Peter Kirby

Here is my good ol' Testimonium article:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html

This thread is being opened up for the arguments in favor of authenticity. If you think that the arguments fail, please point out additional flaws in the arguments. If you think that some of the arguments hold up, please indicate why and what shortcomings you perceive in the rebuttals.

Arguments that the Testimonium is Authentic

There are also arguments of various quality that aim to show that the Testimonium Flavianum is partially authentic.

1. The argument is made that much of the vocabulary and style matches that of Josephus. His opening phrase, "Now about this time..." is used regularly to the point of nausea. The description of Jesus as "a wise man" is not typically Christian, but it is used by Josephus of, for example, Solomon and Daniel. Similarly, Christians did not refer to Jesus' miracles as "astonishing deeds" (paradoxa erga), but exactly the same expression is used by Josephus of the miracles of Elisha. And the description of Christians as a "tribe" (phylon) occurs nowhere in early Christian literature, while Josephus uses the word both for the Jewish "race" and for other national or communal groups.

John P. Meier concludes the following from his analysis of the vocabulary of the Testimonium compared to Josephus and to the New Testament: "No one of these differences means all that much; but the accumulated evidence of all these differences may point to an author who is not taking his material from the NT...The upshot of all this is that, apart from Christianon, not one word of what I identify as the original text of the Testimonium fails to occur elsewhere in Josephus, usually with the same meaning and/or construction. As indicated in the first part of this note, the same cannot be said of the NT." (pp. 81-82)

Meier writes: "The comparison of vocabulary between Josephus and the NT does not provide a neat solution to the problem of authenticity but it does force us to ask which of two possible scenarios is more probable. Did a Christian of some unknown century so immerse himself in the vocabulary and style of Josephus that, without the aid of any modern dictionaries and concordances, he was able to (1) strip himself of the NT vocabulary with which he would naturally speak of Jesus and (2) reproduce perfectly the Greek of Josephus for most of the Testimonium -- no doubt to create painstakingly an air of verisimilitude -- while at the same time destroying the air with a few patently Christian affirmations? Or is it more likely that the core statement, (1) which we first isolated simply by extracting what would strike anyone at first glance as Christian affirmations, and (2) which we then found to be written in typically Josephan vocabulary that diverged from the usage of the NT, was in fact written by Josephus himself? Of the two scenarios, I find the second much more probable." (p. 63)

Against this contention, it is maintained that a scribe who had been copying Josephus for the previous 17 books would be able to acquire without effort some characteristics of the author's style. For example, the fact that the phrase "Now about this time..." was used very regularly means that it would come to the pen of a reader of Josephus without difficulty and without the need to postulate that the interpolater was attempting to create versimilitude.

Moreover, it is maintained that the vocabulary of the Testimonium is just as well understood to be the vocabulary of Eusebius. The description of Jesus as a "wise man" is an intentional contrast to the description of men such as Apollonius as a GOHS. The description of Jesus' miracles as "astonishing deeds" is, as Olson points out, "markedly Eusebian." Finally, a reference to Christianity as a tribe (phylon) is found in Justin Martyr (Dialogue 119.4), and such a reference is found in Eusebius himself (Ecclesiastical History 3.33.2, 3.33.3).

Finally, this argument is invalidated by the elements of the Testimonium that contradict the style of Josephus: the three examples noted by Mason above and the reference to "the leading men among us."

2. James H. Charlesworth argues: "We can be confident that there was a minimal reference to Jesus...because once the clearly Christian sections are removed, the rest makes good grammatical and historical sense. The peculiarly Christian words are paranthetically connected to the narrative; hence they are grammatically free and could easily have been inserted by a Christian. These sections also are disruptive, and when they are removed the flow of thought is improved and smoother. For example, once the reference to the resurrection is deleted, the thought moves from Christian continuance active after the crucifixion to the nonextinct nature of the tribe." (pp. 93-94)

Against this, it is maintained that the so-called "Christian sections" are integral parts of the text. The phrase "for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure" refers to the phrase "if it be lawful to call him a man" and, in the present text, explains why Jesus is considered to be more than a man. The phrase "He was the Christ" is presupposed by the phrase that the "tribe of Christians" is named from him, as it has been argued above. And the phrase concerning the resurrection provides the explanation for why those who loved Jesus did not cease to do so. Although it is possible to consider these phrases to be parenthetical, it is also possible to see them as part and parcel of the entire text.

Moreover, if this argument is valid, then it should be valid to excise the entire Testimonium Flavianum because it is parenthetical and because the flow of thought is interrupted by the passage (see the argument above).

