Those who are skeptical of the historical existence of Jesus point to the lack of textual evidence from his enemies. Of course we have texts by Christians, people who have a strong theological bias, but where is everything else?
Well, who were the opponents of Jesus according to the Gospels. They were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians. The Romans, the ones who actually carried out the crucifixion, don’t seem to have been interested in him until he was arrested by the temple police and brought to Pilate’s attention.
I need to note, despite the claims of many anti-semitic people, the Jewish people are not Jesus’ or the church’s enemies. Jesus, his twelve apostles, and most of the earliest followers were Jewish. And those who were hostile to Jesus were a very small percentage of the Jewish population.
But there were this influential if small group that wanted Jesus dealt with. Where are the letters between the various leaders? Where is the correspondence between the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Where are the reports from the Herodians to Herod?
Jesus Mythicists would have us believe that we have an abundance of these first century Jewish documents and the absence of mention of Jesus is a glaring omission that should lead us to question his existence.
But that is false.
We have very little in terms of first century Jewish writings, especially from the years leading up to and including Jesus’ death. You could probably count on one hand the Jewish writings originating in Galilee or Judea that were composed during Jesus’ life time.
There are later references to Jesus in the Talmud, but that was written in the sixth century, and the historical value to completing a picture of Jesus of Nazareth is questionable.
While I would agree with Jesus Mythicists that it would be great to have records from the hostile witnesses, we lack any writings from these groups during the time of interest in general. The lack of hostile witnesses does not cast doubt on the existence of Jesus.
