Tacitus...Hmmm..... Wouldn't his parents have been alive when Jesus was executed then? Since he wrote this information only a 100 years later? Or grandparents? Finding out if what he was writing about was true, could have been as easy as asking his family(parents or grandparents) "Did Jesus really live and get executed?". He would have certainly knew if Jesus was really who he thought he was before writing what he did wouldn't he? Hell, all he had to do was ask his parents who were alive at the time Jesus lived. A century is only 100 years.

Does what I said even make sense XD.

Jesus was a magician.

Jesus the Magician

I'd like to see someone try today to walk on water using an illusion, WITHOUT using modern technology but the technology they had back then. I bet they can't =D

Zero i think Mako is very comprehensive in his explination of the jesus Myth, When was the last time you tried to walk on water i would take that as a metaphor of someone that didn't exist. The bibles version of Santa claus Hmm namaste Sheri

I'd honestly like to see Jesus do it as well, because it defies all laws of nature, and only a magician can do that

yes, mako and seanph have been very generous with their time in providing such extensive posts.

now zero, have your last two posts been examples of this 'common sense' from the other thread? If so, then you are demonstrating how bias clouds interpretation. You are making quite a few assumptions.

I didn't make any assumptions as I didn't say what I said was true. I said it was possible. I mean think about it. How hard was it for him to know the truth about who Jesus was if Jesus lived only 100 years back. He could have asked many older people about it. That's all I'm sayin. You took the whole common sense thing wrong. I told you what I ment on another topic.

Well... The scholars that you keep refering too have accepted the Critical/liberal conclusions that have been propageting for past Century...

Question... Did the Apostles all die for what they know was a lie and a false hope? Did they all know that Jesus just died off, body rotting away, yet withina matter of few days somehow gained the strenght to preach a blatent lie?

Luke claimed to have interviewed several eyewitnesses for his Gospel account, and that surely included mary, mother of Jesus... Did she lie to him about the Nativity account?

Did Paul not become a changed man, going from killing and imprisoning the Christians, to being the biggest supporter of the Jewish Carpenter as Messiah?

Is it so incredible that God could raise a dead man back to life, or that God Himself could come to the earth for a visitation?

Please answer this simple question... If we are sinful beings, and God is a HOLY being, how do you plan to be able to get to Heaven after this life, or does the concept of life after death, in Heaven/Hell also belonged to realm of Myth and fables?

Jesusfan it sounds as if you need to beleive in those myths, fairy tales, Maybe the question would be why??? Namaste Sheri

Why do you need to beleive what you beleive, Sherri? OH wait, you won't answer me. You never do.

Edit: Sorry, question already answered in a previous post.

Maybe as kids (average lifespan during that period was about 42 years), more likely it would have been his grandparents. I can just see little Gaius Cornelius Tacitus sitting on his grandpa's knee asking, "Gee Gramps, will you tell the story about the Jews causing us to execute the true Messiah again?" To say that the mind boggleth is an understatement. It's doubtful if Tacitus' grandparents or parents knew much about Judea during the period in question, much less about the execution of a common rebel against the authority of Rome! It would be about like you knowing the fact and details of the execution of an insurgent in Somalia today! As my own old Gramps used to say, "What has that Tacitus statement got to do with the price of tea?"

Here is where I don't quite understand matters. You readily admit Jesus is nothing more than a common rebel. Yet you expect the historical documentation of a king/ruler/high official to prove to you his existence.

Where's the standards?

PA

Like the children of Mother Britain, the Romans were bureaucrats, generating paperwork by the kilo (although theirs was usually parchement or papyrus). Like us, they also stored this paperwork for certain lengths of time. Jesus would not have been executed without a trial (the resulting records would have been forwarded and stored in Rome) and would not have been executed without a "Death Warrent" (which also would have been forwarded and stored). These records would have been priceless to the early Christians (who infiltrated Imperial civil service early in the period) and would have been taken and perserved. They do not exist, nor has there ever been even the slightest hint that they existed.....Why? Because he never existed. Also why wasn't he written about, Apollonius was and he was no more important and no more of a miracle worker.

Here is a little more on the gospels:

There is not the smallest fragment of trustworthy evidence to show that any of the Gospels were in existence, in their present form, earlier than a hundred years after the time at which Christ is supposed to have died. Christian scholars, having no reliable means by which to fix the date of their composition, assign them to as early an age as their calculations and their guesses will allow; but the dates thus arrived at are far removed from the age of Christ or his apostles. We are told that Mark was written some time after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 130, and John not earlier than 140 A.D. Let me impress upon you that these dates are conjectural, and that they are made as early as possible. The first historical mention of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke was made by the Christian Father St. Irenaeus, about the year 190 A.D. The only earlier mention of any of the Gospels was made by Theopholis of Antioch, who mentioned the Gospel of John in 180 A.D.
There is absolutely nothing to show that these Gospels -- the only sources of authority as to the existence of Christ -- were written until a hundred and fifty years after the events they pretend to describe. Walter R. Cassels, the learned author of "Supernatural Religion," one of the greatest works ever written on the origins of Christianity, says: "After having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any of those Gospels during the first century and a half after the death of Christ." How can Gospels which were not written until a hundred and fifty years after Christ is supposed to have died, and which do not rest on any trustworthy testimony, have the slightest value as evidence that he really lived? History must be founded upon genuine documents or on living proof. Were a man of to-day to attempt to write the life of a supposed character of a hundred and fifty years ago, without any historical documents upon which to base his narrative, his work would not be a history, it would be a romance. Not a single statement in it could be relied upon.
Christ is supposed to have been a Jew, and his disciples are said to have been Jewish fishermen. His language, and the language of his followers must, therefore, have been Aramaic -- the popular language of Palestine in that age. But the Gospels are written in Greek -- every one of them. Nor were they translated from some other language. Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained that they were originally written in Greek. This proves that they were not written by Christ's disciples, or by any of the early Christians. Foreign Gospels, written by unknown men, in a foreign tongue, several generations after the death of those who are supposed to have known the facts -- such is the evidence relied upon to prove that Jesus lived.
But while the Gospels were written several generations too late to be of authority, the original documents, such as they were, were not preserved. The Gospels that were written in the second century no longer exist. They have been lost or destroyed. The oldest Gospels that we have are supposed to be copies of copies of copies that were made from those Gospels. We do not know who made these copies; we do not know when they were made; nor do we know whether they were honestly made. Between the earliest Gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts of the New Testament, there is a blank gulf of three hundred years. It is, therefore, impossible to say what the original Gospels contained. – “DID JESUS REALLY LIVE?” by Marshall J. Gauvin

Should I start by saying Matthew was not Jewish? He was a Roman tax collector. Or should I start by saying Luke admits he was an historian and not a follower of Jesus at all. Or should I start by mentioning the utter bias of this article. Or should I start, as I have, by saying that the earliest manuscripts of many other sources you often quote as fact date to the 10th Century AD or later - a good five hundred years (at least) later than the manuscripts you denounce right now.

SOme food for thought.

Regards, PA

That’s not nice...

if your belief is on the similar lines as Jesusfan then have a constructive argument with him as every does and as i have done before but don't ridicule him for what he believes in.




Soo so so true.....Now back to that armchair!

Mad Cobra, You sit in that arm chair too.

These same scholars are required reading in any college/seminary classroom because they are correct.



McDowell--Lord? Liar? Lunatic? No, they believed ... just like all the other followers of various successful religions believed. The had a mystical vision/dream that was very real to them--as was the norm in the 1st century--and they believed. Not much different today of those, for example, who have visions of Mary, the word spreads, a shrine is built, millions of people start flocking to it claiming healings and their own visions so forth and so on. Nothing new. Happened to believers in the Greco-Roman gods as well. The tales are infinite.



Luke is an anonymous work written decades after the crucifixion--85 CE. It is NOT an eyewitness account. Most of his source material comes from Mark, Q and L.

"Most modern commentators on the Lucan gospel, however, are skeptical about the validity of this traditional attribution. They regard the tradition as based largely on inferences from the text of the New Testament made when people were first beginning to wonder who had written the Gospels ... Attempts are sometimes made to associate L with specific persons from whom Luke would have derived information: Mary, the mother of Jesus (see Luke 2.19; Luke 2.51); the disciples of John the Baptist (Acts 19.1–3); Joanna, “wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward” (Luke 8.3); Cleopas (Luke 24.18). Luke could have obtained information from such sources, but such a list of candidates is based on speculation, more pious than critical, about possible informants."--JOSEPH A. FITZMYER, S.J., S.T.L., S.S.L., Ph.D., New Testament, Emeritus, Catholic University of America

As for the nativity ... It has been unanimously dismissed as a later addition. Mark, the first and earliest of the synoptic gospels (70-75 CE), doesn't even have a virgin birth and nativity story. If the stories had been true, the author of Mark would have certainly included them (nor does try to quote the prophecies it claims Jesus fulfilled for that matter). It was only later that such stories became necessary, and Matthew and Luke wrote them down--and both contradict each other.

