Apologetics: Did Jesus Really Exist?

No self-respecting historian denies that a Jewish rabbi named “Jesus” walked the earth in the early First Century. However, we live in a world where people get their “history” from the Da Vinci Code and similar absurdities. Therefore, it’s necessary to cover the evidence.

The New Testament is sufficient evidence by itself, being the best attested ancient document, by far. I mean, Paul took beatings and stonings and wrote his letters for a reason. Peter traveled and taught the gospel for a reason. The Gospels were written for a reason.

It’s clear that these documents date to the early First Century. Contrary to the teaching of some European scholars in the 19th Century, the evidence of the age of the New Testament is now over-whelming.

Today, no self-respecting theologian, no matter how liberal, doubts that the real Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians as the first or among the earliest New Testament books, sometime around 53 to 57 AD, that is, less than 25 years after Jesus’ crucifixion — when plenty of people who’d been there were still around.

And we find in 1 Corinthians a highly developed Christology. Even —

(1Co 8:5-6 ESV) 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth — as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”– 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Bible scholars find in v. 6 a re-working by Paul of the Jewish Shema in Christian form.

A number of scholars and commentators have persuasively argued that in this verse, Paul is recasting the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) in Christian terms.  The Shema is the great monotheistic declaration:  “Hear O Israel!  YHWH, our God, YHWH is one.”  In the LXX, this becomes AKOUE ISRAÊL KURIOS hO THEOS hEMÔN KURIOS EIS ESTIN (“Hear Israel!  The Lord our God, the Lord is one”).

YHWH becomes KURIOS (“Lord”) in the LXX.  … 

As Richard Bauckham notes: 

Paul has reproduced all the words of the statement about YHWH in the Shema … but Paul has rearranged the words in such as way as to produce an affirmation of both one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.  It should be quite clear that Paul is including the Lord Jesus Christ in the unique divine identity.  He is redefining monotheism as christological monotheism.  If he were understood as adding the one Lord to the one God of whom the Shema speaks, from the perspective of Jewish monotheism, he would certainly be producing not christological monotheism but outright ditheism (Bauckham, p. 38).

Paul has redefined the “God” of the Shema as “One God, the Father,” and the “Lord” of the Shema as “One Lord, Jesus Christ.”  As the context is that of religious devotion (whether eating food sacrificed to idols was acceptable or not) and the distinction between pagan deities on the one hand, and God the Father and Jesus Christ on the other, Paul’s appeal to the Shema as a proclamation of how the God of Israel was unique is understandable.  What was unprecedented was his inclusion of Jesus in the formula — again it must be stressed in the context of devotion – which could only mean that the Lord God (YHWH) was now to be perceived as including both the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have all heard absurd claims from our high school and college friends that the idea of Jesus being divine is from the Second or later centuries. It’s just not true. In fact, such claims reveal nothing but ignorance about history.

Even if we threw out the entire New Testament and the many, many uninspired documents we have from early Christians, some dating to the late First Century, even the pagan and Jewish sources are enough to prove the historicity of Jesus.

Tacitus (112 AD), Roman historian, writing of Nero’s reign,

But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he 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: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.

Lucian (2nd century), Roman satirist, wrote:

[T]he man was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world. Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist [teacher of wisdom] himself and living under his laws.

Josephus (early 2nd century), Jewish historian, wrote,

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 to this day.

Antiquities XVIII.33.

Many believe that the text of Josephus has been corrupted by Christian copyists, and that may well be true. The Arabic text of the passage is as follows:

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (He) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned Him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.

We also find from Josephus a reference to James the brother of Jesus. In Antiquities XX.9:1, he describes the actions of the high priest Ananus:

But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was Of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.”

Seutonius (120 AD), Roman historian, wrote,

As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [another spelling of Christus], he expelled them from Rome.

He also writes.

Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.

Pliny the Younger (1 12 AD), Roman governor, wrote,

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 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.

Thallus (56 AD), Samaritan historian, is referred to by Julius Africanus, a Christian writer, in 221 AD, as follows:

“Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sum—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).”

Justin Martyr (150 AD), Christian writer, writing to the Emperor Antonius Pius, states that the “Acts” recorded under Pontius Pilate described Christ’s crucifixion, the casting of lots for his clothing, and His miracles.

The Talmuds (100-500 AD), Jewish oral history, support the historicity of Jesus. Babylonian Talmud refers to Jesus being hanged on the eve of Passover.

The Baraila states:

On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu (of Nazareth) and the herald went before him for forty days saying (Yeshu of Nazareth) is going forth to be stoned in that he hath practiced sorcery and beguiled and led astray Israel. Let everyone ‘knowing aught in his defence come and plead for him. But they found naught in his defence and hanged him on the eve of Passover.

The Amoa “Ulla” states,

And do you suppose that for (Yeshu of Nazareth) there was any right of appeal? He was a beguiler, and the Merciful One hath said: ‘Thou shall not spare neither shalt thou conceal him.’ It is otherwise with Yeshu, for he was near to the civil authority.

R. Shimeon ben ‘Azzai said Sanhedrin 43a states, concerning Jesus,

I found a genealogical roll in Jerusalem where was recorded, Such-an-one is a bastard of an adulteress.

This is why no one educated in religion or history, no matter how liberal, questions the historicity of Jesus. Of course, some argue that he was just an unusually wise and charismatic rabbi. Others doubt the resurrection. But that he walked the earth and taught much of what is recorded in scriptures is not in doubt.