On the hypothesis that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus ben Saphat

[maryhelena]

Post by DCHindley » Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:36 am
Jesuses, Jesuses, everywhere. Here are all the Jesuses there found in Josephus' works, in no particular order:

DCHindley's list is clearly designed to mitigate the extent of the coincidences listed by Vermeiren. To make sure it's all ordinary routine. Fortunately, Maryhelena, you are enough intelligent to realize the essential difference between these Jesuses and Jesus b. Sapphat: among all these Jesuses, only the latter was a secret friend of Josephus, just as — and here is the amazing "coincidence" — "Joseph of Arimathea" was a secret friend of Jesus. Hence the best candidate to be one and the same person saved in extremis by Josephus from the cross.

Wishful thinking is not going to help you here....Josephus does not name the man who survived a crucifixion.....and does not say that Jesus b.Sapphat was crucified.

''Dion Cassius says, 'Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death'. The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.'' (History of the Hebrew's Second Commonwealth, 1880, Cincinnati, page 206)

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist

http://collections.americanjewisharchiv ... wealth.pdf

The deed was done. Rome had executed, crucified, a King of the Jews - 37 b.c.

Antigonus was bound to a cross, scourged and beheaded. The history was there for the gospel writers: it was ready to use as a model for the crucifixion element of their composite literary Jesus story.

Logically, the gospel writers had no need to wait upon Josephus and his Life published sometime after Antiquities (93/94 c.e.) A story about an unnamed man who survived a crucifixion.

[Giuseppe]

Josephus does not name the man who survived a crucifixion.....and does not say that Jesus b.Sapphat was crucified.

For the last time, maryhelena, your objection is easily confuted by this too much evident "backward inference":

That Jesus was the identity of the one who lived of Josephus’s three, is a backward inference from the same story appearing (albeit in garbled form) in the Gospels featuring Jesus as that person. From Josephus’s Life, it is clear that Josephus had ongoing covert dealings with warrior commander Jesus in Galilee, though Josephus tells of those dealings in a self-serving way.

[/quote](source).

[maryhelena]

Josephus does not name the man who survived a crucifixion.....and does not say that Jesus b.Sapphat was crucified.

For the last time, maryhelena, your objection is easily confuted by this too much evident "backward inference":

That Jesus was the identity of the one who lived of Josephus’s three, is a backward inference from the same story appearing (albeit in garbled form) in the Gospels featuring Jesus as that person. From Josephus’s Life, it is clear that Josephus had ongoing covert dealings with warrior commander Jesus in Galilee, though Josephus tells of those dealings in a self-serving way.

(source).
[/quote]

[Giuseppe]

Hierocles talked about the Jesus active during the First Jewish Revolt.

[maryhelena]

Submitted by Richard Carrie… on Mon, 03/22/2021 - 12:44

In reply to by Gregory Doudna

Gregory, nothing you present is "evidence" by any logically relevant definition. This is starting to sound like tinfoil hat at this point. To be evidence for your theory, an item must be significantly more probable on your theory than any plausible competing explanation of it. Nothing you present qualifies as such.

(1) 19th century scholarship is simply not at all reliable and must never be cited as evidence (indeed, even early 20th century scholarship is largely rejected by experts today: http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007 ... -1950.html). Nothing you list here even is evidence at all; it's just a collection of speculations, from a period in which historical knowledge and methods were catastrophically terrible.

(2) Um, "a single passing, accidental, mention of the destruction of the temple" counts as a reference to it. Your conclusion is thus immediately refuted by your own evidence. This is not how to do history. But you are also doing what conspiracy theorists do, and ignoring evidence that refutes you even more soundly (Josephus extensively discusses that very war and references his own extensive writings on it in Contra Apion §1.8-10; and he explicitly mentions, not in passing, Titus's sack and destruction of the temple in §2.7-8) and ignoring the fact that a conclusion is reached by multiple converging lines of evidence not a single one: Josephus extensively discusses the destruction of the temple in his writings, and Contra Apion can be proved his by modern stylometric analysis (which uses statistical methods no ancient forger was aware of and thus could successfully imitate), just as with the letters of Paul. So there is no way to argue for forgery, here or in Paul's case (the sole exception among the "seven authentics" may be Philemon, owing to it being so short and off-topic as to limit stylometrics, but Philemon says nothing pertinent to anything we are discussing here).

