page_title: The Christ Myth
section_title: The Jewish witnesses
hierarchical_section_title: The Christ Myth / Christ Myth II – the witnesses to the historicity of Jesus (1912) / The Jewish witnesses
caption_attribution_description: English: Scanned from a copy of Josephus' 'The Jewish War' dated 1888. Français&#160;: Buste, sans inscriptions, datant du première siècle, actuellement conservé à la Glyptothèque Ny Carlsberg. Robert Eisler en 1925 identifie la personne représentée comme Flavius Josèphe, se basant principalement sur des stéréotypes physiques et déclarant que Josèphe, selon Eusèbe de Césarée, était très populaire à Rome, qu'une statue lui était consacrée. Les arguments sont cependant qualifiés de légers, l'attribution est aujourd'hui soulignée par les savants comme spéculative. Voir P. Plagnieux, Les sculptures Romanes Dossiers d'Archéologie, (janvier 2001), p.15&#160;; Magen Broshi, Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls&#160;; Le Buste sur la base de donnée culturelle du Danemark. [If Eisler was the first to associate the bust to Josephus in 1925, then how come this photo was used to illustrate Josephus in 1888, when Eisler had just reached the venerable age of six (6)?]
context_page_description: The Christ Myth, first published in 1909, was a book by Arthur Drews on the Christ myth theory. Drews, along with Bruno Bauer and Albert Kalthoff, is one of the three German pioneers of the denial of the existence of a historical Jesus.
context_section_description: Philo: a Jewish contemporary of Jesus, knew of the Essenes, but makes no mention of Jesus or Christians.
  Justus of Tiberias: Drews mentions the curious case of Photius, the 9th-century Patriarch of Constantinople, who became famous for his Bibliotheca or Myriobiblon, a collection of excerpts and summaries of some 280 classical volumes now mostly lost. Photius read through the Chronicle of Justus of Tiberias, a contemporary of Josephus, who went through the Jewish Wars and the destruction of Jerusalem. Justus wrote a book about the War, and a Chronicle of the Jewish people from Moses to Agrippa II (27-c. 94 AD). "Photius himself believed there ought to be some mention of Jesus [in Justus's Chronicle], and was surprised to find none." [emphasis added]
  Josephus: pros and cons of the Testimonium Flavanium, concluding it is most likely an interpolation or alteration.
  Talmud: offers no contemporary report on Jesus, only later fragments from the Gospel tradition.
caption: A Roman portrait bust said to be of Josephus[13]
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