ATHEIST FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA INC

ON THE HISTORICITY OF JESUS CHRIST

The issue of the historicity of Jesus Christ has zealously kept busy a great part of humanity from the 1st century C.E. until today. On this subject there are, roughly speaking, three categories of people. (1) Those who religiously believe whatever is written in the Gospels and Catechisms of the various Christian sects. For these people both the divinity and the historicity of Jesus Christ are given. On account of religious faith they do not find necessary scientific and historical proofs and they do not search for them. (2) Those who accept that indeed there was some man, named Jesus, who was not god but the leader of a movement. His followers deified him and characterized him as the mythological Christ after his death by making up and attaching to him diverse legendary stories. These people, in other words, accept the historicity of Jesus the man, but not his divinity. (3) Those who insist that the Judaic idea about Christ (Messiah), which already existed for a very long time, was in the end attached to a nonexistent mythological person whose name for some reasons was Jesus. These people, of course, deny both his divinity and historicity.

The partisans of each of these three categories present many reasons in order to justify their points of view and stances. We will not spend any time with these reasons here. They have been discussed and written a good many times. Also, the religious faith of the first category is not included in our scope. In this work, we take the scientific approach and not a religious one. Religious faith has no place in science and should not be muddled with the completely different concept of scientific faith. However, we emphasize that: During the last 250 years a great number of scientists, historians, theologians and whole university schools have spent enormous amount of time, energy and money researching the possibility of a Historical Christ hidden in the numerous religious documents of the various Christian sects. Apart from the Old Testament, these documents are: The New Testament, an extensive and multifaceted Apocryphal bibliography, the Holy Traditions and the different Catechisms. If we overlook the tremendous number of contradictions, errors, illogicalities, etc. that they contain, we see that behind all this extensive bibliography, initially, there are various primordial Christian societies, each of which says its own perceptions and likings about this legendary person. What is stated in the Gospel according to Luke, 2:34, “behold, this (Jesus) is set … to a controversial sign” is not a prophesy of a future contingency, but it is the then existent situation. Already from the 1st century C.E. Jesus Christ was a controversial and fervently disputable sign among the many Christian sects, societies and groups. Common characteristics of all these inchoate, archetype Christian societies were an immediate eschatology and total demerit of the existing world together with an immediate apocalyptic messianism. Horror and terror dominated these societies, for according to their beliefs the end of the world was already in front of their doors. The judge Messiah would appear in any moment to renovate everything in this world and woe and thrice woe to those that he would punish. Therefore all the efforts of all those scientists and university schools ended up with a phantom (phantasm) and not a Historical person.

Thus in this paper we would like to make certain remarks on the historicity of Jesus Christ which usually do not receive due attention and emphasis and which in our opinion are the more important. In short, we will present the reasons that are not well emphasized, but are sufficient in concluding: “It is not possible, at least per time, to consider Jesus Christ of the Christian religion as a Historical person.” We must say that this conclusion has to do with the second category. That is, we eliminate the historicity of someone, named Jesus, who was so insignificant that he went unnoticeable by History, and to whom his followers, either in life or after death, attached many mythological stories in order to transmute him to Christ. This Christian Christ is not tantamount with the Christ – Messiah of the Judaic messianic tradition. Even though the Christians used this tradition very heavily, they created a Christ hybrid, because in order to justify their beliefs and theses they heavily distorted and misconstrued the Judaic scriptures and traditions.

Except for some references of very doubtful origin and which are very insignificant to be examined here, the people who assert that Jesus was indeed a Historical person, in accordance with the criteria that the science of History demands, mainly adduce the following elements: (1) Two references from the Jewish Historian Josephus Flavius Ben Mattitiau (37-95 C.E.). These are located in his work Jewish Antiquities written in 93-94 C.E. (2) A reference from the Roman politician and Historian Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 C.E.), which is located in his work Annals written in 110 C.E. (3) A reference from the Roman Historian Gaius Tranquillus Suetonius (69-140 C.E.), which is located in his work The Lives of the Twelve Caesars written in 110 C.E. (4) An epistle to the Roman Emperor Trajan from the Roman Governor of the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor, Plinius the Younger (62-113 C.E.) written in 107 C.E. To keep this paper short, we are not going to recopy these passages here. The interested reader can easily find all these in hundreds of volumes of pertinent bibliography.

