods intervention. According to their beliefs, God had intervened for great prophets of the past.

Allen does a comparative study between Jesus and the Sign Prophets showing Jesus was one in a line of Sign Prophets^[6]. We see in the gospels the evangelists are uncomfortable with a typical sign prophet sign, that of the failed prophecy of Temple destruction in Jesus’ day (Mark 13:1-31)^[7]. A version of this prophecy unsanitized could have been original to the TF. 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^[8].”

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.

“Many of the Judaeans, and also many of the Galilean element, he led to himself in a tumult”

The most interesting line that was corrupted in the TF is “many Jews, and also many of the Greek element, he led to himself;” (Ant. 18.63). Both Greeks and Jews had deteriorating relations in the lead-up to the Roman Jewish War 66-70 CE. Here I believe some Christian scribe before Eusebius swapped out Galilaiou (“Galilean”) for Hellēnikou (“Greek”). Having ‘Greeks’ makes this movement sound universal. Christianity being predominantly gentile movement would have motivated a Christian scribe to include Greeks being part of the Jesus movement. This passage was also used by Eusebius throughout Proof (Examples: Dem. Ev. 3.5.109; cf 4.20.14, 8.2.109)^[9], although it was still problematic as it noted by Paget. Eusebius did notice the historical reality of the time and explained away this problem by seeking “to support the assertion by reference to the Acts of the Apostles and what was known about Christianity up to the outbreak of the Bar Kokhba revolt^[10].”

The passages surrounding the TF had disturbances or thorubos (“tumult”) of one kind or another. I found that a derivative of the word thorubos best fitted here in this sentence as the Greek says Jesus led two groups, Jesus leading two groups at a highly dangerous time of Passover, an occasion that usually ended in riots of one kind or another. Some ruckus caused by the Jesus movement would have ended up in Jesus’ crucifixion. Here is my reconstruction of the original Josephus sentence: kai pollous men Ioudaious, pollous de kai tou Galilaiou epēgageto en thorubō. Both Norden and Schwartz noticed that Josephus often kept disparite passages together by using a leitmotif. In the Pilate and surrounding passages Josephus used the leitmotif of a tumult. “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, 62, 65, 85, 88)^[11].”   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 thorubos (‘tumult’)^[12].

“he was desirous of Kingship: Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands.”

The Slavonic denied Jesus was desirous of Kingship thus perhaps preserving the earliest form of the phrase “he was the Christ”. The final redaction of the TF is the received text as found in all Greek manuscripts of Antiquities and is known as the textus receptus. (Ant. 18.63-64). This is the latest layer. Taking one phrase from the textus receptus,  “he was the Christ,” we will find that this phrase was written by a later redactor than Eusebius. Eusebius originally wrote: “he was thought to be the Christ”, the witnesses to this middle redaction of the TF are Jerome, Rufinus and Michael the Syrian recensions. The pre-Eusebian first redaction is shown from the following variants – Origen, the Slavonic and De Excidio. These variants are missing the example phrase taken in the final redaction and the middle redaction. They are missing the phrases, “he was the Christ” or “he was thought to be the Christ”. By denying it, it is the Slavonic that gives us a hint what the earliest phrase was- “he was desirous of Kingship”

 For the second line here “Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands” also comes from the Slavonic.

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

Certain imposter or γόητος τις is the usual way Josephus described the Sign Prophets.

In an earlier form of the Testimonium Flavianum (the original TF) (Ant. 18.63-64) Jesus may have been described as a γόης –  goēs prompting Porphyry to describe Jesus as a wizard. In Proof (Dem. Ev.) Eusebius tries to defend against Porphyry’s attacks about Jesus being a wizard. David Allen has shown anti-Christian polemicists making use of an original TF.[13] This would have prompted Eusebius to change such a phrase containing γόητος τις –  goētos tis (‘certain sorcerer’) to παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής – paradoksōn ergōn poiētēs. (‘doer of astonishing works’).

The line about Pilate sending forces is more likely given what was written before and after the TF. See what was written before the TF: “Who laid upon them much greater blows …” (Ant. 18.62) and the see the line after the TF: “About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder” (Ant. 18.65). It is also more likely seeing how Josephus wrote about other Sign Prophets.

Any movement that gathered a crowd initiated a sending out of troops by the Roman governor. Here I will provide a few examples-

The first example was a movement other than Jesus’ that was put down by Pilate:

“but Pilate prevented their going up, [to Mt. Gerizim] by seizing upon file roads with a great band of horsemen and footmen, who fell upon those that were gotten together in the village; and when it came to an action, some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight, and took a great many alive, the principal of which, and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain.” (Josephus, Ant. 18.87)

Here Fadus sent out the horsemen against Theudas and his group:

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

The Sign prophets under Felix met the same fate.

But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen both armed, who destroyed a great number of them. (War 2.260)

The authentic part of textus receptus found in the manuscripts of Antiquities. Paul Winters notes:

The Egyptian who command the biggest group of these Sign Prophets, had to face the horsemen and footmen.

Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons, and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. (Ant. 20.171)

And later under Festus

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

The gospel of John reports an incident very similar to these:

Then a cohort (speira) with its commander (chiliarchos) and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. (John 18:12)

As noticed by Lena Einhorn, “a σπεῖρα (speira), that is a cohort consisting of 500 to 1000 Roman soldiers was sent out and John uses the word χιλίαρχος (chiliarchos), for their commander, this is a commander of one thousand (Jn. 18:12).^[14] Dale Martin consulting the gospel of Mark alone showed tte Jesus movement were lightly armed expecting a break in of a Yahweh intervention . ^[15] “At least one of Jesus’ disciples was armed when Jesus was arrested. The mistake made by most readers is to read the Gospel of Mark in light of the Gospel of Luke, which insists that only two swords were involved (Mk 14.47; Lk. 22.3638, 50). What happens if we read Mark’s account pretending we know nothing of how it is presented in the other Gospels?”^[16] This is similar to the Samaritan sign prophet whose movement were only armed for self defence. (Ant.18.86, 88). Josephus consulted the records under all the various governors of Judea, where footmen or cavalry had to be sent against any mass movement. This suggests just such an incident of footmen and cavalry were sent out for Jesus, this would generate such a report by the prefect (Pilate), a report that would ultimately be picked up by Josephus. Such incidents were picked up all over the place in Judea for Josephus’ books. Most of the Acta records which would have included orders for footmen and cavalry sent out, under each of  the governors of Judea were included in his book Antiquities.

It is most likely Jesus was crucified as being a threat to Roman security. Justin Meggit’s reason for Jesus ending up on a cross for simply being mad is a bit anachronistic as we do not talk for a rational age.^[17] He was right to say Pilate did not need much of an excuse or trial to have Jesus Crucified (Philo, Legat. 302).^[18] You could say all the Sign Prophets were mad as they went against yet odds expecting gods intervention but this was due to an apocalyptic age beliefs.

Another assumption by Meggit, that  Jesus was crucified alone is not to be taken for granted as Bermejo-Rubio argued those crucified with Jesus could have been his followers.^[19] Josephus refers to bandits as lestes (Greek for robbers), It’s hard to see why Jesus wouldn’t be seen as a bandit as he was crucified between two bandits. As Paula Fredrikson says, “Perhaps Jesus was arrested as a lestes: he was certainly executed as one, crucified between two others (duo lestai, 15:27); and he was charged with making a seditious claim, that is, that he was “The King of the Jews” (15:26)”^[20]

“And when at the indictment of the first men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross.”

The balanced distinction between endeiksei (verb endeichnumi) writ of indictment, attributed to Jewish leaders, and the act of awarding sentence (epitiman stauro) is not likely to be the work of a Christian interpolator …Such an interpolator would scarcely have been content with reproaching Jewish leaders for drawing up an indictment against Jesus whilst stating that the imposition of sentence by crucifixion was an act of Roman justice^[21].

I also found Schmidt is right to say that when Josephus says “first men among us” he would have known of them which brings Josephus himself closer to the Jesus case. [*4]

John 11:47-50 reflects the collaborating High Priest’s fear of the danger posed by a messianic figure:

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation. (John 11:47-50)

This is also backed up in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15:

For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s Assemblies in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those Assemblies suffered from the Judeans…..

The Dead Sea Scrolls mention an earlier high priest, seen as a collaborator, whom they dubbed the “Wicked Priest,” (“cohen resha” mentioned in 1QpHab; cf 4QpPsa) which shows one need not read the Josephus business about priestly involvement in Jesus’ execution as a product of vilification by Christian interpolators.

“Yet this tribe has until now not disappeared.”

As noted by Whealey and Paget, Josephus probably used the phrase “until now”, where Eusebius had changed this to his own idiosyncratic phrase “still to this day.”[22] At the time of writing Josephus must have been aware of Christians existing in Rome.

Here’s a bunch of blogs from the 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 4 The Layers of the Testimonium Flavianum

Part 6 Exposing the Pre-Eusebian Strata of the TF

Part 7 Why we know there was a Testimonium Flavianum.

 

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

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

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

[*3] Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, p.75.

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

[*4] Thomas Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus, pp.74-76.

[2] The Sign Prophet category was established by earlier scholars such as P. W. Barnett,  “The Jewish Sign Prophets – A.D. 40-70, Their Intentions and Origin”, NTS 27 (1988), pp.679-697.

[3] Paula Fredriksen, When Christians Were Jews, The First Generation, (New Haven:Yale, 2018),, pp.177f.

[4] Allen, “How Josephus Really viewed Jesus”, p.343.

[5] Nathan C. JOHNSON, “Early Jewish Sign Prophets” in CROSSLEY, J. and LOCKHART, A. (eds.), CDAMM (2021) retrieved from here: https://www.cdamm.org/assets/articlePDFs/31519-early-jewish-sign-prophets.pdf

[6] Allen,  “How Josephus Really viewed Jesus”, p.346.

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

[8] 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

[9] Olson, “A Eusebian Reading”, pp.105-108.

[10] Paget, “Some Observations”, p.562.

[11] Daniel Schwartz, “Many Sources but a Single Author Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities”, in Chapman and Rodger (eds.), A Companion to Josephus, (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016, p.45.

[12] Eduard Norden, “Josephus und Tacitus über Jesus Christus und eine messianische Prophetie”,  Neue Jahrbücher das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche Literatur 31 (1913). pp.579-80.

[13] David Allen, “The Use of the Testimonium Flavianum by Anti-Christian Polemicists”, JHC 16.2, (2021), pp.42-105.

