There is NO historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ.?

Question

Please submit your thoughts. If you believe there is evidence then say what it is and give your source.

Ah! To all those who say "The Bible" your are quoting literary material and NOT historical evidence. Please read the question!

Ummm..I think I have read a good deal...I have a Bachelors and Masters degree in Theology...and quite simply my "journey" has brought me to the understanding that the text is a "story" never meant to be taken literally or historically.

My question was NOT about belief. Just because I do not see the narrative as being based upon any single individual, I do in fact embrace the life changing importance of the Christ archetype.

For those who try to use AD as evidence...Does this mean that the Germanic God Tyr (god of war and the patron god of justice) after whom Tuesday is named was a real historical figure?

For those who insist on using Biblical texts as "evidence" please tell me a story of events in your Grandmother's life. That should be about 70 years ago...same "distance" between Christ and Mark's account. Clearly the story may be categorized as a myth...where the surface story was never meant to be "true" but was compiled and grew to reflect a meataphysical understanding of the relationshim between humanity and deity.

Answer 1

There are thousands OF ANCIENT documents supporting his life... including both canon and non-canonical documents.

If you OBJECTIVELY compare the documentation supporting the historic Jesus with that of virtually any of his secular world contemporaries (whose life history is NEVER challenged) you will find only a handful who are anywhere close in terms of the volume of supporting evidence concerning their life.

Denial of the voracity of the canon as supporting evidence on the basis that it is "literature" is meaningless. Note the definition of "literature" from dictionary.com:
lit·er·a·ture [lit-er-uh-cher, -choor, li-truh-] –noun
1. writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, and essays. (Emphasis added)
2. the entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people, etc.: the literature of England.
3. the writings dealing with a particular subject: the literature of ornithology.
4. the profession of a writer or author.
5. literary work or production.
6. any kind of printed material, as circulars, leaflets, or handbills: literature describing company products.
7. Archaic. polite learning; literary culture; appreciation of letters and books.
[Origin: 1375–1425; late ME litterature < L litterātūra grammar. See literate, -ure]

—Synonyms 1. Literature, belles-lettres, letters refer to artistic writings worthy of being remembered. In the broadest sense, literature includes any type of writings on any subject: the literature of medicine; usually, however, it means the body of artistic writings of a country or period that are characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality of intellectual and emotional appeal: English literature of the 16th century. Belles-lettres is a more specific term for writings of a light, elegant, or excessively refined character: His talent is not for scholarship but for belles-lettres. Letters (rare today outside of certain fixed phrases) refers to literature as a domain of study or creation: a man of letters.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

The significance of history and biography as elements of literature is clear. To say something CANNOT be history or biography BECAUSE it is "literature" denotes a clear misunderstanding of the MEANING of "literature."

Answer 2

There are ways we know what happened in history. For example, we know by manuscript evidence that the New Testament we have today is accurate. By archeological evidence, we know that people, places and events referred to within the New or Old Testaments are also real.

C. Sanders, in his book Introduction to Research in English Literary History, lists three criteria that scholars use to determine whether or not an ancient document is genuine:

Test #1: Bibliographical Test

Test #2: Internal Evidence Test

Test #3: External Evidence Test

Let’s focus on the bibliographic test. This is the process whereby a scholar evaluates all the current copies of a document to test them for consistency. If you have one copy that is 500 years old, and also have a newer copy that is only 100 years old, you would compare the newer document to the older one to see if there were any changes. Historians always consider the oldest copy as the most reliable source because it was written or copied closer to the original texts.

The other part of the bibliographical test has to do with the number of copies made. This is another place where the New Testament is unique to all other ancient literature. There are a number of ancient writings that scholars regard as part of history with basically “no questions asked.”

One of these writings is The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar. These writings speak of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul (modern-day France) during the first century. You will find this documented in every history book of Ancient Rome…nobody refutes this. However, we only have 10 copies of these original writings and these were written over 1,000 years after Caesar. But even though these were written 1,000 years after Caesar, nobody disputes their credibility.

Another commonly accepted work of early Rome is The History of Rome by Livy. Currently there is only a portion of a copy made 400 years after the original. The earliest complete copy was found dated at 1,000 years after Livy. Just like The Gallic Wars, historians accept these ancient documents as accurate and historical.

Others include writings by Tacitus and Homer. Tacitus wrote his Annals of Roman History around 100 A.D. Twenty copies remain dated 1,000 years after his death. Scholars have discovered 643 manuscripts of Homer’s Iliad, but the oldest dates from the 13th century.

Why is all of this important? Because historians give credibility to these other ancient documents even though most were written 1,000 years after the actual events and the number of copies found to compare are very limited. Yet nobody disputes the contents of these ancient documents.

In the “The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?”, F.F. Bruce says “The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than …many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning….And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

The New Testament doesn’t have 643 copies. There are close to 25,000. And these 25,000 copies and portions of New Testament manuscripts are all consistent with the actual New Testament we hold in our hands today.

There are many examples where people have claimed that some person, place or event in the Bible did not exist or did not occur, only to be proven wrong as a result of an archeological find.

For example, people claimed that Nineveh was not a real city and denied that Assyrians were a real people. That was until Austen Henry Layard excavated Nineveh circa 1840.

Similarly, people denied the existence of both Caiphas, the High Priest who ordered Jesus’ arrest, and Pontius Pilate. That was until 1961 when archaeologists in Caesarea uncovered a limestone block inscribed, “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea.” In 1990, archeologists discovered the ossuary belonging to Caiphas.

The more they dig up, the more the Bible is shown to be true!

