Josephus Testimonium: Historical Evidence of Jesus' Existence?

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In summary, the three quotes from Josephus seem dubious and could be evidence that Jesus didn't exist.
  • #1
Evo
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(This was split off from this thread - https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=706058 )
I have for many, many years believed that Jesus, of the Christian bible did not exist. He is not mentioned in Roman records. The Romans were sticklers for record keeping.

He is not mentioned by Jewish chroniclers of the time (Josephus) [STRIKE]nor in the epistles of Paul, long before the (supposed) gospels were written. I won't get into that as it has already been pointed out above.[/STRIKE]

The history of the era is still very interesting and should be read.

I'm retracting the statement about Paul since it's confusing, as Paul only references Jesus after he was "resurrected". (thank you Atyy for pointing that out.
 
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  • #2
Evo said:
He is not mentioned by Jewish chroniclers of the time (Josephus)

Huh?

Josephus said:
And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus... Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but 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; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Josephus said:
Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man... Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion... Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.

Josephus said:
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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
 
  • #3
Hi Micromass, thanks for the three quotes. I feel OK about the first--I've seen that quote from Josephus several other places. I'm not a scholar and not especially skeptical of ancient sources being tampered with by copyists. I can only tell you my subjective FWIW hunches.

To me the first quote sounds genuine because kind of tossed off, kind of contemptuously: Oh yeah they stoned this guy, and he happened to be the brother of this other guy they were calling "Christ".

Some later copyist who forged some inserted mention of Jesus and put it into Josephus text would, I suspect, have done it with more awe and respect, hinting at how very important this personage was.

That's more the tone I hear in the third quote. With no scholarly expertise to go on, I still do feel it's questionable.

BTW liked your "French fish" problem!
 
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  • #4
marcus said:
Hi Micromass, thanks for the three quotes. I feel OK about the first--I've seen that quote from Josephus several other places. I'm not a scholar and not especially skeptical of ancient sources being tampered with by copyists. I can only tell you my subjective FWIW hunches.

To me the first quote sounds genuine because kind of tossed off, kind of contemptuously: Oh yeah they stoned this guy, and he happened to be the brother of this other guy they were calling "Christ".

Some later copyist who forged some inserted mention of Jesus and put it into Josephus text would, I suspect, have done it with more awe and respect, hinting at how very important this personage was.

That's more the tone I hear in the other two quotes. With no scholarly expertise to go on, I still do feel they are questionable.

I guess it would be interesting to find out what the various provenances are of various versions of Josephus and whether they differ significantly.

Sure, I completely agree with you. Whether the quotes are genuine and not inserted by translators is very debatable. So it is to me very possible that Jesus wasn't mentioned in the book at all. But claiming that it's certain that he was never mentioned is certainly incorrect. That's all I wanted to show.

BTW liked your "French fish" problem!

Haha, thanks! :tongue:
 
  • #5
I reconsidered the second quote and edited my post so as to leave it out of consideration. I see your point in general: can't rule out that there was some historical reference by non-Christian.
 
  • #6
micromass said:
Sure, I completely agree with you. Whether the quotes are genuine and not inserted by translators is very debatable. So it is to me very possible that Jesus wasn't mentioned in the book at all. But claiming that it's certain that he was never mentioned is certainly incorrect. That's all I wanted to show.
The passage that was inserted into the work of Josephus has been widely discredited. You should know by now that I usually look things up before I post. :smile: While it's still debated, the arguments that the passages are a forgery are pretty convincing.

Everything demonstrates the spurious character of the passage. It is written in the style of Eusebius, and not in the style of Josephus. Josephus was a voluminous writer. He wrote extensively about men of minor importance. The brevity of this reference to Christ is, therefore, a strong argument for its falsity. This passage interrupts the narrative. It has nothing to do with what precedes or what follows it; and its position clearly shows that the text of the historian has been separated by a later hand to give it room. Josephus was a Jew—a priest of the religion of Moses. This passage makes him acknowledge the divinity, the miracles, and the resurrection of Christ—that is to say, it makes an orthodox Jew talk like a believing Christian! Josephus could not possibly have written these words without being logically compelled to embrace Christianity. All the arguments of history and of reason unite in the conclusive proof that the passage is an unblushing forgery.

