Written evidence:-
The best reason we have to believe in the existence of the historical Jesus is that there are surprisingly good written records about his life.
What makes this so compelling is that many of the accounts are written by non-Christian authors who were often openly opposed to Christianity.
Dr Mykytiuk says: 'For well over 1,000 years, no one claimed that Jesus did not exist.
'Every single non-Christian source from ancient times recognizes, implicitly or explicitly, that he was a real person who really existed.'
Possibly the best example of this comes from the Roman historian Tacitus who despised Christians.
In a section of the 'Annals' describing the AD 64 fire of Rome, Tacitus describes how Emperor Nero tried to shift the blame to early Christians.
Tacitus writes: 'Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the most unusual ways those hated for their shameful acts … whom the crowd called “Chrestians.”
Flavius Josephus (pictured) was a Jewish historian who wrote about 60 years after Jesus' death. In his history of the Jewish people he mentions 'the brother of Jesus-who-is-called-Messiah, James by name'
'The founder of this name, Christ, had been executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate.'
Likewise, the Jewish author Flavius Josephus mentions Jesus in his sprawling 'Jewish Antiquities' which was written just 60 years after Jesus' death.
In a section of the book, Josephus describes how a priest named Ananus tried to execute Jesus' brother, James.
He writes that Ananus 'called a meeting of judges and brought into it the brother of Jesus-who-is-called-Messiah, James by name.'
What makes this so interesting is that James, or Jacob as it would have been written, was such a common name that Josephus felt the need to specify by mentioning Jesus.
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