You mean contemporary historical accounts of Jesus while he was alive. Basically, you want to know why didn’t people write about him and his ministry at the time. The answer is that Jesus wasn’t that big of a deal during his life. He really wasn’t.
During that period there were any number of self proclaimed Messiahs who were there to lead the Jewish people. There were any number of Jewish sects that preached different interpretations of the Torah. It looks like no small amount of Jesus’ message may have come from Essene communities.
His teachings were also informed by Rabbi Hillel (died ~10CE). Jesus had a small number of dedicated followers and, if it weren’t for Paul, it likely would have simply died on the vine.
Paul is the one that said Jesus’ message wasn’t just for the Jews but for Gentiles as well. That’s when people started taking notice of Jesus’ ministry and works. That’s when people started writing about it. That’s where the documentary evidence comes from.
Now, could Paul have been making all of this up? Maybe, but keep in mind when Paul was engaged in his work Jesus’ contemporaries and some of the Apostles were still alive. Which means that if Paul was making this up out of whole cloth there is a good chance that would have caused an issue that we’d have some evidence for. We don’t have that so we can say that it’s most likely that Jesus, the person, actually existed. He just wasn’t important enough during his life for people to write about.
Of course, there is the idea that he was crucified by the Romans and the Romans kept meticulous records of everything. So why don’t we have anything from the Romans about his crucifixion? There were likely some records from that time but the records would have gone from Pontius Pilate to emperor’s secretaries.
Considering the amount of time between the crucifixion and Christianity being accepted within the Empire (a couple hundred years at a minimum depending on how you define accepted) it wouldn’t be surprising if this record was lost, deteriorated, or was destroyed.
Why wouldn’t the Romans have held on to it? Because crucifying troublemakers in the provinces wasn’t a big deal. It happened all of the time and, generally speaking, we *don’t* have official contemporary written records of them.
All of which means that it’s really not surprising that we don’t have any written documentary evidence of Jesus during his lifetime. In fact, it would be much more surprising if we did.
Edit: A lot of people seem to be missing a few important points. First, I am not denying that a historical Jesus existed. Personally, I believe that he did. Second, I am only talking about evidence that was written during the lifetime of Jesus.
Which means that Tacitus and Josephus don’t count. Third, saying that Jesus wasn’t a huge deal during his life is not denigrating Jesus. It’s just a statement of fact.
He had a small number of followers and his movement didn’t really attract a lot of new adherents until after his death. Lastly, none of this has any bearing on faith or the teachings of Jesus.
Second Edit: I have to say that a lot of comments seem to be coming from people who have either not read my answer in full or are making assumptions about what I am trying to do here. Please read my answer in full before replying.
Second, stop assuming that I am trying to disprove Jesus existed, trying to prove he did exist, trying to denigrate your faith, that I am an atheist, that I am a deluded theist, etc. I am answering a question within specific boundaries. That’s all.
Third Edit: Hopefully this is the last one. This answer has blown up with thousands of comments and upvotes. Which is cool but there are far too many people who obviously haven’t read the entire answer but go haring off and commenting anyway.
Some of these responses have been, for lack of a better term, creative to the extreme. Either way, I’ve been responding to a lot of them as best I can. I enjoy the back and forth except for the cowards that turn off responses.
I don’t know how much longer I’ll be responding to comments but I will when I can. Here’s something to keep in mind – while I do have a degree in history and have been keeping up my reading for almost 40 years since graduating I’m not an expert in this specific field. I just enjoy reading and thinking about it.
There are actual experts who have spent decades of their lives looking at things like this and I encourage people to seek them out and read more about it. These people may challenge your beliefs but that’s an absolutely necessary part of learning. You don’t have to believe them but it’s worth reading about it anyway.
Both Tacitus the Roman historian and Josephus the Jewish historian mention Jesus in their historical accounts.
However bible critics and deniers claim that Tacitus was not an “eye witness” so his account has no value. As for Josephus they like to claim that this part of his history is a later forgery.
I see this commentary has lit a firestorm of debate and vituperation. That was not my intent.
One is free to believe or reject Jesus Christ. We have no films, no video, no proof other than what was written. If one chooses to reject all that has been written about the existence of Jesus Christ (which was my only point) one is free to do so.
This is the part of the Jesus story that I am at a loss to explain as to why it isn’t mentioned outside the Bible:
- Matthew 27:52“The tombs were also opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised”
- Matthew 27:53“And they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many”
So, according to Matthew, Jerusalem resembled the set of The Walking Dead for a day or two. Imagine it. You are walking down the road to the supermarket when you stop in your tracks and say, “Dave, what are you doing out and about? I was at your funeral the day before yesterday.” Then Dave tries to eat your brain. In fairness, we don’t know if that is what the newly resurrected did, eat living people’s brains. The Bible doesn’t even hint at Jesus eating anyone’s brain when he came back from the dead so we should assume none of the other zombies did either.
Anyway, you would have thought someone would have made a note of such an extraordinary event. It is one of those, “now that is something you don’t see every day,” moments. Did Pilate report this to the Emperor? If he did the Emperor would surely have thought Pilate had lost his marbles. So, that might explain why it was kept secret.
It was rather rude of all those nobodies to rise from the dead when the Son of God was scheduled to do the same. Jesus was probably quite annoyed by that. I can visualise him dragging the undead back to their tombs and admonising them to stop showing off.