The first reference from Josephus (J.A. 18:3:3 or 18:63-64) is our central point of commendation. Therefore we will make more comments and remarks on this in the paragraphs that follow. It is the strongest reference bearing witness about Jesus Christ even though it is quite short. As it stands written it aims to verify Jesus Christ’s historicity. That is why many times we see it by itself as the proof of Jesus Christ’s historicity in small articles of periodicals and newspapers. For the remaining ones we restrict ourselves to saying that: The second reference from Josephus (J.A. 20:9:1 or 20:200) is only a line within another serious matter that the Historian develops. Its aim is not to bear witness to Jesus Christ’s historicity (see J.A. 20:9). Without the first reference the second one would have nil historical value. Exactly the same things are true for the other references, which simply talk about or verify the existence of Christians who believe in some Jesus, Christ, Christus (and even Chrestus). Consequently they refer to Jesus only indirectly and therefore have no value for proving his historicity. Also, besides the epistle of Plinius, in which the Governor asks the Emperor how to treat the Christians of his province, all the other references written together do not fill even one page. For many reasons developed by the most important learned researchers in the last 250 years (whose long name-list we omit here), among whom there were many Christian theologians, all these references are considered to be purposeful forgeries and / or interpolations of the later Christian copiers. Others insist that they are partial forgeries and locate the inserted forged points in them. Finally there are a few who accept them as authentic the way they stand. All the reasons that these three groups invoke have been published in hundreds of books and articles. We are not going to repeat the same here. The interested reader can easily find them all and decide for himself. Let us not forget, however, that the earliest manuscripts of all these writings are from the 11th century C.E. and afterwards. No originals have survived. References to them by other writers occurred a few centuries after the time of the originals. E.g. the very important reference from Josephus appeared for the first time in the works of Eusebius of Caesarea in 314-315 C.E., and about 70-80 years after him in the works of Jerome. It is not found in the numerous works of Origen before them. But even much later, the bishops of Constantinople, the Judeo-Christian Ioannis Chrysostomos and the learned Holy Photios did not know about it.

Let us for a moment assume that all of these references are authentic as we have them. Nevertheless, they have no significant gravity in proving the historical existence of Jesus Christ for the following reasons: (1) Besides the first one the others do not verify anything from the Gospel legends. Only the first one does this very briefly, since it is a paragraph of 7-8 lines. (2) The others, besides that they are too short and so inadequate to sufficiently develop anything, are located in the midst of other issues and their goal is not to bear witness to the historicity of Jesus. (3) All the references are quite posterior and not written by contemporaneous writers or eyewitnesses. (4) Above all, the main reason for which these references fail to have any historical meaning, even if we do not take into consideration the fact that they are posterior, is the fact that they do not carry us back into the years and to the numerous events that the Gospels expose. That is, they do not take us back before 35 C.E., which is the upper limit for the year of the death of Jesus Christ of the Gospels, who performed miracles and wonders and the mobs followed like crazy, etc.

Consequently the burden of proof of the historical existence of Jesus Christ lies to the greatest extent on the first reference from Josephus. As this appears in the extant Greek manuscripts, it has received the title “Testimonium Flavianum” in the realm of research. Although it was written 60 years after the death of the putative Jesus and not by a contemporaneous author (as e.g. Philo Judaicus Alexandrinus) or an eyewitness (as e.g. Pilate), without this reference all the controversies about the historicity of Jesus would have essentially been over. So here we pose the following question: On account of the Testimonium Flavianum can we possibly satisfy the criteria of the science of History to conclude that in fact the historical Jesus existed?

For this testimony we have that: (1) It is late by 60 years. (2) It refers to just three points of the Gospels very meagerly. (3) It was not written by a contemporaneous author or an eyewitness. (4) Above all the following holds: From the great number of researchers of the last 250 years, 40% dismiss it as a sheer interpolation; 50% consider it partly authentic and partly forged; 10% accept it as the way it is. These three groups report long lists of strong and weak reasons to justify their points of view. Hundreds of books and articles have been written which expose all three views in detail. Here we get around these elements for we do not like to write them one more time. The interested reader can easily find all of these study them and decide for himself, but subjectively.

Let us then see what all these mean from the point of view of the science of History. (1) History does not sanction the historicity of some person on the basis of only an 8-line paragraph. (2) It demands cross-references by other, various, unbiased, independent and reliable authors. In this matter there is not even one such cross-reference. (3) It needs references and reports of contemporaneous or near the events authors; if possible from eyewitnesses. No such references exist. (4) It looks for and examines any written works coming either from the hand of the person under investigation or from someone to whom this person dictated what to write. Jesus has not left any written works either from his own hand or from his amanuensis. (5) It uses findings and excavations of the science of archeology and its various branches (papyrology, numismatics, epigraphy, ancient codices, etc.). In this matter nothing pertinent from all of these exists. (6) It needs an authentic standard portrait of the historical personage under investigation. Such a portrait does not exist for such a renowned benefactor, etc. (7) It requires accordance of the scientists and researchers who are the specialists on this subject. In the present subject, however, only tremendous discordance exists based on many strong reasons. (E.g. there is no discordance amongst the specialized scientists that Solo, the Athenian lawmaker, is a historical person, despite that he lived 600 years before the period in which we face the posed historical question. But in the problem that we face here the discordances are unbridgeable notwithstanding.)

(A small parenthesis about the four canonical Gospels: Most Christian believers claim that the four canonical Gospels were written by Disciples of Christ and disciples of the disciples. This has always been the church’s official position and dogma along with that the authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit. However, all scientists and many Christian theologians admit that they were written at a time much later than the time of death of the putative Jesus by unknown authors. The authors’ names on them are not the names of the actual authors and therefore they are pseudepigrapha documents. The different, variant, conflicting, erroneous and incompatible narrations that they contain prove beyond doubt that they could not have been written by inspired disciples and eyewitnesses, such as Matthew and John. The Christians also claim that Mark wrote the things recounted to him by Peter, according to Papias’ testimony. These Gospels appeared in content and under the titles that they bear for the first time about the year 185 C. E., in the writings of the bishop of Lyon Irenaeus who proposed them to become the only canonical ones. However, he stated: “The Gospel according to …” and not “the Gospel of (or written by)…” In fact no author reveals his name or anything about himself in any of them, as he should if he had undertaken to write history. These Gospels are not known, either as a set of four or as content, to any authors before Irenaeus, such as the apologists Aristides, Quadratus, and Justin the martyr; the bishop of Hierapolis Papias; the first historian of the church the Jewish Hegesippus; and even the archeresiarch Marcion of Pontus who suggested a first canon of the New Testament in the 140’s C. E., regardless of the fact that it was rejected by the church of Rome. The earliest manuscripts and codices extant today go back to and after the year 350 C. E. In the years 325-330’s C. E. the emperor Constantine ordered the four Gospels to be edited anew and republished under the supervision of the deceptive historian of the Church Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, and the originals then at hand to be destroyed throughout the Roman Empire. So these four canonical Gospels have always been documents of faith and have been revised several times according to various needs... Therefore they bear no historical value whatsoever. End of parenthesis.)

