Like Paul, Josephus opposes forced circumcision, also. (10) In his recounting of the story of Abraham, Josephus actually “omits the connection between circumcision and the covenant of God with Abraham,” as one scholar has observed, even though this is the whole point of the story for any faithful Jew. (11)
If Vespasian, an uncircumcised Roman general who did not observe a Kosher diet and did not submit to Mosaic Law, could still be the true Messiah of Jewish prophecy, as Josephus himself proclaimed him to be (12), then how crucial was a Kosher lifestyle to being a “good Jew”? Josephus’s political motivations are obvious—yet they match the agenda of Paul and Jesus exactly.
Josephus advocates the same religious compromises that caused an uproar in Jerusalem when Paul advocated them and helped fuel the Jewish War. He shares, in other words, the same moderating objectives of his triumphant Roman masters. And he shares them at the same time when scholars agree the Gospels themselves were being written—even as he was writing his recapitulation of the Old Testament, so many passages of which are echoed in the Gospels.
We must note here that after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the holy scriptures inside were plundered by the Romans, Titus gave all the Jewish holy books found there to Josephus. (13) (The Dead Sea Scrolls, of course, eluded capture by the Romans, as they had been secreted away in caves and would not be discovered until the 20th Century.)
Plunder from the Jewish Temple, detail from the Arch of Titus, c. 81 CE
Perhaps most remarkably, Josephus also paradoxically combines his belief in the Messiah, the nationalistic and militaristic lightning rod from Jewish history that had incited rebellion, with a peacemaker—just as Paul and Jesus do. Josephus’s master, Vespasian, advertised himself throughout the Empire as a peacemaker and the father of a new Pax Romana (Roman Peace). His son Titus was literally a “prince of peace.” Vespasian erected a temple of peace in the city of Rome, even as he erected the Colosseum.
Not only are all of these peace advocates (Paul, Vespasian, Titus and Josephus) strangely adopting the idea of the Jewish messiah as their own, they are all turning it upside-down, transforming the Jewish concept of a national redeemer into a Roman advocate of transnational harmony.
First Paul, and then the Gospels, provide the cultural and theological argument needed to transform the Jewish Messiah into a Hellenized, Platonic and Stoic “Christ” figure who submits to established Roman authority. Josephus’s works provide authority for this same mission in a number of surprising ways in addition to his liberal take on circumcision.
Most interesting, however, is that Paul and Josephus arrived at precisely the same politically paradoxical conception of the “messiah.”
The Gospels depict Jesus associating with persons who are “unclean” according to contemporary Jewish prejudices, including prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus is shown allowing his disciples to work on the Sabbath, criticizing Kosher dietary laws, praising a Roman centurion for greater faith than any Jew, and so forth, seemingly checking off every issue that had created friction between the Jews and Rome.
It is easy to understand why Jews accused early Christians of conspiring to subvert Mosaic Law. Jesus directly answers that criticism by saying, paradoxically: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (14) However, in order to “fulfill” Jewish law and prophecy, Jesus presents an entirely “new” testament that is rewritten within acceptable Roman specifications.
Josephus’s claims to be a faithful Jew are no less incredible than that of Jesus in the Gospels. After all, Josephus became a turncoat who even helped the Romans interrogate Jewish captives under torture and later made public excuses for the Romans even after they had razed the Temple.
When Josephus was still fighting on the rebels’ side, his own Jewish critics accused him of intending to betray not just the rebels but the laws of his country. (15) This is, of course, the same charge leveled against Jesus—and Paul.
Josephus recounts for us his prayer to God as he was making his fateful decision to go over to the Roman side:
Since it pleaseth thee, who hast created the Jewish nation, to depress the same, and since all their good fortune is gone over to the Romans, and since thou hast made choice of this soul of mine to foretell what is to come to pass hereafter, I willingly give them my hands, and am content to live. And I protest openly that I do not go over to the Romans as a deserter of the Jews, but as a minister from thee." (Emphasis added.) (16)
Just like Jesus, therefore, Josephus regards himself as a faithful believer in the Jewish God even as he is branded a traitor to the law by fellow Jews.
Of course, Josephus himself also went on to associate with “unclean” persons. He reserves some of his highest religious praise for Roman officials—just as Jesus praises a Roman centurion and Paul praises Titus’s and Josephus’s personal friend, Agrippa II. (Josephus tells us that he, too, was a friend of Agrippa.)
However, in addition to the shared ideological beliefs expressed by Jesus Christ and Flavius Josephus, there are also specific biographical parallels between them that warrant attention. In their royal heritage, early histories, and later acts, the coincidences between the lives of Jesus and Josephus are too plentiful to ignore. Obviously, both kept the same kind of unorthodox company and both faced the same criticism from orthodox Jews as a result—but there is much more that Jesus and Josephus strangely have in common.
Between the Nativity and Jesus’s baptism by John—the event that signals the commencement of Jesus’s vocation as teacher and healer—we are told almost nothing about the early life of Jesus in the canonical Gospels.
The major exception is the story of the child Jesus at the Jerusalem Temple, which is relayed in some detail in the Gospel of Luke:
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the Temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. (Emphasis added.) (17)
Here is Flavius Josephus’s story about himself from his autobiography:
Moreover, when I was a child, and about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had to learning; on which account the high priests and principal men of the city came them frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of the law… (Emphasis added.) (18)
In both cases, a child prodigy impresses religious authorities at the Jerusalem Temple with his religious learning. The only difference is their age: Jesus was twelve and Josephus was fourteen.
There is an additional coincidence in the exalted family status of Jesus and Josephus. Josephus came from a royal family, the Hasmoneans, while Jesus is alleged to have descended from the more exalted and ancient line of King David.