http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=10&article=187
The Historical Christ--Fact or Fiction?
Most children and adults easily recognize the name of Jesus Christ.
Many even can recount the story of His life. Also easily recognizable
are the names of Peter Pan and Rumpelstiltskin. And most people can
relate the “facts” of these fairy tales as well. Is Jesus of Nazareth a
fictional character who deserves to be included in a list containing
mystifying magicians, daring dragon slayers, and flying boy heroes? The
world-famous medical doctor and lifelong critic of Christianity, Albert
Schweitzer, answered with a resounding “yes” when he wrote:
The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who
preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of
Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration,
never had any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed
with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an
historical garb (1964, p. 398).
In more modern times, former-preacher-turned-atheist Dan Barker has
suggested that “the New Testament Jesus is a myth” (1992, p. 378). Are
such views based upon historical evidence and therefore worthy of
serious consideration? Or do they represent merely wishful thinking on
the part of those who prefer to believe—for whatever reason—that Christ
never lived? Was Jesus Christ a man whose feet got dirty and whose body
grew tired just like the rest of humanity? Fortunately, such questions
can be answered by an honest appeal to the available historical
evidence.
What is a “historical” person? Martin Kahler suggested: “Is it not the
person who originates and bequeaths a permanent influence? He is one of
those dynamic individuals who intervene in the course of events” (1896,
p. 63). Do any records exist to document the claim that Jesus Christ
“intervened in the course of events” known as world history? Indeed they
do.
HOSTILE TESTIMONY
Interestingly, the first type of records comes from what are known
commonly as “hostile” sources—writers who mentioned Jesus in a negative
light or derogatory fashion. Such penmen certainly were not predisposed
to further the cause of Christ or otherwise to add credence to His
existence. In fact, quite the opposite is true. They rejected His
teachings and often reviled Him as well. Thus, one can appeal to them
without the charge of built-in bias.
In his book,
The Historical Figure of Jesus, E.P. Sanders
stated: “Most of the first-century literature that survives was written
by members of the very small elite class of the Roman Empire. To them,
Jesus (if they heard of him at all) was merely a troublesome
rabble-rouser and magician in a small, backward part of the world”
(1993, p. 49, parenthetical comment in orig.). It is now to this “small
elite class of the Roman Empire” that we turn our attention for
documentation of Christ’s existence.
Tacitus (c. A.D. 56-117) should be among the
first of several hostile witnesses called to the stand. He was a member
of the Roman provincial upper class with a formal education who held
several high positions under different emperors such as Nerva and Trajan
(see Tacitus, 1952, p. 7). His famous work,
Annals, was a history of Rome written in approximately A.D. 115. In the
Annals he told of the Great Fire of Rome, which occurred in A.D. 64. Nero, the Roman emperor in office at the time, was suspected by many of having ordered the city set on fire. Tacitus wrote:
Nero fabricated scapegoats—and punished with every refinement the
notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their
originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor
of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the
deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the
mischief had started) but even in Rome (1952, 15.44, parenthetical
comments in orig.).
Tacitus hated both Christians and their namesake, Christ. He therefore
had nothing positive to say about what he referred to as a “deadly
superstition.” He did, however,
have something to say about it.
His testimony establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that the Christian
religion not only was relevant historically, but that Christ, as its
originator, was a verifiable historical figure of such prominence that
He even attracted the attention of the Roman emperor himself!
Additional hostile testimony originated from Suetonius, who wrote around A.D. 120. Robert Graves, as translator of Suetonius’ work,
The Twelve Caesars, declared:
Suetonius was fortunate in having ready access to the Imperial and
Senatorial archives and to a great body of contemporary memoirs and
public documents, and in having himself lived nearly thirty years under
the Caesars. Much of his information about Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius,
and Nero comes from eye-witnesses of the events described (Suetonius,
1957, p. 7).
The testimony of Suetonius is a reliable piece of historical evidence.