[14] Lena Einhorn, A Shift in Time, How Historical Documents Reveal the Surprising Truth about Jesus, (Yucca, 2016), Premise Two.

[15] Dale B. Martin, “Jesus in Jerusalem: Armed and Not Dangerous”, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37.3 (2014), pp.3-24.

[16] Martin, Armed and Not Dangerous, pp.4-5.

[17] Justin Meggit, The Madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus Put to Death, but his Followers were not?, JSNT 29.4 (2007) pp.379-413

[18] Meggit, Madness,, p.380.

[19] Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, “(Why) Was Jesus the Galilean Crucified Alone? Solving a False Conundrum”, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36 (2), pp.127–54.

[20] Fredriksen, Paula, From Jesus to Christ, The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus, 2nd Ed. (Yale, 2000), p.116.

[21] Paul Winter, On The Trial of Jesus, (De Gruyter 1974), p. 40. 

[*4] T. C. Schmidt, Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for The One called Christ, (Oxford, 2025), pp.6-7.

[22] Alice Whealey, “Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the Testimonium Flavianum”, in C. Böttridge and J. Herzer (eds), Josephus und das Neue Testament, (Tübingen 2007), pp.73-116 (103); Paget, “Some Observations”, pp.574-575.

 

This blog is part of the Sign Prophet hypothesis for Jesus.

For trouble, the governors of Judea, who were initially prefects and then later procurators, sent out footmen and cavalry to deal with troublemakers and their movements. Pilate was referred to as a procurator anachronistically by Josephus (War 2.169) and Tacitus (Annuls 15.44) but archaeology has since proven that he was a prefect.[1] Newly conquered lands had more of a military ruler (prefect) rather than a procurator. In the words of  A. N. Sherwin-White in a lecture on the Roman law during New Testament times:

The governors of Judaea belong to a rather special group of imperial ad­ministrators, … These are men of non- senatorial rank, technically Roman ‘knights’, [i.e. equestrian provincial governors] a class of men owning a moderate minimum of property, who were used to supplement the senatorial proconsuls and legates by taking over the government of relatively small areas that required special treatment; mostly these were military governments over rebellious or newly acquired areas. Such were the various Alpine districts known as Rhaetia, Noricum, and the Cottian and Maritime Alps, the island of Sardinia, and of course Judaea. The greatest of them was Egypt. Their title in the period before Claudius was not procurator but praefectus.[2]

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 re-enact the deliverance of Israel from foreign rule in Egypt.[3] Those groups that re-enacted scriptures, (Sign Prophets) hoped the same thing would happen that had already happened within the scriptures, that is – God turning up to beat the odds. Anachronistically we could describe these people as “beat the odds” mad figures. In their day they really believed God would come. When Solomon Zeitlin read the passage on the Sign Prophets under Felix (War 2.258-60) it led him to note: “Apocalyptists who are the forerunners of the Christian movement.”[4] Jesus being one in a series of Sign Prophets makes all these movements sound like a proto-Christian one as Zeitlin described.

With the “efflorescence of apocalyptic writings: Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, various apocryphal literature. The production of such texts, and the missions of various charismatic figures who left no writings—John the Baptizer, Jesus of Nazareth, Theudas, the Egyptian, and those men whom Josephus refers to collectively as the “signs prophets”—continued as Israel was caught up in Rome’s bumpy transition from republic to empire, in the uncertainties of Roman hegemony (especially following Herod’s rule, 37–4 B.C.E.), and ultimately in two devastating wars against Rome (68–73 C.E. and 132–35 C.E., Bar Kokhba’s revolt).” [5]

These sign prophets were distinctive in that they all “led their followers into (anticipated) participation in some great liberating action by God.”[6]

Any movement that gathered a crowd automatically initiated a sending out of troops by the Roman governor. Here I will provide a few examples-

The first example was a movement other than Jesus’ that was put down by Pilate:

“but Pilate prevented their going up, [to Mt. Gerizim] by seizing upon file roads with a great band of horsemen and footmen, who fell upon those that were gotten together in the village; and when it came to an action, some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight, and took a great many alive, the principal of which, and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain.” (Josephus, Ant. 18.87)

Here another governor, Fadus sent out the horsemen against Theudas and his group:

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

The Sign prophets under Felix met the same fate.

But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen both armed, who destroyed a great number of them. (War 2.260)

The Egyptian who command the biggest group of these Sign Prophets, had to face the horsemen and footmen.

Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons, and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. (Ant. 20.171)

And later under Festus

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

The gospel of John reports an incident very similar to these:

Then a cohort (speira) with its commander (chiliarchos) and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. (John 18:12)

As noticed by Lena Einhorn, “a σπεῖρα (speira), that is a cohort consisting of 500 to 1000 Roman soldiers was sent out and John uses the word χιλίαρχος (chiliarchos), for their commander, this is a commander of one thousand (Jn. 18:12).[7] Dale Martin consulting the gospel of Mark alone showed the Jesus movement were lightly armed expecting a break in of a Yahweh intervention . [8] “At least one of Jesus’ disciples was armed when Jesus was arrested. The mistake made by most readers is to read the Gospel of Mark in light of the Gospel of Luke, which insists that only two swords were involved (Mk 14.47; Lk. 22.3638, 50). What happens if we read Mark’s account pretending we know nothing of how it is presented in the other Gospels?”[9] This is similar to the Samaritan sign prophet whose movement were only armed for self defence. (Ant.18.86, 88). Josephus consulted the records under all the various governors of Judea, where footmen or cavalry had to be sent against any mass movement. This suggests just such an incident of footmen and cavalry were sent out for Jesus, this would generate such a report by the prefect (Pilate), a report that would ultimately be picked up by Josephus. Such incidents were picked up all over the place in Judea for Josephus’ books. Most of the Acta records which would have included orders for footmen and cavalry sent out, under each of  the governors of Judea were included in his book Antiquities.

It is most likely Jesus was crucified as being a threat to Roman security. Justin Meggit reason for Jesus ending up on a cross for simply being mad is a bit anachronistic as we do not talk for a rational age.[10] He was right to say Pilate did not need much of an excuse or trial to have Jesus Crucified (Philo, Legat. 302).[11] You could say all the Sign Prophets were mad as they went against the odds expecting gods intervention but this was due to an apocalyptic age beliefs.

Another assumption by Meggit, that Jesus was crucified alone is not to be taken for granted as Bermejo-Rubio argued those crucified with Jesus could have been his followers. [12] Josephus refers to bandits as lestes (Greek for robbers), the gospels use the same word. It’s hard to see why Jesus wouldn’t be seen as a bandit as he was crucified between two bandits. As Paula Fredrikson says, “Perhaps Jesus was arrested as a lestes: he was certainly executed as one, crucified between two others (duo lestai, 15:27); and he was charged with making a seditious claim, that is, that he was “The King of the Jews” (15:26)”[13]

 

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[1] See the Pilate Stone. https://www.raydowning.com/blog/2016/2/8/pontius-pilate-prefect-not-procurator

[2] A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, (Oxford,1963), pp.5-6.

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

[4] Solomon Zeitlin, “The Christ Passage in Josephus”,  Jewish Quarterly Review 18, (1928),  p.236.

[5] Paula Fredriksen, Paul, The Pagans Apostle, (Yale, 2017), p.27.

[6] Richard Horsley., “Popular Prophetic Movements at the Time of Jesus, their Principle Features and Social Origins”, JSNT 26 (1986), pp.3-27 (8).

[7] Lena Einhorn, A Shift in Time, How Historical Documents Reveal the Surprising Truth about Jesus, (Yucca, 2016), Premise Two.

[8] Dale B. Martin, “Jesus in Jerusalem: Armed and Not Dangerous”, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37.3 (2014), pp.3-24.

[9] Martin, ibid, pp.4-5.

[10] Justin Meggit, “The Madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus Put to Death, but his Followers were not?”, JSNT 29.4 (2007) pp.379-413

[11] Meggit, ibid, p.380.

[12] Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, “(Why) Was Jesus the Galilean Crucified Alone? Solving a False Conundrum”, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36.2, pp.127–54.

[13] Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ, The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus, 2nd Ed. (Yale, 2000), p.116.

Dispelling the skeptical stance of what the Slavonic has to offer as historical evidence on the Testimonium Flavianum:

The Slavonic Testimonium is so bloated with Christian gloss that it is laughable. In the words of Van Voost- “The Slavonic Josephus reflects the growing Christian tendency to excuse Pontius Pilate for Jesus’ death and to blame the Jews, even to the point of saying that the Jews themselves crucified Jesus. To make this point, the Slavonic version has to ignore Josephus’s original statement that Pilate crucified him … The Slavonic Testimonium uses the New Testament extensively at several points to develop its story.” [1]

Many are skeptical that any of the Slavonic testimony on Jesus came from Josephus, yet Dave Allen has shown over numerous papers proof that at least some of it is pre-Eusebian.

If Christians were trying to bolster up the TF, Van Voorst fails to explain why they dropped his name Jesus and title Christ.[2]  Something similar has happened to the Baptist passage:

The Baptist passage in the Slavonic merely opens with – “And at that time a certain man^” … [Slavonic II.VII.2(b)].[3]  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 in the exact passage and was used for the insertion.[4]

Getting back to Jesus not being named in the Slavonic Testimonium “Meschersky (Meščerskij) 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.”[5]

Extract from Dave Allen’s new paper:[6]

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

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

“On inspection of these manuscripts and the footnote of Leeming and Leeming’s book for 174b, it shall be noted that Jesus was not named in the exact passage- it clearly says that it was only in the heading before the passage that the following was written: “Josephus writes about Christ.” The reason the chronographer had to put in that heading before the passage is that the name “Jesus” was missing from the passage!” [8]

“Of course it is easier to explain if the translator into Old Church Slavonic came from a very early Greek exemplar. It would explain it perfectly if it came from an exemplar that existed before Eusebius added the title Christ. There is evidence it came from an early Greek exemplar as a number of Greek words were taken over literally by the Russian.”[9] This suggests that this recension is on a different transmission line to the textus receptus (working from a very early Greek exemplar). A number of Greek words are taken over literally by the Russian chronographer, e.g., igemon, metropolja, archierei, skinopigja, katapetasma, aramatji.[10]

Here is an extract from my paper How Josephus Really Viewed Jesus:[11]

John Curran who examined the Latin texts of the TF, has shown this more primitive version of the TF went east.[12]. 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 that was tampered by 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.

-Dave Allen, How Jesus Really Viewed Jesus, p.337.

