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Apr. 17, 2005 Flavius Josephus (circa 37-100 AD) was a Jewish historian whose writings include "Jewish Antiquities", which appeared around 93 AD. The following excerpt is the first known reference to Jesus Christ outside of the New Testament. "About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared." For centuries, this passage, which is called the "Testimonium Flavianum" (Flavian Testimony), was regarded by the Catholic Church as sacrosanct. It was the witness of a Jew, supposedly indifferent or hostile to Christianity, testifying not only to the existence of Jesus, but also to his divinity, crucifixion and resurrection. The very fact that Josephus was Jewish seemed to enhance the value of the testimony. It was said that Josephus was constrained by God to speak the truth in spite of himself. It was said that Josephus was divinely inspired. The Testimonium Flavianum was included in many editions of the Bible. Even today, many Christian authorities, including Billy Graham, cite the Flavian Testimony as extra- Biblical evidence corroborating the assumed factual existence of Christ, but for anyone interested in the Josephus' credibility, let me quote Genesis 49:10 from the King James Version. "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Josephus, who had fought in the Roman-Jewish War of 68-70 AD and had been present at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, later became a client of Emperor Vespasian (lived 9-79 AD, reigned 69-79 AD), honoring him as the Messiah of the people and claiming that the above passage from Genesis was a prophecy of the coming of Vespasian, the name "Shiloh" referring to Vespasian. Firstly, this attribution demonstrates how flexibly Josephus could tailor his philosophy to realities on the ground, as we´d say today. And one is given cause to wonder whether Josephus would apply the title "Messiah" to both Vespasian and Jesus. St. Origen (circa 182-251 AD) reviewed the writings of Josephus and wrote commentaries upon them. Origen, while praising Josephus as an historian, expressed clearly that he, Origen, regretted that Josephus had rejected Jesus. This means that the so-called Flavian Testimony was not present in the copy that Origen read, or certainly he would have seized upon it. According to the late Robert Eisler, a Biblical scholar, it was not until the reign of Emperor Constantine (lived 272-337 AD; reigned 306-337 AD), who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, that the Catholic Church had the power to suppress any writings hostile to Christian dogma. Concealment of anti-Christian writings became a capital offense. In the Christian reign of terror ushered in by Constantine, it would have been an easy matter for imperial censors to expunge passages on the divinity of Vespasian and to insert passages on the divinity of Jesus. In other words, the Flavian Testimony was added to the Jewish Antiquities in the 4th century or later, probably by monks. It wasn't until the 16th century that Protestant scholars began to challenge the authenticity of the Flavian Testimony. Many people nowadays recognize it as fraudulent, but others try to clutch at this single straw of evidence as proof of the existence of Jesus. The reasons for discounting it are the following. 1.) It is very likely a forgery. 2.) Even it if were authentic, it would have to have been second-hand testimony, that is, hearsay, as Josephus was born only in 37 AD. 3.) Josephus' source, if he had written such a thing, might have been the Gospels themselves, in which case it would not constitute independent testimony. 4.) Josephus is known for exaggeration, as in the Shiloh prophecy. 5.) Josephus was a Jew, not a Christian, but he probably would have become a Christian, if indeed he had written and believed that passage. The position of the Catholic Church, as well as many other people, is that the passage, as it stands, could not have been in the original version. What they propose is not that monks inserted an entirely spurious passage in the Jewish Antiquities, but rather that monks merely altered, or doctored, as we'd say today, a passage that was already in the book. In other words, the passage is basically true, according to them, even though some slight embellishments have crept in. Some writers have even tried to reconstruct the original passage. Of course, all the Christian scholars know all of these details in the first place, but apparently suppose that they can just quote Josephus' passage anyway, and that most of their readers will simply believe it uncritically, without looking into the authenticity of the passage. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. 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