Introductions of Contra Apion I & II and Luke’s Two Works.

That the writers of the synoptic gospels were written after the fall of Jerusalem and that they follow Josephus is demonstrable. Let us start at the beginning, or introduction. Many scholars have noticed the similarities between the introductions of Josephus’ Contra Apion and Luke’s two works. Josephus writes to “most excellent Epaphroditus” and Luke to “most excellent Theophilus” and both commend the antiquity or beginnings of their religion to their patron. The connection between Apion 1 and Acts 1 is fairly obvious.
 

Apion 1.1.	Apion 2.1	Luke 1:1-4	Acts 1:1
I suppose that, by my books of the Antiquities of the Jews, most excellent Epaphroditus, I have made it evident to those who peruse them, that our Jewish nation is of very great antiquity, and had a distinct substance of its own originally.	In my former book, most honoured Epaphroditus, I have demonstrated our antiquity, and confirmed the truth of what I have said...	Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, {2} just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, {3} I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, {4} so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.	In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning.

This may be mere coincidence. Having read many letters from the period I have found no other examples of this type of greeting or introduction.
 

The 15 Jesuses in Josephus

Working from the index of the complete works of Josephus we find reference to no less than fourteen people named ‘Jesus’. The name we translate as ‘Jesus’ in the New Testament is the same as the name ‘Joshua’ in the Old Testament. Josephus names Joshua son of Nun found in the Old Testament ‘Jesus son of Nun’ in the Antiquities. See Jesus number 10.

1. Jesus, son of Phabet - priest
2. Jesus, son of Ananus - prophesied the destruction of the temple.
3. Jesus, or Jason
4. Jesus, son of Sapphias, governor of Tiberias
5. Jesus, brother of Onias - priest
6. Jesus, son of Gamaliel - priest
7. Jesus, eldest priest after Ananus - priest
8. Jesus, son of Damneus - priest
9. Jesus, son of Gamala (Josephus’ friend)
10. Jesus, [or Joshua] son of Nun
11. Jesus, son of Saphet - ringleader of robbers
12. Jesus, son of Thebuthus - priest
13. Jesus, son of Josedek
14. Jesus of Galilee & his 600 followers
15. Jesus, the Christ (dubious reference)

There are many persons named ‘Jesus’. It seems to be one of the most popular names in Josephus’ works. Jesus, as a name, is exceeded only by Simon (20 times) and Joseph (16). Josephus was a close personal friend of several Jesuses, especially the Jesus who was one of the last high priests before the war.

Most of the Jesuses were either priests, prophets or bandits. It was not only a popular name, but one of distinction. The reference to Jesus ‘called the Christ’ is dubious in the extreme. Josephus hated ‘innovators’ and ‘so called Messiahs’ with a passion that could not allow him to use such terms, which are totally out of tune with the rest of the work. He might have mentioned Jesus, but certainly not in those terms. The messianic prophets were the cause of the fall of Judea and the temple according to several passages in Josephus. In the appendix there is a list of ‘Bandits, Prophets & Messiahs’ to be found in Josephus’ works. His attitude is explicit and would never waver so as to credit anyone with the messiahship.

There is a brief but intriguing mention of a ‘Jesus of Galilee’ in Josephus’ Life, which was written after the Antiquities:

“On hearing that a Galilean, named Jesus, was staying in Jerusalem, who had with him a company of six hundred men under arms, they sent for him...” [Josephus, Life, 40.]

Many Christian scholars have seriously considered the possibility that Josephus became a Christian, or at least an Ebionite Jewish-Christian after writing the Jewish War and before writing his Antiquities. After all, the references to Jesus, James and John are only found in his later work. I discuss this in the section on Josephus as Proto-Xtian. I fear, for the Christians, that Josephus remained a Jew, at least to the end of his writing life.
 

Star over Jerusalem and the Star of Bethlehem.

The ancient world and its historians generally believed in portents, especially from or in heaven. There were many of these portents in Tacitus and Suetonius. They were thought to forecast important events here on earth, such as the death of emperors and the fall of cities. The births of great men were often attended by portents, usually remembered well after the event. Josephus nowhere mentions a star over Bethlehem, nor any wise men prophesying the birth of a new king of the line of David.

Josephus gives several portents of the evil to befall Jerusalem and the temple. Vast armies marching in the sky, abnormal births, the temple doors opening of their own accord, and of course the Shekhinah, the ‘indwelling’, or Spirit of God, leaving the temple. The latter is discussed in the section on the Shekhinah towards the end of this work.

Some of these portents are mentioned by contemporary historians, Tacitus for example. However, Tacitus, in book five of his Histories, uses this to castigate the superstitious Jews for not recognizing and offering expiations for the portents to avert the evil forecast? He put the destruction of Jerusalem down to the stupidity or wilful ignorance of the Jews themselves in not offering the appropriate sacrifices.

