JOSEPHUS

AND THE NON-EXISTENCE OF JESUS

INDEX - CLICK BLUE TEXT TO NAVIGATE

FOREWORD A preparation for the argument that the best historian around in the century Jesus lived knew he hadn't

JOSEPHUS AND JESUS The content of the short paragraph Josephus allegedly wrote about Jesus

THE TESTAMENT DENIES IT’S HISTORY Astonishingly, the Testament does not claim to be about a historical person but quite the opposite

WHERE DOES IT BELONG? The paragraph does not fit where it is found as if it were a forgery

THE WITNESSES TO THE FORGERY Evidence that the paragraph was inserted by a Christian

CONFLICTS ABOUT THE SHORTNESS It's too short to be authentic

OTHER EVIDENCES OF FORGERY

BOOK 20

CONCLUSION

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FOREWORD

The text of the Testament which is the part of the writings of Josephus the first century historian that supposedly proves Jesus lived follows with the lines before and after in italics:

“An end was put to this uprising. Now about the same time, a wise man called Jesus, if it be right to call him a man for he was a worker of wonderful works and a teacher of men who like to receive the truth. He won over to him many of the Jews and also many of the Gentiles. He was the Messiah or Christ. Pilate at the request of the chief men among us condemned him to crucifixion. When that happened those who loved at from the first did not abandon him because he appeared to them alive on the third day as the prophets of God had forecasted and not only that but ten thousand other things about him. The tribe of Christians called after him are not extinct even today. About this time another sad calamity put the Jews into great crisis and terrible disgusting things happened concerning the Temple of Isis in Rome.”

The purpose of this study on this small piece Josephus allegedly wrote about Jesus Christ is to show that it cannot be used as evidence for anything about Jesus including his existence. In actual fact it makes it likely that he never existed at all. Because Josephus was a Jew and a supporter of the Roman Empire which didn’t tolerate Messiahs and considered allegiance to them to be treason against the divine Emperor in Rome this passage has been inserted or reworked by a Christian. It has solely been Christian copyists who have preserved Josephus's writings for us (page 43, The Marian Conspiracy) and understandably we can be suspicious about this Testament. If a Christian went to the trouble of putting it together and getting it passed off as Josephus' work it would indicate that there was a need to fabricate evidence for the existence of Jesus. There can be no doubt that the passage is principally intended to bolster its main statement that there was a man called Jesus. The other details are just meant to back this up. We refuse to consider attempts to reconstruct the original that Josephus wrote for there is no reason to think he wrote any of the Testament at all.

The funny thing is, Josephus in the Jewish Wars recorded an eyewitness testimony that a cow gave birth to a lamb in the Temple. This was recorded ten years after the event unlike the gospel miracles which were recorded longer after the supposed event. Yet Christians scoff at this miracle and believe the gospel miracle tales. They believe what Josephus allegedly wrote about Jesus Christ and his miracles though it was written longer after. If they did not like Jesus they would be saying that Josephus was unreliable regarding miracle reports.

If you can't be bothered reading on, know that the Testament of Josephus has been tampered with or inserted altogether. Some would say that Occam’s Razor says we should assume as little tampering as we can. But that is only if we can’t believe that the whole thing is an interpolation. And we can. So the simplest belief is that we take the whole thing about Jesus is an insertion for there is no need for it in the text. But say we don’t wish to go that far then Occam’s Razor tells us that the smooth way is to assume that rather than reading, "At this time there was a Jesus" we could read, "At this time there may have been a Jesus" or "At this time there was said to be a Jesus". That makes the whole passage unable to prove anything about Jesus and saves us the trouble of working out all the things we think are insertions.

Whatever this book says there are only three things that need be kept in mind. One, is that Josephus is not a sound witness in regard to Jesus if he did write the piece about Jesus for it was too unlike Josephus to dish out Christian propaganda. Two, if the text has been interfered with there is no reason to assume that the original did not refer to Jesus as a apparition or a lie or something. Three, there is no reason to believe Josephus wrote anything about Jesus at all. We just don't know so we should not be using Josephus to provide evidence that Jesus existed. End of story.

