Brethren and disbelievers I greet you all in peace. As you may very well know, evidence of Jesus’ ministry outside the bible is scanty at best and normally boils down to just 2 “eyewitnesses”, namely Josephus and Tacitus none of whom are really eyewitnesses. I want us to focus on Josephus for now, who was a Jewish-Romano historian/military leader in the 1st Century born in 37CE, very close to Jesus’ time indeed. In his 93CE book Antiquities of the Jews Vol 18 chapter 3, he made a certain reference to Jesus whose authenticity is heavily disputed today. Christian hardliners insist the passage is totally authentic, atheist hardliners insist it is a total Christian forgery while everyone else willing to take a balanced view accepts it is partially true with a bit of Christian tampering. I will put the commonly disputed words in bold and brackets to highlight the possible Christian tampering in this Testimonium Flavianum as we analyze as village laymen what this passage means for Christianity.
[INDENT]“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, (if indeed one ought to call him a man). For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. (He was the Christ). And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. (He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him). And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”[/INDENT]
So even if we remove the disputed words we still have testimony of a certain popular preacher named Jesus who performed surprising deeds (miracles???), was crucified by Pilate and his followers known as Christians continued to thrive. Does this prove Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion? Josephus was not alive during Jesus’ ministry and he does not tell us how he collected this information or who was his source. It’s possible in the year 93CE he could still find someone who knew Jesus or the apostles but I think he probably just read the gospels or asked a Christian who Jesus was. As such I don’t think Josephus is evidence for Jesus ministry or his crucifixion and certainly not his resurrection.
Religion is a scam…bible ni story book…colonialists walitumia iyo kitabu na mirror kutu colonise…mi sio mjinga bwana…Mungu yuko lakini sio wa hao colonialists