(8) Evidence for Christianity outside of the Bible

early evidences that are found outside of scripture in various sources from the first few centuries. That's what we'll be addressing. And I want to invite Craig to join us here. And the reason that I want to invite Craig to do that is because, well, I'll let you explain. Sure.

So I'm confident that the Lord draws people to him in a way that appeals to those people, that he knows each of us individually. My background comes from a mathematical, symbolical, logic sort of place. And I was a really angry atheist for maybe 15, 20 years, something like that. And I think that the Lord used apologetics to draw me to him.

And so, I don't know, how do you want to do the interview? Well, I guess one question, we're looking particularly today at something that you have said in the past was instrumental in you coming to a place of recognizing the truth of what's in scripture. How did that come about? We're looking at evidences outside of scripture for the truth of Christian faith. Step one, God made Crystal a believer.

So now I'm married to a believer and things are getting pretty uncomfortable. It's pretty funny. Because of my logic background, she would come home and she'd hand me Romans and say, okay, can you explain what's going on here to me? Because I'm not understanding the argumentation here. And I'd read it and I'd explain it to her and I'd get so angry that she would show me this. So somewhere in there, God, I guess, put on my heart, you know, Step two, list out everything that's a barrier to you coming to know me.

So it turns out that things like creationism versus evolution didn't matter at all. But other things like, was the Bible accurately preserved? Very important. Is the Bible really the word of God? Very important. Did Christ actually die on the cross? Very important.

And so I started I had my list of five things. And so in the process of researching, God would take one of those and say, OK, you're down to four. And OK, you're down to three. Until it came to the point at which I had no choice but to say, OK, yeah, right. So Jesus was the Son of God. He died, was buried, resurrected on the third day. And I went with him. And wow.

But along the way, there were a couple that were key. Number one was, was the Bible accurately preserved? And being able to research that and find out that, yeah, in fact, you know, we've got over 5,000 early manuscripts of the New Testament, whereas, you know, the next highest one is Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, and we've got like 700 copies of that. I mean, the entire works of Plato, we've got like three copies and nobody's in the university saying, Don't know if this play-doh thing something we can buy, you know, so Just an aside, I don't know how much how much time we've got here One of the guys that I work with God stuck him on This is one of those things, you know, we're to be lights into the world.

I don't think we have a choice I think that God brings people to us and says okay now's your time to shine and And he brought this guy from my works, stuck him across from me on the train, and the guy said, you know, I just don't believe all the stuff that's going on in the Bible. It's like, really? So you don't buy history at all then? Well, no, of course I don't buy history. And so we went down this path about how many copies of the early manuscripts we've got, how much in agreement they are with one another, how many copies we've got of Plato's entire works.

And he's like, oh. He comes back to me periodically, and it's wonderful to be part of that. Anyway, the second thing, the biggest one that was convincing in terms of, had Christ died on the cross for us, there's a book out there by Habermas, how do you say it, Habermas? Gary Habermas, I've got it over there. Historical Jesus. Dry read, but it's good stuff.

He goes through and lays out, you know, going through 19 or so extra biblical accounts of what was going on at that time. And if you don't come into it with a perspective of the Bible's the absolute truth, then seeing a lot of extra biblical accounts is important. So what was not in question at all in all of these accounts was, number one, that Christ lived on this earth.

Number two, he had a lot of disciples. Number three, that they completely abandoned him, fled, and hid after his death. And then, in a month, were back on the scene preaching that he was the Son of God, and that 11 out of the 12 of them were killed in heinous fashion for teaching this. The implication being that if there was anybody who would know whether he really was the son of God, whether he was raised and walked among them, it would be these 12. And so you look at their lives and see what is it that these 12 did in their lives that suggests that they believed it. And every single one of them was willing to the point of death to say, yes, absolutely, he was the son of God and he walked on this earth.

So then you've got established, okay, fine. He's the son of God. How does he view the Bible? And you see Jesus quoting the Bible constantly and referring to it. So it's like, okay, so that must be true. Now you've got the Bible as the absolute truth, the word of God, and you back into it around God.

