Josephus

Throughout Josephus’ work in Jewish Antiquities, he wrote about the need to properly recount history. Josephus claimed that there were many who “perverted the truth.” Due to Josephus’ vast understanding of the Roman and Jewish Wars, he felt it was his duty to properly account the events that occurred within this war. I feel this point of view is much different from other ancient historians. I feel that the very people in whom Josephus criticizes could in fact be Plutarch and Arrian. Plutarch…

led a rebellion against Roman rule. The most significant factor in causing the Jewish rebellion was the Romans’ attitudes and actions towards Jewish beliefs and laws. One of the most incredulous instances of a disregard for Jewish beliefs is when Josephus brings up an…

Lazarus is with Abraham in Heaven and the rich man is separated from them in Hell. Abraham tells the rich man “you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us” (Luke 16:26). The point of this parable is to emphasize that rejection of the teachings of Jesus is eternal and, once judgment has been carried out, cannot be undone or alleviated. We should not adopt the Apocrypha because its stories often contradict each other. The two books of Maccabees are about the Maccabean revolt. The…

archaeology has also been able to corroborate and provide evidence for the reliability of Jesus. When you place all of this evidence together, you can easily see that the information that we have about Jesus is indeed reliable. Historical writers like Josephus and Pliny have provided statements that not only prove the existence of Jesus, but also the fact that Jesus was considered “the Messiah” and “the Christ.” Archaeology has discovered places and locations that are also found in the Bible.…

Josephus claims when the Senate discovered the strength of Claudius’ position, they sent two tribunes as ambassadors to demand his immediate withdraw from the Praetorian camp. When the tribunes saw Claudius’ obvious military superiority they decided they…

Is the Bible trustworthy based on what we know from history? Sources outside the Bible all confirm what the Bible says. Josephus was a Jewish historian and mentions Jesus several times. He notes Jesus’ role as a religious teacher and his death by crucifixion. Tacitus was a Roman historian and says Jesus lived during the N.T. times and that he was referred to as the “Christ” by His followers. Modern historians accept these two as reliable reporters and historians and neither one were Christians…

In contrast, Jesus and the Disciples ate with other people including sinners and tax collectors ( Mark 2:13-17; Matt 9: 10-11). According to Josephus in section 8.5, the Essenes wash themselves before every meal. Jesus and his disciples did not always wash their hands before eating (Matt 15:2; Mark 7: 2-5). According to Josephus in section 8.6, the Essenes do not swear because they believe that if a person has to swear by God then he is already condemned. Jesus confirms that practice…

“Excavating Jesus” proved to be a unique blend of ground as gospel, as self-claimed in its introduction. However, after the engaging introduction, filled with facts and fun quips from the authors, the reader was pulled away from the goal of excavating Jesus and towards a textual representation of first century history that no longer focused on the historical Jesus but rather the historical Christian. Written by John Dominic Crossan, an Irish-American Catholic religious scholar, and Johnathan…

these pangs occurred during 66-70 AD. We will briefly look at these pangs within the context of history. For a more in-depth study of this time period in the 1st century, I would recommend you becoming familiar with the works of the Jewish Historian Josephus. You can borrow his complete works anytime as I have it in my office. Another historian who recorded the events surrounding the siege and destruction of Jerusalem is the Roman…

The resurrection of Christ is one of the largest hot button topics in the field of Christian Apologetics and the field of New Testament criticism. Dr. Gary Habermas, arguably the foremost voice on Christian Resurrection, said, “Over the last two years, I have tracked more than twelve hundred publications on the subject of the resurrection of Jesus. Each source appeared between 1975 and the present, with the vast majority written by critical scholars.” The article that this was quoted from was…