Are there then no surviving non-Christian sources about Jesus? Indeed there are some, and several of these confirm some important points about the historical Jesus. Yet all are fragmentary, and some depend on the reports of Christians. 166 Some scholars note the brief but early comments of Thallus, apparently in the 50s CE, regarding darkness around the time of Jesus’ crucifixion;167 the Syrian Stoic Mara bar Serapion, who claimed (c. 73 CE) that Jesus was a “wise king of the Jews”;168 and various others.169 It is helpful to note these sources, but the information available in them is slender.170
The most relevant material appears in the early-second-century Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius and in the first-century Jewish historian Josephus. Tacitus notes that Pontius Pilate had “Christus” executed;171 Suetonius’ report may suggest that Jewish people in Rome were debating Jesus’ identity within two decades of his execution.172 We shall briefly discuss Josephus further below.
Why do these sources not comment more? These writers addressed only what was in their purview; the focus of Tacitus and Suetonius was on Rome itself, and on the provinces or foreign wars especially insofar as they affected matters in Rome. They had little reason to be interested in Jesus himself,173 although the massive growth of his followers in Rome apparently twice called for comment. Both these passages mention Jesus only in connection with Rome.
This neglect is not a result of prejudice against Jesus (though of course such prejudice existed); these historians simply did not focus on figures that seemed irrelevant for their audience’s interests. By comparison, Tacitus has little reason to discuss even the first-century Judean king Agrippa I.174 Pontius Pilate appears in Tacitus only as the governor who ordered Jesus’ execution.175 Jesus does appear in these Roman historians more than any other “messianic” or prophetic leader of Palestine. Despite the prominence of Josephus’ War as a firsthand Jewish account to the Roman world’s elite, he is of no interest to later rabbinic sources (less, in fact, than Jesus was). Later rabbinic sources acknowledge Jesus as a wonder-worker, but view him with hostility, treating him as a magician. The rabbis write over a century later than the Gospels (at the earliest nearly two centuries after Jesus), however, and where they have “information” it tends to be secondhand, based on Christian reports.176
Josephus offers more information about Jesus than Tacitus or Suetonius do, though diplomatically remaining silent on the troublesome popular movement that Jesus spawned.177 While Josephus plays down potentially “messianic” elements in recent history178 and even in the OT,179 Josephus does mention Jesus’ brother James (Ant. 20.200) and likely does mention Jesus himself (Ant. 18.64). (For his treatment of John the Baptist, see ch. 11.)
Although three brief lines in Josephus’ passage about Jesus seem to be later additions, the vast majority of scholars today believe that the passage is authentic once these additions are set aside.180 (Only a few have defended its complete authenticity, without interpolations.)181 One supporting factor is the passing mention of Jesus in the passage on James; a Christian interpolator would not mention Jesus only in passing, and Josephus would mention him in passing only if he had already (in 18.64) mentioned him.182 Another factor is that the passage seems mostly neutral, not what an ancient Christian would likely write about Jesus. 183 Interestingly, the Arabic version of Josephus, transmitted without the same tampering, independently confirms the hypothesis that the passage was genuinely from Josephus apart from these interpolated Christian remarks.184
When we examine what Josephus actually says about Jesus, he portrays him as a wise sage and apparently as a worker of miracles,185 both features that recur in the Gospels that we will consider in greater detail there.