Accordingly, we have that the Testimonium Flavianum either by itself or together with the other references, which as we have already said are of minute historical values and come from very doubtful sources, does not suffice to sanction the historicity of Jesus, even if we consider it authentic as it is written down. Much worse however, is that 90% of the specialized researchers and scientists strongly dispute it as interpolation or forgery!

The final and beyond any doubt conclusion that is extracted is: “The reason for which the Jesus Christ of the Christian Religion cannot be considered a Historical person is that there are not objective data and elements historically capable of proving beyond any Historical doubt his Historical existence (as well as his non-existence)”. This means that we cannot conclude either if he existed or if he did not exist. In such a case, Jesus “the so called Christ” as he has been presented to us by the Christian group for 2000 years remains in the realm of myth. He is a persona esoteric and legendary of this group and cannot be considered historical. From this point on anybody can believe and write whatever he likes. But belief is one thing and science is another. Those who say, “I believe such and such …”, had better have the sportsmanship not to mingle science in order to attribute validity to their belief. Personally we are perfectly satisfied by agreeing with all those scientists who support the above conclusion and the following thesis: “We do not have Historical proofs of the existence or nonexistence of Jesus who later became the Christian Christ. The problem remains open, because of almost complete want of objective data.” There are quite a few scientists who maintain this final thesis. The rests are beliefs, theories, preferences, tastes, etc. That is, they are attempts and subjective estimations all of which add up to zero from the Historical point of view.

These arguments and conclusions, together with many others, are also used by the partisans of the third category that we wrote of at the beginning. Looking into all the elements that we have today at our disposal it seems extremely unlikely that new elements will be discovered which would be capable of justifying the positions of the second category. However, per time we cannot provide the necessary guarantees so that we could completely exclude such an eventuality. Now, what the significance of the justification of the second category would be, if it were eventually proven to be right, is another very big topic out of the scope of this paper. We emphasize, however, that even if the second category is eventually proven to be right, the Jesus Christ whom it proclaims is totally different from the Jesus Christ portrayed in the Gospels or the entire New Testament and the Christian faithful and sects believe in. Consequently from the religious Christian point of view the Jesus of the second category is just as catastrophic to the “Christian truth” as his complete nonexistence.

We here declare with certainty that the persona of Jesus Christ of the New Testament is a fictional construction. There are a great many reasons that prove beyond any doubt the truth of this assertion, which have been exposed and published in thousands of research books and articles. So, we are not going to develop this claim at length. Only we briefly state that: The evangelists and the Christian communities of the first two centuries weave a myth. Therefore they are not interested in the historical truth, the accurate exposition of the putative facts and deeds, the correct geographical knowledge, the existing political and cultural conditions of those times, etc, even though in their myth and among their numerous errors and fictional elements they many times interpose historical elements, persons, names of real places, etc. They are not event interested in writing in congruence with one another at all! Only within these frames and facts all those numerous and glaring differences, contradictions, inconsistencies and inconsequence which are found in passim over the whole New Testament can be justified and understood. All the efforts of the Christian divines for bridging and rectifying this uncontrollable mess have pitiably failed just as the construction of a historical Jesus has always added up to zero! In particular on the basis of the Gospels’ narrations and Paul’s narration we can distinguish and make up three or maybe four different Jesuses Christs, etc. “What further need have we of witnesses?”

Here we cite the following very important from historical point of view piece of information. Even if we suppose that there was indeed some Jesus behind the myths of the Gospels which were attributed to him after his death, he must have been a completely insignificant person and known only to the Christian esoteric tradition. This assertion holds on account of the fact that NO historian, author politician, rabbi, official or state record has taken any notice or made any reference to him, fact that follows not just from the sources we have got in our hands today but in his work Against the Galileans (Loeb Classical Library, Volume ΙΙΙ, pages 376-377, § 206 B) Emperor Julian (332?-363 C. E.) has made the following statement of great historical importance:

«... ών [εκ τών ανδρών, Ιησούς Παύλος, Βαρνάβας, Κορνήλιος, Σέργιος Παύλος, κά.] είς εάν φανή τών τηνικαύτα γνωριζομένων επιμνησθείς ―επί Τιβερίου γάρ ήτοι Κλαυδίου ταύτα εγίνετο―, περί πάντων ότι ψεύδομαι νομίζετε.».