But that's how the Lord led me to him. The things we'll be looking at here this morning are things in terms of these additional or extra-biblical evidences. Did somebody present those to you or did you dig into it kind of on your own initiative and that's it? God presented them to me. It's what I believe. Okay. All right. Well, good. Thank you. Appreciate it.

We want to take a look here this morning. I'm going to go through things very quickly and briefly. For that reason, we may not have the time for some of the questions. If we do have time at the end, glad to take them or see me afterwards or call me or email me or whatever you like, but we kind of have to charge ahead because there's a lot of material to cover.

What we'll be doing, we'll be taking a look at the non-Christian authors who wrote about Jesus Christ. or Christianity in the first and second centuries. I say brace yourself because sometimes they wrote rather caustically. Sometimes they wrote with antagonism.

Secondly, we'll be looking at the Christian quotes of secular authors from that same period of time that are not otherwise available to us now. So secular authors, Christian quotes of secular authors, And then finally, we'll look at some extra-biblical Christian writings. So we've got all those three categories of evidence that is outside of the area that's explicitly scripture. First of all, we have to think of the nature of the news.

How many people in Rome during the life of Christ heard about Jesus? So far as we have any evidence, zip. Nothing. And the reason is in great part the nature of the news. Here's Rome and here's where Jesus is some distance away. Jesus lived a life of poverty. Now, are they most likely to write about somebody who is living a life of poverty or somebody who is wealthy? That's one point.

The next one, he stood before an obscure Roman governor, Pilate, was the governor from 26 to 36 AD. And the inscriptions that we find that have his name on them were chiseled up and reused for something else. So he wasn't terribly well thought of. He didn't climb the Roman ladder. At 36 AD, he just kind of faded from the scene. So here we have an obscure Roman governor.

Here's Jesus, poor person standing before an obscure Roman governor hundreds of miles away from Rome. It would take you a matter of some multiple of months to get between Rome and Jerusalem. Plus, Jesus was executed by means fitting only the worst of slaves and the scum of the earth criminals. So for Rome to take notice of it would be an exceptional thing. So we have to realize that starting off, this isn't the sort of thing that people would be eager to or inclined to make detailed record of and to keep it.

Here is the Pontius Pilate inscription. And by the way, this is Caesarea Philippi, scratch Philippi, okay? This is Caesarea, not Philippi. It is the place where Philip was found. But all right, 1961 by these Italian archeologists, this inscription is the only inscription confirming the name Pontius Pilate. And parts of it have been chiseled away, because again, what they did is they took the stones and reused them in this amphitheater.

Again, yours says Caesarea Philippi, scratch Philippi. It should be just straight Caesarea, okay? Caesarea Philippi is another place that's north of Galilee. All right, so here's Caesarea Philippi. That's where this inscription was found. Caesarea, rather. That's where the inscription was found. The other thing is what is likely to be preserved. Think about things. Here are events in Jerusalem and in Israel. Here are events in Jerusalem and Israel.

Think about the events that would have provided the opportunity for destruction of the evidence. So not only would you have a general disinclination of the Roman officials to record it, but you would also have a very likely destruction of the evidence. The Romans came in in 70 AD, that's that first red tick. Subsequent rebellions in 73 AD and then in the beginning part of the second century would have been additional opportunities for the Romans to come in and destroy evidence.

Then we have Islam. 632, Muhammad died. Whereas Christianity began by the gospel going out in all three directions, the different continents, Islam began by a sword going out in all three directions. And so there was massive destruction from the first assault of Islam. Then there were the Crusades, where the Roman church brought in forces and battled with the Muslims in Israel.

So additional opportunity for destruction of evidence and then Islam again taking over after the Crusades and doing things deliberately to destroy evidence and to block things. The Eastern Gate through which Jesus walked, the Muslims bricked it up because they heard that the Messiah was going to come through there. This would be the kind of intentional blocking, interference, destruction, those kinds of things that they would take action against. Even in our era, the Muslims have been taking parts of the temple mount and scraping it up without excavation and hauling it to the dump. So destruction of evidence even goes on now. First, the non-Christian sources, Emperor Hadrian and the Jewish Talmud. And this is an example from scripture, not intending that it be evidence.

