What these sources can—and cannot—show
Taken together, these sources support a modest but important historical conclusion: Jesus was a real first-century person, was executed under Pontius Pilate, and was worshiped by Christians very early. They do not by themselves establish every Gospel claim or prove the Resurrection; those questions require the New Testament evidence and the broader historical argument.
Editorial notes
- Dates are approximate. Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars is commonly dated around AD 120–122, so the graphic's “c. AD 115” should not be read as exact.
- The identification of Suetonius's “Chrestus,” Mara bar Serapion's “wise king,” and the Talmudic Yeshu with Jesus is disputed. Those entries are included as possible or later witnesses, not as certain identifications.
- Josephus's reference to James “the brother of Jesus who was called Christ” and Tacitus's account of Christus's execution under Pilate are the strongest non-Christian references shown here.
Primary-source references
- Josephus, Antiquities 20.200 and 18.63–64.
- Tacitus, Annals 15.44.
- Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96–97.
- Suetonius, Claudius 25.4 and Nero 16.2.
- Lucian, The Death of Peregrinus 11–13.
- Mara bar Serapion, letter to his son.
- Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a.