I would like to know if Jesus really ever existed. Which historians documented his life? If he really lived there must have been documents written about him, but I have not been able to find any. The only evidence we have is what is written in the bible and most of that was written over a hundred years after his alleged death.
What have you heard? Are there any historical writings?
Posted: March 9th 2010
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You have a fairly good idea already. The earliest surviving extra-Biblical mentions of Jesus (not counting the extra gospels and other books which were excluded from the Bible itself, and are now regarded as heresy) are from about a century after the supposed date of the Crucifixion; short passages by Josephus, Tacitus and so forth. Every one of them is regularly the subject of fierce debate, because Christian apologists advance these tidbits as ideal historical corroboration since there isn’t much else to trumpet.
It’s not going out too far on a limb to suppose that there might well have been a Jewish preacher on which the stories of Jesus were based, but that’s as far as you can go with any confidence. No given event in his Biblical life serves as any kind of reliable anchor, not even the trial or crucifixion.
Posted: March 11th 2010