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How do we know that Jesus existed? · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Schrotteller Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the Middle Way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: I am Reverend Dr.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: David McKinley, Senior Minister at the Church.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Christmas is the occasion of Jesus' birth, and today we're going to address the topic.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Since we are at a time of year when we are thinking about Christmas, we wanted to consider how do we know Jesus really existed?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Listening to non-Christian sources.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: We're at Christmas time and when we worship the person of Jesus and where many people come to a church service, and yet we are living in a time where a growing number of people do not believe that he exists.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, as we explore this topic, I'm pleased to be joined by my good friend and colleague, Dr.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, who is Minister of Mission and Theology at Central Schwenckfelder Church, but he is also an associate professor of New Testament at Evangelische Theologische Fakultiit in Leuven, Belgium.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Drake.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: You've recently been involved with a webinar on the existence of Jesus, and you've also published on this topic.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: We are both in the ministry, and we, of course, read the Bible where obviously Jesus is stated to exist.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: But can you tell our listeners about the number of ancient non-Christian sources that make reference to Jesus and the type of sources that these are?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Frequently we think of just Jesus being spoken about in the Gospels, but there are just many other places that he is mentioned too.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote about him in Antiquities of the Jewish People.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Then Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian, wrote about him in Annals of the History of Rome.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Suetonius, who is also a Roman historian, mentions him in Lives of the Caesars.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor, speaks of the existence of Jesus in some of his letters that he wrote to Caesar at the time.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thallus, a Greek historian, recorded some things about him, about Jesus existing.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: While we don't have Thalus' history, Thalus' history has been recorded in a volume by Julius Africanus.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Celsus, who was an early critic of Christianity, also spoke about Jesus, and that's a particularly interesting source in that he is an atheist, but he does believe that Jesus existed.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Then Marabar Serapian was a Stoic philosopher, and he mentions that Jesus was a person.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally Lucian, who is a satirist and a rhetorician from Assyria, also wrote about him in the passing of Peregrinus.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: You have mentioned several Roman sources, such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Elder.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: How accurate are these, and were they biased or inaccurate?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're in a time where people are asking questions about history.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is it written from a particular perspective that would uh favor one side uh or another?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't answer the question uh in total, but the Romans were generally known to be fairly accurate historians.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they were interested in the propagation of the Roman Empire, uh, but they were also fairly accurate when it came to uh the writing of uh of dates and times.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in all the cases, whether it be Tacitus or Suetonius or Pliny the Elder, they would have no reason to be supporting uh Christianity or that uh uh Jesus existed, yet they all clearly mentioned that.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Drake, would you read the quote from Tacitus?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly, this is from his Annals of the Roman Empire 15, uh, verse 44.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Christus, and that's the reference to Jesus, 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 Pilate, 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 center and become popular.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: One of the sources that you mentioned was a Jewish historian named Josephus.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Would he have had any reason to speak about Jesus' existence as a Jewish person?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Josephus was interested in supporting the Roman Empire.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: He was a Jewish historian who was trying to persuade those who were Jewish at that time that their future was with Rome and with uh the Roman government.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: So he uh cast his history of uh Judaism in line with uh the Old Testament, but then uh saw it to now uh playing its way out with uh the Roman Empire.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't have any particularly liking for Jesus, but he did have a uh desire to represent history uh as accurately as he could.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So he speaks of uh Jesus uh as being a wise uh man and an ex and an achiever of extraordinary deeds.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share the Josephus quote with us straight?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is from his antiquities, uh volume eighteen, uh, number sixty-three.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was the achiever of extraordinary deeds, and was a teacher of those who accept the truth gladly.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was the Messiah.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: When he was indicted by the principal man among us, and Pilate condemned him to be crucified, those who had come to love him originally did not cease to do so, for he appeared to them on the third day, restored to life, as the prophets of the deity had foretold these, and countless other marvelous things about him, and the tribe of the Christians so named after him has not disappeared to this day.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds very convincing that Josephus would not only acknowledge Jesus' existence, but also call him the Messiah.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Does Josephus have anything else to say?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is in Antiquities twenty verse two hundred there we read, having such a character, Ananus thought that with Festus dead and Albinus still on the way, he would have the proper opportunity.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Convening the judges of the Sanhedrin, he brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, whose name was James, and certain others.