Luke 13 Footnotes

13:1,4 Though no outside sources confirm these incidents, there is no good reason to reject their historicity. Violence by rulers against the people was not an uncommon occurrence, and the historian Josephus told of several incidents of Pilate’s bloody suppression of dissent. It is clear, however, this list is not exhaustive, since the Jewish philosopher Philo mentioned other events not recorded by Josephus. If our knowledge of political disasters is limited, it is even more so with construction disasters like the fall of the tower of Siloam.