|
|
Flavius Josephus
The third candidate is the other Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, whom we have introduced earlier. In his Antiquities of the Jews we actually find two references to Jesus. In the third paragraph of the third chapter of the eighteenth volume we read the following remarkable passage:
Antiquities 18:3:3
At that time lived Jesus, a holy man, if a man he may be called, for he performed wonderful works, and taught men and they joyfully received the truth. And he was followed by many Jews and many Greeks. He was the messiah. And our leaders denounced him. When Pilate caused him to be crucified, those who loved him before did not deny him. For he appeared to them after having risen from death on the third day. The holy prophets had, moreover, predicted of him these and many other wonders. The race of Christians takes its name from him, and still exists at the present time.
Based on all his extant writings, Josephus, was obviously not a Christian. From his own Autobiography we know that Josephus was trained as a Pharisee. The phrases italicized in the above passage are certainly those which no Jew would have made, except one that is on the verge of conversion to Christianity. [3] No sensible scholar today accepts the authenticity of the passage as it stands. Some have claimed however, that by taking away the italicized portions, which they admit must have been added by an overzealous early Christian copyist, we can actually come to the original passage as written by Josephus. [4]
However a more probable solution exist as to the authenticity of the whole passage. The passage quoted, as mentioned above, is the third paragraph of the third chapter. As it stands today this chapter consists of five numbered paragraphs. The first paragraph deals with the trouble between the Jews and Pontius Pilate over his exhibition of the images of Caeser in Jerusalem which the natives considered sacrilegious. In the second paragraph, Josephus describes another row between Pilate and the Jews. Pilate had apportioned some money from the Temple to pay for the building of an aqueduct. The Jews again protested. This time, unlike the first incident when Pilate let them off, he had the Jews massacred. And Josephus concludes the second paragraph with: "And thus was put an end to this sedition."
It was here that the third paragraph with its allusion to Jesus follows. Immediately after this third paragraph, the fourth paragraph starts with: "At about the same time, another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder..." An obvious question arises: what does Josephus mean, in the context of the arrangement of the paragraphs, by another sad calamity? In its present location the fourth paragraph follows the paragraph about Jesus. Was Jesus the sad calamity? Or was it his being risen from the dead? Or was the continued existence of Christians at the date of writing the "sad calamity"? In short, the sentence in the fourth paragraph does not make sense following the third. It only makes sense if it follows immediately after the second paragraph. Here the wholesale massacre of the Jews was the sad calamity Josephus was referring to. [5]
We find further support for the non authenticity of the third paragraph from the fact that while Josephus's works was known to the earlier church fathers, we find no reference to the above passage in support of Jesus' historicity until the time of Eusebius, well into the fourth century. In fact we even find the church father Origen (c185-253) telling us that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the messiah. An unlikely statement, if the passage above existed during Origen's time. [6] These considerations, when coupled with the obviously Christian wordings of the third paragraph, shows conclusively that the passage Antiquities 18:3:3 is an early Christian insertion. In short, pious forgery. This should not surprise the reader, for it is definitely not the only case in history we have of Christians altering the contents of documents to support their faith. In fact, we have already seen a few in the previous chapter in the discussion on the Johanine Comma.
The other passage concerning Jesus in Josephus book is given Antiquities 20:9:1. It relates the death of James which the passage refers to as: "the brother of Jesus called Christ". Some commentators have argued for the authenticity of this passage by stating that this statement is of the sort the non-Christian Josephus would have made. But actually the statement is exactly the way a Christian would write it, this is, in fact the way the gospel of Matthew described Jesus (Matthew 1:16 Jesus, who is called the Christ.). In view of the previous passage, the balance of evidence seems to show that this too is an early Christian interpolation into Antiquities [7] [a]
|
|
狗仔卡
提升卡
置頂卡
沉默卡
喧囂卡
變色卡
搶沙發
