5

Early Christian Figures Mentioned by Josephus

The most obvious reason for Christian interest in Josephus is that he mentions three prominent NT personalities: John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus’ brother James. I have delayed considering those figures until now because the passages in which they appear are not central to Josephus’ literary aims. All three occur only in the potpourri of material that he includes in Antiquities 18–20 to fill out that rambling narrative, but those are not the first places one should look to understand Josephus. In my view, his significance for the NT reader would remain almost as great if he had said nothing about John, Jesus, and James.

Nevertheless, he does mention them, and his unique perspective is helpful for NT interpretation. Of the three passages, the one concerning John the Baptist is the most revealing. Josephus’ description of Jesus is full of problems, but most of those seem capable of resolution. His reference to James, though very brief, is also useful. Even as we turn to consider his discussions of these figures, we need to keep in mind everything that we have observed so far about his literary aims.

 

 

JOHN THE BAPTIST

It is a mark of Josephus’ complete isolation from the early Christian world of thought that he devotes significantly more space to John the Baptist than to Jesus—even if we admit his account of Jesus as it stands (but see below). He mentions the Baptist while discussing the marital indiscretions of Herod Antipas, which we considered in chapter 4. Recall that the tetrarch’s passion for his brother’s wife led him to abandon his own, who happened to be the daughter of the neighboring king, Aretas IV. That king was already upset with Antipas over a border dispute. When he heard his daughter’s story, he engaged Antipas in battle and routed his army. Josephus comments:

 

But to some of the Jews the destruction of Herod’s army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practise justice [dikaiosyneµ] towards their fellows and piety [eusebeia] towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they had committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already cleansed by right behaviour. When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed. Eloquence that had so great an effect on mankind might lead to some form of sedition, for it looked as if they would be guided by John in everything that they did. Herod decided therefore that it would be much better to strike first and be rid of him before his work led to an uprising, than to wait for an upheaval, get involved in a difficult situation and see his mistake. Though John, because of Herod’s suspicions, was brought in chains to Machaerus, the stronghold that we have previously mentioned, and there put to death, yet the verdict of the Jews was that the destruction visited upon Herod’s army was a vindication of John, since God saw fit to inflict such a blow on Herod (Ant. 18.116–119, LCL)

 

So in Josephus’ view, John was a good and virtuous teacher, well respected among the Jews. His unjust death once again exposed the lawlessness of the Herodian family. In keeping with the thesis of Antiquities, Antipas was quickly punished by God for his misdeeds.

Since John died before Josephus’ birth, the historian must be recounting a tradition, either oral or written. Perhaps the legend of the Baptist was so famous that Josephus knew it from childhood and simply chose to insert it here in his account of Antipas’ rule. Or perhaps his written source for the political history of the period referred to John’s death. In any case, Josephus tells the story in his own way, to make his own points. Most obviously, he welds the episode into his ongoing demonstration that violation of the divine laws brings inevitable punishment.

Notice also that Josephus reduces the content of John’s preaching to the maxim “piety toward God and justice toward one’s fellows.” This is Josephus’ usual way of describing Jewish ethical responsibility.¹ Against the charges that Jews were atheists and haters of humanity, he says that all Jewish customs (etheµ) are concerned with “piety [toward God] and justice [toward humanity]” (Ant. 16.42). He ascribes this pair of virtues to the great kings of Israel (Ant. 7.338, 342, 356, 374; 9.236) and paraphrases David’s deathbed speech to Solomon so as to include them (Ant. 7.384). He even claims that the first two oaths sworn by Essene novices were “to behave with piety toward God and with justice toward their fellows” (War 2.139, author’s translation). This terminology, which summarizes the popular morality of the Greco-Roman world, is part of Josephus’ apologetic arsenal: he wants to present Judaism as a philosophical tradition that embraces the world’s highest values.² John the Baptist appears as another Jewish philosopher, a modern heir of Abraham, Moses, and Solomon. But he is a persecuted philosopher of the sort familiar to Josephus’ readers, condemned by an unjust ruler for his fearless virtue (see chapter 6).

How does Josephus’ account of John relate to the Gospels’ portrayals? On the one hand, it offers striking independent confirmation of John’s demand that people coming for immersion first repent and resolve to behave righteously. In Josephus’ words, “They must not employ it [baptism] to gain pardon for whatever sins they had committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already cleansed by right behaviour” (Ant. 18.117). In the language of the Gospels:

 

 

 

The Gospel of Luke elaborates on the kind of behavior that was required:

 

Now the crowds used to ask him, “What, then, should we do?” And he would answer, “A person who has two coats should give to someone who has none, and a person who has food should do the same.” Tax collectors would come to be immersed and would say to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not make a surplus, beyond what is scheduled for you.” And soldiers would ask him, “What about us? What should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort or blackmail, but be content with your wages” (Luke 3:10–14, author’s translation).

 

There is, to be sure, a difference of tone between Josephus’ and the Gospels’ accounts. His discussion of soul and the body and of “right action” is a translation of John’s preaching into the philosophical language that he typically uses to describe Judaism. There is also a difference of content, to which we shall return below. Nevertheless, Josephus and the Gospels agree that John typically demanded repentance as a prior condition of immersion.

Some scholars have found a problem in the different reasons given for John’s arrest. Josephus says that it was because of the preacher’s great eloquence; in a period marked by successive popular movements that made the authorities very nervous, his popularity seemed sure to lead to disturbances. Just as the Roman governors of Judea did not hesitate to destroy such movements in Judea proper, so the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea thought it best to nip this group in the bud by destroying its leader. (Notice, however, that whereas Josephus usually detests such popular leaders, he only speaks well of John.) The Gospels, for their part, claim that Antipas killed John because the preacher had denounced the tetrarch’s unlawful marriage to his sister-in-law: “For John was saying to Herod, `It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife’” (Mark 6:18; Matt 14:4; Luke 3:19).

On examination, the two explanations are not mutually exclusive, but actually fit together quite well. The Gospels do not explain any details of the marital affair, and Josephus’ account provides helpful background. Luke, at least, allows that the Baptist made many other criticisms of the ruler (Luke 3:19). Conversely, although Josephus does not mention John’s criticism of the tetrarch’s marriage, we have seen that he greatly simplifies John’s preaching in schematic form. Such popular movements were inherently anti-establishment, and it would make sense if John or his followers had spoken against Antipas’ lawlessness. Moreover, if John did chastise the tetrarch on this score, that would lend a kind of poetic justice to the story, for he receives his punishment at the hand of the abandoned wife’s father. That connection may even explain why this particular military defeat was traditionally seen as punishment for Antipas’ treatment of John.

Yet we see an obvious and major difference between Josephus and the Gospels in their respective portraits of the Baptist. To put it bluntly, Josephus does not see John as a “figure in the Christian tradition.” The Baptist is not connected with early Christianity in any way. On the contrary, Josephus presents him as a famous Jewish preacher with a message and a following of his own, neither of which is related to Jesus. This is a problem for the reader of the NT because the Gospels unanimously declare him to be essentially the forerunner of Jesus the Messiah.

