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Non-Biblical Sources
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This section could prove to be a bit short ... basically, there are
no non-biblical references to a historical Jesus by any known historian
of the time during and after Jesus's purported advent.
Walker says, "No literate person of his own time mentioned him
in any known writing." Eminent Hellenistic Jewish historian and philosopher
Philo (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.), alive at the purported time of Jesus, makes
no mention of him. Nor do any of the some 40 other historians who wrote
during the first one to two centuries of the Common Era. "Enough
of the writings of [these] authors . . . remain to form a library. Yet
in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages
in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works
of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ."
Their silence is deafening testimony against the
historicizers.
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In the entire works
of the Jewish historian Josephus, which constitute many volumes, there are
only two paragraphs that purport to refer to Jesus. Although much has been
made of these "references," they have been dismissed by all scholars
and even by Christian apologists as forgeries, as have been those referring
to John the Baptist and James, "brother" of Jesus. Bishop Warburton
labeled the Josephus interpolation regarding Jesus as "a rank forgery,
and a very stupid one, too." Wheless notes that, "The first
mention ever made of this passage, and its text, are in the Church History
of that 'very dishonest writer,' Bishop Eusebius, in the fourth century.
. . CE (Catholic Encyclopedia) admits . . . the above cited passage was
not known to Origen and the earlier patristic writers." Wheless,
a lawyer, a Taylor, and a minister, agree that it was Eusebius himself who
forged the passage. |
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Regarding the letter
to Trajan supposedly written by Pliny the Younger,
which is one of the pitifully few "references" to Jesus or Christianity
held up by Christians as evidence of the existence of Jesus, there is but
one word that is applicable - "Christian" - and that has been
demonstrated to be spurious, as is also suspected of the entire letter.
Concerning the passage in the works of the historian Tacitus,
who did not live during the purported time of Jesus but was born two decades
after his purported death, this is also considered by competent scholars
as an interpolation and forgery.30 Christian defenders also like to hold
up the passage in Suetonius that refers to someone named "Chrestus"
or "Chresto" as reference to their Savior; however, while some
have speculated that there was a Roman man of that name at that time, the
name "Chrestus" or "Chrestos," meaning "useful,"
was frequently held by freed slaves. Others opine that this passage is also
an interpolation. |
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Of these references
and their constant regurgitation by Christian apologists, Dr. Alvin Boyd
Kuhn says: |
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"The average
Christian minister who has not read outside the pale of accredited Church
authorities will impart to any parishioner making the inquiry the information
that no event in history is better attested by witness than the occurences
in the Gospel narrative of Christ's life. He will go over the usual citation
of the historians who mention Jesus and the letters claiming to have been
written about him. When the credulous questioner, putting trust in the intelligence
and good faith of his pastor, gets this answer, he goes away assured on
the point of the veracity of the Gospel story. The pastor does not qualify
his data with the information that the practice of forgery, fictionizing
and fable was rampant in the early Church. In the simple interest of truth,
then, it is important to examine the body of alleged testimony from secular
history and see what credibility and authority it possess.
"First, as to the historians whose works record the existence
of Jesus, the list comprises but four. They are Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius
and Josephus. There are short paragraphs in the works of each of these,
two in Josephus. The total quantity of this material is given by Harry
Elmer Barnes in The Twilight of Christianity as some twenty-four lines.
It may total a little more, perhaps twice that amount. This meager testimony
constitutes the body or mass of the evidence of 'one
of the best attested events in history.' Even if it could be accepted
as indisputably authentic and reliable, it would be faltering support
for an event that has dominated the thought of half the world for eighteen
centuries.
"But what is the standing of this witness? Not even Catholic
scholars of importance have dissented from a general agreement of academic
investigators that these passages, one and all, must by put down as forgeries
and interpolations by partisan Christian scribes who wished zealously
to array the authority of these historians behind the historicity of the
Gospel life of Jesus. A sum total of forty or fifty lines from secular
history supporting the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, and they completely
discredited!"
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Of these "references,"
Dujardin says, "But even if they are authentic, and were derived
from earlier sources, they would not carry us back earlier than the period
in which the gospel legend took form, and so could attest only the legend
of Jesus, and not his historicity." In any case, these scarce and
brief "references" to a man who supposedly shook up the world
can hardly be held up as proof of his existence, and it is absurd that the
purported historicity of the entire Christian religion is founded upon them.
As it is said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof";
yet, no proof of any kind for the historicity of Jesus has ever existed
or is forthcoming. |
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