How can atheists ignore historians during the time of JESUS?

Nine secular, non-Christian sources mention Jesus within the 150 years: Josephus, the Jewish historian; Tacitus, the Roman historian; Pliny the Younger, a politician of Rome; Phlegon, a freed slave who wrote histories; Lucian, the Greek satirist; Celsus, a Roman philosopher; and probably the historians Suetonius and Thallus, as well as the prisoner Mara Bar-Serapion. In all, at least forty-two authors, nine of them secular, mention Jesus within 150 years of his death.

Tiberius Caesar was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus ministry and execution. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke. Compare that to Jesus forty-two total sources in the same length of time. Thats more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same period. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of nine each.

If you insists that these writers (Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius)s testimonies are invalid simply because they were not eyewitnesses, then we should throw out most of ancient history. Besides that fact, eyewitness accounts are recorded in the Bible. If you have to be an eyewitness in order to give an accurate account of history, then no one could write a text today providing a history of the American Civil War and, indeed, much of what we know historically would have to be discarded.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• What
• did
• ancient
• atheists
• say
• about
• JESUS
• CHRIST
• KING
• MESSIAH
• GOD
• PROPHECY
• BIBLE
• TRUTH
• FATHER
• SON
• HOLY
• SPIRIT
• CREATOR
• COUNSELOR
• COMFORTER
• FRIEND
• HUMBLE
• HELPER
• LOVE
• TRUE