Is there any historical record of Jesus before 325AD?

Answer 1

A:No. There is no contemporary reference to Jesus in pagan, Jewish or secular writings. As far as we know, no one even wrote a letter about of the darkness that descended at noon while Jesus was on the cross (Mark 15:33) or in awe at the sight of the dead rising up from their graves and walking into Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52-53). A near-contemporary, Philo of Alexandria, who wrote of every Jewish religious movement of which he knew, says nothing of Jesus. The gospels say that the curtain at the entrance to the Holy of Holies in the Temple tore from top to bottom, but Josephus, a priest who served in the temple long after the time of Jesus, describes the curtain and its images and colours in considerable detail (Wars of the Jews, Book 5), but makes no mention of any damage to it, or any repairs. Josephus apparently did mention the followers of Jesus in his Antiquities of the Jews, published in 93 CE, but he made no effort to verify their claims.

There might well have been a wandering preacher called Jesus who lived in Galilee in the first century, but what are believed to be the earliest identified Christian accounts in the Gospel of Thomas and the hypothetical 'Q' document make no reference to his crucifixion. The Apostle Paul seems unaware that Jesus was a person who had lived and died in Palestine in the recent past. Paul refers to Jesus crucified, but seems to have believed that the resurrection was only a spiritual on, in fact some believe he saw the entire life of Jesus as in the heavenly sphere.

No archaeological evidence of Jesus existed before the fourth century, and Christians had always seemed remarkably uninterested in visiting any of the sites associated in The Bible with Jesus. Then Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, visited Jerusalem and found, to her own satisfaction, all the Jerusalem sites and many artefacts associated with Jesus. A medieval industry developed for the discovery and veneration or sale of holy artefacts, and for pilgrimage to holy sites.