Wow, it’s round three already? I don’t know how much more I can take. Just kidding. I know. If anyone reads our blog regularly, or knows me personally, then you know that I’m a history geek. I love history. Especially the early 1st and 2nd century (0-100 a.d.). My undergraduate degree is in history, and I hope to go on to get my Ph.D. someday. Anyways, as I was watching part of the debate again, Kelly (one of the atheists) said something that really got on my nerves. She said that “there wasn’t even any historical evidence that Jesus even existed.” This is totally false. In fact, most scholars agree that Jesus was, at some point, an actual person. Even scholars who are by no means theists. To make such a blanket statement shows her lack of knowledge on the subject. Now, had she said: “Some scholars doubt the evidence for Jesus’ existence, and it is non-conclusive at best”, then I wouldn’t have a problem. But, she said, in absolute terms, that there was no proof of Jesus’ existence. How did Way of the Master respond? Well, Ray brought up the Jewish historian Josephus, who was immediately shot down by Kelly as “non-contemporaneous”.

In a previous post I talked about three different extra Biblical sources that supported Jesus’ existence: Tacitus, Josephus and the letters of Pliny the Younger. Today my goal is to show that we cannot throw Josephus out of the historical record because he is not “contemporaneous” with Jesus. (Indeed, that very claim is false) We’ll focus on Josephus and examine him on three different levels: biography, textual reliability and historical accuracy. In other words, 1) what do we know about Josephus and the time period in which he lived, 2) do the manuscripts we have today reflect an accurate preservation of Josephus’ words and 3) did he record history correctly in the first place.

1) Who was this Josephus guy anyway? The short of it is that he was a Jewish Roman Citizen in about 37 ad (or ce, if you wish). He was born into a wealthy, affluent family and eventually became an anti-Roman commander. When his soldiers were surrounded by Roman forces outside a small town and forced to commit suicide, Josephus “miraculously” survived and surrendered (by himself, the rest of his men were dead) to the Romans. After being captured, Josephus told the commander Vespasian that he was the “messiah” the Jewish people had been waiting for. Ostensibly because he liked being called the “saviour” of the Jewish people, even though he was killing them, Vespasian and the emperor decided to let Josephus return home as a Roman Citizen. Titus Flavius Josephus became the emperor’s translator and was viewed as a traitor by many of his countrymen. Somewhere along the way he penned at least three major works which survive: The Wars of the Jews, Antiquities and Contra Apion.

2) How accurate are our copies of these works? On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most accurate, most historians would say about a seven, which is on par with any other ancient Hebrew/Greek text. We must really look at each section in question individually. The passage that is often cited as evidence for Christ’s existence can be found in the work The Antiquities: Book XVIII. It goes a little something like this:

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. [source]

Now, a face-value reading of this excerpt would suggest that Josephus himself was a Christian. We know from many other sources, however, that he never actually claimed to be a believer. This has lead many historians to conclude that the text we see above has actually been edited by those who were copying it. Who copied and preserved this text? You guessed it, Christians. So, how much, if any, of this passage is original? While it’s impossible to tell exactly, most historians would agree with this trimmed down version:

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.

Again, if you refer to my previous post, I talk about history not being a series of facts, but a compilation of theories. What you see above is an historical theory. To say that it “proves” by itself that Jesus was a real person is a lie. But to rule it out altogether is just as grievous a mistake.

There is another, not as often cited, reference to Jesus within Josephus’ writings. In Antiquities: Book XX, Josephus mentions “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” [source] Here, we see a passage that was probably not edited at all by Christians. Why can we say that? 1) Look at the language it uses when referring to Jesus. The first passage we examined said that Jesus was the Christ, or Messiah. This one simply states that he was called the Messiah. 2) In this passage Josephus is talking about the death of James, but if you pay attention to the text, he is definitely telling the story from a Jewish point of view. The text is almost entirely dedicated to what’s going on amongst the Jewish authorities, not the Christian community. Why would a later Christian editor not “make” the story include more about James’ role within the church? Moreover, why would he leave the story with a “Jewish” perspective.

Also missing from this passage, and indeed all of Josephus’ work, is any suggestion that Jesus never existed. Think about it. If you are a Jewish leader in Jerusalem, trying to stomp out this tiny “sect” of Judaism, why not mention that their leader never existed in the first place.

Which brings us to #3) Josephus himself is writing only a few decades after Jesus’ death. In terms of ancient history, the amount of time between Jesus life and death and Josephus’ writings is negligible at best. There are literally hundreds of years between the exploits of Alexander the Great (c. 4th century B.C.) and the surviving manuscript evidence. The earliest works we have were penned in at least the 1st century ad. That’s almost 400 years after the fact. Some of our evidence is even so late that it comes to us in Latin! Despite the large spans of time between his activities and these recordings, we still feel we know a great deal about Alexander of Macedonia. Why? Because it’s the only evidence we have. (I’m excluding sparse references to Alexander on monuments because 1) few have been found from the time period 2) we claim to know more about Alexander than the fact that he lived.) Why is there a double standard applied to Jesus that makes the few decades between himself and Josephus this great chasm across which no truth can escape?

Sorry Kelly, but if all that proves ancient figures existed to you are “contemporaneous” accounts here are some people that you can’t believe existed either:

  • Julius Caesar
  • Flavius Josephus
  • Plato
  • Aristotle
  • Alexander the Great
  • Socrates
  • Homer
  • Australopithecus
  • Buddha
  • Muhammad
  • Livy
  • Virgil
  • Any Roman Emperor whose name wasn’t inscribed during their lifetime

You get the point. If we are going to apply a standard to ancient historical figures, let’s apply that same standard across the board. Just because Caesar is popular, claims to have written books, the entire Roman Imperial system traces its origins back to him and Roman society idolized him to the point of deity; since no one who was alive “exactly” at the same time he was recorded that he lived, surely he is just the figment of a spectacularly creative society.