Criticism of the Apologetic use of Josephus

I’ve been interacting with some apologists lately. One of the issues that came up was Josephus and whether he refers to Jesus in the Testimonium Flavianum. I don’t care about the issue in and of itself. Even if Josephus refers to Jesus, this is still a reference after Jesus’ death. There is no reference to Jesus or any of the events in Jesus life while Jesus was alive. Besides, proving that some person mentioned a person named Jesus really doesn’t prove anything. ‘Jesus’ is just a name. The theological and supernatural beliefs of Christians can’t be justified by history, but for some reason Christians think it does.

History is not a science. Even the soft sciences have more claims for objectivity than New Testament scholarship. When someone says that scientists have come to a consensus, I tend to respect their authority. However, the concensus of New Testament scholars doesn’t really add up to much. Most New Testament scholars are Christians trained at Christian schools. According to their beliefs, they have strong motivation to prove orthodox opinion. And, as many of them teach at Christian schools, their jobs even might be risked if they voiced criticisms too openly.

Some of the scholars doubt Jesus historicity are scholars in fields such as ancient languages and history. These fields are directly relevant to New Testament studies, but apologists tend to dismiss these scholars because their opinions are inconvenient. As an example, when an apologist says that most Josephus scholars accept Josephus, it’s simply pleading to authority.

For anyone who wants to explore the criticisms for themselves, I’ll offer two articles about Josephus by Earl Doherty and two thread discussions where there are links to other info including an article by D.M. Murdock. After those links, I’ll offer a link to the discussion page on the Wikipedia article about “Josephus on Jesus” which gives a good overall view of the debate between believers and nonbelievers.

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10.htm

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp16.htm

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2441

http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=953

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Josephus_on_Jesus