Josephus about Jesus.

[fta]

^^ Uh, yeah, what Keith said.

 

[Atheos]

Devastating, Keith. Reminds me of a fictional character who says "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

 

[Keith&Co.]

Devastating, Keith. Reminds me of a fictional character who says "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

Oh, that won't matter to Lumpy. Remember? ALL he needs to believe is that Jesus offered a chance for eternal life and ALL lumpy needs to do is accept the miracle stories.

Any guidance on how to live a moral life is beside the point for Lumpy.













Clearly.

 

[Malintent]

When James, the brother of Jesus, called Christ, was killed in Jerusalem, it reputedly happened when Josephus was a young man. It was a current event for Josephus, not something to be easily dismissed as mere Christian myth.

I think the other scholars here are saying that whatever Josephus wrote (as a potential eyewitness) would have been altered at a later date by dishonest people. The original revisionist history, so to speak... like how Abraham Lincoln lobbied strongly for the continued enslavement of blacks in America... and how Bush was the most intelligent president we ever had... like that.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It took me about 2 minutes to find your quote and about 30 seconds to see:

Contrasting Worlds

In an alternate universe to this one, scholars investigating Christianity’s origins are a happy lot. There, the man whom 2000 years of Christian tradition places at the genesis of the movement enjoys ample attestation....

But I can see how you might have missed that. It was a couple of paragraphs up the page. And yet...

In that alternate world, ...
When scholars in that alternate universe ...
Even in that contented place, however, ...

He starts every paragraph, including the one you quoted, reminding the reader that this is not the historical world we're living in, but an imaginary one.

Congratulations, Lumpy! You've QUOTE MINED someone!

Posted a quote taken out of context that, when understood, does NOT discredit an opponent's source, but instead makes you look either dishonest or like a pompous moron.

Your development as an online apologist continues to strengthen.

Well, to be fair, he did probably just copy-and-paste from somebody else who did the quote mining as opposed to having done any actual research into the matter himself.

As with most things, it's generally incorrect to attribute to malice that which can be written off as incompetence.

 

[ApostateAbe]

When James, the brother of Jesus, called Christ, was killed in Jerusalem, it reputedly happened when Josephus was a young man. It was a current event for Josephus, not something to be easily dismissed as mere Christian myth.

I think the other scholars here are saying that whatever Josephus wrote (as a potential eyewitness) would have been altered at a later date by dishonest people. The original revisionist history, so to speak... like how Abraham Lincoln lobbied strongly for the continued enslavement of blacks in America... and how Bush was the most intelligent president we ever had... like that.

Any ancient words, if they conflict with your preferred theory, can be attributed to corruption by Christians. But, when it is merely unlikely speculation, then it needs to be recognized as unlikely speculation. We know what corruption by Christians of Josephus looks like. It looks like the Testimonium Flavianum, where Josephus was re-written to make him a full Christian believer. But, "called Christ" does not make Josephus a full Christian believer. It makes Josephus what we expect him to be following from all his genuine writings: a Jew who believed someone else to be the Messiah. There is speculation that "called Christ" was originally left out by Josephus, inserted by Christian scribes, but this speculation is unlikely, not only because it conflicts with the interpolation of the TF, but also because it would leave "Jesus" unidentified by Josephus. Both "Jesus" and "James" were common Jewish names at the time.

 

[fta]

But, "called Christ" does not make Josephus a full Christian believer. It makes Josephus what we expect him to be following from all his genuine writings: a Jew who believed someone else to be the Messiah. There is speculation that "called Christ" was originally left out by Josephus, inserted by Christian scribes, but this speculation is unlikely, not only because it conflicts with the interpolation of the TF, but also because it would leave "Jesus" unidentified by Josephus.

From W.B. Smith's Ecce Deus (1912)

The words in italics have been regarded as spurious - we think, correctly. Neander and others defend them, and McGiffert says (The Church History of Eus. p. 127, n. 39) : " It is very difficult to suppose that a Christian, in interpolating the passage, would have referred to James as the brother of the 'so-called Christ.' " Indeed! On the contrary, it is just because this phrase is the most approved, Christian, evangelic, and canonic that we suspect it in Josephus. It meets us in Matthew i, 16; xxvii, 17, 22; John iv, 25. The depreciatory ''so" is not in the Greek. Thus we read of "Simon the so-called Peter" (Matthew iv, 18; X, 2), "the high-priest the so-called Caiaphas" (Matthew xxvi, 3), "the feast the so-called Passover" (Luke xxii, i), "the man the so-called Jesus" (John ix, 11), "Thomas the so-called Didymus " (John xi, 16 ; xx, 24; xxi, 2), "gate the so-called Beautiful" (Acts iii, 2), "tent the so-called Holy of Holies " (Heb. ix, 3), where depreciation is out of the question. The indication is merely that of a surname or nickname, or name in some way peculiar or extraordinary.

