Posted on 01/21/2025 9:11:05 AM PST by daniel1212
The reliable Gospel eyewitness accounts aren’t the only ancient description of Jesus. There are also non-Christian descriptions of Jesus from the late 1st to 5th Century. What do the non-Biblical accounts say about Jesus and how are we to assess them?[...]
Hostile Non-Biblical Pagan Accounts[...]
Thallus (52AD)[...]
“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1) [...]
Tacitus (56-120AD)[...]describes Emperor Nero’s response to the great fire in Rome and Nero’s claim that the Christians were to blame:[...] “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. 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 Pilatus, 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 centre and become popular.”
Mara Bar-Serapion (70AD)[...]refers to Jesus as the “Wise King”:
“What benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as judgment for their crime. Or, the people of Samos for burning Pythagoras? In one moment their country was covered with sand. Or the Jews by murdering their wise king?…After that their kingdom was abolished. God rightly avenged these men…The wise king…Lived on in the teachings he enacted.”
Phlegon (80-140AD [...]
“Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth to the ninth hour.” (Africanus, Chronography, 18:1) [...]
Pliny the Younger (61-113AD )[...]
“They (the Christians) were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, 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 food of an ordinary and innocent kind.”
Phlegon is also mentioned by Origen (an early church theologian and scholar, born in Alexandria): [...]
“Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles, not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events . . . but also testified that the result corresponded to His predictions.” (Origen Against Celsus, Book 2, Chapter 14) [...]
“And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place … ” (Origen Against Celsus, Book 2, Chapter 33) [...] “Jesus, while alive, was of no assistance to himself, but that he arose after death, and exhibited the marks of his punishment, and showed how his hands had been pierced by nails.” (Origen Against Celsus, Book 2, Chapter 59) [...]
Suetonius (69-140AD) [...] “Because the Jews at Rome caused constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (Christ), he (Claudius) expelled them from the city (Rome).” (Life of Claudius, 25:4) This expulsion took place in 49AD [...]
[...] “Nero inflicted punishment on the Christians, a sect given to a new and mischievous religious belief.” (Lives of the Caesars, 26.2) [...]
Lucian of Samosata: (115-200 A.D.) [...]
Celsus (175AD) [...]
Hostile Non-Biblical Jewish Accounts [...]
Josephus (37-101AD) [...]
Jewish Talmud (400-700AD) [...]
The Toledot Yeshu (1000AD) [...]
Many elements of the Biblical record are confirmed by these hostile accounts, in spite of the fact they deny the supernatural power of Jesus.
Creation.
i do not know about that, but atheists usually parrot the argument that the absence of contemporary (meaning within His brief approx. 33 year life!) non-biblical evidence that Jesus was a real person means he could not have existed, yet by that measure, neither did Siddhartha Gautama, Confucius, Spartacus, Pythagoras, Sun Tzu, Leonidas the Spartan, Boudica the Celtic warrior queen, Sargon Of Akkad, Socrates, Archimedes,
and maybe even Alexander The Great, and Attila The Hun, and Homer, whom historians overall affirm existed, as they do Jesus of Nazareth,Likewise, requiring writings from the figures themselves negates many.
However, without any actual proof, atheists overall believe that an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered universe, exquisitely finely tuned for complex life with its profound intricate complexity and extensive diversity, can be all a result of purely natural processes.
Which requires much faith, more so I think, than that the universe logically testifies to design, requiring a First Cause (at the least), that of a being of supreme power and intelligence being behind the existence of energy and organization of matter, and laws regarding the same.
Julius Africanus lived roughly from A.D. 160 to about A.D. 240 - i.e., he wrote this roughly two centuries AFTER the Crucifixion of Christ.
Regards,
More than His divinity, but more absurd, Islam denies that Jesus died for our sins, and rose again, rejecting the New Testament (at least some of Islam only affirms the Injil - Evangel in Gk. - meaning a gospel revealed to Muham-mad for which no mss exists, as being the gospel spoken of by the Qur'an), and (of course) allege the gospels of the Bible were corrupted, as if anyone had the power to do so in pre 600AD.
For early Islam[9] and Muhammad himself is seen to uphold the Scriptures[10] that existed then as divinely inspired, both the Torah, (Sura 2:87) and the Psalms, (4:163) and the Gospels, (Suras 3:3; 5:46) such as in stating (see here).
I also believe in the solstice and equinox
But they are pretty much a local thing
When they figured out how to mark the diminishing and the lengthening of days, a couple days after after the short mark was enough to verify the days were getting longer and resulted in a celebration.
Has been independently going on all over the earth, for a VERY long time. Possibly since the 23 degree tilt
William Dennes Mahan
Cumberland Presbyterian Minister
1824 - 1906
http://www.cumberland.org/hfcpc/minister/MahanWilliamDennes.htm
- - - - -
STRANGE NEW GOSPELS
by Edgar J. Goodspeed
https://www.tertullian.org/articles/goodspeed_strange_new_gospels.htm
Scroll down to:
“V. PILATE’S COURT, AND THE ARCHKO VOLUME”
“IN 1879, the Rev. W. D. Mahan, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, of Boonville, Missouri, published a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, entitled ‘A Correct Transcript of Pilate’s Court.’”
- - - - -
Look for works by Isaac M. Wise
The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth
A Historic-Critical Treatise of the Last Chapters of the Gospel
A Defense of Judaism
Versus
Proselytizing Christianity
- - - - -
William Dennes Mahan aka Dr. Mahan, had a vivid imagination. He studied the works of Isaac M. Wise, and thereby “knew” some history of the middle East.
IIRC, Mahan and Wise communicated by mail, and might have met in person, once or twice (I forget).
