A Brief look into the Historical Validity of Christianity

A Brief look into the Historical Validity of Christianity

My Background...who am I? A skeptic... (i.e. by definition: a person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions...

Historicity of Jesus The historicity of Jesus concerns the degree to which sources show Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure. It concerns the issue of "what really happened", based upon the context of the time and place, and also the issue of how modern observers can come to know "what really happened". A second issue is closely tied to historical research practices and methodologies for analyzing the reliability of primary sources and other historical evidence. It also considers the question of whether he was a Nazirite. Virtually all New Testament scholars and Near East historians, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is effectively certain although they differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the details of his life that have been described in the gospels... - Source Wikipedia

Authenticating the Biblical Narrative... We ll take a look at non-biblical or extra-biblical sources for the historical credibility of Jesus and the Biblical narrative We ll cover 5 historical clues referenced in the Bible as to the death of Jesus. The year, month, day and hour, etc... Historical evidence that corroborates aspects of the narrative that can be the most difficult for people to accept (certainly for me it was!).

Before we begin...

Mara Bar-Serapion (~70 AD) Mara Bar-Serapion, was a Syriac Stoic philosopher (non-christian) in the Roman province of Syria. He is known for a letter he wrote in Syriac to his son, that the majority of scholars believe was written around 73 AD (~40 years after the crucifixion) What s interesting about this letter? What benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as judgment for their crime. Or, the people of Samos for burning Pythagoras? In one moment their country was covered with sand. Or the Jews by murdering their wise king [Jesus]? After that their kingdom was abolished [destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD]. God rightly avenged these men The wise king Lived on in the teachings he enacted. So what aspects of the Biblical narrative can we see confirmed by this extra-biblical text: Jesus is framed here as a wise king...i.e. an influential man who died for His beliefs. The letter ties Jewish leadership as somehow responsible for Jesus death. Jesus followers adopted His beliefs and lived their lives accordingly... Anyone find the manner of Mara s reference to Jesus interesting? Who was it that referred to Jesus as King of the Jews? Did the Jews? Did the early Christians refer to Christ in this manner? Who was it then that referred to Jesus in this manner? What might you conclude then about both Mara s background as well as where he might have obtained this view of who Jesus was? - For the complete letter see Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 8) - A Letter of Mara, Son of Serapion

Lucian of Samosata - Syrian Greek writer (115-200 AD) He was a Greek satirist who spoke sarcastically of Christ and Christians... The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.you see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property. (Lucian, The Death of Peregrine. 11-13) From this account we can add to our conclusions: He taught about repentance and about the family of God. These teachings were quickly adopted by Jesus followers and exhibited to the world around them.

Jewish Talmud (Part 1) What is the Talmud? The Talmud (Hebrew for "instruction ) is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. While the earliest Talmudic writings of Jewish Rabbis appear in the 5th century, the tradition of the Rabbinic authors indicates that they are faithfully transmitted teachings from the early Tannaitic period of the 1st Century BC to the 2nd Century AD. Why is this early source significant in the context of what we re talking about tonight? There are passages referring to Jesus directly...

Jewish Talmud (Part 2) Examples: Jesus practiced magic and led Israel astray (b. Sanhedrin 43a; cf. t. Shabbat 11.15; b. Shabbat 104b) And this, perhaps is the most famous Talmudic passages referencing Jesus: It was taught: On the day before the Passover they hanged Jesus. A herald went before him for forty days (proclaiming), He will be stoned, because he practiced magic and enticed Israel to go astray. Let anyone who knows anything in his favor come forward and plead for him. But nothing was found in his favor, and they hanged him on the day before the Passover. (b. Sanhedrin 43a) From these passages mentioning Jesus by name, we can conclude the following: Jesus had magical powers (Acts 2:22 Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. & Matthew 7:22, 11:20-23; Mark 6, etc.) Led the Jews away from their beliefs (John 8:30-32 Even as he spoke, many believed in him. To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said... ) Was executed on the day before the Passover (Matthew 26-27 - Jewish text directly aligns with the Biblical narrative)

