Copyright 2012 Ian Ellis-Jones. All Rights Reserved.

1. DID JESUS ACTUALLY EXIST?
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EXTRA-BIBLICAL EVIDENCE
FOR THE SUPPOSED EXISTENCE OF JESUS CHRIST
by Dr Ian Ellis-Jones
Minister, Sydney Unitarian Chalice Circle, Sydney NSW Australia
There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the 2nd century CE. There were over 40
well-known pagan and Jewish historians writing at the time of Jesus’ supposed existence
or within a century of that time. Apart from 2 demonstrably forged passages in Josephus,
and 2 highly disputed passages in the works of 2 Roman historians, not one of those
historians made any mention of Jesus at all.
Flavius Josephus (Joseph ben Matthias) (c37-100 CE)
highly respected and much-quoted Jewish historian
two major tomes, History of The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews, the
former written in the 70s, the latter in the 90s CE
early Christians were zealous readers of his work
native of Judea, living in 1st century CE
governor of Galilee for a time (prior to the war of 70 CE) - the very province in
which Jesus allegedly did his wonders
at one point even lived in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought
his first miracle
Josephus mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important
event which occurred there during the first 70 years of the Christian era
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. Antiquities 18:3:3
The facts
1. Even if Josephus’ account about Jesus came from his hand, the information,
having been written in 93 CE (after the first gospels had been written), can
only serve as hearsay.
2. The passage is absent from early copies of the works of Josephus.
3. The passage did not appear in Origen's 3rd century version of Josephus,
referenced in his Contra Celsum.
4. The passage is not found in any edition of Josephus prior to the era of Bishop
Eusebius, the well-known Christian forger, in the 4th century CE.
5. Even many Christian scholars (eg Canon Farrar, in his seminal work The Life
of Christ) believe the passage is an interpolation.

2. 2
6. The words ‘at this day’ confirm that the passage is a later interpolation. There
was no ‘tribe of Christians’ during Josephus’ time. Christianity did not really
get off the ground until the 2nd century CE.
7. Besides, the passage is totally out of context and the hyperbolic, even
polemic, language is totally uncharacteristic of Josephus.
Questions for Bible-believing Christians
1. Why is it that not a single writer before the 4th century - not Justin, Irenaeus,
Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc – in all their
defences against paganism makes a single reference to Josephus’ supposed
words about Jesus?
2. Why is it that the 3rd century Church father Origen, who spent half his life and
a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus, who
drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defence
of Christianity, and who quoted from Josephus extensively, nevertheless
makes no reference to the ‘golden paragraph’ from Josephus, which would
have been the ultimate rebuttal?
3. If Josephus did in fact write the words attributed to him, why then did Origen
actually say that Josephus was ‘not believing in Jesus as the Christ’?
4. In any event, why would Josephus, an orthodox Jew, claim that Jesus was ‘the
Christ’? If Josephus truly believed that, then surely he would have added
more about him than one paragraph, a casual aside in someone else's (Pilate's)
story?
Conclusion
The passage is a Christian interpolation.
NOTE. There is another casual reference to Jesus in Antiquities 20:9:1. However, it implies the existence
of the earlier obvious interpolation and must fall with it.
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Tacitus (Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus) (c56-c117 CE)
one of antiquity's greatest historians
major works - the Annals and the Histories - the history of the Roman Empire's 1st
century, from the accession of the emperor Tiberius to the death of Domitian
reports on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had
destroyed Rome in 64 CE Tacitus, in about 120 CE
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. . . . Annals 15:44

3. 3
The facts
1. The authenticity of this passage has been vigorously doubted by many
academics such as Professor W B Smith.
2. Tacitus gives no source for his material.
3. Tacitus’ birth date puts him well after the alleged life of Jesus.
4. Tacitus wrote this at a time when Christians had already come to believe that
Jesus had suffered under Pilate. The information was available in Christian
material circulating in the early 2nd century CE, from which it could easily
have been derived.
5. Since ‘Christos’ meant Messiah by no other name could Greeks or Romans
speak of Messianic Jews.
6. As regards the enigmatic statement that Christ's death briefly checked ‘a most
mischievous superstition’, historian N D Anderson suggests that Tacitus is
simply bearing indirect testimony to the conviction of the early church that the
Christ who had been crucified had supposedly risen from the grave.
Conclusion
The very fact that Tacitus was born after the alleged Jesus, and wrote the Annals during
the formation of Christianity, can only provide us with hearsay accounts.
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Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) (62-c113 CE)
Roman lawyer, author and scientist
Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor
Epistles , dated around 112 CE
letters of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan - Pliny asks Trajan's advice about the
appropriate way to conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being
Christians, stating 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. Epistles 10:96
The facts
1. The genuineness of this passage, in which the author is just reporting, once
again, what others said they believed, has been doubted.
2. Pliny’s birth date places him out of the range of eyewitness accounts.
3. The passage provides no evidence for the actual existence of Jesus.

