9 Non-Christian Sources

9

Non-Christian Sources

Non-Christian sources are one of the more popular avenues used to demonstrate the reliability of the New Testament. I mentioned some ways in which this might occur in

NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES IN CONTEXT

Two points need to be briefly mentioned before introducing non-Christian sources. The first has to do with why non-Christian sources would be interested in Jesus and/or Christians, and the second has to do with the reliability of the New Testament itself. These two considerations will help us better understand the relationship between these sources.

First, we should remember that Christianity began as a minority movement within the Greco-Roman world and presented a vastly different worldview from those around it. For the wider culture, power, dominance, and control were the virtues of the day in many ways. Oppression was a commonsense view and not considered a bad thing in the ancient world but rather a demonstration of one’s power and ability over others. The greater power one had, the greater influence in the world one would have.

Since such a worldview dominated the broader culture, we must wonder why those who sought glory in power and control would be concerned with someone who, like so many unnamed others, died in Roman Palestine, on a cross no less. Indeed, Paul was all too aware that the gospel message challenged this mindset. He notes, for example, that “we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor 1:23). The very message of the gospel centered on an individual who was defeated by enemies and died a shameful death.

Consequently, we might expect non-Christian references to Jesus within the first one hundred or so years of his life to be rather rare. Robert Van Voorst, in his work on extrabiblical sources, concludes that “Christ was not nearly such an important issue for Rome, to judge from surviving Roman writings. The empire and its government were occupied with other matters that seemed much more serious to them, as the proportion of treatment Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny gave to Christ suggests.” Romans were not typically interested in the origins of minority religious leaders or groups (such as the Druids or Jews), nor were they generally concerned with the founders of messianic movements. However, as we will see below, rather than Jesus himself, discussion on “Christianity as a movement is their primary, perhaps their only, concern.” Accordingly, one reason we might see Jesus or Christianity mentioned by non-Christian authors is the interaction of Christians with the wider Roman world.

The second point to emphasize is one I have been making throughout the book—namely, the reliability of the New Testament writings on their own grounds. I want to emphasize that just because an author is a Christian, this does not automatically negate what that author reports. It merely bids us to be aware of the author’s bias (as well as our own).

Too often, an unnecessary emphasis is placed on non-Christian sources as though they were somehow neutral sources and free from bias. As I have been highlighting, the New Testament sources are historically good sources in their own right. In the case of the Gospels, they predate the non-Christian sources by decades and were written by those far closer to the events themselves.

It is ironic that a non-Christian may help to further illustrate this point. Skeptic Bart Ehrman argues that no historian would reject early accounts from the Revolutionary War just because their authors were Americans. They should be used as significant sources. This includes accounts from George Washington and his supporters. “To refuse to use them as sources,” Ehrman writes, “is to sacrifice the most important avenues to the past we have, and on purely ideological, not historical, grounds.” What is the implication for the Gospels? “So too the Gospels.”

Ultimately, we want to be careful to avoid excessive, unnecessarily, and arbitrarily limiting demands. The above comments should also help give some perspective regarding the value of these sources. To be clear, I am not saying that the sources are of no value, for they certainly contribute to our understanding of the New Testament and beyond. Nevertheless, I want to identify their proper position with respect to New Testament claims.

NOTABLE NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES

We can now turn to some comments from non-Christian sources regarding Jesus. While there are several different sources, I will limit us to three prominent examples. Here I will discuss Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger.

Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews 18.3 and 20.9. Josephus (ca. AD 37–97) was a prominent Jew who also became a prominent Roman after a failed Jewish rebellion. He wrote several works before the close of the first century. So, he was writing reasonably close to the events he described and was in a good position to know various aspects of Judaism during this period.

There are two relevant texts for our discussions here, and they both come from his work Antiquities of the Jews. The first is a reference to Jesus in Antiquities 18.3. The second mentions James, Jesus’ brother, in Antiquities 20.9.

For various reasons, scholars think that the first text of Josephus was likely tampered with by later Christian scribes to some degree. It is helpful to summarize briefly why this is the case. Early Christian writers state that Josephus was not a Christian, but Josephus’s text, as it appears now, gives a very optimistic description of Jesus. This has led scholars to debate whether Josephus’s text as we have it now was tampered with and, if so, how much? If it was tampered with, can we reconstruct an original? Scholars do think the text was tampered with, but to a minimal extent. They also think a reasonable reconstruction of Josephus’s text can be made, with some caution, and the apparent Christian gloss removed.

For our purposes here, we simply want to be aware of the concern, and additional technical issues need not detain us further. I present the more “neutral” text that many scholars accept. Following John Meier’s reconstruction, Josephus says the following:

At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians (named after him) has not died out.

Several facts are highlighted from this text that corroborate what is found in the New Testament. Jesus was considered to have been wise and did things that amazed people. There were many people who followed Jesus. Ultimately, Jesus was condemned to be crucified under Pilate at the instigation of Jewish leaders. Those who followed him were called Christians, and they did not abandon Jesus after the brutality and embarrassment of the crucifixion but rather were still around in Josephus’s time.

