Flavius Josephus On Jesus: Luke's Road to Emmaus and the Testimonium Flavianum | Dr. Gary Goldberg

In this video, Dr. Gary Goldberg appears on History Valley to discuss the Testimonium Flavianum also known as Antiquities 18.3.3 in which Josephus wrote a brief passage about the historical Jesus. Gary shows that Josephus had read the Road to Emmaus and paraphrased it to create the Testimonium Flavianum and thus, Josephus either read Luke or read another text containing the Emmaus narrative.

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𝕏Twitter: @Jacob56723278

[AnUnhappyBusiness]

This is the most interesting biblical scholarship channel out there. Bar none

[robinstevenson]

It seems important to note that "There are no known Greek manuscripts of Josephus' works that can be dated before the 11th century, and the oldest which do survive were copied by Christian monks."

Feldman, Louis H.; Hata, Gōhei (1989). Josephus, the Bible, and history.

Essentially, our "Antiquities" is a text that was transcribed by monks, who were certainly capable of adding a word or two to the text that they transcribed.

[macroman]

Someone once said it is easy to transform a block of marble into Michelangelo's David. You just remove all the bits that don't look like David. In a similar way you can take Josephus and remove all the bits that don't sound like Josephus to get what Josephus wrote.

[Brascofarian]

Dr Steve Mason did a great interview on this a few years ago on mythvision. I'm pretty sure it was just before he retired.

[DavidLyle-suvo]

Perhaps Josephus paraphrased Marcion's gospel Road to Emmaus passage, and then Luke paraphrased/bungled Josephus history facts that Dr. Mason has documented so well.

[robinstevenson]

Doesn't it seem weird that Josephus describes Jesus as "the Christ, " and just leaves it at that, and doesn't say anything about what it means for him to be "the Christ?"

It seems really strange to me to describe Jesus as the Christ without delving more deeply into what this would have meant to his readers in the late 1st c.

Was he trying to suggest simply that he was a (or the one and only) Jewish Messiah? If so, what about the millions of non-Christic Jews who viewed him as being a kind of impostor to the title of Christ? Is Josephus expressing disagreement with the majority of Jews in the world at that time? And if so, why doesn't he say anything about that whole issue, and what it means for his Roman readers?

[brianpetruska]

Isn't it far more likely that Luke copied Josephus? After all, Luke appears to be copying Josephus in his reference to the Quirinius census during the nativity story gLuke 2:2 and in his identification of the political leaders in introduction to Luke 3. Also consider the context. In the Emmeas story, Luke wants to show that other Jews expected a secular messiah. Where does he get that idea? From Josephus and his litany of rebellious Messiahs. So he puts Josephus' words into the story. Which is literally what Dr Goldberg was looking for when he started considering this passage. That said, it would be noteworthy that the T.F. existed in Josephus at the time that Luke was written for showing its authenticity.

[Numischannel]

Very interesting, I agree entirely with Goldberg's theory that the immediate followers of Jesus thought of him as a liberator from Rome. The exact legends he mentions, which appear in the bronze coins of the First Revolt (in Hebrew), are: "Cheruth Zion" (Deliverance of Zion) in the small prutot (years 1-3 of the Revolt), and "Lig'ullath Zion" (Of the Redemption of Zion"), in the larger, emergency bronzes at the end of the war. This second legend must be read as a continuation of the obverse legend, which is the date "Shenat arba" (Year Four), so it can be read as "Year four / of the Redemption of Zion."

[dreaustin]

Very good interview Jacob. you should have been had this dude on your program

[sparrowthesissy]

Josephus is so completely unfocused on Christianity or its particular doctrines for 99% of the rest of his histories, even if he was using Luke 24 or an eariler fragment also used by Luke, he clearly didn't believe those claims. Even when discussing James, the focus is on the priesthood succession, and James being a minor celebrity is fully incidental. We get no talk of miracles or resurrections or anything like that there.
I think there remains explanatory power in the narrative that a later writer familiar with Luke added the passage, and might use similar language because they learned Greek studying Josephus and Luke. Maybe they didn't know many Greek words at all outside of those texts. The possibility of Luke 24 being an earlier source, and not just a summary by Luke, is an intriguing idea, though.

[Dybbouk]

I think most scholars would accept that Luke is 150 ce. So the Emmaus reference makes sense in a post Bar Kochba context. Jesus will lead towards liberation, there where BK had failed

[David-jvp]

Added on there were thing's that were added on to what was written

[Dybbouk]

According to Vinzent and the others, this would be a very early reference to the Resurrection.

[russrussel]

Luke 24:43-53 was written by someone who thought that no one would know that The Jewish Prayer Book Of Psalms, The Prophets or Genesis has no reference to "jesus" in it. So, Anti-Jewish Paulinians STILL don't know that "jesus" isn't in Psalm 110, 2, 22, etc., The book of Isaiah or any other Jewish Prophet or Genesis. Christians don't even know that Psalms are not Christological and that Psalms is located in the Jewish Bible and that "Paul" didn't understand RABBI ISAIAH, because "Paul" wasn't Jewish and hated Judaism. Christianity: Legacy of False Prophet Paul... Revelation 3:9

[David-jvp]

Josephus wasn't the writer. Someone else wrote thing's after his time

[Mikeatthenet]

Well we cannot have it bothways.
- Either Luke existed before T.F and will with this argument prove that 1) Luke was early, and 2) that T.F. was likely original by Josephus since it follows his ways of paraphrasing..

Or..

- Josephus and T.F. was first and that and that means either 1) Luke was paraphrasing T.F and that means it proves T.F existed very early and was considered original when Luke was written or 2) the author of Luke was able to change and add T.F in all existing copies of Josephus. (That doesn’t sound extremely likely).

[David-jvp]

Maybe the writer of the Antiquities of the Jews was made to cover up the truth about the history on in the Hebrew scriptures and about Jesus being the messiah too

[David-jvp]

Symmachus or Origen writing the Antiquities of the Jews obviously is what would have happened

[EdwardM-tp]

This presentation by Mr. Goldberg give me a lot of food for thought.

But first: copying from Luke. This almost cements in place that Eusebius forged the TF because of tell tale signs that Luke was an expansion of Marcion's gospel and that Luke was expanded after the Bar Kochba Revolt "And we had thought he was the one who would redeem (liberate) Israel." Plus there are other signs that Luke copies off of or refers to Josephus' Antiquities (the census account, and the disciples' beef with the Samaritans).

But what's in favor of Josephus writing the TF as is, is that the key words referring to Jesus could be translated differently, giving a new perspective on the historical Jesus - a perspective that probably shows that Dr. Ammon Hillman of Lady Babylon is right!

Hail Satan 🍷

[brandoninden]

The correspondence is undeniable, and his hypothesis is plausible. But I really don't see him eliminating the possibility it was Luke copying Josephus. Paraphrase makes sense for a historian copying a source, but historians also condense elements when summarizing something and that looks a lot like a paraphrase too. TF reads cleanly as this sort of summary, while Luke is a little clunky (at least in the English) as if he is filling in the details while copying the TF. Of course we see this a lot in the canonical gospels compared to Marcion's gospel. So again I just don't see why the copying couldn't be the other direction. Also, I hadn't thought about Josephus's father having been around when Jesus was crucified. I would think this would make a pretty good first hand source for Josephus. Perhaps the TF was a summary of how his father described the events around this Jesus character?