 

[ApostateAbe]

From W.B. Smith's Ecce Deus (1912)

The words in italics have been regarded as spurious - we think, correctly. Neander and others defend them, and McGiffert says (The Church History of Eus. p. 127, n. 39) : " It is very difficult to suppose that a Christian, in interpolating the passage, would have referred to James as the brother of the 'so-called Christ.' " Indeed! On the contrary, it is just because this phrase is the most approved, Christian, evangelic, and canonic that we suspect it in Josephus. It meets us in Matthew i, 16; xxvii, 17, 22; John iv, 25. The depreciatory ''so" is not in the Greek. Thus we read of "Simon the so-called Peter" (Matthew iv, 18; X, 2), "the high-priest the so-called Caiaphas" (Matthew xxvi, 3), "the feast the so-called Passover" (Luke xxii, i), "the man the so-called Jesus" (John ix, 11), "Thomas the so-called Didymus " (John xi, 16 ; xx, 24; xxi, 2), "gate the so-called Beautiful" (Acts iii, 2), "tent the so-called Holy of Holies " (Heb. ix, 3), where depreciation is out of the question. The indication is merely that of a surname or nickname, or name in some way peculiar or extraordinary.

"Called" is an accurate translation (not "so-called"), a neutral word, leaving ambiguous whether or not the writer accepted the title used by others. It fits what we expect of the genuine Josephus but not his interpolators, who attributed to Josephus, "He was the Christ," not just "called Christ." William Benjamin Smith's argument was dismissed in his own time, as it comes off as an unlikely argument designed merely to serve his own theory, and so it is best dismissed today.

 

[fta]

"Called" is an accurate translation (not "so-called"), a neutral word, leaving ambiguous whether or not the writer accepted the title used by others. It fits what we expect of the genuine Josephus but not his interpolators, who attributed to Josephus, "He was the Christ," not just "called Christ."

The bogus references to Jesus in Josephus have been discussed many times in this forum and/or its precedessors. I shall therefore try to be as brief as possible.

The Greek phrase "called the Christ" is ho legomenos Christos - same phrasing in Josephus and the New Testament. As mentioned previously, Josephus never uses the word "Christ" elsewhere in his writings. There are other problems with the James passage as well. According to Church history James the "brother" of Jesus died in a tumult in 69 or 70CE, not by sentence of a court in 62CE. Smith (and others) have also noted further evidence of Christian tinkering:

Moreover, it is certain that Josephus has been interpolated elsewhere by Christian hands, and with precisely this same phrase; for Origen thrice quotes as from Josephus the statement that the Jewish sufferings at the hands of Titus were a divine retribution for the slaying of James : "Josephus says in his Archeology: 'According to wrath of God these things came upon them, for the things dared by them against James, the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ.' And he says that 'the people, too, thought they suffered these things on account of James ' " (463) in Matt, xiii, 55. "The same [Josephus] seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and of the demolition of the Temple says : ' These [calamities] befell the Jews in vengeance for James the Just, who was brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ, since, indeed, they slew him, though being most just.' " — Contra C, I, 47. " Titus demolished Jerusalem, as Josephus writes, on account of James the Just, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ." — Contra C, II, 12, fin... Now, since this phrase is certainly interpolated in the one place, the only reasonable conclusion is that it is interpolated in the other. This notion that the death of James was avenged in the siege of Jerusalem is found in the bud in Hegesippus, who says: "And so he suffered martyrdom. And they buried him on the spot beside the temple. This man became a true witness both to Jews and to Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. And straightway Vespasian besieges them " (Eus., H. E., II, 23, 18).

It appears that Origen's manuscript of Josephus had been tampered with at a relatively early stage by Christian scribes who believed the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70CE was God punishing the Jews for murdering James. However, these "divine punishment" passages are not found in any surviving manuscript of Josephus.