Mark, the earliest Gospel, sets the tone. He opens his narrative with a composite quotation from the prophets that interprets John as one who prepares for the Lord’s coming (1:2–3):

 

Just as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Look, I am sending my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one who cries in the desert, `Prepare the Lord’s way; make his paths straight!’”

 

Although Mark attributes the quoted words to Isaiah, the first two lines are a paraphrase of Malachi 3:1; Matthew (3:3) and Luke (3:4) correct the oversight. For Mark, as for the early Christians generally, the title “Lord” refers to Jesus and not God as in the OT.³ So John plays a key role in the story of salvation: he comes as a herald to prepare the way for Jesus. Mark’s description of his preaching stresses its preparatory role: what he said to the people when he immersed them was that someone mightier was coming, who would immerse them in “holy spirit,” and that he was totally unworthy of the coming one’s company (1:7–8).

 

The more powerful one is coming after me, the thong of whose sandals I am unworthy to stoop down and untie. I immersed you in water, but he will immerse you in holy spirit.

 

Thus John’s preaching is basically forward-looking, pointing ahead to Jesus. He predicts the arrival of the Spirit in the church. Significantly, Jesus’ career does not begin (in the synoptic Gospels) until the forerunner is in prison, having completed his role (Mark 1:14).

Matthew and Luke continue and develop this portrayal of John as herald. They agree that he played the role of Elijah, who, according to Malachi 4:5, would come before the “day of the Lord,” to reconcile families so that the day of judgment would not be too catastrophic (Matt 11:14; Luke 1:12–17). He is a close ally of Jesus, drawing his power from the same source (Matt 11:16–19; 21:23–27); Luke even says he is a cousin (1:36). Nevertheless, when John is still in the womb he and his mother recognize the priority of Jesus and Mary (Luke 1:41–42). Matthew and Luke strictly relegate John to the old order, before Jesus’ coming: “Among those born of women, none greater than John the Baptist has arisen; yet he who is least in the reign of heaven is greater than he” (Matt 11:11; Luke 7:28). He represents the highest point of the “law and prophets,” before the coming of the gospel (Matt 11:13; Luke 16:17). Because “Luke” also writes Acts, he has considerable opportunity to emphasize John’s preparatory function: he repeatedly notes that John’s immersion in water anticipated the outpouring of the Spirit, the characteristic mark of the young church (Acts 1:5; 11:16).

The independence of the Fourth Gospel from the first three is indicated by its claim that Jesus and John worked side by side before John was arrested (John 3:22–23) and by its pointed denial of the Elijah role to the Baptist (1:21). But otherwise it maintains the synoptics’ tendency both to claim John as a herald for Jesus and to distinctly subordinate him to Jesus. While introducing Jesus to the reader as the light of the world, the author takes the trouble to note that John was not the light of the world, but only bore witness to it (John 1:6–8). The Baptist says that his whole reason for immersing people was that he might reveal Jesus to Israel (1:31). Once he has fulfilled this mission, he releases his own disciples to follow Jesus (1:37). Then he utters the classic statement of Christian self-negation: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (3:30).

From beginning to end, therefore, the Gospels incorporate John wholly into the Christian story of salvation. His basic mission was to prepare the way for Jesus, to identify and “anoint” the Messiah. So too his preaching was entirely contingent on the future: what he preached about was Jesus’ coming.

We have seen, however, that Josephus mentions nothing of John’s association with Jesus. In Josephus’ account, John has a large following and a self-contained message with its own logic. He does not encourage his students to follow Jesus. On the contrary, Antipas can only disperse his followers by getting rid of him. This difference of portrayal forces us to ask whether it is more likely that Josephus has taken a figure who was a herald for Jesus and, erasing his Christian connection, made him into a famous Jewish preacher, or whether the early Christian tradition has coopted a famous Jewish preacher as an ally and subordinate of Jesus.

The answer seems clear. On the one hand, Josephus had no discernible reason to create a famous Jewish preacher out of one of Jesus’ associates. He has no sustained interest in John, but mentions him quite incidentally in his description of Antipas’ government. He has already mentioned Jesus and will mention James, so he is not dedicated to removing all traces of Christianity from his writings. On the other hand, we can easily see in the Gospels themselves, in spite of their overall tendency to make John into a subordinate herald, traces of another story—one that left the Baptist with his integrity, his own message, and his own following.

John’s integrity appears, for example, in the passages cited above, in which he plainly tells his audience what is required of them—not to believe in Jesus, but to behave generously toward one another, especially to the poor. We see it also in passages that reflect differences of practice between John’s and Jesus’ followers on the matter of fasting and diet (Mark 2:18; Matt 11:18–19). Most impressive, however, is the account in Acts 19:1–5. At Ephesus, some years after the deaths of both Jesus and John, Paul comes upon a group of “students” or disciples:⁴

 

Paul passed through the upper district and came to Ephesus. When he found some students there, he said to them, “Did you receive holy spirit with your faith?” They said to him, “But we did not hear that there was a `holy spirit.’” So he said, “With what, then, were you immersed?” And they said, “With the immersion of John.” But Paul said, “John immersed with an immersion of repentance, saying to the people that they should trust in the one coming after him; this one is Jesus.” When they heard that, they were immersed in the name of the Lord Jesus.

 

The students report that they have never heard of “holy spirit,” and the author connects this with the fact that they are disciples of the Baptist, having experienced only his immersion. Interestingly enough, Paul also has to explain to them that the coming one announced by John was in fact Jesus. The function of the story in Acts seems clear enough: Luke wants to show that the outpouring of the Spirit is the hallmark of the young church; he takes over this tradition about John’s disciples as one example of the many groups, Jewish and Gentile, that joined the church and received the Spirit. But the story seems to be at odds with his earlier presentations of the Baptist (in Luke), according to which John’s primary concern, indeed his mission from birth, was precisely to declare the arrival of Jesus and to announce the coming baptism in the Spirit. This unassimilated tradition suggests, therefore: (a) that John’s followers survived his death, were still known as an independent group, and had spread to Asia by the middle of the first century, and (b) that John’s preaching was not contingent on either the arrival of Jesus or a future Spirit-immersion.

Another passage that points in the same direction tells of an enquiry about Jesus’ identity by John. It comes as something of a surprise to the reader of Matthew and Luke that, after John has recognized Jesus while still in the womb (Luke), after he has immersed Jesus, witnessed the descent of the dove, heard the heavenly voice, and knowingly declared his unworthiness to baptize Jesus—all of which are presented as the climax of his career—he should later hear about Jesus’ wonderful deeds and innocently send messengers to ask, “Are you the coming one or should we wait for another?” Thus:

 

 

 

The standard solution to the problem is to suppose that John was beginning to have some doubt about Jesus’ messiahship. Thus the force of his question would be, “I thought that you were the Messiah. If you are, when are you going to do something Messiah-like (take political control, expel the Romans, etc.)?” It has sometimes been thought that Jesus’ miracles disturbed John, for he wanted a political leader, not a healer. So the story would present the beginning of John’s doubt about Jesus. Indeed, the closing line suggests that this is how Matthew and Luke understood it.

