Did Jesus really live here on earth?

Has anyone ever criticized you for your belief in Jesus? Have they ridiculed you for your belief that Jesus Christ really came to the earth? I had a class this last Monday and we discussed the fact that Jesus is a HISTORICAL person. The following evidence is what we looked through and discussed.

There was a famous Jewish scholar who lived from 37-100 AD, named Josephus. He wrote a history book called the Antiquities of the Jews. In this book, he mentions Jesus Christ. There are two quotations from the Josephus’ book in which Jesus is mentioned. The first is located in chapter 18, section 3:

“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold theses and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him And the tribe of Christians so named for him are not extinct to this day.”

This reference is doubted by many scholars for several reasons. One is that Josephus changes his topic from what is being discussed in the previous and following paragraph and shifts to discuss this so-called man Jesus. Another reason is that in his reference to Jesus, Josephus calls him “the Christ”. Josephus, being a good Jewish/Roman, should have known what the title of “anointed one” would mean. There are more reasons, but because of only the above two, many scholars do not consider the paragraph as one written originally by Josephus. They speculate that it was written, most likely, by Christian scribes and inserted at a later date.

The second reference to Jesus occurs in chapter 20, section 9:

“And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus... 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 others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.”

Most scholars, if not all, do not question this reference. It is a short but clear reference showing the existence of Jesus during the first century. It mentions the death of James,  the brother of Jesus who was the so called Christ. This execution is mentioned briefly and only in regard to the high priest Ananus.

Even without the testimony of Josephus, there are several witnesses to the existence of Jesus Christ during the first century. All of the references I am referring to are references written by non-Christian historians and authors. Consider what the references say.

Cornelius Tacitus, a very Roman historian who lived in 56-117AD, mentioned Christ when discussing Nero’s burning of the city of Rome and how he transferred the blame from himself to the Christians alive at that time:

"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, 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 Judæa, 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. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind".

Pliny the Younger, Governor of Bithynia who lived from around 62-113AD, also mentioned Christians in a letter to the emperor Trajan:

They affirmed, however, that 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 verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.

Because of these records, Christians can have great confidence! If there was only evidence in the Bible to tell us about Jesus Christ, that would be fine, as long as you believed in the Bible. Because there is evidence outside of the Bible, we have SECULAR proof that Jesus was a living, breathing human being who lived during the first century and brought upon a revolution that shook the world and changed it forever!

Sources: Sources: http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/pliny.html, http://www.theistic-evolution.com/josephus.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus