Did Jesus of Nazareth
actually exist?

[Part 1]

Many years ago a humanist friend gave me a copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian. For my friend, Russell was the epitome of 20th Century man. I suppose he thought the book would challenge me, even persuademe, that my faith in Jesus Christ was misplaced. Perhaps I would become an agnostic, even an atheist.

I found much in the book that I agreed with because many of Russell's concerns and criticisms of orthodox Christianity, particularly the Catholicism of his day, I shared. However, as my faith is centred in Jesus Christ, and not in the church and its teaching, I was not persuaded. However, there were other parts of the book that amazed me. For example, on page 21 Russell wrote:

Here I may say that one is not concerned with the historical question. Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know much about Him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one.

Is this correct? Is it "quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all"? And is the historical question "very difficult"? It amazed me because it appears that a man of Russell's standing and intellect was either unaware of the wealth of historical evidence relating to Jesus of Nazareth, or chose to ignore it. So what is the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ?

In this series I shall look at a variety of evidence. Clearly the Bible is the major historical source for the existence of Jesus Christ, but it is not the only one and we shall look at others first. There are references to Him in both ancient Jewish and Gentile histories.

A letter from a father to a son
The first one we shall look at is a personal letter from a father to a son, a letter from Mara Bar-Serapion, which he wrote to his son Serapion. This letter was written sometime after AD 73 and a copy is in the British Museum. Mara Bar-Serapion was in prison and he wrote to encourage his son in the pursuit of wisdom, and not to be downcast that his father was in jail.

From Bar-Serapion to his son Serapion What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. And what advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teachings He had given.

He pointed out that those who persecuted wise men were overtaken by misfortune, and he instances the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras and Christ. Part of the letter is above, but look at the historical company Christ has here - Socrates and Pythagoras! What philosopher today would doubt the historical existence of Socrates? And what mathematician would doubt the existence of Pythagoras? Then why should Bertrand Russell, or anyone else come to that, be in doubt about the historical existence of Jesus Christ?

But what sort of witness is Bar-Serapion? Was he a biased Christian? No! He was clearly not a Christian. If he had been, he would have said that Jesus Christ had lived on by being raised from the dead, and not in his teaching. F. F. Bruce suggests he was probably a pagan philosopher, who "led the way in what later became commonplace, the placing of Christ on a comparable footing with the great sages of antiquity."

The Greatest Roman Historian
This is also the case with Tacitus who has been described by F.F. Bruce as "the greatest Roman historian". Tacitus was born in about AD 53 and wrote the history of the Roman emperors. When writing on the reign of Caesar Nero (AD54 - 68), he describes the great fire that ravaged Rome in AD 64. He wrote that Nero instigated the fire in order to gain great glory for himself in rebuilding the city. However, Nero tried to put the blame on another group of people, those termed Christians. His account is below.

Tacitus Annals 15.44 Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, from whom they got their name, had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate when Tiberius was emperor; and the pernicious superstition was checked for a short time, only to break out afresh, not only in Judea, the home of the plague, but in Rome itself, where all the horrible and shameful things in the world collect and find a home.

From this account it is clear that Tacitus himself is not a believer in Jesus Christ. For the pagan Tacitus, Christ was but a name. However, to both Jews and Gentiles it was a title. Thus his sources do not appear to be either Christian or Jewish. If they had been Christian, they would not have used such terms as "pernicious superstition" and "plague" to describe themselves. On the other hand, if the sources had been Jewish, they may well have used such terms, but they would not have referred to Jesus as "Christus", for "Christ" is the equivalent of the Hebrew "Messiah" and the Jews did not believe Jesus was the Messiah, and would not have honoured Him with that title.

It is also interesting to note that not only does Tacitus refer to Jesus Christ, he also refers to His execution under Pontius Pilate. Thus not only do we have historical evidence from the "greatest Roman historian" as to the existence of Jesus Christ, we also have evidence that He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Tacitus was in a position to have access to the official documents of Rome. His father-in-law, Julius Agricola, was the governor of Britain from AD 80 to 84, thus Tacitus' source may well have been official Roman archives, maybe even the very report that Pilate sent to Rome.