The problem with this interpretation is the internal logic of the story. Read by itself, it clearly implies the beginning of John’s interest in Jesus as Messiah. He hears about Jesus’ wonders and so is encouraged to ask whether Jesus is the coming one. In quiet response, Jesus performs more wonders in the presence of John’s messengers, thus evidently confirming that he is the coming one. The sense is one of discovery and excitement. John’s students return to him and report that what they had heard about Jesus is true! They have seen it with their own eyes. Although it is conceivable that the story has to do with John’s doubt, it seems more adequately explained as an incident remembered by Jesus’ followers in which the great Jewish preacher expressed an initial interest in Jesus’ work. That explanation would fit with both Josephus’ presentation of John as an independent figure and the NT passages (above) that assume the ongoing vitality of the “Baptist movement.”

In sum, then, Josephus’ account of John the Baptist, independent as it is from the tendencies of the Christian tradition, forces us to ask whether the wilderness preacher has not been posthumously adopted by the church in a way that he did not anticipate. It seems clear enough that he did immerse Jesus, among many others, and that this event marked a watershed in Jesus’ life. Jesus’ immersion by John caused problems for early Christians, for they then had to explain why Jesus was immersed “for the forgiveness of sins.”⁵ It is unlikely, therefore, that Christians created the story of Jesus’ baptism. But since the renowned Jewish preacher had immersed him, the early Christian retelling of the story increasingly coopted John into the Christian story, gradually diminishing his own message and making him a prophet for the church. This kind of process seems inevitable with famous and well-liked people: notice how Jesus himself has been adopted by Marxists and Capitalists, Enlightenment thinkers and fundamentalists, not to mention virtually every world religion. Josephus’ account of John helps us to see another side of him, independent of the young church’s perspective.

Yet we have seen that Josephus has his own biases. He too has schematized John’s preaching to fit his overall story. John is made to speak, in Josephus’ language, of “justice toward one’s fellows and piety toward God.” In this case, the Gospels can help us to interpret Josephus, for they provide more information about the Baptist’s language. If we strip away the obvious Christian themes overlaid on John’s preaching in the Gospels, we find an underlying core of Jewish “apocalyptic” thought—that is, a declaration that the fiery judgment of God was about to fall on the world, bringing an end to this present evil age. Thus:

 

 

 

Or again:

 

But the axe has already been set to the root of the trees; so every tree that does not produce good fruit is being rooted out and thrown into the fire (Matt 3:10//Luke 3:9).

 

The idea of coming fiery judgment was quite common in ancient Jewish imagination. In that hot and dry region, the image of precious bodies of water (lakes and rivers) turned to fire was an especially terrifying symbol of punishment. So we find many references to lakes or rivers of fire in apocalyptic writings from the time. Daniel already envisaged a river of fire streaming from God’s throne, into which the evil fourth beast would be thrown (Dan 7:9–11). Another famous apocalyptic text draws this picture of the judgment:

 

In the meantime I saw how another abyss like it, full of fire, was opened wide in the middle of the ground; and they brought those blinded sheep, all of which were judged, found guilty, and cast into this fiery abyss and they were burned (1 Enoch 90.26).⁶

 

The Dead Sea Scrolls (1QH 3.27–32) and the book of Revelation (20:10) use the same imagery. What distinguished John’s preaching, and may have suggested his nick-name “the Baptist,” was that he offered a symbolic immersion in water now instead of the coming immersion in fire, to those who would repent and behave righteously.

If this apocalyptic message was the core of John’s preaching, then both Josephus and the NT writers have obscured it to some degree. The NT writers did so, perhaps unconsciously, as they reinterpreted John’s role within their view of history. Josephus, for his part, was wary of presenting Judaism in apocalyptic terms because that would not favorably impress the audience he was trying to reach. Upper-class Roman readers could be expected to take a dim view of any apparent disloyalty to Rome’s divine mission. The recently failed revolt in Judea, which had brought the Jews such bad press, had been partly fueled by apocalyptic hopes—the anticipation that God would choose that moment to intervene in world affairs and restore Israel’s glory.⁷ So Josephus, in trying to heal Jewish-Roman relations, was not in a position to develop apocalyptic themes. Accordingly, when he is explaining Daniel to his readers, he abruptly stops short of explaining the final outcome of history, evidently because he thinks that Daniel foretold the fall of the Roman empire to a new kingdom of God:

 

And Daniel also revealed to the king the meaning of the stone [that would smash the final kingdom], but I have not thought it proper to relate this, since I am expected to write of what is past and done and not of what is to be (Ant. 10.210, LCL).

 

So in this case it is the Gospels that provide important background for understanding Josephus. From their fuller account of John’s preaching, we are able to distill a plausible apocalyptic core:

 

Whereas I am immersing you in water for repentance, the coming one will immerse you in fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire (cf. Matt 3:11–12).

If we have correctly recreated the original flavor of John’s preaching, it corresponds well to another text from first-century Jewish baptist circles:

 

Ah, wretched mortals, change these things, and do not lead the great God to all sorts of anger, but abandon daggers and groanings, murders and outrages, and wash your whole bodies in perennial rivers. Stretch out your hands to heaven and ask forgiveness. . . .

God will grant repentance

and will not destroy. He will stop his wrath again if you all practice honorable piety in your hearts. But if you do not obey me, evil-minded ones, but love impiety, and receive all these things with evil ears, there will be fire throughout the whole world. . . . He will burn the whole earth, and will destroy

the whole race of men

and all cities and rivers at once, and the sea. He will destroy everything by fire, and it will be smoking dust

(Sybilline Oracles 4.162–178).⁸The case of John the Baptist underscores the point that we ought not to treat Josephus as a kind of “fact book” for the background of the NT. He too has a perspective, with its own limitations. His elaborate work often stimulates us to ask new questions of the NT; but, in turn, the NT can occasionally shed light on his narratives.

 

 

JESUS, A WISE MAN

We come now to Josephus’ much-debated paragraph on Jesus, the so-called testimonium flavianum or “witness of Flavius [Josephus, to Jesus].” That this short paragraph has come to have its own Latin title reflects its vast and unique importance in the Christian tradition. Because Josephus talks about John the Baptist’s death only in a flashback, while discussing the defeat of Antipas, his passage on John (Ant. 18.116–119) comes after his description of Jesus (Ant. 18.63–64). It seems clear from various independent statements within the NT, however, that John’s arrest and execution preceded Jesus’ trial.

