Finally, the completely unbelievable yet very black comedy end of the woe-saying Jesus in Josephus is related to the satiric New Testament theme regarding “stones.”
This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased;
for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, “Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!” And just as he added at the last, “Woe, woe to myself also!” there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus states that the temple of Jerusalem will be destroyed. He then is asked what signs will foretell its destruction. Jesus responds with a list of signs that will occur before the coming of the “Son of Man,” the individual whose visitation will bring about the destruction.
Josephus also gives a list of signs that, as he relates it, actually did precede the destruction of the temple. When these two lists of signs are compared, a number of parallels emerge.
The first parallel is almost too obvious to be noticed—the location and subject of both passages. They both describe activity in and around the temple of Jerusalem and both have to do with its destruction. Further, both Jesus and Josephus flatly declare that they are going to reveal the signs that will precede the coming destruction of the temple.
Thus, the title of the chapter in Wars of the Jews reads:
THE GREAT DISTRESS THE JEWS WERE IN UPON THE CONFLAGRATION OF THE HOLY HOUSE. CONCERNING A FALSE PROPHET, AND THE SIGNS THAT PRECEDED THIS DESTRUCTION.
At the beginning of Matthew 24, Jesus is asked the following question:
Afterwards He was on the Mount of Olives and was seated there when the disciples came to Him, apart from the others, and said, “Tell us when this will be; and what will be the sign of your Coming and of the Close of the Age?”
Jesus’ doomsday visions are thus parallel to Josephus’ chapter heading:
… SIGNS THAT PRECEDED THIS DESTRUCTION.
Both sets of signs are, thus, in relation to the coming destruction of the temple. Jesus states that these signs will also herald the coming of the “Son of Man” and the beginning of the “tribulation” during which the temple will be destroyed. Josephus records that very similar signs, in fact, did occur just before the destruction of the temple.
For clarification, I will go through the list of signs that Jesus envisioned and then present the parallel signs that Josephus recorded as having come to pass.
The New Testament Jesus sees false prophets rising and leading the people astray.
“Take care that no one misleads you,” answered Jesus;
“for many will come assuming my name and saying ‘I am the Christ’; and they will mislead many.
Many false prophets will rise up and lead multitudes astray …”
This “comes to pass” in this passage from Josephus:
A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance.
Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God …
Jesus described the route the Son of Man would take.
For just as the lightning flashes in the east and is seen to the very west, so will be the Coming of the Son of Man.
This was the direction of the march of the Roman army as they entered Judea on the east and carried their conquest westward.
Like Daniel [Daniel 7:13], the New Testament Jesus sees a sign of the Son of Man in the sky, foreshadowing that the destruction is imminent: “One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven!”
In Josephus, we read of an actual sign in the clouds foretelling the imminent destruction of Jerusalem.
… before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds …
The parallel between the sign of “chariots and troops … among the clouds” given by Josephus, and the “sign of the Son of Man in the sky” given by Jesus, is problematic for Christianity. If one accepts, as the early Christian scholars did, that the signs Jesus gives in Matthew came to pass with the signs Josephus records, then it is difficult to contradict that Jesus was referring to Titus as the “Son of Man,” chariots and troops being more synonymous with leaders of Roman armies than with religious sages. This parallel is as clear as any of the other parallels between the signs that Jesus foresees in Matthew 23 and 24 and the signs that Josephus gives in Wars of the Jews, and to attempt to exclude it would constitute special pleading. Of interest is the fact that on the Arch of Titus in Rome, there is a relief depicting both Titus’ consecratio and his conquest of Jerusalem, which shows him being carried into the clouds on an eagle.
Other scholars have noticed the connection between Jesus and Titus, that Josephus’ sign regarding chariots and troops creates. The eighteenth-century theologian Reland wrote concerning this particular sign that:
… many will here look for a mystery, as though the meaning were, that the Son of God came now to take vengeance on the sins of the Jewish nation …
Reland was simply stating the obvious. Since Jesus’ eschatological prophecies were solely regarding the destruction of Judea by the Romans, they appear to envision him coming “at the head of the Roman army.” Because Titus was the head of the army that destroyed Jerusalem, the parallel that this sign creates between Jesus and him seems clear.