Twice in his history, Suetonius specifically mentioned Christ or His
followers. He wrote, for example: “Because the Jews at Rome caused
continuous disturbance at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius—KB] expelled them from the city” (
Claudius, 25:4; note that in Acts 18:2 Luke mentioned this expulsion by Claudius). Sanders noted that
Chrestus is a misspelling of
Christos,
“the Greek word that translates the Hebrew ‘Messiah’” (1993, pp.
49-50). Suetonius further commented: “Punishments were also inflicted on
the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious
belief” (
Nero, 16:2). Again, it is evident that Suetonius and the
Roman government had feelings of hatred toward Christ and His alleged
mischievous band of rebels. It is equally evident that Suetonius (and,
in fact, most of Rome) recognized that Christ was the noteworthy founder
of a historically significant new religion.
Along with Tacitus and Suetonius, Pliny the Younger must be allowed to
take a seat among hostile Roman witnesses. In approximately A.D.
110-111, Pliny was sent by the Roman emperor Trajan to govern the
affairs of the region of Bithynia. From this region, Pliny corresponded
with the emperor concerning a problem he viewed as quite serious. He
wrote: “I was never present at any trial of Christians; therefore I do
not know the customary penalties or investigations and what limits are
observed” (as quoted in Wilken, 1990, p. 4). He then went on to state:
This is the course that I have adopted in the case of those brought
before me as Christians. I ask them if they are Christians. If they
admit it, I repeat the question a second and a third time, threatening
capital punishment; if they persist, I sentence them to death (as quoted
in Wilken, p. 4).
Pliny used the term “Christian” or “Christians” seven times in his
letter, thereby corroborating it as a generally accepted term that was
recognized by both the Roman Empire and its emperor. Pliny also used the
name “Christ” three times to refer to the originator of the “sect.” It
is undeniably the case that Christians, with Christ as their founder,
had multiplied in such a way as to draw the attention of the emperor and
his magistrates by the time of Pliny’s letter to Trajan. In light of
this evidence, it is impossible to deny the fact that Jesus Christ
existed and was recognized by the highest officials within the Roman
government as an actual, historical person.
Celsus, a second-century pagan philosopher, produced a vehement attack upon Christianity by the title of
True Discourse (c. A.D.
178). In that vile document, Celsus argued that Christ owed his
existence to the result of fornication between Mary and a Roman soldier
named Panthera. As he matured, Jesus began to call himself God—an
action, said Celsus, which caused his Jewish brethren to kill him. Yet
as denigrating as his attack was, Celsus never went so far as to suggest
that Christ did not exist.
Some have attempted to negate the testimony of these hostile Roman
witnesses to Christ’s historicity by suggesting that the “Roman sources
that mention him are all dependent on Christian reports” (Sanders, 1993,
p. 49). For example, in his book,
The Earliest Records of Jesus, Francis Beare lamented:
Everything that has been recorded of the Jesus of history was recorded
for us by men to whom he was Christ the Lord; and we cannot expunge
their faith from the records without making the records themselves
virtually worthless. There is no Jesus known to history except him who
is depicted by his followers as the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour
to the World (1962, p. 19).
Such a suggestion is as outlandish as it is outrageous. Not only is
there no evidence to support such a claim, but all of the available
evidence militates against it. Furthermore, it is an untenable position
to suggest that such upper class Roman historians would submit for
inclusion in the official annals of Roman history (to be preserved for
posterity) facts that were related to them by a notorious tribe of
“mischievous,” “depraved,” “superstitious” misfits.
Even a casual reader who glances over the testimony of the hostile
Roman witnesses who bore testimony to the historicity of Christ will be
struck by the fact that these ancient men depicted Christ as neither the
Son of God nor the Savior of the world. They verbally stripped Him of
His Sonship, denied His glory, and belittled His magnificence. They
described Him to their contemporaries, and for posterity, as a mere man.
Yet even though they were wide of the mark in regard to the truth of
Who He was, through their caustic diatribes they nevertheless documented
that He was. And for that we are indebted to them.