4. 4
Conclusion
It is almost certain that Pliny got his information from Christian believers themselves.
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Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus) (75-160 CE)
Roman writer - generally considered one of the most impartial historians of ancient
times
an administrator working as a secretary to the emperor Hadrian, prior to his
disemployment by Hadrian
the author of The Lives of the First Twelve Caesars (De vita Caesarum) - a history of
Roman leaders - the source for many works on Roman history
mentions a ‘Chestus’ in his Life of Claudius
The facts
1. ‘Chrestus’, as Suetonius spells it, is the Latin form of a very common Greek
name, such that some say that it doesn’t refer to Jesus Christ at all.
2. ‘Chrestus’ can mean ‘Christus’, but not necessarily so. It is also a name of the
god Serapis.
3. It is an assumption on the part of Christian apologists that it is a reference to
Jesus.
4. Even if Suetonius meant ‘Christ’, it still says nothing about an earthly Jesus.
5. Suetonius was born after the supposed Jesus. The passage provides no
evidence for the actual existence of Jesus. It is, at best, hearsay.
As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from
Rome. The Life of Claudius 25.4
Conclusion
It is by no means clear that Suetonius was making reference to Christ (‘Christus’). He
may well have been referring to a Jewish agitator in Rome by that name who had no
association with Christianity, perhaps a semi-Zealot reacting to plans by Caligula to put a
statue of Zeus in the Jewish Temple, or perhaps to some other messianic pretender in
Rome.
NOTE. There is a second passage which refers to Christians being persecuted under Nero. Once again, it
provides no evidence for the actual existence of Jesus.
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The Talmud (‫)דומלת‬
authoritative record of rabbinic discussions on Jewish law, Jewish ethics, customs,
legends and stories
fundamental source of legislation, customs, case histories and moral exhortations

5. 5
comprises two components, the Mishnah, and the Gemara, the latter a discussion of
the Mishnah (though the terms Talmud and Gemara are generally used
interchangeably)
expands on the earlier writings in the Torah in general and in the Mishnah in
particular
the basis for all later codes of Jewish law, and much of Rabbinic literature
little more than a single sentence about Jesus
tells us that Jesus was stoned to death and that his body was later hanged on a tree for
display
The facts
1. There are references in the Talmud to a ‘Yeshu’, but that was a common name
in Jewish literature.
2. It is an assumption on the part of Christian apologists that ‘Yehu’ is Jesus.
3. According to Gerald Massey, this Jesus actually depicts a disciple of Jehoshua
Ben-Perachia at least a century before the alleged Jesus of Nazareth.
4. The Palestinian Talmud was written between the 3rd and 5th centuries CE. The
Babylonian Talmud was written between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, long
after the supposed existence of Jesus.
5. The writers based their writings on a reaction to the dozens of Christian
gospels circulating by those times.
Conclusion
At best, the material in the Talmud can only serve as controversial Christian and pagan
legend. It cannot possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.
NOTE. The Toldoth Jeshu, a 4th or 5th century Hebrew work, but drawing on much older
material, which is considered quite authentic by many Biblical scholars, tells us that Jesus wasn’t
entombed at all, but was simply buried in an earthen grave, and that his body was later dug up
and dragged through the streets of Jerusalem.
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The Qur'an (al-qurʾ ān ‫)رآن‬
‘the Recitation’, often called ‘Al Qur'an Al Karim’: ‘The Noble Qur'an’, also
transliterated as The Koran - the holy book of Islam
Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the literal word of God and the culmination of
God's revelation to mankind, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (c570-632 CE)
over a period of 23 years by the Angel Jibreel (Gabriel)
The facts
1. There are references to Jesus in the Koran, but the accounts of his supposed
life and death vary greatly from the New Testament accounts.
2. The Koran states that Jesus was never crucified at all, but that someone else
took his place on the Cross.

6. 6
3. The passages, given their lateness, provide no evidence for the actual
existence of Jesus. However, they do provide an alternative and rather
confusing account concerning the circumstances of Jesus’ supposed death.
Conclusion
At best, the material in the Koran can only serve as controversial legend. It cannot
possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
There is a small amount of non-Christian material attesting only to the fact that certain
people believed that there was a man named Jesus who was killed and who was
worshipped as some sort of god---but NONE that he was alive.
In particular, there is not so much as one single demonstrably authentic and unambiguous
passage purporting to be written, as history, within the first 100 years of the so-called
Christian era, capable of being produced to show the existence at or before that time of
such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ, or of such a set of persons as could
be accounted his disciples or followers.