Continuing with the lists of signs, in the New Testament Jesus predicts “woe” for women who are suckling a child.
And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days.
Matt. 24:19
Josephus shows that this came to pass.
She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, “O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition?”
… As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him …
Jesus foresees “famines and earthquakes” as signs of the coming destruction. In the above passage from Josephus, the priests “felt a quaking” as they attempted to perform their ministrations. Josephus describes “many that were worn away by the famine.”
In Matthew 24, Jesus states:
“let him who is on the roof not go down to fetch what is in his house;
“nor let him who is outside the city stay to pick up his outer garment.”
In the following passage, Josephus records that this sign “came to pass”:
And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round about the holy house,
that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them escape with his life.
A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance.
They also burnt down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity of money, and an immense number of garments …
Jesus states:
But of this be assured, that if the master of the house had known the hour at which the robber was coming, he would have kept awake, and not have allowed his house to be broken into.
Throughout Wars of the Jews, Josephus uses the word “robber” to describe the Je
wish rebels:
And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the inner court of the temple by the Romans,] and had much ado to get into the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the remainder of the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court …
Jesus literally dates the “close of the age” that he is prophesying:
I tell you in solemn truth that the present generation will certainly not pass away without all these things having first taken place.
Jews in the first century held that a generation lasted 40 years. Therefore the generation that Jesus is referring to can only be the one that, 40 years later, rebelled from Rome. Thus, all of Jesus’ prophecies were foreseeing events from the coming war.
The following quote underscores this idea.
… Wherever the dead body is, there will the eagles flock together …
Since the eagle was the symbol of the Roman army, the idea behind this passage also seems clear. Numerous scholars have understood the passage to indicate that Jesus is foreseeing the Roman army gathering about the corpses amidst the destroyed temple. As Albert Barnes wrote in his Commentary on Matthew in 1832:
This verse is connected with the preceding by the word “for,” implying that this is a reason for what is said there—that the Son of Man would certainly come to destroy the city, and that he would come suddenly. The meaning is that he would come, by means of the Roman armies, as certainly, as suddenly, and as unexpectedly as whole flocks of vultures and eagles, though unseen before, see their prey at a great distance and suddenly gather in multitudes around it … So keen is their vision as aptly to represent the Roman armies, though at an immense distance, spying, as it were, Jerusalem, a putrid carcass, and hastening in multitudes to destroy it.
The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus has seen into the future and is telling the Jews what they must do to avoid “tribulation.”
For there will rise up false Christs and false prophets, displaying wonderful signs and prodigies, so as to deceive, were it possible, even God’s own People …
Remember, I have forewarned you.
Josephus, in a pattern that should be familiar to the reader by now, states:
Now if any one consider these things, he will find that God takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our race what is for their preservation; but that men perish by those miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves …
As with all of Jesus’ prophecies, his list of signs operates on two levels. On their surface, they would have demonstrated to early uneducated Christian converts, the divinity of Jesus. Potential converts would have been shown the prophecies of Christ in the New Testament and then the realization of each prophecy in Wars of the Jews—the official prophet corroborated by the official history. This would have both “proven” the divinity of Christ, because he had been able to see into the future, and simultaneously justified the Romans’ destruction of Jerusalem, because it “proved” that it had been foreseen by God. On their satiric level, however, the two lists of signs are obviously clues to the real identity of the Son of Man—Titus Flavius.
I note another parallel between Jesus’ eschatological prophecies and Wars of the Jews that is related to this theme. Jesus in Matthew 24 states:
… for then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world and assuredly never will be again.
Josephus records that this too came to pass.
