The Testimonium Flavianum: 3 Views

Typically only Christians call Jesus, “The Christ”.  There is one apparent exception to this. Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, not only calls Jesus “the Christ”, but also admits that Jesus was perhaps not a man, was a prophet, and appeared to others post-mortem.  

An obvious problem arises.  Josephus wasn’t a Christian or even Christ-curious! His entire career he remains a Jew who did not seem to be Christian, which pretty incompatible with the above.  This is confirmed by Origin in Against Celsus:

“For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple”¹

All of Josephus’s Christian tendencies come in one passage, The Testimonium Flavium, which reads as follows:

“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 among us, had condemned him to the cross;those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. 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. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”²

The most common way to reconcile this passage is to say that Christians changed the text of Josephus. This view has existed since the 16th century ³. There’s still an additional question though.  If the text was altered, we ought to ask, altered from what?  This article will give an introduction to versions of the following 3 views.  

1. The Testimonium was a complete forgery

2. The Testimonium  was neutral to Jesus, than altered by Christians

3. The Testimonium  was negative about Jesus, than altered by Christians 

Even within these views there is still internal division.  If the text is a forgery, who forged it? If the text was altered, what’s the original?  This article will not cover every view.  Rather, it should act as a quick taster of some of the views on this question

View One: Creation From Nothing

Christian authors prior to the church father Eusubius who are aware of the Testimonium, act almost as if it didn’t exist.  Thus scholars such as Ken Olson posit that the text is entirely an invention.  Olson in particular holds that the Church Father Eusebius invented the Testimonium himself.   When we look at the original text of Josephus many of the mythical sentences are too tied to the original text to be additions.  For example Josephus saying “if it be lawful to call him a man” is tied to the phrase “Jesus, a wise man”.  The phrase “For he appeared to them alive again, the third day: as the divine prophets had foretold” relies on being an explanation to “those who loved him at first did not stop”.  

Olson suggests that it is the church father Eusubius himself forged this text.  He proves this through an argument from the word choice.  For example Josephus uses the word φῦλον( phylon) meaning clan, race, nation, to refer to Christians (“A nation of Christians”).  It would be unusual for Josephus, as a Jew in his time, to see Christians as another nation.  

Another example, the Testimonium calls Jesus “a wise man”.   In Antiquities Josephus uses this title to refer to people like Solomon⁴ and Daniel⁵.  Neither of these men are potential miracle workers like Jesus.  Eusebius on the other hand calls both philosophers and miracle working prophets wise men.⁶  This suggests that even the less supernatural sections of the text were made by Eusubius.⁷

View Two: Layers of Forgery

There are a few issues with the idea this text was entirely made by Eusubius.  For example, as asked by John Meier, why would Eusubius forge a text about Jesus that is pretty imperfect.  The Testimonium says:

“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man; if it be lawful to call him a man”

If Eusubius could have written anything why not write something like 

“Now there was about this time Jesus, God Incarnate.”

Further, scholars such as Sabrina Inowlocki have done studies on how Eusebius used texts.  She found that while Eusubius alters quotes he doesn’t fabricate them entirely⁸.  Further, Manuscripts such as Agapius’s Arabic manuscript and Michael’s Syriac manuscript seem to preserve more ancient versions of the text.  That leaves the question of how the original text was altered.  The scholar Dave Allen proposes a model seeing three layers of redaction.  First, we start with a Josephan core. Based on Olsen’s work we can reasonably say that  after the core, Eusubius made adjustments to the original text.  Then other scribes altered the Eusubian text giving us our modern text.⁹

View Three: Josephus Against Jesus

The final view is that Josephus initially wrote explicitly against Jesus, then Christian scribes changed his words in reaction to negative material.  The proof for this view doesn’t start in Josephus, rather with a different source, that of Tacitus. Tacitus writes in his Annals, 

“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.¹⁰

This neutral comment got no alterations.  So then some ask, why would a neutral comment by Josephus get altered.  Some, such as Clyde Pharr and Albert A. Bell, Jr. posit that Josphus initially made a negative claim about Jesus, that Christians edited to cover up.  As Pharr mentions Josephus seems to ignore Messianic discussions, never mentioning the word ”σωτήρ” (Sotir, Savior), except in passages on Jesus.  This suggests that Josephus perhaps wouldn’t care for the Christian sect which puts so much hope in a Messiah.  Pharr notes that Josephus seems to be weary about calling Jesus “Christ” in other places, perhaps even calling him “The so-called Christ”.  It’s also pretty well agreed that Josephus was not a fan of Christianity.  Further, the earlier statement of Origin is taken by Pharr to be evidence of an explicitly anti-Christian statement.¹¹ Bell adds evidence from the passage after, which is about  Paulina and Mundus.  As Josephus relates Paulina was a virtuous woman who was loved by Decius Mundus, a godlike man, who is initially rejected but gets his way with the help of Anubis.¹²  Bell claims that this can be taken as a mocking of the annunciation.  We see this in the reception of Josephus.  The Christian author Hegesippus wrote books adapted some of Josephus’s work and quotes this story as an example of how depraved the Christ-killing Romans were.  Hegesippus changes certain details to distance the annunciation from this story.  Thus it seems, at least some interpreted this passage as mocking Jesus¹³.

Conclusion 

The debate over the Testimonium is one of the most interesting in the study of Christian Origins. None of these models are perfect. These also aren't the only models to answer the question. Hence, more inquiring needs to be done into this question.

1. Origen, Against Celsus 1.47

2. Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3 Section 3

3.   Whealey, Alice. "The Testimonium Flavianum." A Companion to Josephus (2015): 345-355.

4. Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 8, Chapter 2

5

1. Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 10, Chapter 11

6. Eusebius , Against Hierocles 4

7. Olson, Ken A. "Eusebius and the" Testimonium Flavianum"." The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61.2 (1999): 305-322.

8. Alice Whealey, Eusebius and the Jewish Authors: His Citation Technique in an Apologetic Context. By Sabrina Inowlocki., The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 59, Issue 1, April 2008, Pages 359–362, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flm169

9. Allen, Dave. "A Proposal: Three Redactional Layer Model for the Testimonium Flavianum." Revista Bíblica 85.1-2 (2023): 211-232.

10. Tacitus, Annals 15.44

11. Pharr, Clyde. “The Testimony of Josephus to Christianity.” The American Journal of Philology, vol. 48, no. 2, 1927, pp. 137–47. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/290568. Accessed 4 Sept. 2024.

12. Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3 Section 3

13. Bell, Albert A. "Josephus the Satirist? A Clue to the Original Form of the" Testimonium Flavianum"." The Jewish Quarterly Review 67.1 (1976): 16-22.