JOSEPHUS DIDN’T SAY

JESUS EXISTED

IN BOOK 20

Index

BOOK 20 TESTIMONY

ORIGEN AND BOOK 20

JAMES, JESUS' BROTHER?

The first century Jewish Historian, Flavius Josephus, is who Christians lean on for independent corroboration of the existence of Jesus. We know that Josephus didn’t say that Jesus existed in the part of his Jewish Antiquities which contains references to Jesus, saying he was wise, a miracle worker, crucified and seen again after his death and the founder of the Christians, for it is a forgery. We call it the Testament. However there is another reference later on in the Antiquities. In Book 20 to be precise.

BOOK 20 TESTIMONY

"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. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. 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: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a Sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest" (Jewish Antiquities, Book 20).

This still manages to weaken the evidence for Jesus if it is real. It says that James was accused falsely of breaking the Law of Moses. This contradicts the gospels which say that certain parts of the Law don’t apply any more. If James taught such a thing then he broke the Law. The gospels are exposed as lies and their evidence for Jesus is declared spurious.

In this book 20 of his work, the death by stoning of James, the brother of Jesus who Josephus gives the unenthusiastic appellation of the so-called Christ shows that he was sceptical about Jesus being the Messiah. It is usually believed genuine because it asserts nothing more about Jesus than that he was the so-called Christ and was the brother of James which seems to indicate that a forger would have put in something more exotic. But it could still have been forged. Maybe somebody put it in to discredit the perpetual virginity of Mary or to make Josephus look unreliable in relation to Christ. Or perhaps a Christian put it in to make evidence for the existence of Jesus and didn’t know of the earlier alleged reference which was by another forger. It would mean it was a forger who did not know that the Testament was itself a fake?

Suppose the person who forged the Testament of Flavius knew of this reference. This place in Book 20 if authentic would have been the perfect place to insert his Testament. Instead he stuck his Testament in a place that makes no sense at all. He didn’t even put it in where John the Baptist was mentioned. We have this forger as evidence that the mention of Jesus in this Book 20 passage was faked to make it look as if Jesus existed.

Josephus would have preferred to identify Jesus not as the man called Christ but as the criminal crucified by Pilate. Josephus hated messianic agitators and did not mention any without portraying them in a bad light which is why his reference to Jesus in this must be an interpolation. He would have liked to give the Romans confidence that they exterminated this alleged Messiah. The reference would have made Christ look like a failure.

Several fathers of the Church such as Origen testified that a glowing reference to James existed in book 20 and they kept the text for us. It differs from the current text indicating that this part of the work of Josephus was routinely tampered with and we can’t trust anything about it. Perhaps somebody trying to fix the text thought that the insertion about Jesus belonged in it and left it in. It doesn’t mean he was right though.

If you want to believe the book 20 reference is real, Josephus then denied the resurrection for it was supposed to prove that Jesus was the Christ and more than a man called Christ. He could have believed that Jesus swooned or something and came round but he didn't tell us anything. Because Josephus knew that calling anybody a Christ or saying they were called a Christ could still lead to people being led to rebel against his beloved Rome for many reading of the Christ would want to see who he was and if he had a bloodline therefore he would not have done it. He would not have mentioned Jesus at all. He had no need to.

The Epistle to the Hebrews may be from 70AD or shortly before the Temple was destroyed. It was written to Jewish Christians because the argumentation against priests and Temples and sacrifices in it and its extensive use of the Old Testament would not have been deployed for Gentile Christians who were unfamiliar with this ritualism and scripture. It would have been written to Jewish Christians in Palestine for that is where most of them were. The letter was known as the Epistle to the Hebrews from the first meaning it would have been sent to Jerusalem the HQ of the Jewish Christians for it was for all of them. It was written to Jewish Christians in Palestine but meant for Jewish Christians everywhere and there were some of them in Rome.

Hebrews 12:3 tells them to think of Jesus who endured a lot of abuse from sinners so that they may feel stronger knowing Jesus went through worse than they did at the hands of hostile people. Verse 12:4 tells us something very interesting. It says that none of them have resisted this abuse until their blood was shed. This tells us that the account in Josephus about James dying at the hands of a lynch mob over religious differences in 64 AD and the Book of Acts saying about the other James dying in 42AD by the sword of Herod’s emissary are both lies. It also indicates that the stories in Acts about the murderous persecution of the Church and its claim that Paul was a murderer of Christians are fiction. Basically it means that some Christian inserted in Josephus the entire stuff about James the brother of the so-called Christ being persecuted to death.

Josephus never mentioned Jesus at all for the other place where he says that Jesus was the Messiah and rose from the dead etc was something a man in his position could not write gives us no reason to think that any of it was really written by Josephus either.

Christians or perhaps Jewish believers in Jesus fabricated the James passage too to maybe fake evidence for the existence of Jesus because he never existed. They lied about James. Even if we are wrong on all that then that still does not help the case for the existence of Jesus. We would have the right to assume that Josephus didn’t mention Jesus. And if Josephus doesn’t mention such an important figure as Jesus then clearly Jesus couldn’t have existed.

If the Jews were powerful enough to use the king to get Ananus fired for doing this to James as Josephus says then how could they have failed to save James? The story does not hold together. That is why it has to be the work of a forger in a hurry. That is why Josephus never mentioned Jesus here either.

