The Historical Jesus

Opening

Good morning church. I am so glad I am with you here today. I really enjoyed last week, and just a quick recap for those who weren’t here, we explored whether or not it is reasonable and logical to conclude that God can exist, and we did so without opening our Bibles, but rather used science and deductive reasoning to reach this conclusion. Today we will continue with this line of reasoning, by exploring whether or not Jesus did in fact exist if we hold him to the ancient historical standard.

Tactics

Now, after my talk last week, and some conversations I had with some of you, I want to give you a tool that you can use when engaging with anyone about Christianity. Here are three statements, how do these make you feel?

God is a myth, its all just a fairytale.

I choose to believe in science, not faith.

Jesus did not really exist, just like Zeus, or any other mythical character.

When you liten to these three statements, what is your initial reaction? What, in your mind, is the first thing you wanted to do when you heard any of these statements?

If your first reaction was to explain why God wasnt a myth, or why faith is just as valid as science, or why Jesus actually did exist, you just missed out on a great opportunity to remain in the driver seat of the conversation. Each of these three statements make a claim. Not one of these three statements asked you a single question. If anyone makes a claim, it is their job to prove their claim. If someone says God is a myth, it is their job to demonstrate why they believe that, not your job to defend why God is not a myth.

The Socratic Method

This is called the socratic method. The art of asking questions in a conversation. This will work even if you have no idea how to defend your faith in a specific situation, and it boils down to 3 questions, and this is really important. It goes like this:

What do you mean by that?

What brought you to that conclusion?

Have you everconsidered …. (Fill in the blank)?

The Socratic method in action

Someone might say, God is a myth. Recognize they made a claim, and simply ask question one. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by God? What do you mean by myth? After their response, ask question 2. What brought you to th conclusion that God is a myth? If they say that there is no evidence for God’s existence, ask them another question. What do you mean by evidence? What evidence do you think would be able to demonstrate God’s existence? What evidence have you explored that lacked in convincing you God actually does exist?

Now here is a crucial thing that will happen in your conversation. The person will try and flip the questions over to you, and put you on the defensive. Recognize this. They will ask you: Well, what evidence do you have for God’s existence? DO NOT fall for this trap. Simply say, I would love to get to that, but before we do, I would first like to understand your claim that you made, then we can move on to why I believe what I believe. You see, even if you feel you do not know how to adequetly defend your position, recognize that if someone made a claim, it is they whoneed to defend their position too.

When we look at the third statement, Jesus did not actually exist, he is simply a myth, or Jesus wasnt real, we get to ask questions once again. Question 1: What do you mean by that? Do you mean Jesus did not exist historically speaking? If yes, move on to question 2: What brought you to that conclusion? What convinced you that he did not actually exist? Again, here they might try and flip the questions around to you and ask, well why do you believe he did exist? Just because your Bible says so? Simply say “I would love to get to that, but I first want to understand what exactly convinced you that he did not actually exist, because I want to understand why you said what you said. You see? Just remain in the drivers seat of the conversation. Then question 3 comes… Have you ever considered? Now lets fill in the blank, which brings us to today’s talk.

[Slide 2] Does anyone here have someone close to them who doesn’t believe in Christianity? Do you have someone in your life who constantly bashes the Christian faith around you when it's brought up? I remember watching a TV show with my wife, where a lady made fun of the guy for actually believing Jesus existed at one point!? Anyone here have someone like that? Perhaps that's you sitting here right now?

Can you tell me who Jesus is?

[Slide 4] I bet If I were to say that you may use your Bible, you would be able to tell me who Jesus was, where he was at, and what happened to him… If I were to ask you to explain to me who Jesus was by using what you know of the Bible, but without opening the Bible, who would be able to do that? … Ok great! Who here can tell me anything about Jesus, BUT, you are not allowed to use any knowledge you have gained from the Bible. In other words, what truths can you tell me about Jesus that are outside the scope of the Bible? … Here is the dilemma we face in our world today. [Slide 5] If we solely rely on the Bible to prove to others the truths about Jesus, what is the difference between us, and someone else using a comic book to prove the existence of Spiderman?  I’ll ask that same question again in a different way. If we rely on our book to prove the existence of a character, what is stopping anyone else to justify their claims that spider-man exists, or Buddha, or Allah, because there is a book that says he does? (Pause)…[Slide 6] If someone does not believe the Bible to be true, they will not see it as an authoritative source. In my conversations online, a large number of people, [Slide 7] probably 80%, do not believe Jesus was an actual person in history. Let’s take a look at a couple of comments on one of my videos where I go through the historicity of Jesus:

A couple of online comments

Illustration 1:

📷

Essentially, this person claims we have someone who was brought into existence through our imaginations. How would you respond?

