Quote:
Originally Posted by jigg
Jewish historian Josephus mentions Jesus. Roman historian and senator Tacitus wrote about about the execution of Jesus. Then there's the Munich Talmud
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That's interesting. I had never heard of these.
So I started googling them up.
Christians hang on to Josephus as "proof". But it turns out it was just one little phrase.
A guy named Louis Feldman studied the writings of Josephus from 1937 to 1980 in a book called: "Josephus And Modern Scholarship"
He worked with many scholars on the subject.
Here is their conclusion on that one paragraph about Jesus:
Opinion on the authenticity of this passage is varied. Louis H. Feldman surveyed the relevant literature from 1937 to 1980 in Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Feldman noted that 4 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely genuine, 6 as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.
It is impossible that this passage is entirely genuine. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a believing Jew working under Romans, would have written, "He was the Messiah." This would make him suspect of treason, but nowhere else is there an indication that he was a Christian. Indeed, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus declares that Vespasian fulfilled the messianic oracles. Furthermore, Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."
EDIT: I also just looked up if "Jesus" was a common name back in that time.
Yes it was. So if the name "Jesus" is ever mentioned in a historical way, it would be like the name "Joe" being mentioned now.
