Study Asks What Josephus Really Wrote About Jesus’ Resurrection

by · Greek City Times

A new study of the Testimonium Flavianum argues that the Jewish historian Josephus may have recorded early reports of Jesus appearing alive after the crucifixion. The researcher stresses that his reading is plausible, not proven.

Independent Spanish researcher Jesús Fernández-Pedrera Correa set out his case in a preprint, which has not yet passed peer review. The Daily Mail reported on it this week.

What the Testimonium Flavianum says

Josephus was a Jewish historian, not a Christian. He finished his Jewish Antiquities, a history of the Jewish people, around AD 93 to 94. Like the rest of his work, he wrote it in Greek.

Within that history sits the Testimonium Flavianum, a short passage about Jesus. In the surviving Greek, he “appeared to them alive again on the third day”. The text also says the prophets foretold it.

Read more: 4 September Orthodox Gospel Teaches Faith When Hope Seems Lost

However, no manuscript from the historian’s lifetime survives. Despite the headlines, the study does not reveal a new 2,000-year-old document.

Four versions, one puzzle

Instead, Fernández-Pedrera Correa compared four lines of the passage in Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac. The Latin comes from Jerome in the late fourth century.

Next, the Arabic version, by Agapius, dates to the tenth century. Michael the Syrian preserved the Syriac in the twelfth century.

All four describe Jesus appearing alive to his followers. However, the Arabic presents this as something the disciples reported, not as a fact.

As a result, the researcher argues that Josephus may have recorded what the followers said they saw. Later Christian copyists, he suggests, then turned that report into a plain declaration.

His strongest evidence concerns the line that Jesus “was the Christ”. The Latin, Syriac and Arabic all soften it. In addition, the early Christian writer Origen said Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah.

Why the Greek text matters

For Orthodox readers, the Testimonium Flavianum debate centres on a Greek text. According to the study, every surviving Greek copy descends from a version already shaped by fourth-century Christian copying. Other coverage also stresses that the findings remain a proposal.

The Church’s own witness to the Resurrection rests on the Gospels, not on Josephus. Even so, the passage still draws interest. Pilgrims, for instance, keep returning to the Holy Sepulchre and Orthodox Christians follow the daily Gospel readings.

Source: Daily Mail

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