TESTIMONY OF JESUS AMONG THE JEWS
Even though much of the hostile testimony regarding the existence of
Jesus originated from witnesses within the Roman Empire, such testimony
is not the only kind of hostile historical evidence available. Anyone
familiar with Jewish history will recognize immediately the
Mishnah and the
Talmud. The
Mishnah was a book of Jewish law traditions codified by Rabbi Judah around the year A.D. 200 and known to the Jews as the “whole code of religious jurisprudence” (Bruce, 1953, p. 101). Jewish rabbis studied the
Mishnah and even wrote a body of commentary based upon it known as the
Gemares. The
Mishnah and
Gemares are known collectively as the
Talmud (Bruce, 1953, p. 101). The complete
Talmud surfaced around A.D.
300. If a person as influential as Jesus had existed in the land of
Palestine during the first century, surely the rabbis would have had
something
to say about him. Undoubtedly, a man who supposedly confronted the most
astute religious leaders of His day—and won—would be named among the
opinions of those who shared His rabbinical title. As Bruce declared:
According to the earlier Rabbis whose opinions are recorded in these
writings, Jesus of Nazareth was a transgressor in Israel, who practised
magic, scorned the words of the wise, led the people astray, and said
that he had not come to destroy the law but to add to it. He was hanged
on Passover Eve for heresy and misleading the people. His disciples, of
whom five are named, healed the sick in his name (1953, p. 102).
First-century Judaism, in large part, refused to accept Jesus Christ as
the Son of the God. Yet it did not refuse to accept Him as a historical
man from a literal city known as Nazareth or to record for posterity
crucial facts about His life and death.
Josephus is another important Jewish witness. The son of Mattathias, he
was born into a Jewish upper class priestly family around A.D.
37. His education in biblical law and history stood among the best of
his day (Sanders, 1993, p. 15). At age nineteen, he became a Pharisee.
When Jerusalem rebelled against the Roman authorities, he was given
command of the Jewish forces in Galilee. After losing most of his men,
he surrendered to the Romans. He found favor in the man who commanded
the Roman army, Vespasian, by predicting that Vespasian soon would be
elevated to the position of emperor. Josephus’ prediction came true in A.D.
69 at Vespasian’s inauguration. After the fall of Jerusalem, Josephus
assumed the family name of the emperor (Flavius) and settled down to
live a life as a government pensioner. It was during these latter years
that he wrote
Antiquities of the Jews between September 93 and
September 94 (Bruce, 1953, pp. 103-104). Josephus himself gave the date
as the thirteenth year of Domitian (Rajak, 1984, p. 237). His
contemporaries viewed his career indignantly as one of traitorous
rebellion to the Jewish nation (Bruce, 1953, p. 104).
Twice in
Antiquities, Jesus’ name flowed from Josephus’ pen.
Antiquities 18:3:3 reads as follows
And there arose about this time Jesus, a wise man, if indeed we should call him a man;
for he was a doer of marvelous deeds, a teacher of men who receive the
truth with pleasure. He led away many Jews, and also Greeks. This man was the Christ.
And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross on his impeachment by
the chief men among us, those who had loved him at first did not cease;
for he appeared to them on the third day alive again, the divine
prophets having spoken these and thousands of other wonderful things
about him: and even now the tribe of Christians, so named after him, has not yet died out.
Certain historians regard the italicized segments of the section as
“Christian interpolation.” There is, however, no evidence from textual
criticism that would warrant such an opinion (Bruce, 1953, p. 110). In
fact, every extant Greek manuscript contains the disputed portions. The
passage also exists in both Hebrew and Arabic versions. And although the
Arabic version is slightly different, it still exhibits knowledge of
the disputed sections (see Chapman, 1981, p. 29; Habermas, 1996, pp.
193-196).
