The Existence of Jesus

In 2006, I was taking a history class at a local junior college, but the teacher seemed preoccupied with attacking Christianity every single class. Rather than World Civilization, the class easily could have been subtitled, How Christianity Ruins Everything. The sad thing was, the students just took what he said and bought into it, hook, line, and sinker. Just about every class ended becoming dialogues between myself, a Protestant classmate, and the anti-Christian teacher. But one particular class, the teacher made the astounding claim that no evidence ever existed for the existence of Jesus as a historical person! I could not just sit back and allow such comments to be thrown out, and so in response, I wrote this article…

Secular modernists and progressivists have strived hard to paint a picture of Jesus Christ which is not faithful to the Person and message we encounter in the New Testament. The Jesus that they have attempted to present to the world is a weak, mortal man. A great moral teacher, but nothing more. A philosopher who inspired men to live better lives, but certainly not a Judge we will one day answer to, or a Living Sacrifice who suffered for the sins of the world. If one reads the New Testament, we encounter a Jesus who claims the authority to forgive sins; who claims equality with the Father; who claims that salvation is through Him and Him alone. True, He is a man. But He is also God. The great miracle of the Incarnation: Almighty God became a man. The Creator entered into His own creation. A mystery we will never be able to fully understand in this life. Why have modernists so viciously attempted to eradicate this image of Jesus? Because if the biblical evidence is true, then it means we have a Judge whom we must one day give an account to. It means we must repent and change our lives from rebellion and disobedience to complete and total subjection to Jesus Christ. It means we must admit the reality of moral absolutes; the existence of heaven and also hell; a judgment of works. No wonder modernists must attempt to present to us a purely mortal Jesus. If they can accomplish their desired task, then humanity no longer has to worry about taking accountability for its sins and offenses against an All-Loving, All-Merciful God. We can all just live happily in whatever sins we happen to desire without the promises of inheriting an eternal heavenly kingdom for believing in Christ and living in obedience to His will; and without the threat of suffering everlasting punishment in hell for willingly choosing to say “No” to Him.

Most people are able to see past this obvious liberal agenda. The reason is because they realize that when it comes to examining the person of Jesus as He is found in the Gospels, only three options are left. Either He is a deceiving liar; or a disillusioned lunatic; or the Lord of history. Those are the three options we are left with, and anything less than that simply won’t do. It does not help to just wish it all away and conclude, “Oh, I believe Jesus was a great man, but nothing more.” He has not left that option open as a possibility. So the liberal agenda has suffered a huge blow since many people have been able to reach this conclusion. Now, since liberals have largely failed in their attempts to give us a secular Jesus, what do you think their next strategy would be? Let’s say He just never existed! Sound laughable? That’s because it is. But believe it or not, a growing number of secular liberals and modernists have tried arguing for this very idea, and unfortunately some souls are being deceived into accepting it. No Jesus means: No judgment, no repentance, no moral absolutes. It also means God has not personally entered into His own creation, and thus we are morally free to be atheists, agnostics, or even deists if we wish. Whichever one we choose, we can rest assured that we can continue living on in our sinful lifestyles and not have to worry about changing anything. This entire message is really very sad, but as Scripture says, there will always be those who enjoy their sins too much and want to ignore any evidence for a Savior.

So what are the positive proofs that argue for (in fact, scream for) the existence of Jesus Christ as a real flesh-and-bones human being who walked the ground of this very planet roughly 2,000 years ago? The evidence is overwhelming. And fortunately, we do not need to turn to simply Christian witnesses to prove this historical fact, but we can rely on non-Christian witnesses as well. It is to those that we will first turn.

Christian historian F.F. Bruce wrote, “Whatever else may be thought of the evidence from early Jewish and Gentile writers… it does at least establish, for those who refuse the witness of the Christian writings, the historical character of Jesus Himself. Some writers may toy with the fancy of a ‘Christ-myth’, but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the ‘Christ-myth’ theories. The earliest propagators of Christianity welcomed the fullest examination of the credentials of their message. The events which they proclaimed were, as Paul said to King Agrippa, not done in a corner, and were well able to bear all the light that could be thrown on them.” (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, pgs. 119-120).

