Josephus on James, the brother of Jesus
A first-century Jewish historian, writing within living memory, refers to Jesus and to his brother James as ordinary matters of public record.
Named outside the BibleAncient writerc. AD 93–94
The Jewish historian Josephus, writing for a Roman audience, describes the high priest Ananus convening a court and executing James — identifying him, in passing, as the brother of "Jesus who was called Christ". The reference is incidental, which is what makes it strong: Josephus is explaining a political scandal, not making a claim about Jesus.
…he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others… and delivered them to be stoned.
- Found
- Transmitted in medieval manuscripts
- Now held at
- Various manuscript collections
- Language
- Greek
- How it reached us
- Never buried — copied by hand, generation after generation, until printing.
What it shows
This passage is accepted as authentic by the great majority of scholars. Josephus's other, longer passage about Jesus (the Testimonium Flavianum, Antiquities 18.63) is a different matter — it is widely judged to have been altered by later Christian copyists, and we do not rest anything on it.
How historians use it
A standard non-Christian source in secular reconstructions of first-century Judaea.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Josephus on Jesus — overview of the scholarly debate
- Whealey, Josephus on Jesus (2003)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.