There are several reasons generally offered for rejecting the passage
as genuine. First, early Christian writers like Justin Martyr,
Tertullian, and Origen did not use Josephus’ statement in their defense
of Christ’s deity. Habermas observed that Origen, in fact, documented
the fact that Josephus (although himself a Jew) did not believe Christ
to be the Messiah (1996, p. 192; cf. Origen’s
Contra Celsum, 1:47). However, as Habermas also pointed out, the fourth-century writer Eusebius, in his
Ecclesiastical History
(1:11), quoted Josephus’ statement about Christ, including the disputed
words. And he undoubtedly had access to much more ancient sources than
those now available.
Furthermore, it should not be all that surprising that such early
Christian apologists did not appeal to Josephus in their writings. Wayne
Jackson has suggested:
Josephus’ writings may not have been in extensive circulation at that point in time. His Antiquities was not completed until about 93 A.D.
Too, in view of the fact that Josephus was not respected by the Jews,
his works may not have been valued as an apologetic tool (1991, 11:29).
Such a suggestion possesses merit. Professor Bruce Metzger commented:
“Because Josephus was deemed a renegade to Judaism, Jewish scribes were
not interested in preserving his writings for posterity” (1965, p. 75).
Thomas H. Horne, in his
Critical Introduction to the Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures,
referred to the fact that the main source of evidence frequently used
by the so-called “church fathers” was an appeal to the Old Testament
rather than to human sources (1841, 1:463-464). The evidence
substantiates Horne’s conclusion. For example, a survey of the index to
the eight volumes of the multi-volume set,
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, reveals only eleven references to Josephus in the entire set.
The second reason sometimes offered as to why the disputed passage in Josephus’
Antiquities
might be due to “Christian interpolation” is the fact that it seems
unlikely that a non-Christian writer would include such statements as
“this man was the Christ” or “if indeed we should call him a man.” But
while such might be unlikely, it certainly is not beyond the realm of
possibility. Any number of reasons could explain why Josephus would
write what he did. For example, Bruce allowed for the possibility that
Josephus might have been speaking sarcastically (1953, p. 110). Howard
Key suggested:
If we assume that in making explicit statements about Jesus as Messiah
and about the resurrection Josephus is merely conveying what Jesus’
followers claimed on his behalf, then there would be no reason to deny
that he wrote them [i.e., the supposed interpolated phrases—KB] (1970, p. 33).
It also should be noted that Josephus hardly qualifies as the sole
author of such statements made about Christ by those who rejected His
deity. Ernest Renan, for example, was a nineteenth-century French
historian whose book,
The Life of Jesus, was a frontal assault on
Christ’s deity that received major attention throughout Europe (see
Thompson, 1994, 14:5). Yet in that very volume Renan wrote: “It is
allowable to call Divine this sublime person who, each day, still
presides over the destinies of the world” (as quoted in Schaff and
Roussel, 1868, pp. 116-117).
Or consider H.G. Wells who, in 1931, authored
The Outline of History.
On page 270 of that famous work, Wells referred to Jesus as “a prophet
of unprecedented power.” No one who knew Wells (a man who certainly did
not believe in the divinity of Christ) ever would accuse his account of
being flawed by “Christian interpolation.” The famous humanist, Will
Durant, was an avowed atheist, yet he wrote: “The greatest question of
our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not
even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without
God” (1932, p. 23). Comments like those of Renan, Wells, and Durant
document the fact that, on occasion, even unbelievers have written
convincingly about God and Christ.
Furthermore, even if the material containing the alleged Christian
interpolation is removed, the vocabulary and grammar of the section
“cohere well with Josephus’ style and language” (Meier, 1990, p. 90). In
fact, almost every word (omitting for the moment the supposed
interpolations) is found elsewhere in Josephus (Meier, p. 90). Were the
disputed material to be expunged, the testimony of Josephus still would
verify the fact that Jesus Christ actually lived. Habermas therefore
concluded:
There are good indications that the majority of the text is genuine.
