约瑟夫斯的《犹太古史》写于公元93-94年左右,它在第18和20篇中提到圣经中的耶稣。一般学者的看法是,虽然那个较长的、称为Testimonium Flavianum的段落总体上很可能是不是真实的,但人们普遍认为它最初由一个真实的核心构成,然后才遭到基督教的篡改或伪造。[34][35]在约瑟夫斯另一处提到耶稣的地方,研究约瑟夫斯的学者Louis H. Feldman认为,“很少有人质疑约瑟夫斯”在《犹太古史》的第20篇,9.1章中提到耶稣的段落的“真实性”,而且只有少数学者有争议。[36][37]
罗马历史学家塔西佗在《编年史》(大约写于公元116年)的第15篇44章提到一个名为 “Christus”的人以及他被彼拉多处决的事件。[38]罗伯特·凡·沃斯特(Robert E. Van Voorst)指出,塔西佗对基督徒评价的极端消极语气说明这段经文基本上不可能是一个基督徒文士伪造的,[39]而博伊德和埃迪(Boyd and Eddys)则认为塔西佗的这些文字现在被广泛接受为确认基督被钉十字架的独立文献来源,[40]虽然有些学者以各种理由质疑这段经文的真实性。
约翰·梅尔将耶稣被钉十字架视为历史事实,并指出,基于“尴尬标准”,基督徒不会虚构自己的领袖痛苦死亡的事件。梅尔指出,许多其他标准——多重见证的标准(即多于一个来源确认),一致性标准(即它与其他历史要素相符)和拒绝标准(即没有争议的古代来源) ——有助于确立耶稣被钉十字是一个历史事件。[43]艾迪和博伊德(Eddy and Boyd )说,目前非常确定的是,历史中有非基督徒的对耶稣被钉十字架的历史确认——指的是弗拉维奥·约瑟夫斯和塔西佗的作品。[40]
大多学者在第三次探索历史中的耶稣中认为,十字架事件是毫无疑问的,[10][43][44]巴特·叶尔曼,[45]约翰·克罗森[10]和詹姆斯·邓恩也认同这个观点。[8]虽然学者同意十字架事件的历史性,但对它的原因和背景有不同的解释。例如, E. P. Sanders和Paula Fredriksen都支持十字架事件的历史性,但认为耶稣没有预言他将被钉十字架,他预言自己将被钉十字架是基督教发明的故事。Geza Vermes同样认为十字架事件是一个历史事件,但认为这是由于耶稣挑战了罗马权威而导致的。[46]
另一方面,罗伯特·福克(Robert W. Funk)和同事写道,从20世纪70年代开始,一些学者拒绝了耶稣持有末世论观点,指出他拒绝了施洗约翰的苦行及其末世论信息。根据这种看法,神的国不是一个未来的国度,而是现时的、神秘的当下。 约翰·克罗森认为,耶稣的末世论是建立一种新的、圣洁的生活方式,而不是上帝对历史的干预和救赎。
——Fredriksen, Paula. (2000) From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ. Second Edition. Yale University Press. p. 122 ISBN 0300084579
学者们关于耶稣是否被埋葬有分歧。克雷格·埃文斯( Craig A. Evans)认为,“文献中的、历史学的和考古学的证据都指向一个方向:根据犹太习俗,耶稣的尸体被放置在墓中。”[114]约翰·克罗森有一个独特的立场,他认为彼得福音是关于耶稣的最古老的主要资料来源。根据这一立场,他认为关于耶稣埋葬的记载变得越来越过分,因此,他认为,在历史上敌人不会放出尸体,并认为耶稣的追随者没有办法知道耶稣的尸体在哪里。克罗森基于彼得福音的立场没有得到其它学者的支持,[115]例如,Meyer认为这种说法是“偏颇的、不可信的”,[116]Koester批评它是“严重有缺陷的”。[117]Habermas反对克罗森的说法,他认为,犹太当局在回应基督徒要求耶稣复活的说法而发明了埋葬和空坟墓的事件。[118]他注意到Yohanan Ben Ha'galgol尸体的发现,认为这个发现说明了一世纪在巴勒斯坦钉十字架后被埋葬是历史事实。(Yohanan Ben Ha'galgol在一世纪被钉十字架,被发现埋在古耶路撒冷外的埋葬地,一个藏有古代遗骨的房子里)[119]其他学者认为,在马可福音第25章中,亚利马太的约瑟埋葬了耶稣在历史上是可能的,有些学者进而认为,这个坟墓有可能在后来发现是空的。马克·沃特曼(Mark Waterman)更为肯定地维持空坟墓比耶稣复活后的显现更为重要的。[120] 迈克尔·格兰特(Michael Grant)写道:
In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of GodISBN 978-0-06-207863-6]. page 285
Robert M. Price (an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus) agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars: Robert M. Price "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in The Historical Jesus: Five Views edited by James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, 2009 InterVarsity, ISBN 028106329X page 61
Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200
Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 page 339 states of baptism and crucifixion that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent".