“But if you can show me that one of these men [Jesus, Paul, Barnabas, Cornelius, Sergius Paulus, etc.] is mentioned by the well known writers of that time, ―these events happened in the reign of Tiberius or Claudius―, then you may consider that I speak falsely about all matters.” (Loeb’s Translation)

These words and challenge are written by Julian the great who was a man of integrity and as Emperor he had the records and the sources of the Empire at his disposal. Consequently Jesus is NOT by definition a historical person, because historical persons are specifically those that are found and referenced in the appropriate sources.

In Julian’s period the Christians had uninhibited access to the writings of any author, politician and to the documents of the state archives. However, they neither indicated any reference of either known or unknown author nor any document of the state archives against this extremely challenging provocation of the great emperor. Even though we can say that in his work Against the Galileans Julian wants primarily to emphasize the insignificance of all those persons and that these persons had never given to their followers the order to destroy and lay in waste everything, this reference has a great historical significance. Essentially it proves in a firm and historical manner that no person out of those, beyond the esoteric Christians’ mythology, is anywhere referred. Also by referring to Tiberius, Julian includes the years of the putative Jesus and the initial years of the Apostle Paul. It is also a mystery the fact that he does not refer to Gaius Caligula, the emperor between Tiberius and Claudius! The first who declared and forcefully imposed this myth as a “real fact” was the unbalanced emperor Constantine, who later was sanctified and called “great” by the church!

For some strange reasons this clear and categorical report of Emperor Julian, as his whole book Against the Galileans, has not received the weight and attention it deserves. We wonder why? Can anybody explain why? At any rate it would have been a blessing if sufficient undisputable Historical data and elements were discovered, able to give the answer, positive or negative, to this serious question so this matter would be over with once and for all. We could easily list many such missing data. E.g. the finding of an authentic manuscript of Josephus of the first three centuries, etc. By the way, many well educated Jews –some of whom I have heard myself or I have studied their books– claim that the Jewish community possesses a reliable manuscript of Josephus, which does not contain the references to Jesus. I do not know how true this claim may be. If their manuscript is of the 11th century (like the one under the title Jossipon) or later, then the reference to it has no essential value. The counterargument to such a manuscript is that its copier or its translator, being a Jew, purposely subtracted the references to Jesus Christ, etc. If, however, the Jewish community has preserved a reliable manuscript of the first three or even nine centuries, then it would perpetrate a great service to humanity if it offers it to the hands of specialized and impartial scientists for a credible examination. The time is now ripe to get it out of its secret shell without the fear of the Holy Inquisition. With all due respect I invite them to do so.

Also, we must be very careful because from time to time some swindlers appear who present many faked objects (e.g. the shroud of Turin, the ossuary of James, etc.), in order to provide strong evidence for the historicity of Jesus Christ. Then the blindly religious immediately grasp the chance to boast about proofs. These objects were so well contrived that the scientists had to spend a lot of time and energy and try very hard to expose and prove that were frauds.

Ioannis, Neoklis Philadelphos, M. Roussos
Doctor, Professor of Mathematics
Researcher of the Christian and Biblical Issues

WE HERE INSERT THE FOLLOWING COMMENT on the above article, by Pan. Marinis Published in the Periodical: Hellenic Pantheon Νο 27, σελίδαι 41-43, December 2004-February 2005

Testimonium Flavianum

Testimonium Flavianum is a gross forgery of Josephus’ work which is not accepted by any serious researcher. Whereby the question arises why it has come back to proscenium in the recent times? The answer does not honor our epoch! Fundamentalistic Christian Churches and Universities in the USA overtly despise the upright thinking and what is self-evident!

About these forgeries, theologian Mr. Konstantinos Siamakis writes in his book Non-Christian Testimonies about Christ and Christians, (in Greek) Publ. “Athos” 200, pp. 232, Chapter “Pseudepigrapha”: “α΄. Pseudo-Josephus.

As it was referred earlier, a spurious passage about Jesus Christ has been wedged in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, in which the redactor eulogizes the Lord and admits his Divinity, the eternal truth of his preaching, his wonders, and his resurrection, and also appraises and downrightly names the Christians. Obviously there must have been a “Christian” forger before the year +330, since Eusebius has already cited this Josephus’ passage as a genuine one, (It is wedged in Josephus, J. A. 18, 63-64, and Eusebius cites it in his Ecclesiastical History 1, 11, 7-8.) and this passage reads as follows:

Γίνεται δέ κατά τούτον τόν χρόνον Ιησούς σοφός ανήρ, εί γε άνδρα αυτόν λέγειν χρή· ήν γάρ παραδόξων έργων ποιητής, διδάσκαλος ανθρώπων τών ηδονή ταληθή δεχομένων, καί πολλούς μέν Ιουδαίους, πολλούς δέ καί τού Ελληνικού απηγάγετο· ο Χριστός ούτος ήν, καί αυτόν ενδείξει τών πρώτων ανδρών παρ’ ημίν σταυρώ επιτετιμηκότος Πιλάτου, ουκ επαύσαντο οι τό πρώτον αγαπήσαντες· εφάνη γάρ αυτοίς τρίτην έχων ημέραν πάλιν ζών, τών θείων προφητών ταύτά τε καί άλλα μυρία περί αυτού θαυμάσια ειρηκότων. Εισέτι τε νύν τών Χριστιανών από τούδε ωνομασμένον ουκ επέλιπε τό φύλον.