(3) Papias is a circular argument. I agree (which is my very point) that evidence like this accumulates for a 50s AD date for Paul; but on the theory that Paul wrote in the 50s BC, the Gospels and Acts have all faked a different date, inspiring a new resurgence of the cult with different ideas about its origin, which would be the faked date Papias et al. are assuming correct (and buying oral urban legends regarding, as Papias says he never actually met any of the "apostles" and none could biologically have been alive at the time anyway: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/15999). Hence, as per my point, this remains more plausible than the wild pile of speculations you are pushing. That I am not persuaded by that argument is precisely why, a fortiori, I could never be persuaded by yours.

(4) Unpublished, un-peer-reviewed assertions contrary to currently established findings, do not count as evidence here. This is why I originally published my work under peer review (including several journal articles and two books, Proving History and On the Historicity of Jesus): the only reason to take my thesis seriously. You evidently have a very long way to go to catch your thesis up to any comparable status.

(5) Sossianus Hierocles was an anti-Christian polemicist writing hundreds of tears after the fact, citing no sources, for a claim attested by no one prior, not even previous anti-Christian polemicists. This is not what any real historians treat as evidence. You should know better than this. And that's before we even get to the point that Lactantius in fact never identifies this polemicist, other than being of the Diocletianic era, and we only now conjecture it was Hierocles; and that this polemical argument does not say the "Christ," i.e. messianic claimant, meant was even named Jesus, but to the contrary the polemicist was more likely than your thesis falsely equating the Christian "Christ" with a different "Christ," there being quite a few in the relevant era (see On the Historicity of Jesus, Element 4, Chapter 4). Evidence that is just as likely or more likely on an alternative thesis cannot be evidence for your thesis. This is evidence 101.

https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/comment ... mment-1048

[Giuseppe]

It is very unfortunate that Doudna has not talked about his best card (the impossible coincidence that two secret friends of a "Jesus" and named both "Joseph" remove from the cross respectively a victim and both from three crucifixions). I fear that Carrier doesn't know fully the Doudna's case about that particular point. Had done so, Carrier would be decisively more in difficulty than it would appear now.

[MrMacSon]

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Submitted by Gregory Doudna on Sun, 03/21/2021 - 02:20

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Richard Carrier 3/14/21 11:54 -- thank you for your reply. I read your references. I don't know whether the following might or might not modify your perspective that Jesus b. Saphat as a figure of interest is "just speculation".

(1) George Solomon, The Jesus of History and the Jesus of History Identified (1880). It is available online at Archive.org. To save time the extensive table of contents pp. IX-XV outlines the argument. Solomon argued there was no evidence in Josephus or otherwise for a Jesus at the time of Pilate, nor for the existence of a Christian sect prior to 70 in addition to the sect of interest to Josephus described as the Fourth Philosophy of Judah of Galilee; that the Gospels' Jesus reflects a combination of two historical Jesus figures from the 60s CE in Josephus, Jesus b. Ananias, and Jesus b. Sapphat, which Solomon argues were literarily combined into the one Jesus of the Gospels. Solomon argued that Christian texts including the letters of Paul were 2nd CE and that Jesus was mistakenly identified as the unnamed Samaritan false prophet executed by Pilate of Josephus, getting the chronology wrong by mistake or ignorance. In more recent times, Theodore Wedeen, "Two Jesuses, Jesus of Jerusalem and Jesus of Nazareth: Provocative Parallels and Imaginative Imitation", Forum N.S. 6.2 (Fall 2003), pp. 137-341, and Frans Vermeiren, A Chronological Revision of the Origins of Christianity (2017, available on amazon). I differ from Solomon in interpretation of Josephus's Jesus b. Ananias, which I think was already a legendized early form of Jesus of the Gospels also arguably derivative from Jesus b. Sapphat, to be developed in a forthcoming publication. I also differ in dating Paul's authentic letters 70-100 CE, not Solomon's 2nd ce. (I thank Giuseppe Ferri for calling the Solomon 1880 reference to attention.)
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Submitted by Richard Carrie… on Mon, 03/22/2021 - 12:44

Permalink

Gregory, nothing you present is "evidence" by any logically relevant definition. This is starting to sound like tinfoil hat at this point. To be evidence for your theory, an item must be significantly more probable on your theory than any plausible competing explanation of it. Nothing you present qualifies as such.