3. Steve Mason states, "To have created the testimonium out of whole cloth would be an act of unparalleled scribal audacity." (p. 171) On the contrary, such audacity is paralleled by the extensive interpolations found in the Slavonic Josephus. Concerning the Slavonic Josephus, Meier writes:

The clearly unauthentic text is a long interpolation found only in the Old Russian (popularly known as the "Slavonic") version of The Jewish War, surviving in Russian and Rumanian manuscripts. This pasage is a wildly garbled condensation of various Gospel events, seasoned with the sort of bizarre legendary expansions found in apocryphal gospels and acts of the 2d and 3d centuries. Despite the spirited and ingenious attempts of Robert Eisler to defend the authenticity of much of the Jesus material in the Slavonic Jewish War, almost all critics today discount this theory. In more recent decades, G. A. Williamson stood in a hopeless minority when he tried to maintain the authenticity of this and similar interpolations, which obviously come from a Christian hand (though not necessarily an orthodox one). (p. 57)

Meier adds further bibliographic detail on the Slavonic Josephus on pp. 71-72 n. 5.

4. It is sometimes argued that it is unlikely that the Testimonium was inserted whole-cloth into this part of Josephus' Antiquities. "Further," as Sanders observes, "the passage on Jesus is not adjacent to Josephus' account of John the Baptist, which is probably where a Christian scribe would have put it had he invented the entire paragraph." (p. 50) Meier explains this point in detail:

A final curiousity encompasses not the Testimonium taken by itself but the relation of the Testimonium to the longer narrative about John the Baptist in Ant. 18.5.2, 116-119, a text accepted as authentic by almost all scholars. The two passages are in no way related to each other in Josephus. The earlier, shorter passage about Jesus is placed in a context of Pontius Pilate's governorship of Judea; the later, longer passage about John is placed in a context dealing with Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee in Perea. Separated by time, space, and placement in Book 18, Jesus and the Baptist (in that order!) have absolutely nothing to do with each other in the mind and narrative of Josephus. Such a presentation totally contradicts -- indeed, it is the direct opposite of -- the NT portrait of the Baptist, who is always treated briefly as the forerunner of the main character, Jesus. Viewed as a whole, the treatment of Jesus and John in Book 18 of The Antiquities is simply inconceivable as the work of a Christian of any period. (p. 66)

I do not challenge the authenticity of the John the Baptist passage. However, the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum remains in doubt. As Eusebius shows in his quotation in the Ecclesiastical History, it is possible that the Testimonium at one point was placed after the passage on John the Baptist. Moreover, the interpolator need not have inserted the passage after the one on John the Baptist; to place the passage among the accounts concerning Pilate is at least equally compelling, if not moreso.

5. James Charlesworth writes: "Josephus must have made a reference to Jesus because the passage, divested of the obvious Christian words, is not Christian and is composed in such a way that it is very difficult to attribute to a Christian. What Christian would refer to Jesus' miracles in such a way that a reader could understand them as merely 'surprising works'? Would a Christian have written that 'first-rate men' or 'men of the highest standing amongst us' accused Jesus before Pilate, leaving the impression that he deserved a guilty verdict? Would a Christian scribe have ended a reference to Jesus by referring to 'the tribe of Christians' who 'are not extinct,' as if they should soon become extinct?" (p. 93)

The argument on the non-extinction of Christianity is also made in more detail by Meier: "But the phrase does not stand in isolation; it is the subject of the statement that this tribe has not died out or disappeared down to Josephus' day. The implication seems to be one of surprise: granted Jesus' shameful end (with no new life mentioned in the core text), one is amazed to note, says Josephus, that this group of post-mortem lovers is still at it and has not disappeared even in our own day (does Josephus have in the back of his mind Nero's attempt to get it to disappear?). I detect in the sentence as a whole something dismissive if not hostile (though any hostility here is aimed at Christians, not Jesus): one would have thought that this 'tribe' of lovers of a crucified man might have disappeared. This does not sound like an interpolation by a Christian of any stripe." (p. 66)

Concerning the argument that an interpolator would not comment that the Christians had not yet become extinct, the passage does not imply that the Christians should soon become extinct. Moreover, the statement is just the kind to be expected if the forger were Eusebius. As Olson explains, Eusebius made the argument that Christianity is validated because the followers of Jesus did not abandon him after the crucifixion. The phrase is thus seen to suit Eusebius' apologetic purposes quite nicely.