Pagan historians and writers who lived around the time of Christ clearly had things to say about Him. Take Cornelius Tacitus. He was a Roman historian who lived from 55-120 AD. Some have considered him to be the greatest historian of ancient Rome. In his famous work Annals, written in 116 AD, he makes mention of the death of Jesus and to the existence of Christians in Rome. He writes, “Hence to suppress the rumor, he [Roman emperor Nero] falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.” F.F. Bruce has made this interesting observation regarding this citation from Tacitus: “Pilate is not mentioned in any other pagan document which has come down to us… And it may be regarded as an instance of the irony of history that the only surviving reference to him in a pagan writer mentions him because of the sentence of death which he passed upon Christ.” What Tacitus reveals to us is that Jesus did in fact exist, and that He was sentenced to the Roman death penalty. He also reveals that the gospel of Jesus Christ had already spread to imperial Rome by the time of the early 2nd century. But there is more, as well. Though not conclusive, it seems probably that Tacitus even makes a possible reference to the Christian claim that Jesus had resurrected from the dead. Upon mentioning that Christ was crucified under Pilate, he writes, “But the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again.” What superstition is he referring to? Many believe it is the claim of Jesus’ Bodily Resurrection.

Another pagan historian is Thallus, who wrote around the year 52 AD. This would be only a mere 20 some years since the death and resurrection of Christ. The histories written by Thallus have unfortunately faded with the passing of time; however, we do possess fragments of what he wrote thanks to the preservation of other writers. One of these is Julius Africanus, a Christian whose works are dated around 221 AD. Africanus quotes from Thallus’ work in his day. What is interesting to our current discussion is that Thallus makes reference to the darkness which occurred at the time of Jesus’ death. Thallus calls it a solar eclipse, noting that a darkness enveloped the land during the late afternoon hours when Jesus died on the cross, while Africanus points out that this would be an impossibility since eclipses do not happen on full moons. Either way, Jesus’ existence and death are stated as fact by Thallus. As read by Africanus, “Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun– unreasonably, as it seems to me (unreasonably, of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died).”

Another early Roman historian chronicling the existence of Jesus is Suetonius, a court official under Hadrian and annalist of the Imperial House, writing in 120 AD. In his work Life of Claudius, he notes, “As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.” This event is actually recorded by Luke in Acts 18:2, which historically took place in 49 AD. It is noteworthy to state that Suetonius was writing about events between the late 40s-60s AD. In his Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius makes mention of Christians, calling them “a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.” Like we saw in Tacitus above, Suetonius is most likely referring to the claim of the Resurrection here, calling it a “new and mischievous superstition.”

Pliny the Younger was the Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In a letter written to Emperor Trajan around 112 AD, he makes note of the fact that Christians worshiped Christ “as to a god,” and that they were willing to die for their belief in Him. He also writes about how he forced some Christians to bow down to the statues of Trajan and renounce their faith by cursing Christ. Interestingly, Pliny also gives us a hint as to the worship of early Christians. He writes, “They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.” Notice that through all of these writings, the existence of Christ is assumed and never denied.

In 140 AD, Roman historian Phlegon wrote his work Chronicles. Like Thallus above, his work has entirely been lost over the passing of time. However, portions of his work are quoted by third century Christian apologist Origen. It is interesting to note that Phlegon makes mention of earthquakes happening around the time of Jesus’ death, as well as notes certain prophecies made by Christ. Origen writes, “Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles, not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events… but also testified that the result corresponded to His predictions. So that he also, by these very admissions regarding foreknowledge, as if against his will, expressed his opinion that the doctrines taught by the fathers of our system were not devoid of divine power.” Later in the same work, Origen notes, “And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place, Phlegon too, I think, has written in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his Chronicles.”

The letter of Mara Bar-Serapion, dated around 70 AD, is in my opinion one of the strongest non-Christian, pagan proofs for the existence of Jesus emanating from the first century. Mara was a Syrian philosopher who wrote a letter from prison to his son. In his letter, he compares Jesus Christ to Socrates and Pythagoras. Mara first asks rhetorically, what advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? He then asks, what advantage did the men of Samos gain from killing Pythagoras? Following on these two thoughts, he writes, “What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished.” Then, Mara attempts to argue that all three (Athenians, men of Samos, and the Jewish people) had suffered from God for their unjustly killing the three men. He then writes, “Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teaching He had given.” While Mara was certainly not a Christian (in fact, later in his letter he indicates he is a polytheist), he clearly did not question the existence of Jesus Christ.

