Josephus and the New Testament

Abstract This chapter examines the complex issues involved in reading the works of Josephus alongside the New Testament. It considers recent and possible future developments in this area of study, challenging the centuries-old approach that simply mined Josephus for so many corroborating footnotes to the Christian Bible. Josephus’ Life, like the Gospels and Acts, attests a type of Jewish biography in the Roman world; that Apion, like Acts and some NT epistles, is an explanation and commendation of Judaism to gentile audiences; that the first half of the Antiquities, like many parts of the NT, illustrates literary strategies for retelling Jewish holy books; and that the War, like many parts of the NT, illustrates post–70 CE Jewish reckoning with the destruction of Jerusalem. It suggests that Josephus’ references to John, Jesus, and James are authentic (even if partly interpolated) and that Luke-Acts is literarily dependent on Josephus’ Antiquities–Life.