THE GOSPELS

"The texts through which we come to know of Jesus of Nazareth are the Gospels, a set of four canonical texts outlining the life and sayings of Jesus. The first three of these Gospels—whose authorship is attributed to Mark, Matthew, and Luke—recount events and sayings in very similar and parallel ways; these are called Synoptic gospels after the Greek word meaning "that which can be seen at a glance." The fourth gospel, attributed to John, is a theological work vastly different from the other three.

These biographies were written relatively late. The first, the Gospel attributed to Mark, was written at its earliest between 70 and 80 AD; the last, that attribute to John, was probably written around 120-135 AD.

The reason for the lateness of biographies of Jesus was that the early Christians felt no need for either a biography of Jesus or a collection of his sayings. For the early Christians believed that the Christ event in history was the immediate prelude to the end of the world and final judgment of humankind. Paul of Tarsus in his epistles wrote that the present generation, his own, would see the apocalypse. In the Synoptic gospels, Jesus of Nazareth also claimed that the people around him would still be alive for the last days.

Anticipating the immediate end of the world at any moment, the early Christians felt no obligation to record the life or sayings of Jesus— there was, after all, no future to bequeath this material to. These early Christians were more concerned with preparing themselves for the expected apocalypse and for spreading the truth of Christianity to as many people as possible before the anticipated end of history.

During this time, the life and sayings of Jesus circulated in an oral form through Christian teachers and public speakers. This oral material included stories and sayings attributed to Jesus, but they did not exist in any systematic, organized, or universal form. These sayings and stories would be used by teachers and speakers as they fit the particular occasion or subject of the moment. A public speaker would use a saying attributed to Jesus as an occasion to lecture or discuss some aspect of Christianity or morality with his audience. What the speaker talked about largely determined what the speaker chose to remember about the life and sayings of Jesus.

At the same time that these stories and sayings were circulating haphazardly around the early Christian world, another set of stories about Jesus were being created. When Paul reinvented Christianity as a religion of a dead and risen God, Christians soon found themselves having to legitimate Jesus of Nazareth as deserving that status. The very first thing that needed to be accounted for was the death and resurrection of Jesus. The history of Jesus' death, called the Passion ("suffering"), and the resurrection are probably the oldest strata of the stories surrounding Jesus.

But the early Christians needed more than the Passion and Resurrection to legitimate Christ as having divine status. So the early Hebrew teachers of Christianity turned to the prophetic and messianic tradition of Judaism and began to develop proofs of Christ's divinity by aligning events in Jesus's life with older prophecies. This process also included configuring the humbly born Jesus of Nazareth as a descendant of King David through his father, Joseph, since the messianic prophecies were clear that the Messiah would come from the line of David.

This legitimizing process continued when the religion entered the Greek world. The Greeks associated divinity with miraculous stories and miraculous birth—from the Greek world would arise, for instance, the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin, even though the virgin birth of Jesus contradicted the earlier placement of Jesus as a descendant of David through Joseph.

None of this material existed in a written, coherent or universal form for several decades after the death of Jesus. At some point, scholars believe that a written text of only the sayings and teachings of Jesus was in circulation, probably in an effort to standardize the proliferating teachings attributed to Jesus in the oral tradition. This text, called Q, is only the product of guesswork by scholars, but it seemed to be a source used in two gospels.

The Gospels were the first attempt in early Christianity to come up with a coherent picture of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The first gospel, Mark, is the shortest and shows the greatest familiarity with Jewish life and thought. The later gospels, however, show increasingly less familiarity with the Jewish context of Jesus's life and mission until we come to the last gospel whose author is uninterested in that context. All of the authors of the gospels show some unfamiliarity with Palestinian geography which indicates that they were written by non-Palestinians, either Jewish or Greek.

All of the gospels are anonymous and were written largely in an attempt to provide some standard collection of the stories circulating about Jesus—with the exception of the Gospel of John which is more concerned with making a theological argument. These gospels were not, however, immediately recognized as authority. As late as 96 AD, Clement, the Bishop of Rome, proclaimed the only authoritative texts of Christianity to be the Old Testament and the various sayings attributed to Jesus in circulation. The Gospels didn't appear in Christian writings until around 135 AD.

By that point, gospel writing began to take off and continued unabated until the end of the third century. For the oral tradition surrounding the life of Jesus was very rich: there were stories of the life of Mary, the life of Joseph, of the youth and young adulthood of Jesus, of the events in hell between Jesus's death and resurrection, and so on. By the end of the third century, these stories had also found their own gospellers whose texts competed with the original four.

The first four gospels, however, soon were regarded as authoritative and authors were ascribed to them. It wasn't until the end of the second century that Irenaeus of Lyon argued that two of the gospels, Matthew and John, were written by two of Christ's apostles and the other two, Mark and Luke, were written by disciples of Christ's apostles. From this point onwards, the four gospels had the quality of eyewitness testimony."--World Civilizations, Richard Hooker, Washington State University



Do you know how many people have had some religious (pick one) experience that radically altered their life?



This is faith, not historic fact. And it in infinitely silly that a deity would decide IT would have to die for ITS own creation--sacrifice ITSELF to ITSELF.



First, I would never serve a god who would eternally torture the majority of his own creation in hell. This is sadistic and evil. But since hell does not exist, I do not worry about such ridiculous things. Not only has the Vatican redefined hell, some conservatives--the daughter of Billy Graham (comments made during interview which aired on the History Channel), for one--have as well. It is no longer a physical place, but an emotional state of mind.

Pope's stance on hell ...

Hell Is the State of Those Who Reject God

1. God is the infinitely good and merciful Father. But man, called to respond to him freely, can unfortunately choose to reject his love and forgiveness once and for all, thus separating himself for ever from joyful communion with him. It is precisely this tragic situation that Christian doctrine explains when it speaks of eternal damnation or hell. It is not a punishment imposed [lit. inflitto dall'esterno —inflicted from outside—ed.] externally by God but a development of premises already set by people in this life. The very dimension of unhappiness which this obscure condition brings can in a certain way be sensed in the light of some of the terrible experiences we have suffered which, as is commonly said, make life "hell".

In a theological sense however, hell is something else: it is the ultimate consequence of sin itself, which turns against the person who committed it. It is the state of those who definitively reject the Father's mercy, even at the last moment of their life.

Hell is a state of eternal damnation

2. To describe this reality Sacred Scripture uses a symbolical language which will gradually be explained [lit. che si preciserà progressivamente—made more precise—ed.]. In the Old Testament the condition of the dead had not yet been fully disclosed by Revelation. Moreover it was thought that the dead were amassed in Sheol, a land of darkness (cf. Ez 28: 8; 31: 14; Jb 10: 21f.; 38: 17; Ps 30: 10; 88: 7, 13), a pit from which one cannot reascend (cf. Jb 7: 9), a place in which it is impossible to praise God (cf. Is 38: 18; Ps 6: 6).

The New Testament sheds new light on the condition of the dead, proclaiming above all that Christ by his Resurrection conquered death and extended his liberating power to the kingdom of the dead.

Redemption nevertheless remains an offer of salvation which it is up to people [lit. huomo—man—ed.] to accept freely. This is why they will all be judged "by what they [have done]" (Rv 20: 13). By using images, the New Testament presents the place destined for evildoers as a fiery furnace, where people will "weep and gnash their teeth" (Mt 13: 42; cf. 25: 30, 41), or like Gehenna with its "unquenchable fire" (Mk 9: 43). All this is narrated in the parable of the rich man, which explains that hell is a place of eternal suffering, with no possibility of return, nor of the alleviation of pain (cf. Lk 16: 19-31).

The Book of Revelation also figuratively portrays in a "pool of fire" those who exclude themselves from the book of life, thus meeting with a "second death" (Rv 20: 13f.). Whoever continues to be closed to the Gospel is therefore preparing for "eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thes 1: 9).

3. The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, [lit. più che luogo —"more than a place" —ed.] hell [also—ed.] indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject: "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell'" (n. 1033).