Herbert Cutner also noted ironically that it seems strange that Josephus would have made this bare mention of James the "brother" of Jesus when he doesn't make any mention of Peter, Paul, Stephen, and the antics of the early Church which, according to the NT, "kept Jerusalem in a state of ferment between 30 and 70AD."

William Benjamin Smith's argument was dismissed in his own time, as it comes off as an unlikely argument designed merely to serve his own theory, and so it is best dismissed today.

Looking at your other posts in this forum, what do you think of Smith's arguments on white supremacy?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Who else used the "Christ" word, in this period, other than Christians, Josephus, and Tacitus?

and Suetonius?

As the much-maligned G.A. Wells noted in Did Jesus Exist?, "In Josephus's entire work the word 'Christ' occurs only in the two passages about Jesus and his brother James. This hardly strengthens the case for their authenticity."

Earl Doherty argues that both passages are phony. I've just ordered Richard Carrier's book, I imagine he will be taking a similar line.

It's also noteworthy that Philo and Justus, two other contemporary Jewish historians, never mentioned Jesus or his Merry Men either, despite the fact that they are supposed to have created a huge sensation in Israel.

Your choice of authorities is discredited by your mention of Earl Doherty which I clicked out of curiosity.

I came across this:

The Alexandrian philosopher Philo had mentioned his death under Pilate in speaking of the Roman governor’s reprehensible career in Judea.

Perhaps it is a mistake (an obvious confusion with Tacitus-Josephus), but such a gaff shows incompetency and no need to waste any more time reading him further. Doesn't someone read his pages and check for accuracy? This is inexcusable.

You need to come up with better gurus than this. . . .

Is this the kind of source you guys get your "facts" from?

It took me about 2 minutes to find your quote and about 30 seconds to see:

Contrasting Worlds

In an alternate universe to this one, scholars investigating Christianity’s origins are a happy lot. There, the man whom 2000 years of Christian tradition places at the genesis of the movement enjoys ample attestation....

But I can see how you might have missed that. It was a couple of paragraphs up the page. And yet...

In that alternate world, ...
When scholars in that alternate universe ...
Even in that contented place, however, ...

He starts every paragraph, including the one you quoted, reminding the reader that this is not the historical world we're living in, but an imaginary one.

Congratulations, Lumpy! You've QUOTE MINED someone!

Posted a quote taken out of context that, when understood, does NOT discredit an opponent's source, but instead makes you look either dishonest or like a pompous moron.

Oh, I'm so embarrassed. You caught me by the balls -- Shame on me! You're a real hero for showing me up for what I really am!

I have no defense. I plead guilty to all the above, and even more, to being the most gullible to "April Fool's" jokes. And lecturing me won't do any good -- I'll probably fall prey to such prank websites just as much in the future, as I always fall prey to any practical joke (like "What are you chewing under there?" and like a fool I answered "Under where?"). I should have known not to take the site seriously -- totally my fault. I should have known that its purpose is to serve as entertainment for Jesus-debunker crusaders and not as information about Josephus and his "Christ" quotes.

And you're right in saying:

You're dismissing him as incompetent because you didn't read for comprehension. So what does that make you?

Answer: Asshole -- I plead guilty to all of it. I was only looking for the point about the Josephus quotes being "phony" rather than reading for comprehension.

Instead of this tongue-in-cheek point,

Earl Doherty argues that both passages are phony.

pretending to seriously question whether the Josephus quotes are "phony," I should have paid more attention to fta's following:

As the much-maligned G.A. Wells noted in Did Jesus Exist?, "In Josephus's entire work the word 'Christ' occurs only in the two passages about Jesus and his brother James. This hardly strengthens the case for their authenticity."

This got me looking for something about the "Christ" word and its use around that time. Should we expect Josephus to have used the "Christ" word more than these two times (or this one time?)? Starting with Philo, as a possibility -- Did Philo ever use the "Christ" word?

According to this site http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/chrestos christos.htm , Philo used the word "theo-chrestos" meaning "God-declared." I infer from this that Philo did NOT use the word "Christos" because this site would have said so if he had.

