The Historical Jesus

[HelenaMT]

Many skeptics make the claim that if Jesus had actually performed miracles, and people came out of their graves at the resurrection, as the Bible claims, and He had stayed around on earth for 40 days before finally ascending to Heaven once more, that there would be more evidence of this in the historical record. There would be recordings of rumors of miraculous healings, or of the man who so many people saw come back to life, like the hundreds who saw him after the resurrection. Recorded in other historical sources, not just the Gospels. and a few brief mentions elsewhere relating to events after His death.

So I was wondering, are there any examples in the historical record of events that were mainly seen by average people, not royalty or scholars or military men, that have been well documented from the ancient world? Is there any reason to believe that rumors about Jesus would have been recorded by scholars or historians at the time? Or might they just have been ignored as peasant superstition? I realize the ancient world was full of beliefs in the supernatural, but there was also a tendency by the elite to dismiss what the “masses” believed or felt just as we dismiss UFO believers and people who claim Elvis is still alive.

Does anyone know of any books that deal with comparisons between the recorded history of Jesus in the Gospels and other people from the lower classes? Or between Jesus and other men who primarily affected the lower classes?

I guess what I am trying to figure out is, is it possible that the historical record is so scant because of the class of people Jesus traveled with and appeared to? Or are there other examples of men who are well documented in numerous sources who primarily influenced people outside of the power elite?

 

[Orchanian]

The historical evidence for Christ exists in the writings of both the early Christians and those who were anti-Christian. Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote about Christ, as did the Romans (including Pilate). You can read Eusebius - History of the Church for the story of the first 300 years. It’s fascinating. You can also get the history as written by Josephus (Eusebius quotes some of his writings).

 

[Eucharisted]

The Gospels are the memoirs of the Apostles. It’s not so much about evidence, as it is about mistrusting the Apostles. The same scholars who doubt the Bible are the same who, if questioned about the historicity of Obama winning the Presidental election, would say it is true. And they would cite they know it is true because they voted, they saw it, and it was in newspapers and on TV. But they forget that this is the same for the Apostles, albiet the technology back than was not as powerful. And if the historicity of Obama winning the election were to be questioned in a thousant years, those same scholars would be shocked to find that the same way they treated the Apostles, so will they be treated by future scholars. In brief, the past was the present before it became past.

 

[HelenaMT]

The historical evidence for Christ exists in the writings of both the early Christians and those who were anti-Christian. Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote about Christ, as did the Romans (including Pilate). You can read Eusebius - History of the Church for the story of the first 300 years. It’s fascinating. You can also get the history as written by Josephus (Eusebius quotes some of his writings).

I am well aware of that evidence. All of it is after the fact, and by interested parties only. There is an absence of objective first hand testimony to the appearances after the crucifixion, the miracles(other than the Gospels) and the effect Jesus’ preaching had on the masses of crowds who came to hear him. I am not saying that that means it didn’t happen. I was trying to ask whether the question of scarce recorded objective testimony is relevant, in light of the fact that Jesus seemed to surround Himself with people who wouldn’t have written histories or had memoirs that would survive.

Obviously, to Christians, the answer is no. But to answer skeptics, a better argument needs to be made for why only Christians and their enemies recorded such information. I was wondering if a study exists out there somewhere of other men of antiquity who mostly interacted with the underclasses who were well documented in history. Excluding , of course, anyone who wound up leading an army or killing a king or something, for that would then count as a figure the elites would normally recognize.

 

[HelenaMT]

The Gospels are the memoirs of the Apostles. It’s not so much about evidence, as it is about mistrusting the Apostles. The same scholars who doubt the Bible are the same who, if questioned about the historicity of Obama winning the Presidental election, would say it is true. And they would cite they know it is true because they voted, they saw it, and it was in newspapers and on TV. But they forget that this is the same for the Apostles, albiet the technology back than was not as powerful. And if the historicity of Obama winning the election were to be questioned in a thousant years, those same scholars would be shocked to find that the same way they treated the Apostles, so will they be treated by future scholars. In brief, the past was the present before it became past.

I agree with you there. There is a difference though. No one has claimed Obama has walked on water or raised a man from the dead (not yet anyway, lol). There is also a huge body of recorded information from everywhere on earth attesting to his existence.