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had conde­mned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection in the first place for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.(Loeb’s Translation)

Twenty-two other such passages, some of which are quite extended, are found as inserted in the Slavonic translation of the Jewish War, which are investigated from the historical and philological point of view by professor S. Agouridis in his doctoral dissertation … Dr. Agougidis demonstrates that these 22 passages, besides that they come from the hand of some peculiar Pharisee, they have moreover undergone adaptation by some heretical (Patropaschitis) Christian. Consequently it would be a mistake to characterize these as authentic testimonies for Christ.”

All these make it futile to spend our time giggling with the self-proven! However, let us look at this gross deception in some more detail!

• The paragraph is indeed “inserted” and moreover foreign in meaning, as the thoughts of the previous paragraph continue without violation in the next one, while it has no relation to the subject matter of the chapter.
• It is known from the beginning that the critics of the Christian religion acutely disputed the historicity of the person of Jesus. There is a series of authors who on the one hand wrote extensive apologetic works and on the other hand it is proven from their works that they knew the writings of Josephus (see Michael Hardwick, Josephus as an Historical Source in Patristic Literature though Eusebius). We mean the authors: Justin the Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Melito of Sardis, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Pseudo-Justin, Tertullian, Hippolytus of Rome, Origen, Methodius, Lactantius, and more. However, none of these apologists makes a reference to this paragraph, an act that would have resolved the whole issue immediately and would have additionally given weaponry for proving the divinity, the miracles, etc. of the person under question. Let us think of the fact that Origen quotes Josephus in order to prove the historicity of John the Baptist, even though he was never put under historical disputation! Also, there has survived a Latin synopsis of the work of Josephus under examination (J. A.) by a Christian author, attached to a Latin translation of the 6th - 8th century. Even there nothing is cited.
• It has been proven that the language of this paragraph is completely different from the language of Josephus. The verb “ουκ επαύσαντο: did not give up” is deprived of (second grammatical) object. The word “ποιητής: poet: one who wrought” was not used anymore with its general meaning [i.e., maker, creator] in Josephus times, but it was used to characterize a linguist writer that put words in verse [poet, poem]. “παρ’ ημίν: amongst us” is a solecism. The word “φύλον: tribe” in the ancient times had the nowadays meaning ―and that is how it is used by Josephus 11 times― of nation (ethnos), race, and is never used to characterize other kinds of groups. This mistake is committed by Eusebius himself ― twice in his Ecclesiastical History! Thereby we conclude that this paragraph was written by someone who did not know Greek well. Ken Olson in his very interesting work (Eusebian Fabrication of the Testimonivm, 2001) has shown that the paragraph agrees in all traits with Eusebius’ manner of writing! Besides other things this fellow [Eusebius] is accustomed to use the strange phrase «παραδόξων έργων ποιητής: one who wrought surprising feats» when he refers to working of miracles. Eusebius wanted to remove the accusation that Jesus, as presented, was an “enchanter” and that is why he says that he was “σοφός: wise” and his adherents continued to believe in him because his miserable death did not belie their expectations since he was resurrected. We here have to do with a series of syllogisms that Eusebius uses quite often! The paragraph was written by Eusebius in order to reinforce the argumentation he had developed earlier in his work Evangelical Preparation, Olson concludes.
• We ought to consider and understand Josephus’ ideas. As he was a follower of the Roman Peace “Pax Romana”, personally protected by the Emperor Vespasian and writing for a Roman audience he does not cease to condemn all of those who disturbed the peace, popular revolutionaries, peripheral religious fanatics, apocalyptic prophets, enemies of the existed world order in general, and he holds them responsible for the final destruction of Jerusalem! In addition, the phrase “σοφός ανήρ: wise man” constitutes Josephus’ highest honorary expression that he keeps for Solomon and the Prophets! The written elements in this paragraph make it a forgery by themselves.

We have proven that Josephus mentions nothing about Christ and or Christians. Whence this fact poses another imperative question! Josephus recording of the events in Palestine around the year +70 in great detail and paying special attention to analogous groups he ought to have reported something concerning the Christian movement since he writes so many things about other movements of surely lower significance!

This silence constitutes a fact very difficult to explain! For us it constitutes a first class issue!
We consider it as a well founded argument “ex silentio” that there were no Christians in the Palestine of +70!
We must investigate this situation further in the future! Here let us just think of the following:
Undoubtedly, there is a main landmark in the history of Christianity. Christianity becomes as known to the public as to the state authorities the year +250. At that time, Emperor Decius in the frame of nation-building process and the, indispensable for the defense against the barbarians, invigoration of the national morale, he organized national celebrations in all the cities of the Greek world. Then, to their great surprise, the officials saw some rioters who out of their own volition insulted the Greek Civilization and the Empire, called themselves Christians! From that point starts out the public history of Christianity.

Every “non-Christian testimony” before 250 seems to simply be a posterior forgery. Thereby, all events before 250 remain dark! Before 250 we have only one fixed chronology. Based upon the works of Irenaeus of Lyon we know that the [four canonical] Gospels came into circulation the years +180-185. ................Pan. Marinis

WE CONTINUE: We here write a few additional reasons which demonstrate why it is impossible for Josephus’ hand to have written this paragraph either partially or entirely.