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JOSEPHUS AND JESUS

Flavius Josephus, born in 37 AD, was the most important Jewish historian of the times. This dedicated writer created a monumental history of the Jews called Jewish Antiquities. It was written sometime in the early nineties. That Josephus was no Christian can be gleaned from his book. Yet it contains a piece popularly known as the Testament of Flavius that professes faith in Jesus. This piece can only be a Christian interpolation which was pulled off easily enough because it was nearly all Christians who copied the book for posterity (A Reply to JP Holdings "Shattering" by G.A. Wells). That proves that somebody knew there was no Jesus for the insertion would only have been made to prove that there was one. It is not concerned with showing Jesus to be what Christians believe him to be but only says the things that they believed about him for it only makes statements and gives no verification for them.

Had any of it been written by Josephus who did make mistakes but who told us his sources we would be reading where he got his data from especially when it was controversial data that both Jew and Roman did not want to hear about.

Josephus wrote under the sponsorship of the Romans. That is crucial for understanding why all his alleged references to Jesus are forgeries put in decades later for they say things that offend the sponsors and Josephus could not have dared do that.

The Testament is too dogmatic to be from Josephus. It is in book 18. It tells us about Jesus:

1) That he appeared at the time Pilate put down a sedition when the Jews protested against his using Temple money to bring water to Jerusalem

2) That he was wise and a teacher of those who receive the truth with pleasure

3) That may not have been a real human being – “it may be unlawful to call him a man”

4) That he did miracles - but goes into no detail

5) That he won over many Jews and non-Jews

6) That he was the Christ or the Messiah, God's anointed king

7) That Pilate had him executed by crucifixion to please the leaders of the Jews

8) That his closest friends still believed in him when this happened and remained loyal

9) That he was up and about again on the third day, restored to life

10) That he appeared to his devoted disciples mentioned in 8

11) That the prophets foretold a huge number of marvels about him topping it off with prophecies of the resurrection

12) That the tribe of Christians has not disappeared to this day

The text questions if it would be right to call Jesus a man implying he was a vision or a god or something. The gospels say that Jesus certainly was a human being who had human weaknesses albeit probably not a sinner and very very frequently call him the Son of Man instead of questioning the appropriateness of calling him human. The gospels say that those who saw him after his resurrection had lost their faith up until they saw him. So the author did not know the gospels at all or know the traditions in them or he just didn’t take them seriously. (Not taking them seriously would be a strong sign that somebody knew they were rubbish!) If Josephus had written this he would have got the doctrine of the humanity of Jesus from the Christians and some of the stories about him. The humanity was stressed among the early Christians and this passage must have been written at a time when Jesus came to be seen as divine which happened long after Josephus was dead. The way it says that the tribe of Christians has not vanished implies surprise that it is not gone. In the early Church there were many sects that claimed to be the real Christian faith. This passage had to have been written by a member of one of them who considered the vast majority of Christians to be fakes.

If Jesus existed he certainly claimed to be the saviour. This insulted the gods of Rome and the divine Emperor and therefore the whole Roman political regime. The intolerant Romans would not stand for that either. Now the problem here is that the name Jesus means Yahweh saves or Saviour from God if you like. Jesus used it as more than a name: as a job description. In that context, Josephus would not even have named Jesus in his work even if he did mention him. That means that when he mentioned Jesus twice in his book that it was an insertion each time. That means he never wrote that there was a man called Jesus so the whole Testament is dubious when something so basic to it is and his later alleged reference to James being the brother of Jesus is also fake. Josephus did mention other Jesuses but it was different. The name Jesus was the perfect name for the Messiah because the Messiah was to be the true king of the Jews who would save his people from foreign oppression. Even Jesus’ name implied a possible rebellion against Rome. It certainly implied that Rome had no right to occupy Palestine and would be an encouragement to people who wanted to use violence to break the Roman rule.

Josephus could not slight Rome by saying that Jesus was the Christ for that implied that Rome had no right to rule Palestine and shouldn't have went along with its law that all who claim to be Christ which means political king must be destroyed in the case of Jesus. Rome would not have liked it said that somebody so controversial as Jesus who could have wittingly or unwittingly caused great trouble for Rome was wise. Josephus didn't want his head cut off. Elsewhere Josephus stated that the promised ruler of the world or Messiah according to a divine oracle was Vespasian, the Roman Emperor, who was in Judea when he was declared to be the successor of Tiberias (page 137, The Jesus Mysteries).

Christians respond that Josephus knew there was no harm in Jesus claiming to be the true king for he meant that he was just a spiritual non-political king. But in that case, Josephus would have had to have stated that Jesus was not the Messiah as understood by the Jews who would come to rule the Holy Land and drive away its enemies. He didn't so they are wrong. Messiah meant warrior king. If you don’t like to be classed one of the Mafia you don’t use a Mafia title and claim to be the Godfather.

