1. Non Christian Sources

[Links to English translations provided in each case]

• Mara bar Serapion – in a letter generally dated to the first century (c. 73 A.D.) – speaks of the Jews executing their “wise king” shortly before their kingdom was abolished, though he lives on in his teaching. This letter doesn’t mention Jesus by name, but most scholars agree no other Jewish figure from the period except Jesus fits the ‘identikit’ of king, teacher and martyr.
• Jewish historian Josephus (c 37-100 A.D.) mentions Jesus twice in his Jewish Antiquities. The uncontroversial reference (20.200) tells how a Jewish high priest, Ananus, organised the death of James, whom he describes as the brother of Jesus, “called the Christ”.
• The more controversial reference as it comes to us from Josephus in the existing text today (18.63-64) appears to have been embellished at some point by a copyist (likely a well-meaning but misguided Christian). Historians disagree about reconstructing the original underlying text. The reference to his resurrection is especially disputed. But a majority agree that Josephus at least reports that Jesus had a reputation as a wise man, wonder-worker and teacher; was called the Christ, and was crucified under Pilate; further, that members of the “tribe of Christians” are named after him.
• Rome’s greatest historian, Tacitus (56-120 A.D., in his Annals (15.44) records how Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the fire of Rome. Tacitus makes clear his revulsion of Christianity, but nevertheless confirms that the movement got its name from Christ, a man who was executed during the reign of Tiberius by the governor Pontius Pilate, and indicates that this superstitious devotion to Christ (as he sees it) continued after his death, spreading to Rome.
• Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator, writes c. 110 A.D. in a letter to Emperor Trajan that (despite official persecution) Christians continued to meet and sing hymns to Christ as to a god.
• Another Roman historian, Suetonius, in Life of Claudius 25.4 (c. 120 A.D.) reports that Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because of a riot caused at instigation of “Chrestus”. Most experts think is likely a confusion for the name of “Christ”, and it is certainly consistent with information from Acts 18:2.
• The Jewish Talmud (dating 100-200 A.D.) reports (baraitha Sanhedrin 43a) that Yeshu (= Jesus) was hanged around Passover for practising sorcery (most likely a reference to his exorcisms).
• Lucian of Samosata (115-200 A.D.) in his The Death of Perigrinus (11-13) mocks the founder of the Christian movement as a Palestinian man and “crucified sophist”, who persuaded his followers they were all brothers and to deny the Greek gods.

There are a couple of other secular references to Jesus’ existence dating from the 1^st and 2^nd centuries A.D., but together from these early non-Christian sources we can determine the following details were known and reported of Jesus:

• his existence in Palestine during the reign of Emperor Tiberius;
• his activity as a teacher/wise man;
• his reputation as some sort of wonder worker;
• the attribution by some to him of the title “Christ” (= Messiah in Hebrew);
• the time and manner of his crucifixion near Passover;
• the involvement in this execution of the Roman governor Pilate;
• the flourishing of a movement that worshipped him decades after; and
• that he had a brother named James.

2. Christian Sources

Of course, this is all consistent with the Bible. And far more information about Jesus’ life can be obtained from the sources within the New Testament, especially the canonical Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. These are now quite widely considered to fit into the genre of Graceo-Roman biography. In addition, the Epistles of Paul (dating even earlier) and James give important incidental information regarding his life and teaching. Academics consider much of the material in these sources helpful for insights into the historical Jesus.

SCHOLARLY CONCLUSIONS

So when ancient historians have reviewed this evidence, they uniformly conclude (across the worldview divides, to account for bias) – conservative, liberal, Christian, Jewish, agnostic and atheist alike – that Jesus existed as a person of history. They have varying interpretations as to the claims of his divinity and resurrection.

But they all agree: Jesus is beyond fiction. Here is a sampling of their verdicts.

Rudolph Bultmann (German Professor of New Testament, liberal), 1958, p 13, Jesus and the Word, (Collins/Fontana)…

“Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement…”

Michael Grant (English classicist), 1977, p 200, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (Charles Scribner’s Sons)

“To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has ‘again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars.’ In recent years, ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus’–or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.”

Robert Van Voorst (American Professor of New Testament), 2000, p 16, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Eerdmans)…

“Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their [i.e. Jesus mythers] arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.”

Geza Vermes (British Professor of Jewish Studies), 2008, p ix, The Resurrection (Doubleday)…

“Let me state plainly that I accept that Jesus was a real historical person. In my opinion, the difficulties arising from the denial of his existence, still vociferously maintained in as small circle of rationalist ‘dogmatists,’ far exceed those deriving from its acceptance.”

Craig A. Evans (American Professor of New Testament), 2009, p 3, in C.A. Evans & N.T. Wright, Jesus, the Final Days: What Really Happened (Westminster John Knox)…

“No serious historian of any religious or nonreligious stripe doubts that Jesus of Nazareth really lived in the first century and was executed under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea and Samaria.”

(The quotes above are less than half the samples provided to establish this point by Michael Licona in his magisterial, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP/Apollos; 2010), p 63, fn 125.)

Bart Ehrman (American Professor of Religious Studies, sceptical), 2011, p 285, Forged: Writing in the name of God…

“He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees.”

From a different angle, the atheist journalist, Matthew Parris, warned in The Spectator this year against a watered-down or decaf view of Jesus. In his judgment,

“One of the reasons we can be pretty sure Jesus actually existed is that if He had not, the Church would never have invented Him. He stands so passionately, resolutely and inconveniently against everything an established church stands for. Continuity? Tradition? Christ had nothing to do with stability. He came to break up families, to smash routines, to cast aside the human superstructures, to teach abandonment of earthly concerns and a throwing of ourselves upon God’s mercy.”

Jesus is beyond fiction, and before lazily dismissing him, the genuinely open-minded should grapple with the key primary documents concerning his life, found in the New Testament!