Historicity of the Gospels

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Esran

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Dear friends,

God bless you abundantly. May He smile upon you, and envelop you in His unconditional love.

I present this concern to you today. Recently, others have raised the question of the historicity of the Gospels, especially the infancy narratives. Thus, I require your assistance on the following points:
  1. How to defend the historicity of the infancy narratives.
  2. How to defend the historicity of Christ and His resurrection.
  3. How to defend the Gospels as trustworthy sources.
Passages from outside of Scripture that mention Jesus, such as writings of the Church Fathers, passages in the Jewish Talmud, and Roman documents like letters, histories, etc., would be most helpful, if they are available. Please provide thorough documentation, if possible. An exhaustive list would be ideal.

Thank you in advance!

Also, it would be best if this information can be accessed readily over the Internet, and be easy to print out and distribute and/or compiled into a document using a word processor.

Pax Christi,
Geoffrey
 
Here is a site that has some valuable writings. 64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:cpEw2kJlTUoJ:fam-faerch.dk/pseudigrapher/Index.html+3rd+and+4th+Maccabees+augustine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

The apocraphal writings are very helpful because they give us some information that was handed down orally from eye witnesses of the Apostles. The Acts of Barnabas is very interesting because it was (I strongly believe) written by St. Mark. Some of the apocrapha is mixed with accurate tradition and pious legend, but they are some of the most fascinating accounts! But they are not to be confused with the Gnostic writings, because the Gnostic writings are not worth the papyri that they were written on.

Plus you have the Early Church Fathers! They are in a different category than the apocrapha. The Apostlic Fathers are contempories of the Apostles, and that speaks for itself! You will find much of what you need in the link that I gave. If you have more questions as far as detail, then fire away! I am all ears!
 
Yes…are there any secular or non-Christian documents mentioning Christ? Roman letters, histories, etc…
 
COPLAND 3, the site you gave me doesn’t have dates for the documents. I’d love dates, if they’re known.
 
Josephus is a good one.
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 wonders, A TEACHER OF SUCH MEN AS RECEIVE THE TRUTH WITH PLEASURE. He drew many after him BOTH OF THE JEWS AND THE GENTILES. HE WAS THE CHRIST. 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 THEN THOUSAND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT HIM, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).
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Here is a link to some letters between Herod adn Pilate about Jesus. orthodoxchina.info/patristics/apostolicfathers/herpilat.htm
 
These are what first come to mind, but I am sure there are more! I hope this helps!
 
COPLAND_3 said:
Eusebius found a letter in Edessa where a king wrote a letter to Jesus. Here is a link. globusz.com/ebooks/ForbiddenGospels/00000018.htm
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It’s a forgery. As is the whole exchange of letters between Jesus and Abgar of Edessa. Which is why they are counted as apocryphal. Quite a few of the NT Apocrypha are genuine only in their titles: the correspondence of Paul with Seneca, the Epistle to the Laodiceans, the Letters of Abgar & Jesus, are none of them what their names suggest​

As for the Josephus passage, it is possibly genuine in parts, but certainly not as it stands in the quotation.

It would be a great pity - to put it mildly - to [try to] support one’s faith in Christ. when speaking with non-Christians, by using such items. One means of attack on Christian belief is to point out the inauthenticity of these items; so people are not all ignorant of them & their inauthenticity. So to use them as genuine, would cause such people to be unimpressed, or disgusted - they would not be convinced by such items.

These items are interesting as witnesses to what people thought; but that is a question of general cultural history, not of the truth about Christ.
 
These items are interesting as witnesses to what people thought; but that is a question of general cultural history, not of the truth about Christ.
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Okay then…well, what else do we have?
 
The four gospels?
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Aye, and there’s the rub…how to witness to people who don’t accept their authority or historicity. That’s the whole point of this post.
 
Gottle of Greer

It’s a forgery. As is the whole exchange of letters between Jesus and Abgar of Edessa. Which is why they are counted as apocryphal. Quite a few of the NT Apocrypha are genuine only in their titles: the correspondence of Paul with Seneca, the Epistle to the Laodiceans, the Letters of Abgar & Jesus, are none of them what their names suggest​

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As for the Josephus passage, it is possibly genuine in parts, but certainly not as it stands in the quotation.
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It would be a great pity - to put it mildly - to [try to] support one’s faith in Christ. when speaking with non-Christians, by using such items. One means of attack on Christian belief is to point out the inauthenticity of these items; so people are not all ignorant of them & their inauthenticity. So to use them as genuine, would cause such people to be unimpressed, or disgusted - they would not be convinced by such items.
Click to expand...
These items are interesting as witnesses to what people thought; but that is a question of general cultural history, not of the truth about Christ.
Click to expand...
I would not try to support my faith in Christ with these items, my faith goes much deeper than that. But these are witnesses. Granted, some of the apocryphal writings are made up, some are mixed with oral tradition, and some are reliable. Now keep in mind, there is a “scholarly” thought these days that has been hostile towards authorship, even to the Biblical books. If you listen only to the consensus these days you would get the impression that some unknown pious Jews much later on wrote the Bible and then tried to pass it off as been written by Moses, Daniel, Jonah, Matthew, Peter, etc etc. The same treatment goes for the apocrypha. If one was to read the apocryphal writings as is, putting aside the general opinion these days of the “elite” scholars, they would find that much of the apocrypha has alot of credence. They are oral traditions that were written down, not inspired of course, but they reveal alot of what happened in the beginning of our faith that is not in the Bible, such as where the Apostles went, what they did, how they were martyred, etc etc.

The Early Church Fathers often quoted them, not as Scripture, but as history. But today it has been blindly accepted even by Christians to just pass off the apocrypha as tall tales. And then once a person has that presupposition then its hard for them to read the apocrypha with an open mind and gleam the benefits from them.
 
I would not try to support my faith in Christ with these items, my faith goes much deeper than that. But these are witnesses. Granted, some of the apocryphal writings are made up, some are mixed with oral tradition, and some are reliable. Now keep in mind, there is a “scholarly” thought these days that has been hostile towards authorship, even to the Biblical books. If you listen only to the consensus these days you would get the impression that some unknown pious Jews much later on wrote the Bible and then tried to pass it off as been written by Moses, Daniel, Jonah, Matthew, Peter, etc etc. The same treatment goes for the apocrypha. If one was to read the apocryphal writings as is, putting aside the general opinion these days of the “elite” scholars, they would find that much of the apocrypha has alot of credence. They are oral traditions that were written down, not inspired of course, but they reveal alot of what happened in the beginning of our faith that is not in the Bible, such as where the Apostles went, what they did, how they were martyred, etc etc.
Click to expand...
The Early Church Fathers often quoted them, not as Scripture, but as history. But today it has been blindly accepted even by Christians to just pass off the apocrypha as tall tales. And then once a person has that presupposition then its hard for them to read the apocrypha with an open mind and gleam the benefits from them.
Click to expand...
I agree.

Gottle of Geer, I’m trying to build a case for the trustworthiness of the Gospels. Other documents, outside scripture, collaborating claims within the New Testament, are extremely helpful.

Of most importance are the testimonies of Tacitus and Josephus. If I could locate a few other such sources, my case would be greatly aided.

However, telling me to just go to the Gospels in order to build a case to defend the integrity of the Gospels makes no sense. I have to start elsewhere first.

I may just need to break down and buy that New Evidence That Demands a Verdict book and see what’s in there…sigh

It seems what I need isn’t online, and I remember seeing it in that book.
 
I just found what I was looking for elsewhere.

Thank you all for your assistance.

If anyone’s interested in what I found, PM me.

God bless all of you!
 
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