Did Jesus Exist?

The Claim That Jesus Never Existed

Hi, my name is Ryan Turner with the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. The title of this video is, Did Jesus Ever Exist? There are many radical skeptics today who claim that Jesus did not exist, or they seriously doubt his existence.

However, there are a number of critical problems with doubting Jesus' existence due to the early and abundance evidence that we have of Jesus' life and deeds. In fact, there is almost unanimous consent among skeptical critical historians today that Jesus did, in fact, exist.

So what kind of evidence is there? Well, we have a lot of textual evidence actually for Jesus' existence. First of all, there's over 42 sources within 150 years after Jesus' death which mentions his existence and actually record many events of his life.

So you can divide these 42 sources up into a couple different categories. First we have the nine traditional authors of the New Testament. These include Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, the author of Hebrews, which we don't know who that is, James, Peter, and Jude.

We also have 20 early Christian writers outside the New Testament. And these include Clement of Rome, the author of 2nd Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, the martyrdom of Polycarp, whoever wrote that, the Didache, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, Fragments of Papias, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Quadratus, Aristo of Pella, Melito of Sardis, Diognetus, the Gospel of Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Apostola Apostolorum.

So those are 20 extra sources, there are 20 early Christian writers outside the New Testament. So we have nine traditional New Testament authors, then we have 20 early Christian writers outside the New Testament.

So we've got 29 so far. Then we have four heretical writings, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, the Apocryphon of John, and the Treatise on Resurrection, and those works are Gnostic works. So that will bring our total up to 33 sources for the life of Jesus.

Comparing Jesus with Tiberius Caesar

Now the most important sources, perhaps, at least to many skeptics of Jesus' existence, are the nine secular sources that we have of Jesus' life, and that will bring our total up to 42. Now these nine secular sources include Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, Tacitus, who was a Roman historian, Pliny the Younger, who was like a Roman politician, Phlegon, who was a freed slave who wrote histories, and we have Lucian, who was a Greek satirist, we also have Celsus, who was a Roman philosopher, Marabar Serapion, who was a prisoner awaiting execution, he writes a letter, we have Suetonius and Thallus.

So those are nine secular sources total which mention Jesus' life, or mention aspects of who he was. So it's interesting to compare this evidence to what we have of Tiberius Caesar, who was actually the emperor during Jesus' earthly ministry.

So basically Tiberius Caesar, who was the Roman emperor who reigned during Jesus' ministry, has ten authors who mention his existence within 150 years after his life. These include, for Tiberius Caesar, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Seneca, Patroclus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Valerius Maximum, and Luke.

So if you remove Luke, since he's basically a New Testament writer, there are actually nine secular non-Christian sources for Tiberius Caesar's existence. And again, this is textual evidence. This means that there are just as many non-Christian sources for Jesus' life as there are for Tiberius Caesar's.

Why the Surviving Evidence Is Still Strong Enough

That's pretty phenomenal. And to compare the total number of sources between Jesus and Tiberius Caesar, the ratio would be like 4 .2 to 1, or 42 sources for Jesus, and 10 for Tiberius Caesar. So therefore there are over four times as many sources, textual sources, for Jesus' life and existence than there are for Tiberius Caesar.

So if one is going to doubt the existence of Jesus, shouldn't one doubt the existence of Tiberius Caesar? Now many of our skeptical friends will claim, well, why isn't there more evidence for Jesus' existence?

Well, there are a number of responses to this claim. The fact is that few records survive for thousands of years. Most of our sources, in fact, that we discover are found in Egypt or dry places where text can survive for long periods of time.

There are also a number of ancient writings that have been lost, including like 50 to the Roman historian Tacitus' works. All of the writings of Thallus and Asclepiades of Mendes, or Mendes, for example, these are ancient writers.

We don't have any of their writings. In fact, Herod, the great secretary named Nicholas of Damascus, wrote a universal history of Roman history, which comprised nearly 144 books. And none of them have survived.

And so I think that we can say that there's definitely reason for there not being even more textual evidence for Jesus' existence. So I think based on this evidence, we can conclude with reasonable high probability that Jesus did in fact exist.