WHY IS JESUS NOT MENTIONED IN ANY BOOK OF HISTORY EXCEPT IN THE BIBLE -

Why is Jesus not mentioned in any book of history but only in religious literature, such as the Bible?

Opinion – You mean contemporary historical accounts of Jesus while he was alive. Basically, you want to know why didn’t people write about him and his ministry at the time. The answer is that Jesus wasn’t that big of a deal during his life. He really wasn’t. During that period there were any number of self proclaimed Messiahs who were there to lead the Jewish people. There were any number of Jewish sects that preached different interpretations of the Torah. It looks like no small amount of Jesus’ message may have come from Essene communities. His teachings were also informed by Rabbi Hillel (died ~10CE). Jesus had a small number of dedicated followers and, if it weren’t for Paul, it likely would have simply died on the vine. Paul is the one that said Jesus’ message wasn’t just for the Jews but for Gentiles as well. That’s when people started taking notice of Jesus’ ministry and works. That’s when people started writing about it. That’s where the documentary evidence comes from.

Now, could Paul have been making all of this up? Maybe, but keep in mind when Paul was engaged in his work Jesus’ contemporaries and some of the Apostles were still alive. Which means that if Paul was making this up out of whole cloth there is a good chance that would have caused an issue that we’d have some evidence for. We don’t have that so we can say that it’s most likely that Jesus, the person, actually existed. He just wasn’t important enough during his life for people to write about.

Of course, there is the idea that he was crucified by the Romans and the Romans kept meticulous records of everything. So why don’t we have anything from the Romans about his crucifixion? There were likely some records from that time but the records would have gone from Pontius Pilate to emperor’s secretaries. Considering the amount of time between the crucifixion and Christianity being accepted within the Empire (a couple hundred years at a minimum depending on how you define accepted) it wouldn’t be surprising if this record was lost, deteriorated, or was destroyed. Why wouldn’t the Romans have held on to it? Because crucifying troublemakers in the provinces wasn’t a big deal. It happened all of the time and, generally speaking, we *don’t* have official contemporary written records of them.

All of which means that it’s really not surprising that we don’t have any written documentary evidence of Jesus during his lifetime. In fact, it would be much more surprising if we did.

Edit: A lot of people seem to be missing a few important points. First, I am not denying that a historical Jesus existed. Personally, I believe that he did. Second, I am only talking about evidence that was written during the lifetime of Jesus. Which means that Tacitus and Josephus don’t count. Third, saying that Jesus wasn’t a huge deal during his life is not denigrating Jesus. It’s just a statement of fact. He had a small number of followers and his movement didn’t really attract a lot of new adherents until after his death. Lastly, none of this has any bearing on faith or the teachings of Jesus.

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