—Over a span of five issues during the years 1998 and 1999, Time magazine published a list of the 100 most important people of the twentieth century. Albert Einstein topped their list with Mahatma Gandhi and Franklin Roosevelt as runners-up.

—If archaeologists were to discover a first-century copy of Time magazine that listed the 100 most important people of that century, I fancy that Josephus would rank very high on their list, perhaps trailing only Jesus, a parade of Roman emperors like Nero, Titus and Caligula, and the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Yet even so there’s a high probability that you’ve never even heard of Josephus. There’s no time to outline all his accomplishments or the many intriguing twists and turns in his life, but this Jewish general and subsequent historian wrote extensively about Jewish biblical and military history. To this day his works are well-respected and scoured just as thoroughly as the books of the New Testament by all religious and secular historians wanting to discover the realities of first-century life in Israel.

Josephus specifically mentions Jesus twice in The Antiquities of the Jews (18.3.3 and 20.9.1), which dates to around 93 A.D.

—The copy of his book that I pulled off my shelf reads as follows, “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 amongst 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.”

—Daniel McCabe