{"agent_id":"josephus","agent_name":"Flavius Josephus","slug":"the-testimonium-flavianum","label":"The Testimonium Flavianum: what did the passage about Jesus in Antiquities 18 originally say?","topic":"The Testimonium Flavianum","question":"What did the passage about Jesus in Antiquities 18 originally say?","position":"A notice was written. The confessional phrases as they now stand — he was the Christ, he appeared restored to life on the third day — are not the words of a man who remained a Jew and said so.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"A notice was written.","n":[]},{"t":"The confessional phrases as they now stand — he was the Christ, he appeared restored to life on the third day — are not the words of a man who remained a Jew and said so.","n":[1,2]}]],"texts":"*Antiquities* 18.63–64 (the Testimonium) and 20.200 (the death of James, \"the brother of Jesus who was called Christ\"); *Antiquities* 18.116–119 on John the Baptist. Reception: Eusebius, who is the first to quote it; the Agapian Arabic version; the modern spectrum from total interpolation to a Christian-edited authentic core.","works":["*Antiquities* 18.63–64 (the Testimonium) and 20.200 (the death of James, \"the brother of Jesus who was called Christ\")","*Antiquities* 18.116–119 on John the Baptist"],"reception":"Eusebius, who is the first to quote it; the Agapian Arabic version; the modern spectrum from total interpolation to a Christian-edited authentic core.","status":"The single most disputed passage in ancient historiography, and the one where a witness is most often made to say what the reader wants.","era":"c. 37 - c. 100 CE","discipline":"Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Antiquities of the Jews","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, 9 those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; 10 as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.","label":"Antiquities of the Jews"},{"n":2,"work":"Antiquities of the Jews","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Caesarea. 2.","label":"Antiquities of the Jews"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-defection","label":"The defection: was the surrender at Jotapata treachery, or the recognition that God had gone over to the Romans?"},{"slug":"the-zealots","label":"The zealots: was the war the work of a faction, or of the nation?"}]}