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New Testament Parallels
to the Works of Josephus
G J Goldberg (members.aol.com/fljosephus/home.htm)

Introduction
The New Testament makes references to rulers, priests, religious factions, and politics that would be completely mysterious to modern readers if it were not for the works of Josephus. When one reads discussions about the historical Jesus and the early days of Christianity, most of the Judean social background and the dating of events derive from his books.

In this article I present a list of these New Testament references and place them next to extracts from the works of Josephus (About the Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities) on the same subject. To these I have added my own comments, which I hope the reader will find useful.

Interested readers will want to study Josephus themselves for fuller extracts. They will also want to read some of the many scholarly works on this subject. An excellent place to start is Steve Mason's Josephus and the New Testament, which discusses more fully the parallels and provides many original observations and analyses.

The Gospel of Luke/The Book of Acts
It is Luke's writings, both the Gospel and the Book of Acts, that have the most points of contact with Josephus, particularly the Antiquities. Most notable are the numerous references in Luke to events and persons that are also discussed, and are explained more fully, by Josephus. Luke is clearly concerned with embedding the story of Jesus in a firm historical context, thus helping not only to date the story but also to persuade the reader of its genuineness.

More subtly, the vocabulary of Luke/Acts bears a greater resemblance to Josephus than does any other work in the New Testament (as Steve Mason has pointed out). A study of each author's style seems to indicate that they at least learned Greek from teachers with similar backgrounds.

These connections have raised some possibilities that have been the focus of much attention by scholars. The weightiest question has been, "Did Luke read Josephus' Antiquities and use it as the basis for the historical references in his work?" Did Luke, perhaps, even know Josephus in Rome, as Thackeray suggested? But there are discrepancies between Luke and Josephus - particularly the census of Quirinius - which suggest Luke used a different source. Was he perhaps genuinely handing down the traditions of some of those who knew Jesus?

And the similarities of language - do they imply the two authors wrote in a similar place at a similar time?

The answer to these questions would help to tell us how and when Luke composed his works. If Luke read Josephus' Antiquities, he could not have written his gospel before the 80s, when the Antiquities was a work in progress, or the early 90s, when it was published. The same conclusion can be drawn from language similarities. This happens to agree with the dating of Luke most often surmised by scholars; but some think he wrote much earlier, in the 50s and 60s for Acts and perhaps much earlier for the gospel, while others argue that Luke is a very late writer, circa 120.

A reliance on the Antiquities would suggest also that Luke's gospel is not constructed solely of authentic reports about Jesus from the apostles and others who knew him. It would mean Luke combined some information from original Christian sources with other materials. It would thus be left to readers to determine which is which.

King Herod:
Luke 1.5
In the days of King Herod of Judea...

Matthew 2.1
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?"

Antiquities 17.7.1 191 (War 1.31.8 665)
Having done these things he died, on the fifth day after having his son Antipater killed, having reigned since he had slain Antigonus thirty-four years, and thirty-seven years since he had been declared king by the Romans.

Comment
From this reference in Josephus we know that Herod the Great died in 4BCE. Herod's reign began under appointment by Marc Antony in 40BCE, a date known from Antiquities 14.14.4 386:

So did Herod take the throne, receiving it in the hundred and eight-fourth Olympiad, the consuls being Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, for the second time, and Gaius Asinius Pollio."

The event is also described by Roman historians. Properly taking into account Josephus' use of partial years when subtracting his stated 37 years gives 4BCE for the end of Herod's reign (see the note to War 1.665 in the Loeb Edition).

Thus, according to Matthew and Luke, Jesus could not have been born later than 4BCE. Yet our calendar is numbered taking the year 1 AD (= 1) as the year of Jesus' birth, leading to the puzzle of Jesus having been born in 4BCE, 4 years "Before Christ". This is due to a mistake in calculation by the Roman abbot Dionysus Exiguus in 533, who first began counting years from Jesus' birth. (some say he did not count the first four years of Emperor Augustus, who used his original name of Octavian during this time). As a practical matter, it is worth noting that our calendar does not in fact count from the birth year of Jesus, which is unknown, but from the year of Herod's death.

The Slaughter of the Innocents:
Matthew 2:2-16
...wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In the Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet ... When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.

Antiquities 17.2.4 43 (Speculative)
Now there was a certain sect of Jews who valued themselves highly for the skill they had in the ways of their fathers and who believed they best observed the laws favored by God - the sect called the Pharisees - by whom the women of the palace were guided. They were fully able to deal successfully with the king due to their prescience, but often fell into fighting and setting up obstacles to him.

