The Gospels After Josephus
© C.N.Carrington

Introduction

 

In the Christian Bible we have four accounts of Jesus and his doings. Three of these gospels ‘look the same’, Synoptic, in that they concur on many of the same episodes and sayings of Jesus. The three, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are clearly, on a careful reading, interdependent rather than independent accounts. Which of the three was the first and who followed whom, is a question which has eluded an answer. Some scholars demonstrate the priority of Mark over the other two; while the tradition placed Matthew first from the earliest days. The quotations from the gospels in the earliest church fathers favour the view of Matthew being the earliest of the gospels to be in circulation.

 

There have been thousands of books and articles written on the ‘synoptic problem’. I would like to propose a solution. By looking exclusively at the internal evidence provided by the gospels themselves the scholars, to date, are still divided. Perhaps we need to cut the Gordian Knot by approaching the problem from the outside, by looking at external sources to see what light they may bring to the picture. The major work written about the period of the gospels is by Josephus (b. 37 C.E.). His Jewish War was published by 74 C.E., only a few years after the destruction of Jerusalem, his Jewish Antiquities was finished about 93 C.E. and his Life some two years later.

 

Traitor, perhaps, but, he remained a Jew to the end of his writing life. Though some Christians believed that Josephus was a closet Christian towards the end of his life, there is no evidence for this pious hope. As our only source for the history of the period of Jesus and the early church in Palestine, he was also a source for the writers of the gospels about 100+ C.E.. The evidence for this assertion will follow, but for now let us become conscious of the time scale we will be considering in this work.

 

I am now writing in the latter half of the final decade of our century, and indeed the millennium, 97. I was born in the middle of this century, 44. If I put myself in the time scale of Josephus it would be like my writing about events that took place not only not in my lifetime, but say, during the start of the Depression, 30. Now, suppose the subject of my work is an obscure renegade trade unionist who was killed by the authorities sometime during the depression and thirty years after remembered but vaguely. Today, some thirty years further on, he is a hero and I have to write a biography of this shadowy character. This is where the writers of the gospels were in relation to the events they purport to cover.

 

They, as I, will have had to rely on historical sources which were written about events some sixty to ninety years previous. What would be their historical source for the period covering the life of Jesus? Josephus, most likely. The Jewish War was published and distributed by the Romans themselves by 74 C.E.. The War was written as pro-Roman propaganda to warn other provinces of the Empire what would happen if they revolted from Rome! The gospel writers would certainly have had a copy in front of them as they wrote. After all, none of them had ever seen Jesus themselves and quite probably had not lived in the area they wrote about. Many scholars believe that some, if not all, of the Synoptics were written in Rome itself.

 

How reliable is Josephus, what can we trust in his accounts of the history of Jesus’ period? Where it is in his, and the book’s, purpose we can rely on his bias to bring us a predicably consistent account. His Jewishness remains as an undercurrent in his river of pro-Roman propaganda. He is not anti-Jewish, far from it, he was a law-abiding Jew who disliked disorder and civil war. The Romans promised peace, ‘law and order’. Josephus was a realist, in that he knew that one cannot ‘kick against the big pricks’ without getting badly kicked oneself.

 

How reliable are the Gospels? Not very, as I have found out. Though the Synoptic gospels ‘look the same’ they aren’t. They often, more often than not, contradict one another about events, sayings and particulars of Jesus’ life. Almost two thousand years of scholarship have not cleared the air. From the internal evidence of the Synoptics it is impossible to sort them into any consistent order. Where two or even three might agree on a saying they may place it in differing and often unconnected circumstances. Books, thousands, have been written about this ‘problem’. Let us put the gospels in their historical circumstance in regard to Josephus.

 

When we look at the stories concerning the beginning and end of Jesus’ life we will find corresponding episodes in Josephus. In the gospels there is a star over Bethlehem - in Josephus there is a star over Jerusalem. In the gospels three men are crucified, one is brought back to life - the same in Josephus, three men are crucified, two die, and one is brought back to life! In each case someone called Joseph persuades a Roman governor to let him take the body. How far does this correspondence go? Very far indeed, once we have discerned the method that is being used by both Josephus and the Synoptics.

