I just finished reading a great new book examining the Testimonium Flavianum.
Introduction | Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ | Oxford Academic
Quick summary: The Testimonium Flavianum is a passage from a work by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus which purports to relate what early Christians believed about Jesus. It says:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.
While many scholars had previously stated that this was a non-Christian source material that provided evidence of (1) Christ's existence, (2) what early Christians believed about Christ, and (3) confirmation of certain historical facts related in the gospels, about the turn of the last century, some scholars began to doubt the authenticity of this passage, stating that it was simply too favorable an account to have been written by a non-Christian Jewish historian. Their conclusion from this was that it must have been a forgery, or altered in some way by early Christians to bolster their claims about the historical Jesus. That view became very mainstream over the years, even to the point where many conservative theologians and historians would say that it was "probably" a forgery or at least altered or supplemented.
But a new book by Yale and Oxford scholar TC Schmidt goes into deep detail on the passage, the provenance of the manuscripts we have of Josephus' historical work that contains it (Antiquities of the Jews), and does a much deeper textual analysis of Josephus's writing style and word selection to conclude that: (1) the interpretations from the Greek which seem to show Josephus spouting Christian doctrine are flawed and that, in fact, when you look at the Arabic and Syriac manuscripts, which were probably made from the original greek, the passage is much less affirming of Christian doctrine and seems to paint a more subtly disbelieving picture of Jesus, though still affirming some historical facts, and (2) the word selection in the passage is actually very consistent with Josephus' writing style throughout Antiquities of the Jews. Accordingly, there is a good argument that the passage IS authentic and therefore does provide evidence for the historical Christ.
Anyway - Interesting new scholarship.
Introduction | Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ | Oxford Academic
Quick summary: The Testimonium Flavianum is a passage from a work by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus which purports to relate what early Christians believed about Jesus. It says:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.
While many scholars had previously stated that this was a non-Christian source material that provided evidence of (1) Christ's existence, (2) what early Christians believed about Christ, and (3) confirmation of certain historical facts related in the gospels, about the turn of the last century, some scholars began to doubt the authenticity of this passage, stating that it was simply too favorable an account to have been written by a non-Christian Jewish historian. Their conclusion from this was that it must have been a forgery, or altered in some way by early Christians to bolster their claims about the historical Jesus. That view became very mainstream over the years, even to the point where many conservative theologians and historians would say that it was "probably" a forgery or at least altered or supplemented.
But a new book by Yale and Oxford scholar TC Schmidt goes into deep detail on the passage, the provenance of the manuscripts we have of Josephus' historical work that contains it (Antiquities of the Jews), and does a much deeper textual analysis of Josephus's writing style and word selection to conclude that: (1) the interpretations from the Greek which seem to show Josephus spouting Christian doctrine are flawed and that, in fact, when you look at the Arabic and Syriac manuscripts, which were probably made from the original greek, the passage is much less affirming of Christian doctrine and seems to paint a more subtly disbelieving picture of Jesus, though still affirming some historical facts, and (2) the word selection in the passage is actually very consistent with Josephus' writing style throughout Antiquities of the Jews. Accordingly, there is a good argument that the passage IS authentic and therefore does provide evidence for the historical Christ.
Anyway - Interesting new scholarship.