For example, when all the Jewish people pledged their loyalty to Caesar and to the king's government, these men, over six thousand of them, refused to swear. When the king therefore imposed a fine on them, the wife of Pheroras [the king's brother] paid it. Now to repay this kindness of hers, being believed to have, by Divine inspiration, the foreknowledge of things to come, they foretold that God had decreed that Herod's government would be taken from him and from his descendants, and that the kingdom would come to her and Pheroras and to their children.

These predictions, which did not escape detection by Salome [the king's sister], were reported to the king, and also that they had subverted some others of the palace. So the king killed those of the Pharisees principally involved, as well as Bagoas the eunuch, and a certain Karos, who exceeded all of his peers in beauty and was his favorite boy. He also killed everyone of his own house who had allied themselves to the talk of the Pharisees. Bagoas had been elated by their prediction that he would be hailed as the father and the benefactor of the one who would be their appointed king; for to this king would fall power over all things, and he would provide Bagoas with a marriage and the ability to sire children of his own line.

Comment
There is no story in Josephus matching the nativity stories of Luke and Matthew. But the passage quoted above has some interesting similarities. Here we have wise men, believed to have the gift of prophecy, predicting the next king will end Herod's reign, frightening Herod into committing mass murder. The new king will have "the power over all things." There would be a miraculous birth by someone for whom it is impossible to have children - in the gospels, the virgin Mary, in the above tale, the eunuch Bagoas.

The story demonstrates at the least that the actions of Herod and the other people in the nativity story was not unheard of for the time, so that something of the sort might have occurred but escaped Josephus' notice. Or, the above story itself might have served as the nucleus of a tale that was elaborated over the years and applied to Jesus by his followers.

Incidentally, in Antiquities 17.6.5 174 there is described a forced mass movement of people just before Herod's death. The king had planned to have these murdered so that the Jews would be mourning when he died, rather than holding joyful festivities to celebrate his passing. This movement could conceivably have contributed both to the story of the slaughter of the innocents and the census of Quirinius (see below).

Archelaus:
Matthew 2.22
But when Joseph heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.

Antiquities 17.8.1 188
Then because of the change of mind Herod had undergone, he once more altered his will and designated Antipas, to whom he had previously left his throne, to be Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, while he bestowed the kingdom on Archelaus.

The Census of Quirinius:
Luke 2:1
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem.

Antiquities 18.1.1 1
Quirinius, a Roman senator who had passed through all the other magistracies until he became consul, and who in other respects was very distinguished, came at this time into Syria, with a few others, having been sent by Caesar to be governor of that nation and to make an assessment of their property. Coponius, a man of the equestrian order, was sent with him to have supreme authority over the Jews. Quirinius came himself to Judea, which had now been added to the province of Syria, to make an assessment of their property and to dispose of Archelaus's estate. Although the Jews at first took the report of a taxation angrily, they gradually left off any further opposition to it by the persuasion of the high priest Joazar son of Boethus. Persuaded by Joazar's words, they gave an account of their estates without any dissent.

But there was one man, Judas, a Gaulanite from a city named Gamala, who, taking with him Saddok, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to revolt. They both said that this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty ...

Comment
The discrepancy between Luke and Josephus on this famous registration, or assessment, has caused many scholarly attempts to reconcile the two. None of these attempts have been accepted as successful. Josephus' story, which is supported by various evidence in Roman historians, clearly places Quirinius' beginning tenure and assessment in the year 6, ten years after the death of Herod the Great. Yet Luke places this event during the time of Herod. From everything we know, Luke is mistaken.

Then where did Luke find this story? The theory that Luke used Josephus for historical events has difficulty dealing with this discrepancy. Thus it is either proof that Luke worked from a poor summary, or preliminary version, of the Antiquities, or that he had a separate source, possibly an oral tradition among some of the Jesus followers who were not consulted by the other gospel writers.

There is also a peculiar way to look at this story (original with myself, for good or ill). The census of Quirinius was the immediate cause of the rise of Judas the Galilean and the Fourth Philosophy. This philosophy would, sixty years later, lead to the war with Rome that would destroy the Temple and weaken the attraction of Judaism that many non-Jews had throughout the empire. It also contributed to the suspicion the authorities had of popular leaders, in particular those with new philosophies and origins in Galilee, and so quite likely was an important factor in Jesus' arrest.

