Why is there not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus.....?

Question

...........not one, not by the Romans, the Jews none, zero. all accounts of Jesus were written after his death.

There are lots of records about other events that were happening at the time. There are accounts of Gaius Sulpicius Galba becoming consul and how Roman law replaced Celtic customs in Gaul.

In the year 33 AD there are detailed accounts of a financial crisis in Rome, due to poorly chosen fiscal policies. Land values plummeted, and credit is increased. These actions lead to a lack of cash, a crisis of confidence, and much land speculation. The primary victims are senators, knights and the wealthy. Many aristocratic families are ruined. This is all well documented but nothing about a man rising from the dead.

Why is this ?

Surely there would be many many acounts of a man who performed miracles, rose people from the dead and rose from the dead himself.

Surely the Romans who kept meticulous records would have documented in detail these events.

Answer 1

because Jesus never lived.

Answer 2

What can be said about the historicity of Jesus? Many writers, such as Renan, have attempted to write his biography but failed, failed because no materials for such a work exist. If Jesus was an historical person, how is it that not only does the Talmud never mention him but Paul's Epistles do not tell a single special fact about the life of Jesus? Read the other Epistles of the NT. Nowhere in any of the early Christian documents do we find even the slenderest reference to the mere man Jesus, the historical personality as such, from which we might infer that the author had a close acquaintance with him. His life, as described in the gospels, seems to have been entirely unknown to the authors. His speeches and sayings are hardly ever quoted and where this is done, as in the Epistle of James or the Book of Acts, they are not quoted as sayings of Jesus. What can Josephus or Tacitus prove? They could at the most merely show that at the end of the 1st century not only the Christians but their traditions and Christ-myth were known in Rome. When the latter originated, however, and how far it was based on truth, could not be discovered from Tacitus or Josephus. Some writers are notable for what they didn't say about Jesus: Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry in Jerusalem. He was there when the Crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place--when Christ himself rose from the dead. Yet, these events were not mentioned by him. Under the reign of Tiberius the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was allegedly involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Yet, Seneca and Pliny the Elder, who recorded all the great earthquakes, meteors, comets, and elipses they could find and who lived during the period of Jesus, failed to mention the event. Justus of Tiberius was a native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He wrote a history covering the time of Christ's reputed existence. This work perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the 9th century, was acquainted with it and said, "He (Justus) makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did" (Photius, Bibliotheca, Code 33).

Answer 3

Here's a question for you. If Alexander was so great, why was no history of his life written until five hundred years after his death? Why are there no contemporary accounts?

Paper and writing utensils were VERY hard to come by back then.

And besides, the Romans WOULDN'T have mentioned Jesus. Many others, however, did.

Jeanmarie has the best answer. She gave you a great place to start.

Answer 4

W-R-O-N-G answer. Study the writings of Josephus. He was a Jewish historian who recorded that some one named Jesus was crucified, was dead, and his followers claimed he rose from the dead.
About the Romans not mentioning it, why would they? Trouble-makers were a dime a dozen in the empire. He was so minute in their eyes that the Romans had to crucify him to appease the Jews. They didn't want anything to do with it, because he was not a threat to Rome. He was only a threat to the Sanhedrin and Jewish religious power. They were afraid that the people would make him king, and THAT would bring the wrath of Rome down on the whole nation of Israel.
He was so insignificant in their eyes that he was crucified with common criminals. It was only through the eyes of the people who were transformed by his teachings that made him great, and they are legion.
Jesus WAS insignificant. He was just another prophet among many.
What changed things is like you said........
AFTER HIS DEATH , HE DIDN'T STAY DEAD.
Hundreds saw him walking around after he died and was buried. If this were in a court of law today, he would win, hands down. Too many witnesses to shut up.
So, now you need to throw away any mention of Jesus in your life, including the calender on your wall. if you are in the states, get rid of all that money that says 'In God We Trust'.

Answer 5

Are you aware of how human society works? The Bible truly says: Isaiah 2:22 - "Stop trusting in human beings, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?"

According to Joseph Campbell in "Creative Mythology", traditional and creative mythology exist in a relationship that determines the rise and fall of the civilisation. According to Karen Armstrong in "A Short History of Myth", myth began when homo sapiens became homo necans, man the killer. The purpose of human society (outside of personal evangelism, according to 2 Timothy 4:3-5) is to preserve international anarchy and glorify those who support it. Jesus didn't.

I know because miracles still happen and it takes only minutes for witnesses to the event to start getting beaten up and "relocated." There are no records kept. The incident is reported in an entirely different manner for the press etc. The world hates Christians, as Jesus prophesied. I doubt that it would have been in the Romans' self-ascertained interests to document Christian miracles.

Answer 6

Why should there be? What does this prove?
Jesus was not a political figure. The Romans thought he was a religious nut like the Pharisees and they didn't write about them unless they were part of their politics.
Most well read atheists agree the man Jesus WAS here. This is a no brainer.

BUT there was some non Christians who wrote about "Christos" and his followers the Christians.
Tacitus
Pliny the Younger-who was a Governor
Josephus-histoian
All first century

Answer 7

There were a ton of Messianic cults at the time. He was just the leader of one of them.

It's funny, I see this happening at my yoga studio. There's a woman who is a very good teacher and who has gotten a lot of recognition, and people get this crazy glassy look around her and treat her like she's something more than human. It freaks her out and makes me want to slap people. People just seem to have a compulsion to worship. That's probably what happened to Jesus. he had some good ideas, was nice, and then people started getting all glassy-eyed and stopped thinking for themselves around him.

Answer 8

In fairness, there are very few records of any kind during that period, and it is equally likely thatthe Romans would not have sought to publicize what they viewed as a petty rabble rouser. This is little different than Creationist whacko's complaining about gaps in the fossil record.

Answer 9

Most of the life of Jesus Christ was made up by interested parties long after he died, and the fact that records on him were so poor was helpful to them. It is possible that some of the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to Christ but it is rarely specific. The four Gospels, and Paul, told the stories that suited them. It is very, very likely that someone lived at the time, who was a carpenter and son of Mary and Joseph, who preached a good message and resisted the Roman occupation, and who was subjected to the Roman form of capital punishment as a result. But everything else is just myth- -- or even mischief- -- making. There were no miracles. Yeshua ben Yeshua did not rise from the dead.

Answer 10

It was due to the cleric's of the time. It was an attempt to remove Christianity from the world. It was seen as a threat to the powers at hand. To speak of his life and deeds would undermined the authority of the ruling government.
He was considered a threat, so they tried to remove all mentions of him. This includes the Roman empire!

Answer 11

Ahem, the Jews did acknowledge that the person Jesus existed.

The Romans would not have bothered keeping records of people they considered criminals. Jesus by Roman standards a minor criminal of Roman Law, they saw him as nothing more. Therefore there would have been no need for them to keep him on record.