6: The Existence of Jesus

6: The Existence of Jesus

6

The Existence of Jesus

Before entertaining any possibility of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, it would be helpful to inquire regarding the historical basis for Jesus’s existence. If the canonical New Testament as well as the earliest Christian, postapostolic writings were exempted from this study, would there still remain a sufficient quantity and quality of ancient non-Christian sources that witness to events from Jesus’s life, death, and possibly even his resurrection to ascertain his existence? Of course the canonical and postapostolic sources count as well, and most of this extended study is concerned with those texts. But can the non-Christian texts be enough to do the job?

In this chapter the “mythicist” debate in general will be introduced, zeroing in on some of the reasons why this discussion is almost always considered to be a dead end for the vast majority of specialists and other scholars trained in these areas.1 Next, some of the ancient non-Christian texts that are most widely respected by critical scholars will be reviewed. The heart of the chapter concerns the ancient historians, government officials, other Jewish and Gentile sources, the earliest gnostic sources,2 lost works, and some archaeological artifacts that potentially mention Jesus.

It should be noted carefully that this chapter is merely introductory. Other volumes carry out more detailed overviews containing more specific investigation of these matters.3 The overall idea here for a preliminary treatment is that, as prolegomena to a specific study of Jesus’s death and claims concerning his resurrection, some of these more initial matters (especially the more minor sources on the periphery), are not quite as crucial to our overall agenda.

The Jesus Mythicists

Even before the nineteenth-century German liberal scholars that we discussed earlier, other writers who were frequently untrained in relevant fields were nonetheless hypercritical of historical Jesus studies, whether they were liberal or conservative efforts, and attempted to attack almost any positive treatments. The English deists were good examples, as most scholarly volumes on this ill-fated movement will point out. Frequently despising the members of the clergy and especially doctrines such as sin, they were among the first bands of often angry-sounding and strident assailants of claims that Christianity was reasonable. As historian Peter Gay asserts, they sometimes went “beyond the bounds of common sense and good taste.”4 Although the vast majority of these amateur skeptics did not deny Jesus’s historical existence, they could nonetheless be quite radical.5

Albert Schweitzer remarked that among these early writers were “a few im-perfectly equipped free-lances” who attacked the views of others. However, when they could not find evidence for the position they wanted to argue, that was not a problem because “they had to supply it for themselves”—in other words, they invented “fiction”!6 A few decades later, the very skeptical German New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann commented, “By no means are we at the mercy of those who doubt or deny that Jesus ever lived.”7 In general, strong comments such as these on the untrained, unbridled writers have been common fare, whether the critiques came from liberal or conservative scholars.

For the last few decades of the twentieth century, critical scholars virtually ignored those popular writers who doubted severely or even denied that Jesus ever lived in history. However, of late, the shrill has grown considerably, perhaps even multiplying. This is largely due to the emergence of the Internet, the proliferation of blogs, as well as other electronic means, such as comments on conservative articles and blogs. Quite often appearing angry and even enraged, loaded with acidic language (which nonscholarly, especially conservative respondents are also fully capable of thus showcasing themselves), these arguments usually miss the mark by a mile, frequently built up by repetitions of old, tired statements that seem to appeal to no one but themselves. Yet they often engender hearty guffaws and other accolades from their like-minded comrades.

These nonspecialist, skeptical views have increased in popularity over the past few decades to the extent where, quite surprisingly, several prominent critical scholars have now reacted sternly to these “mythicists” as they have come to be called. Probably the most prominent responses have been written by two agnostic New Testament scholars, Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey. Both men testify that they are definitely non-Christians.8 Yet, their critiques of the mythicists are often withering, pointing out repeatedly where and why they have failed strictly on historical grounds. In return, they too have been subjected to unscholarly derision.

For Ehrman and the majority of critical scholars, the first problem is that mythicist writers are for the most part not scholars. After describing several of the better-known mythicists like Robert Price, Richard Carrier, G. A. Wells, Earl Doherty, and Frank Zindler, along with a few others, Ehrman remarks that only Price and Carrier are well trained in a relevant field.9 Even so, “of the thousands of scholars of early Christianity” who teach at major or minor accredited colleges, universities, and seminaries, “none of them, to my knowledge, has any doubts that Jesus existed.”10

Second, Ehrman asserts that most of their arguments are very poorly constructed, reasoned, and supported. After complimenting a couple of authors that he considers to be better than the others, Ehrman adds, “A number of other mythicists, however, do not offer anything resembling scholarship.” To the contrary, their views are often “sensationalist . . . so extravagant, so wrongheaded, and so poorly substantiated that it is no wonder that scholars do not take them seriously.”11

Quite humorously, Ehrman also notes what he considers another egregious problem. As expediency would have it, mythicists frequently like to whisk away with a wave of their hand some especially tough New Testament passages for them to explain, calling them interpolations. Ehrman refers to this repeated move as “the principle of convenience” and the “scholarship of convenience”! Making this even more ludicrous is that these arbitrary moves are made both without any evidence as well as against the strong evidence for the authenticity of the words usually deleted by the mythicists. Hence, Ehrman’s charge here encourages a smile.12

In sum, Ehrman attests, “It is fair to say that mythicists as a group, and as individuals, are not taken seriously by the vast majority of scholars in the fields of New Testament, early Christianity, ancient history, and theology. This is widely recognized, to their chagrin, by mythicists themselves.”13 Then Ehrman follows up: “Established scholars continue to be dismissive,”14 adding that “as I’ve repeatedly indicated, the mythicist view does not have a foothold, or even a toehold, among critical scholars of the Bible.”15

Maurice Casey’s book is more technical than Ehrman’s, and it also adds much more invective to his treatment of the mythicists. Similarly, he also provides an overview of about a dozen mythicists.16 He likewise finds that although a number of the mythicists claim to be scholars, their writings clearly indicate that this is untrue and, even with the best known ones, he said, “I would question their competence and qualifications.”17 Here are some major examples of better-known mythicists: Earl Doherty exhibits an “inability to read texts correctly.”18 While Carrier and Price possess good, scholarly credentials, Carrier exhibits too much unscholarly verbiage, while Price expresses “opinions which I consider to be utter falsehoods.”19

But Casey holds that there are a plethora of other serious problems among these mythicist writers and bloggers. Chief among them might be their altering of data (or, as Ehrman states, their constant proposals of textual interpolations) and, in at least one instance, their arguing a case “with confidence, regardless of whether it is correct or not.”20

Continuing Casey’s attack, the mythicists’ historical approaches and misunderstandings of serious research methods are appalling. They report and twist information to fit their agendas, such as arguing that Gnosticism was earlier than orthodox New Testament interpretation, or by “ludicrously” late dating the Gospels to accommodate their private assumptions. In these matters, they repeatedly misread and misinterpret ancient texts, as well as lack both background knowledge along with any sense of historical reality. All told, the mythicist writers are quite often proclaimed by Casey to be almost totally misleading, such that at least a few ought to admit they are simply writing fiction!21

More mythicist errors include often totally misapprehending what scholars are arguing and using grossly outdated and unscholarly works for some of their conclusions while not documenting many of their other sources, references, or reasons. Still more problems involve citing parallels that are not at all forerunners, citing a view out-of-context because it obviously appeals to them, misrepresenting scholarly views, and thinking that their comments stand by mere assertion alone.22 Moreover, the mythicist positions are often championed by “many blogs” that “are ignorant, opinionated, rude and malicious.”23

For Casey, the most aggravating tendency is the exceptionally common propensity for mythicists to take the absence of historical information that they deem should be present in New Testament texts, like Paul’s Epistles, and then argue that this deficiency indicates Paul was unaware of or did not care about such historical facts. Somehow, in the end, conclusions such as these are construed as Jesus not even existing at all! Moreover, Paul’s very existence is also questioned.24

Another of Casey’s more intriguing charges is that many mythicists argue the way they do because they were formerly fundamentalist Protestants or Catholics who have now abandoned their earlier faith.25 Nathan LaMontagne thinks that this may be Casey’s “most insightful conclusion.”26 Of course, the knife cuts both ways on this criticism too: being former fundamentalist Christians is definitely not a hard-and-fast rule for the mythicists as a group, for whom much of the rigidity, ungrounded conclusions, and anger are found in current practitioners who were never former Christians. It could well be deeper than prior religious beliefs, as in personality factors for example.

At any rate, Casey concludes his critique this way:

I therefore conclude that the mythicist arguments are completely spurious from beginning to end. They have been mainly put forward by incompetent and unqualified people. Most of them are former fundamentalist Christians who were not properly aware of critical scholarship then, and after conversion to atheism, are not properly aware of critical scholarship now. They frequently confuse any New Testament scholarship with Christian fundamentalism.27

Some of Casey’s reviewers wonder if he would have been even more successful in this volume if he would have avoided all the vitriol.28 Others conclude that nothing Casey alleged in a well-argued volume will affect the mythicists anyway. For Nathan LaMontagne, perhaps this lack of change is due to the mythicists’ desire “to provoke arguments and attract attention.”29

Of course, Ehrman and Casey are not the only critical scholars who have criticized contemporary mythicists. But much of the credibility of these two authors is derived from their status as agnostic non-Christians who specialize in New Testament studies. When Van Voorst’s detailed volume Jesus outside the New Testament was published in 2000, many fewer detailed critiques of the mythicists were available. Early in his text he begins with a section titled “Did Jesus Really Exist?” where he notes that “some readers may be surprised or shocked” to find that more than one hundred books and essays “in the past two hundred years have fervently denied the very existence of Jesus.”30 This potential shock may seem like a drop in the bucket today if we were to count Internet sources such as blogs, which Van Voorst had already noted.31

Then, after a survey of relevant radical writings back to the Enlightenment,32 Van Voorst briefly levels seven main critiques at the mythicists. Sounding much like Ehrman and Casey, he mentions the tendency to take silence in the New Testament Epistles as lack of knowledge of the historical Jesus, late dating the Gospels, and pointing out that the existence of difficult questions does not “prove nonexistence.” Further, no first- or second-century pagans or Jews ever questioned Jesus’s existence; thus, these skeptics are far too critical concerning at least the strongest of the pagan references to the historical Jesus, along with the presence of deeper, “highly tendentious, anti-religious” views on their part. Finally, Van Voorst asserts that the mythicists ignore other, far better evidenced options, especially when their own theses so frequently “have little independent corroborative evidence.”33

In 2009, a rare five-way dialogue on the historical Jesus was published.34 For our purposes in this section, it is the interaction with mythicist Bob Price that is the most revealing regarding not only how others responded to him but also their view toward mythicist scholars in general. Intriguingly, a fair amount of animosity was expressed toward Price in this dialogue beyond what is commonly seen among critical scholars.35

Bob Price identifies his position this way: “I will argue that it is quite likely there never was any historical Jesus.” Speaking positively of the “Christ of faith,” he states further, “I think it most probable that there was never any other.”36 He begins by defending the principle of analogy and then provides a brief history of several key aspects of the Christ-myth thesis, including the mention of dying and rising gods and mythic hero accounts in the ancient world. Then he concludes his initial essay with the words “But I should think the burden of proof lies with the one who would affirm such a [historical] Jesus.”37

In response, skeptical scholar John Dominic Crossan asserts that even if some of Price’s charges were true, it does not follow that Jesus never lived. Further, against Price’s suggestion that there are parallels between the ancient dying and rising gods and the story of Jesus, Crossan retorts that these alternate accounts have “nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus—at least not for Paul.”38

Luke Timothy Johnson begins his response to Price with this accusation: “Robert M. Price gets Jesus to the vanishing point by the simple expedient of denying all the evidence that makes him visible.” Thus, “the burden of proof has been met well enough . . . to counter Price’s own act of historical prestidigitation.” Johnson’s chief idea here is that there is plenty of evidence to establish the historicity of Jesus, but rather than dealing with it, Price merely whisks it away.39

James D. G. Dunn begins in an even more direct and forceful manner: “Gosh! So there are still serious scholars who put forward the view that the whole account of Jesus’s doings and teachings are a later myth foisted on an unknown, obscure historical figure.” Then he adds, “Price is content with the explanation that it all began ‘with a more or less vague savior myth.’ Sad, really.”40

The chief problem, according to Dunn, is that Price and other mythicists are “ignoring what everyone else in the business regards as primary data” to choose “less plausible hypotheses to explain other data that inconveniences his thesis.” Here Dunn mentions 1 Cor 15:3 along with Gal 1:19 as going back “within two or three years of the putative events.” But choosing these lesser views devalues the remainder of Price’s arguments. Dunn ends with a last jab at Price: if his effort signals “the state of health of the Jesus-myth thesis, I can’t see much life in it. His thesis would be better retitled ‘The Jesus Myth—a Thesis at Vanishing Point.’”41

Lastly, Darrell Bock mentions historical challenges for Price to explain, such as the early resurrection tradition in 1 Corinthians 15, the existence of Jesus’s brother James, and the New Testament Epistles all pointing to Jesus’s very recent life, along with the lack of any parallels from the dying and rising gods or the hero archetypes as examples of some serious issues that plague the mythicist’s position.42

Besides this important dialogue edited by Beilby and Eddy, other direct encounters and dialogues between mythicists and New Testament scholars have also occurred, often through the writing of blogs and subsequent comments. However, it appears that the majority of these more spirited replies usually emanate from the mythicists, who sometimes respond aggressively and in larger numbers to their usually much more scholarly accusers as the former utilize their favorite genre of the Internet!43

The final and most crucial matter of all in terms of this chapter also needs to be emphasized briefly. For all the many apparent shortcomings of the mythicist writers, the chief issue concerns whether Jesus actually walked and talked in time-space history. If he did, then it should be rather obvious that anyone who states or thinks otherwise is simply mistaken. Similarly, for those who think that while Jesus may actually have lived, we either cannot be sure or can only know very little about him, it is also the case that determining a larger amount of data regarding the historical Jesus would show otherwise in these instances as well. So the issue of there being more generally known historical facts about Jesus dominates the majority of this chapter and, to some extent, the remainder of this book too. So, did Jesus exist as a historical figure?

Non-Christian Sources for Jesus

Critical scholars often elevate and especially recognize the historicity of two ancient non-Christian sources concerning Jesus and early Christianity: the Jewish-turned-Roman historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus. The wide recognition and approval for these two historians among critical scholars is outstanding.44 As Craig Evans notes, Josephus is crucial because “he is an early and geographically proximate witness.”45 Other ancient writers are also accepted by many of these same critical scholars.46

What can we learn from non-Christian (largely secular) sources regarding details of the life and death of Jesus? Do any of these non-Christian texts mention supernatural items, such as Jesus’s deity, miracles, or his resurrection appearances? Is additional information provided pertaining to the early Christian movement? There are numerous ancient, non-Christian sources dating roughly from the crucifixion until approximately 150 years after Jesus’s death. There is no magical stopping point after which sources are no longer credible, though this still would be a decent time span for the ancient world.47 We will move, successively, from ancient historians to government officials, other Jewish and Gentile sources, early gnostic sources, and then lost works that speak of Jesus.

Historians

Tacitus

Cornelius Tacitus (ca. AD 55–120) was a Roman historian who lived during the reigns of ten different Roman emperors. He has been called the “greatest historian” of ancient Rome, an individual generally acknowledged among scholars for his moral “integrity and essential goodness.”48 Tacitus is best known for two major works—the Annals and the Histories. The former is thought to have included eighteen books and the latter twelve, for a total of thirty books.49 The Annals cover the period from Augustus’s death in AD 14 to Nero’s death in AD 68, while the Histories begin after Nero’s death and proceed to that of Domitian in AD 96.

Tacitus recorded at least one reference to Christ and two to early Christianity, one in each of his major works. The most important is in the Annals, which were written about AD 115–120, and it recounts the great fire in Rome during the reign of Nero:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on 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 Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed. (Ann. 15.44)50

In this important account, Tacitus reports or implies several items concerning Christ and the Christians living in Rome in the 60s. Chronologically, we learn the following information: Christians were named after their founder, Christus (from the Latin),51 who was put to death by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilatus (also from the Latin) during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (AD 14–37). Christ’s death put an end to this “most mischievous superstition” for a brief time, but then it broke out anew, especially in Judea, where the teaching had originated.

Further, Christus’s followers carried his doctrine to Rome. When the great fire destroyed a large part of the city during the reign of Nero (AD 54–68), the emperor placed the blame on the Christians who lived in the city. Tacitus reports that this group was hated for their abominations. These Christians were arrested after pleading guilty, and many were convicted and blamed with “hatred for mankind.” They were mocked and tortured, including being “nailed to crosses,” burnt to death, or killed by animals. Due to these atrocities perpetrated against them, the Roman populace actually developed compassion for the Christians, as per Tacitus’s observation that, rather than furthering the common public good, these horrific punishments were done simply “to glut one man’s cruelty.”

Several of these items are of interest. Ancient classical and later New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce notes that Tacitus had to receive his information from some source(s), which may have included a formal Roman record to which Tacitus had access because of his “official standing” with the Roman government. It may even have been contained in one of Pilate’s reports to the emperor.52 While this of course could be true, the source(s) could also have been text that would today be considered much less spectacular! It is almost sheer speculation to hypothesize any particular conclusions regarding the specific nature of Tacitus’s source(s). However, a couple of early writers do claim to know the contents of such a Roman report, as will be noted below.

