The great josephus interpolation

[goodwithoutgod]

Flavius Josephus

Christian apologetic fan's most popular non-Christian writer who mentions Jesus is Flavius Josephus. Although he was born in 37 CE and could not have been a contemporary of Jesus, he lived close enough to the time to be considered a valuable secondhand source. Josephus was a highly respected and much quoted Roman historian. He died sometime after the year 100 and his two major tomes were ‘The antiquities of the Jews’ and ‘the wars of the Jews’. Antiquities was written sometime after the year 90 CE. In book 18, chapter 3, this paragraph is encountered:

“now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works â€" a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, and condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

This does appear to give historical confirmation for the existence of Jesus. But is it authentic? Most scholars, including most fundamentalist scholars, admit that at least some parts of this paragraph cannot be authentic. Many are convinced that the entire paragraph is a complete forgery, an interpolation inserted by Christians at a later time. There are at least seven solid reasons for this:

1)   The paragraph is absent from early copies of the works of Josephus. For example, it does not appear in Origen’s second century version of Josephus, in ‘Origen Contra Celsum’, where Origen fiercely defended Christianity against the heretical views of Celsus. Origen quoted freely from Josephus to prove his points, but never once used this paragraph, which would have been the ultimate ace up his sleeve.

In fact, the Josephus paragraph about Jesus does not appear at all until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Emperor Constantine. Bishop Eusebius, a close ally of the Emperor, was instrumental in crystallizing and defining the version of Christianity was to become Orthodox, and he is the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus. Eusebius once wrote that it was a permissible “medicine” for historians to create fictions â€" prompting historian Jacob Burckhardt to call Eusebius “the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity.”

The fact that Josephus â€" Jesus paragraph shows up at this point in history â€" at a time when interpolations and revisions were quite common and when the Emperor was eager to demolish gnostic Christianity and replace it with literalistic Christianity â€" makes the passage quite dubious. Many scholars believe that Eusebius was the forger and interpolator of the paragraph on Jesus that magically appears in the works of Josephus.

2)   Josephus would not have called Jesus “the Christ” or “the truth.” Whoever wrote these phrases was a believing Christian. Josephus was a messianic Jew, and if he truly believed Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah (the Christ), he certainly would have given more than a passing reference to him. Josephus never converted to Christianity. Origen reported that Josephus was “not believing in Jesus as the Christ.”

3)   The passage is out of context. Book 18 (containing the interval of 32 years from the banishment of Archelus to the departure from Babylon) starts with Roman taxation under Cyrenius in 6 CE and talks about various Jewish sexts at the time, including the Essenes and a sect of Judas the Galilean, which he devotes three times more space than to Jesus. He discusses at great depth the local history in great detail. But oddly this single paragraph can be lifted out of the text with no damage to the chapter or the way it flows.… Almost as if it was added after the fact, which of course it was.

4)   The phrase “to this day” shows that this is a later interpolation. There was no “tribe of Christians” during Josephus time. Christianity did not get off the ground until the second century.

5)   In all of Josephus voluminuous works, there is not a single reference to Christianity anywhere outside of this tiny paragraph. He relates much more about John the Baptist than about Jesus. He lists the activities of many other self-proclaimed Messiahs, including Judas of Galilee, Theudas the magician and the Egyptian Jew Messiah, but is mute about the life of one whom he claims (if he had actually wrote it) is the answer to this messianic hopes.

6)   The paragraph mentions that the “divine prophets” foretold the life Jesus, but Josephus neglects to mention who these prophets were or what they said. In no other place does Josephus connect any Hebrew prediction with the life of Jesus. If Jesus truly had been the fulfillment of divine prophecy, as Christians believe, Josephus would’ve been the one learned enough to document it.

7)   The hyperbolic language of the paragraph is uncharacteristic of a careful historian: “… As the divine prophets had foretold these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning him…” This sounds more like sectarian propaganda â€" in other words, more like the new testament â€" than objective reporting. It is very unlike Josephus.

Christians should be careful when they refer to Josephus as historical confirmation for Jesus. If we remove the forged paragraph, as we should, the works of Josephus become evidence against historicity. Josephus was a native of Judea and a contemporary of the apostles. He was governor of Galilee for a time, the province in which Jesus allegedly lived and taught. He transversed every part of this province and visited the places where but a generation before Christ performed his prodigies. He resided in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle. He mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event that occurred there during the first 70 years of the Christian era. But Christ was of so little consequence and his deeds too trivial to merit a line from this historians pen.

[DunkleSeele]

Nice to see you back, goodwithoutgod and hope you'll hang around a bit more!

Very informative post, as usual with you. It's amazing how so many apologists still wave around this piece of forgery as if it was real evidence, isn't it?

[Mike Cl]

Great points, Good.  G.A. Wells, tells us, ‘Feldman names two Fathers from the second century, 7 from the third, and two from the early fourth, all of whom knew Josephus and cited his works, never mention this passage, even though it would be to their advantage.  He added that, even after Eusebius, three 4th century Fathers and five from the fifth, including Augustine, often cite Josehpus but not this passage.  In the early 5th century Jerome cites it once.’  Seems Eusebius was a likely author of the changes in this passage; and many of the early Fathers were slow on the uptake. 

