Historical evidence for Christ

[tomarnold]

Historical sources outside of Scripture:

Cornelius Tacitus: 56-117AD, Roman Historian and Governor of Asia wrote in 112AD:​

"Christ, 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"​

Suetonius: 69-140 AD, Official historian of Rome in 125 AD spoke of the Jews being previously expelled from Rome, as Acts 18:2 also said:​

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [Christ], he [ Claudius ] expelled them [the Jews] from Rome"​

Pliny the Younger: 61-112AD, Governor of the Roman province of Bithynia wrote a letter to Emperor Trojan in 112AD:​

"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."​

Flavious Josephus: AD 37-100, published the work 'Antiquities of the Jews' in 94AD:​

"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."​

What we have established:​

1. Jesus suffered the death penalty under Pontius Pilot. (Tacitus, Josephus, Matt 27)
2. The followers sang hymns to Christ as God. (Pliny the Younger, Jn 1:1)
3. The death of Christ "checked" followers "for a moment", but it "again broke out" post crucifixion. (Certainly it would have been over had Christ not risen.) (Tacitus, Lk 24:36-39)
4. The movement started in Judea and spread to Rome. (Tacitus, Suetonius, Acts 1:8, Romans)​

Conclusion ​

We can clearly see that Jesus is a historical figure, and we need to make a decision as to what that means to us. He was not just a mere man, if the disciples stole the body as some suppose, they would not have been willing to die for a lie. However 11 of the 12 original disciples did end up giving their lives for the Gospel, certainly they must have known He was risen. Let us repent and believe today and see the Lord for who He truly is!
​

 

[outhouse]

We can clearly see that Jesus is a historical figure, and we need to make a decision as to what that means to us. He was not just a mere man, if the disciples stole the body as some suppose, they would not have been willing to die for a lie. However 11 of the 12 original disciples did end up giving their lives for the Gospel, certainly they must have known He was risen. Let us repent and believe today and see the Lord for who He truly is!

this is fallingbloods take and I follow this.

I believe the a historical Jesus did in fact exist. There really is no credible evidence otherwise, and most of the Jesus-myth theories rely on ignoring the evidence available. So I see no reason to doubt his existence. Especially since we have the Gospels, letters of Paul, and Josephus, just from the first century. Also, there really is no credible reason that I've ever seen that some Jews in the first century would create a false Messiah that gave them no benefit at all.

As for who he was, I see him as an apocalyptic eschatological teacher in the first century. He traveled primarily in Galilee, and taught to only Jews who were of the lower class. He stayed away from the larger cities.

At one point, he was most likely a disciple of John the Baptist (which explains why he was baptized by him). In a similar manner of John, Jesus preached about the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God, which would replace the Kingdom of Rome. He did this in the confines of Judaism.

He had some differences with different sects of Judaism, but that is only expected during the first century where there were internal debates within Judaism. He personally taught a more strict version of Judaism, in order to prepare individuals for the coming Kingdom of God.

At the end of his life, he went to Jerusalem, where he, in the eyes of Rome, became a criminal as he was making a potentially threatening appearance there. From his actions in the Temple, to his preaching of the coming of the Kingdom of God, it was clear that Jesus posed a problem. He was playing with fire in a tinderbox situation. Since he went to Jerusalem for the Passover, an already stressful period, any major actions such as what Jesus was doing needed to be put to a stop as it was the exact thing that could have started a riot. So the Romans did what they needed and executed him.

I don't believe he ever claimed to be the son of God, divine, or the Messiah. However, at some point, his followers claimed such. After his death, his followers needed to reinterpret his teachings, and that is what happened, over and over.

As for the Gnostic Gospels, for details in the life of Jesus, I see them as useless. The reason being that they were produced much to long after Jesus, were written by people far to distant from the life of Jesus, and simply don't seem to have much want to create a historical picture of Jesus, as in they are too theologically motivated. That is not to say that the Gnostic Gospels are useless, as they give us a picture of early Christianity, but they tell us nothing about Jesus.

As for the other matter of the name of Jesus; I think Jesus is close enough. It was meant to be a translation of Yeshua. It's closer to Joshua, but it doesn't really matter anymore. His name has become Jesus.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

No that doesn't prove he rose from the dead, just because the movement started up again. It means people thought he had things to say worth following. What those things does prove is a Jesus did exist, which I agree, he did. As for falling blood's assertion that the Gnostic gospels are worthless, he speaks as though the Christian gospels have no bias at all. Give me a break.

