Evidence of Christ External of the Bible
There is considerable evidence external of the Bible confirming that a Jew called Christ lived in territory, Palestine and occupied by Rome, during the reign of Augustus Caesar and Tiberius Caesar. These external writings collaborate the Bible, even though some intended to refute some argument espoused at the time.
Thallus
Thallus, a Samaritan-born historian who lived and worked in Rome about A.D. 52, quoted by Julius Africanus, a Christian chronographer of the late second century,
"Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun.
"1 Africanus stated his objection to the report arguing that an eclipse of the sun cannot occur
during the full moon, as was the case when Jesus died at Passover time. The force of the reference
to Thallus is that the circumstances of Jesus' death were known and discussed in the Imperial City
as early as the middle of the first century. The fact of Jesus' crucifixion must have been fairly well
known by that time, to the extent that unbelievers like Thallus thought it necessary to explain the
matter of the darkness as a natural phenomenon. ... Ironically, Thallus' efforts have been turned into
the mainstream of historical proof for Jesus and for the reliability of Mark's account of the darkness
at his death.2
Mara Bar-Serapion
F. F. Bruce, Rylands professor at Manchester University, tells of a manuscript in the British Museum preserving the text of a letter sent to his son by a Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion. In prison at the time of the writing, the father pleads with his son to be, wise. He illustrated the folly of persecuting wise men like Socrates, Pythagoras, and the wise king of the Jews, which the context obviously shows to be Jesus.
What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came
upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning
Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from
executing their king? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these
three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the seas; the Jews,
ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he
lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera.
Nor did the wise King die for good; he lived on in the teaching which He had given.3
Cornelius Tacitus
A Roman historian living from about AD 50 past AD 100 wrote regarding Nero's fire. 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
Christians by the populace. Christus, 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 Pilatus.4
Plinius Secundus
A Roman governor AD 112 wrote Emperor Trajan about Christians "They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed
day before it was light, when they sang an anthem to Christ as God, and bound themselves by a solemn oath not to
commit any wicked deed... after which it was their custom to separate, and then meet again to partake of food, but food
of an ordinary kind."5
Suetonius
An annalist and court official of the Imperial House during reign of Hadrian wrote about AD 120 in the Life of Claudius.
"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome."6
Edward C. Wharton then states "The reason for the fame of this quotation is due to the fact that Luke, some sixty years earlier, had recorded this same incident as the reason for the apostle Paul yoking up with a Christian Jewish couple named Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:1-2). Again, the mention of Christ in the historical context is observed in extra-biblical literature."7
Flavius Josephus
Josephus a Jewish historian has a very interesting observation about Jesus.
"And there arose about this time Jesus, a wise man, if indeed we should call him a man; for he was
a doer of marvelous deeds, a teacher of men who receive the truth with pleasure. He won over many
Jews and also many Greeks. This man was the Messiah. And when Pilate had condemned him to the
cross at the instigation of our own leaders, those who had loved him from the first did not cease. For
he appeared to them on the third day alive again, as the prophets had predicted and said many other
wonderful things about him. And even now the race of Christians, so named after him, has not yet
died out.8
The following quote from F. F. Bruce summarizes this very clearly.
"Whatever else may be thought of the evidence from early Jewish and Gentile writers...it does at
least establish, for those who refuse the witness of Christian writings, the historical character of
Jesus himself. Some writers may toy with the fancy of a 'Christ-myth,' but they do not do so on
the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian
as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the 'Christ-myth' theories.9
1. F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents, Eerdmens, p. 113.
2. Edward C. Wharton, Christianity: A Clear Case of History Howard p. 7.
3. British Museum Syriac Mss., F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outstde the New Testament, p. 31.
4. The Annals and the Histories, 15:44. From Britannica Great Books, Vol. 15, p. 168.
5. Epistles, 10:96.
6. Life of Claudius, 25:4.
7. Edward C. Wharton, Christianity: A Clear Case of History, Howard p. 11.
8. Antiquities, 18,3.3.
9. F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents. P. 119.
All the above were cited by Edward C. Wharton in his book Christianity: A Clear Case of History