Another reason to think that the whole of the paragraph has been interpolated is that it breaks the thread of the narrative at the point where it occurs, and its removal leaves a text which runs on in proper sequence. 

Earl Doherty, makes this observation: ‘In the section on Pilate in the earlier Jewish War, written in the 70’s, Josephus outlines the same two incidents with which he began chapter 3 of Book 18 in the Antiquities of the Jews, incidents which caused tumult in Judea during the governorship of Pilate.  In the Antiquities, these descriptions are immediately followed by the Testimonium about Jesus.  In Jewish War no mention of Jesus is included. 
One is further intrigued by a similar situation in Tacitus.  While the later Annals contains the passage about Jesus as a man who had ‘undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate,’ an earlier work in which Tacitus summarizes the reign of Tiberius contains no mention of either Jesus or Christians.  In the Histories Tacitus merely says that in Palestine at this time, ‘all was quiet.’

As anybody with eyes to see and ears to hear--Josephus is not a source to prove Christian history.  Does not seem to be any written history outside the bible, about Jesus.   

[josephpalazzo]

When you make an orthodox Jew talk like a believing Christian, that should raise the alarm bells. Unfortunately, the believers will believe in spite of. This goes along with people who had predicted the end of the world on a certain date, the date passes, no end in sight, yet the believers keep on believing after the failed prediction. Perhaps the explanation of such incongruent behavior lies in the fact that these believers don't want to admit they were conned and the fear of breaking off with their social circle. 

[Minimalist]

Since we are cutting and pasting from TTA I'll do the same.

RE: The great josephus interpolation
Facts are irrelevant to most xtians. They simply trot out some shit that someone else wrote down and shout "YEP!!!! THERE'S JESUS."

The problem with the TF is, as you mention, that Origen writing 75 years before Eusebius - the probable forger - knows nothing about it. It is crystal clear that he has read Book XVIII of Antiquities of the Jews as he accurately notes the John the Baptist passage therein.

Here is Origen's passage from Contra Celsus (Against Celsus) from c 248 AD.

      [EXPANDED]  Quote:I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.

    Chapter XLVII Book 1


So, what the purveyors of the TF want us to believe is that Origen... having just complained that Josephus SHOULD HAVE said it was the killing of jesus which brought down Jerusalem, ignored the TF allegedly written in this very book and instead said that Josephus put the blame for the destruction on the killing of James the Just! That is simply stupid and would make Origen quite possibly the dumbest motherfucker who ever put pen to paper.

Except. Josephus in the discussion about James the Just never mentions the destruction of Jerusalem and the main result of the episode is to replace the high priest who ordered the alleged "trial."

In fact, in War of the Jews, Book V, 1.3 Josephus discusses the massacres which the zealots orchestrated within the temple compound and says:

      [EXPANDED]  Quote:and fell upon the priests, and those (2) that were about the sacred offices; insomuch that many persons who came thither with great zeal from the ends of the earth, to offer sacrifices at this celebrated place, which was esteemed holy by all mankind, fell down before their own sacrifices themselves, and sprinkled that altar which was venerable among all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, with their own blood; till the dead bodies of strangers were mingled together with those of their own country, and those of profane persons with those of the priests, and the blood of all sorts of dead carcasses stood in lakes in the holy courts themselves. And now, "O most wretched city, what misery so great as this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when they came to purify thee from thy intestine hatred! 'For thou couldst be no longer a place fit for God, nor couldst thou long continue in being, after thou hadst been a sepulcher for the bodies of thy own people, and hadst made the holy house itself a burying-place in this civil war of thine. Yet mayst thou again grow better, if perchance thou wilt hereafter appease the anger of that God who is the author of thy destruction."


As is fairly typical of Josephus, who had no use for troublemakers of any sort, the reason for the destruction of the city was God's anger because of their own desecration of the temple. Doesn't say a word about fucking jesus or james.

[Solitary]

  Pedantry is the norm here isn't?   

[Mike Cl]

I think it is supposed to be given the nature of the topic.

[Minimalist]

It is what it is.  Most of the christards who quote josephus have never read him except, possibly, for the two sections which are of interest to them.  I find the same with the Merneptah stele.  Most xtians know that one word has been translated as "Israel" (it may or may not be) but they don't know anything about the other 149 lines of the text.

And things really get interesting when the Tacitus passage in Annals is brought into the mix.

[Minimalist]

For the record, here is the complete translation of the Merneptah stele.

http://bibledudes.com/biblical-studies/finds/merneptah-translation.php

The 'tone' of the last 12 lines is vastly different from the rest.  None of this "stout arm of Ra" shit.  Significantly the Merneptah stele was found at his mortuary temple.  At the far more public Temple of Karnak the relief was copied but not the last dozen lines.  Not as "glorious" as the victory over Libya, apparently.