Did Jesus Exist?

On Sunday we had our third installment in our current series: Back to the Basics.  This time we looked at the historical existence of Jesus.  Until recently, I would never have considered preaching on this as it seems rather common sense.  However, this subject has come up over and over in documentaries and bestselling books.  That is the thing about common sense, most often it is not very common.  

We looked at a few concerns people have about the evidence.  

Why is there not better Roman evidence for Jesus?  There is some but not as good as we would like.  We must take into account the Roman perspective.  From our point of view Jesus is very important and deserves better treatment.  But in the middle of the first century, Christians were a very small percentage of the Roman Empire and no one could have predicted what the Church would become.  We have what we should expect.

What about what the Jews had to say?  There is not much that we have at the time of Jesus (the Dead Sea Scrolls are a bit too early) thats deal with anything, much less Jesus.  We do have Josephus' testimony.  I agree that Christians augmented Josephus but there was an original testimony.

Some people note that the Gospels lack the attributes of a modern history or biography.  They do, but so does every other ancient writing.  They must be judged in their proper context.  What about the Christian bias?  Every writing, ancient and modern, has a bias.  There are no unbiased texts.  What about the dates of the Gospels as 30-60 years after Jesus?  Compared to our accounts of Alexander the Great which are 300-400 years after the events, we are doing well.  We have Paul writing 15 years after Jesus and in 1 Corinthians 15 quoting an earlier passage possibly within five years after Jesus.

It is not good enough for us to have an image or symbol.  We have a real need for salvation and that means we need a real Saviour to save us.  Jesus existed and is that Saviour.