So just an example. Acts 25, 19. Here is the description we get from Festus. They simply had some points of disagreement with him about their own religion and about a dead man, Jesus, whom Paul asserted to be alive. That would be typical of kind of the Roman response. You know, we're dealing with this thing. It has to do with, you know, some dead guy and, you know, and this is what the Christians say.

And that would be their sort of incidental way of assessing it. Here is the Nazareth inscription. Emperor Tiberius or Claudius issued an edict. It was called the Nazareth inscription because interestingly enough, it was found in Nazareth. It may result, we don't know for certain, from events surrounding Jesus' resurrection. Basically, it's a prohibition, as you see, capital punishment, for stealing bodies. Now, why would you make that such a serious offense? And, interestingly, it was found in Nazareth. So, is it an absolute proof?

No. Does it likely give reference to? Possibly, but we just kind of put it in the stack of evidence, not as something you're going to hang your hat on, not something you're going to found anything upon, but the implication there is that it was of concern. Here is Suetonius.

Here is an official who is writing under Hadrian, who was in the first half of the second century, and he refers back to this event in about 49 or 50 AD, possibly reflecting what we saw in Acts 18.2, because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbance at the instigation of, and here we have some postulate a misspelling, instead of Christ, Crestus.

He, that is Emperor Claudium, expelled them from the city. This would fit with Acts 18 too, where it also says that the Jews were expelled from Rome. The thought here is, did this Roman author misunderstand who this was? And in fact, was he speaking of Christ and that there was a disturbance involving the Jews because of Christ by this time?

Again, it's not a definite connection, could be. Punishment by Nero, and this is one that is more definite. Punishment by Nero is inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. Now, is this guy favorable towards Christianity? No. He's definitely not. But he records the first of the ten Roman waves of persecution. This is the one under Nero. Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, kind of turned into the favorite of the Romans. Yeah, Marilyn.

Oh, these are, here's like 25-2, 26-2. These are chapter and paragraph references. And that's the way that a lot of the ancient authors will be referenced. We might have chapter and verse. whereas they would do something like chapter 26, second paragraph, and it would be referenced as like 26.2, okay?

So here's Josephus, and he makes several references to people well-known in the New Testament, the Herods, lots of information about the Herods, the Roman emperors, Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius, and the procurators of Judea, the high priestly families, Annas, Caiaphas, of course he's the one who was involved in condemning Jesus as head of the Sanhedrin, Ananias, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. So he gives us lots of information on those. Also he makes a mention of the Essenes as well. So here's Josephus, writes quite a bit.

He writes this, at this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus and his conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciple. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die, and those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, that he was alive. Accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders."

And you may, if you do some reading on this, because I actually do a fair amount of reading on like atheist websites and skeptic websites and that kind of thing, you know, I like to keep up on what they're saying, and they'll have quite a bit of squawk. There are other versions of this that are more favorable to Christianity but appear to have been doctored. This is a reliable quote and it appears fairly objective.

Yeah, Tom? Yeah, but this was before the Arabs, you know, went to Islam. And that definitely changed their perspective of things. Yeah, they would. I mean, this is one of the things they'd argue over. I've seen the there are Muslim websites where they'll argue over stuff like this back and forth. I mean, they get pretty intense about it. But yeah, written in Arabic.

He also wrote here, Ananus, one of the high priests, assembled the Sanhedrin of the judges and brought before them the brother of Jesus. This is James, right? The so-called Christ whose name was James and some others. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of law, he delivered them to be stoned. So here's reference in Josephus' writings about the death of James, Jesus' brother. Here's another one. Plinius Segundus, writing to Emperor Trajan about his achievements as governor of Bithynia, wrote how he had killed multitudes of Christian men, women, and children.