(1) 19th century scholarship is simply not at all reliable and must never be cited as evidence (indeed, even early 20th century scholarship is largely rejected by experts today: http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007 ... -1950.html). Nothing you list here even is evidence at all; it's just a collection of speculations, from a period in which historical knowledge and methods were catastrophically terrible.
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Carrier's reference to tinfoil stuff is nasty. His (1) is essentially an ad novitam fallacy (appeal to the new)

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(2) On your certainty that the authentic Paulines, I Clement and Hebrews must be pre-70 because they do not refer to the Jewish War, that is debatable. The counterexample is Josephus's Contra Apion of 90s CE. Apart from a single passing, accidental, mention of the destruction of the temple by Titus at Bk 2.7--if that were not there, as it could easily not have been, it is an accident that it is there--then by your logic Contra Apion must be pre-70, even though it is not. Contra Apion refers in the present tense to the temple and its worship and the offering of sacrifices as ongoing at Bk. 2.1, 8-9, 24. This counterexample seems to remove your basis for certainty for pre-70 datings of the writings you name. On the other hand, arguing in favor of post-70 are I Thes 2:14-16; Heb 12:24-28; 13:12-14, and the supercessionism of Romans and Galatians in which Jewish law is declared obsolete and the temple cult over and not to be restored.
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(2) Um, "a single passing, accidental, mention of the destruction of the temple" counts as a reference to it. Your conclusion is thus immediately refuted by your own evidence. This is not how to do history. But you are also doing what conspiracy theorists do, and ignoring evidence that refutes you even more soundly (Josephus extensively discusses that very war and references his own extensive writings on it in Contra Apion §1.8-10; and he explicitly mentions, not in passing, Titus's sack and destruction of the temple in §2.7-8) and ignoring the fact that a conclusion is reached by multiple converging lines of evidence not a single one: Josephus extensively discusses the destruction of the temple in his writings, and Contra Apion can be proved his by modern stylometric analysis (which uses statistical methods no ancient forger was aware of and thus could successfully imitate), just as with the letters of Paul. So there is no way to argue for forgery, here or in Paul's case (the sole exception among the "seven authentics" may be Philemon, owing to it being so short and off-topic as to limit stylometrics, but Philemon says nothing pertinent to anything we are discussing here).
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More rudeness and ad hominem by Carrier