Whereas during the last 300 years this paragraph was a great issue of research and hypotheses by the 19th and the first half of the 20th century was already put in obscurity and was incidentally brought up just in discussions of specialists. No liable scientist referred to it anymore as it had already been condemned as a bold forgery on account of the unsurpassable reasons that Mr. Marinis has previously exposed plus various others. However, during the second half of the 20th century until today we have witnessed it coming back attacking more severely in all social grades of the Christian believers. By chance we have also read relative articles published in prime daily newspapers whose writing styles betray the fact that they were written by uneducated and blindfolded servants of the Christian propaganda, who were unrelated to the issue and they imply happened to know this paragraph and nothing else. Unless they knew more things that they decided to hide on account of their well known reasons. Besides these remarks and many mistakes these articles contained those prime newspapers published them without hesitation. In our days the religious fanaticism and the antiscientific delirium have returned more forcefully and thus we observe all sorts of antiscientific phenomena and events coming from everywhere essentially but mainly from the USA and the Vatican. Today we are put again in grave danger of a second medieval period, much more devastating than the first one.

Also through all these years there have been several Christian theologians who on the one hand acquired some scientific responsibility that did not allow them to accept this paragraph as authentic but on the other hand they could not have completely rejected it, because then they would not have had any substantial non-Christian historical testimony about Jesus Christ, whom they did believe as God. Therefore, they fabricated an intermediate solution by insisting that the paragraph was partially written by Josephus and later on was altered by a Christian forger. Moreover they have come to the point to decide which parts were written by Josephus and which by the forger. (E.g., see the footnotes of the publications of the Loeb Classical Library, Jewish Antiquities XVIII 63-64, along with several interesting comments.) Even if this possibility is not mathematically impossible, the size of this paragraph is too small to make this kind of action easily perpetrated.

From all analyzed points and data that we have at disposal we conclude that the paragraph under investigation is a forgery totally, perpetrated by Eusebius of Caesarea who has been proven to have done many other forgeries, have written many lies, have destroyed his sources, have not cared for the truth and have committed many other conspiratory stuff like that. For many years now many articles and books have been written to clearly show the falsity of Testimonium Flavianun. Nowadays numerous such articles have been attached to many websites in the internet in which anybody can find many important arguments, facts and remarks.

Next we are going to supplement the evidences and arguments previously presented by the prominent researcher Mr. Marinis with some additional reasons and remarks.

• As Josephus explains in his autobiography The Life after a three year probationary period he abandoned the Essenes and became a Pharisee like as was his father, Mattitiaou. He remained so until the end of his life. The Pharisees even until today not only did not recognize Jesus as Messiah but even they set forward a very strong counter argumentation against the Christians. It is not possible for a talented, orthodox and privileged Pharisee, knowing fluently the Scriptures of the Old Testament, to declare so emphatically “He was the Messiah. …for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.” together with the other remaining things. All these constitute a clear Christian language. Moreover in the Gospels we read that if anyone confessed Jesus as Christ (Messiah), the Pharisees expelled him from the synagogue (qahal). See, Gospel according to John 9: 22, 33-35, 12: 42. The things that the putative John exposes at this point of “his Gospel” reflect the new situations and clashes as they were formed after the year 71 C. E. Josephus not only was not expelled from any Jewish qahal but he remained a Pharisee for life.
• It lies beyond anyone’s imagination let alone someone who writes History in a scientific way as the educated Josephus, to write with his own hand this paragraph as historical truth that took place during Pontius Pilate’s governance and admit about Jesus that: (1) he was the Messiah, (2) he wrought many miracles (even though he does not report any single one of them as an example), (3) he was raised from the dead after three days, (4) the divine Prophets of the Old Testament had prophesied about him and his acts, (5) he was wise, (6) it is not proper to simply call him a man (human), and then Josephus himself instead of adopting the new religion of Christianity, as many Jews and Gentiles did just that according to the paragraph, he remained faithful for life to his initially chosen doctrine of the Pharisees. Which scientist would have seen a dead resurrected after three days (even half a day) or he would have written it down in his History as a true fact and would not have changed perceptions and world view and or something intricate would not have happened to him as a result? Also, what do you think? Instead of a line would not he have devoted a few pages to describe this unexpected phenomenon of resurrection of a three day diseased and also convey to us his own experience as a result of this happening?
  [But even the New Testament reports very curious things. The resurrected Jesus did not appear to those who judged and condemned him unjustly (Sadducees, Pharisees, Scribes, Priests and High Priests), his executioners (Pilate, Roman soldiers, the Jewish guards and custody, etc.), and the Jewish people who turned into a mob and abandoned and betrayed him, but he appeared to his disciples only and most of the times in so incomprehensible ways that make you think that he enjoyed playing “hide and seek” with them!]
• This paragraph is referenced for the first time in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea. Nobody knows it before him. But even after him many Church Fathers do not know it. For instance the voluminous writers John Chrysostom (347 - 407), Holy Augustine (354 - 430), Methodius (9th century) and others do not know it, although these fathers confess that they knew the works of Josephus very well. Concretely Chrysostom states that: “…I do not even remember if Josephus reports the name or the word Christ anywhere in any of his works, besides a testimony which I referred to before and in which the passage concerns James the bother of the Lord.” (We will examine this in the sequel.) Chrysostom refers to Josephus often but he never cites this paragraph of the Testimonium. Neither Holy Photius (820 - 891) refers to it, (please note, five and a half centuries later), whereas he passionately looks for historical testimonies about Jesus. Vexed he destroys by fire and for ever to work of the Galilean Historian Justus of Tiberias because even if he writes before Josephus he says nothing about Jesus. Photius has written three articles about Josephus but he does not write anything about the Testimonium in them. In another article about Justus of Tiberias, Photius emphatically declares that the Jewish Historian Josephus has not noted any bit of information about Christ. The meaning of all these facts is that these Fathers after Eusebius either do not have any forged copy of Josephus in their hands or probably they know that this paragraph is a forgery and they consequently ignore it. We also add that before Eusebius some Fathers as the apologist Justin the Martyr (100-165) in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew as well as Clement of Alexandria (150-215) who has copied many excerpts from ancient writers do not report anything about the Testimonium.