All who denied that they were or had been Christians, I consider, should be discharged because they called upon the gods at my dictation and did reference with incense and wine, your, that is the emperor's, image. They curse Christ, which a genuine Christian cannot be induced to do. So here it shows the faithfulness of the Christians at the cost of their life. To the point, here's an unbeliever saying that a genuine Christian won't deny the faith. So even he's got the point by then. So here is one who is opposed to the Christian faith. This is 112 AD. Think about this. He's writing 112 AD.

Are any of the apostles still around? None of the apostles still around. Are people around who knew some of the apostles? Yes. So basically we're talking the generation right after the apostles and this is how he describes them and how the description of their treatment is spelled out. This is the beginning of the third wave of Roman persecution at this time. A letter to the same governor.

These Christians were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light. And of course he doesn't say there, which day would that be? They would meet on what we call Sunday morning, okay? Before it was light, when they sang an alternate verse of a hymn to Christ as to a God.

And notice that he doesn't even use what we would say God with a capital G, but as to a God. and bound themselves to a solemn oath not to do any wicked deeds and never to deny a truth when they should be called upon to deliver it up." Is God's word true? Yeah. You're going to die for that, you sure? Yeah. See? That's how they stood. Here's Tacitus.

He was a senator under Emperor Vespasian. Later he held the office of consul and proconsul, and this was about the same period of time as the prior quote that I gave you. He was a friend of Plinius Secundus, the governor that we wrote about. By the way, it's Bithynia, that's the region where Peter wrote 1 Peter. So that name specifically is mentioned. So the letter of 1 Peter went into this same region several decades earlier.

Writing of Nero's attempt to relieve himself of the guilt of burning Rome, Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures. Nice, huh? The persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities, Christus, and this is one reason why in the way they wrote that Christus would seem to be a distortion of the name Christ. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius. but the pernicious superstition repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also." Now, what does a quote like this tell you? What do you find out about Christian faith from reading this quote? First of all, does it seem fairly reliable? Does it seem like somebody who was in favor of Christianity was writing this? Not at all, not in the least. He wasn't speaking as one of them at all.

And yet, what does it tell you? He was put to death under Pontius Pilate. Tells you that piece of information that's out of the New Testament. Tells you it started in Judea. Well, that makes sense, right? That's what the scripture spells out. That's what we see in the Book of Acts. So it is in general support of the basic historical outline, even though it's antagonistic, it's in support of the outline you'll see in scripture.

Here's another one writing after the year 70. Here is a letter that is in the British Museum. Mara Bar-Serapion, and Bar would mean like son of, okay, so son of Serapion, Syrian Stoic philosopher. So is this guy Christian? No, but what's interesting is although it's written during what I would call the latter part of the New Testament era, because a lot of the New Testament have already been authored by this, nonetheless, here's what he writes, what advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished, which took place about sometime After 70 AD, that's how we know, because that's when the Romans came in and did in the nation of Israel.

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. Would you say this fellow is in favor of or against Christian faith? Pardon? Somewhat neutral. He wouldn't be extremely antagonistic, neither would he be saying, you know, I'm a Christian and I stand by that, because he makes a comparison with other philosophical leaders.

But still it makes reference as if this is an historical person. It also makes note of the fact that he died. Why is king? Why would the title king matter? What was on the sign over the cross? King of the Jews would be on the sign over the cross. And when Pilate stood before Jesus, Pilate said, are you the king of the Jews?

And Jesus' response, it's as you say. Now, here's the Jewish Talmud. On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged. Yeshu would be the Jewish pronunciation, Yeshu or Yeshua. For 40 days the execution took place. The herald went forth and cried, He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. So that's a little distorted, isn't it? Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf. But since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of the Passover. The word for hang here is used for both crucifixion and other means of capital punishment. It's kind of a more broad term. It wasn't specifically the word Staros used for crucifixion.

Now, is this a real clear passage? What do you think? It's not terribly clear, is it? It's also, however, it's an antagonist. So what you don't see is a denial of the reality of the events, what you see is some distortion and antagonistic statements regarding what took place. Okay, here's another one.

