HISTORIAN JOSEPHUS' ACCOUNT OF JESUS IS FORGED
FOREWORD
The text of the Testament which is the part of the writings of Josephus the
first century historian that supposedly proves Jesus lived follows with the
lines before and after in italics:
“An end was put to this uprising. Now about the same time, a wise man called
Jesus, if it be right to call him a man for he was a worker of wonderful works
and a teacher of men who like to receive the truth. He won over to him many of
the Jews and also many of the Gentiles. He was the Messiah or Christ. Pilate at
the request of the chief men among us condemned him to crucifixion. When that
happened those who loved at from the first did not abandon him because he
appeared to them alive on the third day as the prophets of God had forecasted
and not only that but ten thousand other things about him. The tribe of
Christians called after him are not extinct even today. About this time another
sad calamity put the Jews into great crisis and terrible disgusting things
happened concerning the Temple of Isis in Rome.”
Some say the last line about the Temple is a possible hint that Josephus is deliberately making a digression about Jesus. If so then why does the text contain explosive stuff. You don't write a digression in that way. It is clear that if he wrote about Jesus then what he wrote in reality was anything but important - it is almost a note stuck in the middle of the really important stuff. Even the temple of Isis tale was more important! It cannot compare to the Jesus calamity!
Zindler says that Josephus starts
with writing, “I will
now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the
The purpose of this study on this small piece Josephus allegedly wrote about
Jesus Christ is to show that it cannot be used as evidence for anything about
Jesus including his existence. In actual fact it makes it likely that he never
existed at all. Because Josephus was a Jew and a supporter of the Roman Empire
which didn’t tolerate Messiahs and considered allegiance to them to be treason
against the divine Emperor in Rome this passage has been inserted or reworked by
a Christian. It has solely been Christian copyists who have preserved
Josephus's writings for us (page 43, The Marian Conspiracy) and understandably
we can be suspicious about this Testament. If a Christian went to the trouble of
putting it together and getting it passed off as Josephus' work it would
indicate that there was a need to fabricate evidence for the existence of Jesus.
There can be no doubt that the passage is principally intended to bolster its
main statement that there was a man called Jesus. The other details are just
meant to back this up. We refuse to consider attempts to reconstruct the
original that Josephus wrote for there is no reason to think he wrote any of the
Testament at all.
The funny thing is, Josephus in the Jewish Wars recorded an eyewitness testimony
that a cow gave birth to a lamb in the Temple. This was recorded ten years after
the event unlike the gospel miracles which were recorded longer after the
supposed event. Yet Christians scoff at this miracle and believe the gospel
miracle tales. They believe what Josephus allegedly wrote about Jesus Christ and
his miracles though it was written longer after. If they did not like Jesus they
would be saying that Josephus was unreliable regarding miracle reports.
If you can't be bothered reading on, know that the Testament of Josephus has
been tampered with or inserted altogether.
It is argued that we have no copies of Josephus’ work that are older than the ninth century and as all these copies have the Testament in some form it is stupid to say the Testament is a complete forgery and that Josephus never mentioned Jesus as a real man. This argument is wrong for Origen wrote about what Josephus had to say about Jesus and mentioned book 18 where the Testament occurs and found nothing connected to Jesus in it so he just mentioned what it said about John and had to go to book 20 to get material about Jesus. The way Origen writes proves that there was no mention of Jesus except in book 20.
Some would say that Occam’s Razor says we should assume
as little tampering as we can. But that is only if we can’t believe that the
whole thing is an interpolation. And we can. So the simplest belief is that we
take the whole thing about Jesus is an insertion for there is no need for it in
the text. But say we don’t wish to go that far then Occam’s Razor tells us that
the smooth way is to assume that rather than reading, "At this time there was a
Jesus" we could read, "At this time there may have been a Jesus" or "At this
time there was said to be a Jesus". That makes the whole passage unable to prove
anything about Jesus and saves us the trouble of working out all the things we
think are insertions.
Whatever this book says there are only three things that need be kept in mind.
One, is that Josephus is not a sound witness in regard to Jesus if he did write
the piece about Jesus for it was too unlike Josephus to dish out Christian
propaganda. Two, if the text has been interfered with there is no reason to
assume that the original did not refer to Jesus as a apparition or a lie or
something. Three, there is no reason to believe Josephus wrote anything about
Jesus at all. We just don't know so we should not be using Josephus to provide
evidence that Jesus existed. End of story.
JOSEPHUS AND JESUS
Flavius Josephus, born in 37 AD, was the most important Jewish historian of the
times. This dedicated writer created a monumental history of the Jews called
Jewish Antiquities. It was written sometime in the early nineties. That Josephus
was no Christian can be gleaned from his book. Yet it contains a piece popularly
known as the Testament of Flavius that professes faith in Jesus. This piece can
only be a Christian interpolation which was pulled off easily enough because it
was nearly all Christians who copied the book for posterity (A Reply to JP
Holdings "Shattering" by G.A. Wells). That proves that somebody knew there was
no Jesus for the insertion would only have been made to prove that there was
one. It is not concerned with showing Jesus to be what Christians believe him to
be but only says the things that they believed about him for it only makes
statements and gives no verification for them.
Had any of it been written by Josephus who did make mistakes but who told us his
sources we would be reading where he got his data from especially when it was
controversial data that both Jew and Roman did not want to hear about.