Anyway, Mahan “published a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, entitled ‘A Correct Transcript of Pilate’s Court.’” That was also included in a much-expanded form, published as The Archko Volume.
That can be downloaded at:
https://archive.org/download/archkovolume00mahaiala/archkovolume00mahaiala.pdf
- - - - -
Mahan’s work was believeable for many, and still is. But Goodspeed investigated, and discovered errors in Mahan’s works.
At some point in the investigation of Mahan’s work, Lew Wallace, author of Ben Hur and a Union general in the Civil War, was the U.S. consul or ambassador to Turkey.
Wallace was asked to ask some questions at the Library of _____ (again, I forget) in Constantinople (sp?), because some documents of Pilate were supposed to be there?
Wallace asked, and the librarian said, No such papers . . . or words to that effect.
So, the provenance (usage?) of Mahan’s work, was not there.
The irony, in my view, is that Lew Wallace’s book, Ben Hur, became popular fiction.
And, if William Mahan had published his own work as fiction, Mahan would probably have been a financially successful author.
I remain interested, because Lew Wallace took the word of the fellow in charge at the Constantinople library . . . and I wonder if that was true.
Wallace wrote a great story.
‘Tis a great story. I wonder if he developed notes for it, during the Civil War, as a mental sidetrack from the stress of the war.
I think you could use such lack of mention by contemporary writers to argue against the existence of some other historical figures. Regardless, to use the lack of any mention of Jesus in the rather extensive, but incomplete writings of Plato as an argument against the historicity of Jesus, then among other things, it must be presumed that Philo, despite not being a historian but a philosopher would mention Jesus, even though he also failed to even mention many philosophers:
Named references to philosophers in Philo’s work are rather rare, and often the cited names are not those that one would expect. For example, he never mentions Posidonius, one of the greatest names of Stoicism, who was the first to attempt a reconciliation of at least some Stoic and Platonic themes. There are reasons to think Philo read this Rhodian philosopher, but he is silent about Posidonius.One could surmise that his clearly anti-Jewish position was one possible reason for Philo’s silence. However, Philo is also silent regarding thinkers of the New Academy, Arcesilas and Carneades. He was clearly acquainted with these Academics, since there are some rather clear allusions in his work to their brand of skepticism. It is therefore curious that he gives the first version of the Skeptical tropes without any allusion to Aenesidemus, who developed them a century before.
Leaving aside the contested De aeternitate, we notice that Philo fails to mention Aristotle even once. While Stoicism plays a leading though complex role in most Philonian treatises, we only find four allusions to Zeno, the founder of the doctrine. They are all in the Probus, a treatise with strong Stoic features.
There is only a single mention of Epicurus, in Post. 2. Plato is mentioned twice each in the De opificio and the De uita contemplativa, and once in the Probus. Only three mentions of Socrates are found, but surprisingly, the presocratic thinkers are quoted much more than one would have thought: fourteen references to Pythagoras (with some uncertainties, since some of them are to be found in fragments), six to Heraclitus, and one each to Anaxagoras and Democritus.
He is still more silent about the great rabbis he would have certainly met in Alexandria and perhaps in Jerusalem. In his philosophical references, it is clear that he prefers to evoke the presocratic thinkers and the classical period of philosophy than the Hellenistic one. - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philo/
My quotes were snippets, and in full that sections says: Thallus (52AD)
Thallus is perhaps the earliest secular writer to mention Jesus and he is so ancient his writings don’t even exist anymore. But Julius Africanus, writing around 221AD does quote Thallus who previously tried to explain away the darkness occurring at Jesus’ crucifixion:
“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)
Which Chronography states:
As to His works severally, and His cures effected upon body and soul, and the mysteries of His doctrine, and the resurrection from the dead, these have been most authoritatively set forth by His disciples and apostles before us. On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Saviour falls on the day before the passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is, at their junction: how then should an eclipse be supposed to happen when the moon is almost diametrically opposite the sun?Let that opinion pass however; let it carry the majority with it; and let this portent of the world be deemed an eclipse of the sun, like others a portent only to the eye. [30] Phlegon [2nd c.] records that, in the time of Tiberius Cæsar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth—manifestly that one of which we speak. But what has an eclipse in common with an earthquake, the rending rocks, and the resurrection of the dead, and so great a perturbation throughout the universe? Surely no such event as this is recorded for a long period. But it was a darkness induced by God, because the Lord happened then to suffer. And calculation makes out that the period of 70 weeks, as noted in Daniel, is completed at this time.
Thus the issue would be the credibility of Thallus and Julius. Of course, no extant records from two centuries later than an event occurred, recording what was passed down but which lacks extant records, can be allowed to be plausible since such events would be reported and preserved in reports. See related to that: https://historyforatheists.com/2018/05/jesus-mythicism-3-no-contemporary-references-to-jesus/ and post 14 are regards Philo.
After Apostle Paul was arrested, a descendant of King Herod the Great (the "King" who feared the birth of Jesus):
Julia Drusilla, married to Antonius Felix (procurator of Judea)
was an observer, when Governor Antonius Felix heard the charges against Apostle Paul:
Paul presented the gospel as part of his defense, but Felix delayed giving a verdict. Some days later, Felix with his wife, Drusilla, summoned Paul for another hearing.
Speaking before Felix and Drusilla, Paul "spoke about faith in Christ Jesus . . . righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come" (Acts 24:24–25).
- https://www.gotquestions.org/Drusilla-in-the-Bible.html
Her son, Agrippa III - aka Marcus Antonius Agrippa - died in the Mt. Vesuvius eruption (79 AD).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.