(Quote) Flavius Josephus. His histories and eyewitness testimonies remain essential to the study of the historical context that gave rise to the origins of
Christianity.
The writings of Josephus are crucially important for several disciplines: Second
Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE, background sources for the early history of
Christianity, historical details of the client kings of the
Roman Empire in the East, and the line of the Julio-Claudian emperors in
Rome. (End Quote) World History Encyclopedia
Antiquities of the Jews
Book 18, Chapter 3, Section 3
3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.
He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross,
(9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day;
(10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
Most scholars believe the Greek text is corrupted and the Arabic version would be correct.They except the second mention of James being Jesus brother but not the text you have quoted from the Greek version.
Ealier christians did not believe Josephus was a christian.
The Christian author Origen wrote around the year 240. His writings predate both the earliest known manuscripts of the
Testimonium and the earliest quotations of the
Testimonium by other writers. In his surviving works Origen fails to mention the
Testimonium Flavianum, even though he was clearly familiar with the
Antiquities of the Jews, since he mentions the less significant reference by Josephus to Jesus as brother of James, which occurs later in Antiquities of the Jews (xx.9), and also other passages from Antiquities such as the passage about John the Baptist. Furthermore, Origen states that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ" 1 "he did not accept Jesus as Christ" 2, but the Testimonium declares Jesus to be Christ. Because of these arguments, some scholars believe that the version of Antiquities available to Origen did not mention Jesus at this point at all.
On the other hand, while this argument asserts that Josephus could not have written the Testimonium in its current form, it also demonstrates, according to some scholars, that Josephus must have written something about Jesus, for otherwise Origen would have no reason to make the claim that Josephus "did not accept Jesus as Christ." Presumably whatever he did write was sufficiently negative that Origen chose not to quote it.
The
Dialog With Trypho the Jew 3, written about a hundred years after the death of Jesus, is Justin the Philosopher's account of a dialog between himself and a Jewish rabbi named Trypho. In it two men debated about whether Jesus was the promised Messiah. Justin makes no mention of the
Testimonium in his efforts to persuade the rabbi, even though: (1) Justin was a noteworthy scholar and was known to have pored over the works of Josephus, whose Antiquities had been written fewer than fifty years earlier; (2) the passage was directly relevant to their discussion; (3) the rabbi would certainly have been impressed by a relevant evidentiary citation from the greatest known Jewish historian.
Justin also fails to mention the passage in his . In fact, the absence of references to the
Testimonium is consistent throughout the work of the Christian writers and apologists of the years 100-300 A.D. It is never mentioned by any author of those two centuries, Christian or otherwise. This passage is first quoted by Eusebius (ca. 315) in two places (Hist. Eccl., lib. i, c. xi; Demonst. Evang., lib. iii); but contextual analysis indicates that it seems to have been unknown to Justin the Philosopher (ca. 140), Clement of Alexandria (ca. 192), Tertullian (ca. 193), and Origen (ca. 230), although each of them was acquainted with the work of Josephus.
The interruption of the narrative by the
Testimonium Flavium (passage 3.3) also suggests that it is an interpolation. In its context, passage 3.2 runs directly into passage 3.4, and thus the thread of continuity is interrupted by the
Testimonium (passage 3.3).
The passage 3.3 also fails a standard test for authenticity, in that it contains vocabulary not otherwise used by Josephus 4.
On the other hand, linguistic analysis has not proven conclusive when compared with other passages in Josephus which likewise exhibit unusual features.
It is argued that "He was [the] Christ" can only be read as a profession of faith. If so, this could not be right, as Josephus was not a Christian and he characterized his patron Emperor Vespasian as the foretold Messiah.
Some of the deepest concerns about the authenticity of the passage were succinctly expressed by John Dominic Crossan (1991), in
The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant: "The problem here is that Josephus' account is too good to be true, too confessional to be impartial, too Christian to be Jewish." Three passages stood out: "if it be lawful to call him a man … He was [the] Christ … for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him." To some these seem directly to address Christological debates of the early 4th century. Consequently, some scholars regard at least these parts of the
Testimonium as later interpolations.