 

[fallingblood]

No that doesn't prove he rose from the dead, just because the movement started up again. It means people thought he had things to say worth following. What those things does prove is a Jesus did exist, which I agree, he did. As for falling blood's assertion that the Gnostic gospels are worthless, he speaks as though the Christian gospels have no bias at all. Give me a break.

You haven't read anything I've said then. I don't act as if the Christian Gospels have no bias. Actually, I acknowledge those biases, and I work through them. However, there is a very good reason that nearly all critical scholars state that the Gnostic Gospels give us nothing about Jesus. Because they don't. More so, I didn't say they were worthless anyway.



Now moving on to the missing body. There are a couple of things that could have happened. One, he could have been never buried. John Dominic Crossan supports this idea. That Jesus was simply left for the dogs. Then he was probably placed into a shallow, unmarked grave.

It could be that he was placed into a tomb that the disciples just couldn't find. They did in fact flee the area anyway, so it wouldn't be surprising they couldn't find the tomb.

Someone else could have stolen the body.

There are quite a few options. However, the evidence does not demand a bodily resurrection.

 

[Quagmire]

N As for falling blood's assertion that the Gnostic gospels are worthless, he speaks as though the Christian gospels have no bias at all. Give me a break.

I've never seen anything to suggest that Fallingblood believes anything even remotely like this (and neither have you).

 

[Rainbow Mage]

I've never seen anything to suggest that Fallingblood believes anything even remotely like this (and neither have you).

Actually what outhouse posted above is a quote of falling blood that he said in another thread.

 

[Quagmire]

Actually what outhouse posted above is a quote of falling blood that he said in another thread.

I find that hard to believe, actually.

Edit: And rightfully so: it's a quote from the OP by Tomarnold, not from another thread, and not by Fallingblood.

 

[fallingblood]

Actually what outhouse posted above is a quote of falling blood that he said in another thread.

And I never said a thing about the Christian Gospels being nonbiased, or that the Gnostic Gospels are worthless.

 

[fallingblood]

I find that hard to believe, actually.

Edit: And rightfully so: it's a quote from the OP by Tomarnold, not from another thread, and not by Fallingblood.

He's talking about the rest of Outhouses post, which is something I said in a different thread. But as can be seen in it, nothing that Senedjem said is true.

 

[Ilisrum]

I agree that there's enough historical evidence to establish Jesus' historicity with some certainty, but...

Conclusion ​

We can clearly see that Jesus is a historical figure, and we need to make a decision as to what that means to us. He was not just a mere man, if the disciples stole the body as some suppose, they would not have been willing to die for a lie. However 11 of the 12 original disciples did end up giving their lives for the Gospel, certainly they must have known He was risen. Let us repent and believe today and see the Lord for who He truly is!
​

* There's reason to believe that the "resurrection" that the disciples believed in was a spiritual, not a physical resurrection, as later Christian tradition would come to assert.

* There's no evidence that any of the Apostles, with the exception of James brother of John and James brother of Jesus, were martyred. That's all later tradition as well.

And...

* That last part sounds like proselytizing to me.:areyoucra

 

[David M]

Flavious Josephus: AD 37-100, published the work 'Antiquities of the Jews' in 94AD:

"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."​

​

You do realise that this quote has long been considered to have been tampered with by a later copyist, something well supported by the discovery of an arabic copy that does not contain the parts that Josephus would not have said (as scholars have been pointing out for decades).
​

 

[Penumbra]

Historical sources outside of Scripture:

Cornelius Tacitus: 56-117AD, Roman Historian and Governor of Asia wrote in 112AD:​

"Christ, 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"​

Suetonius: 69-140 AD, Official historian of Rome in 125 AD spoke of the Jews being previously expelled from Rome, as Acts 18:2 also said:​

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [Christ], he [ Claudius ] expelled them [the Jews] from Rome"​

Pliny the Younger: 61-112AD, Governor of the Roman province of Bithynia wrote a letter to Emperor Trojan in 112AD:​

"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."​

Flavious Josephus: AD 37-100, published the work 'Antiquities of the Jews' in 94AD:​

"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."​

What we have established:​

1. Jesus suffered the death penalty under Pontius Pilot. (Tacitus, Josephus, Matt 27)
2. The followers sang hymns to Christ as God. (Pliny the Younger, Jn 1:1)
3. The death of Christ "checked" followers "for a moment", but it "again broke out" post crucifixion. (Certainly it would have been over had Christ not risen.) (Tacitus, Lk 24:36-39)
4. The movement started in Judea and spread to Rome. (Tacitus, Suetonius, Acts 1:8, Romans)​

I don't deny the likelihood that a historical figure existed that the character of Jesus might be loosely based on.