In the ancient world this was impossible, but there are other ancient historical events and people that have been verified independently of eachother. People coming out of their tombs after the resurrection seems to be an event someone else might have noted somewhere. Likewise, Jesus 40 days on earth, where He was still interacting with people close to Him. Also, raising Lazarus from the dead. My argument is that these things seem to have happened to people whose words, if they could even write, would not be taken seriously by the sorts of people who wrote histories that got preserved.

If there are other examples out there to refute that idea, I am open to read about them.

 

[Orchanian]

I am well aware of that evidence. All of it is after the fact, and by interested parties only. There is an absence of objective first hand testimony to the appearances after the crucifixion, the miracles(other than the Gospels) and the effect Jesus’ preaching had on the masses of crowds who came to hear him. I am not saying that that means it didn’t happen. I was trying to ask whether the question of scarce recorded objective testimony is relevant, in light of the fact that Jesus seemed to surround Himself with people who wouldn’t have written histories or had memoirs that would survive.

Obviously, to Christians, the answer is no. But to answer skeptics, a better argument needs to be made for why only Christians and their enemies recorded such information. I was wondering if a study exists out there somewhere of other men of antiquity who mostly interacted with the underclasses who were well documented in history. Excluding , of course, anyone who wound up leading an army or killing a king or something, for that would then count as a figure the elites would normally recognize.

I think that the testimony of enemies of Jesus would be most powerful. After all, if I dislike someone and want to discredit them, it’s unlikely that I would pass on false information that would lend them credibility. So the writings of Jews and Romans would be some of the most convincing evidence.

 

[HelenaMT]

I think that the testimony of enemies of Jesus would be most powerful. After all, if I dislike someone and want to discredit them, it’s unlikely that I would pass on false information that would lend them credibility. So the writings of Jews and Romans would be some of the most convincing evidence.

Thank you for responding, but I’m not sure you get my point. None of those writings attest to anything Jesus did or any miraculous or unusual events surrounding His life or resurrection. They only mention Christians. And Josephus mentions Christ but doesn’t say anything specific about His life or actions or impact on others. There is also speculation that some of that might have been altered by a later historian, I think Eusebius, but I might be wrong there.

 

[KyivAndrew]

I think you are looking for something that didn’t exist with respect to any person in the so-called ancient era, big or small. We have Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesars, and this is regarded as remarkable for its historical detail, but this was about the most powerful men in the world at the time. NO OTHER historical figure could count upon such a biography, EXCEPT Jesus Christ. People put the New Testament under such an incredible microscope, which they would never use in attesting to the veracity of works of other contemporary writers or people mentioned therein.

We have fragments of papyrus with the writings of the New Testament dating to around 100 A.D. We learn that Nero was already persecuting Christians for the fire in Rome in 64 A.D., and this community of Christians was already independently in existence (before Paul arrived there) within 20 years of Christ’s crucifixion. The Gospels can all be dated to being written within the time frame of witnesses to Jesus.

Christ also did not just walk among the poor; He had dealings with the rich and powerful: Pilate, Caiaphas, and members of the Sanhedrin. Can you find one biography written about either Pilate or Caiaphas, two powerful men -NO.

Can you find writings that attest to the lives or words of the teachings of other so-called god-like figures around the same time, like Mithras for instance. No. We don’t have the slightest idea.

One must remember that Rome thoroughly destroyed Judea twice in 70 and 132 A.D. Anything written then was bound to be lost. Even the Jews’ Mishnah was not written until 200 A.D. Simon Bar Kokhba, the leader of the 2nd Jewish revolt, whom Rabbi Akiva thought to be the Jewish Messiah, did not have materials written about him to the extent we have about Jesus.

No, of all the figures in the ancient world around this time, you will find the historical record very good with respect to Jesus. Unfortunately, try as you might, you will not find a journalistic article on him like one would in today’s world in Time magazine let’s say. You will not find that about anyone from that time, rich or poor.

God Bless.

 

[Mersenne]

The gospels are not known to be written by the apostles, and they are by no means a contemporary account. Also, I don’t know why just the “peasants” would be the only ones to notice the dead walking through the streets, as well as being something we could archeologically verify. Not to mention the slaughtering of all the infants in a large town, we could tell if that happened, especially sense we know where it supposedly occured.

