Questions of God No. 1 – Jesus wasn’t actually a real person was he?
April 13th 2009 12:34 am
I thought I would start this series with a question about Jesus. This bloke that supposedly lived (and died) 2000 years ago, did he actually exist or is he just aanother character in this book called the Bible?
When I was an athiest I thought that the Bible was a fictional book full of myths and fables and this Jesus that everyone keeps going on about was just a character in one of the stories. So it came as quiet a surprise to me when I later discovered that actually no serious historian actually doubts that he was a real man that was crucified by Pilate 2000 years ago!
So what is the evidence for this? First off there is the Jewish historian Josephus. This man was a Godly man but not a follower of Christ. However, in one of his most famous passages from The Antiquities (A.D. 93) he describes Jesus as “a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man” who was crucified and who “on the third day he appeared [to those who loved him] restored to life”. To be fair, the authenticity of some of the more supernatural references in this passage are disputed by scholars but nobody doubts that the man Josephus was writing about was Jesus.
In A.D. 115, Tacitus (the most important Roman historian of the first century) wrote about how emperor Nero had persecuted the Christians as a scapegoat. Tacitus had referred to them as followers of the Christ who had “suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurator, Pontius Pilatus”. So while this passage does not refer to Jesus by name, it does refer to a man who was crucified by Pontius Pilate, from whom a the religious movement of “Christians” was borne.
On top of these there are also references to Jesus by Pliny the Younger and Suetonius, two more Roman historians.
The fact that authors and historians that were outside of Christianity confirm that Jesus was a real man that did exist and was crucified like the Bible says was really important to me. It meant that the option of him being a totally made up character was no longer an option and what that left me was to decide who he was instead.
If you want to know more why not read these Wikipedia articles: Josephus on Jesus and Tacitus on Jesus. Or if you would rather read a book written by a respected author I highly recommend The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
Or if you would rather have the opportunity to discuss this with people why not find a local Alpha Course to go on where you can debate your issues with real people who probably have the exact same questions as you!