Is there proof that Jesus existed, outside of the New Testament? There is real proof for the accuracy and reliability of the New Testament as history, including the biographies of Jesus Christ. This is actually part 2 of a critical examination of the New Testament documents, as referenced by non-Christian writers and archaeology.

Did you know that just 20 years ago, some people didn’t think that even Jesus existed?
But today we have proof from even non-Christian writers during the time of Jesus, including many references by Jewish rabbis who didn’t like Jesus:
 
Cornelius Tacitus
Lucian of Samosata
Flavius Josephus
Tranquillus Suetonius
Plinius Secundus, Pliny the Younger
Tertullian
Thallus
Phlegon
Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion
 
I know. It makes Bart Ehrman and others look like idiots.
          Hey, but I’m not the one who said Jesus didn’t exist.
 
But let me point something out. The New Testament said that there was a sudden darkness during the crucifixion of Jesus, around 3 pm. Now, Thallus, writing in 52 AD – doesn’t believe in God – he says there’s a logical explanation to the darkness – he says there was a solar eclipse.
Another ancient writer, Phlegon, says, “yeah, there must’ve been a solar eclipse at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion”
And there are other ancient writers saying, “No, you can’t have a solar eclipse when there’s a full moon”
 
          Now, I don’t care who’s right. That’s not my point.
But during this 1st century debate, no one is saying “Jesus never existed” or that the darkness never happened during the crucifixion, just as the New Testament says.
 
Another example is Josephus. – the Jewish historian
-he was more focused on the Jewish relations with the Romans,
but he mentions John the Baptist
and adds some detail that the Bible doesn’t mention
          But everything he says about John the Baptist agrees with the New Testament.
 
And when Josephus is writing about Ananias, the high priest, he quickly mentions that he was there to judge James to be stoned, and calls him “the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ”
 
and later, in Antiquities Book 18, Josephus writes that Jesus was a “wise man” – yeah, obviously he doesn’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God. But as a historian he writes about Jesus, the so-called Christ, being judged by Pilate and sent to be crucified.
 
In 112 AD, Governor, Pliny the Younger, is having second thoughts about killing and persecuting Christians, because they were so moral.
          and what he writes about them agrees with the New Testament
He writes that:
-lots of Christians were killed, but if they were  Roman citizens, they were sent to Rome to have a trial.
-Christians believed Jesus to be a god
-some women in the church had positions of leadership, unlike Rome.
-Christianity was bad business for temples and Roman religion.
 
yeah, I admit, this isn’t strong proof for the existence of Jesus, but it shows the New Testament is once again, historically accurate.
 
Another proof comes from Tacitus, a proconsul and persecutor of Christians. He said that Christianity was a disease, started by Christus, who was sentenced to death under Pontius Pilate.
 
Seutonius, another hater of Christianity, also mentions Christ. A few people made it a big deal because he misspelled it as “Chrestus”
But if you read it in context, they “expelled the Jews” because of Chrestus.
If you know history, the emperor deported these Jewish Christians from Rome in 49 AD.
This event is what Seutonius is talking about!
 
Another hater of Jesus, Lucian of Samosata, wrote that these awful Christians worship their “original lawgiver” calling him a “crucified sage”
 
Yes, all these haters confirm the existence of Jesus,
 
but the ones who hated him the most were the 1st century Jewish rabbi’s.
          - calling Jesus a bastard, illegitimate, deceiver, son of leopard
          I’m not gonna list them all here.
 
But let me note that a few rabbis say that Jesus was hanged.
          That’s not a contradiction to the Bible.
          because different from being stoned – the normal mode – Jesus was hanged on a cross.
          The rabbis accuse him of sorcery. But Jesus did not do sorcery. He did miracles.
 
But isn’t ironic that / thousands of years later,
it’s all these haters that prove the existence of Jesus,
while people ignore what the lovers of Jesus wrote about him?
 
And skeptics also used to say that Nazareth didn’t exist in the 1st century.
          I understand why.
The Old Testament lists the towns of Zebulun, and Nazareth isn’t on the list.
The historian Josephus lists 45 towns in Galilee, and Nazareth isn’t on the list.
The Jewish Talmud lists 63 towns, Nazareth isn’t on the list!
 
and then in 1962, they found the Nazareth Inscription which proves its existence in the 1st century.
Nazareth was so small, less than a hundred people, it just wasn’t listed before.
 
