Untangling Myth From Reality: The Quest For Jesus | Parable

All the stories we know about Jesus and his time... ...come to us from the Gospels. Jesus healing the lepers, the miracle of loaves and fish, his last supper, and his miraculous resurrection. But all of these stories come to us... ...from writers with a religious agenda. Is there any evidence outside the Gospels... ...that confirms that Jesus actually existed? Only one. In the writings of a first century historian... ...named Flavius Josephus. And here is what he wrote. About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if one ought to call him a man. He was the Messiah. Surprisingly, this is the only reference of Jesus... ...outside the New Testament. But the question is, Josephus is arguably the most important historian... ...to Western civilization. Everything we know about the first century... ...Jewish war with Rome, the archaeology of Second Temple Jerusalem, and the world in which Jesus lived and taught... ...depends entirely on the prolific writings of Josephus. And yet, he is also reputed to be a liar and a braggart, a traitor to his own people... ...who would say or do anything to stay alive. Begging the question, what, if anything, that Josephus wrote... ...can we now trust as history? Can archaeology help us answer that question? I'm travelling to Israel to get a closer look... ...at the places Josephus wrote about. But first, I need to know more about the man. First off, a chat with archaeologist Gabi Barkay... ...to find out this, who was the real Josephus. He was born somewhere here... ...in the place where we sit right now, in the upper city of Jerusalem. This was the area of the Jerusalemite aristocracy. He was born here, was from a priestly family. He, as a youth, worked in the Temple of Jerusalem... ...as a priest. Later on he was among those who planned... He was a revolutionary. Yes. Yes. Josephus was from a priestly family. At the age of 29, he was appointed commander of Galilee... ...by the Jewish revolutionary government. But he was a reluctant fighter. He believed opposition to Rome was national suicide. When the Romans unleashed the full strength... ...of their military, he found himself surrounded, just outside what is modern day Yodafat. I travel to the Galilee to get a sense of the place... ...where Josephus and his revolutionary army... ...were holed up. Imagine this, Josephus is hiding out in a cave, like this one, with a group of religious zealots... ...who are determined to resist the Romans to the bitter end. Josephus knows that resistance is useless, but he needs to find a way to stay alive. So he convinces his comrades to kill themselves. Josephus? Oh, Babu. Okay, cut. So suddenly Josephus was left with the last of the defenders. They hid out in caves, the Romans were everywhere. They had a choice, surrender to the Romans... ...or kill themselves. So Josephus gave this brilliant speech... ...to convince the other rebels... ...that if they were going to commit suicide, they should do it by lottery. Ten people were chosen by lot to kill everybody. And the plan was that the final defenders... ...would cast lots again, and the last man left would fall on his own sword. Josephus must have been a pretty good poker player, because as it turns out, the last lot was cast and it fell to him. And guess what? He didn't kill himself. He surrendered. But in order to survive the cave, Josephus would have had to be a mathematical genius, or at least a really good chess player. And as one of the only survivors of the cave suicides, Josephus was also the only person to document the event, raising suspicions of the accuracy of his story. I discussed this with Annette Yoshiko Reed, who specializes in all things Josephus. You know, was that divine intervention, or was he very good at cards? How did he manage to be the last guy? I don't know. It's not clear from the account. The account leaves open, first of all, that he was just buying time. I mean, it is possible that he came up with the idea, because as people would actually kill themselves, he'd have more chance of persuading them, which is what he was trying to do in the first place. It's one way to win an election. Exactly, just narrow the vote. There's a rather compelling speech that he makes there. So maybe he was trying to buy himself time. That's one possibility. The other possibility, which he says, is that he does seem to think that the hand of God is somehow involved in him being saved from the cave and from the war in general. So it is arguable that he did think of himself as having some divine role. And then the other possibility is he just did some math. When Josephus was captured by the Roman general Vespasian, he played his best handed poker ever. He told Vespasian that he had had a vision and predicted that Vespasian would become the next emperor of Rome. Not immune to flattery, Vespasian took Josephus under his wing, sparing his life. Sure enough, Vespasian did become the next emperor and then commissioned Josephus to write a history of the Jewish revolt. Josephus moved to Rome and was branded a traitor, accused of living in the lap of luxury while his fellow Jews continue to suffer under Roman rule. But why would a Roman emperor let a Jewish rebel write the history of the Roman victory over Judea? The thing about Vespasian is Vespasian and his son Titus actually didn't have very many military triumphs. So it was very important to them to stress the capture of Judea. Josephus would wanna make the, say that the Jews weren't nobodies. This was an important war. And in a weird way, it would be in the interest of the conquering emperor to say the same thing. Because if they're nobodies, what's the big deal of winning a nothing war? Yes, yes. But if Josephus didn't mind exaggerating about his own life, then how can we trust his reference to Jesus, the only reference outside the Gospels? There's only one way to find out. Strip his history naked and compare it to the archaeology. The first century historian Flavius Josephus wrote in great detail about Jerusalem during Jesus' time. But because so much of what he wrote about himself appears to be exaggerated, can we trust him? Josephus knew how to spin a great yarn. For example, in