For these reasons every honest Christian scholar has abandoned it as an interpolation. Dean Milman says: "It is interpolated with many additional clauses." Dean Farrar, writing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, says: "That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it now stands no sane critic can believe." Bishop Warburton denounced it as "a rank forgery and a very stupid one, too." Chambers' Encyclopaedia says: "The famous passage of Josephus is generally conceded to be an interpolation."

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html

The pertinency of these questions will be recognized when it is remembered that the passage quoted above concerning Jesus has long been regarded as a forgery. Writing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica Dean Farrar says That Josephus wrote the whole passage as It now stands no critic can believe.

http://books.google.com/books?id=mc...w stands no sane critic can believe."&f=false

This also gives more background on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#Testimonium_Flavianum_2

Paul L. Maier calls the case for the total authenticity of the Testimonium "hopeless".[4] Almost all modern scholars reject the total authenticity of the Testimonium,
 
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  • #7
Evo said:
The passage that was inserted into the work of Josephus has been widely discredited. You should know by now that I usually look things up before I post. :smile: While it's still debated, the arguments that the passages are a forgery are pretty convincing.



http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html

Sorry, but this website has an agenda. I don't accept it as unbiased resource.


There is a difference between total authenticity and partial authenticity. This difference is important.

You are cherry picking your scholars and your examples. Fact is that many scholars at least believe that the quotes are partially authentic. Wikipedia gives a much more balanced overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#Detailed_Analysis
 
  • #8
I agree that the passages are doubtful, but Maier who is referenced by Evo in the quote "Paul L. Maier calls the case for the total authenticity of the Testimonium "hopeless".[4]" actually goes on to say "The weight of evidence, then, strongly suggests that Josephus mentioned Jesus in both passages. He did so in a manner totally congruent with the New Testatement portrait of Jesus, and his description, from the vantage point of a non-Christian, seems remarkably fair, particularly in view of his known proclivity of roasting false messiahs as the sorts who misled the people and brought on the Romans." http://books.google.com/books?id=kyaoIb6k2ccC&source=gbs_navlinks_s (p662-663). My quotation does not indicate my agreement or disagreement with Maier's judgement.
 
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  • #9
micromass said:
Sorry, but this website has an agenda. I don't accept it as unbiased resource.
I'm not using the article, I am using the references. Did you even bother to read the second reference Bibliotecha Sacra? (Bibliotheca Sacra is a theological journal published by Dallas Theological Seminary)


Fact is that many scholars at least believe that the quotes are partially authentic.
What that statement refers to is the authenticity of the entire Testimonium Flavianum. Some scholars believe that the entire work is a forgery, whereas others believe that most or part of it is authentic, with the parts about Jesus having been added later.

Yes, after reading the pros and cons, I do believe the references are a forgery.
 
  • #10
atyy said:
I agree that the passages are doubtful, but Maier who is referenced by Evo in the quote "Paul L. Maier calls the case for the total authenticity of the Testimonium "hopeless".[4]" actually goes on to say "The weight of evidence, then, strongly suggests that Josephus mentioned Jesus in both passages. He did so in a manner totally congruent with the New Testatement portrait of Jesus, and his description, from the vantage point of a non-Christian, seems remarkably fair, particularly in view of his known proclivity of roasting false messiahs as the sorts who misled the people and brought on the Romans." http://books.google.com/books?id=kyaoIb6k2ccC&source=gbs_navlinks_s (p662-663). My quotation does not indicate my agreement or disagreement with Maier's judgement.
The entire paragraph
Based on this observation alone, Paul L. Maier calls the case for the total authenticity of the Testimonium "hopeless".[4] Almost all modern scholars reject the total authenticity of the Testimonium, while the majority of scholars still hold that it includes an authentic kernel.[4][115]
Again, he is referring here to the authenticity of the Testimonium itself.

