Debate with a Christian

[discipulus]

No difference would be a 'book' written by a team of people trying to convince the world that Big Foot exists. Throw in a little truth, and maybe some will buy it. But, the book will be based on hearsay, people who claim they've seen Big Foot, but of course, they have no reliable pictures, or footage. They only have their ''story.'' No witnesses of course.

I'm waiting for it to become a religion.

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So you are not aware that there exist references of Jesus and His crucifixion outside of the Bible?

Is this what you are saying?

Can you post the reference here? I'll look at it.

Dr. Edwin Masao Yamauchi is a Japanese American historian, editor and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Miami University, where he taught from 1969 until 2005. Dr. Yamauchi when speaking of the Roman historian Tacitus' reference of Jesus sums up the reference by concluding that it is probably the single most important reference to Jesus Christ outside of the bible. Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt . . . on a class hated for their abominations, 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 . . . Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. . . .{1}

What all can we learn from this ancient (and rather unsympathetic) reference to Jesus and the early Christians? Notice, first, that Tacitus reports Christians derived their name from a historical person called Christus (from the Latin), or Christ. He is said to have "suffered the extreme penalty," obviously alluding to the Roman method of execution known as crucifixion. This is said to have occurred during the reign of Tiberius and by the sentence of Pontius Pilatus. This confirms much of what the Gospels tell us about the death of Jesus.

1- Tacitus, Annals 15.44