Is there any evidence other than the Bible that Jesus Christ ever existed?
There’s a guy named Ron Wyatt who swears (well… swore until he died) that he’s seen archealogical proof. Check out the Wyatt Foundation website and read the Ark of the Covenant account.
A guy named Cecil wrote a little bit about it too.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html
I would have to say yes, because He’s changed my heart, and countless millions of others’ as well.
“If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious or supernatural element. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.” Blaise Pascal
“A Ready Defense” and “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”, both written by a man named Joshua McDowell offer great insight into this! I advise you head to a library or a book store to thumb through them.
“If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious or supernatural element. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.” Blaise Pascal
My apologies for putting a Great Debate spin on this. And I in no way intend to offend your sensibilities, Linney (or anyone else’s for that matter), but The Bible is not evidence of anything. Whether the stories and parables in The Bible are true is a matter of faith, not a matter of fact.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect that, if such evidence exists, the vatican would have been shouting it from the rooftops? My WAG, no good or conclusive proof.
Sorry, android, I disagree. The people in the Vatican are quite satisfied with their belief that he did exist, and either (1) they feel no need to shout it from the rooftops, and/or (2) they feel that such shouting might only give credence to the nonbelievers so it better left alone.
This is kind of like when rumors arise about a celebrity, they often choose not to defend themselves even when the accusations are totally untrue and easily disproven, because, unfortunately, people will often believe what they want to believe, proof or not, and refutations will do nothing more than keep the dispute alive.
That he existed? Yes. To begin with, there are several very ancient documents from non-Christian sources that say things like, "The Christians are a religious group offshooting from the Jews, founded by someone named Jesus (or Christ, or “Chrest”).
But, more than that, there is the clear fact that the Church exists. Something certainly happened, and all the witnesses agree that it had something to do with a man named Jesus.
Believing that there was never any such person definitely falls into the category of paranoid delusion.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Blessed are those who did not see yet still believe.
Ya know… I’ve never really gotten that.
Do you think the pagan guy down the street is blessed because he’s “never seen but he believes” in the Earth Goddess?
Or… is it just the people who’ve “never seen” but happen to pick exactly the right thing to believe?
Jesus saves, Allah forgives, and Cthulhu thinks you’d make a good sandwich.
Blessed are those who were not around two thousand years ago but can understand that oral tradition and the witness of the learned people of there time thought anough of this MAN to devote there entire existance and to convincing lead other people to believe in lige ,message and sacrifice that this MAN made for mankind.
Get it.
Unfortunate, then, that there are several religions with a 2000-year oral tradition and history of devotees. 
How to choose without some external “blessing” of faith?
Oh, great, now I’m going to have to do RESEARCH. Yes, there is extra-Biblical evidence of the existence of Christ Jesus- letters from government officals in Palestine to their superiors in Rome, lettes from caravan traders from India who witnessed the Crucifixion home to friends and family- mind you, the majority of folks back then were illiterate, so a letter was not a thing to be read and tossed in the trash. They were valuable documents to be saved, and some of them have survived to the present day…
The trouble with Sir Launcelot is by the time he comes riding up, you’ve already married King Arthur.
Look, gang, there are several questions involved here. The question posed was NOT whether Jesus existed, nor what anyone believes. The question is whether there is any extra-Biblical proof.
There are many things in the Bible for which there is no direct evidence outside the Bible. In some cases, we wouldn’t expect any. Abraham was a small-time nomadic shepherd, and it’s highly unlikely that there would be any cuneiform reference to him, nor have any been found.
Up until recently, there was not even extra-Biblical verification of the existence of David, who was king of the Israelites (a carving was found in the last ten years that makes reference to the “House of David”, which is the first such non-Biblical record.)
As we get into later Biblical times, there are outside references to some events. For instance, we have both the Biblical record and the Babylonian record of the invasion of Judah in 722 BCE – and, although the perspective is obviously different, the general historic event is thus well documented and confirmed by outside sources.
In those days, people didn’t keep records much, except for the Great Events (kings and so forth.) What records they did keep would be destroyed (by the next invading army, for instance, or just by the process of decay as parchment crumbles.)
A simple, small-town teacher who wandered around preaching fairly common stuff (and even ultra-right-wing, at that) to the poor and downtrodden would just not attract much attention. If he’d spent some time preaching in the palace, maybe we’d have outside evidence. Most of the stories about Jesus were oral, passed down over a generation or two, until they were written down.
Thus, one wouldn’t expect necessarily to find any outside record of Jesus’s existence. Tax rolls, lists of people executed by the Roman government that week, records of the Great Deeds of the King or Governor, just wouldn’t include a “nobody” like Jesus. So it’s not surprising that there is no outside evidence to date. (In contrast, the lack of outside evidence for a king like David was used by some scholars to suggest that David never existed; archaeology is an exciting and developing field.)
FOOTNOTE: The fact that it was only a generation or two before the stories about Jesus were written down is used as a suggestive argument for his existence. One can’t make that arguement for Abraham, for instance, whose story was told orally for anywhere from 400 to 600 years before it was written down. But that’s the argument of whether Jesus – or Abraham – existed, and I’m not going there. I’m sticking to the discussion of whether there is outside record of his existence.
agisofia, I would be really interested in what you turn up.
The only extra-biblical references I can recall are a couple of short memos from Roman governors regarding followers of “Chrestus” and a reference in one of the books by Josephus. The Josephus reference has been obviously corrupted by later Christian copyists, so it is unclear whether only the glowing description of Jesus or whether the whole passage was a later addition.
If you have letters from travelers or Roman/Palestinian government documents to cite, that would be truly interesting.
Tom~
Well, gosh, I mean that’s true of anything, isn’t it? I mean, you take on faith what you see in the newspaper.
And by the way, a parable is a hypothetical, kinda like an allegory.
The Bible is all the evidence I need.
Cecil’s thoughts:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_275.html