Over a generation ago, Mr. George Solomon of Kingston, Jamaica, noting the general incompatibility of Josephus with the gospel story and the unhistorical aspect of the latter, constructed an interesting theory,53 of which I [125]have seen no discussion, but which merits notice here. It may be summarized thus:—
1. Banos is probably the historical original of the gospel figure of John the Baptist.
2. Josephus names and describes two Jesuses, who are blended in the figure of the gospel Jesus: (a) the Jesus (Wars, VI, v, 3) who predicts “woe to Jerusalem”; is flogged till his bones show, but never utters a cry; makes no reply when challenged; returns neither thanks for kindness nor railing for railing; and is finally killed by a stone projectile in the siege; and (b) Jesus the Galilean (Life, §§ 12, 27), son of Sapphias, who opposes Josephus, is associated with Simon and John, and has a following of “sailors and poor people,” one of whom betrays him (§ 22), whereupon he is captured by a stratagem, his immediate followers forsaking him and flying.54 Before this point, Josephus has taken seventy of the Galileans with him (§ 14) as hostages, and, making them his friends and companions on his journey, sets them “to judge causes.” This is the hint for Luke’s story of the seventy disciples.
3. The “historical Jesus” of the siege, who is “meek” and venerated as a prophet and martyr, being combined with the “Mosaic Jesus” of Galilee, a disciple of Judas of Galilee, who resisted the Roman rule and helped to precipitate the war, the memory of the “sect” of Judas the Gaulanite or Galilean, who began the anti-Roman trouble, is also transmuted into a myth of a sect of Jesus of Galilee, who has fishermen for disciples, is followed by poor Galileans, is betrayed by one companion and deserted [126]by the rest, and is represented finally as dying under Pontius Pilate, though at that time there had been no Jesuine movement.
4. The Christian movement, thus mythically grounded, grows up after the fall of the Temple. Paul’s “the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess. ii, 16) tells of the destruction of the Temple, as does Hebrews xii, 24–28; xiii, 12–14.
This theory of the construction of the myth out of historical elements in Josephus is obviously speculative in a high degree; and as the construction fails to account for either the central rite or the central myth of the crucifixion it must be pronounced inadequate to the data. On the other hand, the author developes the negative case from the silence of Josephus as to the gospel Jesus with an irresistible force; and though none of his solutions is founded-on in the constructive theory now elaborated, it may be that some of them are partly valid. The fact that he confuses Jesus the robber captain who was betrayed, and whose companions deserted him, with Jesus the “Mosaic” magistrate of Tiberias, who was followed by sailors and poor people, and was “an innovator beyond everybody else,” does not exclude the argument that traits of one or the other, or of the Jesus of the siege, may have entered into the gospel mosaic.
1. Banos is probably the historical original of the gospel figure of John the Baptist.
2. Josephus names and describes two Jesuses, who are blended in the figure of the gospel Jesus: (a) the Jesus (Wars, VI, v, 3) who predicts “woe to Jerusalem”; is flogged till his bones show, but never utters a cry; makes no reply when challenged; returns neither thanks for kindness nor railing for railing; and is finally killed by a stone projectile in the siege; and (b) Jesus the Galilean (Life, §§ 12, 27), son of Sapphias, who opposes Josephus, is associated with Simon and John, and has a following of “sailors and poor people,” one of whom betrays him (§ 22), whereupon he is captured by a stratagem, his immediate followers forsaking him and flying.54 Before this point, Josephus has taken seventy of the Galileans with him (§ 14) as hostages, and, making them his friends and companions on his journey, sets them “to judge causes.” This is the hint for Luke’s story of the seventy disciples.
3. The “historical Jesus” of the siege, who is “meek” and venerated as a prophet and martyr, being combined with the “Mosaic Jesus” of Galilee, a disciple of Judas of Galilee, who resisted the Roman rule and helped to precipitate the war, the memory of the “sect” of Judas the Gaulanite or Galilean, who began the anti-Roman trouble, is also transmuted into a myth of a sect of Jesus of Galilee, who has fishermen for disciples, is followed by poor Galileans, is betrayed by one companion and deserted [126]by the rest, and is represented finally as dying under Pontius Pilate, though at that time there had been no Jesuine movement.
4. The Christian movement, thus mythically grounded, grows up after the fall of the Temple. Paul’s “the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess. ii, 16) tells of the destruction of the Temple, as does Hebrews xii, 24–28; xiii, 12–14.
This theory of the construction of the myth out of historical elements in Josephus is obviously speculative in a high degree; and as the construction fails to account for either the central rite or the central myth of the crucifixion it must be pronounced inadequate to the data. On the other hand, the author developes the negative case from the silence of Josephus as to the gospel Jesus with an irresistible force; and though none of his solutions is founded-on in the constructive theory now elaborated, it may be that some of them are partly valid. The fact that he confuses Jesus the robber captain who was betrayed, and whose companions deserted him, with Jesus the “Mosaic” magistrate of Tiberias, who was followed by sailors and poor people, and was “an innovator beyond everybody else,” does not exclude the argument that traits of one or the other, or of the Jesus of the siege, may have entered into the gospel mosaic.
Evidently, J.M.Robertson has not remembered about Josephus's Vita 22 and the concrete probability that the crucified Zealot saved in extremis by Josephus was precisely — docet Vermeiren — Jesus son of Saphat. Had he done so, Robertson would have not written: and as the construction fails to account for either the central rite or the central myth of the crucifixion it must be pronounced inadequate to the data.
I have found this splendid quote in p. 232 from George Solomon's book:
The reference of the history in debate to the days of Pontius Pilate is without a single support in fact; indeed, it is unconsciously refuted by the chronology of St. Luke. The four Greek writers could but rely upon traditional information alone for their chronology, and as there was evidence which had reached Rome that a pretender to divine inspiration had been executed by Pontius Pilate, it was accepted by them as the period of the events which they relate. It was adopted when all the living witnesses who could have corrected them were dead, and on the best evidence they had; for it must be remembered that the person in question is represented to have been a great deluder of the people, to have led captive many who clung to him and shared his fate. Nevertheless there is abundant evidence to satisfy the candid lover of truth that not a word of Jesus can be traced to the period referred to. The religion of Jesus, so far from existing in Pontius Pilate's time, is undiscoverable up to the date of the fall of Jerusalem ; and no other religion is traceable to that age, except that of Judas of Galilee, which had already seen the light by the time when, according to Luke, Jesus was born. As presumptive evidence that Jesus has in tradition been confounded with this Judas, we have already referred to the fact that in the traditional accounts James, who is called the brother of the Lord, is also called the brother of Judas.
But be this as it may; what we have advanced rests upon no uncertain data ; novel though it be, it has a foundation that cannot be shaken; it is not put forth as a theory, but as a fact — a fact hitherto unrecognised and unthought of, because the chronology proved so misleading.