Answer 3

Given the length and breadth of Old Testament prophecy about the coming messiah (over 1000 references), and given the number of contributors to the Biblical text (over 40) and given the vast amount of time over which the texts were written (over 1,500 years), and give the fact that each of the Old Testament prophecies about Christ were fulfilled in the New Testament: we can conclude that if the Biblical account of Jesus Christ is false, it this the single most elaborate lie ever conceived by men.

Isaiah 53 even taken by itself matches so seamlessly with the Gospel accounts that there can no doubt of the Gospel’s veracity.

Further, history tells us of the Roman persecution of the Christians particularly under the rule of Nero (AD 54 thru AD 68). If the biblical account were not authentic, for what cause would these countless people allow themselves to be martyred? If the bible is fiction as you allege, surely people living in that time period (some of which doubtlessly knew the latter biblical writers personally) would spare themselves by acknowledging it as such.

Answer 4

There is PLENTY of Proof for Y'shua(Jesus) existance outside the Bible:

Non-Christian sources for Jesus

• Tacitus (AD 55-120), a renowned historical of ancient Rome, wrote in the latter half of the first century that ‘Christus ... 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.’ (Annals 15: 44).

• Suetonius writing around AD 120 tells of disturbances of the Jews at the ‘instigation of Chrestus’, during the time of the emperor Claudius. This refers to Jesus, and appears to relate to the events of Acts 18:2, which took place in AD 49.

• Thallus, a secular historian writing perhaps around AD 52 refers to the death of Jesus in a discussion of the darkness over the land after his death. The original is lost, but Thallus’ arguments — explaining what happened as a solar eclipse — are referred to by Julius Africanus in the early 3rd century.

• Mara Bar-Serapion, a Syrian writing after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, mentions the earlier execution of Jesus, whom he calls a ‘King’.

• The Babylonian Talmud refers to the crucifixion (calling it a hanging) of Jesus the Nazarene on the eve of the Passover. In the Talmud Jesus is also called the illegitimate son of Mary. It mentions the trial of 5 of His disciples.

• The Jewish historian Josephus describes Jesus’ crucifixion under Pilate in his Antiquities, written about AD 93/94. Josephus also refers to James the brother of Jesus and his execution during the time of Ananus (or Annas) the high priest. "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 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.

PS Anyone can go online and get a degree!!! There are many people with the titles Pastor or Reverand that the LORD never called nor does He know. AND if we are pulling out the 'Credential Card' I am an Ordained Minister, have a Masters in Theology degree and am currently enrolled in a Messianic Yeshiva.

Answer 5

"We have a good deal of information about the polemical and often bitter arguments Christians, Jews, and pagans had with one another in the early centuries. But the early Christians' opponents all accepted that Jesus existed, taught, had disciples, worked miracles, and was put to death on a Roman cross. As in our own day, debate and disagreement centred largely not on the story but on the significance of Jesus.

valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first- or second-century Jewish or pagan religious teacher."

Extra-Biblical writings about Christ:
Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, c.93)
("It would be unwise, therefore, to lean heavily on Josephus' statements about Jesus' healing and teaching activity, or the circumstances of his trial. Nevertheless, since most of those who know the evidence agree that he said something about Jesus, one is probably entitled to cite him as independent evidence that Jesus actually lived, if such evidence were needed. But that much is already given in Josephus' reference to James (Ant. 20.200) and most historians agree that Jesus' existence is the only adequate explanation of the many independent traditions among the NT writings." (p.174f))

Letter from Pliny the Younger to Trajan (c. 110)
Tacitus (Annals, c.115-120)
A fragment of Tacitus, with implications for the existence of the "Nazarene"
Suetonius (Lives of the Caesars, c. 125)
Lucian (mid-2nd century)
Galen (c.150; De pulsuum differentiis 2.4; 3.3)
Celsus (True Discourse, c.170).
Mara Bar Serapion (pre-200?)
Talmudic References( written after 300 CE, but some refs probably go back to eyewitnesses)

Answer 6

Living evidence.

Christians throughout the time and all the way until now is evidence of Jesus Christ. There were always Christians after the coming of Christ.

Answer 7

Apparently in the writings of Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Josephus they mention "Jesus" being crucified. So there was a clearly influential guy walking around Israel back in the day who got crucified, whether he is the son of God is another matter. But there is evidence that we aren't total nuts. Those three sources, although I haven't read them myself, are non-catholic. In addition, consider, there is more evidence for Christ being crucified than Hannibal crossing the alps with elephants.

Answer 8

Historical Evidence writers from ancient Jewish text, ancient Roman documentation, Greek text, and ancient Christian text.

The Catholic Church still worships as these ancient writers documented over two thousand years ago. This attribute is NOT due to the human elements of the Catholic Faith, but to the Divine Commission that is its mission from Jesus Christ.

Answer 9

Friend,

Have you got evidence for all things in your life?

Even scientifically are we not using relative terms in life.You say showing the sky above your your head and say it is UPSIDE or ABOVE.
What is the same place you show to a person living exactly in the opposite side of you on the Globe (Earth).Is it not BELOW side?

Have we not believed in so may things , until science proved them or disproved them?

There is the Sacred Book BIBLE with historical events in it?

What is important is what Christ said.

Answer 10

You are correct in your statement. Jesus Christ was a fictional character. But assuming you meant the real person the character was based off of then,

None, would be false on two accounts. The bible could count if he was mentioned elsewhere in other books from that time. And there is an execution record of the person the fictional character was based off of. Ar at least, people point at and claim that was him.

Answer 11

Many others have already stated why they believe, or not. No need to add more, except to say, I believe Jesus is real, too. If you won't accept the evidence, what more do you want?