Josephus mentions Jesus while relating some events during the governorship of Pontius Pilate (AD 26–36/37).⁹ We have discussed most of these events in the previous chapter and may now summarize them as follows:

 

 

 

This overview highlights several key points. (a) To fill out his narrative of Pilate’s governorship, Josephus has strung together an assortment of episodes, probably from different sources. The fourth and fifth incidents occur in Rome and have nothing to do with Pilate directly. It seems that they are out of order chronologically, for the expulsion of Jews and Egyptians (the cult of Isis) from Rome probably occurred in AD 19, before Pilate’s arrival in Judea. (b) All of the episodes, except perhaps the Jesus affair, are described as “outrages” or “uprisings” or “tumults.” Josephus is trying to paint a picture of escalating tension for Jews around the world. (c) These episodes also serve Josephus’ larger literary aims in Antiquities, for example: (i) the first, second, and sixth incidents illustrate the cruelty and insensitivity of the Roman governors; (ii) the sixth incident reflects the gullibility of the masses (here Samaritan) toward false prophets; and (iii) the parallel Egyptian and Jewish incidents at Rome show both that the Jews are no worse than other national groups and, more importantly, that Jews share the morals of the Romans. Josephus plainly expresses his own abhorrence of the scoundrels’ activities; they were led by a man who only “pretended to interpret the wisdom of the laws of Moses” (8.81). The entire Jewish community suffered then (as now, after the war) for the actions of a few reprobates (18.84).

In the midst of these stories of outrage and tumult, Josephus mentions Jesus and his followers. As we have it, the text in Josephus reads:

 

About this time comes Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is proper to call him a man. For he was a worker of incredible deeds, a teacher of those who accept the truth with pleasure, and he attracted many Jews as well as many of the Greek [way]. This man was Christ. And when, in view of [his] denunciation by the leading men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross, those who had loved him at the beginning did not cease [to do so]. He appeared to them on the third day alive again, for the divine prophets had announced these and countless other marvels concerning him. And even now the tribe of the “Christians”—named after him—has not yet disappeared (Ant. 18.63–64, author’s translation).

 

I say “the text as we have it” because this brief passage is brimming with problems. Scholars first noticed them in the sixteenth century. By 1863, when a German scholar wrote an entire book on this paragraph, he had to begin by justifying his study, since the question had already been so thoroughly debated. That was 1863! His own analysis was by no means the final word. During the period 1937–1980, one bibliographer counts eighty-seven more studies of the subject. The passage continues to attract scholarly interest in current journal articles (see “For Further Reading”).

So, what is the problem? 1. To begin with the most obvious point: the passage does not fit well with its context in Antiquities 18. Like the tourist negotiating a bustling, raucous middle-eastern market who accidently walks through the door of a monastery, suffused with light and peace, the reader of Josephus is struck by this sublime portrait. Josephus is speaking of upheavals, but there is no upheaval here. He is pointing out the folly of Jewish rebels, governors, and troublemakers in general, but this passage is completely supportive of both Jesus and his followers. Logically, what should appear in this context ought to imply some criticism of the Jewish leaders and/or Pilate, but Josephus does not make any such criticism explicit. He says only that those who denounced Jesus were “the leading men among us.” So, unlike the other episodes, this one has no moral, no lesson. Although Josephus begins the next paragraph by speaking of “another outrage” that caused an uproar among the Jews at the same time (18.65), there is nothing in this paragraph that depicts any sort of outrage.

2.A. Most problematic of all is the terse sentence concerning Jesus: “This man was Christ.” This affirmation is difficult for several reasons. First, the word “Christ” (Greek christos) would have special meaning only for a Jewish audience. In Greek it means simply “wetted” or “anointed.” Within the Jewish world, this was an extremely significant term because anointing was the means by which the kings and high priests of Israel had been installed. The pouring of oil over their heads represented their assumption of God-given authority (Exod 29:9; 1 Sam 10:1). The Hebrew word for “anointed” was mashiach, which we know usually as the noun Messiah, “the anointed [one].” Although used in the OT of reigning kings and high priests, many Jews of Jesus’ day looked forward to an end-time prophet, priest, king, or someone else who would be duly anointed.

But for someone who did not know the Jewish tradition, the adjective “wetted” would sound most peculiar. Why would Josephus say that this man Jesus was “the Wetted”? We can see the puzzlement of Greek-speaking readers over this term in their descriptions of Christianity: Jesus’ name is sometimes altered to “Chrestus” (Suetonius, Claudius 25.4), a common slave name that would make better sense, and the Christians are sometimes called “Chrestians.”

Since Josephus is usually sensitive to his audience and pauses to explain unfamiliar terms or aspects of Jewish life, it is very strange that he would make the bald assertion, without explanation, that Jesus was “Christ.” He has not used this term before and will only use it again when he calls James the “brother of Jesus, the one called Christ” (Ant. 20.200). That formulation, “the one called Christ,” makes much better sense because it sounds like a nick-name. Nick-names were necessary among first-century Jews because there was a relatively small number of proper names in circulation. We have already met several people with the name Jesus (=Joshua), and the index to Josephus’ writings lists some twenty-one individuals with this name. So it would make sense for Josephus to say, “This man had the nickname Christos,” and he could do so without further explanation. But simply to say that Jesus was Christ, or Messiah, is a peculiar formulation. It is doubly suspicious, of course, because we know that Josephus’ writings were preserved and recopied by Christians, for whom Jesus was indeed the Christ.

2.B. A second problem with the statement “This man was Christ” is that its solemn phrasing makes it seem to represent Josephus’ own confession of faith: he believed Jesus to be Messiah. In addition to that direct statement, the passage says things that only a Christian could have written, it seems, about Jesus’ appearances after death, his being more than just a man, and the many ancient prophecies concerning him. Indeed, William Whiston, who translated Josephus’ writings in 1737, thought on the basis of this passage that Josephus must have been a Christian. But that seems impossible. As we have seen, he writes as a passionate advocate of Judaism. Everywhere he praises the excellent constitution of the Jews, codified by Moses, and declares its peerless, comprehensive quality. (Yet even Moses, who was as close as possible to God, is never credited with being more than a man.) Josephus rejoices over converts to Judaism. In all of this there is not the slightest hint of any belief in Jesus. Whiston thought that this omission was because Josephus was a Jewish Christian. But from everything we know of Jewish Christians in the first century (James, Peter, those mentioned in Acts), the figure of Jesus was still central to their faith. That is obviously not the case with Josephus. His total commitment to the sufficiency of Judaism seems to preclude any Christian affiliation.

2.C. The strongest evidence that Josephus did not declare Jesus’ messiahship is that the passage under discussion does not seem to have been present in the texts of Antiquities known before the fourth century. Recall that we do not possess the original Greek text that Josephus wrote; we have only copies, the earliest of which (known as P and A) date from the ninth and tenth centuries. These relatively late copies provide the basis for our current Greek editions and English translations of Josephus. But we know of about a dozen Christian authors from the second and third centuries who were familiar with Josephus’ writings. Since many of them were writing to help legitimize the young church, drawing upon every available means of support, it is noteworthy that none of them mentions Josephus’ belief in Jesus. If the famous, imperially sponsored Jewish historian had declared Jesus to be Messiah, it would presumably have helped their cause to mention the fact, but they do not.