"Eternal damnation", therefore, is not attributed to God's initiative because in his merciful love he can only desire the salvation of the beings he created. In reality, it is the creature who closes himself to his love. Damnation consists precisely in definitive separation from God, freely chosen by the human person and confirmed with death that seals his choice for ever. God's judgement ratifies this state.

We are saved from going to hell by Jesus who conquered Satan

4. Christian faith teaches that in taking the risk of saying "yes" or "no", which marks the human creature's freedom, some have already said no. They are the spiritual creatures that rebelled against God's love and are called demons (cf. Fourth Lateran Council, DS 800-801). What happened to them is a warning to us: it is a continuous call to avoid the tragedy which leads to sin and to conform our life to that of Jesus who lived his life with a "yes" to God.

Eternal damnation remains a real possibility, but we are not granted, without special divine revelation, the knowledge of whether or which human beings are effectively involved in it. The thought of hell and even less the improper use of biblical images must not create anxiety or despair, but is a necessary and healthy reminder of freedom within the proclamation that the risen Jesus has conquered Satan, giving us the Spirit of God who makes us cry "Abba, Father!" (Rm 8: 15; Gal 4: 6).

This prospect, rich in hope, prevails in Christian proclamation. It is effectively reflected in the liturgical tradition of the Church, as the words of the Roman Canon attest: "Father, accept this offering from your whole family ... save us from final damnation, and count us among those you have chosen".

To the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, the Holy Father said:

I am pleased to greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today's audience, especially those from England, Scotland, Nigeria, Hong Kong and the United States of America. I wish you a pleasant visit to Christian Rome and I invoke upon you the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, I have answered your questions ... so please answer mine from the previous post.

Kindly,

Sean

Let's face it, there are no historic evidences of the existence of Jesus and considering the fact that Josefus was commanded by Rome to create a map of Israel and in the final product Nazareth did not appear, we cannot be certain that Nazareth even existed in the time of Jesus.

We cannot charactarize the man based upon writings by others who never knew him. We have no legitimate writings about him that were contemporary to his time. We have no paintings or statues even though it was claimed that "all of Jerusalem knew him." All we have is a religion that was largely formed by the concepts and ideas of Paul who, of course, never knew Jesus either.

Speak of Jesus and you have a complete historic vacuum and in spite of the elements of faith and belief, there is nothing more from which the fabric of Jesus can be woven.

Well said, IP!

Well, we only have tradition to go on about Matthew, since he is mentioned only a few times in the bible (and called Levi in two of the instances, which means he was Jewish). In Luke 5:27, he is called Levi and identified as a publican (tax collector), in Mark 2:14, he is called Levi and identified as a publican, in Acts 1:13, he is called Matthew. It is also tradition that he wrote the gospel. It wasn’t until 190 CE that the gospels were first mentioned and the names applied to them. Now we are talking of more than a century and a half after the crucifixion and undoubtedly a century after the death of Matthew! Pretty well the same can be said of Luke, he shows up only 3 times in the NT – Philemon Verse 24, Colossians 4:14, and 2 Timothy 4:11. In Philemon he is only named, in Colossians he is called a physician and in 2 Timothy he is identified as being with Paul at that time. From all of this a tradition that he was a former slave, a doctor, and Paul’s secretary has grown up over the millennia and that he wrote a gospel. Come on give me a break, Two men get mentioned 2 or 3 times in the NT and suddenly they are the authors of gospels of their own with miraculous histories! Shows that some folks still believe in fairy tales! As for bias, well I seem to notice a lot of bias on the other side and with nothing but faith to back it up, I at least provide historical data to back my contentions! Here is a little factoid on your documentary sources:

"Today we know of just over thirty papyrus manuscripts of New Testament books which can be dated before the fourth century. That number is small in comparison with the scores of copies of Homer and the dozens of copies of other famous Greek authors."
"Each copy [of the New Testament texts] has its own oddities and mistakes: no two are completely identical, or the same as the Codex Sinaiticus [ca. 350 C.E.] or other later manuscripts - Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus

Here is some interesting information for you concerning if Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person, or else a quasi Mythlogical being developed by Early Church-

Roman Sources

A Letter from Pliny to Trajan

Around 112 A.D. a Roman governor named Pliny wrote to the Emperor Trajan asking about how to deal with troublesome Christians. In this letter he mentioned that the Christians "sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god" (Letters, 10.96).

Suetonius: Life of Claudius

Around 110 A.D. the Roman historian Suetonius appeared to mention Jesus in a passage that reads: "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome." (Claudius, 25.4). From a Roman perspective, Christians were unruly Jews, being stirred up by one called Chrestus (a version of Christ).

Tacitus: Annals

In 109 A.D. the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned Christ in a discussion of how the the Emperor Nero had treated Christians after the terrible Roman fire in 64 A.D.

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. (Ann. 15.44)

Jewish Sources

Jesus is mentioned several times in the Jewish Talmud, but these passages were written down several centuries after Jesus's death. The one early, non-Christian Jewish source of information about Jesus is the historian Josephus.

In one place in his Jewish Antiquities Josephus mentioned Jesus indirectly. His focus was on the killing of James, who was identified as "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" (Ant. 20.9.1). In this context Josephus had no need to say more about Jesus himself.

The other passage where Josephus mentioned Jesus is disputed because it comes to us only by way of medieval Christian sources, and these sources appear to have doctored the original text. Josephus was in the process of describing Jewish conditions under Pontius Pilate when he wrote something like:

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. (Ant. 18.3.3, italics added)

Scholars debate which portions of this description are original to Josephus, and which were added later. The portions I have italicized reflect Josephus's concerns and language, and may well have come from his pen.

Addendum: Other Jewish Sources

You may have noticed in that, in describing Josephus's writings, I used the awkward phrase: "the one early, non-Christian Jewish source of information about Jesus is the historian Josephus." This wasn't just convoluted style, but an important reminder that we actually have several early, Jewish testimonies about Jesus outside of the gospels. These come from the writers of other New Testament documents, most of whom were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. We'd call them Christians, but they would have thought of themselves as Jews.

The writers of the New Testament, with the exception of Luke, were not attempting to write anything like history. But occasionally in their writings they refer to Jesus in ways that help to fill in the historical blanks. Perhaps the best illustration comes from 1 Corinthians 15, a passage I referred to earlier in this series. It reads:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)

Paul wrote this in the early 50's A.D., referring to oral traditions he had received earlier. So we have in this passage historical information that comes from within 10-15 years of Jesus's death. You'll notice that there isn't anything here about Jesus's life. The tradition focuses on that which was believed by the early Christians to be most important for salvation: His death, burial, and resurrection.

Clearly this information is not coming from neutral observers. It was formulated by early Christians who believed that Jesus was the Christ (Messiah), and who believed that He was the Savior. So this passage doesn't help answer the question of non-Christian sources for Jesus. But it does reveal some of the earliest purportedly historical information about Jesus, information that is external to the New Testament gospels.

Notice, as I have mentioned previously with respect to the gospel writers, that the historical traditions about Jesus were shaped according to the early Christian theological perspective. Jesus died "for our sins in accordance with the scriptures." Similarly, he was raised "in according with the scriptures." These are theological statements, to be sure. But, contrary to the assumptions of some scholars, the fact that they are theological does not rule out the possibility that they are also statements based upon what really happened. In fact, this passage from Paul illustrates why history mattered so much to the early Christians. They believed that what actually happened to Jesus, His death and resurrection, was the locus of God's salvation. If Jesus had not actually been crucified and raised, then, as Paul said a few verses later in 1 Corinthians, "then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14). Mark D. Roberts, Are The New Testament Gospels Reliable?

I thought that you were going to offer some valid contemporary evidence, but you just throw out the same tired old apologetic garbage. I have had this little discussion with various Christians on the historical proof (rather lack of) for the existence of their man-god. The major “know-it-al’sl” promptly dish out the old Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius manure that we have debunked more times than I can count. I have always posted something similar to the following, which shows how often I hear this tired material, I even have a pre-prepared rebuttal stored on my hard drive! Here is the posting:

Before I address your Testimonium Flavianum and the quote from Antiquities, let’s address another two of Christians favorite “proofs” of a historical Jesus - Tacitus and Pliny the Younger’s quotations:

In 117 CE, about 40 years after the incident, Gaius Cornelius Tacitus reported the following:

"Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race." (Book 15, chapter 44)

The use of the term “Christian” in this quotation is an apparent anachronism, in that the term did not come into use until the late second century. To speak of a ‘great crowd’ would indicate that he was speaking of the Jews. The Christians at this time were perceived by the Roman populace and authorities as a Jewish sect. It is doubtful that Tacitus would have been cognizant of even the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, much less his followers. The very tenor of this quotation lends credence to the strong possibility of it having later Christian interpolations.