There is no textual evidence against it, and, conversely, there is very
good manuscript evidence for this statement about Jesus, thus making it
difficult to ignore. Additionally, leading scholars on the works of
Josephus [Daniel-Rops, 1962, p. 21; Bruce, 1967, p. 108; Anderson, 1969,
p. 20] have testified that this portion is written in the style of this
Jewish historian (1996, p. 193).
In addition, Josephus did not remain mute regarding Christ in his later sections.
Antiquities
20:9:1 relates that Ananus brought before the Sanhedrin “a man named
James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain
others. He accused them of having transgressed the law, and condemned
them to be stoned to death.” Bruce observed that this quote from
Josephus “is chiefly important because he calls James ‘the brother of
Jesus the so-called Christ,’ in such a way as to suggest that he has
already made reference to Jesus. And we do find reference to him in all
extant copies of Josephus” (Bruce, 1953, p. 109). Meier, in an article
titled “Jesus in Josephus,” made it clear that rejecting this passage as
actually having been written by Josephus defies accurate assessment of
the text (1990, pp. 79-81). Meier also added another emphatic defense of
the historical reliability of the text in
Antiquities concerning Christ.
Practically no one is astounded or refuses to believe that in the same book 18 of The Jewish Antiquities
Josephus also chose to write a longer sketch of another marginal Jew,
another peculiar religious leader in Palestine, “John surnamed the
Baptist” (Ant. 18.5.2). Fortunately for us, Josephus had more than a passing interest in marginal Jews (p. 99).
Regardless of what one believes about the writings of Josephus, the
simple fact is that this well-educated, Jewish historian wrote about a
man named Jesus Who actually existed in the first century. Yamauchi
summarized quite well the findings of the secular sources regarding
Christ:
Even if we did not have the New Testament or Christian writings, we
would be able to conclude from such non-Christian writings as Josephus,
the Talmud, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger that: (1) Jesus was a
Jewish teacher; (2) many people believed that he performed healings and
exorcisms; (3) he was rejected by the Jewish leaders; (4) he was
crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius; (5) despite
this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still
alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in
Rome by 64 A.D.; (6) all kinds of people from the
cities and countryside—men and women, slave and free—worshiped him as
God by the beginning of the second century (1995, p. 222).
RELIABILITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT RECORDS
Although the above list of hostile and Jewish witnesses proves beyond
the shadow of a doubt that Jesus actually lived, it is by no means the
only historical evidence available to those interested in this topic.
The gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and the other 23 books that
form the New Testament, provide more information about Jesus than any
other source(s) available. But may these records be viewed as historical
evidence, or are they instead writings whose reliability pales in
comparison to other types of historical documentation? Blomberg has
explained why the historical question of the Gospels, for example, must
be considered.
Many who have never studied the gospels in a scholarly context believe
that biblical criticism has virtually disproved the existence [of
Christ—KB]. An examination of the gospel’s
historical reliability must therefore precede a credible assessment of
who Jesus was (1987, p. xx).
But how well do the New Testament documents compare with additional
ancient, historical documents? F.F Bruce examined much of the evidence
surrounding this question in his book,
The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable?
As he and other writers (e.g., Metzger, 1968, p. 36; Geisler and
Brooks, 1990, p. 159) have no-ted, there are 5,366 manuscripts of the
Greek New Testament in existence today, in whole or in part, that serve
to corroborate the accuracy of the New Testament. The best manuscripts
of the New Testament are dated at roughly A.D.
350, with perhaps one of the most important of these being the Codex
Vaticanus, “the chief treasure of the Vatican Library in Rome,” and the
Codex Sinaiticus, which was purchased by the British from the Soviet
Government in 1933 (Bruce, 1953, p. 20). Additionally, the Chester
Beatty papyri, made public in 1931, contain eleven codices, three of
which contain most of the New Testament (including the Gospels). Two of
these codices boast of a date in the first half of the third century,
while the third slides in a little later, being dated in the last half
of the same century (Bruce, 1953, p. 21). The John Rylands Library
boasts of even earlier evidence. A papyrus codex containing parts of
John 18 dates to the time of Hadrian, who reigned from A.D. 117 to 138 (Bruce, 1953, p. 21).