Origen (185-254 C. E.) in his work Contra Celsum, first book, chapter 47, writes:

«Εβουλόμην δ’ άν Κέλσω, προσωποποιήσαντι τόν Ιουδαίον παραδεξάμενόν πως Ιωάννην ως βαπτιστήν βαπτίζοντα τόν Ιησού, ειπείν ότι τό Ιωάννην γεγονέναι βαπτιστήν, εις άφεσιν αμαρτημάτων βαπτίζοντα, ανέγραψέ τις τών μετ’ ου πολύ τού Ιωάννου καί τού Ιησού γεγενημένων. εν γάρ τώ οκτωκαιδεκάτω τής Ιουδαϊκής αρχαιολογίας ο Ιώσηπος μαρτυρεί τώ Ιωάννη ως Βαπτιστή γεγενημένω καί καθάρσιον τοίς βαπτισαμένοις απαγγελομένω. ο δ’ αυτός, καίτοι γε απιστών τώ Ιησού ως Χριστώ, ζητών τήν αιτίαν τής τών Ιεροσολύμων πτώσεως καί τού ναού καθαιρέσεως, δέον αυτόν ειπείν ότι η κατά τού Ιησού επιβουλή τούτων αιτία γέγονε τώ λαώ, επεί απέκτηναν τον προφητευόμενον Χριστόν· ο δέ καί ώσπερ άκων ου μακράν τής αληθείας γενόμενός φησι ταύτα συμβεβηκέναι τοίς Ιουδαίοις κατ’ εκδίκησιν Ιακώβου τού δικαίου, ός ήν αδελφός Ιησού (τού λεγομένου Χριστού), επειδήπερ δικαιότατον αυτόν όντα απέκτειναν.».

“I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew accepting John somehow as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been the 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 [said that it was ‘to avenge James the just’], whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless ―being, although against his will, not far from the truth― that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ), ―the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.” (Ante Nicene Fathers’ Translation)

Here the Christian Zealot Origen has used some bleary and fuzzy phrases and does not cite Josephus with precision. As a Christian Zealot, Origen himself does not avoid making his own forgery at some points. E. g., Josephus clearly writes that the baptism of John was NOT performed for “the remission of sins”, but only for the purification of the body just as any washing. For both John and the baptized person baptism was a necessary initiation before the baptized could accept God and was not for the forgiveness of any sins. Josephus precisely writes:

«...καί πρός τόν θεόν ευσεβεία χρωμένοις βαπτισμώ συιέναι· ούτω γάρ δή καί τήν βάπτισιν αποδεκτήν αυτώ φανείσθαι μή επί τινων αμαρτάδων παραιτήσει χρωμένων, αλλ’ εφ’ αγνεία του σώματος, άτε δή καί τής ψυχής δικαιοσύνη προεκκεκαθαρμένης.».

“…and piety towards God, and so doing to join the baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already was already thoroughly cleansed by the right behaviour.” (Loeb’s Translation)

To avoid expounding these points for too long we suggest to the readers to carefully examine Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities XVIII, 116-119 and XX 200.

To avoid prolixity let us look into three admissions concerning Josephus made by Origen in this passage. He avers that: (1) Josephus “does not believe in Jesus as the Christ, (Messiah)”. (2) Josephus “ought to have said that the conspiracy [of the Jews] against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the [Jewish] people”, however he does not say this, but he claims that the cause of all these calamities was to avenge the unjust killing of James the Just by the High Priest Ananus, who conspired against James and put him to death, whereas James was a just and righteous man! (3) Josephus is quoted here as bearing witness to John the Baptist not as heavenly sent forerunner of Christ, but simply as a Jewish religious leader and baptizer on his own account, without mentioning anything about John recognizing Jesus as the Christ, baptizing him, and having been influenced by him and or his imminent coming.

[By the way, let us also observe that Origen here simply says “…Christ, who was a prophet,” and nothing else. That is he does not refer to Jesus as the Son of God, or as one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity, etc. What explanation can you offer about this?]

