Josephus on John and Jesus

Not long after this, John the Baptist was beheaded by the younger Herod, as the divine Scripture of the Gospels records. Josephus tells the same story. He names Herodias, and says that Herod took her as his wife although she was his brother’s wife. He set aside the wife he had lawfully married before—she was the daughter of Aretas, king of the people of Petra—and he parted Herodias from her husband while the man was still alive. [a] It was on her account too that Herod killed John, and he went to war with Aretas, whose daughter he had dishonored. Josephus says that in this war, when it came to battle, Herod’s whole army was destroyed, and that he suffered this because of his plot against John. The same Josephus acknowledges that John was a most righteous man, and a baptizer, and so bears witness together with what is written about him in the Gospels. He also records that Herod lost his kingdom because of this same Herodias, and that he was driven into exile with her and condemned to live at Vienne, a city of Gaul. [b]

He reports this in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, where he writes about John in these very words: “Some of the Jews thought that Herod’s army had been destroyed by God, who was punishing him, and very justly, for John, called the Baptist. [c] For Herod killed him, though he was a good man, who urged the Jews to practice virtue, to deal with one another in righteousness and with God in piety, and so to come together for baptism. For the baptism would be acceptable to God, he said, if they used it not to beg pardon for particular sins but for the purity of the body, since the soul had already been cleansed beforehand by righteousness. [d] When others too gathered around him—for they were deeply stirred by hearing his words—Herod was afraid that John’s great power to persuade people might lead to some revolt, since they seemed ready to do anything he advised. He thought it much better to strike first and put him to death before anything new came of him, than to be sorry later when an upheaval had come and he was in trouble. So because of Herod’s suspicion John was sent in chains to Machaerus, the fortress mentioned above, and was killed there.” [e]

After telling these things about John, he mentions our Savior in the same part of his work in this way: “At this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was a doer of extraordinary works, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and many also of the Greeks. He was the Christ. [f] And when Pilate, on the accusation of the leading men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him at the first did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, alive again, as the divine prophets had foretold these and countless other wonders about him. And to this day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.” When a writer from among the Hebrews themselves handed down these things long ago in his own work, about John the Baptist and about our Savior, what way of escape is left for those who forged the memoirs against them, so that they are not convicted of shamelessness? But let this be enough here. [g]