… the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews, are not so considerable as they were.131
There is another parallel between the signs in Matthew 23 and the signs in Josephus. I will analyze it separately because of its unique satiric nature. This parallel has long puzzled scholars. The confusion has been due to its not being understood both as a dark inside joke and as another of the parallels between Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign, which were created to give their two stories the same broad outline.
In the Gospels, Jesus states:
You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,
that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechari’ah the son of Barachi’ah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation.
Matt. 23:33–36
In Wars of the Jews Josephus writes:
And now these zealots and Idumeans were quite weary of barely killing men, so they had the impudence of setting up fictitious tribunals and judicatures for that purpose;
and as they intended to have Zacharias the son of Baruch, one of the most eminent of the citizens, slain, so what provoked them against him was, that hatred of wickedness and love of liberty which were so eminent in him …
Now the seventy judges brought in their verdict that the person accused was not guilty, as choosing rather to die themselves with him, than to have his death laid at their doors;
hereupon there arose a great clamor of the zealots upon his acquittal, and they all had indignation at the judges for not understanding that the authority that was given them was but in jest.
So two of the boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the middle of the temple, and slew him; and as he fell down dead, they bantered him, and said, “Thou hast also our verdict, and this will prove a more sure acquittal to thee than the other.” …132
As I have pointed out, Matthew 24 is a continuation of the same speech Jesus begins in Matthew 23. Jesus leaves the interior of the temple, where the dialogue of Matthew 23 occurs, and then continues this speech (Matthew 24) outside the temple. Therefore, the parallel between Zacharias, son of Barachiah, and Zacharias, son of Baruch, both slain in the temple, should be understood to be in the same stream of prophecy Jesus gives in Matthew 24, because it is from the same speech. In light of the numerous parallels in Matthew 24 and Wars of the Jews, we are on solid footing when we understand this to be another example of Jesus “seeing” something in the future that Josephus documents.
There is a problem with accepting that the parallel belongs in the same set as Jesus’ famous eschatological prophecies, however. The character that Jesus refers to, appeared not in his future but in his past. The prophet “Zachari’ah the son of Barachi’ah” is a character from the Old Testament, so how can Jesus be foreseeing him in the future? Further, how could Josephus then record that Jesus was right, that Zacharias’ death occurred in 70 C.E., along with the other prophecies envisioned by Jesus in Matthew 23 and 24?
I include Whiston’s fascinating comment regarding the passage from Josephus. He was aware of the parallel between the Zacharias in Josephus and the Zachari’ah in the New Testament and was troubled by its implications.
Some commentators are ready to suppose that this “Zacharias, the son of Baruch,” here most unjustly slain by the Jews in the temple, was the very same person with “Zacharias, the son of Barachias,” whom our Savior says the Jews “slew between the temple and the altar,” Matthew 23:35. This is a somewhat strange exposition; since Zechariah the prophet was really “the son of Barachiah,” and “grandson of Iddo,” Zechariah 1:1; and how he died, we have no other account than that before us in St. Matthew: while this “Zacharias” was “the son of Baruch.” Since the slaughter was past when our Savior spake these words, the Jews had then already slain him; whereas this slaughter of “Zacharias, the son of Baruch,” in Josephus, was then about thirty-four years future. And since the slaughter was “between the temple and the altar,” in the court of the priests, one of the most sacred and remote parts of the whole temple; while this was, in Josephus’ own words, in the middle of the temple, and much the most probably in the court of Israel onl
y (for we have had no intimation that the zealots had at this time profaned the court of the priests. See B. V. ch. 1. sect. 2). Nor do I believe that our Josephus, who always insists on the peculiar sacredness of the inmost court, and of the holy house that was in it, would have omitted so material an aggravation of this barbarous murder, as perpetrated in a place so very holy, had that been the true place of it.133
Thus, Whiston attempts to explain away the troubling parallel by arguing that the slaying of Zacharias in Josephus could not be the incident that Jesus prophesied because:
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