Historical evidence of Jesus

[Pikachu]

Surprisingly often I hear people claim that there is no evidence that Jesus existed except the Bible. Even on this great forum I see this misconception too often. Therefore I have decided to start this thread to inform the ignorant masses.

One wouldn’t expect to find many ancient scriptures that mention a man like Jesus. At that time just a few people were able to write, and they had better things to do than to write about a poor rebel who operated in a remote village, and when he finally met civilization in Jerusalem he didn’t last long. There were plenty of rebels in Judea those days.

Still there are a lot of ancient scriptures that suggest that Jesus was a real person. The best source is obviously the books in the New Testament of the Bible, but they were written to support faith and are therefore not reliable historical records. However, if Jesus had been a normal person they would have been more than enough to prove that Jesus existed. The mere existence of someone in history is often easily established on the basis of small textual samples, but since we are talking about the hatred Christianity here we need more evidence. And more evidence there is!

Apart from almost 100 other early Christian scriptures that for one reason or another were declared to be heresy by the Church, there are also plenty of unchristian recordings of Jesus. Here are some examples:

Cornelius Tacitus
Tacticus was a once a Roman senator and later governor of Asia. In 116 C.E. he writes this in his Annals about the burning of Rome in 64 C.E.:

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.

Flavius Josephus
Josephus lived in the first century. He was a Jewish general that surrendered to the Romans and became a historian. Unfortunately the Jews or Romans have not preserved his writings, so they are only known in Christian and Arab transcripts. It seems like the Christian ones are edited a little too much, so I guess the Arab one is more reliable:

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to themafter his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.

In another part of Josephus writings we can find this passage:

Since Ananus was that kind of person, and because he perceived an opportunity with Festus having died and Albinus not yet arrived, he called a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought James, the brother of Jesus (who is called 'Messiah') along with some others. He accused them of transgressing the law, and handed them over for stoning.

Mara Bar-Serapion
The Syrian philosopher Mara Bar-Serapion was probably referring to Jesus when he wrote this in a letter to his son sometime after 70 C.E.:

What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from their executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: The Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given.

Celsus
Around 170 C.E. Celsus wrote his “True Discourse” and here’s what he had to say about Jesus:

Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her living by the work of her own hands. His mother had been turned out of doors by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being convicted of adultery [with a soldier named Panthéra]. Being thus driven away by her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard. Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing. He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god.

There are many other non-Christian sources that mention Jesus as a historical person too. Like Tertullian, Simeon ben Azzai and Lucian of Samosta to name a few. All scriptures can of course be disputed, but there are so many old scriptures mentioning Jesus that it is very unlikely that they all are hoaxes. And there are no old scriptures at all that suggests that Jesus was a fictional character. That myth didn’t appear until the 18th century.

The conclusion is simple: There are vast amounts of scriptures that confirm that Jesus was a real person. After his death his followers have probably exaggerated his deed and possibly incorporated some fictional myths into the stories about him, and that is what we can read in the bible.


If you still believe Jesus is a totally fictional character, please elaborate your conspiracy theory. In any case, feel free to discuss any ancient document that could suggest that Jesus was a real person or a fictional character.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Interesting, but I'll have to wait until tonght to reply.

 

[Iggy]

Originally posted by Pikachu
Apart from almost 100 other early Christian scriptures that for one reason or another were declared to be heresy by the Church, there are also plenty of unchristian recordings of Jesus.

Any further infornation on these scriptures? Sounds interesting as to why they where heretic documents.

 

[bigfatron]

Playing devil's advocate.....

All of the examples you quote post-date the first ministries to Rome and other cities of the Roman empire (the earliest is AD70?).

Therefore it is entirely possible that they are based on information sourced from early Christians and then tailored to meet the author's preconceptions, either pro- or anti- the Christian message.

thus, the assumption that Jesus wsa real rests on the assumption that the early Christian church was telling the truth when decribing Jesus' existence, whcih brings us back to the early gospels as the primary source of validation.

Personally I suspect Jesus was a real person around whom, after his death, a series of historical prophecies/myths were hung by the sect he founded. All IMHO of course adn not intended to offend the devout....

 

[Evertonian]

Pikachu your post is quite fascinating

Where did you get your sources? I thought Celsus testimony in particular was v interesting.

I'm an atheist but I have no problem believing "A man called Jesus" was alive in that part of the world a couple of thousand years ago. I wouldn't have thought this was an unusual position among atheists.

 

[october]

Pikachu said

The conclusion is simple: There are vast amounts of scriptures that confirm that Jesus was a real person. After his death his followers have probably exaggerated his deed and possibly incorporated some fictional myths into the stories about him, and that is what we can read in the bible.

Basically, this is a good conclusion, but I have an issue with what you said about the Bible being full of exaggerated deeds and fictional myths. Being a Bible believing Christian, I have access to resources that prove the Bible is reliable, accurate text and is the God-breathed truth. Therefore, we can trust what it says.

The accounts of Jesus were written by apostles. The definition of apostle is "one who has seen the earthly manifestation of Jesus." Therefore, the last book had to be written before the generation that saw Jesus died off; I believe Revelation was written, if I recall correctly, either in the 60s or 70s. I may be wrong; maybe it was the 90s. But John wrote it and saw Jesus during his earthly life.

Also keep in mind that the Old Testament is replete with prophecies that fortell of Jesus and his life. These prophesies are filled with minute details that were fulfilled exactly, right down to the price that they paid Judas to betray the Lord (30 pieces of silver). Therefore, these fulfilled prophecies also give us an accurate account of Jesus, written hundreds of years before he walked the earth. They verify the accuracy of the accounts in the New Testament, proving that the Bible is not "mythical fiction" or "exaggerated."

