Tonight I hope to tackle the evidence for the historical Jesus....why, you might ask, am I starting there? I believe the Faith-belief I adhere to puts alot of emphasis on the life, death, burial and resurrection of this man, Jesus. It is because of this man that we have many of our practices and I think it is safe to assume that Christians today should look to Jesus as their example of how to live considering that we have him to thank for our title. The term Christ comes from the Greek Christos or Χρίστος in the original type. This term was a Greek term and title for a Hebrew word Ha-mashiach. I won't bring up the Hebrew type because, unlike Greek or English, it is read completely differently, including not originally having any vowels. I tell you this to explain to you what this word means. In Hebrew, the term Ha-mashiach meant a ruler or a king. Many rulers and kings were given the title. Both the Greek and the Hebrew go back to this idea of "the annointed one". Back in those times (and we even see a variant of it later in history) it was customary for the newly appointed ruler or king to be publicly annointed with oils and such to signify that he was THE KING....so how does this play into Jesus The Christ and why we are called Christians today? well, God had made a covenant with king David that his line would have a king (annointed one) on the throne forever (some would throw in here "as long as he kept his side of the bargain") well, David's people didn't much keep to their end and around 590 BC the Babylonian Empire comes in and captures the jews and keeps them in captivity for 70 years! when they get out of captivity and return to Jerusalem, their temple has been destroyed....they end up rebuilding their temple, but they never establish another king on the throne...so what about the covenant?! Well, flash forward several hundreds of years....now the Jewish community is under the governance of the Roman Empire. The Romans control many aspects of the modern world at this time...but allow the jews to continue practicing their religion as long as they are good citizens and do as they are told. throughout this entire time the jews remembered Gods covenant with David and wanted so badly to get back into Gods good graces and they believe that God would raise up a king to deliver them from the oppression of the Roman Empire. Jesus is called this by his followers to make the point that he is the Ha-Mashiach...the Christos the jews have been looking for..and that is why he is often refered to as "Jesus The Christ" or, simply "Jesus Christ" for short...and why we now call ourselves Christians......so, back to my point....Christians believe this man, Jesus, to be the messiah....the king...the deliverer...and we often use him as our example of how to live and we believe that it is thru him that we can gain eternal salvation and life with God....so he is pretty important! and it is because of his importance that I believe we should start there. As I understand it, many Christians put their faith in what the bible claims Jesus and his followers claimed AND DID....and I believe that a look into the evidence to support those claims will only serve to explain to us if Jesus really was who he says he was...I truly believe that I can kill two birds with one stone here as well...I believe that if there is enough evidence to suggest that the life, claims, and rumored actions of this man Jesus are true...then I believe that is a very strong case for a God as well!. So...let us look into the evidence....but first....we must ask ourselves "What kind of evidence should we expect to document this man, Jesus?" That is what this post is all about. I will discuss what sort of evidence we should expect to find to support a claim that there was a man named Jesus who lived in the first decade of "modern time" and who claimed he was the Messiah....the Christ....and that he performed certain acts/miracles to support his claims. let's get started....
What about reports from Pontius pilate?
Many of you should know that pontius pilate was the Roman prefect over the area of Judea. As far as I understand it, a Prefect was very similar to a mayor of a town, and its judicial branch. There were many duties of a Prefect..keeping the peace, making sure people were paying their taxes, and presiding over trials in his locale. If I have my history correct, Jesus actually appears before Pilate TWO TIMES before he is crucified...so wouldn't Pilate have some mention of this man, Jesus, whom claimed he was the Messiah? I mean...Pilate is a ROMAN OFFICIAL!
truth be told...there is no surviving documentation we have today from Pontius Pilate to support the evidence for Jesus' trial.....
So how many surviving documents do we have from Pilate from his trials in Judea?(Especially those that ended up in death)
none....not a one....but that isn't unheard of. The truth is that even the Roman Empire didn't do much in the way of recordings. A writer by the name of Justin alludes to "the writings of Pontius Pilate" and we found a document with that title, but later found that to be a faked document made in the 4th century. We actually have very little surviving documentation AT ALL for ANYTHING around the 30's AD.
Velleius Paterculus was a retired army officer of Tiberius. He published an amateur history of Rome in AD 30....we only have bits and pieces of his work. A Roman Official...a retired army officer....writing a history of Rome!...and we only have bits and pieces. This is a common occurance during this time. Julius Caesar claims to have made a failed recon campaign over the English Channel...what evidence do we have of this event? We have one...yes one document mentioning this event WRITTEN BY JULIUS HIMSELF written in a book designed to secure his political reputation, A shield found at a crossing in the Thames, a small mention in Ciceros works, and the occasional mention in later references.
So.. We do not have any documents from pilate documenting any trials while he was Prefect of Judea...but we know that he WAS prefect of Judea and we know he DID preside over trials...so we cannot simply use this argument to disqualify Jesus' historical place on this earth. We must, then, make the conclusion that there will be very little evidence to support a jewish man living under Roman rule in the first few modern decades. The world within the first century was not a well educated one..many were completely illiterate and those who were educated were few and far between and usually used to some degree by the Roman Empire at the time, so any positive mention of this man, Jesus, would probably not be a good idea. This is not looking good. Especially if you understand that to the Roman Empire, Jesus was very close to nothing more than an agitator....Festus even has the misconception that this Jesus guy, and Paul, and others...are still jews, just with minor disagreements...
I believe we...Modern American WE...go into this attempt to support this historicity with a few common misconceptions..
I think we first want to believe that first century issues were the same as they are today...we want to believe that the first century populace wanted as much documentation to support the historicity of Jesus just as much as we do...the truth is...in the first century, the debate was rarely on the hisoricity of Jesus and more on theological/doctrinal debate....They already were past the point of historicity of Jesus..the knew him to be a real man...and, I argue, they knew him to be who he said he was and knew his actions to be real events. I also think we expect communication back then to be to the same level as we have today....and I think that is unfortunate as well. The average man within the first century was illiterate....We are a modern society, with modern convenciences that make it so easy for us to learn and to grow in knowledge and I think we take that for granted...The average, first century man didn't have these conveniences/luxuries and I believe we should remember that.....
It is, unfortunately, true...many just believed Jesus to be a small-town jewish rabbi who occasionally would raise a ruckus, but wasn't too much to worry about...the Roman Empire had other pressing matters to deal with at the time....they didn't care much about this little man from Galilee. Jesus really didn't make much of a splash to the people in his day....but...he did make one. writers like Tacitus and Flavius Josephus do mention a man named Jesus in some of their texts...but keep in mind that many of these writers worked with the Roman Empire and had their own Faith-belief views that surely effected HOW they mentioned this man....we will look next week into what IS mentioned of him in these extrabiblical texts. Thanks for reading.