As far as the Romans and the Jews, those accounts were either shown to be forged, or are only accounts of rumors. Many of the big Roman historians christians point out, 100 years after he was supposedly crucified, weren’t even aware that he was dead yet. These are no more then repeated rumors, the average urban legend has more “evidence” backing it up.

 

[KyivAndrew]

The gospels are not known to be written by the apostles, and they are by no means a contemporary account.

Would you care to prove that statement? Even liberal biblical scholars concede dating of the Gospels from 50 to 90 A.D. roughly, all within the time frame of witnesses to Jesus Christ.
Paul’s letters as well, by the information cited therein, show them to have been written roughly 50-60s A.D.
You are not going to get much more contemporary than that. We live in an information age, and I know its hard with the 24 hour news cycles for people to believe, hey that couldn’t have happened if I didn’t see it on CNN, but we are projecting our knowledge of coverage of events to an ancient world, a world in which Christians were persecuted viciously at that.

 

[HelenaMT]

The gospels are not known to be written by the apostles, and they are by no means a contemporary account. Also, I don’t know why just the “peasants” would be the only ones to notice the dead walking through the streets, as well as being something we could archeologically verify. Not to mention the slaughtering of all the infants in a large town, we could tell if that happened, especially sense we know where it supposedly occured.

As far as the Romans and the Jews, those accounts were either shown to be forged, or are only accounts of rumors. Many of the big Roman historians christians point out, 100 years after he was supposedly crucified, weren’t even aware that he was dead yet. These are no more then repeated rumors, the average urban legend has more “evidence” backing it up.

I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with what Roman historians were not aware of Jesus death until 100 years later. Can you fill me in? I look into all new information presented to me.

Also, I already addressed the fact that there is speculation that one of Josephus’ references might have been altered. (hence, the point of this thread-is there really a scarcity of evidence problem?)

The gospels are actually filled with enough details to accurately place them on solid footing as historical documents, even by many atheists, who simply discount the supernatural elements as embellishments.

The dates and authorship of the gospels are actually still being debated today, as far as I understand it. And as KyivAndrew pointed out in his post, many famous world leaders were not recorded in history by anything close to contemporaries.

As far as the dead walking through the streets being something that could be archaeologically verified, that’s doubtful. They would no longer be dead, and so I don’t know what evidence they would leave. And sure, maybe people other than “peasants” might have seen them and recognized them, but without Youtube or newspapers how could it have spread with any certainty? And once word left the local area, it would carry no more weight than any other fantastic story, in the absence of verifiable evidence. Which is actually the sort of the argument made by skeptics about Jesus.

As far as slaughtering all the infants in a large town, I may be wrong, but I believe it actually was a rather small town, and only first born sons. Probably not that big a slaughter for the age or place.

I am really only interested in finding out if there are any other men in Jesus’ position, poor, not from a ruling family, not a great military leader or notorious villain, not a prolific writer , etc. who have as much written about them that actually can be tied to a real time and place, as are the gospels.

 

[KyivAndrew]

I am really only interested in finding out if there are any other men in Jesus’ position, poor, not from a ruling family, not a great military leader or notorious villain, not a prolific writer , etc. who have as much written about them that actually can be tied to a real time and place, as are the gospels.

To my limited knowledge, No, I don’t think any other person in a “poor” position at that time has had anything remotely approaching in volume to what was written about Jesus. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Doxiemom]

I am of the opinion that the Shroud of Turin is the death shroud of Jesus. As for carbon dating, we can’t pin-point the age of the universe unless it is into trillions of billions of years or so, yet we are to believe the dating to the few “years” that the age of the shroud is supposed to be. Or not.

Anyways, the Shroud is the witness to the event that no person would be able to have seen. A picture of the impossible happening. It contains no human error of recall, no fantasy, just the perfect imprint by means unexplainable of everything that prophecy said would happen.

 

[Mersenne]

Would you care to prove that statement?

I’m not sure you understand burden of proof. If you’re saying they were written by the apostles, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate it. But you can’t, because even Christian scholars admit that they were not.

Even liberal biblical scholars concede dating of the Gospels from 50 to 90 A.D. roughly, all within the time frame of witnesses to Jesus Christ.

Not contemporary by any means. Besides, they were written in such a way as to preclude the possibility of them being eye witness accounts. They talk about Jesus’s birth and such, as well as account for private thoughts and things that happen in private. These are clearly second hand accounts.