Most significant, the renowned Christian teacher Origen (185–254) flatly states, in two different contexts, that Josephus did not believe in Jesus’ messiahship. Commenting on Josephus’ (allegedly favorable) description of James, the “brother of the one called Christ,” Origen expresses his wonder that the Jewish historian “did not accept that our Jesus is Christ” (Commentary on Matthew to Matt 10.17). Similarly, in his apologetic work, Against Celsus, he directs the reader to Josephus’ own defense of Judaism, but then laments that he “did not believe in Jesus as Christ” (1.47). Origen knew Josephus’ writings quite well: he cites accurately from War, Antiquities, and Against Apion. But it is hard to see how he could have made these statements about Josephus’ unbelief if he had known of the testimonium that we find in our copies of Josephus. Evidently, his copy of Antiquities, like those of his predecessors, did not contain it.

The first author to mention the testimonium is Eusebius, the church historian who wrote in the early 300s. In the opening volume of his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius cites Josephus extensively as an independent witness to the Gospels’ statements about Jesus, John the Baptist, and the political events of the period. Following his quotation of the passage on John, he cites the testimonium just as it appears in our Greek manuscripts of Josephus (Eccl hist 1.11; quoted above). Another of his works, the Theophany, which exists only in Syriac, also includes Josephus’ “witness to Jesus.” Interestingly, a third work includes it, but with several variations of language (Proof of the Gospel 3.5). These minor variants seem to indicate that even at Eusebius’ time the form of the testimonium was not yet fixed. Furthermore, Eusebius erroneously places it after Josephus’ discussion of John the Baptist.

Long after Eusebius, in fact, the text of the testimonium remained fluid. Jerome (342–420), the great scholar who translated the Bible and some of Eusebius into Latin, gives a version that agrees closely with the standard text, except that the crucial phrase says of Jesus, “he was believed to be the Messiah.”¹⁰ In the tenth century, the Christian author Agapius wrote a history of the world in Arabic, in which he reproduced Josephus’ statement about Jesus as follows:

 

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good, and [he] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.¹¹

 

And at the end of the twelfth century, Michael, the Patriarch of Antioch, quotes Josephus as saying that Jesus “was thought to be the Messiah. But not according to the principal [men] of [our] nation. . . .”¹²

Where did such equivocal versions of Josephus’ account come from? Who had an interest in altering Josephus’ enthusiastic statement so as to introduce doubt about Jesus’ messiahship? The Christian dignitaries who innocently report these versions as if they came from Josephus had no motive, it seems, to weaken their testimony to Jesus. On the one hand, everything that we know of Christian scribal tendencies (for example, in the transmission of the NT texts) points the other way: they tend to heighten Jesus’ grandeur and status. On the other hand, these accounts are not obviously anti-Christian, and so do not seem to have arisen from Jewish or pagan polemical corruptions of Josephus. Anti-Christian writers would presumably have left some trace of their disdain for Jesus in such corruptions. It seems probable, therefore, that the versions of Josephus’ statement given by Jerome, Agapius, and Michael reflect alternative textual traditions of Josephus, which did not contain the emphatic statements that we find in the standard (medieval) manuscripts of Antiquities or in Eusebius.

3. A third kind of problem with the testimonium as it stands in Josephus concerns its vocabulary and style. It uses some words in ways that are not characteristic of Josephus. For example, the word translated “worker” in the phrase “worker of incredible deeds” is poieµteµs in Greek, from which we get “poet.” Etymologically, it means “one who does” and so it can refer to any sort of “doer.” But in Josephus’ day it had already come to have a special reference to literary poets, and that is how he consistently uses it elsewhere (nine times)—to speak of Greek poets like Homer.

Notice further that the phrase “they did not cease” has to be completed by the translator, for it is left incomplete in the text; the action from which his followers ceased must be inferred from the preceding phrase. This is as peculiar in Greek as it is in English, and such a construction is not found elsewhere in Josephus’ writing.

Again, the phrase “the tribe of the Christians” is peculiar. Josephus uses the word “tribe” (phyleµ) eleven other times. Once it denotes “gender,” and once a “swarm” of locusts, but it usually signifies distinct peoples, races, or nationalities: the Jews are a “tribe” (War 3.354; 7.327) as are the Taurians (War 2.366) and Parthians (War 2.379). It is very strange that Josephus should speak of the Christians as a distinct racial group, since he has just said that Jesus was a Jew condemned by the Jewish leaders. (Notice, however, that some Christian authors of a later period came to speak of Christianity as a “third race.”)

These examples, along with the use of “Christ” and other peculiarities, illustrate the stylistic difficulties of the testimonium. Stylistic arguments are notoriously dicey, because writers are quite capable of using words in unusual ways, on a whim. If a writer uses a high concentration of peculiar words within a short space, however, and if other factors cast doubt on the authenticity of a passage, the stylistic features may become significant.

Taking all of these problems into consideration, a few scholars have argued that the entire passage as it stands in Josephus is a Christian forgery. The Christian scribes who copied the Jewish historian’s writings thought it intolerable that he should have said nothing about Jesus and spliced the paragraph in where it might logically have stood, in Josephus’ account of Pilate’s tenure. Some scholars have suggested that Eusebius himself was the forger, since he was the first to produce the passage.

Most critics, however, have been reluctant to go so far. They have noted that, in general, Christian copyists were quite conservative in transmitting texts. Nowhere else in all of Josephus’ voluminous writings is there strong suspicion of scribal tampering. Christian copyists also transmitted the works of Philo, who said many things that might be elaborated in a Christian direction, but there is no evidence that in hundreds of years of transmission, the scribes inserted their own remarks into Philo’s text. To be sure, many of the “pseudepigrapha” that exist now only in Christian form are thought to stem from Jewish originals, but in this instance it may reflect the thorough Christian rewriting of Jewish models, rather than scribal insertions. That discussion is ongoing among scholars. But in the cases of Philo and Josephus, whose writings are preserved in their original language and form, one is hard pressed to find a single example of serious scribal alteration. To have created the testimonium out of whole cloth would be an act of unparalleled scribal audacity.

Second, if Christians had written the paragraph from scratch, they might have been expected to give Jesus a little more space than John, and to use language that was more emphatically Christian. Rather than merely doubting that Jesus could adequately be called a man, for example, they might have said something more positive, unless they were very clever. As it stands, the reticence to call Jesus a man seems like a rejoinder to the previous, already flattering statement that he was a wise man. It seems more like a qualification of an existing statement than part of a free creation.

Third, if some of the vocabulary and phrasing sound peculiar for Josephus, much of the rest is perfectly normal. The opening phrase “about this time” is characteristic of his language in this part of Antiquities, where he is weaving together distinct episodes into a coherent narrative (cf. Ant. 17.19; 18.39, 65, 80; 19.278). He uses the designation “wise man” sparingly, but as a term of considerable praise. King Solomon was such a wise man (Ant. 8.53), and so was Daniel (10.237). Interestingly, both men had what we might call occult powers—abilities to perform cures and interpret dreams—of the sort that Jesus is credited with in the testimonium. So to call Jesus a “wise man” here presents no special difficulties. If Josephus said it, it was a term of high praise. Moreover, Josephus often speaks of “marvels” and “incredible” things in the same breath, as the testimonium does. He even uses the phrase rendered “incredible deeds” in two other places, once of the prophet Elisha (Ant. 9.182; cf. 12.63). Josephus often speaks of the “leading men” among the Jews with the phrase used in the testimonium, especially in book 18 of Antiquities (17.81; 18.7, 99, 121, 376). Although the phrase “divine prophets” sounds peculiar at first, there is a close parallel in Josephus’ description of Isaiah (Ant. 10.35). Even the word used for what the prophets “announced” is commonly used by Josephus in conjunction with prophecy. Consequently, although some of the language in the testimonium is odd, we have no linguistic basis for dismissing the whole paragraph.

