THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Part 2/8: Jesus, Paul, and Plutarch)
PREVIOUSLY:
THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Introduction with Prof Nina E. Livesey)
Last time we levelled the playing field and established a spectrum of interpretation of Paul from the far right of Christian fundamentalism with a very early date of an historically reliable Acts and letters (13 authentic) to a middle point of critical scholars questioning the reliability of Acts and only having 7 authentic letters, to the far left with scholars like Livesey, Price, and Detering (following the Dutch Radical Critics) where the letters and Acts contain little to no information about Paul, are late, and may not even require an historical Paul. This parallels the historicism/mythicism debate about the historical Jesus, though not that Paul was a celestial being but merely was a literary one (which may actually be an alternative about Jesus to historicism/mythicism).
In this post, I’m going to look at Jesus and Paul in the light of Plutarch, which is generally ignored because Plutarch influencing the portrait of Jesus or Paul would put their genesis into the early second century, which is where Livesey and Price put the literature about Paul (leaving the Q source in question for now). I’d like to start with arguing Livesey is wrong in her thinking that Marcion and his school was the birthplace of the Pauline-attributed letters. I agree with her that the material is late, just not penned by Marcion.
Dr. Markus Vinzent has recently revised his position on scholars such as Livesey who claim Marcion authored Paul’s letters in the second century post Bar Kokhba. He notes our first evidence of Paul’s letters is Marcion’s 10 letter collection because we don’t have the canonical collection by that time. There seems to be evidence of two collections Marcion was working with as earlier than him, the Deutero-Paulines and seven “genuine” Paulines. The order of the 7 Pauline texts seems to be the same in the canonical ones and so Marcion incorrectly puts Galatians before Corinthians. I’ll talk about that below, but Dutch Radical critic Willem Christiaan van Manen thus incorrectly argued that Galatians was originally drafted by Marcion and later padded and sanitized by the Catholics for their own use.
The canonical redactors put a Pauline letter between each of the Deutero-Paulines to make them seem like they fit as part of the larger collection. Marcion’s collection has one section where women are to be subjugated to men: Ephesians. This contradicts his seven Pauline epistles, and so should be earlier than Marcion. The canonical redactors added the idea that women should be subjugated to men into Colossians – it’s not there in Marcion. For the Marcionite Paul, Paul says the Law says women are subjugated to and should be taught by men, but the Law is no longer valid. The authenticity of the seven Pauline letters of Marcion is disputed by Livesey following the critique of such readers as the Dutch Radical School and Hermann Detering, and she shows certain Pauline attack points like the critique of circumcision more naturally fit post Bar Kokhba revolt than mid first century.
As I said, Vinzent points to the sequence of Marcion’s epistles that agree with the canonical letters as being reflective of the canonical Pauline interpretation. They are not without order. In Marcion’s Galatians 5:21 we have a reference to: “the flesh is not inheriting the kingdom of heaven as I have said before.” The reference is to 1 Cor 15:50. Galatians is first in the Marcionite collection, but this reference agrees with the canonical collection as 1 Cor being earlier. This suggests Marcion has reordered a collection he received that reflects the traditional canonical ordering, not that Marcion authored the letters.
In this regard, Livesey is wrong that the Pauline epistles originated with Marcion, but this doesn’t tell us how close to or far from Marcion the birthplace of the letters is. We usually like to assume an early date for historical mining reasons, and so for example conclude that because Mark isn’t earlier than 70 CE that Mark is near 70 CE. There is no basis for this as Mark 13 beyond the destruction of 70 CE can also be read to indicate the Bar Kokhba revolt, especially with how Matthew expands on Mark here in Mark’s Olivet discourse reception history.
If we push the New Testament into the second century, what we seem to have, though, is the creation of Paul in Acts (as Livesey argues) through parallelism with the gospel of Luke. In Plutarch’s Parallel life of Cleomenes III, we have a dead crucified Cleomenes converting onlookers. We see the same motif in Mark, Matthew, and Luke with the soldier looking up at the crucified Jesus and declaring Jesus the Son of God/an innocent man.