At this point and now we must make the following observations. The parenthesis [called Christ] that exists in Josephus’ passage and Origen uses is the so-called Minor Testimonium Flavianum. This, as with the Major Testimonium Flavianum, is also considered as a forgery by all unbiased researchers. But we do not need to go that far. Origen himself says in this passage that Josephus “does not believe in Jesus as the Christ, (Messiah)” and right after turns to tell us that Josephus writes: “who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ)”. That is, Origen himself contradicts himself within six lines, if that is possible! This parenthesis is clearly a Christian forgery because:

(1) Origen himself in this present passage, in his book Contra Celsum, speaks blearily and imprecisely in misquoting Josephus ―fact unacceptable―, and glarily contradicts himself within six lines.
(2) This parenthesis is a frequent Christian phrase. We see it verbatim in the New Testament: Matthew 1: 16, 27: 17, 22, John 4: 25 and in a lot of other Christian literature. So, it is apparent that some Christian copyist has most easily inserted these two words in Josephus’ passage since this point fitted the case perfectly.
(3) About the question if James the Just of Josephus is James the brother of the Lord of the Christians (Acts 15: 13, Galatians 1: 16, etc.), there are no data and elements to give a definitive answer to anything. In all probability we have to do with two different persons, and most probably the stealing of the first by the Christians in order to portrait the second. However in their traditions and in their Eusebius’ writings we find two narrations on James’ death which are completely different from the Josephus’ one, and also are different to one another. Thus, there is a complete jumble even at this point which is of major importance to Christian religion. We wished that this has been the only one!... As in so many cases in the same way in this one too the Christians have created a mess!

We must also say that Josephus speaks about a score of men named Jesus. Therefore the part “who was a brother of Jesus” if in itself is not a part of the forgery does not prove anything, because he does not explain which Jesus he talks about. (Unless he did explain in the original and now the explanation is gone.) Hence if these words do not constitute a part of the forgery, then Josephus speaks about some other Jesus for whom there are no traces since as we have demonstrated Josephus does not deal with Jesus Christ at all and does not know anything about him. If, however, these words are part of the forgery, then the original text stops with the words “the Just”.

Is seems plausible that the Christians besides stealing the frequently run into name of James they also have stolen the name Jesus (Yoshouah = Yahveh saves or Yahveh is savior) and diverse stories from the Old Testament, Talmoud, Philo Judaicus Alexandrinus and Josephus in order to construct their own Jesus. For this reason this imaginary person has not found any position whatsoever in any of the so many accountable sources. Otherwise, somewhere in Philo, Josephus, Justus of Tiberias, Talmoud and numerous other writings, with which the Emperor Julian the Great has challenged the Christians as we wrote earlier, something would have been noted about this famous and or notorious and tremendous miracle worker who was raised from the dead after three days. This possibility of stealing and usurping names and stories is a very possible one and it has been suggested and supported by many researchers. E. g, study at least the monumental research works:

1. Hyman E. Goldin, The Case of the Nazarene Reopened, The Lawbook Exchange Ltd., 1948-2003.
2. Randel Helms, Gospel Fictions, Prometheus Books, 1989.
3. Harold Leidner, The Fabrication of the Christ Myth, Survey Books, 1999.
4. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Introduction by James M. Robinson, Collier Books, 1968.
5. Joseph Wheless, Forgery in Christianity, Kessinger Publishing.
6. Joseph Wheless, Is it God’s Word?, Kessinger Publishing.
7. Hayyim Ben Yehoshuah, Refuting the Missionaries, (Excellent Research Essay on Website).

• As we have already stated the paragraph of the Testimonium Flavianum is wedged in the work Jewish Antiquities XVIII, 63-64 and has no relation to the immediately previous and the immediately followed ones. We also say that the previous paragraph is also found in the other famous work of Josephus the Jewish War, ΙΙ 175-177, followed by other paragraphs in which Josephus deals with other issues totally unrelated to the Testimonium. But for such a man, the Messiah Jesus Christ the great miracle worker, it is expected by someone such as Josephus to impart many more elements and data, some miracles and details, thing that he indeed does for so many subordinate others.
• The mania of the Christians to forge and tinker with the works of Josephus is not proven only by the Latin synopsis of the 8th - 9th century and all the inserted pieces in the Slavonic translation, as the great researcher Mr. Marinis has denounced in his previous important comment, but also from a forgery that exists in an Arabic manuscript of the 10th century. The Testimonium Flavianum (Jewish Antiquities XVIII, 63-64) is still there, but with several strong alterations if compared to its Greek version. Hence, here we have to do with the phenomenon of “forgery of the forgery”! This Arabic revised paragraph is referred by Agapius, who was a Christian Arab and Melkites, bishop of Hieropolis, in his book “The book of Title”. We consistently observe a mania of Christian copyists and redactors to forge and alter the works of Josephus in order to adduce a made up historical witness to Jesus of the canonical Gospels.

Dear readers, keeping all these elements we have here expounded in mind and many more that you may study either by chance or better out of your own interests for search, decide for yourselves what group of researchers you agree with: (1) With those who claim that the Testimonium Flavianum is entirely authentic. (2) With those who claim that it is partially authentic and partially forged. (3) With those who consider it as a forgery in toto. (4) Maybe you can suggest a new group for yourselves! But afterwards it is moral duty to keep analogous attitude and stance.

Ioannis, Neoklis Philadelphos, M. Roussos
Doctor, Professor of Mathematics
Researcher of the Christian and Biblical Issues
B.S. 1977, National and Kapodistrian University of Greece
M.S. 1982, Ph.D. 1986, University of Minnesota

25th February, 05 Appended May, 06

Home