Jesus wilfully caused a riot in the Temple so how could Josephus praise his wisdom and goodness and example? How could Josephus say that men who like truth listen to Jesus when Rome didn’t listen to Jesus? To say that Jesus taught men who receive the truth with pleasure is to insult Rome which claimed divine protection and inspiration and to insult its laws which were believed to have been guided by the superior wisdom of the gods and the divine Roman Emperor. The Testament lies that Jesus won over many Gentiles when he was alive for he said himself he was sent only to the sheep of the House of Israel and though he was courteous to Gentiles except the pagan woman who he abused and rejected most horribly he did not set out to convert them or welcome them as disciples.

To say that Jesus was a doer of miracles or wonderful works is to insult Rome because these works were nearly always done to draw Jews to a deeper appreciation and commitment to their religion which abhorred Gentile rulers and pagan beliefs. Rome did not want this and found it very offensive. Josephus then did not write this. It is even more offensive when a man claims to be the Christ for then he is doing his miracles to defend this claim which denies the allegedly divine authority of the Emperor.

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JOSEPHUS AND THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION

The Testament says Jesus was crucified by Pilate because of Jewish pressure and died and that his followers remained loving towards him and that then they saw him on the third day risen from the dead and that this fulfilled countless prophecies in the Old Testament.

First of all, would Josephus go to the trouble of detailing that Jesus rose on the third day? He would just say he rose. Christians would use the expression all right because they used it like a creed. They had a habit of saying the Lord rose on the third day.

Josephus was pro-Rome and if he had known that the gospels and Christianity blamed Rome for Jesus' death he would have defended Rome's action and called for the destruction of the gospels. It was too obvious to all that Rome would have wanted Jesus dead for saying he was a king. Josephus never knew the gospels. It appears to be a mark of authenticity when the passage says that Pilate killed Jesus when Christians of the time tried to frame the Jews for it. But not all Christians would have wanted to do that. And the passage does say that Pilate did it because the Jews were behind it which may indicate that he was forced by them. We know that the Jews had nothing to do with the crucifixion so this is a further indication of inauthenticity. Josephus would not have reported that Pilate got Jesus crucified and that the Jews persuaded him to do it because that would have led to a huge scandal in which Pilate would have been pilloried for being soft and giving a bad impression to other nations. There is no way Josephus would have omitted to mention the controversy. And Josephus could not say the victim came back from the dead or that there was reason to think he did for that makes Rome look like an enemy of his God and Rome did not like anything that hinted of that. Any argument for the Testament is best ignored because it could be based on a mistake that just happens to seem to support Christianity and even if it were not we still have too much evidence against authenticity.

Josephus recorded that Pontius Pilate delighted in provoking the Jews which contradicts what he allegedly wrote about Pilate being compelled to murder Jesus. When he spent so much time on Pilate he would have explained why if Pilate behaved out of character with Jesus if there was no contradiction and this material on Jesus was really his work. He said that Pilate provoked the Jews and persecuted then and then we read that at that time Jesus appeared which shows that the Jesus material is faked for it gives the impression Pilate was into pleasing the Jews when the context says otherwise.

All the evidence indicates that if Jesus existed then his followers lost their faith in him when he was strung up. The Testament claims to know that this was not true. He is saying that the Christian Gospels are untrustworthy or that he did not know them which would imply the same thing for in that case he would not have wanted to know them. Josephus, if he wrote it, was not simply recording what Christians taught about Jesus. He wouldn't have made it look like that he was committed to their view of Jesus if he had. Historians get to the bottom of things before teaching.

Josephus was a Jew who would not have needlessly offended his countrymen and women by paying Jesus a compliment by calling him wise implying he was wise to claim to be a Messiah. It seems that the sayings attributed to Jesus would have been doing the rounds in those days and when they said extreme things like that family members should be hated for the sake of Jesus it is hard to believe Josephus would call Jesus wise for he would have looked into the sayings before writing. There are many other similar things in Jesus' sayings which the Christians justify with tortured and complicated "explanations" but which to the newcomer sound terrible.

Jesus made Rome suspicious of what was going on in Israel and Rome would have butchered many innocent Jews thinking they and their hero Jesus could turn nasty and start a rebellion. In the gospel of John we read that the Jews decided that it was better for Jesus to die than for a whole nation to perish over him.

