aa5874

The written statements from the NT and church writers claimed Jesus was extremely popular and had thousands of followers and that Jesus was worshipped by Jews as the son of the God of the Jews.

Now, the teachings of the disciples that "whoever believed in Jesus woud be saved" would have offered Jews an unprecedent alternative tio Temple Worship.

If Jesus did have thousands of followers and his disciples, like Peter, did manage to converts thousands of people sometimes daily, I would expect Philo and Josephus to write about Jesus.

Elijah

So none of those names you expect to mention Jesus except for Philo and Josephus? Is there anyone else? Josephus has a Jesus reference so can't really be used for an argument for silence no matter how credible the reference is. And which text of Philo's do you think should have mentioned Jesus?

Toto

Justus of Tiberias in particular is a Jewish historian who should have mentioned Jesus, if Jesus had been of any significance in first century Galilee. Justus' work has not survived, but he was criticized by later Christians for omitting Jesus.

There's no sense in Elijah asking any more about Philo until he does the background reading from the above thread. That thread gives a very nuanced survey of writers from the era and discusses exactly why they might have been expected to mention Jesus or early Christians.

Otherwise, this is just getting repetitious.

Ben C Smith

Justus of Tiberias is the only real candidate I have seen for an historian who perhaps should have mentioned Jesus but did not.

Philo is a no-go. He lived in Alexandria, and therefore failed to mention scads of local Palestinian figures.

Ben.

ETA: The presence of the rest of the historians on that list from Iasion depends completely upon Jesus being at least as famous as the gospels make him out to be, and in some cases far more so. All one has to do is go through the list and see how many of the writers mentioned Theudas, for example, or some of the other rabble-rousers in this period, or even John the baptist. I mean, giving Plutarch (!) a rating of 4. Really now.

Elijah

So the only real example of historian omitting Jesus who should of supposedly spoken of him we don't have a text of? Not much of an example. It looks like there is an absence of evidence for the absence of evidence argument.

If Philo is the prime example then the text where you think he should be mentioned shouldn't be such a big deal.

Ben C Smith

Justus is not an absence of evidence. It is quite certain that he did not mention Jesus.

Ben.

Elijah

Yea but without the text we really can't tell if the text should have. No fragments or anything?

Amaleq13

We have evidence from Christian critics complaining that he lacked any reference to Jesus.

It is actually quite strong evidence that he made no reference to Jesus.

Toto

Why don't you read up on the question at the links so you can at least make an informed comment? If you had, you would know that there are descriptions of what Justus wrote, but no surviving text. We can be sure that he wrote about the times in which Jesus would have lived, but that he didn't mention Jesus.

Philo is not high on my list. The only reason that he might have mentioned Jesus is that his philosophy is so much like later Christian philosophy, and if Jesus were preaching something along those lines, Philo might have noticed. But if you assume that later Christians borrowed his ideas, there would be no particular reason for Philo to mention Jesus or early Christians.

GakuseiDon

We really only have a title: "A Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews in the form of a genealogy, by Justus of Tiberias."

Assuming a historical Jesus in advance, it's possible that the reason Jesus wasn't mentioned was because he wasn't a king. Without having the text available, we don't know if his book looked at pretenders to the throne. The lack of reference to Jesus may have been disappointing to the Christians in Photius's day, but if Justus was only looking at Jewish kings, then it may not be too surprising.

One thing that struck me when I read Ben's page is this comment by Photius:

"Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged, he does not even mention the coming of Christ, the events of his life, or the miracles performed by Him."

This appears to be a recognition that Jewish writers were noticeably silent on the topic of Christ, even up to the 9th C when Photius lived. It is an indication that we can expect that such writings from among early Jewish sources are going to be rare.