The 2nd Century pagan writer Celsus, the critic of Christianity who first reported the story that Jesus was the illegitimate child of a Roman soldier, is known only through Origen’s critique of his work. For obvious reasons, Celsus’s own writings were not preserved by Christians and don’t exist today. (We can never know how much we will never know because of such censorship.) But in his critique of Celsus, Contra Celsus, Origen makes use of Josephus to rebut Celsus’s charges, writing:
I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless—being, although against his will, not far from the truth—that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ)—the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice. Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine. If, then, he says that it was on account of James that the desolation of Jerusalem was made to overtake the Jews, how should it not be more in accordance with reason to say that it happened on account (of the death) of Jesus Christ, of whose divinity so many Churches are witnesses, composed of those who have been convened from a flood of sins, and who have joined themselves to the Creator, and who refer all their actions to His good pleasure. (Emphasis added.) (9)
Origen accepts Josephus’s self-identification as a “Jew.” Any assistance he provides Christians, therefore, according to Origen, is against his will, and even more compelling. The fact that Origen finds Josephus so compelling an authority is itself significant. Yet, writing in the 3rd Century, Origen is explicit on this point: Josephus did not accept “Jesus as the Christ,” in direct contradiction of the Josephus text that we have inherited today.
Eusebius, who wrote in the early 4th Century, quotes the full Testimonium, with all the bells and whistles that we have today, however.
So, we know that the passage was tweaked sometime between Origen and Eusebius, around the turn of the 4th Century.
Other things that bothered Origen about Josephus are very interesting. He decries Josephus’s claim that the Temple was destroyed “on account” of James’s death rather than because of Jesus’s death. Origen seems to be correcting Josephus on something that does not exist in any Josephus text that we possess today. So something else was changed.
Origen elsewhere writes:
[The Jewish War] began in the reign of Nero, and lasted till the government of Vespasian, whose son Titus destroyed Jerusalem, on account, as Josephus says, of James the Just, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, but in reality, as the truth makes clear, on account of Jesus Christ the Son of God. (Emphasis added.) (10)
Here he is relating that Josephus justified the deeds of the Emperor Titus by way of the Jews’ murder of James. This reference in Josephus does not survive at all now. But such a motive would make sense coming from Josephus, the Flavian apologist. To show that internal strife among Jews was responsible for the events that led to the destruction of their Temple certainly distracts from the Roman role in that deed, even if it falls short of a full “justification” for it, while the murder of a good man, such as James, might meet the case. In yet another work, Origen says:
And James is he whom Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians that he saw, "But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother.” And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the Temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James. And Jude, who wrote a letter of few lines, it is true, but filled with the healthful words of heavenly grace, said in the preface, "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James." (Emphasis added.) (11)
Well. Origen is not only reporting (for the third time) that Josephus said the Temple’s destruction was God’s punishment for the murder of James, an assertion no longer found in Josephus’s work, but here he adds that Josephus claimed the people understood this divine punishment was for the murder of James. So this was a widespread belief at the time. This seems to further elaborate what Origen was objecting to in the previous passage.
If Origen is correctly reporting this Josephus passage, this, too, makes sense. As Josephus’s passage about John the Baptist shows, divine punishments for the murder of a good man were to be expected by both contemporary Jews and, apparently, Josephus himself.
Origen once more makes clear that the original passage in Josephus as he read it, however, could not have said, “Jesus was the Christ,” as it appears in the text passed down to us.
Many scholars have tried to “fix” the text of Josephus so that it agrees with Origen’s description of it. This is a useful exercise. If we omit what must have been missing from Origen’s copy of Josephus, we get something like this:
At this time there was Jesus, [a wise man. For he was one who performed wonderful works, and a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. He stirred up both many Jews and many Greeks.] And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, since he was accused by the leading men among us, those who had loved him from the first did not desist. And until now the tribe of Christians, so named from him, is not extinct.
Any of the bracketed material may have also been omitted, but its omission is not strictly necessary to approximate the text that Origen described.
So, from Origen we can tell that the reference to Jesus was significantly augmented at a later date. We can also see that a passage Origen found objectionable suggesting that James’s death, instead of Jesus’s, precipitated God’s punishment of the Jews appears to have been completely excised from the text. Origen refers to this missing material on no less than three separate occasions. Both later “adjustments” of Josephus’s text seem to “fix” the problems Origen complained about.
If we eliminate the Testimonium altogether, we are left to puzzle over Josephus’s admiration for James, whom he calls “the brother of Jesus.” This second reference to Jesus by Josephus suggests that Josephus’s original account of Jesus, though doubtlessly tampered with by Christians, must have at least been present in the original text and that it was positive even if it was not overtly proclaiming the exclusive truth of Christianity. This alone would be unexplainable in any context other than the theory we are considering.