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Josephus on the New Testament figures

← Ancient texts · Jewish — Second Temple & after

Greek · Written c. 93–94 AD, a generation after the events.

Translation: William Whiston, 1737 — Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, tr. William Whiston (1737). Public domain.

Flavius Josephus was a Jewish priest and general who surrendered to Rome in the revolt of 66–73 AD and spent his later life in Rome writing the history of his people. His Antiquities of the Jews (93 AD) is the single most important outside source for the world of the New Testament, and it mentions three of its figures directly.

The passage on Jesus (the Testimonium Flavianum) is famous and disputed: as it stands it reads like a Christian confession ("He was the Christ", "he appeared to them alive again the third day"), and most scholars think a Christian copyist expanded a shorter, more neutral notice — though almost all accept that Josephus wrote something here. The notices on John the Baptist and on James, "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ", are undisputed and match the Gospels and Acts on the essentials.

This is a small selection. Josephus's full retelling of the Old Testament (Antiquities I–XI) and his account of the fall of Jerusalem are not yet hosted here.

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