The Authenticity of Jesus
For Christians, advent is a season of preparation and anticipation for the birth of Jesus and the Second Coming of Christ. For others outside of a Christian faith, the historical significance of this season can be missed. Specifically, that Jesus is a real person from history.
This isn’t just a Christian claim but is a claim about history that is catalogued within Jewish and other non-religious artifacts from the first century. These sources tell us about a man named Jesus, a “wise man”, a “teacher”, a “doer of wonderful works”, and someone who created a following that desired to “lead Israel astray”. The following ancient historians and record keepers note that Jesus movement would not die on the vine as they might have hoped, but instead flourished across the world, spreading from city to city, and taking root:
“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.” (P. Cornelius Tacitus – Annals Book XV.XLIV)
“He convened a judicial session of the Sanhedrin and brought before it the brother of Jesus the one called Christ – James by name – and some others, whom he charged with breaking the law and handed over to be stoned to death.” (Flavius Josephus – Antiquities 20.200)
“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” (Flavius Josephus – Antiquities 18:63-64)
“On the eve of Passover Yeshu [Jesus] was hanged…he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy.” (Babylonian Talmud – b. Sanhedrin 43a)
“’Repent’ said he [R. Joshua] to him. He replied, ‘I have thus learned from you: He who sins and causes others to sin in not afforded the means of repentance.’ And a Master has said, “Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic and led Israel astray’” (Babylonian Talmud – b. Sanhedrin 107)
These are just a few of the early writings of Jesus’ life, the tone of which is unfriendly to the Christian movement. Each writing contains a hope for Christianity to die on the vine as it should have with the death of Jesus. Nevertheless, they are historical artifacts of His life on earth, acknowledging that Jesus was a real person in history, who did some of the amazing things that are contained within the Gospels. The testimony contained within these non-Biblical sources help validate the historical evidence and eyewitness accounts contained within the New Testament. “He practiced sorcery”, “Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic”, “for he was a doer of wonderful works”, all of which point towards a reality in which a man lived in their time who did things that they could not explain:
1. Healing the Sick
Matthew 4:24 – "News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them."
Matthew 8:1-4 – Jesus heals a man with leprosy.
Matthew 8:14-15 – Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law from a fever.
Matthew 9:27-31 – Jesus heals two blind men.
Mark 1:29-34 – Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law and others.
Luke 7:11-17 – Jesus raises a widow's son from the dead.
John 9:1-12 – Jesus heals a man born blind.
2. Raising the Dead
Matthew 9:18-26 – Jesus raises the daughter of a synagogue leader.
Luke 7:11-17 – Jesus raises the widow's son in Nain.
John 11:38-44 – Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead after four days.
3. Casting Out Demons
Matthew 8:28-34 – Jesus casts out demons from two men in the region of the Gadarenes.
Mark 1:23-26 – Jesus casts out an unclean spirit from a man in a synagogue.
Luke 8:26-39 – Jesus casts out demons from the Gerasene demoniac.
Mark 5:1-20 – Jesus casts out a legion of demons from a man.
4. Controlling Nature
Matthew 8:23-27 – Jesus calms a storm on the Sea of Galilee.
Mark 4:35-41 – Jesus calms the storm.
John 6:16-21 – Jesus walks on water and calms the disciples’ fear.
Luke 5:1-11 – Jesus causes a miraculous catch of fish.
5. Feeding the Multitudes
Matthew 14:13-21 – Jesus feeds 5,000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fish.
Matthew 15:32-39 – Jesus feeds 4,000 men (plus women and children) with seven loaves and a few fish.
John 6:5-14 – Jesus feeds the 5,000 (detailed version of the miracle).
6. Transforming Water into Wine
John 2:1-11 – Jesus turns water into wine at the wedding at Cana.
7. Healing a Paralytic
Matthew 9:1-8 – Jesus heals a paralytic and forgives his sins.
Mark 2:1-12 – Jesus heals a paralytic who is lowered through the roof.
8. Healing a Woman with a Bleed
Matthew 9:20-22 – Jesus heals a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.
Mark 5:25-34 – The healing of the woman with the hemorrhage.
9. Healing a Deaf and Mute Man
Mark 7:31-37 – Jesus heals a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.
10. Healing a Man Born Blind
John 9:1-12 – Jesus heals a man who was blind from birth by anointing his eyes with mud.
