Tag Archives: Edwin Yamauchi

Did Ancient Non-Christians Write about Jesus? Part 1 – #4 Post of 2010

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Recently I was in a discussion with a skeptic of Christianity, a man who had been Roman Catholic for 55 years, and then decided that he couldn’t believe Christianity any longer.  During our conversation, he asked what historical evidence I could provide that Christianity was true, so I immediately went into the material in the New Testament.  After listening to me for a few minutes, he told me that all of that material was mythical and legendary, and he wanted to know if I had anything outside of the New Testament.

Now, this is like saying, “Aside from your multiple eyewitnesses, do you have any good evidence?”  But nonetheless, I started to provide non-Christian sources that mention Jesus, only to be stopped cold.  He claimed that there was no extra-biblical, non-Christian evidence of Jesus’ existence in the first two centuries, and that he, in fact, doubted that Jesus ever existed.

I’ve spoken to many skeptics over the years and I have heard a few of them take this position, but it is rare.  From what I know, there are virtually no reputable historians who deny the existence of Jesus.  According to historian Edwin Yamauchi, the idea that Jesus never existed is indeed extreme.  “From time to time some people have tried to deny the existence of Jesus, but this is really a lost cause.  There is overwhelming evidence that Jesus did exist.”  But rather than just make that assertion, what is some of that evidence?

During my conversation, I mentioned the Jewish historian Josephus as one important example of non-Christian evidence, but my skeptical friend confidently told me that Josephus never mentioned Jesus.  Let’s take a look.

Josephus was a very important Jewish historian, born in A.D. 37, who wrote most of his four works toward the end of the first century.  Yamauchi explains, “His most ambitious work was called The Antiquities, which was a history of the Jewish people from creation until his time.  He completed it in about A.D. 93.”   Josephus writes about James, the brother of Jesus, and Jesus himself in The Antiquities.

In the first mention, Josephus recounts how a high priest, Ananias, takes advantage of the death of the Roman governor, Festus (also mentioned in the New Testament), to have James, the brother of Jesus killed.  With the previous governor dead, and the new one not yet arrived, Ananias could take the law into his own hands.

Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them a man whose name was James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

Here we have Josephus mentioning Jesus, James, and Festus, all New Testament characters.  We also have corroboration that some people were referring to Jesus as the Christ, which means Messiah, in the first century.  Yamauchi claims that no scholar “has successfully disputed this passage.”  Bottom line: my skeptical friend was mistaken.

There is more from Josephus, plus other ancient sources, and we’ll continue to deal with them in subsequent posts.  Make sure you come back!

 

Did Ancient Non-Christians Write about Jesus? Part 3

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In parts one and two of this series of posts, we discussed the writings of Josephus and we saw that most historians agree that Josephus did indeed write about Jesus, even if Christians may have added a few phrases later on (this is still debatable, but possible).

There are, however, others who wrote about Jesus at a very early date.  The next of these we’ll mention is the Roman historian Tacitus.  Edwin Yamauchi, the historian we’ve been quoting, has this to say about Tacitus: “Tacitus recorded what is probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament.  In A.D. 115 he explicitly states that Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devastated Rome in A.D. 64.”

So what exactly did Tacitus say about Christians and Jesus?

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures of a class hated for their abominations, 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 Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. [Annals 15.44]

Tacitus, as can be seen, is no fan of Christianity, but he provides several details about Jesus and early Christians.  Here they are:

  1. Christians were named for their founder, Christus (Latin for Christ).
  2. Christus was put to death by a Roman procurator, Pontius Pilatus (again Latin).
  3. Christus was executed while Tiberius was emperor (AD 14-37) .
  4. His death ended a “superstition” for a time but it broke out again in Judea (where the teaching originated), and made its way to Rome.
  5. Christians were hated and tortured during Nero’s reign.

Again, we see that this data lines up well with the New Testament documents, and again we see that those who deny that Jesus ever existed are swimming upstream against the current of scholarship.

One additional note about Tacitus.  There has been much speculation that the “superstition” to which Tacitus refers is the resurrection of Jesus.  We can’t be sure about this, but Tacitus may be indirectly referring to it.

Tacitus’ testimony about Jesus raises an important question.  How did a swelling religious movement, which started at the far reaches of the Roman empire (in Judea) but reached Rome by the mid 60’s A.D., get started when its leader was subjected to one of the most humiliating and public deaths possible at this time?  Jesus was crucified as a common criminal, but people were following him.  If he was resurrected, then there would be an easy explanation, but if he stayed in the tomb, then how did this movement even get off the ground?  I have never heard a satisfactory answer to that question from those who deny the resurrection.

There is one more non-Christian I want to introduce to you, and I’ll do that in the next post.  Thank you for sticking with this series, which has gone on longer than I originally thought!

Did Ancient Non-Christians Write about Jesus? Part 2

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1, we introduced the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus and demonstrated that he mentioned Jesus and his brother James in one section of his work, The Antiquities.

But there is an even more famous passage that talks about Jesus in The Antiquities.  This longer section is referred to as the Testimonium Flavianum.  Historian Edwin Yamauchi explains that this passage is more controversial among historians because there may be later Christian additions to the original text.  Historians refer to these possible additions as interpolations.  Below I will include the entire text and highlight in bold the most disputed phrases.

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.  For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.  He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.  He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him, did not give up their affection for him.  On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.  And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

Yamauchi claims that “today there is a remarkable consensus among both Jewish and Christian scholars that the passage as a whole is authentic.”  But what about the possible interpolations (the bold text above)?  Why do some scholars think Josephus would not have said these things?

The first bold phrase appears to indicate Jesus is more than human, which seems unlikely coming from Josephus.  The second bold phrase flatly says that Jesus is the Messiah, instead of saying Jesus was called the Messiah.  Again, this seems unlikely.  Finally, the third alleged interpolation proclaims the resurrection of Jesus, not something that Josephus would likely report.  We can’t be sure about any of these phrases, and maybe Josephus did write them, but the current scholarly opinion is mixed on the subject.

What is left of the passage, though, is still a powerful corroboration of key facts about Jesus.  Yamauchi summarizes: “He was the martyred leader of the church in Jerusalem and . . . he was a wise teacher who had established a wide and lasting following, despite the fact that he had been crucified under Pilate at the instigation of some of the Jewish leaders.”  Those facts line up exactly with what the New Testament records about Jesus.

Given these two passages from Josephus, how significant are they?  Yamauchi explains: “Highly significant, especially since his accounts of the Jewish War have proved to be very accurate; for example, they’ve been corroborated through archaeological excavations at Masada as well as by historians like Tacitus.  He’s considered to be a pretty reliable historian, and his mentioning of Jesus is considered extremely important.”

So, we do have at least one non-Christian source that talks about Jesus from the first century in Josephus.  But there are additional sources that should be mentioned before we leave this topic.  Find out in the next post….