The book 20 reference to Christ is evidence that if Josephus called Jesus the so-called Christ then the long bit about Jesus, the Testament, is inauthentic at least in part if not all inauthentic for it is certain that Jesus was a miracle working Christ. The idea that if the Testament is inauthentic then Josephus would not have written so briefly about Jesus here is wrong for if Jesus were obscure or unimportant and possibly non-existent we could expect him to get no more mention than that.

The crafty would have us believe that Josephus did not call Jesus the so-called Christ but Jesus who was called Christ as if that made a difference. It still means that Josephus was sceptical or undecided. If Josephus did call him that then it was clearly contempt and sarcasm. YOU DO NOT SAY JESUS WAS CALLED THE CHRIST WHEN HE IS NOT CALLED THAT BY THE ROMANS OR THE JEWS BUT BY AN OBSCURE MINORITY SECT THAT WAS DESPISED BY EVERYONE. If they are right that Josephus just meant Jesus was called the Christ then the passage is undoubtedly an insertion by a forger. A forger doing that would do it to provide evidence for the existence of Jesus simply because there never had been a Jesus.

Why did he not call James, James the Just, which was James’ official nickname? He would have to avoid mentioning any alleged Messiahs for he was loyal to Rome. It makes no sense. James was called James the Just by everybody so why did Josephus use an unusual and uncommon way to speak of him? Because the passage has been interfered with by someone in a hurry and it has been corrupted.

Some say the reference to Jesus the so-called Christ is authentic because it is aware that Jesus was the Christ as in title not name which indicates that a Jew wrote it while Christians tended to use Christ as a surname. But the New Testament contains the title usage so there were scores of Christians who could have made the Christ reference as a title. The lies told in Christian books are infinite.

There would have been lots of Jameses who died over religion. That is why it is possible that the statement that James was the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ could have been scribbled into the margin as a note and was eventually incorporated into the text. But it seems then that we would be wondering what James this was so the real Josephus had to say he was the brother of Jesus and since there were lots of Jesuses he had to say it was Jesus called Christ (page 39, He Walked Among Us). But he did give some details about James and his death, enough to identify him, so this argument is simply wrong. There was no need for the bit about him being the brother of the so-called Messiah so it probably was a copyist's mis-clarification or a note that got into the passage. That could be why it is so brief and non-committal. Some say Christians would not insert it for it proved nothing - but they would if they thought Josephus meant the James who was Jesus' brother and wanted to clarify that and then made it non-committal in relation to Jesus for Josephus was known to have been an unbeliever.

There may have been three James who are often confused with one another. The apostle James was killed in the early days of the Church, then there was another James the apostle it seems and then there was the James who was called the brother of the Lord.

Why did Josephus not clarify that he did not mean the another Christian James but the blood-brother of Jesus? Jesus would have called the other James he knew brothers as well for Jesus said that anybody who obeys God is his brother and his mother (Mark 3:34). So would Josephus call a man Jesus’ brother and not clearly state that he was a blood-brother if that was what he was? Did Josephus not know that Christians called every Christian man a brother. That is impossible to believe so somebody did add in the words brother of the so-called Christ. They did it to manufacture evidence that Jesus lived. There could be no other possible motive.

The lack of clarity might mean that Josephus was using hearsay. It is possible also that calling James the brother of the so-called Christ may have been a sneer. He gives no hint that he cares for James. If it was a sneer then it is just a sneer and not a declaration that Jesus existed for you could mock a man by linking him to his non-existent brother. Jesus could be the so-called Christ in the sense that he was a fake king or a fictitious person. You might call a man who some said existed but who you knew didn’t a so-called man and that might be what Josephus is doing here. He could be calling Jesus the so-called Christ as in so-called man. The gospels may indicate that a double pretended to be Jesus after his death and Jesus was not recognised by people who saw him every day the night they arrested him. This is a clear indication that there were some people pretending to be Jesus. When the apostles had their hallucinations of a man having come back from the dead it was only natural that some people would play tricks on the weirdos. Maybe James was the brother of one of these impostors and sceptics knew that. Was that what Josephus was referring to?

Brother of Christ might have been James’ title. And Josephus may be sneeringly changing it to brother of the so-called Christ. In that case, it would tell us nothing about Jesus’ existence or non-existence.

There is evidence that seems to indicate that there would have been a number of Jesuses who claimed to be Messiahs. Palestine at the time was a hotbed of religious cultism especially since many believed that Daniel had predicted that the Messiah was due in those days. Jesus was a very common name so common-sense is enough to verify what I am saying. James sounds like the brother of another Jesus and not the one we know and love.

Josephus did not know about the apostle James who was called the son of Alphaeus. Modern scholars reject the ancient view that this James is the brother of the Lord (NAB, Biblical Dictionary and Concordance, page 95) or (obviously) the same person as James son of Zebedee another apostle. So if James son of Alphaeus was the one meant he was not the blood brother of Jesus. Since erroneous tradition said he was the brother of Jesus it would follow that a forger inserted the words, brother of the so-called Christ.