Even mythicist G. A. Wells acknowledges that if Tacitus had obtained his information from Roman records of Jesus’s crucifixion, then this would be “of great value.”53 Yet, Wells argues that Tacitus’s material is not independent but derived from Christian testimony.54 This latter comment also appears to be a difficult argument to establish, since Tacitus’s material in Ann. 15.44 plainly mentions items found nowhere in either the New Testament or demonstrably earlier Christian material. Further, it appears that there is a bit of a conceptual problem here. Even if some of Tacitus’s research consisted of interviews with believers, how would that prove that it was not independent or even objective for that matter?55

What of the potentially independent comments? This could include matters like Nero blaming the great fire in Rome on the Christians, that these believers were despised in the city of Rome, or that they were punished severely by Nero, including being torn apart by dogs, set on fire to become human torches, and being nailed to crosses. Even Tacitus’s follow-up comment that the Roman views toward Christians changed as they witnessed these atrocities being done to people on account of Nero’s sadistic urges is an intriguing conclusion to his report. Just because we do not know where Tacitus obtained this material, it does not follow automatically that it was either not derived independently or that it is of little value.

Also of interest is the historical context for Jesus’s death being linked specifically to both Pilate and Tiberius. J. N. D. Anderson wonders about a possible implication drawn from Tacitus’s comment concerning the message of Jesus’s resurrection. It could be the case that when Tacitus adds that the Judean superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out again afterward, the Roman historian could potentially be bearing indirect testimony to the early report that the Christ who had been crucified had afterwards been proclaimed to have risen from the grave and appeared to his followers.56 Of course, this is at best a slight hint and there is no way to know of it for sure.

A few relevant sidenotes concern the mode of torture employed against some of these early Christians. Besides burning and being attacked by animals, Tacitus relates that a number of believers were crucified by being “nailed to crosses.” Not only was this the same method that had been imposed by the Romans on Jesus, but tradition reports that Nero was also responsible for crucifying the apostle Peter as well, though upside down. Even the specific use of nails on these Christians is a significant Roman reference to the predominant means of crucifying its victims and may even have been done as a parody of Jesus’s death.57 The ensuing compassion aroused in the Roman people who saw this wanton slaughter is also noteworthy.

It is commonly thought that a second relevant statement made by Tacitus is preserved in a summary or recounting of an original text from Tacitus’s Histories (probably from book 5). Although presently lost (as is much of the Histories), the portion is mentioned in church historian Sulpicius Severus’s Chronicles, written approximately AD 400–403. Severus comments on the fall of Jerusalem along with the destruction of the Jewish temple by the Roman army during the Jewish War with Rome (AD 66–73).

While Tacitus’s original words may be lost, Severus’s work informs us that the Pharisees defended the temple “most boldly” until it fell, recounting that many Jewish defenders died in the effort. But the Roman commander Titus thought that, by destroying the temple, he might thereby rid himself of both the Jews and the Christians (since the latter proceeded from the former) even though, as Severus states, the two groups were “contrary to each other.” Still, this defeat and “final captivity of the Jews” was due to the divine will indicating to the world that the Jews were being punished “for the impious hands which they laid upon Christ.”58

This reference indicates that Tacitus was also aware of the continuing influence of Christians back in their initial place of origin in the region of Judea, as per his statement in the Annals, rather than only in the context of their presence in Rome alone. Of course, it is presumably Severus who made the additional application regarding the judgment of the Jews with respect to Jesus’s fate. Granted, these facts are hardly earthshaking, yet the New Testament does not narrate the events of the fall of Jerusalem or the destruction of the temple beyond the so-called Olivet Discourse and another hint or so. But this indicates that the extrabiblical data for Jesus and the early church were frequently not drawn from New Testament writings and thus provide some additional background confirmation.

According to contemporary scholars, then, Tacitus is the first of our two most crucial extrabiblical, secular sources for historical information regarding Jesus. His first text, and by far the more crucial of the two, is more detailed than that of most other writers; links Jesus firmly to the time when Emperor Tiberius ruled in Rome and Pontius Pilate in Judea; and has some knowledge of Jesus’s teaching, his death at the hands of Pilate, as well as the torture and death of Christians in Rome where the message had spread. While we do not know Tacitus’s sources, given that he was in a position to discover the details of other events, one would expect him to do likewise here.

Josephus

Jewish historian Flavius Josephus was born a few years after Jesus died, in AD 37 or 38, and died in 97. He was born into a Jewish priestly family and became a Pharisee at the age of nineteen. After surviving a battle against the Romans, he served Commander Vespasian in Jerusalem. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, he moved to Rome, where he became the court historian for Emperor Vespasian. As one can imagine, this contributed to some unpopular feelings toward him from his Jewish countrymen.59

One of Josephus’s major works, the Antiquities, provides some valuable but disputed historical evidence concerning Jesus. Written in approximately the early to mid-90s, it dates earlier than the testimonies of the Roman historians and is one of the only first-century sources for Jesus.60 Josephus speaks about many persons and events of first-century Palestine and makes two references to Jesus. The second one is very brief and in the context is speaking of a reference to James, “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.”61

Though this latter statement seems so brief as not to be overly helpful, this is not the case. For instance, it establishes a close connection between Jesus and James as well as the belief of some that Jesus was the Messiah. Most importantly for our discussion of the mythicists, it indicates clearly that Jesus was alive only a short time before Josephus’s writing, since James was as well. This is one of the reasons why the mythicists have to try plainly gymnastic stunts to rid themselves of this text.

The earlier reference, usually termed the Testimonium Flavianum, is easily the most important as well as the most debated, since some of the words appear to be due to a Christian interpolation. A key portion of Josephus’s quotation reports the following: “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats. . . . He was [the] Christ . . . He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him” (Ant. 18.3). Commentators often take a few different scholarly positions on this statement. Since Josephus was a non-Christian Jew, it is unlikely that he would have written about Jesus in such lofty and glowing terms. Some scholars still support the authenticity of the original reading, though with the advent of literary criticism, this is now certainly a minority view.62 But while Origen reports that Josephus did not believe Jesus was the Messiah,63 Eusebius still quotes the debated passage, including the words above, in the early fourth century.64

The majority view among scholarly commentators is that the largest portion of the citation belongs to Josephus himself, while the distinctly “Christian” phrases are due to a later interpolator. Some simply delete the words that they take to be questionable, while others suggest modifying the words so that Josephus merely reports what Christians believed instead of identifying his own personal position. This mediating position has the double advantage of both allowing that most of the words in the passage belonged to Josephus (which is consistent with the Josephan style and word usage noted by many scholars), while maintaining that Christians then added or edited the phrases with the Christian content. Some far more radical scholars tend to reject the entire passage.

There are good indications that the majority of Josephus’s first text is genuine. No textual evidence stands against the passage and, conversely, there is very good manuscript evidence in favor of this statement about Jesus. These two reasons thus make it a difficult comment to either totally reject or ignore. Further, the second reference to James being the brother of the so-called Christ, according to most scholars, seems to demand an earlier comment that introduces Jesus to the readers. Otherwise, the lone comment is too abrupt. Additionally, leading Josephus scholars have testified that this first portion is written in the style of this Jewish historian.65

For example, eminent Jewish authority Joseph Klausner speaks for the majority of scholars in accepting both of Josephus’s passages as genuine, minus the seeming Christianized words in the longer reading. He thus rejects both the other positions that the text is totally genuine, as well as the equally radical view that expurgates all of the words. He especially finds that there are insufficient good reasons to take the latter view, while ignoring reasons such as those just listed above in favor of the edited text. Plus Klausner adds another reason: the words about Jesus parallel those that Josephus states about John the Baptist. Along with many other scholars, Klausner dates the chief Christian interpolation(s) to the early third century since Origen apparently did not know of the added text just a little earlier, while Eusebius quoted the debated words only a few decades later.66

For reasons such as these, then, we conclude that there are stronger arguments for accepting that middle position that favors Josephus’s statement about Jesus while modifying the most questionable words. In fact, it is quite possible that these more objectionable comments may even be accurately ascertained. Similarly to many other researchers, Klausner suggests that the following words were the ones that were added: “if it be lawful to call him a man. . . . He was the Messiah . . . for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine Prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.” Klausner concludes that it is unnecessary to reject the phrase “For he was a doer of wonderful works,” since “Josephus himself was a firm believer in miracles.”67

An additional development occurred in 1972 when Professor Schlomo Pines of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem released the results of a study on an Arabic manuscript containing Josephus’s statement about Jesus. It includes a different and briefer rendering of the entire passage, including changes in the key words listed above:

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 abandon 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.68

None of the disputed comments in the longer Antiquities quotation remains unchanged. The initial problematic words “if it be lawful to call him a man” have been dropped completely, recounting only that Jesus was a wise man. The statement “he was a doer of wonderful works” has also been deleted, though as we saw with Klausner’s comment, that is less problematic than the others.

Instead of the words “He was the Christ” we find “he was perhaps the Messiah.” The phrase “he appeared to them the third day” now reads, “They [the disciples] reported that he had appeared to them,” which is an entirely true statement voiced by the first-century witnesses. Lastly, the statement that “the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him” has been drastically reduced to “concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders,” which could describe the Messiah rather than Jesus himself.

Some scholars have viewed positively this Arabic version, thinking that it may indeed contain the original words of Josephus before any Christian interpolations, or at least be closer to the original rendering. While two of the questionable phrases are completely deleted, the others are carefully qualified. As commented by Schlomo Pines and David Flusser of the Hebrew University, it is quite plausible that none of the doubts as to whether Josephus wrote the original words even applies to the Arabic text, since this version would have less likely been adjusted by the church. Additionally, Flusser notes that a further earmark of authenticity may be that the Arabic version omits the accusation that the Jews were to blame for Jesus’s death, as included in the original reading.69

After an in-depth investigation of the question, James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary explains that Josephus’s original version is “both an interpolation and a redaction.”70 He still finds three reasons why Josephus wrote most of the passage: some of the remaining words are very difficult to attribute to a Christian writer; the passage fits both grammatically and historically in Josephus’s context; and the second brief reference to Jesus in Antiquities appears to presuppose an earlier mention.71

Charlesworth also concludes that the Arabic recension is basically accurate, even if there are still a few subtle Christian alterations. (As an aside, it still could be contended that the words “he was perhaps the Messiah” followed by the comment regarding the prophets could be questioned.) Charlesworth ends his comments on this passage with an exceptionally strong conclusion: “We can now be as certain as historical research will presently allow that Josephus did refer to Jesus,” providing “corroboration of the gospel account.”72

Returning to the three options mentioned above, Van Voorst very helpfully provides a list of reasons favoring each of the three main views on the Testimonium: that the entire passage is authentic, that the entire text is bogus, as well as the majority view that Josephus wrote most of the passage minus about three Christian additions.73

Very briefly, the “totally authentic” position is not held by many scholars today. It was the traditional view before the rise of modern literary criticism and was even favored by German liberal church historian Adolf von Harnack. Josephus states similar kindly things about other great biblical personages, such as Solomon, Daniel, and John the Baptist. Further, there are words or phrases that Christians probably would not have used concerning Jesus, such as a positive use of the term pleasure or calling Christians a “tribe.” Other phrases or sentences are characteristically “Josephan” in style.74 These reasons make some sense, but nothing in this positive argument requires that the entire passage was unchanged from its original form.

The second “totally inauthentic” position is supported by the Testimonium not fitting into the overall subject matter of book 18 of the Antiquities. Also, the admission of some Christian editing raises tough questions, which “suggests that the whole passage may be a Christian forgery.” The main argument against authenticity is that earlier Christian apologists such as Irenaeus and Tertullian failed to cite this passage, even though its edited form would still have been quite helpful in discussions with unbelievers. Eusebius is the first to quote this text, almost three centuries after the crucifixion, which this text supports.75 Of these arguments, the last one is clearly the strongest as well as the most puzzling: why would Josephus not have been cited for support, given that he was an unbeliever before Eusebius?

Van Voorst finds seven reasons to support the third view that the Testimonium was mostly authentic with a few editorial changes by Christians. First, it explains why Jesus is mentioned by Josephus at all. Second, the proposed reconstruction reads very smoothly. Third, the reconstruction fits better with Josephus having introduced Jesus before the stronger reading in Ant. 20.9, which seems to presuppose some initial mention of someone as important as “the so-called Christ.” Fourth, the proposed changes make Josephus’s compliments fit better with the nice things he states about other persons.

Fifth, the reconstructed passage fits better with the more neutral Arabic text of Josephus discovered in 1971, which resembles fairly closely the proposed reconstruction. Sixth, the reconstruction makes the text parallel Josephus’s positive treatment of John the Baptist in Ant. 18.5.2. Seventh, the reconstructed passage explains both the seeming Christianized statements as well as the clearly Josephan ones, both of which are present. This is the only position of the three that holds that both Jewish and Christian wording is present. It might be added here that this passage has great manuscript support, while the totally negative view has “no manuscript support.”76 Of the seven positive reasons here, numbers three, five, and seven are all very strong, including the manuscript support.

The best conclusion seems strongly to favor the position that Josephus did indeed write about Jesus not only in the second, brief statement concerning James but also in the longer, earlier Testimonium. The evidence points to Josephus’s general composition of this passage, with the deletion or modification of a number of key phrases which probably were interpolated by later Christians, especially after Josephus’s comments about other great men and, most significantly, John the Baptist.

As far as which position is held most prominently by scholars, few would say that the first view of mostly full authenticity is an option today. Regarding the last two positions of the reconstructed passage and the total rejection of the Testimonium, the dean of Josephus scholars, Louis Feldman, judges that the reconstruction view is far more popular. Feldman estimates quite unofficially that the number who hold the interpolation view above could outnumber those who reject the text entirely by as high a margin as a 5:1 ratio!77 Of course, we do not determine truth by a head count, but coming from a guess from the top scholar in the field, the count is still significant for where scholars think the best arguments lie.

If the questionable portions of the Testimonium Flavianum were altered in accord with Joseph Klausner’s suggestions or in line with the Arabic version, what historical items may be ascertained from this important statement? First and foremost, Jesus existed in time-space history. He was known as a wise and virtuous man who was recognized for his good conduct, including his reported miracles. He was known as a teacher and had many disciples not only among the Jews but even among the Greeks. Pilate condemned him to die by crucifixion. His disciples may have reported at least their belief that Jesus had risen from the dead and that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion. Consequently, the disciples continued to proclaim his teachings. Jesus was called the Messiah by some (see below), concerning whom the Old Testament prophets spoke of and predicted wonders. Basically, the picture that emerges from Josephus is one that Christians would recognize from the New Testament.78

Van Voorst argues further that Josephus’s source for this material was independent and not adapted from Christian writings either directly or indirectly. He notes especially that the way Josephus uses the title “Christ,” or the words wise man and pleasure, the notion that Jesus won over Greeks, and “love” as the basis for the on-going success of Jesus’s mission, all differ from the way these ideas or words are utilized in the New Testament. This information probably came from interviews while he lived in Palestine.79

Josephus’s second very brief comment in Ant. 20.9 relates that Jesus had a brother, who is identified as “James, the brother of the so-called Christ.” Without much of a discussion or many details, Josephus reports that James was stoned to death by the Jewish authorities. Reported as a recent event, one could only conclude that Jesus had also lived recently and that some considered him to be the Messiah.80

There is nothing overly sensational in such a list of reported historical data from a Jewish historian. It would be natural for a wise and virtuous man like Jesus to have a following, though readers might be surprised by his crucifixion at the command of Pilate. These are key events that one might expect a historian to mention. Even if the original account included Jesus’s disciples reporting Jesus’s resurrection appearances, the belief at least would have an authentic ring to it. Josephus, like many historians today, would simply be repeating the claims made by others, even as he later calls Jesus “the so-called Christ.” These items could have been fairly well known in first-century Palestine anyway or from the New Testament itself. That his disciples would then spread his teachings would be a natural consequence. The death by stoning of his brother James is a later curious addition by Josephus, but one which adds to the historical picture.

Josephus presents an important account of several major facts about Jesus and the origins of early Christianity. In spite of some question marks here and there regarding the exact wording of the longer comment in Ant. 18.3, by far the majority of contemporary historians view the bulk of his statements as providing probable and valuable attestation of some of the foremost items in Jesus’s public ministry.81 Josephus’s second, briefer reference regarding “James the brother of the so-called Christ,” in Ant. 20.9, is even more solidly held by scholars with virtually no dissent. As Yamauchi summarizes, “Few scholars have questioned the genuineness of this passage.”82

Suetonius

Another Roman historian who also makes one very brief reference to Jesus and another equally brief comment on the Christians in Rome is Gaius Suetonius Tranquillas. Little is known about him except that he was the chief secretary of Emperor Hadrian (r. AD 117–138) and that he had access to the imperial records.83 The first reference occurs in Suetonius’s book on Emperor Claudius (AD 41–54). Writing about the same time as Tacitus,84 Suetonius remarks concerning Claudius: “Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from the city.”85

Suetonius refers to a wave of riots that broke out within a large Jewish community in Rome during the year AD 49. As a result, the Jews were banished from the city. Incidentally, this statement is confirmed by Acts 18:2, where Paul meets a Jewish couple from Pontus named Aquila and Priscilla who had recently left Italy because Claudius had demanded that all the Jews must leave Rome. Translator Robert Graves notes that “Chrestus” is a variant spelling of “Christ,” and many other commentators agree as well. (Note that Suetonius’s spelling is virtually the same as Tacitus’s Latin spelling, Christus.)86

The second, also very brief reference from Suetonius is reminiscent of Tacitus’s comment that the Christians were tortured by Emperor Nero in the aftermath of the fire in the city of Rome: “After the great fire at Rome. . . . Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief.”87

Few reports of any historical significance may be derived from the two references by Suetonius. If the majority of commentators is correct about the name “Chrestus” referring to Jesus Christ, the reference to Claudius’s expulsion of the Jews from Rome may have involved the mistaken inference that it was this Christ who lived in Rome and was causing the Jews to make the uproar in that city. Whether it was supposedly by his presence or by virtue of his teachings is not explained.

