Understanding The Testimonium Flavianum

[Bernard Muller]

There are also issues about the passage in Antiquities 18.116-119 (Whiston’s chapter 18.5.2) about John the Baptist: it is out of synch with passages before and after it.

And the story in Antiq 18 assumes that Antipas' brother Philip had already died (which he did in 34).

It is obvious that the episode about John the Baptist is not in its chronological niche, and Josephus told about JtB (as a flashback) because some of the Jews thought Antipas' army defeat was caused by God as punishment for the killing of JtB. That does not mean the killing happened the same year than the defeat: people can have a grudge for many years, even generations, against somebody who acted awfully in the past.

Cordially, Bernard

[maryhelena]

The table below sets out my view on the TF and it's development.
Arguments re a wholesale, whole-cloth, interpolation by Eusebius has nothing to offer in a search for early christian origins. A core version of the TF with later Eusebius interpolation offers possibilities for moving forward. It offers insight into a developing Jesus story. In other words; the Jesus story is not a story about a historical man living at one time and place in history. It is a story that developed over a long stretch of history. A story designed to demonstrate a growing intellectual/philosophical world view. From within the narrow confines of Judaism an outward looking vision took shape. What helped generate this new outlook was the end of the Hasmonean dynasty.

Slavonic Josephus: Contains a birth narrative prior to the 15th year of Herod I. Infants killed in Bethlehem.	Josephus Antiquities: TF context around 19 c.e. Acts of Pilate, 4th consulate of Tiberius, 21 c.e.	Gospel of Luke ch. 24: Updating TF/Slavonic Josephus story to 15th year of Tiberius.	Eusebius updates the TF, alluding to gLuke, in order to overcome the Acts of Pilate dating controversy.
At that time also a man came forward, if even it is fitting to call him a man [simply]. His nature as well as his form were a man's; but his showing forth was more than [that] of a man. His works, that is to say, were godly, and he wrought wonder-deeds amazing[/color] and full of power. Therefore it is not possible for me to call him a man [simply]. But again, looking at the existence he shared with all, I would also not call him an angel. And all that he wrought through some kind of invisible power, he wrought by word and command. Some said of him, that our first Lawgiver has risen from the dead and shows forth many cures and arts. But others supposed [less definitely] that he is sent by God. Now he opposed himself in much to the Law and did not observe the Sabbath according to ancestral custom. Yet, on the other hand, he did nothing reprehensible nor any crime; but by word solely he effected everything. And many from the folk followed him and received his teachings. And many souls became wavering, supposing that thereby the Jewish tribes would set themselves free from the Roman hands. Now it was his custom often to stop on the Mount of Olives facing the city.. And there also he avouched his cures to the people. And there gathered themselves to him of servants (Knechten) a hundred and fifty, but of the folk a multitude. But when they saw his power, that he accomplished everything that he would by word, they urged him that he should enter the city and cut down the Roman soldiers and Pilate and rule over us. But that one scorned it. And thereafter, when knowledge of it came to the Jewish leaders, they gathered together with the High-priest and spake: "We are powerless and weak to withstand the Romans. But as withal the bow is bent, we will go and tell Pilate what we have heard, and we will be without distress, lest if he hear it from others, we be robbed of our substance and ourselves be put to the sword and our children ruined." And they went and told it to Pilate. And he sent and had many of the people cut down. And he had that wonder-doer brought up. And when he had instituted a trial concerning him, he perceived that he is a doer of good, but not an evildoer, nor a revolutionary, nor one who aimed at power, and set him free. He had, you should know, healed his dying wife. And he went to his accustomed place and wrought his accustomed works. And as again more folk gathered themselves together round him, then did he win glory through his works more than all. The teachers of the Law were [therefore] envenomed with envy and gave thirty talents to Pilate, in order that he should put him to death. And he, after he had taken [the money], gave them consent that they should themselves carry out their purpose. And they took him and crucified him according to the ancestral law.	Now there was about this time 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 many of the Jews. And Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross, Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3	“About Jesus of Nazareth, ” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place......He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.......He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.	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 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.

[Secret Alias]

Maybe I am not understanding the context but why does 'the third day' citation have anything to do with the Acts of Pilate? Not seeing the connection .

[maryhelena]

Maybe I am not understanding the context but why does 'the third day' citation have to do with the Acts of Pilate?

Eusebius (or whoever it was that doctored, interpolated, the TF) has used the Emmanus account in gLuke. That is the only gospel account that enabled Eusebius to, as it were, have an answer, a refutation, to the Acts of Pilate and it's 4th consulate of Tiberius.

Luke's account alludes to the wonder-doer story in Slavonic Josephus - an account already alluded to by the core version of the TF. The 'third day' reference is part and parcel of Luke's Emmanus account. Whoever interpolated the TF has carried over the 'third day' from gLuke's story.

Yes, if you like, you can have your Jubilee 49 years from 21 c.e. to 70 c.e. However, one can also work back from 21 c.e. to somewhere around 28 b.c.e. (i.e. somewhere prior to the 15th year of Herod 1) Also worth keeping in mind gJohn and it's not yet 50 years for it's Jesus figure.

