The Case For Christ

feats 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. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by
men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to
be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him
did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he
appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had
prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.
And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to
this day not disappeared.
The wealth of corroboration for Jesus was readily evident. "You
agreed this was controversial-what have scholars concluded about
this passage?" I asked.
"Scholarship has gone through three trends about it," he said.
"For obvious reasons, the early Christians thought it was a
wonderful and thoroughly authentic attestation of Jesus and his
resurrection. They loved it. Then the entire passage was
questioned by at least some scholars during the Enlightenment.
But today there's a remarkable consensus among both Jewish
and Christian scholars that the passage as a whole is authentic,
although there may be some interpolations."
I raised an eyebrow. "Interpolations-would you define what you
Mean by that?"
"That means early Christian copyists inserted some phrases that a
Jewish writer like Josephus would not have written," Yamauchi
said. He pointed to a sentence in the book. "For instance, the
first line says, 'About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man.'
That phrase is not normally used of Jesus by Christians, so it
seems authentic for Josephus. But the next phrase says, 'if
indeed one ought to call him a man.' This implies Jesus was more
than human, which appears to be an interpolation."
I nodded to let him know I was following him so far.
"It goes on to say, 'For he was one who wrought surprising feats
and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He
won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.' That seems to be
quite in accord with the vocabulary Josephus uses elsewhere, and
it's generally considered authentic.
But then there's this unambiguous statement, 'He was the
Christ.' That seems to be an interpolation-
Because," I interrupted, "Josephus says in his reference to James
that Jesus was 'called the Christ."