And yet they began worshipping Jesus as God after he rose from the dead. You are without excuse.
Or they made him up.
The problem with the books of the NT is that they aren't arranged in the order they were written
The Epistles were first. One could even argue that Paul made Jesus up.
Then Mark.
Then Matthew and Luke copying off of Mark and fan-ficking the heck out of it.
Then, finally, John, which was written a lot later, when Christianity became quite distinct from Judaism.
Yes,
the overwhelming consensus among historians and biblical scholars is that Jesus of Nazareth was a real, historical person who lived in 1st-century Judea. While specific, non-biblical archaeological evidence from his lifetime is non-existent, multiple independent sources, including Roman historians
Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius, confirm his existence and execution.
Except. NOt really. The reference in Suetonius is that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because someone named "Chrestos" was stirring them up. That's hardly conclusive. In the life of Nero, Suetonius mentions the punishments of Christians, but nothing about their being blamed for the Great Fire.
Tacitus mentions them, but the passage is kind of suspicious, like a monk in the Middle Ages was transcribing older scrolls and said, 'Hey, shouldn't Jesus be in this part?"
The evidence for Christians in both the Annals and the Lives of the 12 Caesars are scant.
Dio Cassius, our third great source about the Julio Claudians, doesn't mention Christians at all, even though he wrote at a time when Christians were more common.
Of course, both Suetonius and Tacitus, even if they ARE referring to Christians, didn't meet Jesus personally. They just heard of him.
For Pliny, Pliny only asks the Emperor if Christians should be punished, and the Emperor said no. Now consider this. The Chrisitans were blamed for the Great Fire of Rome a mere 50 years earlier. If the account of Tacitus were true, they certainly would have made a bigger deal.