 

The Synoptics were written in say 100 C.E., for round numbers. They speak about things that were supposed to have happened between, say, year 1 and 33 C.E.. Not having the ‘marvels’ of modern civilization such as film and video tapes for evidence, their best historical source, then as now, was Josephus. Josephus himself, when writing about things that happened before he was born, collapses his narrative time-frame. A good example is the passage about Alexander the Great visiting Jerusalem in 332 B.C.E. where Josephus has Alexander meet a governor who actually lived some 150 years earlier; and being presented with a prophecy from Daniel written some 150 years after Alexander’s death.

 

This telescoping of the past also shows up in the Synoptics. There is the passage about ‘Theudas and Judas being killed just the other day’ when their deaths are separated by 40 years. Remember this was written at least 60 years after the events.

 

This is more than mere confusion over dates, there is a methodology being used, and it is quite simple. The Synoptic gospels are made up from Josephus. There was a core figure for the story, a shadowy and obscure leader who was killed by the military police. The Synoptics are not even certain what he said or did, where or when. They had to make up a story to fit this character, and it, like Josephus’ work, had to be pro-Roman. The same ends are served by the same means.

 

It will be demonstrated that most, if not all, of the episodes in the Synoptics can be located in Josephus, even some of the same mistakes can be demonstrated in both. The parallels are too numerous and consistent to be chance. One example may not be convincing, but taken all together the sequence of evidence is cumulative and convincing.

 

There has been a conscious mirroring, a Catoptic view, of Josephus by the writers of the Synoptics.

 

 

 

Apologia

 

There is the common mistake made amongst scholars, and others, to treat religious and secular literature in differing manners. This is often unconscious, as the culture as a whole does the same, and as members of this culture we are somewhat blinded to other possibilities. There is no blame in this, except when errors are pointed out and the results are ignored.

 

No one could ignore Newton’s Principia, even if they could not understand all of it. His study into first principles of the physical world were to have implications far beyond what even he could have expected. The church survived, with difficulty, this fundamentally different world view. After all it had its ‘historicity’ to back it up.

 

What I am suggesting will logically undermine that ‘historicity’ as received from the traditional ecclesiastical explanations. But it will put the history of the New Testament on solid logical historical ground where new foundations can be built. My study will not, of course, alter the history of the Churches over the past two millennia, but, it should give us a clearer understanding of how it all came to be.

 

Cherished fantasies are hard to discard; but so was the belief that Santa Claus lived at the North Pole - when we learned that it was too cold and uninhabitable for him and his elves. Most people, while they no longer believe in Santa, are still caught up in the Christmas spirit. A belief in the reality of something demonstrated to be unreal does not affect the response of the emotive side of life.

 

The religious ‘blind spot’ has hindered serious scholarship. What I am prescribing are new lenses so we have a clearer vision of the issues. Understanding the gospels in the manner I am proposing will reveal a treasure of sparkling literary motifs, almost blinding in their brightness. As the man in Plato’s cave was temporarily blinded when he first encountered the truth, our mental eyes will take some time to readjust to this new knowledge. How the team of the synoptic writers wove differing tapestries using the warp of the Jesus story and the various woofs each introduced to produce his brilliant visions is worth examining

 

My task here is to dry-clean the fabric of their work so as to be able to examine the actual weaving under the accumulated encrustation of the ages. When I first saw the true synoptic story unfold in its various colours I too was somewhat blinded by the beauty. Now that my mental eyes have adjusted to the new understanding of the synoptic stories they are even more amazing as literary productions than I or other scholars could have imagined. Under the spell of the old scholarship we missed the sophistication and skill of the synoptic writers.

 

The unveiling of Josephus as the basis for the historical portions of the synoptics reveals the art behind their work. The threads of the tapestry are as beautiful as the work itself. Following these threads we can now see how the tales were woven into the intricate devotional literature we have today. When we remove the veils of the past which have been obscuring scholarship over the ages we will be able to see the whole picture more clearly.

 

 

 

All Surviving Historians are Propagandists

 

If all of the surviving Historians from the Roman period we are studying are pro-Roman propagandists; and the Christians claim that Luke was a Historian: then Luke was a pro-Roman propagandist.

 

It is a simple case of: If; And; Therefore. ie. If Historians are Propagandists; And Luke is a Historian; Therefore Luke is a Propagandist.