Jesus has forgiving in death in Luke. Ehrman suggests this was later edited out by Christian scribes who couldn’t see God forgiving the Jews, but we have good reason to think it was original to Luke because we have a parallel forgiving death of Stephen in Acts. Similarly, we seem to have the literary origin of the converted Paul in Acts as a parallel of the converted soldier in Luke.
Stephen’s martyrdom is described in Acts 7:54–8:1, and Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus follows in Acts 9:1–19. Acts 8 describes intervening events, including Philip’s ministry in Samaria and the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, which suggest some time passed. However, the text doesn’t specify weeks, months, or years. Paul’s conversion in Acts follows him overseeing the death of forgiving Stephen which could have ranged from weeks to a year, but the events were closely linked and so the death could have been viewed as a catalyst for the vision of Jesus by Paul. The letters augment this possibility that in Romans 16:7, Paul refers to Andronicus and Junia, who are described as “my kinsmen” and “outstanding among the apostles, who were in Christ before me.” This indicates that some of Paul’s relatives or close associates were part of the Jesus movement before his conversion. Paul persecuting a movement where he has a man who forgives him for killing him (Acts) or his own relatives (Romans) could certainly connect to having a vision of Christ, which now secular psychology would call a hallucination due to cognitive dissonance, a psychological term that describes the discomfort you feel when your beliefs don’t line up with your actions, which was also present in a theological interpretation historically. The ancients knew divination was made possible through unusual physical states. Oracles like the Pythia at Delphi were thought to enter a trance state through the influence of volcanic vapors, allowing them to deliver prophecies. Many religious and spiritual traditions emphasize the importance of aligning one’s actions with their beliefs. The concept of sin, for instance, often involves a violation of one’s moral code, leading to guilt or shame, which can be seen as what we now call a form of cognitive dissonance.
In this way, Paul is an idealized figure as the one prophesied in the Old Testament who would bring the message of God to the world at the end of the age (Isaiah 42:1–6; Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 66:18–2; Zechariah 8:20–23; Malachi 1:11), and a powerful example of the truth of the Christian religion with an arch persecutor becoming a great champion, which explains the apparent typology in Acts (9:1-21) of Paul’s conversion recapitulating 2 Maccabees 3’s story of Heliodorus and perhaps Euripides’ The Bacchae.
The connection with Plutarch’s Cleomenes I mentioned seems to anchor the gospels and Acts securely in the second century. Acts is thus not just a history of the early church, scholars like Richard Pervo challenging its value as a historical document, but rather a historical fiction narrative prophesying (like Isaiah or Daniel) about a “Paul-like” figure who was soon to come.
If we think of Jesus on the cross converting the soldier (This was God’s Son/an innocent man) regarding Cleomenes from Plutarch in connection to Jesus and Paul (Dr. Ali Ataie notes this passage in a different context time 2:42:47-2:44:15) , the key passage from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (Cleomenes) reads:
And a few days afterwards those who were keeping watch upon the body of Cleomenes where it hung, saw a serpent of great size coiling itself about the head and hiding away the face so that no ravening bird of prey could light upon it. 2 In consequence of this, the king was seized with superstitious fear, and thus gave the women occasion for various rites of purification, since they felt that a man had been taken off who was of a superior nature and beloved of the gods. And the Alexandrians actually worshipped him, coming frequently to the spot and addressing Cleomenes as a hero and a child of the gods.
