Was Jesus ever mentioned in any other writing of that time period?
A 1466 edition of Antiquities of the Jews
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Flavius Josephus was a first-century Jewish historian who provided external information on some people and events found in the New Testament.[1] Josephus was a general in Galilee, which is where Jesus ministered and people who knew him still lived; he dwelled near Jesus's hometown of Nazareth for a time, and kept contact with groups such as the Sanhedrin and Ananus II who were involved in the trials of Jesus and his brother James.[2] The extant manuscripts of Josephus' book Antiquities of the Jews, written
AD 93–94, contain two references to Jesus of Nazareth and one reference to John the Baptist.[3] Josephus on Jesus - Wikipedia
You need to be specific about “that time period.” When was “that time period?”
If it was when Jesus lived, probably nothing. Why? Because writing itself was not widespread in the general population. Big merchants and the government recorded commercial transactions, but there was nothing physical or tangible equivalent to a newspaper or magazine. Consequently, given that writing was reserved to a select few, so was reading. The general population was illiterate. And even those who could read often could not write; for that, there were scribes. Curiously enough, many scribes could not read, either: they were just “copyists.” Bottom line: when Jesus walked, most news traveled by word of mouth. Therefore, one would not expect to find any contemporary writing about a traveling preacher. Put another way: IF such writings were alleged to exist, they would most certainly be fake. Their absence, therefore, lends some authenticity to such indirect sources as DO exist, and which come to daylight only by scholarship.
The next problem is your reference to “other writing.” WHAT other writing? There is no “other writing.”
So, what is there?
Curiously enough, there is authentic written material which takes shape as correspondence among the the people who directly knew, or “who knew people who knew” Jesus. The material alleged to be of their pen does not so much document the life of Jesus, but rather the issues his followers faced in terms of establishing a community of believers. Key among them are James (the alleged brother of Jesus), Peter and Paul. The fact that all of them had seriously irritated Roman authorities earned them some ink, which has survived.
There is probably no better scholar in support of Jesus as an actual person than Bart Erhman, who once was a “bellever,” but who today is an agnostic. His credentials and expertise as a Biblical scholar are above reproach; you can look it up. At a “Freedom From Religion” conference, he was confronted with questions about the authenticity of Jesus, from people who expected him to play along with the “Jesus as Myth” idea:
But to return to the question about “other writings.” Indeed; the “other writings” refer to material in scripture which is regarded as authentic by scholars. But beware, “authentic” means the material probably is “accurate” as to what was actually written. It does NOT mean that the written material is factual or true.
Depends on what you mean by “that time period.” There is no ancient writing that we can point to with confidence and say, “that document was written during the nine months or so when Jesus was marginally famous in the rural area of a backwater province that is itself barely mentioned in history.” And I’m not talking about documents that mention Jesus; I’m talking any documents, period.
It took about twenty years for anyone to write something about Jesus that has been preserved to this day. To put that into perspective, Caligula was in the public eye for roughly twenty years before anyone mentioned him, and he was on the top ten list of most famous people on planet earth while Jesus was alive. They didn’t have contemporary journalism in the ancient world. In general, it takes decades, and in some cases more than a century, for any extant writing to mention a Roman Emperor, much less a homeless, desert-wandering Galilean peasant. But despite that, more documents from the first century mention Jesus of Nazareth than not. He is mentioned by nearly every historian who followed him, including Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius, as well as the Roman governor Pliny the Younger, in addition to at least half a dozen Christian writings produced within living memory of the crucifixion. That’s what we know about, but ancient Christian authors casually mention the existence of other ancient references that have not survived.
So, to answer your question, yes: Jesus was mentioned by the majority of extant ancient writers within the century of his death.
By “any other writing of that time period", I assume you mean non Christian writing for around the time period of Jesus.
Tacitus briefly mentions Jesus, and that he was executed by Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. Tacitus was writing around 60 years after Jesus death, well within the time period of his grandfather.
Josephus also makes 2 mentions of Jesus in his Antiquities of the Jews. One is reference is disputed, where some scholars think the reference was completely added by later Christian copyists and other scholars asserting the was an existing reference to Jesus that later had Christian comments added. These comments might have been originally been scribal side comments added by a scribe copying the text that a still later copyist mistakenly thought were part of the original text. That kind of thing occasionally happened when ancient text were copied.
But a Josephus has a second brief reference to Jesus that most scholars accept as genuine. Only those scholars ideologically committed to the idea that Jesus never existed reject the authenticity of the second reference in Josephus.
Keep in mind, the Christian own sources in the Book of Acts say that immediately after Jesus death, his followers numbered only a hundred or gathered together in Jerusalem for a vital meeting. Most of Jesus followers when he was alive disappeared after his death. Roman historians didn't mention Jewish religious leaders of the 1st century Palestine. Our knowledge of all the Jewish religious teachers of the time comes from Jewish sources written a couple centuries later.
It wasn't until many decades later that Jesus followers became numerous enough to attract the attention of Roman historians like Tacitus. Before that time there were too few to warrant the attention of historians. The only ancient or even medieval non Christian historian who mentions John the Baptist, the founder of Mandaean religion, was Josephus . Both ancient and historians up to modern times do not mention the Mandaeans, and based solely on the writings of historians we would never have known they existed. Because Christians eventually attracted more followers, they eventually received more attention.
Most, if not all, writing was by the elite, and they weren’t interested in another “Apocryphal Prophet” from the little village of Nazareth. Those who were living at that time were mostly illiterate. The Jewish population mostly spoke Aramaic, with some Hebrew taught at the Synagogues. There was no Synagogue in the small village of Nazareth. Most of the writings about Jesus (Yeshua) were written centuries after his death, relying on “word of mouth.” Whoever usurped the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did so because their names would be more believable. Plagiarism laws did not apply to use of a name, only the story and certainly wasn’t in existence at that time. Although, use of another’s name was considered unethical eventually. Still, there were only “guesses” at the perpetrators at that time, and still today. Letters J, I , Q etc.
Others did write about Jesus also.
The Roman historian and senator Tacitus referred to Christ, his execution by Pontius Pilate and the existence of early Christians in Rome in his final work, Annals (c. 116 CE), book 15, chapter 44. The relevant passage reads: "called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus."
Scholars generally consider Tacitus's reference to the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate to be both authentic, and of historical value as an independent Roman source about early Christianity that is in unison with other historical records. William L. Portier has stated that the consistency in the references by Tacitus, Josephus and the letters to Emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger reaffirm the validity of all three accounts.
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