Gibbon, in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, had this to say: “Their effects to dissemble their Jewish origins were detected by the decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to enquire into the difference of their religious tenets.

So not only was Tacitus writing nearly a half century after the occurrence, he was using a term that wasn’t “coined” until another several decades later during the reported period and this quotation taken at face value only serves to show the possibility of a group that followed the teachings of Jesus existing in Rome at the time of Tacitus’ writing (not necessarily in 64 CE the time of the incident) and in no way proves the existence of a Jesus.

Sometime around 112 CE, the historian Pliny the Younger, as the the Roman Governor of Pontus/Bithynia made the first reference of Christians in his report to the Emperor Trajan:
'Christians ... asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. ' (Pliny to Trajan, Letters 10.96-97)
Notice that no Jesus was mentioned, only a Christ which might or might not be Jesus. All this proves is that in the 2nd century CE, there was a group that identified themselves as Christians, something that we already knew. It no more proves there was a Jesus than the existence of Mithrians proves there was a Mithra.

Around 112 CE, the noted Roman historian, Caius Suetonius wrote in the “Twelve Caesars” of “constant disturbances” incited by Jews and the action taken by Emperor Claudius:
'As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome:
Christians seize upon this statement as proof of Christians in Rome during the reign of Claudius. A closer look at Roman history will show that Chrestus was a common lower class name, usually used by freemen or slaves (there are over 80 Latin inscriptions that refer to one Chrestus or another, many predating the birth of Christ). Chrestus translates from ancient Greek into English as “the good” which, while is a description often used by Christians for Jesus, comes nowhere near translating as Christ. So Suetonius is referring to a Jewish agitator not to Jesus of Nazareth in this passage.

It is also said the in his “Life of Nero” Suetonius described Nero’s persecution of the Christians:
'Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief ...' (16.2)
This is rather hard to take as being more than a later Christian interpolation, as the term Christian was not in use until much later. Even Saint Paul makes no references to ‘Christians” in any of his letters, nor could Nero have anyway of telling a follower of Christ from a Jew. The idea that a nascent ‘Christianity’ immediately faced persecution from a cruel and bloodthirsty pagan Rome is an utter nonsense. Rome was known for its religious tolerance, at least until the Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. Then for one thing, it is only in the last third of the 1st century AD, that Christ-followers emerged as a separate faction from mainstream Judaism. Until then they remained protected under Roman law as Jews. The irritation they caused to their more orthodox brethren meant nothing to the pagan magistrates. Says Gibbon:
‘The innocence of the first Christians was protected by ignorance and contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan magistrate often proved the most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue.’
Early Christ-followers called themselves 'saints', 'brethren', 'Brothers of the Lord' and their critics used various names: Nazoreans, Ebionites, 'God fearers', atheists. The Jewish association remained strong throughout the first century and when Christian sects got going in Rome in the second century they were identified by their rival leaders – Valentinians, Basilidians, Marcionites, etc. So little were Christ-worshippers known in the Roman world that as late as the 90s Dio Cassio refers to 'atheists' and 'those adopting Jewish manners'. Christians as a distinct group from the Jews appear only late in the 1st century, not long before the Jewish curse on heretics at the council of Jamnia (around 85 AD). The label 'Christian' itself only appears with the 2nd century Acts – with the story that the term 'began in Antioch' (11.26). Equally odd, is that Suetonius's isolated sentence appears in a section on Nero's 'good points.' It should also be noted that Suetonius does not associate punishment of the Christians with the fire that swept Rome, a crucial part of the later myth. Quite simply, the reference is a Christian forgery, added to Suetonius to backup the work of the 5th century forger Sulpicius Severus, who heavily doctored the work of another Roman historian – Tacitus – with a lurid tale of brutal persecution ('torched Christian martyrs') which immortalized Nero as the first Antichrist in the eyes of the Christian church. (The second Antichrist being the reformist Luther.)





Now to address the quotations from Josephus:

In 93 CE, Flavius Josephus published his “Antiquities of the Jewish” in which we find the infamous “Testimonium Flavianum“ or officially “Antiquities 18.3.3” which is quoted below:
Antiquities 18.3.3. "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 to this day."


The Testimonium Flavianum is contentious for various reasons. Very few scholars accept it as is currently written, but many do accept it with interpolations of varying degrees. The major question here is what are the interpolations or is the entire Testimonium a forgery inserted no earlier than the 4th century CE by a Christian with an agenda? I find the likelihood of a pious Jews such a Josephus to pen the phrase “He was the Messiah” and remain a Jew extremely low. It would also be unlikely that an author writing a history of the Jewish people for Roman consumption and with the backing of the Roman Emperor to write something that would make him suspect of treason and open him up to the prerequisite punishments of such a charge. In “Wars of the Jews”, published prior to “Antiquities”, he had made the statement that Vespasian had fulfilled the Messianic oracles. Hardly the statement of a Jew converted to Christianity! Origen, wrote twice that Josephus did not accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Either the passage “Antiquities 18.3.3 (the Testimonium) received a few interpolations or it is entirely an interpolation. The phrases “He was the Christ”, “If it be lawful to call him a man” and "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" are the ones most often not accepted by those favoring partial authenticity. Even the name assigned to the passage, “Testimonium Flavianum” has a Christian ring to it, much like a Christian testimony. There as many points made against the validity of the passage, some of the more important are:

Josephus’ use of the phrase “to this day” is considered indicative of a writer writing long after the events being reported. Many Christians believe a span of 60 years between the death of Jesus and the publishing of “Antiquities” would be too close for Josephus to made a believable use of it and that the very survival of Christianity that long , would cause some surprise, since most cults vanish shortly after the death of their founders. This argument is very weak when you consider many of the modern cults like Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc that are around and thriving long after the death of their founders.
Josephus’ description of Jesus is unusually shorter than his norm, less than half the size of John the Baptist’s. The Christian rebuttal to this is that it only serves to show Jesus’ lack of importance to populace of Judea at that time, that John and others such as the “Egyptian” were much better know, thus rated larger descriptions. This really doesn’t wash, because the “Antiquities” was targeted to a Roman audience who ould not have known John, Jesus, or the “Egyptian” from Adam, consequently Josephus gave in detail information on his characters. Something that he did not do in the “Testimonium”

When writing the “Jewish War” in the 70s CE, Josephus outlined two incidents in the section on Pilate that he used to begin chapter 3 of Book 18 of the Antiquities, incidents that had caused tumult in Judea during Pilate’s tenure as Governor. Whereas these incidents are followed immediately by the “Testimonium” in the Antiquities, in the corresponding section of the Jewish Wars (2.9/169/177) there is no mention at all of Jesus. Christian scholars argue that in the intervening decade between the books, that Christianity had become more important. This is highly unlikely since interpolations of the number of Christians in the late 1st century and 2nd century (based on number of Bishops and average number of churches under a Bishop and average church membership) indicate that only by the end of the 2nd century CE did the number of Christians reach over 100,000 out of a population of several millions in the Empire

The language Josephus used to describe John, although over twice as lengthy, when compared to the language of the “Testimonium” is extremely close, almost as if it were used as a template for the “Testimonium’s” description of Jesus. This is indicative of there being no reference to Jesus at all in the original version of Antiquities.

There is an ancient table of contents in the “Antiquities” that omits mention of the “Testimonium”; this is further indication that there was no such passage in the original version (this table of contents shows in the oldest existing manuscripts).

It is argued that the reference to "the tribe of Christians so named from him" requires the earlier phrase "He was the Christ." This is another reason to suspect this passage to be a later insertion. It was considered poor form in Josephus day to spell out a connection that was taken for granted.

The “Testimonium” seems to be out of context with the rest of Antiquities 18, whereas Josephus had be speaking of upheavals and the folly of Jewish rebels, governors and troublemakers, but there is no upheaval shown in this passage and it is completely supportive of Jesus and his followers. Contrary to his normal writing, there is no criticism of Jewish or Roman authorities; there is no moral or lesson. The closest the passage comes to criticism is in his statement, “and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross”, which if you cross your eyes and squint real hard, might look like criticism, and again might not. Although Josephus begins the next paragraph by speaking of 'another outrage' that caused an uproar among the Jews at the same time (18.65), there is nothing in this paragraph that depicts any sort of outrage. At best, with the “Testimonium” the flow from the previous paragraph to the “Testimonium” to the following paragraph is choppy and gives the impression of being not quite thought out. Without the “Testimonium” the flow from the previous paragraph to the final paragraph is natural and smooth, but the flow.



