Yet I do think there is a cryptic or garbled reference to the Life of Jesus in Josephus which does survive. In the Acts of the Apostles (21), we read that during the time of the Procurator Marcus Antonius Felix (52-58 AD), Paul was arrested following a riot in the Temple…”And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said to the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Art thou not that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers (sicarii)?” Do we see here Judas the Sicarios (Dagger-man) and Simon the Zealot? And was Jesus the Egyptian? And did Paul actually meet the resurrected and living Jesus on the road to Damascus? For there is no doubt in my own mind that he died on the cross and rose again on the third day.
Josephus in the Wars of the Jews (2.259) says that during the governorship of Porcius Festus (58-62 AD) there were many people “who deceived and deluded the people under pretense of Divine inspiration, but were in fact for procuring innovations and changes to the government. These men prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty” Do we see here Paul, the Apostles and the early Christians gaining influence among the people and the apparent failure of Jesus’s mission gradually changing to triumph. Although for those who had misunderstood his message, and there were many, disaster was about to befall Jerusalem.
Josephus then continues: “ There was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and he got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him ; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives. He was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to rule them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him”.
In the Antiquities of the Jews (20.169-171), Josephus ignores the prophet’s alleged threat of violence, writing, ” about this time, someone came out of Egypt to Jerusalem, claiming to be a prophet. He advised the crowd to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it is called, which lay over against the city, at a distance of a kilometre. He added that he would show them how the walls of Jerusalem would fall down at his command, and he promised them that he would procure them an entrance into the city through those collapsed walls. Now when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons and came up against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. He slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. The Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more.”
Living through the past fifty years of conflict in Northern Ireland has taught me to be circumspect of journalistic reports on the situation here . Looking back at similar circumstances in Judea all those years ago has also made me appreciate all the more the true story of Jesus in the Gospels and deplore the attempts by academics to dissect it so much as to obliterate his message. I can remember clearly what happened here since the mid sixties, so I will stick with the witness of Paul and the Evangelists, who were so close to these happenings. I do not care if there are minor differences in the accounts. It proves their authenticity. The greatest of the exegetes of that time and indeed later, not only Jesus, but Hillel, Paul and then Johanan ben Zakkai, Akiba and Augustine emphasised that charity and loving kindness were essential to the interpretation of Scripture. Only when Jews, Christians, Muslims and others accept this can they listen with humility and true understanding to the opinions of others.
Concluded
© Pretani Associates 2014