More is almost always better. That is certainly the case when investigating Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. In the last couple of weeks, we have looked at the writings of Cornelius Tacitus and Flavius Josephus. Both of these first-century writers mention Jesus and His crucifixion and the early tradition of His resurrection from the dead. But there is still more. Several other non-Christian writers mention Jesus and the movement He began.
Pliny the Younger (61-c.113 AD) was a Roman senator and friend of Cornelius Tacitus. In a letter to Emperor Trajan, Pliny wrote about his experience with Christians, asking his advice concerning interrogating those Christians who failed to “burn a pinch of incense to Caesar” and renounce their loyalty to Christ. Pliny wrote: “But they declared that the sum of their guilt or their error only amounted to this, that on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a god, and that so far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, their oath was to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery and from breach of faith, and not to deny trust money placed in their keeping when called upon to deliver it. When this ceremony was concluded, it had been their custom to depart and meet again to take food, but it was of no special character and quite harmless.”
Though this passage does not mention the crucifixion or resurrection, it gives additional evidence from a pagan source that Jesus was a real historical person.
Suetonius (c. AD 69 – c. AD 122) was a Roman lawyer and lists Pliny the Younger as a client. Suetonius was also a historian who wrote extensively about twelve Roman Caesars. He mentions Christians in only one passage: He [Claudius] expelled the Jews from Rome since they were always making disturbances because of their instigator Chrestus [Christus]. Most scholars date this passage by Suetonius to the year AD 49, and that Luke mentions it in passing in his account about Paul in Corinth (Acts 18:2). Again, the passage does not mention the crucifixion or the resurrection, but it does provide one more inde- pendent source of evidence that Jesus was a real person.
Mara bar Serapion, however, does mention the crucifixion. Serapion was a stoic Syrian philosopher who wrote a brief letter to his son about the crucifixion: “or the Jews [by killing] their wise king because their kingdom was taken away at that very time.” Most scholars date the passage to shortly after AD 73. Once again, in this passage, we have an independent historical source of the crucifixion of Jesus.
Additionally, Thallus was a historian who wrote about the history of the Mediterranean world in AD 55. However, the original no longer exists, but a Christian author, Julius Africanus, cited Thallus in a work he wrote in AD 220. But that original is also lost to history except for a later writer, Georgius Syncellus, quoting Africanus, wrote the following in AD 800: “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.”
How cool is that? Although this is a third-hand passage, it corroborates the Gospel account of Jesus’s crucifixion and stands as another independent historical source that recalls the event. But there is more. Lucian is another Syrian pagan writer who lived in the late 2nd century. He wrote about Jesus twice in his work, The Passing of Peregrinus. In one instance, he mentions Jesus as a wise man and reports Jesus as having been crucified in Palestine in another. Historian John Meier suggests it was common knowledge, writing, “No doubt Lucian is reflecting on the knowledge that was ‘in the air’ at that time.” Lucian joins the list of writers, giving evidence that Jesus was a historical person and that He was crucified by the Romans under Pilate.
The last source we will look at is that of Celsus. Celsus was a Platonic philosopher who wrote a critical work dated 177-180 AD on Christianity in which he mentions both the crucifixion and the resurrection. Around 175 CE, the Neoplatonist thinker Celsus wrote a comprehensive attack on Christianity entitled True Doctrine. In this work, Celsus’s criticisms attempted to discredit Christ’s conception, birth, childhood, ministry, death, resurrection and continuing influence. However, in the process of writing his disputation, he affirms that Jesus was a real historical person, that many believed in His resurrection, and that the disciples truly believed they had seen the risen Jesus. And that is what we have argued all along. When one couples these pagan sources of evidence with the very early oral traditions about the resurrection and the Gospel accounts written by the eyewitnesses, the combined list of sources is quite extensive.
Join us next week as we summarize all the sources we have presented over the last few weeks. Until then, the question demands an answer: is God dead?
Gloria in excelsis Deo! — Ty B. Kerley, DMin., is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma. Dr. Kerley and his wife Vicki are members of Waurika Church of Christ and live in Ardmore. You can contact him at dr.kerley@isGoddead. com.