Yeah, today, no one doubts that Jesus grew up Nazareth,
          But I’m just saying – Luke was right. even before archaeology proved him right.
 
Recently, archaeologists discovered that Pontius Pilate judged Jesus
They found the ossuary of “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”
They found the pool of Bethesda and the pool of Siloam.
Recently, they even found the bones of Caiaphas the high priest who judged Jesus.
 
Archaeology shows us things the Bible doesn’t talk about.
Jesus didn’t invent parables.
Other Jewish rabbis used them in the 1st century.
There were no 3 wise men on camels – they were royalty on horses - the church got it wrong!
 
Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a poor and tiny town
The disciple Peter’s house in Capernaum was big, says archaeology, not humble and modest, like tradition says.
 
But archaeology shows that the New Testament is historically reliable.
-a historical document that archaeologists use to look for more discoveries.
-Archaeology is not going to prove every detail and every date
 
But it’s proved a lot.
          so yes, you can see Luke’s writings as a historical document.
                   But it’s not just the past.
                   It talks about the future – your future.
                             and you wanna know what it says?
                                      You should go read it for yourself.

​For further reading, just check out or click below.

I read this book after making this video, and it's worth checking out - ​

​Is there any proof Jesus existed outside the Bible?
Is the New Testament historically accurate?
 
This is important, because the Bible is not just a religious book, it is one of the primary historical sources for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We’re not talking about theology and religious teachings found in the letters of Paul. I’m not talking about what Jesus actually taught. I’m talking about what he actually did.  How do we know Jesus really did these things? especially the historical details regarding the resurrection, Can we trust what the New Testament says?
 
Since the manuscript discoveries of 2010 and 2016, we know the New Testament was written between AD 50 and 75. Yes, there’s ongoing debate that puts the hypothetical “Q” source material as written in AD 40, but I don’t believe in Q – there’s no evidence. It's all theoretical, due to the similarities of the Synoptic Gospels (but there's no physical evidence or reference of such a thing).
 
So that’s at least 20 years after Jesus left the earth! A lot of stories and details can change in 20 years! But lucky for us, Jesus was born into a culture with a very strong oral tradition. – the Jewish people, even today. For us today, reading and writing are so natural, readily available. But it wasn’t like that / for any culture in the first century. Yes, reading and writing existed, but it wasn’t practical for the general public, before the printing press was invented.
 
But Jewish historians will tell you – that the 1st century oral tradition, especially in Judaism, was pretty much word-for-word. From an early age, young Jewish boys were trained to memorize large sections of the Torah. They claim this has been going on since the time of Moses!

Right here, I include an interview with a Jewish rabbi. You can watch the video for the edited down version. 
 
The Mishna – the most essential part of the Jewish religion - was finally written down only after centuries of oral tradition.  The Mishna itself warns that written documents could be falsified and thus forever preserve error.
 
          The holy text was transmitted word-of-mouth – word-for-word.

The Talmud, in the Jewish religion says, that one should memorize word-for-word even when you don’t understand what you’re saying. This is the culture and context of when the gospels was written. Just like any pupil following a rabbi in Jewish culture, teachings would be memorized word-for-word. This is how they practiced religion.
 
And if these disciples believed their own rabbi was the Messiah, you don’t think they would memorize even harder and pay attention more?
 
Plus, the gospels is historically and geographically accurate. The way it describes certain cities in the 1st century are proven recently by archaeology. I could give some examples, but I see this as a weak argument, since even today, we have movies with fictional stories taking place in real places like New York or Los Angeles. Like, the disciples could’ve made up stories that supposedly happened in real places.
 
But there’s the proof of fulfilled prophecy:
 
Jesus said that Jerusalem would be destroyed, and it actually happened 40 years later in 70 AD.
          Now, you might say, “That’s just a lucky guess” since Jerusalem was destroyed many times.
 
But Jesus also spoke judgment against 3 other ancient cities.
          and they were all destroyed in 400 AD, never to be rebuilt again.
“Coincidence” you might say, since ancient cities got destroyed all the time too.
          Yes, but ancient cities got rebuilt all the time.
 
Of the 4 ancient cities surrounding the Sea of Galillee, Jesus spoke against 3 of them, and they were destroyed, never to be rebuilt. but the 4th one, that Jesus didn’t speak against, Tiberias, is still standing today.
 
Now, that’s not powerful proof, but it’s still something to consider.
 
