in terms of evidence?
Many people like to claim that there is more evidence for the alleged Jesus of Nazareth than Caesar. If we compare the two we shall see just how paltry the evidence we have for Jesus is. Unlike the mythical Jesus Christ, we know what Caesar looked like and we have a complete history of his life. In turn, general, orator, historian, statesman and lawgiver. We have words written by Caesar himself and words written by both his friends and his enemies. Artifacts confirm his life and death, as do his successors. Caesar established a style of government – and a calendar – which endured for centuries. Let's remind ourselves: Jesus Christ The Legend did some pretty remarkable things. His 'ministry' was a pretty public affair. Many of his tricks were of no particular value (cursing a fig tree?); some would have had disastrous consequences for innocent third parties (remember that herd of 2000 suicidal pigs into which he cast demons? Surely that ruined somebody else's living?). But certainly, by such 'miracles' he convinced his disciples and the multitude that he was the Messiah, right? Turning a jug of water into wine may have been trivial but resurrecting oneself from death was no mean trick. But if we are to 'believe' that these stories relate real events what is to be our criteria for acceptance? On what basis should we accept any of this as 'fact' rather than fancy?
Caesar was an eyewitness to many of the events he describes in his commentaries. He wrote not for posterity but to have an immediate impact on the power players in Rome as he schemed to advance his own career. The elapsed time between the wars and Caesar's own writing was a matter of months or at most a few years. In contrast, the elapsed time between the gospel reports and the supposed events that they describe is at least 40 years for 'Mark' and 60-70 years for the other three Gospels. And just who was witness to that fabulous nativity, 30-odd years before the grand finale? At the most generous understanding, 'Luke' and 'Matthew' were recording hearsay testimony a century after angels, shepherds and wise men went calling. The unembellished truth is that the gospel accounts were written by eyewitnesses to nothing but their own skills of fabrication. For good reason, based on spatial and temporal proximity alone, historians give more credence to Caesar's commentaries than to the gospels, no matter how prolifically they were copied.
Contemporary Witness of CaesarCicero: Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was almost an exact contemporary of Julius Caesar. In Caesar's struggle with Pompey, Cicero, governor of Cilicia, sided with Pompey but was subsequently pardoned by Caesar.In March of 44 BC Cicero was a witness to Caesar's murder, though he was not a part of the conspiracy. Following the assassination, Cicero made a series of speeches known as the "Philippics" which called on the Senate to support Octavian against Mark Antony. Cicero's "Second Phillipics" was an eulogy of Caesar's conquest of Gaul.Unfortunately for Cicero Octavian reached a temporary rapprochement with Antony, who then ordered Cicero's murder. Among some 900 preserved letters to and from Cicero are correspondence both about and with Caesar.
"... if Caesar does lose his head all the same, Pompey feels only the deepest contempt for him, trusting in his own and the state's troops..."
Cicero to Atticus, 7.8, 50BC.
Sallust: Caius Sallust (86-34 BC) tribune, provincial governor and supporter of Caesar. His testimony is in a history "Bellum Catalinae".
Nepos:Cornelius Nepos (c100-24): "Life of Atticus".
Catullus: Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84-54 BC): "Carmina".
Asinius Pollio:Gaius Asinius Pollio (76 BC-4 AD) was an ally of Caesar and founder of the first public library in Rome. He was a source used by Plutarch.
Virgil:Virgil (70BC-17AD): "Aeneid".
Ovid: Ovidius Naso (43BC-17AD): "Metamorphoses".
Near Contemporary Witness Paterculus: Velleius Paterculus (c19 BC-32 AD): "Historiae Romanae".
Lucan: Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, 39-65 AD) followed the example of his grandfather, Seneca the Elder – a young contemporary of Caesar – who in later life wrote a history of Rome. Lucan wrote his own Pharsalia approximately a century after the civil war it chronicles, using Seneca's work as an eyewitness source.
Plutarch: Plutarch of Chaeronea (45-120 AD) was a Greek moralist, historian and biographer (and priest of Delphi). He wrote his Parallel Lives (matching Greek with Roman lives) during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. He describes in detail the life and assassination of Julius Caesar (as well as Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony).
Appian: Appian of Alexandria (c.95-165 AD): Civil Wars.
