lethargic_man | Antiquities of the Jews, fit the thirty-eighth

curious_reader warned me that the text of Josephus we have, which has been transmitted to us by the Christians (as the Jews were largely too disgusted with him, considering him a turncoat) has been diddled with. Here's the first of the diddled-with passages (XVIII.3.81):

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.

No way would Josephus have said some of those things. He might have said the others, though. Wikipedia concurs with me here, and points out that the Syriac and Arabic translations of Josephus read "Pilate condemned him to be crucified" in place of "at the suggestion of the principal men among us," and "he was believed to be Christ" rather than "he was [the] Christ". "Drawing on these textual variations," says Wikipedia, "scholars have suggested that these versions of the Testimonium more closely reflect what a non-Christian Jew may have written."

Contrast this with Josephus' description of John the Baptist, in XVIII.5.118, which comes across as more objective:

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him.

There's also a couple of interesting, and quite different, passages about John in the Slavonic version of The Jewish War:

At that time a man was going about Judaea remarkably dressed: he wore animal hair on those parts of his body not covered by his own. His face was like a savage's. He called on the Jews to claim their freedom, crying: "God sent me to show you the way of the Law, so that you can shake off any human yoke: no man shall rule you, but only the Most High who sent me." His message was eagerly welcomed, and he was followed by all Judaea and the district around Jerusalem. All he did was to baptise them in the Jordan and dismiss them with an earnest exhortation to abandon their evil ways: if they did so they would be given a king who would liberate them and master the unruly, while himself acknowledging no master. This man was derided by some but believed by others.
The man was brought before Archelaus and an assemblage of lawyers, who asked who he was and where he had been. He replied: "I am a man called by the Spirit of God, and I live on stems, roots and fruit." When he was threatened with torture if he did not stop behaving and talking like this, he retorted: "It would be more to the point if you stopped acting so disgracefully and submitted to the God you profess to worship."
Simon, a scribe of Essene origin, sprang up and exclaimed angrily: "We study Holy Writ every day; you have just come out of the forest like a wild animal; and do you dare put us right and mislead the people with your damnable nonsense?" Simon then rushed at him to tear him to pieces. But the man replied with a warning: "I will not reveal to you the secret that is in your midst, as you have refused to listen and so have brought immeasurable disaster upon your own heads." Then off he went to the other side of the Jordan, where he resumed his work unmolested.

Later on we read (this is an excerpt from the full passage):

He was a strange creature, not like a man at all. He lived like a disembodied spirit. He never touched bread; even at the Passover Feast he would not eat the unleavened bread or pronounce the words "In thankfulness to God, who delivered the nation from slavery, shall you eat this; it was given for the flight, because the journey was made in haste." Wine and other strong drink he would not allow to be brought anywhere near him, and animal good he absolutely refused—fruit was all that he needed. The whole object of his life was to show evil in its true colours.

I got very excited when I read this, because it is thought the Passover Seder we have today arose in reaction to the destruction of the Temple, preventing the fulfilment of the Toraitic command of eating the Paschal lamb sacrificed in the Temple. Beforehand there would have been a Yom Tov meal, and the consumption of the פֶּסַח and חֲגִיגָה offerings, but no formal liturgy for the meal beyond kiddush, הַמוֹצִיא and bentshing. Yet here, it seemed, was a record of what was said at the Passover meal in the first century, whilst the Temple still stood—and not only that but it is different to anything in the relevant Torah passages or Seder today.

Then, sadly, I went to Wikipedia which told me that this is passage is now not regarded as authentic, but a product of the eleventh-century ideological struggle against the Khazars (a Turkic people and kingdom whose nobility and royal family converted to Judaism). Nonetheless it's interesting to read.

[Please comment at my collected Book XVIII notes post, on Dreamwidth for preference, or on LiveJournal.]

Josephus notes