So if he WASN'T the Son of God....

robindch wrote: »

There are a few accounts from non-christian authors of characters who have traditionally been assumed to be Jesus, or of groups of believers who have been assumed to have been following Jesus. The accounts are, at best, fragmentary and convey little information.

The two most important non-christian sources are a) Josephus in a short passage in one of his works which textual evidence suggests was probably added later by another author; and b) several sentences by Tacitus which appear in the earliest extant manuscripts of Tacitus, written perhaps 1,000 years after Christ, which describes the existence of somebody called "Christus" who was reported to have created a troublesome religion.

On the christian side, there are a range of what are referred to as Gnostic Gospels which are texts from around the 3rd and 4th centuries which describe Jesus in terms quite different from the descriptions which appear in the biblical gospels.

The only lines which are convincing in any way to me come from Tacitus who was, and remains, a respected historian and shrewd observer of humanity and its foibles. The other texts are fanciful.

robindch wrote: »

No idea who you're referring to since the majority of academics accept that the Testimonium Flavianum which appears in Josephus was added much later.Uh, Tacitus was born in the mid first-century, perhaps around 50AD, so he would have been dead for a couple of centuries by the time that you claim that he was writing. Quite an achievement, though according to some religious people, an achievement also managed by Josephus.*cough*

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Well, no. None of the Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus is original. For those who haven't been around for previous threads let me explain.

Firstly, let's look at the passage itself in isolation:

"About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."

Already, just looking at the passage on its own, we can see problems.

Firstly, it has an overly reverent or fawning tone, not something you'd expect of a Pharasaic Jew. Furthermore, Origen who mentions Josephus in his writings comments that Josephus was a reliable source despite "not believing in Jesus as the Christ".

Secondly, in Josephus' earlier work The Jewish War, Josephus claimed that the emperor Vespasian was the one who had, in fact, fulfilled the requirements of the messiah.

Third, Josephus wrote in meticulous detail about his subject matter. However, in this passage he drops in far too many words and phrases with no explanation whatsoever. For example he mentions Christ, a phrase which his Roman audience would not have understood, but offers no explanation of its meaning. Similarly, the phrases "performed surprising deeds", "such people as accept the truth gladly" and "a thousand other marvels about him" are all offered with no explanation, completely uncharacteristic of Josephus' writing style.

Next, Josephus describes several people who were either self-proclaimed messiahs or proclaimed as such by their followers, like Judas of Galilee or Theudas the Magician. However, in every case Josephus describes these people as swindlers, cheats, frauds and evil men.

Next, when we take the passage above in its wider context we see further problems:

But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs. However, the Jews were not pleased with what had been done about this water; and many ten thousands of the people got together, and made a clamor against him, and insisted that he should leave off that design. Some of them also used reproaches, and abused the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he habited a great number of his soldiers in their habit, who carried daggers under their garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition.
"About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."
About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the temple of Isis, and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs. There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation: she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty.

When we look at the passage in the wider context of Chapter 18, we can see that it is out of place. The section opens with an anecdote about how Pilate brutally put down a minor uprising among the Jews. Then we get the Testimonium. Then the next section begins: "about the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder". If the Testimonium is authentic it begs the question, what sad calamity. It is out of step with a passage that has just been talking about Jesus. However, if we remove the passage entirely, the whole story reads much more smoothly.

Finally, nobody seems to notice this remarkable passage of Josephus. No Christian writer prior to Eusebius mentions the testimonium. Not Clement, nor Papias, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, not even Origen. In fact, this last omission is a damning indictment of the authenticity of the testimonium. Firstly, in Contra Celsus, Origen defends Christian teachings against Celsus' writings and quotes Josephus repeatedly to support his arguments. For example in 1.47 Origen references the specific book of Antiquities that we have been talking about in order to prove the existence of John the Baptist but at the same time gives out about Josephus for not mentioning Jesus in the same book:

"I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice. Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine. If, then, he says that it was on account of James that the desolation of Jerusalem was made to overtake the Jews, how should it not be more in accordance with reason to say that it happened on account (of the death) of Jesus Christ, of whose divinity so many Churches are witnesses, composed of those who have been convened from a flood of sins, and who have joined themselves to the Creator, and who refer all their actions to His good pleasure."