Maier then goes on to say
Paul Maier states that a comparison of Eusebius' reference with the 10th-century Arabic version of the Testimonium due to Agapius of Hierapolis indicates that the Christian interpolation present in the Testimonium must have come early, before Eusebius.[4] Richard Van Voorst also states that the interpolation likely took place some time between Origen and Eusebius.[73]
So does this sound more in line with the part I quoted or what you found elsewhere? This is where he is referring to the pieces about Jesus not being in the Arabic version. Apparently he seems to contradict himself with this book "Eusebius: The Church History". Here he appears to be saying that both he and Van Voorst are assuming there was Christian Interpolation, no? I've read so many pieces from so many sources in the past 2 days that it's all blurring.

If there is this much interest in the matter of Christian interpolation of the Testimonium, then perhaps we should split this discussion off into it's own thread. There is a lot written pro and con as to it's validity.

Sounds like micro will take the pro side in the discussion, sounds like you are neutral? I wonder what our resident historian Marcus has to say?
 
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  • #11
Also, Evo must have meant something very specific by writing that the Jesus of the Christian Bible is not mentioned in the epistles of Paul. Paul mentions Jesus many times, even if you discard all the epistles that are not unanimously agreed to be written by Paul. Try for example Galatians, where he mentions the crucifixion of Jesus, and also some disagreement he had with James, the brother of Jesus (the subject of one of the above-mentioned passages attributed to Josephus).
 
  • #12
Evo said:
Maier then goes on to say So does this sound more in line with the part I quoted or what you found elsewhere? This is where he is referring to the pieces about Jesus not being in the Arabic version. Apparently he seems to contradict himself with this book "Eusebius: The Church History". Here he appears to be saying that both he and Van Voorst are assuming there was Christian Interpolation, no? I've read so many pieces from so many sources in the past 2 days that it's all blurring

As I understand, Maier's suggestion is that even if you remove the later interpolations, the strong probability remains that Jospehus did refer to Jesus in his original work. So I believe that Maier's idea is that there was both a reference to Jesus in the original work, as well as later interpolations.
 
  • #13
atyy said:
Also, Evo must have meant something very specific by writing that the Jesus of the Christian Bible is not mentioned in the epistles of Paul. Paul mentions Jesus many times, even if you discard all the epistles that are not unanimously agreed to be written by Paul. Try for example Galatians, where he mentions the crucifixion of Jesus, and also some disagreement he had with James, the brother of Jesus (the subject of one of the above-mentioned passages attributed to Josephus).
Yes, you are of course, correct, my understanding was that he wrote of Jesus in a mystical sense, more symbolically. This I could be wrong about as it is going by my ancient memory. Now I will need to research this as I hate being wrong.
 
  • #14
Evo said:
Yes, you are of course, correct, my understanding was that he wrote of Jesus in a mystical sense, more symbolically. This I could be wrong about as it is going by my ancient memory. Now I will need to research this as I hate being wrong.

Nah, that's basically fine in the sense Paul mentions the death of Jesus, but none (that's a bit strong, not sure I'm remembering correctly) of the events in the life of Jesus before that, whereas the gospels do.
 
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  • #16
Quick technical question: Josephus has two references to Jesus. Only one of them, I believe, is in the "Testimonium Flavianum". But I believe the discussion is about both references?
 
  • #17
atyy said:
Quick technical question: Josephus has two references to Jesus. Only one of them, I believe, is in the "Testimonium Flavianum". But I believe the discussion is about both references?

Yes. And let's add the reference to John the Baptist to this.
 
  • #18
micromass said:
Yes. And let's add the reference to John the Baptist to this.
That's in the last link I posted. Testimonium is part of The Antiquities.

Would you please read the link?
 
  • #19
atyy said:
Quick technical question: Josephus has two references to Jesus. Only one of them, I believe, is in the "Testimonium Flavianum". But I believe the discussion is about both references?
The first is Jewish Antiquities 18.3.3 Testimonium Flavianum

The second is Jewish Antiquities 20.9.1

They are both discussed in my last link.
 