The second reference appears to be quite similar to the longer statement by Tacitus, including the use of the word mischievous to describe the Christian beliefs, raising the question of whether Tacitus or another common source for both authors (perhaps an imperial Roman record of some sort; see above) was Suetonius’s reference. The term Christians is also utilized to identify this group as followers of Christ’s teachings.88

Thallus

The death of Jesus may have been mentioned in ancient secular history many years before Tacitus, Josephus, or Suetonius ever wrote a single word. This particular reference may even predate our earliest Gospel. Perhaps as early as AD 52, a historian named Thallus wrote a history of the eastern Mediterranean world from the Trojan War to his own time. Thallus’s work has been lost, but it was known to a Christian historian named Julius Africanus, who lived and wrote his world history, Chronography, around AD 220.89 It is debated whether Thallus could possibly be the same person referred to by Josephus as a wealthy Samaritan who was made a freedman by Emperor Tiberius and who loaned money to Herod Agrippa I, though Bruce thinks that this identification is unlikely.90

In speaking of Jesus’s crucifixion and the darkness that covered the land of the eastern Mediterranean world during this event, Africanus found a reference in the writings of Thallus that dealt with such a cosmic report. But continuing the somewhat roundabout nature of the tale, Africanus’s work has likewise been lost, although his citation of Thallus’s work was preserved by a much later historian, Georgius Syncellus, in his Chronicle, which was written about AD 800. Therefore, as best as we can determine, we have Thallus’s original statement from the first century as quoted by Syncellus.91

There are a couple of other questions to answer here, as mythicist G. A. Wells properly points out. Julius Africanus does not tell us if Thallus knew of and was speaking directly of the event of Jesus’s crucifixion, or if he was simply speaking of some sort of cosmic event, such as an eclipse, from approximately that time. We also do not know how independent Thallus’s report may have been. Of course, if Thallus was speaking of Jesus’s crucifixion, this text is immensely important.92 Wells has raised some good questions.

When did Thallus write his history? Though rather a convoluted answer, French skeptical scholar Maurice Goguel explains it this way: from fragments of his lost work, Thallus is known to have written of an event that occurred in approximately AD 30, but he must have written before 221, when Africanus quoted him. Judging from the normal limits of longevity at that time, as well as a further hint provided by Eusebius, Thallus is thought to have died about AD 60. Hence, Goguel explains why scholars often place the date of his history at about AD 50–52.93 Van Voorst concurs that this is the date that is “accepted by most scholars.”94 Even amid all the exceptionally late dating that often plagues the mythicists as a whole, Wells dates Thallus to the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century.95

In the quotation of Africanus found in Syncellus, Africanus asserts, “On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.”96 So Julius Africanus objected to Thallus’s rationalization concerning the darkness that fell on the land apparently at the time of the crucifixion because an eclipse could not take place during the time of the full moon, as was the case during the Jewish Passover season.97 But Wells raises a fair question about this testimony. Africanus only implies that Thallus linked the darkness to Jesus’s crucifixion, but we are not specifically told if Jesus is mentioned in Thallus’s original history at all.98

Van Voorst argues that the predominant historical data favor Thallus’s knowledge of Jesus’s crucifixion. It could have been otherwise, but of course we cannot be sure about this. But Africanus was a careful researcher and seems to address Thallus’s objection that the crucifixion darkness was simply a natural event. Africanus, in turn, responds that God brought about the darkness.99

If this is a correct assessment and Thallus’s brief statement refers to Jesus’s crucifixion, then the report indicates that the Christian gospel, or at least an account of Jesus’s crucifixion, was known in the Mediterranean region as early as the middle of the first century AD. This also brings to mind the presence of Christian teachings in Rome as mentioned by Tacitus and Suetonius. There was a widespread darkness in the land, with the implication being that it took place during Jesus’s crucifixion. Further, we have here an important indication that unbelievers such as Thallus offered rationalistic explanations for certain Christian teachings or for supernatural claims quite quickly after their initial proclamation, a point to which we will return below. The basic idea here is reminiscent of Matthew’s comment (Matt 28:15) that the story that Jesus’s disciples had stolen his dead body had also traveled around the Mediterranean at an early date.

Government Officials

Pliny the Younger

A Roman administrator and author who served as the governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor in the early second century, Pliny the Younger was the nephew and adopted son of the historian known as Pliny the Elder. The younger Pliny is best known for his letters (Epistulae), and Bruce refers to him as “one of the world’s great letter writers, whose letters . . . have attained the status of literary classics.”100

Ten books of Pliny’s correspondences remain extant today. The tenth book, written around AD 112, speaks about Christianity in the province of Bithynia and also provides some reports about Jesus (Ep. 10.96).101 Pliny observes that the Christian influence was so strong in his area that the pagan temples had been nearly deserted, attendance at pagan festivals severely decreased, and few purchased sacrificial animals. Because of the inflexibility of the Christians and the emperor’s prohibition against political association, Governor Pliny took action against the Christians. Yet because he was unsure how to deal with believers and if there should be any distinctions in treatment, or if repentance made any difference, he wrote to Emperor Trajan (r. AD 98–117) to explain his approach.

Pliny dealt personally with the Christians who were turned over to him. He interrogated them, inquiring if they were indeed believers. If they answered in the affirmative he asked them two more times under the threat of death. If they continued firm in their belief, he ordered them to be executed. Sometimes the punishment included torture to obtain the desired information, as in the case of two female slaves who were deaconesses in the church. If the person was a Roman citizen, they were sent for trial to the emperor in Rome. If they denied being Christians or had disavowed their faith in the past, they “repeated after me an invocation to the Gods, and offered adoration . . . to your [Trajan’s] image.” Afterwards they “finally cursed Christ.” Pliny explained that his purpose in doing all this was that “multitudes may be reclaimed from error.”

Pliny’s letter is rather lengthy, but we will quote the portion which pertains directly to an account of early Christian worship of Christ:

They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food—but food of an ordinary and innocent kind. (Ep. 10.96)

At this point Pliny adds that Christianity attracted persons of all societal ranks, ages, and genders as well as people from both the city and the country.

From Pliny’s letter we glean several more items regarding Jesus and early Christianity. Christ was worshipped as deity by early believers. Pliny refers late in his letter to the teachings of Jesus and his followers as “excessive superstition” and “contagious superstition,” which once again is reminiscent of the words of both Tacitus and Suetonius. Jesus’s ethical teachings were reflected in the oath taken by Christians never to be guilty of a number of sins, as specified in the letter.

There is a potential or even a probable reference to Christ’s institution of the Lord’s Supper and the Christian celebration of the “love feast” in Pliny’s remark about believers gathering to partake of ordinary food. The reference here may well allude to the accusation that believers were suspected of ritual murder and drinking of blood during these meetings. There is also a possible reference to Sunday worship in Pliny’s statement that Christians met “on a certain fixed day” before dawn.

Concerning early Christianity, Pliny’s method of dealing with believers is on display here, from their identification to their interrogation, chance to recant, and execution. Freedom was granted to those who denied being Christians and were willing to worship the gods and the emperor. Interestingly, Pliny reports that true believers could not be forced to worship the gods or the emperor.

Christian worship involved singing hymns. The early hour of these hymns probably facilitated a normal work day for worshippers. These Christians apparently formed a typical cross section of society in Bithynia since Pliny notes that they consisted of all classes, ages, localities, and genders. There were apparently recognized positions in the church, as illustrated by the mention of the two female deaconesses who were tortured for information. While Pliny does not relate many facts about Jesus, he does provide a look at an early example of Christian worship. Believers were meeting regularly and worshipping Jesus.

Emperor Trajan

Pliny’s inquiry received a reply, which is published along with his letters, although Emperor Trajan’s response is much briefer:

The method you have pursued, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those denounced to you as Christians is extremely proper. It is not possible to lay down any general rule which can be applied as the fixed standard in all cases of this nature. No search should be made for these people; when they are denounced and found guilty they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that when the party denies himself to be a Christian, and shall give proof that he is not (that is, by adoring our Gods) he shall be pardoned on the ground of repentance, even though he may have formerly incurred suspicion. Informations [sic] without the accuser’s name subscribed must not be admitted in evidence against anyone, as it is introducing a very dangerous precedent, and by no means agreeable to the spirit of the age. (Ep. 10.97)

Trajan responds that Pliny was generally acting properly. If confessed Christians persisted in their faith, they must be punished. However, three restrictions are placed on Pliny. First, Christians should not be sought out or tracked down. Second, repentance coupled with worship of the gods sufficed to clear a person of wrongdoing (or “wrong-believing”). Previously, Pliny expressed doubts as to whether a person should be punished in spite of repentance and only recounts the pardoning of persons who had willingly given up their beliefs before questioning. Third, Pliny was not to honor any lists of Christians given to him if the accuser did not name himself.

These conditions imposed by Emperor Trajan give us some insight into early official Roman views about Christianity. While persecution was certainly an issue and many Christians died without committing any actual crimes, it is interesting that, contrary to popular opinion, the first century was not the worst period of persecution for believers. Trajan’s restrictions on Pliny at least indicate that it was not a wholesale slaughter. Nonetheless, persecution was real and many died for their faith.

Emperor Hadrian

The existence of trials for Christians, such as the ones mentioned by Pliny, is also confirmed by another historical reference to early Christians. Serenius Granianus, proconsul of Asia, also wrote to Emperor Hadrian concerning the treatment of believers. Hadrian replied to Minucius Fundanus, Granianus’s successor as Asian proconsul, and issued a statement against those who would accuse Christians falsely or without due process. In the letter, preserved by early fourth-century church historian Eusebius, Hadrian asserts:

I do not wish, therefore, that the matter should be passed by without examination, so that these men may neither be harassed, nor opportunity of malicious proceedings be offered to informers. If, therefore, the provincials can clearly evince their charges against the Christians, so as to answer before the tribunal, let them pursue this course only, but not by mere petitions, and mere outcries against the Christians. For it is far more proper, if any one [sic] would bring an accusation, that you should examine it. (Hist. eccl. 4.9)102

Somewhat similar to Trajan, Hadrian also explains that Christians who are found guilty after an examination should be judged “according to the heinousness of the crime.” Yet, if the accusers were only slandering the believers, then those who made inaccurate charges were to be punished themselves.

From Hadrian’s letter we learn that Christians were frequently reported as lawbreakers in the region of Asia and were punished in various ways. Like Trajan, Hadrian also encouraged a certain amount of temperance and ordered that Christians not be harassed. If Christians were indeed guilty, as indicated by careful examination, punishments could well be in order. However, no undocumented charges were to be brought against believers and those making such false charges were to be punished themselves. The last point particularly indicates that even though Hadrian’s religious beliefs were presumably otherwise, he was dealing more fairly than the rulers in the Roman Empire were often credited.

Other Jewish Sources: Mishnah and Talmud

Charles K. Barrett provides a couple of initial examples from Jewish sources. The first is taken from the “Eighteen Benedictions,” where Benediction 12 is a prayer that dates to the late first century and originates among the Sanhedrin. It pronounces judgment upon “the Nazarenes and the minim” (i.e., Jewish-Christians), asking that they perish “and be blotted out from the book of life.” It is clear that these believers were still present in post-70 Judea after the devastating Jewish-Roman war.103

Another instance, mentioned by Jewish scholar Joseph Klausner, is a statement from Rabbi Eliezer thought to have been made in the last decade of the first century, though recorded later. While not mentioning Jesus by name, the remark seems to speak of him. Eliezer’s referred to “a man, born of a woman, who should rise up and seek to make himself God, and to cause the whole world to go astray.” After admonishing the people not to follow this man, Eliezer remarks, “If he says that he is God he is a liar.”104

The Jews passed along a large amount of oral tradition from generation to generation. This material was organized according to subject matter by Rabbi Akiba before his death in AD 135. His work was then revised by his student Rabbi Meir. The project was completed by about 200 by Rabbi Judah and is known as the Mishnah. Next, the Gemaras were written, which provided ancient commentary on the Mishnah. The combination of the Mishnah plus the Gemaras form the Talmud.105

The subject of rabbinic sources that may mention Jesus is one that engenders a wide range of scholarly views. Several key issues are involved here as well, such as the dating of the comments (especially since some of them are quite late), if Jesus is even being referred to at all in the immediate contexts, and, perhaps most of all, who the pseudonyms are addressing, since they involve many if not most of the remarks.106

It would be expected that if any information about Jesus was included in these works, the most reliable comments from the Talmud would come from the earliest period of compilation—AD 70 to 200, known as the Tannaitic period. A very significant and frequently discussed quotation using Jesus’s name is found in b. Sanhedrin 43a and dates from just this early period:

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, “He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.” But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!107

At least from initial appearances, this comment seems to be another brief account of Jesus’s death. These references to Jesus being “hanged” certainly provide an interesting term to describe the nature of his death. Yet, the New Testament speaks of crucifixion in the same way. Jesus was “hanged” (Greek kremamenos in Gal 3:13), as were the two males killed at the same time (Greek kremasthenton in Luke 23:39). While the term crucified is a much more common reference to this event, “hanged” is a variant expression of the same fate.108

From this passage in the Talmud we learn about the Jewish perspective on Jesus’s death by crucifixion. Further, the timing of the event, mentioned twice, is given as occurring on the eve of the Jewish Passover. A more surprising comment that is absent from the Gospels is that, for forty days beforehand, it was announced publicly that Jesus would be stoned. Such a move would certainly be consistent with both Jewish practice in general as well as the reports in John that Jesus had been threatened with this fate on at least two other occasions (John 8:58–59; 10:31, 33, 39).109 In the present case, the charge against Jesus was that he was guilty of “sorcery” and spiritual apostasy in leading Israel astray by his teaching. Then we are told that since no witnesses came forward to defend him, he was hanged.

Of further interest is that there is no additional explanation as to why Jesus was crucified (“hanged”) when stoning was the prescribed punishment. It is likely that the Roman involvement provided the “change of plans,” even though this subsequent development is not mentioned in the context here.

Later in b. Sanhedrin 43a, we find another early reference that also uses Jesus’s name and identifies five of his disciples, all of whom are given strange-sounding names for those familiar with the disciples mentioned in the Gospels. The passage recounts each of them standing before judges who ask if they must be killed. Each disciple is individually given the death sentence, though none of the actual deaths are either stated or recorded. From this second mention, we can ascertain that Jesus had some disciples and that some of the Jews thought these men were also guilty of actions that warranted execution, though we are not told what occurred to them after their sentence.

Another reference that has received attention is b. Sanhedrin 106a, which is often said to allude to Jesus’s resurrection: “Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish said, ‘Woe to him who makes himself alive by the name of God!’” However, this text dates from the mid-third century, later than the earlier Tannaitic period, which decreases considerably its historical value.

A couple of general themes should also be mentioned. It appears that Jesus was frequently blamed with teaching false doctrines or of using magic (apparently in his healing), since these ideas are often repeated. In the famous and most authoritative account in b. Sanhedrin 43a, Jesus is said to have received capital punishment because he “practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.” In b. Sanhedrin 107b, Jesus is also identified by name and said to have practiced magic and led Israel astray.110 In b. Gittin 56b–57a, Jesus is also identified as a false teacher. After evaluating arguments for both lateness and earliness, Jewish scholar Joseph Klausner opts for an early provenance, though he notes that both early and late passages in the Talmud and the midrashim treat this as a common Jewish view of Jesus.111

A second common theme in these Jewish writings is derision of the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth112 as well as negative references to Mary, Jesus’s mother.113 But these depend on questions of identifying pseudonyms and other such issues. Still, Van Voorst argues that the name “Ben Pantera” or “Ben Pandera” in the Talmud seems to be “reasonably identified with Jesus” or his family. The idea here seems to be to treat Mary as having had an extramarital affair, with Jesus’s birth resulting from the pregnancy. Besides the Talmudic references, an independent source provided by Celsus, another early Christian critic who wrote approximately AD 180, relates that Mary had a child with a Roman soldier named Panthera,114 making this another potential point of connection with Jesus.115

Many other allusions and possible connections to Jesus also could be mentioned from these Jewish writings, although these potential references to Jesus were chiefly formulated in the later texts, therefore reducing seriously their historical value. For instance, one reference indicates that Jesus was treated differently from others who led the people astray, for he was connected with royalty.116 The first comment of being treated differently is very possibly an indication of the fact that Jesus was crucified instead of being stoned as initially surmised in b. Sanhedrin 43a. The second part about royalty could be a reference to Jesus being born of the lineage of David, or it could actually be another criticism, this time belittling the Christian belief that Jesus was the Messiah or the King of the Jews. Another possible reference to Jesus states that he was either thirty-three or thirty-four years old when he died (b. Sanhedrin 106b).

Chiefly due to the questionable nature, background sources, and dates of these later Jewish references, many scholars utilize only the few earlier passages from the Tannaitic period. For example, after a careful and well-nuanced survey, Van Voorst seems to prefer only the b. Sanhedrin 43a and 106a accounts plus the references to Ben Pantera as well as the false-teaching theme.117 While the later references are often quite intriguing and may possibly reflect older traditions (as with Klausner’s thoughts on b. Gittin 56b–57a), we cannot be sure.

From even these few texts, we seem to safely be able to derive the reports of Jesus’s death by “hanging” after stoning was initially proposed, an event that occurred on Passover Eve. No witnesses came forward in his defense. Jesus’s “crime” was false teaching and leading Israel into apostasy. Jesus had disciples (five are mentioned) and each of them was also sentenced to death. There may also be an allusion to at least the Christian belief in Jesus’s resurrection in b. Sanhedrin 106a, but it is sketchy at best. The oft-repeated themes of Jesus being a false prophet and of Mary’s unfaithfulness in conceiving a child (i.e., Jesus) out of wedlock are also persistently taught. These reports seem pretty solidly to reflect Jewish concerns and animosity toward Jesus and early Christians.

Other Gentile Sources

Lucian

A second-century historian and Greek satirist, Lucian was an early critic of Christianity who spoke rather derisively of Jesus and early believers. He criticized Christians for being such gullible people that, with very little warrant, they would approve charla-tans who posed as teachers, thereby supporting these persons even to the point of making them wealthy. In the process of his critique he relates some important facts concerning Jesus and Christians:

The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property. (Peregr. 11–13) 118

This material supplied by Lucian is very important and helpful, even though it was meant for other purposes, namely, to castigate the mid-second-century Christians.