The James that Josephus supposedly wrote about was not an important person known in Rome. He was a nobody who caused trouble in Jerusalem and raised the murderous ire of the Jews who were his brethren. He would have been less known and popular than the other Jameses for he confined himself to the Jews and Israel. Yet the text runs as if he were well-known in Rome which is unlikely.

If it was another James, an apostle, who was meant he would have been one of the best known Christians. That would explain why the text speaks of him as if he were well-known to the Roman readers. But the apostle was not the brother of the so-called Christ. If a James who was not the brother of the so-called Christ was the person who was meant then either the words, brother of the so-called Christ are forged or they are not literal. Either way, the case for a historical Jesus based on the references in Josephus disappears.

Did the James in Josephus have a brother who perhaps leaped on the Jesus bandwagon and claimed to be Christ? It could have been just like how many Mormons claimed to be prophets and true heads of the Church after Joseph Smith was shot dead. Josephus gives no evidence for the existence of our Jesus Christ.

Why did Josephus write that James was the brother Jesus of the so-called Christ and not say that he was the brother of Jesus who was crucified by Pilate? That would be clearer and would have been a slap against Jesus for crucifixion was considered a disgrace. It was preferable to forget about people who claimed to be Christ and not mention that unless it was totally necessary for the less attention Christs got with their alleged royal bloodlines got the safer it was for the Roman Empire. Some say the reason was that he had already written that Jesus was crucified in the Testament. But it is clear from the text that it could stand on its own and be the only reference to Jesus in Josephus. In that case, it would mean that Jesus was too nebulous to write anything concrete about. The James he might have meant used the brother of the Lord and the brother of the Christ expressions as titles so we need not assume that the reference proves that somebody thought that James was his literal brother.

Page 40 of He Walked Among Us states that Josephus had to be careful not to write about all the Messiahs Israel had for he was writing to Romans about Jews and to portray the Jews in a more favourable way so that Romans would have less to fear from them. The gospels say that the Jews hated Jesus and saw no problem with anybody degrading his name. They slandered him themselves to save their own reputation. Since Christianity had become a mainly Gentile religion we are told that he felt there was no harm in calling Jesus a so-called Christ. But if so, then he would not have stirred the Gentile feeling against the Jews for killing Jesus' brother and why be evasive about the would-be Christs who had tried and failed and who were forgotten by the Jews and then mention another failure? He knew that there were many secret Christians in Rome. Jesus was not mentioned in the original text. Tampering has taken place.

Why didn't Christians who were sceptical that Mary was always a virgin use the text to disprove the growing doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary and to show that James was stoned in the early years? The passage may look genuine but it is not. Somebody put it there. Either that or the ancient tradition that some people were spiritually the twin brothers of Jesus, notably St Thomas, could explain what was meant by declaring that James was the brother of Jesus.

Josephus is the author of the Jewish War. In 1906, a Slavonic copy of it was found that contained a bit that described Jesus as a doer of miracles who was urged to head a rebellion against Rome. But this was a twelfth century bogus account. It was hoped that this version was identical to the book as Josephus originally wrote it in Aramaic. G.A. Williamson translated the Slavonic version for Penguin Books in 1959 which fooled a lot of people with its assertions about Jesus. It claimed that Jesus' tomb was looked after by 1000 Jews. No Jew would have guarded the tomb on a Sabbath. The gospels which were composed to convince people that Jesus rose again would have mentioned this important plus for Christianity for it would imply that a thousand Jews could verify that the body left the tomb miraculously assuming the fate of the body had any importance in early apologetics. It contradicts what Matthew wrote about the Jews issuing backhanders to keep the people who were at the tomb quiet. If there had been so many people involved it would have been hard for the Jews to suggest buying their silence for they wouldn't all have been eager to accept.

There is no evidence for the claim that Josephus regarded Christ as a man with magic powers. Josephus was silent on Jesus and that proves that Jesus did not exist.

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ORIGEN AND BOOK 20

Ian Wilson wrote, "In the third century AD the Christian writer Origen expressed his astonishment that Josephus, while disbelieving that Jesus was the Messiah, should have spoken so warmly about his brother. This information from Origen is incontrovertible evidence that Josephus referred to Jesus before any Christian copyist would have had a chance to make alterations" (Jesus the Evidence, page 53, Pan, London, 1985). This would naturally be about the book 20 record of the brother of the so-called Christ, James, being put to death. The trouble is, our current book 20 does not mention this great commendation. And it only takes a few minutes to tamper with a text so who is Ian Wilson trying to kid that nobody had a chance to interpolate before Origen? We don’t know the circumstances so how can we be sure?

It is a mistake to argue that Josephus must have originally written a condemnation of Christ in the Testament for the line with its calling Jesus so-called Christ could be taken to say it all, that he didn’t like him, and so was enough to make Origen write as he did. Origen would have known anyway from the life story of Josephus that he never acknowledged Christ. So Josephus did not need to mention Jesus at all. There is no evidence against the possibility that Origen’s copy of Josephus never mentioned Jesus but just mentioned James and that Origen knew from other sources that Josephus had no time for Jesus.