Paul’s letters as well, by the information cited therein, show them to have been written roughly 50-60s A.D.

We’re talking about the gospels, but Paul certainly was not an eye witness.

You are not going to get much more contemporary than that.

Unless they were, say, actually contemporary, and not written decades after the event.

We live in an information age, and I know its hard with the 24 hour news cycles for people to believe, hey that couldn’t have happened if I didn’t see it on CNN, but we are projecting our knowledge of coverage of events to an ancient world, a world in which Christians were persecuted viciously at that.

I know this is hard to understand, but saying “it’s possible that the records were lost” is not the same as proving that it happened.

 

[HelenaMT]

I’m not sure you understand burden of proof. If you’re saying they were written by the apostles, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate it. But you can’t, because even Christian scholars admit that they were not.

Not contemporary by any means. Besides, they were written in such a way as to preclude the possibility of them being eye witness accounts. They talk about Jesus’s birth and such, as well as account for private thoughts and things that happen in private. These are clearly second hand accounts.

Any biography is going to have information that was obtained through third parties (else it would be an autobiography), so that isn’t really meaningful. And, yes, some of the “scenes” seem confusing as to point of view-who exactly was there to hear Pilate speaking to Jesus, who saw Jesus in the Garden if the apostles were all asleep, etc. But the existence of Jesus, where He went, what He taught, all seem historically probable to many serious non-partisan historians.

And as far as the burden of proof goes, if you’re here making claims one way or the other, it is considerate to back them up with some sort of references. If I went to an atheist site, I wouldn’t expect my assertions to go unchallenged.

I know this is hard to understand, but saying “it’s possible that the records were lost” is not the same as proving that it happened.

I don’t think anyone has made that claim. I would like to know what historians you referenced in your last post though.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Not contemporary by any means. Besides, they were written in such a way as to preclude the possibility of them being eye witness accounts. They talk about Jesus’s birth and such, as well as account for private thoughts and things that happen in private. These are clearly second hand accounts.
.

Well, what you have just said still leaves open the probability they were written from eye-witness accounts. The birth stories may be based on hearsay as the Gospels are not written as historical record per se, but as the Good News. On Jesus’ private conversations, i.e. with Pilate, the Eastern Orthodox Church recognizes Pilate’s wife, Claudia Procles, as a saint with a Feast Day. She was present at Christ before Pilate and urged Pilate not to proceed. She later became a Christian, and there is a tradition in the Western Church on this too I believe.

On Jesus before the Sanhedrin, and his private conversations, well, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were both part of the Sanhedrin.

For people like you, you will never believe, I think, unless someone can produce a full tape recording of all that Jesus said at the exact time he said it, witnessed by a notary.

Why do you think those first Apostles and Disciples were willing to suffer so much (Stephen, James) had they not either sincerely believed or saw first hand the Resurrected Christ. Would such men and women die in their hundreds willingly for a false hoax.

Read Anglican Bishop Tom Wright’s exegesis on the Resurrection and its veracity. He is a very well-regarded scholar world-over.
ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm

 

[KyivAndrew]

I am of the opinion that the Shroud of Turin is the death shroud of Jesus.

Hey Doxie, I think this thread may also make for some interesting reading on the Shroud if you want to check it out. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=352275&highlight=Shroud+of+Turin

 

[LilyM]

Put it this way - most anyone who was convinced enough that Jesus HAD risen from the dead and performed miracles to write about it would soon be a Christian, no? Making their sources Christian ones, essentially. Don’t forget Paul was persecuting Christians before his conversion - surely his testimony is somewhat disinterested at least.

And to those who weren’t convinced, He would’ve been another failed self-proclaimed charlatan messiah among the numerous others making the same claims (and probably also performing ‘miracles’) who were executed in 1st century Palestine. And His followers deemed doomed to fade into obscurity as theirs did.

The miracles of Jesus would’ve been explained away by non-believers as the empty tomb was in the Gospels. Why would He then receive more attention from non-Christians than these others?

Not to mention the high likelihood that, Christians being under persecution, nonbelievers would’ve been reluctant to write about His miracles for fear of being persecuted as closet Christians, or at least Christian sympathisers. A bit like writing about Communism in the days of the McCarthy witchhunt.

And quite possibly sympathetic writings that were produced were destroyed.