Cleomenes III was a king of Sparta from the Agiad dynasty, reigning from approximately 235 to 222 BC. In Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, he is paired with the Roman reformers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and his biography is compared alongside that of his predecessor, Agis IV. Plutarch, writing in the early 2nd century AD, focuses on Cleomenes’ character and reforms, emphasizing moral and ethical lessons over strict historical accuracy. Cleomenes III, as depicted in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, was a courageous and idealistic reformer who sought to restore Sparta’s glory but met a tragic end. Like Jesus he was known for challenging elites, inspiring followers, and facing opposition. Unlike Jesus, the veneration of Cleomenes was stamped out by opponents, the reverse of Paul as an opponent who was responsible for the success of Christianity. In Cleomenes we read
And the Alexandrians actually worshipped him, coming frequently to the spot and addressing Cleomenes as a hero and a child of the gods; but at last the wiser men among them put a stop to this by explaining that, as putrefying oxen breed bees, and horses wasps, and as beetles are generated in asses which are in the like condition of decay, so human bodies, when the juices about the marrow collect together and coagulate, produce serpents. And it was because they observed this that the ancients associated the serpent more than any other animal with heroes.
By contrast, in Mark the soldier hears Jesus’s cry from the cross of terror but ultimately trusting God (as with the Gethsemane plea), and the soldier seems to see Jesus as an exemplary soldier following his commanding officer’s (God’s) orders even unto death. Jesus is thus superior even to the son of God Caesar in this regard. Here we can begin to build a case that it is unlikely to date Mark in the first century due to a turn of the second century dating of Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives.” In Mark the soldier looks up at the crucified Jesus sees Jesus as a paradigmatic soldier following orders despite terror (“truly this was God’s son;” the cry of dereliction, this verse in Psalm 22 begins with the same expression of anguish, reflecting a sense of abandonment, though the psalm later turns to trust; Gethsemane). Mark uses the same word schizomai for the tearing of the heavens in Jesus baptism where God calls Jesus his beloved son, and at Jesus death where the curtain between God and man tears and the Roman soldier declares Jesus the son of God snubbing the divine sonship of Caesar. The New Testament writers compose in a Plutarch inspired parallel style where all story units are paralleled with a silent Old Testament model (SEE PRICE HERE e.g., John the Baptist/Jesus modeled on Elijah/Elisha) and the important figure are written in pairs, e.g., the humiliating death of John the Baptist is the forerunner of the even more torturous and humiliating death of Jesus / analogous to but more horrific than the death of the arch enemy of the Jews Haman.
Regarding Paul, this Markan soldier Jesus getting the centurion to his side away from the son of God Caesar fits nicely Paul and Jennifer Eyl’s analysis of martial imagery in Paul where Paul wants his followers to exemplify in pistis/faith/trust/fidelity/faithfulness/loyalty the traits of a Roman soldier’s allegiance and obedience such as in 1 Thessalonians of struggle, opposition, fortification and armor. Socrates in the Apology (like the stoics) likens philosophical life to not breaking rank in military formation which was allotted to him by a god. Paul talks a parakaleo in pistis/faith of the flock, a word meaning marshalling an army in Plutarch. The idea of being a soldier in Christ surfaces again later in 2 Timothy 2:3. Stephen Young notes what is often overlooked is Paul’s list of virtues reflects masculinity such as mastery and self-control over the passions and so wanted to re-masculinize the pagans who had become effeminate in this broad sense. Paul thus encourages his flock in 1 Corinthians to become manly, Plutarch also noting the Roman word for manliness and virtue are the same and through this lens we can see avoiding pleasure. The manliness of virtue and courage is very present in Greco Roman writers analyzing “andreia.” As we will see, Paul seems to assume the gospels and Acts because he just throws out what seem to be simple summaries or sophisticated elaborations of complex theological portraits like Jesus as a figurative soldier in Mark which would hardly make sense to his average reader unless the reader had in mind the theology/philosophy of the conversion of the soldier and the crucified Jesus in Mark, Matthew, or Luke. In other words, I will be arguing with Livesey that the Pauline letters are late and presuppose the Gospels and Acts.
Matthew pairs Jesus being called the Son of God by the soldier at the cross with supernatural events that terrify the soldier. Ancient writers like Suetonius (The Twelve Caesars, “Augustus,” 100) and Dio Cassius (Roman History, 56.46) mention omens and portents surrounding Augustus’s death, which were interpreted as signs of his divine favor or transition to godhood. For example, Suetonius notes that a senator, Numerius Atticus, claimed to have seen Augustus’s soul ascending to heaven, similar to the story of Julius Caesar’s comet. The Roman concept of apotheosis (becoming a god) was Roman deification which relied on visions, omens, state decrees, and public rituals.