Other attestation to the accuracy of the New Testament documents can be
found in the writings of the so-called “apostolic fathers”—men who
wrote primarily from A.D. 90 to 160 (Bruce, 1953,
p. 22). Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Tatian, Clement of
Rome, and Ignatius (writing before the close of the second century) all
provided citations from one or more of the Gospels (Guthrie, 1990, p.
24). Other witnesses to the early authenticity of the New Testament are
the Ancient Versions, which consist of the text of the New Testament
translated into different languages. The Old Latin and the Old Syriac
are the most ancient, being dated from the middle of the second century
(Bruce, 1953, p. 23).
The available evidence makes it clear that the Gospels were accepted as
authentic by the close of the second century (Guthrie, p. 24). They
were complete (or substantially complete) before A.D.
100, with many of the writings circulating 20-40 years before the close
of the first century (Bruce, 1953, p. 16). Linton remarked concerning
the Gospels:
A fact known to all who have given any study at all to this subject is
that these books were quoted, listed, catalogued, harmonized, cited as
authority by different writers, Christian and Pagan, right back to the
time of the apostles (1943, p. 39).
Such an assessment is absolutely correct. In fact, the New Testament
enjoys far more historical documentation than any other volume ever
known. There are only 643 copies of Homer’s
Iliad, which is undeniably the most famous book of ancient Greece. No one doubts the text of Julius Caesar’s
Gallic Wars,
but we have only 10 copies of it, the earliest of which was made 1,000
years after it was written. To have such abundance of copies for the New
Testament from within 70 years of their writing is nothing short of
amazing (Geisler and Brooks, 1990, pp. 159-160).
Someone might allege that the New Testament documents cannot be trusted
because the writers had an agenda. But this in itself does not render
what they said untruthful, especially in the light of corroborating
evidence from hostile witnesses. There are other histories that are
accepted despite their authors’ agendas. An “agenda” does not nullify
the possibility of accurate historical knowledge.
In his work,
The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable?,
Bruce offered more astounding comparisons. Livy wrote 142 books of Roman
history, of which a mere 35 survive. The 35 known books are made
manifest due to some 20 manuscripts, only one of which is as old as the
fourth century. We have only two manuscripts of Tacitus’
Histories and
Annals, one from the ninth century and one from the eleventh. The
History of Thucydides, another well-known ancient work, is dependent upon only eight manuscripts, the oldest of these being dated about A.D. 900 (along with a few papyrus scraps dated at the beginning of the Christian era).
The History of Herodotus
finds itself in a similar situation. “Yet no classical scholar would
listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides
is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their
works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the
originals” (Bruce, 1953, pp. 20-21). Bruce thus declared: “It is a
curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the
New Testament records than have many theologians” (1953, p. 19). As
Linton put it:
There is no room for question that the records of the words and acts of
Jesus of Galilee came from the pens of the men who, with John, wrote
what they had “heard” and “seen” and their hands had “handled of the
Word of life” (1943, pp. 39-40).
CONCLUSION
When someone asks the question, “Is the life of Jesus Christ a historic
event?,” he or she must remember that “If we maintain that the life of
our Lord is not a historical event, we are landed in hopeless
difficulties; in consistency, we shall have to give up all ancient
history and deny that there ever was such an event as the assassination
of Julius Caesar” (Monser, 1961, p. 377).
Faced with such overwhelming evidence, it is unwise to reject the
position that Jesus Christ actually walked the streets of Jerusalem in
the first century. As Harvey has remarked, there are certain facts about
Jesus that “are attested by at least as much reliable evidence as are
countless others taken for granted as historical facts known to us from
the ancient world.” But lest I be accused of misquoting him, let me
point out that Harvey went on to say, “It can still be argued that we
can have no reliable historical knowledge about Jesus with regard to
anything that really matters” (1982, p. 6).
