ADDENDUM (The death of Jesus)

One of the great mysteries concurrent with any reconstruction of the historical Jesus is the question regarding what happened to him (or his body) after the resurrection and his subsequent appearances. If he was not a divine, supernatural being but merely a man of flesh and blood what happened to him after the events of the Gospels? If the tomb was empty was he reburied in a paupers grave, as some suggest, or was his corpse stolen and its whereabouts lost to history? If he survived, as is suggested in this work, what became of him? Did he travel to India and the East in search of greater spiritual knowledge or did he choose to embrace obscurity in the face of his abject failure to ignite his revolution? He was a political activist of some reknown during his life, a man of some power and notoriety who had spoken on the public stage and while cheating the Romans of his execution certainly required that he disappear from the immediate political scene, a man of his ambition would not have remained silent for the remainder of his life. If his supposed death and apparent resurrection were so awe inspiring and miraculous as to alter the theological landscape of the time, why did he simply vanish from the pages of history? He had survived death and as a mortal man had made an impact on the Mosaean society of the First Century that was profound enough (as indicated in the Gospels and New Testament) to warrant some recognition of his later fate. Yet the historical record, scant as it may be, holds no hint as to what became of the man Jesus, at least according to traditional scholarship. There is however a record of what became of the historical Jesus that has been overlooked by scholars and theologians for over two thousand years and it is recorded precisely where one would anticipate it to be, in Josephus. Whether or not Josephus knew that he was writing about the same Jesus who was the brother of James and known as the Christ is difficult to say. Certainly, the passage makes no reference to James or the Christ but there is about it a hint in its tone that suggests that Josephus was well aware of the mans past, a past that Josephus found abhorrent and unwilling to recognize publicly. He refers to him by name and apparently names his father and he devotes as much space to him as he did to John the Baptist, if not more. Josephus did not like Jesus or what he stood for as has been indicated in his treatment of the Samaritan uprising at Tirathaba and his unwillingness to name its leaders, although he must certainly have known their names. Similarly, in this passage, Josephus writes as if he knows more about his subject than he admits and with an air of superiority and mockery that belie his ignorance of the man.

The War of the Judeans; Book 6, Chapter 5, Line 299 (Whiston)

But what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for everyone to make tabernacles to God in the Temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people! This was his cry, as he went about day and night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or for any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, Woe, woe to Jerusalem! And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? And whence he came? And why he uttered such words? He made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, Woe, woe to Jerusalem! Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house! And just as he added at the last, Woe, woe to myself also! there came a stone out of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost. Now if any one considers these things, he will find that God takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our race what is for preservation; but that men perish by those miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves

Several points are immediately apparent from the above passage. First and most obviously, the focus of the work is a man named Jesus who, according to the translation, is the son of another man, named Ananus. The Greek word used by Josephus to indicate son was uios (transliterated as huios). The word is generally used of the direct offspring of men but can also be used, in a wider sense, to indicate the descendents of men, as in the sons of Abraham or the son of David. Its usage in the passage is therefore open to interpretation. It could indicate that Jesus was the actual son of Ananus or merely his descendent. Since the name Ananus (or Ananias), transliterated from the Greek name Ananiou, is an alternative spelling for the name Annas, there is every reason to consider that the Jesus of the passage was the descendent of Annas, which, in fact, Jesus of the Gospels was, being the grandson of the high priest Annas. So it is reasonable to suggest that Jesus, the son of Ananus, in the passage was the same person as Jesus, the grandson of Annas. Whistons translation of Josephus, written in the Eighteenth Century, used two words to describe the Jesus of this passage; plebeian and husbandman, both words that are archaic today and therefore are ill suited to convey Josephus original intent. As Dr. Steve Mason (Professor of History and Graduate Humanities, Canada Research Chair in Greco-Roman Cultural Interaction, York University, Toronto, ON.) commented:

Whiston was not inaccurate, but he wrote in 1737. We dont speak of husbandmen today. The Greek here is straightforward [translating part of the passage]: For a certain Jesus son of Ananias, a private person (that is layman, not a priest, aristocrat, or office-holder) and man from the countryside (or rustic, farmer; not a city man, not from Jerusalem or connected with high power in Jerusalem; the word generally has the sense of simpleton, boor, etc.). More literally: For Jesus son of Ananias, a country type from among the private persons.. The word for private persons is the one from which we get idiots, but the Greek word does not mean idiots in our sense. Its a term of class distinction. (from e-mail to author, brackets authors)

In todays idiom, Josephus two word description might read: Jesus, the son of Ananus, a nobody from nowhere. Josephus intent was to indicate the almost complete obscurity of this Jesus and his total disconnect from Jerusalem and its politics. Judging that as Josephus intent, it is curious then that he spent one moment of thought or consideration

