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Flavius Josephus

Josephus, as he is commonly known (37 CE - circa 100 CE )., was the historian Flavius Josephus, born Joseph bar Matthew (Greek: Matthias), and changing his name to Flavius later in life when he found himself a Jew in a Roman world. He was the son of a Jewish priest, and was a scholarly youth. His intense religious training began at the age of 16 where he studied the principles of the three primary Judean factions: Pharisees, Sadducees and the Essenes.

Josephus became a Pharisee and commanded the Jewish forces in Galilee in their revolt against Rome from AD66,(which ended with the mass suicide at Masada). When captured, he gained the favor of the Roman emperor Vespasian and settled in Rome as a citizen. Four of Josephus works have survived and been translated.

One of those writings talk about Jesus Christ, of course Josephus was born years later after Christ's death, there is a lot of controversy about this particular one, some critics said the translation of the document is not accurate, but in any case, he speaks about Jesus and says:

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to themafter his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders." (Arabic Version)


I will use this thread to post some interesting writings that Josephus wrote. Please feel free to add your comments.

Josephus Flavius

I like his accounts of what happened to the Apostles and times after Christ. Some LDS books do quote him so I guess there is mereit to what he says.

Flavius Josephus Judaism Studies

His actual accounts of Jesus vary in different versions and translations lending some to believe that his works where modified. I have no doubt that they where, but how I don't know. When the works appeared, there where those that hated the church still and would have sought to remove Jesus from the record books. Others say that Jesus was added to add credence to the claims that where made of Jesus in known writings at that time.

Its quite clear by any measure, that Josephus was an extremely influential person in his time or people would not have gone through any trouble to manipulate what he wrote. Being the historian that he was, and apparently very detailed according to history, I think that if Jesus was left out, then it is significant. If Jesus was indeed in his histories, then its also very significant. I suppose we can never really know if his original works are survived unchanged.