  • #20
Evo said:
He is not mentioned in Roman records. The Romans were sticklers for record keeping.

I don't have any view on whether or not the account in the gospel is historically correct, but if it is correct it omits some background information which would of course have been well known to its original readers.

In general the Romans weren't very interested in the religious activities of the citizens of their empire, so long as they obeyed Roman civil law and didn't actively attack the Roman pantheon of gods. (Though that situation changed later on, in the time of Nero for example.)

They were quite content to let the Jews administer their own religions laws through their religious law courts, except that the religious courts were not allowed to impose the death penalty without the approval of the Roman civil administration.

That fact is assumed without explanation in the gospel accounts of the death of Jesus. The "back story" of the events is that the Jewish court first attempted to incriminate Jesus of a roman civil offense, such as claiming to be a king in opposition to the Roman administration. If that had been successful, they could have let the Roman legal system deal with him which would have got him out of their hair.

When that failed, the backup plan was to convict him of the religious crime of blasphemy, and then get the Roman authorities to rubber stamp the death penalty. Piilate was already "on probation" from previous failures to sort out similar problems, and knew that his job was on the line if there was any more civil (i.e. religious) unrest.

Apparently Pilate's personal opinion was that Jesus was no great threat to anybody (except possibly himself), but he wasn't going to terminate his own career by holding out against the local theocracy - and he certainly had a good motive for not making a full report of the matter to his boss, if he could avoid it!
 
  • #21
AlephZero said:
Apparently Pilate's personal opinion was that Jesus was no great threat to anybody (except possibly himself), but he wasn't going to terminate his own career by holding out against the local theocracy - and he certainly had a good motive for not making a full report of the matter to his boss, if he could avoid it!
This goes with what I've also read.
 
  • #22
atyy said:
Nah, that's basically fine in the sense Paul mentions the death of Jesus, but none (that's a bit strong, not sure I'm remembering correctly) of the events in the life of Jesus before that, whereas the gospels do.

Yes, I did forget at least one pre-crucifixion story that is mentioned in Paul and the gospels - the last supper. It's mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11.
 
  • #23
Evo, i am trying to understand which writings and which oral traditions that you're accepting as having some historical basis and which you do not.

for example, did Pythagoras exist as an historical human being? how 'bout Abraham? or Siddhārtha Gautama? Temujin?

aren't there many ancient historical figures in which the written record was created decades after their lives? what existed between the lives of these persons and the written stories is only oral tradition? how much of that oral tradition do we accept and what do we reject?

i'm only addressing issues of historicity, not issues of faith belief nor claims of supernatural acts.
 
  • #24
rbj said:
Evo, i am trying to understand which writings and which oral traditions that you're accepting as having some historical basis and which you do not.

for example, did Pythagoras exist as an historical human being? how 'bout Abraham? or Siddhārtha Gautama? Temujin?

aren't there many ancient historical figures in which the written record was created decades after their lives? what existed between the lives of these persons and the written stories is only oral tradition? how much of that oral tradition do we accept and what do we reject?

i'm only addressing issues of historicity, not issues of faith belief nor claims of supernatural acts.
I'm only discussing the debate over whether or not the references to Jesus in the work of Josephus is real or fake. I'm in agreement with the scholars that believe the references were faked by the church long after he died. I've posted all of the information and links, people can decide for themselves.
 
  • #25
Neither have, as yet, brought up the very interesting commment made by the 9th century patriarch Photius.

Commenting on the Jewish historian Justus of Tiberias (he lived in the first century), Photius writes, in his Myrobiblon:

"Read the Chronicle of Justus of Tiberias,4 entitled A Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews in the form of a genealogy, by Justus of Tiberias.5 He came from Tiberias in Galilee, from which he took his name. He begins his history with Moses and carries it down to the death of the seventh Agrippa of the family of Herod 6 and the last of the kings of the Jews. His kingdom, which was bestowed upon him by Claudius, was extended by Nero, and still more by Vespasian. He died in the third year of the reign of Trajan, when the history ends. Justus's style is very concise, and he omits a great deal that is of the utmost importance. Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged, he does not even mention the coming of Christ, the events of His life, or the miracles performed by Him"

---
Paragraph 33 in:
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/photius_03bibliotheca.htm#33
 
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  • #26
Evo said:
I have for many, many years believed that Jesus, of the Christian bible did not exist.
wiki said:
Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_Jesus

It is fine for you to want to form your own conclusion, but not being a scholar of antiquity myself, my preference is to defer to them.
 
