Jesus a truly historical person

He is known as a historical person who affected the life of the whole world and historians have never denied His existence.

The existence of Jesus can be found in the New Testament

However the existence of Jesus can also be found outside the Bible as can be seen from the following: Ancient Roman Documents Ancient Jewish Documents Ancient Christian Documents

1. Ancient Roman Documents a.Tacitus ( AD)  was one of the greatest historians of ancient Rome  wrote: “The Emperor Nero accused those common people called Christians for the fire of Rome and condemned them to harsh tortures. These Christians took their name from the Christ who was killed under the ruling of Pontius Pilate in the time of the Emperor Tiberius‟.

1. Ancient Roman Documents b.Pliny the Younger( AD)  was sent by the Roman Emperor Trajan as Governor of a Province of the Roman Empire, which today is modern Turkey.  In one of His regular letters to the Emperor, Pliny narrates what Christians used to do : “they used to meet on the appointed day and gather before dawn, and sing to Christ as if He were a God….”  Besides this, although the persecution Christians was widespread, some governors were unsure exactly how to deal with them and how strict to be.  In another letter, Pliny also asks the Emperor how he should deal with these Christians when any of them were caught.

2. Ancient Jewish Documents: The Jews did not deny the existence of Jesus, even though they did not welcome Him as the Messiah.

2. Ancient Jewish Documents a.The Talmud  is the book in which all the teachings of the Jews were written, gathered through the ages, since ancient times when many teachings were still passed on by word of mouth.  Certain passages of this book however were written during and after the coming of Christ and in it there are several references to Jesus such as: “Jeshu, the Nazarene who was crucified on the eve of the Passover….”

2. Ancient Jewish Documents b. Josephus Flavius ( AD)  was the greatest Jewish historian of the first century.  We know about him and his writings because the books he wrote, although lost, were quoted by other historians, his contemporaries.  Flavius mentions Jesus: “Jesus was a wise man, who made many disciples, but ended up crucified by Pontius Pilate's orders. His disciples testified that He appeared to them after three days, and that He was still alive.”

3. Ancient Christian Documents  The main ones are the books which make up the NEW TESTAMENT:  The Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John;  The Acts Of The Apostles;  21 Letters: The third section of the New Testament which contains the letters of different apostolic writers.  The Apocalypse or Book Of Revelation.

The Apostolic Fathers and other early works  These people lived, wrote and preached about the word of Jesus in the first few centuries of Christianity.  Besides what these ‘Fathers’ wrote there were also other works like the Didache which was a manual of prayers used by the early Church, and which most historians say was used since the time of the Apostles.

The New Testament The books of the New Testament, especially the Gospels, are centred on Jesus Christ and the way in which we are invited to come to understand who He was, who He is and then to follow Him. The New Testament is not intended to be a bibliography of Jesus Christ as we understand this today – it does not try nor does it intend to tell us about the events in Jesus’ life in a chronological order.

The New Testament The main objective of these New Testament books is to present Jesus as the only Son of the Father, sent into this world to save us and to give us new life by helping us to come to know who God really is.

Gospels Every evangelist had a particular community in mind when writing the Gospel. Each of the evangelists therefore chose particular events and things that Jesus said in order to help the reader to have faith in Jesus Christ and therefore in who God really is. For example, Matthew wrote the Gospel for Christians who were previously Jews.

Gospels The authors aim in this case was to emphasise that in Jesus all the promises God had made to His people in the Old Testament were realised. Matthew did this because these promises were already very important to these people. We therefore understand why Matthew mostly chose and developed those events which show Jesus as the Messiah and how Jesus descended from King David.

Gospels The Gospels started to be written about 30 years after the events actually took place. Throughout these years, Jesus’ teaching continued to develop and to be better understood through the new situations that the Christian community came across in their daily lives when trying to follow what Jesus said and did. This means that certain details of the events described were lost or became joined to other stories and events.

Gospels At the end of the Gospel of John this is clearly pointed out: “Now there are many other things that Jesus did. If they were all written down one by one, I suppose that the whole world could not hold the books that would be written” (Jn 21,25).

Gospels The centre and real meaning of the events within each of the Gospels truly record what Jesus said and did. At the beginning of the Gospel, Luke explains how he made a careful study before gathering all the events in Jesus’ life into one account “because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught” (Lk 1,3-4)