Hey, noble ones.
On this video I'd like to talk about the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth,
as reported by the ancient Romans, or, as his name was probably pronounced in
his language, Yeshua.
Some people try to prove he existed at all costs, accepting all evidence a priori.
Others try to prove he didn't, refuting all evidence without even looking
into the actual context.
This is a critical historical investigation, so I will try to be as
unbiased as possible, even though implicit, biased, unconscious bias is
inevitable to a certain extent.
I'll do my best to be as fair as possible in my evaluation of the ancient sources,
some of which we will read in the original Latin, and draw a picture of how solid of
a historical figure Jesus actually was when examining what the ancients said.
The video will not be about doctrine or beliefs, as I would never use my platform
as a way to push my personal beliefs onto my subscribers.
I respect you and your personal beliefs.
At the end, having examined all evidence fairly, I will draw my conclusions,
but feel free to let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments below.
So, what sources are we going to use?
On this video we'll examine mostly non-Christian evidence, with just a couple
of exceptions.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, one of the greatest Roman historians and senator of
Rome.
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, Roman historian, early imperial era.
Titus Flavius Josephus, Romano-Jewish historian, born in Jerusalem.
At the time, part of Roman Judea.
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Younger,
Roman magistrate, lawyer and author.
Emperor Trajanus, Emperor Hadrianus.
For non-Roman authors we're going to read from Lucian of Samosata, Assyrian satirist
and rhetorician.
And Mara Bar Serapion, Stoic philosopher from the Roman province of Syria.
Now we're going to jump right into the historical mentions.
And at the end of each mention I will give you a sort of validation.
So I'll tell you how much validity that mention has.
But in order to fully understand and appreciate these mentions, there are two
things that I need to talk about, and I'll do that in the second part of the
video, so make sure to watch until the end, because they're very important.
First, the actual, historically most plausible date of birth of Jesus of
Nazareth, which is now most historians agree that it's not going to be 1 AD,
it's a different date, and I'll tell you about it, I'll justify it historically.
And secondly, the most probable date of his actual crucifixion.
And these are important for the following reason.
Usually people who try to disprove the existence of historical Jesus use these
two points of argument.
The source materials that we are going to examine are not contemporary to his life.
If such an important man was to be around, Roman authorities would have definitely
said much more about him.
Both statements are actually very interesting, but ultimately hold no water.
And I'll justify this because of two reasons.
First is the actual contextualization of when Jesus existed, which is very
important.
But secondly, it's also the real, historically accurate perspective of Roman
central power.
So again, make sure to watch until the end.
First, we're going to use the surviving portions of Tacitus' two major works,
the Annales and the Historiae, where he speaks about the reigns of
several emperors, such as Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, basically after the death
of the first emperor, Augustus in 14 AD, all the way up to 70 AD, which is roughly
speaking the date of the first Jewish-Roman war, which dates from 66 to
73.
It's in his final work, Annals of Imperial Rome, Book 15, Chapter 44, that Tacitus
talks about Christ.
He talks about his execution by Pontius Pilatus, who was the fifth governor of
Judea under Emperor Tiberius, and the presence and existence of early Christians
in Rome.
In this book specifically, he is chronicling the burning of Rome,
which happened in 64 AD.
But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiation
of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the
result of a noda.
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 hand of one of our procurators.
And a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke
out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.
As a Roman historian, Tacitus had no Christian bias.
In fact, he had no sympathy for the Christians.
He speaks about their abominations, and he speaks of Christianity as the
origin of evil.
And when he uses the expression abomination, he's actually referring
specifically to the early Christians believing that they were partaking,
at least some early Christians believing that they were partaking, of the literal
body and blood of Christ every time they were taking the sacrament, which sounded
as an abomination to Roman ears.
So what Tacitus is telling us here is that Jesus was executed by the governor of
Judea, Pontius Pilate, for crimes against the state, and a religious movement of his
followers sprang up in his wake.
Remember, this is not seen by Roman authorities as a positive thing.
It's seen as a negative thing.
We could in fact refer to this as the first documented confrontation between
early Christians and Roman authorities.
Also, please notice that Tacitus never accused Nero of being the one who burnt
Rome.
Such accusation will come from Cassius Dio in the 3rd century, but what Tacitus is
saying is that Nero, in his opinion, was using Christians as scapegoats.
From this statement we learn that there were a sizable number of Christians in
Rome at the time, that it was possible to distinguish between Christians and Jews in
Rome, and that at the time pagans made a connection between Christianity in Rome
and its origins in Roman Judea.
Okay, so let's discuss the validity.
Most scholars consider Tacitus' explanation and mentions of Jesus and his
execution to be of high historical value, and it is generally considered to be an
authentic independent Roman source.
To add to that, we have to remember that when Tacitus wrote history, if he
considered the information that he was presented to be not entirely reliable,
such as hearsay or something that he hadn't witnessed himself, he would
normally add indications for the readers.