Origen and Eusebius both stated that the reason Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD was because the Jews had killed James the brother of Jesus and that Josephus declared it in his book. The problem is that Josephus' works as we now have them never did. He Walked Among Us (page 73) tries to pretend that perhaps Origen made a mistake and Eusebius followed him and that Origen was thinking of what had happened soon after the killing of the Baptist to Herod's men. Not only is that implausible (two scholars making the same mistake?) and mere useless speculation but the Church always thought that the destruction of Jerusalem happened because it was predicted by Christ and happened because the Jews rejected Christ. Therefore they would not have followed Josephus to the extent for contradicting their faith unless they couldn’t deny that he wrote that the destruction happened for a different reason. Eusebius did do his homework and had the Josephus writings before him. We see then that something has been lost from Josephus where he speaks of this James and it is only the one place. That means there could have been an interference and what we have now about James is all that is left. If so then the insertion of a Jesus bit could have been made or perhaps Josephus wrote that James was the brother of John who invented Jesus the so-called Christ and the "John who invented" has been lost? Even if it makes it possible that the passage was interfered with that is enough for us to say that there is no evidence that Josephus really spoke of Jesus. Maybe he did but we can't say one way or the other so he is of no service to us.

Josephus according to Eusebius and Origen and not our version of him wrote that the siege of Jerusalem "happened to the Jews in requital for James the Righteous, who was a brother of Jesus known as Christ, for though he was the most righteous of men, the Jews put him to death". The book 20 record they had has it that Josephus expressed his sadness at James' tragic murder which took place at the hands of the Jews. No way would he have done that. He didn't need to when he was writing history not his emotional biography. It was an offence against his religion to say that the disciples of false prophets like Jesus deserved to live. The Law of God given through Moses decreed death for apostates and heretics. The charges against James, that he was a law-breaker were true. He broke the Law by twisting Old Testament texts to make it seem as if they spoke of Christ and claimed to be a prophet of God when he wasn't. Their Josephus does not tell us who James was or anything about him which is strange. If James was the blood-brother of Jesus who claimed to be a king then the Romans would wanted rid of James and would have killed him to phase out a possible bloodline of the throne of Israel. Josephus would have been insulting his own people and Rome by praising James then. I am saying that somebody has been editing the passage which means that the reference to James being the brother of Christ may have been an insertion.

When Origen thought that it was odd that Josephus who didn’t believe in Jesus praised his brother James so warmly then isn't he saying that it is probable that something here in Book 20 is not authentic? Could Josephus have considered glorifying a man like James who according to Hegesippus, who wrote in the early second century, that James never took a bath and went into the Temple dirty contrary to Jewish Law and the Law of God? No. It looks like James was a fanatic who liked to provoke the Jews and cause trouble and who cannot be considered worth listening to in matters of religion. According to the same source, James was a vegetarian, which was a most serious heresy for the law of Moses commanded meat-eating. The warmness that strikes Origen is not in our current Josephus and frankly never could have been.

The early Christians believed that the world was to end soon and Rome overthrown. That undermined service to the Roman Empire so there was no way Josephus could have dared to say he cared about James or that James was a good man. Yet the older version of Josephus says he did and our own version these days does not. This tells us that somebody probably inserted a pack of lies about James in Josephus and after Eusebius it was shorted and became our modern version. Essentially, Josephus probably never mentioned James at all. We have no evidence that he did.

There is a taunting element in what Origen and Eusebius had in their Josephus when he appears to gloat over Jerusalem being destroyed to avenge James. Josephus would not have written in such a fashion. He may have supported Rome but he loved his people. Rome would not be impressed by him if he held that God takes revenge for that would mean he believed their day was coming for they took over and desecrated the Holy Land.

James would have claimed to have been the earthly mouthpiece for Christ. He was in effect a Christ himself for that reason. A man claiming to be in touch with the true king is as bad as a man who claims to be the true king. For Josephus to praise James would mean he was betraying Rome which did not tolerate rivals. Josephus would not have done that. And if he had he would have been compelled to correct it. Calling James Jesus the Christ’s brother would only draw attention to James’ role too – Josephus simply did not refer to Jesus here at all.

It is a mistake to think that maybe when Josephus praised James and called him the brother of the so-called Christ he did not mean to infer he was accepting this Christ as a decent person. Of course he did for Christ would have been the centre of James’ spirituality and life. Jewish law condemns the followers of fake prophets as evil and any Jew who respects them as evil apostates.

The real Josephus text says that many of the Jews were incensed when James was accused of transgressing the law and even died with him because they protested. Josephus did not praise James or say that he was the brother of Christ because that implies that James followed Christ and was a heretic which a righteous man in the eyes of the Jews would not do or be. And it is impossible to believe that the Jews would have died with him. The Jews would not have publicly killed James when it would have led to such a bloodbath. They were not that stupid. Josephus would have defended James instead of causing antagonism by expressing sorrow for him and saying nothing in his defence for it made Josephus look bad.

By the way, if Josephus reported that some of the Jews opposed the death of James and/or regarded the disaster that followed as a retribution from Heaven for it, it is a clear hint that Josephus rejected the early Christian claim that James was one of the most important living witnesses and supporters of Jesus Christ. The Jews hated Jesus as a false prophet. The inference is that James either did not believe in Jesus or somebody inserted the words that link James to Jesus as his brother. If Josephus liked James that makes it hard to understand how he could say he was the brother of the so-called Christ which reflects badly on James and leave it at that. He would have said that James had nothing to do with the Christ so somebody did insert the words.

