Then we have Tranquillus
Gaius Suetonius ( 69 - 140 AD), a Roman historian and the personal
secretary of emperor Hadrian. Suetonius also mentions the name Chrestus
as the subject of the Christians worship.
"Since the Jews constantly made disturbances
at the instigation of Chrestus (Claudius) expelled them from Rome".
("Judaeos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes (Claudius) Roma expulit".)
This is also mere hearsay, and not any kind of suitable evidence for the existence
of a historical Jesus.
So is also the information
by Pliny the Younger, Roman governor in Asia Minor around AD 110. In
a letter to emperor Trajan,
he asks what to do with the Christians who "sing
responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god".
Not exactly an eyewitness report of Jesus, and surely not hard evidence of
anything else that Christians also sang hymns around 110 AD.
Josephus Flavius
(born AD 37 or 38), a Jewish historian, does not mention any Jesus in his
Jewish Antiquities, the history of the Jews from the beginning of time until
the time of emperor Nero (published ca AD 93). Josephus mentions, among others,
Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist and king Herod, and numerous events of minor
and major political, religious and economical interests in the area. But he
does not seem to know of any Jesus.
Then, in the third century, an earlier unknown addition to the Jewish Antiquities
miraculously emerged, the so called "Testimonium Flavianum".
Here Josephus suddenly witness Christ, and becomes a Christian. The problem
is that this text is a forgery! Even parts of the Catholic Church acknowledges
this. The forgery was probably written by the infamous bishop (and famous
Church historian) Eusebius of Caesarea (ca AD 265-330). He forged a lot of
texts in his time.
What
about Christ's contemporaries?
None of the literate contemporaries of Jesus know anything of him. The Jewish
historian Justus of Tiberia who lived at the time of Jesus, do not
know of him. (Tiberia was a place not far from Capernaum which Jesus often
visited, according to the Bible).
The Jewish scholar and leader of the Jewish society in Alexandria, Philon
of Alexandria (around AD 30 - 45) does not mention any Jesus anywhere
in his texts. Philon was a famous scholar of the Old Testament and had deep
knowledge of the Jewish cults of his time. He died ca. AD 50.
There is thus no real historical evidence of a historical Jesus. One would suppose that, a character like Jesus who according to the gospels raised the dead, healed the sick and annoyed both the Jewish establishment and the mighty Romans to such a degree that they finally had to execute him, one should think such a character would make it into at least some contemporary historical texts. Nope. No record.
In view of the evidence the only honest conclusion is that the Gospel's Jesus never existed.
That there
once lived a wannabe-Messiah named Joshua (greek: Jesus) in the first
century Palestine is more than probable. Roman sources tell of dozens of more
or less religiously confused wannabe-Messiahs at the time, and Joshua was
a very common Jewish name. But this could not be the Gospel's Jesus, not the
Son of God, raising the dead, healing the sick, annoying the establishment,
executed as a criminal, and then finally flapping away to heaven. All that
stuff is pure mythical, and blatantly stolen from older pagan cults by the
anonymous Gospel-authors. (Read
more here).
