Board index ‹ Jesus

[jimwalton]

You probably know there is limited historical evidence of Jesus outside the Bible. First of all, Jesus was from a small village in an insignificant region tucked away in an irrelevant part of the Roman Empire. Palestine—where’s THAT? You get the idea. Besides, Jewish leaders didn’t have much inclination to record anything about people they considered to be a dangerous through, and Rome did especially take a liking to writing about people they executed on the accusation of treason. Then if you want to really make a case, you realize that any writing that wasn’t on stone or pottery, or wasn’t buried in the ground, generally didn’t survive and is lost.

Having said that, though, Jesus does happen to be mentioned by a few of his relative contemporaries, enough to establish that he is a historical figure. Here they are:

I. Tacitus (Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD ca. 56-117), a senator and historian of the Roman Empire. In his Annals, XV. 44: “Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.”

II. Titus Flavius Josephus (AD 37 - c. 100), also called Joseph ben Matityahu, a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian, and hagiographer, mentions Jesus in Antiquities, 18.33: “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 Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggesting of the principal men among 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 then and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.”

III. The James Ossuary. An ossuary (bone burial box) has surfaced in Israel that may once have contained the bones of James, the brother of Jesus. An inscription incised on one side of the ossuary reads, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” (see Mt. 13.55-56 et al. for a reference to James, the brother of Jesus.) The box is dated from 20 BC to 70 AD. It has been studied in minute detail by epigraphists, professors, archaeologists, paleographers, historians, geochemists, and geologists and has been deemed to be authentic. While the three names were all common during that era (about a quarter of the population had one of those three names), only about 14% would be James as a son of Joseph, and roughly 18% might have a brother named Jesus, creating the statistical possibility that 5% of the population could be a James who was a son of Joseph who had a brother named Jesus. Given that the population of Jerusalem at the time was about 80,000, maybe 2 men from Jerusalem might fit this category. Also, though it was common to mention the deceased and his father on a bone box, it was extremely unusual to mention a brother unless the brother was an important figure in society, giving the bone box strong probability that it mentions at about 62-63 AD the person we know as Jesus of Nazareth. ( - Biblical Archaeology Review)

IV. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (Roman historian, AD c. 69 – after 122), in his work Lives of the Twelve Caesars. “A statement in Divus Claudius 25 involves agitations in the Roman Jewish community which led to expulsion from Rome by Claudius in AD 49, and may be the same event mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (18:2). Scholars are divided on the value of this reference in the biography of Claudius. Some scholars see it as a likely reference to Jesus, while others see it as referring to an otherwise unknown person living in Rome. Louis Feldman states that most scholars assume that in the reference Jesus is meant and the disturbances mentioned were due to the spread of Christianity in Rome. The Nero 16 passage refers to a series of rulings by Nero for public order, one of which being the punishment of Christians. These punishments are generally dates to around AD 64, the year of the Great Fire of Rome. In this passage Suetonius describes Christianity as a superstition as do his contemporaries, Tacitus and Pliny.” In Claudius 25 Suetonius refers to the expulsion of Jews by Claudius and states: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.” The website continues by stating, “As it is highly unlikely that a Christian interpolator would have called Jesus ‘Chrestus’, placed him in Rome in 49, or called him a ‘troublemaker’, the overwhelming majority of scholars conclude that the passage is genuine.”

V. Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger, AD 61 – ca. 112), a lawyer, author, and magistrate of ancient Rome. In a letter (Epistles X.96), Pliny was writing to the emperor seeking counsel as to how to treat Christians. He says, in persecuting Christians, he “made them curse Christ, which a genuine Christian cannot be induced to do.

VI. Lucian of Samosata (c. AD 125 – after AD 180), Syria, a rhetorician and satirist. In his work The Passing of Peregrinus, he alludes to Jesus as “…the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world. … Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were al brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.”

VII. Thallus, a Samaritan-born historian, writing in about AD 50, is believed to be the earliest reference to the historical Jesus, though his originals no longer exist. Julius Africanus, writing in about 221, quotes his work saying, “ ‘Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun—unreasonably, as it seems to me’ (unreasonably, of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died.” This reference is highly debated as to its authenticity.

VIII. Mara bar Sarapion (sometime between 73 AD and the 3rd c.). It refers to the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras, and “the king of the Jews,” which could believably be a reference to Jesus.

IX. Crucifixion. There is so much scholarly agreement on Jesus’ crucifixion that it is considered historically indisputable. The crucifixion of Jesus on the orders of Pontius Pilate is the most certain element about him, and is as certain as any historical fact can be based on multiple attestation, the criterion of coherence, and the criterion of rejection.

X. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165), a Christian apologist, in his Defence of Christianity to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, referred the emperor to Pilate’s report, which Justin supposed must be preserved in the imperial archives. He speaks of Christ’s crucifixion which can be read about in said report. He also said that the miracles of Jesus were recorded in that report as well. (Apology 1.48). The document theoretically exists in the form of a 4th c. apocryphal text, the authenticity of which is strongly doubted. Justin’s reference would have been to the original, which no longer exists.

XI. The Jewish Talmuds. The references to Jesus and his execution in the Talmud aim to discredit his actions, but there is no effort to deny his existence.
A. Babylonian Talmud (3rd – 5th c.) “…and hanged him on the eve of Passover…”
B. Babylonia Sanherin 43a speaks of his crucifixion
C. Amoa Ulla (end of 3rd c.)

XII. The Mishna (c. 200) may refer to Jesus and reflect the early Jewish traditions of portraying him as a sorcerer or magician.

XIII. Depiction. The earliest known portrait of Jesus was found in Syria (Dura Europos) and dated to about 235. He is pictured as a beardless young man of authoritative and dignified bearing, dressed in the style of a young philosopher with close-cropped hair and wearing a tunic and pallium—signs of good breeding in Greco-Roman society.

Conclusion:

“Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed.” Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7 and 2 BC and died 30-36 AD. Most scholars hold that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere, and that he spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and possibly Greek. Although there are great differences trying to reconstruct his life, the two events who historicity is subject to “almost universal assent” are that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate. “In antiquity, the existence of Jesus was never denied by those who opposed Christianity.” “[V]irtually all scholars consider theories that Jesus’ existence was a Christian invention as implausible.” “[T]he existence of Jesus and his crucifixion by Pontius Pilate seem to be part of the bedrock of historical tradition, based on the availability of non-Christian evidence.” “Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed.”