So we have proof that somebody was tampering with the reference to James and Christ in book 20 and have no reason to trust what is said about them in the version that is accepted now. Somebody was trying to fabricate evidence for the existence of Jesus where Josephus may have mentioned James. That shows the existence was being challenged at the time the forgery was put in.

Did Eusebius and Origen have a bad copy of Josephus?

If the Christians had been using a different Josephus from the correct one they would have known about it. Obviously, the Christians had passed off their Josephus as the real one. The one that was closer to the original surfaced later and became standard. This indicates that quite a bit of interfering with the text in the interest of Christian propaganda had taken place.

Even if Origen had verified the existence of the passage about James and Jesus it would not prove that it was not an interpolation for there was plenty of time to insert one before he came along.

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JAMES, JESUS' BROTHER?

There was a tradition in existence in the early Church that James was not the literal brother of Jesus Christ. The tradition is reflected at the beginning of the unorthodox First Apocalypse of James found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. “It is the Lord who spoke to me. He said, “Behold now the completion of the redemption I accomplished. I have give you a sign of these things brother James. And it is not without cause that I have called you my brother although physically you are not my brother.” We are not told the reason why he is called a brother at all. There is no motive for the writer to go to the trouble of making out that James was not a literal brother. Read The Nag Hammadi Library in English page 262 (James M Robinson General Editor, HarperCollins, San Francisco 1990).

In Galatians 1:19, Paul says that he met James the Lord's brother. This seems to say that Jesus lived in the first century when his brother was still alive. But the most important thing to realise is that Paul told Philemon that Onesimus the slave was to be his blood-brother and not just a brother in the Lord so blood-brother among the early Christians didn’t always mean that you shared a parent. Josephus who also called James Jesus’ brother could have made a mistake due to this confusing practice. The practice probably had a lot to do with the universal accusations of incest that supposedly was rife among the early Christians.

According to the letter of Paul to Philemon Christians believed you could make somebody you loved your brother or sister by blood even if they were not a blood relation. Paul told Philemon that Onesimus was not just a brother in the Lord but a blood brother from now on. A brother in the Lord means a non-literal brother but Paul’s saying Onesimus who was not related to Philemon was more than that and a blood brother indicates plainly that you can become a literal blood brother by adoption. This practice could have confused people about James and made them think he really was born a brother of Jesus’. It is important to note that James is only called the Brother of the Lord never the brother of Jesus. Brother of the Lord sounds like a religious title. The Jews were more likely to call him the Brother of Jesus if that was what he was.

The Historical Evidence for Jesus, G A Wells, Prometheus Books, New York, 1988 (page 168) mentions the research of Brandon which showed that calling James the brother of the Lord could mean the Principle Servant of the Lord. Strabo who discussed how the vizier of the Nabatean Kings was called the Brother of the King is mentioned too. Also, Cerfaux wrote of inscriptions that showed brother was a honorific title. Jesus in Matthew 28 speaks of relations and non-relations as brothers of his.

The Roman Church insists that brother here in Galatians and Josephus means relation and not literal brother. This could be right because in the gospels a Mary, the mother of James is mentioned as if we know James (Mark 16:1). If James were Christ's brother the gospel would call her the mother of Jesus. Mary has a sister called Mary implying that they were not sisters but relations (John 19:25) for you don’t have two literal sisters with the one name. James could have been the man who was thought to be a relation of a Jesus who was believed to have died centuries before.

This James may have written the Epistle of James. But he uses his own authority in that Epistle (NAB, Introduction to the Epistle of James) and not that of the brother he supposedly knew as the infallible revelation of God and only mentions him twice. And this in an Epistle to a group of Jewish Christians who could depart from Christ anytime and needed to be inoculated against heresy with the details about Jesus and who he was! James was not the literal brother of Jesus. Notice how he tends in his epistle to use his brothers to refer to Church members? This habit could have confused Josephus who called him the brother of Christ. Some claim that Josephus proves there was no tradition for the Virgin Birth for they hold that James was older than Jesus. Jude in his epistle claims to be the brother of James but is careful not to call himself the brother of Christ and indicates that he was not so probably James was not a brother of Jesus either.

James introduces the letter by calling himself a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus the Messiah. Would it not be better to call himself a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ his brother?

In James 5:10, James offers the prophets as role models and singles out Job for mention. The real brother of Jesus would have stressed Jesus as role model. Why would Jesus' brother mention the suffering of prophets inferior to Jesus and not Jesus'? He never calls Jesus the Son of God or hints that Jesus lived a perfect life before his glorification. It seems that James did not even think that Jesus was the best exemplar. He had very little interest in Jesus in his epistle. This suggests that James was not his brother at all and knew very little about him.

Also, James denied Jesus' power struggle with the Devil when he wrote that we are tempted by our own desires. James may have believed in devils but he did not believe they tempted us. He wrote that our desires are to blame in the context of refuting the view that God was the tempter. So he was saying that God was not tempting us and proving it by telling us to see that we tempt ourselves. Obviously, this rules out the possibility of blaming demons for tempting us for a God who lets demons tempt is no better than a God who tempts himself especially when he has no reason to give demons who are condemned to eternal punishing the power to tempt for even respect for free will is no excuse then for the power is only given so that we might love and is not important if we will not love again like the spirits in Hell cannot love. This is a very significant departure from the gospels which are filled with demons and Jesus even has a struggle with the Devil in the wilderness. This James did not claim to be the literal brother of the gospel Jesus and as good as denied that he was.

