The Case For Christ

"That's right," said Yamauchi. "It's unlikely josephus would have
flatly said Jesus was the Messiah here, when elsewhere he merely
said he was considered to be the Messiah by his followers.
The next part of the passage-which talks about Jesus' trial and
crucifixion and the fact that his followers still loved him-is
unexceptional and considered genuine. Then there's this phrase:
'On the
third day he appeared to them restored to life.'
Again, this is a clear declaration of belief in the Resurrection,
and thus it's unlikely that Josephus wrote it. So these three
elements seem to have been interpolations."
"What's the bottom line?" I asked.
"That the passage in Josephus probably was originally written
about Jesus, although without those three points I mentioned. But
even so, Josephus corroborates important information about Jesus:
that he was the martyred leader of the church in Jerusalem and
that he was a wise teacher who had established a wide and lasting
following, despite the fact that he had been crucified under
Pilate at the instigation of some of the Jewish leaders."
THE IMPORTANCE OF JOSEPHUS
While these references did offer some important independent
verification about Jesus, I wondered why a historian like
Josephus wouldn't have said more about such an important figure
of the first century. I knew that some skeptics, like Boston
University philosopher Michael Martin, have made this same
critique.
So I asked for Yamauchi's reaction to this statement by Martin,
who doesn't believe Jesus ever lived: "If Jesus did exist, one
would have expected Josephus ... to have said more about him....
It is unexpected that Josephus mentioned him ... in passing
while mentioning other Messianic figures and John the Baptist in
greater detail." Yamauchi's response seemed uncharacteristically
strong. "From time to time some people have tried to deny the
existence of Jesus, but this is really a lost cause," he said
with a tone of exasperation. "There is overwhelming evidence
that Jesus did exist, and these hypothetical questions are
really very vacuous and fallacious.
But I'd answer by saying this: Josephus was interested in
political matters and the struggle against Rome, so for him John