The Life of Jesus: How Do We Know What We Know About the Biography of Jesus Christ?
Can we be certain about the accuracy of the details surrounding the life of Jesus?Can we really know a true biography of Jesus Christ? What about the critics? And that TV special I saw last night that said Jesus was married and had a son? Who’s reasonable and who’s way off base?
Let's find out with a reasoned look...
You might be surprised at the large amount of unbiased scholarship out there on the person and life of Jesus of Nazareth. Let me explain...
Perhaps 10 percent of those to the far right in this academic research have a clear agenda in their interest of the biography of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps another 5 percent have an unfavorable bias in dis-proving that Jesus is God and tear history apart relentlessly.
Perhaps 85 percent or more has little to no agenda ... they simply want to know, as accurately as possible, what is historically true about the life of Jesus (his birth, his teaching and activities and travels and the culture He existed in, the manner of his death, and what His followers said and did and believed about Him.)
(Unfortuneately, most of the sensational stuff you will see on TV...Jesus was gay, Jesus never existed, and most recently, Jesus was buried with His family including a "son" in the Jesus tomb... represents a part of 10 percent that have the agenda to paint their own assumptions onto history instead of leaving history to speak for itself. Mainstream scholars actually laugh at this kind of stuff.)
The point is that mainstream 85 percent agree that we actually have quite a few mentions of the life of Jesus in historical documents outside the Bible for a person who lived such a short time and never travelled beyond a small part of Palestine AND they also agree on the general nature of the lifeof Jesus, and the influence He had at the time, etc. Generally, they have no agenda in the search for the true biography of Jesus Christ.
Let me show you some examples...
Non-Biblical Greek Records: Neutral to slightly hostile
A historian named Thallos corroborates reports of an eclipse in his third volume of Histories, telling about an "natural" eclipse of ths sun. that coincides with the crucifixion of Jesus. (We know about Thallus' report from another historian, Sextus Julius Africanus) While this does not necessarily prove there was a supernatural eclipse as the Gospel of Mark chapter 15 verse 33 states, it does provide evidence that reports of it were well known at the time.)
Mara bar Serpion was a pagan man jailed around AD 70 who wrote a letter to his son was attesting to the fact that those who try to hurt wise men usually do not quelch their influence but rather spread it. In doing so, he says,
"What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King?...Socrates did not die altogether...he lived on in the of Plato....nor did the wise King die altogether, he lived on in the teaching which he had given."
Although Serpion does not specifically mention the name of Jesus, scholars almost universally agree that he was talking about Him.
The greatest historian of Ancient Rome was Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56-120) He is the main source for much we know about ancient Rome, and he says
"Christians derived their name from a man called Christ, who during the reign of Emperor Tiberius had been executed by sentence of procurator Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition, thus checked for the moment, broke out afresh, not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but also in the city of Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world meet and become popular."
Even though Tacitus was not exactly raining down praises on Christ and his followers, we still learn about Jesus' untimely death by execution, and followers, the number which grew profoundly after the death of Christ. An interesting addition to our biography of Jesus Christ material.
Pliny the Younger, a Roman official at the same time as Tacitus, wrote to his overseer Emperor Trajan asking counsel on dealing with the new uprising of Christians recorded this:
"The sum total of their guilt or error was no more than the following: thy had met regularly before dawn on a determined day, and sung antiphonally, a hymn to Christ as to a god. They also took an oath not fo any crime, but to keep from theft, robbery, and adultery and not to break any promise."
From Pliny's report we learn the kind of life his followers aspired to as well as how they felt about Christ (“a god.")
Lucian, a Greek lecturer (AD 115-200) in The Death of Peregrinus refers to Christ as
"the one whom they still worship today the man in Palestine who was crucified because he brought this new form of initiatian into the world ....Moreover, that first lawgiver of theirs persuaded that they are all brothers the moment that they deny the greek gods and begin worshipping that crucified sophist and begin living by his laws.”
Still more material on how his early followers felt about Him (“worshipped,” and “began living by his laws” after they "deny the greek gods":) and another mention of His death.
Non-Biblical Jewish Writing: Neutral to Downright Accusatory
This, for me, is where it really gets interesting...although some of these writers obivously are biased against Jesus, they do provide a biography of Jesus Christ in broad detail...
Well-known Jewish historian Josephus Flavius wrote a passage in his Jewish Antiquities that was probably tampered with by Christians later on down the road. (let's say they were a little overzealous) However, while removing the supspected tampered with parts, we still get a good framework...
"At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following among both many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was perhaps the Messiah-Christ. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned Him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. For they reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after Him, has not died out."
Here we get a really good independent sense at least of the claims of who Christ was made by himself and his followers, and some of the actions during the life of Jeus, including "a doer of startling deeds" and his amazing teaching.
While Josephus has little interest or neutral interest, we do at least get a report that many at Jesus time did believe He was the Messiah, that he died on a cross by Pilate's order, and that at least reports of his appearance after his death were circulated. A nice addtion to the details on the life of Jesus
The Talmud, an ancient exposition of Jewish Law still used by orthodox Jews today, understandably gets quite testy when it comes to it's mention of Jesus:
"On the eve of Passover Jesus was hanged (on a cross.) For forty days before his execution a herald went forth and cried 'He is going to be stoned because he practised sorcery and led Israel astray. Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come foward and plead on his behalf. But since nothing was brought foward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of the Passover."
Although this passage is very negative, it does coincide with the Biblical reports that Jesus was a well-known worker of miracles, (albeit their interpretation is negative: "sorcerer") and that He was highly influential ("led Israel astray"). It's interesting what we can learn about what happened even from Jesus' critics, those who have exactly the opposite motivation from the others, isn't it?
What’s the point in all this?
Can we say we've moved foward the biography of Jesus Christ information forward?...from these and other* non-Christian, and even anti-Christian texts we can put together a quite broad outline of the life of Jesus. In summary, we learn...
- The name Jesus
- The geographic place and timeline of His ministry
- The name of His mother
- The supposedly scandalous nature of His birth
- The identification of James as his brother
- His notariety as teacher
- His notariety as wonder-worker
- His claim to be both the Messiah and His Kingship
- The date and means of His death
- The parties involved in His death (both Roman and Jewish)
- The event of an eclipse at the time of His crucifixion
- The reports of His appearance after His death
- The popular movement of his followers after His death.
The point we’re making here is that while this certianly does not have a case-closed ring about the true nature of the biography of Jesus Christ, it does historically answer the broader questions of the existence of Jesus, who He and His followers claimed He was, the nature of His life and minstry, and that there were actual reports of His resurrection circulating at that time.
Even His critics admitted He did some sort of startling deeds (“sorcery.”) How you or I interpret that data (whether his power was from God or somewhere else) becomes a philosphical question, not a question of the data.
If we're going to intelligently add to the this discussion, we're going to need more than that...
Go to our next article, Biography of Jesus Christ (Biblical Sources) from the Biography of Jesus Christ (extrabiblical resources) page