The second reference in Josephus is considerably briefer. Here Josephus mentions Jesus and his brother James. He writes, “Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.” Many recognize that Jesus receives only a passing comment here because Josephus discussed Jesus earlier, in 18.3. This text not only discusses the martyrdom of James but also highlights that Jesus had a brother named James and that Jesus was also called Christ (or Messiah). Both of these claims are found in the New Testament (e.g., Gal 1:19).

JOSEPHUS’S CORROBORATION

Tacitus: Annals 15.44. Cornelius Tacitus (ca. AD 55–120) was a member of the Roman aristocracy and provides an immense amount of historical information regarding ancient Rome. Of his writings, the two best-known are Annals and Histories. He relates information regarding Christianity insofar as it was connected to a major fire that occurred in Rome around AD 64, during the reign of Nero.

Tacitus reports that there were suspicions that Nero was responsible for starting the fire and that, to avoid blame, Nero blamed the Christians and punished them severely as a result. Tacitus writes,

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.

It is worth noting that in the same passage, Tacitus also reports that “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” (Annals 15.44). Nero was so cruel to these Christians that it began to evoke compassion toward them.

Tacitus includes much information that intersects with the New Testament. For example, Christians were named by the populace after their founder (“Christus”), who suffered the “extreme penalty” (crucifixion) under Pilate. Tacitus says the movement appears to have originated in Judea and was briefly checked but broke out again and made its way to Rome.

TACITUS’S CORROBORATION

Pliny the Younger: Book 10, Letter 96 (and 97). Pliny the Younger (ca. AD 61–113) held a number of different positions within the Roman government. He was so well connected within the Roman government that his comments about Christians are found in a letter written to the emperor Trajan (around AD 112). His letter and Trajan’s response are both well worth reading in their entirety.

Pliny wrote to Trajan because he had procedural questions on how to treat Christians that were being interrogated (and in some cases tortured or killed). He sought Trajan’s advice on handling such cases since he had not been involved in them before. Pliny was unaware of the normal punishments for Christians and unclear about whether they should be punished just for being Christian even if they were not guilty of other crimes, how far investigations should be pursued, and so forth. Additionally, he was concerned about anonymous pamphlets that were circulating and accused certain people of being Christian.

Pliny says that his current practice was to try to get the accused Christian to recant. He would ask the person multiple times whether they were a Christian and warn them that if they continued to say yes, then they would be executed. Those who denied they were Christian, Pliny would dismiss after “they had repeated after me a formula of invocation to the gods and had made offerings of wine and incense to your statue (which I had ordered to be brought into court for this purpose along with the images of the gods), and furthermore had reviled the name of Christ: none of which things, I understand, any genuine Christian can be induced to do.” Interestingly, those who recanted provided Pliny with information about Christianity. They do not appear to have been guilty of any crimes (see 1 Pet 3:16-17) but rather

the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery, to commit no breach of trust and not to deny a deposit when called upon to restore it. After this ceremony it had been their custom to disperse and reassemble later to take food of an ordinary, harmless kind.

This comment is important since, as Van Voorst highlights, it is the “first non-Christian description of early Christian worship.” Moreover, we can see that Christians not only worshiped Jesus but committed themselves to honesty while turning away from immorality (see Eph 4:17–5:21).

Pliny then goes on to note that another reason for his consulting Trajan was that a “great many individuals” were being brought for trials, coming from all ages, genders, and classes. This led to the temples being “almost entirely deserted” as well. Pliny was thus hoping Trajan could properly direct him on how to conduct these trials since he did not believe they would be ceasing any time soon.

Trajan’s response to Pliny’s inquiry is relatively brief, and I will present it in its entirety here:

You have followed the right course of procedure, my dear Pliny, in your examination of the cases of persons charged with being Christians, for it is impossible to lay down a general rule to a fixed formula. These people must not be hunted out; if they are brought before you and the charge against them is proved, they must be punished, but in the case of anyone who denies that he is a Christian, and makes it clear that he is not by offering prayers to our gods, he is to be pardoned as a result of his repentance however suspect his past conduct may be. But pamphlets circulated anonymously must play no part in any accusation. They create the worst sort of precedent and are quite out of keeping with the spirit of our age.

Pliny is thus urged to continue trying to get Christians to recant but to refrain from proactively seeking out Christians. Moreover, Trajan says anonymous accusations should have no part in these trials.

CONCLUSION

These sources may seem like trivial items that corroborate basic New Testament teachings; however, their significance should not be overlooked. Consider, for example, what if, instead of saying that Jesus’ death occurred in Judea, Tacitus reported that Jesus died in Greece? Or, perhaps, rather than Jesus’ being condemned as a criminal, what if Josephus reported that Jesus died during a battle in Galilee? Differences like these would certainly and understandably raise a number of questions. Fortunately, this is not the case. Rather, non-Christian sources frequently corroborate New Testament claims. Thus, these reports add more weight to the reliability of the New Testament.

KEY TAKEAWAYS: NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES

RECOMMENDED READING

Bruce, F. F. Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974.

Habermas, Gary R. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996.

Van Voorst, Robert E. Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.

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