Frequently Asked Questions · Question 1 of 10

Exhibit A: Did Jesus Really Live?

What people outside the Bible said about Jesus.

THE QUESTION

Did Jesus really live, or did the church make Him up? This section looks only at writers who were not writing Scripture.

THE WITNESSES

A Jewish historian, Roman historians, a Roman governor, a Syrian prisoner, a Greek comedian, a pagan philosopher, the Jewish Talmud, and the first Christians after the apostles.

THE TIME RANGE

From about AD 50 to about AD 500. Jesus was crucified about AD 30 or 33.

THE VERDICT

Almost every historian today, Christian or not, agrees Jesus was a real man who was baptized by John and crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Opening Statement

Imagine a courtroom. The Bible is the main witness, and it has a lot to say. But a good lawyer always asks: does anybody else back this up? Is there anyone who was not a follower of Jesus, maybe even someone who hated Christians, who says this Jesus was real?

There is. Quite a few, actually. Some of them were not trying to help Christians at all. The Roman historian Tacitus called Christianity a mischievous superstition. A Greek comedian made fun of Christians for being gullible. A pagan philosopher said Jesus was a magician. Their mean comments are gold for us, because enemies do not usually invent the person they are insulting.

Here is the honest truth up front. No outside writer is as detailed as the Gospels. Jesus was a poor teacher from a small town in a far corner of the Roman Empire, and Roman writers mostly wrote about emperors, wars and senators. What is surprising is not how little they say. It is that they say anything at all.

Read All the Evidence

Exhibit A walks through every witness one at a time: who wrote it, when, the actual words, how the text survived, what it backs up in the Bible, and the honest debate. It is 15 pages, so it is a free PDF.

Read Exhibit A: Jesus in History (PDF)

The witnesses include Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Mara bar Serapion, Lucian, Celsus, the Talmud and the Alexamenos graffito, one of the oldest pictures about Jesus, scratched on a wall in Rome to mock a Christian.

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