Tacitus (56-120 AD) Cornelius Tacitus was known for his analysis and examination of historical documents and is among the most trusted of ancient historians. He was a senator under Emperor Vespasian and was also proconsul of Asia. In his Annals of 116 AD, he describes Emperor Nero s response to the great fire in Rome and Nero s claim that the Christians were to blame: Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus [Christ], from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Within this account, Tacitus confirms several key historical aspects of the Biblical narrative: Jesus originated from Judea (Matthew 2:1 Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod ) Jesus was crucified at the hands of Pontius Pilate, one of our procurators (Matthew 27:2 So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor. ) Jesus followers were persecuted for their faith (If interested see the Wikipedia entry on Tacitus for a biographical synopsis and an overview of his significant written works)

Let s pause. A few more questions... Q) What would it take for me to get you to die for me? Q) What if I gave you the $500 dollars? Q) What if I had $1,000,000,000.00 (that s right a Billion dollars)? (Why not?) Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Josephus Antiquities - Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity. Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter 5, 2 of the Antiquities to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist also to be authentic and not a Christian interpolation. James, the brother of Jesus, was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was thrown from the southeast pinnacle of the temple (over a hundred feet down) when he refused to deny his faith in Christ Q) Who would you die for tonight? Q) Possibly you d die for your Mom or Dad. Maybe a brother or sister you love. Maybe push them out of the way of an oncoming car. But what if they had already passed away? Would you die for them then? Would that even make sense to do? What would you GAIN at that point? You wouldn t be saving their life (which is we presume to be what it is of VALUE in this example that you would go so far as to GIVE your life for. Why would anyone then die in memory of someone? Q) SO WHAT THEN motivated James, Jesus brother, to do so? Or Paul? Or Peter? Or those mentioned by Tacitus in the previous slide? What was it of value that they were willing to exchange their lives for? Have you thought about that?

Clue #1: The High Priesthood of Caiaphas The gospels indicate that Jesus was crucified at the urging of the first century high priest whom is named in the Gospels as Caiaphas (Matthew 26:3-4, John 11:49-53). We know from non-biblical sources that he served as high priest from A.D. 18 to 36, so that puts Jesus' death in that time frame. A.D. 18 - A.D. 36 [Caiaphas] The primary sources for Caiaphas' life are the New Testament and the writings of Josephus. Josephus, Ant., Book 18 Section 26 NBC News Science - Aug 2011 - Miriam Ossuaury The full inscription reads: "Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphus, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri." What is special about the inscription on this ossuary is that the deceased is named within the context of three generations; the inscription also includes a potential residence.

Clue #2: The Governorship of Pontius Pilate All four gospels agree that Jesus was crucified upon order of Pontius Pilate (Matthew 27:24-26, Mark 15:15, Luke 23:24, John 19:15-16). We know from non-biblical sources when Pilate served as governor of Judea: A.D. 26 to A.D. 36 - so we can further narrow down the range by several years. A.D. 18 - A.D. 36 [Caiaphas] A.D. 26 - A.D. 36 [Pontius Pilate]

Historicity of Pontius Pilate UNTIL 1961, there was no concrete archaeological evidence that Pontius Pilate ever existed. There were accounts of him, but the records of his administration had disappeared completely: no papyri, no rolls, no tablets, no authentic letters to Rome. The Roman ruins that remained in Israel seemed to have nothing to do with him. Even his aqueduct - a project that got him into plenty of trouble at the time - appeared to have crumbled away. In the summer of 1961, Italian archaeologists found a piece of limestone, 82cm wide by 68cm high (~2.5 ft x 2 ft), in the ruins of a sports stadium in Caesarea, beside the sea. The stadium had not been there in Pilate's time. But the stone bore his name, and much else besides. It is primary proof of his historical existence, and also an object we can be sure he looked at and thought about - even the subtle aspects are of great significance. So we have his name set in stone, Pontius Pilate. We also have his title, Praefectus Judaeae. This is important. It is fairly miraculous that the stone should have survived at all. The sea could have worn the lettering away. The builders who subsequently used it, when the Tiberieum itself had fallen into ruin, could have cut it in such a way that the name was illegible. It might have been thrown away as rubble, never recovered. Quite incredible - our one physical link to the man who, Christians believe, gave the human order that brought about mankind's eternal salvation.

