20.9.1) – the hand of a later Christian interpolator who either
inserted the whole passage or added specific phrases about Jesus’
messianic status to an account that had simply noted his existence
as a historical figure (Schürer 1973–87: I, 428–41 reviews the
question in detail). Whatever solution we accept for Jesus’ appear-
ance in the Jewish Antiquities, it is clear that Josephus didmention
other figures who appear in the New Testament: apart from
Roman governors such as Pontius Pilate and Jewish leaders such
as king Herod, he noted in passing John the Baptist (Jewish
Antiquities18.5.1) and James the brother of Jesus (20.9.1). From
Josephus’ writings, then, we can attempt to place the emergence
of the Christian movement against some sort of Palestinian milieu
(see chapter 4). Indeed, by looking at a range of Jewish literature
from the late Hellenistic and Roman periods we can gain insights
into the sorts of religious debates that early Christianity shared
with contemporary Judaism (Nickelsburg 2003). Such literature
would include, in addition to Josephus and the texts from Qumran,
the writings of the first-century ADAlexandrian Jew Philo, the
writings of the pseudepigrapha, and the sayings by Jewish rabbis
from the period after AD70 that make up the collections known
as the Mishnah and the Talmud.Pagan writings
If we turn our attention to pagan sources, we find that they offer
no references to Christianity until the beginning of the second
century, at which point we find it mentioned by the historian
Tacitus, by the biographer Suetonius, and in the letters of Pliny
the Younger. Both Tactius (Annals15.44) and Suetonius (Life of
Nero16.2) recounted how the Christians were oppressed by the
emperor Nero (54–68). Both authors clearly agreed that while
the Christians certainly deserved to be punished because of their
impiety in terms of traditional Roman religious behaviour, their
sufferings under Nero were a manifestation of the emperor’s tyr-
annical behaviour. Of the two authors, Tacitus is most revealing.
He (unlike Suetonius) linked the emperor’s anti-Christian pogromSOURCES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION
86