Is Jesus Real?

During this time of the year we see the familiar sight of a nativity set. Maybe it is at a church, your house, or someone else's house, whatever the case we see the familiar picture of baby Jesus in a manager surrounded by people and animals. But have we stopped and asked: Is Jesus really real? Robert Price stated, "Everything we read about Jesus in the New Testament conforms to the mythic hero. There is nothing left over that indicates that he was a real figure." [1]In this blog we will briefly show that Jesus is in fact an historical person attested by both Christian and non-Christian writers throughout history.

Tacitus

In the first century there lived a Roman historican named Tacitus (55AD-120AD). He was known for being a great historian who made mention of Jesus in one of his writtings. Here is what he stated:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abomination, called Christians by the populace, Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome [2]

In the text Tacitus is explaining the origin of these group of people called Christians. They received their name "Christian" because they follow "Christus" (Christ). This "Christ" was put to death by extreme penalty [which would be understood as crucifixion] during the reign of Tiberius under the hand of Pontius Pilate. This is exactly what we find took place to Jesus recorded in the New Testament. What does this mean? There is a Roman Historian who confirms the historicity of Jesus. Just from this evidence we know: Christians get their name from him, killed by crucifixion during the reign of Tiberius, by the hand of Pilate.

Josephus

Another non-Christian historian that give evidence to the historicity of Jesus is a Jewish Historian by the name of Josephus. He lived from 36AD-100AD. Here is what he recorded.

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandoned his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.[3]

What do we see in this text? We see that there was a man named Jesus who drew many people to himself, both Jews and Gentiles. He was condemned to die by crucifixion under Pilate. Jesus' discipled claimed they saw him alive again three days later.

One might ask: Why is there not more detail given about the life of Jesus in these texts? In reference to the Tacitus text Robert Bowen states, "The text speaks of Christ in a way that perfectly reflects what one would expect from a pagan Roman historian." [4] In other words, there is just the right amount of detail that they would have written. These historian are not focused on writing a biography of Jesus they are writing history and they mention Jesus because he is historical.

Conclusion

What do we conclude from this? From these two text (and there are many other texts) we see that Jesus is in fact a historical person. Just from Josephus and Tacitus we can conclude that:

1) Jesus was a wise man,

2) He had both Jewish and Gentile followers

3) He was condemned to crucifixion under Pontius Pilate

4) This happened with Tiberius was reigning

5) Jesus' followers didn't abandoned him

6) They claimed Jesus rose from the dead three days later

7) The Christian movement gets their name from this "Christ".

Therefore one can concluded with a great deal of confidence that Jesus is a historical person who lived 2000 years ago. Professor Casey Elledge concludes, “The testimonies of ancient historians offer strong evidence against a purely mythical reading of Jesus…it remains difficult, therefore, if not impossible, to deny the historical evidence of Jesus when the earliest Christians, Jewish and pagan evidence mention him.”

This Christmas as you see the manager scene or hear the Christmas event recorded in the Bible know that it is not speaking of some "myth" or "nice story" but rather recording the event of the birth of Jesus. Jesus is not some "made up" character but a real historical person. Since he is real, what he said and did matters. We will look at that on another blog.

[1]John Blake, “Decoding Jesus: Separating man from Myth”, Cable News Network. March 7, 2017. https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/living/jesus-debate-man-versus-myth/index.html.

[2]Tacitus, Annals, Book XV, The Internet Classics Archives, Translated by John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. Accessed September 2018. http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html.

[3] James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (SPCK Publishing, March 30, 1989), 95, as cited in Gary Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 193-194.

[4]Robert M. Bowman Jr, “Tacitus, Suetonius, and the Historical Jesus,” Institute for Religious Research, February 20,2017, http://bib.irr.org/tacitus-suetonius-and-historical-jesus.