D

 

[dgfred]

Great post Pikachu for your time and effort.

 

[Mise]

Very interesting post. Perhaps the reason for so many people accepting a man like Jesus in those days was because their Gods were more Earthly than our perception of God now. Imagine if someone claimed those kind of abilities nowadays?

 

[Iggy]

Originally posted by october
Also keep in mind that the Old Testament is replete with prophecies that fortell of Jesus and his life. These prophesies are filled with minute details that were fulfilled exactly, right down to the price that they paid Judas to betray the Lord (30 pieces of silver). Therefore, these fulfilled prophecies also give us an accurate account of Jesus, written hundreds of years before he walked the earth. They verify the accuracy of the accounts in the New Testament, proving that the Bible is not "mythical fiction" or "exaggerated."

It proves nothing other than they knew how the script was supposed to go.

 

[october]

I disagree, Iggy. One of the prophesies describes the place of his birth, and the time, and the light in the sky that we know of as the star of Bethlehem, and all kinds of stuff that could not have been made to happen by human intervention after reading prophesy.

 

[Iggy]

@ October. I gather there were others who fitted part of the script / prophesies such as the pagan Osiris-Dionysos some time before JC was born. Had he been more charismatic we would probably be asking who Jesus of Nazareth was.

 

[aaminion00]

Originally posted by october
I disagree, Iggy. One of the prophesies describes the place of his birth, and the time, and the light in the sky that we know of as the star of Bethlehem, and all kinds of stuff that could not have been made to happen by human intervention after reading prophesy.

And we know that Jesus was born at this time and light in the sky at this place because...

 

[Ossric]

Originally posted by bigfatron
Personally I suspect Jesus was a real person around whom, after his death, a series of historical prophecies/myths were hung by the sect he founded. All IMHO of course adn not intended to offend the devout....

Jesus was some charismatic Religious guy that drew a crowd. Rome made him "the son of god" a hundred years later to control the empire & to fight the Aranic (Arameic?) Christians. --> Christians that do not believe in the Holy 3some.

That's the funny thing about it. Everything in the Roman Church can be explained as simply political moves, yet people still believe..

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Moderator Action: Moved to History.

 

[october]

And we know that Jesus was born at this time and light in the sky at this place because...

Because it's in the Bible, and can also be uncovered in various historical texts from the region (which I'm not educated enough to give the names).

 

[privatehudson]

"because it's in the bible" is not to me a convincing argument

The other texts would be helpful as Pickachu has provided, however on the date of his birth I would trust this to be unlikely given certain problems with other evidence such as Herod.

On the evidence above, it's interesting indeed, however all it shows is that a religious leader called Jesus lived sometime around that time in the area. The details such as the miracles and so on are much harder to prove. It kind of reminds me of the furore surrounding the spear of longinus in that Austrian museum. They managed to work out that it actually mostly dated from the 5th cent. IIRC (certainly not when christ was alive anyway). Some religious scholars, far from being upset by this pointed that the core of the spear may be older. Well uhmm, great, you proved it's an old roman spear... now what? Could have been any old roman spear from Palestine...

Ok so I'm skeptical, but proof Jesus existed does not mean he is proved to be the son of god who died to save our souls.

 

[aaminion00]

Originally posted by october
Because it's in the Bible, and can also be uncovered in various historical texts from the region (which I'm not educated enough to give the names).

:sigh:, Circular logic. You can't use the bible to prove the bible's stories. More than likely, these things mentioned in the old testament were added later on by Christians while compiling the bible to give further credibility to Jesus being the messiah. As for the other historical texts from the region that you're not educated enough to name, how in the world would they, writing decades after his death, be able to pinpoint the status of the sky and exact day he was born? They couldn't. They probalby took what Christians told them. Circular logic once again.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Originally posted by aaminion00
:sigh:, Circular logic. You can't use the bible to prove the bible's stories. More than likely, these things mentioned in the old testament were added later on by Christians while compiling the bible to give further credibility to Jesus being the messiah.

There is very convincing evidence that the old testament has not been edited by Christians to make their case for Jesus. The Dead Sea Scrolls predate the Jesus and contain copies of every book of the old testament except Esther. The later Catholic bible text is essentially unchanged from these earlier versions.

That said, however, building a case for an historical Jesus on Old Testament prophecy is tenuous business. It is easy to select those prophecies that fit the picture and ignore ones that don't. it would be interesting to see all old testament prophecy collected together with annotations as to what each is prophecying.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Basically, the 4 gospels of the New Testament are evidence enough. You might as well doubt the existence of Alexander the Great.

 

[october]

aaminion00 said

More than likely, these things mentioned in the old testament were added later on by Christians while compiling the bible to give further credibility to Jesus being the messiah. As for the other historical texts from the region that you're not educated enough to name, how in the world would they, writing decades after his death, be able to pinpoint the status of the sky and exact day he was born? They couldn't. They probalby took what Christians told them. Circular logic once again.

Just like everyone always asks the Christians to prove they are right, the burden of proof should equally rest on those that assert he did not exist, or that he is not the Son of God. You can't discredit what Christians say using terms like "more than likely" and "probably took what the Christians told them." That is not proof, just speculation.


privatehudson said

"because it's in the bible" is not to me a convincing argument

No, i believe it is. The Bible proves itself, simply because of what it is and how it was written. And every OT prophesy dealing with the Messiah was fulfilled exactly, so we did not pick and choose.