Much has been made of the phrase "Jesus of history." Many liberal theologians have attempted to argue the Jesus of the Bible is different from the Jesus of history. They most often do this by appealing to the Gnostic Gospels and the version of Jesus they present.
That was always struck me as strange. Why would they use documents written hundreds of years after Jesus lived and died to refute documents that were written within decades of His life, if they were truly concerned with an accurate historical presentation of Jesus?
At this point, those skeptical of the Christian claims of Jesus will point out, "I do not believe any of those descriptions of Jesus since they were written with a religious bias." What would the picture of Jesus be if we simply examined the historical, non-Christian records?
When we piece together the 10 non-Christian references to Jesus within 150 years of his life, from sources such as Josephus, Celsus, Tacitus and the Jewish Talmud, we find a very distinct portrait of Jesus. [Perhaps surprisingly, those 10 mentions are more than the non-Christian sources who mention Tiberius, the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus.]
From the sources which would be arguably biased against Christianity, we find these facts about Jesus:
1. He lived during the time of Tiberius Caesar.
2. He lived a virtuous life.
3. He was a wonder-worker.
4. He had a brother named James.
5. He was acclaimed to be the Messiah.
6. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
7. He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover.
8. Darkness and an earthquake occurred when he died.
9. His disciples believed he rose from the dead.
10. His disciples were willing to die for their belief.
11. Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome.
12. His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God.
Which picture does this more resemble, the ideas of the Gnostics and their liberal supporters or the Jesus shown in the New Testament? What does it say that the historical documents outside of Christianity give a very similar picture of Jesus to the New Testament?
All of those are hearsay accounts written generations after Jesus's alleged death.
No contemporaneous evidence of Jesus within his lifetime has been found, not for lack of looking.
It is possible there might have been an itinerant rabbi named Yeshua (a common enough name) around at the time around whom the legends arose, but there's no evidence to confirm he ever existed, and it's quite possible that there was no man behind the myths at all.
If there is a man behind the myths, he didn't come from Nazareth, since according to archeological evidence, the village of Nazareth didn't even exist during the 1st century.
Your points do not address my post, as you must have assumed I was speaking of the New Testament Gospels (but even those do not match the characterizations you give).
Why would non and even anti-Christian sources speak of Jesus as being a historical fact, if that was not the case?
It is historical idiocy to deny that Jesus lived when more sources wrote about his life, even though he was a traveling rabbi in a small corner of the Roman Empire, than the Roman emperor during his life.
There is much evidence to affirm Jesus' existence and his life. The existence of followers of his claiming he rose from the dead with in only a few years of his death is plenty of evidence. Roman letters from leader to leader speak of Christians meeting together and proclaiming Christ as rising from the dead and being God, all within only a few decades of Jesus' life.
Also, your data on Nazareth is almost a decade old. Archeology never said that Nazareth did not exist. There was only a lack of evidence that it did. There is a difference. But today, there is evidence in support of the town existing during Jesus' time. There has been a bath house discovered that many of the archeologists have dated back to the time of Jesus. But even prior to that, pottery shards were found and farms were discovered that date back to before the time of Jesus and after his time.
Actually, Jesus is about as historical as Achilles. Maybe there was a figure that the legends are based off of but no one seriously takes the legends themselves as being historical except Christians.
Aaron, I recommend that you read, "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ" by Philip Pullman.
Check this out…
Philip Pullman answers a question on the shocking title of his new book.
Richard, I'm not sure how much evidence you need for the town of Nazareth existence during the time of Jesus. If you place the same standard of proof on other issues in history, you would eliminate much of our pre-modern history.
None of the sources, including the NT, claim that Nazareth was a huge metro area. It was more likely than not a small village. Last year, a house from the time of Jesus was uncovered in Nazareth.
I'm also not sure how much evidence of Jesus' life you expect to find, outside of the written sources both Christian and non which mention him. He lived, as you said, as an itinerant rabbi. We have no record of him writing anything. There is the issue of the Christians claiming no body will be discovered. The only evidence we could ever hope for with someone like Jesus would be written records and we have that over and beyond the norm.
Cin, you are barking up the wrong tree with that video. I have no problem with Pullman publishing whatever he would like. I've routinely criticized Christians for their reaction (ie over-reaction) to books or movies that purport to give a different view of Jesus.
With that being said, I'm not sure why Pullman writing a fictional biography about Jesus is that noteworthy. If it causes an interest in the historicity of Jesus & Christianity, I'm all for it. I'd love to discuss any of the claims he makes in the book. I'd have no problem reading & reviewing the book.
Hm, the text of my previous post in this thread has vanished.
“Many of the archeologists” is an exaggeration of “Richard Freund”, who stated his unsupported belief that a bath house Elias Shama found under his souvenir shop dated to the time of Jesus. Three charcoal samples were dated, indicating it was used as far back as 1300-1400 CE.
You seem to be referring to pottery shards found at the Nazareth Village Farm, which the Israel Antiquities Authority dated to the Late Roman period (2nd–4th centuries CE). After, not before, the time of Jesus.
The primary report on this excavation, by the Israel Antiquities Authority, also dates this structure to the Late Roman period.
Like Richard Freund with the bath house, Yardenna Alexandre stated an unsupported belief that this structure dated to the time of Jesus, which was uncritically reported by various news organizations. MSNBC also reported:
Which is why some archeologists are eager to find something, anything, in Nazareth from the “time of Jesus”. So far, reality has not obliged.