Yet, on a number of grounds, Josephus’s testimony is just too good to be true for most scholars to accept.
The very fact that this passage paints Josephus as a Christian has been considered justification enough for most scholars to reject it. The generally accepted explanation for it appearing in a work by Josephus is that Christians must have added material to the text that was not original to his work. Maybe the entire passage was simply added at a later date.
This process of adding to an existing text is called “interpolation.” Interpolation has been detected in the texts of certain other ancient writers whose works were manipulated by later editors. We have more than one example of this kind of deliberate Christian forgery, such as the afore-mentioned “correspondence” between St. Paul and the philosopher Seneca. Their work may have shared similar ideas, it is true, but the letters themselves look in every other respect to have been written much later and they have been uniformly rejected by Christian scholars for this reason.
Scholars have located the precise time that the suspected interpolation in Josephus’s text must have taken place. But the problem with wholly dismissing Josephus’s highly positive mention of Jesus is complicated by his positive references to other characters from the New Testament, such as John the Baptist and James, to whom Josephus elsewhere refers as “the Brother of Christ” in yet a second reference to Jesus by Josephus.
Here, then, is what Josephus says about John the Baptist:
Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him. (Emphasis added.) (2)
This is extraordinary. As we have seen, Josephus elsewhere claimed that God Himself was on the Roman’s side. And yet we find him expressing sympathy for John the Baptist—just the sort of “innovator” who stirred up trouble, like the Zealots, for whom Josephus normally expresses contempt.
King Herod Antipas views the head of John the Baptist by Henri Leopold Levy (1872)
King Herod Antipas is said to have feared just such trouble might be instigated by the Baptist. Yet, far from criticizing him, Josephus only reports that the people believe John’s execution deserves divine punishment. Given his declarations that the Jewish rebellion was doomed from the start, Josephus shows an unusual sympathy for a messianic prophet who is suspected of inciting rebellion. He is an employee of the Flavians, and yet he is expressing the same kind of sympathy Christ exhibits for this Biblical figure.
Josephus also positively reports that John preached a version of the so-called “Love Commandments,” which were advocated by Jesus and regarded in earlier Jewish thought as the apex or summary of the law. (3) Josephus shares with the Baptist, and with Jesus, the belief that loving God and loving one’s neighbor comprise the essence of morality.
And John the Baptist is not the only New Testament figure that Josephus admires. He also mentions James the Just, referring to him as the “brother” of Jesus in an equally positive way. Once more, we find him defending a messianic ideologue rather than the “authority” figures opposing him:
… Ananus… took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus as he was on his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a Sanhedrim without his consent—whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest." (Emphasis added.) (4)
“Innovators” to whom Josephus is typically hostile are here once again depicted approvingly. True, there is no Roman governor requiring exoneration and the Roman governor’s imminent arrival soon spells trouble for the high priest who killed James. Still, Josephus here is representing a messianic idealist as an innocent victim.
To properly analyze these controversial passages requires us to explore a few technical arguments in order to understand the scholarly debate that has raged over what might be the very first historical evidence of Jesus outside the New Testament itself.
One common Christian objection to the Testimonium Flavianum is that a true Christian would have faced persecution and death rather than admit that any man other than Jesus was the Messiah. Since Josephus claimed Vespasian was the Messiah, he could not be a Christian, according to this argument.
Our theory answers this objection, of course. Indeed, by the conventional understanding, whether he was a pious Jew or a Christian Josephus would face the same problem worshipping an emperor. In either case, he seems to have found an elegant solution: by identifying the emperor as the Messiah, he could retain his Jewish faith and honor the emperor above all other men, simultaneously.
He could worship the emperor as divine—but only if he shared the distinctly un-Jewish Christian idea that the Messiah could also be divine, like a pagan man-god or a Roman emperor, living in the flesh on earth, like Caesar, or like Christ.
Some scholars argue that Josephus proclaimed Vespasian the Messiah in order to justify his betrayal of the Jewish cause—and to justify the treachery of many other Jews who had assisted Rome in the war. (5) This is certainly true, but it does not preclude Jewish messianic claims actually being part of the new imperial cult that Josephus would probably have been enlisted to help develop for the Flavians after the war.