The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His ExistenceRemsburg, John E. (John Eleazer)
Religion
The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence
Remsburg, John E. (John Eleazer)
Jesus Christ -- Historicity; Jesus Christ -- Rationalistic interpretations; Rationalism
Canon Farrar, who has written the ablest Christian life of Christ
yet penned, repudiates it. He says: "The single passage in which he
[Josephus] alludes to him is interpolated, if not wholly spurious"
(Life of Christ, Vol. I, p. 46).
The following, from Dr. Farrar's pen, is to be found in the
"Encyclopedia Britannica": "That Josephus wrote the whole passage as
it now stands no sane critic can believe."
"There are, however, two reasons which are alone sufficient to prove
that the whole passage is spurious--one that it was unknown to Origen
and the earlier fathers, and the other that its place in the text is
uncertain" (Ibid).
Theodor Keim, a German-Christian writer on Jesus, says: "The passage
cannot be maintained; it has first appeared in this form in the
Catholic church of the Jews and Gentiles, and under the dominion of the
Fourth Gospel, and hardly before the third century, probably before
Eusebius, and after Origen, whose bitter criticisms of Josephus may
have given cause for it" (Jesus of Nazara, p. 25).
Concerning this passage, Hausrath, another German writer, says it
"must have been penned at a peculiarly shameless hour."
The Rev. Dr. Hooykaas, of Holland, says: "Flavius Josephus, the
well known historian of the Jewish people, was born in A. D. 37,
only two years after the death of Jesus; but though his work is of
inestimable value as our chief authority for the circumstances of the
times in which Jesus and his Apostles came forward, yet he does not
seem to have mentioned Jesus himself. At any rate, the passage in his
'Jewish Antiquities' that refers to him is certainly spurious, and
was inserted by a later and a Christian hand" (Bible for Learners,
Vol. III, p. 27). This conclusion of Dr. Hooykaas is endorsed by the
eminent Dutch critic, Dr. Kuenen.
Dr. Alexander Campbell, one of America's ablest Christian apologists,
says: "Josephus, the Jewish historian, was contemporary with the
Apostles, having been born in the year 37. From his situation and
habits, he had every access to know all that took place at the rise
of the Christian religion.
"Respecting the founder of this religion, Josephus has thought fit
to be silent in history. The present copies of his work contain one
passage which speaks very respectfully of Jesus Christ, and ascribes
to him the character of the Messiah. But as Josephus did not embrace
Christianity, and as this passage is not quoted or referred to until
the beginning of the fourth century, it is, for these and other
reasons, generally accounted spurious" (Evidences of Christianity,
from Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 312).
Another passage in Josephus, relating to the younger Ananus, who was
high priest of the Jews in 62 A. D., reads as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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