Now the best proof, for the historicity of the New Testament comes from modern archaeology.
Archaeology cannot show that the Bible is from God,
          but it does show that Luke was a very accurate historian.
 
For example, skeptics said Luke was wrong – there was no Roman census around the time of the birth of Jesus, - Quirinius was not governor, and that everyone had to return home.
 
But archaeology proved Luke right on all 3 counts.
 
Skeptics also said Luke was inaccurate when he said Iconium was not in Lycaonia, since the Roman writer Cicero said it was.
Who’s right? Well, Luke must be wrong since the New Testament isn’t historical?
 
Several archaeological discoveries showed that Luke was right.
 
Luke’s historical accuracy regarding:
Lysanias the Tetrach of Abilene (Luke 3:1)
Erastus, the city treasurer (Rom 16:23)
The civic assembly, Ecclesia, of Ephesus (Acts 19:23)
Philippi as a district of Macedonia (Acts 16:12)
Rulers in Philippi were called praetors
Rulers in Thessalonica were called politarchs (Acts 17:6)
Gallio was Proconsul (Acts 18:12)
Publius, the “first man” of Malta (Acts 28:7)
 
People said Luke was wrong, or that there was no proof.
Inscriptions and writings have been discovered which validate Luke as a legit historian.
 
So, what else did Luke write about?

For further reading, just check out or click below.

Hillsong LA – 4 stars, 46 reviews
Tapestry LA Church – 5 stars, 33 reviews
Grace Community Church – 4.5 stars, 56 reviews
Mosaic – 3.5 stars, 112 reviews
 
Did you ever meet the family of your friend or coworker? Did you check the Yelp review of that family? How many stars? Unless you’re in an episode of Black Mirror, it doesn’t exist. Not only would that be rude, it would nonetheless be meaningless and useless information. Yes, there are “good” and “bad” families, but it would be hard to judge on a few encounters, and what would the criteria be? What about for churches?
 
Gospel Life Mission Church – no review
 
and yes, Yelp reviews exist for many churches. They consist of personal experiences of regular people (not ecclesiological experts) recounting their first or tenth encounter. One Yelper was put off by the hipster pastor preaching while wearing a baseball cap (Hillsong LA). Another called the church (Grace Community) a group of Pharisees. Another Yelper loved the facilities but thought the preaching was novice and the people weren’t holy. lol
 
Youngnak – 4 stars, 17 reviews
 
Just like food Yelpers, these comments are not from professional critics or “experts” in their field. I would love to hear an in-depth church review from John Piper or a seminary professor, just like I would love to find just ONE COMMENT on Yelp from Gorden Ramsay. There are actually organizations that exist that help churches by evaluating everything from welcoming to preaching to membership class. I’ve seen it to be a long process, initiated by the church, and no, they don’t post on Yelp.
 
Oriental Mission church – 5 stars, 5 reviews
 
So what does a food Yelper know about food? Probably a lot. Probably very little. and bad service sometimes brings down an awesome chef in the kitchen. But that’s not my point.
 
Saddleback – 4.5 stars, 128 reviews
 
Most of us have never Yelp reviewed a church.Yet, the same thought process exists for a majority of people. How do you evaluate a church? How good is the praise? 5 stars? How good is the preaching? Did you feel welcomed? (75% of reviews addressed these top 3 questions.) How is the accountability or discipleship? How’s the childcare? (for parents) How’s the pre-service coffee? (for hipsters) How’s the facility? (for pagans) Do you feel like you belong?
 
Redeemer Pres – 5 stars, 1 review
 
And if something’s not perfect, or more commonly, doesn’t “meet your needs,” do you look for a different church? The problem with the Yelp mentality in looking for a church is that it’s unbiblical. True, the first century church didn’t have the options that we have today, that we’re willing to pass 50 other good churches on the way to our own. But from the earliest church community of the Old Testament, church was never about getting my needs met.
 
It was about following God and joining His community – being an active part of His body. It was about worship, not getting something out of it. Yes, faithful preaching of the Word is important. Discipleship is important. And I’m not about to enter into a theological treatise on the purpose of church. But starting with a Yelp mentality is the wrong place to start.
 
Just like none of us are in a perfect family, none of us will find a perfect church (not on earth, anyway). Just like any family, any church will have its share of problems. But do you leave the family because of its imperfections, or judge one because they don’t make you feel welcomed or because they’re not into the same music you like?
 
Find a God-honoring, Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching legit church, and stick with it. and even if you need help, don’t start with Yelp.