 

[Mersenne]

Also, I already addressed the fact that there is speculation that one of Josephus’ references might have been altered. (hence, the point of this thread-is there really a scarcity of evidence problem?)

It’s not speculation. Earlier copies did not have the line about Jesus in it, and the content of the statement makes it impossible to have come from him.

The gospels are actually filled with enough details to accurately place them on solid footing as historical documents, even by many atheists, who simply discount the supernatural elements as embellishments.

What do the amount of details have to do with it’s footing as a historical document? Many non-historical documents are detailed, and many have detailed accounts of real verifiable things mixed in with fiction or myth. There is nearly unanimous agreement among historians that not all the details in the gospels can be taken as historical fact.

The dates and authorship of the gospels are actually still being debated today, as far as I understand it.

quite right. So claiming they were definitely eye witness accounts is absurd.

And as KyivAndrew pointed out in his post, many famous world leaders were not recorded in history by anything close to contemporaries.

Whenever names like this are brought up, time and time again, when I look into it, the evidence for these people are overwhelmingly better than that of Christ. They may, in some circumstances, not have contemporary biographies about them that survived, but they often have other records and archeological evidence to back up their existence.

And I may have missed something, but I did not see him pointing out famous world leaders. I would say the evidence for Christ is perhaps around the same level as Socrates. He probably existed, we can’t be certain but it’s pretty well excepted as true, though we definitely cannot say a lot about his real beliefs and life. It’s important to note, however, that whether or not Socrates existed, or was just a sock puppet for Plato, is irrelevant to the ideas he pushed forward. For Christianity, the idea that he was a real person who really did everything that was claimed of him, even the supernatural claims, is paramount. And it should be noted that if Plato claimed Socrates could fly and shoot lightning bolts we would reject those claims out of hand. One would not even have to explain why. They would be obviously false, and we might wonder about anyone who would take such ridiculous claims seriously.

As far as the dead walking through the streets being something that could be archaeologically verified, that’s doubtful. They would no longer be dead, and so I don’t know what evidence they would leave.

We can tell where a 1 inch wide tent pole was stuck in the ground 4,000 years ago.

And sure, maybe people other than “peasants” might have seen them and recognized them, but without Youtube or newspapers how could it have spread with any certainty? And once word left the local area, it would carry no more weight than any other fantastic story, in the absence of verifiable evidence. Which is actually the sort of the argument made by skeptics about Jesus.

Perhaps, but that wasn’t what I was saying, I was just countering the claim that somehow only dirt farmers and peasants would somehow notice.

As far as slaughtering all the infants in a large town, I may be wrong, but I believe it actually was a rather small town, and only first born sons. Probably not that big a slaughter for the age or place.

All children under 3 years of age, not all first born, and it was everything in the town and the surrounding area, and I do not think it was sparsely populated. Even if it were, again, archeology is really good these days.

I am really only interested in finding out if there are any other men in Jesus’ position, poor, not from a ruling family, not a great military leader or notorious villain, not a prolific writer , etc. who have as much written about them that actually can be tied to a real time and place, as are the gospels.

He may not have been a villain or great military leader, but he was supposedly the starter of a giant cult, it is not surprising, whether he is fictional or not, that people would write about him 40 years after the fact. Many mythological figures have things written about them that can be tied to real times and places.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Just out of curiosity I’ll list just some of the books I’ve read to backup the Christian view.

Father Raymond Brown’s Introduction to the New Testament, expertly written and dealing with each of the works of the Bible. After a whole life of research, he didn’t find any remotely possible argument to be made that Jesus maybe didn’t exist or that all the writings were post hoc myths.

Ian Wilson Jesus: The Evidence

Luke Timothy Johnson The Real Jesus

E.P. Sanders The Historical Figure of Jesus

Bishop Tom Wright’s works which can be found at ntwrightpage.com/

These are just some among many by world respected scholars arguing about the existence of a real Historical man called Jesus who actually preached what we now believe to be his teachings.

In the interests of reciprocity, how deep is your research into apparent falseness of our view of Jesus. Mersenne, please state what actual non-fiction works you are relying upon to make your case. Have you read anything or is this intuition. Are you one of those Holy Blood, Holy Grail followers. Or have you merely read New Age works on Jesus. What exactly have you read to back up factually your claims?