[Slide 8]

📷

This person is trying to minimize any content that one would bring forward by diminishing Jesus due to other people sharing the same name. This is a classic example of a strawman. How would you respond?

[Slide 9]

📷

Why does Jesus’ existence matter? First, he is literally the center point of Christianity, since being a Christian means following the teachings of Christ. You see how he is looking for supernatural evidence? Hold that in the back of your mind, because he clearly did not watch my video with some of the claims written about Jesus outside the Bible… How would you respond?

[Slide 10]

📷

I have yet to hear of a Guru that died and came back to life, claimed to be God, forgave sins. But I do recognize that this person does not deny the occurrence of miracles or healings. This is a good observation on their part.

[Slide 11]

For us it's pretty easy to build a picture of Christ by simply opening our Bibles, but have you ever wondered what picture we can paint of Jesus by looking at other sources outside the Bible? Let’s take a challenge, and hold Jesus to the same standard as what we hold every other ancient historical character. Let’s look where the evidence takes us. Let’s look at who Jesus was according to ancient non-biblical historical writings. Let’s start with Thallos.

Non- Biblical Writers

[Slide 12]

1. Thallos

Thallos was a historian, and is the earliest reference we have to Jesus. Within Thallos’ work, he refers to the darkness over the land during the crucifixion of Jesus, and tries to explain it away by stating it was due to an eclipse. Historian Julius Sextus Africanus writes a response to Thallos in the late first century stating that this is impossible, due to the crucifixion happening at Passover. You know what else happens at passover? A full moon. That means that it was impossible for there to be an eclipse! But here is the interesting thing about Thallos’ writing: He does not deny the crucifixion, nor does he deny a sudden darkness!

[Slide 13]

2. Pliny The Younger

Pliny the Younger was also the most famous civilian administrator in imperial times. Pliny mentions Christ (Christo male dicere) and here is a direct quote “Sung antiphonally a hymn to Christ as if to a god”. Pliny goes on to refer to these followers of Christ as Christians.

[Slide 14]

3. Suetonius

Suetonius was a Roman writer, and a lawyer. Suetonius was also a friend of Pliny the Younger, of whom we just went over. Suetonius was also the Secretary to Emperor Hadrian, and wrote the work “Lives of Caesars' '. So once again, a very prominent historical character. Here is what Suetonius wrote about Jesus. Suetonius wrote about how Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, because they were making disturbances because of the instigator Chrestus. What this means is that the Christians were actively going about, and disrupting their ways, instigating new things in the name of their instigator, Christ. As a Christian looking at this, it would be a good assumption to clarify that they might have been evangelizing and doing mission work to those around them, causing disturbances from their original ways.

[Slide 15]

4. Cornelius Tacitus

Tacitus is considered the greatest Roman historian of his time by historians from Oxford, Princeton, Stanford and Harvard. Tacitus refers to the Christians in his writings, and names their “founder”, calling him Christ. Tacitus goes on to mention how Christ was crucified by the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Tacitus goes on to then write about a deadly superstition after the crucifixion. Now Tacitus does not mention what this superstition is, but some believe it to be the superstition of the resurrection. This is huge, because here we have a Roman historian who wrote about one of the Caesar’s, also writing about the crucifixion of Jesus by Pontius Pilate. The greatest source of Roman history mentions Jesus.

[Slide 16]

5. Mara Bar Serapion

Serapion’s manuscript can be seen in the British museum where he mentions two key things about Jesus. Serapion first mentions the Jews who killed their “wise King”, and then mentions the new law the king of the Jews laid down. Now I’m sure you remember the title that they gave Jesus during his crucifixion, which was the King of the Jews.

[Slide 17]

6. Lucian of Samosata

Lucian mentions Jesus in the following ways. Lucian mentions Christians in Palestine. Lucian goes on to mention Jesus was their prophet, leader and head of his synagogue. Lucian goes on to mention that they looked up to Jesus as a god, made him their lawgiver, and chose him as the official patron of the group. Lucian mentions how the man in Palestine was crucified because he brought his new form of initiation into the world. Lucian furthermore mentions that these Christians claim they will live forever, and willingly give themselves to death, and concludes by calling Christ the crucified sophist.

