Caesar's Messiah

CHAPTER 16

The Samaritan Woman and Other Parallels

The Gospel of John records an episode that does not appear in the
other Gospels, the meeting with a Samaritan woman by a well. This
account is a satire of yet another Roman battle recorded in War of the
Jews. Though this battle took place before Titus began his campaign
at the Sea of Galilee, the authors of the Gospels wished to make a
comment about it. They therefore needed — in order to keep Jesus'
ministry and Titus' campaign sequential — to identify it as having
occurred before Jesus' ministry began. They achieved this by having
Jesus note that "my hour has not yet come" (John 7:6). In other
words, that the event took place before Jesus had officially started
his ministry in Judea. 

At Mount Gerizzim the Gospel of John provides an account in
which Jesus describes himself as "living water." As I have stated,
Jesus' self-designations are all darkly comic when juxtaposed with
events from the war with Rome that occurred at the same location. 

Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." For his disciples had
gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman
said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a
woman of Samaria?" For Jews have no dealings with Samar-
itans. Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and
who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," you would
have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw
with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well,
and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?'"

326

The Samaritan Woman and Other Parallels 327

Jesus said to her, "Every one who drinks of this water
will thirst again. 

But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him
will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become
in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I
may not thirst, nor come here to draw." 

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come
here." 

"I have no husband," she replied. 

"You rightly say that you have no husband," said Jesus;
"for you have had five husbands, and the man you have at
present is not your husband. You have spoken the truth in
saying that." 

"Sir," replied the woman, "I see that you are a Prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." 

Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is
coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem
will you worship the Father." 251 

The New Testament symbolism that established Jesus as "living
bread" was based on the famine that resulted from the siege of
Jerusalem. The following passage from Josephus is the basis for the
irony inherent in Jesus referring to himself as "living water." 

Nor did the Samaritans escape their share of misfortunes
at this time; for they assembled themselves together upon
the mountain called Gerizzim, which is with them a holy
mountain, and there they remained;... Vespasian therefore
thought it best to prevent their motions, and to cut off the
foundation of their attempts . . . Now it happened that the
Samaritans, who were now destitute of water, were inflamed
with a violent heat (for it was summer time, and the multi-
tude had not provided themselves with necessaries) inso-
much that some of them died that very day with heat. 252 

The passage above from Josephus contains the only mention of
Mount Gerizzim in War of the Jews. The only mention of Mount Ger-

328 Caesar's Messiah

izzim in the New Testament is in the passage I quoted where Jesus
meets the Samaritan women. It is also the only time Jesus refers to
himself as "living water." Because in the same passage Jesus foresees
the dual destruction of Jerusalem and Gerizzim, a singular event in
history, we can be sure of the linkage between this prophecy and the
coming war with Rome. In other words, when Jesus says "the time
is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you
worship the father . . ." he is clearly referring to the "time" of their
mutual destruction. The only time when both cities were simulta-
neously destroyed was during the war with Rome. Therefore, we are
logically on solid ground to understand that Jesus' vision on Mount
Gerizzim is related to the coming war with Rome. 

If we accept the premise that Jesus' prophecies regarding Ger-
izzim and Jerusalem are related to their coming destruction in the war
with Rome, his claim to be "living water" for the inhabitants of Ger-
izzim can be understood as foreseeing their lack of water during the
Roman siege. Such a self-designation by Jesus, in this context, may
seem innocent enough. However, if we accept that Jesus' description
of himself as "living water" is related to the Samaritans dying of
thirst on Mount Gerizzim, this verifies my premise regarding Jesus'
claim to be "living bread" — that is, that it relates to the practice of
cannibalism during the siege of Jerusalem. 

Consider how someone living in the Flavian court in 80 C.E.
would have reacted to Jesus choosing Mount Gerizzim as the place
to describe himself as "living water." Clearly, such an individual,
knowing that the Jewish rebels died of thirst on Mount Gerizzim,
would have found Jesus' self-designation "living water" on Gerizzim
darkely humorous. 

In fact, it is self-evident that members of the Flavian court would
have seen all of Christ's self-designations — "fisher of men," "living
bread," "living water," "the stone," and "the temple" as ironic because
of the locations where he used them. It is unlikely that such a par-
ticular brand of humor would occur constantly by chance — and the
fact that it does occur consistently supports the contention that the
gospels were created to be understood, on one level, as a mockery of
the Jews that specifically relates to Roman military victories in Judea.

The Samaritan Woman and Other Parallels 329 

I now want to broaden my analysis here and present a number
of other parallels that I am not going to analyze in any detail. Some
of these are as telling about the true relationship between Josephus
and the New Testament as any shown in this work. Others are sim-
ply informational in nature. What these New Testament individuals
and events share is that their only other historical documentation
comes from Josephus. 

When one reads about early Christianity or first-century C.E.
Judea, both the social background and the dating of events are derived
solely from Josephus. Since the New Testament and the works of
Josephus cover the same areas and time frames, there is nothing
unusual in the fact that events and characters appear in both works. 