Josephus could not call a man who put the nation at risk of attack by Rome and who caused a riot in the temple and who provoked Pilate to kill him by his provocative words a wise man. When somebody inserted something as minor as that in, the entire passage is probably fake. There is no doubt that if Jesus was really a wise man he would have taught and thought that being ruled by the people of God the Jews is better than being ruled by Rome. Josephus would not eulogise a man who did this.

God raising a crucified man from the dead would be very offensive to Rome. It would suggest that God was in opposition to their law and that the gods of Rome couldn’t stop him. It would suggest that God mocked their law that criminals like Jesus must be put to death in a humiliating fashion. It would suggest that Jesus was indeed the rightful ruler and the Christ and that the Emperor was not to get this devotion instead. Crucifixion was regarded as the will of the god of Rome the Emperor who got his mandate from the gods in Heaven so speaking of the resurrection of a crucified man would have been blasphemy against Rome.

Josephus was paid for his writing job by Rome and was writing principally for Romans and all his writings probably had to be signed by the Emperor. Titus signed his The Jewish War (Josephus Unbound).

Josephus was unlikely to write abut Christ the way he allegedly did for he was a Jew though his sympathy for his people was not very strong. He would not make a fool of himself and give critics a reason to disparage his research by proclaiming a religion he would not join true. An orthodox Jew like Josephus could not insult his faith by applauding Christianity and even hint that his Jesus was God against the first commandment! Even He Walked Among Us cannot refute his orthodoxy and simply says that it can be questioned for he SEEMED to have lived the Roman way too deeply (page 44). Would the pope living with prostitutes mean he did not agree with all his religion taught?

If Josephus had written this material then it is of dubious value for though he might be a reliable historian he was not a reliable religionist. He sold out on his Jewish religion by backing Rome though God said that the Jew should not serve heathenism. He proclaimed Christ to be God's Messiah and prophet yet he stayed out of the Church of Christ.

It seems to be a problem that when the works of Josephus were so greatly respected by the Romans that nobody could have attempted to forge that piece for it would never have been tolerated. But the Mormons have done the intolerable and rewritten their Bible that God wrote, the Book of Mormon, in thousands of places and have more or less gotten away with it. Wouldn't this have been thousands of times easier in an age before printing and where there were few copies of every book about and when the Church was able to burn anything it did not like? And nearly everybody agrees these days that not everything in the passage was originally there.

Some authorities feel that this record is genuine, that it really was by Josephus. Their reasons are spurious however. Even if the record is genuine Josephus got his information from Christians so it is only hearsay and we have evidence from other sources that the information he got was dubious.

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THE TESTAMENT DENIES IT’S HISTORY

Josephus knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards and sideways and would not have declared that the prophets predicted heaps of things about Jesus for that is simply untrue. There are only very scanty predictions that seem to speak of Jesus but anybody could fulfil them and most of the prophecies that Christians and the Bible say are prophecies of Jesus are not this at all. And the man knew that nothing in the prophetical writings suggested anything about the Messiah being restored to life. The line about the prophecies is obviously propaganda for Christ. It reflects the gospel doctrine that fundamentalist Christians like to forget that the resurrection was never meant to prove that Jesus was the Son of God on its own. It had to be prophesied to show that it fitted with the word that God gave before and of course Jesus’ teaching had to be right. You check these out and then you consider the evidence for an actual resurrection. Fundamentalists start with the resurrection and try to make it look like it must have happened to get followers which is not the gospel way. The author of the Testament was using the original method. He wanted people to check out that these things he said about Jesus happened by looking in the Old Testament scriptures for God’s predictions about Jesus. He wrote that Jesus won disciples and was crucified under Pilate and rose BECAUSE the prophets spoke of these and countless others things about him. THE TESTAMENT DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE A TESTIMONY. WHAT IT CLAIMS IS THAT YOU MUST CHECK OUT THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES TO SEE IF WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT JESUS IS TRUE!! This is critically important. It means that even if Josephus did write the Testament it still does not help in the case for a historical Jesus because it depends on human interpretative ideas about Bible prophecies. It is not history that is here but faith. This means that his alleged later reference to James being the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ is put into a new context. It is not saying Jesus existed because he indicated before that that this was a matter of faith. The evidence is overwhelming. Josephus and Rome and the Jews did not know of a Jesus of history.

Perhaps the Testament just calls us to see what the prophecies say and then look at history? It never says the second thing. It tells us that these things happened to Jesus because the prophets of centuries before in the book that God wrote the Old Testament said they happened. Why not say history speaks of the events and so does the prophecies?