These linguistic considerations have led many scholars to think that Josephus must have said something about Jesus, even if it is not what we currently have. Moreover, his later reference to James (Ant. 20.200) seems to presuppose some earlier reference to Jesus. James is introduced, rather oddly, as “the brother of Jesus who is called Christ, James by name.” Josephus’ primary identification of James as Jesus’ brother, and his inclusion of James’ own name as an incidental detail, suggests that this “Jesus who is called Christ” is already known to his readers. That expectation is easiest to explain if Josephus had mentioned Jesus in the foregoing narrative.

Finally, the existence of alternative versions of the testimonium has encouraged many scholars to think that Josephus must have written something close to what we find in them, which was later edited by Christian hands. If the laudatory version in Eusebius and our text of Josephus were the free creation of Christian scribes, who then created the more restrained versions found in Jerome, Agapius, and Michael? The version of Agapius is especially noteworthy because it eliminates, though perhaps too neatly, all of the major difficulties in the standard text of Josephus. (a) It is not reluctant to call Jesus a man. (b) It contains no reference to Jesus’ miracles. (c) It has Pilate execute Jesus at his own discretion. (d) It presents Jesus’ appearance after death as merely reported by the disciples, not as fact. (e) It has Josephus wonder about Jesus’ messiahship, without explicit affirmation. And (f) it claims only that the prophets spoke about “the Messiah,” whoever he might be, not that they spoke about Jesus. That shift also explains sufficiently the otherwise puzzling term “Messiah” for Josephus’ readers. In short, Agapius’ version of the testimonium sounds like something that a Jewish observer of the late first century could have written about Jesus and his followers.

We cannot resolve the problem of Josephus’ “testimony” about Jesus here. Among the hundreds of books and articles on the subject, every conceivable position has been taken between two opposite poles. On the one side, as we have seen, some scholars are convinced that Josephus said nothing whatsoever about Jesus, and that is why no one before Eusebius mentions the testimonium. On the other extreme, a few influential scholars have held the passage to be entirely authentic. Some reconcile it with the rest of Josephus’ writings by suggesting that Josephus saw Jesus’ death as the end of messianic hope: Jesus did indeed fulfill Israel’s hope, but his horrible execution shows the futility of persisting in such belief. Others propose that Josephus included the passage so as to curry favor with the Christians, because he was in trouble with his own Jewish compatriots. Still others interpret the passage as intended sarcasm, though the argument for that view is too convoluted to summarize here. Note: even those who accept the authenticity of the testimonium do not share Whiston’s belief that Josephus was a Christian. That theory seems highly improbable.

The vast majority of commentators hold a middle position between authenticity and inauthenticity, claiming that Josephus wrote something about Jesus that was subsequently edited by Christian copyists. Such a view has the best of both worlds, for it recognizes all of the problems with the passage as well as the factors that support its authenticity. Of the many scholars who take this position, a significant number have tried their hand at reconstructing the hypothetical original by removing Christian glosses. Their assessments of Christian influence vary greatly. The copyist might merely have changed the sentence “This man was believed to be Christ” to “This man was Christ.” Or he might have practically rewritten the piece, inserting and omitting freely. The following two examples will give the reader an idea of the possibilities. Robert Eisler (1929), relying heavily on hypothetical alterations suggested by the Slavonic version of Josephus *see note ¹²) and on consistently unfavorable translations of the Greek, proposed:

 

Now about this time arose (an occasion for new disturbances) a certain Jesus, a wizard of a man, if indeed he may be called a man (who was the most monstrous of all men, whom his disciples called a son of God, as having done wonders such as no man hath ever done). . . . He was in fact a teacher of astonishing tricks to such men as accept the abnormal with delight. . . . And he seduced many Jews and many also of the Greek nation, and (was regarded by them as) the Messiah. . . . And when, on the indictment of the principal men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to the cross, still those who before had admired him did not cease (to rave). For it seemed to them that having been dead for three days, he had appeared to them alive again, as the divinely-inspired prophets had foretold—these and ten thousand other wonderful things—concerning him. And even now the race of those who are called “Messianists” after him is not extinct.¹³

 

A recent journal article by John P. Meier (1991) offers a somewhat milder restoration. In Meier’s view, the three most obvious Christian insertions can be easily removed to leave a perfectly acceptable sense:

 

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.¹⁴

 

The problem with any such restoration, of course, is that we simply have no copies of Josephus dating from the time before Eusebius. Once it is granted that the standard text is corrupt, a wide variety of hypothetical reconstructions must remain equally plausible.

What, then, is the value of the testimonium flavianum for the reader of the NT? Limited. Paradoxically, the intense effort to reconstruct the “original” reading, in order to make it historically useful, itself diminishes the value of the passage, for each new reading has to share plausibility, so to speak, with all other proposals on the table. No matter how convincing a restoration may seem to any given interpreter, he or she will not be able to put much weight on it in the course of scholarly argumentation, in the knowledge that few others will accept it. Unless one of the many proposals manages to win the allegiance of a significant majority, this situation will continue indefinitely. But consensus is likely to come only with a major new insight into the state of Josephus’ text before the fourth century, likely as the result of some new discovery.

It would be unwise, therefore, to lean heavily on Josephus’ statements about Jesus’ healing and teaching activity, or the circumstances of his trial. Nevertheless, since most of those who know the evidence agree that he said something about Jesus, one is probably entitled to cite him as independent evidence that Jesus actually lived, if such evidence were needed. But that much is already given in Josephus’ reference to James (Ant. 20.200) and most historians agree that Jesus’ existence is the only adequate explanation of the many independent traditions among the NT writings.

 

 

JAMES, THE BROTHER OF JESUS

 

The only other figure from the early Christian tradition mentioned by Josephus is James, the brother of Jesus. He says very little about this man, but the fact that he mentions him incidentally is strong support for the authenticity of the passage. No copyist has tried to turn this passage into a religious confession of any sort.