Luke, by contrast has the soldier declare Jesus innocent because what is at issue for Luke is not just Jesus’ divine Sonship but that the world turned on and horribly executed God’s beloved (agapetos), people thus coming to see themselves and their corrupt hearts in the ones who wrongly killed Jesus – and so had their Adamic eyes opened like Paul following the death of forgiving Stephen – resulting in metanoia (a change of mind/heart) repentance. This follows to Old Testament principle that God doesn’t want sacrifices, but a contrite heart (Psalm 51:16–17). Ehrman comments:
It is easy to see Luke’s own distinctive view by considering what he has to say in the book of Acts, where the apostles give a number of speeches in order to convert others to the faith. What is striking is that in none of these instances (look, e.g., in chapters 3, 4, 13), do the apostles indicate that Jesus’ death brings atonement for sins. It is not that Jesus’ death is unimportant. It’s extremely important for Luke. But not as an atonement. Instead, Jesus death is what makes people realize their guilt before God (since he died even though he was innocent). Once people recognize their guilt, they turn to God in repentance, and then he forgives their sins. Jesus’ death for Luke, in other words, drives people to repentance, and it is this repentance that brings salvation.
If the Apostle Paul was a fictional character and Acts predated the letters, certain details in the Book of Acts could emphasize his fictional nature by aligning with literary tropes, exaggerated characteristics, or narrative conveniences often found in fiction rather than historical accounts. Here are some elements from Acts that could contribute to this perception:
Dramatic Conversion Story (Acts 9:1-19): Paul’s sudden transformation from a fierce persecutor of Christians to a devoted apostle after a blinding light and a divine encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus feels like a classic literary device. The abruptness, the supernatural elements (a voice from heaven, temporary blindness), and the complete reversal of character resemble a plot twist designed to captivate an audience rather than a nuanced, gradual change typical of real-life conversions.
Larger-Than-Life Resilience (Acts 14:19-20, 16:22-24, 27:41-44): Paul survives numerous extreme hardships—being stoned and left for dead, enduring shipwrecks, beatings, and imprisonments—yet continues his mission with almost superhuman endurance. For example, in Acts 14:19-20, he is stoned and presumed dead but rises and continues preaching the next day. This resilience could read like a fictional hero’s invincibility, crafted to inspire awe rather than reflect realistic human limits.
Convenient Escapes and Miracles (Acts 16:25-28, 12:6-11): Paul’s escapes from danger often involve miraculous or highly convenient events, such as an earthquake freeing him from prison in Philippi (Acts 16:25-28) or his survival of a shipwreck where all passengers safely reach shore (Acts 27:44). These incidents mirror literary devices where the protagonist is saved by divine intervention or improbable coincidences, enhancing the story’s drama.
Eloquent Speeches and Rhetorical Skill (Acts 17:22-31, 26:2-23): Paul’s speeches, like his address at the Areopagus in Athens, are polished, philosophically sophisticated, and tailored to his audience. They read like carefully crafted monologues, possibly reflecting the author’s rhetorical goals rather than spontaneous historical dialogue. A fictional Paul might be given such eloquence to serve as a mouthpiece for theological ideas.
Symbolic Role as a Bridge Between Jews and Gentiles (Acts 13:46-47, 15:12): Paul’s mission to unite Jewish and Gentile Christians aligns perfectly with the theological agenda of Acts. His role as a pivotal figure who consistently navigates cultural and religious divides could feel like a constructed archetype—a hero designed to embody the early church’s universalist ideals—rather than a complex, flawed historical person.
Vague or Missing Personal Details: Acts focuses heavily on Paul’s actions and mission but provides little about his personal life, inner struggles, or mundane details (beyond brief mentions, like his tentmaking in Acts 18:3). This selective focus could suggest a character created to serve a narrative purpose rather than a fully rounded historical figure with a documented personal history.