The fact that the Testament is faith not history shows that Josephus didn’t write it. He was a historian not an evangelist. A person that cannot be trusted tampered with Josephus which is why the Testament is no good.

When Jesus could not be verified by history but by prophecy then clearly it was because there was no history. Josephus not only denied the existence of Jesus by his silence and other indications but even the person that interfered with his book did it too.

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WHERE DOES IT BELONG?

Does the text about Jesus belong where it is?

Just before it, there is the story of Pilate violently putting down a riot by the Jews who protested when he used holy money to fund a canal to Jerusalem. The story ends with the words, “This was how this rebellion was brought to an end.”

Then it goes on to the Jesus Testament which it begins by saying, “Now about the same time, a wise man called Jesus, etc”.

After the Testament appears the account immediately proceeds to another sad calamity to befall the Jews and then he says he will diverge for a moment to tell the story about a Roman lady Paulina who was fooled for sex by a man she thought was the apparition of the god Anubis in the Temple of Isis. He said then he would return to the story of the Jews as he promised and then he wrote of the calamity that happened to the Jews. So we see then that when he allegedly wrote about Jesus he was determined not to digress without saying. At the time he wrote he was not into wandering all over the place with his words. What he did other times would have nothing to do with this for we all temporarily take on good and bad habits. Therefore the Testament is an insertion by a Christian forger.

The text about Jesus can be extracted and not missed for it is in the middle of a train of thought which proves that it is an insertion for it breaks the train (The Jesus Mysteries, page 137). It is not a weird digression for Josephus was well organised. Some object that since it appears between two paragraphs of separate material that this cannot be proved. But it claims that Jesus appeared after John died so it is out of chronology and the length is bizarre for it is too short for a man who wrote in detail about John and little about Jesus and centred on doctrine.

Because of the lady in the Temple story, Christians argue that the Jesus Testament could be authentic despite looking out of place for Josephus occasionally wandered from the topic anyway. After this Temple story digression which he stated was a digression he went on to discuss the calamity he had in mind which was the Jews been ejected from Rome. He Walked Among Us claims that the story of the lady seduced in the Temple of Isis is seriously out of context (page 43). This story starts with the words, "At this time another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder but I will go back to this later," so this book is lying to cover up the fact that the Testament is what is out of context or to minimise our perception of how out of place it is. It goes as far as to say that the story about the lady is what should be removed not the Testament. This is ridiculous for Josephus explicitly warned that he was digressing so it is not really out of context but no such warning exists for the Testament. The Jesus Testament is still out of context and the story of the lady does not make this any less true.

The only basis on which Christians and the book He Walked Among Us dismiss the idea that Josephus's entire book 18 can do perfectly well without the Testament is that those who think it can see a pattern in the book that deals with disasters that is not there and they argue that the woman is a digression so why couldn't Jesus be? We have seen that the lady in the temple is not an unexpected digression. The Jesus one is in a different category for there is no hint that it is a digression unlike the woman’s story. Josephus would not have started about a Jewish disaster and then got carried away about Jesus especially if he liked Jesus for he would have given what he was going to write about him more thought than treating it as a footnote or impromptu afterthought. He would have written his book out roughly first and so this aberration would have been fixed in the final version.

Josh McDowell's Evidence for Jesus is it Reliable? says that being out of context would not mean the Testament was a forgery because ancient writers often digressed for it was in a time that footnotes and stuff were not thought of. But even if the case is that we don't know if it is a case like that or if it is an insertion by a fraudster we still cannot rely on the passage for evidence about Jesus. And why would Josephus digress so dramatically and not give some warning? The passage sticks out like a sore thumb. The passage starts with "At this time there was a man of wisdom called Jesus". At what time? Certainly not the time when Pilate put assassins in the middle of a Jewish rebellion. Clearly, it does not matter who digresses in ancient writings. What is relevant is, would Josephus digress without indication and was it his style? We know he wouldn't.

Some reason, “It could well be that Josephus was in the habit of inserting material into his finished book which gave the forger of the Testament the perfect chance to put in his little Christian creed. Paulina’s tale could be an instance of Josephus’s habit.” Even if we grant that the Testament is so out of place and he would have slotted it into the context just like he said he was digressing to put in the details about Paulina.

Josephus says immediately after the Testament that another calamity for the Jews happened. No hint was given that the death of Jesus was a calamity for the Jews. He denied it was for he said Jesus appeared after his death and the Jews wanted him dead and nothing bad came to the Jews because of it. The gospel of John says the Jews believed that it was better for Jesus to die than to risk antagonising the Romans who might turn on them all. Therefore the entire Jesus Testament was an insertion, a fabrication.

