Jesus outside the New Testament

Video: Sorry Jesus Mythers, But Tacitus Proves Jesus Existed

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It isn’t shocking that Christian texts are our primary source about Christian origins. After all, baseball fans tend to write about baseball history. American history buffs tend to write about American history.  But what does come as a surprise is that we can learn a fair bit about Jesus from early, non-Christian sources. One is the Roman historian Tacitus, who lived in the 1st to early 2nd-century. In this video, I look at what we can learn from Tacitus about the life of Jesus. I also examine four objections against Tacitus being a reliable source for Christ and see if they carry any weight. Erik ManningErik is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which … Read more

7 startling historical facts we learn about early Christianity from a Roman governor who persecuted Christians

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Christians wrote the gospels, so for some skeptics, that’s enough to assume they are too biased to be taken seriously. While I think the “biased testimony” objection is a terrible argument, we do have some hostile sources outside of the Bible that tell us a lot about the beliefs of early Christians. These sources obviously can’t be accused of the same prejudice and provide us with some powerful info that confirms what we read in the New Testament. In an earlier post, I wrote about what the Roman historian Tacitus tells us about Jesus and early Christianity. Now let’s turn to our second hostile Roman witness, Pliny the Younger. WHO WAS PLINY? Pliny lived from … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?