External Quotes #4

How can you trust that the Bible is the inspired word of God concerning Jesus Christ?  The New Testament is a collection of books and letters from people who all profess the same faith concerning who Jesus was.

The good news for us is that the accounts of the New Testament authors are verified by external sources from non-believers. 

An event that is recorded in Luke is that as Jesus hung on the cross dying, darkness covered the earth!  If this is true, then there must be others besides Luke who recorded this in history... and there are!

Thallus, a first-century historian, recorded this event and gave an explanation for the unexpected darkness.  His explanation is no longer preserved in copies of his own writings, but his writings are preserved through the citations of others.  Julius Africanus, around 221 AD wrote the following statement citing Thallus:

Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains this darkness as an eclipse of the sun - unreasonably as it seems to me (unreasonably, of course, because a solar eclipse could not have taken place at the time of the full moon, and it was the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died). 

Julius Africanus also cites another non-believer, Phlegon, who records the exact same time of darkness mentioned in the Bible, however, he doesn't mention Jesus' crucifixion, and Phlegon also tries to dismiss the darkness by claiming it to be a full eclipse of the sun.  Julius quotes Phlegon as such:

Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth - manifestly that one of which we speak.

This darkness was even recorded as far away as China!!!

Recorded in the Record of Latter Han Dynasty, referring to the same eclipse, we have the following:

Summer, fourth month, on the day of Ren Wu, the imperial edict reads, "Yin and Yang have mistakenly switched, and the sun and moon were eclipsed.  The sins of all the people are now on one man.  The emperor proclaims pardon to all under heaven.

 From other quotes from this imperial record, we learn that the emperor was convicted of his sin, took responsibility for it proclaiming himself to be sinful [unheard of for a Chinese emperor to do this], and then even knew that the sins of the world had been laid on one man.  From the same record the following commentary is given, "Eclipse on the day of Gui Hai, Man from heaven died."

Clearly, an eclipse occurred on the same day that Jesus died.  The Bible's account has been verified from external sources.

Information for this blog was found in the following two books:

External Quotes #3

Kenneth Samples in his book Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions
lists ten historical sources outside of the Bible that portray Jesus and his life in accounts that synch up with the Gospel accounts.  Here is the list from Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions
:

Tacitus (ca. AD 55-120): Roman historian, Annals
Suetonius (ca. AD 120): Roman historian, Life of Claudius
Josephus (ca. AD 37-97): Jewish historian, Antiquities
Pliny the Younger (ca. AD 112): Roman governor, Epistles X
Jewish Talmud (commentary on Jewish law, completed AD 500)
Toledoth Jesu (reflects early Jewish thought, completed fifth century AD)
Lucian (second century AD): Greek satirist
Thallus (ca. AD 52): Samaritan-born historian, Histories
Mara Bar-Serapion (ca. AD 73): Letter
Phlegon (ca. AD 80): historian, chronicles (mentioned by Origen)

Every author and his piece of work which collaborates the apostles’ accounts would be considered external evidence.  This is good to mention with anyone questioning the Bible’s trustworthiness.  The truth of history concerning Jesus is not just pinned on the Gospels, but there is external support outside of the Bible that verifies the Gospel accounts. 

External Quotes #2

Some books when answering the question, "Did Jesus really exists?" answer the question by referencing sources outside of the Bible, which were written at the same time as Jesus.  Sometimes, these books will just name non-Christian authors without giving the quotes.

In the new Concordia Publishing House book Life's Big Questions, God's Big Answers, the author, Brad Alles, provides the quotes and citations to various non-Christian sources. He includes quotes from the Jewish Talmud, Josephus, Julius Africanus citing Thallus, a first-century historian, Tacitus, Lucian, and Pliny the Younger. Alles then compares each quoted reference to Jesus with the accounts of Jesus from the Bible to show how the external evidence matches the historical account found in the Bible.

The quote that Alles gives from the Talmud concerning Yeshu Hannotzri, or "Jesus the Nazarene", says:

He shall be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and lured Israel into apostasy.  Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.  Anyone who knows where he is, let him declare it to the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. (1)

This quote shows that Jesus' Jewish opponents recognized that Jesus had supernatural abilities.  They of course claimed that these abilities were the result of sorcery, not his divinity.  Compare this quote from the Talmud to Matthew 12:22-24.

(1)   The Mishnah tractate, Sanhedrin 43a.

External Quotes #1

I was asked last week, "Ok, so what if a person looks at the manuscript evidence of the Bible and agrees that what was originally written by the authors of the Gospels was successfully copied and passed on to us to today, why can they trust it to be historically accurate and true, and not just successfully copied?  After all, it's just one source about Jesus, right?"

This is an excellent question.  Just because a book has been handed down through time accurately from how it was originally written, this doesn't make the preserved writing true!  It could be fiction!

A way for us to have certainty that the Bible's claims about Jesus are true is to have sources outside of Christianity from the same time period which confirm the Biblical accounts.  Often times, names of certain external writers are thrown around, but sometimes the exact quotes from these authors are not listed or referenced.  I'll try to help by finding, listing, citing, and, or quoting such authors and what they said which confirms, not denies, the Biblical accounts concerning Jesus.

First, I'll start with Josephus, who was a Jewish historian.  From Antiquities Book 18 Chapter 3, Josephus writes concerning Jesus:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

 Josephus

Note: Josephus was not a Christian, but he wrote this concerning Jesus, and Josephus was a historian!  What he wrote is an excellent summary of Christ's life which fits with the Biblical account of Christ's life found from outside the Bible from a non-Christian historian.  Antiquities from which this quote is taken was completed by before the end of the first century!

For more quotes from Josephus: http://www.josephus.org/quotes.htm