‘Deciphering the Gospels’, by R. G. Price, argues the case for Jesus mythicism, which is the view that Jesus never existed on earth in any real form but was an entirely mythical figure in the same way as Hercules or Dionysus. (The author is not the same person as Robert Price, also a Jesus mythicist author.) I’m an atheist who holds the opposing (and mainstream) view that Christianity started with a human Jesus. In other words, the Jesus referred to as the founder of Christianity was originally a 1st-century human being, about whom a later mythology grew up, whose followers became the original group that would mutate over time into Christianity. I’m therefore reviewing Price’s book to discuss his arguments and my reasons for disagreeing.

The first post in this book review is here. Links to the posts on all subsequent chapters can be found at the end of that post.

Chapter 10: Non-Christian Accounts Of Jesus

On to the other possible reference to Jesus discussed by Price; the passing mention of ‘Jesus called Christ’ in Book 20 of Josephus’s ‘Antiquities’. I had intended to cover this in a single post, but it got ridiculously long, so I’ve split it into three. This post focuses on general discussion/explanation of the quote, the next will discuss the various theories Price gives us as to how that line might have ended up in Josephus’s work, and the last one will discuss why Price doesn’t want to go for the most obvious explanation (namely, that Josephus actually wrote the line and was referring to Jesus).

In the context of the mythicism debate, the first two things to say about this quote are that it’s a) one of two quotes in Josephus mentioning Jesus, and b) not the one that’s known to have been tampered with. This is worth mentioning because commenters in mythicist debates do sometimes confuse the two (usually because their total knowledge of the subject comes from having skimmed the occasional podcast or post) and say something about ‘the Josephus mention’ clearly being a forgery. I think the little band of commenters I’ve got here actually do know the subject matter better than that, but in case anyone new turns up I’ll start out with a clarification of the basics:

• The first Josephan mention of Jesus is a short paragraph in ‘Antiquities’ Book 18 generally known as the ‘Testimonium Flavium’, which is clearly at least partly forged and possibly entirely so. It is thus not much use for this debate. I’ve discussed this briefly here.
• This post is going to discuss the second mention, which is also in ‘Antiquities’ but in Book 20. Unlike the first quote, this one is accepted by almost everyone in the scholarly world as genuine, for the simple reason that in this case there’s no apparent reason why a forger would go to the bother of inserting it.

Having got that out of the way, let’s take a look at the passage itself:

And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.

Josephus, Antiquities 20, chapter 9

So… a newly elected high priest by the name of Ananus decides to go for a power play before the newly elected procurator gets there, and arranges to have some people sentenced and executed without getting official permission first. This backfires on him when some people are rightfully concerned about this and speak out against it, resulting in Ananus getting kicked out as high priest and replaced by someone else, coincidentally also called Jesus but identified as ‘Jesus, son of Damneus’. And it so happens that, in the midst of this juicy anecdote, Josephus mentions that one of the people executed was ‘the brother of Jesus called Christ’. In other words, Josephus knows of a Jesus who was called Christ. Yes; now you come to mention it, we think we might have heard of that guy as well.

Why would Josephus bother mentioning this?

Why would Josephus bother telling us that one of the people executed was this particular Jesus’s brother? On this we can only speculate, but there is one obvious possible answer: it’s plausible that, by this point, this tiny but spreading cult was well enough known that Josephus would expect many of his readers to have heard about this pesky group of troublemakers that had been started by someone by the name of Jesus whose followers referred to him as Christ. If so, then this reference would clue people in to the reason why Ananus put James and co. up for execution; because they were among the followers of this Jesus called Christ.

Price doesn’t accept that this could have been the case:

In addition, since this is something that is occurring around 60 CE, it would seem quite odd to identify James by his association to a person whom the Jews had supposedly killed as a criminal some thirty years prior to the event, and sixty years prior to this writing.

Christians argue that this was done because Jesus Christ was so well known that it makes the passage make sense, but as we have seen, no one prior to Josephus had even written about Jesus Christ aside from some Christians, so it certainly does not seem that he was well known at all.

Price seems here to again be falling into the trap of assuming that the small proportion of writings that have been copied often enough over the intervening two millennia to be preserved for us to read actually equate to the amount of information that was available at the time. In reality, of course, information would also have been passed on by word of mouth and by writings such as letters that nobody thought to copy and preserve over the centuries.

It’s worth noting here that Price himself has made a claim earlier in this same chapter that requires us to believe that people were hearing about Jesus and his followers in other ways; if you recall, Price was quite happy to assure us that claims about this ‘Christ’ being executed under Pilate ‘would have been common knowledge by 109’. Well, if so, then that leaves us with the possibility that this same piece of information would have been at least somewhat known by the mid-90s CE when Josephus was writing this, thus making it plausible that Josephus might have expected many of his readership to have heard of this group who referred to their leader as ‘Christ’ and followed this Christ’s brother as a temporary replacement leader.

It’s also worth revisiting this comment of Price’s from Chapter 5:

Furthermore, if Jesus had been executed by the Jews during the reign of Pilate due to being a seditious rabble rouser, then wouldn’t followers of his that continued worshiping him in the years after his death have been seen by Jewish leaders as criminals or threats?

Why, yes. Yes, they probably would. And, more to the point, they would have been seen by Romans as criminals or threats, meaning that people would have remained aware of his followers and we can expect that there would have been at least some talk in elite Roman circles about this troublemaking group. I can’t see it being that big a topic of conversation, but it seems the sort of thing likely to get the occasional passing mention, in a ‘those pesky Christians, what are they up to now? <eyeroll>’ sort of way. That is exactly what we’d expect to happen, by Price’s own argument as well as by common sense. And so, once again, it makes absolute sense that Josephus might have expected his readers to be aware enough of this group that they would pick up on his passing reference to them.

Is it even helpful to the debate?

This wasn’t in fact a point made by Price, who’s focusing on attempts to claim that Josephus never said this in the first place, but as it’s a point I’ve sometimes seen raised in other mythicist discussions I’ll address it for completeness:

Josephus wasn’t even born at the time that Jesus supposedly died, so he cannot possibly have ever met him or have first-hand knowledge of him. Which is, by the way, completely normal for historian authors and is not normally considered an issue for dismissing everything they have to say on a subject. However, this is Jesus mythicism, and so now and again a Reddit commenter or the like will start in with the claim that as Josephus never actually met Jesus he can’t provide any evidence of his existence.

Now, I know I keep citing Tim O’Neill, but he made a really good point about this: Josephus was around for this whole incident with Albinus and the unlawful execution. We know from his own autobiography that he would have been a young man living in Jerusalem at the time (the early 60s CE) and that he was from a priestly family, meaning his own social group would have been rocked by this incident and it would have been a major topic of conversation at the time. And while this wouldn’t have told him anything whatsoever directly about Jesus, who was decades dead by then, it would have put him in a good position to know whether this James was in fact being referred to at the time as ‘the brother of Jesus called Christ’.

In other words, Josephus is another good witness (along with Paul, who actually mentions meeting James) to the fact that James, a human on earth, was known as Jesus’s brother. And, as previously discussed, humans aren’t generally referred to as the brothers of mythical beings who had only a heavenly existence; the term ‘brother’ when applied to a human being, whether literally or metaphorically, normally means that the brother was also human. Josephus’s single passing comment tells us that a real human man was referred to as this Jesus’s brother, and thus gives us yet another piece of solid evidence that Jesus was also a real human.

Which, of course, is not at all what Price wants to think, and so he tries hard to give other possible explanations for this quote. The next post will discuss those.