500 Plus Community School | Lecture 2 | Sources of Information about Jesus Christ

Lecture 2 Sources of Information about Jesus Christ in Jewish Writings, Pagan Works and Christian Gospels

There are a variety of sources of information about the existence of Jesus Christ. These are found first in Jewish Writings as Flavius Josephus, (37-110 CE). In his longest work Jewish Antiquities there is a passage about Jesus Christ. The Talmud is the written codification of the oral law and is dated at the end of the 2nd century CE. It also refers to Jesus Christ and a number of His disciples. Among Pagan works we find Tacitus (60-120CE), Pliny (62-113 CE) Governor of Bithynia, Suetonius (76-160 CE) and Lucian (120-180 CE), in his work On the Death of Peregrinus. These are all generally brief statements by men who were ignorant of the gospel and opposed to Christianity. However, they knew that Christ existed and was crucified. To these we have added the Christian Gospels, followed at the beginning of the 2nd century with the Apocryphal Gospels. We Avoid the Apocryphal but Focus upon the Faithful, the canonical Gospels and particularly the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Christ. He lecture finishes referring to the argument of C. S. Lewis about Jesus' claims for Himself. This man cannot just be a prophet or good man; either He is the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. The challenge is that we come to Confess the Christ as Thomas did, "My Lord and my God!"
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