Harvey could not deny the fact that Jesus lived on this Earth. Critics
do not like having to admit it, but they cannot successfully deny the
fact that Jesus had a greater impact on the world than any single life
before or after. Nor can they deny the fact that Jesus died at the hands
of Pontius Pilate. Harvey and others can say only that such facts “do
not really matter.” I contend that the facts that establish the
existence of Jesus Christ of Nazareth really
do matter. As Bruce
stated, “The earliest propagators of Christianity welcomed the fullest
examination of the credentials of their message” (1953, p. 122). While
Paul was on trial before King Agrippa, he said to Festus: “For the king
knoweth of these things, unto whom also I speak freely: for I am
persuaded that none of these things is hidden from him;
for this hath not been done in a corner” (Acts 26:26).
As the earliest apologists of Christianity welcomed a full examination
of the credentials of the message that they preached, so do we today.
These credentials have been weighed in the balance and
not found wanting. The simple fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ did exist and live among men.
It is impossible to say that no one has the right to be an agnostic.
But no one has the right to be an agnostic till he has thus dealt with
the question, and faced this fact with an open mind. After that, he may
be an agnostic—if he can (Anderson, 1985, p. 12).
REFERENCES
Anderson, J.N.D. (1969),
Christianity: The Witness of History (London: Tyndale).
Anderson, Norman (1985),
Jesus Christ: The Witness of History (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), second edition.
Barker, Dan (1992),
Losing Faith in Faith (Minneapolis, MN: Freedom From Religion Foundation).
Beare, Francis Wright (1962),
The Earliest Records of Jesus (New York: Abingdon).
Blomberg, Craig L. (1987),
The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).
Bruce, F.F. (1953),
The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), fourth edition.
Bruce, F.F. (1967),
The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), fifth edition.
Chapman, Colin (1981),
The Case for Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Daniel-Rops, Henri, (1969), “Silence of Jesus’ Contemporaries,”
The Sources for the Life of Christ, ed. Henri Daniel-Rops (New York: Hawthorn).
Durant, Will, ed. (1932),
On the Meaning of Life (New York: Long and Smith).
Geisler, Norman L. and Ronald M. Brooks (1990),
When Skeptics Ask (Wheaton, IL: Victor).
Guthrie, Donald (1990),
New Testament Introduction (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).
Habermas, Gary R. (1996),
The Historical Jesus (Joplin, MO: College Press).
Harvey, A.E. (1982),
Jesus and the Constraints of History (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster).
Horne, Thomas H. (1841),
An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), 1970 reprint.
Jackson, Wayne (1991), “Josephus and the Bible [Part II]”
Reason & Revelation, 11:29-32, August.
Josephus, Flavius (1957 reprint),
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Josephus, Flavius (1988 reprint),
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Kähler, Martin (1896),
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Key, Howard Clark (1970),
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Linton, Irwin H. (1943),
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Meier, John P. (1990), “Jesus in Josephus: A Modest Proposal.”
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 52:76-99.
Metzger, Bruce M. (1968),
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Monser, J.W. (1961),
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Rajak, Tessa (1984),
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Sanders, E.P. (1993),
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Schweitzer, Albert. (1964),
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Suetonius (1957 reprint),
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Schaff, Philip & N.M. Roussel (1868),
The Romance of M. Renan and the Christ of the Gospels (New York: Carlton & Lanahan).
Tacitus, Cornelius P. (1952 reprint),
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Thompson, Bert (1994), “Famous Enemies of Christ—Ancient and Modern,”
Reason & Revelation, 14:1-7, January.
Wells, H.G. (1931),
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Wilken, Robert L. (1990), “The Piety of the Persecutors,”
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Yamauchi, Edwin M. (1995), “Jesus Outside the New Testament: What is the Evidence?,”
Jesus Under Fire, ed. Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The image on the front cover of this month’s R&R is St. Catherine’s Monastery where Codex Sinaiticus was discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf in 1844.]