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: But those of the city residents, who were deemed the most fair-minded and who were strict in observing the law, were offended at this.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now you mentioned a couple of Greek sources.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us about those.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Were they accurate?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thallus was one, as well as uh Celsus, as well as uh Marabarus Serapian.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Thalus's uh uh works were considered accurate, but unfortunately we don't have these uh now, as they've only been preserved with uh Julius Africanus.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Celsus uh was um uh an early critic of uh Christianity and also an atheist, but he was uh and once again we have uh his writings preserved in other sources, yet uh even as an atheist, he was recognizing that uh Jesus uh was an uh an actual person.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Mar Bar Serapian, he was a traveler.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was somebody who traveled about uh the Roman Empire and also was a philosopher.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't have any uh reason particularly to mention that um uh that there was uh a person named Jesus, but he speaks about uh um a wise king and uh mentions him in relationship to Christians.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Are there other sources that are not in the Bible, not friendly to Christianity, and also not Greek or Roman that speak about Jesus as living in history?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lucian uh is a satirist and a rhetorician, a popular writer from Syria during uh the second century, um, and his writings are always interesting.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: He has a way of uh uh poking uh fun at uh different things, and he has this to say when it comes to um uh to uh Christianity and Jesus.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I'll just read this uh quote for you.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is from Peregrinus 11.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was now that he came across the priests and scribes of the Christians in Palestine and picked up their queer creed.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you he pretty soon convinced them of his superiority, prophet, elder, ruler of the synagogue.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was everything at once, expounded their books, commented on them, wrote books himself.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: They took him for a god, accepted his laws, and declared him their president.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day, the distinguished personage who accounted who introduced their novel rites and was crucified on that account.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the end of it was that Proteus was arrested and thrown into prison.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: So here we find uh somebody who was uh trying to make fun of Christians, yet he did have uh uh something to say that we all know that they worship a man.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: So he's not doubting that Jesus existed at all.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's interesting, Drake.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um now to fast forward to today's uh culture.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was reading an article from Pew Research that said that uh nine in ten Americans believe in a higher power, but only a slim majority believe in God as described in the Bible.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: With uh the rise in those that don't claim any religious affiliation in our country, how do you think this topic speaks to them or how Christmas offers hope to them?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, people have uh had questions about uh Christianity for uh throughout uh the years, but this rise in a belief that Jesus was a myth or that he was fabricated, uh and now seen by some that he doesn't exist, that really should be questioned here.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are eight or nine uh ancient uh sources written by people who have no uh desire at all to support the Christian faith.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yet they all support that Jesus was a man and that he did exist.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And even in some of these, uh such as uh the one by Celsus, um, uh, they criticize um that he would be considered a god.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yet he um yet it's very uh clear that he assumes that Jesus existed.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, maybe I could just read this uh quote from uh Celsus for you.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Celsus accuses Jesus of having invented his birth from a virgin and upbraids him with being born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery, that after being driven away by her husband and wandering about a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus an illegitimate child, who, having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers on which the Egyptians greatly prided themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a god.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Celsus is definitely antagonistic to uh Christianity and definitely antagonistic to Jesus, but he believes that he exists.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in a time where people are wondering whether he exists, at least if we want to want to go down that road, um, let's look at some of the ancient historians that at least uh would uh call that into question.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Celsus, a Greek philosopher and a Christian opponent, clearly believes that Jesus existed.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Drake.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe one more question.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: As we're living in a time where Christmas has so much commercialism, and uh there seems to be a drive to spend even money that one does not have.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: How do you think the real message of Christmas speaks to our day and age?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the real message of Christm Christmas is that uh Jesus came to dwell with us here on earth and to offer salvation uh to uh those who would uh believe in his name.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's very different than uh decorations or parties or sending of cards or the opening of presents.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: All those things can be a part of it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus comes to give uh hope.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: He gives offers uh uh salvation, he offers power for living, and he op offers uh hope for eternity.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the true gift of Christmas, that God came to rescue us.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Doctor Drake.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh thank you for coming and being a part of this program today.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And to our listeners, thank you for listening to Centrally Speaking, a ministry of the Central Schwenckfelder Church in Worcester, Pennsylvania.
• 14:06
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• 14:11
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• 14:23
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• 14:24
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