Several valuable items are divulged in the process of belittling Jesus and these believers. Lucian explains that Christians worshipped Jesus, a teacher who had introduced new traditions in the geographical location of Palestine (Peregr. 11) and was crucified as a result. These novel ideas involved the notions that his followers were all brothers from the moment their conversion took place and they had denied all false gods. Additional teachings included worshipping Jesus and living according to his laws. Lucian refers to Jesus as a “sage,” which especially in a Greek context, compares him to one of the Greek philosophers and wise men.

As followers of Jesus who accepted these teachings by faith, these believers considered themselves to be immortal, which accounts for their contempt of death. Jesus’s teachings also involved a disregard for material possessions, manifested in their holding of common property among themselves. Like the saints who were celebrated in Heb 11:16, 26–27, these believers were more interested in their future salvation as well as the needs of others here in the present than they were in piling up earthly wealth.119

Additionally, Lucian also records additional information in the same context. These Christians possessed “sacred writings,” which they frequently read. When a problem arose that affected their community, “they spare no trouble, no expense.” However, Lucian noted that some of these beliefs allowed Christians to be easily taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals. When Peregrine, for example, was thrown into prison, the local Christians apparently visited him in droves, brought him meals, contributed money, and even slept in the cell with him! Lucian called Peregrine an “unscrupulous fellow” for taking advantage of the believers, gaining a personal fortune from them in the process (Peregr. 12–13).

Lucian unknowingly but very helpfully shares some important data about Jesus and especially regarding second-century Christian communities that we do not hear about elsewhere. These reports appear to have emerged from his own observations rather than from any New Testament or Christian reports. Even though he tried to disparage these believers for falling for Peregrine’s antics, he still succeeded in painting an impressive picture of their lifestyles, their willingness to share their wealth, their deep-seated beliefs and their application of them, as well as their outlook on the world. In many ways, it is an impressive picture.

Mara bar Serapion

The British Museum owns a letter written sometime between the late first and third centuries. Its author was a Syrian named Mara bar Serapion, who was writing from prison to motivate his son Serapion to emulate some of the wise teachers of the past. Though often overlooked in discussions of Gentile sources for Jesus, a wide number of dates are given for this letter within this range, though Van Voorst states that most are in the first century. For Van Voorst, Mara’s sources appear most likely to be Christian and not independent.120 However, on a Christian source it might be wondered why Jesus would be called the King of the Jews instead of a more common title, and why the resurrection was not mentioned instead of Jesus living on through his teachings.

In his encouragement to his son, Mara suggests imitating the likes of Socrates, Pythagoras, and (most likely) Jesus. The probable identification is indicated by calling the unnamed individual the King of the Jews, arguing that his execution led to a major defeat for the Jews, and by his being the only one to have his teachings mentioned. Here is the statement:

What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given.121

So Jesus was considered to be a wise and apparently virtuous man. He is addressed twice as the Jews’ King, possibly a reference to Jesus’s own teachings, those of his followers, or even to the wording on the titulus placed over Jesus’s head on the cross. Jesus was executed unjustly by the Jews, who paid for their misdeeds by suffering judgment soon afterward, most likely a reference to the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman armies. Jesus lived on in the teachings of the early Christians, which is an indication that Mara bar Serapion was almost certainly not a Christian. Rather, he seems to follow Lucian and others in the popular comparison of Jesus to philosophers and other wise men in the ancient world.

Gnostic Sources

This category of extrabiblical sources is different from all the others in that these works often at least claim to be Christian, perhaps even exclusively so. Although scholars still debate the question of the origin of Christian-influenced Gnosticism, it is generally thought to have flourished chiefly from the second to the fourth centuries. The material in this section consists of four second-century documents containing varying amounts of gnostic flavor. While it is possible that there are other gnostic sources that are just as old or older than the four used here, these have the advantage of both being better established and claiming to relate historical facts regarding Jesus, many of which are not reported in the Gospels.

Without question, these writers were more influenced by the New Testament than the other sources in this chapter. Since Gnosticism came in many dialects, forms, shapes, and flavors, many different movements, writings, and ideas were permeated (or perhaps tainted!) with only smaller amounts of gnostic ideas. While the major gnostic ideas were pronounced heretical and viewed as such by the early church, Gnosticism’s influence certainly spread further than the more clearly overt doctrines. Some key volumes from this time frame are discussed in this chapter.

The Gospel of Thomas

No ancient semi-gnostic or gnostic writing has garnered anywhere near as much attention as has the Gospel of Thomas. A fierce debate has arisen over whether or not the Gospel of Thomas postdates the Synoptic Gospels and borrowed from them. But one problem here is that the Gospel of Thomas is not a homogenized volume of sayings—some of the comments are presumably earlier or later than others. For example, Van Voorst reports that approximately a quarter of the sayings in Thomas “are virtually identical to sayings in the Synoptic Gospels.” Another half of the sayings parallel the Gospels. Even here, a key question concerns whether one source borrowed from the others. Intriguingly, “the remaining one-quarter to one-third are manifestly gnostic sayings with a different theological outlook than the rest.”122

The Gospel of Thomas moved into prominence chiefly during the past several decades due to several reasons. The Coptic version of the book was discovered in 1945 and it has been getting “unpacked” ever since. Further, as a volume purportedly containing 114 sayings of Jesus basically without narrated events, it reminded many researchers of the so-called Q document, meaning that the Gospel of Thomas could also potentially contain some very early, previously unknown sayings of Jesus.

Although perhaps harsh, a few other scholars, judging even from their own comments, seem to be highly motivated to discover alternate Christologies in the early church and hope that the Gospel of Thomas may provide just such an opportunity. Hence it can be documented that, in the hands of particular critical scholars, the date for the book has moved steadily further back even in the absence of any new evidence.

Dunn has described this process rather conveniently and in much detail for those who enjoy following such trends largely as a battle between the radical scholars from the Jesus Seminar along with other like-minded thinkers spearheaded by Crossan on one hand, versus the remainder of critical scholars on the other. For Dunn and others, the radical crowd needs or even must have an early, independent Gospel of Thomas to float their drastic theses or else the rest of their position collapses. Additionally, they need “their” sources to predate the Synoptic Gospels if possible along with additional odd sources (like the “Cross Gospel” portion of the Gospel of Peter) and especially the differing strata within sources like Q.123

Yet the exceptionally influential critical scholars who argue against these theses speak for the majority of researchers. Dunn himself holds that the necessary background “neo-liberal” ideas fail while “the Synoptic tradition is closer to the earliest remembered sayings of Jesus than is the Gospel of Thomas.”124 Further, most scholars today hold that the Gospel of Thomas was guilty of the “reworking of earlier sayings material” rather than the other way around.125 John Meier agrees in that especially the “Synoptic-like sayings” in Thomas “are most likely dependent, directly or indirectly, on the canonical Gospels.”126 For Luke Timothy Johnson, “there is a fairly wide agreement that in its literary form [the Gospel of Thomas] postdates the canonical Gospels and should probably be dated at the very earliest to the mid-second century.”127 Lastly, even the agnostic Ehrman agrees with the majority position against the radical skeptics and dates the Gospel of Thomas to approximately AD 120.128

The Gospel of Thomas as a unit is usually dated by scholars from AD 100 to 200, and even this has involved a significant shift downward over the years. Van Voorst states that most scholars still place the work in the second century.129 Still, the book is often thought to reflect the presence of at least some material of earlier periods, as well as possibly even containing some independent sayings of Jesus.

More radical scholars sometimes charge that Jesus’s resurrection is not as central for the Gospel of Thomas as it is in the canonical New Testament. But this is a profound mistake. In the opening statement, Thomas identifies itself as “the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke” (Gos. Thom. 32:10–11).130 Robert Grant makes a typical response when he notes that this collection of teachings thereby purports to be the words of the risen Jesus, thus accounting for the almost complete absence of statements concerning his birth, life, and death.131 Most scholars appear to agree with Grant, especially since, as F. F. Bruce comments, “It is common form in Gnostic Gospels to represent the esoteric teaching or gnōsis which they contain as delivered by Jesus to his chosen disciples during his appearances to them after he was raised from the dead.”132 From this angle, Thomas has everything to do with the resurrected Jesus!

So do we learn much from the Gospel of Thomas regarding the historical Jesus? In an incident similar to Jesus’s question at Caesarea Philippi reported in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 8:27–30//Matt 16:13–17//Luke 9:18–21), the Gospel of Thomas also presents Jesus asking his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like.” They responded by describing him as an angel, a philosopher, and an indescribable person (Gos. Thom. 34:30–35:4). In a later passage the disciples refer to Jesus as the consummation of the prophets (42:13, 18).

Jesus partially answers his own question on several occasions. He describes himself as the Son of Man (47:34–48:4), which is also the name most commonly reported in the Gospels. On other occasions he speaks of himself in more lofty terms. To Salome, Jesus states, “I am He who existed from the Undivided. I was given some of the things of My father” (43:28–30). Elsewhere in the Gospel of Thomas, he speaks of himself as the Son (44:34–35; 45:11–15; 49:21–26). In another instance Jesus speaks in more specifically gnostic terminology: “Jesus said, ‘It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the All. From Me did the All come forth, and unto Me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there’” (46:23–28).

In these passages concerning the nature of his identity, we are told that Jesus inquired of his disciples as to their view of his uniqueness. Their responses are quite varied, with the comparison of Jesus to a philosopher being especially reminiscent of the references by Lucian and Mara bar Serapion. Jesus then identifies himself as the Son of Man, the Son of His Father, and the All of the universe.

The Gospel of Thomas also records a parable concerning the death of Jesus (45:1–16), including his subsequent exaltation (45:17–19). Again, Jesus is identified more than once as “living” or as the “Living One,” a reference to his post resurrection existence (e.g., Rev 1:17–18; see Gos. Thom. 32:10–11; 43:9–12; cf. 42:13–36). These references note Jesus’s death and his subsequent exaltation that resulted from his resurrection from the dead.

The foregoing references in the Gospel of Thomas require further comment. Initially, they often appear to be dependent on Gospel testimonies, especially in the question of Jesus’s identity and in the parable of the vineyard. Yet, as we have said, this “chicken or egg” question is debated by scholars.

It is also important to note some of the overly obvious gnostic propensities in the Gospel of Thomas and other similar writings, such as the identification of Jesus with the “Undivided” or the “All.” This certainly includes any monistic-sounding tendencies regarding the metaphysical nature of the universe. These inclinations certainly cast doubt on the objectivity and reliability of these reports in the sense that these words purportedly came from Jesus himself, since they have every indication of being borrowed from a foreign, non-Jewish philosophy. Hence, these comments cannot simply be considered side by side with more historical passages as if they all existed on level grounds. As Van Voorst comments, “Obviously, sayings that reflect an explicit Gnosticizing tendency must be discounted.”133

The Gospel of Truth

This book was possibly written by the gnostic teacher Valentinus or one of his disciples, which could date its writing in the vicinity of AD 135–160. If not, it still most likely came from this school of thought sometime in the second century.134 Unlike some other gnostic works, the Gospel of Truth addresses the historicity of Jesus in several short passages in a rather straightforward way. It does not hesitate to affirm that the Son of God came in the flesh. The author asserts that “the Word came into the midst . . . it became a body” (Gos. Truth 26:4–8).135 Later the text states: “For when they had seen him and had heard him, he granted them to taste him and to smell him and to touch the beloved Son. When he had appeared instructing them about the Father. . . . For he came by means of fleshly appearance” (30:27–33; 31:4–6).

This wording is reminiscent of New Testament texts such as 1 John 1:1–3. From these two citations, Jesus is called the Son of God and the Word and is declared to have become a man and taken on an actual human body, one that could be perceived by all five human senses. Jesus also instructs his listeners about his Father.

According to the Gospel of Truth, Jesus likewise died and was raised from the dead:

Jesus was patient in accepting sufferings . . . since he knows that his death is life for many . . . he was nailed to a tree; he published the edict of the Father on the cross. . . . He draws himself down to death though life eternal clothes him. Having stripped himself of the perishable rags, he put on imperishability, which no one can possibly take away from him. (Gos. Truth 20:11–14, 25–34)

Here as well as later (18:23), the author explains that Jesus was persecuted and suffered being “nailed to a tree”—obviously a reference to crucifixion. We are also told of the belief that it was Jesus’s death that brought salvation “for many,” which is referred to as the imparting of light to those who would receive it (30:37; 31:13–20). Jesus was also raised in an eternal body which no one can harm or take from him.

The theological overtones in the Gospel of Truth, like other gnostic writings, present an obvious contrast to the ancient secular works inspected above. But they also differ from one another. The phrases cited here are more down-to-earth and similar to the wording in the New Testament Epistles, as opposed to some of the more philosophical verbiage in the Gospel of Thomas. Even allowing for such theological motivation, however, these early gnostic sources still present us with a few important insights into the angle of their interest in the historical life and teachings of Jesus.

The Apocryphon of John

Robert Grant asserts that this work is closely related to the thought of the gnostic teacher Saturninus, who taught in the vicinity of AD 120–130.136 The Apocryphon of John was modified as it was passed on and is known in several versions. Irenaeus made use of one of these versions as a source for his treatment of Gnosticism in his Against Heresies, written around 185. Thus, by the time of Irenaeus, at least some version(s) of the Apocryphon of John existed.137

This text is largely a mythical treatise involving esoteric matters of gnostic theology, dealing little with historical matters. However, it does purport to open with a historical incident. We are told:

It happened [one day] when Jo[hn, the brother] of James,—who are the sons of Ze[bed]ee—went up and came to the temple, that a [Ph]arisee named Arimanius approached him and said to him, “[Where] is your master whom you followed?” And he [said] to him, “He has gone to the place from which he came.” The Pharisee said to him, “[This Nazarene] deceived you (pl.) with deception and filled [your ears with lies] and closed [your hearts and turned you] from the traditions [of your fathers].” (Ap. John 1:5–17)138

This passage explains that the disciple John, in response to a question from Arimanius the Pharisee, stated that Jesus had returned to heaven, a possible reference to the ascension. The Pharisee responds by telling John that Jesus had deceived his followers by his teachings, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Talmud’s statements about Jesus. Whether or not such an encounter ever occurred between John and Arimanius, such an approach is certainly a typical view of Jesus’s teachings from the standpoint of the Jewish leadership.

The Treatise on the Resurrection

This book is addressed to an individual named Rheginos by an unknown author. Some have postulated that Valentinus may be the author, but most scholars reject this hypothesis. Though the ideas are somewhat Valentinian, potentially pointing to the presence of earlier ideas, it is probably better to date the work as originating closer to the late second century.139

For the author of the Treatise on the Resurrection, Jesus became a human being but was still divine:

The Lord . . . existed in flesh and . . . revealed himself as Son of God. . . . Now the Son of God, Rheginos, was Son of Man. He embraced them both, possessing the humanity and the divinity, so that on the one hand he might vanquish death through his being Son of God, and that on the other through the Son of Man the restoration to the Pleroma might occur; because he was originally from above, a seed of the Truth, before this structure (of the cosmos) had come into being. (Treat. Res. 44:13–36)140

This passage manifests much more gnostic terminology than the Gospel of Truth, but still teaches that Jesus became flesh as the Son of Man in spite of his true divinity as the Son of God who conquers death.

Jesus came to this world in the flesh of a human being, died, and rose again:

For we have known the Son of Man, and we have believed that he rose from among the dead. This is he of whom we say, “He became the destruction of death, as he is a great one in whom they believe.” Great are those who believe. (Treat. Res. 46:14–21; cf. 44:27–29)

In less esoteric language, we are told that Jesus died, rose again, and thereby destroyed death in the process on behalf of those who believe in him.

We are told of Jesus’s resurrection in other passages too:

The Savior swallowed up death. . . . He transformed [himself] into an imperishable Aeon and raised himself up, having swallowed the visible by the invisible, and he gave us the way of our immortality. (45:14–23)

Do not think the resurrection is an illusion. It is no illusion, but it is truth. Indeed, it is more fitting to say that the world is an illusion, rather than the resurrection which has come into being through our Lord the Savior, Jesus Christ. (48:10–19)

These two passages present an interesting contrast on the subject of Jesus’s death and resurrection. While the first statement is mixed with gnostic terminology, the second assures believers that the resurrection was not an illusion, which reminds us that some gnostics did not deny the physical death and resurrection appearances of Jesus.141

Since Jesus has been raised from the dead, the author counsels Rheginos that “already you have the resurrection . . . why not consider yourself as risen and (already) brought to this?” Thus Rheginos is encouraged not to “continue as if you are to die” (49:15–27). The resurrection of Jesus thereby provides practical considerations so that the believer may realize that he already has eternal life at present and should not live in fear of death. This teaching is similar to several of the New Testament teachings (Col 3:1–4; Heb 2:14–15) and adds significance to Lucian’s report that Christians believed they were immortal and were thus unafraid of death.

Once again, these four gnostic sources covered above are quite theologically oriented, freely incorporating many gnostic tendencies in addition to being generally later than most of our other texts. While these two qualifications do not necessitate unreliable reporting of the factual components, we certainly need to be cautious in using these data due to the other overarching concerns.142

Other Lost Works

Acts of Pontius Pilate

The contents of this purportedly lost document are described by both Justin Martyr (ca. AD 150) and Tertullian (ca. 200). Both theologians agree that the Acts of Pontius Pilate was an official Roman government document.143 Two types of archives were kept in ancient Rome. The Acta senatus comprise minutes from the senatorial meetings. These contain no discussions of Christ or Christianity as far as we know. The Commentarii principis comprise the correspondence sent to the emperors from various parts of the empire. Any report from Pilate to Tiberius would presumably belong to this second group.144

Justin Martyr reports in approximately 150 in his First Apology that the details of Jesus’s crucifixion could be validated from Pilate’s report:

And the expression, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” was used in reference to the nails of the cross which were fixed in His hands and feet. And after He was crucified, they cast lots upon His vesture, and they that crucified Him parted it among them. And that these things did happen you can ascertain the “Acts” of Pontius Pilate. (1 Apol. 35)145

Later in the same work, Justin lists several of Jesus’s healing miracles and then asserts, “And that He did those things, you can learn from the Acts of Pontius Pilate” (1 Apol. 48).

