'If indeed one ought to call him a man': New study shows 'historical' Jesus had bigger impact than we thought

For more than a century, mainstream historians — Christian and non-Christian alike — have largely agreed on one point: Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure.

The enduring debates concern something else entirely. Who did Jesus claim to be? What can history tell us about His life? And how should historians interpret the handful of ancient, non-Christian sources that mention Him?

That small change significantly alters the tone of the passage, allowing Josephus to report what Jesus' followers believed without personally endorsing their claims.

One of those sources has long stood at the center of scholarly debate.

"And in this time there was a certain Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man ..."

Those famous words come from the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. For generations, however, many scholars have argued that portions of the passage were embellished by later Christian copyists, making it difficult to know exactly what Josephus originally wrote.

A new book argues historians have been too skeptical.

A more extraordinary Jesus?

In "Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ," Yale-trained historian T.C. Schmidt contends that Josephus' famous "Testimonium Flavianum" — his longer account of Jesus — is substantially more authentic than many scholars have believed. If Schmidt is correct, one of history's most important non-Christian accounts portrays Jesus as a more extraordinary figure than the prevailing scholarly consensus has assumed.

That would not overturn the historical case for Jesus, which already rests on multiple ancient sources. Rather, it could strengthen historians' confidence in one of antiquity's earliest and most important independent accounts of Jesus' life, execution, and the remarkable movement He inspired.

Among skeptics and believers alike, historians have long looked beyond Scripture when evaluating the historical Jesus.

As New Testament scholar John P. Meier has observed, "The implication is that the biblical evidence for Jesus is biased because it is encased in a theological text written by committed believers. What they really want to know is: Is there extra-biblical evidence ... for Jesus' existence?"

Mainstream historians have long answered that question in the affirmative.

Tacitus: No friend to Christianity

One important witness comes from Roman historian, senator, and ethnographer Tacitus, who flourished in the late first and early second centuries, well within living memory of the end of Jesus Christ's earthly life.

In his "Annals of Imperial Rome," Tacitus, who was no friend to Christianity, makes a reference to Jesus Christ that teaches the reader multiple facts about Christ from an outsider's perspective.

The passage appears amid Tacitus' account of the burning of Rome under Emperor Nero in 64 A.D. The full passage (in the Michael Grant translation) reads:

"But neither human resources, nor imperial munificence, nor appeasement of the gods, eliminated sinister suspicions that the fire had been instigated. To suppress the rumour, Nero fabricated scapegoats — and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius' reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback, the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome. All degraded and shameful practices collect in the capital."

(Grant notes that "this is the only mention in pagan Latin of Pontius Pilate's action.")

This not only confirms the spreading influence of Christianity over the region and beyond; it also places Jesus Christ in the correct time and place according to biblical sources and tradition, and crucially, it connects Him with Pontius Pilate.

Josephus: 2 accounts

Josephus provides another crucial witness.

His brief reference to "James, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ," found in Book 20 of "Jewish Antiquities," has long been accepted by most historians as authentic. As biblical scholar Lawrence Mykytiuk notes, the reference only serves its purpose of identifying James if Josephus expected his readers to recognize Jesus as a real historical figure.

But Josephus contains a second — and far more famous — reference to Jesus.

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Known as the "Testimonium Flavianum," Josephus' longer account of Jesus has occupied scholars for generations because portions of the text appear unusually favorable toward Christianity.

Traditionally, scholars have proposed three possibilities.

The first is that the entire passage is a later Christian forgery.

The second is that Josephus wrote it substantially as we have it today.

The third — and for many years the dominant scholarly position — is that Josephus wrote a genuine core that was later embellished by Christian scribes.

Schmidt argues that historians have underestimated Josephus.

'He was thought to be the Christ'

Drawing on Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian textual traditions, he contends that the "Testimonium" has survived with remarkably little alteration. According to Schmidt, the text has lost only "two or three words," while the overwhelming majority of the passage is authentically Josephus.

He also argues that early Greek-speaking Christians themselves often treated the passage not as a confession of Christian faith but as a neutral — or even mildly skeptical — description of Jesus, making extensive Christian editing less likely than many scholars have assumed.

One of Schmidt's most important arguments concerns a famous line traditionally translated, "He was the Christ."

According to Schmidt, the earliest textual evidence points instead toward a more cautious reading:

"He was thought to be the Christ."

That small change significantly alters the tone of the passage, allowing Josephus to report what Jesus' followers believed without personally endorsing their claims.

Schmidt also argues that Josephus' distinctive writing style appears consistently throughout the passage and that Josephus was uniquely positioned to know reliable information about Jesus, given his family connections and familiarity with Jerusalem's political and priestly elite.

An invitation

Schmidt ultimately invites readers to reconsider the "Testimonium Flavianum" in light of this evidence.

His reconstructed text reads:

"And in this time there was a certain Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was a doer of incredible deeds. ... He was thought to be the Christ ... on the third day it seemed to them that he was alive again ..."

If Schmidt is correct, the significance extends beyond textual criticism.

Rather than simply reinforcing the already broad scholarly consensus that Jesus existed, Schmidt argues that one of history's most important non-Christian historians may have offered a richer — and more authentic — portrait of Jesus than generations of scholars have assumed.

Instead of merely mentioning Jesus in passing, Josephus describes Him as a wise teacher, a worker of remarkable deeds, a man who drew large crowds, whose execution under Pontius Pilate failed to extinguish His movement, and whose followers remained convinced that He had risen from the dead.

Whether Schmidt ultimately persuades the scholarly community remains to be seen. His work does not seek to settle the historical Jesus debate so much as reopen one of its most important textual questions.

It is, instead, an invitation — for believers and nonbelievers alike — to reconsider whether historians have underestimated the authenticity and significance of antiquity's most important non-Christian account of Jesus Christ.

A free online version of "Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ" is available here.