JESUS TRADITION IN CLASSICAL AND JEWISH WRITINGS

Robert E. Van Voorst

In this essay we will fi rst examine the historical value of references to Jesus in seven classical authors of the early Common Era: Th allos, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, Mara bar Serapion, Lucian of Samosata, and Celsus. We will then examine Jesus traditions in Jewish writings, particularly Josephus and the rabbinical literature. Finally, we will present our conclusions on classical and Jewish traditions on Jesus.

1. Th allos: Th e Eclipse at Jesus’ Death

Probably around 55 CE, a historian named Th allos wrote in Greek a three-volume chronicle of the eastern Mediterranean area from the fall of Troy to about 50 CE. Most of his book, like the vast majority of ancient literature, perished, but not before it was quoted by Sextus Julius Africanus, a Christian writer, in his History of the World (ca. 220 CE). Th is book likewise was lost, but some of its citations of Th allos were taken up by the Byzantine historian Georgius Syncellus in his Chronicle (ca. 800). According to Syncellus, when Julius Africanus writes about the darkness at the death of Jesus, he added, In the third (book) of his histories, Th allos calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun, which seems to me to be wrong.1 Th is fragment of Th allos used by Julius Africanus comes in a section in which Julius deals with the portents during the crucifi xion of Jesus.2 Julius argues that Th allos was “wrong” (ἄλογως) to argue that this was

1 All translations in this essay are my own, unless otherwise noted. 2 Text: F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, II B (Leiden: Brill, 1962), 1157; ANF 6:136. Treatments: F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974), 29–30; Maurice Goguel, Th e Life of Jesus (London: Allen & Unwin, 1933), 91–93; Craig A. Evans, “Jesus in Non-Christian Sources,” in Studying the Historical Jesus, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, NTTS 19 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 454–455; Robert E. van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testa- ment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 20–23. 2150 robert e. van voorst only a solar eclipse, because at full moon a solar eclipse is impossible, and the Passover always falls at full moon. Julius counters that the eclipse was miraculous, “a darkness induced by God.” Th allos could have mentioned the eclipse with no reference to Jesus. But it is more likely that Julius, who had access to the context of this quotation in Th allos and who (to judge from other fragments) generally used his sources carefully, was correct in reading it as a hostile reference to Jesus’ death. Th allos was probably arguing that this was no portent of change, but a natural event. Certainty cannot be established about this short quotation, but most of the evidence points to Th allos’ knowledge of the death of Jesus and the portent of darkness that Christians said accompanied it (Matt 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44). Who is this Th allos? Perhaps he is the Th allos to whom the Jewish historian Josephus refers, a Samaritan resident of Rome who made a large loan to Agrippa (Ant. 18.163) and who may have been Augustus’s secretary. Since this name is not common and since the fi rst-century time is the same, this identifi cation is at least possible. If it is incor- rect, this Th allos remains an otherwise unknown author. Th e dating of Th allos’ work is also somewhat uncertain. Eusebius’s Chronicle, which survives only in Armenian fragments, states that Th allos wrote about the period from the fall of Troy only to the 167th Olympiad (112–109 BCE). However, other fragments of Thallos’ history preserved in several sources indicate that he wrote about events at least until the time of the death of Jesus. One possible solution is to argue that Th allos did indeed write until only 109 BCE, and Eusebius knows this fi rst edition, but it was later extended by someone else in an edition that Julius Africanus used in 221 CE. Another solution is to argue that the report we have in the Armenian fragments of Eusebius’ Chronicle is wrong. C. Müller, followed by R. Eisler, emends the reading of the lost Greek original from ρεζ (167th Olympiad, 112–109 BCE) to σζ (207th Olympiad, 49–52 CE).3 Overall, the second solution is seen by most scholars as more likely, placing Th allos’ work between 50–60 CE. In sum, a fog of uncertainty surrounds Th allos’ statement: its extreme brevity, its third-hand citation, and the identity and date of the author. Nevertheless, a tradition about Jesus’ death probably emerges from this fog. Like Christian tradition as found in the synoptic gospels, Th allos accepts darkness at the death of Jesus. Against that tradition, he explains

3 Cited in Goguel, Life of Jesus, 92.