After Jerusalem had been destroyed, Josephus took up residence within the Flavian court at Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Vespasian and the subsequent Flavian emperors, Titus and Domitian.It was while he was living in Rome that Josephus wrote his two major works,Wars of the Jews, a description of the 66-73 C.E. war between the Romans and the Jews, and Jewish Antiquities, a history of the Jewish people.
Josephus histories are of great significance to Christianity.Virtually all that we know regarding the social context of the New Testament is derived from them.Without these works, the very dating of the events of the New Testament would be impossible.
Josephus histories provided Jesus with historical documentation, a fact that is widely known.They also provided Jesus with another kind of documentation, a fact largely forgotten.Early Christians believed that the events Josephus described in Wars of the Jewsproved that Jesus had been able to see into the future.It is difficult to find even one early Christian who taught another position.Church scholars such as Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and Cyprian were unanimous in proclaiming that Josephus description of the conquest of Judea by Titus Flavius in Wars of the Jewsproved that Jesus prophecies had come to pass.As Eusebius wrote in 325 C.E.:
If anyone compares the words of our Saviour with the other accounts of the historian [Josephus] concerning the whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Saviour were truly divine and marvelously strange.2
One example of Jesus foreknowledge that so impressed Eusebius was his prediction that the foes of Jerusalem would encircle it with a wall, demolish the city and its temple, and level its inhabitants. Luke 19:37-44. (pages 21-22)
Josephus recorded in Wars of the Jewsthat all the precise details Jesus foresaw for Jerusalem did indeed come to pass.Titus ordered his soldiers to build a wall round the whole city.3Titus, like Jesus, saw the encircling of the city as an event sanctioned by God, who inspired his soldiers with a divine fury.
Josephus also recorded that Titus did not merely burn Jerusalem and defile its temple, but ordered that they should be left exactly as Jesus has foreseen, with not one stone upon another.. . .
Jesus stated that these calamities would befall Jerusalems inhabitants because they did not know the time of your visitation.The coming visitation was to be made by someone he called the Son of Man, a title used by the prophet Daniel for the Jewish Messiah.5While it has been universally believed that Jesus was referring to himself when he used the expression the Son of Man, he usually spoke of this individual in the third person and not as himself.
Jesus repeatedly warned the Jews that during the Visitation of the Son of Man various disasters, like those he foresaw above, would occur. (page 23)
Though Jesus did not say exactly when the visitation of the Son of Man would occur, he did state that he would come before the generation alive during his ministry passed away.
I tell you in solemn truth that the present generation will certainly not pass away without all these things having first taken place.Matt. 24:33-34
Jews of this era saw a generation as lasting 40 years, so Titus destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. fit perfectly into the time frame Jesus gave in his prophecy.However, while Jesus did accurately predict events from the coming war, there was a flaw in his foreknowledge that is, that the person whose visitation actually brought about the destruction of Jerusalem was not Jesus but Titus Flavius.If his prophecy did envision (as Eusebius and other church scholars have maintained) events from the coming war between the Romans and the Jews, then the Son of Man Jesus warned of seems not to have been himself but Titus a point that has been overlooked by modern scholarship.
There was little written between the fifth and the 15thcenturies commenting on the numerous parallels between the events Josephus recorded in Wars of the Jewsand Jesus predictions.This is not surprising, as the church is known to have actively discouraged scriptural analysis during this time.What evidence was left, however, suggests that during the entire Middle Ages, Christians viewed Josephus depiction of the war between the Romans and the Jews as proof of Jesus divinity.Icons, carvings on caskets, and religious paintings from this era all portrayed the 70 C.E. destruction of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of Jesus doomsday prophecy.
The importance of Josephus works to Christians during this period can also be gauged by the fact that some of the Eastern Christian churches of Syria and Armenia actually included his books as part of their handwritten Bible.In Europe as well, following the invention of the printing press, Latin editions of the Bible included Antiquitiesand Wars of the Jews. (page 24)
Following the Reformation, scholars were able to record their opinions, and their writings show that they continued to view the relationship between the New Testament and Wars of the Jewsas proof of Jesus divinity.On the significance of 70 C.E., for example, Dr. Thomas Newton wrote in his 1754 work,Dissertations on the Prophecies:
As a general in the wars [Josephus] must have had an exact knowledge of all transactions His history was approved by Vespasian and Titus [who ordered it to be published].He designed nothing less, and yet as if he had designed nothing more, his history of the Wars of the Jewsmay serve as a larger comment on our Saviours prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem.
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