Depending on your understanding of the Bible, you may or may not believe that Jesus did everything that New Testament writers attribute to him. Or, like many progressive Christians, you may think that some of the stories about him and his life are metaphors, intended to teach readers how to live as a Christian. But those more historically inclined may wonder: Did Jesus exist at all? After all, the Bible is primarily a religious text, designed to bring would-be believers to the faith. Historians don’t universally agree on all the details about him, but most agree that he existed.
Here are three things that we do know.
1. Roman authorities most likely crucified him.
Both Biblical and non-Biblical sources mention the event, and most scholars agree it happened. Roman senator Cornelius Tacitus, whose writings many scholars consider reputable, provides an extra-Biblical account of the execution of a man called “Christus” by Pontius Pilate: “[N]either human effort nor the emperor’s generosity nor the placating of the gods ended the scandalous belief that the fire had been ordered [by Nero]. Therefore, to put down the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the most unusual ways those hated for their shameful acts … whom the crowd called “Chrestians.” The founder of this name, Christ [Christus in Latin], had been executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate … Suppressed for a time, the deadly superstition erupted again not only in Judea, the origin of this evil, but also in the city [Rome], where all things horrible and shameful from everywhere come together and become popular.”
First-century Jewish writer Flavius Josephus also describes Jesus’ crucifixion at the hands of Pilate in a passage that many scholars consider to be at least somewhat true. But the authenticity of the text is also contested — some suspect that later Christians altered it.
2. Crucifixion is a plausible cause of death.
The Roman Empire, like prior empires, used crucifixion as a method of capital punishment around the time that Jesus is said to have lived and died. It was usually used to send a message to witnesses, to dissuade them from committing crimes. We have at least one archeological example of crucifixion and another possible one.
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3. Most historians believe that John the Baptist baptized him.
In Mark Allan Powell’s book “Jesus as a Figure in History,” Powell discusses the importance of embarrassment or awkwardness as a criterion for historians in determining whether or not a piece of information is true. “The point, quite simply, is that Christians would not have made up stories that caused problems for the church,” he writes. Jesus’ baptism by John could have been embarrassing, Powell says. That’s because the latter baptized people as repentance for their sins, and Jesus was supposed to be without sin. By being baptized, Jesus “seems to have implied he wanted to become the latter’s disciple.” Powell also uses the criterion of dissimilarity to argue for the authenticity of other details about Jesus, including that he called God “Abba” (an informal term for father) and that he ate with social outcasts like tax collectors, stating that such words and actions did not appear to be used or practiced by Jews in Palestine at the time and nor were they part of the early Christian church or liturgies. But he also says that this criterion is controversial, and that not every historian agrees.
Emma Prestwich is Broadview’s digital editor.
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