27. The historicity of Jesus

Once in a while voices are still heard that call into question the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Especially at Christmas time, we usually talk about whether Jesus was born on this date or another, which ends by concluding, erroneously, that his birth, death, and resurrection are more in the realm of legend than of history. This is not the case, and if it is a matter of faith in his divinity, his earthly existence leaves no room for doubt.

Today, however, it is known that there was an error in the date of the birth of Christ. The wise Benedictine Dionysius Exiguus, who in the year 533 began for the first time to count the years from the birth of the Lord, replacing the old numbering from the founding of Rome, he was wrong by 6 years. This matched the 1 January of the year one, with the 1 January of the year 754 of the founding of Rome, instead of choosing the 748 which today is considered to be exact. Therefore, we should place the birth of Christ six years before the Christian Era.

According to historians, Herod the Great died the year 4 before our era. As he gave the command to kill the children of Bethlehem under two years of age, we can assume that Jesus was born two years before, that is to say, the 6 before our era. This is confirmed because, according to the mathematician and astronomer Kepler, the year of the birth of Christ, there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, that is to say, one behind the other, which causes an intense light, very visible in the starry sky. Would this be the “Star of Bethlehem?” The day of the year of the birth of Jesus did not tell us anything the Gospels, but from the first century it was celebrated on 25 December, although there were also other dates of celebration.

The day of the death of Jesus it is thought that it might be the 14 Nisan, in the year 785 from the founding of Rome that corresponds to Friday 3 April of the year 33, that was the First Friday of the month. Recent astronomical studies carried out by Colin Humphreys and W.G. Waddington, of the University of Oxford, have revealed that a partial eclipse visibly darkened the sky of Jerusalem on 3 April of the year 33, which corresponds to 14 Nisan, which is the day that Jesus Christ died. This explains “the darkness that covered the earth” that day, according to the Gospel. However, others argue as more likely the Passover of the year 32.

The exact determination of the dates and places did not especially interest in evangelists. Often they say, in general terms, “at that time,” and many times there is added a very a general description of a place: “And He went up a mountain.” The Gospels want to convey the preaching of the Apostles, and draw a picture of Christ, so that each one can be convinced of the truth of the faith. None of them wants to tell everything; on the contrary, each one takes the liberty of gathering what seemed to be the most important points, and sorts them according to their particular points of view.

But the historicity of Jesus offers no doubt. We speak of the pagan historians of the time. Pliny the Younger, who was the Roman Governor of Bitinia in Asia Minor. In the year 112, in a letter to the Emperor Trajan, speaking of Christians who refused to offer sacrifices to the emperor, said that they gathered at the crack of dawn to sing hymns to Christ, their God. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, very well educated, writes in the year 93 in the first century: “At that time Jesus appeared, an exceptional man, if we can call him a man, who did amazing wonders… both among Jews as among the Greeks He had many disciples who followed him. By the denunciation of the heads of the people, Pilate condemned Him to the torment of the cross. But this did not prevent his disciples from continuing to love Him as before. The three days after His death, He appeared alive.”

Gaius Suetonius, historian of the Caesars from Augustus until Domitian, in his work composed between the years 110 and 120 refers twice to the Christians. Once in the life of Nero and the other in the reign of Claudius. It also speaks of Christian, Cornelius Tacitus, a great historian, a disciple of Pliny the Elder. In relating, in the year 100, the fire of Rome by order of Nero in the year 64, reads: “Be imputed to Christians who take their name from Christ, who during the reign of Tiberius, was sentenced to death by the Procurator Pontius Pilate.”

But above all, we speak of Jesus Christ The Holy Gospels. Gospel means good news. The good news is the coming of Jesus, the Savior of mankind. The word gospel does not mean primarily a text, a book; but that, by its etymology and its biblical usage, designates originally a happy message, an advertisement that makes you happy. The Gospel was, therefore, first of all the word of Jesus.

The Gospels are books written between the years 40 – when the first oral traditions begin to be collected – and 100, by eyewitnesses who reported what they saw and heard; or by those who were in contact with eyewitnesses. St John says: “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes… we proclaim.” St. Luke says: “Many have been dedicated themselves to compose a narrative of events, such as the eyewitnesses who have handed it down to us from the beginning.”

The theories of the Protestant Professor Rudolph Bultmann, according to which the Gospels were written at very late date and without much connection with what happened, -who for some time have oriented interpretations of biblical texts of the New Testament, are now discredited thanks to the investigations of the Hebrew specialists. Especially in the work of David Flusser and Geza Vermes, who have come to the conclusion that behind these assertions of Bultmann on the biblical texts there was a lot of german philosophical ideology. However, the opposition to the theories of Bultrnann began among his disciples themselves, such as Ernst Bornkann Kiisemann and Gunther.

One of the tests of the oldness of the Gospels, was contributed by St. Irenaeus, who was born in Asia Minor, who became bishop of Lyons and had been a disciple of St. Polycarp in Smyrna and he of the Evangelist John. That makes it one of the most representative figures of the second century. St. Irenaeus says: “Matthew published a written Gospel to the Hebrews in their language. Mark, a disciple of St. Peter, also wrote down the things preached by Peter; Luke, a disciple of Paul, put, in the form of a book, the gospel preached by his master. Later, John, a disciple of the Lord, also published a Gospel during his stay in Ephesus.” We have two other documents of the second century on the authenticity of the Gospels: Papias said that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew, and that Mark was the interpreter of the evangelization of Peter. The other document is the Canon of Muratori which speaks of St. Luke as the author of the third Gospel, and San Juan as the fourth.