Phat writes:
Granny Magda writes:
The evidence for Jesus' existence is scant outside of scripture.
Literary sources themselves were scant outside of scripture.
Actually this is untrue, during and around Jesus prescribe lifetime there were several major Roman & Greek historians who wrote tons of historical and biographical literature:
Paterculus (19 BC-30 AD) - Roman Historian
Josephus (37-100 AD) - Jewish Historian and Military Leader
Plutarch (45-125 AD) - Roman Biographer and Historian
Tacitus (54-119 AD) - Roman Senator and Historian
Pliny the Younger (61-113 AD) Roman Governor, Lawyer, Natural Philosopher and Historian
Suetonius (71-135 AD) - Greco-Roman Biographer and Historian
Appianus (95 - 165 AD) - Roman Historian
Of these historians only four talk about Christianity (Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius). And of these only Josephus and Tacitus only explicitly reference Jesus Christ and Tacitus seems to be getting his information from another source:
Tacitus writes:
Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze 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 14-37 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.(Annals 15.44)
Josephus writes:
About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day. (Antiquities 20:9.1)
There remains some question by Biblical scholars of how much of was from Josephus own hand and how much was added to or rewritten.
There were also many other historians (about 40) however much of there work have been lost and none mention Jesus Christ.
Here are some good links for further research:
Did he actually exist? All sides to the question
Historicity of Jesus
From Jesus to Christ: The Story of Storytellers
Jesus-History or Myth?
T he Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer
"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." Dr. Carl Sagan
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