But that being said, every one of these sources was written long after the death of the guy. None of them were even born yet when Jesus was claimed to have been alive, and their publish dates were, assuming your listed dates are correct, 112AD, 125AD, 112AD, and 94AD (and therefore were published somewhere around 60-100 years after the death of Jesus). That would be like me doing research and writing about a guy that died somewhere between 1910 and 1950, except that I'd have less to work with because there would be no photo or video archives, and a significantly smaller portion of the population was able to read and write.

Even the writings that form the New Testament are said to have been put into written form decades after Jesus died.

​

Conclusion

​

We can clearly see that Jesus is a historical figure, and we need to make a decision as to what that means to us. He was not just a mere man, if the disciples stole the body as some suppose, they would not have been willing to die for a lie. However 11 of the 12 original disciples did end up giving their lives for the Gospel, certainly they must have known He was risen. Let us repent and believe today and see the Lord for who He truly is!
​

Lots of people do dangerous things for the wrong reasons. Some cult members have killed themselves after believing every word of their cult leader. In cases like that it's not that they are willing to die for a lie; it's that they are willing to die for truth but are mistaken.

 

[Copernicus]

This is all really about the historicity of Jesus, not whether he performed the miracles ascribed to him in scripture. All of the arguments for the existence of Jesus rest on the analysis of texts, almost all of which come down to us as documents copied by people working with copies and who believed both in the historicity and divinity of Christ. We know that leaders of the orthodox movement going back to at least Irenaeus, had very definite opinions on records that they thought were apocryphal and perhaps even passages in some records that they thought reasonably accurate. So I feel very uncomfortable with making blanket claims about the historicity of Jesus that are based on texts filtered down to us through Christian copyists.

That said, there are a lot of very intelligent scholars who have done their best to make a case for the historicity of Jesus from these texts. Most of those arguments seem to be based on the plausibility of details in the accounts. For example, would Paul have claimed to have met James, the brother of Jesus, if he did not actually believe that Jesus was a real person? Skeptics have different questions. Would Paul not have described more details about the life of Christ and his resurrection if he did have such fairly direct knowledge of the details? And, if he did not, why would he not have gotten those details from James or other disciples with firsthand knowledge?

In the end, there are no conclusive arguments that Jesus ever existed. Humans are adept at telling stories and embellishing the ones that they retell. Without corroborating evidence, and given the extremely unlikely events and acts attributed to Jesus, my own inclination is to dismiss historicity. If a real person actually gave rise to the story, then we probably possess few, if any, details of that person's life. If there were no such person, his legend could easily have been invented by a series of storytellers who changed the story gradually to make him sound more and more real.

 

[Valjean]

These are not first person accounts. They're reports based on legends and hearsay.
As I understand it, there are no official government records or first person accounts of the actual existence of a Jesus Christ.
All records of this person were either written by the Christians themselves or those reporting what they heard from the Christians.

 

[ellenjanuary]

While I respect the scholarship of fallingblood and others on the forum, I disagree with one of the conclusions. I disagree that first century Jews had nothing to gain by crafting a false messiah, I believe they did; a splinter group headed by Paul with Roman collusion, I believe, either created the story of Jesus from whole cloth or based it upon a spiritual teacher. There's just too much artifice. Josephus's quote has been called into question and the others mention a title, Christus, which could have arisen from a Pauline conspiracy.

It has been noted that Paul's theology is rather advanced in Romans; considering he claims to have never met Jesus, and he supposedly spent some time doing a whole lot of nothing, it is peculiar that he would develop and write of this theology twenty years after the supposed passing of the Christ. I don't think it is "advanced," I think it is nearly perfect; the type of perfection that doesn't come from experience but from engineering.

All of which does not detract from the good Christianity has provided for some. Beautiful music produced on a synthesizer is still beautiful music.

As to the rest of the OP... it ain't Sunday.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

There are no first person accounts about Jesus of Nazareth. With that having been said, I do believe that there is enough to say that there was a person of that name. However, I believe the stories attributed to him in the New Testament gospels were added after the fact, to make him seem more than a human, god in the flesh, or to try to fit him into Jewish prophecy as the Messiah. Jesus, as it seems, was just a member of the Essene sect, and probably one that was highly esteemed among them. John the Baptist also seems to fit this mold. There is no reason to believe that anything written about Jesus in the New Testament is factual. And, there are many people willing to die for a lie, but one that they are convinced is truth. We see this in cults all the time. So to say that the disciples would not have given their lives for a lie is a bit inaccurate, as they believed that they were dying for the truth, regardless of whether it was or not.