The second strongest non-Christian, pagan proof, again in my opinion, comes from Lucian of Samosata. Lucian was a Greek satirist of the latter half of the second century, writing around 170 AD. In his work The Death of Peregrine, he writes, “The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day– the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account… it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.” Lucian was no fan of Christianity, and spoke very scornfully and mockingly about the whole movement. But never once does he intimate the idea that “the crucified sage” whom the Christians worship was a made-up myth who never existed. Lucian, and all the above pagan historians I have noted, take it for granted that the existence of Jesus Christ was an established, historical fact.

When we check out Jewish historians, we find the exact same thing. It is taken for granted that Jesus Christ actually existed; that fact is never questioned or contested. If there was ever a group that would have reason to expose this alleged Jesus-fraud, it would be this group here. The Christian message was radically opposed to the Jewish religion, for the simple fact that Christians alleged that their Savior, Jesus Christ, was of the same substance as the Father– He was deity; God in the flesh. And He came to establish a New Covenant which included in it the Gentiles and pagans of the world. As well, upon establishing this New Covenant, ipso facto the Old Covenant would reach fulfillment and thus the ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant no longer applied or carried any saving force with them whatsoever (not that they were ever intended to do as such anyways). As well, the Jewish people expected a Savior who would come in the form of a mighty warrior king, not a humble carpenter’s son who preached a gospel of peace, love, and forgiveness. So the Jewish religion as a whole was hostile to the early Christian movement. Thus, if Jesus Christ really was a fraudulent myth, made up by the apostles and early disciples of Christianity, certainly the Jewish people would be the first to expose it as such. But when we examine the Jewish record, we find no such argument ever being made. Like the pagan historians mentioned above, the existence of a flesh-and-bones man named Jesus is taken as fact. As author Josh McDowell notes, “Similar to the secular references, the ones found in ancient Jewish sources are unfriendly toward Christianity’s founder, followers, and beliefs. For this reason their attestation to events surrounding Jesus’ life are valuable testimony to the historicity of these events” (Evidence That Demands a Verdict, pg. 123).

Let us first examine the Babylonian Talmud, which notes, “It has been taught: On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu… he practiced sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray.” Lest anyone be confused by the name “Yeshu,” it is a Hebrew name which is translated as Jesus from the Greek to English. As well, the term “hanged” is simply another way to refer to crucifixion (read Luke 23:39 and Galatians 3:13). The fact that the Talmud notes that Jesus’ crucifixion occurred on the eve of Passover agrees entirely with the biblical account, as evidenced in John 19:14. McDowell writes, “This text clearly affirms the historicity of Jesus and His death. It also affirms that the Jewish authorities were involved in the sentencing, but it tries to justify their actions. In a backhanded way it even attests to Jesus’ miracles” (Evidence, pg. 124). It should also be noted that the Talmud goes on to make references to the disciples of Jesus, alleged healings attributed to Jesus, and to the claim of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Regarding the latter claim, the Talmud mentions things concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary which would be scandalous to pious ears. Concerning her, it notes that Mary, “who was the descendant of princes and governors, played the harlot with carpenters.” The allusion to princes and governors is an obvious reference to Luke’s genealogy, in which the ancestry is traced back to King David. The reference to carpenters is obviously referring to Joseph. Of course, the Talmud is trying to assert that Mary was a harlot in order to deny the Christian claim to the Virgin Birth.

This now leads us into perhaps the strongest non-Christian proof regarding the existence of Jesus, and it comes from Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Writing around the mid to late first century AD, his masterful work Jewish Antiquities contains for us perhaps the most conclusive evidence arguing for the historicity of Jesus Christ. Let me preface the direct citation by first making some preliminary notes. There is a heated debate between scholars of all shades as to whether or not Christian interpolations were added to the original manuscript text composed by Josephus. The reason for this is that Josephus makes certain comments about Jesus that most scholars admit could not have been honestly written by Josephus himself. I am going to provide the quote taken from Antiquities, and (as most authors do) will italicize the portions of the text that are in dispute.

He writes, “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. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.”