From these statements Justin Martyr relates several items, no doubt believing them to be contained in Pilate’s report to Rome. The chief concern here is apparently Jesus’s crucifixion, with details such as Jesus’s hands and feet being nailed to the cross and the soldiers gambling for his garments. But it is also asserted by Justin that several of Jesus’s miracles were also included in Pilate’s report.

Tertullian even reports the detail that Emperor Tiberius acted on the report:

Tiberius accordingly, in whose days the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ’s divinity, brought the matter before the senate, with his own decision in favour of Christ. The senate, because it had not given the approval itself, rejected his proposal. Caesar held to his opinion, threatening wrath against all accusers of the Christians. (Apol. 5)

Tertullian’s account claims that Tiberius actually brought some details of Christ’s life before the Roman Senate apparently for a vote of approval. The Senate then reportedly spurned Tiberius’s own vote of approval, which engendered a warning from the emperor not to attempt any actions against the Christians. As noted by Bruce, this incident, which Tertullian apparently accepts as accurate, is quite an improbable occurrence. It is difficult to accept such an account when the writer is reporting about the event 170 years after it happened with seemingly no good intervening sources for such acceptance.146 Further, it ought to be mentioned that while Christians might wish that Tiberius was so positive toward them, this does sound a little too positive—both to speak out on behalf of Jesus and to threaten punishment on any who might accuse or otherwise harm Christians!

It makes sense that there may well have been an original report sent from Pilate to Tiberius containing some details of Jesus’s healing, crucifixion, and so on. In spite of this, it is certainly questionable whether either Justin Martyr or Tertullian knew what any potential report contained. Although these early Christian writers had reason to believe that such a document existed somewhere, evidence such as that found in the reference to Thallus is missing. In particular, there are no known fragments of the Acts of Pontius Pilate or any evidence that it was specifically quoted by another writer. Additionally, it is entirely possible that what Justin or Tertullian thought were original documents were actually an apocryphal Gospel also titled the Acts of Pilate.147

At any rate, we cannot endorse the potential existence of such a purported imperial document. Even if such did exist at one time, without more to rely on than general comments like these and without at least some citations in other existing volumes, we can hardly bank on its existence or contents. We would simply be making assertions in the dark.

Phlegon

Another lost source is that of Phlegon, whom Anderson describes as “a freedmen of the Emperor Hadrian who was born about AD 80.”148 While Phlegon’s work no longer exists, others like Origen and Africanus supply the needed information.

Origen records the following:

Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles, not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events (although falling into confusion about some things which refer to Peter, as if they referred to Jesus), but also testified that the result corresponded to His predictions. (Cels. 2.14)149

So according to Origen, Phlegon recorded that Jesus made predictions about future events and that these occurrences had come to pass.

Origen adds another comment about Phlegon as well:

And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place, Phlegon too, I think, has written in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his Chronicles. (Cels. 2.33)

Julius Africanus agrees on the last reference concerning Phlegon, adding a bit more information: “Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth to the ninth hour.”150

Origen provides one other reference that is difficult to decipher, as it is unclear whether Origen is quoting Phlegon on the subject of the resurrection: “Jesus, while alive, was of no assistance to himself, but that he arose after death, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and showed how his hands had been pierced by nails” (Cels. 2.59). Conversely, Origen could be quoting the skeptic Celsus saying these same words, though making fun of them a moment later. But either way, it appears to be a witness to a resurrection appearance, whether it is being scoffed at by Celsus or proclaimed by Phlegon.

Several items are mentioned in the comments made by Origen and Julius Africanus concerning Phlegon: Jesus predicted the future and the events he forecast indeed did come to pass. There were earthquakes and an eclipse of the sun at the crucifixion that lasted from the sixth to the ninth hours during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Last, after his resurrection, Jesus appeared and showed that his hands had been pierced by the crucifixion nails.

The Gospel of Peter

Since at least fragments of the Gospel of Peter were known to Origen, and possibly even to Justin Martyr in the previous century, the Gospel of Peter is usually dated no later than the second century and often about AD 150.151 Exhibiting many legendary embellishments, the Gospel of Peter still knows historical details, such as Jesus’s trial; his being beaten, crowned with thorns, and crucified between two other men; and the sign that identified him. The Roman soldiers gamble for his clothes (Gos. Pet. 3:6–4:12). After crying out to God, Jesus dies (5:19). The Gospel of Peter also reports the torn temple veil and an earthquake. Joseph buries Jesus’s body in linen and places it is his own sepulcher (5:20–6:22).

Next, Pilate grants a Roman guard to watch Jesus’s tomb (8:29–33). The centurion, named Petronius, and the soldiers place seven seals on the great stone enclosing the tomb. Many observers, including the Jewish priests and the soldiers, are present at the tomb when two shining men descend from heaven and enter the tomb after the stone rolls away of its own accord (9:34–10:38). The two men emerge from the tomb, assisting a third person who was obviously struggling and needed support (10:38–42). The heads of the initial two men reach all the way to heaven, while the head of the third, wounded man rises above the heavens. The three men are then followed by a talking cross coming out of the tomb that answers a voice from heaven, which asks the cross whether the dead had indeed heard the message. The soldiers then report these things to Pilate, who commands them to tell no one else (11:43–49).

The next day, women come to the tomb and find that the stone has been rolled away. They see a young man sitting inside the sepulcher, who tells them that Jesus has already risen from the dead, after which they flee (12:50–13:57). The scene then shifts to Galilee where a few of Jesus’s disciples (Peter, Andrew, and Levi are named) are preparing to go fishing (14:58–60). But the manuscript breaks off mid-sentence before what was likely an appearance of the risen Jesus to these men.152

The existing fragments of the Gospel of Peter contain many reported items from the end of Jesus’s life. But for several reasons, the majority scholarly view is that there is not much here to help in reconstructing the last days of Jesus’s life. The source comes near the end of the 150-year period of this examination; it contains too many fantastic reports, such as the giant angels and the even taller Jesus; it is not known to be based on particular historical sources; and the author is unknown. Further, Christian materials including the canonical Gospels had already been cited by many previous, very early writers. Tatian’s fourfold Gospel—the Diatressaron—had been arranged about the same time as the Gospel of Peter was written, or perhaps even a little earlier. Hence, the Gospel of Peter is not an independent source but was preceded by other well-known texts.

However, the majority opinion does not determine truth (as asserted many times in this study), and, as mentioned above, Crossan thinks that the earliest portions of this text (what he calls the “Cross Gospel”) date to about AD 40–50, which he unpacks in some detail.153 Wright also explains some of the views on these issues.154

Celsus

The Greek philosopher Celsus wrote his famous attack on Christians, On the True Doctrine, between AD 160 and 180. This places his writing at approximately 130 to 150 years after Jesus’s crucifixion. While Celsus’s writing has not survived as far as is known, scholars estimate that about 70 percent of it may be reconstructed fairly accurately from Origin’s careful step-by-step critique written in the third century, titled Contra Celsum.155 We are not interested in responding to Celsus’s biting accusations here, but rather are most interested in enumerating some of the items that Celsus was aware of concerning the historical Jesus.156

Celsus blamed Mary’s conception of Jesus on her relations with a Roman soldier named Panthera—a story that circulated in more than one place in these times but nonetheless witnesses to the Christian belief in Mary’s virginity.157 Celsus was also very much aware of claims that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy and was a miracle worker as well as an exorcist. Celsus seemingly repeated often that Jesus’s actions in these instances were due to the use of magic, sorcery, trickery, or the involvement of Satan.158

Further, Jesus was poor.159 He had ten or eleven disciples.160 Jesus reputedly predicted his resurrection in advance, was beaten and then crucified, and then appeared to his followers on various occasions after his death. One witness was a “hysterical woman” among others who had gone to Jesus’s burial tomb and had seen one or two angels there who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead.161 Jesus was even worshipped as the Son of Man.162

As with the general view of the Gospel of Peter, Celsus’s work also suffers from coming at the end of the 150-year survey and being dependent on secondary sources, not all of which were accurate and which were ungrounded themselves. His extreme and acerbic criticisms indicate his unwillingness to entertain even the possibility of providing a fair evaluation, as will be argued in the second volume of this study. Further, his baseless complaints, which are not backed up by data of his own, do not stand the test of good research. However, the Gospel of Peter and Celsus show that, accurate or not, many reports about Jesus were circulating in the last quarter of the second century.

Archaeological Finds

Paul Barnett reports a few archaeological examples that indicate the spread of Christianity in the first-century Mediterranean world. One particular inscription has been found in at least seven different places, including two examples from the city of Pompeii, Italy. These artifacts are generally accepted as being Christian in origin because the letters can be rearranged in the shape of a cross to read “Our Father” (Latin: Pater noster). One example was “sealed in volcanic ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.” This provides a solid case for the date and location of this find.163

The bones of Jehohanan, a first-century crucifixion victim who was reburied in a Jewish ossuary and whose bones were discovered in 1968, was a very important discovery for Jesus studies. It helped to confirm some important items regarding crucifixion while disconfirming others and leaving a few tough questions in its wake!164 But this case is discussed in several other places in this study, so it will not be pursued further here.

Three more ambiguous artifacts should at least be mentioned here, although very briefly. A marble slab measuring 15 by 24 inches with a Greek inscription was discovered in Nazareth. This decree, self-identified as an “Ordinance of Caesar,” warns that robbing graves, removing or disturbing dead bodies, breaking seals on graves, or moving the outer stones is punishable by death. It is often concluded that the decree dates from the reign of either Tiberius or Claudius, which would place it between AD 14 and 54. Ancient historian Paul Maier asks why the death penalty was required in Palestine for these crimes at precisely this time and location instead of paying a large fine, as witnessed in similar Roman edicts elsewhere. That the decree was discovered in Nazareth is very intriguing as well. Is it possible that rumors of Jesus’s resurrection that were already known in Italy occasioned this response? The answer cannot be determined for certain.165

A second archaeological find of a rather ambiguous nature is the possible discovery of the ossuary or “bone box” of James, the brother of Jesus, announced to the world in 2002. Written in Aramaic on the outside of the ossuary are the words, flowing from right to left, “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus.” An incredible torrent of controversy arose over this artifact’s provenance, which was covered by world outlets. In the United States, this involved numerous television reports (such as a special on the Discovery Channel) and news broadcasts led by top television celebrities. Additionally, hundreds of print items were also available, such as the front pages of both the New York Times and the Washington Post plus a major treatment in Time magazine. Just one year later, an important book was published by HarperCollins featuring Jewish archaeological researcher Hershel Shanks, the editor of the well-known Biblical Archaeological Review, and influential New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, both of whom thought that the ossuary was authentic.166

The third archaeological topic is even more controversial than the previous one, namely, the Shroud of Turin. Of course, if it is Jesus’s burial cloth, it would contribute perhaps dozens of new informational avenues, medical and otherwise. If not, then obviously none of this would follow. However, even if the shroud did not belong to Jesus but is an actual archaeological artifact rather than a fake, the burial garment of another crucifixion victim would still contribute much information, as have the bones of Jehohanan, the first-century crucifixion victim mentioned above. But this subject cannot be pursued further here.167

Synopsis: Jesus and Ancient Christianity168

When the combined evidence from ancient non-Christian sources is summarized, quite an impressive amount of information is reported concerning Jesus and ancient Christianity. Close to two dozen sources recorded within approximately 150 years after Jesus’s crucifixion present valuable material regarding the historical Jesus, his teachings, and early Christianity, along with other quite helpful background items. Not all of these records are equally strong, but even minus the more questionable sources, this early evidence for Jesus is still quite impressive.169

The Life and Person of Jesus

According to the sources mapped out above, the ministry of Jesus was geographically centered in Palestine (Tacitus, Lucian, Acts of Pontius Pilate). Jesus was said to have been born of a virgin (Celsus) and had a brother named James (Josephus; perhaps the James Ossuary). He and presumably his family were poor (Celsus). He was known as a wise, virtuous, and ethical man (Josephus, Mara bar Serapion). A result of his ministry was that he had many disciples drawn from both the Jews and the Gentiles (Josephus, Talmud, Gospel of Judas, Celsus).

Of the sources mentioned here, the gnostic works in particular commented on the person of Jesus. They report that on one occasion he asked his disciples who they thought he was (Gospel of Thomas). Although there were various answers to this question, these works agree that Jesus was both God and man. He was a flesh-and-blood person (Gospel of Truth, Treatise on Resurrection) as indicated by the title “Son of Man” (Gospel of Thomas). He was also said to be the Son of God (Treatise on Resurrection, Gospel of Truth, Gospel of Thomas), the Word (Gospel of Truth), and the “All” (Gospel of Thomas).

Yet as already mentioned, the gnostic works are questionable sources for the historical Jesus because of their late and theological character. However, some secular sources for the historical Jesus report similar beliefs. They assert that Jesus was worshipped as deity (Pliny, Lucian) and that some believed he was the Messiah (Josephus) and the Son of Man (Celsus), calling him “King” (Mara bar Serapion). That particular people believed such things about Jesus is thus a matter of the historical record.

The Teachings of Jesus

An interesting tendency among some ancient authors was to view Jesus as a philosopher with some distinctive teachings (Lucian, Mara bar Serapion, cf. Gospel of Thomas). Lucian lists as some of Jesus’s teachings the need for conversion, the importance of faith and obedience, the brotherhood of all believers, the requirements of abandoning the gods of other systems of belief, and the worship of himself, which was either taught or at least the result of his teaching. It might also be inferred that the Christian belief in immortality and lack of fear of death reported by Lucian was also due to Jesus’s teaching.

Pliny’s report that believers took oaths not to commit unrighteousness was probably due to Jesus’s warnings against sin. Pliny also mentions believers gathering together early to sing praises to Christ. The Gospel of Truth adds that Jesus taught his listeners about his Father and that Jesus realized that his death was the means of achieving life for many.

Further, Jesus reportedly performed miracles (Josephus[?], Celsus,170 Gospel of Judas, Acts of Pontius Pilate), cast out demons (Celsus), and made prophecies that were later fulfilled (Phlegon, Celsus, cf. Josephus). Jesus also predicted his own resurrection (Gospel of Judas, Celsus). Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples (Celsus, cf. Pliny below) as well as taught that he would return again (Celsus).

The Death of Jesus

After a trial (Gospel of Peter), the Jewish leaders judged that Jesus was guilty of teaching spiritual apostasy, thereby leading Israel astray (Talmud, Mishnah, cf. Apocryphon of John). So the Jews sent a herald proclaiming that Jesus would be stoned for his false teaching and invited anyone who wished to do so to come and defend him. But none came forth to support him (Talmud).

Before his crucifixion, Jesus was beaten and had a crown of thorns placed on his head (Gospel of Peter). After suffering persecution (Gospel of Truth) and as a result of his teachings (Lucian), Jesus was put to death (Gospel of Thomas, Treatise on Resurrection, Gospel of Judas, Gospel of Peter, Celsus). He died at the hands of Roman procurator Pontius Pilate (Tacitus), who crucified him (Josephus, Talmud, Lucian, Gospel of Truth, Acts of Pontius Pilate) during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (Tacitus, Phlegon).

Some details of the crucifixion are also provided. The event occurred on Passover Eve (Talmud) and included being nailed to a cross (Gospel of Truth, Acts of Pontius Pilate, cf. Tacitus, Phlegon?), after which the executioners gambled for his garments (Acts of Pontius Pilate, Gospel of Peter). A placard identified him (Gospel of Peter). There were signs in nature, such as darkness covering the land for three hours due to an eclipse of the sun (Thallus, Phlegon), and great earthquakes occurred (Phlegon, Gospel of Peter). Then Jesus cried out with a loud voice and died (Gospel of Peter), which was followed by the temple veil being torn in two (Gospel of Peter). One writer (Mara bar Serapion) asserted that Jesus was executed unjustly and that the Jews were judged accordingly by God.

For those who think that the Shroud of Turin is at least an authentic burial garment of a crucified man, even if it were not Jesus’s cloth (and much more so if it did belong to Jesus), this wrapping would add a considerable number of additional items that also would be relevant to death by crucifixion. These characteristics would include what appears to be a cap of thorns on the man’s head, an exceptionally severe beating with Roman instruments such as the flagrum (scourge) that largely covered the majority of the body, as well as four piercing wounds through the wrists and feet. The body in the cloth is in a state of rigor mortis along with several other medical indications of actual death, such as postmortem blood flow. There are no broken ankles (also reported by Celsus), but there is a large wound in the region of the chest. Yet, the man was buried in a tomb and covered with a linen cloth rather than being thrown into a garbage pit or buried in the ground.

The Gospel of Peter adds many details here that will only be sketched due to the information provided above. Joseph buried the body of Jesus in linen and placed him in his own sepulcher. Pilate granted a Roman guard named Petronius. Many people and priests camped out near the tomb along with the guards who watched the sepulcher. All the witnesses observed two shining angels come down from heaven, enter the tomb, and come out supporting Jesus’s body, followed by a talking cross that testified that the dead had heard the message! Each angel was huge, but Jesus was the tallest. The soldiers went to Pilate and told him the story, and they were commanded not to tell anyone. Seemingly not knowing about all these details, the women came to the tomb on Sunday morning and saw the stone rolled away and a young man dressed in very bright clothing (also mentioned in Celsus). He told them that Jesus had risen from the dead and had left the tomb. The women fled.