No such indication has been added to this specific mention.
As a negative point, however, I do need to mention the fact that no original
manuscript from Tacitus is preserved to this day, and the majority of what we have
are copies, or we should say later copies, some of which were made by Christian
monks.
Now, were the contents of this message changed or altered in any way by the
medieval monks that were copying this manuscript into their own abbey?
Well, of course, we can't know for sure.
Most historians agree that the message is authentic.
However, I do need to point out that a spelling correction did happen.
Some sort of alteration did occur.
In fact, at the time, two kinds of spellings and two kinds of words to speak
about Christians were used.
Christianos with an I and Christianos with an E.
The medieval version instead will always be Christianos with an I, and we notice
that there is a space in one of the two manuscripts between the I used for Cri and
the Stianos, and that is because originally probably was written with an E,
which would have filled the gap, but that was removed as a form of
correction by monks.
So, yes, some alteration happened, but most scholars believe that the message
is authentic.
Now, let's talk about the very famous Testimonium Flavium written by Josephus,
a very famous Romano-Jewish historian.
But what do we mean by Romano-Jewish?
You see, Josephus was born in Jerusalem, and he was the leader of the forces in
Galilee that fought against the Romans.
So, initially, he was an enemy to Rome.
The thing is that when he faced the legions of Vespasianus in 67, he was
defeated and captured.
Now, the only reason why Vespasianus, or Vespasian, didn't kill him is because,
supposedly, Josephus had prophesied that Vespasianus would become emperor.
And, in fact, two years later, in AD 69, Vespasianus does become the
emperor of Rome, and he likes Josephus because of this.
So, he keeps him first as a slave, then as a translator, and eventually,
when Josephus fully defected to the Roman side, he is granted Roman citizenship,
which is what we mean by saying that he was Romano-Jewish.
He even served as the translator when Titus, Vespasianus' son, led the siege of
Jerusalem in AD 70.
He wrote the Antiquities of the Jews, in which he mentions several biblical
figures, including Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, James, the brother of
Jesus, Pontius Pilate, the Sadducees, the high priests, and the Pharisees.
So, all of this can be cross-referenced with the Gospel.
At this time, there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was so good
and he was known to be virtuous.
And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples.
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 and that
he was alive.
Accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have
recounted wonders.
Now, of course, this is a very powerful testimony, but we are not 100% sure if we
can fully trust it.
Most of the testimony has very strong historical validity, but a Jewish man who
had defected into Rome calling Jesus the Messiah, and specifically speaking about
the resurrection after three days, are thought to be, maybe, Christian
alterations.
It is, however, widely accepted that this testimony originally consisted of an
authentic nucleus, with a reference to the execution of Jesus by Pilate, which was
then the subject to interpolation.
Now, this is a very big discussion, and I can't really jump into it in
details, because just from 1937 to the 1980s, 87 articles have been written about
the validity of this, and there are people taking their stance in all sorts of
positions.
People that say it's completely useless, people that say it's 100% correct,
and people that take a sort of middle ground.
I take the middle ground.
I believe that the nucleus, the core, speaking about Jesus and his execution,
are correct, but it is possible that both the resurrection and the mention of the
word Messiah were added.
It is also interesting to see that there is another writer, a Christian writer,
the very first one to speak about this testimony specifically, and it's Origen,
and hear what he says.
Origen said of Iosephus,
Because of this, I believe that it's highly likely that he didn't actually
mention Jesus Christ and the crucifixion, but he didn't mention the other two
things.
Otherwise, this Christian author wouldn't have even have any reason to complain.
Let's now read the words of Magistrate Pliny the Younger, who was the governor of
Bithynia in Asia
Minor.
Later, Pliny writes a letter to Emperor Traianus, and he specifically says that
the teachings of the Christians were, open quotes,
close quotes.
He also says that Christians attracted people of all social classes, of all
genders, and of all ages.
Now let's read the reply from Emperor Traianus.
The method you have pursued, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those
denounced to you as Christians, is extremely proper.
It is not possible to lay down any general rule which can be applied as the fixed
standard in all cases of this nature.
No search should be made for these people.
When they are denounced and found guilty, they must be punished, with the
restriction, however, that when the party denies himself to be a Christian and shall
give proof that he is not, that is, by adoring our gods, he shall be pardoned
on the ground of repentance, even though he may have formerly incurred suspicion.
Informations without the accuser's name subscribed must not be admitted in
evidence against anyone, as it is introducing a very dangerous precedent,
and by no means agreeable to the spirit of the age.
Now this is extremely significant.
First and foremost, what does the emperor mean when he says, the method you have
pursued, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those denounced to you as
Christians, is extremely proper?
Well, you have to understand one thing about both Pliny the Younger and Tacitus.
