I feel compelled to share something with my fellow humans out there who doubt this holiday we Christians celebrate yet, will enjoy every day they get off for Christmas while still bashing Christ. So, if this you is please read on because I was once where you are. I should also say that all of the following evidences are found in secular writings. AND before you become a Naysayer please do the research for yourself.
I believe in Christ not because I have seen Him, but because I know what He has done in my life and I have faith. Faith by definition is simply believing in the unseen. I do not have to defend my faith in order to calm any unrest in my soul, but rather I defend my faith so, that others will know the Truth as I know it. You see, I myself grew up in a household that did not worship God, never went to church, and until I came to the saving knowledge of Christ I considered myself an atheist. And even after I received Christ as my personal Savior I researched everything about this new faith I had. It is when I came to think of myself as a "thinking Christian" because I put a lot of thought into this faith.
Did you know that the historicity of the Bible can be trusted more than any other book written before or after it. Now, I would like to name a few people in Ancient times who wrote something about this Bible and especially Jesus. I can assure you that these documents still exist and can be researched.
First, Tacitus should be mentioned. Let's begin our inquiry with a passage that historian Edwin Yamauchi calls "probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament." Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:
Nero fastened the guilt . . . 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 . . . Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.
Second, Pliny the Younger should be mentioned. Another important source of evidence about Jesus and early Christianity can be found in the letters of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In one of his letters, dated around A.D. 112, he asks Trajan's advice about the appropriate way to conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians. Pliny says that he needed to consult the emperor about this issue because a great multitude of every age, class, and sex stood accused of Christianity.
At one point in his letter, Pliny relates some of the information he has learned about these Christians:
They 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.
Third, Josephus should be mentioned. Perhaps the most remarkable reference to Jesus outside the Bible can be found in the writings of Josephus, a first century Jewish historian. On two occasions, in his Jewish Antiquities, he mentions Jesus. The second, less revealing, reference describes the condemnation of one "James" by the Jewish Sanhedrin. This James, says Josephus, was "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ." F.F. Bruce points out how this agrees with Paul's description of James in Galatians 1:19 as "the Lord's brother." And Edwin Yamauchi informs us that "few scholars have questioned" that Josephus actually penned this passage.
As interesting as this brief reference is, there is an earlier one, which is truly astonishing. Called the "Testimonium Flavianum," the relevant portion declares:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he . . . wrought surprising feats. . . . He was the Christ. When Pilate . . .condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared . . . restored to life. . . . And the tribe of Christians . . . has . . . not disappeared.
Fourth, evidence from the Babylonian Talmud. There are only a few clear references to Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud, a collection of Jewish rabbinical writings compiled between approximately A.D. 70-500. Given this time frame, it is naturally supposed that earlier references to Jesus are more likely to be historically reliable than later ones. In the case of the Talmud, the earliest period of compilation occurred between A.D. 70-200. The most significant reference to Jesus from this period states:
On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald . . . cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy."
And finally, Lucian should be considered. Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows:
The Christians . . . worship a man to this day--the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.