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(3) Based on Papias of early 2nd ce being only 2-3 generations removed from the apostles' generation, the apostles were 1st CE not 1st BCE. Since Paul was contemporary to the generation of the apostles, therefore Paul also was 1st CE and not 1st BCE. Since Papias was collecting oral history or hearsay of what the apostles said and sayings and deeds of Jesus as told by the apostles ("disciples"), and shows no knowledge of apostles having said there was no Jesus, and since the ancient opponents to Christianity leveled many criticisms but never claimed Jesus's non-existence as one of them, that seems prima facie to argue there was a Jesus known to the apostles 2-3 generations before Papias, at the time Josephus has a Jesus active in Galilee with parallels to the stories of Jesus of the Gospels.
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(3) Papias is a circular argument. I agree (which is my very point) that evidence like this accumulates for a 50s AD date for Paul; but on the theory that Paul wrote in the 50s BC, the Gospels and Acts have all faked a different date, inspiring a new resurgence of the cult with different ideas about its origin, which would be the faked date Papias et al. are assuming correct (and buying oral urban legends regarding, as Papias says he never actually met any of the "apostles" and none could biologically have been alive at the time anyway: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/15999). Hence, as per my point, this remains more plausible than the wild pile of speculations you are pushing. That I am not persuaded by that argument is precisely why, a fortiori, I could never be persuaded by yours.
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(4) The case for a short-lived, otherwise uncorroborated Aretas V of 69-70 CE--this is original from me--is not yet published. I start from the well-known problems with making sense of Aretas IV controlling Damascus in the 30s CE in light of 2 Cor 11:32. Then I argue to establish plausibility for an Aretas V at 69-70 following a death of Malichus II in the last year attested for him, sometime in his Year 31 argued to be the year 69-70 (Nisan to Nisan). It happens that 69-70 was a time when Nabatean forces were actively allied with and provided military units under the command of Vespasian and Titus. In that context Roman control of Damascus could well have been implemented by Nabatean auxiliaries under Roman command such that Paul's claim to have escaped a commander under king Aretas controlling the walls of Damascus could be other language for Roman control of Damascus in 69-70, in a way that was not the case with Aretas IV. This in turn opens up a new reading of Galatians' chronology which will await forthcoming publication for the full argument. Briefly, the conversion of Paul of Gal 1:15-17 becomes dated ca. 67-68, the meeting with the pillars of Gal 2:1-9 becomes a pre-siege diplomatic meeting of Paul meeting with the government of Jerusalem under Simon bar Giora and Simon's assistant commanders, two Idumean brothers named James and John (War 4.235; 5.249; 5.290; 6.380). The writing of 2 Corinthians 11 becomes dated early 80s. I will argue that the visits to Jerusalem of Gal 1 and Gal 2 may be two versions of the same visit even though presented by Paul as two, and that Gal 2:1 should be read with the visit at the beginning ("during") rather than at the conclusion of the fourteen year time-span of that verse.
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(4) Unpublished, un-peer-reviewed assertions contrary to currently established findings, do not count as evidence here. This is why I originally published my work under peer review (including several journal articles and two books, Proving History and On the Historicity of Jesus): the only reason to take my thesis seriously. You evidently have a very long way to go to catch your thesis up to any comparable status.
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More haughty arrogance by Carrier.

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(5) Lactantius, early 4th ce, quoted Sossonius Hierocles as saying Jesus commanded nine hundred robbers (Divine Institutes 5.3). That is transparently an ancient historian claiming that Jesus of the Christians was “Jesus, the brigand chief on the borderland of Ptolemais … with his force, which numbered eight hundred … band of brigands” (Vita 104-111). That Jesus fairly clearly is Jesus b. Saphat. Of course Sossonius could have been mistaken. But was he?
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(5) Sossianus Hierocles was an anti-Christian polemicist writing hundreds of tears after the fact, citing no sources, for a claim attested by no one prior, not even previous anti-Christian polemicists. This is not what any real historians treat as evidence. You should know better than this. And that's before we even get to the point that Lactantius in fact never identifies this polemicist, other than being of the Diocletianic era, and we only now conjecture it was Hierocles; and that this polemical argument does not say the "Christ," i.e. messianic claimant, meant was even named Jesus, but to the contrary the polemicist was more likely than your thesis falsely equating the Christian "Christ" with a different "Christ," there being quite a few in the relevant era (see On the Historicity of Jesus, Element 4, Chapter 4). Evidence that is just as likely or more likely on an alternative thesis cannot be evidence for your thesis. This is evidence 101.
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Yeah, fuck off Richard.

[maryhelena]

It is very unfortunate that Doudna has not talked about his best card (the impossible coincidence that two secret friends of a "Jesus" and named both "Joseph" remove from the cross respectively a victim and both from three crucifixions). I fear that Carrier doesn't know fully the Doudna's case about that particular point. Had done so, Carrier would be decisively more in difficulty than it would appear now.

So....the gospel Jesus had a secret friend, follower, Joseph of Arimathea, who had the dead body of the gospel Jesus taken down from the cross. A story set in a time period under Pilate - somewhere around 30-33 c.e. Josephus - (Yosef ben Matityahu) - says that he had the living body of an unnamed man taken down from a cross after the Jewish Roman war of 70 c.e.

