Easter is only a few weeks away, and as usual the cynical, the atheists, and many in the liberal media are already pumping out the fake news stories questioning the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is not a myth on the level of a Hercules or Thor, no matter how much these groups may want him to be. It’s frustrating to have to overcome objections that have already been refuted, time and again, both historically and recently but in the spirit of “always being prepared” to give a defense of the faith, we continue forward.

To properly address the issue, we have to understand what kind of truth we are trying to prove. If I were to try to prove your existence, I would use scientific methods. I would take skin and blood samples, photographs, perhaps x-rays and an MRI to rule out you being a ghost and other physical evidence. This is scientific truth, but these techniques are of little value when trying to prove the existence of someone who lived long ago. In the search for historic truth, we can’t collect DNA but we can check documents, eyewitness reports and artifacts.

In this regard many ask, besides the Bible itself, what proof is there that Jesus of Nazareth existed? I usually begin by answering that question with a defense of the Bible as an authority. Luke’s gospel starts out by outlining his investigative technique for the source material he used in his gospel. Furthermore, the life of Jesus as told in the New Testament fulfills around 100 prophecies from the Old Testament. The Old Testament was completed a thousand years before Jesus began his ministry. As a book of history, it contains writings from over 40 people, from slaves to kings. It shouldn’t be rejected out of hand. However, we do not need to rely on the Bible alone for evidence of Jesus’ existence.

Caius Cornelius Tacitus (55 to circa 118 A.D.) was arguably the best Roman historian as well as a senator, orator, and ethnographer. He also hated Christians. He wrote:

[N]either human effort nor the emperor’s generosity nor the placating of the gods ended the scandalous belief that the fire had been ordered [by Nero]. Therefore, to put down the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the most unusual ways those hated for their shameful acts … whom the crowd called “Chrestians.” The founder of this name, Christ [Christus in Latin], had been executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate … Suppressed for a time, the deadly superstition erupted again not only in Judea, the origin of this evil, but also in the city [Rome], where all things horrible and shameful from everywhere come together and become popular. -- Annals XV.44

This section from Tacitus’ work confirms many of the details about Jesus found in the New Testament, but he’s not the only one who mentions Jesus. There is Flavius Josephus. A Jewish rabbi who became a Roman historian supported by three successive emperors, wrote:

Being therefore this kind of person [i.e., a heartless Sadducee], Ananus, thinking that he had a favorable opportunity because Festus had died and Albinus was still on his way, called a meeting [literally, “sanhedrin”] of judges and brought into it the brother of Jesus-who-is-called-Messiah … James by name, and some others. He made the accusation that they had transgressed the law, and he handed them over to be stoned. -- Jewish Antiquities, XX

There is another quote by Josephus, one that is hotly debated. It is likely that part of the quote is authentic, but part of it may have been edited by later generations. There can be little argument, however, that Josephus does talk about Jesus in the disputed passage as Josephus expects people to be familiar with Jesus later in the book, which they could not be unless he had already mentioned Jesus here. Perhaps we’ll look at the Josephus texts in more detail later, for now let these rough strokes be enough to show that Josephus was familiar with Jesus.

Aside from these historians, there is lots of archeological evidence showing a large Christian community existed in Judea in the first century, only a few decades after the crucifixion. No religion bases itself on a myth that can be easily disproven by people who are still alive. There are disputed artifacts, like the James Ossuary which mention "James, the brother of Jesus". Even non-Christian archaeologists cede the fact of Jesus’ existence, even if they do not believe he was divine. When one considers the fact that Jesus was one man who lived in a heavily populated region (over one million people) and was someone whom the Roman and Jewish authorities wanted forgotten, it’s amazing that this much evidence exists.