Did Jesus exist ?? Yesus itu nyata ??

Did Jesus exist?

The Bible says that Jesus existed and that he is the Son of God. But the Qur'an says that he is no more than a man. Buddhist and Hindu writings support their non-Christian beliefs. Nearly all faiths have a book which claims that their religion is true.

If we did not have the New Testament, what could we learn about Jesus? First, let's look at the early non-Christian historical records:

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• 1.Thallus the Samaritan (A.D. 52) wrote a work tracing the history of Greece from the Trojan War to his own 
• day. In it he attempts to explain the darkness of the crucifixion of Jesus as an eclipse of the sun. 
• This is the earliest non-Christian reference to Jesus' existence and death.
• 2.Mara bar Serapion (writing after A.D. 70, as he describes the Fall of Jerusalem) adds: "What advantage 
• did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished.
• " His letter is on display in the British Museum today. It shows that the first Christians saw Jesus 
• not just as a religious teacher, but as their King.
• 3.The Roman historian Suetonius (AD 65-135) later records, "Punishments were also inflicted on the 
• Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief" (Nero 16.2). Note that the Empire 
• would not punish people who followed a religious teacher, only one who made him Lord in place of Caesar.
• 4.Tacitus (AD 55-120) was the greatest ancient Roman historian. Around AD 115 he writes, 
• "Christus . . . suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our 
• procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition broke out" (Annals XV.44). 
• His description of Christian belief as "superstition" makes clear the fact that Tacitus considered 
• the followers of Christus to believe something supernatural or miraculous, not simply that he was a great 
• human teacher.
• 5.Pliny the Younger was a Roman administrator and author, governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor; 
• two volumes of his letters are extant today. The tenth of his correspondence books (written ca. AD 112) 
• contains the earliest non-biblical description of Christian worship: "They were in the habit of meeting on
•  a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as 
• to a god." Note that believers worshiped Christ as God in AD 112, not centuries later after 
• their beliefs "evolved," as some critics claim.
• 6.Flavius Josephus, the noted Jewish historian (AD 37/38-97), records: "Ananias called a Sanhedrin 
• together, brought before it James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain 
• others . . . and he caused them to be stoned" (Antiquities 20.9.1). Thus the Christians called 
• Jesus the Christ, the Messiah.
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• Finally, consider Josephus' most famous statement about Jesus (Antiquities 18.3.3): "Now, there was 
• about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful 
• works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of 
• the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the 
• principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did 
• not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had 
• foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, 
• so named from him, are not extinct at this day." While most historians do not believe that this 
• paragraph represents Josephus's own faith commitment, it does document the beliefs of 
• the earliest Christians regarding Jesus. Note that it was written before the end of the first century