his autobiography, he tells the story of how earlier in life he survived a shipwreck in the middle of the Mediterranean, and then swam all night to the shores of what is now Italy. Josephus' writing style is full of dramatic flourishes, and what appears to be exaggeration. I asked Steve Mason, who has studied Josephus for years, if Josephus is believable as a historian. Is Josephus writing drama or history? Even the best historical writers have a great deal of drama in their history. All of these people are trained in rhetoric. And rhetoric is the art of compelling people to listen to you, telling a good story, making them believe you. So there are set ways of doing that. And Josephus does them all. There's lots of drama. There are, one thing you do is, when you are writing a narrative, you can't be boring. You can't just tell one story continuously. You must break it up, change the scene, change who's involved in the thing, change the location, jump around a little bit, say, meanwhile, over in Rome, this was happening. Or just come to a climax. So he's good at all of that. He's very good at it. He gets to a climax in his story. He says, now, let me pause right there. He would have been a screenwriter today. Exactly. I asked archaeologist Gabi Barkay, can we trust him? Should he be vilified as a liar or praised as a historian? So Josephus, is he a disgusting traitor, brilliant historian, self promoter? We should thank him. Because as an archaeologist, I can tell you that digging in Jerusalem, digging in Caesarea, in Caesarea Philippi, in Herodium, in Masada, and various other spots, they come out very much fitting the picture. The archaeology fits. Archaeology fits perfectly the descriptions of Josephus. Josephus is a reliable source, but any historical source should be taken by scholars critically. In fact, when you review Josephus' writings critically, you can't help but notice the accuracy of his broader strokes. His writings have been used to uncover major archaeological sites, such as the one at Caesarea, a harbour that Josephus describes and archaeologists have confirmed as built in 21 BC at the whim of Herod the Great. Now a popular site for rock concerts, Caesarea was an entirely man-made port. Josephus' descriptions have also helped archaeologists reconstruct Jerusalem as it was before the Romans destroyed it. I met up with Professor Isaiah Gaffney, who took me on a walking tour of a miniature version of ancient Jerusalem. It's not what I expected. Yes, this is a model of a Jerusalem in the Second Temple period. This looks accurate. It is. How did they figure out all of this? Well, we have the well-known Jewish historian Josephus, who describes Jerusalem with great detail. And the details here are based on Josephus. Physically, it's accurate? Yes. In other words, we've done a lot of excavation in Jerusalem. And by and large, almost everything that Josephus describes physically, we can locate here. And it's built to scale, 1 to 50. The topography is exact as well. In other words, the higher spots, lower spots. Here you have the northern part of the city, the wall. Southern part of the city, the Temple Mount, and the western gates of Jerusalem. And so the model really makes sense, and it all does come together. Whether Josephus knew it or not, his writings have fueled more than a few myths throughout the centuries. One myth in particular ended up being one of the greatest archaeological finds of the end of the 20th century. A fortress in the desert called Masada. But did he get it right? One of the greatest stories that Josephus ever spun was the history of Masada. Once thought to be nothing but a myth or a figment of his imagination, Masada now stands as arguably one of the greatest archaeological finds of all time. But how much of what Josephus wrote can be verified by the archaeology? I travelled to Masada to find out. From Josephus' writings, we know that Masada was a fortress where Jewish rebels led by Eliezer ben Yair held off the 10th legion of the Roman army for almost six years. According to Josephus, when the Romans finally breached Masada's gates, they discovered that the rebels were dead. They had committed mass suicide. This sounds remarkably similar to Josephus' account of Yodefat, where rebels chose death over surrender. And just like Yodefat, where Josephus made a speech convincing his followers to use lots to determine the order of death, commander ben Yair made a similar speech urging the same thing. Ben Yair, however, went through with the suicide. Archaeologist Guy Stiebel and his colleagues have found many artifacts that seem to confirm the Josephus story. They found skeletons, and they even think they found the lots that the rebels drew to determine the order of death. In the Josephus story, he says that the defenders of Masada voted, they cast lots, each one went to his own family, embraced them, killed them. Here you excavate, there's a skeleton of a man, a skeleton of a woman, a skeleton of a child. It seems to fit. And now we have to stop and we go back into science. I mean, it's very tempting to take the narration of Josephus, I mean, his account and say, okay, this is what we have here. It is very tempting. However, when we look at the hard evidence, evidence seem to be less convincing in a way. And now there are scholars that explain this discovery of three skeletons here by the work of the hyenas that brought skeletons. So they say Herod's palace became a hyena den, and the hyenas dragged... In a way, I mean, one of the chambers. But this is again, this is interpretation. They dragged bodies, and therefore we think they're the defenders, but really all we've discovered... This is one of the explanations, but stating that this is for sure the remains of rebels, that the last defenders that commit suicide, we can't. The fact that Masada was under siege by the Romans, as described by Josephus, is now no longer disputed. Within the fortress walls, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of the ancient world's version of cannonballs. Josephus also described the Roman camp, and archaeologists have found that too. So Josephus seems to be totally credible. But as Gabi Barkay tells me, some of what Josephus wrote was an outright