Concerning whether the passage leaves the impression that Jesus deserved a guilty verdict, Earl Doherty reaches the opposite conclusion: "The words and their context give the impression that the crucifixion was due to 'an accusation made by men of the highest standing among us,' that this was the execution of a wise and loved man, a teacher of truth who was obviously innocent. Nothing could better reflect the Gospel image. But that would mean that Pilate had acted improperly, or that he had been misled or coerced by others. There could be no basis on which Josephus would be led to interpret the event this way, much less put it in writing for a Roman audience. There would have been no channel through which such a judgment would come to him that he would have accepted. And no way he could have avoided explaining himself if he did." (p. 213)

Concerning the reference to "surprising works" (paradoxa erga), it is noted that Eusebius is one Christian who would refer to Jesus' miracles in this way (Ecclesiastical History 1.2.23). Also, if this phrase were used by Josephus, it would not in any way be diminutive. The same phrase is used by Josephus to describe the miracles of Elisha, for example (Ant. 9.182).

6. Meier argues:
Moreover, the treatment of the part played by the Jewish authorities does not jibe with the picture in the Gospels. Whether or not it be true that the Gospels show an increasing tendency to blame the Jews and exonerate the Romans, the Jewish authorities in the Four Gospels carry a great deal of responsibility -- either by way of formal trial(s) by the Sanhedrin in the synoptics or by way of the Realpolitik plotting of Caiaphas and the Jerusalem authorities in John's Gospel even before the hearings of Annas and Caiaphas. Of course, a later Christian believer, reading the Four Gospels, would tend to conflate all four accounts, which would only heighten Jewish participation -- something which the rabid anti-Jewish polemic of many patristic writers only too gladly indulged in. All the stranger, therefore, is the quick, laconic reference in the Testimonium to the 'denunciation' or 'accusation' that the Jewish leaders make before Pilate; Pilate alone, however, is said to condemn Jesus to the cross. Not a word is said about the Jewish authorities passing any sort of sentence. Unless we are to think that some patristic or medieval Christian undertook a historical-critical investigation of the Passion Narratives of the Four Gospels and decided a la Paul Winter that behind John's narrative lay the historical truth of a brief hearing by some Jewish official before Jesus was handed over to Pilate, this description of Jesus' condemnation cannot stem from the Four Gospels -- and certainly not from early Christian expansions on them, which were fiercely anti-Jewish. (pp. 65-66)

On the contrary, the account in the Testimonium is an accurate reflection of the account found in the canonical Gospels. The Jewish leaders bring accusations against Jesus, and Pilate arranges the crucifixion. It need not be assumed that the interpolator would have gone to extravagant lengths to emphasize Jewish involvment.

7. Also contrary to the Gospel presentation, says Meier, is the statement that Jesus "won over" or "gained a following" both (men) many Jews and (de kai) many of those of Gentile origin. Meier argues:
In the whole of John's Gospel, no one clearly designated a Gentile ever interacts directly with Jesus; the very fact that Gentiles seek to speak to Jesus is a sign to him that the hour of his passion, which alone makes a universal mission possible, is at hand (John 12:20-26). In Matthew's Gospel, where a few exceptions to the rule are allowed (the centurion [Matt 8:5-13]; the Canaanite woman [15:21-28]), we find a pointedly programmatic charge to the Twelve: "Go not to the Gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan city; rather, go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt 10:5-6). The few Gentiles who do come in contact with Jesus are not objects of Jesus' missionary outreach; they rather come to him unbidden and humble, realizing they are out of place. For Matthew, they point forward to the universal mission, which begins only after Jesus' death and resurrection (28:16-20). While Mark and Luke are not as explicit as Matthew on this point, they basically follow the same pattern: during his public ministry, Jesus does not undertake any formal mission to the Gentiles; the few who come to him do so by way of implication. (p. 64)

Meier concludes: "Unless we want to fantasize about a Christian interpolator who is intent on inserting a summary of Jesus' ministry into Josephus and who nevertheless wishes to contradict what the Gospels say about Jesus' ministry, the obvious conclusion to draw is that the core of the Testimonium comes from a non-Christian hand, namely, Josephus'. Understandably, Josephus simply retrojected the situation of his own day, when the original 'Jews for Jesus' had gained many Gentile converts, into the time of Jesus. Naive retrojection is a common trait of Greco-Roman historians." (p. 65)

Against this argument, Olson writes:

It is sometimes argued that a Christian author would have known that Jesus did not attract many gentile followers during his ministry, but this is contradicted by Eusebius' testimony. Elsewhere he reports of Jesus that "by teaching and miracles He revealed the powers of His Godhead to all equally whether Greeks or Jews" (D.E. 400). The paired opposition of Jews and Greeks is especially common in the first two books of the Demonstratio, where Eusebius claims, "Christianity is neither a form of Hellenism nor a form of Judaism" (D.E. 11). It is, in fact, the re-establishment of the religion of the patriarchs, who worshipped the one God but did not have the restrictions of the Mosaic law, and thus was "that third form of religion midway between Judaism and Hellenism" (D.E.: Ferrar 8, Migne 25a). The MEN. DE construction used in the Testimonium situates the "nation" founded by Jesus nicely between the two other religions.