 

Let us look at the examples of those who have survived:

 

Polybius, (200-118 BCE), Republican historian. He was a model for Josephus in more ways than one. As a literary model he served Josephus for style. But, a far more interesting are the parallels of Polybius’ life and Josephus’. Polybius was a Greek from Corinth who was captured by the Romans. His literary skill earned him his freedom. But, most remarkable is the fact that as an official Roman historian he was a witness and historian for the destruction of his own home city, Corinth, by the Roman forces he accompanied. Josephus could understand this as he had done the same.

 

Diodorus Siculus, (80-20 BCE), Early Imperial historian;

For the supremacy of this city [Rome], a supremacy so powerful that it extends to the bounds of the inhabited world, has provided us in the course of our long residence there with copious resources in the most accessible form.[1]

 

Strabo, (63 BCE - 25 CE) Augustus’ Geographer, who praised Rome’s rule, which brings peace and prosperity everywhere in the world they went.

The Romans, too, took over many nations that were naturally savage owing to the regions they inhabited,... and thus not only brought into communication with each other peoples who had been isolated, but also taught the more savage how to live under forms of government.[2]

 

But since, on account of the overmastery of the Romans, the barbarians who are situated beyond the Massiliotes became more and more subdued as time went on, and instead of carrying on war have already turned to civic life and farming.[3]

 

Livy, (59 BCE - 17 CE). Early Imperial historian.

I hope my passion for Rome’s past has not impaired my judgement; for I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer in good citizens and noble deeds; none has been free for so many generations from the vices of avarice and luxury; nowhere has thrift and plain living been for so long held in such esteem.[4]

 

Josephus (37-105 CE) Flavian secretary, who wrote the Jewish War as Roman propaganda.

The treatment I received from the Emperors continued unaltered. On Vespasian’s decease Titus, who succeeded to the empire, showed the same esteem for me as did his father, and never credited the accusations to which I was constantly subjected. Domitian succeeded Titus and added to my honours. He punished my Jewish accusers.[5]

 

Tacitus, (55-120 CE), historian and Flavian secretary.

My official career owed its beginning to Vespasian, its progress to Titus and its further advancement to Domitian... Modern times are indeed happy as few others have been, for we can think as we please, and speak as we think.[6] [?]

 

Suetonius, (69-140 CE), biographer of the Caesars and chief secretary to the emperor Hadrian (117-138).

 

Synoptics, (95-135) especially Luke. As even Barclay notes:

The view we have been outlining is that the gospel writers did far more than transmit material; they even went beyond arranging and adapting it; they created it. To put it crudely, the gospel writers did not only tell a story, they invented one... The gospel material was from the beginning not history but propaganda, not the narration of events but the presentation of theology, written not with the desire to inform but with the intention to convert.

 

On this view, the idea of Mark as a simple uncomplicated document of loving reminiscence is completely gone, and it becomes a highly complicated theological document. And, if Mark, how much more Matthew and Luke?[7]

 

Luke shows that the teaching of Jesus is the reverse of revolutionary in this political sense, and in the Acts he shows that the Roman government was often the best protector of Christianity. Three times Pilate declares he finds no fault whatever in Jesus (Luke 23:4, 14, 22).[8]

 

However, for those who did not follow the Flavian ‘party-line’ there was literary oblivion, or worse:

Then Hermogenes of Tarsus died because of some incautious allusions that he had introduced into a historical work; and the slaves who acted as his copyists were crucified.[9]

The list of historians that did not survive is larger by far than those who were allowed a continued existence. For example Josephus, in his Life and two books Against Apion, mentions several rival histories of the Jews and condemns them in favour of his own. If Josephus had not mentioned these rivals we would not have known that they had ever even existed. It is an irony that we know of Apion only through Josephus’ condemnation of him. The same is true for Justus of Tiberias, Cadmus of Miletus, Acusilaus of Argos, Cheremon, and many others.

 

The Romans needed to maintain their Law and order at all costs to stabilise the empire under one rule. When the Jews, and later the Christians, put up their Law as a rival there was bound to be conflict with the authorities:

In the eighth and seventh consulships of Diocletian and Maximian, 19th May, from the records of Munatius Felix, high priest of the province for life, mayor of the colony of Cirta arrived at the house where the Christians used to meet, the mayor said to Paul the Bishop:

“Bring out the writings of the law and anything else you have here, according to the order, so that you may obey the command.”

 

The Bishop: “The readers have the Scriptures, but we will give what we have here.”