Lucian of Samosata, he wrote in the second century about 170, so this would be about a century after the New Testament era, the era when they were writing the New Testament. the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world. Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed one for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified Sophist himself and living under his laws. What do you think about that? Is he antagonistic or in favor? He seems more antagonistic. So we have the words of an antagonist. What does he say happened that squares up with the biblical record? Pardon? He's crucified in Palestine.

The denying the Greek gods was a major point because in the Greek and Roman Empire, It was kind of eclectic, you could mix and match whatever gods you want, nobody was particularly bothered, but denying the Greek gods and saying, no, none of those, that was not a popular option. Be eclectic, mix and match whatever you want, but saying no, exclusively that one, and that one only, that was not popular.

Getting more and more like our own time, isn't it? Anyway, this is the background of the account. Here is the site, Samasata, modern Samsat, where Lucian lived now in southeast Turkey. Also from the same work. Now this doesn't specifically address Jesus, but does address what's called the historiography. This is a term that we presented some weeks back.

The approach to history. Does his approach to history sound like it's calling for reliable reporting and recording of history? What do you think? Cheryl's nodding her head. Yeah, what this does is this says, tell the truth. Say it like it is. And so there was, that reflects his recording, And it also tells you that there was a mindset present in that era about recording things as true. I think there's other support for that, but this is a good one.

Now, the Christian authors. Let me check my time here. The Christian authors quoting non-Christians. Here's Julius Africanus, who was a Christian chronographer. Christian chronographers, and we have them today, are people who specialize in how do I put dates and chronology to various events.

When you have mixtures of evidence, evidence, you know, one person will say it was in this king's reign in his second year on the first day of the third month and things like that. Somebody else will mention an eclipse. Another person will mention a famine. Things like that allow chronographers, to establish dates and chronologies.

And so anyway, he's writing that. There's the origin of Alexandria, who was a Christian. I would have to say that his interpretation of scripture was getting pretty distorted, but nonetheless, he quoted an antagonist of Christianity. And then Eusebius quoting Hadrian's letter. Let's take a look at those.

He wrote about Thallus. Thallus is a fellow that we know about, but we don't have any of his writings. Thallus in the third book of his histories explains away the darkness that is at the time of the crucifixion as an eclipse of the sun, unreasonably as it seems to me. Why would he say it's unreasonable? He did the research.

He said, I go through the, you know, when would there be an eclipse of the sun? Doesn't match up. Okay. because he's a chronographer, he would go through and say, here is when you can have an eclipse, and here are the dates when you'd have an eclipse of the sun, and that doesn't explain Jesus' crucifixion, doesn't explain the darkness that day. Sorry, think of something else, because that isn't going to fly.

That's what he's saying. Thallus was a Samaritan-born historian. Africana said that Thallus' proposition was unreasonable, of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and that's how you establish Passover. So it can't happen at once. So that's not a good explanation. So Julius Africanus was pretty sharp. He had it figured out.

Here's Celsius writing about 175 quoted by Origen. Now, as Origen wrote, because Celsius wrote at length criticizing Christianity, As Origen wrote, because we don't have Celsius writings, he quoted about two-thirds, roughly, of Celsius writings here. And depending on how you want to count it, sometimes there's words, phrases, 60 to 90% as quoted point by point with Origen coming back and refuting those.

He accuses him of having invented his birth from a virgin and upbraids him for being born in a certain Jewish village of a poor woman of the country who gained her subsistence by spinning and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery. That after being driven away by her husband and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaiming himself a God. Alright, now so this is Celsus' critique of Christianity. What do you think of it? First we can ask the question, is Celsus in favor of or opposed? Is he an antagonist or a proponent? Okay, he's definitely antagonistic.

That would be one thing. What about the idea of him having of Jesus having learned magic down in Egypt? Let's say even that there was magic down there. What would be the idea that Jesus learned some magic down there in Egypt? What would you say about that? Tom? When did Joseph and Mary and Jesus go back up to Nazareth? Well, think about this. You mentioned 12. What do we know happened at 12? He was at the temple, so we know that.