When this James wrote that the man who doubts cannot expect to receive an answer for prayer from the Lord (James 1:5-7) there is no mistake about it. This James though a leading Christian did not know of the faith healing Jesus we have in the gospels. All faith healers have people who they seem to have cured and many of these would be clearly doubters having little interest in the ways of God. If there had been a Jesus he would have known him and got the story about him for he was a leading Christian. He would have known that Jesus' healings did not tally with his opposition to doubt and his assertion that doubt blocks a response from God.

Acts says that the apostle James brother of John the apostle was executed in 12:2. But the problem is that that James is mentioned as living a few verses later as if the author forgot he had killed James off. And both Jameses were pillars in the Church. But the second James may be another person, the Lord's so-called brother for John the apostle was not a brother of Jesus'. There is no proof that Acts made a mistake or did not make one but if this James was John's brother and Jesus' then he was not literally Jesus'. It is hard to believe that Acts would mention this man whose killing was important enough to make Herod go after Peter when he saw the pleased reaction of the Jews meaning that the man was as important as Peter so briefly. It is like the author did make a mistake. Further evidence of this is the fact that Acts was written after 62-4 AD when Paul was first imprisoned in Rome for it stops just after it records it and it does not mention the death of James the Less the brother of the Lord in 62 AD. The author was embarrassed at the mistake he made and it was too late to fix it so he thought it was best to forget about what happened in 62 AD.

We must face the possibility that somebody altered Josephus's text to make it deceitfully call James the brother of the so-called Christ, Jesus. That would explain an awful lot. Somebody thought Josephus had not been very clear and made a so-called clarification. The Epistle of James can stand as evidence that this interference took place for it tells against the literal brother view. James is certainly an early epistle and precedes the gospels. It is too primitive and normal to have come from a later stage in the Church's theological development.

How does the denial that James was a brother fit in with my assertion that the New Testament states that the virgin Mary did have sons and daughters including a James besides Jesus? Only the gospels say that and we are noticing that the epistles never say that Jesus had real brothers and sisters and we know the gospels give Jesus false historicity. If Jesus had brothers or even cousins they would have been killed for Pilate, who the gospels lie about, said Jesus really was a king meaning his relations would be in line for the throne. So the gospels are incoherent regarding the matter. No relations of Jesus would have been allowed to survive or at least be free. There was no way Josephus could mention that James had a brother called Christ who was allowed to live for it makes Rome look incompetent.

Also modern scholars think there were three Jameses. One was the apostle James the son of Zebedee who was beheaded by Herod Agrippa, the other was the apostle James the Less the son of Alphaeus who was an apostle too and the other James who was called the brother of the Lord. The Gospels say that Jesus had a blood-brother called James but nowhere is it said that he was an apostle or a believer. The brothers of Jesus are presented as hostile to him in the gospels and nowhere in the New Testament is there any hint of a change of heart. Galatians 1:19 seems to say James the brother of the Lord is an apostle but it can be interpreted to mean he was not (NAB, Biblical Dictionary and Concordance, page 95). So he was not for it would be clearer if he was. Never did the New Testament call this James an apostle and Paul in Galatians denies it. This James according to every source was adulated by the Jews meaning that he refused to put forward the reforms Jesus tried to make for the Jews despised what Jesus was trying to do. He was not the apostle James then who was the blood brother of the Lord according to the gospels for a heretic could not be made an apostle.

Brother of the Lord was James’ honorary title because he could not become an apostle.

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THE JESUS WAS NOT JESUS CHRIST

Jesus was a common name in Israel in those days. The word Christ meant anointed. Some people were claiming like Jesus supposedly did that God anointed them with the Holy Spirit. Others were anointed with oil by priests or prophets. Priests were called anointed and Christs. We read of priests being called Christs in the Old Testament. The Jews were expecting a special anointed or Christ - a warrior king who would break the Roman yoke and reign over Israel.

Some believe that the Jesus mentioned in Josephus as being James brother was not Jesus of Nazareth but Jesus the high priest who was son of Damneus. Scholar Kenneth Humphreys is a notable proponent of that view. Christianity teaches that Jesus abolished the Law and James was his authorised apostle and messenger so James would have ignored the Law. If they believe that then how can they say this Jesus in Josephus is their Jesus when Josephus says this James was a keeper of the Law?

It is thought that since Josephus was writing about two Jesus' he had to describe one as the brother of James and as called Christ and the other as the Son of Damneus to make a distinction. But he was writing about James not Jesus - it was James he was trying to identify not Jesus. It could be said then that he only identified Jesus when he called him the Son of Damneus later on. That is why the Christian observation that when Josephus talks about somebody he always identifies them by saying perhaps who their father was or where they came from or what office they possessed the first time he mentions them has no relevance. Josephus has not identified Jesus twice in two different ways. And even if he did it wouldn't prove that the two Jesus' were separate men.