In some sense, then, the census of Quirinius gave birth to the "spirit of the revolution" and the destruction of the Temple. Could it be that certain revolutionaries saw Jesus as their hoped-for leader, and even after his death felt he was the mystical embodiment of the spirit of the revolution? Then the association of Jesus' birth with the birth of the Fourth Philosophy would have come naturally to this strand of the Jesus followers.

Jesus at Twelve:
Luke 2.42
And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival [of Passover]....After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

Josephus' Life 1.2 8 (speculative)
I made mighty proficiency in the improvements of my learning, and appeared to have both a great memory and understanding. Moreover, when I was a child, and about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had to learning; on which account the high priests and principal men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law.

Comment
This parallel is one I have not seen pointed out before. Both passages probably refer to a demonstration of a boy's learning around the time of his bar mitzvah, which in modern tradition takes place when he turns thirteen. Here Josephus speaks of "about fourteen years of age" and Jesus is said to be twelve (thus going on thirteen). So both passages may simply be conventional boasts drawn from the memories of the proud Jewish parents.

But there is an odder similarity: both passages imply that the scholars of Jerusalem actually learned things from the boys. This is an extraordinary boast. Was this also part of traditional bar mitzvah kvelling of the time?

The Fifteenth Year of Tiberius (Pilate, Herod, Philip, "Lysanius", Annas, and Caiaphas):

Luke 3.1
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

Antiquities 18.2.2 35
Tiberius sent Gratus to be procurator of Judea. This man deprived Ananus of the high priesthood, and appointed Ismael ... Joseph called Caiaphus was made his successor. When Gratus had done those things, he went back to Rome, having tarried in Judea eleven years, and Pontius Pilate came as his successor.

War 2.6.3 94 (Antiquities 17.11.4 318)
Caesar ... gave one-half of Herod's kingdom to Archelaus with the title of Ethnarch, and promised to make him king also afterward, if he rendered himself worthy of that dignity. But he divided the other half into two tetrarchies, and gave them to two other sons of Herod, the one of them to Philip, and the other to that Antipas who contested the kingdom with Archelaus. Placed under Antipas were Perea and Galilee, with a revenue of two hundred talents. Batanea, Trachonitis, and Auranitis, and certain parts of Zeno's house about Jamnia, providing a revenue of 100 talents, were made subject to Philip.

Antiquities 20.7.1 137 Claudius bestowed upon Agrippa ... Abila, which had been the tetrarchy of Lysanius.

Comment
These establish the year of the appearance of John the Baptist, and hence of the subsequent public career of Jesus. The 15th year of Tiberius was 28/29, as he reigned for 22 years and some 5 or 6 months, from 14-37. Pontius Pilate was procurator from 26-36, and Caiaphas was high priest over almost the same period, 26-35. Herod Antipas ruled Galilee from 4BCE to 40, and Philip his assortment of lands from 4BCE to 34.

As to "Lysanius", Luke is at variance with Josephus. Lysanius was killed by Marc Antony during the reign of Herod the Great. The small territory of Lysanius was leased by Zenodorus (or "Zeno", War 1.20.4 398), and was later given by Caesar to Philip, as quoted above in one of the passages. After Philip's death this little region, that had belonged to Lysanius, along with other pieces of Philip's territory, was given to Agrippa by the Emperor Claudius about the year 40 (also cited above).

This little territory never had a name; it was just referred to familiarly, something like "that piece of land that used to belong to Lysanius." This is the only way Josephus refers to the property throughout his works. There is no evidence of a ruler named Lysanius at the time Luke speaks about. In any case, the land is two small for anyone to bother identifying its ruler as a means of specifying a moment in history.

Two explanations present themselves. The more interesting of these is that Luke worked from a written source he did not quite understand; he could have read about the time "when Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea, and Trachonitis, and Abilene the tetrarchy of Lysanius." He could have misinterpreted the last clause as identifying another ruler of the time, rather than continuing the list of Philip's lands; particularly if the grammar had become a little garbled in transmission, perhaps during translation from the Aramaic. This would indicate Luke did not know enough about Judea to recognize that the "tetrarchy of Lysanius" was the way the local inhabitants referred to a little piece of land.

The second, more mundane explanation is that Luke originally wrote the version we just surmised, but his text has become slightly corrupted during transmission to us.

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