Suetonius: The most famous biographer of Caesar, Tranquillus Suetonius, wrote his Lives of the Twelve Caesars during the reign of emperor Hadrian (117-138). Suetonius was in charge of the imperial archives and in this capacity, had access to some of the best possible information.
There is nothing intrinsically improbable in a radical 1st century rabbi called Jesus. And any figure who emerged as a sage or soothsayer in ancient Palestine is unlikely to have left much evidence of his existence. But whilst we might entertain, perhaps, a few epithets of reported wisdom from such a guru, it would remain extremely doubtful that any attributed words were actually spoken by him, whatever the claims made today for "oral transmission." Thus, for example, we can accept the report from Josephus (our only source) that a Jesus ben Ananias caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a nonstop doom-laden mantra of ‘woe to the city’ but suspect that Josephus is using poetic licence when he reports this particular Jesus as saying, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people." (Josephus, Wars 6:3).
Bearing in mind that ancient languages had no symbol for quotation marks and made no distinction between a verbatim account of someone's speech and an accurate paraphrase, Josephus may well be providing a close paraphrase. He was present in Jerusalem at the time (62AD) and wrote his history within about a decade of the event. Not only was Josephus an eyewitness to much of the drama he described but also had access to Roman imperial archives and military commentaries, the hupomnemata. Josephus can also be checked against archaeological data, and, notwithstanding the occasional exaggeration, what he writes is generally confirmed.
As it happens, we have an inordinate amount of Jesus dialogue. Nothing particularly novel or unique is put into his mouth, though much of it is contradictory or obscure. None of it comes from a reliable source.
The Gospel of Thomas (found in a Coptic translation at Nag Hammadi and in Greek fragments at Oxyrhynchus), for example, presents 114 "secret" sayings of Jesus, many of which are rephrased quotations from Jewish scripture and over half resemble dialogue which turns up in the New Testament. Others are simply silly:
"Saying 7: Jesus says: 'Blessed is the lion which a man eats so that the lion becomes a man. But cursed is the man whom a lion eats so that the man becomes a lion!'"
"Saying 114: Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."
Regular Christians, of course, are not very happy with the "5th Gospel" and cast doubt on its "reliability." The sayings are not (yet?) embedded in narrative stories to give them a semblance of historical reality and no miracles are mentioned. "Fake teachings, invented by the Gnostics" is the cry. But does wrapping epithets of folk wisdom into a series of "incidents" and "encounters" – even with a miracle thrown in for good measure – make a fraud any less a fraud? Jesus supposedly spoke in Aramaic but the gospels were written in Greek. Literal translation from one language to another inevitably breaks down at numerous points. Not surprisingly the scholars of the Jesus Seminar dismissed more than eighty per cent of the godman's words as invention.
Who would have noted anything "Jesus of Nazareth" said before he emerged as a bona fide spiritual leader? Yet Luke (2.48,49) quotes the godman at the age of 12 in the "temple incident". Ok, so let's grant that after her son made the big time Mary becomes the proud mum, full of anecdotes about her illustrious offspring ... Maybe she even reminisced about traipsing off to Bethlehem, even Egypt.
But Mary isn't everywhere. Matthew 3 reports dialogue between the godman and John the Baptist (let alone a voice from heaven!) in the wilderness of Judaea. Only when the Baptist gets imprisoned does JC choose his disciples so they wouldn't have been present either. So where does this little story originate, other than in the fertile mind of the gospel writer?
Ok, let's concede "unknown and unstated bystanders" run off to tell the tale ... In fact, we have to rely on such hearsay again and again: JC's night time chat with Nicodemus, his conversation with a Samaritan woman, when his disciples are off shopping, etc., etc. But we're still not out of the woods. On several occasions the gospel writers quite specifically report Jesus’ conversations when neither they nor any other humans were present. Who would have had the faintest idea of what Jesus said when he was on his own? For example, chapter 17 of the Gospel of John is entirely taken up with a monologue addressed by a solitary Jesus to God himself. Matthew (4.3,10) tells of JC in the wilderness and having conversations with Satan. Now how would Matthew know what was said? Are we to imagine Jesus reminisced, "Hey guys, one time I was in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights and guess who showed up ... ?"
If we take this step we may as well dream up the whole nine yards ...
Below are real artifacts of Julius Caesar; what do you have of your godman?
Letters
Coins
Sculpture