The passage does not fit well with its context in Antiquities 18. . . Josephus is speaking of upheavals, but there is no upheaval here. He is pointing out the folly of Jewish rebels, governors, and troublemakers in general, but this passage is completely supportive of both Jesus and his followers. Logically, what should appear in this context ought to imply some criticism of the Jewish leaders and/or Pilate, but Josephus does not make any such criticism explicit. He says only that those who denounced Jesus were 'the leading men among us.' So, unlike the other episodes, this one has no moral, no lesson. Although Josephus begins the next paragraph by speaking of 'another outrage' that caused an uproar among the Jews at the same time (18.65), there is nothing in this paragraph that depicts any sort of outrage. It is also argued that the continuity of the flanking passages works best when no passage about Jesus intervenes. The final thought of the previous paragraph flows naturally into the words of the one following, whereas the opening of the latter paragraph does not fit as a follow-up to the closing sentence of the Testimonium.

None of the early Christians cite the “Testimonium” in their works, not Justin Martyr, Theophilus Antiochenus, Melito of Sardis, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexander, Julius Africanus, Pseudo-Justin, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Methodius,
nor Lactantius. Although each of these writers show familiarity with the works of Josephus, as pointed out by Michael Hardwick in “Josephus as an Historical Source in Patristic Literature through Eusebius”. Origen used passages from the Antiquities to establish the historicity of John the Baptist and would have been eager to quote the Antiquities to prove the historical existence of Jesus. Interestingly, It was for the purpose of proving that Jesus performed true miracles, not to establish his historicity, that Eusebius quoted the “Testimonium” in his “Evangelical Demonstration”. So we can show that the early Church Fathers would have gladly quoted an existing “Testimonium”. This is an absence of proof, but strong evidence of the “Testimonium” being a much later Christian interpolation.

The language style of the “Testimonium” shows several deviations from Josephus’ normal writing, in that it uses words in ways uncharacteristic of Josephus as pointed out by Steve Mason in “Josephus and the New Testament”. He continues on with the example of the word poietes (from which we get the word poet), translated as “worker” in the phrase “worker of incredible deeds”. Etymologically, it means “one who does” and so it can refer to any sort of “doer”. But in Josephus’ day it had already come to have special reference to literary poets, and that is how he consistently uses it elsewhere (nine times) – to speak of Greek poets like Homer (p. 169). Notice further that the phrase "they did not cease" has to be completed by the translator, for it is left incomplete in the text; the action which his followers ceased must be understood from the preceding phrase. This is as peculiar in Greek as it is in English, and such a construction is not found elsewhere in Josephus' writing. (p. 169) Again, the phrase "the tribe of the Christians" is peculiar. Josephus uses the word "tribe" (phyle) eleven other times. Once it denotes "gender," and once a "swarm" of locusts, but usually signifies distinct people, races, or nationalities: the Jews are a "tribe" (War 3.354; 7.327) as are the Taurians (War 2.366) and Parthians (War 2.379). It is very strange that Josephus should speak of the Christians as a distinct racial group, since he has just said that Jesus was a Jew condemned by Jewish leaders. (Notice, however, that some Christian authors of a later period came to speak of Christianity as a "third race.") (pp. 169-170). Finally, there is a peculiarity with the reference to the "principal men among us." Josephus elsewhere refers to the "principal men," but Josephus consistently refers to the principal men "of Jerusalem" or "of the city," using these phrases instead of the first person plural. In his autobiography, Josephus refers to the "principal men of the city" (2), "the principal men of Jerusalem" (7), the "principal men of the city" (12), the "principal men belonging to the city" (12), the "principal men of the city" (12), and the "principal men of Jerusalem" (44). In each case Josephus identifies the leading men as belonging to Jerusalem.
There are several ways in which the Testimonium aligns with the style and argument of Eusebius of Caesarea. In his "Eusebian Fabrication of the Testimonium", Ken Olson writes that in Adversus Hieroclem Eusebius argued that if he had to accept the supernatural feats attributed to Apollonius, he must regard him as a GOHS [wizard] rather than a wise man (A.H. 5); here he has Josephus call Jesus a 'wise man' and thus, implicitly, not a GOHS. The term PARADOXWN ERGWN POIHTHS is markedly Eusebian. POIHTHS never occurs in Josephus in the sense of "maker" rather than "poet," and the only time Josephus combines forms of PARADOXOS and POIHW it is in the sense of "miracle-making" is exceedingly common in Eusebius, but he seems to reserve the three words PARADOXOS, POIHW, and ERGON, used together, to describe Jesus (D.E. 114-115, 123, 125, H.E. 1.2.23). Eusebius' opponents were not denying that Jesus was crucified by the Roman and Jewish authorities; this was probably a main part of their argument that Jesus was a GOHS. Eusebius, however, cleverly inverts this argument. If Jesus had been a deceiver, and his followers had been deceivers, would not self-interest have compelled them to abandon his teachings after they had witnessed the manner of his death at the hands of the authorities? The fact that they did not abandon Jesus after witnessing the punishments he had brought upon himself can only mean that the disciples had recognized some greater than normal virtue in their teacher. This argument is developed at great length in D.E. 3.5, but I shall quote only a part of it here, "Perhaps you will say that the rest were wizards no less than their guide. Yes - but surely they had all seen the end of their teacher, and the death to which He came. Why then after seeing his miserable end did they stand their ground?" (D.E. 111).
Olson concludes: "the Testimonium follows Eusebius' line of argument in the Demonstratio so closely that it is not only very unlikely that it could have been written by Josephus, but it is unlikely it could have been written by any other Christian, or even by Eusebius for another work. There is nothing in the language or content of the Testimonium, as it appears in the Demonstratio Evangelica, that suggests it is anything other than a completely Eusebian composition."
As Earl Doherty stated in “ The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?”: "the entire tenor of such an 'original' does not ring true for Josephus. In the case of every other would-be messiah or popular leader opposed to or executed by the Romans, he has nothing but evil to say. Indeed, he condemns the whole movement of popular agitators and rebels as the bane of the century. It led to the destruction of the Temple, of the city itself, of the Jewish state. And yet the 'authentic' Testimonium would require us to believe that he made some kind of exception for Jesus." (pp. 210-211). It is argued that Josephus wrote the passage in a carefully neutral tone, however his readers were primarily Roman, some Jewish. What reason would he have had for being, in Meier's phrase, "purposely ambiguous"? He had nothing to fear from Christians, and no reason to consider their sensibilities. Regardless of what he may have thought about the character of Pilate, if Pilate had executed Jesus, then there had to have been - in official Roman and Flavian eyes - a justification for doing so. Crucifixion was a punishment for rebels, and Jesus' crucifixion would have been seen as part of Rome's ongoing campaign to deal with the problems of a troubled time in a troubled province. (p. 213). Thus, the fact that the reconstructed Testimonium has nothing but nice things to say about Jesus tends to work in favor of its inauthenticity. Consider the reference to Jesus as a "wise man" (sophos aner). Josephus reserves this phrase elsewhere for such worthies as King Solomon (Ant. 8.53) and the prophet Elisha (Ant. 9.182). Mason notes, "If Josephus said it, it was a term of high praise." (p. 171) But it is inconceivable that Josephus should have such high praise for one who is only given so little space and who is attributed with such negative characteristics (to Josephus) as apocalyptic prophecy and the cleansing of the Temple. True, the above is inconclusive, but are much stronger arguments than can be put forward for the authenticity of the passage.
As far as the 20.9.1 quotation from the Antiquities, The James, brother of Jesus could very well have been the brother of Jesus, son of Damneus, the contender for the High Priesthood along with Ananus, and politically quite strong with the Romans and the Jews. If would make for sense for this to be a “hit” against a rival (through his family) than trumping up charges against what was then thought of as a small sub sect of the Jewish religion, followers of a rebel crucified for sedition against the Romans! Many scholars consider this passage questionable at best. I hope that this will clear up any misconceptions you have about the lack of historical backing of Jesus of Nazareth (which didn’t exist until the middle of the second century CE, but we won’t go there now). - Mako

Thank you, Mako. I, too, tire of Pliny, Josephus et al. They wrote long after Jesus was crucified, repeated only what they had heard from believers. They--along with Paul and the gospel writers--were not eyewitnesses to the historical Jesus. Good grief.

