QUOTE
Philo
was an eminent Jewish author who lived at the same time that Jesus is supposed
to have lived and wrote around 50 works that still survive. They deal with
history, philosophy, and religion, and tell us much about There is still
Josephus, however, a younger contemporary of the apostle Paul. He wrote two
famous history books, The Jewish Wars and the monumental Antiquities
of the Jews. These two works are our most important sources of information
on the history of the Jewish people during the first century of the Christian
era. And here at last, as one might expect, we seem to find the evidence we are
looking for. Josephus writes:
At
about this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one might call him a man.
For he was one who accomplished surprising feats and was a teacher of such
people as are eager for novelties. He won over many of the Jews and many of the
Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon an indictment brought by the
principal men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him
from the very first did not cease to be attached to him. On the third day he
appeared to them restored to life, for the holy prophets had foretold this and
myriads of other marvels concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called
after him, has to this day still not disappeared. 10
Josephus
also tells us that when the "miracle-worker" was brought before
Pilate, he concluded that Jesus was "a benefactor, not a criminal, or
agitator, or a would-be king." Josephus relates that as Jesus had
miraculously cured Pilate's wife of a sickness, Pilate let him go. However, the
Jewish priests later bribed Pilate to allow them to crucify Jesus "in
defiance of all Jewish tradition." 11 As for the resurrection, he tells
us that Jesus' dead body could not have been stolen by his disciples, which was
a common argument advanced against Christian claims that Jesus miraculously
resurrected, since "guards were posted around his tomb, 30 Romans and
1,000 Jews"! 12
136
For
hundreds of years these passages in Josephus were seized on by Christian
historians as conclusive proof that Jesus existed. Critical scholarship,
however, has revealed them to be much later additions to Josephus' text.13 They
are not of the same writing style as Josephus and if they are removed from the
text, Josephus’ original argument runs on in proper sequence. Writing at the
beginning of the third century, Origen, whom modern authorities regard as one
of the most conscientious scholars of the ancient Church, tells us that there
is no mention of Jesus in Josephus and that Josephus did not believe that Jesus
was the Christ since he did not believe in any Jewish Messiah figure.14
Josephus
was in fact a pro-Roman Jew. He was hated by his fellow countrymen as a
collaborator, which led him to flee Judea and live in Rome until his death.15
Here he received patronage from two Emperors and a wealthy Roman aristocrat.16
Josephus
does mention various would-be Jewish Messiah figures-about whom he is entirely
uncomplimentary. At the time he was writing, the long held belief amongst Jews
that their God would send them the Messiah to free his people from oppression
had become an obsession. But Josephus had his own interpretation of what he
calls this " ancient oracle.”17 He did not deny that it was a divine
prophecy; but believed that his fellow Jews had misunderstood it completely.
According to him, the prophesied ruler of the world had come in the person of
the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who had happened to be proclaimed Emperor while in
Judea! 18 It is absolutely inconceivable that Josephus could have, quite
suddenly, broken with his style of writing, all his philosophical beliefs! and
his characteristic political pragmatism to write reverentially about Jesus!
Early
Christians who, like us, searched for historical evidence of Jesus' existence,
would have seized on anything written by Josephus as conclusive proof. Yet
early Christians do not mention Josephus. It is not until the beginning of the
fourth century that Bishop Eusebius, the propagandist of the Roman Church,
suddenly produced a version of Josephus which contained these passages.19 From
that point onward, Josephus became the foundation for the historicity of Jesus.
Unable to
provide any historical evidence for Jesus, later Christians forged the proof
that they so badly needed to shore up their Literalist interpretation of the
gospels. This, as we would see repeatedly, was a common practice.
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According to the gospels, Jesus is an innocent and
just man who, at the instigation of the Jewish high priests, is hauled before
the Roman governor Pilate and condemned to die on spurious charges. Exactly the
same mythological motif is found five centuries earlier in Euripides' play The
Bacchae, about Dionysus. Like Jesus in Jerusalem, Dionysus is a quiet
stranger with long hair and a beard who brings a new religion. In the gospels,
the Jewish high priests don't believe in Jesus and allege that "His teachings
are causing disaffection amongst the people."146 They plot to bring about
his death. In The Bacchae, King Pentheus is a tyrannical ruler who does
not believe in Dionysus. He berates him for bringing "this new disease
which fouls the land" and sends out his men to capture the innocent
godman, announcing:
And once you catch him, he shall be stoned to death.
He'll wish he'd never brought his Bacchic rites to
Thebes.147
Like the Jewish high priests who are appalled at
Jesus' blasphemous claim to be the Son of God,148 King Pentheus rants in anger
at stories of Dionysus' divine parentage:
Whatever the man may be, is not his arrogance
An outrage? Has he not earned a rope around his
neck?149
Like Jesus, Dionysus passively allows himself to be
caught and imprisoned. The guard who apprehends him tells King Pentheus:
We hunted him, and here he is. But Sir, we found The
beast was gentle; made no attempt to run away, Just held his hands out to be
tied; didn't turn pale, But kept his florid colour, smiling, telling us
To tie him up and run him in; gave us no trouble
At all, just waited for us. Naturally I felt
a bit
embarrassed. "You'll excuse me, Sir," I said,
"I
don't want to arrest you; it's the king's command."150
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