Also, when did Joseph and Mary know that they were safe to go back up into Palestine? Herod died. Herod died in March of 4 BC. Jesus would have been quite young. debatable whether he was speaking yet, okay, from the normal progress of things. So for him to have picked up magic down in Egypt just does not fit the historical chronology. He would not have been old enough. There is no evidence that he was down there during a time when he was old. But what's one other thing?

Joseph and Mary were Jews, right? And were they Jews that were caring about their Jewish background or not? where they were caring about their Jewish background. So when they go down to Egypt, are they going to spend time with Egyptians or with other Jews down there? They're going to spend time with other Jews. We know that there were other colonies of Jews and a fairly major one in Alexandria.

Others as well, but that would be the largest one. So the likelihood is that Joseph and Mary came back when Jesus was quite young, that they spent their time with Greek-speaking Jews. possibly, and I would even say probably, in Alexandria, because that would be a concentration of them, and that they would come back having known that Herod had died sometime after March of 4 BC. Jesus would in no way be old enough, nor had any exposure, even if he were, to the magic of the Egyptians, which would be completely pagan, and the Jews who cared about anything of their background wouldn't want that.

Yes? Yeah, if you clock through the whole thing, there are some things that we take not on the basis of, you know, we have a specific record, but looking at it, we have certain facts, like the time that Herod died, we have facts about Here they were indeed a large colony of Jews in Alexandria.

But also the custom in terms of how old you call somebody in the Oriental manner of saying things, when a child is born, they call him one year old. When a child becomes what we would call one year old, then they call him two. And so that's why Herod sent down to have the infants killed, right? And so their calculating of time would be according to that oriental measure. Yeah, the likelihood is that Jesus might have been something like two when he came back, and that's probably on the high side.

So, yes? Yes. In other words, if you have to look at that. Yes. And by the way, that's also true of the Babylonian reckoning of Kings. So when you look in the Old Testament, some of the people on the infidel sites, the atheists, you know, because I've had conversations with them, they'll say, well, this is the wrong because of so-and-so and so-and-so. I said, did you keep in mind that the Babylonians measure the start of a reign of a king differently, just like they also measured the life of a child differently. It's one year off because of the way that they count. The first year, which we would say, well, that's their first year, they'd say, well, it's already their second, say. Okay. Let's see, another question. Yes. He what? Ah, okay. Yeah, there could be some confusion there.

And even if that were the case, and you could be right that he's got some things mixed up, even if that were the case, what would we say would be a criticism of the idea that he mixed up Jesus and Joseph? Is there evidence that Joseph would have gone for this magic? Not likely.

What we see is that Joseph seems to take care for his Jewish background. He takes care for, you know, what does the scripture teach. And so his idea of getting mixed up in magic, it was something that Jews, by the way, in the Gentile lands did get involved in. But the ones in Israel were particularly noted for not tying into that so much. Tom? Right. Yeah. When we mentioned prior times, because the Jews had two different court systems, Joseph chose the court system that did not require you to say why you're getting a divorce, the one under Hillel. So then that way he could put her away quietly because there was no questions asked as to why she was pregnant.

What you might miss is the fact that at no point is he disputing that Jesus had miraculous power and that he, in fact, you can probably infer from the very last clause that he wouldn't even dispute that Jesus was working miracles. He chooses instead to discredit them, but this is an accurate report. It's interesting, you know, Craig brings up an important point and that is what do they dispute and what do they assume is true?

And it's interesting there is in our time a fellow by the name of Wells who's very outspoken in the idea Jesus never existed. As a matter of fact, I think it's jesusneverexisted.com or something like that that's actually got a website. It's just there isn't any such thing. And what's interesting is when you look at all these evidences, including some that are antagonistic, They don't say Jesus never existed.

Could they have said so? Certainly they could have. They could have said, hey, there never was such a guy. That's not what they do. And so Craig's point is well taken. They will object on various points, but to say that Jesus never existed is not one of them.