Josephus’ Testament speaks of Jesus a bit before it relates the terrible things that began to take place after the demise of John. This would contradict the gospels which all say that Jesus was baptised by John and was active before John’s demise and that he stole a lot of the light from John. If any part of the Testament is real then Josephus would not have believed the gospels and considered them to be silly lies. Some believe the time scale is spot on because the gospels speak of Herod thinking Jesus was John raised from the dead which can only mean that the gospels lied about Jesus’ actions and ministry before John’s demise.

If the Testament is not in its right place then that would destroy the link between Jesus and John the Baptist. We would have to wonder why when Jesus and John were so linked in the gospels why the Testament wasn’t put next to some John material. This would stand as a refutation of the gospels and their time-scale. Not that there is a solid link in Josephus except that it is near to it.

The Testament is just too avoidable and awkward where it is to be anything other than an interpolation – the claim that the concept of footnotes didn’t exist in those days and so what would have been footnotes were stuck in anywhere does not wash here. Why? Because even footnotes have some link to the text but the Jesus one has no link at all. Why would Josephus just think of it just like that? If he really liked Jesus he would have put a lot of thought into it and put it in a suitable place. It says he liked Jesus so it is a fake. Josephus would have written his book out roughly first before copying what he finally decided to write into the final manuscript. He had no need to wander from the point and had to be careful as to where he put data in case he would need to go back and revise it again. That was too much of a digression though everybody digresses a bit. This digression is too sharp and unexpected for comfort (Biblical Discrepancies).

Even if the Christians are right that there is no evidence that the Testament can be done without then we still don't know if it belongs there. To trust it would be like trusting a letter from your lover that could just as easily have come from her or a forger.

The fact that the insertion in Book 18 was not stuck in at Book 20 where there is an alleged reference to Jesus makes it plain that the original Book 20 never mentioned Jesus at all.

Josephus recounts the calamity of the protesters being slain first and then the Testament follows straight after and it begins by saying, “Now about the same time, a wise man called Jesus, etc”. So the impression given is that Jesus appeared at the time of the calamity – it has a dating function. But it was not a big enough event for that for slayings of Jews by Romans were common. This indicates that the Testament is an insertion.

Christians will object that he wrote about this time so it could give or take a few years. What use would that be. He says that another calamity befell the Jews and a shamefulness took place in the Temple of Isis at that time as well. He as good as wants the year in and that is how he says it. He wants us to know with sufficient accuracy when these events happened. The events happened in the same year if he is to mean anything at all.

He said that Jesus appeared at the time Pilate had the protesters slain – it was an unnecessary slaying at that for the Romans were able to go among the protestors in plain clothes without fear and then they withdrew their weapons and murdered them. This does not fit the Pilate who wanted to delight the Jews by killing Jesus that we have in the Testament. But enough digressing. He says the shame in the Temple and a disaster befell the Jews at the same time. This makes more sense if you leave the Testament out because then you have the slaying of the protestors and then the Temple shenanigans and the Jewish calamity said to be at the one time. But you can’t do this with the Testament for it says when Jesus appeared and gives events such as Jesus getting followers and then being killed which did not happen at the one time but would have taken a few years.

So what Josephus says is that at the time of the protesters being murdered, Jesus appeared and worked, died and rose and then at the same time the Temple seduction and the calamity happened which makes no sense because Jesus’ tale would have been a more long term thing spanning up to three years. When you leave it out the times make sense.

Another reason the Testament does not fit is that if Josephus liked Jesus so much then why would he describe the expulsion of Jews from Rome as another great calamity for the Jews for that would be disrespectful to Jesus? There is no comparison between the Messiah’s murder and Jewish men being exiled from Rome. And the Jews didn’t feel that Jesus’ death was a calamity.

The Testament does not belong in Josephus at all. End of.

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THE WITNESSES TO THE FORGERY

When were the forgeries supporting Christianity implanted into Josephus' opus? Nobody knew about them before 320 AD. If the interpolations were in the early versions of Josephus the early Christian defenders of the faith would have used them to support their religious stance. Eusebius was the first person to write about the longer one and he did it in that year in his Demonstration of the Gospel. Eusebius stated that lying to get people to believe in Christianity was to be commended which is why many believe he was the forger of the Testament.