Who else used it, and how much? -- (not the Hebrew "Messiah" word) -- and I stumbled across the following (hopefully not another practical joke site intended only for Jesus-debunker devotees (of which who knows how many there are?)):

But the title Christos has its origins in Greek paganism and not Jewish Messianism. The classical Greek word, Cristos, predates both the New Testament and the Septuagint by centuries. It is thought to derive from a proto Indo-European root ‘ghrei’ which means ‘to rub’. For instance, Homer uses the word ‘Christos’ to refer to rubbing ones body with oil after bathing. However, the classical meaning of Christos has another dimension to it. There is a prophecy of the Erythrean Sybil which states, “IESOUS CHREISTOS THEOU HUIOS SOTER STAURUS”. This literally means “Iesus, Christos, God, Son, Saviour, Cross”. This is quite weird when you think that it was made by a Pagan oracle several hundred years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth! It is thought to refer to the coming down to earth of the Spirit of Truth (the Christos) who will usher in a golden age in which God is revealed to humankind. However, this blessed condition is only reached through a process of crucifixion of the flesh, which probably refers to a process of asceticism in which the worldly matter of the flesh is subordinated to the spirit.

http://www.englishfolkchurch.com/Lorehoard/chrestos.htm

If the above is true, it virtually proves that the Christ scenario of about 30 AD actually derives from this earlier Greek mythic source. There are too many coincidences here for there not to be a connection. How the promulgators of this earlier cult managed to create this later new 1st century AD religion may be a mystery, but somehow they must have done it.

(It's not only those 6 key words, but also the explanation above about the Christos coming down to earth to usher something in that requires "crucifixion" and so on, which needs explaining. What is the original source for this? the text relating this cult belief?)

The same remarkable 6-word quote occurs in another site:

There is still another and far more weighty proof that the name Christos is pre-Christian. The evidence for it is found in the prophecy of the Erythrean Sybil. We read it in [IESOUS CHREISTOS THEOU HUIOS SOTER STAUROS]. Read esoterically, this string of meaningless detached nouns, which has no sense to the profane, contains a real prophecy -- only not referring to Jesus -- and a verse from the mystic catechism of the Initiate.

http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/chrestos christos.htm

The above site rehashes many uses of the word "Chrestos" or "Christos" going as far back as Homer. Referring to pagan Greek initiation rites. But there's no source given for the famous IESOUS CHREISTOS etc. quote. Where does it come from?

Here's another site which mentions it, also claiming that it's from centuries before Christ. http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/12/erythraean-sibyl-and-her-prophetic.html However, the only real source it offers is from the early Christians, like St. Augustine. It's not even clear if the earlist quotes are Greek rather than Latin, though there's every pretense that there's an "original" Greek from way back somewhere.

So, my first reaction is that the above quote is bogus, and it is not true that there is any such inscription “IESOUS CHREISTOS THEOU HUIOS SOTER STAURUS” dating back to several centuries BC.

I.e., I hope there is none, because I'm hoping the Christ event of 30 AD is substantially true, not something invented and rooted in Greek mythic paganism. So, for now, I'm assuming there is something artificial, or something dishonest, or corrupted, or distorted, in this website quote, and that whatever the Greek words are, whatever the source, something is false in the above claim about this early Greek word.

If there is such an inscription, validated by mainline scholars, proved authentic, dated centuries before Christ, it greatly undermines Christ belief, or at least my understanding of it.

from Wikipedia:

Constantine, the Christian emperor, in his first address to the assembly, interpreted the whole of The Eclogues as a reference to the coming of Christ, and quoted a long passage of the Sibylline Oracles (Book 8) containing an acrostic in which the initials from a series of verses read: Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour Cross.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl

This sounds like the key words are really a derivation from something different, some pattern of letters, and are not what any original inscription contained. (Like "Ronald Wilson Reagan" = 666.)

If such an inscription is authenticated, to several centuries BC, it would mean that the "cross" is adopted from paganism -- therefore casting doubt on the crucifixion of Jesus as a literal historical event -- and was more likely invented to match the earlier "cross" symbol. This could mean that St. Paul was really speaking about some mystical pagan "crucifixion" symbol rather than a recent historic event.

Maybe this one clarifies it:

The Sibylline Oracles (Latin: Oracula Sibyllina; sometimes called the "pseudo-Sibylline Oracles") are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive. These are a collection of utterances that were composed or edited under various circumstances, probably between the 2nd and 6th centuries AD,[1] and are not to be confused with the original Sibylline Books of ancient Roman religion which are now lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibylline_Oracles

That's probably the explanation.