Both of them had the duty of supervising trials of Christians, which is precisely
why they documented it.
So in this letter, Emperor Trajanus is saying, yes, very good, you're doing well,
they need to be stopped.
But even more interesting is what he says about his gods, and this really gives us
the first perspective, as the first part of those two introductory lines that I
mentioned at the beginning, the perspective of the Romans.
Now this is the religious perspective of the Romans.
When people tell you, why didn't the Romans do something if there was a man
preaching in Judea, such as Jesus, why don't we have much more information
about it?
Well, the answer is, as you can read from the letter, the words of the emperor
himself, from the point of view of the Romans, religious freedom was something
that was always granted.
In other words, the Romans didn't care what god you were worshipping in your
lands, once it became a Roman province, all they wanted to make sure is that it
remained under Roman control.
But a certain degree of religious freedom was always given, so we shouldn't imagine
that to the Romans it really meant much, that a preacher was going around preaching
some doctrine that they thought was strange.
To the point of view of the Romans, you can worship whatever god you want,
we beat you in battles, our gods are more powerful than yours, and that's all that
matters.
So why does the situation change now?
Well, the reason why the situation changes now is because we're talking about
Christians in Rome.
So it is only when these followers of Christ enter Rome and Greece, so very very
close provinces to Rome, that the Roman authorities, the central power of Rome,
starts to be actually interested in Christians.
As far as Jesus was ministering in Judea, they did not care.
Even the miracles, if you think about it, even if miracles were reported to Roman
emperors or Roman authorities, they would have been shrugged off either
as superstition, as we can see in fact the word is used, but even if they were to
believe it, this is how it would go.
What people?
Who did he raise?
Oh, a friend of his by the name of Lazarus.
Is that it?
He raised a man?
Okay, good for him.
The point I'm trying to draw here is the only miracle that could have really
interested Roman authorities could have been, sir, this man made an entire legion
disappear, or sir, this man can multiply swords and armour.
In other words, from the perspective of the ancient Roman, if it doesn't directly
threaten Roman military control, it does not matter.
From a Roman point of view, Jesus' birth means absolutely nothing, because Judea
was considered to be a backwater province in the fringes of the empire.
And even his ministry, which, if we are to believe the Christian reports,
was only three years, wouldn't have mattered much to the Romans, which
explains why, if they heard of him, they would have called him either a
magician, a superstitious wise man, which is exactly what we are finding in
the letters.
It only starts mattering for the Romans once the followers grow in numbers and
enter Rome.
As far as the validity of Pliny the Younger's testimony, it's complete general
consensus that it's authentic.
Also because we have the letter of response of Emperor Trajan, which again
speaks about the same thing, so the two things can be double-checked and
cross-referenced, it's authentic.
Now let's talk about the words of Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who was the chief
secretary of Emperor Hadrianus.
He says, Because the Jews of Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation
of Crestus, Claudius expelled them from the city.
After the great fire of Rome during Nero's reign, punishments were also inflicted on
the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief.
Again, notice both the negative approach and negative point of view of these
mentions towards the Christians, but most importantly of historical
significance, the mention of the instigator meaning Crestus, which is again
a different spelling of Christus, both being a period for the time.
Now the validity of these testimonies at the moment is not questioned in the
academia, and that is because you have to remember that the Romans were particularly
meticulous when it came to both records and these oral period.
Now let's talk about non-Roman mentionings, and one of the most
interesting ones is a letter written by Mara Barcerapion of Syria.
To give you a little bit of context, at this time the writer was in prison and
he was rewriting this letter to his son.
He says,
Pythagoras.
In a moment their land was covered with sand.
What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise 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 sea.
The Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion.
But Socrates did not die for good.
He lived on in the teachings 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.
Now even though on this letter there is no mention of the word Christos, or the name
Christos, or should we say title, Messiah, it is still interesting because
it does call him the king of the Jews, which we know was not only an expression
that was not used by the Christians, but it was an expression that is linked to
what was written on top of the cross of Jesus with the letters INRI which
translate Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judae.
Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews.
But again beyond Rome we have got the satirist Lucian of Samosata.
In his writing he is actually mocking the Christians.
And here is what he says.
...start with a general conviction that they are immortal for all time,
which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so
common among them.
And then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all
brothers from the moment that they are converted and deny the gods of Greece,
and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.
All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all
worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.
Now again this is one of those non-Roman mentions that do not use the term Christ
specifically, but they do mention the crucifixion.
They call him a sage and a lawgiver.
And also further on in his writing Lucian mentions that the Christians were using
sacred writings.
But we still have more.
In the Jewish Talmud we have a mention of the crucifixion which is again a
non-Christian mention.
It reads...
On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged.
For 40 days before the execution took place a herald went forth and cried.
He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel
to apostasy.
Anyone who can say anything in his favor let him come forward and plead on his
behalf.
