Staff Reports
A new book and a set of interviews have stirred up an old argument about a short, famous passage in Josephus that mentions Jesus. T. C. Schmidt — an associate professor at Fairfield University and visiting fellow in Princeton’s James Madison Program — argues in his Oxford University Press monograph Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ that the Testimonium Flavianum may be more authentic than many scholars have assumed. This matters because the passage, if it preserves Josephus’s own words, could record non‑Christian testimony that Jesus did miracles and that his followers believed he appeared alive after death.
What Schmidt actually claims
Schmidt lays out a multi‑part case: he compares Greek manuscripts and early translations (Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Arabic), runs stylometric tests to compare the passage’s wording with Josephus’s other sentences, and traces how early readers rendered the line. He argues these threads point to a “substantially authentic” core in the Testimonium that reports Jesus did “paradoxical” deeds and that his followers reported an appearance “on the third day.” In plain English: Schmidt thinks Josephus may have recorded what people at the time believed — not that Josephus himself became a convert.
Why Christians and conservatives should care
This is not just academic hair‑splitting. For believers, a neutral ancient historian like Josephus mentioning miracles or a post‑mortem appearance gives fresh weight to the historical claim that early followers genuinely believed Jesus rose. For those tired of the secular academy treating Christian history like a conspiracy theory, Schmidt’s work is a welcome challenge to the status quo. It pushes back against the reflexive skepticism that treats any positive line about Jesus in ancient texts as automatically forged by later Christians.
Scholarly pushback and the limits of the claim
Before anyone runs headlines claiming a newly found manuscript “proves the Resurrection,” breathe. Schmidt did not discover a first‑century Greek copy bearing the contested lines. His case is a reconstruction built from variant translations, statistical style work, and historical argument. Many experts still disagree. Critics note the most explosive phrases read like Christian theology and remain missing in the clean Greek witnesses. Scholars such as Daniel R. Schwartz and others urge caution: this is renewed debate, not settled verdict.
Bottom line
Schmidt’s book has reopened the Testimonium Flavianum debate with new data and bold claims. Whether you think it strengthens the case for Jesus’ miracles and resurrection or see it as an interesting but inconclusive reconstruction will depend on how much weight you give stylometrics and translation variants. Either way, conservatives and Christians who want the academy to stop reflexively dismissing evidence will welcome a serious, public challenge to scholarly consensus. Expect more debate — and more headlines that will need tempering with the simple facts: no new Greek manuscript has been found, and scholars remain split.
