Jesus-Fact or Fable?
What Non-Biblical Sources Say
By Dr Toh Seong Yuen
Non-Christian skeptics demand non-Christian sources of evidence for Jesus. Are there any written accounts besides the writings of biblical authors that will testify to the historicity of Jesus? Yes, there are. Four important sources are discussed here.
Testimony of a Jewish historian
First, the most important extrabiblical source that witnesses to Jesus is from the writings of Flavius Josephus (AD 37-100), a Jewish historian. In his autobiography entitled Jewish Antiquities (JA) published in AD 93, he describes the death sentence of James (Jesus’ brother) by Ananus the High Priest. By then, the governor Festus was dead and while awaiting the arrival of the new governor Albinus, Ananus grabbed the opportunity to sentence James to death, an ultra vires action. Josephus writes,
“Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some of his companions; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned…”
It is clear in this passage that Josephus is referring to Jesus Christ of the Christian faith.
Testimony of a Roman historian
Second, the Roman historian, Cornelius Tacitus (AD 115 – 117), writes in his annals about Jesus as the founder of a religion with followers who bear his name. Tacitus relates the discussion of the Roman emperor Nero’s accusation of the Christians for the fire of Rome in AD 64. Tiberius and Pilate are also mentioned, congruent with the biblical account.
“Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christ, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and a pernicious superstition was checked for the moment…”
Testimony of a Roman governor
Third, in another non-Christian source, a letter written by the Roman governor Pliny the Younger (AD 110) to the Roman emperor Trajan to complain about the habits of Christians who sing hymns to Christ as worshiping God.
“The whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds…”
Testimony of a Samaritan writer
Fourth, the Samaritan writer, Julius Africanus (AD 230), suggests that during the crucifixion of Jesus there was an eclipse of the sun, which accounts for the darkness in the sky, thus attesting to the historicity of Jesus’ crucifixion and Mark’s account of the darkness (Mark 13:33).
A Jewish historian, a Roman historian, a Roman governor, and a Samaritan writer – these four non-Christian writers are some of the important extrabiblical sources testifying to Jesus. Other sources include the Rabbinic writings and the Quran.
But why should we favour non-Christian sources over biblical sources? If historical reliability of a written document depends on the existence of ancient manuscript evidence, then Mark (AD 50s), Matthew (AD 80-100), Luke (AD 60s) and John (AD 80-85) would be far superior in reliability.
The table below shows a comparison (table adapted from Norman Geisler and William Nix’s A General Introduction to the Bible, Chapter 22).
Author/Book | Date written | Earliest manuscript copies | Time gap | No. of copies | Percent Accuracy |
Josephus/JA | AD 93 | AD 900 | 800 years | 18 | ? |
Tacitus/Annals | AD 100 | AD 1100 | 1,000 years | 20 | ? |
Pliny/Natural History | AD 61-113 | AD 850 | 750 years | 7 | ? |
New Testament (NT) | AD 50-100 | AD 114 (fragments) AD 200 (books) AD 250 (most NT) AD 325 (complete NT) | 50 years 100 years 150 year 225 years | 5,366 | 99+ |
Beyond the superiority of manuscript evidence, the idea that non-Christian sources are more reliable comes with strong assumptions. The explicit assumption is that Christian sources (regardless of the authenticity of the early manuscripts) are biased and as such, are not reliable. Furthermore, implicit in this assumption is that the non-Christian writers are neutral and therefore, their accounts are impartial.
Superiority of Christian witness
But are these assumptions valid? This is a difficult topic to handle. These assumptions are related to what Christian philosopher Dr William Lane Craig labels as the “problem of historical knowledge”. Historical knowledge is important to the Christian faith because “the uniqueness and the scandal of the Christian religion rest in the mediation of revelation through historical events” (George Eldon Ladd).
Let’s unpack this problem by making five clarifications.
1. Historical events are events of the past that no longer exist. No one has direct access to these past historical events because we cannot travel back in time to witness them. In fact, every moment of our existence is fleeting. Christian and non-Christian historians do not have direct access to past events.
2. Historical written accounts are really historical interpretation. The work of the historian is to understand what happened in the past. As Ronald Nash explains, “…understanding the past does not require an immediate apprehension of the precise thoughts of the people who acted in the past. Rather, we understand the past when we can put ourselves in the position of agents in the past and see how the action made sense from their perspective” (Christian Faith and Historical Understanding, p. 41). That is, the writers are interpreting events to make sense of them.
3. Historians are influenced by many factors such as culture, personality and language. Therefore, historians cannot assume a neutral position to write history from a neutral perspective. This means the assumption that non-Christian authors are more impartial is not true. There is no neutral or impartial perspective.
4. Historical facts do not exist in isolation from their interpretation. Historical facts and their interpretation always come together within a proper context. For example, the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus comes together with its correct interpretation (1 Cor. 15). It would be a mistake if the interpretation comes from somewhere else. This argument means that the Gospel writers (eyewitnesses) are in a better position to understand historical events surrounding Jesus. They saw what happened and they heard the teachings of Jesus. As they reflected on the events and documented them in written accounts, readers who were also eyewitnesses of these accounts were also alive to testify to the authenticity of the written documents.
5. A historical account is judged superior based on criteria such as greater explanatory power and scope, were less ad hoc and more plausible compared with rival accounts (See William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith, Chapter 5). The New Testament documents fulfil these criteria better than any rival accounts of Jesus. For these reasons, biblical witnesses to Jesus are far superior than non-Christian sources. Although there were non-Christian witnesses to Jesus, the biblical understanding of Jesus as the Son of Man who gave his life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28) is an accurate understanding of God’s revelation in history.
Dr Toh Seong Yuen (PhD) is a lecturer at Sunway University. He writes and teaches on Business Ethics & CSR, and Leadership. He is an autodidact who reads philosophy and sociology. He and his family worship at City Discipleship Presbyterian Church, Puchong.
Asian Beacon: Oct – Dec 2018 (Vol 50 #4, p24-25)