They just don't come up with that. of all the external evidences, the Muslim, because of the Muslim, the length of time of the Muslim efforts to destroy Christianity and the Jews is the most persistent and the greatest threat that still exists. But it's interesting the length of time that it's been that way.

If you look at it, a great many people have attempted to destroy the evidence. A great many people, I mean, here the Romans themselves made it capital punishment. You know, you don't declare your scriptures and we come to your house to get them, you're going to die when we find them. And when they got the scriptures, they wiped them out. And so with all the multiple efforts to wipe it out, yet we still have this evidence, it is astounding. Let's see, we're kind of running out of time here.

Here is Eusebius quoted from a letter from Emperor Hadrian, then to Minucius Fundanus, then proconsul of Asia. I do not wish, therefore, that the matter should be passed by without examination so that these men may neither be harassed nor opportunity of malicious proceedings be offered to informers. If, therefore, the provincials can clearly evince their charges against the Christians, so as to answer before the tribunal, let them pursue this course only, but not by mere petitions and mere outcries against the Christians. For it is far more proper, if anyone would bring an accusation, that he should examine it."

In other words, look at this thing with some attempt to be objective. Now, this doesn't give us a lot of detail about Christ, other than to say early on, here are some Christians who are being persecuted. So that's the general nature of it. Now, because of time, I'm going to skip over this part. You're certainly free to review these things you have on your handout here.

These are writings of early church fathers. And here's one we mentioned previously. This is the Gospel of Thomas, which is not a gospel and it wasn't written by Thomas, but anyway. There is clear evidence of at least some who were direct disciples of the Apostle John, and we have their testimony, which we have varying degrees of evidence that they were disciples of John. And so this paper, and I think I did it in one page on your handout, references what those are. The most direct evidence is that John discipled Polycarp and that Polycarp discipled Irenaeus.

Those are the most direct pieces of evidence that we have. There's also a good connection there with Ignatius. So anyway, that you've got to page and can pursue. Let me skip because of time. Okay. Okay, one of the things we've also set aside archaeological findings. We haven't really made much reference to that. The closest we've come is the pilot inscription. But there are numerous findings that simply confirm the reliability of the details of the New Testament.

Jesus was asked about the divorce issue that disappeared after 70 AD. Remember we said that the Jews had two court systems? When Rome came in in 70 AD and wiped out Jerusalem and told the Jews, you know, hey, you're done here, the two court system stopped. So that Jesus was asked about that indicates this has an earlier origin when there was still the two court system.

So that was one point. Another is, recorded in Matthew 18, 21 and 22 is based on a practice that this is the ossuary bones that only existed from about 10 to 60 AD. Here's Caiaphas ossuary that we mentioned previously. So here you have archeological findings that confirm in general the people that we see in the events and practices that we see in the New Testament. Here is a early first century census document. in the time period that we see Luke making reference to the census, and it's from Philadelphia, which is one of the seven cities of Revelation.

So this would be an example. This fellow, Edwin Yamauchi, is a fellow who was raised Buddhist, and after looking at the evidence, and he has a doctorate in history, after looking at the evidence, became a believer. converted from Buddhism, I would bring out here a couple of things. He's written a number of books and you're welcome to, I brought him just to take a look at him. He's very well regarded.

But anyway, he said this, even if we do not have the New Testament or Christian writings, so take the New Testament out of the picture or any Christian writings, we would be able to conclude from such non-Christian writings as Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger, that's the Plinius Segundus that we quoted earlier, that one, Jesus was a Jewish teacher.

Two, many people believe that he performed healings and exorcisms, including some of the opponents. Three, he was rejected by the Jewish leaders. Four, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. And five, Despite the shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by 64 AD, enough that Nero himself would persecute them. And six, all kinds of people from the cities and countryside, men and women, slave and free, worshipped him as God by the beginning of the second century. That's what we would be able to confirm if we had no New Testament to refer to. That's a lot. especially when we consider the nature of the evidence.

