Ancient Versions Offer Clues to Josephus’s Account of Jesus

The disputed Testimonium Flavianum recounts Jesus’s life, crucifixion and reported resurrection. Its wording has long been disputed because some statements appear to express Christian beliefs, and scholars have questioned whether Josephus wrote them in their surviving form.

Jesús Fernández-Pedrera Correa examined versions in Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac. The Greek text describes Jesus as being seen alive three days later and links the event to prophecies. The Arabic version instead frames the appearance as something his disciples reported, a distinction the researcher sees as a possible trace of Josephus recording their claim rather than affirming the resurrection himself.

The versions also differ over whether Jesus “was the Christ.” Greek states this directly, while Latin, Arabic and Syriac use more qualified wording, presenting him as someone believed or thought to be the Messiah. Fernández-Pedrera Correa considers the direct declaration the clearest likely alteration. He also cites the third-century Christian writer Origen, who maintained that Josephus rejected Jesus’s status as the Christ.

The researcher argues that Josephus could have described followers’ beliefs without adopting them, as he did when writing about other Jewish religious groups. Later Christian copying may have strengthened the passage’s claims, including its reference to prophecy. The versions date to different periods: the Latin account to the late fourth century, and the Arabic and Syriac traditions to works from the 10th and 12th centuries.

The analysis, released in August, cannot establish exactly what Josephus wrote or who may have changed the passage. Fernández-Pedrera Correa is more confident that its closing statement about Jesus’s followers continuing to exist in Josephus’s time fits the historian’s writing style and is not subject to the same textual disagreement.