 

The mayor went on to visit the six remaining readers. Four produced their books without demur. One declared he had none, and the mayor was content with entering his statement on the record. The last was out, but his wife produced his books; the mayor had the house searched by the public slave to make sure that none had been overlooked. This task over, he addressed the sub deacons; “If there has been any omission, the responsibility is yours.”[10]

 

It was the ‘writings of the law’ in which the Romans were interested The Christians extended their interest to all rival literature. When the Christians came to power they responded thus in c. 333 A. D. - 30 years later!..: Letter of Constantine to the Bishops and People:

“And in addition to this, if any treatise composed by Arius should be discovered, let it be consigned to the flames, in order that not only his depraved doctrine may be suppressed, but also that no memorial of him be by any means left. This therefore I decree, that if any one shall be detected in concealing a book composed by Arius, and shall not instantly bring it forward and burn it, the penalty for this offence shall be death; for immediately after conviction the criminal shall suffer capital punishment. May God preserve you!”[11]

 

The Christians were serious; the penalty was ‘death’! There is no wonder that the rival histories and gospels disappeared.

 

What was allowed under the Romans as ‘orthodox’ was continued by the Roman Church. The Christians took up the histories that had been approved by the Roman government, and condemned the others to oblivion. The same thing happened to the rival gospels. Of the scores of ‘apocryphal’ gospels we have mentioned in early Christian and other works only a hand-full have survived; until the archaeological finds of the middle of this century. The Nag Hammadi Library alone increased our possession of the gnostic gospels at least ten-fold. The vast amount of rival literature destroyed far outweighs what we can ever hope to recover.

 

What the Romans did to control their literature the Church continued, and continues today. We have had only the ‘approved’ gospels for the last one and a half millennia. Even the possession of a disapproved book could lead to a one-way trip to the stake.

 

There is no wonder that we have so few ancient works, the wonder is that we have any at all![12]

 

 

 

Miracles, Prophecies and Historians.

Miracles can be allegorized, but not demonstrated. The suspension or altering of the laws of nature is somehow working against the wisdom of god, who has already given us, in nature, all we need or deserve in this world.

 

However, when Jesus heals the blind he does not heal all of the blind of the world, only specific examples for the edification of those present. Allegorized, the blind are those ‘who look but do not see’. The lame are healed so that they may walk in the way of the lord. The deaf are those who hear but do not listen.

 

Prophets see history happening, not what is to happen. If a prophecy to an event is given, then the prophecy is after the event. No one but God knows the future, but men of god can look to the answers the past can give us about what is happening and the results of similar actions and what they led to in the past. When Jesus is said to have prophesied the destruction of the temple in the synoptics, we have to remember that they were written well after the event.

 

With this in mind we can see how unreliable the synoptics really are as history. Our only other historical sources for the period are the Latin historians Tacitus (55-120 CE) and Suetonius (69-140 CE) and, of course, our Josephus (37-110 CE). All three were, at the same time, in the employ of the Imperial Service. Josephus was an eye-witness to most of the events he describes, while both Tacitus and Suetonius wrote from the official records and what interviews they could have with the veterans of the wars who still lived. [See the Appendix, Flavian Synoptics, for a detailed discussion of these authors.]

 

Tacitus, (55-120 CE), Josephus’ younger contemporary, started his career under Vespasian and continued in the Imperial Service through the reign of the Flavian dynasty. He was rather anti-Jewish in his out look. He followed the stories that originated in Egypt that the Jews had been expelled for having a disgusting contagious disease, and that they were atheists. This attitude was prevalent in Roman circles; as the Jews had caused innumerable disturbances throughout the empire, even as far as full rebellion and a protracted war in Judea. In the fragments of book five of his Histories we have a description of the Jews and their land. His description of Judea is mostly drawn from Josephus’ earlier account which was in Imperial circulation. It is in this book that he gives an account of the spirit of God leaving the temple of the Jews, found in Josephus. Tacitus also gives an account of the Christians in his other surviving work the Annals when he describes the fire in Nero’s Rome. His account of the Christians being blamed for starting the fire and being persecuted for the act is not found in any of the other historical accounts of Nero or the fire in Rome. The Annals were written well after 100 CE and for a purely gentile audience who were probably just becoming aware of the Christian sect of the Jews. For them there was little, if any, difference between Christian and Jew; the were equally detested as atheists and haters of mankind.