  • #27
russ_watters said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_Jesus

It is fine for you to want to form your own conclusion, but not being a scholar of antiquity myself, my preference is to defer to them.

I think Evo is claiming as the book did that Jesus of Nazareth was massaged into Jesus of Christ to fit the movement.
 
  • #28
Greg Bernhardt said:
I think Evo is claiming as the book did that Jesus of Nazareth was massaged into Jesus of Christ to fit the movement.
Yep. We know wiki is not a valid source. The person writing cherry picks to promote their viewpoint. We do know that no historians of the time mentioned him. He seems to have been created to fill a need. Now I can't state that for a fact, maybe he really existed, but wasn't important enough for his contemporaries to write about him. So were did writers 100-200 years later find information on him since there were no writings of him at the time of his life?

We're only discussing actual historical proof of Jesus, not religious writings, since we don't go there. Russ, your wiki contains debunked historical sources.
 
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  • #29
Greg Bernhardt said:
I think Evo is claiming as the book did that Jesus of Nazareth was massaged into Jesus of Christ to fit the movement.

Evo said:
Yep. We know wiki is not a valid source. The person writing cherry picks to promote their viewpoint. We do know that no historians of the time mentioned him. He seems to have been created to fill a need. Now I can't state that for a fact, maybe he really existed, but wasn't important enough for his contemporaries to write about him. So were did writers 100-200 years later find information on him since there were no writings of him at the time of his life?

We're only discussing actual historical proof of Jesus, not religious writings, since we don't go there. Russ, your wiki contains debunked historical sources.

So Evo acknowledges that Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure?
 
  • #30
atyy said:
So Evo acknowledges that Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure?
No, I'm saying that the myth of Jesus was later made into a religious figure. In other words the "fictitious" Jesus of Nazareth, there is no actual record of him existing. Since there is no actual historical account of him by writers during his life, everything written about him is historically very questionable. Where did these later writers get their information since nothing was written about him during his "supposed" life?

There are those that believe despite no evidence and there are those that point out that there is no evidence.
 
  • #31
Evo said:
No, I'm saying that the myth of Jesus was later made into a religious figure. In other words the "fictitious" Jesus of Nazareth, there is no actual record of him existing. Since there is no actual historical account of him by writers during his life, everything written about him is historically very questionable. Where did these later writers get their information since nothing was written about him during his "supposed" life?

So you would say Aslan's book is wrong because the person he is writing about did not exist?
 
  • #32
atyy said:
So you would say Aslan's book is wrong because the person he is writing about did not exist?
Yes, as far as historical references to Jesus as a real person goes. There is no record of him. That doesn't mean he didn't exist, but it means that we cannot just believe the stories.

Aslan, a Muslim who emigrated from Iran to the USA when he was 7 and is now a professor of creative writing at the University of California-Riverside, became an Internet sensation after a July 26 interview on a Fox News webcast. Fox religion reporter Lauren Green repeatedly asked Aslan why a Muslim would write a book on Jesus.
I don't think Aslan was alive when Jesus supposedly lived. :tongue:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/08/05/zealot-jesus-fox-news/2620159/

You think he has time traveled back in time and has information no one else has? :smile: He might have written an interesting story, maybe incorporated accurate history of the time, but he has no factual information on the life of "Jesus", because there is no proof he existed, nothing was ever written about him during his "lifetime". That doesn't mean that Aslan's book isn't a nice read on the history of the time.

Maybe Jesus was a real person, maybe he was several people with the same cause, maybe he was just an idea, we don't know. I really don't want to get into a discussion of how the religion developed. It's against our rules.
 
