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Updated: June 19, 2025
But the question is, does a teacher suppress the facts? Does he insist on remaining ignorant of the facts? Now that the debate on one of the most vital questions of modern religious thought The Historicity of Jesus is in print, a few further reflections on some minor points in Dr. Crapsey's argument may add to the value of the published copy.
These include a reference in Tacitus' Annals, and brief references by Suetonius and Pliny the Younger. These three references are considered spurious by many scholars, and even if they were all to be accepted it would mean that the total pagan testimony as to the historicity of Jesus is confined to three very vague and brief references written a century after the reputed time of Jesus.
A walk through a pleasant neighborhood is all the pleasanter if one knows that something memorable has happened there. If one is wise he will not attempt to realize it to the exclusion of the present scene. It is enough to have a slight flavor of historicity. It was this pleasure which I enjoyed in a ramble with a friend through the New Forest.
If the evidence proves the historicity of Jesus, well and good; if the evidence is not sufficient to prove it, there is no reason why we should fear to say so; besides, it is our duty to inform ourselves on this question.
It brings an intense feeling of relief to many who have been distressed by being told that religion is bound up with certain events in antiquity, the historicity of which it is in some cases difficult to establish; with a cosmology which has been definitely disproved; and with a philosophy which they cannot make their own.
Indeed, when we reflect on the character of the Gospels, their origin and composition, and then consider the sharp, strong outlines of the personality depicted, we shall be apt to feel his claim to historicity to be stronger than we supposed. Finally, two points may be mentioned. The Church from the very start accepted the Gospels.
Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet though I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry. All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. Clergymen's discussions of the historicity of Jesus.
Purim and Chanuka are their names. Purim was probably the ancient Babylonian Saturnalia, and it is still observed as a kind of Carnival by many Jews, though their number is decreasing. For Purim is emphatically a Ghetto feast. And this description applies in more ways than one. The historicity of the story is doubted, and its narrow outlook is not that of prophetic Judaism.
This is not enough to prove his historicity, but it is an important link in the chain. Neither the place nor the time of Jesus' birth is known. There has never been any unanimity about this matter. There has been considerable confusion and contradiction about it. It cannot be proved that the twenty-fifth of December is his birthday.
The other phrases mentioned are characteristic and distinctive. This similarity suggests that the three pamphlets were written by the same hand. Since we know that one of the three is a fabrication, we are led to suspect the credibility of the other two. There are, indeed, other reasons for doubting the historicity of these two.
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