Every reputable historian accepts the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person born between 6-4 BC during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar. Luke’s nativity account begins by describing Caesar’s empire-wide decree requiring all people to return to their hometown in order to register for a census. Joseph & his pregnant wife Mary were thus forced to travel from Nazareth in Galilee to Joseph’s ancestral town of Bethlehem in Judea. The book of Matthew informs us that Jesus was born during the waning days of Herod the Great (reigned 37-4 BC), a client-king who the Romans had granted authority over Judea, Samaria, lower Galilee and other territories in the region.
Yet it’s not uncommon to encounter people who suggest that Jesus is merely a myth, an invention of the Christian imagination. A common tactic of this crowd is to point out that no Roman historian of the 1st century refers to Jesus. While this claim is (very strictly speaking) true, it’s also disingenuous.
Unsurprisingly, skeptics assiduously avoid the witness of the New Testament itself, containing the independent accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, along with the letters of Paul. These writings are summarily dismissed as unreliable due to their religious nature. But this posture ignores two basic facts: (1) Virtually all ancient writings contain religious or supernatural elements. Yet historians routinely rely on such accounts to reconstruct the past. (2) The New Testament has repeatedly been shown to be trustworthy. It contains a wealth of purely historical information which has been confirmed by archeology or other ancient literary sources.
Nonetheless, for the sake of argument, let’s focus on the evidence for Jesus outside the Bible.
Joseph son of Matthias (Yosef ben Mattityahu) was born into a Jewish priestly family in Jerusalem in 37 AD, just a few years after Jesus’ crucifixion. In 66 AD, the Jews rose up in a large-scale revolt against the power of Rome. Joseph assumed command of the Jewish forces in Galilee, where he fought against the legions commanded by their general Vespasian. After the fall of the Jewish stronghold of Jotapata, Joseph surrendered himself. Joseph managed to gain the general’s favor by predicting that he would soon become Emperor as indeed occurred in 69 AD. Joseph became an aide & interpreter for the Romans, now led by Vespasian’s son Titus. The Jewish rebellion effectively ended when, after a brutal & protracted siege, the Roman legions captured & totally destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD.
After the war, Joseph settled in Rome, having been given Roman citizenship & a pension by the emperor. He took the Latin name Flavius Josephus by which he is widely known today in tribute to emperor’s family name Flavius. Unsurprisingly, his fellow Jews regarded Josephus as the blackest of traitors. But Josephus never relinquished his Jewish identity. He insisted that he had ultimately acted for the benefit of his people, having come to realize that their insurgency could only result in ruin.
Josephus composed a number of works which are vital for our historical understanding of this time period. His Jewish War (c.75 AD) recounts the events of the rebellion, concluding with the siege of Masada in 73 AD. His twenty-volume Antiquities of the Jews (c.94 AD) retells the entire story of Israel from the creation of the world until his own time.
There is a great deal of overlap between the New Testament and the works of Josephus. Josephus describes many of the same characters we find in the New Testament: the various Jewish groups including the Pharisees, Sadducees & Essenes; Herod the Great and his successors: his sons Herod Antipas, Archelaus and Philip as well as his grandson Herod Agrippa I and great-grandson Herod Agippa II; the high priests Annas, Caiaphas and Ananias; the Roman emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius and Nero as well as the Roman procurators of Judea: Pontius Pilate, Antonius Felix and Porcius Festus. In the writings of Josephus, we encounter the same world inhabited by Jesus of Nazareth and the early Christians.
Josephus makes a well-known reference to Jesus in Antiquities. This paragraph has understandably attracted a great deal of attention, so much so that it has acquired a fancy Latin name: the Testimonium Flavianum (the “Flavian Testimony”). The Testimonium represents one of the earliest non-Christian references to Jesus of Nazareth.
The context of this passage is the turmoil which plagued the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate, who governed the Roman province of Judea from 26-36 AD. Josephus writes, “And there arose about this time Jesus, a wise man, if indeed we should call him a man; for he was a doer of marvelous deeds, a teacher of men who receive the truth with pleasure. He won over many Jews, and also many of the Greeks. This man was the Christ. And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross on his accusation by the chief men among us, those who had loved him at first did not cease; for he appeared to them on the third day alive again, the divine prophets having spoken these and thousands of other wonderful things about him; and even now the tribe of Christians, so named after him, has not yet died out.”
There has been a great deal of controversy regarding the Flavian Testimony. Taken at face value, the text seems to affirm that Jesus was the Christ (Messiah) and that he rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion. Moreover, the phrase “if indeed we should call him a man” seems to give credence to the Christian claim of Jesus’ divinity.
There is no debate about the fact that Josephus was not a Christian. So it does seem rather strange that he would describe Jesus in this way. Most historians have therefore postulated that the original text was embellished by Christian scribes, a position which is by no means unreasonable. The three italicized sections above are frequently cited as likely additions (or interpolations) to the original words of Josephus.
Yet even if these statements are deleted, the Testimonium Flavianum remains highly valuable. Josephus confirms a number of important facts. (1) Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure regarded as “a wise man” and a teacher of the truth. (2) He gained a reputation as “a doer of marvelous deeds” – a phrase which indicates (at the very least) that Jesus possessed remarkable abilities but could just as easily be understood as an acknowledgement of miraculous signs. (3) The Jewish leadership arrested Jesus and accused him before the Roman authorities. (4) Pontius Pilate presided at Jesus’ trial and ordered his execution by crucifixion. (5) Jesus attracted many followers, both Jews & Gentiles, who persisted into the late 1st century. (6) This group was called “Christians,” thereby affirming their belief that Jesus was the Christ.
Thus, even an abridged form of the Testimonium gives us a great deal of solid historical information about Jesus of Nazareth – information which fully agrees with the New Testament.
Yet much more can be said about the Testimonium. Some historians (albeit in the minority) have been persuaded that this paragraph is either entirely genuine or has undergone only slight modifications. Linguistic studies have noted that the vocabulary, sentence structure & style of this passage are entirely consistent with the rest of Josephus’ work.
Moreover, there are sound arguments for the authenticity of the disputed sections. For instance, “if indeed we should call him a man” might well be Josephus writing with a note of dismissive sarcasm, aware as he was of the Christian claim that Jesus was the son of God. Similarly, “This man was the Christ” and “he appeared to them on the third day alive again” might simply be his way of acknowledging Christian claims without personally endorsing such views.
It’s also quite possibly that small modifiers have been lost from the original text. Instead of forthrightly declaring “This man was the Christ” Josephus may have written “This man was called (or believed to be or thought to be) the Christ.” There is some manuscript evidence that this was indeed the case.
This proposal also gains credibility in light of the only other passage where Josephus refers to Jesus of Nazareth. Later in his Antiquities, Josephus describes the execution of James at the behest of the high priest Ananus in 62 AD: “[Ananus] assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.” It requires no great leap of the imagination to think that the original Testimonium also stated, “This man was called the Christ.”
The third contested section is usually translated, “for he appeared to them on the third day alive again…” One recent scholar (T.C. Schmidt) has argued that the Greek should be translated “…for on the third day it seemed to them that he was alive again…” Alternatively, this sentence might have contained a small modifying phrase such as “so it was said” or “so they claimed” after “he appeared to them.” Either one of these proposals would be thoroughly consistent with style and mindset of Josephus.
If this contested material came from the quill of Josephus, it lends further weight to the historical value of the Testimonium. It provides strong evidence that 1st century Christians believed that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, thereby proving that he was Israel’s Messiah.