And yet the earlier website said so confidently: "There is a prophecy of the Erythrean Sybil which states, “IESOUS CHREISTOS THEOU HUIOS SOTER STAURUS”. This literally means “Iesus, Christos, God, Son, Saviour, Cross”. This is quite weird when you think that it was made by a Pagan oracle several hundred years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth!" Sensationalist claims like this are similar to those of Richard Carrier, who says there were other earlier reputed Christ-like miracle-workers, and yet never gives any text to show an example of any such cases. What drives them to make up these stories?

It casts doubt on the credibility of the gospel accounts if early Greek pagan rites are the source of Christian belief.

Like the debunking of the Tacitus quote -- about Chrestos/Christos condemned by Pontius Pilate -- seems to cast doubt. At first sight they seem to have a good case that this famous quote might have come later than Tacitus -- Until one checks further and discovers that if you throw out that Tacitus quote, you also have to throw out about half, or at least a third, of all we have from Tacitus.

The same is true of the death-of-James quote. If you throw that out from Josephus, you also have to throw out most of what we have from Josephus. A premise that requires us to toss out so much of the historical record cannot be taken seriously. When the argument leads to this conclusion -- you have to throw out half of recorded history to be consistent -- we know we're dealing with dogmatic Jesus-debunker fanatics, and not objective truth-seekers.

Selectively throwing out quotes like these is based only the dogmatic premise that there can be no miracle event, thus no Jesus Christ as historical, and thus no legitimate historic references to him, and so all such apparent references have to be phony, one way or another, despite the evidence.


the "Christ" word in the 1st century: Why can't the two Josephus quotes, mentioning "Christ" (i.e., these two ONLY), be due to the fact that this word, used as a proper name, was applied to this one person only, at this time, and was not otherwise in current use as having this kind of meaning -- a "savior" or "messiah" figure from God. And Jews like Philo did not use it (though he used the logos word), nor should we expect to come across it from the 1st century onward (except from Christians), because it had virtually no other use at this time than as a name for this person from Galilee, and the best explanation as to how it became attached to him is the fact that he performed the miracle acts described in the gospel accounts. (OK, what's a better explanation?)

Can anyone find another person of the period to whom this word was attached as a proper name, or any other significant use of this term from this period onward?

If not, the reasonable conclusion is that it applied ONLY to Jesus of Galilee and to no one else, in the first century AD. If there's something wrong with it appearing ONLY TWICE in Josephus, and both times in connection to this one person, you have to show that this word or name appeared also at other times and applied to some other persons also.

But if it applied to this one person only, then there is nothing wrong with Josephus using it this way and there's no reason to brand the Josephus quotes as not "authentic" because he used it only in reference to this one person.

AND, if it applied to this one person only, what is the explanation for that?

(aside from paranoid delusions that the "Church" ran around everywhere raiding libraries and torching all the other rival-cult scrolls) -- why don't you save those conspiracy theories for your April-Fool Jesus-debunking sites, and post a warning: "For Jesus-debunker crusaders only!"

 

[none]

I'm curious about this text I found on wikipedia, does this mean that Josephus thought Vespasian was the messiah in the same sense that others think Jesus was the messiah? that Vespasian was the messiah?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus

...
Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome.
...

and does this following entry mean he wouldn't accept Jesus ( if there was one ) as the messiah and not scribe the word "Christ" as implication of the supposed Jesus as being the messiah?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus

...
Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship.
...

seems to me it is evidence that Josephus wouldn't say Jesus+"Christ" anywhere...

 

[fta]

and Suetonius?

Whew, that's a long rant. The fact remains that whether we like it or not, the Christian church has a long history of forging useful documents and attributing them to Jewish, pagan, and even Christian writers (not to mention the relic industry), and there are serious doubts about the authenticity of both passages about "Jesus the Christ" in Josephus. Yes, we know that Christians did tamper with the manuscripts of Josephus because there is a medieval Slavonic translation of The Jewish War that includes even more bogus passages about the adventures of Jesus.

If you're curious to read arguments against the authenticity of the "Christus" passage in Tacitus, see Smith's Ecce Deus and Arthur Drews' Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus.