That is, much of it has been destroyed. Two, that this was an obscure part of the Roman Empire off on the far eastern edge about a person named Jesus Christ of a social and economic standing that the Romans cared nothing about. Amazing stuff, isn't it? Amazing stuff. So if somebody asks you, you know, how well grounded and founded are these documents? Aside from the vast number of documents that we have in the New Testament, if we were to put that vast number aside, we would still be able to substantiate a substantial number of details and the general outline of what we see described in the New Testament. Amazing stuff. Okay. Questions? Further questions? Exasperations, consternations, puzzlement. Isn't that interesting?

What he did was confirm that at one point in time that Jesus was in Egypt. He didn't say Jesus was never in Egypt, right? What appears to have been distorted is the time that he would have spent there and the age that he would have been there. It doesn't square up with the other pieces of information that we have about Jesus. Good. Art? Well, praise the Lord. You know, if the Lord hadn't brought this stuff out, I wouldn't have a darn thing to talk about. Yeah, think about this.

What did the Old Testament say to do with people that lied? Yeah, I mean, this was serious stuff. So you're talking about a culture where lying was not the thing to do. How many of the disciples were Jews? From Israel. All of them. So the cultural background says, no, this doesn't fly. There is a huge obstacle culturally. The one that Craig brought out earlier goes right along with that, not only is there a huge cultural obstacle to not telling the truth, there is also the fact that you've got guys who were radically reversed.

The crucifixion, they're running. How do I get away from here? Mark records very subtly, and I would say the evidence points to him, he was probably the guy in the Garden of Gethsemane who ran away naked and they grabbed his sheet. The rest of the disciples running away.

The closest we have any evidence that any of them were there was John, when Jesus says to John, you know, go behold your mother, okay? About his own mother, so that she was cared for. But, the evidence points to James, Jesus' brother, remember the one that Josephus says was killed? James, from the evidence we have in the Gospels, did not believe until after the resurrection. And then, he paid his life for it. You have these guys with, they did not at Jesus' crucifixion understand or believe what was going on.

They, in a matter of weeks, are completely turned around to the point where every one of them put their life on the line. They have this huge obstacle against telling what is not true, and that is they are in Judea, raised in the Jewish culture in Judea, where telling a lie It has a huge penalty. There are massive obstacles to not telling the truth, both in terms of human motivation, you're going to die, and in terms of their cultural background, you tell the truth no matter what. That not just one or two of them would say that, but that they all would say it uniformly, that goes against the grain of anything we know about their cultural background or human motivation. Yes.

Thomas went to India from the record that we have, and I don't recall the exact form in which he died, but he did die there. I spoke to a fellow who was a pastor over in India, and he says the Christians in India will tell you that Thomas is the one that brought them the gospel. But I don't recall the exact form in which he died, other than that he did die.

Here's the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew, according to extra-biblical tradition, was staked to the ground with wooden stakes. And while they were staking him to the ground, driving stakes through his flesh, he screamed the gospel out as he was dying. So there's one where we have an account of the actual death and what he said. His statements were not, you know, I don't believe this stuff, don't do this to me, will you let me go if I deny this? It was screaming the gospel out while they were driving the stake through his flesh, staking him to the ground. So, to the dying breath, this is true, I'm telling you the truth, and willing to pay the ultimate price for saying this is exactly what we saw. is the only apostle we know of that died a natural death.

Extra-biblical account, so it doesn't have the reliability of scripture, keep that in mind, was that he was sentenced to death by boiling in oil under Domitian, but that Domitian, though he gave the order to boil in oil, they dropped him in the boiling oil and he didn't die. That's the way the account goes. And that as a consequence, they said, well, that didn't work, let's put him on Patmos. So anyway, for what it's worth. Other thoughts? Let's pray.

Lord, thank you. As we look at these things here, we find abundant support, certainly with different degrees of reliability, and that's to be taken as it is. But nonetheless, abundant support for the basic truth of what you have revealed to us in fine detail in your word. And we thank you for that. We thank you that in spite of the many attempts to eradicate both of these evidences and your word, you have preserved it by your sovereign grace. And we thank you for that. Thank you for your great love for us. In Jesus' name, Amen.