Jesus outside the Bible
1. Roman: PLINY THE YOUNGER (AD 62–113) Epistles 10.96:
they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light [Sunday], when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food, but of an ordinary and innocent kind.
2. Roman: TACITUS (AD 60–120) Annals 15.44:
Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.
3. Roman: SUETONIUS (AD 75–160) Life of Claudius 25.4:
Because the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.
4. Roman: MARA BAR SERAPION (2nd or 3rd century) in a letter:
The Jews in “executing their wise king” were “ruined and driven from their land [and now] live in complete dispersion.… Nor did the wise King die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given.”4
5. Jewish: FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS (AD 37–100), a disputed passage most historians feel contains some features later added: The Antiquities of the Jewish People 18.3.3 [18.63–64]:
About this time, there lived Jesus, a wise man, [if indeed one ought to call him a man], for he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people who accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. [He was the Messiah.] When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. [On the third day, he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.] And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
Most scholars would agree that if we remove the three italicized portions from this fifth passage, we are most likely left with Josephus’s original words.5 These italicized portions were probably inserted later by Christians, as it’s hardly plausible that Josephus, who was not a Christian, would have written them. However, it’s almost certain that Josephus wrote something about Jesus because he later discusses the brother of Jesus, namely James, in a passage that virtually no scholars dispute.
6. The Antiquities of the Jewish People 20.9.1 [20.200–203]:
Possessed of such a character, Ananus [the high priest] thought that he had a favourable opportunity because Festus was dead and Albinus was still on the way. [Festus and Albinus were Roman governors.] And so he convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others.
Most scholars don’t dispute this passage. German New Testament specialists Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz have said that “the authenticity of the text may be taken as certain.”6
Many other references in the Gospels were excluded from the New Testament due to their late dating (mid-to-late-second-century composition or later). There are too many to list here, but their existence is further proof of the historical opinion and documentation of Jesus.7
3 Unless otherwise cited, the quotations provided are translations by Robert H. Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 26–34 (emphasis added).
4 F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974), 31.
5 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 61.
6 Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 66.
7 Learn more about gospels not included in the New Testament in Bart D. Ehrman and Zlatko Pleše, The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
