Why do historians overwhelmingly agree that Jesus was historically a real person?

All the below is written by Talon Dearg

First, we need to address one key issue that most people don't understand, so people on both sides of this argument like to take certain things out of context. It needs to be known that we have practically no primary sources for many secondary (non-monarchs or major political figures) characters in antiquity.

This is what the historical Jesus was (a secondary character in his day). If we simply say "we have no archeological evidence, so he doesn't exist" then we need to say that Aristotle and Socrates did not exist because, like Jesus' story, we are left with written accounts that have been repeatedly copied through various generations.

Now when it comes to the historical Jesus (and what we know of him), it's simple in a few ways. The first, is that although the gospels and other New Testament books were all written decades after Jesus died (however Paul started writing between 45-49 CE), they are independently attested. Yes, from a historical perspective the miracles and resurrection are considered embellishments to help encourage early people convert to this new Jewish sect.

What does this mean?

Now although much of this information cannot be relied upon for historical purposes, some of it can pass the test of historical plausibility.

What do I mean by that? Well, every historian, when examining evidence, has a set of criteria they must use when comparing written accounts of any event.

Part of doing this, is taking these four accounts, and cross examining with each other and seeing if any of the minor details (things that lack religious implications that would be less likely for people to make up) correspond to most or all of the documents.

What you'll find is that many of these minor details correspond consistently in ways that you wouldn't expect-- this is something you almost never see with mythical figures.

You'll also see that the early Gospel writers likely had to create explanations for certain things about Jesus because his name was likely somewhat known around the time of his death. I'll give a brief example:

Two of the gospels deal with the birth of Jesus. Without going into too much detail, it's easy to make the argument that both Matthew and Luke did not get their information for this narrative from the same source.

They are constantly at odds with each other over many specific areas of this story (example: in Matthew, Mary and Joseph already lived in Bethlehem and then had to move to Egypt and then, years later, move to Nazareth. In Luke, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth, traveled to Bethlehem for a theoretical tax registration, waited there for 32 days after Jesus was born, and then returned immediately to Nazareth).

Most historians believe it is likely that both of them made up nearly all (if not all) of the parts to their stories because they were trying to fulfill the prophecies from the Old Testament. See, in the book of Micah, it was predicted that a savior would be born in the city of David (Bethlehem), so these writers wanted to make sure that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy.

But wait, they had a real issue to deal with. It was probably well-known that Jesus was from some small town called Nazareth, thus he didn't fulfill that part of the prophecy. So, to deal with this, early gospel writers created these narratives to explain how this person from Nazareth could have still been from the city of David.

If Jesus was a mythological figure that sprung up out of thin air, there would be no reason to say he was from Nazareth, they would have said he was from Bethlehem and just left it at that. This is what we typically see for made up figures. Keep in mind that this is one of dozens of examples where the writers did this to meet personal agendas of their time.

What historians also find is that it is nearly impossible for a sect or cult to immediately spring up without a founding figure. After Jesus' death, the remaining followers were probably a group of people of about 20-30 people, and it expanded rather quickly -- probably hitting the hundreds within the decade after his death and by 50 CE, they had spread throughout the Roman Empire.

Most scholars believe that the book of Mark, written between 65-70 CE, was actually written in the city of Rome for a local church there.

This type of growth and expansion is, by historical standards, incredibly fast. The rapid rate of growth suggests, for historians, that a real figure of Jesus existed, had a few followers who immediately disbanded after his death. Yet, for those whom remained, they started preaching about his life and resurrection, which was likely very enticing for their day. From:

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Non-Christian references

Pliny the Younger, writing in 112 AD, letter 10, discusses the issue of Christians gathering together, illegally. He knows a few facts about early Christian practice, and so by the early second century we know that Christians exist and believe in a Christ figure.

Suetonius,115 AD, in his Lives of the Caesars, discussing Claudius (41-54), mentions the deportations of Jews after riots “on the instigation fo Chrestus”. There is a possibility that he means a Jew named Chrestus, a not uncommon name, but more likely this is a common misspelling for Christus. At best, Suetonius supports that Christians were living in Rome in the 50s AD.

Tacitus, in his Annales (15.44) written in 115, covers history from 14-68AD. He treats the fire in Rome under Nero in 64CE, and discusses Nero’s blaming of the Christians. He mentions “The author of this name, Christ, was put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate, while Tiberius was emperor; but the dangerous superstition, htough suppressed for the moment, broke out again not only in Judea, the origin of this evil, but ieven in the city”

So Tacitus claims that there were Christians in Rome in the 60s, that the sect originates in Judea, that they are named for a figure/founder ‘Christ’, and that Pontius Pilate executed him.
There are claims by mythicists that this passage in Tacitus is an interpolation, but there is no evidence for this and almost no serious classicist supports it.