11. Raising Jairus' Daughter
Matthew 9:18-26 – Jesus raises the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue leader, from the dead.
Mark 5:21-43 – Jesus heals and raises Jairus' daughter from the dead.
Luke 8:40-56 – Jesus raises Jairus' daughter from the dead.
12. The Resurrection of Jesus
Matthew 28:1-10 – Jesus rises from the dead.
Mark 16:1-8 – Jesus rises from the dead.
Luke 24:1-12 – Jesus rises from the dead.
John 20:1-18 – Jesus rises from the dead.
13. Miraculous Catch of Fish
Luke 5:1-11 – Jesus directs the apostles to cast their nets after a night of unsuccessful fishing and they catch a large number of fish.
John 21:1-14 – After His resurrection, Jesus directs the disciples to cast their nets again, resulting in a miraculous catch of fish.
14. Healing the Blind
Matthew 20:29-34 – Jesus heals two blind men near Jericho.
Mark 10:46-52 – Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus.
15. Healing a Crippled Woman
Luke 13:10-17 – Jesus heals a woman who had been crippled for 18 years.
16. Healing a Man with Dropsy
Luke 14:1-6 – Jesus heals a man suffering from dropsy on the Sabbath.
17. Cleansing Ten Lepers
Luke 17:11-19 – Jesus heals ten lepers, but only one returns to give thanks.
18. Raising the Widow's Son at Nain
Luke 7:11-17 – Jesus raises a widow's son from the dead.
19. Healing the Centurion's Servant
Matthew 8:5-13 – Jesus heals a centurion’s servant from a distance.
Luke 7:1-10 – Another account of the healing of the centurion's servant.
These are early non-Christian authors, who owe no favors to the Christian movement. They have a vested interest in seeing them wither away, which is why we saw the Jewish and Roman authorities colluding together to bring about Jesus’ crucifixion.
This should give pause if you are a skeptic of Jesus and Christianity. Those who had a vested interest and a proven track record in denying His Messianic claim, are giving credence to what Jesus’ followers wrote within their respective gospels. Yet, the simple fact that Jesus lived is not enough for the many to have faith.
Continuing in this vein of truth, Jesus lived, and He also died. This too is confirmed by the early historians – “and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross”. These writings show that the crucifixion of Jesus happened as well. There was life, and there was death, but it wasn’t just any ordinary death. In the first century, to be hung from a cross meant that you had been condemned to a slow and painful death. Your legs might have been broken. Your shoulders would slowly dislocate themselves. Your flesh would tear as the weight of your body hung from the nails that had driven into your hands and other body parts. But most of all, you were hung there as a means of humiliation – a way to strip you of any credibility and to bring shame to your life’s work.
To be crucified meant your death was a spectacle for others to witness, an example for others who dared to follow in your footsteps. This fact is particularly important given Jesus’ Messianic claim. To claim that you are God in the flesh, and then to be put to death, meant that you were in fact not God in the flesh:
“But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord.” (Antiquities 18:23 – 18.1.6.23)
To be the Messiah meant you were God in the flesh, which meant that while Jesus was man, He was still eternal in His presence and therefore could not be put to death. In this way, death becomes an exacting way the Jewish authorities to test Jesus’ claim:
“But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.” (Acts 5:34-37)
There had been many before Jesus who had claimed themselves to be the Messiah, and the finality of their death is what consistently disproved their claim – “and all who followed him were scattered.” So why is it then, that the Messianic movement of Jesus continued after his death? Why didn’t His death, a death that climaxed in His public humiliation before his followers, end His Messianic claim like all of the others who came before? What is so different, that two thousand years later, the Gospel has spread throughout the world, and I’m writing these words to you now?
“and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” (Flavius Josephus – Antiquities 18:63-64)
Jesus’ resurrection becomes the answer. Jesus overcame death, and if his death was meant to disprove his claim to be the Messiah, then His resurrection must become the very thing that proves its authenticity. There can be no other explanation, because to claim that Jesus was risen, that the tomb was empty, that Jesus came to his disciples, that His wounds were real, to reveal himself to the five hundred, to claim any of it meant that you were in revolt against the Jewish and Roman authorities.
