Josephus on Jesus

The last few months have been extremely busy, and this blog was part of the inevitable fallout. But I was encouraged by a friend to get back into it again, so here we go...

Taking into account the testimony of Josephus, we can be confident that the Gospels are accurate concerning the main facts about John the Baptist and James the brother of Jesus. When we turn to what Josephus had to say about Jesus, we also find significant corroboration for the main facts of Jesus’ life (Ant. 18:63-64).

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, 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, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. [italics mine]

There has been a major amount of academic controversy about this passage. Some have argued that the entire passage is a later Christian interpolation (4^th century Christian historian Eusebius is the usual suspect), while others have defended the entire passage as authentic. Today, many respected scholars agree that the passage is an authentic work of Josephus except for the three italicized sections.1 The shorter passage mentioned in the previous posting lends support to the genuineness of this passage. Note that Josephus does not mention the resurrection of Christ, which surely would have been included if this had been authored by Christians.

Thus, Josephus provides independent corroboration for the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ miracles, preaching, popular following, his arrest by the Jewish leaders, his execution by crucifixion at the command of Pilate, and the rise of the Christian movement after the death of Christ. Historians regard Josephus, writing in the last decade of the first century, as one of the primary sources for knowing first century history. We must take his testimony concerning John the Baptist, James, and Jesus seriously and regard it as verifying the major relevant details in the Gospels.

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[i] See esp. J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 56-69.