Tag Archives: Ancient History

Polemics

Is there any evidence for Jesus outside the New Testament?

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From Cold Case Christianity blog.

I’ll excerpt a few of them:

Tacitus (56-120AD):

Cornelius Tacitus was known for his analysis and examination of historical documents and is among the most trusted of ancient historians. He was a senator under Emperor Vespasian and was also proconsul of Asia. In his “Annals’ of 116AD, he 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.”

In this account, Tacitus confirms several historical elements of the Biblical narrative: Jesus lived in Judea, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and had followers who were persecuted for their faith in Christ.

Pliny the Younger (61-113AD):

Early Christians were also described in early, non-Christian history. Pliny the Younger, in a letter to the Roman emperor Trajan, describes the lifestyles of early Christians:

“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.”

This early description of the first Christians documents several facts: the first Christians believed Jesus was GOD, the first Christians upheld a high moral code, and these early followers met regularly to worship Jesus.

Suetonius (69-140AD):

Suetonius was a Roman historian and annalist of the Imperial House under the Emperor Hadrian. His writings about Christians describe their treatment under the Emperor Claudius (41-54AD):

“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, and in another work, Suetonius wrote about the fire which destroyed Rome in 64 A.D. under the reign of Nero. Nero blamed the Christians for this fire and he punished Christians severely as a result:

“Nero inflicted punishment on the Christians, a sect given to a new and mischievous religious belief.” (Lives of the Caesars, 26.2)

There is much we can learn from Suetonius as it is related to the life of early Christians. From this account, we know Jesus had an immediate impact on His followers: They were committed to their belief Jesus was God and withstood the torment and punishment of the Roman Empire. Jesus had a curious and immediate impact on His followers, empowering them to die courageously for what they knew to be true.

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Videos

Videos from the Tactical Faith Resurrection Weekend 2014

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All 9 videos from the Tactical Faith conference last weekend have now been posted on Youtube:

  • “What was the crucifixion like?” – Mike Licona 48:21
  • “The New Testament: Text, Translation, Canon” – Mike Licona 46:51
  • Logos Bible Software presentation – Greg Monette 17:13
  • “The Burial of Jesus” – Greg Monette 49:08
  • “iWitness: Evangelism and the Cross” – Doug Powell 42:14
  • “Why are there differences in the gospels?” – Mike Licona 1:06:38
  • Shroud of Turin – Dave Glander 52:58
  • “Resurrection: A Creedal Defense” – Shawn White 50:37
  • “Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?” – Mike Licona 39:13

Here’s the last one in that list, which I watched and liked:

A very impressive line-up of scholars from Tactical Faith.

 

News

Fred Sanders reviews a book that makes the case for the deity of Christ

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Putting Jesus in His Place
Putting Jesus in His Place

From Touchstone magazine, a review of “Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ” by Biola University professor Fred Sanders.

Excerpt:

The case as perceived by scholars for the deity of Christ is stronger now than it has been for a long time, and those who went through seminary more than a decade ago should take a moment to update their notes. Though the New Testament is clear about the deity of Christ, generations of modern critical scholars have picked away at the standard proofs. Here a verse, there a verse, the arguments that Christians have always relied on to demonstrate that the New Testament teaches that Jesus is God have been rendered dubious.

Putting Jesus in His Place does not simply reclaim those lost passages, revisit the standard debates, and bolster the old arguments (though in many cases it does that, and persuasively); it publicizes new arguments for demonstrating the deity of Christ, which have previously been available only to scholars.

The authors are ideal popularizers, each with one foot in the library and one in the local church. Robert Bowman is manager of apologetics and interfaith evangelism for the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board, while Ed Komoszewski is the founder of the educational ministry Christus Nexus and a director of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries.

To help readers remember the arguments, they organize the book around the acronym “HANDS,” arguing that Jesus shares God’s Honor, Attributes, Names, Deeds, and Seat. The text breezes along in straightforward, popular prose—it paraphrases the Nicene homoousios as “Jesus: The Right Stuff,” for example, and explains pre-existence as being “Older Than Dirt—Literally!”—with more technical matters referred to the endnotes.

If you are looking to make a case for the divinity of Jesus, you should go to the earliest sources, and try to see if Jesus has a divine self-understanding, whether he is acting in the place of God.

The book is basically one-stop shopping at a popular level for the best scholarly arguments:

Jesus didn’t so much verbalize his claim to deity, for example; he enacted it. The people of God were waiting for the Lord to show up in person to bring reconciliation; Jesus walked among men, healing, forgiving, and doing everything that God was supposed to do. When, on occasion, he also claimed to be more than a prophet, his claim made sense because it put into words what he was doing in the flesh.

Jesus does what God does. This is the foundation for his claim to deity. N. T. Wright has recently helped his readers see this with his massive narrative arguments, and Bowman and Komoszewski boil a lot of Wright down to a manageable size.

[…]Readers alert to the scholarly scene will recognize that the authors reproduce at an accessible level the arguments of Richard Bauckham (particularly in God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament) and Larry Hurtado (in Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity), among others. (Bauckham and Hurtado are among the book’s many endorsers.)

Wright, Bauckham and Hurtado are three of the leading historical Jesus scholars in the world. I got the book because I wanted to know about the latest research from these experts – but without having to comb through an academic book!

I have some good news, too. The book is on sale in the Kindle edition for under $2 for a limited time. If you don’t have a single book on the divinity of Jesus, you cannot go wrong with this book. It’s good to have one book on this issue, because it comes up a lot in conversations with skeptics. You see annoying documentaries all the time claiming that Jesus was initially viewed as just a man, and then was embellished into a divine figure later. This book helps you to answer that objection.