The Jesus Passages in Josephus – a Case Study, part 2a – ”Testimonium Flavianum”: Josephus’ testimony and Witnessing

27 februari, 2011 den 09:25 (ENGLISH POSTS, Gunnar Samuelsson, Josefus, utomkristna vittesbörd)

Part 1
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Part 2a	Part 2b	Part 2c	Part 2d
Part 2e	Part 2f	Part 2g	Part 2h
Part 2i	Part 2j	Part 2k	Part 2l
Part 2m	Part 2n	Part 2o	Part 2p
Part 2q	Part 2r	Part 2s	Part 2t
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Part 3a	Part 3b	Part 3c	Part 3d
Part 3e	Part 3f	Part 3g	Part 3h
Part 3i	Part 3j
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Part 4
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Excursus

This is part 2a of the translation of my treatise Jesuspassagerna hos Josefus – en fallstudie into English.

Den svenska texten.

II. Testimonium Flavianum

Josephus’ testimony

In the extant copies of Flavius Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, there are two references to Jesus Christ. The first and longer reference is found in book 18. It generally goes by the name of Testimonium Flavianum (hereafter the Testimonium or just TF), i.e. (Josephus) Flavius’ testimony (of Jesus Christ). There can be no doubt that in the wording that the text passage of Jesus exists, at least a part of it is composed by a Christian hand. The Testimonium Flavianum has namely a distinct Christian character. After more than a millennium as a positive Jewish testimony of Jesus, this paragraph’s authenticity has in modern times come to very much be called into question.

The issue which needs to be raised is whether only parts of the paragraph are later additions, or if the entire paragraph is an addition to the text Josephus wrote. The pendulum has swung back and forth and at present most researchers seem to advocate that there is a kernel written by Josephus.

The second reference to Jesus appears in book 20, which is the last book, in the form of a subordinate clause concerning the execution of the “brother of Jesus called Christ, whose name was James.” Most scholars believe that Josephus has written this. We shall return to this later on in “III. The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”.

The Testimonium Flavianum reads in full:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out. (Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, 18:63-64)[10]

For the sake of clarity, I have put the parts in bold which show a distinct Christian character. These parts contain such praises to Jesus and Christians as reasonably only a Christian would write, and as we do not have any actual reasons to believe that Josephus was a Christian, they are usually eliminated in the many reconstructions of the Testimonium Flavianum that flourish.The text says that Pilate sentenced him to the stake. The Greek noun stauros (σταυρός), as well as the verbs derived from the word does not primarily mean cross. The collected ancient literature never reveals how the suspension devices were designed. The translation into cross and crucifixion is therefore coloured by the Christian world of imagination and our beliefs that the Romans also used cross beams on their suspension devices when punishing people.[11] Where accordingly the words cross and crucifixion occur in this thesis, there is nothing linguistically to support that translation.

Witnessing

The oldest surviving manuscript of the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus is from the 9^th or the 10^th century, but it does not contain the books 18 and 20 where Jesus is mentioned. The oldest surviving manuscript containing the Jesus passages, Codex Ambrosianus (Mediolanensis) F. 128 superior, is from the 11^th century.[12] The part of this manuscript which contains the Testimonium Flavianum is depicted below. TF begins at line 4 with Γίνεται (arises) and ends on the last line with φῦλον (tribe).

However, the Testimonium Flavianum is attested to far earlier than the 11^th century and by many people, so the focus must be on all those witnesses. The first person to even mention the TF is the Church Father Eusebius of Caesarea in the early 4^th century. He is also the first person to refer to the second Jesus-passage from book 20, about the execution of “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James”, although it frequently and erroneously is said that Origen was the first to make such a reference. Origen, however, relates to another and now lost passage of Josephus, in which also the phrase “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ” occurs.

After Eusebius has reproduced the TF, the paragraph is cited in Greek by several church fathers (albeit that it would take at least a century) with basically the same wording. No deviations of importance exist. However, TF is also translated into other languages, including Latin and Syrian, and there some divergences from the normative text in all the manuscripts of Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews and Eusebius’ Church History (or Historia Ecclesiastica) are found. These different versions will be examined later on in this thesis.

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[10] The translation is made by John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 1:60. Among the many available translations, I have chosen Meier’s, since his translation is the one that is closest to the original Greek text in Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18:63–64:

”Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς σοφὸς ἀνήρ, εἴγε ἄνδρα αὐτὸν λέγειν χρή: ἦν γὰρ παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής, διδάσκαλος ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἡδονῇ τἀληθῆ δεχομένων, καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν Ἰουδαίους, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ ἐπηγάγετο: ὁ χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν. καὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδείξει τῶν πρώτων ἀνδρῶν παρ’ ἡμῖν σταυρῷ ἐπιτετιμηκότος Πιλάτου οὐκ ἐπαύσαντο οἱ τὸ πρῶτον ἀγαπήσαντες: ἐφάνη γὰρ αὐτοῖς τρίτην ἔχων ἡμέραν πάλιν ζῶν τῶν θείων προφητῶν ταῦτά τε καὶ ἄλλα μυρία περὶ αὐτοῦ θαυμάσια εἰρηκότων. εἰς ἔτι τε νῦν τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἀπὸ τοῦδε ὠνομασμένον οὐκ ἐπέλιπε τὸ φῦλον.”

An even more literal translation could read:

“At this time arises Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one shall call him a man. For he was startling deeds’ doer, a teacher of people the truth with pleasure receiving, and [he] won for himself many Jews and also many of the Greek. This was the Messiah, and on accusation by the leading men among us Pilate having him to stake condemned, those who previously had loved him did not cease. For [he] appeared to them on the third day, living again. The divine prophets had spoken of these and ten thousand other wondrous things about him. And up until now the tribe of Christians, named after him has not ceased.”

[11] In his doctoral thesis, Gunnar Samuelsson “investigates the philological aspects of how ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic texts, including the New Testament, depict the practice of punishment by crucifixion.” (Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion, Göteborg 2010.) Samuelson notes that in Hebrew there is no word for the tools that were utilized to suspend people, and therefore a Hebrew word meaning wood was used. In Greek and Latin words with a similar meaning were used, then xylon (ξύλον) and dendron (δένδρον); and lignum and arbor respectively (p. 51). Accordingly one is suspended on wood. The Latin crux means cross, but still could refer to “some kind of vertical object of wood” without a cross beam “– a pole, an erected beam or the trunk of a tree” (p. 28). “The Greek counterparts” to the Latin word crux are stauros (σταυρός) and skolops (σκόλοψ) (p. 27). A stauros means a standing pole and is the word that is used in the TF. In the New Testament the words stauros (pole) and xylon (wood) are used first and foremost. There is no way to determine if the pole was fitted with a cross beam. According to Diodorus Siculus a “σταυρός could be used in an executionary suspension in which nails were used in Hellenistic times” (p. 127) There is no unambiguous report of crucifixion in the preserved materials of Josephus, apart from the fact that also he “implies that nails could be used in the suspension act”. The “only secure conclusion that can be drawn from Josephus’ texts is that the suspension methods might appear rather diverse in different situations” (p. 155–156). It should also be notes that there is nothing to preclude the cross shape. It just was not a particularly interesting factor in the descriptions.

[12] Codex Vaticanus Palatinus, no. 14 (9^th or 10^th century); contains the books 11–17, also Josephus’ Life (Roger Pearse, Josephus: the Main Manuscripts of ”Antiquities”). Codex bibl. Ambrosianae F 128 (11^th century);  contains the books 11–20, also Life. (Roger Pearse, Josephus: the Main Manuscripts of ”Antiquities”)