If you want to maintain that Josephus was Joseph of Arimathea OK. If so, perhaps you also need to use the same logic to connect Paul with Josephus - after all they both had a friend named Epaphroditus.

I'm all ears - Josephus a secret christian after all - and not just any christian - the big man himself, Saul of Tarsus: the apostle Paul.
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A few ideas to get you going....

Both Paul and Josephus were Roman citizens.
Both Paul and Josephus were Pharisees
Both spent time as Roman prisoners.
Paul was originally named Saul.
Titus Flavius Josephus was formally Joseph ben Matityahu.
Paul was a former persecutor of Christians.
Josephus had been an enemy of Rome.
Paul said that circumcision was not required for Gentile Christians.
Josephus maintained that non-Jews did not require circumcision in order to stay among Jews.
Paul was 'caught away to the third heaven'
Josephus had prophetic dreams.
Paul made a defense of Christianity before Agrippa II.
Josephus appealed to Agrippa II to attest the truth of what he had written in his history of the Roman/Jewish wars.
Both had a friend named Epaphroditus.

[Giuseppe]

Same tactic of DCHindley given in perfect Maryhelena's style: to insist on other weak parallelisms in order to eclipse the essential fact: the extreme improbability that "Mark" had before him Josephus' Life 22 ("I then called Jesus to me by himself") when he invented the detail of Joseph of Arimathea as secret friend of Jesus who was called Christ.

[maryhelena]

Giuseppe

I appreciate that Richard Carrier's response to Greg Doudna might be disappointing to you. Yes, Richard's manner often leaves much to be desired......As for Richard's comments on the theory regarding Jesus ben Saphat being equated with Jesus of the Gospels (via a time shift) - surely, they were not unexpected. As a mythicist Richard has gone far away from being interested in any theory that seeks to equate gospel Jesus - of whatever variant, holy man, cynic philosopher, apocalyptic preacher or zealot - with a historical figure. My own take on Richard mythicist theory is that he has taken the ahistoricist position into a cul-de-sac.

When, for whatever reason or method, one comes to the ahistoricist position on the gospel Jesus, two roads open up. One can take the road Richard has taken - a road without any historical potholes - and play safe in the spiritual/intellectual world of imagination. Consequently, its little wonder that Richard's theory has failed to reach, not just academic consensus, but popular acclaim. People, it seems, are keen to retain some grip on historical reality.

The other road forward for the ahistoricists is to face those historical potholes. It's to face the drama and the dark side of Jewish/Roman history. That means to face Josephus. It is his writings that are the coalface of New Testament research.

The interest in history has, of course, led to a number of theories equating the gospel Jesus with figures taken from the writing of Josephus: Jesus ben Ananias, Judas the Galilean, The Egyptian and now Jesus ben Saphat. What all these theories demonstrate is that the writings of Josephus need to be evaluated on their own merit before any attempt at comparisons with the gospel Jesus. As James McLaren has said we 'need to step aside' from the 'official' tour, the Josephus tour, of lst century Palestine.

A way forward: Just because an idea is old does not mean it is useless.
"There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come!" (Victor Hugo, 1802 – 1885)
Sure, intellectual evolution makes many ideas obsolete - but wiping the intellectual slate clean could end up being counter productive. Ideas, like viruses, can be tricky customers....

Two very old books have been mentioned in this thread. Greg referenced the book you earlier mentioned - the 1880 book by George Somolon: ''the Gospels' Jesus reflects a combination of two historical Jesus figures from the 60s CE in Josephus, Jesus b. Ananias, and Jesus b. Sapphat, which Solomon argues were literarily combined into the one Jesus of the Gospels.''

I mentioned the 1880 book by Rabbi Wise:

Dion Cassius says, 'Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death'. The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.'' (History of the Hebrew's Second Commonwealth, 1880, Cincinnati, page 206)

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist

So...we can learn from the past a number of important things. 1. the gospel Jesus is a composite figure. 2. that composite figure relates to a zealot type figure - a man of war - a David type messiah figure. 3. Hasmonean history details such a revolutionary leader, a King of the Jews executed by Rome. 4. The other figure in the composite gospel Jesus is a man of peace - a Joseph type messiah figure.

