[Ads-l] What, Exactly, Did Josephus Write About Jesus? (That Is, If He Did Mention Jesus)

[Stephen Goranson]

Apologies if this is too much of a stretch for here, though it is partly about attempts to establish authorship by vocabulary, style, and audience response.

"Two new books address this question, whether Flavius Josephus, who wrote Antiquities of the Jews, or Judean Antiquities, in about the year 94 of the first century CE, mentioned Jesus of Nazareth. This most famous portion of his book eventually came to be called the Testimonium Flavianum, often abbreviated as the TF. Both books conclude that Josephus did indeed mention this Jesus, though they arrive at that conclusion via somewhat different paths. They significantly differ as to exactly what Josephus wrote about Jesus, as far as we can tell, which may have been partially altered in later manuscripts. Though all available manuscripts of Josephus’ book include the passage about Jesus, there are at least three different camps of thought that interpret this fact: either Josephus wrote it all, or nearly all of it; or Josephus wrote something, but the Jesus section was considerably rewritten and expanded; or Josephus wrote none of it, because it was all added, fully interpolated, later.
The new books are:
Daniel R. Schwartz. Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Judean Antiquities, Books 18-20, edited by Steve Mason. (Brill, 2025).
Followed soon after by
T. C. Schmidt. Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. (Oxford University Press, 2025). An open access download is freely available here:
https://josephusandjesus.com/
Schwartz updates and elaborates on what is the current mainstream view, that Christians added text to the original description, to make it more complimentary.
Schmidt argues that the extant text is practically all by Josephus. But Schmidt includes two restored brief omissions--later subtractions, not additions—that he now retrojects here from later translations from the Greek. Put together, in context, the Schmidt-proposed text originally was not complimentary. It was just a report, not a commendation. As such, it would not have been especially useful to early Christian writers, so arguments from silence before Eusebius may mislead. Origen of Alexandria and Caesarea, though, may well have learned from the Antiquities 18 section, in the manuscript version available to him, circa 245-249 CE, that Josephus was not a Christian (see his Commentary on Matthew 10.17 and compare Against Celsus 1.47).
Both Schwartz and Schmidt argue against the view, held by Ken Olson and others, that Josephus did not include Jesus at all, and that such was totally a later Christian addition, maybe by Eusebius. What would Josephus do? Analyzing this question involves checking what else Josephus wrote, to see if the TF suits his work or stands out as foreign to him. See, e.g., K. A. Olson, “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum,” pages 97-114 in Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations (Cambridge: Harvard UP for the Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013).
Schwartz’s mandate, as part of a Josephus series edited by Steve Mason, was to translate and comment on Antiquities books 18 through 20. Antiquities 18.63-64 [3.3], in surviving manuscripts, mentions Jesus and then--note this--later, 18.116-119 [5.1], John the Baptist; Antiquities 20.197-203 [9.1] mentions James, the brother of Jesus.
Schmidt’s mandate was to focus on evaluating the history of scholarship on the question whether and how Josephus mentioned Jesus. And to make new contributions. Schmidt surely provides the most thorough account ever of the reception history of the Josephus TF text and its setting.
Schwartz’s volume, then, offers more on the general context of who Josephus was, and what were his methods and his intended, largely Roman, audience in writing Antiquities, especially in book 18, which was not the best-organized portion of the work. The series editor, Steve Mason, has often written about the audience Josephus wished to persuade in his apologetic presentation concerning the history of his Judean people. Given that Josephus was familiar with Jerusalem and Galilee and Rome, he would have known that some of his readers had heard about Jesus and were curious about his place in history. If the population estimates by Rodney Stark, in his 1996 book, The Rise of Christianity, are even ballpark accurate, then by 94 CE, there may have been over 50,000 current Christians. (Neither book cites Stark.) Because the Schwartz volume conveniently includes book 20, it also addresses the account of James, brother of Jesus and whether it, too, mentions Christ. More could be said, in both books, about the spelling, Chrestus, good, in some accounts, such as Tacitus.
Both books are well produced results of excellent scholarship. A major difference is in the means of access. The Schwartz volume, available only in paper, is expensive. The Schmidt volume is available in paper and also digitally, so it is easier to browse before deciding whether to fully read. If a visit to a library or an interlibrary loan scan is required to consult Schwartz, be sure to include, at a bare minimum, pages xvii, 9, 75-77, 91-94, and 305-306, though, of course, preferably all of it, including Bibliography and Indexes.
The Schmidt book, given its focus, is the more important one for this question, even though, unfortunately, given the dates of publication, it makes only slight use of the Schwartz volume.
Schwartz, understandably, dedicated his volume to the late, great scholar and gentleman Louis H. Feldman, who was so generous with his learning (including to me, in correspondence), but, for example, Schwartz’s bibliography, though it is fully 32 pages long (!), has nine by Feldman, but missed one important publication, Feldman, Louis H. “On the Authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum Attributed to Josephus.” In New Perspectives on Jewish- Christian Relations: In Honor of David Berger, edited by Jacob Schacter and Elisheva Carlebach, 13– 30. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 33. (Leiden: Brill, 2012).
The Schmidt volume may occasionally tilt towards excessive respect of Josephus. For example, we read that Josephus had, from his youth, an excellent memory; at least, he says so in his Life! Schmidt (143) duly recognized that as “likely self-aggrandizement,” but somewhat undercuts that by adding what a productive author he was. More skepticism might be called for when Josephus claimed to know all about the Essenes. His timeline just does not add up; he was not a full Essene initiate, not a reader of the pesharim. It is interesting that Josephus mentions John the Baptist after Jesus--a mistake—but with no connection to Jesus, so having in this case a non-Christian source? (Compare Mandaeans.)
Schmidt shows convincingly that Josephus knew specific people who either knew Jesus or at least knew of him. On the other hand, wondering whether Josephus had access to written official records of the trial of Jesus seems a vanishingly-small possibility.
Any new scholarly treatment of Josephus on Jesus must properly address both books’ insights as well as their debatable assertions.
This is merely a preliminary note and a recommendation of two books. Learned reviews will follow in due course, as well as a dedicated session in the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in November in Boston."






------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org