Christians feel Josephus should have written, " “James, brother of Jesus, the son of Damneus" instead of what he did write if the suggestion that the Jesus was not Jesus Christ is true. Maybe he did. The text has been interfered with.

Christians also object that this Jesus was not anointed at the time that James died. But it could have been believed that Jesus was anointed by God's spirit before he was anointed at the ordination ceremony. And Josephus did say that Jesus was so called Christ perhaps meaning he wasn't anointed yet and yet he was being called anointed. It is possible he meant Jesus was not a Christ or called one then in James' time but is now. Josephus may have refused to commit himself to the belief that Jesus was a true high priest owing to the controversy surrounding Jesus' appointment, "Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest".

Jesus Christ was never anointed as king and so could not be considered to be Messiah. The Jews would not have used Christ as a way of identifying him. Simon Magus was claiming to be Messiah and to have been Jesus and his movement was extremely successful. It was believed that John the Baptist came back from the dead and was using the name Jesus. The gospels themselves say that. Josephus could not have been talking about Jesus of Nazareth in the midst of all that confusion. He would have had to give a lot of information to identify Jesus. He didn't. If Josephus mentioned Jesus Christ then why didn't he call him Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus son of Joseph? Why didn't he call James the son of Joseph of Nazareth? Josephus mentioned a lunatic prophet Jesus who taught in Israel but he put this Jesus as being alive in a time long after the demise of the Nazareth Jesus. This lunatic would probably have claimed to have been a Messiah or anointed.

Jesus son of Damneus was the Jesus Josephus mentioned assuming the text is accurate for it has been tampered with.

http://explanationblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/jesus-the-brother-of-james-son-of-damneus

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Conclusion

What Josephus allegedly wrote about Jesus could be a forgery. Even if it isn’t, it proves nothing that is of any help to those who seek to show that Jesus must have existed.

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BOOKS CONSULTED

Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, John W Haley, Whitaker House, Pennsylvania, undated

Asking them Questions, Various, Oxford University Press, London, 1936

Belief and Make-Believe, GA Wells, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, 1991

Biblical Dictionary and Concordance, New American Bible, Living Word Edition, North Carolina, 1971

Concise Guide to Today's Religions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks, 1983

Conspiracies and the Cross, Timothy Paul Jones, Front Line, A Strang Company, Florida, 2008

Did Jesus Exist? GA Wells, Pemberton, London, 1988

Did Jesus Exist? John Redford, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1986

Early Christian Writings, Maxwell Staniforth Editor, Penguin, London, 1988

Encyclopaedia of Heresies and Heretics, Leonard George, Robson Books, London, 1995

Encyclopaedia of Unbelief, Volume 1, Ed Gordon Stein, (Ed) Prometheus Books, New York, 1985

Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995

He Walked Among Us, Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, Alpha Cumbria, 2000

In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1996

Introduction to the New Testament, Roderick A F MacKenzie, SJ, Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 1965

Jesus - God the Son or Son of God? Fred Pearce Christadelphian Publishing Office, Birmingham, undated

Jesus - One Hundred Years Before Christ, Professor Alvar Ellegard Century, London, 1999

Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984

Jesus Hypotheses, V Messori, St Paul Publications Slough 1977

Jesus Lived in India, Holger Kersten, Element, Dorset, 1994

Jesus the Evidence, Ian Wilson, Pan, London, 1985

Jesus the Magician, Morton Smith, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1978

Jesus under Fire, Edited by Michael F Wilkins and JP Moreland, Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan, 1995

Jesus, AN Wilson, Flamingo, London, 1993

Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969

Nag Hammadi Library, Ed James M Robinson HarperCollins New York 1990

On the True Doctrine, Celsus, Translated by R Joseph Hoffmann, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987

Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1994

Runaway World, Michael Green, IVP, London, 1974

St Peter and Rome, JBS, Irish Church Missions, Dublin, undated

The Bible Fact or Fantasy, John Drane, Lion, Oxford, 1989

The Case For Christ, Lee Strobel, HarperCollins and Zondervan, Michigan, 1998

The Case for Jesus the Messiah, John Ankerberg Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1989

The Early Church, Henry Chadwick, Pelican, Middlesex, 1967

The First Christian, Karen Armstrong, Pan, London, 1983

The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, Penguin, London, 1990

The Historical Evidence for Jesus, G A Wells, Prometheus Books, New York, 1988

The History of Christianity, Lion, Herts 1982

The History of the Church, Eusebius, Penguin, London, 1989

The House of the Messiah, Ahmed Osman, Grafton, London, 1993

The Jesus Event and Our Response, Martin R Tripole SJ, Alba House, New York, 1980

The Jesus Hoax, Phyllis Graham, Leslie Frewin, London, 1974

The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Thorsons, London, 1999s

The MythMaker, St Paul and the Invention of Christianity, Hyam Maccoby, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1986

The Reconstruction of Belief, Charles Gore DD, John Murray, London, 1930

The Search for the Twelve Apostles, William Steuart McBirnie, Tyndale House, 1997

The Secret Gospel, Morton Smith, Aquarian Press, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985

The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London, 1905

The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992

The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York, 1973

Theodore Parker's Discourses, Theodore Parker, Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, London, 1876

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Kittel Gerhard and Friedrich Gerhard, Eerdman's Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, 1976