There are two brief references in Suetonius that are of interest: one about Christians being executed by Nero (yes, G.A. Wells gives reasons for branding this a forgery as well), and the other a cryptic reference to Claudius expelling the Jews from Rome in 54CE because they were "rioting at the instigation of one Chrestus." Straw-clutching Christian apologists argue that Suetonius mistook the word "Christus" for "Chrestus" and therefore he was talking about Jesus here. (So Jesus was personally leading Jewish riots in Rome in 54CE??) As Drews says,

If we only knew precisely who is meant by this Chrestus! The name in the text is not “Christus,” but “Chrestus” (and in some manuscripts Cherestus*), which is by no means the usual designation of Jesus, while it is a common name, especially among Roman freedmen. Hence the whole passage in Suetonius may have nothing whatever to do with the question of Christianity. It may just as well refer to any disturbances whatever caused among the Jews by a man named Chrestus...

*Wikipedia, which is at least as reliable as the Bible, notes that "Boman (2012) states that there are many different spellings of this word in the manuscripts he examined, namely "Chresto, Cherestro, Cresto, Chrestro, Cheresto, Christo, xpo, xpisto, and Cristo" !!!

 

[Keith&Co.]

Oh, I'm so embarrassed. You caught me by the balls -- Shame on me! You're a real hero for showing me up for what I really am!

Oh, shucks, i'm no hero.
Just someone with a high school education and an 8th grade reading capacity.
But go on, you were saying you found something else to be obnoxiously superior about?

Lumpy, you rejected all the experts fta picked, and insulted all the atheists in the thread, because on one site you misunderstood part of a discussion on why a historian would find fault with the Jesus myth, framed as a 'what we SHOULD see' discussion.

If you're going to act that much like a pompous prick, you should be embarrassed, don't you think?

For that matter, can you actually DEAL with the expectations? Can you explain WHY those comments weren't written down, records not found? Or just going to gloss over your whole mistake with Dohtery?

 

[ApostateAbe]

Looking at your other posts in this forum, what do you think of Smith's arguments on white supremacy?

That may be a more interesting conversation. I don't know his arguments for white supremacy, and I don't normally go for white supremacy, but maybe you can tell me about them.

 

[fta]

Looking at your other posts in this forum, what do you think of Smith's arguments on white supremacy?

That may be a more interesting conversation. I don't know his arguments for white supremacy, and I don't normally go for white supremacy, but maybe you can tell me about them.

I was disheartened to learn Smith also wrote a KKK-type book called The Color Line. It's online if you really want to read it, but it would be off-topic to discuss it in this thread.

 

[DLH]

In book XX of Jewish ANtiquities Josephus refers to the death of "James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ." Jewish Antiquities, XX, 200 (ix, 1) Most scholars consider it to be authentic. In the same body of work there is another passage known as The Testimonium Flavianum, which reads: "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, 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." which most scholars doubt.

There has been a heated debate since the 16th century regarding the authenticy of the text. A French historian and classical literature specialist, Serge Bardet, published Le Testimonium Flavianum—Examen historique considérations historiographiques (The Testimonium Flavianum—A Historical Study With Historical Considerations). Since Josephus wasn't a Christian writer, but a Jewish historian there is doubt that he would employ the term "the Christ" in application to Jesus. Bardet argues that "in every respect to the Greek usage of employing the [definite] article for the names of people. . . . not only is the use of the term Christos by Josephus not an impossibility” but it is a clue that "critics have in general been greatly wrong to overlook." He changed the mind of one critic. Pierre Geoltrain, a specialist in Hellenistic Judaism and primitive Christianity.

Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr, in the middle of the second century wrote, in reference to the death of Jesus: "That these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate." Though the historical records he refers to no longer exist, they must have during Martyr's time.

Suetonius

The Roman historian Suetonius who lived about 69 - 140 C.E. wrote in his history The Twelve Caesars, regarding the emperor Claudius: "Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [Christ], he expelled them from the city." That event would have taken place at about 52 C.E. Acts 18:1, 2.

Cornelius Tacitus

Tacitus, born in 55 C.E., writing on the devastating fire of Rome in 64 C.E. in which apparently Nero tried to blame on the Christians, said: "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." Annals, XV, 44.

 

[none]

yeah, I've been reading up and not just mindlessly copy/pasting from a Christian apologist's perspective.
it seems anything Josephus may have written would have to be approved by Vespasian, either Josephus was a slave or a roman at the time he wrote Atiquities of the Jews, and word around that time was the Vespasian was a messiah or savior and Josephus if he had dissent of such a position would have not fit well with Vespasian or his own disposition as a roman citizen or slave of Vesapsian's son.
I am pretty convinced that both entries attributed to Josephus are phony, and since Christians interpolate they interpolate, they held the manuscripts from what I know for a very long time.