Josephus mentions James near the end of Antiquities, while discussing the political events in Judea of the mid-60s. The governor Porcius Festus has died in office (AD 62), and the emperor Nero sends Albinus to replace him (AD 62–64). At the same time, King Agrippa II, who has been granted control over the high priesthood, bestows it on Ananus II. Although Josephus had praised this man’s virtues in War, here he wants to expose the lawlessness of many Jewish leaders before the revolt, to explain the cause of the catastrophe. So he introduces Ananus II as a rash and impertinent fellow. He “followed the school of the Sadducees, who, when it comes to judgments, are savage beyond all [other] Jews, as I have already explained” (Ant. 20.199, author’s translation; cf. 13.294). To illustrate Ananus’ impetuous cruelty, Josephus relates the following story:

 

Ananus, supposing that he had an opportune moment with Festus having died and Albinus still on the way, convened the judges of the council [or Sanhedrin] and arraigned before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, James by name, and some others. Having brought the charge that they had violated the law, he handed them over to be stoned. Now those in the city who were regarded as the most reasonable and as precise with respect to the laws were burdened with grief over this. So they secretly send [messengers] to the king [Agrippa II], pleading with him to order Ananus to stop doing such things. For he had not acted properly from the outset. Some of them also go to meet Albinus as he makes his way from Alexandria, and inform him that it was not up to Ananus to convene the council without his consent (Ant. 20.200–202, author’s translation).

 

Convinced by this delegation, Albinus angrily writes to Ananus, threatening punishment for this affront to his power. The diplomatic King Agrippa steps in, however, and deposes Ananus from the high priesthood after only three months in office (20.203).

What was Ananus’ fault? The way that Josephus tells the story, his main defect was his savagery. It was this that offended the leading citizens. Their subsequent concern about correct procedure in convening the Sanhedrin appears as an afterthought, a technicality that would be sure to raise the ire of the new governor and so remove Ananus from office. But it was the removal of Ananus that they were after, because they were “reasonable” (or possibly “gentle,” “considerate,” “mild”) and precise in observing the laws, whereas he was not.

Interestingly enough, these reasonable citizens look for all the world like Pharisees. Elsewhere, Josephus consistently describes the Pharisees as the school considered most precise in interpreting the laws (War 1.110; 2.162; Ant. 17.41; Life 191). In the passage above, he refers the reader back to an earlier discussion of Sadducean harshness. But the only passage in which he has raised this issue before is Antiquities 13.294, which describes John Hyrcanus’ break with the Pharisees. There, the emphasis is not on Sadducean cruelty, but rather on Pharisaic “mildness”: because the Pharisees were mild in punishment, they were reluctant to execute the man who had merely challenged Hyrcanus’ high priesthood. The word used there of the Pharisees’ “mildness” is the same as that used here for the “reasonableness” of the citizens. So the dispute that we see here over severity of punishment, involving a Sadducee on the rigorist side, is one that we saw elsewhere as an issue between Sadducees and Pharisees. Granted also that, in Josephus’ view, the Pharisees are powerful enough to make Sadducean office-holders follow their principles (Ant. 18.17), it seems that we have here a case in point. This Sadducean leader is unwilling to submit to the Pharisees’ way, so they use their considerable influence to remove him from office.

But the striking fact is that Josephus does not label these eminent citizens, with whom he obviously sympathizes, as Pharisees. The reader who had not made a study of the matter could not be expected to infer that they were Pharisees. We can only speculate as to why Josephus does not name them. Perhaps there were also non-Pharisees involved. But the parallels with what he says about the Pharisees elsewhere are compelling. Whatever his motive may have been, the net effect of this omission is to strengthen his negative portrayal of the Pharisees, for whenever he says good things about the group, he does not explain that he is speaking of Pharisees. We have seen this in the case of Samaias, who is not identified as a Pharisee when his virtues are being praised. Josephus seems intent on associating the Pharisees with improper actions only.

His main purpose here, however, is to expose the heartless character of a particular Sadducean leader. He implies that the actions of James and the others were not worthy of death in the view of those who knew the law best. He does not explain which laws were alleged to have been broken, only that these people were accused generally of being “lawbreakers.” Nor does he clarify whether the “others” condemned with James were also Christians; the word used for “others” (heteroi) might suggest that they were others “of a different kind.” That would fit with Josephus’ point, which is not so much to support James as it is to condemn Ananus.

This passage is quite significant for the NT reader. First, it offers independent confirmation that Jesus’ brother James was a leading figure through the church’s first generation of existence (ca. AD 30–65). In the NT itself, James is an intriguing, somewhat shadowy character. He was not one of Jesus’ original disciples, but is mentioned quite incidentally in the Gospels as one of Jesus’ brothers (Mark 6:3; 15:40). According to Mark, Jesus’ sanity is doubted by his family, at least early in his ministry (3:21).¹⁵

Strangely, however, James then appears without explanation as a prominent leader in the early church. Paul simply assumes that he is one of those “reputed to be a pillar” in the Jerusalem church (Gal 1:19; 2:9), even though James is not one of “the twelve” (cf. 1 Cor 15:7). Most surprisingly, Acts, which lays down stringent qualification for apostles (Acts 1:21–22)—qualifications that would exclude James—nevertheless quietly assumes that James is a leader, perhaps even the leader. When Peter escapes from prison, he sends word first “to James and the brothers” (Acts 12:17). James is the keynote speaker, apparently the president, of the apostolic council on the Gentile question (Acts 15:13–22), and it is James whom Paul first greets as head of the “elders” when he makes his final trip to Jerusalem (Acts 21:18).

The failure of the NT writers to explain how James came to prominence in the church is more than compensated for by the authors of later apocryphal writings. They tell, fittingly, of his miraculous conversion in response to a special appearance of the risen Jesus. But it is noteworthy that the NT writers themselves do not make a lot of Jesus’ own brother. If we did not read between the lines, we would miss the fact that he held such a prominent position. Josephus’ notice is valuable because it confirms our reading between the lines.

Second, Josephus’ phrasing is significant. He introduces James first as the “brother of Jesus who was called Christ,” and only secondarily supplies the name James. Within Josephus’ narrative, this phrasing is best explained by his wish to recall his earlier reference to Jesus (Ant. 18.63–64), thus: “this man was the brother of the one I mentioned before.” It might also be that Josephus means to indicate something of the accusations brought against James: just as his brother was condemned by some Jewish leaders, so also James ran afoul of Ananus. But if Josephus did not think James’ actions worthy of death, that might support the view that the original form of the testimonium was similarly mild. Further, Josephus’ phrasing seems to reflect James’ usual nickname. Paul calls him “the Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19), from a Christian perspective, and this title distinguished him from the many others with the same name. But it also served to explain James’ status as a “pillar”: he was, after all, Jesus’ brother.¹⁶

Third, the charge brought against James, however vague, is fascinating. He is accused of having violated the law. This is peculiar because in the NT James consistently appears as the most insistent advocate of Jewish law-observance, over against those like Paul, who understood the law to be supplanted by Christ (Gal 3:19–29). When Peter lapses into eating with Gentiles, the arrival of certain “men from James” frightens him back into strict observance of the dietary laws. In the same passage, the men from James are also called “the circumcision” (Gal 2:12). So James appears to represent fidelity to the law. Likewise in Acts, James is anxious to dispel the rumors about Paul, that he teaches departure from the laws. Consequently, James devises a plan that will publicly declare Paul’s commitment to Judaism (Acts 21:20–24). It is no coincidence, in view of these passages, that later Jewish Christians tended to adopt James as their spokesman, against Paul and the mainstream church.