Origen in his famous Against Celsus, recorded that Josephus did not receive Jesus as his Saviour, Lord and Messiah and was amazed when Josephus praised James who was unjustly executed and who Josephus regarded as the brother of Jesus. It would be more natural, as well, for Origen to be amazingly amazed at what Josephus supposedly wrote about Jesus in the famous Testament of Flavius. It was not in the text in those days. When Origen was so gobsmacked then his Josephus did not mention Jesus in nice terms at all. Origen did not quote the stuff about Josephus saying Jesus was the Messiah and rose from the dead to Celsus though he wrote a lot against Celsus to defend the faith against Celsus’ scepticism about Christianity’s’ claims meaning it did not exist in the works of Josephus in his time. Celsus rejected Jesus’ morals and Origen couldn’t even use Josephus to argue that Jesus had been stated by a non-Christian to have been a good man. Josephus never mentioned the man at all.

Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Cyprian did not know that Josephus had any faith in Christ therefore their silence proves that he didn't. It must have been a Christian copyist who inserted the Testament. This Christian forger of the Testament did not know much about Jesus and had leanings towards the Christian tendency to deny that Jesus was a proper man but just God or an angel in a human body without a human mind. The interpolation was put in by somebody who did not believe that Jesus was God for that is too foundational a detail to leave out.

It is surmised that the Testament was not mentioned in the first few centuries because the existence of Jesus was not questioned by any important people or groups. The existence was questioned but lets pretend the objection is right. The resurrection and the miracles were questioned as were the Messiahship and the divinity of Christ. The Christians had four very serious reasons then to use and cherish the text and they did not because it did not exist. They would not have known that it was a fake so that could not have put them off. The text would not be still extant if it had been recognised for the fraud it was.

Our oldest manuscripts containing the passage all hail from the eleventh century and all three can be traced back to one ancient manuscript according to a scholar named Bammel. So it was no trouble for Christians to interpolate the whole Testament to Jesus.

Why does the Testament follow the same structure and much of the same train of thought and have so much wording in common with this, "Among these men of war there was to be found a warrior and he was strong and mighty. His personality drew many of the Cicilians to him. He was a man of holiness and many sought after him for his wisdom. He lead the Cicilians to prayer at dawn and again in the middle of the day and then at twilight and he never failed to honour his God whom he called Mithras" (www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9623//index.html). We know the early Church was heavily influenced by Mithraism and this was admitted by leading Christians of the time and here we have a text from the first century or before about a man who died in 41 BC that seems to have been the inspiration and structure for the forged Testament in Josephus. The Testament is a plagiarised version of the story of the warrior and the warrior was called Lucius Agrius.

The New Testament says the early Church was Jewish. The notion that the Gentiles were not compelled to become Jews before they could become Christians after 50 AD is wrong. Read my book on the alleged proofs that they were not obliged, Jewish Christianity is Real Christianity. Anyway, Christianity was deeply Jewish when Josephus was sixteen (Acts 21). When he was that age, according to his own account, he had an interior struggle over which of the sects available in the Holy Land he should join. "When I was about sixteen years old, I decided to investigate several sects that were among us - the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. For I thought that by this means I might choose the best. So, I contented myself with hard fare, and went through them all" (Josephus: Complete Works, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI, 1960, or page 124, Dead Sea Scrolls, Kenneth Hanson, PH.D, Council Oak Books, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1997). Then he says that he stayed with a hermit in the desert for three years before joining the Pharisees at 19.

In 53 AD at the age of 16, Josephus did not investigate the Christian sect probably because he was convinced that it was not worth investigating perhaps because it was too obvious that its hero Jesus was a fictitious man. He felt sure that Jesus was not worth thinking about. This proves that he could not have written the things he allegedly wrote about Jesus for if they had been true he would have studied the Christian sect. He evidently did not believe them not even when he became a Pharisee joining the sect that had the most news about him. Some explain that Christianity was a branch of Phariseeism but the Pharisees expelled it and Jesus hated that group. Some say that Josephus did not bother investigating all the sects. But Essenianism had many similarities with Christianity with the added superstition of occultism and he sussed it out. Josephus would have investigated Christianity if it had been impressive. He knew it was not so he did not write the Testament.

Everything is against the authenticity of Josephus' text and its alleged value for Christians.

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CONFLICTS ABOUT THE SHORTNESS

The most striking thing about the material about Jesus called the Testament in Josephus' book is its caginess and brevity and what is more remarkable that he wrote long chapters on insignificant and uninteresting people so you would expect him to write more about Jesus (History's Troubling Silence About Jesus). For example, just immediately after he allegedly wrote about Jesus he wrote a longwinded piece about an insignificant lady called Paulina and we are supposed to believe that Jesus was important to him and he wrote just a few lines!

