Extra Biblical Evidence supporting the life. death, and Resurrection of Jesus.
Josephus 1 century Jewish historian and servant of Titus and
his father Vespasian, wrote the following while discussing the period in which
the Jews of Judaea were governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one
ought to call him a man. For he was one
who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the
truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah.
And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had
condemned him to a cross, those who had
first come to love him did not cease.
He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the
prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about
him. And the tribe of the Christians, so
called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
- Jewish
Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63
Cornelius Tactitus
{54 AD -117AD] Annals 15.44 [Some words adjusted to modern English for
clarity].
But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor,
and the propitiation of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the
conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the
report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a
class hated for their abominations, called Chrestians by the populace. Christ,
from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the
reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a
most destructive superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not
only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in the capital, where all
things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and
become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded
guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not
so much of the crime of setting fire to the city, as of hatred against mankind.
Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of
beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were
doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when
daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was
exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress
of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved
extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it
was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that
they were being destroyed.
Pliny the Younger was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of
Ancient Rome 61-113 AD
In a letter he wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan around 112
AD.
“They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their
fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before
dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god,”
