Jesus: Non-Christian Documentary SourcesThe major source of information on the life of Jesus is undoubtedly the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). The epistles of Paul are also important early sources for information on the historical Jesus. Before turning our attention to these we will first look for any contemporaneous references to Jesus from sources outside Christianity. If authentic sources outside Christianity exists, these information can be used to corroborate the information from the New testaments, which will only augment the case for the general veracity of the Christian testimony. We will examine two major possible sources, Jewish and Roman. For it was within these two cultures that Jesus lived and died.
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Based on all his extant writings, Josephus, was obviously not a Christian. From his own Autobiography we know that Josephus was trained as a Pharisee. The phrases italicized in the above passage are certainly those which no Jew would have made, except one that is on the verge of conversion to Christianity. [3] No sensible scholar today accepts the authenticity of the passage as it stands. Some have claimed however, that by taking away the italicized portions, which they admit must have been added by an overzealous early Christian copyist, we can actually come to the original passage as written by Josephus. [4] However a more probable solution exist as to the authenticity of the whole passage. The passage quoted, as mentioned above, is the third paragraph of the third chapter. As it stands today this chapter consists of five numbered paragraphs. The first paragraph deals with the trouble between the Jews and Pontius Pilate over his exhibition of the images of Caeser in Jerusalem which the natives considered sacrilegious. In the second paragraph, Josephus describes another row between Pilate and the Jews. Pilate had apportioned some money from the Temple to pay for the building of an aqueduct. The Jews again protested. This time, unlike the first incident when Pilate let them off, he had the Jews massacred. And Josephus concludes the second paragraph with: "And thus was put an end to this sedition." It was here that the third paragraph with its allusion to Jesus follows. Immediately after this third paragraph, the fourth paragraph starts with: "At about the same time, another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder..." An obvious question arises: what does Josephus mean, in the context of the arrangement of the paragraphs, by another sad calamity? In its present location the fourth paragraph follows the paragraph about Jesus. Was Jesus the sad calamity? Or was it his being risen from the dead? Or was the continued existence of Christians at the date of writing the "sad calamity"? In short, the sentence in the fourth paragraph does not make sense following the third. It only makes sense if it follows immediately after the second paragraph. Here the wholesale massacre of the Jews was the sad calamity Josephus was referring to. [5] We find further support for the non authenticity of the third paragraph from the fact that while Josephus's works was known to the earlier church fathers, we find no reference to the above passage in support of Jesus' historicity until the time of Eusebius, well into the fourth century. In fact we even find the church father Origen (c185-253) telling us that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the messiah. An unlikely statement, if the passage above existed during Origen's time. [6] These considerations, when coupled with the obviously Christian wordings of the third paragraph, shows conclusively that the passage Antiquities 18:3:3 is an early Christian insertion. In short, pious forgery. This should not surprise the reader, for it is definitely not the only case in history we have of Christians altering the contents of documents to support their faith. In fact, we have already seen a few in the previous chapter in the discussion on the Johanine Comma. The other passage concerning Jesus in Josephus book is given Antiquities 20:9:1. It relates the death of James which the passage refers to as: "the brother of Jesus called Christ". Some commentators have argued for the authenticity of this passage by stating that this statement is of the sort the non-Christian Josephus would have made. But actually the statement is exactly the way a Christian would write it, this is, in fact the way the gospel of Matthew described Jesus (Matthew 1:16 Jesus, who is called the Christ.). In view of the previous passage, the balance of evidence seems to show that this too is an early Christian interpolation into Antiquities [7] [a] Thus there is no reference whatsoever to Jesus from contemporaneous Jewish source. We will now turn to Roman sources. Back to the top
This passage may well be authentic and actually penned by Tacitus himself. However its authenticity is not, in itself, proof of its reliability. It is important to know the source of his information. In the first place the Annals was written around the year 115 by which the time the tradition, true or otherwise, regarding the death of Jesus would have been established. Furthermore the reference to Jesus as Christ which is simply the Greek term for messiah, as though it was a proper name, shows that Tacitus was most probably referring to the popular opinion about the origin of Christianity. Some suggestion had been made that there could have existed the report of Jesus execution, perhaps penned by Pilate himself, filed in the Roman archives; and that this is where Tacitus derived his information from. Two considerations make this suggestion dubious. Firstly, the Roman archives, if it did contained any references to the execution of Jesus would have used his proper name, Yeshua or Iesus, but definitely not Christ. Secondly, the title Tacitus gave to Pontius Pilate - procurator - is an anachronism. We know from an inscription discovered in Judea, a dedication of a building by Pilate to Tiberius, that his title was perfect not procurator. In fact, the title of Roman provincial governors was only changed to procurator from the time of Claudius in AD41. Pilate was governor of Judea from AD26 to 37; thus at no time during that tenure could he had held the title ascribed to him by Tacitus. At any rate the archives, as Tacitus himself said, were not available to private individuals , himself included. All the above considerations show that Tacitus was merely echoing popular opinion about Jesus and had no independent source of information. Thus, as a separate historical evidence for Jesus, the passage in the Annals has no value. [8]
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References
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