Notice that in Gal 6:12, Paul asserts that those who demand circumcision do so “only in order that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.” As always, we would like to hear the “judaizers’” own account of their motives. But this statement of Paul’s fits with the story in Acts 21 about James’ concern to be seen to be upholding the law. It also makes sense, I would suggest, of Josephus’ claim that James was executed on the charge of violating the law. Since James was personally concerned to keep the church law-observant, he must have suffered for the actions of others. If some Christians not only abandoned law-observance themselves but also taught against it, as Paul was rumored to have done, the leaders of the movement in Jerusalem would naturally be held accountable.

Even if the Christians had remained fully law-observant, the fact that they exalted as Lord someone who had recently been crucified by the Romans would have made them troublesome to those Jewish leaders who were trying to maintain good relations with Rome (cf. Acts 4:18). Radical departure from the laws would only exacerbate the problem and extend to even wider Jewish circles.

A fourth significant point is Josephus’ implication that the Sadducees, such as Ananus, were the ones most deeply offended by the early Christians. Although the Gospels generally portray the Pharisees as Jesus’ opponents, the book of Acts claims that it was the Sadducees who arrested the apostles (Acts 4:1; 5:17) and wanted to kill them (5:33). By contrast, the Pharisee Gamaliel takes what might be called a “mild” approach: he advises the council to let the Christians alone and to see what comes of their movement (5:34–39). This story in Acts fits perfectly with the episode recounted by Josephus: the Sadducees consider the Christians worthy of death; the Pharisees, even if they do not especially like the Christians, take a milder view.

Finally, Josephus’ account of James’ death raises the whole question of the Sanhedrin’s power over capital punishment. This issue has been much debated, and we cannot discuss it in detail. Briefly, the problem is this. John 18:31 claims that the Jewish council of Jesus’ day did not have the power to execute anyone; that is why they took Jesus to Pilate, since only he could carry out their sentence. None of the other Gospels explains why, given that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death, he was crucified by Pilate’s sentence. But John’s notice agrees with the general tendency of the Romans to reserve the power of life and death for their governors.¹⁷

Nevertheless, the Jews had unusual rights of self-government in the early empire, and there is considerable evidence that the Jewish court in Jerusalem did inflict capital punishment in some cases. A prominent sign on the temple walls, permitted by the Romans, threatened Gentile trespassers with summary execution. We have several accounts of other deaths, including that of Stephen (Acts 7). If it could be shown that the Jewish court did have the power to execute offenders, of course, that would confirm the Gospel writers’ tendency to downplay Roman involvement in Jesus’ death: the Romans would not have needed to be involved unless they too had some charge against Jesus. So Pilate would have been a significant player in Jesus’ death and not merely a pawn in the Jewish leaders’ hands.¹⁸

The issue is passionately debated by scholars because of its potential significance for understanding Jesus’ death, and one of the passages usually cited is the one that we are discussing. But it is cited by both sides. On the one hand, we have here a sentence and execution plainly conducted by the Jewish court. That seems to prove that the Sanhedrin had the power to execute. On the other hand, Josephus notes that the action was improper, because the court should only have been convened with the Roman governor’s approval. So those who deny the Sanhedrin’s authority to execute treat this episode as an aberration, not typical of the court’s power. They argue that Ananus’ impropriety included the use of the death penalty itself, which was reserved for the governor.

We cannot decide the larger question of the Sanhedrin’s power here. But as far as this passage goes, our reading makes that a side issue. This episode has to do rather with a difference of opinion between the Sadducean high priest and more moderate leaders about the severity of punishments. The arrogant high priest was quickly removed from office because he practiced undue harshness, such as most law-observant Jews would not condone. So we have an internal Jewish dispute about legal interpretation. To accomplish his removal, the more lenient citizens advise the new governor that it is his right to approve all meetings of the court. But this seems to be a technicality calculated to get action from the governor. It is not clear that the moderates would have objected to a council meeting if it had not led to severe punishments. Their goal is to remove this high priest who flouts the accepted Jewish tradition. Nevertheless, Josephus’ note that Ananus took advantage of an “opportune moment” does suggest that he could not have executed his enemies as easily if a governor had been present. Whether that was because the court had no authority to pass death sentences is another question, unanswered by this text.

 

 

SUMMARY

 

In this chapter, we have looked at Josephus’ discussions of three people who played prominent roles in the origins of Christianity: John the Baptist, Jesus, and Jesus’ brother James. Our analysis of these passages has produced a wide variety of results. In the case of John, Josephus and the NT authors are mutually illuminating. Incidental clues in the Gospels help us to reconstruct John’s original preaching, which Josephus has adapted for his own ends; and Josephus’ independent perspective allows us to trace the Gospel writers’ adoption of John as one of their own. Josephus’ account of Jesus provides little direct help because the version that we find in our manuscripts is almost certainly corrupt. Nevertheless, the exercise of analyzing that passage is useful for making us aware of the many stages through which all ancient texts have passed before reaching us. Finally, Josephus’ reference to James, brief though it is, throws valuable light from outside the Christian tradition on one of the early church’s most significant but little-known figures.

 

 

FOR FURTHER READING

 

 

On apocalypticism in ancient Jewish circles, see (among many fine studies):

 

•     John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1987).

 

See also the introduction with selected Jewish and Christian texts in:

 

•     Mitchell G. Reddish, ed., Apocalyptic Literature: A Reader (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990).

 

A comprehensive collection of available texts in English translation is:

 

•     James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983).

 

The intriguing figure of John the Baptist has stimulated much research. The most important works in English are:

 

•     C. H. Kraeling, John the Baptist (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951).

 

•     Charles H. H. Scobie, John the Baptist (London: SCM, 1964).

 

•     Walter Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).

 

•     Robert L. Webb, John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical Study (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991).

 

One might also consult:

 

•     Steve Mason, “Fire, Water, and Spirit: John the Baptist and the Tyranny of Canon,” forthcoming in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses.

 

There is a huge bibliography on Josephus’ paragraph on Jesus. Of the numerous recent discussions, some of the most accessible and/or comprehensive are:

 

•     Shlomo Pines, An Arabic Version of the Testimonium Flavianum and its Implications (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1971).

 

•     Emil Sch�rer, The Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.—A.D. 135) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1973), vol. 1, 428–41.

 

•     J. Neville Birdsall, “The Continuing Enigma of Josephus’ Testimony About Jesus,” BJRL 67 (1985), 609–22.

 

•     John P. Meier, “The Testimonium: Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible,” Bible Review 7/3 (June, 1991), 20–25, 45.

 

•     John P. Meier, “Jesus in Josephus: A Modest Proposal,” CBQ 52 (1990), 76–103.

 

Most of the interest in Josephus’ reference to James’ death has focused on the implications of that episode for our assessment of the Sanhedrin’s powers and, consequently, of the trial of Jesus. The section in Sch�rer mentioned above includes a discussion of Josephus and James, as well as some bibliography.