The Word became flesh and lived among us, (John 1:14).
A number of weeks ago I was making a reference to the passage in Acts 18 where we first meet two friends of Paul’s; Aquila and Priscilla. Paul first meets them on his first trip to Corinth. The text tells us that they were believing Jews who came to Corinth when Claudius forced all the Jews to leave Rome. That event took place in 52 A.D. and is regarded as a sound historical fact. The best explanation of this event occurs in a book written by the Roman Historian Suetonius shortly after the end of the first century. In his biography of twelve Roman emperors, he writes that Claudius expelled the Jews because of disturbances regarding one “Chrestus”. At this point in time, the Romans would not have distinguished between Jews and Christians, and in all probability the disturbances were between the two parties and “Chrestus” is a reference to Christ.
Suetonius is one of a number of early Roman historians and political figures who make reference to Jesus and the Christians during the first century and early second century. Along with Suetonius, we have references from Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Origin’s references to Celsus. I point this out because as a new believer I was often confronted with a statement something to the effect that apart from the New Testament we have no evidence that Jesus existed. Nothing could be further from the truth. I decided that I needed to have a t-shirt made that said, “What about Suetonius?”
If we include the writings of the early church fathers, we have even more evidence. Several men were mentored by the Apostle John and write extensively about Jesus, quoting major sections of documents we now include in the New Testament. Clement was appointed the leader of the church in Syrian Antioch by Peter, Polycarp and Ignatius were taught by John, Papias knew John and was friends with Polycarp, and if the earliest sources are to be trusted, the Epistle of Barnabas was written by the Barnabas who traveled with the Apostle Paul. All these men authored documents written within years of the New Testament writings. Someone has observed, that even though the books contained in the New Testament were not officially designated until the fourth century, they were in circulation and considered authoritative within years of the first century. I only point this out because another of the claims I periodically encounter is that the Bible has been “rigged” by the fourth century church leaders to fit their own objectives. My conviction, after studying the events surrounding the decisions of the early councils is that the leaders of the church at that time did not decide “what” was Scripture…but merely affirmed what had “always” been recognized by the early church as inspired and apostolic. They did this primarily in response to documents claiming to have apostolic authorship but were spurious.
All this to point out that when you hear people make statements that sound academic and authoritative, and that cast doubt on the authenticity of the life and teachings of Jesus, and the corpus of the Bible, it is often the case that those making the statements are simply parroting ideas they have been exposed to but have not verified, made by others who are simply parroting what they have heard from someone who also hasn’t verified what they are saying.
So next time someone throws one of these arguments your way, remember to respond, “What about Suetonius?”