But since nothing was brought forward in its favor he was hanged on the eve of the
Passover.
This was written between 70 and 200 AD.
We already know that the majority of historians, scholars, and biblists all
understand and agree that 1 AD, the traditionally accepted date of birth
of Jesus, is incorrect.
And it's because of a calculation error made during the creation of the Gregorian
calendar.
That is also strengthened by the testimonies that we have on the Gospels
themselves.
Both Luke and Matthew associate Jesus's birth with the time of Herod the Great.
Now notice, the time of Herod the Great.
Not his son, Herod the Great, who was the king of the Jews.
Now Herod the Great historically, and that's a historically proven date,
dies in 4 BC.
So already we can see that the date of birth of Christ cannot be AD 1,
but it has to be sometime before 4 BC.
I know it sounds strange to say that Christ's birth was sometime before Christ
Now another important event that can help us understand when exactly that happened
is a Roman census.
Because it is mentioned again in the Gospels and in other accounts.
But what is a Roman census?
In ancient Rome, a census was the act of counting the people and evaluating their
property for taxation in a given province.
Now, Roman censuses happened all the time.
So a number of censuses were most likely performed throughout the Roman world under
Centius Saturninus.
We know that an important census happened in AD 6, but then again that one is no use
for us.
But we also know that another very important census happened exactly in that
area in 8 BC.
Now this helps us because then we understand that Jesus's birth most likely
occurred between 8 BC and 4 BC.
Given the information of the murder of the innocents that again we have at the hand
of King Herod, so obviously before he's dead, when he wanted every child born
between age 0 and age 2 to be killed, and that does happen around that time,
I believe that the most historically probable date would be 6 BC.
Now that's significant because if Jesus was born in 6 BC, then at what age was he
actually crucified?
Another event in Jesus's life that can help us pinpoint the date of the
crucifixion is something that happened before, and it's very very important,
that is the baptism of Jesus.
And at the same time of the baptism, something else happens, that is the famous
event, gospel event, whereby Jesus literally rebukes the merchants at the
temple because they were selling animals and he didn't like that.
It's a very famous gospel event.
That event happened very closely to his baptism.
The accounts tell us that that incident at the temple happened after 46 years from
the building of said temple.
Let's now cross this gospel reference and Jewish reference with, again, Josephus
Flavius, the Roman historian.
He tells us that, again, this specific temple was built in 20 BC, which means 20
BC plus 46 years, we are in 26 AD, which would be the year of the actual
baptism of Christ.
Now connecting this with the previously explained information of Christ's actual
date of birth being 6 BC, that would mean that his baptism occurred at age 32.
This already creates a completely different story because it also tells us
that most likely he didn't actually die at age 33, but he died older than that.
And it is very possible that his death or crucifixion, even though I can't really
give you a specific date, would have happened sometime before 37 AD,
which is the death of Emperor Tiberius.
This is interesting because it pushes everything a bit forward.
It tells us that he was alive longer than we thought.
It tells us that he was born before that we thought.
And it also means that if you look at these two dates now, the historian
Josephus Flavius that we are reading today was born specifically in AD 37,
which means he would have been born sort of immediately after Jesus's crucifixion.
So he would have been basically contemporary.
And Publius Cornelius Tacitus himself, who was born in 55, it would have been
very close to the very end of Jesus's life, and then the beginning of the
ministry of his followers.
All of this is interesting because it means that the majority, not all of them,
but the majority of the accounts that we have read today would have happened within
approximately 40-50 years from Jesus's death, which is extremely close,
and we could say basically contemporary from a historical standpoint.
I mean, when we talk about a lot of the information that we say about Alexander
the Great, well, some of the things are actually 400 years after.
Not everything, but some of the things are 400 years after, and they are still
considered valid.
So I would say that these events and the testimonials that we have read,
the majority are relatively contemporary.
So, with all being said, in conclusion, what is my conclusion about the historical
figure of Jesus or Yeshua?
We have enough historical information to state confidently that Jesus of Nazareth
existed and was a historically proven figure.
His appeal extended beyond the Jews and included Greeks.
Jewish leaders of the day had an unfavorable opinion of him.
He was mostly ignored by Roman authorities until his followers started preaching,
which justifies the reason why we don't have more information about him while he
was still alive.
He was then crucified when Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judea.
And that concludes our journey, historical journey, into the life of Jesus
as far as his historical figure is concerned.
If you liked this video, please thumbs up.
And if you want me to continue this and make it into a series, we could discuss,
for example, what he would have probably looked like and sort of examine early art
and modern art and see what gets closer to a more historically probable appearance
and look, and many other interesting topics.
So let me know what you think in the comments below.
Thank you so much for all of you who have watched up to this point, because,
I mean, this is a very long video.
Thank you so much.
And remember, the Metatron has spread his wings.
Goodbye.