War VI, v. 3

Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city [Jerusalem], and a comet, that continued a whole year

Matthew 2: 1-4

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, {2} asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage."

The star over Jerusalem portended its destruction. What was the star over Bethlehem portending? Are these two unique astronomic events related? Matthew, in his interest to divinise Jesus, may have taken the star from Josephus to add colour to the claim of his kingship.

The portent that told of the death of Judea would then mean the birth of Christianity out of the ashes of Judaism

Matthew has the star observed by ‘wise men’ from the East. When they came to Judea they asked Herod the whereabouts of the new-born king, Herod ordered the ‘massacre of the innocents’ throughout Judea. Now, Herod was a harsh ruler and he committed many questionable acts to keep his kingdom in peace. He was caught between a distrustful populace and the might of Rome.

Herod, sensibly, eliminated all of the offspring of the Hasmonean house whom he succeeded in the kingship. This was standard practice in the ancient world where there were many princes and only one kingship. Herod had married into the Hasmonean family to justify his assent to the kingship, therefore many of the Hasmonean pretenders were his own sons. He even eliminated them during his purge. Indeed he killed so many of his own sons, in the interest of peace, that the emperor Augustus was reported to have said: “I would rather be Herod’s pig than his son.” [Macrobius, Saturnalia, II, 4. 11. Quoted in Grant, Herod, p. 195] This was because of the Jewish practice of not killing pigs for sacrifice, which puzzled the gentile world.

Matthew may have derived both his star and Herod’s cruelty from Josephus.
 

The Census and the Birth of Jesus

The discrepancy of Luke’s date of the birth of Jesus, as compared with Matthew, has been noted from early times. Barnett, states the modern Christian apologist’s view:

The other and more serious matter is the author's statement about the birth of Jesus:
“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrolment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”
(Luke 2:1,2; c/f. Acts 5:37)

The problem is that, according to Josephus (Ant. 18:1-2) Quirinius conducted an enrolment in Judaea at the time of the changeover from Herodian to Roman rule in AD 6. But Matthew (2:1) as well as Luke himself (1:5-28) place the birth of Jesus in the days of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC. On the face of it, Luke 2:1-2 is astray by approximately ten years. While the words "first enrolment" may be taken to refer to an enrolment prior to the more famous occurrence of AD 6, complete and continuous records of governors in Syria leave no room for Quirinius to have been governor at an earlier date. Many scholars have seized on this verse as evidence of Luke's inaccuracy in historical matters. This is hardly fair. In the Greek original so few words are used that it can be translated in several ways. The version:

this was an earlier enrolment, before Quirinius was governor of Syria,
is less attractive grammatically, but is quite consistent historically with Luke's own fixing of the birth of Jesus in the days of Herod. There is good reason to leave this question open pending the availability of more evidence before sweepingly rejecting Luke's competence as a historian. [Barnett, P., Is the New Testament History?, Hodder & Stoughton, Sydney, 1986, p. 149. Emphasis mine C.N.C.]

Josephus mentions Cyrenius (Quirinius in Latin) and the census thrice in the Antiquities, [17,.13. 5.; 18. 1. 1.; 20. 5. 2.] and once in the Wars [7. 8. 1.], each time linking him with Judas the Galilean and the birth of the Jewish rebellion. Josephus always links the two names and events together - Cyrenius and Judas the Galilean - the census and birth of the revolution.

Now Cyrenius, a Roman senator,.. came at this time into Syria... to take an account of their substance... Yet there was one Judas... who taking with him Sadduc a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt... for Judas and Sadduc who excited a fourth philosophic sect among us and had a great many followers therein, filled our civil government with tumults at present, and laid the foundation of our future miseries, by this system of philosophy... [Ant. 18. 1. 1.]
But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and they say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. [Ant. 18. 1. 6.]

He (Eleazar, who commanded the last stand at Masada) was a descendent (grandson) from that Judas who had persuaded abundance of the Jews, as we have formally related, not to submit to the taxation, when Cyrenius was sent to Judea to make one;... [War, 7, 8, 1.]

The Jewish war was born in the time of Cyrenius with Judas the Galilean and died with his grandson Eleazar, in the mass suicide at Masada. [War, bk. 7.] This was also the beginning of the ‘fourth philosophy’ and the Zealots, who were the final defenders of the Faith at Masada. For Josephus the date of the first census is the terminus post qua of the Jewish war. Has Luke associated the birth of Jesus to this date, which was central for Josephus?
 

Young Josephus and Jesus with the priests.

Josephus makes a claim to having been a child prodigy in the points of the Law:

Life 2.

Moreover, when I was a child, about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had for learning; on which account the high priests and principle men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law.

