DID JESUS EXIST?

QUESTION: 

I’m continually amused by people who build their life on a person we don’t even know existed. And please don’t cite the Bible as evidence; it’s a story written by insiders long after the fact, with nothing we could consider factual. The whole thing is biased and suspect as history. You'd think if Jesus was such a big deal, he'd be written about outside the Bible.

ANSWER: 

In fact, there is evidence for the existence of Jesus from outside the Bible.  The overall evidence for the existence of Jesus is so robust that you'll find there are almost no scholars in the field who share your view that "we don't even know he existed."   

THE GOSPELS CONTAIN RELIABLE INFORMATION

For starters, we must not make a sweeping invalidation of the whole New Testament as if it were one source.  We only think of it as one source because the Gospels have been bound into what we now know of as the Bible.  In the earliest centuries CE, there was no bound Bible and the 4 gospels often circulated independently of one another.  So "the Bible" is not one source for Jesus, easily dismissed as the collaboration of one guy in a back room.  Rather, it is at least 5 independent sources, though relying on similar source material.  All of which affirm a man named Jesus of Nazareth existed in 1st century Palestine.  

Second, it is naive, historically speaking, to discount the biblical Gospels as historical sources for Jesus's existence simply because they are biased, or even because they contain recordings of the supernatural. The great majority of history as we know it was written without much consideration for “objectivity” – that includes a ton of stuff that everyone thinks contains reliable historical information, such as “Gaulic Wars” by Julius Caesar. 

Third, historians can assume a fundamental reliability for these sources for the following 4 reasons,  4 "E's": 

EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

First, the Gospels claim to have consulted eyewitnesses or are the product of eyewitness testimony.

EARLY TESTIMONY

Second, manuscript evidence suggests all 4 gospels were written in the first century, early enough to be during the lifetimes of people who would be able to corroborate or falsify the story.

ENVIRONMENTAL TESTIMONY

Third, the Gospels lodge Jesus in time and space with incredible precision, with environmental elements that can be independently verified.  Such as names of rulers, Herod, Pilate, Philip; geographical references to towns and places; frequency of personal names; religious features of 1st-century Judaism; architectural structures in and around Jerusalem like Herod's Temple, the Sheep Gate, the Hulda Gates, Caesarea; the existence of Nazareth, etc, etc. 

EMBARASSING TESTIMONY

Four, Luke includes material that would be considered embarrassing to himself or the movement, such as painting Jesus' apostles as doubting, ignorant, or prideful.  Such self-effacing information is considered a hallmark of reliability since it doesn't advance the author's agenda or stated self-interest.  Hence, more apt to be true.

So, for all these reasons, we cannot sweep away the gospels as unreliable on the very modest question of Jesus's existence, simply because they are biased or contain reports of supernatural events. 

THE LETTERS OF PAUL

But the Bible contains more than the 4 gospels when it comes to evidence for the mere existence of Jesus.  The Letters of the New Testament are not to be lumped together and summarily dismissed.  The writers were independent of the Gospel writers, giving us another source to confirm the claim that Jesus existed. 

The thing about Paul is that he is an even earlier source than the Gospels. Paul the Pharisee, writing in the middle of the first century, is considered an unquestioned fact by every reputable scholar.  He confirms the existence of Jesus repeatedly.

Paul makes many claims for Jesus, but certainly his most basic claim, that Jesus was born of a woman, was a real man who actually lived and died, should be considered beyond dispute.  If only Paul's writings survived the ancient world, it would be enough, given their early and eyewitness character, to accept that a man named Jesus had lived in the early 1st century. 

EXTRA-BIBLICAL TESTIMONY

But there's more evidence for Jesus's existence from outside the Bible which gives us a 5th "E" that answers the key part of your question: is there extra-biblical testimony?  There are many references to Jesus outside the Bible.

Q - THE SOURCE

Many scholars accept that a document was circulating that contained the base material for the Synopics (Matthew, Mark, Luke). This alleged document has been named "Q" after the German word "Quelle" which means source.

We don’t have an existing fragment of Q, but many believe this collection of sayings, teachings, and stories about Jesus was transmitted orally and was first written down by Jesus's followers long before 50 CE. 

THE GNOSTICS

An early Christian movement (strong from 100-200 CE) tried to merge Greek philosophy with the Christian message.  The result was "Gnosticism," a sect that emphasized special knowledge as a pathway to be freed from the body.

The Gnostics had non-Orthodox views, but precisely because they did not accept the canonical accounts, their belief that Jesus existed is significant.  They believed that in the 1st century, a man “Jesus” was imbued with the “Christ”. 

FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS

Josephus was a Jewish historian for Rome, who was born in 37 CE. He wrote a book, "Antiquities of the Jews" circa 93 CE.  He described Jesus as follows: 

The lines in parentheses may be the result of a later Christian forger who appended the text to confirm the Bible's high view of Jesus. But even if you assume those insertions are unreliable, the basic affirmation clearly shows that Josephus unquestionably believed that Jesus existed.

TACITUS

Tacitus lived from 55 to 120 CE and wrote a book, Annals, circa 112 CE.  He  writes about the fires in Rome and accuses Nero of scapegoating the Christians: 

SUETONIUS

Suetonius was the author of "The Lives of the Caesars" circa 120 CE. He wrote: 

This passage is sometimes said to refer to someone other than Christ (since the name is misspelled), but in fact this confirms exactly what Luke recorded – that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome around that time. 

Another quote from Suetonius:

PLINY THE YOUNGER

Pliny, writing around 120 CD writes about how to process Christians brought to trial:

LUCIAN

:Lucian was a Greek writer and satirist and around 150 CE he writes

MARA BAR SERAPION

Mara bar Serapion was a Syrian prisoner who wrote a letter to his son Serapion. He groups the execution of the "wise king of the Jews" with the deaths of Socrates and Pythagoras. His point is that nations are punished by God for killing wise men.

The significance of this quote is the date of writing.  Clues in the text put it as early as 73 AD.  If this early date is correct, it represents one of the earliest surviving non-Christian references to Jesus, written only a few years after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 CE.

THE TALMUD

In later layers of the Talmud, Jesus is mentioned several times.  Jesus's existince is confirmed, as are his miraculous deeds which are attributed to demons. 

WHAT WE CAN KNOW WITHOUT A BIBLE

In the book, “Case for Christ” Dr Edwin Yamauchi summarizes all this data.  The list of things we could know about Jesus, even if there were no New Testament is considerable:

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION

I think you'll find that to believe Jesus didn't exist is a very fringe view. And that's because on any objective reading of the evidence, his mere existence is considered beyond dispute.  The more controversial questions are as follows: Given that Jesus did exist...

Given that we can know beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus existed, I hope you'll now consider those questions important enough to dig into.