Selections from Josephus - Audiolibro Gratis

II. Note on § (26). The alleged witness to Jesus Christ

Recent literature:—

(a) For the authenticity of the whole section.

F. C. Burkitt; in Theologisch Tijdschrift, Leiden, 1913, pp. 135 ff.

A. Harnack in Internat. Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft und Technik, 1913, pp. 1037 ff. (I have, unfortunately, been unable to see this, and only know it through Norden’s rejoinder, which seems conclusive.)

(b) For partial interpolation.

Th. Reinach in Revue des Études Juives, tom. xxxv, 1897, pp. 1 ff.

P. Corrsen in Zeitschrift für die N.T. Wissenschaft, 1914, pp. 114 ff., Die Zeugnisse des Tacitus u. Pseudo-Josephus über Christus (thinks the interpolation has probably replaced a genuine statement of Josephus about Christ).

(c) Against the authenticity of the whole section.

E. Norden in Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, vol. xxxi, 1913, pp. 637 ff., Josephus u. Tacitus über Jesus Christus und eine messianische Prophetie.

E. Schürer, Hist. of Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ, 1898, I. 2, pp. 143 ff. (where the older literature is quoted).

(d) For the passages in the Slavonic version of the B.J.

A. Berendts in Texte und Untersuchungen, N. F., Bd. XIV, 1906.

In this much debated passage Josephus appears to speak of Jesus Christ as one of more than mortal nature, as a wonder-worker and a teacher of men who receive “the truth” with pleasure, and as gaining many adherents among Jews and Greeks. Then comes the explicit statement, “This was the Christ.” The writer proceeds to mention His crucifixion by Pilate “on the indictment of our principal men,” His resurrection and appearance to His followers on the third day, and the survival at the time of writing of “the tribe” of Christians who took their name from Him.

The passage largely accounts for the high esteem in which Josephus was held by Patristic writers. Since the revival of learning the question of its authenticity has been the subject of keen controversy. Until recently few scholars of weight have ventured to maintain that the paragraph as it stands can have been penned by the Jewish historian; the point on which opinions have diverged has been whether the whole is an interpolation or whether a genuine brief statement of Josephus about Christ has been expanded and emended by a Christian hand. In recent years the question has been reopened in two ways, by the conversion of two authorities of the first rank to the rejected view and by the discovery of new materials. Professor Burkitt in this country and (following him with a little hesitation) Harnack in Germany have pronounced in favour of the genuineness of the passage. The existence has also been brought to light of other passages in the Slavonic version of the Jewish War relating to John the Baptist, Christ and the early Christians. The Slavonic matter may be treated independently; it has no attestation in the Greek MSS, and, whatever its origin, lacks the authority with which the present passage comes before us. Harnack has been answered in a masterly article by one of his own countrymen (Norden), and, notwithstanding the weight attaching to the names of its recent supporters, the arguments against the authenticity of the passage (at least in its present form) appear overwhelming. The really decisive factors in the problem must be sought rather in the relevance of the passage to its context and in the style than in any subjective considerations as to what Josephus could or could not have written.