The topic of resurrection wasn’t just a theological topic in the first century, it was a hotly contested political topic as well. For those who believed in it, it meant there was no fear of death. For hundreds of years before Jesus came, Israel had lived in a state of occupation. Resurrection and its theological implications fed into an air of revolution within Israel. Jesus’ Messianic claim, which took root in His resurrection, meant that his followers became overnight outcasts. Jewish and Roman leaders both found Christians to be a troublesome group and would have aimed to disprove their claims because of the implications of what the Messiah meant.
For the Romans, to have the Messiah come meant military confrontation with Israel. For many Jews, the Messiah had turned into a hope for God to deliver them from their oppressors. They believed that whoever came would be a militaristic leader that would overthrow the Roman empire and restore the Kingdom of God in Israel. An air of militaristic revolution had begun to surround who the Messiah would be, and Jesus even warned the Pharisees about what this would bring Israel if they continued to stoke this narrative of Messianic revolution (Luke 17:20-37).
For the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the Sadducees, Jesus had rebuked them publicly for their misinterpretations of Scripture and misappropriations of their authority over Israel. There are at least 26 different occasions throughout the Bible, where Jesus confronted the Jewish authorities over their hypocrisy, pride, legalism, and spiritual blindness. Just read the beginning of his scathing rebuke in Jesus’ seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees:
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Matthew 23:1-12)
Jesus was a volatile figure in this way. His Messianic claim represented revolutionary conflict for the Romans, while his teachings undermined the Jewish authorities that held power of Israel. Hence why the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the Sadducees colluded with one another to have Jesus put to death. In this way, to be a Christian in the first century had serious implications.
We see this in how Jesus’ brother James, and many of the other early followers of Christ, were put to death for their beliefs. “He convened a judicial session of the Sanhedrin and brought before it the brother of Jesus the one called Christ – James by name – and some others, whom he charged with breaking the law and handed over to be stoned to death.” (Flavius Josephus – Antiquities 20.200) To be a follower of Jesus in the first century meant that you put your life on the line for what you believed, something that is hard for us to reconcile in this modern era, where the Christian identity is cheap and easy to wield. For many, their faith was truly a life-or-death decision.
Given the gravity of such a claim, you would imagine then that early-Christians would want to go to great lengths to justify and validate their story of Jesus’ resurrection. But who does Jesus reveal himself to first, and charge with spreading the news of His resurrection? “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” (Matthew 28:1), two women were then charged by Jesus to go and spread the news to the other disciples. For modern readers, this subtle fact can lose the weight of its significance.
First century women were considered “second-class” citizens, who were not allowed to study Scripture or participate fully in Jewish worship practices; they were fully subservient to the men in their lives and were otherwise not allowed to give testimony in a Jewish court. Women’s roles were in the household. They might have influenced their husbands behind closed doors, but to have them testify as eyewitnesses to a resurrection is unfathomable, especially given the dire circumstance of what this meant for believers. For Jesus’ disciples to then base their own claims upon the testimony of a couple of women is nothing short of insanity.
It was quite literally an unbelievable story, and yet, in the face of every circumstance that was meant to shred Jesus’ Messianic claim, Jesus prevailed. I’m not saying that you should come blindly to faith over the fact that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected, but if you consider the strong historical evidence, both within and outside the Christian faith, there is very good reason to believe Jesus' claims are real. And if in fact, these claims are true, and you consider the implications of what Jesus proclaimed through His death and resurrection, I would argue that Jesus’ resurrection is the exact reason why you should come to faith!
If Jesus' claims are true then he is the Messianic King who came to save the world from sin and death. He is the God of the universe in human form who is remaking and renewing all that is broken and lost, including your life. He is the good, loving, savior who can forgive all your sin, wipe away your shame, and present you as holy and righteous before a perfect God, and you have plenty of credible evidence to believe.
They called him a “good teacher”, “wise man”, and “doer of wonderful works”. He was the son of Abraham and son of David (Matthew 1) and fulfilled hundreds of other Old Testament prophecies. He chose the most unlikely people to justify his claims, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Jesus was either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God." (C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity)
This is what the Christmas story is all about. If Jesus was born, as history would lead us to believe, then we must consider what His life means for our lives. He lived, died, and was resurrected for each of us, pouring out His blood for many, for forgiveness of sin, creating a new covenant in His name. A covenant with the eternal promise to restore God’s Kingdom and to put an end to sin and death. My hope for you as you read this, is to stop and consider what this might mean for your life. What it might mean for others who need to hear the good news of the gospel. What it might mean, that Jesus lived…