Tacitus’ information is clearly second-hand, and he is incorrect in that Pilate was prefect, not procurator. At the same time, in those circumstances prefect and procurator were virtually equivalent.

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Jewish sources

Josephus is a Jewish aristocrat and military leader. Lost in battle during the 66 uprising and ultimately surrendered to the Romans. He was later used as an interpreter during the siege of Jerusalem, then taken to Rome and where he became a writer of history.

He makes 2 references to Jesus. 1 in Antiquities book 20, referring to the death of James, the brother of Jesus (Antiquities 20.9.1). The other passage is known as the Testimonium Flavianum, in Antiquities 18.3.3. This passage refers to Jesus as a miracle worker, a leader of Jews and Greeks, the Messiah, condemned by Pilate to the Cross, appearing alive on the third day, and his followers continue until the present.

The major problem with this passage is that Josephus is a Jew, and shows no evidence of being a Christian, and so this depiction is inconsistent with Jospehus.

There are three possibilities – that the text is entirely made-up (the Mythicist position), that the text is entirely genuine (the hyper-conservative Christian position), that the text is original but altered (the position taken by most scholars). For my part, a less sensational version of the text with obviously Christian elements removed is more likely to be original.

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Christian sources

We still need to treat these as historical documents. They are not more or less reliable because they are Christian.

So we have Mark, written around 70AD, then we have Matthew and Luke, based in large degree upon Mark, written probably in the 80-85 period. And yet Matthew and Luke share common material not found in Mark, which is typically referred to as Q (from quelle, German for ‘source’), besides material distinct to Matthew (M) and Luke (L), so you have in fact 4 likely documentary sources. Plus you have John written in the 90s AD, an independent source from the other canonical gospels.

There are also non-canonical gospels written after John, some of which show independence from the canonical gospels. For example Thomas, dated to 110-120AD. Thomas is primarily a collection of sayings, it is not a narrative text. Similarly the fragmentary Gospel of Peter. Bart Ehrman also likes to highlight Papyrus Egerton 2 as a non-parallel independent account.

Similarly the fragmentary Gospel of Peter. There are two documents by this title, the extant one is not of much help in historical Jesus studies; it is usually dated to late 2nd century, which is too late to be of much usage. However, there is another “Gospel of Peter” which Origen refers to, existing only in two papyrus fragments (P.Oxy 4009 and 2949; both of these may not actually come from the supposed ‘Gospel’). This lost gospel would be earlier, and like the next text, possible attest to Jesus.

Bart Ehrman also likes to highlight Papyrus Egerton 2 as a non-parallel independent account. The Egerton Papyrus is generally dated to ca. 200 (though Stanley Porter supports an earlier, ca.150 date). It contains four short fragments, one of which has no parallel in the canonical Gospels]

There are many other gospels but most are significantly later, and show development of miraculous and legendary accounts, often disconnected to the earlier documents.

So, on scholar Bart Ehrman’s count, you have at least 7, maybe 8 early independent accounts about Jesus of Nazareth.

Furthermore, while no doubt that there is oral tradition behind these texts, there are almost certainly written sources. For example the Q material in Matthew and Luke is frequently identical, enough that you would suspect it was a written document, not merely oral material. Matthew and Luke almost certainly used other documentary sources, whether one or several, we simply don’t know.

Then you should factor in how you account for other early Christian literature, including the other NT documents, and documents written shortly after, for example Papias, quoted later in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, claims to have directly inquired about the apostles’ teaching, and so is about a 3rd generation source.

So, to conclude, there is a considerable amount of documentary evidence to support the supposition that Jesus existed as a historical human being. This write-up is drawn from my notes on introduction to historical Jesus studies. I’m happy to go on to discuss individual issues, primary documents, or provide a further bibliography for secondary reading.

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Short Bibliography

• Borg, Marcus, "Jesus A New Vision. Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship"
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• Ehrman, Bart "Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth"
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• Ehrman “The New Testament: A istorical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings”
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• Crossan, John Dominic, “The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Meditarranean Jewish Peasant”

• Fredriksen, Paula “From Jesus to Christ: The Origings of the New Testament Images of Jesus”

• Meier, John, “A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus”

• Sanders, E.P, “The Historical Figure of Jesus”

• Thiessen & Merz “Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods”.

• Vermès, Géza, “Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospel”

• Marshall, I.H. “I believe in the Historical Jesus”