It is obvious “he was the Christ” was not in the original TF, this is played out by De Excidio, the Slavonic and Contra Cels.1.47. […] The Slavonic probably preserved this line from the original TF: “Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands”.[13] That line makes Jesus sound like the rest of the Sign Prophets as Dave Allen has shown that Jesus was just one in a series of Sign Prophets. “Jesus, like other Sign Prophets, expected a cataclysmic  event to unfold. Many Sign Prophets expected an  eschatological divine intervention, and the earliest strata of  the gospels reflect this.”[14]

As noted above, the Slavonic Baptist passage preserves the fact John was not named. It also provides some other interesting historical nuggets. One change highlighted by Rothschild is agrios:

“Slavonic Josephus refers to John as agrios (“a wild man.”) Eusebius records “good man.” The difference between Slavonic Josephus and Eusebius elicits the question of whether Eusebius improved John’s image with a switch from ágrios to agathos.” [15].

Although she says it is plausible that “good man” fits with Josephus, I think that “wild man” is much more fitting a description by Josephus for a figure executed because of the threat of sedition (Ant. 18.118). We also have evidence of tampering with the Baptism suggesting an earlier form of the Baptist passage:

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

One of the first witnesses of the Baptist passage did not deny Baptism was for washing away sins like the extant passage, it argues for the existence of John the Baptist, baptising for the remission of sins:

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

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

For then indeed baptism would be acceptable, if it would be taken up not only for washing away misdeeds, but also would be observed for the purpose of purity of the body and indeed for the purpose of righteousness and purification of the soul, and would be considered as a sign of all virtues equally and a certain faithful safeguard. (Literal Translation of LAJ 18.116-119 with Variants from Rufinus)^[16].

The Slavonic has an even simpler version-

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.” [Slavonic II.VII.2(c)] [17]

One more piece that we may extract about the TF from the Slavonic is the denial that Jesus was “desirous of Kingship.” The Slavonic denied Jesus was desirous of Kingship thus perhaps preserving the earliest form of the phrase “he was the Christ”. [18] We have other examples within Josephus writings where he reported other messianic figures and Sign Prophets were declared a King. 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. The Egyptian prophet saw himself as a ‘tyrant’ (War 2.262). The ‘Egyptian’ may have called himself “king Messiah”, because Josephus uses the Greek verb τυραννεῖν (to be sole ruler). So to see the original TF stating that Jesus was “desirous of Kingship,” is in line with Josephus writings.

This blog has shown that the Slavonic not only proves that there were earlier pre-Eusebian versions of both the TF and an earlier version of the extant Baptist passage, but that the Slavonic becomes quiet useful in helping to reconstruct these earlier versions. The Slavonic also provides evidence that a different transmission line of the TF influenced the passage on Jesus in Josephus. This is huge as it makes the “creatio ex nihilo by Eusebius hypothesis” of the TF unlikely.

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[1] Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 87-88.

[2] David Allen, “A Model Reconstruction of what Josephus would have realistically written about Jesus”, JGRChJ 18, 2023, p.126

Retrieved here:

http://www.jgrchj.net/volume18/JGRChJ-18_Allen.pdf

[3] Henry Leeming and Kate Leeming (eds.), The Slavonic Version of Josephus’s Jewish War, A Synoptic Comparison of the English Translation by H. St. J. Thackeray, with the Critical Edition by N. A. Meščerskij of the Slavonic Version in the Vilna Manuscript translated into English by Henry Leeming and L. Osinkina, Arbeiten Zur Geschichte Des Antiken Judentums und des antigen Judentums und des Urchistentums 46, Boston: Brill 2003, p. 248.

[4] David Allen, Exposing the Pre-Eusebian strata of the Testimonium Flavianum, JHC 21 forthcoming 2027, section 4, (not paginated yet).

Retrieved here:

https://www.academia.edu/124894274/_Forthcoming_EXPOSING_THE_PRE_EUSEBIAN_STRATA_OF_THE_TESTIMONIUM_FLAVIANUM

[5] David Allen, How Josephus really viewed Jesus, Revista Bíblica 85/3-4 (2023b), p. 338; N. A. Meščerskij, “Introduction” in Leeming and Leeming, Slavonic Version, p.19.

[6] David Allen, Exposing the Pre-Eusebian strata of the Testimonium Flavianum, JHC 20 forthcoming 2025, section 3, (not paginated yet).

[7] Christopher Hansen, “Reception of the Testimonium Flavianum: An Evaluation of the Independent Witnesses to Josephus’ Testimonium Flavianum”, New England Classical Journal 51/2  (Forthcoming), (2024), page 65.

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

[9] Allen, A Model Reconstruction, p. 126

[10] Robert Eisler, The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist: According to Flavius Josephus’ Recently Rediscovered ‘Capture of Jerusalem’ and the other Jewish and Christian Sources. Trans. Alexander Haggerty Krappe (New York: Dial Press, 1931), p.130, cit op. David Allen, The use of the Testimonium Flavianum by anti-Christian polemicists, JHC 16/1, 2021, p. 48.

[11] Allen, How Josephus Really viewed Jesus.

[12] John Curran, “‘To Be or to Be Thought to Be’: The Testimonium Flavianum (Again)’, NovT 59 (2017), pp.71-94.

[13] David Allen, “A Propsal, Three Redactionsl layer model for the Testimonium Flavisnum, Revista Bíblica 85/1-2 (2023), p. 227.

Retrieved here:

Vista de Tres estratos redaccionales para el Testimonium Flavianum. Una propuesta

[14] David Allen, Jesus and the Sign Prophets, JHC 19, 2024, p. 86.

Retrieved this link

https://www.academia.edu/122178154/Jesus_and_the_Sign_Prophets_Forthcoming_

[15] Clare K.Rothchild, “Echoes of a Whisper: The Uncertain Authenticity of Josephus’ Witness to John the Baptist”, in D. Hellhom et al. (eds), Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (3 vols.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), I, p.262.

[16] Levenson and Martin, “The Latin Translations of Josephus on Jesus, John the Baptist, and James: Critical Texts of the Latin Translation of the Antiquities and Rufinus’ Translation of Eusehius’ Ecclesiastical History Based on Manuscripts and Early Printed Editions”, Journal for The Study of Judaism 45 (2014), pp.1-79 (37).

[17] All discussed in section 4 of Allen, Exposing the Pre-Eusebian Strata.

[18] Discussed in section 5 of Allen, Exposing the Pre-Eusebian Strata.

Here is an exciting paper that brings all my scholarship of my three peer review papers together and interacting with the latest scholarship….It shows the ex nihilo guys just papering over the cracks. Here I expose the earlier form of the TF.

Here’s an extract:

Olson tested the wording of the TF in a Eusebian framework[1]. Yet Olson thesis suffers from refusing to recognize the earlier forms of the TF. While some of the wording of the TF is clearly Eusebian, not all of it is[2]. Some phrases may have been added by Eusebius but as you go through the layers provided in this paper, you will come to see that tampering happened before, by, and after Eusebius. The passage was multiply tampered as we will see as we dig down deeper into each layer.

In the meantime, some arguments provided by leading TF scholars (with the exception of Olson) will show that the TF was not as useful as it would have been had Eusebius wrote it ex nihilo. As Olson says, “Eusebius is carrying on an extended defense of the incarnation and answering the charges of critics of Christianity. One of these is Porphyry’s argument against the divinity of Jesus[3].” In Proof  (Dem. ev.) Eusebius defends Jesus of being a wizard but does not pick out the phrases Olson suggests such as Jesus being a wise man or his disciples receiving the truth with pleasure but picks out the problematic phrase, Jesus attracted to himself “many of the Jews and many of Greek element.” That was –

to prove that ‘he must evidently have had some extraordinary power beyond that of other men’. In fact Eusebius appears to realize that such an assertion about Jesus is problematical, not least because it points to a reality which did not pertain either at the time Eusebius was writing or in Jesus’ ministry. Hence he seeks to support the assertion by reference to the Acts of the Apostles and what was known about Christianity up to the outbreak of the Bar Kokhba revolt[4].

Paget goes on to ask, “If Eusebius was the forger of the TF why would he have chosen not to emphasize those parts of the passage which Olson highlights as central to his concerns, emphasizing instead a part of the TF which appeared historically problematic[5]?” In section three of my paper I show both Pseudo-Hegesippus and Eusebius inherited that phrase about Jesus leading the Jews and Greeks from a particular copy of the TF circulating at that time. Jesus leading Jews and Greeks 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^[6].” It’s unlikely Josephus wrote that phrase so I show in the third section an early Christian scribe did write that phrase to make this movement sound universal. The motivation for this was that the majority of Christians were more gentile based.

Allen noticed a gap in Olson’s thesis where he failed to test his arguments in Josephan framework[7]. If you test Olson’s arguments critically in both the Eusebian and the Josephan framework, his arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny. By testing both these frameworks it becomes obvious that Eusebius did not write the TF ex nihilo, in fact it becomes obvious that he had something to work with. In one example on the Josephan framework it would be easier to explain why Josephus placed the TF before the Baptist passage instead of the order found in the gospels[8]. This Josephan framework favors a Josephan provenance. On the Eusebian framework it is hard to explain why Eusebius had not inserted it in the War (where Jesus is not named) instead of Antiquities[9]. Eusebius in History cites the War instead of Antiquities to showcase the miseries of the Jews under Pilate and this all happened because of the murder of Jesus (HE 2.6.3). If Eusebius forged the Testimonium he would have put it in the War. John Meiers noticed especially in light that Eusebius could have written anything yet he made an “imperfect estimation of the God-man[10].” Inowlocki has examined every quotation in his Proof and Preparation and found that Eusebius did often manipulate quotations but did not find any case where he made them up wholesale. In one clear cut example in Preparation on Phaedo 114 c she states that “Plato’s manuscripts read that these souls will live without bodies whereas Eusebius’ manuscripts read without sufferings, preserving the dogma of the resurrection of the bodies. (Eusebius, P.E. 2.38.6)[11].”

This argues for Eusebius as textual manipulator but not as a wholesale forger of quoted passages as Olson’s thesis argues. It was Eusebian practice to manipulate existing passages such as the TF. Olson attempts to equate a quoted passage with a speech because he noticed that Eusebius made up a speech for Licinius[12]. Yet this is very different from a quoted passage because it was common knowledge that all ancient historians just made up speeches, an author often attributed speeches composed by him to generals or other characters. Whealey highlight a fault in Olson’s logic on Eusebius use of quotes: “The attempt to use texts apologetically does not indicate that the texts were forged. Eusebius quotes numerous passages of Plato in Books XI – XIV of Preaparatio Evagelica (Preparation) in order to illustrate Christianity’s similarity to Platonic ideas, but no scholar would argue that Eusebius created these passages of Plato ex nihilo simply because he tried to use them apologetically[13].”