The Resurrection of Jesus

After Jesus’s death it is recorded that his teachings broke out again in Judea (Tacitus, cf. Suetonius, Pliny). What was the cause for this new activity and spread of Jesus’s teachings after his death? Could it have been the teaching that Jesus had been raised from the dead? Various answers are mentioned. Mara bar Serapion, for example, points out that Jesus’s teachings lived on in his disciples.

According to the very late Toledot Yeshu,171 the disciples had planned to steal the body, so Juda the gardener reburied it and later sold the body of Jesus to the Jewish leaders, who dragged it down the streets of Jerusalem. Both Justin Martyr and Tertullian assert that the Jews sent trained men around the Mediterranean region to say that the disciples stole the body. The earliest of the sources, Matt 28:11–15, claims that after Jesus was raised from the dead, the Jewish leaders bribed the guards to have them say that the disciples stole the body, even though they did not.

Several sources also reported that Jesus had been raised from the dead and had appeared to his followers afterwards. Josephus may have recorded the disciples’ belief in the resurrection appearances of Jesus, noting that these witnesses claimed to have seen Jesus alive three days after his crucifixion. Though difficult to tell exactly from the text, either Phlegon proclaimed or the skeptic Celsus made light of Jesus appearing again and showing the marks of the nail prints in his hands and perhaps other wounds as well. (If Celsus was the one speaking, he was doubtless trying to belittle the Christians for believing this.) In the Gospel of Peter, several disciples went back to Galilee and were preparing to go fishing. The text breaks off here, though it is assumed that Jesus appeared to them near the seashore.

The resurrection of Jesus is defended especially by the Treatise on the Resurrection but is also proclaimed by the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Thomas. Afterward, Jesus was exalted (Apocryphon of John, Gospel of Thomas). The author of the Gospel of Truth seems to teach that Jesus was raised in a physical body, just like the one he occupied before his death.

Christian Teachings and Worship

Christians were named after their founder, Christ (Tacitus), whose teachings they followed (Lucian, Celsus). Believers were of all classes, ages, localities, and genders, forming a cross section of society (Pliny). For Christians, Jesus’s death procured salvation (Gospel of Truth) for those who exercised faith in his teachings (Lucian). As a result, Christians believed in their own immortality and scorned death (Lucian), realizing that eternal life was a present possession (Treatise on Resurrection).

Additionally, Lucian relates several other Christian teachings. Believers had sacred writings which were frequently read. They practiced their faith by denying material goods and by holding common property. They went to any extent to help with matters pertaining to their community, including feeding and visiting jailed members. However, Lucian does complain that Christians were gullible enough to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous persons.172

Pliny relates that believers met in a pre-dawn service on a certain day (probably Sunday). There they sang verses of a hymn, worshipped Christ as deity, and made oaths against committing sin. Then they would disband, only to reassemble to share food together, which very probably would at least include a reference to the love feast or the Lord’s Supper. Pliny also refers to the existence of positions in the early church when he mentions two female deaconesses.

The Spread of Christianity and Persecution

After the death of Jesus and the reported resurrection appearances, the disciples did not abandon the teachings they had learned from him (Josephus). By the middle of the first century, Christian doctrine and the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in particular had spread around the Mediterranean world. In fact, skeptics offered rationalistic explanations for these supernatural claims, presumably beginning immediately after Jesus’s death, but as soon as twenty years afterwards in writing. These rationalistic explanations continued from these earliest years throughout the entire period from Jesus’s death to the mid-first century, and beyond to varying degrees (Thallus; cf. later reports by Matthew, Justin Martyr, Celsus, Tertullian, and the Toledot Yeshu).

More specifically, Christian teachings had reached Rome before AD 49, less than twenty years after the death of Jesus, when Claudius expelled Jews from the city because of what was thought to be the influence of Jesus’s teachings (Suetonius). By the time of Nero’s reign (AD 54–68), Christians were still living in Rome (Tacitus, Suetonius). They could also be found in Pompeii, Italy, by AD 79 at the latest (according to Christian inscriptions found there). We are also told that Christians were present during the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 (Tacitus, Benediction 12 of the “Eighteen Benedictions”).

The spread of Christianity unfortunately involved persecution from a fairly early time in its history. There are many indications of this in the New Testament writings, including eyewitness comments by Paul. Sometimes it was tempered by a certain amount of fairness, as exemplified by the letters from Trajan and Hadrian. But it was real and serious for many early believers nonetheless. The Talmud relates an occasion when five of Jesus’s disciples were judged to be worthy of death. Tacitus provides much greater detail. After the great fire at Rome, Nero blamed the occurrence on Christians, who were described as a group of people hated by the Roman populace. As a result, many believers were arrested, convicted, mocked, and finally tortured to death. Being nailed to crosses and being burnt to death were two of the methods mentioned specifically. Such treatment evoked compassion from the citizens in Rome, with Tacitus blaming these events on the eccentricities and cruelties of Nero.

Christians were sometimes reported as lawbreakers (Pliny; cf. Trajan and Hadrian) for almost three centuries after the death of Jesus, after which Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Believers were blamed with atrocities such as meeting secretly, burning their children, drinking blood, and even being cannibals! For instance, Pliny’s main letter relates his methodology with Bithynian Christians. They were identified, interrogated, sometimes tortured, and then executed. If they denied that they were believers, as demonstrated by their worshipping Caesar and the gods, then they were freed. Pliny noted that true believers would never be guilty of such denials of Christ.

Emperor Trajan’s response encouraged moderation. Repentance and worship of the gods were sufficient for freeing these people. But Christians were not to be sought out. Emperor Hadrian offered similar advice prohibiting the harassment of Christians and even ordered that their enemies actually be dealt with if they acted improperly against believers. However, if Christians were guilty, they still would have to be punished.

Conclusion

This chapter has shown that many ancient extrabiblical sources present a surprisingly large amount of detail concerning both the life and death of Jesus as well as the nature of early Christianity. While many of these facts were quite well known, it must be remembered that they have been documented here apart from the usage of the New Testament. When viewed in that light, it should be realized that it is quite extraordinary that we could provide a broad outline of most of the major facts of Jesus’s life from “non-Christian” history alone. This is surely significant.

However, many of the extrabiblical sources also manifest several serious problem areas as well. They are often quite late when compared to the far earlier pre-Pauline creedal evidence, the sermon summaries in Acts, at least the early Pauline Epistles that skeptical scholars designate as this author’s seven “genuine” books (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon), and any additional data that may be drawn from the Gospels, especially as confirmed by the application of historical criteria that may also be shared with historians. Compared to some of the material in these earlier and much stronger sources, the secular sources usually fall short.173

Moreover, the non-Christian, secular sources are not as strong in a study of the historical Jesus, largely because they are generally much later than the New Testament books or sources and their connections to historical sources are usually far more tenuous. Additionally, they are much more prone to be dependent on derivative works rather than having been the pacesetters in original research. Even Wells correctly summarizes that the extrabiblical sources tend to be late, sometimes raise very difficult questions of provenance, and repeatedly reintroduce the question of whether they were dependent on other earlier texts.174

Since this is the central topic of this study, if we used only the information gleaned from these ancient extrabiblical sources, what could we conclude concerning the death, burial, and the resurrection of Jesus? Can these events be historically established based on these sources alone?

Of the approximately two dozen different documents and other sources examined briefly in this chapter, more than a dozen indicate or imply Jesus’s death in varying amounts of detail, with almost all of these specifying that crucifixion was the mode. Even though not all of these resources are on equally evidential grounds, when these sources are examined by the normal historical procedures that are used with other ancient documents, the result seems conclusive.175 It is this author’s view that the death of Jesus by crucifixion can be asserted as a historical fact from this secular data alone. This conclusion is strengthened by the variety of details and the independence of the sources involved. Some of the documents can be contested, but the entire bulk of evidence points quite probably to the historicity of Jesus’s death due to the rigors of crucifixion.

In fact, when agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman entertained this same subject, he listed four of our sources that were considered in this chapter as being admissible as early and independent attestation: Tacitus, Josephus, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Peter.176 Though one may question how high the probability of the case for Jesus’s crucifixion would be based on this data alone, it seems nonetheless to rest on some significant grounds.

What about the empty tomb? Can it be established as historical by the weight of this non-Christian, extrabiblical evidence alone? There are some strong considerations weighing in favor of this event drawn from this material.

First, a few of the hostile Jewish sources already examined possibly imply the empty tomb, thereby potentially providing enemy attestation. Josephus may note the disciples’ belief in Jesus’s resurrection appearances, while the much later Toledot Yeshu specifically acknowledges the empty tomb. Justin Martyr (ca. AD 150) and Tertullian (ca. 200) both confirm the account in Matt 28:11–15 by asserting that Jewish leaders were still admitting the empty tomb more than a century later.177 While these Jewish sources (with the exception of Josephus) taught that Jesus’s body was stolen or moved, they still thereby admit that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was empty.

Second, there were apparently no ancient sources which asserted that the tomb still contained Jesus’s dead body. While such an argument from silence does not prove the case, it does succeed in making it a little stronger and hence complements the first consideration from the hostile sources.

Third, it is clear from the sources in this chapter that Jesus’s teaching centered in Palestine (Tacitus, Lucian, Celsus, Acts of Pontius Pilate) and that he was crucified and buried in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate (Tacitus, Josephus, Shroud of Turin[?]). These sources assert that Christianity had its beginnings in the same location. But could Christian preaching have survived in this city based on its central claim that Jesus was raised from the dead if the tomb had not been empty? It would be a very short walk to the tomb to expose the lie if that was its nature.

It must be remembered here that the resurrection of the body was the predominant view in first-century Judaism. Accordingly, to declare a bodily resurrection when a body was still located in a nearby tomb points out the dilemma here. Of all places, evidence was certainly and readily available in Jerusalem to disprove an important tenet of Christian belief, and at a very early juncture, if it were at all possible. The Jewish leaders had both a motive and the means to get such evidence if it were available. It would seem that even for those who favored a less than bodily mode of afterlife, finding the body in the tomb could still have been an issue, although admittedly a lesser one.

As expressed by ancient historian Paul Maier regarding the birth of Christianity: “But this is the very last place it could have started if Jesus’ tomb had remained occupied, since anyone producing a dead Jesus would have driven a wooden stake through the heart of an incipient Christianity inflamed by his supposed resurrection.”178 Maier continues: “Accordingly, if all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the sepulcher of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter.”179

Dealing with different factual data, another ancient historian, Michael Grant, also agrees with this conclusion strictly from the viewpoint of how historical research is done: “But if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was indeed found empty.”180

Of course, an empty tomb does not guarantee a resurrection. So what about the teaching that Jesus’s disciples or someone else stole the dead body of Jesus, as per the contentions of these Jewish sources? Can such hypotheses account for the empty tomb and short-circuit the question of Jesus’s resurrection?

Contemporary critical scholars, whether skeptical or not, are virtually unanimous in rejecting all such stolen body hypotheses, most of all those that implicate Jesus’s disciples.181 For just a single consideration: if the disciples stole the body, would most or perhaps even all of them been willing to die, in all likelihood, for a known lie or fraud?182 Liars who know the truth make notoriously bad martyrs! It is even difficult to produce single parallel cases throughout history. Additionally, the tremendously changed lives of these earliest disciples and their honest beliefs that Jesus was raised from the dead, both of which are willingly admitted by critical scholars, are unexplained if they stole the body and then lied about it. In short, Jesus’s disciples would be the last ones to be implicated here.

This charge also fails to address the two unbelieving skeptics who believed that they saw the risen Jesus, namely, Paul and James the brother of Jesus—both of whom would hardly have been convinced by such fraud. These and several other considerations, such as the quality of ethical teachings of the disciples, account well for the dismissal of this alternative view even by critical scholars today. The position has hardly been held by any scholar in well over 200 years!183

Even worse, actually, is the hypothesis that the body of Jesus was taken or moved by someone other than the disciples. The major problem, among others, is that it only accounts, at best, for the location of the body. It does not account for the strongest, critically ascertained fact in favor of the resurrection: the disciples’ beliefs that the risen Jesus had literally appeared to them. Since one must search elsewhere to account for this major fact, this view cannot come close to disproving the resurrection. Not only is this the case with the disciples themselves, but even more with Paul and James, who pose additional refutations because someone else moving the body would not affect them.

Additionally, such views fail to provide a plausible person or persons to perform such acts, viable motives, a place for the final burial of Jesus’s body, or any explanation for the fact that the act was never admitted, discovered, or otherwise reported. But again, the appearances of Jesus are not even dealt with by these theses, and this constitutes the primary refutation of this second option. Strangely enough, if Jesus’s body had been moved to another location, Jesus could presumably just as easily have risen from the dead in that other location!

Also, it should be remembered that the Toledot Yeshu, which poses the view that Jesus’s body was dragged down Jerusalem’s streets, is a much later source and is considered unhistorical even by most Jewish scholars. Its thesis fails because such an act would have killed Christianity centuries ago, when this obviously did not occur. Nor does it explain Jesus’s appearances. It is no wonder that these fraud hypotheses have also had no reputable supporters in the last two centuries.184

In conclusion, the secular, nonbiblical sources can also make a decent case for Jesus’s empty tomb, including addressing natural responses. After all, it should be remembered that an empty tomb does not require a supernatural explanation of any sort. As was asked of the crucifixion accounts: how likely a case for the empty tomb could be built from these secular sources alone? This would of course vary from person to person. Based on the evidence admitted by hostile documents, the absence of contrary data, and the important information concerning the location of the message, we conclude that there is some underlying probability for the empty tomb based on the ancient extrabiblical sources alone. However, the overall case does not seem quite enough to establish this event by itself.

Lastly, what about the ancient secular references to the resurrection of Jesus? These sources are fewer and far more questionable. Of the sources here, only about a half dozen report this occurrence, but several of these are among those that were questioned most. Thus it cannot be concluded that the ancient extrabiblical sources, by themselves, can historically establish the resurrection, as with Jesus’s death by crucifixion. Nor does this case approach the data available in favor of the empty tomb possibility. In fact, the secular data in favor of the resurrection does not really seem very strong at all. The evidence indicates that alternative theories involving a stolen or moved body are exceptionally weak, but the resurrection sources alone cannot answer other alternative dismissals. Thus, the cause of this event cannot be demonstrated beyond that point. Some of these testimonies could be helpful in supplementing other arguments. But by themselves, the extrabiblical sources alone leave much to be desired to establish the resurrection of Jesus.

Nonetheless, the ancient extrabiblical sources do indeed provide a broad outline of the life of Jesus and a number of the features of early church history. As Luke Timothy Johnson argues, “The historian can assert . . . with the highest degree of probability that Jesus existed as a Jew in the first century, that he was executed by Roman authority in Palestine, that a movement arose in his name and proclaiming him as risen Lord spread across the Mediterranean world within twenty-five years. . . . All these assertions . . . are confirmed by converging lines of outsider and insider sources.”185 These documents indicate that Jesus was viewed as deity and died due to the effects of crucifixion. From these secular reports alone, Jesus’s tomb might have been found empty afterwards, and Jesus’s body appears not to have been either stolen or removed. While this ultimate mystery remains, additional data from other sources are needed to reach a final position on the nature of the resurrection event and the appearances.

In sum, few ancient historical figures can boast of anywhere close to the same amount of material as exists for Jesus. Whether secular figures like Alexander the Great or religious personages such as Buddha are discussed, there is hardly a comparison to be made. Historian E. P. Sanders notes that the “sources for Jesus are better . . . than those that deal with Alexander. The original biographies of Alexander have all been lost, and they are known only because they were used by later—much later—writers.”186

Similarly and perhaps even more remarkable, Buddhist scholar Edward Conze asserts that the historical sources for Jesus and early Christianity are far better than those for Buddha: “Buddhists possess nothing that corresponds to the ‘New Testament.’” For example, the chief texts that Conze presents in his volume mostly date from 600 to 900 years after Buddha’s death.187 Moreover, the information on Buddha is so late that there is “no objective criterion which would allow us to isolate the original gospel” of Buddhism! Scholars do not even know which school of thought Buddha would have identified as his own, due to the significant amount of legend.188

Rather incredibly, even Ehrman asserts often in his volumes that the amount of historical information for the existence of Jesus is amazing. He argues regarding the available evidence that “for a historian these provide a wealth of materials to work with, quite unusual for accounts of anyone, literally anyone, from the ancient world.”189 He ends his volume on the historicity of Jesus with these words: “Jesus did exist, whether we like it or not.”190

Toledot Yeshu

This anti-Christian document not only refers to Jesus but gives an interesting account of what happened to Jesus’s body after his death. Besides Mary being tricked by Joseph Pandera, resulting in her pregnancy with Jesus, the tale explains that years later, Jesus’s disciples planned to steal his crucified and dead body. However, a gardener named Juda discovers their plans and digs a new grave in his garden. Then Juda removes Jesus’s body from Joseph’s tomb and places it in his own newly dug grave. The disciples come to the original tomb, find Jesus’s body missing, and proclaim him to have been raised from the dead.

The Jewish leaders also proceed to Joseph’s tomb and find it empty. Juda then takes them to his grave and digs up the body of Jesus. The Jewish leaders are greatly relieved and want to take the body. Juda replies that he will sell them the body of Jesus and does so for thirty pieces of silver. The Jewish priests then drag Jesus’s body through the streets of Jerusalem.191

It is true that the Toledot Yeshu was not compiled until at least the fifth century and possibly as late as the tenth century—far too late to help with historical matters.192 While the text does reflect some earlier Jewish traditions, that is hardly enough to make a significant difference. Jewish scholars reportedly scorn the reliability of this source.193 Klausner, for example, makes this point more than once. He states that the work is “nothing beyond a piece of folklore. . . . The book contains no history worth the name. . . . It cannot possibly possess any historical value nor in any way be used as material for the life of Jesus. . . . It is valueless for a knowledge of the historical events affecting Jesus.”194

The teaching that the disciples removed Jesus’s dead body persisted in the early centuries after Jesus’s death, though hardly originating with the much later Toledot Yeshu. Matthew 28:11–15 mentions that this report was still popular when the Gospel was written several decades after Jesus’s death. As has already been mentioned, Justin Martyr, writing about AD 150, states that the Jewish leaders had even sent specially trained men around the Mediterranean and even to Rome to further this teaching. This is also confirmed by Tertullian in about AD 200. In other words, even though the Toledot Yeshu itself is far too late and untrustworthy as a source, in spite of any earlier material, the idea that the tomb was empty because the body was moved or stolen was common enough in early church history as witnessed by other sources.