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  • #33
Evo said:
No, I'm saying that the myth of Jesus was later made into a religious figure. In other words the "fictitious" Jesus of Nazareth, there is no actual record of him existing. Since there is no actual historical account of him by writers during his life, everything written about him is historically very questionable. Where did these later writers get their information since nothing was written about him during his "supposed" life?

There are those that believe despite no evidence and there are those that point out that there is no evidence.

atyy said:
So you would say Aslan's book is wrong because the person he is writing about did not exist?

Evo said:
Yes.

There's plenty of evidence from the New Testament that Jesus existed as a specific human being.
 
  • #34
atyy said:
There's plenty of evidence from the New Testament that Jesus existed as a specific human being.
Uhm, and how many hundreds of years later, by people that never met him, was this written?

Remember, ACTUAL HISTORIANS at the time Jesus lived knew nothing of him. What does that tell you?

I don't mean to tear down your religion. I'm just talking about actual real time evidence that he actually existed. You can still have your religion based on an idea. A single man isn't needed.

I only wish to address the lack of confirmation of his existence by writers of the time he supposedly lived.
 
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  • #35
Evo said:
Uhm, and how many hundreds of years later, by people that never met him, was this written?

Remember, ACTUAL HISTORIANS at the time Jesus lived knew nothing of him. What does that tell you?

Much of the New Testament was written within a hundred years of Jesus's death. Paul wrote within 30 years, and some of the gospels were written within 70 years. Paul and the gospels all agree Jesus was a specific human being.
 
<h2>1. Who was Josephus?</h2><p>Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived in the 1st century AD. He is best known for his writings on the Jewish-Roman war and the history of the Jewish people. He was also a commander in the Jewish rebellion against the Romans.</p><h2>2. What is the Josephus Testimonium?</h2><p>The Josephus Testimonium is a passage found in the works of Josephus that mentions Jesus of Nazareth. It is one of the few non-Christian sources that mentions Jesus and is often cited as historical evidence of his existence.</p><h2>3. Is the Josephus Testimonium considered to be authentic?</h2><p>The authenticity of the Josephus Testimonium has been a subject of debate among scholars. Some argue that the passage has been altered by later Christian scribes, while others believe that it is mostly authentic with some minor interpolations.</p><h2>4. What does the Josephus Testimonium say about Jesus?</h2><p>The Josephus Testimonium mentions Jesus as a wise man and a doer of wonderful works. It also states that he was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate and that his followers believed he was the Messiah. The passage also mentions his resurrection.</p><h2>5. How does the Josephus Testimonium contribute to the evidence of Jesus' existence?</h2><p>The Josephus Testimonium is one of the few non-Christian sources that mentions Jesus. It provides historical evidence that Jesus was a real person who lived in the 1st century. It also corroborates some details of Jesus' life and death as mentioned in the New Testament.</p>

1. Who was Josephus?

Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived in the 1st century AD. He is best known for his writings on the Jewish-Roman war and the history of the Jewish people. He was also a commander in the Jewish rebellion against the Romans.

2. What is the Josephus Testimonium?

The Josephus Testimonium is a passage found in the works of Josephus that mentions Jesus of Nazareth. It is one of the few non-Christian sources that mentions Jesus and is often cited as historical evidence of his existence.

3. Is the Josephus Testimonium considered to be authentic?

The authenticity of the Josephus Testimonium has been a subject of debate among scholars. Some argue that the passage has been altered by later Christian scribes, while others believe that it is mostly authentic with some minor interpolations.

4. What does the Josephus Testimonium say about Jesus?

The Josephus Testimonium mentions Jesus as a wise man and a doer of wonderful works. It also states that he was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate and that his followers believed he was the Messiah. The passage also mentions his resurrection.

5. How does the Josephus Testimonium contribute to the evidence of Jesus' existence?

The Josephus Testimonium is one of the few non-Christian sources that mentions Jesus. It provides historical evidence that Jesus was a real person who lived in the 1st century. It also corroborates some details of Jesus' life and death as mentioned in the New Testament.

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