Saint Luke says “just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word”(Luke1:2)
According to this verse, he is not a eyewitness to his account and he just quoting Anonymous eyewitnesses and servants of the word.
So how can we trust him, historicaly and theologically?ُُ
Tell ya what - I will make you a deal. I will give you a
thousand historically accurate eyewitness testimonies of Jesus if you can give me just
ONE historically accurate eyewitness testimony of the Roman Emperor Nero. If I cannot fulfill my half of the deal, I will give you a thousand dollars. If you cannot produce such contemporary testimony, you give me a thousand dollars. Do we have a deal?
You would be a fool for accepting, because you would loose.
Can you cite anybody who actually knew Nero Caesar who wrote about him? What about someone who knew someone who knew Nero Caesar. Can you cite me such a name? What about someone - ANYONE - who even lived during Nero’s lifetime, who ever wrote about him? What about someone - ANYONE - who KNEW anyone who lived during Nero’s lifetime? The man was the EMPEROR of Rome for fourteen years! Surely there is SOMEBODY.
You cannot cite any such source. And, notice that I have not imposed some idea that the sources must NOT be Roman citizens (as some insist on non-Christian historians who wrote about Jesus, because, apparently, Christian historians who write about Jesus are presumed to be unreliable, but Roman historians who write about Nero are presumed to be reliable, even though there WERE no such Roman historians).
The “most contemporary” historian to write about the Emperor of the Roman Empire for fourteen years wrote about 100 years after Nero’s death. The next closest “contemporary” authors (all of - ahem - two of them) wrote fifty years later (about 150 years after Nero’s death). 150 years after the death of the most powerful man in the world, we have all of three historical accounts. All written by Romans. All were of the Senatorial class.
The scant three authors who wrote about Nero between 100-150 years after his death were Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, who were all members of the Roman Senatorial caste. I have no idea who was the first non-Roman historian to write about Nero, but I think I am safe in assuming that it was a LONG time later.
Now consider Jesus. He was Emperor of nothing. He was a member of a conquered race living in a conquered land. He was one of MANY ragtag preachers (Acts 5:34-37 describes the testimony of a Pharisee named Gamaliel who testified on behalf of the Apostles, while citing the failed ministries of other such “teachers” such as Theudas and Judas the Galilean). Jesus attracted a small dedicated following of only twelve men (Gamaliel says that Theudas had 400). His ministry was largely ineffective, as he was condemned by a crowd of his own countrymen in favor of an acknowledged criminal. He was sentenced to a slave’s death by a Roman governor - the cruelest death that the Roman Empire could devise - scourging and crucifixion. He hung on the Cross naked. When he was taken down, he did not even have a grave, but was buried in a donated grave. His execution took only three hours, and the Roman soldiers who executed him were home in time for supper.
In the 150 years after the death of Jesus, how many historians wrote about his life and activities? At least 65 (and I refer to authors, not writings - if we count according to writings, it numbers into the mid-500’s). And some were primary witnesses (such as St. John).
They were all Christians. And Nero’s scant three historians were all elite Romans (who wrote exactly three accounts, none of which were contemporary, - not 500+).
Nero was the Emperor of the Roman Empire for fourteen years. Jesus was the head of twelve Apostles for some three years before being executed by the very Empire that Nero would soon come to rule. And, yet, the ratio of historians is staggeringly unbalanced. 65 to 3 (or 500+ to 3, depending on how you count “sources”).
