Ancient source · Josephus

Josephus, Antiquities 18.63–64

The passage on Jesus (the 'Testimonium Flavianum'; its wording is disputed)

The authenticity of this passage, in whole or in part, is disputed. Many scholars hold that Josephus wrote something about Jesus here and that Christian copyists added to it; some think it entirely an interpolation. The phrases most often judged to be additions include 'if it be lawful to call him a man', 'He was [the] Christ' and the sentence on his appearing alive on the third day.

¶1 Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. 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, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

The Greek text (Niese), sections 63–64

⁶³ [Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ἰησοῦς σοφὸς ἀνήρ, εἴγε ἄνδρα αὐτὸν λέγειν χρή· ἦν γὰρ παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής, διδάσκαλος ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἡδονῇ τἀληθῆ δεχομένων, καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν Ἰουδαίους, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ ἐπηγάγετο· ὁ χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν.]

⁶⁴ [καὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδείξει τῶν πρώτων ἀνδρῶν παρʼ ἡμῖν σταυρῷ ἐπιτετιμηκότος Πιλάτου οὐκ ἐπαύσαντο οἱ τὸ πρῶτον ἀγαπήσαντες· ἐφάνη γὰρ αὐτοῖς τρίτην ἔχων ἡμέραν πάλιν ζῶν τῶν θείων προφητῶν ταῦτά τε καὶ ἄλλα μυρία περὶ αὐτοῦ θαυμάσια εἰρηκότων. εἰς ἔτι τε νῦν τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἀπὸ τοῦδε ὠνομασμένον οὐκ ἐπέλιπε τὸ φῦλον.]

Square brackets in the Greek mark words the editor judged not to be original.

Where this text comes from

English: William Whiston's translation (1737), as printed in 1856. Whiston translated an earlier Greek text (Sigebert Havercamp's edition, 1726), not the Niese text shown here, so the two can differ in places. Words in square brackets in the English are Whiston's own additions, not in the Greek. Whiston grouped sections, so this extract covers 18.63–64.
Greek: Benedikt Niese's critical edition (Berlin, 1885–1895), with Niese's section numbers.
Digital text: Perseus Digital Library, urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001.perseus-eng2:18.63, fixed at commit a6eb0cc3e6f6. Open the source file.
Rights: Niese Greek text and Whiston translation public domain; Perseus digital encoding CC BY-SA 4.0 (Trustees of Tufts University). Attribution and share-alike apply to the extracted text.
Checked: the files were verified against their SHA-256 checksums before extraction (data/ask/sources.json). Fingerprint of this English text: 2a3319474578a83c.
Why this passage is in the Atlas: 23 passages of Josephus that bear on people, groups and events of the New Testament are included, not his whole works.