Luke varies from Matthew in not having a ‘massacre of the innocents’ or wise men, but, instead, has the story of how Joseph, Mary and the young Jesus go up to the temple during a festival. They lose the child and do not notice it until sometime after they have left Jerusalem. They return and go directly to the temple and there find their child teaching the elders.

Luke 2:41-47

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. {42} And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival... When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. {46} After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. {47} And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

After Josephus’ account this is a remarkable coincidence. It is more likely that Luke, needing a good story about a child prodigy, took a loan from Josephus and turned it into evidence of the prescience of the new messiah.
 
 

Bannus the Baptist

There is more than a casual similarity between the baptist, Bannus, whom Josephus followed, and John the Baptist of the gospels. Granted there were probably thousands of unkempt baptist preachers in the wilderness, but these are the only two of whom we have a record. The Qumran ‘community’ probably knew of many of them but mentions none by name.

Life, 2.

But when I was informed that one whose name was Bannus, lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew on trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both night and day, in order to preserve his chastity, I imitated him in those things, and continued with him three years.

Mark 1:4-6

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. {5} And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. {6} Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

Josephus had tried out all of the religious philosophies of his time, including the Essenes. Bannus was an Essene and Josephus admired his sincerity and lifestyle. However, after his three years in the desert with Bannus Josephus returned to Jerusalem and became a Pharisee. He explains that the Pharisees were philosophically similar to the Stoics, who were in the majority in Rome at this time. Josephus was too vigorous and ambitious to remain in the wilderness. But, his Essene training must certainly have done him some good because, in later life, he looked back on the experience with some fondness.

All in all this passage from Josephus gives us a picture of what John the Baptist would have been like. The wilderness must have been full of these feral prophets from the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Saul/Paul says he, like Josephus, spent three years in the wilderness, before going to Jerusalem for the first time. Were the three years in the wilderness a sort of ‘finishing school’ for all religious Jews?

Jesus was reported to have only spent forty days in the wilderness, but then we have absolutely no information of where he spent his time from birth until he was baptised by John. Jesus could well have spent his apprenticeship in the desert with some Essene community like that found at Wadi Qumran. We have no way of knowing and the synoptic writers obviously did not know either, or they would have told us.
 

John the Baptist in Josephus and the Synoptics

Herod perceived a threat from John the Baptist’s ability to draw a crowd. Whatever his message may have been, the crowd was dangerous to the established order. John obviously had great influence over the people and could possibly turn them against the rulers, so he had to go!

Ant. 18.5.2.

Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so come for baptism; for that the washing (with water) would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the remission of some sins (only), but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now, when many others came to crowd about him, for they were greatly moved by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause,... Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.

The synoptic writers turn John’s death into a moral lesson about incest:
Mark 6:17,18 & 27,29

For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because Herod had married her. {18} For John had been telling Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."...

{27} Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, {28} brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. {29} When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

However, I do not think Herod would be very worried by a feral prophet who disliked his lifestyle. The royal families changed their partners with the political winds. King Herod Agrippa I had a prophet, Simon, ‘who was learned in the Law’, accuse him of not living a kosher lifestyle. Herod merely invited Simon to his palace to observe his manners, bribed him with a small gift and sent him on his way. Feral prophets were more a nuisance than a danger.

However, if John was preaching revolution with his baptising, then he was a valid target. When John was beheaded Jesus was warned that he might be next, Luke, 13:31-32. Jesus took prudent action, according to the synoptics, especially Mark, and left Herod’s territory. The large crowds about Jesus were as suspect as John’s at the Jordan. Josephus has several examples of prophets leading crowds into the wilderness or to the Jordan, and the troops were immediately sent to disperse them. It was not politic to harangue large crowds in occupied Palestine.

However we have a third source for the Baptist story, in the Slavonic Additions, inserted as an appendix to the Thackeray translation of the Jewish War in the Loeb edition.

In the Gospel accounts of John the Baptist his mission was in the early to mid 30’s. He was supposed to have baptised Jesus at that time and to have been beheaded by Herod Antipas before 37. However the Slavonic addition to Josephus’ War has John baptising during the reign of Archelaus, which is thirty to forty years too early for the gospel account? Luke, ch. 1, has the birth of John during the reign of Herod the Great 40/37 to 4 BCE. This is likely and would put John at about the right age to be preaching during the reign of Herod’s successor. If John was still baptising some thirty years later he would have been an old man. This does not seem to be the case for the writers of the gospels. Is this the same man or were there two baptists both named John living some thirty years apart?

This passage certainly fits the context of the War where it has been located better than the reference we have received in the Greek Josephus. Also, note, the baptist in the Slavonic account is an unnamed ‘savage’; whereas in the Greek he is named as John.
 