So basically Paget had already pointed out his arguments do not support Eusebius arguments and Eusebius found it difficult to make use of the TF. There is no way Eusebius wrote the TF as the TF could not support his own arguments against the anti- Christians. Whealey reiterated the same. Then Inowlocki showed Olson’s arguments are not what Eusebius actually practiced on quoted passages, I (Allen) even showed Olson made a false analogy by comparing a speech to a quoted passage. Now with the latest scholarship Schmidt has shown the Greek was not liked in its reception history and not liked by Christians- why would Eusebius write such a negative passage? This paper exposes the earlier layer of the original TF.

Enjoy

https://www.academia.edu/124894274/_Forthcoming_EXPOSING_THE_PRE_EUSEBIAN_STRATA_OF_THE_TESTIMONIUM_FLAVIANUM

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[1] Ken Olson, “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum”,  in A. Johnson and J. Schott (eds.), Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations, Hellenic Studies Series 60; (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013), pp. 97-114; Ken Olson, “Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum’, CBQ 61, (1999), pp.305-22.

[2] For an excellent study on the wording of the TF see Carleton Paget, “Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity”, JTS 52 (2001), pp.539-624.

[3] Olson, “A Eusebian Reading”, p.101

[4] Paget, “Some Observations”, p.562.

[5] Paget, “Some Observations”, p.562.

[6] Steve Mason, (ed.), Flavius Josephus: Judean War 2, translation and commentary, Volume 1b, Boston 2008, p.xv.

[7] Allen, “Model Reconstruction”, pp.114-116.

[8] Paget, “Some Observations”, pp.600-1

[9] Étienne Nodet, “Jésus et Jean Baptiste selon Josephus”, RB 92, 1985, pp.321–348, (340); BARDET, Le Testimonium Flavianum:  Examen historique, considérations historiographiques, Paris 2002, p.85.

[10] Meier, A Marginal Jew 1, p.64.

[11] Sabrina Inowlocki, Eusebius and the Jewish Authors: His Citation Technique in an Apologetic Context Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 64; (Leiden: Brill, 2006), p.87.

[12] Olson, “A Eusebian Reading”, pp.97-98.

[13] Alice Whealey, “Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea, and the Testimonium Flavianum”, in C. Böttridge and J. Herzer (eds), Josephus und das Neue Testament, (Tübingen 2007), pp.73-116 (106).

“Petty sacrilege is punished; sacrilege on a grand scale is the stuff of triumphs” (nam sacrilegia minuta puniuntur, magna in triumphis feruntur), -so wrote Seneca in his Moral Epistles letter 87.23.

This clever quip by Seneca reflects the rewards due to massive theft and violence rewarded with a Triumph! Paul glorifies Jesus with Triumph language but Mark reflects persecution with anti-Triumph language.

[The Triumph] is cast as a ritual which, throughout the history of Rome, asserted and reasserted the power of the Roman war machine and the humiliation of the conquered. Cleopatra of Egypt is famously supposed to have killed herself rather than be triumphed over. ^[1]

The Triumph Cleopatra avoided was the Triumph over Egypt in 29 BCE (which was one of three in that year – for Illyria, Greece, and Egypt awarded to Octavian). With Cleopatra dead, her kids had to do instead for the Triumph, but not the child she had with Julius Caesar- as Octavian had quipped, “Too many Caesar’s is not good” and had him executed. Instead Cleopatra’s children with Mark Antony, Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios, were paraded in heavy golden chains. Although Octavian was no great general (it was others such as Agrippa who won his battles but don’t get me wrong, Octavian was a brilliant autocrat!), he did not want to be outdone by Pompey’s three Triumphs in 79, 71 and 61 BCE).

The Roman Triumph may have evolved out of Etruscan and Greek ceremonies about Dionysus, a god who triumphs, a bull was sacrificed and the king appeared as the god. The Roman Triumph was an offshoot and evolvement of this.^[2]

Paul makes use of the Roman Triumph to highlight the victory Jesus has over his cosmic enemies, powerful enemies that use human authorities to carry out evil deeds such as Jesus’ execution. (This is a classic example of mimicking real power). Paul is thinking in cosmic terms when he sees spiritual powers as the ultimate culprits behind the historical crucifixion of Jesus in 1 Cor. 2:8, those powers were allying themselves with human political actors. The “Archons” (meaning rulers either human or spiritual) and the human “rulers” are intimately connected. This is a common theme in Jewish literature, all you have to do is look at the book of Job where God gives permission to Satan to test Job or in Enoch where cosmic Archons are influencing people. Paul says elsewhere in 1 Cor. 5:5 “to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh…” shows Paul believing the Archons controlled people.

We also know a historical crucifixion is in view when taking other references into consideration – Like Paul’s use of the word Stauros (Phil. 2:8). Josephus uses this term Stauros to tell of Romans crucifying Jews. And the arguments of 1 Thess. 2:14-16 as an interpolation no longer stand which puts the crucifixion in Judea. Carrier’s arguments for interpolation are directed at the verse “But wrath has come upon them at last!” as he associates this with the Temple destruction, but that is only reading the epistles retrospectively.^[3] “Wrath of god” could easily be applied to famines that the Jews suffered in 45-47 CE. (Ant. 20.49-53) or the disaster of 49 CE where 30,000 Jews were killed at Passover (Ant. 20.112 and War 2.224-7). Robert Jewett rightly stated, “From the perspective of those who know about the Jewish-Roman war, it is surely the most appropriate choice. But to someone who lived before that catastrophe, several of the other events could easily have appeared to be a final form of divine wrath.” ^[4]

Other reasons for thinking of it as an interpolation are countered by Simon J. Joseph:

The authenticity of this passage has been disputed, yet the allegedly anti-Judaic tone and content of 1 Thess 2:14–15 is fairly consonant with Pauline theology. In Romans, Paul writes that the Jews have been “broken off ” or “cut off ” from the tree of Abraham (“because of their unbelief”; Rom 11:20) and will not be grafted back until the future, when God’s “wrath” against them comes to an end (cf. Rom 11:11–29). Paul repeatedly appeals to the theme of God’s “wrath” in Romans (2:5, 8; 3:5; 4:15; 5:9; 9:22; 12:19). It seems safe to conclude that not only were some Jews involved in the death of Jesus, but we can be even more specific by identifying the high priest (and chief priests) as disliking him enough to form conspiratorial attempts to stop him, a dislike that ultimately led to a judicial action by the “Sanhedrin” and to Jesus being “handed over” to Pilate, who sentenced him to death. ^[5]

Getting back to our Triumph imagery, defeating these cosmic powers, Zeichmann demonstrates Paul’s use of a Roman Triumph for Jesus’ parousia in 1 Thess. 4:16–18 – “God’s trumpet—an instrument that has military connotations elsewhere in his letters (1 Cor. 14:8)” and “the parousia in Paul’s letters may refer to an imperial victory procession: the Lord’s signal, the cry from the archangel, and the sound of God’s trumpet sound suspiciously like a military parade, specifically a triumph or an ovation.” This all adds to the Triumph imagery. “Paul describes this coming with the word parousia, a term associated with the presence of the imperial visitors, often bearing the honorific title kyrios, to a city. One Egyptian administrator, for instance, writes a frantic letter concerning the additional work required by the king’s imminent parousia at a nearby village (P.Tebt. 1.48). The term is well attested across the eastern Mediterranean several centuries before and after Paul wrote. Consequently, many have argued that Paul draws upon Greco-Roman imperial frameworks for his apocalyptic scenario.” ^[6] Often a committee of the city would go out to meet the Emperor for his arrival (parousia) and Paul uses this imagery, but it so happens that Jesus is in the clouds (nephelais), which means the believers have to meet him in the sky (and bring him back down to earth according to the imagery Paul uses, so no this is not a rapture!)

Here is the relevant passage from Thessalonians:

According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, (parousian) will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord (Kyrios) himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds (nephelais) together with them to meet (apantēsin) the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thess. 4:16–18).

The Roman Triumph which would not have been physically witnessed by most Roman inhabitants except for those residing in Rome itself, would still have been well known and sometimes copied by different areas of the Empire. By the time Paul took to writing his letters correcting his newly formed ecclesias, Triumphs were only celebrated by Emperors. This was because it was too dangerous to let a general celebrate due to turning him into a dangerous rival. Instead the general got the lesser acclaim of an ovation. Steve Mason provides the examples of the last generals to celebrate it:

Pompey the Great besieged and occupied Jerusalem in 63 B.C. A generation later (37 B.C.) Gaius Sosius, Syria’s governor under Marc Antony, repeated the exercise to remove Jerusalem from the Parthian sphere and install King Herod. Both generals received triumphal processions, memorialized on a marble record [Fasti Capitolini = The Capitoline Chronology or Calender or Fasti Triumphales = Register of Generals] in the Roman Forum, fragments of which survive. (Pompey’s [third] triumph celebrated in 61 B.C. Sosius’ in 34 B.C.). …^[7]

According to Appian, Pompey put none of the prisoners to death in his Triumph for Asia except Aristoboulus. Of the fourteen nations conquered only two got executed – “Aristoboulus [of Judaea] was put to death at once, and Tigranes [junior] later.” (Appian, Mith. 117.) Pompey had wished to execute him at his Triumph as Pompey had sided with his brother Hycranus against Aristoboulus but according to Mary Beard other writers think Aristoboulus escaped, and caused more trouble for Pompey in his civil war with Julius Caesar (Josephus, Ant. 14.79, 92–9, 123–4; War 1.158, 171–3, 183–4; Dio Cassius 37, 16, 4; 39, 56, 6; 41, 18, 1) and was captured and killed later by Pompey supporters so ultimately Pompey got his wish! ^[8]

Christopher Zeichmann shows how the Triumphs featured in the popular imagination:

The triumph was the single highest honor bestowed upon a general and granted at the behest of the Senate. There was no strict formula for a triumph’s proceedings, but common elements included an early morning speech by the victorious general, salutes from the crowd, dispersal of gifts to the army, a procession through the city displaying war captives (soon to be sold into slavery or executed), and culmination in a sacrifice to Jupiter with a public feast. During Rome’s imperial period, triumphs were limited to emperors. Less prestigious were ovations, which were granted for less decisive victories, for smaller conflicts (fewer than 5,000 casualties), or for victories over less “worthy” foes. Triumphs and ovations were uncommon and limited to the city of Rome, meaning very few in the Roman Empire ever saw one. That said, both varieties of parade loomed large in the popular imagination and were imitated on occasion.” ^[9]

Using political terms like parousia, apantēsis and Kyrios all adds to the Triumph motif.

one finds three terms rich with political connotation: parousia, apantēsis and kurios. [note I highlighted those words in my quote of 1 Thess. 4:16-18]. Frequently parousia refers to the arrival of Caesar, a king, or an official, and apantēsis refers to citizens meeting a dignitary who is about to visit the city. These two terms are used in this way by Josephus (Antiquities, 11.327ff.) and also similarly referred to by such Greek writers as Dio Chrysostom. The term kyrios (“lord”), especially when used in the same context as the two preceding terms, also has a definite political sense. Further, the eastern Mediterranean applied the term kyrios to the Roman emperors from Augustus on, although the first verifiable inscription of kyrios used as a title in Greece dates to the time of Nero. All of this, coupled with the use of euangelion (“good news”) and its possible association with the eastern ruler cult, suggests that Paul and his associates could easily be understood as violating the “decrees of Caesar” (Acts 17:7) in the most blatant manner, and this could easily provide a context for ad hoc persecutions.”^[10]

This was all imperial language borrowed by Paul to empower Jesus just like this language empowered Caesar- Another inscription- the Priene calendar inscription refers to Augustus’ birth using the term evangelion (gospel). This calendar also refers to Augustus as God and Saviour.

Paul imagines his converts as part of the Triumph:

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.” (2 Cor. 2:14)

In the next generation after Paul, written in one of the Deutero-Pauline letters-

“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Col. 2:15)

All highlighting the victory parade of a Triumph.

Mark picks up on Paul’s Triumph imagery but inverses it to a type of anti-Triumph framework to inverse a failure of Jesus ending up on the cross (Mark 15.16–32). This inversion is within keeping of a reversal of fortunes that is often promised in an expectant in-breaking of the kingdom of God.

Having Triumph motif incorporated in the crucifixion scene suits the apotheosis of Jesus in Mark. Even within the Roman Triumph with its over the top victory glorification, there was room for humility and stoicism. A slave standing in the Triumphator’s chariot held a crown over the Triumphator’s head and kept repeating a Janus type saying, “Look behind you. Remember you are a man”. (Tertullian, Apologeticus 33; Jerome, Epistulae 39.2.8, cf. Cassius Dio Roman History 7.21.9)

The Triumphator’s costume and painted red face made him ‘god for a day’:

The red-painted face, mentioned by Pliny, (Pliny, Nat. 33, 111–2) is supposed to have echoed the face of the terracotta cult statue of Jupiter in his Capitoline temple (which was periodically coated with red cinnabar). What is more, Livy on one occasion expressly states that the triumphing general ascended to the Capitol “adorned in the clothes of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.” (Livy, History of Rome 10.7.10) …

the godlike aspects of the costume and have seen in the general a characteristically Roman attempt to conceptualize the divine. As one argument runs, the general oscillated between divine and human status through the course of the procession; he constituted both a living image of the god himself and, simultaneously, a negation of the divine presence. ^[11]

Mary Beard shows Julius Caesar wanted a horse drawn chariot like that of Jupiter. “the four white horses which, according to Dio, were decreed to Caesar for his triumphal celebrations of 46 BCE. (Dio Cassius, Roman History 43.14.3). The fact that chariots drawn by white horses were regularly associated with Jupiter or Sol (the divine Sun) has strongly suggested that Caesar was attempting to claim some such divine status for himself. ^[12]

There was a precedent for an anti-Triumph in the aftermath of Crassus disastrous defeat in the Battle of Carrhae (Rome lost 5 legions, 2 came back, this was much worse than Varus 3 legions in Teutoburg forest). Surenas of Parthia who had defeated Crassus, had carried out a mock Roman Triumph in Selucia-on-Tigris. He had a Roman soldier looking like Crassus dressed as a woman. (Plut. Crass. 32.1-5). ^[13]

Dio Crassius uses anti- Triumph mockery motifs in describing some of Romes anti- Heroes, such as Sejunas (58.11.1-3) and Vitellius (64.20.2-21.2) showing this ironic language was not exclusive to Mark. ^[14]

Here is his passage on Sejunas:

they had escorted to the senate-hall as a superior being, they were now dragging to prison as if no better than the worst; on him whom they had previously thought worthy of many crowns, they now laid bonds; 2 him whom they were wont to protect as a master, they now guarded like a runaway slave, uncovering his head when he would fain cover it; him whom they had adorned with the purple-bordered toga, they struck in the face; and him whom they were wont to adore and worship with sacrifices as a god, they were now leading to execution. (Dio Crassius, Roman History, 58.11.1-3).

The imagery of a Triumph is not lost in Mark, a gospel heavily influenced by Paul. Ferguson shows Mark agrees with Paul’s gospel and food laws.^[15] One fantastic example of Mark using Galatians is provided by Tom Dryska-

Tom Dryska shows the “parallels between Mark chapter 7 and Galatians 2: 11-14 are too dense to be coincidental.

In Mark, the scribes come “from Jerusalem”; in Galatians, the men who cause the strife come ”from James,” who is based in Jerusalem. In Mark, Jesus’ opponents attack him for engaging in table fellowship with men who are ritually unclean; in Galatians, Paul’s opponents convince Jews to stop table fellowship with Gentiles, who are considered ritually unclean. In Mark, Jesus calls the scribes “hypocrites” (ὑποκριτῶν, the only use of that word in Mark); in Galatians, Paul accuses Peter and the Jews who also quit eating with Gentiles of acting hypocritically (συνυπεκρίθησαν ….  ὑποκρίσει). In Mark, “the commandment of God” or “the word of God” contrasts with something variously called “the tradition of the elders,” “the precepts of men,” “the traditions of men,” and “your tradition”; in Galatians the gospel that is “not man’s gospel” contrasts with “the traditions of my fathers” that Paul was zealous for before he began preaching the gospel. In Mark, Jesus criticizes the scribes for “nullifying” (Ἀφέντες) and (ἀκυροῦντες) God’s commandment; in Galatians , Paul warns that the Law cannot nullify (ἀθετεῖ, 3: 15) or “annul” (ἀκυροῖ, 3:17) God’s promises to Abraham. In Mark, the story leads to the conclusion that what matters is how one speaks and acts, and ends with a catalog of evils; in Galatians the epistle leads to the conclusion that the Law boils down to “love for the neighbor,” followed by a catalog of evils. This story and the ones about Jesus versus Peter clearly hark back to Paul’s confrontation with the “pillars” in Galatians 2:1- 12, which means the Galatians text was prominent in Mark’s mind as he wrote his gospel. ^[16]

Robyn Walsh succinctly shows how Mark put his gospel together from Paul’s letters:

There he finds talk of Jesus as Christ, possessing divine pneuma (Rom. 8:9; Mark 1:10); a divine lineage of Abraham (Rom. 3, 4, 9; Mark 1); “pneumatic” demonstrations (1 Cor. 2:4–5; Mark 2:8, 5:1ff., 5:41ff.), including divination; demonstrations of power over demons, archons, and unclean pneuma (Rom. 8:38–39; 1 Cor. 15:24; Mark 1:23, 39, 5:2ff., 7:25); Jesus as a prophet for a new age (Rom. 3:21–22; Mark 1:1–15) or a New Adam (1 Cor. 15:45; Mark 1:12ff.); a failure to recognize Jesus as the messiah during his lifetime (1 Cor. 2:6–8; Mark 4:41, 6:2, 8:29, 11:27ff.); and an active principle of God’s pneuma bounding people “in Christ” through baptism (Rom. 6; Mark 1). He even finds talk of fellowship meals and a meal hosted by Jesus anticipating his death (the so-called Last Supper) with dialogue (1 Cor. 11:23–25; Mark 14:22–25) and mention of other characters like James and Peter (e.g., Gal. 2; Mark 3:20–21, 31–35, 8:31–33, 14:26, 66). The proper interpretation of Judean law and allegory also looms large in these letters (e.g., Gal. 1:6–11; Rom. 1:16–17; 1 Cor. 9:16; Mark 1:1, 2:18ff.), as one might expect from a Pharisee.”^[17]

Mark also got his Triumph motif from Paul.

Helen Bond notes an “air of persecution that hangs so heavily over this work, [Mark 4:17; 8:34; 10:37–40; and 13:9–13], persecution that broke out brutally and unexpectedly under Nero in 65 CE, and might well have continued to threaten the community of Christ followers after the war.  There is an apparent allusion to Nero in Revelation via gematria that adds weight to Neronian persecution and its relevance to the Jesus Christians (Rev. 13:28). A knowledge of the Flavian triumph, celebrated in Rome in 71, might also explain the “anti-triumph” motif that several scholars have detected in Mark’s account of the crucifixion.” ^[18] Schmidt recognises a “particular segment of the crucifixion narrative (Mark 15.16-32) evoke a Roman triumphal procession, and that Mark designs this ‘anti-triumph’ to suggest that the seeming scandal of the cross is actually an exaltation of Christ.” ^[19]

Schmidt shows the purple robe put on Jesus is not historical, (Pilate the only one who would have a robe like this would not hand over his robe to be spat on) and is instead symbolic of the Triumph.

They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. (Mark 15:17). 

The crown and garb are symbols of the Triumph rather than historical reality. ^[20]

In the passage contained in Mark 15:16-20, we have the mockery of Jesus as a Jewish king, this is similar to a passage in Philo Flaccus 6.36-39; On Philo’s passage we have a similar mockery on the occasion of King Agrippa I’s visit to Alexandria, the people seize a lunatic named Carabbas. As Agrippa was not popular the local populace staged a mock coronation on poor Carabbas.

