Josephus, John the Baptist, and Justification

This article is dedicated to Gerhard Visscher, New Testament professor at the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary from 2001 to 2020. In honor of his doctoral work on the New Perspective on Paul, this article addresses the his­torical foundations on which that perspective rests by analyzing a passage from the writings of one first-century Jew, Flavius Josephus, that undermines the reinterpretation of first-century Judaism that precipitated the shift in scholarship. The account of John the Baptist in Jewish Antiquities 18 is exam­ined in comparison to the Synoptic Gospels to ascertain what is distinctive in Josephus's presentation. The investigation suggests that Josephus displayed just the kind of works righteousness that Paul was addressing in his letters.