8. It is sometimes argued that the statement by Origen that Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ" requires that there stood a reference to Jesus here in the Antiquities. Against this, it is maintained that the reference to "Jesus who is called the Messiah" in 20.9.1, which could be interpreted as "Jesus the so-called Christ," would be sufficient for Origen to make this observation. Doherty suggests that the declaration in Jewish War 6.5.4 that the messianic oracles pointed to Vespasian would have been sufficient for Origen to reason that Josephus didn't believe in Jesus as the Christ (p. 210). I would suggest that so simple a fact as that Josephus was known to be a Jew would have been sufficient in this regard.

9. This broad survey would not be complete without a mention of the discovery of Schlomo Pines, which caused some stir with a different Arabic version of the Testimonium Flavianum in Agapius' Book of the Title, a history of the world from its beginning until 941/942 A.D. Agapius was a tenth-century Christian Arab and Melkite bishop of Hierapolis who wrote the following:

Similarly Josephus, the Hebrew. For he says in the treatises that he has written on the governance (?) of the Jews: 'At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good, and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after the crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.

Some scholars, notably Charlesworth, have been quick to receive this passage as being an important textual witness, as much or even moreso than the earlier Greek quoted by Eusebius. Charlesworth declares: "What is immediately obvious -- when one compares the Arabic and the Greek recensions -- is that the blatantly Christian phrases are conspicuously absent in the Arabic version." (p. 95) Of course, it must be acknowledged by everyone there is some redaction in the Arabic recension: "The possibility that anyone, including Jesus, was the Messiah, was not a proposition that could be taken lightly by any Jew, especially one with the experiences and credentials of Josephus. But it is even more apparent that no Christian could have originated such words as 'he was perhaps the Messiah...' It is best to assume that what Josephus wrote is not accurately preserved in any extant recension (Greek, Slavic, or Arabic); it has been at least slightly altered by Christian scribes." (p. 95) Further, Charlesworth says:

It seems obvious that some Christian alterations are found in the Arabic recension, even if they are more subtle in the Arabic version than in the Greek. Agapius' quotation in Arabic was translated from Syriac, and the Syriac had been translated from a Greek version that seems to have received some deliberate alterations by Christian copyists, and the Greek itself, minus the redactions, ultimately derives from Josephus, who composed the Antiquities in 93 or 94 C.E. Translation from Greek into Syriac and then from Syriac into Arabic is demanded for the tradition in Agapius' work; that means the pejorative connotations at least would have been dropped by each translator, and surely the translators were Christians. (p. 96)

In short, there is not much critical argumentation here, but rather some almost sensationalistic claims, with a purely negative defense emphasizing how late and adulterated the Arabic recension really is. Meier stays within the confines of mainstream scholarship in writing:

Feldman (Josephus and Modern Scholarship, 701) believes that Agapius used both Josephus and other sources and combined them: "We may...conclude that Agapius' excerpt is hardly decisive, since it contains several elements, notably changes in order, that indicate that it is a paraphrase rather than a translation." Nodet ("Jesus et Jean-Baptist selon Josephe") thinks that Agapius represents a deformed tradition of the Eusebius text found in the Ecclesiastical History (pp. 335-36). Personally, I am doubtful that this 10th-century Arabic manuscript preserves the original form of the Testimonium, especially since it contains sentences that, as I have just argued, are probably later expansions or variants of the text. (pp. 78-79)

One might add that this phrase of Agapius' version -- "Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die" -- seems clearly directed against Muslims who held that Jesus was not killed by crucifixion. It is not even certain that Agapius is quoting straight from a manuscript; and if he is, it is certainly very late and corrupted, and thus practically worthless.

10. Finally, the authenticity of the shorter passage in Ant. 20.9.1 would lend support to the authenticity of a reconstructed Testimonium. The identification of James by referring to "Jesus who is called Christ" presupposes an earler reference to Jesus.

