Every so often you might run across a militant atheist who argues that there was no such person as Jesus of Nazareth. To put it bluntly, anyone who argues such should not be taken seriously. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that Jesus lived, was crucified, and resurrected. For those who argue against Jesus’ historical existence in any form, they are arguing against the historical record, including both the Christian and non-Christian sources.
Is there any evidence, outside of the Bible?
The first thing I would like to point out is the intellectual sleight of hand in this question. It is a very subtle way of discounting the Bible as a source.
Imagine, there is a scholar wants to study the life and work of Julius Ceasar. Let us also imagine that there is a collection of over twenty documents all written shortly after Ceasar’s death and they all agree on who he was and what he did. These documents are well documented and have thousands of ancient copies or partial copies that are preserved to this day. Now, what would you think of the scholar if he started by arguing that because all of these documents are in agreement and have been utilized by scholarship for two thousand years, they should be set aside, if not outright rejected? This sounds absurd. However, this is exactly what those who discount the Bible and seek other evidence are doing. There isn’t a collection of writings about Caesar that have been preserved like this, but there are 27 documents about Jesus for which we have over 5000 ancient copies or partial copies. This collection is known as the New Testament.
As such, if something has been recorded in the Bible that means that it has a stronger historical basis than anything else in the ancient world. We do, in fact, have stronger historical evidence about Jesus than Julius Ceasar, and everyone would laugh at a scholar who tried to argue that Ceasar never lived.
Historical evidence for the crucifixion
Despite this, there is also historical evidence for Jesus’ crucifixion outside of the Bible. These point to the fact that Jesus not only lived but was also crucified by the Romans.
The since lost work of Phlegon of Tralles, a 2nd Century Greek historian, included a reference to Jesus. In his magnum opus, the Olympiads, he referred to Jesus and his work. While this tome has been lost, it is quoted in several sources, including Origen’s Contra Celsum Book II. Here Origen argues that Phlegon even references the miracles surrounding Jesus’ death:
And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Cæsar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place, Phlegon too, I think, has written in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his Chronicles.[1]
Other ancient scholars including, Eusebius and Jerome, also cite Phlegon and his record of the earthquakes.
Syrian philosopher, Mara bar Serapion (Mara, son of Serapion) wrote a letter to his son around 73 AD (a translation of the full letter can be found here). The context was that he had been taken into captivity and was arguing that the suppression of the wise never really works. In his argument he gives several examples, including a “Wise King” of the Jews, which is clearly a reference to Jesus.
For what benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death, seeing that they received as retribution for it famine and pestilence? Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras, seeing that in one hour the. whole of their country was covered with sand? Or the Jews by the murder of their Wise King, seeing that from that very time their kingdom was driven away from them? For with justice did God grant a recompense to the wisdom of all three of them. For the Athenians died by famine; and the people of Samos were covered by the sea without remedy; and the Jews, brought to desolation and expelled from their kingdom, are driven away into Every land. Nay, Socrates did "not" die, because of Plato; nor yet Pythagoras, because of the statue of Hera; nor yet the Wise King, because of the new laws which he enacted.[2]
As you can see, Mara bar Serapion was not a Christian and did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but only that He lived on in His teachings.
Roman historian and politician, Publius Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 56- ca. 120), more commonly known simply as Tacitus wrote an impressive history known simply as The Annals around 109 AD. In this history, when explaining Nero’s persecution of Christians, Tacitus gave this background:
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.[3] (Book XV).
Tacitus, as an educated Roman, hated to speak of crucifixion, because of its brutality, so he used the common euphemism: “the extreme penalty.”
Hellenized Syrian satirist Lucian of Samosata wrote a work, The death of Peregrine, in which he satirizes a number of different religious beliefs, as he tells of Peregrine’s entry and exit from each of these groups. Included in this is a short stay with the Christians which Lucian describes in this way:
The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day,–the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.[4]
Even the Jewish Talmud. which is a written account of centuries of Jewish oral tradition that was compiled between 200 and 500 AD, speaks of Jesus, and His death. It records in a section of the Babylonian Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin (43A), an interesting reference to Jesus’ death:
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 practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.' But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover![5]
These are some of the better known references to Jesus, and His death from non-Christian sources, to which I could have added Josephus. I have also attempted to avoid some of the more questionable documents like the Acta Pilati (the apocryphal Letters of Pontius Pilate). Next, we will look at the historical evidence for the resurrection.
[1] Origen, “Contra Celsum,” trans. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, New Advent, n.d., https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0416.htm.
[2] Mara bar Serapion, “Mara Bar-Serapion,” trans. Peter Kirby, Early Christian Writings, 2024, https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/mara.html.
[3] Tacitus, “The Annals,” trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, The Internet Classics Archive, n.d., https://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html.
[4] Lucian of Samosata, “The Death of Peregrine | De Morte Peregrini,” trans. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, The Lucian of Samosata Project, 1905, http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:peregrine.
[5] Rabbi I. Epstein, trans., “Contents of the Babylonian Talmud,” Come and Hear, n.d., http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_43.html.