Yep, quite an interest in zealot type figure - Reza Aslan and his Zealot book. And Bermejo-Rubio and his articles on Jesus and the anti-Roman Resistance. Both writers seeking to retain a connection with the time of Pilate.

My own take on all this was posted in a chart to the old FRDB forum in 2012. At that time I did link to it on a post to Richard Carrier's blog:

RICHARD CARRIER JUNE 19, 2012, 9:15 AM
Useful chart. Good job including the citations to everything (shout out to everyone: that’s how you do this sort of thing). Thanks.

Methinks a great pity for mythicism and the ahistoricist position that Richard has gone so far away from considering Jewish history as a relevant element in the gospel composite literary Jesus. He needs to do a u-turn and attempt to ground his theory in a historical context.
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HISTORY and Coins	Philo (died about 50 c.e.) Flaccus	JOSEPHUS: War (about 75 c.e.)Antiquities:(about 94 c.e.)	The composite gospel Jesus figure based upon the historical figures of the last King and High Priest of the Jews, Antigonus; Philip the Tetrarch and Agrippa I.
King Antigonus Mattathias II High Priest of the Jews: 4 b.c.e. – 37 b.c.e. Hasmonean Bilingual Coins, Hebrew and Greek.		Antigonus enters Jerusalem: Antigonus himself also bit off Hyrcanus's ears with his own teeth, as he fell down upon his knees to him, that so he might never be able upon any mutation of affairs to take the high priesthood again, for the high priests that officiated were to be complete, and without blemish. War: Book 1.ch.13 (40 b.c.)........................Antony came in, and told them that it was for their advantage in the Parthian war that Herod should be king; so they all gave their votes for it. War: Book 1.ch.14 (40 b.c.)	John 18.10; Mark 14.47; Matthew 26.51; Luke 22.50. John and Luke specifying right ear, Mark and Matthew have 'ear'. gJohn stating that Peter cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant.
		Now as winter was going off, Herod marched to Jerusalem, and brought his army to the wall of it; this was the third year since he had been made king at Rome; War: Book 1. ch.17 (37 b.c.).. Herod on his own account, in order to take the government from Antigonus, who was declared an enemy at Rome, and that he might himself be king, according to the decree of the Senate. Antiquities Book 14 ch.16.	gJohn indicates a three year ministry for JC.
Cassius Dio: Antigonus. These people Antony entrusted to one Herod to govern, and Antigonus he bound to a cross and flogged,—treatment accorded to no other king by the Romans,—and subsequently slew him. Roman History, Book xlix, c.22.		Then it was that Antigonus, without any regard to his former or to his present fortune, came down from the citadel, and fell at Sosius's feet, who without pitying him at all, upon the change of his condition, laughed at him beyond measure, and called him Antigona. Yet did he not treat him like a woman, or let him go free, but put him into bonds, and kept him in custody.... Sosius ......went away from Jerusalem, leading Antigonus away in bonds to Antony; then did the axe bring him to his end..War: Book 1.ch.18. ..Antigonus, without regard to either his past or present circumstances, came down from the citadel, and fell down at the feet of Sosius, who took no pity of him, in the change of his fortune, but insulted him beyond measure, and called him Antigone [i.e. a woman, and not a man;] yet did he not treat him as if he were a woman, by letting him go at liberty, but put him into bonds, and kept him in close custody.......	The soldiers mock Jesus: Mark 15.16-20; Matthew 27:27-31.Jesus flogged: John 19:1; Mark 15:15; Matthew 27:26. JC crucified. Trilingual sign over cross: Aramaic, Latin and Greek. gJohn 19.19-21. JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Other variations: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS; THE KING OF THE JEWS; THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
		...and then but Herod was afraid lest Antigonus should be kept in prison [only] by Antony, and that when he was carried to Rome by him, he might get his cause to be heard by the senate, and might demonstrate, as he was himself of the royal blood, and Herod but a private man, that therefore it belonged to his sons however to have the kingdom, on account of the family they were of, in case he had himself offended the Romans by what he had done. Out of Herod's fear of this it was that he, by giving Antony a great deal of money, endeavoured to persuade him to have Antigonus slain. Antiquities: Book 14 ch.16. (Slavonic Josephus has the teachers of the Law giving the money to Pilate...)	Judas betrays JC for 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 27.3.
