Historical Evidence for Jesus

Historical Evidence

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Is There Historical Evidence for Jesus?

© Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D./Magis Institute July 2011

Introduction

Most of the evidence that will be considered in this encyclopedia will be from the New Testament, and it will result from the application of historical criteria (given below in Section I.) to the New Testament texts (the four Gospels and the Epistles). There is a surprising amount of evidence that can be gleaned from these texts which will become readily apparent.

It should be mentioned that there are several extra testamental sources for the historicity of Jesus – particularly His ability to work miracles and His sentencing and crucifixion. The three most important sources are discussed in various Units of this Encyclopedia. Rather than explain them here, I will list them with the references to the Unit in which they are explained.

1. The testimony of Flavius Josephus (Jewish historian writing for a Roman audience in 93 A.D.) which attests to Jesus’ miraculous power and His sentencing and crucifixion (see Unit II-F, Section I.):

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles…And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross…And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.^[1]

2. The testimony of the Babylonian Talmud (written between 70 to 200 A.D. in which Jesus is mentioned under four different names, several time).

One of the passages states that Jesus was accused of “witchcraft,” indicating that Jesus was known to have some kind of extraordinary and other-worldly power.^[2] (see Unit II-F, Section I.).

3. The testimony of Cornelius Tacitus (a Roman historian writing in the early second century – approximately 120 A.D.) who makes explicit reference to the crucifixion of Jesus in the Annals (15.44) when speaking about Nero’s blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome:

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.^[3] (see Unit II-M, Section I., for an explanation).

There are other kinds of external testimony to Jesus which are not in written form – such as the remarkable growth of Christianity in its first two decades even amidst complete marginalization and overt persecution. It would be difficult to believe that this occurred without an actual (remarkable) historical figure as its source. These indirect external testimonies to the historicities (and remarkable character of Jesus are discussed in Units II-C, D, E, and F.)

Of course, the New Testament goes far beyond these direct and indirect extra testamental sources, and gives a very detailed picture of both Jesus and His Jewish historical context. Wright, Meier, and other historical exegetes hold that Jesus came from a background of Palestinian Judaism, and that He overlaid this background with an emphasis on apocalyptic eschatology. Though He was undoubtedly familiar with Hellenistic thought, it was not central to His worldview. The general portrait of Jesus within this Palestinian framework is described quite succinctly by John P. Meier as follows:

…the total Gestalt, the total configuration or pattern of this Jew who proclaimed the present yet future kingdom, who was also an itinerant prophet and miracle worker in the guise of Elijah, who was also a teacher and interpreter of the Mosaic Law, who was also a charismatic leader who called disciples to follow him at great price, who was also a religious personage whose perceived messianic claims wound up getting him crucified by the Roman prefect, in the end, a crucified religious figure who was soon proclaimed by his followers as risen from the dead and Lord of all. It is this total and astounding configuration of traits and claims that makes for the uniqueness of Jesus as a historical figure within 1st-century Judaism.^[4]

But how can we be so sure that this picture of Jesus is historical? What techniques can be used to ascertain the truth of any historical texts, and in particular, New Testament texts? Why did the early Church go beyond the claim that Jesus was a man and claim that he was divine – “the Lord,” “the Son of God,” and even, “in the form of God,” and “not grasping at his equality with God”? We will discuss each of these questions in the following three subsections:

I. A Brief Description of Criteria to Establish Historicity.

II. The High Cost of Claiming Jesus’ Divinity.

III. Evidence Corroborating the Early Churchs’ Claim of Jesus’ Divinity.