Why isnt jesus in history books if HE was so important?

Answer 1

That entirely depends on what you call history books. Remember some people do believe that The Bible is historical, and to be honest some parts of it are historically accurate other parts are more like a written verbal history.

'A' Jesus was mentioned in some Roman records, but to be honest Jesus was a fairly common name back then in that area so it's highly likely that there was more than one.

The most solid evidence we have which does not come from the gospels and from a different source was the Greek Thallus who mentioned the crucifixion of Jesus in his book "The Third History". But this was allegedly written 20 years after Jesus's death and doesn't exist in it's entirety. Thallus's books were mostly destroyed and the expcert we get mentioning Jesus is from the quotes by Sextus Julius Africanus in his book "History of the World".

It's important to consider that Thallus was a Pagan not a Christian so if the account repeated by Sextus is correct then it is significant that he would record this. It must have made an impression otherwise why would he have bothered?

The 9th-century Christian chronologer George Syncellus cites Sextus as reporting Thallus as saying:

"This event followed each of his deeds, and healings of body and soul, and knowledge of hidden things, and his resurrection from the dead, all sufficiently proven to the disciples before us and to his apostles: after the most dreadful darkness fell over the whole world, the rocks were torn apart by an earthquake and much of Judaea and the rest of the land was torn down."

That's it. Of course it is entirely possible that this was fabricated by Sextus who by that time may have been a closet Christian and wanted to historicise Jesus. But I leave that decision to you.