Furthermore, later on in Contra Celsus (2.33) Origen bemoans the lack of writings about Jesus' miracles, stating: "but from what other source can we furnish an answer than the gospel narratives". This would be a remarkable oversight if the testimonium was authentic.

Finally, as I have already pointed out, the first Christian writer to mention the testimonium was Eusebius. This is odd for yet another reason. Eusebius quotes Josephus from his own copy of Antiquities. But in his own writings Eusebius mentions that he inherited his copy from his master Pamphilus who in turn inherited his copy from ...Origen. So its very strange that Eusebius suddenly notices a passage of this magnitude about Jesus in the same copy of the same book that Origen quotes from repeatedly and yet completely misses. In fact, its likely given Eusebius' character that he fabricated the testimonium out of whole cloth. Even his contemporaries decried his dishonesty and lack of integrity. As Jacob Burckhardt, a biographer of Constantine wrote, Eusebius was: "the first thoroughly dishonest and unfair historian of ancient times".

Now, those are the problems with the full testimonium. Some scholars have tried desperately to cling to this reference by offering the possibility of a reduced testimonium, removing the more reverent phrases from the passage. However, while this resolves the contradiction with Josephus' character as a Pharasaic Jew, it does nothing to help the other problems. It is still out of place with the rest of the story, it is still uncharacteristic of Josephus' other writing. It is still overlooked by a myriad of early Christian writers hungry for any mention of Jesus. Further, it raises some questions. Why is the passage here and not in The Jewish War? Antiquities is contempraneous with the gospels, arriving 20 years after Mark and several years after Matthew. However, the Jewish War is 20 years earlier and is more relevant to the Jesus story than Antiquities. Surely a reference to Jesus would have been better placed here.




Well, no. Firstly, there's no evidence that Rome kept the kind of records that would have recorded the death of Jesus. Secondly, Rome had been destroyed by fire in the mid 60s CE. So, therefore, by the time the first Roman writers begin to talk about Christianity the chances of any Roman records still existing is pretty close to zero.




His Aramaic name is, or likely to have been, Yeshua, or Joshua if you Anglicise it.




Rob, we've already discussed the issues with Tacitus on a previous thread including:

• He mistakenly cites Pontius Pilate as a procurator instead of a prefect.
• He references Jesus' crucifixion. It's not likely that the Romans would have kept records on every crucifixion and there's no evidence that they did anyway.
• Rome burned to the ground in the meantime (which he references in that passage) which means there's a good chance that any Roman records that did exist would have been destroyed long before he got to see them

But there's one more thing which didn't come up the last time. The early Christian writers desperately clung on to any reference to Jesus by any non-Biblical source (in much the same way modern Christians cherry pick passages from the OT as prophecies about Jesus). Furthermore, they also jealously guarded and protected any source which spoke favourably of Christians and destroyed those which were hostile (for example, the only extant traces of Celsus' writing are those preserved in Origen's quotes). This raises a problem for anyone hoping to use Tacitus as a source. In Annals, Tacitus provides a detailed history of the reign of the emperor Tiberius from 14-68CE. However, one particular section of this work has been lost, the section detailing the years 29-31CE. Obviously, if this section referenced Jesus and his crucifixion, early Christians would have been desperate to preserve it. On the other hand, if it made no mention of Jesus, they would have been desperate to hide that fact. Its odd that Annals is so well preserved but the most relevant section on Jesus is completely absent.







Again, no. Firstly, I've already explained above the problems with the reference to Jesus in Josephus but also Josephus wasn't a contemprorary historian. He was born in 37CE and didn't write his first major work until 75CE. The work which supposedly references Jesus wasn't written until 93/94 CE. So not the same time. At all.