Notes

1 When speaking of mythicism in the context of historical Jesus studies, Dale Allison exemplifies this view by commenting that he would “bring a few long-forgotten skeletons out of the closet and then quickly explain how they died.” The quotation is from Allison, Resurrection of Jesus, 20 (chap. 2, n. 15).

2 This configuration introduces the issue of whether the gnostic and semi-gnostic sources containing a mixture of religious perspectives should be considered in the Christian or non-Christian categories. It seems there are sizable issues no matter how this is demarcated. The decision here was to include only the canonical New Testament works plus very few of just the earliest postapostolic writers in the orthodox camp, such as Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp. The gnostic and semi-gnostic writers were included with the more secular camp that is being discussed in this chapter, though it is acknowledged that these works do not fit comfortably in either category. There are quite a few reasons for arranging the sources this way. Among these considerations are the sometimes very wide differences between the ideas in the orthodox and gnostic-leaning works, the fact that the gnostic works of whatever stripe were not included in the New Testament canon, that many scholars hold that gnostic thinking was often a mixture with more Greek-oriented philosophical thought, and that the best data suggest that the gnostic works should be dated much later according to the large majority of specialists. That the gnostic works are most often the least historically inclined of all these sources is also an indication of huge differences. However, by no means should this differentiation be interpreted as some sort of Christian/non-Christian divide, especially since the identity of the various gnostic authors is not even known. Hence, how can these individuals themselves be evaluated? For that matter, certain writers on the orthodox side are sometimes questioned as well. Moreover, a few of the gnostic-leaning works or portions of these works may even be closer theologically to the orthodox camp. So while the entire question is very difficult no matter how it is arranged, this is simply the way it was decided here.

3 Some of these more detailed works include the following: Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000); Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? (see chap. 2, n. 15); Casey, Jesus (see chap. 4, n. 41); Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a Figure of History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998); F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974); R. T. France, The Evidence for Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986); Habermas, Historical Jesus, esp. chapters 2, 7–11 (see chap. 3, n. 48).

4 Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, an Interpretation: The Rise of Modern Paganism (New York: Knopf, 1966), 374–85. The quotation above is from 378. Sample deist writings have been collected in Peter Gay, Deism: An Anthology (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1968); see Gay’s first two chapters on the scholarly environment and ideas of the time, particularly pages 9–10, 13. Another treatment is John Herman Randall Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind: A Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age, rev. ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940), 291–94. For a solid, multifaceted critique of the deistic movement, see William Lane Craig, The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus during the Deist Controversy (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1985).

5 In our chapter on German liberalism in volume 2, it is mentioned that two scholars nonetheless did deny Jesus’s existence—Bruno Bauer and Peter Jenson.

6 Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 39.

7 Rudolf Bultmann, “Study of the Synoptic Gospels,” 60 (see chap. 5, n. 28).

8 Regarding their testimony of their loss of personal faith (with Casey’s going back to 1962), see Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, esp. 5, also 35–37, 71, 94–95, 143, 333; Casey, Jesus, 3, 37, 39.

9 For a slightly longer list of somewhat better trained mythicists, see Justin J. Meggitt, “‘More Ingenious than Learned’? Examining the Quest for the Non-Historical Jesus,” New Testament Studies 65 (2019): 444–45.

10 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 2. The review of mythicist writers is on 14–30, 167, 191–97.

11 Ehrman, 21. Probably the most influential twentieth-century mythicists, Wells along with Price, were the two whom Ehrman thought “deserve to be taken seriously.” It should be noted that Casey is one of the scholars who has already noted Wells’s recent modification of his own views away from denying that Jesus ever lived; see Casey, Jesus, 25. Philosopher James Hannam reports a number of details on Wells’s changes in his blog “Bede’s Library” in an entry titled “An Evening with GA Wells,” December 8, 2009, http://bede.org.uk/gawells.htm. Although Hannam’s details on Wells’s lecture nevertheless indicated some quite radical views on the historical Jesus, he still notes that for Wells, “contra Earl Doherty and indeed the chairman of the meeting, Paul did believe Jesus had been a real Jewish man put to death by crucifixion.”

12 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 118, 133; also, 55, 59, 191, 253.

13 Ehrman, 20.

14 Ehrman, 20.

15 Ehrman, 268.

16 Casey, Jesus, 18–31.

17 Casey, 10; similarly 243.

18 Casey, 16.

19 Casey, 14–15, 24, respectively.

20 Casey, 10, 28, 199, 244. Casey’s quotation is from 28.

21 Casey throughout almost the entire volume, but chiefly 10, 16–18, 21–22, 27–28, 45–46, 48–52, 59, 107–8, 118–31 (mostly concerning Doherty), 133–41 (chiefly regarding G. A. Wells), 142–50 (back to Doherty), 153–201, with many key conclusions summarized on 243–45.

22 Casey, 1, 13, 17, 20, 22, 27, 33–34, 49, 130–31, 150, 230–34, 243–45.

23 Casey, 27.

24 Casey, 54–59, 133–35, 150, 153–54, 201.

25 Casey, 4–9, 11, 19, 23, 58–59, 243 for examples.

26 Nathan LaMontagne, review of Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?, by Maurice Casey, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 77 (2015): 757.

27 Casey, Jesus, 245.

28 Such as Casey’s former classmate John M. Court, review of Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?, by Maurice Casey, Theology 118 (2015): 53–54.

29 LaMontagne, review of Jesus (by Casey), 757. Cf. also Euan Marley, review of Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?, by Maurice Casey, New Blackfriars 97 (2016): 235–37.

30 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 6. Another clear sign of the changing times is that Van Voorst also noted that G. A. Wells was “now almost a lone voice for” the mythicist position (14)! Compare that to today’s writers that we have already discussed above.

31 Van Voorst, 7.

32 Van Voorst, 6–14; reminiscent of Ehrman and Casey surveys.

33 Van Voorst, 14–16.

34 Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus: Five Views (see chap. 1, n. 3) The all-star cast of participants in this volume include Robert M. Price, John Dominic Crossan, Luke Timothy Johnson, James D. G. Dunn, and Darrell L. Bock.

35 Bob Price has been a friend of mine for over twenty-five years, and while repeatedly picking up this instructive text edited by Beilby and Eddy since its appearance in 2009, I have frequently envisaged how I might have responded when facing similar strong comments that came Bob’s way from some (but not all) of the other respondents. Throughout, however, Bob treats each interlocutor politely, referring frequently to each scholar by his or her title “Dr.” and/or “Professor” in spite of their disagreements. Price’s many such comments can be found on pages 133–37, 178, 180–81, 226–32, 285–86. Of course, none of this changes the force of any of the individual arguments in the volume, but I thought that this observation was worth making on a personal level.

36 Robert M. Price, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus: Five Views, with the two quotations on 55 and 56, respectively.

37 Price, chiefly 56–66, 75–83, quotation on 83.

38 John Dominic Crossan, “Response to Robert M. Price,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus: Five Views, 85. One slightly stronger comment appears on 86.

39 Luke Timothy Johnson, “Response to Robert M. Price,” in Beilby and Eddy, 89.

40 James D. G. Dunn, “Response to Robert M. Price,” in Beilby and Eddy, 94–95.

41 Later, Dunn states, “I have no doubt that Birger Gerhardsson and David Aune are better guides on these features than the more prominent members of the Jesus Seminar.” See Dunn, “Response to Robert M. Price,” quotes on 96 and 98 respectively. The note should be added that Price is a member of the Jesus Seminar.

42 Darrell L. Bock, “Response to Robert M. Price,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, chiefly 101–3.

43 Rather incredibly, sometimes fascinating and even helpful Internet discussions on the historical Jesus have continued unabated, also revealing some equally vociferous defenders of Jesus’s historicity. In many of these dialogues, major personalities across the spectrum have paraded their arguing in sometimes very entertaining discussions. The participants in both the blogs and in the later responses to them have included some of the best-known personalities in the heart of this mythicist-versus-traditional debate, such as Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey, Robert Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, and former Oxford University professor Joseph Hoffmann. For many responses and counterresponses, including posts on various sides of the issues, see: https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/mythtic-pizza-and-cold-cocked-scholars/; https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-maurice-casey/; https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-stephanie-louise-fisher/; https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-stephanie-louise-fisher/; https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-a-consultation-on-the-historical-jesus/; http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/; https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/carrier-finally-responds-to-ehrman-on-the-historicity-of-jesus/.

44 Just a brief sampling of the skeptical and moderate critical scholars who support the Tacitus and the two Josephus references (including the Ant. 18.3 text being edited), would include: Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 291; Casey, Jesus, 9–10 (though Casey comments only on Josephus’s authentic report on the martyrdom of James, the brother of Jesus, rather than on the Ant. 18:3 Jesus text, which is not treated in this context); John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 371–75; Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), chiefly 161–63; Funk, Honest to Jesus, 222–23 (see chap. 5, n. 7); Geza Vermes, Jesus and His Jewish Context, 91–98, with an entire essay on Josephus alone (see chap. 4, n. 84); N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003); Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 141–42 (see chap. 1, n. 3); John P. Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:161–65 (see chap. 1, n. 27); Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 39–53, 81–104 (see especially Van Voorst’s comment on the importance of Tacitus and Josephus on 15): E. P. Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 49–51 (see chap. 1, n. 44); Luke Timothy Johnson, Real Jesus, 113–16 (see chap. 5, n. 49); Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 284–85 (see chap. 1, n. 18). As with Casey above, Tabor only discusses Josephus’s authentic comment on James the brother of Jesus); Kee, What Can We Know, 6–8, 10–11 (see chap. 4, n. 46); Powell, Jesus as a Figure of History, 32–33; Craig A. Evans, “Jesus in Non-Christian Sources,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 477–78; Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 21–23; France, Evidence for Jesus, 21–23, 25–32.

45 Evans, “Jesus in Non-Christian Sources,” 477–78.

46 Many contemporary critical scholars express varying degrees of positive recognition concerning the likelihood that additional non-Christian authors besides Josephus and Tacitus also wrote regarding Jesus and early Christianity. This list includes Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 163, 291 (concerning the Gospels of Peter and Thomas); Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 142 (for Suetonius and a rabbinic source: “the most plausible echo of early pre-rabbinic [Pharisaic] reaction to Jesus is b. Sanhedrin 43a”); Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 20–39 (for Thallos [an alternate spelling of Thallus], Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, and Suetonius), 53–68 (for Mara bar Serapion, Lucian of Samosata, and Celsus), and 104–22 (for considerations from the Jewish rabbinic traditions); Powell, Jesus as a Figure of History, 33–34 (for Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Lucian of Samosata, and the Talmud); Kee, What Can We Know, 8–10, 12–15 (concerning Pliny the Younger, Trajan, Suetonius, and some rabbinic comments); Johnson, Real Jesus, 114–17 (for rabbinic sources, especially b. Sanhedrin 43a, plus Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, and Lucian of Samosata); Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 20–21, 23–31 (for Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Thallus, and Mara bar Serapion); France, Evidence for Jesus, 23–24 (particularly for a few rabbinic writings, as well as possibly relevant details from Thallus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger [and presumably Emperor Trajan], along with Mara bar Serapion).

47 In a survey of the multiple independent texts that attest to Jesus’s crucifixion, Ehrman points out more than a dozen sources up to approximately 100 years after the event; esp. Did Jesus Exist?, 290–91.

48 Hadas, “Introduction,” ix, xiii–xiv (see chap. 1, n. 31).

49 An alternate thesis is that the Annals originally included sixteen books, with the Histories totaling fourteen books, also equaling a total of thirty (cf. Hadas, “Introduction,” xii).

50 All translations of Tacitus from Church and Brodribb, Works of Tacitus (see chap. 1, n. 31).

51 See note 86 below on the alternate spellings in both Tacitus as well as Suetonius.

52 Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 23.

53 Wells is referred to here as a mythicist instead of by his new position, as described above by James Hannam, due to his convictions at the time of writing his major works.

54 G. A. Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, 2nd ed. (London: Pemberton, 1986), 13–14. Wells provides three reasons why Tacitus was not independent, though none of them seem to hit the mark even somewhat! Wells’s text is The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1988), 16–17.

55 Much of history has been constructed by interviews with or reports from eyewitnesses. While these accounts may not possess the gravitas of official Roman government reports, they could certainly be quite accurate, not to mention being independent sources. One example that comes to mind is the 700-page volume by Eisenschiml and Newman, Eyewitness: The Civil War as We Lived It (see chap. 2, n. 9). It consists largely of interviews with persons who actually lived through the events in question, as the title indicates. In principle, what would be so different about Tacitus interviewing Christians or Romans who experienced firsthand the situation in Rome, biased views and all, and were still alive when he took notes for his Annals? How would that be so different from Eisenschiml and Newman interviewing members of the North and South some decades later, including these witnesses’s own prejudices?

56 J. N. D. Anderson, Christianity: The Witness of History (London: Tyndale, 1969), 19.

57 Cook lists dozens of examples of nails, ropes, or other methods, such as chains being used in crucifixion, with nails being used far more frequently, especially by the Romans (451). See John Granger Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, 2nd ed., Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 327 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), esp. 425–26n45; see also 95, 98, 190, 194–95, 197, 243, 293, 430–31n70; in ancient fiction, 261. Michael Licona reports some dozen and a half ancient references to nails being used in crucifixion as opposed to many fewer references to the victim being tied. See Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 304, particularly n. 98 (see chap. 2, n. 13); Martin Hengel, Crucifixion, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 31–32n25; see also the major details from Craig A. Evans, “Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidence Right,” in How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature—A Response to Bart D. Ehrman, ed. Michael F. Bird (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 83–86 in particular.

58 Sulpicius Severus, Chr. 2.30.6. Although Tacitus is not mentioned by name in Severus’s text concerning Tacitus being Severus’s historical source here, it should be noted that in the material immediately preceding this portion (Chr. 2.29), the subject matter is the statement by Tacitus in the Annals that we have just reviewed directly above, and it utilizes many of the same words and phrases used by Tacitus. Then Severus goes further in 2.29 and adds both Paul’s martyrdom by beheading and Peter’s death by crucifixion. Eric Laupot also notes that Severus’s text in Chr. 2.30 likewise manifests Tacitus’s style. See Laupot, “Tacitus’ Fragment 2: The Anti-Roman Movement of the ‘Christiani’ and the Nazoreans,” Vigiliae Christianae 54 (2000): 233–47.

59 Henri Daniel-Rops, “The Silence of Jesus’ Contemporaries,” in The Sources for the Life of Christ, ed. Henri Daniel-Rops, trans. P. J. Hepburne-Scott (New York: Hawthorn, 1962), 19–21; Bruce, New Testament Documents, 102–3 (see chap. 4, n. 43).

60 Although Joseph Klausner’s major works are dated, this well-known Jewish scholar dates the Antiquities at about AD 93; see Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching, trans. Herbert Danby (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 55–57, as does a much later source by another major scholar, Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Josephus and the Scriptures,” Fides et Historia 13 (1980): 44.

61 Josephus, Ant. 20.9. The translation of Josephus used here is The Works of Josephus, trans. William Whiston (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1820).

62 Daniel-Rops, “Silence of Jesus’ Contemporaries,” 21.

63 Origen, Cels. 1.47.

64 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.11.

65 Daniel-Rops, “Silence of Jesus’ Contemporaries,” 21; Anderson, Christianity, 20; Bruce, New Testament Documents, 108. For specialists, cf. Bruce’s comments on 109 for the views of British historian H. St. John Thackeray and Joseph Klausner.

66 Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 55–60.

67 Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 55–57.

68 David Flusser, “New Evidence on Jesus’ Life Reported,” New York Times, February 12, 1972.

69 Flusser, “New Evidence.”

70 James H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988), 93.

71 Charlesworth, 93–94.

72 Charlesworth, 96–97. Yamauchi’s position on these matters is quite similar at more than one juncture; see Yamauchi, “Josephus and the Scriptures,” 58, cf. 56.

73 Edwin M. Yamauchi is another of those who speak in terms of these three positions, adding scholarly lists for each. See Yamauchi, 54.

74 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 89–91.

75 Van Voorst, 91–93. Wells agrees on at least the first reason that the Testimonium does not fit Josephus’s immediate context in Wells, Historical Evidence for Jesus, 18.

76 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 93–99.

77 This informal tally emerged from a series of emails between Louis Feldman and Michael Licona, dated November 2001. Used by permission.

78 See Van Voorst’s list of historical data drawn from Josephus’s comment in Jesus outside the New Testament, 99–102.

79 Van Voorst, 102–3.

80 Bruce presents a somewhat similar list of facts. See New Testament Documents, 112.

81 The lengthy list of researchers who view very positively Josephus’s two references to Jesus are provided here and throughout this chapter, including a number of very skeptical scholars, like Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, and Geza Vermes, who freely acknowledge Josephus’s important contributions in Ant. 18.3. Strangely enough, mythicist G. A. Wells responds concerning Ant. 18.3 that he thinks it “has been shown fairly conclusively to be wholly a Christian interpolation.” Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, 10. Wells even argues that the James citation in Ant. 20.9.1 is very likely to be an interpolation as well (11)! See also Wells, Historical Evidence for Jesus, 18. The operative term in Wells’s quotation here is “wholly.” Actually, almost no critical scholars hold that view! So when reading these sorts of mythicist responses, one cannot help but wonder how these almost totally inaccurate retorts arise. It seems sometimes that no matter where the data lead, this group of writers will state their own seemingly highly prejudiced views. For example, what are the historical grounds for Wells’s comment here? No scholars are cited in confirmation. Then Wells has the temerity to add that the James passage in Josephus “is still defended by some scholars” though, even then, it is said by Wells to be supported “on obviously inadequate grounds.” Wells, Historical Evidence for Jesus, 18, emphasis added. It is simply amazing how these sorts of comments pass for careful historical analysis.

