Jake22 writes:
First of all, there are several references to Jesus by contemporary historians (mostly "pagan").
There were non-Biblical mentions of Jesus by three roughly 1st century historians or qualified writers: Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius. For reference purposes I quote the relevant passages here.
This one from Josephus's
Antiquities of the Jews 18:63-64, possibly written around the 80's AD, is widely believed to be a later Christian insertion:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
There is less agreement about this passing reference to Jesus in
Antiquities 20:9.1. It seems impossible to establish its authenticity:
"So he [Ananus, son of Ananus the high priest] assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before him the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others (or some of his companions) and when he had formed an accusation against them, he delivered them to be stoned.
Tacitus writing around 100 AD mentions Christians in
Annals 15.44, but it is believed by some to be a later Christian insertion, and even if genuine he is clearly merely repeating what he has heard:
...derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate
Suetonius around 120 AD mentions a "Chrestus" in his
The Lives of the Caesars 5.25.4, and while perhaps confirming the existence of Jews who followed Christ it provides no evidence of Jesus, and in fact errs in describing him as instigating disturbances long after he supposedly died:
Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [Emperor Claudius in 49 CE] expelled them from Rome.
Moving on:
As an additional aside, Roman catacomb inscriptions discovered in the 1940s contain Christian symbols and the text "Woe, Jesus!" They date to 40-45AD.
I have never heard this before. Do you have a source for this information?
There is the also the bone ossuary, which arguably refers to the historical Jesus.
The ossuary has been ruled a forgery by Israel's Department of Antiquities and its owner has been arrested. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, because the most recent issue of Biblical Archeology Review has a long article describing how the ossuary's authenticity has been firmly established, so clearly there is a difference of opinion.
--Percy
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