Does Jesus Exist in Reality
OBJECTIVE
The objective for this unit is to help the students understand how to answer the question "Does Jesus exist in reality?" using a historical approach with non-Christian resources as a step towards applying Orthodox Christian apologetics.
INTRODUCTION - The Concept of History
Historians generally includes at least two major factors:
- Actual events in particular
- The recording of these events.
In other words:
- The historical event itself is objective --- (did it occur or not).
- But the recording and interpreting of the event introduces various subjective factors.
CATEGORIES OF HISTORICAL SOURCES
Primary Sources
Literary: written text (this is the main focus of the lesson)
- Creeds & Facts
- Historians: Tacitus -- Josephus - Thallus
- Government officials communications (Pliny -- Trajan)
- Gentile Resources: Lucian -- Mara Bar-Serapion
- Gnostic sources (we shall not cover it here just to make the topic concise)
Non-literary
- Archaeological sources: (we shall just mention them briefly here)
- Luke's census: The census that St. Luke mentioned in his gospel, is it truly found in history.
- Yohanan Crucifixion: the corpse of a Jewish crucified person where his wounds show evidence to the use of "nailing" the crucified person to the cross.
- Shroud of Turin: A cloth that carries evidence of the crucifixion and all the surrounding torture (such as flogging ), and the crown of thorns, and the side-stabbing of the person, which are all accounts that are mentioned in the 4 Gospels. History does not show a person that had been subjected to Scourging, Crucifixion using nails not ropes, having on his head Crown of Thorns, and being stabbed after death except the "man of the Gospel". These are all found due to scientific studies of the highest degree on the Shroud (the Cloth) in 1978 in Turin by a group of American Scientists in different fields of Science.
Secondary Sources
Witnesses to Primary Sources
EXAMPLES OF PRIMARY SOURCES
Creeds and Faith handed to St. Paul
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, Paul states:
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
- Paul's words "delivered" and "received" are technical terms for passing on tradition. As such, we have Paul's statement that this material was not his own, but received from another source.
- Also Read 1 Corinthians 11:23-27 -- About Receiving the Communion from Christ.
ACTIVITY & DISCUSSION
Another example of primary sources includes Ancient Non-Christian Sources (not from the Christian faith or the Bible).
These writings include facts that refer to the presence of Jesus as a person and the time in which He lived. These support the fact that Jesus existed as a man, and had followers with certain beliefs.
As a class, go through the attached documents to identify the points they mention that refer to the existence of Jesus Christ. The documents provide guidance on how to analyze these types of writings.
- Ancient Historians
- Tacitus
- Josephus
- Government Officials
- Pliny the Younger
- Emperor Trajan
- Jewish Sources
- The Talmud
- Gentile Resources
- Lucian