Now at that time there walked among the Jews a man in wondrous garb, for he had put animals’ hair upon his body wherever it was not covered by his own hair; and in countenance like a savage. He came to the Jews and summoned them to freedom, saying: “God hath sent me to show you the way of the Law, whereby ye may free yourselves from many masters; and there shall be no mortal ruling over you, but only the Highest who hath sent me.” And when the people heard that, they were glad. And he did nothing else to them, save that he dipped them into the stream of the Jordan and let them go admonishing them to desist from evil works; so they would be given a king who would set them free and subject all the insubordinate, but he himself would be subject to no one - he of whom we speak. Some mocked, but others put faith in him.

And when he was brought to Archelaus [ruled 4 BCE to 6 CE] and the doctors of the Law had assembled, they asked him who he was and where he had been until then. And he answered and spake: “I am a man [pure] and hither the spirit of God hath called me, and I live on cane and roots and fruits of the tree.” But when they threatened to torture him if he did not desist from these words and deeds, he spake nevertheless: “It is meet rather for you to desist from your shameful works and submit to the Lord your God.”

And Simon, of Essene extraction, a scribe, arose in wrath and spake: “We read the divine books every day; but thou, but now come forth from the wood like a wild beast, dost thou dare to teach us and seduce the multitude with thy cursed speeches?” And he rushed upon him to rend his body. But he spake in reproach to them: “I will not disclose to you the secret that is among you, because ye desired it not. Therefore has unspeakable misfortune come upon you and through your own doing.” And after he had thus spoken, he went forth to the other side of the Jordan; and since no man durst hinder, he did what he had done before. [Jewish War, Slavonic Addition 9. The Forerunner. Between War 2.110 and 111 - Loeb, Vol. II, pp. 644-645].

In this encounter with Archelaus and the council John comes off unscathed and returns to the Jordan unhindered. In a later addition from the Slavonic edition we are told of the death of an unnamed someone like John, some thirty years later? This later addition has copious Christian interpolations, such as Herod’s wife’s name, his sin, and other details, to fit the gospel account. We have another ‘floating’ legend which the writers of the gospels used, although somewhat clumsily.

Since the John passage we have in the Greek Josephus is not to be found in the War, but in the Jewish Antiquities written somewhat later, we should therefore examine the John the Baptist passage in the Greek version of the Antiquities and its location in the historical time sequence.

However, there are a few problems with the John passage in Josephus. First, and most importantly, is that it also appears to be an interpolation into the Antiquities. Chapter five of book eighteen has four paragraphs. Paragraph one ends with:

5. 1. (Tiberius) wrote to Vitellius, to make war upon him (Aretas the Arabian),... this was the charge that Tiberius gave to the president of Syria.

Paragraph three, omitting the John the Baptist passage in paragraph two, begins with:

5. 3. So Vitellius prepared to make war with Aretas, having with him two legions of armed men...

Josephus usually connects his paragraphs either by informing the reader of what to expect in the next, or he refers back to a point in the last paragraph. In this chapter, five, the first and third paragraphs are connected, as we have just noted. The third paragraph foreshadows what is to follow in the fourth; ie. Herod’s posterity and their several fates.

The only connection between paragraph one and the Baptist passage is the mention of the fortress of Macherus, where John was supposed to have been beheaded. However, there is another problem which precludes the authority of this passage. In the first paragraph Macherus is subject to Aretas, whose daughter flees there to escape, when she finds out about Herod’s secret plan to marry Herodias.

5. 1. She [Aretas’s daughter] desired him [Herod] to send her to Macherus, which is a place on the borders of the dominions of Aretas and Herod, without informing him of any of her intentions. Accordingly Herod sent her thither, as thinking she had not perceived anything; now she had sent a good while before to Macherus, which was subject to her father, and so all things necessary for her journey were made ready for her by the general of Aretas’s army, and by that means she soon came to Arabia... to her father, and told him of Herod’s intentions.

But in the second paragraph, the John passage, Macherus is in the hands of Herod?

5. 2. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus,...

These two events were supposed to have happened around the same time, the date is given specifically in the third paragraph. As Vitellius was on the march he was informed of the death of the emperor:

5. 3. But on the fourth day letters came to him [Vitellius], which informed him of the death of Tiberius, he obliged the multitude to take an oath of fidelity to Caius; he also recalled his army, and made every one of them go home.

Tiberius died and Caius Caligula succeeded to the empire in the year 37 CE. This puts the Baptist passage in the middle of two paragraphs dating from 37; or several years after the traditional dates, 29 to 30 CE, of John the Baptist’s execution and, incidentally, Jesus’ baptism.

Therefore, I have grave suspicions about the historical reference to John the Baptist in Josephus. It is out of context with the surrounding paragraphs - Macherus was subject to the Arabs, not Herod - The passage is located far too late in time to fit the traditional date of John’s death, by about seven or eight years.  

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