Jesus and textual evidence

The written sources about Jesus' lifetime are used in modern scholarship to investigate the information about his life.

The Gospels in the Bible

The only sources for the life of Jesus which most historians accept as containing even some historically reliable information about the life of Jesus are the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which present a narrative of Jesus' life and death. According to modern scholarship these documents were written within a span of time from about 30 to 70 years after the crucifixion of Jesus (i.e., within 60 - 100). This is important to historians, because it means the original documents were written within living memory of the events.

Also, some of the details of Jesus' life and teachings are attested prior to the writing of the Gospels, in the letters of Paul, which were written in the 50s and 60s, about 20 to 30 years after the crucifixion.

The infancy gospels of Matthew and Luke also present narratives of Jesus's childhood, but these are considered by modern scholars not to be reliable historical evidence because they include different details and in some places appear to contradict each other and are believed to have been written at a later date than the Gospels.

Non-orthodox early Christian sources

From the late 20th century non-canonical and Gnostic Christian sources for Jesus have been increasingly cited as historical sources for the life of Jesus and his teachings. Previously, non-canonical Christian writings had been fragmented and limited in quality owing partly to the fact that some of their esoteric teachings were secret, but largely due to a series of campaigns by the orthodox Church and Roman Empire from the fourth century (Council of Nicaea) to repress various alternative early Christian sects and their writings, which according to orthodox belief were heretical.

Most knowledge about Gnostic and other alternative early Christian sects had been transmitted through the obviously biased secondary source of polemics against heresy. The most famous and valuable of these polemics is Against Heresies by Irenaeus of Lyons, an orthodox Christian bishop, which descibes in some detail, though obviously from his perspective, a number of different alternative Christian doctrines and systems of teaching current in the second century.

Archaeological finds and reappraisals of ancient libraries have led to a rediscovery of a number of non-canonical Christian texts. The first major discovery was an incomplete copy of the Gospel of Peter, found in a monk's grave at Akhmim in Upper Egypt in the late 19th century. Although clearly a Docetic work, it preserves a version of the Passion that some scholars argue is independent of the gospels.

The major find of the 20th Century was a library of gnostic and Christian materials discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. Once the Nag Hammadi library was fully translated in the 1970s it provided a deeply fascinating discovery for anyone interested in early Christian and Gnostic beliefs about Christianity and the spiritual teachings of Jesus. Dating the Nag Hammadi material places them in A.D 350-400. However, scholars sharply disagree about dating the original texts, which is vitally important to Christians and historians, because the earlier the dating the more likely the teachings can be attributed to Jesus himself. Debate among scholars and Christians has tended to become more narrowly focused on the reliability of the Gospel of Thomas, probably because it shows the least obvious gnostic influence. A number of scholars have suggested that it is an independent transmission of teaching from Jesus created at approximately the same time as the Biblical Gospels within living memory of Jesus in the second half of the 1st century, while scholars on the other extreme dismiss it as derivative development of the 2nd century AD. Others have focused more specifically on the question of which of the 114 sayings can be reliably attributed to Jesus and which may be later creations or adaptations.

Even with the find of the Nag Hammadi library it is difficult to know what the Gnostic Christian sects actually believed, or if there was any consistent core of teachings; but it is clear that the Gnostic Christians fundamentally disagreed with the orthodox Christians in their understanding of Jesus. Their writings represent a far more private and "Eastern" perspective on Jesus' teachings, producing a diversity of views and practice, compared to which the current differentiation between the main Christian denominations is minor. These writings have proved attractive among liberal Christians and New Ageists in modern times.

Besides these gnostic writings, other non-canonical Christian writings that are sometimes use to either reconstruct the life of Jesus (or the early tradition of his teachings) include:

The Protevangelion of James
The Gospel of Nicodemus
The Epistles of Jesus Christ and King Abgarus of Edessa
The Correspondence of Paul the Apostle with Seneca the Younger
The Acts of St. Paul and Thecla
The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
The General Epistle of Barnabas
The Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp
The Writings of Justin Martyr

While these works are not part of the New Testament canon, they were circulated among various Christian communities in the early centuries of the Church; most are available in some form today, although original manuscripts are not available for all of them.

Other sources

Historical sources cited as evidence for the life of Jesus include Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger, written between 93 and 112. None of these authors provide first-hand or contemporary accounts. They affirm only the existence and execution of Jesus, his founding of Christianity at around the time the Gospels state (e.g., under governorship of Pontius Pilate), and the existence of Christianity as a religion at that time.

Josephus

Probably the most important reference to Jesus is by Josephus in Jewish Antiquities which is a history of the Jewish people. There is a reference to Jesus and a separate reference to James the Just (Jesus' disciple, brother, and leader of Jesus' followers in Jerusalem after his death) and some of his followers being killed by stoning for blasphemy. Unfortunately for historical purposes, many historians consider the reference to Jesus by Josephus to have been the subject of alteration by a Christian transcriber, opinions vary along the continuum from it being subject to only minor alteration to that of it being a completely spurious entry. The reference to James is generally considered to be reliable.

Letters of Herod

There are copies of a few "letters of Herod and Pilate connecting Roman history with the death of Christ at Jerusalem" found in a sixth or seventh century Syriac manuscript, copies of correspondence between the two and reports sent from them to the emperor concerning Jesus. However, their authenticity is considered doubtful by many if not most scholars. Aside from these, there is no evidence of any record of Jesus generated by the Roman bureaucracy, unsurprising if the Christian movement was insignificant at the time.

Eusebius

Another important source is The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine written by Eusebius of Caesarea by 324. The great value of Eusebius' History lies in the quotations which it contains from earlier ecclesiastical writers. The works of many of them are lost, and are known to us only through the extracts made by Eusebius. Most notably Hegesippus (who is quoted giving detailed reference to James the Just in 165-75 [1]) and Sextus Julius Africanus. Eusebius was able to make use of the Christian libraries of Caesarea and Jerusalem.

Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger's testimony about Jesus comes in a letter written to the emperor Trajan (61-115), asking for advice on how Christians should be dealt with. He says that they lead blameless lives, but cannot be shaken from their belief in Christ, whom he says they worship as a god in their morning meetings (Ep. X, 97, 98): "carmenque Christo, quasi deo, dicere" (sing a song to Christ as a god). This is significant because it indicates belief in Jesus' divinity possibly during the lives of the apostles, or at least in the first generation after the apostles.

Other non-Christian sources

Lucian (third century) writes scoffingly of the Christians and alludes to Christ's crucifixion, to his miracles and the love among his followers. Origen cites several pagan sources in his "Contra Celsum", saying that Numenius wrote of him, Galerius mentions his parables, and that Phlegon alludes to the earthquake at the crucifixion. Origen also cites Celsus himself, indicating that most of the historical passages of the Gospels were accepted as true as of the second century. Unfortunately, the sources cited by Origin are lost (all copies of Celsus' work were destroyed, though Origen apparently directly quotes almost 3/4 of it), so the accuracy of the statements cannot be further verified.

In classical rabbinic literature

See Yeshu for a discussion of the various characters named as "Yeshu", and their relation to Jesus and Jesus-like figures.