Godless (43 page)
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.
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 Constantine. Bishop Eusebius, a close ally of the emperor, was instrumental in crystallizing and defining the version of Christianity that 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—prompting historian Jacob Burckhardt to call Eusebius “the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity.”
The fact that the Josephus-Jesus paragraph shows up at this point in history—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—makes the passage quite dubious. Many scholars believe that Eusebius was the forger and interpolater of the paragraph on Jesus that magically appears in the works of Josephus after more than two centuries.
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 (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 the Roman taxation under Cyrenius in 6 C.E. and talks about various Jewish sects at the time, including the Essenes and a sect of Judas the Galilean, to which he devotes three times more space than to Jesus. He discusses Herod’s building of various cities, the succession of priests and procurators, and so on. Chapter 3 starts with sedition against Pilate, who planned to slaughter all the Jews but changed his mind. Pilate then used sacred money to supply water to Jerusalem. The Jews protested. Pilate sent spies into the Jewish ranks with concealed weapons, and there was a great massacre. Then in the middle of all these troubles comes the curiously quiet paragraph about Jesus, followed immediately by: “And about the same time another terrible misfortune confounded the Jews…” Josephus, an orthodox Jew, would not have thought the Christian story to be “another terrible misfortune.” If he truly thought Jesus was “the Christ,” this would have been a glorious story of victory. It is only a Christian (someone like Eusebius) who might have considered Jesus to be a Jewish tragedy. Paragraph three can be lifted out of the text with no damage to the chapter. In fact, it flows better without it.
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) Josephus appears not to know anything else about Jesus outside of this tiny paragraph and an indirect reference concerning James, the “brother of Jesus” (see below). He does not refer to the gospels now known as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or to the writings or activities of Paul, though if these stories were in circulation at that time he ought to have known about them and used them as sources. Like the writings of Paul, Josephus’ account is silent about the teachings or miracles of Jesus, although he reports the antics of other prophets in great detail. He makes no mention of the earthquake or eclipse at the crucifixion, which would have been universally known in that area if they had truly happened. He adds nothing to the Gospel narratives, and says nothing that would not have been believed by Christians already, whether in the first or fourth century. In all of Josephus’ voluminous 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 wrote it) is the answer to his messianic hopes.
6) The paragraph mentions that the “divine prophets” foretold the life of 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 (and Josephus was made to say), he would have 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 ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him…” This sounds more like sectarian propaganda—in other words, more like the New Testament—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. Some Christian scholars are honest enough, however, to acknowledge these problems—how could they not?—agreeing that tampering has occurred, yet insisting that the passage can be un-doctored to uncover an original, plainer report by Josephus that was later modified by someone like Eusebius. This is not the bible, after all. If we remove the fraudulent “he was the Christ” and “to this day” and “ten thousand other wonderful things” and so on, we can still spot an unvarnished second-hand recognition of the existence of Jesus, these scholars insist. But then you have to wonder where to draw the line.
against
historicity. Some Christian scholars are honest enough, however, to acknowledge these problems—how could they not?—agreeing that tampering has occurred, yet insisting that the passage can be un-doctored to uncover an original, plainer report by Josephus that was later modified by someone like Eusebius. This is not the bible, after all. If we remove the fraudulent “he was the Christ” and “to this day” and “ten thousand other wonderful things” and so on, we can still spot an unvarnished second-hand recognition of the existence of Jesus, these scholars insist. But then you have to wonder where to draw the line.
How do Christians prove it was only part of the paragraph, and not the entire thing, that was dishonestly added to the
Antiquities
? And even if they can do that, doesn’t this prove too much? Instead of raising our confidence in the reliability of ancient writings, doesn’t this actually demonstrate that at least some early Christians were eager to falsify documents? If you admit there was a propensity for believers to tamper with evidence, how do you know they kept their grubby hands off the New Testament? Those who would try to rescue Josephus with this tactic are shooting themselves in the foot. The bible
has
been tampered with, and the argument that saves one damns the other.
Antiquities
? And even if they can do that, doesn’t this prove too much? Instead of raising our confidence in the reliability of ancient writings, doesn’t this actually demonstrate that at least some early Christians were eager to falsify documents? If you admit there was a propensity for believers to tamper with evidence, how do you know they kept their grubby hands off the New Testament? Those who would try to rescue Josephus with this tactic are shooting themselves in the foot. The bible
has
been tampered with, and the argument that saves one damns the other.
There is one other passage in the
Antiquities
that mentions Jesus as an aside. It is in Book 20, Chapter 9:
Antiquities
that mentions Jesus as an aside. It is in Book 20, Chapter 9:
“Festus was now dead, and Albinus was put upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, (or some of his companions). And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned…”
This is flimsy, and even Christian scholars widely consider this to be a doctored text. The stoning of James is not mentioned in Acts. Hegesippus, a Jewish Christian, in 170 C.E. wrote a history of the church saying that James the brother of Jesus was killed in a riot, not by sentence of a court. Clement confirms this (quoted by Eusebius). Most scholars agree that Josephus is referring to another James here, possibly the same one that Paul mentions in Acts, who led a sect in Jerusalem. Instead of strengthening Christianity, this “brother of Jesus” interpolation contradicts history. Again, if Josephus truly thought Jesus was “the Christ,” he would have added more about him than a casual aside in someone else’s story.
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 traversed every part of this province,” writes Remsburg, “and visited the places where but a generation before Christ had 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 seventy years of the Christian era. But Christ was of too little consequence and his deeds too trivial to merit a line from this historian’s pen.”
