Quote:
About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.
Although it is not agreed upon if this was his true style, in the 10th century there was an independent translation fom a Christian Arab who quotes Josephus as well:
Quote:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (he) was known to be virtuous and many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not desert his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders
The two passages certainly have the same contents, only the tone is different, which could be a corruption of the copyist, which was done fairly much. The fact that an independent translation of the same work was made, suggests and makes it very probable that Josephus, of whom is recorded that he was a Jew and not a Christian, indeed wrote about Jesus and that very shortly after the crucifixion.