Another just as bold an example is that of mythicist Michael Martin, who asserts confidently that there is “almost . . . uniform agreement that this passage is spurious.” Martin, Case against Christianity, 48 (see chap. 2, n. 28). Exactly who is Martin reading that allows him to make such an obviously incorrect observation? In the context, he is actually responding against Habermas, saying that Habermas simply does not know where scholars are on this issue! Yet, of the five scholars listed by Martin as agreeing with him, at least two clearly disagree! To make matters worse, one of these two, John Drane, speaks directly against Martin’s position, reporting that “most scholars have no doubts about the authenticity” of the majority of Ant. 18:3! See John Drane, Introducing the New Testament (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), 138. How do summaries such as these pass for research and scholarship? It gives the appearance that mythicists just read other mythicists alone or simply create statements about majority opinion out of thin air, providing all the confirmation that these writers need! But when authors are this far removed from the majority of scholarship, what else can be concluded?

82 Yamauchi, “Josephus and the Scriptures,” 53. This is why Wells’s stated position on this particular passage in Ant. 20.9 as expressed in the previous note is so ridiculous and wide of the mark. It appears that no effort has been made to deal with the specialists in the field; he prefers “shooting from the hip” as the proper move to make.

83 Robert Graves, “Foreword,” in The Twelve Caesars, ed. E. W. Rieu, trans. Robert Graves (Baltimore: Penguin, 1957), 7.

84 François Amiot, “Jesus A Historical Person,” in Daniel-Rops, Sources for the Life of Christ, 8.

85 Suetonius, Claud. 25; all translations of Suetonius from Graves, The Twelve Caesars.

86 Translator Robert Graves of the Penguin Classics edition notes that by “Chrestus,” Suetonius is referring to Christ; see Twelve Caesars, 197n1. Many other commentators either agree with this view or a similar one, or they point out that this is the majority scholarly position. Such a list includes Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 142; Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 29–39, esp. 37–38. Martin Hengel notes that the confused spellings were probably the case for both Suetonius as well as Tacitus too, while they were evidently still speaking about Jesus; see Martin Hengel, The Atonement, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 37; Kee, What Can We Know, 9; Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History, 33; Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 21; François Amiot, “Jesus: A Historical Person,” 8; James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus: An Introduction,” in Historical Jesus: Five Views, 47; Darrell L. Bock, “The Historical Jesus: An Evangelical View,” in Historical Jesus: Five Views, 253n5; cf. N. T. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 556n14. Robert M. Price is one of the scholars who disagrees, holding that “Chrestus” refers to the instigator of the riots in Rome, where Emperor Claudius kicked the Jews out of the city about AD 49; see Price, “Response to Darrell L. Bock” in Historical Jesus: Five Views, 285. France thinks that we cannot be sure what Suetonius may have meant by the use of this name; see Evidence for Jesus, 40–42.

87 Suetonius, Nero 16.

88 John Granger Cook, “Chrestiani, Christiani, Χριστιανοί: A Second Century Anachronism?,” Vigiliae Christianae 74 (2020): 237–64.

89 Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 29–30.

90 Bruce, 30; cf. Anderson, Christianity, 19.

91 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 20. Van Voorst, incidentally, spells Thallus’s name “Thallos.”

92 Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, 12–13; Wells, Historical Evidence for Jesus, 18.

93 Maurice Goguel, The Life of Jesus, trans. Olive Wyon (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 91–93.

94 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, chiefly 22.

95 Wells, Historical Evidence for Jesus, 18.

96 Africanus, Chronographiai, frg. 18. Translation of Julius Africanus from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 14 vols. (1886–1889; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 6:130.

97 See the discussion below on the Talmud, esp. b. Sanhedrin 43a.

98 Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, 12–13.

99 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 20–21.

100 Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 24.

101 Translation from Pliny, Letters, trans. William Melmoth, rev. W. M. L. Hutchinson, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), 2:401–5.

102 Translation of Eusebius’s Church History as printed in Eusebius Pamphili, Ecclesiastical History in Palestine. And an Historical View of the Council of Nice, ed. Apostle Arne Horn (Lulu.com, 2018), 106.

103 See “Benediction 12,” in The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, ed. C. K. Barrett (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961), 166–67. This is repeated by Paul Barnett, Is the New Testament Reliable?, 25 (see chap. 4, n. 43).

104 Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 34–35; also, Barnett, Is the New Testament Reliable?, 26.

105 For many other details, see Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 54–55.

106 A good guide through many of these detailed issues is Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, esp. 104–22.

107 Translation from The Babylonian Talmud, trans. I. Epstein (London: Soncino, 1935), 3281.

108 The Greek term for cross, stauros, is found in references like Matt 27:31 and Mark 15:13, 14, 20, 27.

109 As shown by the martyrdoms of both Stephen (Acts 7:57–8:2) and James the brother of Jesus (Josephus, Ant. 20.9).

110 Besides b. Sanhedrin 43a and 107b, cf. also b. Sanhedrin 106a; b. Sotah 47a.

111 Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 32–36; cf. Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 114–15.

112 For instance, see y. Yevamot 4:3, 49a.

113 See b. Hagigah 4b; b. Yoma 66d; b. Sanhedrin 106a; m. Yevamot 4:13; t. Yevamot 3:3–4.

114 Cels. 1.32. Celsus’s major work criticizing Christians no longer exists, but Origen’s response seems careful and systematic enough to clarify the specifics of Celsus’s critique. In fact, Origen’s answers to Celsus as a whole are so detailed that his document is usually thought to provide almost a blow-by-blow idea of Celsus’s many complaints. An attempt to reconstruct Celsus in light of Origen is found in Celsus, On the True Doctrine: A Discourse against the Christians, trans. R. Joseph Hoffmann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Hoffman’s lengthy introduction provides many details on the background and setting for this debate. For Origen’s critique of Celsus, see Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 31n3 on the specific idea mentioned above.

115 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 116–17; on the double connection between the Talmud and Celsus; see also Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 30–31.

116 See b. Sanhedrin 43a, where this reference is apparently a third-century addition to the earlier material in this section of the Talmud.

117 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 104–22.

118 Translation from Lucian, “The Death of Peregrine,” in The Works of Lucian of Samosata, trans. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905), 4:79–94.

119 As pointed out by William L. Lane in a helpful article on the message of Hebrews interpreted in the context of Lucian of Samosata; see “Unexpected Light on Hebrews 13:1–6 from a Second Century Source,” Perspectives in Religion 9 (1982): esp. 273–74.

120 Van Voorst lists Joseph Blinzer, Craig Evans, and probably F. F. Bruce (though Bruce seems to prefer the second or third century on 31n21) as placing Mara’s comments in the first century, while Richard France and Raymond E. Brown think it dates between AD 70 and into the second century along with a couple of others (P. Moreau and Léon Dufour) who place the letter from AD 73 onward. Van Voorst himself favors a second-century date (perhaps even later in the century) as being somewhat more likely than the end of the first century; see Jesus outside the New Testament, 56–57.

121 British Museum, Syriac Manuscript, Add. 14, 658. For this text and translation, see Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 31.

122 Von Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 189.

123 For Dunn, this is a recurring theme; see Jesus Remembered, 58–65 (including n. 165), 161–65.

124 Dunn, 165.

125 Dunn, 59.

126 See esp. the detailed response in Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:112–66. Cf. also Marginal Jew, 2:332–33. The quotation is from this latter source.

127 Johnson, Real Jesus, 22.

128 Ehrman, New Testament, 44.

129 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 189, 201; also dating the Gospel of Thomas to about AD 150 is F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 1370. France likewise dates the Gospel of Thomas’s earliest form to about 150; see Evidence for Jesus, 77. But cf. also Helmut Koester, “Gospel of Thomas,” in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James Robinson (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), 117; Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979), xv–xvi; Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, 212–13; Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 310.

130 Translation from Thomas O. Lambdin, https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf.

131 See Robert Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 183–84.

132 Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 112. France is another scholar who agrees here; see Evidence for Jesus, 75.

133 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 203.

134 For scholarly views on this question of authorship, see Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon, 1963), 40; Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 5, 128–34; George W. MacRae, “Introduction to The Gospel of Truth,” in Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, 37.

135 The translation used here is Robinson’s Nag Hammadi Library.

136 Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 109.

137 Frederick Wisse, “Introduction to the Apocryphon of John,” in Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, 98; Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 109–12; Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 40, 199–205; Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy, 49.

138 Translation as printed in The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, ed. James M. Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 99. Brackets indicate places where the text of the damaged manuscript has been restored by the editors.

139 Malcolm L. Peel, “Introduction to the Treatise on the Resurrection,” in Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, 50.

140 The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James McConkey Robinson, trans. members of the Coptic Gnostic Library Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 51.

141 For instance, as in the Second Discourse of Great Seth 55:9–56:19.

142 The Gospel of Judas (ca. AD 150) was not treated as a separate text here, chiefly because virtually the entire treatise is an exceptionally esoteric dialogue that exhibits exceptionally little interest in or relation to history. True, it records that Jesus was a great miracle worker (34) and that he called twelve disciples (34). Jesus also predicts that the human body that clothes him will be tortured but that none of the culprits will hurt him (56). Judas will be the hero of the story because he will “sacrifice the human who bears me” (56). Translation from Mark M. Mattison, gospels.net website, https://www.gospels.net/judas. For a brief critique, see the insightful comments by Nicholas Perrin, The Judas Gospel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006).

143 It should be noted that the Acts of Pontius Pilate referred to here should not be confused with the apocryphal Gospel known as the Acts of Pilate, which was probably written to fill the gap of records already believed to exist.

144 Daniel-Rops, “Silence of Jesus’ Contemporaries,” 14.

145 Quotations from Justin Martyr and Tertullian are from volume 3 of Roberts and Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, n.p.

146 See Bruce, New Testament Documents, 116, for an analysis of Tertullian’s statement.

147 Daniel-Rops, “Silence of Jesus’ Contemporaries,” 14.

148 See Anderson, Christianity, 19.

149 Translation from Philip Schaff, ANF04: Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, at https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.ix.ii.xiv.html.

150 Julius Africanus, frg. 18.

151 Bart Ehrman opts for a date of about AD 120 for the Gospel of Peter ; see Ehrman, New Testament, 44, 184. Raymond Brown prefers the first half of the second century; see Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 2:1342–43. N. T. Wright in Resurrection of the Son of God, 592, and Darrell Bock, The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth behind Alternative Christianities (Nashville: Nelson, 2006), 218, are typical of many scholars in dating the Gospel of Peter to the mid-second century. Cf. also Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 209. John Dominic Crossan is one of a smaller minority of scholars who date the earliest portions of the Gospel of Peter to the mid-first century in Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 193.

152 As presumed by Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?, 23.

153 Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?, 22–25, 193, 218–27.

154 Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 592–94.

155 R. Joseph Hoffmann, “General Introduction,” in On the True Doctrine, 29–30, 44–45. We will be following the pagination of Hoffmann’s text here.

156 The critique of Celsus’s challenges will be addressed when Celsus’s work is revisited in the second volume of this series.

157 Hoffmann, On the True Doctrine, 54, 57.

158 Hoffmann, 57–61, 64, 66, 89–90, 98–99.

159 Hoffmann, 65.

160 Hoffmann, 59.

161 Hoffmann, 62, 66–72, 90.

162 Hoffmann, 116–17.

163 Barnett, Is the New Testament Reliable?, 19–20.

164 Joe Zias and James H. Charlesworth, “Crucifixion: Archaeology, Jesus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. James Charlesworth, Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1992); Nicu Haas, “Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remain from Giv‘at ha-Mivtar,” Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970); Vilhelm Moller-Christensen, “Skeletal Remains from Giv‘at ha-Mivtar,” Israel Exploration Journal 26 (1976); Joseph Zias and Eliezer Sekeles, “The Crucified Man from Giv‘at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal,” Israel Exploration Journal 35 (1985); Cook, Crucifixion, 107, 189–90, 263n189, 382, 387n161.

165 Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time, 202–3 (see chap. 1, n. 24). For further evaluation of this thesis, see Franz Cumont, “Un rescrit impérial sur la violation de sèpulture,” Revue historique 163 (1930): 241–66; F. de Zulueta, “Violation of Sepulture in Palestine at the Beginning of the Christian Era,” Journal of Roman Studies 22, no. 2 (1932): 184–97. A more recent alternative view argues that this stone does not refer to Jesus at all, providing another reason for considering this matter to be unresolvable at present. For this latter perspective, see Kyle Harper, Michael McCormick, Matthew Hamilton, Chantal Peiffert, Raymond Michels, and Michael Engel, “Establishing the Provenance of the Nazareth Inscription: Using Stable Isotopes to Resolve a Historic Controversy and Trace Ancient Marble Production,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 30 (2020): 102228; H. F. Stander, “The Nazareth Inscription Revisited,” Acta Patristica et Byzantina 15 (2004): 254–66; Bower, “Relic’s Origins May Refute Tie to Jesus: Nazareth Inscription’s Marble Is Traced to a Greek Quarry,” Science News 197 (2020): 13.

166 For the initial data presented above, see Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III, The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story and Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus and His Family (New York: HarperCollins, 2003). For Shank’s conclusions, see 50, 64; for Witherington’s conclusions, see 219–20, with Witherington even thinking that this ossuary and its inscription points to the truth of Jesus’s resurrection itself (220)! Also Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 15–22.

167 See Mark Antonacci, Test the Shroud: At the Atomic and Molecular Levels (Brentwood, TN: Forefront, 2015). For a popular and very informative treatment, see Mary Whanger and Alan Whanger, The Shroud of Turin: An Adventure of Discovery (Franklin, TN: Providence House, 1998); but compare Cook, Crucifixion, 430n72, 435n95.

168 With regard to the authors and archaeological objects noted in this section, the references listed above and hence are not repeated here.

169 Examples of the sources concerning which we raised various kinds of historical doubts were especially the four gnostic works, the Acts of Pontius Pilate, and the Toledot Yeshu (with the last example having been discussed earlier). Some will raise questions about the Nazareth Decree, the James Ossuary, and the Shroud of Turin. Various sources that appear in our listing here would thus be marked with an asterisk according to some researchers. But even if these questioned sources were excluded, there would still remain more than enough to settle the question of Jesus’s historicity. Further, the treatment here does not count New Testament or early postcanonical Christian texts. For further details on the overall picture, see Habermas, Historical Jesus, chaps. 2, 7–11.

170 Of course, critics such as Celsus (and perhaps Josephus) reported the Christian belief in these seemingly supernatural items without accepting them.

171 See the excursus below for further details regarding this document.

172 Celsus also notes at many points that Christians were credulous enough to be deluded by Jesus’s magical arts, illusions, and sorcery.

173 Ehrman thinks the Gospels are basically unreliable; see Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 88–93, 125, 133–36. Yet even here, he is correct when he notes that this does not mean that the Gospels do not present much reliable historical information (93, 103, 133). Further, Ehrman notes that “nearly everyone agrees” with this last statement about good historical information still being drawn from these books (94). Neither is this last point true simply because “the Gospels say so” but because “the Gospels can and should be treated as historical sources, no different from other historical sources infused with the author’s biases”; quote from Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 74. Other atheist, agnostic, and non-Christian New Testament scholars have made somewhat related comments on what can be gained from New Testament texts. A few of these researchers include Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 37–39, Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 14–19, 22 (see chap. 1, n. 42); and Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983), 95–99, 124–31.

174 Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, 12–15.

175 Cf. Grant, Jesus, 199–200 (see chap. 1, n. 24).

176 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 140–41, 290–91.

177 See Justin Martyr, Dial. 108; Tertullian, Spect. 30. Klausner also comments on Jewish tradition that may have a bearing on the circulation of these accounts in Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 51.

178 Maier, “Empty Tomb as History,” 5 (see chap. 1, n. 40).

179 Maier, 6.

180 Grant, Jesus, 176.

181 These hypotheses and others are addressed in great detail in the next volume of this study, including the many critically attested historical facts that refute these suppositions. Examples of the huge numbers of critical scholars who reject them are also presented. These facts are precisely why virtually no scholar has taken one of these options as their favored thesis in well over 200 years!

182 See Sean McDowell’s excellent study The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015) for a potpourri of data on these issues. Cf. also Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.9; 2.23, 25, for accounts of the martyrdom of several of the disciples.

183 For a good example, see Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus, who lists no proponent of this theory since 1778.

184 On more recent rejections of these fraud theories since the nineteenth-century testimony from Schweitzer, see Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 4.1, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, 340 (see chap. 5, n. 29); Raymond Brown, “The Resurrection and Biblical Criticism,” Commonweal 87 (1967): 233.

185 Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus,” 159 (see chap. 1, n. 3).

186 The quotation is from Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, 3. See also Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (New York: Penguin, 2004); Blomberg, Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 84 (see chap. 4, n. 43).

187 Conze, Buddhist Scriptures, 11 (see chap. 4, n. 54). A recent study volume in comparative religion draws similar conclusions on the stronger sources and concepts for Christianity; see Paul Gwynne, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad: A Comparative Study (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), esp. 6, 18; cf. also 19, 127–31, 242–44.

188 Conze, Buddhist Scriptures, 12 for this quotation, plus 34.

189 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 78.

190 Ehrman, 339.

191 Maier, First Easter, 117–18 (see chap. 2, n. 10).

192 Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 51–53.

193 Maier, First Easter, 118–19.

194 Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 51, 53–54.

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