Ancient Non-Christian Sources for the Historical Jesus
Peter Hsin
The Historical Jesus by Gary Habermas was my main source.
From an objective, historical perspective, it’s really hard to beat the gospels. They were written early, with eyewitness sources, and are full of details. The style and content indicate that as a historical narrative they were trying to describe events accurately. Nothing surpasses them in terms of content. Many of the gospel sources were persecuted and even put to death because of the content of the message. That makes them unlikely deceivers as it does not make sense to die for a lie.
However, many will dismiss them as reliable because they are part of the bible. Also, they describe miracles, and those with a bias against miracles will, then, a priori assume they are unreliable. The second best source would be the writings of the early church fathers. Likewise, they are full of details and as devout men, were sincere, but for those who begin with a bias, they too are suspect.
For many, anything to do with Jesus begins with a burden of proof on the Christian to establish reliability. Whereas almost everything else in historical studies begins with the assumption that authors are telling the truth unless found otherwise, studies of Jesus often begin with wildly skeptical presuppositions and the main one being that the gospels are false until proven true. This is unfortunate because if the gospels (and Acts) would fare extremely well if normal historicity standards were placed upon it.
Even for those with a double standard (one for Christian sources, one for anything else historical,) there are non-Christian sources to look at. They frequently have the outsider’s antagonistic tone, but will generally agree to the basic outline of a gospel of Jesus who literally lived, died under Pilate, and reportedly rose from the dead. Josephus and Tacitus are the most important sources and things diminish in importance after that.
Flavius Josephus was born around 37
AD and died around 97 AD. He’s a Jewish
historian. He has two references to
Jesus. From Antiquities:
Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the
road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the
brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some
others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the
law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most
equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the
laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to
send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done
was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was
upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for
Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent
This is the other
reference (Greek Version):
3. 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
amongst 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.
The same passage has an Arabic version some consider more accurate:
For he says in the
treatises that he has written in the governance of the Jews: "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 their loyalty to him. They
reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and
that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah,
concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders" - Shlomo Pines' translation, quoted by J. D. Crossan
Cornelius Tacitus (AD 55-120) was a Roman historian and I think Senator. He wrote Annals and Histories and that makes him the hotshot of Roman historians.
From Annals 15.44:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight has expired.
Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.
Another Roman historian of much lesser fame named Gaius Suetonius Tranquillas; secretary to Emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138) was a contemporary of Tacitus and has a couple random references.
Because the Jews at
The “he” refers to Claudius.
This document actually corresponds to an event alluded to in Acts 18:2
After the great fire at
These are the most important references to Jesus from a historical perspective as the writings are contemporaneous with the origin of Christianity and include a number of references to Jesus, his Jewishness, messianic claim, crucifixion, and resurrection. The authors themselves don’t believe, but report the beliefs. Other sources are not as useful, but I’ll include a flavor of them.
Pliny the Younger (112 AD) Letters. He wrote a bunch more on Christians than
Christ, but here’s a sample:
They (the Christians) were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food – but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.
Emperor Trajan’s response to Pliny:
The method you have pursued, my dear Pliny in sifting the cases of those denounced to you as Christians is extremely proper. It is not possible to lay down any general rule which can be applied as a fixed standard in all cases of this nature. No search should be made for these people; when they are denounced and found guilty they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that when the party denies himself to be a Christian, and shall give proof that he is not (that is, by adoring our Gods) he shall be pardoned on the ground of repentance, even though he may have formerly incurred suspicious. Informations without the accuser’s name subscribed must not be admitted in evidence against anyone, as it is introducing a very dangerous precedent, and by no means agreeable to the spirit of the age.
Another Roman source includes a comment by Emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138).
The Talmud, an authoritative collection of
Jewish teachings was completed about 200AD says in Sanhedrin 43a:
On the eve of the Passover Yeshu
was hanged. For forty days before the
execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, “He is going forth to be
stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed
Lucian a second century Greek satirist makes fun of Christians and some of their beliefs. Mara Bar-Serapion, also from that time period, writes a letter to his son not to be as foolish as to die a martyr like “wise King” of the Jews. I’m not including everything because it becomes low yield.
Finally,
there are a bunch of Gnostic teachings about Jesus. These is a more complicated issue because the
Gnostic writings show familiarity with the Christian gospels and are argued as
heresy right from the start and continuing on with the early church
fathers. They are not exactly
non-Christian sources because these are Christian heretics and their
information is not independent, but mutated versions of the historical Jesus. The dating is pretty good, usually about 150 AD
or later. Important documents include The Gospel of Truth, The Apocryphon of John,
The Gospel of Thomas, and The
Treatise on Resurrection. The
recently discovered Judas gospel is beginning to be processed by the
academics. The papyrus dating of the
Coptic text is to 350AD but since it was mentioned in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies it’s dating should be
pre-185AD. The Gnostics were written
later (and not by the purported authors) with a clear theological motive behind
just about every passage and little concern for describing Jesus as a person or
his life. They use Jesus as a mouthpiece
for their beliefs. Why so much is made
of these writings is beyond me. Anyone
who places these sources ahead of the canonical gospels is using a double
standard because all four of the canonical gospels meet a higher standard of
historicity in every aspect compared to the Gnostic gospels.