lie. Josephus writes that Masada was all of it built of white marble. Not even one piece of white marble was found in Masada. More than that, in the early Roman period, there was no marble in use at all in Palestine. Why does he say so? Probably he looked at Masada from down below. A possible other reason would be that he wrote in Rome. And in Rome, no building is regarded glorious if it is not built of marble. But he said it was all marble. He wrote it for his readers in Rome. If he's messing with facts, why do you rely on him? Altogether, he is reliable. He is reliable. He is reliable. Archaeologically speaking, whatever he tells us are proved to be correct. The only other archaeology... ...that seems to confirm Josephus' story, are the pottery shards discovered at Masada that appear to be the lots used in the Suicide Pact. But as Steve Mason explains, this also can't be considered hard evidence towards proving Josephus' entire narrative. The lots are very compelling. By the lots, I guess you mean all of these pieces of broken pottery shards. And in a few cases, you have names written on these shards. Some scholars say, hey, it matches almost perfectly. Here you have these names, what else would they be? But the possibilities for why you have these names on shards are, you know, almost endless. It could be, if you're living up there, there are any number of reasons why you might have people's names on shards to mark out... You might say, this is my little area. This is where my bed is, this is where my family is. Don't touch my condo. Or here's an IOU, here's my share of the food. Something like that. We just have really no idea. It's a nice theory, but it doesn't prove anything. Whether or not Josephus' story at Masada was partially invented or completely true, without him we would know nothing about Masada. Today Masada stands as a kind of Jewish Alamo, the last stand against the Romans, and in that sense it's also the symbol of modern Israel. But forget about Josephus the liar, never mind his betrayal. It seems four out of five archaeologists agree that Josephus as a historian is a major source for first century Israel. But others see him as much more important, since he's also the only writer outside the Gospels who wrote about the existence of Jesus. But what exactly did he write? As we look at the history of the first century, we find no surviving records, whether Roman or Jewish, that support the accounts of the Christian Bible or the existence of Jesus, except for one, the writings of Josephus. In two passages, Josephus seems to be referring to Jesus of Nazareth. I met with Professor Steve Mason to find out what exactly Josephus had to say about Jesus. Does he mention Jesus? That's a bit of a controversy. He mentions some 21 guys, I think, named Jesus. And one of those he mentions is Jesus of Nazareth. He talks about Jesus in two places. The most certain one is not when he's talking about Jesus actually, he's talking about his brother James. And he says that he was executed as a lawbreaker and troublemaker. And he says he was the brother of the so-called Christos, the so-called Christ, Jesus. But if Josephus calls Jesus a so-called Messiah, in one instance, in the second instance he seems to have no doubts. About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if one ought to call him a man, for he was one who performed surprising deeds. He was a teacher of such people who accepted the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many Greeks. He was the Messiah. But as Steve Mason tells me, this passage is controversial. He almost certainly didn't write that passage. Why? Because he wrote 30 volumes and he's always talking about how great Judaism is. He never elsewhere mentions a Messiah. He never mentions the need for a Messiah. He doesn't like Messianic figures. He does mention a number of people who were kind of quasi-Messiahs, who attracted large followings. He really, really doesn't like these people, sees them as troublemakers and kind of demagogues, people who could persuade a large mass of ignorant people to follow them. So he just doesn't like that kind of person. So for him to say of this man, out of the blue, oh by the way, he was the Messiah, it makes absolutely no sense. I'm confused. If Josephus didn't write it, who did? Anet Yoshiko Reed says it's the work of Christian scribes added years later. That seems to be a later edition. It's actually pretty clear that it's a later edition. That's important in a different way. It's important because if it weren't for that aspect, we probably wouldn't have the works of Josephus today. Because that was one of the things that spurred the Christian transmission of these works over the centuries. Meaning the scribe who added that line in probably saved Josephus because he made him more important to Christian theology. So here's the irony. The fact that Josephus mentioned Jesus caused his words to be preserved by the church. Had they not altered his writings, Josephus' works would probably have been lost. So let me get this straight. Josephus is a scoundrel, but we should be happy that he was a scoundrel because he probably saved all this history for us. And whoever tinkered with Josephus was a faker, but we should be happy with him because he probably saved Josephus for us. Yeah, it makes sense. Josephus turns out to be an incredibly complex character. For years, scholars thought he was nothing more than a myth maker, inventing stories and exaggerating to boost his own importance. But it turns out he was an incredibly accurate historian. His descriptions of first century Israel, from Masada to Caesarea, to his descriptions of the actual layout of Jerusalem, turned out to be incredibly precise. Some thought he was a bit of a scoundrel, someone who ingratiated himself to the Romans to save his own skin. But could it be that he was actually a hero? Josephus compares himself to the defenders of Masada and points out that had he too fallen on his own sword, Masada would have been forgotten. And while the description of Jesus as the Messiah attributed to Josephus seems to be a forgery, the fact is that his writings, and his writings alone, are still the only validation of Jesus as a historical figure.