Exaggerated Influence and Reach (Acts 19:10, 28:30-31): Paul’s ability to spread Christianity across vast regions, influence entire cities (e.g., Ephesus in Acts 19:10), and preach unhindered even under house arrest in Rome (Acts 28:30-31) might seem overly idealized. A fictional character could be written with such outsized impact to symbolize the triumph of the gospel, rather than reflecting the more limited reach of a real individual.
These elements could be interpreted as literary flourishes if viewed through a fictional lens. They emphasize drama, symbolism, and narrative convenience, which are common in storytelling but less so in unembellished historical records.
Plutarch an Paul
Seeing the influence of Plutarch on the New Testament above with Cleomenes/the Gospels and Paul follows along with the trend in recent scholarship using this lens such as in the anthology “Paul within Paganism (2025).” Beyond this general pagan context for understanding Paul, as I said we seem to have allusions to Plutarch in Acts. For example, in this “Paul within Paganism” anthology Matthew Sharp argues in New Testament studies there is the usual distinction between pagan divination vs Jewish prophecy. The distinction doesn’t seem to be that divination is not god inspired, but that the wrong god is inspiring. In Acts 16:16, we see the only case in the New Testament where the traditional term for divination occurs with a girl who has a “python spirit” allowing her to perform divination, referring to Apollo who slayed the great python and started the Pythian games. From Plutarch, we know of the “Pythons” who were people who had gods or Daimons inside of them allowing them to speak oracles (On the Decline of Oracles, 414E). This aligns with Paul’s idea of “the mind of Christ/Christ in you” of the Christian which supercharges you to outwit Satan with God’s word like Jesus does in the Gospels. Paul of the letters also claims he has a spirit that enables him to speak with divine authority in various contexts. Paul claimed divine visions, common in ancient divination, and inspiration interpreting sacred texts as predicting Christ and Paul’s gospel. Paul also saw God as sending signs and omens, a mainstay of ancient pagan divination.
Paul says “Jews ask for a sign, whereas Greeks seek wisdom.” But the crucified messiah confounds them both. Paul clarifies it is a wisdom, but not the wisdom of this age, and is a sign of God’s disposition and activity in the world. This true wisdom is only possible through divination, through the indwelling of God’s spirit. For Plato and Posidonius divination was an inherent capacity of the human soul which happened either in sleep or near death or in moments of inspiration by divine breath: communicating from divine souls to human souls. Plutarch wrote extensively about divination and adopted much from Plato and Posidonius but added the divine spirit/breath/pneuma was like in nature to the soul and so when it touched the soul it created a disposition in it for divination.
This is how Paul sees the world being implicated in the horrific torture and death of God’s especially beloved Jesus creating a situation ripe for a change of disposition toward life / metanoia. If the law is love of God demonstrated by loving widow, orphan, stranger and enemy as more important than self, and Paul argues if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died for nothing, then the issue isn’t just loving Jesus (the demons also believe), but how the cross transforms you in seeing yourself implicated in the humanity who killed Jesus – so to make you open for Christ to indwell within you to boost your defenses against the temptations of the devil: Christ being the temptation resister pare excellence. Paul thus says in 1 Corinthians 15:17 “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sin.” This speaks strongly against penal substitution readings which limits itself to the cross and thus can’t say what the resurrection’s role is in overcoming sin.
God and man are in continuity by sharing pneuma, and Paul and Plutarch both see a soul that needs to be unencumbered by the body in order to do this. The ordinary soul can only know human things, and so needs a fresh breath from God. Like Plutarch’s holy divinatory breath that enters you an permits divinatory knowledge, Paul’s pneuma from God serves the same function but is more powerful. The stoic pneuma held the cosmos together, while Paul’s pneuma held one body of Christ together with different roles. The stoic sage and Pauline Christian had the divine power of interpretation of things generally and divine signs in particular.
