Whether you are a believer or not, it is undeniable that one of the most decisive figures in the history of humanity, probably the most, is Christ. Beyond his figure the Gospels, there are little doubt of its historical existence.
On this matter, there is different evidence, of greater or lesser importance, that demonstrates the existence of the historical jesus. He Daily Mail In a report, he collects the seven main pieces of evidence, based on archeology and science.
written tests
The best reason we have to believe in the existence of the historical Jesus is that there are surprisingly good written records of his life. What makes this so compelling is that many of the stories are written by non-christian authors who were often openly opposed to Christianity.
The doctor Lawrence Mykytiuka specialist in Hebrew studies at Purdue University (USA), says: “For more than 1,000 years, no one claimed that Jesus did not exist. All non-Christian sources of antiquity recognize, implicitly or explicitly, that he was a real person. that really existed.”
The Roan historian Tacitus or the Jewish author Flavius ​​Josephuswho mentions Jesus in his extensive work Jewish antiquitieswritten just 60 years after the death of Jesus, are two examples.
In one section of the book, Josephus describes how a priest named Ananus attempted to execute Jesus’ brother James. He writes that Ananus “called a meeting of judges and brought into it the brother of Jesus, called Messiah, called James.”
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 it mentioning Jesus.
Mykytiuk says: “If Jesus, the brother of James, had not been a real person, this reference to Jesus-called-Messiah “It wouldn’t have made sense.”
Alexamenos graffiti
He Alexámenos graphite (also known as Palatine graffiti) is a graffiti in Greek found on a wall on the Palatine Hill, in Rome. It is considered to be the first known pictorial representation of the crucifixion of Jesus. It is preserved in the Antiquarium Forense or Antiquarium Palatino Museum in Rome.
The drawing shows a man worshiping a man with the head of a donkey hanging on the cross with a message that translates as: “Alexamenos worships (his) god.”
Dr. Jonathan Reed, a leading authority on the archeology of early Christianity at the University of La Verne, says: “The oldest evidence we have in the archaeological record of Christians is someone mocking the crucifixion of Jesus.”
The reason this is so compelling is that what Dr. Reed describes as “the criterion of shame”. “Crucifixion would have been seen as shameful and much of the Gospels try to turn crucifixion into a heroic death,” he adds.
Similarly, the fact that Jesus was initially presented as a follower of John the Baptist It was deeply troubling to the early church and was something that went to great lengths to try to explain.
The fact that they survived embarrassing details and that Christians were so distressed by them is actually a good sign that they were not invented.
Reed says, “From my perspective, what I am most certain of is that Jesus began as a follower of John the Baptist, who came from the lower peasant classes, maybe he was an illegitimate son and he was crucified“.
The crucified heel
Another detail of the crucifixion that some scholars have found difficult to explain is: if Jesus died as an enemy of the state, Why was he allowed a full burial?
Although there is abundant evidence that the crucifixion actually occurred, some critics argue that Jesus would most likely have been thrown into a mass grave for criminals.
However, in 1986 a construction crew accidentally discovered several tombs in northern Jerusalem. An ossuary, a chest for storing skeletal remains, was marked with the name of Jehohanan and contained the remains of a man who appeared to have been crucified.
The bones included a heel that still had the nail embedded in it for which the man had been nailed to the cross. This not only further reinforces the accuracy of the description of Jesus nailed to the cross, but also demonstrates that families could recover the remains of crucified criminals.
Although not direct evidence of the life of Jesus, this discovery vindicated the Gospel writer’s account about his death.
The Shroud of Turin
The existence of relics of Jesus Christ have also been used as proof of his existence. The most famous of all is the Holy Shroud of Turin. It is a piece of cloth that bears the impression of a man and is considered by many to be the cloth in which Jesus was wrapped after the crucifixion.
But some scholars are convinced that it is a legitimate relic of Jesus, increasingly There is more evidence that contradicts that position.
For example, a recent study found that the image marked on the shroud could not have been made by a human body, but must have been made by superficial carving, like a bas-relief.
Likewise, a study carried out by the Italian researcher Antonio Lombati discovered that the weaving pattern used for the shroud does not match any examples of funerary linens from the area of ​​Israel dating to the time of Jesus.
Rather, the pattern is extremely similar to cloth produced in the early Middle Ages. during the Crusadesthe period to which the shroud was attributed during an investigation in the 1980s.
“I am convinced that the sacred relics are all fakes and that has to do in part with the fact that they all appear at the same time after the Crusades, when there was a thirst for this material in Europe. If you look at the Shroud of Turin , from the beginning, even in the documents of the Church, there was some suspicion about it“says Dr. Reed.
But there are still people with doubts: Ben Witherington III, a Bible scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary, says: “The shroud itself has a negative image of a crucified man, which has existed at least since the early Middle Ages, in a time long before photographs.
“How exactly did that image get on the canvasand how does it so accurately represent the place where Jesus would have been scourged on his back, or nailed to his wrists, or bleeding from the head from something, say a crown of thorns?” he asks.
The Church of the Apostles
In 2017, archaeologists excavating in the El Araj area of ​​Israel made a surprising discovery. Buried next to the Jordan River archaeologists found the remains of a Byzantine basilica measuring 27 x 15 meters.
Researchers believe this may be the site of Bethsaida, the town that was home to the apostles Pedro, Andrés and Felipe. If that were the case, the basilica of El Araj would be the lost ‘Church of the Apostles’, which was supposedly built on the ruins of the town.
Following further research in 2021, Professor Steven Notely, archaeologist at Nyack College and co-director of the excavation, told the Society for Biblical Archeology: “There are no other churches in the surrounding area mentioned by Byzantine visitors to the Holy Land, and there is no reason to question that this is the Church of the Apostles.”
Even more interesting is that the excavations found the remains of a fishing village from Roman times below the later church. For some, this makes a compelling argument that the biblical account of the life of Jesus is supported by compelling evidence.
The inscription ‘Jesus is God’
As in the case of the Alaxámenos graffiti, the evidence from the early church gives us a strong indication that there really were a person around of which the followers had to join.
Another, slightly more flattering example of this is an inscription found beneath the floor of an Israeli prison. This mosaic of 1,800 years old presents the first written declaration of Jesus as God.
The mosaic, measuring 54 m2, decorated the first prayer hall in the world in the year 230 AD. C. and contains the ancient Greek phrase: “Akeptous, lover of God, has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”
Carlos Campogeneral director of the Museum of the Bible that recently displayed the mosaic, called it “the greatest discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
This shows that the divinity of Christ became part of the ideologies of some Christians as soon as 200 years after his death.
The Ossuary of Santiago
The so-called Ossuary of Santiago is a box of bones that bears the Aramaic inscription: “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”
Dr. Witherington says: “The probability that that particular combination of those three names does not refer to the famous James the Just, his father Joseph, and his brother Jesus is slim to none. If it were true that the crucifixion was the end of the story of Jesus, “No one would boast of being related to him in an ossuary.”
If the Ossuary of James is real, it would certainly be striking proof that Jesus was a real figure who rose to prominence shortly after his death. Unfortunately, The history of the Santiago Ossuary is a little more complicated.
The ossuary was supposedly acquired by an Israeli businessman named Oded Golan to an unknown antiques dealer in the 1970s.
However, in an unusual move, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) accused Golan of falsifying the relic and took him to court in “the forgery trial of the century.”
IAA experts claimed that Golan had taken an authentic 1st century ossuary and added the inscription himself. When police detained Golan, they found a forgery laboratory full of tools and half-finished “antiques.” Nevertheless, he ended up being acquitted.