on someone he considered to be a lunatic hick. Surely there were other mentally unstable people who broke from normal behavior under the pressures of Jerusalems siege, so why did Josephus feel the need to record the actions of this Jesus? Not only that, but this nobody from nowhere began his unusual behavior four years before the war began, at a time of relative peace in Jerusalem. So why take any notice of a crack-pot from the sticks? Why include him in a passage that details some of the major events leading up to the war and the Jerusalem siege? Even more to the point, why record the ravings of such an unimportant and unconnected individual with the preface that the rantings of this Jesus were still more terrible than many of the other signs and events leading up to the war and siege? Clearly, Josephus saw this Jesus as someone of some power and influence, regardless of his mental state and regardless of how he was portrayed in the passage. This was not an isolated incident among all the chaos and political upheaval leading to the war and yet Josephus saw it as something of greater significance, something that he needed to single out and bring to the attention of his readers, no matter how obscurely this Jesus might be portrayed. Yet in seeming contradiction to this stated obscurity, Josephus goes to the trouble to tell his readers that this lunatic from nowhere is the son of Ananus, thereby removing some of the obscurity. Jesus may have been a plebeian and a husbandman but he was also related to Ananus, a name that must have been well enough known to make its inclusion in the passage worthwhile. If this Jesus truly had been a nobody from nowwhere, the inclusion of his fathers name would have meant nothing to Josephus readers. Josephus included Jesus son of Ananus because he was important, but he referred to him as a nobody from nowhere in mockery and derision. What is also of note in Josephus passage is that he records that Jesus began his lament in Jerusalem four years before the war had begun, or more specifically in 62 CE the same year that James, the head of the Jerusalem church and brother of the Gospel Jesus, had been assassinated. Although it may be coincidental, there is the supposition that the two events are linked and that Jesus came out of years of self imposed obscurity (after his resurrection failed to motivate the populace) and resurfaced at the death of his brother to continue the movement towards Mosaean nationalism, stepping back into the political arena upon James death in 62 CE. The fact that James the Just, a highly respected member of the Jerusalem elite was killed by members of the Jerusalem priesthood eerily echoes what Jesus himself said about the Jerusalem hierarchy in Luke 13:34;

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

While this certainly might be a later addition to the Gospels, after the fact of James murder, it speaks clearly of Jesus original goal of re-unification and its addition to the

Gospels may have taken place in conjunction with Jesus return to the public stage in 62 CE. There are several similarities between Josephus Jesus, son of Ananus, and the Gospel Jesus. In the Josephus passage, Jesus lament echoes the lament of John the Baptist so many years before, a lament that the Gospel Jesus was no doubt aware of and may have used himself;

[Jesus] began on a sudden to cry aloud, A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people! War, 6, 5, 301

Such terminology is quite similar to the language used by both Jesus and John when condemning the Jerusalem hierarchy and the Judeans in general for their lack of commitment to the cause of nationalism and might be interpretted as follows;

[Jesus] began on a sudden to cry aloud, A voice to the east, a voice to the west, a voice from the four winds [a voice crying in the wilderness (John 1:23)], a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house [O Jerusalem, Jerusalem you who kill the prophets (Luke 13:34)], a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides [the rulers and their subjects as Jesus used in regards to the Samaritan womans husbands], and a voice against the whole people! [either Mosaeans in a broad sense or more specifically, the Judeans who were generally against reunification].

The themes of the two Jesuses are quite similar and both lament Jerusalem and the Temple and the Judean people for some perceived fault or slight, although Josephus does not make clear the specifics of why Jesus laments these segments of Mosaean society. Further similarities between the two men are clear in their individual responses to their direct confrontations with the Roman authorities:

And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who was he? And whence he came? And why he uttered such words? He made no manner of reply to what he said. War, 6, 5, 305

And Pilate again asked him, Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you? But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed. Mark, 15:4-5

So he questioned him at some length but he made no answer. Luke, 23:9

But when he was accused by the chief priests and the elders he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, Do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he gave him no answer, not to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Matthew, 27:12-14

While Mosaean stoicism was legendary at the time and consequently it is quite possible that two different Mosaeans named Jesus could have remained stoically silent in the face of Roman authorities questioning, the fact that both men were descendents of Annas or Ananus and both men lamented against Jerusalem and the Judeans seems a remarkable coincidence. Add to these coincidences the fact that the Jesus of the Josephus passage hid his identity from the Jerusalemites while he went about lamenting during the years before the war, a time when it still would have been inopportune for the Gospel Jesus to be recognized by the Roman authorities and the suggestion that the two men were one and the same seems even stronger. Once all out war developed between the Romans and the Mosaeans, Jesus identity and the fact that had he survived the crucifixion mattered not at all and so for the last three and a half years of his life he lamented openly, although Josephus makes no overt connection between the men.

Jesus would have been 68 years old when he returned to the public eye in 62 CE and 75 when he was killed in 69 CE, quite old for men of that time, though not unrealistic. Paul lived into his sixties and Herod the Great lived to be seventy and while it might seem hard to believe that a man in his late sixties or early seventies could survive a severe flogging to the bone, it should be remembered that Jesus, as a stoic and as a man who had survived previous beatings and a crucifixion must have been a remarkably strong and fit individual during his life, even perhaps into his old age. Unfortunately, Josephus gives no clue as to the mans age so there is no way to verify more precisely whether or not he was the Jesus of the Gospels, but the coincidences are startling. Two pictures are possible of the final years of Jesus. On the one hand, he can be seen as a failed political activist, an old man coming out of an enforced retirement to continue his lament against Jerusalem and its hierarchy, still bemoaning the inability of the Judeans to surrender their wealth to the cause of nationalism and freedom while on the other, he can be seen as what he was in his younger years, a strong and vibrant agitator for Mosaean nationalism willing to risk capture and death at the hands of the Romans in order to continue to goad the elite of Mosaean society into rebellion. Josephus remarks that Jesus continued this ditty [lament] for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired within, inspite of being whipped and abused, certainly the sign of a strong and committed individual, as is the comment that he was driven by a divine fury. It is perhaps fitting that Jesus, the man so intent upon the re-establishment of the Davidic kingdom and upon the establishment of a united Israel prepared to engage the Romans in a war for Mosaean freedom, should have died in the open, on the walls of Jerusalem, lamenting the inertia of the Judeans and defying Rome to the end.