Paul thought the Corinthians had the pneuma but the element of the fleshly was stopping pneuma from being used properly, which was precisely Plutarch’s innovation in “On The Daimon of Socrates” over Plato and Posidonius on this issue. For Paul, the fleshly could only be combatted by letting the mind of the risen Christ inside you take over. The language of death and pneumatic transformation are common to Paul and Plutarch. Walsh indicates Paul saw the moon as a place where souls awaited divine judgment: also Plutarch and later Augustine’s notion of “double death.”
To recapitulate, Stephen Young notes what is often overlooked is Paul’s list of virtues reflects masculinity such as mastery and self-control over the passions and so wanted to re-masculinize the pagans who had become effeminate in this broad sense. Paul thus encourages his flock in 1 Corinthians to become manly, Plutarch also noting the Roman word for manliness and virtue are the same and through this lens we can see avoiding pleasure. The manliness of virtue and courage is very present in Greco Roman writers analyzing “andreia.”
Conclusion: Noble Suicide Pacts
The later we date the New Testament, the more we can bring in traditionally ignored later popular sources to contextualize what we are reading, such as Josephus’ account of the nativity of Moses to understand the beginning of Matthew. Let’s consider the famous 2 mass suicide pacts in Josephus.
The story of the mass suicide at Masada is recounted by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his work The Jewish War (Book VII, Chapters 8-9), written around 75 CE. It describes the dramatic final stand of Jewish rebels against Roman forces during the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) at the fortress of Masada, located in modern-day Israel. Masada was a fortified palace built by Herod the Great atop a desert mountain plateau. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, a group of Jewish rebels, primarily Sicarii (a radical Jewish faction), fled to Masada under the leadership of Eleazar ben Ya’ir. They held the fortress against Roman siege for several years, using it as a base to resist Roman rule. In 73 or 74 CE, the Roman governor Lucius Flavius Silva led the Tenth Legion, along with auxiliary troops, to besiege Masada. The Romans constructed a massive siege ramp to breach the fortress, which was naturally defended by its elevated position and steep cliffs. After months of effort, the Romans completed the ramp and prepared to storm the fortress with a battering ram.
According to Josephus, when the rebels realized defeat was inevitable, Eleazar ben Ya’ir gave two impassioned speeches urging his followers to choose death over capture and enslavement by the Romans. He argued that death would preserve their honor and prevent their families from suffering humiliation, torture, or slavery. The rebels, numbering about 960 men, women, and children, agreed to a suicide pact. Josephus describes how the rebels first killed their families, then drew lots to select ten men to kill the rest. These ten then drew lots again, with one man tasked with killing the other nine before taking his own life. This was done to avoid the sin of suicide in Jewish law, as only the final man would directly take his own life. They also burned their possessions, except for food supplies, to show the Romans they did not die out of desperation. When the Romans breached the walls the next day, they found the bodies of the rebels and were struck by the resolve of their enemies. Only two women and five children, who had hidden in a cistern, survived to tell the tale.
Josephus was not an eyewitness to the Masada event. He likely based his account on Roman reports, survivor testimonies (the women and children), and possibly oral traditions. His dramatic narrative style may include embellishments for rhetorical effect. Josephus reports 960 deaths, though archaeological evidence suggests a smaller number may have been present. Josephus, writing for a Roman audience while being Jewish himself, portrays the rebels’ act as both heroic and tragic, emphasizing their defiance but also the futility of resisting Rome.
Excavations at Masada, particularly by Yigael Yadin in the 1960s, uncovered the siege ramp, Roman camps, and artifacts like pottery shards with names (possibly used for the lots). However, no mass burial site has been definitively found, leading some to question the scale of the event. Josephus’ account is vivid, historians debate its accuracy. Some argue the mass suicide reflects a noble act of resistance, akin to other ancient accounts of collective suicide (e.g., at Numantia or Jotapata). The Masada story has become a powerful symbol of Jewish resistance and martyrdom, often invoked in modern Israel as a testament to the resolve to never again submit to oppression.