To the Romans a King Rex was a term of loathing and “there was always a particular frisson when a triumphal procession through the streets of the city paraded some enemy king in all his regal finery for the Roman populace to jeer and pelt. [*]

Winn using Schmidt’s paper lists Triumph parallels:

1. the Markan reference to the ‘Praetorian’ that parallels the presence of the Praetorian Guard at a Roman triumph (15.16);

2. the Markan reference to the presence of an ‘entire cohort’ at Jesus’ trial that parallels the presence of such a unit at a Roman triumph (15.16);

3. Jesus being adorned with a purple robe, a garment also worn by the Roman triumphator (15.17);

4. Jesus adorned with a crown of thorns, paralleling the triumphator who wore a laurel crown (15.17);

5. Jesus receives mock honor from Roman soldiers, paralleling the honor given to the triumphator (15.18-19);

6. Jesus’ triumph culminates at Golgotha, ‘the place of the skull’, and a Roman Triumph culminates at the Capital, named for a skull that was found when the buildings’ foundation was laid (Mk 15.22; Livy 1.55);

7. Jesus is offered and refuses wine to drink, paralleling the offer of wine to the triumphator who refuses the offer (15:23);

[according to Schmidt at the Temple of Jupiter, just before the bull was sacrificed, the triumphator was offered a cup of wine that he rejected as a libation and poured out on the alter. (Schmidt, NTS 41, 1995:11). Schmidt infers this from archaeologist Inez Scott Ryberg study of panels on Roman Triumphs].

8. immediately after the offer of wine Jesus is crucified, whereas a bull is sacrificed directly after the triumphator refuses wine (15:24);

9. Jesus is crucified between two thieves while the triumphator was usually seated between two people (15:27);

10. after his death Jesus is hailed ‘Son of God’ by a Roman centurion, a common claim for a triumphant Roman emperor (15:39). ^[21]

The gospels depict Pilate as washing his hands and being a witness to Jesus’s innocence. Both Philo and Josephus show Pilate as a brutal administrator, yet he is depicted the opposite in the gospels. Pilate being a witness to Jesus as innocent as depicted in the gospels would sever any hint of this movement’s messianic beginnings at a time when the Romans were persecuting all Jewish messianists post Roman Jewish war.

Paul wrote before the obviously hurtful Flavian Triumph, so his use would have been only as a descriptive evocative image. By the time Mark was writing, the famous Flavian Triump was much closer to the bone, a stick it in your face parade for those suffering defeat. Mark artistically deals with this by having an anti-Triumph motif, a reason why Marks gospel won so much traction in its day- it’s motifs, political commentary and ultimate triumph over adversity was raw and memorable. John Nelson also has an interesting blog on the same topic here.

As Triumph language loomed large in classical writings, Eusebius of Caesaria could boast of “God’s triumph in a war which mankind declared on God himself,” as Christianity went on to become the dominant religion of the Empire. “God’s victory” (ενθεοσ νικη) was achieved through the martyrs of the church, where the final victory was an end to the “Great persecution” in 313 CE. [22]

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[1] Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph, (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 4, 114-115.

[2] T. E. Schmidt, 1995 ‘Mark 15:16–32: The Crucifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession’, NTS 41, (1995), pp.1-18 (2).

[3] Richard C. Carrier, “Pauline Interpolations.” in Hitler Homer Bible Christ, The historical papers of Richard Carrier 1995-2013 (Philosopher Press, 2014), pp. 203-211.

[4] Robert Jewett, The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety (Foundations and Facets), (Fortress Press, 1986), p.37.

[5] Simon J. Joseph, Jesus and the Temple, p.22-23.

[6] Christopher Zeichmann, The Roman Army and the New Testament, p.111.

[7] Steve Mason, A History of the Jewish War, p.5 and n.4.

[8] Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph, pp.14,130.

[9] Christopher Zeichmann, The Roman Army and the New Testament, p.110.

[10] Karl P. Donfried, “1 Thessalonians”, ch 28 in The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, Edited by David E. Aune, p.509

[11] Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph, p.226.

[12] Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph, p.234.

[13] Jason M. Schlude, Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East, (Routledge, 2020), ch.3.

[14] Schmidt, ‘Mark 15:16–32’, p.4-5.

[15] See Cameron Evan Ferguson, A New Perspective on the Use of Paul in the Gospel of Mark, (2021) who builds on Joel Marcus, “Mark—Interpreter of Paul,” in New Testament Studies 46 (2000) pp.473–87.

[16] Tom Dykstra, Mark Canonizer of Paul, p.150-1.

[17] Robyn Faith Walsh, The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, (Cambridge, 2021), p.132

[18] Helen Bond, The First Biography of Jesus, Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel, (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020) Introduction.

[19] Schmidt, ‘Mark 15:16–32’.

[20] Schmidt, ‘Mark 15:16–32’.p.7.

[*] Mary Beard, SPQR, A History of Ancient Rome, (Liveright, 2017), ch.3.

[21] Adam Winn, “Tyrant or Servant? Roman Political Ideology and Mark 10.42-45”, Journal for the study of the New Testament 36/4, (2014), pp. 325-352

[22] Bralewski, S. (2015). Boże zwycięstwo (ενθεοσ νικη) – „ideologia tryumfu” w “Historii kościelnej” Euzebiusza z Cezarei. Vox Patrum, 63, pp.331–351.

On the Gerasene demoniac passage in the gospel of Mark, William Harold wrote, “what was on the surface a simple fairy tale about exorcism and pigs, but was in fact a promise to the Jews of the fate that awaited their Roman overlords, pigs in the fable represented the army of occupation. … Mark’s fable in effect promised that the messiah, when he returned, would drive the Romans into the sea as he had earlier driven their four-legged surrogates.”[1] But is it as simple a narrative that Harold claims? Richard Horsley claimed this passage was a subtext on Roman occupation and and Jesus’ exorcisms symbolized the messiah driving out Roman imperialism. [2] The strongest reason for thinking this as subtext is the use of the term legion (Mark 5:9) and the description of the many evil spirits possessing the man as a “legion of demons” (Mark 5:15). “The original hearers would have recognized immediately that “Legion” referred to Roman troops. For in their recent experience, Roman legions had burned the villages around such towns as Magdala and Sepphoris and slaughtered or enslaved thousands of their parents or grandparents.”[3] Some scholars connect the “legion of pigs” to “Caesar’s tenth legion (Legio X Fretensis) which had, among other things, the image of a boar on its standards.”[4] “legio is among Mark’s occasional Latinisms; in other instances where Mark transliterates Latin terms into Greek, it almost uniformly signals something encoded as Roman in the postwar period (e.g., denarius, centurio, praetorium).”[5] John Dominic Crossan added the suggestion that what was wrong with possessed individuals was an expression of the colonial oppression experienced by the individual that lead to a mental illness.[6] Yet the anti-Roman occupation reading as noted by Horsely and others does not sit well with the passage or gospel overall. At the end of the passage the crowd plead with “Jesus to leave their region.” (Mark 5:17). On the surface of the story the people were not pleased with the drowning of their pigs, (therefore they asked Jesus to leave) but we also have a deeper reading. This is not a Jewish population that would have pigs, but a gentile one. Geresa was a city of the Decapolis, a series of loosely connected gentile cities. On the surface level Gerasa is a way too far from the Sea of Galilee for the story to work, so the name was only picked to highlight the country of the gentiles. It was changed to Gadara in Matthew to try and correct Mark but still too far for the Pigs to run. In the words of Christopher Zeichmann this subtext may have been on about Roman occupation but it was not anti.[7] As he notes the residents of the Decapolis were actually pro – Roman and had welcomed them at the time of Pompey. “There is every indication that residents of the Decapolis were thankful for this [Pompian] emancipation—not only do historical sources, inscriptions, and coinage attest such gratitude, but the cities of the Decapolis even adopted a Pompeian calendar in appreciation: most of the Decapolis took Pompey’s conquest as their epochal year and enumerated their calendar beginning then.”[8] This is what is going on in with the gospel overall, recognizing the Roman centurion at the cross as the first human to recognize Jesus as the son of god. (This is opposed to demons who seem to be the only ones who knew who Jesus was). This “Roman soldier expresses faith in Jesus as the Son of God, or at least as the son of a god.”[9] Also Mark overall takes the blame away from the Romans for Jesus’ crucifixion, we can see that this is not a simple anti Roman narrative. Instead what we will see is that Mark takes a hot political potatoe, shows a better solution, basically win your enemies over rather than trying to defeat them militarily (Impossible after the battering in the aftermath of the Roman Jewish war). This is a gentile perspective and Mark is written from a gentile diaspora perspective looking back Romantically (The rose tinted glasses got rid of the anti Roman sentiment).

How the literary technique of the messianic secret is handled in this episode is also fascinating and also fits in with the gentile perspective. In my study of the messianic secret I have noticed a demonic exception (Jesus does not say to keep it quiet) which I think is of note:

The “messianic secret” is a term that over a century ago came to be applied to the Gospel of Mark to explain one of its most distinctive and puzzling features.[10]  Mark portrays Jesus clearly as the messiah.  Note the very first verse!  “The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah.” It’s all about Jesus as the Messiah.

But there’s a strange feature in Marks portrayal of the messiahship of Jesus.  Mark is unique among the Gospels in having Jesus tell his disciples and everyone else who starts to recognise who he is not to tell anyone.  He tries to keep it hushed up.  But why?

Most scholars today think it is a literary/ theological device used by Mark, to answer skeptics in the Jesus story (the most obvious skeptics are those that did not believe Jesus as the messiah as he had been crucified), This literary device also racks up the suspense (why is he trying to keep it secret?) and to make sure that people understand the full implications of messiahship.

Jesus had not fulfilled Jewish messianic expectation but had been rejected and crucified. Mark had divinely concealed the messiahship and the only public time Jesus reveals his messiahship is when he was about to be crucified. This literary device was created by Mark to explain that Jesus was a different type of messiah that had to suffer. That he was the messiah despite being crucified.

Here is the most fascinating thing I noticed on the messianic secret-

Jesus never told legion or the cured man to be quiet about it as the many unclean spirits of legion was in the land of the gentiles. Intriguing as it’s an obvious literary reflection that changing the messiah concept is easier among gentiles.

It is Mark dealing with the political hot potatoes that won its traction on the ancients. It is the reason that this first gospel was influencial, causing rewrites and launching at least 30 more gospels on Jesus’ life. Mark supports the gentile mission- win over the foreigners before the new age is the solution and in line with the apocalyptic worldview.

Let us now reproduce the passage:

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. ² When Jesus got out of the boat,a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. ³ This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. ⁴ For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. ⁵ Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. ⁶ When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. ⁷ He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” ⁸ For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!” ⁹ Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” [Λεγιὼν (Legiōn)] he replied, “for we are many.” ¹⁰ And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. ¹¹ A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. ¹² The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” ¹³ He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. ¹⁴ Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. ¹⁵ When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ¹⁶ Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well.¹⁷ Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. (NIV Mark 5:1-17)

Let’s examine the framework used to put this story together.