 

Suetonius, (69-140 CE), also has a brief, if confused, reference to the followers of a ‘Chrestus’ in his biography of the emperor Claudius in his work The Twelve Caesars. He also confuses them with the detested Jews. Suetonius was secretary to the emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) for some time, but fell into disfavour by having too close a relationship with the emperor’s wife. He also had served in several high positions before his downfall through indiscretion, including Commander of the Guards. In his Life of Vespasian (5.) Suetonius mentions our other historian Josephus and the prophecy he gave to Vespasian of his coming into the purple. As Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius were all in the Imperial service at the same time they must have had some dealings with each other.

 

Suetonius also mentions a miracle concerning Vespasian which Josephus ignores, probably for personal reasons so as not to distract from the importance of his own prophecy about Vespasian. In this episode, found in the Life of Vespasian (7), Vespasian, after some hesitation, heals a blind man, (with spittle), and a cripple, (by touch), in Alexandria. These miracles were to be seen as affirming Vespasian’s true kingship. Thus his rule was sanctioned by miracles which only a true king could perform.

 

All three historians wrote at the end of the first century or in the beginning of the second. This is about the time the synoptics were also being written. Josephus was in charge of the pro-Roman near-eastern propaganda; while the others were involved with more domestic propaganda to uphold the rule of their successive employers and adjust the influence of the previous emperors.

 

The team of writers under Josephus may well have included employees with names like Matthias, Marcus and Lucan. Perhaps it was they who started the synoptic tradition. Borrowing heavily on Josephus’ history and a reasonable knowledge of the process of justification by quotations supposedly prophesying from the Old Testament, they wove their separate stories or novellas. If they had any information about their subject at all it would have been what Paul knew of the person of Jesus, and that is precious little as we shall see later. Using Josephus they manufactured miracles and prophecies and used the Old Testament prophets to justify their, nearly supernatural, figure of Jesus. They were extremely skilful and amazingly successful in their undertaking. It has taken almost two thousand years to realize that the synoptics are not what they are claimed to be on face value. Certainly in the last two hundred years there has been increasing suspicion about their genuiness, but all of the work done on the synoptic problem has been done from internal and self verifying scholarship.

 

The scholars, mostly Christian, cannot refrain from using one of the synoptic writers to question or verify a problem in another. They will argue, solely from internal evidence, about which version, of say, the miracle of the Gadarene swine was written first; and which writer then followed the other; and about which parts of the episode agree with each or all of the gospels; and which details differ from each. They argue about the distance the city was from the sea, that supposedly owned the swine. Each of the synoptics have the same incident but differ in almost all of the particulars. Mark and Luke have the scene set at Gerasa, which is almost sixty kilometres from the sea of Galilee. Matthew changes the location to Gadara only some fifteen kilometres from the sea, still a long run for the herdsman. Not only the geography, but even the number of the swine cannot be agreed upon amongst the three versions. Nor is the purpose of this seemingly senseless miracle given. Clearly, then, this sort of problem cannot be solved solely by self-conflicting internal evidence. In this book I am admitting external, contemporary, evidence to be brought into the picture. [See the section on the Gerasene Swine in this book].

 

This is a prime example of a senseless synoptic miracle; which disagrees with the natural world, has no discoverable allegorical value, and the three separate versions of it disagree with each other. Where will an answer be found to this synoptic problem? Not in the synoptics themselves, that seems certain. These types of problems have baffled the scholars, and countless others of the faithful, over the ages. However, if we look to other sources that are contemporary with the writing of the synoptics we may find the keys that unlock the creation of such miracles. If we are to make any sense of the synoptics we need to understand the ambient feelings and concerns of the era when they were written. It is the concerns of the times when they were composed, not that of the subject matter, that should be studied. The synoptics were being written in the late nineties, at the earliest, about happenings in the early thirties and using events from the late sixties for their background. This is, of course, some fourteen hundred years before the printing press or newspapers. Their only approved source of information for the period about which they were writing would have been Josephus.