This is disputed. There is at least one other occasion in which Josephus identies an individual by identifying his brother and in which this brother is not mentioned earlier in the text.

Wars of the Jews 2.247. "After this Caesar sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to be procurator of Galilee, and Samaria, and Perea, and removed Agrippa from Chalcis unto a greater kingdom; for he gave him the tetrarchy which had belonged to Philip, which contained Batanae, Trachonitis, and Gaulonitis: he added to it the kingdom of Lysanias, and that province [Abilene] which Varus had governed. But Claudius himself, when he had administered the government thirteen years, eight months, and twenty days, died, and left Nero to be his successor in the empire, whom he had adopted by his Wife Agrippina's delusions, in order to be his successor, although he had a son of his own, whose name was Britannicus, by Messalina his former wife, and a daughter whose name was Octavia, whom he had married to Nero; he had also another daughter by Petina, whose name was Antonia."

The name "Pallas" occurs twice in the Wars of the Jews. The first time is in 1.561, but as this is a woman, this cannot be the same Pallas.

This, then, would furnish an example in which Josephus identifies an individual by another who is not mentioned earlier in the Wars of the Jews. Either Josephus assumed a knowledge of the identity of Pallas, or Josephus did not care whether his audience would know who he is.

May a good discussion be had by all!

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

I think you should add this quote from this site on 2nd century Xtianity

• "Let us turn our attention to the eighteenth book, 3rd chapter, ?3 of Flavius Josephus' "Jewish Antiquities." There we find some eighteen lines of text on the person of Jesus. It is even suggested in passing that he might possibly have been much more than a human being. Let us not be too quick to alter course, but rather examine the passage more carefully. In it, the Christians are presented in an entirely a-historical fashion as a single, thoroughly integrated, homogeneous group. Though they number among themselves both Jews and pagans - as is specifically pointed out - they are pictured as single-minded in their purpose and unacquainted with either internal bickering or contending factional strife. Quite in contrast with the situation sketched in the three synoptical gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we are encouraged to believe that unchallenged unanimity rules. Again, they are made to identify Jesus, all quibbling to the side, as `the Messiah,' though the literary sources of the period make it quite clear that the term meant very different things to the various, contending groups in the Jerusalem of the earlier first century C.E. And the brief statement is made to conclude that "To this very day, the Christians who identify themselves by using `His' name, continue their way as a coherent folk."

I think this is a striking argument in favor of interpolation -- that the passage presents a view of Christianity more in tune with the Orthodox ideal of later centuries rather than the incessant faction strife and close relationship with Judaism that prevailed at the time.

As an aside, I find the whole question of the silence about Christianity in Antiquities completely puzzling. Maybe I'll start a thread to discuss that.

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

"a single, thoroughly integrated, homogeneous group ... they are pictured as single-minded in their purpose and unacquainted with either internal bickering or contending factional strife."

Aside from the fact that the Testimonium Flavianum does not actually describe factional strife, what justifies this description of the very short passage? For example, where does the TF say anything about being "thoroughly integrated"? What indicates that the Christians were "unacquainted with ... internal bickering"? Could too much be read into too little?

best,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

thoroughly integrated?

What about "tribe"? Doesn't tribe imply homogenity?

Vorkosigan

Would you say that the Christians were an identifiable, separate group called Christians in the early 90s when Josephus was writing? What would justify Josephus' use of "tribe" or "nation" to describe an essentially religious group that at the time was still sorting out its names, beliefs, identities....

...in other words, mayhap you are right and too much is being read into it, but the underlying point is dead on: the passage appears to describe a Christianity that is much more well-defined than it appears to have been in the late first century.

Vorkosigan

MortalWombat

Note the following:

This to me looks like this passage at least was insterted later.

Ted Hoffman

How so?

MortalWombat

The "to this day" part implies that Christianity had been around for a while when the passage was written, and the "not extinct" part might indicate that the author had knowledge of extensive persecutions.

Vinnie

The nineties ad is sufficient for "to this day" and Christians underwent persecutions before then. Josephus probably didn't expect such a movement to last so long. I could be reading too much into it but that almost sounds like one is shocked Christianity has survived. It's probably not exactly something we would expect or should attribute to a Christian interpolator. If not why whouldd Josephus point out that the "tribe had still not disappeared"? This could also bring up questions about his audience's background knowledge but I'll stop here.

I would recommend skimming Crossan's first few pages on voices of the first outsiders at this point in BOC for those not familiar with the material.

Vinnie

Ted Hoffman

Makes sense.

If the time frame were not long, how do you think would the author have phrased it?