This is as good a place as any to mention that F. Bermejo Rubio is keeping alive the hypothesis of a negative (not 'neutral') reference to Jesus in Josephus.
Folks should dismiss the Talmud if they are looking for the "historical" Jesus. It was written hundreds of years after the events of the first century A.D.
Josephus is our only real source- maybe Philo.
I maintain if there was a better source, or even ANOTHER contemporaneous source, it would have been saved by the early Christians.
One outtake from Twelftree, regarding Ant. 20.200:
It is sometimes argued that the way Josephus refers to Jesus here implies that he has already spoken of him./54/ However the phrase does not need to, and usually does not, mean that an earlier reference has been made to the subject./55/
/54/ S. Zeitlin, 'The Christ Passage in Josephus', JQR 18 (1928) 235f.; criticized by R. Eisler, 'Flavius Josephus on Jesus Called the Christ', JQR 21 (1930) 21f., on the grounds of the suggestion that Ant. 20:200 originally contained a fuller reference to Christ.
/55/ In, e.g., the NT see Mt 1:16; Jn 9:11; Acts 3:2; 6:9; 9:36; Heb 9:2,3 where the construction is used to introduce the subject.
Matthew 1:16. And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
(The other examples involve other subjects but may still be relevant.)
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
David Instone-Brewer has a provocative conclusion regarding the Babylonian Talmud:
We concluded above that the traditions concerning the trials of Jesus and his disciples
was added at or before the time of Joshua b. Levi (in Palestine about 220-250 CE) who
commented on the trial of the disciples. Joshua was from the first generation of rabbis
commenting on the Mishnah, so the anonymous rabbi who introduced this tradition was
unlikely to be earlier. The fact that this anonymous rabbi commented on the "herald" of
Jesus' trial implies that this tradition already contained this and probably the other two
additions.
It is difficult to know when the first addition was made, but the addition of "misleading"
was not known to Justin Martyr when he replied to Trypho in about 150 CE. The other
two charges however were already common knowledge, because Justin was able cite
them in the assurance that Trypho would know what he was referring to. These charges
were therefore put together some time between the last year of Jesus and some decades
before 150 CE.
When looking for an origin of the core tradition, we need to explain the order of the
charges. As detailed above, these two charges often occur together – in Deuteronomy,
Mishnah, Tosephta and consequently in the Talmuds – but they are always discussed in
the order of "enticing" and then "sorcery". If this tradition originated as a comment based
on scripture or halakha, the tradition would have followed this common order. The
reverse order is found in all three sources which contain this tradition. This consistent
reversal must be based on a strong original tradition.
The origin of this tradition does not derive from Christian sources. The Gospels say that
Jesus was convicted of blasphemy by the Jew and of treason by the Romans (Matt.26.65;
Mk.14.64; Lk.23.2). For the Gospel writers, these were the most significant charges
because they confirmed what the Gospels themselves were trying to show: that Jesus was
divine and a king. The Gospels do not present blasphemy as a charge in the arrest
warrant, but as a charge introduced during the trial (Mark.14.60-64; Matt.26.63-65). The
original charge in these gospel accounts concerned destroying the Temple, which may
have been an initial piece of evidence for the charge of enticing Israel into a new religion.
The charges of sorcery and leading enticing Israel astray are recorded in the Gospels, but
not as charges at his trial. The Synoptics record the charge that he cast out demons in the
power of Satan (Mark 3.22; Matt.12.24; Luke 11.15 and John records the accusation that
he was "leading Israel astray" (John 7.12).20 Therefore they are not absent from the
Gospels, but they are merely two of a number of other accusations, such as being a
glutton and drunkard (Matt.11.19; Lk.7.34 - which warrants the death penalty, cf.
Deut.21.20), being of illegitimate birth (John 8.41) and blasphemy (Mark.2.7; Matt.9.3;
John 10.33).
Therefore the Gospels do not contradict the idea that Jesus was charged with sorcery and
enticing Israel, but neither can it be inferred from the Gospels. They are silent about the
actual charges on Jesus' arrest warrant, though the questioning at the start of the trial is
consistent with a charge of "enticing" Israel.
The origin of this tradition is also unlikely to be rabbinic or Pharisaic. Although it has
been preserved in rabbinic literature, there are two reasons why it was unlikely to be
authored within this movement. First, a rabbinic author or their Pharisee predecessors
would want the order of the charges to mirror Torah and rabbinic halakha. Second,
rabbinic traditions and the major Pharisaic schools tried to dissuade people from working
on Passover Eve, so they would not have invented a tradition which said that they
decided to try Jesus on this date. Even if the tradition merely reflected the fact that the
trial actually occurred on Passover Eve, the author of the tradition could have chosen to
simply say that it happened "before Passover".
Passover Eve was not kept as a holy day by all of the disparate factions which made up
Judaism before 70 CE. A tradition we have no reason to doubt says that those in Galilee
avoided work all day, while those in Jericho allowed work all day, and those in Judea
allowed work only till noon (m.Pes.4.5, 8). This may indicate that Sadducees or Priests
20 For a fuller discussion see Stanton, "Jesus" pp. 170-80. were more generally relaxed about Passover Eve than others, because a large number of
priests lived in Jericho (b.Taan.27a) and it is likely that Judea was influenced more by the
Sadducees than the Pharisees. This makes it likely that the original tradition about Jesus'
trial came from a Sadducean source rather than a Pharisaic one, though the evidence on
this point is not strong.
It is worth asking why this tradition was created. As a piece of fiction it conveyed little of
interest to Jews. It was commonly known that Jesus was executed, and the Jewish world
would have liked to forget him rather than remind themselves about this embarrassing
false prophet who caused so much trouble. If someone had invented this tradition, they
would have omitted the embarrassing facts about the date and mode of his execution, and
they would probably have omitted the charge of sorcery.
Taking all these factors into consideration, the simplest solution is that this tradition
records the actual charge sheet and result for the trial of Jesus. This would explain how it
carried enough authority to ensure that all the sources maintain the reversed order of the
charges, the unscriptural mode of execution and the impious trial date.
Folks should dismiss the Talmud if they are looking for the "historical" Jesus. It was written hundreds of years after the events of the first century A.D.
Josephus is our only real source- maybe Philo.
I maintain if there was a better source, or even ANOTHER contemporaneous source, it would have been saved by the early Christians.
Easily unlikely, since rabbinical writings would have been anti christian. The 1st to 3rd c. Christians were not going to keep and copy anti Christian 1st to 2nd c. Rabbinical tracts to help prove to Christians 500 years later that Jesus existed.
My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