		Now when Antony had received Antigonus as his captive, he determined to keep him against his triumph; but when he heard that the nation grew seditious, and that, out of their hatred to Herod, they continued to bear good-will to Antigonus, he resolved to behead him at Antioch, for otherwise the Jews could no way be brought to be quiet. (37 b.c.) Antiquities: Book 15 ch.1.	Acts: 11:16.The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.
Philip the Tetrarch: Herodian Coins. 4 b.c.e. – 34 c.e.		When Philip also had built Paneas, a city at the fountains of Jordan, he named it Caesarea. He also advanced the village Bethsaida, situate at the lake of Gennesareth, unto the dignity of a city, both by the number of inhabitants it contained, and its other grandeur, and called it by the name of Julias, Antiquities: Book 18 ch.2.	John 1:43-45. Philip, Andrew and Peter come from Bethsaida. Around the villages of Caesarea Phillipi JC asked the disciples who do people say he is. Peter says: "You are the Messiah". Mark 8:27-30; Matthew 16: 13-16.
		(about 34 c.e.) About this time it was that Philip, Herod's brother, departed this life, in the twentieth year of the reign of Tiberius, after he had been tetrarch of Trachonitis and Gaulanitis, and of the nation of the Bataneans also, thirty seven years. He had showed himself a person of moderation and quietness in the conduct of his life and government; he constantly lived in that country which was subject to him; he used to make his progress with a few chosen friends; his tribunal also, on which he sat in judgment, followed him in his progress; and when any one met him who wanted his assistance, he made no delay, but had his tribunal set down immediately, wheresoever he happened to be, and sat down upon it, and heard his complaint: he there ordered the guilty that were convicted to be punished, and absolved those that had been accused unjustly. He died at Julias; and when he was carried to that monument which he had already erected for himself beforehand, he was buried with great pomp.His principality Tiberius took, (for he left no sons behind him,) and added it to the province of Syria, but gave order that the tributes which arose from it should be collected, and laid up in his tetrachy. Antiquities: Book 18 ch.4.	disciples/apostles: John 6:70; Mark 3:14; Matthew 10:2; Luke 6:13. A rich man from Arimathea, Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. Matthew 27:57-59. Mark 15:43. Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. JC crucified during rule of Pilate - which ends in 36 c.e.
Agrippa I. (d.44 c.e.) Herodian Coins.	The mocking of Carabbas:... a diadem, and clothed the rest of his body with a common door mat instead of a cloak and instead of a sceptre they put in his hand a small stick ..., he had received all the insignia of royal authority, and had been dressed and adorned like a king, ....Then from the multitude of those who were standing around there arose a wonderful shout of men calling out Maris; and this is the name by which it is said that they call the kings among the Syrians;..when Flaccus heard, or rather when he saw this, he would have done right if he had apprehended the maniac and put him in prison, that he might not give to those who reviled him any opportunity or excuse for insulting their superiors, and if he had chastised those who dressed him up for having dared both openly and disgustedly, both with words and actions, to insult a king.		The soldiers mock Jesus: Mark 15.16-20; Matthew 27:27-31. ..... The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him............Pilate released Barabbas.

Historical artefacts, such as coins, are testimony to the fact that certain individuals were historical figures. That is the bare bones of historical evidence. However, history requires a story; a narrative, to joins up the facts and present a meaningful picture. The picture could be cloudy and unclear or it could be a reasonable explanation of what happened. In the chart, Josephus is the primary source for building that historical narrative. Did Josephus himself, writing after the events, have accurate material to work with? Or is Josephus creating his own narrative - and without a secondary source there is no way to be sure. All one can do is work with his material and question his story when it presents problems.