Bottom line is that there was an earlier version of the Jesus story. gLuke updated that story by moving it to feature the 15th year of Tiberius. Perhaps the gLuke update took a while to be accepted - and the Acts of Pilate story held sway for some time. Giving Eusebius trouble - and hence the effort to counter it via an interpolation into the core TF, an interpolation that was derived from the only source available to him which held out potential - the gospel of Luke.

Anyway, that's how I'm viewing the development of the TF - as of now....

[MrMacSon]

There are also issues about the passage in Antiquities 18.116-119 (Whiston’s chapter 18.5.2) about John the Baptist: it is out of synch with passages before and after it.

And the story in Antiq 18 assumes that Antipas' brother Philip had already died (which he did in 34).

It is obvious that the episode about John the Baptist is not in its chronological niche, and Josephus told about JtB (as a flashback) because some of the Jews thought Antipas' army defeat was caused by God as punishment for the killing of JtB. That does not mean the killing happened the same year than the defeat: people can have a grudge for many years, even generations, against somebody who acted awfully in the past.

Cordially, Bernard

Cheers Bernard

• (I presume you mean "That does not mean the killing happened the same year that the defeat did" [or had happened])

[Bernard Muller]

to MrMacSon,

(I presume you mean "That does not mean the killing happened the same year that the defeat did" [or had happened])

Yes, what you presume is right: that's what I meant.

Cordially, Bernard

[FransJVermeiren]

The question of how the Testimonium, which was written to fit its context in Eusebius, came to be inserted into the manuscripts of Josephus's Antiquities is an interesting separate issue. In my 1999 CBQ paper, I hypothesized that it was inserted by a Christian scribe who read it in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, but in my 2013 "Eusebian Reading" paper, online at http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5871, I allowed the possibility that Eusebius himself could have overseen its insertion (n. 50).

Why insert it between 18.62 and 18.65? Because that is far and away the most logical place to insert. The only internal piece of evidence from the Testimonium that would give an idea of when the event took place is the mention of Pilate, so Josephus's account of Pilate's tenure as governor is the most likely place to put it. In the Demonstratio, Eusebius says that Josephus mentions Jesus in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, in his record of the times of Pilate.

Given that the times of Pilate is the most likely place to put the passage about Jesus, why put it between 18.62 and 18.65 rather than at some other point in Josephus's account of Pilate's tenure as governor in Ant. 18.55-89? Because 18.63 is the earliest point at which the passage could reasonably be introduced. Pilate is introduced as a new character and identified as the governor of Judea in 18.55, so the Testimonium would have to be inserted after that. It wouldn't make sense to insert the story in the middle of the passage about the standards (18.55-18.59), and it wouldn't make a much more sense to put it before the story about the temple treasury in 18.60-62, because that story does not reintroduce Pilate or re-establish the setting, but continues on from the story of the standards.

To Mr Ken Olson

Thank you for your excellent and highly credible A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum. I agree with you that the TF in its entirety is a Eusebian forgery.

I also agree with you that Eusebius chose the earliest point at which he could introduce his interpolation.
But I would like to draw your attention to the reason why Eusebius fabricated this interpolation, and I believe the answer is lying in its first words: “About this time…” (ὑπο τους αυτους χρονους). If Christianity had arisen under Pilate and gained a considerable following during the next decades, then Josephus would surely have mentioned it. Josephus’s silence means that Christianity did not come into existence about this time. Christianity is a product of the war of the Jews against the Romans 40 years later. Mark, the first Gospel writer, antedated the war events by 4 decades to neutralize the highly explosive anti-Roman content of his writing. So the first forgery is Mark’s, and in Eusebius’s time, when Christianity conquered the Roman empire, it became important to consolidate Mark’s forgery through a ‘second level forgery’ by adding this false ‘under Pilate’ testimony to the work of the renowned Josephus. In a rather clumsy way, as you have demonstrated.

So in the end the TF (and the Testimonium Taciteum as well) is false because there is overwhelming evidence that Jesus preached the rebellion against the Romans in the 60’s of the first century CE, was active during the war and was crucified at the very end of the siege of Jerusalem in the summer of 70 CE. He was proclaimed the messiah because he survived his cruel execution by the hands of the Romans.

This is the birth certificate of Christianity:
Once more, when I was sent by Titus Caesar with Cerealius and a thousand horse to a village called Tekoa, to prospect whether it was a suitable place for an entrenched camp, and on my return saw many prisoners who had been crucified, and recognized three of my acquaintances among them, I was cut to the heart and came and told Titus with tears what I had seen. He gave orders immediately that they should be taken down and receive the most careful treatment. Two of them died in the physicians’ hands; the third survived. (Josephus, Vita 420-421)

So Josephus could not testify the birth of Christianity under Pilate, but his personal action 40 years later was decisive for the birth of Christianity. In the Gospels Josephus (Joseph bar Matthea) is disguised as Joseph of Arimathea.