The Inscription...

Clue #3: After "the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius Caesar" The Gospel of Luke tells us when the ministry of John the Baptist began: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar...the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness (Luke 3:1-2) This picks out a specific year: A.D. 29 (the known 15th year of Tiberius reign) Since all four gospels depict the ministry of Christ beginning after John the Baptist s ministry had begun (Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, John 1), it means we can shave a few more years off the range. Therefore, death of Christ had to be in a range of seven years: A.D. 29 and 36 A.D. 18 - A.D. 36 [Caiaphas] A.D. 26 - A.D. 36 [Pontius Pilate] A.D. 29 - A.D. 36 [Tiberius Caesar]

Clue #4: Crucified on a Passover Friday All four gospels agree that Jesus was crucified on a Friday (Matt. 27:62, Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:42), just before a Sabbath, which was just before the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1). We know that it was a Friday because it is referred to as "the day of preparation" - that is, the day on which Jews made the preparations they needed for the Sabbath, since they could not do any work on that day. Thus thus cooked food in advance and made other necessary preparations. From the gospel of John we see that they were celebrating a Passover beginning on what we would call Friday Evening. Taking clue #4 into account let s narrow down further the range of possible dates to just a few. Here is a complete list of the days between A.D. 29 and 36 on whose evenings Passover began: Monday, April 18, A.D. 29 Friday, April 7, A.D. 30 Tuesday, March 27, A.D. 31 Monday, April 14, A.D. 32 Friday, April 3, A.D. 33 Wednesday, March 24, A.D. 34 Tuesday, April 12, A.D. 35 Saturday, March 31, A.D. 36 As you can see, we have just two candidates left: Jesus was crucified on either April 7 of A.D. 30 or April 3 of A.D. 33. Which was it?

Clue #5: What time on that Friday? Matthew 27:31, 45-54 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him... 45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? (which means My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? ). 47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, He s calling Elijah. 48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49 The rest said, Now leave him alone. Let s see if Elijah comes to save him. 50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. 54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, Surely he was the Son of God!

Dead Sea Scrolls - Isaiah 53 at Qumran Among the Dead Sea Scrolls found in caves at the village of Qumran overlooking the Dead Sea were fragments or whole copies of 21 distinct scrolls of the prophet Isaiah. The best known is the Great Isaiah Scroll (designated 1QIsaa), the only complete copy of Isaiah at Qumran, measuring 24 feet long. It was among seven original scrolls found in 1947. The scroll 1QIsaa is dated by epigraphers to 125 BC/E, and is a thousand years older than any known Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. Chapter 53 is one of the most famous prophetic passage related to Christ and is the last of the so-called Servant Songs in Isaiah (the others are 42:1 7; 49:1 9a; 50:4 11; and 61:1-3). If you compare a direct translation of the Great Isaiah Scroll with other modern translations (including Jewish) the comparison is remarkable... - The entire Scroll can be viewed in original form at: The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls: The Great Isaiah Scroll - Dead Sea Scrolls - English Translations - Source Isaiah 53 - Dead Sea Scrolls

Amos 8:9 9 In that day, declares the Sovereign Lord, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. Amos was an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, active c. 750 BC during the reign of Jeroboam II, (786 746 BC). This makes the Biblical Book of Amos the first prophetic book written.