Josephus wrote under the sponsorship of the Romans. That is crucial for
understanding why all his alleged references to Jesus are forgeries put in
decades later for they say things that offend the sponsors and Josephus could
not have dared do that.
The Testament is too dogmatic to be from Josephus. It is in book 18. It tells us
about Jesus:
1) That he appeared at the time Pilate put down a sedition when the Jews
protested against his using Temple money to bring water to Jerusalem
2) That he was wise and a teacher of those who receive the truth with pleasure
3) That may not have been a real human being – “it may be unlawful to call him a
man”
4) That he did miracles - but goes into no detail
5) That he won over many Jews and non-Jews
6) That he was the Christ or the Messiah, God's anointed king
7) That Pilate had him executed by crucifixion to please the leaders of the Jews
8) That his closest friends still believed in him when this happened and
remained loyal
9) That he was up and about again on the third day, restored to life
10) That he appeared to his devoted disciples mentioned in 8
11) That the prophets foretold a huge number of marvels about him topping it off
with prophecies of the resurrection
12) That the tribe of Christians has not disappeared to this day
The text questions if it would be right to call Jesus a man implying he was a
vision or a god or something. The gospels say that Jesus certainly was a human
being who had human weaknesses albeit probably not a sinner and very very
frequently call him the Son of Man instead of questioning the appropriateness of
calling him human. The gospels say that those who saw him after his resurrection
had lost their faith up until they saw him. So the author did not know the
gospels at all or know the traditions in them or he just didn’t take them
seriously. (Not taking them seriously would be a strong sign that somebody knew
they were rubbish!) If Josephus had written this he would have got the doctrine
of the humanity of Jesus from the Christians and some of the stories about him.
The humanity was stressed among the early Christians and this passage must have
been written at a time when Jesus came to be seen as divine which happened long
after Josephus was dead. The way it says that the tribe of Christians has not
vanished implies surprise that it is not gone. In the early Church there were
many sects that claimed to be the real Christian faith. This passage had to have
been written by a member of one of them who considered the vast majority of
Christians to be fakes.
If Jesus existed he certainly claimed to be the saviour. This insulted the gods
of Rome and the divine Emperor and therefore the whole Roman political regime.
The intolerant Romans would not stand for that either. Now the problem here is
that the name Jesus means Yahweh saves or Saviour from God if you like. Jesus
used it as more than a name: as a job description. In that context, Josephus
would not even have named Jesus in his work even if he did mention him. That
means that when he mentioned Jesus twice in his book that it was an insertion
each time. That means he never wrote that there was a man called Jesus so the
whole Testament is dubious when something so basic to it is and his later
alleged reference to James being the brother of Jesus is also fake. Josephus did
mention other Jesuses but it was different. The name Jesus was the perfect name
for the Messiah because the Messiah was to be the true king of the Jews who
would save his people from foreign oppression. Even Jesus’ name implied a
possible rebellion against Rome. It certainly implied that Rome had no right to
occupy Palestine and would be an encouragement to people who wanted to use
violence to break the Roman rule.
Josephus could not slight Rome by saying that Jesus was the Christ for that
implied that Rome had no right to rule Palestine and shouldn't have went along
with its law that all who claim to be Christ which means political king must be
destroyed in the case of Jesus. Rome would not have liked it said that somebody
so controversial as Jesus who could have wittingly or unwittingly caused great
trouble for Rome was wise. Josephus didn't want his head cut off. Elsewhere
Josephus stated that the promised ruler of the world or Messiah according to a
divine oracle was Vespasian, the Roman Emperor, who was in Judea when he was
declared to be the successor of Tiberias (page 137, The Jesus Mysteries).
Christians respond that Josephus knew there was no harm in Jesus claiming to be
the true king for he meant that he was just a spiritual non-political king. But
in that case, Josephus would have had to have stated that Jesus was not the
Messiah as understood by the Jews who would come to rule the Holy Land and drive
away its enemies. He didn't so they are wrong. Messiah meant warrior king. If
you don’t like to be classed one of the Mafia you don’t use a Mafia title and
claim to be the Godfather.
Jesus wilfully caused a riot in the Temple so how could Josephus praise his
wisdom and goodness and example? How could Josephus say that men who like truth
listen to Jesus when Rome didn’t listen to Jesus? To say that Jesus taught men
who receive the truth with pleasure is to insult Rome which claimed divine
protection and inspiration and to insult its laws which were believed to have
been guided by the superior wisdom of the gods and the divine Roman Emperor. The
Testament lies that Jesus won over many Gentiles when he was alive for he said
himself he was sent only to the sheep of the House of Israel and though he was
courteous to Gentiles except the pagan woman who he abused and rejected most
horribly he did not set out to convert them or welcome them as disciples.
To say that Jesus was a doer of miracles or wonderful works is to insult Rome
because these works were nearly always done to draw Jews to a deeper
appreciation and commitment to their religion which abhorred Gentile rulers and
pagan beliefs. Rome did not want this and found it very offensive. Josephus then
did not write this. It is even more offensive when a man claims to be the Christ
for then he is doing his miracles to defend this claim which denies the
allegedly divine authority of the Emperor.
CONCLUSION
The testimony contradicts Josephus's pattern. It is sort of creed and not his work. The story of Jesus if he were largely made up or entirely made up then would have been in dire need of Christians to fake evidence.
