Jesus in History

THE OLDEST SECULAR ACCOUNTS AND HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ON THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH

1. Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 55-120) was a senator and historian of the Roman Empire. His most acclaimed works are the Annals and the Histories. In the Annals, Tacitus covers the period from the death of Augustus Caesar in AD 14 to the death of Emperor Nero in AD 68. Tacitus' Histories begin after Nero's suicide and continue into the reign of Domitian in AD 96. In the Annals, Tacitus alludes to the death of Christ and the existence of Christians at Rome. In He wrote: But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated but through the city of Rome also (Annals XV,44). The misspelling of Christ as "Christus" was a frequent error made by pagan writers. Pontius Pilate is not mentioned in any other surviving pagan manuscript. It is an irony of history that the only surviving reference to him in a pagan document names him because of the death sentence he passed on Jesus the Messiah.

2. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was a Roman historian and court official during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. In his biographical work, Life of Claudius, he wrote: As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome (Life of Claudius, 25.4). As noted above, Chrestus is a misspelling of Christus; the spelling probably assumes that the spelling of Jesus' title "Christos" was the same as the ChiRho symbol that was also a literary device indicating a quote worthy of note = the "chrestus" symbol. The Book of Acts mentions Emperor Claudius' expulsion of the Christians from Rome (Acts 18:2). This event took place in 49 AD. In his work, Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius also wrote: Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. Assuming Jesus' crucifixion took place in the early thirties (most Biblical historians date His death to AD 30), Suetonius places Christians in the Roman capital less than twenty years later, and he reports that they were suffering for their faith and dying for their conviction that Jesus had lived, died, and literally arose from the dead!

3. Pliny the Younger was a Roman governor in Bithynia in AD 112. He wrote to Emperor Trajan to seek advice as to how to treat the Christians in his province. Pliny recounts that he had been killing Christian men, women, and children. He expresses his concern that so many chose death over simply bowing down to a statue of the emperor or being made to curse Christ, which a genuine Christian cannot be induced to do to save themselves (Epistles X, 96.)

4. Thallus, a secular historian, wrote a three-volume history of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Trojan War to his own time in circa AD 52. The document no longer exists, but other writers quoted from it like the Christian, Julius Africanus, who wrote around AD 221. He quotes Tallus' comments about the darkness that enveloped the land during the late afternoon hours when Jesus died on the cross: Tallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun, unreasonably, as it seems to me (unreasonably of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18.1). The importance of Tallus' comments is that it shows the Gospel accounts of the darkness that fell across the earth during Christ's crucifixion were well known and required a naturalistic explanation from non-Christians.

5. Phlegon of Tralles was a Greek writer and freeman of Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2^nd-century AD. Julius Africanus also quoted the writings of this secular scholar whose works are now lost. Phlegon wrote a history called Chronicles where he also comments on the darkness at the time of Christ's crucifixion: During the time of Tiberius Caesar an eclipse of the sun occurred during the full moon" (Julius Africanus quoting Phelgon of Tralles, Chronography, 18.1). The 3^rd-century Christian apologist Origen also references Phlegon's record of this event in his work Celsum, 2.14.33.59 as does the 6^th-century writer Philopon (De.opif.mund. II, 21).

6. Mara Bar-Serapion was a Syrian Stoic philosopher who wrote a letter from prison to his son in circa AD 70. In the letter, he compared Jesus to the philosophers Socrates and Pythagoras. Most scholars date the letter to shortly after AD 73. It is a document relevant to Christianity because it contains an early non-Christian reference to the crucifixion of Jesus. Biblical scholar, Bruce Chilton states that the Bar-Serapion reference to "King of the Jews" may be related to the inscription on Jesus' cross in three languages placed there by Pilate that read "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (Mark 15:26; John 19:19).

7. Josephus ben Mattathias, also known as Flavius Josephus (AD 37-100), was a Jewish chief priest, a general during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome, and a Jewish historian. He wrote four books, two of them were great works of Jewish history: The Jewish War, written in the early 70s and Antiquities of the Jews that he completed in about AD 94. In Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus wrote: 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 among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day (Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII, 33).

8. Lucian of Samosata was Greek satirist who lived in the latter half of the 2^nd century AD and spoke scornfully of Christ and the Christians but did not argue that Jesus never existed. He wrote: The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day; the distinguished personage who introduced their novelties and was crucified on that account" (The Death of Peregrine, 11-13).

9. The Babylonian Talmud was a Jewish compiled about the year AD 500, although editing continued for many years. The word "Talmud," when used without qualification, usually refers to the Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud records: It has been taught: On the eve of Passover, they hanged Yeshu. And an announcer went out, in front of him, for 40 days (saying): "He is going to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and plead in his behalf." But, not having found anything in his favor, they hanged him on the eve of Passover (Sanhedrin 43a; df.t.Sanh. 10:11; y. Sanh. 7:12; Tg. Esther, 7:9). Another version of this text records Jesus' name as "Yeshu the Nazarene." Yeshu/Yahshua (Hebrew) or Yehoshua (Aramaic) is Jesus' name; in English, the name is also translated "Joshua." The Old Testament hero bore the same name as Jesus the Messiah. "Hanged" is another way of referring to a crucifixion; see Luke 23:39 and Galatians 3:13. The Biblical accounts of Jesus' trial in the Gospels record He was tried illegally in secret and condemned before the members of the Sanhedrin took Jesus to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate because they did not have the power to condemn Him to death (Jn 18:31).

"No serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus."
Otto Betz