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COMMENT: Although religious leaders were jealous
of Jesus and cast doubts as to whether he was the
prophesied Messiah, they were forced by the very
fact of his miracles and influence among the people
to give recognition to him in thei r records.
Jesus is referred to in the
Talmud.
The
Talmud
is
a J ewish record of debates, doctrines, stories and
traditions covering a period from before the birth of
Jesus to the centuries immediately following. In the
Talmud
J esus is referred toas " that man," "dead
dog," "the hanged one" and "the sorcerer." {The
J ewish Encyc/opedia
lists the places where Jesus is
referred to in the
Talmud.)
The
Talmud
records Jesus' heaJing of tbe blind,
the lame and tbe leprous.
It
also mentions bis
walking on tbe sea! But the
Talmud
also speaks of
J esus as having learned sorcery in Egypt (recall
Matthew 12:24), in an attempt to discredit bis
miracles and his claim to being the very Son of God.
The
Talmud
also records a list of references to
Jesus' mother, Mary, but in a noncomplimentary
sense.
Non-Christian Historical Evidence
The envious religious leaders finally succeeded in
having J esus arrested by the Roman authorities
under charges of treason and other false accusations.
t.
Did Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, find
J esus not guilty of the charges after examining him?
Luke 23: 13-23. Nevertheless, did Pi late give in to
those who demanded his crucifixion? Verses 24-25.
COMMENT: The crucifixion was recorded by the
Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote less than a
hundred years after Christ. Writing about the
Roman Emperors from Nero to Trajan, Tacitus
mentions the Great Fire of Rome in
A.D.
64 and
Nero' s attempt to place the blame for it on the
Christians.
Tacitus then wrote that "Christus [the Latín
spelling of Christ], from whom the name
[Christians] had its origin , suffered the extreme
penalty [crucifixion] during the reign of Tiberius at
the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus,
and a most mischievous superstition [referring to
Christianity] , thus checked for the moment, again
broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the
evil, but even in Rome ... "
(Annals.
XV, 44).
Here is historical evidence J esus lived! Tbis was
nota Christian writing, but a Roman his torian who
abhorred things Christian! Tacitus had access to the
government records. He had the
proof
J esus was
crucified!
Suetonius, another Roman historian and a
contemporary of Tacitus, tells us that about
A.D.
49
the Emperor C laudius banished all J ews from the
city of Rome (an incident also mentioned in Acts
18:2): " He expelled the Jews from Rome, on account
of the riots in which they were constantly indulging,
at the instigat ion of Chrestus [generally understood
as a misspelling of the name of Christ]"
( The Lives
of the Caesars.
Book V, 25).
Reference to Jesus is also made by the Jewish
March 1986
historian, priest and general Flavius Josephus, who
was born about
A.D.
37. Writing about the death, in
J erusalem, of James, Josephus casually speaks of him
as "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ"
(Antiquities of the Jews.
XX: 9, 1).
The Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, as
well as the J ewish historian Josephus, were not
Christians. Therefore their writings can be
considered
neutral
historical evidence of Jesus' life
and of bis crucifixion by the Romans.
2.
Before bis crucifixion, did Christ predict that
his followers would suffer severe persecution and
martyrdom for their belief in him? Matthew 5: 11-12;
24:9.
COMMENT: During the later firs t century and in
the second century
A.D.,
persecution of the Cbristians
was common in the Roman Empire. An early
reference to Christ was made by Pliny tbe Younger,
who was governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. He
wrote letters to Emperor Trajan inquiring about how
Christians should be dealt with . One such letter,
written about
A.D.
11 1-113, shows both Caesar and
governor accepted that J esus Christ lived and that
his followers , when publicly accused, were to be put
to death if they did not renounce their belief in
Chris t and curse him.
In this letter, Pliny describes Christians as coming
together at fixed seasons and si nging a hymn to
"Christ, as to a god. " This phrase clearly indicates
that Pliny, in writing to Caesar, considered Christ to
have been a historical figure . Both leaders knew that
J esus was a
real person
who lived and taught in the
Roman Empire Iess than a hundred years earlier!
·
-Richard
A.
Sedliacik
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