[quote name='seanph' date='Nov 8 2005, 01:31 PM' post='921992']
Luke is an anonymous work written decades after the crucifixion--85 CE. It is NOT an eyewitness account. Most of his source material comes from Mark, Q and L.



As for the nativity ... It has been unanimously dismissed as a later addition. Mark, the first and earliest of the synoptic gospels (70-75 CE), doesn't even have a virgin birth and nativity story. If the stories had been true, the author of Mark would have certainly included them (nor does try to quote the prophecies it claims Jesus fulfilled for that matter). It was only later that such stories became necessary, and Matthew and Luke wrote them down--and both contradict each other.




Not only did the early Book of Mark not have a nativity tale and certainly not one of a virgin birth, but it did not include the resurrection. A manuscript, found by Professor Morton Smith (Columbia University in New York City) in 1958 in the Monastery of Mar Saba, which identifies itself as a letter from Clement of Alexandria to an otherwise unknown Theodore, gives valuable references to a very early Book of Mark and clearly indicates that it had little similarity to the Mark we know in the modern Bible.

Well, so more Christian "propaganda" concerning early historical evidence for existence of Jesus for you to look over....

Evidence from Tacitus

Although there is overwhelming evidence that the New Testament is an accurate and trustworthy historical document, many people are still reluctant to believe what it says unless there is also some independent, non-biblical testimony that corroborates its statements. In the introduction to one of his books, F.F. Bruce tells about a Christian correspondent who was told by an agnostic friend that "apart from obscure references in Josephus and the like," there was no historical evidence for the life of Jesus outside the Bible.{1} This, he wrote to Bruce, had caused him "great concern and some little upset in [his] spiritual life."{2} He concludes his letter by asking, "Is such collateral proof available, and if not, are there reasons for the lack of it?"{3} The answer to this question is, "Yes, such collateral proof is available," and we will be looking at some of it in this article.

Let's begin our inquiry with a passage that historian Edwin Yamauchi calls "probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament."{4} Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt . . . 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 . . . 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. . . .{5}

What all can we learn from this ancient (and rather unsympathetic) reference to Jesus and the early Christians? Notice, first, that Tacitus reports Christians derived their name from a historical person called Christus (from the Latin), or Christ. He is said to have "suffered the extreme penalty," obviously alluding to the Roman method of execution known as crucifixion. This is said to have occurred during the reign of Tiberius and by the sentence of Pontius Pilatus. This confirms much of what the Gospels tell us about the death of Jesus.

But what are we to make of Tacitus' rather enigmatic statement that Christ's death briefly checked "a most mischievous superstition," which subsequently arose not only in Judaea, but also in Rome? One historian suggests that Tacitus is here "bearing indirect . . . testimony to the conviction of the early church that the Christ who had been crucified had risen from the grave."{6} While this interpretation is admittedly speculative, it does help explain the otherwise bizarre occurrence of a rapidly growing religion based on the worship of a man who had been crucified as a criminal.{7} How else might one explain that?
Evidence from Pliny the Younger

Another important source of evidence about Jesus and early Christianity can be found in the letters of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In one of his letters, dated around A.D. 112, he asks Trajan's advice about the appropriate way to conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians.{8} Pliny says that he needed to consult the emperor about this issue because a great multitude of every age, class, and sex stood accused of Christianity.{9}

At one point in his letter, Pliny relates some of the information he has learned about these Christians:

They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food--but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.{10}

This passage provides us with a number of interesting insights into the beliefs and practices of early Christians. First, we see that Christians regularly met on a certain fixed day for worship. Second, their worship was directed to Christ, demonstrating that they firmly believed in His divinity. Furthermore, one scholar interprets Pliny's statement that hymns were sung to Christ, as to a god, as a reference to the rather distinctive fact that, "unlike other gods who were worshipped, Christ was a person who had lived on earth."{11} If this interpretation is correct, Pliny understood that Christians were worshipping an actual historical person as God! Of course, this agrees perfectly with the New Testament doctrine that Jesus was both God and man.

Not only does Pliny's letter help us understand what early Christians believed about Jesus' person, it also reveals the high esteem to which they held His teachings. For instance, Pliny notes that Christians bound themselves by a solemn oath not to violate various moral standards, which find their source in the ethical teachings of Jesus. In addition, Pliny's reference to the Christian custom of sharing a common meal likely alludes to their observance of communion and the "love feast."{12} This interpretation helps explain the Christian claim that the meal was merely food of an ordinary and innocent kind. They were attempting to counter the charge, sometimes made by non-Christians, of practicing "ritual cannibalism."{13} The Christians of that day humbly repudiated such slanderous attacks on Jesus' teachings. We must sometimes do the same today.
Evidence from Josephus

Perhaps the most remarkable reference to Jesus outside the Bible can be found in the writings of Josephus, a first century Jewish historian. On two occasions, in his Jewish Antiquities, he mentions Jesus. The second, less revealing, reference describes the condemnation of one "James" by the Jewish Sanhedrin. This James, says Josephus, was "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ."{14} F.F. Bruce points out how this agrees with Paul's description of James in Galatians 1:19 as "the Lord's brother."{15} And Edwin Yamauchi informs us that "few scholars have questioned" that Josephus actually penned this passage.{16}

As interesting as this brief reference is, there is an earlier one, which is truly astonishing. Called the "Testimonium Flavianum," the relevant portion declares:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he . . . wrought surprising feats. . . . He was the Christ. When Pilate . . .condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared . . . restored to life. . . . And the tribe of Christians . . . has . . . not disappeared.{17}

Did Josephus really write this? Most scholars think the core of the passage originated with Josephus, but that it was later altered by a Christian editor, possibly between the third and fourth century A.D.{18} But why do they think it was altered? Josephus was not a Christian, and it is difficult to believe that anyone but a Christian would have made some of these statements.{19}

For instance, the claim that Jesus was a wise man seems authentic, but the qualifying phrase, "if indeed one ought to call him a man," is suspect. It implies that Jesus was more than human, and it is quite unlikely that Josephus would have said that! It is also difficult to believe he would have flatly asserted that Jesus was the Christ, especially when he later refers to Jesus as "the so-called" Christ. Finally, the claim that on the third day Jesus appeared to His disciples restored to life, inasmuch as it affirms Jesus' resurrection, is quite unlikely to come from a non-Christian!

But even if we disregard the questionable parts of this passage, we are still left with a good deal of corroborating information about the biblical Jesus. We read that he was a wise man who performed surprising feats. And although He was crucified under Pilate, His followers continued their discipleship and became known as Christians. When we combine these statements with Josephus' later reference to Jesus as "the so-called Christ," a rather detailed picture emerges which harmonizes quite well with the biblical record. It increasingly appears that the "biblical Jesus" and the "historical Jesus" are one and the same!
Evidence from the Babylonian Talmud

There are only a few clear references to Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud, a collection of Jewish rabbinical writings compiled between approximately A.D. 70-500. Given this time frame, it is naturally supposed that earlier references to Jesus are more likely to be historically reliable than later ones. In the case of the Talmud, the earliest period of compilation occurred between A.D. 70-200.{20} The most significant reference to Jesus from this period states:

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald . . . cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy."{21}

Let's examine this passage. You may have noticed that it refers to someone named "Yeshu." So why do we think this is Jesus? Actually, "Yeshu" (or "Yeshua") is how Jesus' name is pronounced in Hebrew. But what does the passage mean by saying that Jesus "was hanged"? Doesn't the New Testament say he was crucified? Indeed it does. But the term "hanged" can function as a synonym for "crucified." For instance, Galatians 3:13 declares that Christ was "hanged", and Luke 23:39 applies this term to the criminals who were crucified with Jesus.{22} So the Talmud declares that Jesus was crucified on the eve of Passover. But what of the cry of the herald that Jesus was to be stoned? This may simply indicate what the Jewish leaders were planning to do.{23} If so, Roman involvement changed their plans!{24}

The passage also tells us why Jesus was crucified. It claims He practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy! Since this accusation comes from a rather hostile source, we should not be too surprised if Jesus is described somewhat differently than in the New Testament. But if we make allowances for this, what might such charges imply about Jesus?

