Did an Army in the sky actually appear over Jerusalem in AD 66? An Historical ?

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The study of “History” is the study of what ACTUALLY happened, not what people SAID happened. And since chariots do not normally appear in the sky, the majority of modern historians would say this event never occurred in the same way that people in 2025 do not normally rise from the dead and therefore Jesus’ resurrection would also be said to not be historical. But like a surprising number of things in the story of Christianity, there are elements of this event (similar to Jesus’ resurrection) that give us pause.

Writing in AD 75, Josephus is the first to record this event probably followed shortly thereafter by Tacitus writing approximately thirty years after this event reportedly occurred. I say Tacitus was probably the next to write about this event as we cannot know for sure as the Sibylline Oracles written from 150 BC to AD 180 also mentions this army in the sky. Hegesippus or Pseude-Hegesippus writing around 398 AD and Sepher Yosippon writing in the tenth century AD. also mention this army. And although both Hegesippus or Pseudo-Hegesippus and Sepher Yosippon drew heavily from Josephus’ Wars of the Jews it is known that they also drew from “a wealth of Second Temple literature as well as Roman and Christian sources” according to Steven B. Bowman, the translator of Sepher Yosippon’s history.

There are several things to unpack here. First, why are there so many different historical sources for this one event? There are very few first-century Roman historians who recorded anything at all about the middle of the first century AD who are known to exist and still less whose works have survived till the present and yet a shockingly-high percentage of extant histories mention this event. Why is that?

Josephus wrote about this army in the sky just nine years after he said it occurred. This is, of course, within the lifetime of almost all potential eye witnesses who survived the Jewish War. And although writing about an event within the lifetime of eyewitnesses doesn’t mean it actually occurred, there is a huge difference in writing about something in 75 A.D. vs. 175 AD. If some people really did believe they saw an army in the skies over Israel at the start of the Jewish War, one would imagine because of the spectacular and unusual nature of such an event that many Jews from Israel who survived the war would have heard about this, assuming, of course, that they did not also see it themselves. And if no one did, in fact, see or claim to see such an extravagant and miraculous event, it would come as quite a surprise to those who lived in and around Judah at the time that such an event would be recorded by Josephus when no one had ever previously seen or heard of such a thing. Would Josephus have reported on such a strange and seemingly miraculous event if he had not at least heard about it from others? If this element of his history were ever publicly called into question, would Josephus have written about it if there was not a previous oral tradition to back it up and, thus, at least a small number of people he could expect to corroborate?

Then there is the diversity of details throughout all of these various accounts that again suggests an oral tradition predating Josephus’ account. Let’s assume for a moment that Josephus fabricated this army in the sky. If that is the case one would expect Tacitus writing about twenty years later to have merely copied Josephus. And if there was no oral tradition predating Josephus’ army in the sky and Tacitus was, therefore, just copying what Josephus said, why did Tacitus describe a war in the sky when Josephus does not mention such a thing? Also, Josephus provides details that are absent from Tacitus’ account such as the day and approximate time of this specter. These differing details seem to suggest at least some degree of independence. In other words, unless Josephus or Tacitus decided to add their own imaginary details, it seems unlikely that Tacitus simply copied Josephus or vice versa. The same can be said concerning Pseudo-Hegesippus’ and Sepher Yosippon’s accounts. Pseudo-Hegesippus describes the appearance of “a certain figure of tremendous size, which many saw” at or around the time the armies were seen in the sky. Similarly, Yosippon says that this army flew “near to the ground” and was comprised of chariots, horses and riders “of fire.” Where did Pseudo-Hegesippus and Yosippon get this added information as neither of these details are present in either Josephus’ or Tacitus’ writings or in the Sibylline Oracles? Josephus mentions “others” besides himself who wrote about Israel’s first-century war with Rome. (Josephus The Life of Flavius Josephus 357. For example, Justus of Tiberius, a contemporary of Josephus, is known to have written a history of Israel’s first-century war with Rome which he published after Titus’ death. Justus wrote a history of the war which Josephus says Justus claims to have written twenty years before its publication entitled The Kings of Judah. This account is lost to history.) Did Pseudo-Hegesippus, Yosippon and Tacitus get these added details from oral tradition or did they get this information from these other accounts that Josephus mentions that are no longer extant or some combination of both? Rememeber that Yosippon drew from Pseudo Hegesippus, the Latin versions of Josephus as well as “a wealth of second Temple literature as well as Roman and Christian sources.” Did these writers draw from these additional first-century historical sources outside of Tacitus and Josephus that are known to have been lost to history? Or did Pseudo-Hegesippus and Yosippon just make up these added details as well?

In light of the above-mentioned facts, it seems unlikely that Josephus fabricated this event out of his own imagination and everyone else just blindly copied him. But if Josephus did not fabricate this event, where did it come from? It seems that people in AD 66 and beyond where circulating reports about seeing armies in the sky that Josephus caught wind of and reported in his history. Therefore, perhaps these differing details were the result of changes that naturally occur with oral retellings? Or maybe these differing details are the consequence of different eye witnesses relaying their own experiences and thus the differing details of this oral tradition is comprised of multiple witnesses? Perhaps this oral tradition is a combination of both slightly different original testimonies that have each blended and combined and slightly changed over time with multiple retellings? But once Josephus put his account to pen in AD 75 from that point on—just nine years later– people no longer needed to learn about this event from a string of oral witnesses alone. From AD 75 onward, people could go directly to an older, written source. But what about those nine years from the time in which this event occurred to the publication of Wars of the Jews? Is nine years enough time to turn a mundane every-day event into, in the words of Josephus, “a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon” that “would seem to be a fable”? And if people were talking about this event such that it had a lengthy history of tellings and retellings sufficient to create all these added details and legendary embellishments, what caused this lengthy string of discussion to begin with? Why were so many people talking and for so long?

Then there is the fact that this army in the clouds is recorded by non-Christian historians. The fact that non-Christians were the original writers of this event also raises questions. If Josephus, Tacitus and the others were Christian we could perhaps see a possible motivation to embellish or perhaps even fabricate an event that could be used to evangelize or defend the Christian faith by linking this event to the second coming as it is described in Revelation 19.

This leads us to the next point. The fact that Jesus is not explicitly stated to be at the head of this angelic army recorded by Pseudo-Hegesippus, the Sibylline Oracles, Yosippon, Josephus and Tacitus makes these accounts more historically reliable in that it makes it unlikely that the Sibylline Oracles’, Pseudo-Hegesippus’, Yosippon’s, Tacitus’ and Josephus’ accounts of the army in the clouds were the product of counterfeit Christian interpolation. Christians have likely tampered with part of Josephus’ writings. Josephus’ account of the life of Jesus Christ is a perhaps one example. In The Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 several laudatory accolades are given to Christ which Josephus–a non-Christian Jew– probably would not have written. Not only do these accounts of the heavenly army contain no such praises, no explicit significance or meaning is given to the event that would aid the reader in tying these accounts to the second coming of Christ. None of the accounts are written in an apologetic tone, a good indication that all these sections of text have remained unmolested by Christian copyists and are very likely what was originally written by Josephus, Tacitus and others. What REALLY happened such that history records people seeing chariots in the sky? If no one saw anything, how do we account for the origin of this story? If people did, in fact, see something, what did they see? What that was we can only speculate.

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