 

The prejudices and fears about the Jews amongst the gentile population were rife and becoming worse. Following the problems with Mithradates and later the Parthians we can understand the Roman’s concern with the near-east, including Judea. When the Jews revolted in 66 CE it took until 73 to defeat them, finally, at Masada. Then there were serious disturbances caused by the Jews of the Diaspora in the beginning of the second century. Judea again erupted into revolt in 132 CE and it took the Roman legions three years to quell the fighting. At about this time the Jews were banned within the empire, not allowed to circumcise their children nor ordain any more Rabbis. The original intent of the synoptics, to divide the Jews, now came to be to demonstrate that the newly formed gentile Christian church had nothing to do with the Jews. They merely borrowed the Jewish religion, and blamed them for the death of their own prophet.

 

The Christians did to Judaism what Vergil did to Homer. They appropraited the scriptures of another religion and adapted them to abuse the people from whom they had been taken.

 

These quotations from the translators of Tacitus may be of some interest. This quotation is from an introduction to Tacitus, but, it could be for the synoptics, if we substitute ‘Luke’ for ‘Tacitus’ and ‘Jesus’ for ‘Vespasian’:

Once the arrangement of his material had been planned, it remained to render it in words harmoniously, pointedly and with variety. The leading characters... are kept well to the foreground. Their salient attitudes are repeatedly stressed. Behind them stand a host of lesser figures, sketched in rapidly but incisively. Particular attention is paid to the psychology of hope and fear. The atmosphere is charged with emotion. At times the imaginative reconstruction borders on the technique of the historical novelist. No conceivable source except for his own imagination can have told Tacitus [Luke] the thoughts that passed through the mind of Vespasian [Jesus] before his fateful decision to rebel. But this is what brings history to life, and no Roman critic could have taken exception to it. In the same way, and in accordance with a convention of high ancestry, eloquent and impressive speeches are invented with the greatest freedom. They serve to clarify the issues, relieve the monotony of factual narration, and allow the orator... to speak at once in the person of his hero and of himself. There are other devices to secure variety. Certain scenes of terror and pathos lend themselves to highlighting. Striking or casual phrases disclose the visual imagination of the artist and poet.[13]

 

Tacitus’ Annals give us the only early direct reference outside the Bible and Josephus for the existence of Jesus. Yet it was never mentioned to have existed before the fourteenth century.

 

Yet the Annals of Tacitus were almost unappreciated for nearly fourteen hundred years. Indeed, they only survived by a narrow chance. Our knowledge of the work is based on a single individual manuscript of the first half of the book and another of its second half - the two Medicean codices, now both in Florence. Boccaccio (1313-1375) seems to have known of one of them. But certain aspects of their rediscovery in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are veiled in obscurity.

 

To begin with, textual ambiguities quite often make it hard even to decide what Tacitus wrote. Since the text of each half of the work depends entirely on a single manuscript, there is ample room for suspicions that error may have crept in.[14]

 

Or, perhaps, the ‘Christian’ passage? The manuscript was lost from sight for twelve centuries, there was ample time for any alterations or additions to creep into the work.

 

 

 

Mt. Carmel, Prophecy & Transfiguration

 

Mount Carmel is associated with the prophet Elijah. There is a fountain on the mountain sacred to Elijah and one of its modern names is still Mar Elyas or mount of Elijah. There was an oracle there, to the ‘God of Carmel’. This is discussed in relation to other oracles in the Appendix, Flavian Synoptics. Tacitus describes it thus:

Histories 2.78, Penguin, p. 128

Between Judea and Syria lies a mountain called Carmel, which is the name of the local god. Yet traditionally this god boasts neither image nor temple, only an altar and the reverence of its worshippers.

 

This, I reason, is the same mountain where Jesus took Peter, James (his brother?) and John for his transfiguration [Luke 9:28-36 et al.]. My basic reason is that it was Elijah who appeared to Jesus and, most importantly his disciples, and that Carmel was sacred to Elijah. And it was without buildings, or away from habitation, according to the gospels. Some scholars like to locate the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, which is difficult, because, Tabor had a fortress and city on its summit and sides from before the period of Jesus. Carmel, on the other hand, was a deserted place of worship.

 

Not only was Jesus transfigured on Mt. Carmel, but, also the emperor Vespasian:

Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, 5., Penguin, p. 277

In Judea, Vespasian consulted the God of Carmel and was given a promise that he would never be disappointed in what he planned or desired, however lofty his ambitions. Also, a distinguished Jewish prisoner of Vespasian’s, Josephus by name, insisted that he would soon be released by the very man who had now put him in fetters, and who would then be emperor.

 

This oracle from Carmel was in line with another oracle popular in the near-east.