Catherine Gail Emmet discusses three scholars, all of which had the probable sources Mark used as a framework for this story. Each discussed  different source and Mark probably had used all of them.[11] MacDonald sees the Odyssey as the framework for this story and examines the Odyssey 9.354-366 and Mark 5:1-17. Neither Odysseus nor the demoniac gave his true name. Odysseus’s pseudonym of “nobody” indicates nonexistence; the demoniac’s (“legion”) a plethora of existences. In both stories the exchange of names gives the hero power over the monster in radically different ways. By naming himself “Nobody” Odysseus outwitted the giant, who then could not ask for help from his friends, for Nobody was harming him. Jesus, on the other hand, gained power over the demons by learn­ing their name.[12] Nineham has suggested that this story is perhaps a fulfillment of Psalm 68.19 Which reads, “God gives the desolate a home to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in parched land” (Psalm 68.6).[13] According to Watts Mark uses Isaiah 65:1-7 as background for the Gerasene demoniac story.[14] This is evident because Mark stresses tomb-dwelling and the presence of swine in this story, a departure from his normal style. Isaiah contains a scathing account of Israelites in which swine eating and tomb-dwelling are the most repugnant results of idolatry. In ancient times, swine were a part of pagan worship and were offered to Zeus, Dionysus, Athena. The swine being destroyed is appropriate for the destruction of other types of worship.

So this story probably started on the understanding that Mark had heard of Jesus as an exorcist or faith healer. Gerd Theissen classed this as an exorcism when examining it’s Sitz im Leben.^[15]  To Rudolf Pesch the demoniac is portrayed as representative of this offensive way of life (vv. 3-5); he came from a distance, like the Gentiles.[16] Mark had wanted the story to be in the land of the gentiles but had not realized how far Gerasa was from the Sea of Galilee.[17] Asking a demon to reveal his name is a typical exorcistic technique. The demon responds, “Legion is my name, because we are many.”

“Mark links the practice of exorcism with an apocalyptic understanding of the times. The evangelist presents Jesus in conflict with Satan immediately following his baptism (1:9-11) and in the controversy over his exorcisms (3:22-30).”[18] Horsley shows us how Mark makes these exorcisms apocalyptic:

in the initial exorcism in Mark, Jesus does not “cast out” (ekballein) the unclean spirit, but “vanquishes” (epitiman) it. The latter meaning can be discerned from usage in texts such as Psalms (9:6; 68:30; 76:6; 80:16), Zechariah (3:2), and now in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In those passages, the term epitiman in Greek, trans­ lating ga ‘ar in Aramaic and Hebrew, was used with reference to Yah- weh/God coming in judgment against foreign imperial regimes who had subjected Israel, or Yahweh subjecting Satan, or God vanquishing the spirits of Belial who were attempting to lead the people away from the covenant (1QM 14:9-11). That is – ga’ar /epitiman – refers to the decisive action by which God or God’s representative brings demonic powers into submission, and establishes the rule/kingdom of God and the deliverance of Israel. The “unclean spirit” (Mark 2:24) indicates precisely what is happening: “Have you come to destroy us?”[19]

The story of the pigs is in line with Jewish literature of the time, spirits controlling earthy things- Jesus, Satan, Daniel and the book of Revelation all have heavenly armies. You could link the kingdom of Satan with Rome and the healing activity of Jesus with the restored kingdom of Israel.[20]

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[1] William Harwood, Mythology’s Last Gods, (Prometheus, 1992), p.313.

[2] Richard Horsley, Jesus and Empire, pp .99–103;

[3] Horsley, Jesus and Empire, p.100.

[4] Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark, A Commentary, (Fortress, 2007), p.269.

[5] Christopher Zeichmann, The Roman Army in the New Testament, (Fortress Academic, 2019), p.50

[6] D. J. Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 1989), p.90.

[7] Zeichmann, The Roman Army in the New Testament, pp.50-57.

[8] Zeichmann, The Roman Army in the New Testament, p.54

[9] Adela Yarbro Collins, “Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Greeks and Romans,” HTR 93 (2000) pp.85–100, (94–97)

[10] William Wrede, The Messianic Secret: Das Messiasgeheimnis in Den Evangelien (Foundations in New Tedtament Criticism), Translated by J. C. G. Greig, (James Clarke, 2022).

[11] Catherine Emmet Gail, The Gerasene Demoniac, An Exegises and exploration of the Synoptic texts, 2005, Masters thesis retrieved here:

Click to access emmett_katherine_g_200508_ma.pdf

[12] D. R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, (Yale University Press, 2000), p.3

[13] D. E. Nineham, Saint Mark, (Baltimore, M D: Penguin Book, 1963), p.151

[14] R. E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark, (Turbingin, Mohr Siebeck,1997).

[15] Gerd Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition, (Fortress, 2007), p.321.

[16] Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium I. Teil: Ein- leitung und Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1—8,26 (HTK 2.1; Freiburg: Herder, 1976; 5th ed. 1989) ,pp.292-93.

[17] Collins, Mark, A Commentary, p.266

[18] Collins, Mark, A Commentary, p.272

[19] Horsley, Jesus and Empire, p.100.

[20] Collins, Mark, A Commentary, p.270.

Brian McPhee differentiates Jesus’ walking on water to other Greco Roman figures who have a divine ability to run over water.[1] Just because the gospels describe it differently, (Mark 6:45-53 and parallels) it seems he misses the point of what the gospels are doing. The gospels are using the trope of objectification. Litwa has explained the trope of objectification as dreams, visions and divine intervention that were narrated in such a way as if it happened externally. In Paul’s epistles Jesus’s resurrection appearances were experienced as visions. In the gospel retellings the body became ‘flesh and bone” (Luke 24: 39), able to be poked and prodded by eyewitnesses—including the famous “doubting Thomas” (John 20: 24–28).[2] This trope of objectification suited the apocalyptic worldview of the times. As Dan Merkur explains, “Ancient Jewish accounts of otherworldly journeys and places portray visual images as real perceptions of ordinarily invisible beings and sceneries of heaven, paradise, hell, and distant locations on earth . In these apocalypses, seeing was believing . Their seers assumed that what they saw in their visions existed objectively in a spiritual manner.”[3] McPhee goes through all the interesting figures that performed such a feat, while saying that many examples did not actually walk on water. Yet the gospels use of walking in water, was employing a similar trope to those Greco figures showing Jesus’s power. Walking or running on water was reserved for gods and powerful kings. Adela Yaboro Collins gives many interesting examples both human and gods either having control or moving over the surface of the sea.[4] She has examples of gods: Posiden rode his carriage “over the waves” (Homer Iliad 13.23-3), or the Roman equivalent, Neptune who “over the water’s surface lightly he flies in azure car” (Virgil Aenead 5.816-21) and of humans: where Xerxes had successfully crossed the Hellespont as if Zeus gave him the power to march over the water (Herodotus The Histories 7.56). Euphemous in quest of the Golden Fleece could “skim the swell of the grey sea” (Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 1.182-84). Orion son of Poseidon – “Poseidon bestowed on him the power of striding across the sea” (Apollonius Library 1.4.3). Josephus gives Agrippa a speech that recalls about Xerxes:

While those Athenians, who, in order to preserve the liberty of Greece, did once set fire to their own city; who pursued Xerxes, that proud prince, when he sailed upon the land, and walked upon the sea, and could not be contained by the seas, but conducted such an army as was too broad for Europe” (Josephus War 2.358).

From this anecdote of Josephus you can see where the mythology of running or walking on water came from. To the ancients it was only Kings that could “walk on water” in their ships to cross the sea and fight a battle. This all gave rise to the walking on water trope.

Dennis R. MacDonald has said in the introduction of his book Mythologizing Jesus, “the Odyssey is crawling with gods and demigods: Athena, who walks on water and disguises herself to appear as anyone she wishes; Aeolus, who commands the winds; Poseidon, who causes the sea to rage or relax; or Zeus, the lord of the thunderbolt and king of the gods.[5] In Homers Iliad 24, Hermes has golden sandals that let him walk across the water, and Priam and Idaeus are terrified when they first see Hermes approach at night, much like the disciples’ reaction to Jesus on the sea at night. Walking on water is a statement of power reserved for gods and great kings!

See the gospels for what they are and not for what they are not. Do we take them literally, did Jesus actually walk on water? or is the whole gospel written as a sort of parable as John Dominic Crossan has argued in his book, The Power of Parable. Crossan went on to explain in his prologue that after seeing a re-enactment of the passion play, of the crowd adoring Jesus one week, baying for his blood the next week, that this did not work well as history but did function better as a parable.[6]

The walking on water trope is part of a wider Greek literature technique such as explained by Dr Richard Miller where the gospels used the empty tomb to apotheosis Jesus.[7]

Of course Jesus’ walking on water also was one up on Moses parting the Red Sea. Jesus controlling the sea would have been analogous to God’s control over the raging, chaotic sea is a common theme in the Old Testament, from the creation myths of Psalms and Isaiah to the crossing of the sea in Exodus. Elizabeth Malbon gives some examples she thinks are relevant to Mark’s portrayal of the sea, notably LXX Psalm 106 (MT Psalm 107):

Those who used to go down to the sea [LXX: thalassa] in boats, doing business on many waters—it was they who saw the deeds of the Lord and his wondrous works in the deep. He spoke and the tempest’s blast stood, and its waves were raised on high. […] they cried to the Lord when they were being afflicted, and out of their anguish he brought them, and he ordered the tempest, and it subsided to a breeze, and its waves became silent. (Psalm 107:23-25, 28-29).[8]

We can see Mark’s reliance on Psalm 107 here.

Malbon goes on to say:

Mark presupposes the connotation of the sea as chaos, threat, danger, in opposition to the land as order, promise, security. …The threatening power of the sea is manifest, but the power of Jesus’ word is portrayed as stronger; Jesus stills the storm and walks on the water, overcoming the threat of the sea; Jesus causes the swine possessed by unclean spirits to rush to their deaths in the sea (5:23a, b), turning the threat of the sea to his own purpose.[9]

Job 9 shows the power of god where god “treads on the waves”. This walking on water trope is all about showing Jesus as the powerful messiah. This is a trope that goes all the way back to Mesopotamian times, as Tiamat the water goddess was walked on by Marduk as seen from the poem Enuma Elish (Tablet VII:74).

