Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§7.1 The Sources
7.1. External Sources
It has always been recognized that there are references to Jesus outside the more
immediate Christianly influenced traditions. They are periodically reviewed,
usually with the same results. 2
Josephus the Jewish historian in his Jewish Antiquities (written in the 90s)
refers to Jesus twice. The first passage has clearly been subject to Christian redaction,
but there is a broad consensus 3 that Josephus wrote something like the
following:
At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling
deeds, a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. And he
gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin.
And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among
us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not
cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians (named after
him) has not died out (Ant. 18.63-64).
The second passage is briefer and presumably alludes back to the earlier passage.
It is an account of the summary execution of James (in 62 CE), who is described
as 'the brother of Jesus who is called Messiah' (Ant. 20.200). Few have doubted
that it came from Josephus' pen.
In the course of his treatment of the great fire of Rome during Nero's reign
(64 CE), Tacitus the Roman historian (writing early in the second century) refers
to the scapegoats on whom blame was put, known by the common people as
'Christians'. He explains: 'Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign
of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate' (Annals 15.44).
To be noted is the fact that the formulation has no distinctive Christian features.
And had the information come to Tacitus from Christian sources we would have
expected some disclaimer ('whom they called Christ') and reference to crucifix-
2. Meier, Marginal Jew 1.56-111, has provided a full and discriminating discussion of
these passages, and nothing more need be added at this point. I follow his translations, which
are superior to those of the Loeb editions. See also, e.g., C. A. Evans, 'Jesus in Non-Christian
Sources', in B. Chilton and C. A. Evans, eds., Studying the Historical Jesus (Leiden: Brill,
1994) 443-78; Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 63-89; R. E. Van Voorst, Jesus outside the
New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), with extensive bibliography (219-34).
3. See particularly G. Vermes, 'The Jesus Notice of Josephus Re-Examined', JJS 38
(1987) 1-10, who points out that the two key phrases ('a wise man', 'a doer of startling
deeds') are characteristic of Josephus and (so far as the possibility of an interpolation is concerned)
improbably Christian. See further Charlesworth, Jesus 91-98, and Van Voorst, Jesus
89-99.
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