Summary Of Pliny's Description Of Jesus

SOURCES OUTSIDE THE GOSPELS: As we read chapter five in Antiquity, we begin to build our knowledge of who Jesus is through sources outside the Bible. Pagan sources is just one area that we can begin our journey of understanding Jesus’ connection to history. The first reference comes from the early second century. A Roman governor by the name of Pliny talks about a “cult” called Christians and how they worshiped someone by the name of Jesus. Even though he talks about Jesus, Pliny doesn’t offer any information of who Jesus was. A second Pagan sources comes from Roman historian Suetonius. The best his claim can offer is placing Christians in Rome from AD 41-54. The third and final source doesn’t appear until AD 120. A man by the name of Tacitus talks about Jesus in the aspect that His death was the result of Pontius Pilate. As the chapter continues we get to see Jesus through outside Jewish sources.

He gives reference to a man killed the night before passover. He said the man’s name was “Yeshu,” and his justification for this man’s death is that “Yeshu,” “performed magic, beguiled people and led them astray”(109). Of the Jewish sources that we have, the one that is probably most important is the writings of Josephus. His work is so valuable his writings have been preserved by Christian scribes. Josephus writings of Antiquity talk of Jesus and his brother James. He also talks of the works that Jesus did, Jesus’ death and how Christianity came to be. Even though there has been controversy on if Josephus wrote most of his book, we could still take out the controversy and have writings that still refer to Jesus. Even though most of the outside sources don’t explain Jesus life, we can still use them to at least conclude that Jesus was real and the information gathered from second-and-third century Christian sources can add to what we