 

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[1] Brian McPhee, “Walk, Don’t Run: Jesus’s Water Walking Is Unparalleled in Greco-Roman Mythology”, JBL 135/4 (2026), 763-777.

[2] Litwa, How the Gospels became History, (2019), Ch2.

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

[4] Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), pp. 328–33; Adela Yarbro Collins, “Rulers, Divine Men, and Walking on the Water (Mark6:45-52)”, Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World: Essays Honoring Dieter Georgi. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 74. Ed. Lukas Bormann, Kelly Del Tredici, and Angela Standhartinger, 1994. pp..207-227.

[5] Dennis R. MacDonald, Mythologizing Jesus, Introduction.

[6] Crossan, The Power of Parable, Prologue.

[7] Richard Miller, Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity, Routledge, 2015

[8] Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “The Jesus of Mark and the Sea of Galilee”, JBL 103/3 (1984), pp. 363-377 (376).

[9] Malbon, “The Jesus of Mark and the Sea of Galilee”

 

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While not trying to oversimplify this area of history and recognizing Paul’s presumptions, let’s get real with Jesus and talk about him like we would other historical figures of this time or other times. We will not oversimplify if we recognise Paul’s very different worldview which is in fact very alien to modern atheists or theists alike. Both sets of people will fail to understand Paul, our earliest reporter of Jesus. In fact using your atheistic or theistic framework will not unlock Jesus history. The only framework that will work is the now obsolete apocalyptic worldview. Simply put, this apocalyptic worldview shared by Jesus, his comparative Sign Prophet figures (as reported by Josephus) and also shared by Paul, divides history into two periods. The first is an age in which the people of God are oppressed. In the second period, God will intervene to save his people. For Jesus both ages are played out right here on earth- so nothing to do with what will happen after we die, Jesus hoped for a kingdom of God right here on earth. Once we read through the apocalyptic worldview of Paul and all the presumptions that entails, getting Paul wrong will no longer happen and we can recognise that these were people, people who still fought like cats and dogs as the white heat of the letter to the Galatians shows. In that letter Paul had said of the Judasizers that wanted what the Jerusalem leadership wanted (and not what Paul wanted – his version of the gospel) – the Judasizers insisted that those converts ‘in Christ’ to become like Jews and become circumcised. Paul exclaimed- “As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” (Gal. 5:12). This was an argument that boiled over at the food table in Antioch. Over thousands of generations, man has not evolved much above the monkey[1], will feel threatened over the smallest of things like what to do about the gentiles- as Theissen classed as the Gentile question.[2] Basically the argument over circumcision all had to do with what will happen to the gentiles in the eschaton. (The end of the first age). Certain passages from Isaiah show that these gentiles (non circumcised) will be destroyed (Isaiah 54:3) and other passages in Isaiah says the gentiles will not be destroyed (Isaiah 2:2-4; 25:6). These contradictory solutions to the gentile position at the eschaton within the same book is what caused the circumcision debate at this time. The exact same debate, (i. e. should Izates get circumcised or not) is recalled in Josephus Antiquities at the court of Adiabene (Josephus Ant. 20.38-47).

To get down to earth on this history with what people who are new to this area will call a weird worldview, (the newbies think Paul’s letters are weird) let’s just reproduce a conversation I had with my friend Peter Stanbridge, just discussing normal history where so many have overcomplicated this area.

 

Dave:

When you really dig into the stuff you could see that the likes of Theudas (one of Jesus’ comparable figures- a Sign Prophet) could just as easily ended up in the statues in all the churches all over the world. You can read about Jesus’ other comparable figures and what they hoped to achieve here. Theudas is a person who could have been just as easily revered – instead of crucifixion scenes, we would have beheading scenes depicted…

 

Peter:

So how was it that Jesus became the man? Given the fictional nature of the gospels, Paul’s spiritualisation version. Maybe the only link to the real Jesus if we had written stuff (apart from your reconstruction from Josephus et al) is if we had the James and other Pillars giving us their account. They would be the only ones with access to the historical Jesus. But then how did they see him given his failure as a prophet?

 

Dave:

Cognitive dissonance meant they did not accept Jesus as a failure, their visions caused by cognitive dissonance ensured God favored Jesus by raising him and this “vision Jesus” told them he was coming back. The survival of the Jesus history is really down to the likes of Marcion and Valentines picking up Paul’s letters. The letters Paul wrote as a missionary were probably the best that was out there- the guy was persuasive and adaptive. It didn’t succeed from the unbending James and Co, and never would have. It really was down to the wilier “bendy” Paul. How they got around Jesus’ failure was their own visions- they had visions of Jesus who told them themselves he was coming back. By god backing Jesus and raising him up “in their minds” meant all of a sudden he wasn’t a failure.

 

Peter:

There isn’t much left of the James stuff though. The NT has pretty well squashed it. Even in Matthew where the original must have been sympathetic. It’s hard to belief the “not one iota of the law passage” survived. But amazing bit of history. Pre temple destruction with so much wish for Romans to be beat. And post distraction and failure of jesus’s return all the contradictory stuff in NT shows. John’s realised eschatology, Luke not having an atonement based death, the catholicising of NT material, attempts to bring in John the Baptist, the Thomas school, forged Paul on behalf of catholic orthodoxy, Acts harmonising the Paul/Pillar conflicts. What a soup pot. If Paul pre-destruction one can see why the polemic still there. Post destruction one can see why James version was going to struggle. But still sufficient for Acts to harmonise. But by then it is really Peter. How did Peter become dominant over James? Maybe James had died?

 

Dave:

Peter was the active missionary- James was not, so Peter was seen as the dominant active figure and the literature wrote him up (even though polemically to keep him below Paul) to suppress James.

 

Peter:

Fascinating. Why the word “suppress”?  That is of interest. For example as opposed to simply not doing anything with him simply because of the predominance of Peter over James? Is it because James was over active anti-Paul and pro Law?

 

Dave:

You can see with Eisenmans work, (the actual good part of Eisenmans scholarship as opposed to dating the scrolls) he shows Acts actually wrote James out.

As Eisenman pointed out in his book James the brother of Jesus, fiction does not try to write people out of their narratives and yet that is what happened in Acts.

“James is mentioned for the first time in Acts 12:17 as if he had been introduced before and is mentioned as the leader of the Jerusalem church in such an off hand way, that we the reader should know about him and would have if Acts had not been overwritten. Acts assumes we already knew who James was. Another James, James the brother of John was killed at the beginning of chapter 12 (decapitated) just before introduction of this James the Just and according to the epistles is brother of Jesus. (Cf Gal.2:12; 1:19).” [3]

As Painter said:

“The variety of ways in which the appointment of James is described suggests that the direct appointment of James by Jesus, a tradition found in the Nag Hammadi tractates, especially the Gospel of Thomas logon 12, and also in Gospel of the Hebrews and the Pseudo-Clementines is being opposed. There is no [non orthodox] tradition in which the risen Jesus authorizes a successor other than James.” [4]

 

Peter:

I think there is a lot of fiction in Acts. But that doesn’t make the characters fiction or the tensions it irons out. Eg the speeches are fiction and as Eisenman himself has pointed out the stoning of Stephen is fiction probably/possibly based on someone else. The we passages could be Homeric etc etc. The stuff on the early church all fiction but probably based on what was either remembered or believed about them (giving up property etc).

 

Dave:

Acts or the gospels don’t turn the historicity question one way or the other, the genre of the gospels and Acts would work on either a historical or fictional character.[5] What turns the dial to historicity is the way Paul talks about Jesus in the letters- only actual people resurrect to second temple Jews. Jesus was the “first fruits” already resurrected according to Paul (1 Cor. 15:20).

 

Peter:

Well the blanket statement doesn’t work. It seems like in it you are referring to the historical Jesus not historical in general. So we have this idea that there is an historical Jesus but apart from this fact pretty much all of acts is fiction and except things it’s author includes (like there is a Peter and Paul who are evangelists) but everything he has them do is fictional (but maybe in some cases at least for Paul on some of the actual journeys he says he took in his letters). I think Paul’s conversion stories in Acts (3 of them) is likely to be fictionalised accounts based on what Paul says on his letters. So when we say something is history or historical we have to be very careful in each case to say which thing we are speaking about. There is a similar problem in philosophy with respect to Realism/nominalism. When someone says they or someone is a realist/nominalist, I always say with respect to what are you are realist/nominalist and is it an ontological or epistemological or both realism/nominalism.

 

Dave:

Yes that’s what I meant taking Acts/gospel on their own. It is only where they seem to be using the letters as a source that we get actual history, outside of that there is no way of verifying. Now because we do have the actual letters that changes the way we can use the gospels. It changes our knowledge that the gospels do contain historical data, but it is extremely difficult to get the data out. What we can do in that case is take some blunt tools such as re-occurrence theme (where things happen over and over again) (see Allison)[6] and to have some idea of historical data a similar method of multiple attestation (see Ehrman)[7]can be used. [Allison method consisted of what kept re-occurring in the gospels more than likely came from historical sources told in a literal and theological way in the gospels. Ehrman called his method multiple attestation, where things are mentioned in multiple gospels or letters.] These methods tell us how the ancients understood Jesus (such as an apocalyptic prophet) and Josephus tells us there was a certain class of these men and modern scholars class them as Sign Prophets. That’s how to get basic history done.

Since I wrote this blog I have discovered that memory studies are much more successful extracting history from the gospels and have released two papers on this:

Jesus Realpolitik, JHC forthcoming

“Memory studies and the realpolitik in John’s Gospel (memories we can determine from Josephus)” In Anderson, Just and Thatcher (eds) John, Jesus and History, vol 7 forthcoming.

Actually a third paper is in the pipeline- “Sign Prophet Hypothesis for Jesus”, JHC 20.2 (2025) now out!

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[1] Ian Tattersall, The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human.

[2] Matthew Theissen Paul and the Gentile Problem.

[3] Robert Eisenman, James the brother of Jesus, ch.6.

[4] Painter, Just James, p.114.

[5] To see the level of education required to write a gospel see Helen Bond, The First Biography of Jesus. To see Greek literature techniques used to apotheosis Jesus such as the empty tomb see Richard Miller, Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity, Routledge, 2015. To see that the gospels are products of Roman book culture see Robyn Faith Walsh, The Origins of Early Christian Literature, Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture, Cambridge, 2021; To see the gospels using memises and thus creating a fictional nature, see Dennis MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, Yale, 2010.

[6] Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, Millenarian Prophet

[7] Bart Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic prophet of the new millennium