Those Incredible Christians, Hugh Schonfield Hutchinson, London, 1968

Who Was Jesus? A Conspiracy in Jerusalem, by Kamal Salabi, I.B. Taurus and Co Ltd., London, 1992

Who Was Jesus? NT Wright, SPCK, London, 1993

Why I Believe Jesus Lived, C G Colly Caldwell, Guardian of Truth, Kentucky

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The WWW

Who is GA Wells? Rev Dr Gregory S. Neal

www.errantskeptics.org/G_A_Wells.htm

The Silent Jesus

www.askwhy.co.uk/awcnotes/cn4/0325SilentJesus.html#Justin

Apollonius the Nazarene, The Historical Apollonius versus the Historical Jesus

www.apollonius.net/bernard1e.html

Why Did the Apostles Die? Dave Matson,

www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4Why97.html

How Did the Apostles Die?

www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/4/4front97.html

The "Historical" Jesus by Acharya S

www.truthbeknown.com/historicaljc.htm

History's Troubling Silence About Jesus, Lee Salisbury

www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=102

Steven Carr discusses the Christian and apostolic martyrs

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs.htm

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs2.htm

Challenging the Verdict

A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsOne.htm

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsTwo.htm

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsThree.htm#Twelve

The Martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, Peter Kirby

http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/

The Martyrdoms: A Response, Peter Kirby

www.bowness.demon.co.uk/martyrs3.htm

A Sacrifice in Heaven,

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/supp09.htm

The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/partthre.htm

The Jesus of History, a Reply to Josh McDowell by Gordon Stein,

www.infidels.org/library/modern/gordon_stein/Jesus.html

Josh McDowell's Evidence for Jesus - Is It Reliable?, by Jeffrey J Lowder

www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html

A Reply to JP Holding's "Shattering" of My Views on Jesus

www.infidels.org/secular_web/new/2000/march.html

Robert M Price, Christ a Fiction

www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/fiction.html

Earliest Christianity G A Wells

www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/earliest.html

The Second Century Apologists

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/century.htm

Existence of Jesus Controversy, Rae West

www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/littleton/gm1_jesu.htm

Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story by Richard Carrier

www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/index.shtml

Jesus Conference, www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_hall.html

Jesus Conference, www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/jconf_stuckenbruck.html

The Testament of Levi Concerning the Priesthood and Arrogance

www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-08/anf08-07.htm#P378_53868

Sherlock Holmes Style Search for the Historical Jesus,

www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/bp/890/history.html

The Ascension of Isaiah,

www.earth-history.com/sacred-ascension-Isaiah.htm

Apollonius of Tyana: The Monkey of Christ? The Church Patriarchs, Robertino Solarion

www.apollonius.net/patriarchs.html

What About the Discovery of Q? Brad Bromling

www.ApologeticsPress.org

Wells without Water, Psychological Buffoonry from the Master of the Christ-Myth, James Patrick Holding

www.tektonics.org/JPH_WW.html

Critique: Scott Bidstrp [sic] on The Case for Christ by James Patrick Holding

www.tektonics.org/bidstrup02.html

GA Wells Replies to Criticism of his Books on Jesus

www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/errant.html

The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, Acharya S

www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm

Biblical Discrepancies, Todd Billings

www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/archive/billings_bd.html

The Testament of Josephus

www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9623//index.html

This site gives the text of the Testament and the surrounding material in the chapter that contains it with a commentary:

www.theistic-evolution.com/josephus.html .

Josephus Unbound by Earl Doherty

http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/supp10.htm IT CANNOT BE OVERSTRESSED HOW IMPORTANT READING THIS SITE IS. One major point it makes is that Josephus would not have called James the brother of the so-called Christ for he never explained to his readers who would have been unfamiliar with the title Christ what a Christ was. Evidence from Origen and Eusebius who referred to a missing line from the place where this reference occurs indicates that tampering did happen here. Josephus might however not have meant that Christ was a man. James could have been the brother of a Spiritual Christ meaning that James was a spiritual being incarnate and literally the brother of this being but not a biological brother. Josephus speaks of this Christ in concrete terms not because he was a man but because many said they had visions of him so Josephus believed in his existence. I add another possibility. Perhaps brother of the so-called Christ was James' nickname? Perhaps it was a mock title given to him by his Jewish enemies? This could be poking fun at his honouring a non-existent Messiah. He was writing for some Jews though it was mainly Romans so it is possible. Josephus might not have been mocking James but stating his nickname as an irony. Josephus did do things like that at times. We have seen that he did not explain the nickname Christ.

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http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS/LUKECH.htm

This website explores how many of the phrases in the Testament have been plucked straight out of the Luke gospel. Since the site is Christian it argues funnily enough that Josephus took Luke's phrases to make the insertion. Josephus would not go to all that trouble but a forger would. The only motive a forger would have for doing that would be so that Luke's gospel would seem more authentic which was only an issue at the end of the second century and later until the canon was settled. The passage was meant for a generation that read the gospel unlike the generation Josephus was a part of. Josephus would have recommended the gospel had he been using it. Plagiarism like that would have been too out of character for Josephus.

Historical References to Jesus, His Miracles and His Resurrection, Outside the New Testament

www.british-israel.ca/Historical.htm

Thursday, 20 December 2007

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