Joel 2:28-32 (Acts 2) Dated anywhere from the 9th century BCE to the 5th century BCE... 30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 32 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls

Thallus... Thallus, was an early historian who wrote in Koine Greek. He wrote a three-volume history of the Mediterranean world from before the Trojan War to the 167th Olympiad, c. 112-109 BC. Most of his work, like the vast majority of ancient literature, perished, but not before parts of his writings were repeated by Sextus Julius Africanus in his History of the World. The 9th-century Christian chronologer George Syncellus cites Sextus Julius Africanus as writing in reference to the darkness mentioned in the synoptic gospels as occurring at the death of Jesus: On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Saviour falls on the day before the Passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is, at their junction: how then should an eclipse be supposed to happen when the moon is almost diametrically opposite the sun? Let that opinion pass however; let it carry the majority with it; and let this portent of the world be deemed an eclipse of the sun, like others a portent only to the eye. What s happening here is that Julius Africanus is refuting Thallus naturalistic explanation for the darkness using scientifically sound reasoning to debunk Thallus conclusion. There would have been remotely no need to do so, nor grounds for Africanus argument had Thallus in his histories not tied it to the time period referenced by Africanus and additionally to the reign of Tiberius (which we noted earlier) somehow placing it during that time period. How do we know that...well the next sentence states...

Thallus... Africanus goes on to reference another historian to support what he s just stated: Phlegon [also] records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth manifestly that one of which we speak So this is only a reference and not a direct quote from Phlegon, but Africanus pointedly implies that there s a direct correlation between what Thallus, Phalgon and he himself speak of and occuring during the time of Tiberius Caesar. He concludes by saying...manifestly that one of which we speak. But this doesn t seem to help us. Who is Phlegon and do we have anything that might shed light on what he may have said rather than just a second hand reference made by Africanus? Do we know what he may have stated in his historical works that Africanus refers to?

But first, let us answer the question who is Phlegon? Phlegon of Tralles was a Greek writer and freedman of the emperor Hadrian, who lived in the 2nd century AD. His most notable work was the Olympiads, an historical compendium in sixteen books, from the 1st down to the 229th Olympiad (776 BC to AD 137), of which several chapters are preserved in Eusebius' Chronicle, Photius and George Syncellus. Most notable is that he was Greek and a Pagan without ties to Christianity. He will simply chronicling Greek history.

Eusebius quotes Phlegon verbatim (the only one to do so), and what Phlegon actually said is telling--the text is attested in Syncellus in the original Greek, but also in the Latin of Jerome, the Syrian epitome, and the Armenian: Jesus Christ..underwent his passion in the 18th year of Tiberius. Also at that time in another Greek compendium we find an event recorded in these words: "the sun was eclipsed, Bithynia was struck by an earthquake, and in the city of Nicaea many buildings fell." All these things happened to occur during the Lord's passion. In fact, Phlegon, too, a distinguished reckoner of Olympiads, wrote more on these events in his 13th book, saying this: "Now, in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, a great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour that excelled every other before it, turning the day into such darkness of night that the stars could be seen in heaven, and the earth moved in Bithynia, toppling many buildings in the city of Nicaea." This quotation shows that Phlegon did not mention Jesus in this context at all (he may still have mentioned him in some other obscure context, if we believe Origen). Rather, Phlegon merely recorded a great earthquake in Bithynia, which is on the coast of the Black Sea, more than 500 miles away from Jerusalem--so there is no way this quake would have been felt near the crucifixion--and a magnificent noontime eclipse, whose location is not clear. If the eclipse was also in Bithynia, as the Phlegon quote implies but does not entail, it also could not have been seen in Jerusalem, any more than partially, since the track of a total eclipse spans only 100 miles and runs from west to east (Jerusalem is due south). Source: Reference cited from Vol. 8 of the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism. Written by well known atheist and noted professor Richard Carrier at Cambridge university.

Another ancient historian: Historian Philipon (with Origen), confirms the historicity of Phlegon's statement by writing: "And about this darkness - Phlegon recalls it in the Olympiads...Phlegon mentioned the eclipse which took place during the crucifixion of the Lord Christ, and no other (eclipse), it is clear that he did not know from his sources about any (similar) eclipse in previous times...and this is shown by the historical account of Tiberius Caesar."

202nd Olympiad