Tacitus, History, 5. 13. Penguin, p. 279.

The majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judea would go forth men destined to rule the world. This mysterious prophecy really referred to Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, true to the selfish ambitions of mankind, thought that this exalted destiny was reserved for them,...

 

Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, 4., Penguin, p. 276

An ancient superstition was current in the East, that out of Judea would come the rulers of the world. This prediction, as it later proved, referred to the two Roman Emperors, Vespasian and his son Titus; but the rebellious Jews, who read it as referring to themselves...

 

Josephus knows of this oracle, he refers to it in his Wars, 6.5.4.:

But now, what did most elevate them [the Jews] in undertaking this war was an ambiguous oracle that was found in their sacred writings, how, “about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.” The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular; and many of their wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now, this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea.

 

Some understand that this meant Herod, others the crucified wonder-worker Jesus, others again Vespasian. [Slavonic addition, Loeb, vol. 2, p. 658.]

 

The Christians referred to this oracle as meaning Jesus, who would rule the world. It is obvious that the Transfiguration refers to both of these oracles, Mount Carmel and the ruler from the East. In the gospels God speaks to the disciples with Jesus on Mt. Carmel and declares that ‘Jesus is his son’. This fits in line with the oracle about the ruler from the East as well. Virgil also mentions, in Eclogue IV, a child: ‘Whose birth will end the iron race at last’. As it turned out it was the son of the deified emperor, Vespasian, Titus who claimed the pride of place for the fulfilment of the oracle, rather than the ‘Son of God’ Jesus.

 

This is another example of Flavian Imperial Propaganda being put to use by the writers of the synoptic gospels. The Romans distort or re-interpret oracles in their favour to justify their rule. The Christian were doing the same thing for their candidate for ruler of the world.

 

When Josephus was captured, or surrendered, at Jotapata, to Vespasian’s army he was brought before the commander for interrogation. It was Vespasian’s plan to send Josephus to Rome as a prisoner. However, by the following ploy, Josephus persuaded Vespasian to keep him with the army:

Dost thou send me to Nero? For why? Are Nero’s successors till they come to thee still alive? Thou O Vespasian, art Caesar and emperor, thou and thy son. Bind me now still faster, and keep me for thyself, for thou, O Caesar, art not lord over me, but over the land and sea, and all mankind; and certainly I deserve to be kept in closer custody than I am now in, in order to be punished if I rashly affirm anything of God.[15]

 

Now, Josephus was a good mathematician. He had used his skill in saving his life by rigging the lottery which saved his life, which is still known as the ‘Josephus Problem’. At this point, recently captured, he calculated he had little to lose but much to gain, so he took a chance on the odds. After all, what do you do with a man who has four Legions at hand - flattery?

 

At first, Vespasian disbelieved the prophecy of a treacherous Jew. However, he kept Josephus under close guard with him. Soon after Nero was assassinated and Vespasian was elected emperor by his troops. It then transpired that he did indeed become emperor. Vespasian released Josephus and took him into his service, and continued to favour him for the rest of his life. When the war was over Vespasian awarded Josephus still further by presenting him with the his old home.

 

Josephus was not the only one to gain favour with Vespasian and his son Titus. Rabbi Jonathan ben Zakkai was spirited out of besieged Jerusalem in a coffin, carried by his disciples. The coffin was deposited in a cave. Rabbi Jonathan went over to the Romans. He also gave a prophecy that the father and son would rule. His reward was to be given permission to refound a Sanhedrin, to preserve Judaism after the fall and destruction of the temple. He was given a place at Jamnia, or Jabneh or Yavneh, on the coast where he assembled the scholars who had survived the war. The school they established was called ‘the Vineyard’; and they rebuilt Judaism along Pharisaic lines as we know it today.

 

The Romans now had a ‘tame’ Judaism that it could deal with on a day to day basis. At least until the persecution of emperor Hadrian after the failed Bar Cochaba revolt which ended in 135 CE. At that point Judaism was outlawed throughout the empire and ordaining of Rabbis forbidden in an effort to find a final solution to the Jewish problem. This is when the Christians found it absolutely necessary to distance themselves from the Jews. Their gospels and early church Fathers could not be more anti-Jewish. This is when Christianity took form as a separate religion. The gospels were assembled about this time and orthodoxy became vitally important.