After Josephus there are other writers who mention Christianity, but even if we are confident that their writings are authentic, they are too late to claim the confirming impact of a first-century witness. Suetonius wrote a biography called
Twelve Caesars
around the year 112 C.E., mentioning that Claudius “banished the Jews from Rome, since they had made a commotion because of Chrestus,” and that during the time of Nero “punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief…” Notice that there is no mention of Jesus by name. It is unlikely that Christianity had spread as far as Rome during the reign of Claudius, or that it was large enough to have caused a revolt. Chrestus does not mean Christ. It was a common name meaning “good,” used by both slaves and free people and occurring more than 80 times in Latin inscriptions.
Twelve Caesars
around the year 112 C.E., mentioning that Claudius “banished the Jews from Rome, since they had made a commotion because of Chrestus,” and that during the time of Nero “punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief…” Notice that there is no mention of Jesus by name. It is unlikely that Christianity had spread as far as Rome during the reign of Claudius, or that it was large enough to have caused a revolt. Chrestus does not mean Christ. It was a common name meaning “good,” used by both slaves and free people and occurring more than 80 times in Latin inscriptions.
Even if Suetonius made a typo and truly meant Christus (Christ), he may have been referring only to the Jews in Rome who were expecting a messiah, not to Jesus of Nazareth. It could have been someone else, maybe a Roman Jew, who stepped forward. It is only eager believers who jump to the conclusion that this provides evidence for Jesus. Nowhere in any of Suetonius’ writings did he mention Jesus of Nazareth. Even if he had, his history would not necessarily have been reliable. He also reported, for example, that Caesar Augustus bodily rose to heaven when he died, an event that few modern scholars consider historical.
In 112 C.E., Pliny (the younger) said that “Christians were singing a hymn to Christ as to a god…” That’s it. In all of Pliny’s writings, we find one small tangential reference, and not even to Christ, but to Christians. Again, notice the absence of the name Jesus. This could have referred to any of the other “Christs” who were being followed by Jews who thought they had found a messiah. Pliny’s report hardly counts as history since he is only relaying what other people believed. Even if this sentence referred to a group of followers of Jesus, no one denies that Christianity was in existence at that time. Pliny, at the very most, might be useful in documenting the religion, but not the historic Jesus.
Sometime after 117 C.E., the Roman historian Tacitus wrote in his
Annals
(Book 15, chapter 44): “Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race.”
Annals
(Book 15, chapter 44): “Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race.”
In this passage, Tacitus depicts early Christians as “hated for their crimes” and associated with “depravity and filth.” This is not a flattering picture. But even if it is valid, it tells us nothing about Jesus of Nazareth. Tacitus claims no first-hand knowledge of Christianity. He is merely repeating the then common ideas about Christians. (A modern parallel would be a 20
th
century historian reporting that Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was visited by the angel Moroni, which would hardly make it historical proof, even though it is as close as a century away.) There is no other historical confirmation that Nero persecuted Christians. Nero did persecute Jews, and perhaps Tacitus was confused about this. There certainly was not a “great crowd” of Christians in Rome around 60 C.E., and the term “Christian” was not in use in the first century. Tacitus is either doctoring history from a distance or repeating a myth without checking his facts. Historians generally agree that Nero did not burn Rome, so Tacitus is in error to suggest that he would have needed a scapegoat in the first place. No one in the second century ever quoted this passage of Tacitus, and in fact it appears almost word-for-word in the writings of someone else, Sulpicius Severus, in the fourth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. The passage is therefore highly suspect and adds virtually no evidence for a historic Jesus.
th
century historian reporting that Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was visited by the angel Moroni, which would hardly make it historical proof, even though it is as close as a century away.) There is no other historical confirmation that Nero persecuted Christians. Nero did persecute Jews, and perhaps Tacitus was confused about this. There certainly was not a “great crowd” of Christians in Rome around 60 C.E., and the term “Christian” was not in use in the first century. Tacitus is either doctoring history from a distance or repeating a myth without checking his facts. Historians generally agree that Nero did not burn Rome, so Tacitus is in error to suggest that he would have needed a scapegoat in the first place. No one in the second century ever quoted this passage of Tacitus, and in fact it appears almost word-for-word in the writings of someone else, Sulpicius Severus, in the fourth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. The passage is therefore highly suspect and adds virtually no evidence for a historic Jesus.
In the ninth century a Byzantine writer named George Syncellus quoted a third-century Christian historian named Julius Africanus, who quoted an unknown writer named Thallus on the darkness at the crucifixion: “Thallus in the third book of his history calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun, but in my opinion he is wrong.” All of the works of Africanus are lost, so there is no way to confirm the quote or to examine its context. We have no idea who Thallus was, or when he wrote. Eusebius (fourth century) mentions a history of Thallus in three books ending about 112 C.E. so the suggestion is that Thallus might have been a near contemporary of Jesus. (Actually, the manuscript is damaged, and “Thallus” is merely a guess from “_allos Samaritanos.” That word “allos” actually means “other” in Greek, so it may have been simply saying “the other Samaritan.”) There is no historical evidence of an eclipse during the time Jesus was supposedly crucified. The reason Africanus doubted the eclipse is because Easter happens near the full moon, and a solar eclipse would have been impossible at that time. (Even ancient skeptics knew that the full moon occurs when it is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun, where it is unable to move between the sun and the earth to produce an eclipse.)
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