# Which non-Xian historians give the most credence to the NT's historical accuracy?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-xian-historians-give-the-most-credence-to-the-nts-historical-accuracy/589985>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 22, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-xian-historians-give-the-most-credence-to-the-nts-historical-accuracy/589985 "2011-07-22T14:35:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-xian-historians-give-the-most-credence-to-the-nts-historical-accuracy/589985/21 "2011-07-25T16:59:16Z")

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> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Roughly speaking you can split scholars of the Bible and early Christian history into three broad groups of roughly equal size: fundamentalists, left-wingers, and a middle-of-the-road group. The first insist that everything is entirely accurate, the second often come close to insisting that nothing is accurate, the third generally see a broadly accurate picture of the life of Jesus with some errors in transmission.

I’m a little confused about what you mean by “broadly accurate” here. I wouldn’t call something that says, “on the road to Nazareth he healed a leper” broadly accurate if the true part is that he went to Nazareth.

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**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-xian-historians-give-the-most-credence-to-the-nts-historical-accuracy/589985/22 "2011-07-25T17:34:52Z")

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> [@Jas09](#):
>
> I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. There are quite a few elements of the NT that are almost universally considered historically accurate. There was a city at Jerusalem. There was a prefect there named Pilate. [Herod Antipas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Antipas#References) is almost certainly a real historical figure.
> 
> Just looking at the Wiki page for those people contain links to historians that have done research on them from non-biblical sources.
> 
> What particular NT claim are you interested in finding non-Christian historical evaluations of?

Moreover, History is more than just names and dates. The Bible gives us a good look into Historical Sociology and Anthropology, giving us glimpses into how people lived 2000 years ago.

Regardless of Jesus of Nazarath being an actual historical personage.

(I always find these discussions odd. We cannot pinpoint the year Eleanor of Aquitaine was born. We don’t know if Mary or Anne Boleyn was older. We don’t know what happened to the Princes in the Tower. There are things in History that you will never have PROOF for, you’ll just have evidence.)

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**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-non-xian-historians-give-the-most-credence-to-the-nts-historical-accuracy/589985/23 "2011-07-25T17:39:49Z")

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> [@FatBaldGuy](#):
>
> One contemporary non-Christian historian was [Flavius Josephus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus) who wrote quite a bit about Jesus and his followers.

“Quite a bit”?

I think he wrote something like three paragraphs on what the Christians believe - out of his voluminous works.

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