However, if it can be shown that Josephus had a keen awareness
of Christianity, this has implications. Much of the comedy that the
two works create is virtually self-evident. To demonstrate that Jose-
phus was lampooning Christianity in the passage regarding the son
of Mary whose flesh was eaten, for example, it is only necessary to
prove that Josephus was aware of Christianity as he wrote the story 

During the time that Josephus was writing War of the Jews and
Jewish Antiquities, the Flavian family was clearly involved with
Christianity. This suggests that Josephus, both a historian and a the-
ologian, would have been familiar with the religion and its symbols.
In fact, the total overlap of individuals and events in the New Testa-
ment and the works of Josephus indicates that he must have known
a great deal about Christianity. 

The following is a list of individuals, groups, and events men-
tioned by both Josephus and the Gospels or the Book of Acts: 

Simon the magician 

The Egyptian false prophet 

Ananias the high priest 

Felix the procurator, and his wife Drusilla 

Festus the procurator 

Agrippa II and Berenice 

The Widow's sacrifice of a mite 

King Herod 

The slaughter of the innocents

330 Caesar's Messiah

Archelaus 

The census of Quirinius
The fifteenth year of Tiberius
John the Baptist
Pharisees
Sadducees 

James the Brother of Jesus 

Judas the Galilean 

The famine under Claudius 

The Death of Herod Agrippa I 

Jesus 

In addition to these overlapping characters and events, the works
share a number of conceptual parallels other than those I have pre-
viously presented. I want to briefly discuss some of these. The first
actually predates Jesus' ministry and Titus' campaign. It consists of
the parallel "slaughter of the innocents" that occurs in both the New
Testament and Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews. 

Though other scholars have noticed this parallel, I am not aware
of anyone else having seen the unusual temporal correspondence
between the two passages. The passages in the New Testament and
Josephus dealing with the slaughter of innocents occur at the same
time. Since both tales involve Herod this may seem unimportant,
since both passages appear simply to reflect the same event. How-
ever, when this parallel is viewed in the context of the other New
Testament/Josephus parallels, its real significance becomes clear. 

From the New Testament: 

. . . wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking,
"Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For
we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him
homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened,
and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the
chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them
where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In the
Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. . ."
. . . When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the
wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent for and killed all

The Samaritan Woman and Other Parallels 33 1

the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years
old or under, according to the time that he had learned
from the wise men. 

Matt. 2:2-16 

Josephus records a parallel event. 

Now there was a certain sect of Jews who valued themselves
highly for the skill they had in the ways of their fathers and
who believed they best observed the laws favored by God —
the sect called the Pharisees — by whom the women of the
palace were guided. They were fully able to deal success-
fully with the king due to their prescience, but often fell into
fighting and setting up obstacles to him. 

For example, when all the Jewish people pledged their
loyalty to Caesar and to the king's government, these men,
over six thousand of them, refused to swear; and when the
king therefore imposed a fine on them, the wife of Pheroras
[the king's brother] paid it. Now to repay this kindness of
hers, being believed to have, by Divine inspiration, the fore-
knowledge of things to come, they foretold that God had
decreed that Herod's government would be taken from him
and from his descendants, and that the kingdom would
come to her and Pheroras and to their children. 

These predictions, which did not escape detection by
Salome [the king's sister], were reported to the king, and
also that they had subverted some others of the palace. So
the king killed those of the Pharisees principally involved,
as well as Bagoas the eunuch, and a certain Karos, who
exceeded all of his peers in beauty and was his favorite boy.
He also killed everyone of his own house who had allied
themselves to the talk of the Pharisees. Bagoas had been
elated by their prediction that he would be hailed as the
father and the benefactor of the one who would be their
appointed king; for to this king would fall power over all
things, and he would provide Bagoas with a marriage and
the ability to sire children of his own line. 253

332 Caesar's Messiah 

The passage above from Josephus has clear parallels to the
nativity story given in Luke and Matthew. Notice that in each we
have wise men, who have the gift of prophecy, predicting that "the
king who was to come" will end Herod's reign. Herod's reaction in
both is to "slaughter the innocents." Josephus describes the new
king as someone who will have "the power over all things." It is
more important, however, that both stories involve a miraculous
birth by someone normally assumed to be incapable of having chil-
dren — in the New Testament it is a virgin, in Josephus a eunuch. 

This parallel between the Virgin Mary and the eunuch Bagoas is
the beginning of parallel sequences of events in the New Testament
and War of the Jews. The authors switch a eunuch for a virgin to cre-
ate a parallel "miraculous birth." The story of Bagoas reveals the
mindset of the authors of the New Testament in that it shows the
contempt they had for those who believed in fables about virgin
births. 

What is interesting about the parallel above is that both stories
plainly use the same historical context, an incident in which Herod
seeks to kill an infant who threatens his power. Thus, as a spoof of
the New Testament, the passage in Josephus is completely transpar-
ent because it uses the same "historical" context as the New Testa-
ment. 

Another interesting point is that this lampoon would indicate
that the authors of the New Testament were indeed trying to create
the impression that Mary was a "virgin," that is, someone incapable
of giving birth, a matter of some contention among scholars.

Conclusion