Interestingly, both accusations have close parallels in the canonical gospels. For instance, the charge of sorcery is similar to the Pharisees' accusation that Jesus cast out demons "by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons."{25} But notice this: such a charge actually tends to confirm the New Testament claim that Jesus performed miraculous feats. Apparently Jesus' miracles were too well attested to deny. The only alternative was to ascribe them to sorcery! Likewise, the charge of enticing Israel to apostasy parallels Luke's account of the Jewish leaders who accused Jesus of misleading the nation with his teaching.{26} Such a charge tends to corroborate the New Testament record of Jesus' powerful teaching ministry. Thus, if read carefully, this passage from the Talmud confirms much of our knowledge about Jesus from the New Testament.
Evidence from Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows:

The Christians . . . worship a man to this day--the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.{27}

Although Lucian is jesting here at the early Christians, he does make some significant comments about their founder. For instance, he says the Christians worshipped a man, "who introduced their novel rites." And though this man's followers clearly thought quite highly of Him, He so angered many of His contemporaries with His teaching that He "was crucified on that account."

Although Lucian does not mention his name, he is clearly referring to Jesus. But what did Jesus teach to arouse such wrath? According to Lucian, he taught that all men are brothers from the moment of their conversion. That's harmless enough. But what did this conversion involve? It involved denying the Greek gods, worshipping Jesus, and living according to His teachings. It's not too difficult to imagine someone being killed for teaching that. Though Lucian doesn't say so explicitly, the Christian denial of other gods combined with their worship of Jesus implies the belief that Jesus was more than human. Since they denied other gods in order to worship Him, they apparently thought Jesus a greater God than any that Greece had to offer!

Let's summarize what we've learned about Jesus from this examination of ancient non-Christian sources. First, both Josephus and Lucian indicate that Jesus was regarded as wise. Second, Pliny, the Talmud, and Lucian imply He was a powerful and revered teacher. Third, both Josephus and the Talmud indicate He performed miraculous feats. Fourth, Tacitus, Josephus, the Talmud, and Lucian all mention that He was crucified. Tacitus and Josephus say this occurred under Pontius Pilate. And the Talmud declares it happened on the eve of Passover. Fifth, there are possible references to the Christian belief in Jesus' resurrection in both Tacitus and Josephus. Sixth, Josephus records that Jesus' followers believed He was the Christ, or Messiah. And finally, both Pliny and Lucian indicate that Christians worshipped Jesus as God!

I hope you see how this small selection of ancient non-Christian sources helps corroborate our knowledge of Jesus from the gospels. Of course, there are many ancient Christian sources of information about Jesus as well. But since the historical reliability of the canonical gospels is so well established, I invite you to read those for an authoritative "life of Jesus!"

Notes

1. F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), 13.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Edwin Yamauchi, quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), 82.

5. Tacitus, Annals 15.44, cited in Strobel, The Case for Christ, 82.

6. N.D. Anderson, Christianity: The Witness of History (London: Tyndale, 1969), 19, cited in Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus (Joplin, Missouri: College Press Publishing Company, 1996), 189-190.

7. Edwin Yamauchi, cited in Strobel, The Case for Christ, 82.

8. Pliny, Epistles x. 96, cited in Bruce, Christian Origins, 25; Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 198.

9. Ibid., 27.

10. Pliny, Letters, transl. by William Melmoth, rev. by W.M.L. Hutchinson (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1935), vol. II, X:96, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 199.

11. M. Harris, "References to Jesus in Early Classical Authors," in Gospel Perspectives V, 354-55, cited in E. Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament: What is the Evidence?", in Jesus Under Fire, ed. by Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), p. 227, note 66.

12. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 199.

13. Bruce, Christian Origins, 28.

14. Josephus, Antiquities xx. 200, cited in Bruce, Christian Origins, 36.

15. Ibid.

16. Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament", 212.

17. Josephus, Antiquities 18.63-64, cited in Yamauchi, "Jesus Outside the New Testament", 212.

18. Ibid.

19. Although time would not permit me to mention it on the radio, another version of Josephus' "Testimonium Flavianum" survives in a tenth-century Arabic version (Bruce, Christian Origins, 41). In 1971, Professor Schlomo Pines published a study on this passage. The passage is interesting because it lacks most of the questionable elements that many scholars believe to be Christian interpolations. Indeed, "as Schlomo Pines and David Flusser...stated, it is quite plausible that none of the arguments against Josephus writing the original words even applies to the Arabic text, especially since the latter would have had less chance of being censored by the church" (Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 194). The passage reads as follows: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. 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. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders." (Quoted in James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism, (Garden City: Doubleday, 1988), 95, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 194).

20. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 202-03.

21. The Babylonian Talmud, transl. by I. Epstein (London: Soncino, 1935), vol. III, Sanhedrin 43a, 281, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 203.

22. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 203.

23. See John 8:58-59 and 10:31-33.

24. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 204. See also John 18:31-32.

25. Matt. 12:24. I gleaned this observation from Bruce, Christian Origins, 56.

26. Luke 23:2, 5.

27. Lucian, The Death of Peregrine, 11-13, in The Works of Lucian of Samosata, transl. by H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1949), vol. 4., cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 206.

©2001 Probe Ministries. Ancient Evidence For Jesus From Non Christian Sources

Jesusfan, you evidentially do not know what the defintion of "contemporary" is! read what Seanp said in the above quote! Even if Josephus' quote was actually his, it would only mean he got 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hand information from Christians, who naturally wouldn't admit Jesus was bogus!

Mako,

Haven't we seen this list before? How many times do we need to deal with these post-Jesus references and proven forgeries?

Yawn. Once again you have provided material from sources born after Jesus and who wrote only what they had heard from believers. You're repeating yourself with material that I used to believe myself--before I researched it!

Please toss the McDowell, Evidence That Demands A Verdict, in the trash where it belongs!

Oh, and answer my prior post (3 posts ago) please.

Mako that comparison wasn't a good one. Jesus performed miracles, that would make it ALOT easier to remember.

Show contemporary evidence that he performed miracles and I will use another example, otherwise it stands as I wrote it!

Sean,

Demonstrating that there was a spat between Peter and Paul (the nature of which many scholars entirely fink out on) is one thing. However, Peter and Paul did not go on to found two different "christianities." Both men realized that there were different emphases to their ministries, but neither would have pitt their form of the Christian faith against the others'! Though Peter ministered in a predominantly Jewish context, he didn't go on to form his own brand of Christianity! By the same token, Paul's predominantly Gentile ministry didn't lead to a Gentile-only brand of Christianity. If so, why does he go through all of the theological gymnastics in his letter to the Roman church--a Jewish and Gentile church--to demonstrate to both Jewish and Gentile Christians that they are united in Christ? Besides that, Peter and Paul were not in disagreement about foundational beliefs concerning Jesus' identity and its implications for Jewish covenantal theology! On this there was entire agreement! Their disagreement was over how one was to respond to this. Namely, Peter refused to have table fellowship with Antiochian Christians when hard-line Jewish Christians arrived in Antioch from Jerusalem. The issue was not "Is Jesus the Messiah?" or "Has the eschaton/kingdom of God been realized in Jesus?" The issue was: Do Gentiles have right standing (justification) in the covenant simply because they've placed their faith in Jesus, or do they subject to the Torah procedures?" There are not two "christianities" here. Instead, there are two different responses to the realities Jesus represented and ushered in. One was right, the other wrong (and for Peter, hypocritical).

Many try to use this disagreement between Paul and Peter to open the door for what alternate Jesuses and alternate christianities. Such people ignore the true nature of Peter and Pauls' disagreement, trying to (as I detailed in my last communication) predicate haphazard varieties of Christianity on the legitimate diversity of the early Jesus movement. As I stated before, Christian diversity is rooted in the reality of who Jesus truly is. Does that eliminate in-fighting? No. However, even when Christians debate and/or disagree, they do so from a common standpoint. This still happens today (for better AND worse, depending on the subject of debate). Again, Peter and Paul disagreed from a common standpoint: Jesus is God's unique agent, crucified and resurrected, and Yahweh's covenant purposes for Israel are bound up in him. Their responses to this were different, and one (Peter) was corrected, and life went on. These and other writers consistently fail to distinguish diversity from variety (for all the reasons I stated in my last communication).

Concerning the Ebionites, what proof do your scholars offer that they were students of John the Baptist and/or Jesus? I've heard this theory before, and I've found no one who can offer an evidence to that effect. Also, for reasons I've already enumerated, the term "Christian gnostic" is oxymoronic. Any system of thought that scandalizes the Jewish God by making him out to be a demi-urge and that dichotomizes "spirit" and "matter" is antithetical to anything remotely Jewish or Christian. Just because a movement has thoughts about Jesus, doesn't not mean that they are to be thought of as Christian. Before converting to Christianity, I practiced witchcraft. I had a place for Jesus in my pantheon of demi-god/spirits. However, I was in no way a "Christian."