Calling Jesus “the Christ” was something an orthodox Jew certainly would not affirm, much less a historian such as Josephus. The same could be said regarding the reference to the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus. While it appears that some Christian interpolation may have been added to the text, I agree with most scholars that it would be a huge mistake, and an unwarranted leap, to discredit the entire passage as a whole. John P. Meier, in “The Testimonium: Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible” for Bible Review in June 1991, wrote, “Read the Testimonium without the italicized passages and you will see that the glow of thought is clear. Josephus calls Jesus by the generic title ‘wise man.’ Josephus then proceeds to ‘unpack’ that generic designation with two of its main components in the Greco-Roman world: miracle working and effective teaching.” McDowell notes, “I find myself agreeing with those scholars who see that, while some Christian additions–notably the phrases italicized above–have been made to the text that are clearly foreign to it, the Testimonium contains a good deal of truth that Josephus could have easily affirmed” (Evidence, pg. 126). Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi, interviewed by Lee Strobel in The Case for Christ, in responding to the question, “What’s the bottom line?,” says, “That the passage in Josephus probably was originally written about Jesus, although without those three points I mentioned. But even so, Josephus corroborates important information about Jesus: that he was the martyred leader of the church in Jerusalem and that he was a wise teacher who had established a wide and lasting following, despite the fact that he had been crucified under Pilate at the instigation of some of the Jewish leaders” (pg. 80). Again, as I have stated numerous times above, this important passage from Jewish historian Josephus helps us to see that clearly the historicity of Jesus Christ was something uncontested, even by those who would most likely identify themselves as being opposed to the Christian religion as a whole.

We now move to the final section of my article, and that is on the early Christian evidence. It should go without saying that, obviously, early Christian writers did not believe that their faith (a faith which produced literally thousands of martyrs in the first three centuries of its history) did not have its foundation and establishment in a real, historical person named Jesus Christ. Nobody would suggest the idea, of course, that the New Testament authors did not believe in the existence of Jesus. And to suggest they all collaborated on some elaborate plan to create a new religion with no actual founder is absurd to say the least. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the accuracy, authenticity, and divine inspiration of the New Testament, but if we can at least see the New Testament documents as being historical writings dealing with the origins and rise of Christianity and its message, then we can safely conclude the authors all believed that there truly existed a man named Jesus Christ, who walked this earth and breathed the same air that you and I do today.

The earliest Christian writers all believed that Jesus Christ historically existed and founded their faith. St. Clement of Rome, writing in the late 1st century while St. John the Apostle was still alive, wrote to the church in Corinth, “The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ.” St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the early 2nd century, wrote to the Trallians, “Jesus Christ who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth; who moreover was truly raised from the dead, His Father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will so raise us also who believe on Him.” He wrote to the Smyrneans, “He is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, but Son of God by the Divine will and power.” Even the earliest heretical offshoots of Christianity, such as Docetism and Gnosticism, believed that Jesus Christ was a historical figure who founded Christianity.

Whatever else you may want to believe about Christianity, the bottom line is that we can not doubt this sure fact: Jesus Christ truly existed. There is no possible way to deal with all the facts just presented from pagan, Jewish, and Christian sources and to conclude that Jesus is just a myth. To do so is to commit historical murder. Those who hold to the erroneous idea that Jesus never existed do so not based on historical, factual evidence, but due to their own agendas, whatever those may be. Even if someone were to, for the sake of argument, say that Josephus could not be trusted due to possible Christian interpolation, what then of the Talmud, Tacitus, Lucian, Suetonius, Thallus, Mara, etc. etc. etc.? And even that assertion regarding Josephus is doubted by most serious scholars. The consensus of scholarly opinion is that Josephus’ account can be trusted as providing true historical information regarding the existence of Jesus Christ as a real human being.

So what now? With the wealth of historical information that we currently have access to, one must objectively admit at least this much: Jesus truly existed. The question now revolves around whether or not we are willing to accept His claim to deity, or if we wish to just shrug Him off as nothing more than just a mere mortal philosopher. We must make the crucial decision: either He was a liar, a lunatic, or He is Lord. Do not wait until tomorrow to pick your choice; for death can come at any time for any one of us, and when we die, we stand naked before the Almighty Judge. And we will not be able to plead ignorance at that point. Give your life to Christ now if you already have not. And realize that we can not get to heaven on our power. We are sinners in need of a Savior. Jesus Christ hung on a cross 2,000 years ago, and the debt He paid was a debt that we’d never be able to pay ourselves. He opens up His arms to you, and offers to each one of us the hope of eternal life with Him. He has established a Church, which is His Body. The Catholic Church speaks with His voice, and as a hospital for sinners, provides us with the spiritual medicine that we need to get from this life to the next, and that medicine is found in every tabernacle inside every church across the world. It is the Eucharist. Jesus offers us His whole and entire Body and Blood under the appearance of bread and wine. And whoever eats His Body and drinks His Blood will have eternal life, and Christ will raise that person up on the last day, provided they walk in union with Him and His Church until their dying breath.