Do Roman historical records mention Jesus?

Question

I'm not talking about the Bible. I'm talking about actual records from the Roman government. Do they mention Jesus at all?

Answer 1

Suetonius mentions him briefly during the reign of Nero. "The Jews were expelled from Rome because of an uprising started at the instigation of Chrestus." Or something like that. This was thirty or so years after Jesus' death and the Romans thought he was an actual living person in Rome. Also the Jewish historian Josephus mentions him in a paragraph. For the most part the Romans did not know about Jesus and I don't think his death was even recorded. The Jews were starting all kinds of riots and making political threats to the empire at the time so it was fairly common for Jews to be executed during this time by the Romans (20-60 CE roughly) . Jesus was killed by the Roman government by crucifixion, which means he was seen as political insurgent or criminal. The jews continued to make trouble for the Romans until around 66 CE when they'd had enough and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. There were probably only a few hundred followers of Christ at this time, though many of them did not believe in his divinity.

Answer 2

There are seve4ral possibilities. 1. Existing records may have been destroyed or irretrievably lost during the intervening two millennia. 2. Records have not been found yet. 3. We might not recognize the name the Romans used for him. 4. Jesus' execution may have been considered so trivial a matter to the Romans that few records were kept. 5. The record of Jesus' particular sentencing may have been kept by the Jewish magistrates and not the Roman ones, meaning people have been looking for them in the wrong place. 6. The person we know of as Jesus of Nazareth might never have existed. It's not as if any records pertaining to Jesus would have been kept safe by the Vestal Virgins, after all.

Answer 3

No, not THE Jesus, it was a common name at the time, like Jesus in South America is today, this is a MAJOR problem! If he really had such an impact that people knew him on sight & all the Romans in power at the time & the Jewish priests in power knew of him, why is there zero evidence of him? I was truly shocked to find this out, that the Christian church has sat on this secret for 2000 years. It's like finding no direct evidence of Martin Luther King Jr. until 200 years later; no hotel room kept the way it was after he'd been assassinated, no videos of him giving speeches, no living relatives, no house. This is the story of Jesus, Paul never mentions the "last supper room", never travels to see where Jesus walked, only refers to stories about him; suddenly 200 A.D. & people begin to claim "he'd been here"-mighty suspicious, when we do have Julius Ceasar's letters, & people who even hated Julius writing about him. 0 A.D. had alot of historians whose writings have survived, yet no mention of THE Jesus, & no Josephus doesn't count, 1 tiny passage stuffed into a margin of 1 of his books, then the Lithuanian copy of Josephus has the forged mention in a totally different book of Josephus', & the Arabic copy, same thing, only calling Jesus a prophet instead of the saviour. The time of Jesus supposed differs by about 150 years too, when 1 claims a certain Roman was the local ruler, but then another claims it was a much later Roman ruler-it's like saying George Washington was president when you were born & you really were born during the time of George Bush.

Answer 4

No. Not even once.

Nowhere in the records of the day is Jesus mentioned. Not in the Roman (Latin) records of the municipalities involved, not in the local (Aramic) records, or in the Jewish intellectual (Greek) records.

There are plenty of records in all three cultures, all three languages about everything else, as this was one of the most well-documented eras in world history. There was no new star in the east mentioned by any astronomers anywhere. Herod wrote reports to Rome, others wrote about Herod, yet there's no record of any census that could coincide with the birth of Jesus, nor any record of a mass killing of babies during any of the reigns of any of the kings named Herod.

There's no record of any preaching, of any trial, of any situation EVER when the Roman authorities turned prisoners over to the Jewish leaders. Romans had no trouble making decisions. There's plenty documented about Pontius Pilate, but nothing that would match up with the biblical accounts.

There are no records of the city ever going dark at midday, no record of the curtain in the Temple being ripped from top to bottom. No record of anything about Jesus at all, anywhere, or any of the things specifically associated with him.

I'd say he never existed, but then you'd get mad, wouldn't you?

Answer 5

No. Nowhere is Jesus mentioned in any historical document. Which is quite fascinating since the Romans were very good record keepers. You'd think that someone, somewhere, would have written something down about such a troublemaker.

Answer 6

The roman government of Constantine, while they constructed the bible from the hundreds, perhaps thousands of texts, mentioned jesus a lot. Most of it was debate, so a lot of it was not on record.

Some say Constantine commissioned the divinity of jesus (declaring that jesus was a god like being) so his empire would not fall to Christian rebellion.

Other than that, there's no other official historical records of jesus.

Answer 7

The roman government didn't like Jesus because it was causing all of the slaves to change their lives around, they actually had something to look forward to when they died (salvation if led by a good life), and actually contributed with the fall of rome along with wars and inflation of currency. Roman nobles feared Jesus because they felt Jesus threatened their throne, which is why they hated him so. Therefore, I do not believe that the roman government released much information about Jesus because they didn't want chrstianity to spread. We all know, (at least those who are christian) that Jesus's message was heard loud and clear.

Answer 8

I don't know, although I recall that around the time of Jesus there might have been someone with a similar name mentioned. That doesn't mean it was THE Jesus. At the same time, there were thousands of people crucified, so if he wasn't mentioned by name that wouldn't be a great surprise either.

Even if Jesus were mentioned by the Romans it doesn't mean he is supernatural.

Answer 9

Not during the time that Jesus was alive. Josephus is said to have written something about Jesus, but Origen say that he didn't accept Jesus as Christ.

Answer 10

No they do not. There are no actual records in existence that mention him by name, or even a good description.