Hello friend! My name is Matt Spinelli. I’m a college intern here at Grace and have been given the privilege to write the next blog entry on the Grace blog! For those of you who don’t know me I’m kind of a New Testament research junkie. I visit a New Testament blog everyday to see what developments are happening in the New Testament research world. This January I learned of the formation of "The Jesus Project". This is a collection of Biblical Scholars, mostly from the more liberal side of scholarship, that will debate at seminars during the year whether Jesus actually existed or not. This follows on the heels of the highly publicized Jesus Seminar. So in light of this I thought it would be good to answer the question, "Can we be sure that Jesus really existed?"
One way to investigate this question is to search for sources that are outside of the New Testament and do not have a Christian bias to them. The reason we look for sources like this is that we can be fairly confident that the evidence they present for the existence of Jesus is sound and not merely trying to bolster the Christian movement. An example of such a source comes from the Roman historian Tacitus.
Tacitus lived from 56 AD to 117 AD and wrote a history examining the reigns of several Roman emperors. The text that we are going to focus on for our purposes is in his Annals 15.44:
"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt 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 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."
One of the first things that we need to notice is that Tacitus was not a Christian. So we can be pretty sure that whatever he said about Jesus was not slanted toward the Christian movement. So what does he say about Jesus? Notice the line where he mentions "Christus" who "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius". The overwhelming majority of scholars think that this is one of the few secular references to Jesus. From this we can learn that Jesus was crucified during the reign of Tiberius by Pontius Pilate. This information, while brief, does help to answer the question of the existence of Jesus, as well as the historical validity of his crucifixion. Would a Roman Historian who has no interest in promoting Christianity comment on an individual who didn’t exist? I don’t think so.
This means that there is good evidence for the existence of Jesus outside of the New Testament. This should help bolster our confidence in the Gospels and in the one whose "word is truth" (John 17:17.)
Matt Spinelli
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
You wrote: “This means that there is good evidence for the existence of Jesus outside of the New Testament. This should help bolster our confidence in the Gospels and in the one whose "word is truth" (John 17:17.)”
I will in this post discuss the accuracy of the gospels. First, let’s start with some important first century research.
Le-havdil (to differentiate),
The person who wants to research about a first century Jew must research first century sources, like the Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q MMT. There was a first century Jew named Ribi Yehoshua, from Natzrat (hellenized to Nazareth). To find information about the historical Ribi Yehoshua (the Messiah) who lived in Natzrat, we must study first century Jewish documents (for example Dead Sea Scroll 4Q MMT) and apply formal logic.
So let’s use the scientifically and logical method to demonstrate who the first century Jew Ribi Yehoshua was. It is not an assumption that Ribi Yehoshua from Natzrat was a Ribi (Not the same as “Rabbi”; see definition in our glossaries in the below website). He is called ‘Ribi Yeshua’ on the Talpiot Tomb to name one thing.
See www.netzarim.co.il ; “History Museum” (left menu); “Mashiakh”-section (top menu)..
Prof. of Statistics Andrey Feuerverger has demonstrated that, contrary to the mathematically-challenged critics of the Yaaqov ossuary, the chances that the ossuaries in the Talpiot Tomb aren't those of the family of the 1st-century Pharisee Ribi Yehoshua are 1:1600 (Feuerverger, Prof. Andrey – The Final Word, http://projecteuclid.org/aoas).
Le-havdil (to differentiate), On the other hand we know that the Christian Jesus said things that contradict against Torah (for example Matt 28:19-20; Joh 3:16, et al.)
Logic dictates that we differentiate from two diametrically different concepts. That is: They are not the same person. The person stating they are the same has the burden of proof.
In the same way we know from documents as Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q MMT, that a first century Ribi (I proved above that Ribi Yehoshua died as a Ribi) can never had said some of the words in the Christian gospel Matthew.
That is one reason to that a reconstruction is needed. “The Netzarim Reconstruction of Hebrew Matityahu” (see the Israel Mall in the left menu at our website).
The conclusions from this post is this:
1.Jesus is not a historical person.
2.le-havdil, The historical Ribi Yehoshua lived and died as a Jew (evidence: for example the Talpiot Tomb).
3. The gospels contain things which Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q MMT dictates that Ribi Yehoshua could impossible had said. He would have lost his ordination as a Ribi. Therefore your statement about to have “confidence in the Gospels” is not accurate.
You'll find significant documented historical information not published in the Christian world at www.netzarim.co.il
Finding the historical Jew, who was a Pharisee Ribi and following him brings you into Torah, which gives you a rich and meaningful life here on earth and great rewards in life after death (“heaven”)!
[Some quotes in this blog post: Paqid Yirmeyahu ha-Tzadiq]
Anders Branderud
Geir Toshav, Netzarim in Ra’anana
Anders, unfortunately your post is poorly reasoned. Just because there was a rabbi in the first century who was NOT Jesus, does not mean Jesus never existed.
Also, the Dead Sea Scrolls are not necessarily representative of every teaching of 1st century Christianity. The main reason Jesus was so controversial is because he DID make statements that seemed inconsistent with the religious ethic of the day.
I'm afraid you're arguing from silence in a very bad way. And you are drawing conclusions unwarranted by the evidence you have presented.
Post a Comment