In reference to this communication and some of the others I've posted could you please articulate the views of your authors on these issues:
1) If the gnostic literature is older than the Christian literature, then why would Marcion rely on (his non-Judaic verison) Luke/Paul? Why did he feel it necessary to refer to them?

2) If Jesus was in some sense a proto-gnostic teacher, then why did the Romans bother with killing him?

3) If the Mediterranean was rife with "Jesus appearances" (which subverted the apostles' authority, supposedly!), then what proof does Ehrman offer of this phenomenon?

4) What is the correlation between the Christains' supposed lie concerning Jesus' resurrection and apostolic power-plays? How would Jesus' bodily resurrection trump a gnostic mystical vision of Jesus in a Gentile culture which was thoroughly unfamiliar with the very Jewish doctrine of resurrection (especially the materiality thereof)? In such a culture, why would the materiality of a Jesus-appearance carry more weight than a purely "spiritual" appearance? Can you or your authors demonstrate that a material Jesus appearance would have carried more weight in such a milieu?

5) In light of pre-Christian Jewish writings and theology, how do you or your authors justify their contention that the Jews or the early Christians believed Jesus' resurrection to the merely "transcendent" or "spiritual"? By the by, the notion that the resurrection described in Daniel 12 is transcendent/spiritual (as opposed to material) just because the righteous are described as "shining like stars" is weak. This is a seene in which Yahweh vindicates the righteous Jews, and the "shining like stars" statement is merely used to demonstrate that their vindication will be public, renowned, in full view. Public vindication is a big part of Jewish resurrection understanding. Through resurrection, Yahweh is demonstrating to the world that His people have been in the right all along. Were resurrection merely "spiritual" or "transcendent," wherein lies the vindication, the cosmic last laugh on evil and chaos?

Also, in reference to something you said about resurrection a few posts back, you were correct in noting that resurrection had a corporate and political component for Jewish people. Seen most vividly in Ezekiel's vision, the resurrection of Israel was a part of God's vindication of Israel from all her troubles at the hands of her Gentile oppressors and apostate Israelites. But just because there is a political component to resurrection, does not mean that resurrection is only a metaphor expressing Israeli political ideology. In the Jewish mindset, the resurrection event is without question a part of Yahweh's political liberation of Israel. However, they in no way thought it to be merely a metaphor for such political liberation. The debate over resurrection between the Pharisees and Sadduccees demonstrates this. Just because there is political dimension to a belief, doesn't mean that the belief arises purely out of political ideology.

Lastly, just because some of your writers have garnered good reviews from some sectors doesn't attest to the validity of what they're espousing. The same is true of Pagels' award. All of us can quickly access intellectual scholars from all sectors who laud and espouse all manners of things. The issue is this: Do such ideas cohere. My contention is that Pagels' ideas do not cohere in the least. As well-meaning as she may be, Pagel errs in trying (unsuccessfully) to replace earliest Christianity with (later) gnostic belief. Then, she attempts to sanitize gnosticism and offer it up as the real thing.

You mentioned that I ought to read non-Christian scholars. If you'll read my last communications, I was able to accurately portray the beliefs of some of your writers. This is because I've read some of their works. True, I may not be conversant in as much of their literature as you are, I'll bet that you are not as acquainted with mine as I am. I fully admit that I read far more Christian/evangelical literature than I do secular/heretical literature regarding Jesus and early Christianity. However, I do read some things by them (which why I'm able to refer to points made by Crossan, Borg, and the Jesus Seminar folks). From the books you mention (outside of Johnson, I saw no Christian/evangelical literature on your list), I'll wager that you do the same thing for your side. You've seen from my posts that I have no problem dealing with the arguments of the writers you mention--whether I'm acquainted with their views from my own reading or from your citations. My lack of agreement stems not from my inability as Christian to comprehend or refute their arguments. I disagree with their assessments, and I question their methodologies. And I refute them with my own arguments, which stem from my own thinking which has been informed by the scholars with whom I have agreement.

By the by, Wright is one of my favorite writers (if you couldn't tell!). What specific points of his do you disagree with?

pleasure conversing with you,

trublvr

Why do we avoid mentioning Chrishna, Zoroaster 2d, Bali, Thammiiz, Atys, Osiris, Sakia, Quexalcote, Zoroaster 2d, Xion, Quirinus, Prometheus, Mithra, Salavhana, Apollonious, and others that might be named? The recorded miracles of Apollonious, for example, witnessed by hundreds, put any miracle of Jesus to shame.

It is because the Christians are jealous that their Jesus didn't get a lot of pubicity in those days! After he fired his publicitist and signed on with Jehovah, Yahweh and YHWH, his career took off. Too bad the others aren't mentioned though, they miracles were top notch, not hoakum like his!

Who are those fellas?

Are they old alchemists or something?

Hypotheticaly speaking, if he preformed miracles, of course his grandparents would remember such things. And another thing, he didn't need to ask a parent, just any person of the right age. It's not hard to find stuff out when they lived only 100 years back. And then it wasn't exactly a century.

Oh, then you know exactly when Jesus was born and exactly when he died?

The purpose of Pagels quote was to show that the leaders of the early Christian movement had to establish order, get their facts straight if their movement was to survive. To decide such complicated things requires vigorous debate--debate often heated (which the NT gives a little taste of in the Peter and Paul spat). No movement, particularly a religious one, is free of politics and power struggles--particularly in its infancy--and to think otherwise is to step outside the bounds of reality. Doctrinal matters are not easy things to agree upon (they're still going on today!)--particularly in lieu of similar competing religious views, the likes of which appeared quickly between 30-70 CE (as Pagels and Erhman point out--if you would just read their work!). You had the Ebonites and Gnostic Christians et al within forty years of the crucifixion saying all sorts of different things about Jesus. FACT! By the late 2nd century, you have poor Iraeneus trying desperately to establish some semblance of orthodoxy, declaring competing Christian movements heretical. That said, orthodoxy was not accomplished until Constantine stepped in the 4th century and ordered a still splintered church (Arius and Athanasius dispute) to get things straight--and it still took several more centuries! And even today orthodoxy has not been fully established, and competing views of Jesus still rage--hence the thousands of Christian denominations all believing they are right in their views of Jesus/interpretation of the scriptures (pick one of a bazillion different translations!) and other Christian sects are not!



Then I can do nothing more. We are simply arguing in circles from here. I have provided ample material supporting my views--AMPLE!--offerred numerous references for further study as well. It seems, however, it was insufficient for your tastes. I'm getting nowhere--not that I expected to--by repeating myself. You simply ignore it. That said, I invite you to ask these questions of Pagels and Ehrman themselves. Maybe they can answer your questions--though I have my reservations.

*CONTACT PROFESSOR PAGELS AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
http://www.princeton.edu/~religion/people.html

*CONTACT PROFESSOR EHRMAN
http://www.unc.edu/depts/rel_stud/faculty/EhrmanCV1.html



Shouldn't have been if they had both talked with Jesus. Should have received the exact same message. Wonder why they didn't? In fact, I wonder why Paul's stance on women, to name just one, differs from Jesus? Shouldn't ... if Jesus had actually spoken to him.



Raymond E. Brown, John P. Mier, Richard Elliott Friedman, John Collins, the Vatican et al.



Hmm ... Guess what they're teaching at seminary is wrong then. Better contact Professor Fuller and the publishers of the Oxford Companion to the Bible as well.



To the Romans it did not matter. They squashed movements both tiny and large--ruthlessly. And anything occurring on Passover--when the city was congested and ripe for anarchy--received special attention from the Roman authorities. Step out of line even the tinniest bit ... and get yourself executed. I wouldn't doubt Jesus was among a hundred executed that day.



Ditto.



I spent nearly fifteen years as a Christian. I'm intimately familiar with both sides of the argument. I still have most of McDowell's books and some others. Christian apologetics was the glue that held my belief system together for years.

Kindly,

Sean

These were the "messiahs" and divine prophets before, during and after the time of Jesus. One of the great differences with some of them, however, was that their miracles were well witnessed and recorded. In the case of Apollonius of Tyana, for instance, he was charged by the king as being a fraud and placed in prison. When they went to take him out of his cell to appear before the