Moving from the New Testament documents, R.G. in his Case Against Historical Christ moves onto non-biblical writings, that according to him, should have mentioned Jesus if he existed.
There is not one single writing from or about Jesus during his supposed lifetime
According to Price, if Jesus existed, there are certain historians that should have mentioned him. Since they do not mention him, this is evidence against Jesus’ existence.
Price mentions six historians that should have mentioned Jesus: Justus of Tiberias, Philo of Alexandria, Pliny the Elder, Seneca the Younger, Valerius Maximus and Velleius Paterculus.
I will start with the last four, all of whom were Roman writers. Why would we expect them to mention Jesus in the first place? Judea and Galilee were on the fringes of the Empire and generally the Romans were not that interested in Jewish religious squabbles.
There is no way that they could have known the impact that Jesus and his followers would have on the world. It is unlikely that they ever heard of Jesus and if they did, they probably dismissed him as not being important enough to write about.
But what about Justus and Philo? They were Jewish writers who lived during the time of Jesus. If Jesus existed, they should have mentioned him. Philo of Alexandria will be the subject of the next installment of this series and will not be addressed here.
What about Justus? Price describes him as a “Jewish historian who lived in Galilee during the 1st century and wrote two preserved works.”
He is right that he was a first century Jewish historian. He is wrong that two of his works are preserved. He did write a history of the Jewish war and he may have written a book on the kings of Israel. You can find out more information about Justus here.
Why would Justus write about Jesus in a book about the Jewish war when Jesus had nothing to with it? We do not have his text so we cannot know for sure, but it is likely that he wrote about the events directly connected to that conflict. As for his other work, there was no reason for a non-Christian Jew to include Jesus among the kings of Israel.
Having addressed these specific examples, there is one more question to ask: Why expect anyone to write about Jesus during is lifetime? Most of his audience would have been illiterate and writing materials were expensive.
Plus, bioi, such as the Gospels, were usually written after the person had died. The ancients wanted to know how the story would end before they wrote it.
There is nothing shocking about a lack of writing during the lifetime of Jesus. Many of the ancient figures that we know existed didn’t have things written about their life either.