 

[none]

and might as well put this out there, in case anybody is interested...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius_on_Christians#Chrestus

Chrestus
James D.G. Dunn states that most scholars infer that "Suetonius misheard the name 'Christus' (referring to Jesus as Christ) as 'Chrestus'" and also misunderstood the report and assumed that the followers of someone called Chrestus were causing disturbances within the Jewish community based on his instigation.[19] R.T. France says that the notion of a misspelling by Suetonius "can never be more than a guess, and the fact that Suetonius can elsewhere speak of 'Christians' as members of a new cult (without any reference to Jews) surely makes it rather unlikely that he could make such a mistake."[20] The term Chrestus (which may have also been used by Tacitus) was common at the time, particularly for slaves, meaning good or useful.[21]

could have been anybody, right? not Jesus of the Bible, right?

 

[DLH]

yeah, I've been reading up and not just mindlessly copy/pasting from a Christian apologist's perspective.
it seems anything Josephus may have written would have to be approved by Vespasian, either Josephus was a slave or a roman at the time he wrote Atiquities, and word around that time was the Vespasian was a messiah or savior and Josephus if he had dissent of such a position would have not fit well with Vespasian or his own disposition as a roman citizen or slave of Vesapsian's son.
I am pretty convinced that both entries attributed to Josephus are phony, and since Christians interpolate they interpolate, they held the manuscripts from what I know for a very long time.

Hmm. Better stick with the copy/pasting. The following wasn't copy/pasted, as I never copy/paste unless it is from my own website.

Josephus was noble born, a Pharisees just a few years after Jesus' death. He had family connections to the Sadducees. At the age of 26 he was sent to Rome to try and get some Jewish priests released from the custody of Felix on small charges. He formed a friendship with Nero's wife, Empress Poppea, who pulled some strings and had them released. He returned to Jerusalem with an admiration of the Roman culture and military might, and he was disappointed in to find the Jewish nation bent on war with Rome. He was sent Galilee by Jewish moderates in Jerusalem as a military governor general of sorts. There he fortified the cities of Galilee, organized troops and fought off various plots against him by local Zealots.

The city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee revolted against him, but he didn't have the forces to march against them, so he and his supporters each took a ship and sailed to Tiberias. Though he had barely enough men to sail the 230 ships the people of Tiberias thought they were full of soldiers and so, with a bluff, Josephus caused the people to surrender with no loss of life.

The Roman general Vespasian invaded Galilee with about 60,000 soldiers. He trapped Josephus and 40 others in a cave, and promised to spare his life if he surrendered. The others wanted to commit suicide instead and they tool lots with Josephus and another fellow being the last two, and Josephus was able to talk him into surrendering. Under captivity of Vespasian Joseph convinced the superstitious general by claiming he was a prophet. He dazzled Vespasian by suggesting he would be a ruler of the world. So instead of sending Josephus to Nero as planned, he kept him prisoner and two years later he was made emperor. From then on Josephus was a trusted friend and adviser to the Flavian family.

Vespasian went to Rome to take over the empire and Josephus went with his son, Titus, to finish the war against the Jews. They took Jerusalem. Josephus was an adviser on Jewish tactics and a tool of Roman propaganda, even to the point of risking his life before the walls of Jerusalem when he called for his people to surrender.

There is nothing to suggest the writings of Josephus were in need of or effected by any approval of Vespasian or his son. You simply alter history to come to the conclusion you desire.

 

[none]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus

...
Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter. After Vespasian became Emperor in 69AD, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperor's family name of Flavius.

Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship. He became an advisor and friend of Vespasian's son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem, which resulted—when the Jewish revolt did not surrender—in the city's destruction and the looting and destruction of Herod's Temple
...

Josephus fully defected to the Roman side not Christianity. The Romans have their own religion and it is out of character for the admission of a God or messiah not referring to Cesar to be mentioned.
His writings would insult the Emperor as a de facto event because placing some one higher on the divine food chain as a messiah conflicts with the roman religion and he wasn't christian and didn't have christian beliefs, if anything he was a Jew who became Roman.
Of course Josephus wouldn't insult Vespasian.
That is just my take on it