Did Jesus Exist?

This is the first of two articles which are a direct response to a ‘challenge’ which appeared in the comments on the Rat’s post regarding what he actually believes. In particular, UbiquitousRat’s assertion that no credible historian would doubt the existence of Jesus was singled out for a demand of proof.

Articles such as these will not be as close to neutral as I would like them to be. By definition I am engaging in what Christians call ‘apologetics’ (from the Greek ‘apologia’ meaning to defend or offer a defence), so if this will bother you then please feel free to stop reading. That being said, I hope that you might learn a little bit about how the top Christian scholars think, and about how Ancient History actually works.

The Extra Biblical Material

By ‘extra’ here is meant the material which is outside of the Bible. However, all of it will come from historians who wrote during the early Christian centuries, one of whom is a Christian who was interested in recording history up to his time.

Josephus

Our first historian is normally referred to as Josephus. He lived during the first century AD, and was a Jew who collaborated with the Romans. He wrote two main works of history regarding the Jewish people for his Roman ‘Masters’. Both quotations come from the work referred to as Antiquities (completed c. 93 AD):

Ananus [Ananias] “convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of transgressing the Law and delivered them up to be stoned.” (20.200)

This next quotation has three highlighted phrases which are questionable. Historians of this period, whatever their religion, or none, all agree that these three phrases are interpolations by later Christian copyists. Other than that, all are agreed that the rest is original to Josephus:

“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.” (18.63-4)

Tacitus

Our next historian needs no introduction to any familiar with the history of the Roman Empire, Tacitus. In his Annals (completed c. 115 AD), he wrote the following about Nero’s treatment of Christians as he tried to shift the blame from being the instigator of the great fire in Rome:

“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… Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty: then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.” (15.44)

Seutonius

Seutonius, in his Life of Claudius (completed c. 120 AD), also contains a passing reference:

“As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.” (25.4)

This reference obviously doesn’t relate directly to the life of Jesus, but it does show that there was a recognition that the disagreements between Jews and Christians were troubling the Jewish quarter of the city of Rome, and bears direct relevance to a reference in the Book of Acts (18 verse 2) where it is recorded:

“There he [Paul] met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome.”

Pliny the Younger

Our final non-Christian writer is called Pliny the Younger, who wrote a series of letters to Trajan the Elder about his activities as the Governor of Bythinia. This extract comes from the 10th book of the collected letters and is agreed to have been written c. 111 AD:

“I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished… They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternatively amongst themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery… This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they called deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths.”

Whatever else this may say, it certainly supports a very early belief in the deity of Jesus, and what Christians thought this meant about how they should live.

Julius Africanus

Our final historian is Julius Africanus, a Christian, who completed his history c. 221 AD, but our interest is in the extracts which he took from much earlier historians whose works are now lost. First a man called Thallus:

“Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun – unreasonably as it seems to me (unreasonably, of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died).”

Now Phlegon:

“in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at the full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth.”

This may seem like a fairly random piece of information to record, and may appear to bear no resemblance to the life of Jesus, until that is one looks at the Gospel according to Matthew (the first book you will read if you open the New Testament at the beginning), where in Ch. 27 verse 45 we find:

“From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.”

The hours of darkness when Jesus was being crucified!

Then What?

Add to this the numerous epithets and anathemas recorded in the Mishnah (the teachings by Jewish Rabbis collected and compiled c. 200 AD, and forming the first part of the Talmud), such as asserting that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier (yes, think Life of Brian :)) indicating that the birth of Jesus was considered very questionable, and is reflected even within the Gospels, Mark Ch. 6 verse 3:

“Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offence at him.”

…to be referred to as the son of your mother was extremely insulting in the Jewish culture of the time, because it was effectively saying that people didn’t know who your Father was. If you couldn’t prove your lineage, then you would not be able to legitimately participate in the Jewish religious ceremonies.

Hopefully you can see that there is very early recognition of the life of Jesus, and the major ‘landmarks’ of his life as recorded within the Gospels.

If you find this evidence to be too circumstantial, that of course is your choice.

Yet one needs to weigh this in the balance of just how much of our history uses the historians listed to help in piecing together the Ancient History which we do have, and that not much exists outside of these writers to corroborate what they wrote – other than archaeological evidence… and that is another article entirely.

My next article will deal with the reliability of the Gospels. I trust that you have the patience to take a look, and I thank you if you have stayed with me this far.

RevDMac is an Anglican Priest who guest-writes for CoolReligion. As someone who has known UbiquitousRat through all the significant moments of adult life he is a trusted and respected friend… and a talented theologian.