Who was Jesus, the man?

Who was Jesus, the man?

There are no "eyewitness" accounts written about Jesus during his lifetime, so historians have to rely on interpretations of the four main canonical gospel texts, mostly scrawled several decades after his death.

"I think it's natural for human beings to ask questions 'why' something happened, and those are not exactly the questions dealt with in the Gospels," said Hagerland. "It could be of interest both to Christian believers and to critics of that religion to know which aspects of Christianity are rooted in historical facts and which are derived from religious convictions and experiences that cannot really be evaluated from an historical point of view."

The "Jesus" of history isn't a complete mystery to Biblical scholars, who often make a distinction between the man and the religious figure depicted in the scriptures.

The following "facts" about Jesus would be affirmed by most history scholars, Borg said:

Jesus was born sometime just before 4 B.C. He grew up in Nazareth, a small village in Galilee, as part of the peasant class. Jesus' father was a carpenter and he became one, too, meaning that they had likely lost their agricultural land at some point. Jesus was raised Jewish and he remained deeply Jewish all of his life. His intention was not to create a new religion. Rather, he saw himself as doing something within Judaism. He left Nazareth as an adult, met the prophet John and was baptized by John.

In between those points, the historical details are hard to verify, says Borg, who believes that ……………

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The works of the first-century historian Josephus have been held in high regard by Christians throughout history. The early church, Schreckenberg writes, saw Josephus as "a kind of fifth gospel" and a "little Bible" [Feld.JosJes, 317] , because his works "appeared to Christian theologians to be a commentary or a historic appendix to the New Testament." (ibid., 319) The church's love for Josephus "assured him an ongoing role in Western tradition." [Maso.JosNT, 8] Closer to modern times, households in France, Holland and England were known to present newborns with inscribed copies of Josephus, right along with the Bible. [Hada.FJos, 2] Thus it is that the particular references to Jesus have been held historically in the highest esteem - and perhaps, also why they have resulted in the most spilled ink!

We will not investigate the question of Josephus' reliability closely here, for there is little question that Josephus is a generally reliable historian. He had his biases, of course, and he was, unfortunately, something of a traitor to his people! However, questions as to his accuracy as a historian are not what turn up regarding his references to Jesus. Rather, they focus, almost to the point of obsession, on this question:

Are these genuine references, or are there doubts about their veracity?

There are two quotes that mention Jesus in Josephus' Antiquities: A smaller and a larger one. Both of these have been targeted by the Jesus-myth circle as interpolations made by later Christian scribes. Wells [Well.WhoW, 21; Well.DidJ, 14] , for example, rejects the small passage as a partial interpolation or marginal gloss, as did Drews [Drew.WH, 10]. Stretching the polemic, Wells says that it is "widely admitted" that both this passage, and the larger one are interpolations. [Well.HistEv, 18] (Wells' "widely" estimation is quite a bit off. According to Feldman's discernible statistics [Feld.JosMod, 684-91] , 4 scholars regard the larger passage as completely genuine, 6 more as mostly genuine; 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation as Wells does.) Twleftree [Twel.GosP5, 300] , offering an unusual view, rejects the smaller passage on rather thin terminological grounds, but strangely, accepts most of the larger passage as genuine! Needless to say, there is plenty of discussion about these passages, and we will only be able to touch the tip of the iceberg.

Let us begin in the natural place to start: By quoting the materials in question. Here is the first and smaller quote:

Antiquities 20.9.1 But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.

It is the words "the so-called Christ" that are thought to be interpolated here - assuming that this passage is even noticed; some writers, I have observed, seem to forget that it exists! But let us consider the arguments for and against regarding this as an interpolation.

* First, there is no textual evidence against this passage. It is found in every copy of the Antiquities we have [Meie.MarJ, 57]. This also applies to the larger passage. [ibid., 62] Some will assert as a counter that there was still sufficient time for an interpolation to occur and not enough textual evidence to prove that it didn't, but this amounts to an admission that the textual data, as it stands, favors authenticity. Anything beyond that in these terms is speculation and question-begging!
* Second, there is a specific use of non-Christian terminology: The designation of James as the "brother of Jesus" contrasts with Christian practice of referring to him as the "brother of the Lord" or "brother of the Savior." (as in Gal. 1:19 in the NT and Eusebius in later history). The passage "squares neither with New Testament nor with early patristic usage." [ibid., 58]

In response to this Wells objects that "an interpolator might well have been aware that an orthodox Jewish writer could not possibly be represented as calling Jesus 'the Lord.' We do not have to assume that all interpolators went to work with more piety than sense." [Well.JesL, 53]

Wells' argument is refuted by the interpolations themselves. Evidence that interpolators did have "more piety than sense" is in fact found in the larger passage in Josephus itself, where an interpolator has Josephus confessing that Jesus is "the Christ." If an interpolator added this sort of sentiment, knowing that Josephus was an orthodox Jew, then certainly he (or another interpolator) would have been careless enough to refer to James as "the brother of the Lord," had this small passage been a forgery.
* Third, we may note the emphasis of the passage. It is not on Jesus or even James, but on Ananus the high priest and the turbulence he caused. There is no praise for James or Jesus. This is not what we would expect if this were an interpolation. [Meie.MarJ, 58-9]
* Fourth, Josephus' account of James being stoned is different from the account given by the church historian Hegesippus, who has James being thrown from the roof of the Temple. [ibid., 57] This would be an unlikely move for an interpolator.
* Fifth, neither this passage nor the larger one connects Jesus with John the Baptist, as we would expect from a Christian interpolator.

The bulk of the evidence therefore favors highly the genuineness of this passage.