“In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!”
~Bart D. Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
If true, it seems so strange that it’s not been mentioned before.
We’re putting aside the Pauline epistles and synoptic gospels, I take it? If so, then yes, that’s true. There are two references to Jesus in Josephus, but a lot of religious scholars (including Ehrman), argue they’re later additions and weren’t in the original.
Not that amazing when you consider they were just getting started. Since the early Christians were expecting Jesus’s return at any given moment, they had no need to put anything in writing until the mid-to-late 1st Century. They were generally perceived for most of the 1st Century as a sect of Judaism, and there wasn’t any call to differentiate.
If you mean a physical bit of paper (papyrus), then no, there’s not. I think the earliest bit of manuscript out of the bible is a fragment of John’s gospel dated to about AD 140 or so.
However, that only imposes a latest limit on when it could have been written. The bit of papyrus we’ve got is unlikely to be the very first edition. So it’s quite likely that the gospel of John was, in fact, written in the first century. And since most scholars on both sides of the Jesus debate seem to agree that John is likely later than the other gospel writers, it’s quite likely the others are too. I’ve seen people argue for dates as early as about AD50 for the synoptics - that’s not the consensus position, some will argue as late as 2nd century, but I think something like 70-90AD would be regarded as medium-uncontroversial.
Jesus was rather unremarkable during his life, so it’s not surprising that we have no first hand accounts of him. It was only through Paul that the movement started to really spread. We are lucky we have anything at all about him fom so close to his life.
Please go back to the OP and reread the quote. It clearly is referring to writing outside of those included in (or deliberately excluded from) the Bible. So why is everyone bringing them up as refutation?
The Wiki link given above talks about the earliest known references, in Josephus. There’s only one that may not be a later interpolation:
I don’t remember Ehrman’s position on this, but he is a renowned scholar and should be taken seriously. He may be wrong or he may be making a point not evident from taking the quote out of context. Either way, we have far better independent reason to believe that the religion existed than did the individuals named.
The fact that Jesus (or, indeed, anyone) should not be mentioned in any or many writings except those by people who thought him important, is not particularly remarkable.
That is a rational position, and therefore particularly inapplicable to the discussion, especially here in America, where most people believe that the Bible was written in English and Jesus had a listing in the Jerusalem phone book.
According to what I’m reading in ‘Zealot’, Jesus was one of hundreds (possibly thousands) of miracle workers/exorcists claiming to be the messiah at the time. So he wouldn’t be remembered by historians, people like him were everywhere. Isn’t the existence of Jesus’s brother James considered a historical fact? Doesn’t that imply something about his existence?
However the book Zealot does imply Jesus’s family was known. So I don’t know if James (brother of Jesus) was pretending to have a brother Jesus he never had. Or if the apostles were pretending to know a Jesus that never existed. So historians don’t remember him, but the impression I got is his friends and family did. But the book implies they were illiterate, so they couldn’t really leave a record of their experiences.
The Alexamenos Grafitto might date from the first century. It’s on a wall in Rome and depicts a crucified human figure with a donkey’s head, and a nearby figure with raised hand. the inscription possibly (probably?) reads Alexamenos worships his god. Some sources reported a Roman belief that the god of the Jews had a donkey’s head, and there are other sources suggesting that Christians were believed to do so.
It’s not definite, but it looks pretty good that this is a bit of Anti-Christian grafitti. On tyhe other hand, such things are hard to datwe, so even if it is anti-cyhristian, it might date from after the first century.
Dating is uncertain, and these were certainly Christian writers (which goes against the clear intent of the OP), but these aren’t in anyone’s canonical Bible – many of the Apostolic Fathers may date from the late first century. Clement, Ignatious, Polycarp. There are others in my copy not listed in the Wikipedia page. Some date The Shepherd of Hermas before the 2nd century.
Again, though, although these are Christian writers, they’re maddeningly stingy on writing about Christ himself. Hermas is pretty allegorical, and the others more concerned with Church matters.
For non-Christian sources, though, it’s pretty tough. If you’ve read Josephus, it’s impossible to believe that the man wrote the extant passages as we have them now, yet remained an unconverted Jew. It’s abundantly clear to me that the passages, if not made up entirely by a later Christian copyist or editor, were at least reworked to reflect that bias. Writers like G.A. Wells have argued against supposed other early references to Christ in Roman authors. There are several Talmudic references which have been agued as referring to Christ, but it’s not clear when they were written.
The first written copies of the Gospels started appearing around 85 CE, about 50 years after the events noted therein. The book Misquoting Jesus discusses changes from the earliest manuscripts to later ones, suggesting that scribes added a lot of stuff on their own.
To the Romans and most of the citizens of Judea who were NOT followers of Joshua ben Joseph, JbJ was just another of many itinerant Galilean rabbis passing through Jerusalem. And Passover was a particularly BAD time for him to pass through Jerusalem too.
Just want to note that Misquoting Jesus is in fact by the OP’s Bart Ehrman. And a fascinating look at the progression of textual information across time.