Origen, writing 75 years prior to Eusebius, directly contradicts the Testimoniam Flavianum. Further, he ascribes the Jews' defeat in the Great Revolt to their execution of James the Just. Josephus, in The Jewish War, cites the blasphemy of the zealots murdering priests inside the temple precincts as the reason for the destruction.
How much more effective would Origen's arguments have been if he had access to the TF which asserted that the leading jewish citizens had killed "jesus?" Sadly, that bit of fiction was not yet written.
The arguments about Tacitus can go on and on. The simple fact is that no one in the ancient world, xtian or Greco-Roman, makes reference to this passage nor does anyone cite Nero's persecution of the xtians for the Great Fire until Chronica, by Sulpicius Severus in the early 5th century...and he does not cite Tacitus as a source nor does he have any of this Christus killed by the procurator Pilate stuff. That seems to be a later interpolation.
I don't profess to be an ancient "scholar" but I have read much of this stuff.
How much more effective would Origen's arguments have been if he had access to the TF which asserted that the leading jewish citizens had killed "jesus?" Sadly, that bit of fiction was not yet written.
The arguments about Tacitus can go on and on. The simple fact is that no one in the ancient world, xtian or Greco-Roman, makes reference to this passage nor does anyone cite Nero's persecution of the xtians for the Great Fire until Chronica, by Sulpicius Severus in the early 5th century...and he does not cite Tacitus as a source nor does he have any of this Christus killed by the procurator Pilate stuff. That seems to be a later interpolation.
I don't profess to be an ancient "scholar" but I have read much of this stuff.