Crossan, John Dominic. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. 1995: 145. ISBN 0-06-061662-8. That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus ... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.
The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament by Andreas J. Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum 2009 ISBN 978-0-8054-4365-3 pages 124-125
Jesus Research: An International Perspective (Princeton-Prague Symposia Series on the Historical Jesus) by James H. Charlesworth and Petr Pokorny (Sep 15, 2009) ISBN 0802863531 pages 1-2
Clive Marsh, "Diverse Agendas at Work in the Jesus Quest" in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus by Tom Holmen and Stanley E. Porter (Jan 12, 2011) ISBN 9004163727 pages 986-1002
John P. Meier "Criteria: How do we decide what comes from Jesus?" in The Historical Jesus in Recent Research by James D. G. Dunn and Scot McKnight (Jul 15, 2006) ISBN 1575061007 page 124 "Since in the quest for the historical Jesus almost anything is possible, the function of the criteria is to pass from the merely possible to the really probable, to inspect various probabilities, and to decide which candidate is most probable.
James D. G. Dunn "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus" in Sacrifice and Redemption edited by S. W. Sykes (Dec 3, 2007) Cambridge University Press ISBN 052104460X pages 35-36 states that the theories of non-existence of Jesus are "a thoroughly dead thesis"
The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, 1989 ISBN 0192132415 Oxford University Press, p. 145: "Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed".
P.E. Easterling, E. J. Kenney (general editors), The Cambridge History of Latin Literature, page 892 (Cambridge University Press, 1982, reprinted 1996).
John P. Meier "How do we decide what comes from Jesus" in The Historical Jesus in Recent Research by James D. G. Dunn and Scot McKnight 2006 ISBN 1-57506-100-7 pages 126-128 and 132-136
Paul L. Maier "The Date of the Nativity and Chronology of Jesus" in Chronos, kairos, Christos by Jerry Vardaman, Edwin M. Yamauchi 1989 ISBN 0-931464-50-1 pages 113-129
The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament by Andreas J. Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum 2009 ISBN 978-0-8054-4365-3 page 114
In The Historical Jesus in Recent Research edited by James D. G. Dunn and Scot McKnight 2006 ISBN 1-57506-100-7 page 303 Marcus Borg states that the suggestions that an adult Jesus traveled to Egypt or India are "without historical foundation"
InWho Is Jesus? by John Dominic Crossan, Richard G. Watts 1999 ISBN 0664258425 pages 28-29 John Dominic Crossan states that none of the theories presented to fill the 15-18-year gap between the early life of Jesus and the start of his ministry have been supported by modern scholarship.
"[T]here is no reason to think that Jesus was called God in the earliest layers of New Testament tradition." in "Does the New Testament call Jesus God?" in Theological Studies, 26, (1965) p. 545-73
John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate, page 27: "A further point of broad agreement among New Testament scholars ... is that the historical Jesus did not make the claim to deity that later Christian thought was to make for him: he did not understand himself to be God, or God the Son, incarnate. ... such evidence as there is has led the historians of the era to conclude, with an impressive degree of unanimity, that Jesus did not claim to be God incarnate."
Josephus, Antiquities Book XVIII. earlyjewishwritings.com. [2022-08-09]. (原始内容存档于2020-06-29). Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late.
Jewish Encyclopedia: Essenes (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆): "The similarity in many respects between Christianity and Essenism is striking: There were the same communism (Acts iv. 34-35); the same belief in baptism or bathing, and in the power of prophecy; the same aversion to marriage, enhanced by firmer belief in the Messianic advent; the same system of organization, and the same rules for the traveling brethren delegated to charity-work (see Apostle and Apostleship); and, above all, the same love-feasts or brotherly meals (comp.
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church reports that "it is possible" that the temple disturbance led to Jesus' arrest, offers no alternative reason, and states more generally that a political rather than religious motivation was likely behind it.
Barrett, CK 'The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes', Westminster John Knox Press, 1978, page 49, 'The alleged contraventions of Jewish law seem to rest upon misunderstandings of Jewish texts'
Barrett, CK 'The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes', Westminster John Knox Press, 1978, pp. 49-50, 'The explanation is that special circumstances were regularly allowed to modify the course of the law.