Now, Flavius Josephus was involved in an incident during the First Jewish-Roman War that involved a suicide pact, which he ultimately did not follow through on. This event occurred at Jotapata (Yodfat) in 67 CE, as described in his work The Jewish War (Book III, Chapters 8-9). Josephus, then a Jewish military commander named Yosef ben Matityahu, was leading the defense of the Galilean town of Jotapata against the Roman forces under Vespasian. After a 47-day siege, the Romans breached the city’s defenses. Josephus and a group of about 40 Jewish fighters took refuge in a cave to avoid capture. Faced with imminent discovery by the Romans, the group decided on a suicide pact to avoid surrender, preferring death to enslavement or execution. According to Josephus, they drew lots to determine the order in which they would kill each other, with each man killing the next to circumvent the Jewish prohibition on suicide.
Josephus, however, managed to survive the pact. He claims that through a combination of chance (or divine providence) and cunning, he and one other man were the last two left alive. Josephus then persuaded his companion to surrender to the Romans rather than complete the pact. He was subsequently captured and brought before Vespasian. To save his life, Josephus famously predicted that Vespasian would become emperor, a prophecy that later came true when Vespasian ascended in 69 CE. This act of foresight (or strategic flattery) earned Josephus favor, and he was spared, eventually becoming a Roman citizen and historian under the name Flavius Josephus.
As the sole surviving narrator of the event, Josephus’ version in The Jewish War is the only primary source. He portrays his survival as a mix of divine will and his own reluctance to die needlessly, though some scholars see it as self-justification for abandoning his comrades. Some view Josephus as a traitor for not following through on the pact and aligning with Rome, while others see his actions as pragmatic, allowing him to preserve Jewish history through his writings. Collective suicide pacts were not uncommon in ancient warfare when defeat was certain (e.g., at Masada, Numantia). Josephus’ account of Jotapata parallels his later description of the Masada suicide, though his personal survival contrasts with the rebels’ total commitment at Masada.
Josephus’ decision not to follow through on the pact has made him a controversial figure. Jewish tradition often views him with suspicion for his Roman affiliations, while historians value his detailed accounts of the war, despite potential biases. His survival at Jotapata allowed him to write The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, key sources for understanding the period.
This seems to be a key context for understanding the portrayal of Jesus, Paul, and Christians in general. As we know, Jesus made a suicide pact with God to suffer and died for noble reasons, and like Josephus Jesus tried to get out of it (Gethsemane), though he is greater than Josephus because he submitted to God’s plan despite terror (Mark/Psalm 22 cry of dereliction in Mark). This is classic imitative writing (Jewish Haggadic Midrash/pagan mimesis). Like Josephus is rewarded with a new royal Roman name and Roman citizenship by Rome for his actions and words, Christ in Paul’s Philippians letter (Philippians 2:9-11) is given the highest name and an exaltation that he didn’t have before. I’ll discuss this more later.
Paul, too, will suffer and die in imitation of Christ, Christ’s words to Ananias about Paul and figuratively Christians generally being “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). Being a Christian is essentially a suicide contract with God that you will do anything, even suffer and die (which will inspire others and convert new Christians) in imitation of Jesus and Paul, to further God’s plan of realizing the next age of the Kingdom of God on Earth. Sins are thus not simply once and for all (as the ultimate blood sacrifice) wiped clean as substitutionary atonement theology thinks, which is why we get the image in Hebrews of Jesus needing to continually intercede for us (Hebrews 7:25). The choice of the Christian life is taking on a life of service/suffering, Paul being an example of someone who was as Saul evil, then as Paul living a life of never-ending atoning for those sins. Of course, the actualizing of such a Kingdom of God utopian second Eden on Earth can be taken literally, although as I will show does not require there ever having been an historical Jesus or Paul except as ideals to strive after (as Plutarch will teach the Priestess of Osiris that the being of Osiris on earth was just a story for the masses that must be passed through to a more essential meaning).
I will delve more deeply into these topics in my next post.
NEXT TIME: