Very interesting Giuseppe! I think you are right! It is a story version of Jesus being credited with healing the injured Josephus in Capernaum.Side note: Greg, you may find interesting this point about Capernaum in Josephus.
This is when Josephus is still fighting the Romans, like Jesus ben Sapphat. Josephus is injured and carried to Capernaum, perhaps because it was away from the scene of conflict, a "safe house" so to speak. There Josephus says "I therefore sent for the physicians: and while I was under their hand..." As you note, in time of war Jesus may not have gone there personally. Some messengers from Josephus arrive and tell Jesus. Josephus recovers. Jesus is subsequently credited with having said something that healed Josephus from a distance. Josephus later does turn over to the side of the Romans, which could account for the story having Josephus (anachronistically at this point) a "centurion"'s "servant".
Josephus does not make explicit in this anecdote any contact with fellow revolutionary Jesus b. Sapphat active in the same region and for the same cause, but that falls into a larger pattern of Josephus minimizing or spinning his relationship with Jesus. Some echo of that may be alluded to in the Jn 19:18 allusion to Joseph of Arimethea (Joseph bar Matthias) as a "secret" disciple of Jesus, not public or overt.
It is a classic example, with thousands of examples in history, of governing public figures in secret working relationships with extrajudicial or illegal militias for common purposes. I think a reading of Josephus is defensible in which Josephus was actively working closely and covertly with Jesus b. Sapphat and his men in Galilee, and what happened Josephus either later claims credit for if it makes him look good (even if actually done by Jesus b. Sapphat), or Josephus denies and blames on Jesus b. Sapphat (if objectionable).
For example the destruction and looting of Agrippa II's palace in Tiberias, at a time when Josephus was in command and present in Tiberias. That did not look the best from the standpoint of Josephus's postwar Rome vantage point. Josephus explains that Jesus b. Sapphat was to blame for that. Josephus's defense for his culpability in that is he was only giving orders.
The Nuremburg defense was when persons charged for something argued they were not culpable because they were only following orders. In that case, Josephus argued he was not culpable because he was only giving the orders (permission).
But back to your relating of the story of Jesus's distance healing of the centurion's servant in Capernaum, with Josephus's recovery from injury with the assistance of (Jewish) physicians at Capernaum: yes!
Statistics: Posted by gdoudna — Thu Apr 25, 2024 7:26 pm