 

[gnostic]

Flavious Josephus: AD 37-100, published the work 'Antiquities of the Jews' in 94AD:​

"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."​

Flavius Josephus didn't actually write this part. This was added at a later date, by someone else. Also if you read any other parts of Antiquities of the Jews, then you would see that the style about Jesus being the Messiah is completely different to the rest of the texts.

The part about Jesus that is authentic, as being written by Josephus is this:

...brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others...

 

[tomarnold]

Now moving on to the missing body. There are a couple of things that could have happened. One, he could have been never buried. John Dominic Crossan supports this idea. That Jesus was simply left for the dogs. Then he was probably placed into a shallow, unmarked grave.

Yet their are no historical records of anyone from the area denying the events of the Gospel accounts. Certainly those who hated the movement would have recorded some history to the effect that it wasn't accurate if this was the case.

In addition to this the Christians had a list of as many as 500 documented eyewitnesses of Him resurrected that they would mention to those in the very area His death and burial occured! They would not have been so bold if these events were not established.

It could be that he was placed into a tomb that the disciples just couldn't find. They did in fact flee the area anyway, so it wouldn't be surprising they couldn't find the tomb.

So both mary's couldn't find the tomb, then Peter and and John could not locate the tomb. After that they forgot to ask Joseph of Armethea how to get there, or just look for the tomb with Guards by it.

And then after they began preaching the resurrection of Christ, neither the sanheidren or any of the Pharisees could produce any such body to squash the movement. They did not go to the wrong tomb.

Someone else could have stolen the body.

Why exactly did this annonymous individual steal the body? So someone broke the seal, rolled back the giant stone, and took the body of Christ- all without the guard noticing? If the guard was sleeping, which is doubted because that would be punishable by death to Romans, he certainly would have woke up.

If it were unbelieving Jews they would have later pointed out the body and published it greatly to prevent the uprising of Christendom.

If it were Romans, the body would have been demonstrated to end the uprising of Christianity and the controversy among the Jews.

There is no possibility of any of this happening realistically. Why would whoever did this thing actually take his clothes off, and then fold them on top of it all!

There are quite a few options. However, the evidence does not demand a bodily resurrection.

This statement is not true.

 

[Twig pentagram]

I'm Twig Christ so I guess you could chalk this up as more evidence of the existence of christ.

 

[tomarnold]

I agree that there's enough historical evidence to establish Jesus' historicity with some certainty, but...

You are one step closer to truth than some others already.

* There's reason to believe that the "resurrection" that the disciples believed in was a spiritual, not a physical resurrection, as later Christian tradition would come to assert.

There would be no significance of even using the term "resurrection" then, since this so-called spiritual resurrection is nbothinbg other than talking about the immortality of the soul.

In this case, what is the purpose for saying that the resurrection happened after 3 days?

Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have." -Luke 24:39

* There's no evidence that any of the Apostles, with the exception of James brother of John and James brother of Jesus, were martyred. That's all later tradition as well.

So would you cast doubt on the historical accounts of other Christians being killed around that time frame and in those areas for their faith? Or would you admit this much?

Ok Pliny the Younger's historical account talked about Christians, whose only crime was believing, being brutally killed for their faith. HOW MUCH MORE those men who preached vehemently and consistantly the Message!

While it is true the New Testament only documents the death of James, and the imprisonment of Paul (not the death), this again only demonstrated the early authorship of the Scripture! Otherwise there is no doubt if these men had died as of yet, it would be documented since it would certainly be noteworthy to the readers.

Even secular history documents the killing of early believers who simply believed. It is easy to conclude that: 1)Paul, who had many documented attempts on his life already in New Testamant Scripture due to the nature of his calling and the persuasiveness of the Spirit through him, and was even in chains- eventually suffered death for his faith. 2) If the average believer of the time could get killed for their confession, that most certainly those who boldly proclaimed the message would suffer for it.

There is no reason whatsoever to deny the accounts of the 4th century church that details the actual methods of the deaths. There would be no extra benefit from the early church declaring it, and they undoubtably had access to documents and early traditions that we do not.

And...

* That last part sounds like proselytizing to me.:areyoucra

If "proselytising" is a fancy word to explain that I want to convince you to escape the wrath of God which we all deserve for our sin, then sure.