New Evidence for Jesus from Outside the Bible

In today's episode, we're going to examine three new pieces of evidence for Jesus that are found outside the Bible, and so they provide even more evidence for the truth of the Christian faith.

So, let's start with the first piece of evidence that some have described as being bigger than the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This one got traction in several 2024 news articles describing an inscription from the year 230 calling Jesus God.

Here's one news story about it.

They carefully excavated the mosaic, hiding it securely in Northern Israel until flying it here for a first public appearance.

The table is dedicated to the God Jesus Christ.

Now, this phrase God Jesus Christ is in the fifth line of the inscription.

And it is actually in a shortened form, so the letters that have the lines over them, it is actually a respectful way to write those words.

Dr. Duke believes these early writings are some of the first to show belief in the deity of Jesus.

With this inscription from a Christian woman identified as a keptus.

That reads God Jesus Christ.

The Megiddo mosaic is one he hopes will open up a world of possibilities for future discoveries.

The Megiddo mosaic also shows images of loaves and fish, which refers to Jesus's miraculous feeding of the 5,000.

Pope Benedict XVI said in a 2012 address that, quote, the crowd was impressed by the miracle.

It sees in Jesus the new Moses, worthy of power, and in the new manna, the future guaranteed.

However, the people stopped at the material element, which they had eaten.

And Pope Leo XIV said, beyond being a marvel, the miracle is a sign that reminds us that God's gifts, even the smallest, grow whenever they are shared.

And the rest of John 6 shows Jesus revealing the truth about the Eucharist, the bread which is his body that gives eternal life to the people that wanted more miraculously earthly bread.

The early belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist as a sacrifice that takes away sin is also in the Megiddo mosaic.

Because the text reads as follows.

The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.

The word table can refer to altar.

As can be seen in 1 Corinthians 10:21, you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

One study of the Megiddo Church points out that Christians used different words to refer to different kinds of altars.

It says the following.

In early Christianity, the altar was not called bomos, like the altars on which the pagans used to sacrifice, nor thysisterion, as it was later named because of its identification with the altar of the Temple, but trapeza, dining table.

For here did the faithful celebrate the first rite, except for baptism, of the new religion, the breaking of bread and drinking of wine, as Jesus had instructed the apostles.

So this early inscription shows that Jesus is God because you only offer sacrificial worship on an altar to God.

But also that the early Christian liturgy involved offering the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

As I noted in previous episodes, the description of offering the Eucharist in remembrance of Jesus in the Gospels uses the Greek word anamnesis.

Which is more properly translated memorial sacrifice.

So these early Christians didn't just believe Jesus was God, they believed that they received the God man in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

That's why Saint Cyprian, writing around the time of this inscription, said the following.

For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is himself the chief priest of God the Father, and has first offered himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of himself.

Certainly that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did, and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the church to God the Father.

When he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ himself to have offered.

Before we check out the next two pieces of evidence, this is just a reminder that there's another source outside the Bible.

That can build up your faith.

That being this channel.

So if you want to help us make content like this, please hit the subscribe button.

And support us for as little as $5 a month at Trenhornpodcast.com.

All right, next up is number two, Jesus's tomb is a garden tomb.

John 19:41 says, Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden.

And in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid.

In my previous episode on the two tombs of Jesus, linked below, I talk about the so-called Garden Tomb of Jerusalem.

It's popular with Protestants because it lacks the Catholic and Orthodox elements that you find in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

But this Protestant tomb of Jesus also has no good historical claim to being Jesus's actual tomb.

In contrast, the traditional side of Jesus's tomb within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre does have good evidence for its historicity.

Now, you wouldn't think of a picturesque garden tomb in this spot.

And it would be hard to know that since the Emperor Hadrian built temples to the pagan gods of Rome over the site of Calvary and Jesus's tomb.

Which ironically marked the site for future pilgrims to know its location.

Recently, my friend Karen Bertuzi did an episode on his channel discussing new archaeological evidence that Jesus's tomb in the Holy Sepulchre was built over a garden.

Just as it's described in John's Gospel.

Archaeobotanical analyses, which is just a fancy word for studying ancient plant remains, revealed preserved olive pits, grape seeds and pollen.

Trapped in sealed soil layers beneath the church floor.

And these weren't just like random seeds scattered about, they were actually neatly organized into terraced planting beds lined by low stone walls.

Exactly what you'd expect to see in a cultivated garden from the first century.

As if that weren't enough, researchers also uncovered several rock cut tombs.

Carved directly into the bedrock.

These weren't just caves formed by nature, they were purposefully hand chiseled chambers dating precisely to the era around Jesus's crucifixion.

Again, just as the Gospels describe.

Check out Cameron's whole episode linked below for more on that.

But I want to respond to a few points that Stephen Woodford, an atheist commenter from Rationality Rules, made in reply to Cameron.

Because Stephen really made a big deal out of nothing in his reply.

The logical fallacy here is rather obvious.

Cameron's essentially arguing that the gospel says someone was buried in a rock cut tomb outside the city walls, we found rock cut tombs outside of the city walls.

Therefore, the gospel account is historically accurate.

Again, by using this logic, archaeologists discovering Troy, as described in Homer's Iliad.

Would prove that Achilles was actually the son of a goddess.

This should be obvious, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it is obvious to most Christians.

Surely, but finding the setting doesn't validate the supernatural claims.

Made about what happened there.