You would think a forger would put in more to convince unbelievers but he wanted his interference to be undetected long enough for it to be accepted as part of the original or did not get the chance to go further. But forgeries are better short. They are less easily found out then. The forger did not know that the miracles were being questioned by the Jews who thought they were satanic magic which was why did he not defend them. This proves that the author was not Josephus.

Josephus would have said if Jesus claimed to be the Son of God - he was a historian. The Christian settled for saying he was a wise man thus giving approval for any claim that religion said Jesus made.

In Book 18, all this Jesus stuff took about six lines. If Josephus really set this down about Jesus he would have written more than that especially if he admired him so tremendously. Christians say he didn't have to for the gospels were around for anyone that wanted further information. But the material contradicts the gospels so that is the end of that. And Josephus plagiarised many things that were already put down in writing. Josephus would not have wanted people to go to the Church for more information for it had only been oral tradition and he could not support the Church because of how the empire would have felt about it. Historians recommend written records not hearsay.

Josephus either did not know or did not believe the gospels when he did not tell us to go to them if they were the great historical documents that Christians say.

It is thought that the reference to Christ in Book 20 that says so little about him might indicate that Josephus must have written something about him before for then he would not settle just for a superficial mention of him then. True, but it does not mean that he wrote what Christians would want him to write. And it could just as easily indicate that he wrote and knew nothing about and had no interest in Jesus but just mentioned Jesus to show he meant James the brother of Jesus so that the people would know who he meant.

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OTHER EVIDENCES OF FORGERY

If what Josephus wrote about Jesus was real it would have been known to Tacitus the Roman Governor of Asia who supposedly wrote about Jesus in 112 AD. But Tacitus or a forger writes in such a way that it is clear that he contradicts Josephus. Tacitus undermines the thought that it was Jesus who was this Christ and that he was crucified. He sees no wisdom in Christ or Christianity.

Tacitus makes it plain that the Christians were detested in Rome because they got blamed for the fire of 64 AD which some believed that Nero himself had started. How then could Josephus have spoken so well of Jesus or of James his brother either? The official verdict in Roman law was that Christians had a murderous hatred of Rome.

You will see evidence that there were countless Christian believers in the early Church who did not subscribe to the thought that a supernatural figure died under Pilate by crucifixion and rose again from the dead in the first century. Would Josephus then simply talk about a man who there was so much controversy about as if he were a real flesh and blood man? No. He would have had to give his reasons for saying Jesus was a man.

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BOOK 20

In Jewish Antiquities Book 20 Josephus seems to have written about the death of James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ. We know that Origen and others declared that Josephus wrote more than that and that his piece was full of praise for James. This doesn’t exist in the recognised version. But it does show that a lot of tampering went on in the book at this point so we can’t trust even the accepted version. Maybe somebody who knew of the tampering tried to reverse it and wasn’t sure exactly how to restore the text to the original wording and left in the reference to Jesus?

The reference to brother of Jesus was possibly a title of James’. It does not prove that he really was a brother or that Jesus existed. Onesimus was declared a blood brother to Philemon by the apostle Paul though he wasn’t a relation at all. It is entirely possible that James had visions of a man claiming to be a brother he never heard of and who was crucified in obscurity and came back from the dead. We know for a fact that it was men claiming they had apparitions of a resurrected saviour who said he was crucified that started the Church. There is no evidence that they knew him as an ordinary man or seen or otherwise heard of his crucifixion and they spoke of him in a way that denied that they knew him.

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CONCLUSION

The entire Testament of Flavius in book 18 is a forgery as is the brief reference to Jesus in book 20. The forger knew that Josephus knew there was no Jesus and that was why he put it in. Otherwise all he had to do was to say there was a sect called Christians who said x, y and z about Jesus. The reasons to believe that Josephus never mentioned Jesus at all are more numerous than the reasons to believe that he did. All the latter can be refuted and have been so when Josephus mentioned lots of Christs but put them in a bad light it is obvious that the main Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, could not have existed for he never gave him so much as a line. If Jesus was so obscure that he was not worth mentioning then why believe he existed at all? Why not be agnostic at least?

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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 Inquest, Charles Foster, Monarch Books, Oxford, 2006

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

The Marian Conspiracy, Graham Phillips, Pan Books, London, 2001

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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