N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), p. 49; who wrote "[Crossan's hypothesis] has not been accepted yet by any other serious scholar."
G. Habermas, The Historical Jesus, (College Press, 1996) p. 128; he observed that the Jewish polemic is recorded in Matthew 28:11–15 and was employed through the second century, cf.
"Jesus Research and Archaeology: A New Perspective" by James H. Charlesworth in Jesus and archaeology edited by James H. Charlesworth 2006 ISBN 0-8028-4880-X pages 11-15
Soundings in the Religion of Jesus: Perspectives and Methods in Jewish and Christian Scholarship by Bruce Chilton Anthony Le Donne and Jacob Neusner 2012 ISBN 0800698010 page 132
Hendel, Ronald. Knowledge and Power in Biblical Scholarship. June 2010 [2011-01-06]. (原始内容存档于2020-11-20). ... The problem at hand is how to preserve the critical study of the Bible in a professional society that has lowered its standards to the degree that apologetics passes as scholarship ...
Meier, John. Finding the Historical Jesus: An Interview With John P. Meier. St. Anthony Messenger. [Jan 6, 2011]. (原始内容存档于2000-12-07). ... I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed.
Clive Marsh "Quests of the Historical Jesus in New Historicist Perspective" in Biblical Interpretation Journal Volume 5, Number 4, 1997 , pp. 403-437(35)
McKnight, Scot. The Jesus We'll Never Know. April 9, 2010 [Jan 15, 2011]. (原始内容存档于2019-05-18). One has to wonder if the driving force behind much historical Jesus scholarship is ... a historian's genuine (and disinterested) interest in what really happened. The theological conclusions of those who pursue the historical Jesus simply correlate too strongly with their own theological predilections to suggest otherwise.
Jesus Remembered Volume 1, by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 pp. 125-126: "the historical Jesus is properly speaking a nineteenth- and twentieth-century construction using the data supplied by the Synoptic tradition, not Jesus back then," (the Jesus of Nazareth who walked the hills of Galilee), "and not a figure in history whom we can realistically use to critique the portrayal of Jesus in the Synoptic tradition."
T. Merrigan, The Historical Jesus in the Pluralist Theology of Religions, in The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology (ed.
Akenson, Donald. Surpassing wonder: the invention of the Bible and the Talmuds. University of Chicago Press. 1998: 539–555 [Jan 8, 2011]. ISBN 978-0-226-01073-1. (原始内容存档于2019-05-15). ... The point I shall argue below is that, the agreed evidentiary practices of the historians of Yeshua, despite their best efforts, have not been those of sound historical practice ...
The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament by Andreas J. Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum 2009 ISBN 978-0-8054-4365-3 pages 117–125
Barnett, Paul W. Jesus and the Logic of History (New Studies in Biblical Theology 3). Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. 1997. ISBN 0-85111-512-8.
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2011. ISBN 0-19-957527-4.
Brown, Raymond E. The Death of the Messiah: from Gethsemane to the Grave. New York, NY: Anchor Bible. 1993. ISBN 0-385-49449-1.
Brown, Raymond E. et al.The New Jerome Biblical Commentary Prentice Hall 1990 ISBN 0-13-614934-0
Bock, Darrell L., Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods.. Baker Academic: 2002. ISBN 978-0-8010-2451-1.
Craffert, Pieter F. and Botha, Pieter J. J. "Why Jesus Could Walk On The Sea But He Could Not Read And Write." Neotestamenica. 39.1, 2005.
Vermes, G. Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels. SCM Classics:2001, ISBN 0-334-02839-6
Theissen, Gerd and Merz, Annette. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 1998. ISBN 0-8006-3122-6.
Van Voorst, Robert E., Jesus Outside the New Testament, 2000, Eerdmans, google books(页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)
Witherington III, Ben. The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth. InterVarsity Press: 1997. ISBN 0-8308-1544-9.
Wright, N.T. Christian Origins and the Question of God, a projected six volume series of which three have been published under:
v. 1, The New Testament and the People of God. Augsburg Fortress Publishers: 1992.;
v. 2, Jesus and the Victory of God. Augsburg Fortress Publishers: 1997.;
v. 3, The Resurrection of the Son of God. Augsburg Fortress Publishers: 2003.
Wright, N.T. The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering who Jesus was and is. IVP 1996
Yaghjian, Lucretia. "Ancient Reading," in Richard Rohrbaugh, ed., The Social Sciences in New Testament Interpretation. Hendrickson Publishers: 2004. ISBN 1-56563-410-1.
"Jesus Christ"(页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆). Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2009. The first section, on Jesus' life and ministry