No, but it provides more evidence for that supernatural conclusion.

There is no way to directly prove a miracle like the resurrection or Christ's ascension through archaeology.

But historical sciences do provide empirical facts that can lead to a supernatural conclusion.

For example, critics like John Dominic Crosson claim Jesus wasn't buried in a tomb at all, and his body, like the body of other criminals, was thrown in a pit to be devoured by wild animals.

And so he claims the gospel account is a legend about his burial in a tomb.

But archaeological finds like the skeleton of the man named Jehohanan show that crucified criminals were buried in tombs.

Also, Cameron is not saying, here's a tomb, therefore Jesus is God, like in Woodford's Troy example.

Cameron's saying it's striking that the traditional tomb of Christ in a fourth century church also happens to be around other tombs that were built centuries earlier.

Thus confirming this site was not part of a later legend, but fits perfectly with the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was killed and then buried among other new tombs.

And the same is true of there being a garden, which, contrary to Woodford's claim, weren't all over the place.

But would be a unique thing to find in this location that further corroborates John's claims.

All of this confirms historical details that make the natural facts supporting the resurrection more reliable.

Christ died by crucifixion, was buried in a locatable tomb.

His followers claimed to see him physically alive three days later, and they were capable of checking his tomb to see if it was truly empty.

Number three, a new defense of Josephus's testimony about Jesus.

Some people ask me if there's evidence for Jesus outside the Bible, and there is.

But even if there weren't, the Bible is not an invalid source.

It's like many other ancient documents, and so it can be used to demonstrate truths about the ancient world.

That said, there are some early non-Christian witnesses to Jesus.

One of them is Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian employed by the Romans, who wrote a history of the Jewish war against Rome, and a history of the Jewish people called the Antiquities.

In book 20 of the Antiquities, Josephus refers to the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James.

Which nearly all scholars believe is authentic.

What's more controversial is book 18 of the Antiquities, where Josephus says this: About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.

For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.

He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.

He was the Christ.

And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross.

Those who had first come to love him did not cease.

He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him.

And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

Most scholars believe Josephus did refer to Jesus, but that this passage has been subject to Christian revisions over time.

That's because Josephus was an unconverted Jew, so he would never have said Jesus was the Messiah or the Christ.

Origen even says in his commentary on Matthew that Josephus did not accept Jesus as Christ.

The reference of Jesus rising on the third day would also be out of place for an unconverted Jew.

But scholars don't think the entire passage is a forgery because there are other phrases that make it unlikely a Christian invented the whole thing.

Which itself would also be unheard of because Christians did not alter Josephus anywhere else, nor did they alter the first century texts of the Jew Philo.

Who discussed ideas relevant to Christianity, but never mentions Jesus.

For example, the passage in Josephus calls Jesus a wise man, which is not a Christian description of Jesus.

Because it makes it sound like Jesus was merely a man.

Likewise, Josephus says that Christians belong to a tribe.

But Christians did not describe themselves in this way.

For a while, I held to the partial authenticity theory, but now I'm much more open to the idea that the entire passage is authentic.

And I've come across new answers to other common objections to this claim.

This past May, T.C. Schmidt, who earned a PhD at Yale, has published a book with Oxford University Press called Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ.

Schmidt has done extensive word analysis of the passage to show that the vocabulary adheres to Josephus's style.

It's not something that typical forger would produce.

Schmidt's also shown the passage fits in the context of the surrounding narrative in Josephus.

And has answered many similar objections claiming the passage is not authentic.

He also does a good job showing how Josephus's original testimony about Jesus was probably neutral or even negative.

Which explains why Christians didn't cite this passage until later in church history.

Other manuscripts show that the phrase, he was the Christ, was probably rendered, he was called Christ.

Which matches what Josephus says in book 20.

Also, if a Christian had interpolated the phrase, they probably would have said Jesus is the Christ in the present tense.

Likewise, the phrase, if he be called a man, is probably not from a Christian revision, but from Josephus thinking Jesus may have been a wonder worker or a sorcerer.

Which falls in line with ancient Jewish polemics against Jesus.

And the line about Jesus appearing to the disciples on the third day, probably went more like this given the grammar of the passage and the textual evidence.

He appeared to them to be alive on the third day given that the divine prophets had spoken such things and many other marvels about him.

In other words, Josephus was describing what the disciples believed or what it appeared to the disciples without necessarily endorsing their beliefs.

Finally, mythicists who say Jesus never existed, often claim that even if some version of this passage were authentic, this doesn't prove anything.

Because Josephus probably got his information from second generation Christians.

Who may have already believed in a mythic spiritual Jesus or got it from the Gospels themselves.

But Schmidt shows that when Josephus uses sources like the Jewish letters of Aristaeus, he often copies phrases word for word.

Which he doesn't do with any of the Gospels.

And the nature of Josephus's description makes more sense coming from a Jewish source.

Possibly a member of the Sanhedrin itself.

And here's the best part, Schmidt's book, at least of this recording.

You may have to act fast.

Is available as an open source work, so you can download it for free.

I love it when academics do this.

Because there's a lot of great scholarship out there, but it's often inaccessible to lay people who don't want to pay $120 for an academic monograph.

So if you want to get the book, check out the link in the description below.

So, those are three new pieces of evidence for Jesus from outside of the Bible.

If there are other ancient testimonies and sources about Jesus you'd like me to talk about.

Please leave your recommendations in the comments below.

Thank you guys so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.