[Slide 18]

7. Celcus

Celsus was a neoplatonist thinker & Greek philosopher. Celcus is known as writing the first official attack on Christianity, and his writing is called “True Doctrine”. Within this writing, he writes about the claim of Jesus coming from virgin birth, and he mentions that he believes Jesus hired himself out to laborers in Egypt where he learnt certain magical powers. Finally he mentions that Jesus gave himself the title of God. It is crucial to examine what Celsus is confirming in his writings, even though we would argue that his writings are false, there are a couple things he is confirming. First, that the claim existed that Jesus came from virgin birth. Second, that Jesus had magical powers, even if we disagree that he learnt these powers in Egypt. Third, that he was referred to as God. Calsus in his attack on Christianity could have left these details out, or refuted them, but instead he confirms that Jesus had magical powers, but that they rather came from a different place.

[Slide 19]

8. Flavius Josephus

Josephus is known as the primary source of Jewish history of that time, and was a Jewish Historian. Josephus wrote for Emperor Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Josephus wrote the Jewish Antiquities, and within those antiquities he mentioned Jesus numerous times. Josephus mentions “the brother of Jesus called Christ whose name was James”, as well as that Jesus was known to be a wise man. Mentions that Jesus was a worker of amazing deeds, and a teacher of the people. Mentions that Jesus was called the Messiah, and mentions that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate. Josephus also mentions the tribe Christians were named after Jesus.

What is true about Jesus according to history?

[Slide 20]

After considering these 8 writings about Jesus, the following is true regarding Jesus & Christianity, according to non-biblical historical documents. (i’ll be reading through this, so don’t skip until I am done).

[Slide 20]

Regardless of whether or not people believe Christianity to be true or not, one cannot argue that Jesus Christ 100% existed. Bart Ehrman, Agnostic, Skeptic professor of religious studies says the following: This is not even an issue for scholars of antiquity.... The reason for thinking Jesus existed is because he is abundantly attested in early sources....

[Slide 21]

Because we said we would hold Jesus to the same standard as other ancient historical characters, let’s compare the amount of manuscripts with other historical figures:

Homer: 1800 manuscripts, dated 400 years after his death.

Demosthenes - 200 manuscripts 1400 years after

Herodotus with 8 manuscripts 1400 years after

Plato with 7 manuscripts 1200 years after his existence

Caesar: Mentioned in 10 manuscripts

Pliny with 7 manuscripts 750 years after his existence

Alexander the Great: mentioned in 3 manuscripts

Cleopatra: mentioned in 1 manuscript, indirectly

[Slide 22]

In first place, we have Jesus with:

Jesus: 5800 hand-written Greek manuscripts, 20,000 manuscripts in latin, Syriac, Coptic & Arabic, which is a total of over 25000 manuscripts.

[Slide 23]

Why does this matter? Because if you deny the existence of Jesus Christ in history, then you will be denying every other ancient historical character in existence with the same measuring stick you are using for the historicity of Jesus.

[Slide 24]

Close:

We all have to do something with this. Some think he is moderately important, but in light of this historical evidence, its time we wake up. Look at Nicodemus - Wants to go but he doesn’t go. He is missing out. He is not willing to take the full step, he likes his life too much. Do you like your life too much? If you got rid of him, would anything in your life change? Would you still be seeing yourself coming to church for the mingle? Is Jesus one more piece of furniture in your house? History can only reveal so much about Jesus, the historical character, but if we want to know more about who Jesus was, his character, details about who he was, then we turn to the compilation of letters that actually focus on who he was, the Bible.

Closing Illustration:

If my wife went missing, it would be the biggest upset in our family. She is the cornerstone in my family. Is Jesus this important in your life too? Is your relationship with Jesus  like the one with your spouse, or your Boss? Is Jesus someone you tip toe around, follow orders, and hope he doesn’t catch you clocking in late and leaving early? Or is he the person in your life that forms Your foundation, that is irreplaceable? You see, we’ve already proved his historical existence. This means one of three things: Either Jesus was a liar, Jesus was a lunatic, or Jesus was, and is, Lord.

[Slide 25]

Luke 9:18-20, Jesus asks a question: “Who do you say I am? That is a question for you personally today. This morning, if you need to put your faith in Jesus Christ, this is your invitation to do so. This morning, if you want to learn how to respond to doubts, do the work to learn how to do so by diving head first into apologetics! This morning, I want to ask you to share who Jesus was to others, because He is real, and His salvation is real. His love is real. Speak His name into every part of your life, and surrender your life to Him.