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{{quote box|align=right|width=30%|quote='''Testimonium Flavianum''': "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man; if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross; those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. For he appeared to them alive again, the third day: as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."|source=-''Flavius Josephus, Antiquities Book 18, Chapter 3, Section 3''<ref>https://onepeterfive.com/secularists-proof-resurrection/</ref>}}
{{quote box|align=right|width=30%|quote='''Testimonium Flavianum''': "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man; if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross; those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. For he appeared to them alive again, the third day: as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."|source=-''Flavius Josephus, Antiquities Book 18, Chapter 3, Section 3''<ref>https://onepeterfive.com/secularists-proof-resurrection/</ref>}}
This historical testimony attests to all the most important facts in the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ: His divine [[Wisdom]], His astonishing [[miracle]]s, His lofty [[doctrine]], His powerful preaching attracting men and women from all races and cultures; His crucifixion under Pilate and glorious resurrection in accordance with what the great prophets of Israel had written. It shows that all this was almost universally known among the Jews of the time, even those hostile or indifferent to the [[Gospel]].
This historical testimony attests to all the most important facts in the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ: His divine [[Wisdom]], His astonishing [[miracle]]s, His lofty [[doctrine]], His powerful preaching attracting men and women from all races and cultures; His crucifixion under Pilate and glorious resurrection in accordance with what the great prophets of Israel had written. It shows that all this was almost universally known among the Jews of the time, even those hostile or indifferent to the [[Gospel]].
The consensus among scholars, based on multiple lines of evidence, has shifted to the Testimonium partially authentic, meaning that Josephus did write about Jesus to certain extent.<ref>Alice Whealey. "The Testimonium Flavianum". A Companion to Josephus. 2015. Wiley-Blackwell. page 354. ISBN 9781118325162."Although the thesis of total fabrication was probably in the majority by the late nineteenth century, this opinion was never unanimous among critical scholars; many, pointing in particular to Jerome’s ancient literal translation with the variant reading “he was believed to be the Christ” (“credebatur esse Christus”), argued that the phrase in the textus receptus “he was the Christ,” and perhaps a few others, had been corrupted over time. By the late twentieth century, the view that the text was partly authentic gained scholarly ground: in part because stylistic studies revealed it to be closer to Josephus’s language than was once assumed, and in part because scholars of the primitive church no longer assume that a Jew of priestly background—like Josephus—could not have written in such a positive way about Jesus or those he attracted. The discovery that a literal Syriac translation of the text containing a phrase parallel to Jerome’s phrase reading “he was believed to be the Christ” reveals that there must once have been a Greek Testimonium with such a reading, and this has played a role in shifting the view that the text is at least partly authentic towards what seems to be a current scholarly consensus, with those scholars maintaining the thesis of complete fabrication becoming a minority, if still a significant one."</ref>
The testimony is so clearly Josephan that it throws all secular critics into the greatest and insuperable difficulties; they have no choice but to desperately plead that it is a forgery to maintain their atheistic secularism. But this is an absurd pretense. The passage fits perfectly with all we know of Josephus’s style and vocabulary; it has unique expressions as “tribe of Christians” and calls Jesus “a wise man,” etc. that occur nowhere else. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, moreover, “all codices or manuscripts of Josephus’s work contain the text in question; to maintain the spuriousness of the text, we must suppose that all the copies of Josephus were in the hands of Christians, and were changed in the same way.” Moreover, its authenticity was universally taken for granted for centuries. “Third, Eusebius (“Hist. Eccl”., I, xi; cf. “Dem. Ev.”, III, v) Sozomen (Church History I.1), Niceph. (Hist. Eccl., I, 39), Isidore of Pelusium (Ep. IV, 225), St. Jerome (catal.script. eccles. xiii), Ambrose, Cassiodorus, etc., appeal to the testimony of Josephus; there must have been no doubt as to its authenticity at the time of these illustrious writers.”<ref>https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08375a.htm</ref>
The testimony is so clearly Josephan that it throws all secular critics into the greatest and insuperable difficulties; they have no choice but to desperately plead that it is a forgery to maintain their atheistic secularism. But this is an absurd pretense. The passage fits perfectly with all we know of Josephus’s style and vocabulary; it has unique expressions as “tribe of Christians” and calls Jesus “a wise man,” etc. that occur nowhere else. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, moreover, “all codices or manuscripts of Josephus’s work contain the text in question; to maintain the spuriousness of the text, we must suppose that all the copies of Josephus were in the hands of Christians, and were changed in the same way.” Moreover, its authenticity was universally taken for granted for centuries. “Third, Eusebius (“Hist. Eccl”., I, xi; cf. “Dem. Ev.”, III, v) Sozomen (Church History I.1), Niceph. (Hist. Eccl., I, 39), Isidore of Pelusium (Ep. IV, 225), St. Jerome (catal.script. eccles. xiii), Ambrose, Cassiodorus, etc., appeal to the testimony of Josephus; there must have been no doubt as to its authenticity at the time of these illustrious writers.”<ref>https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08375a.htm</ref>