Jesus and History - jesusinhistoryandscience

Is eyewitness testimony important?

by Stephen Mitchell | Aug 27, 2025 | Church Fathers, Jesus and History, New Testament origins

Some suggest that the people of the first century were eager gullible people who really did not worry about verifying facts. There have always been gullible people. What do we know about the early Christian believers and the way they demanded truth? Did they care?...

Ancient Secular References to Jesus

by Stephen Mitchell | Aug 27, 2025 | Jesus and History, Jesus in History base

Online some people claim that Jesus Christ was a mythical figure that really never existed. Serious historians don’t agree. The simplest explanation for all of the impacts of Christianity is that there was a person around whom it originated. Regardless, some people...

New information on Josephus: the Earliest Non-Christian testimony of Jesus Christ

by Stephen Mitchell | Jul 5, 2025 | Jesus and History, New Testament Reliability

PDF version available here The New Testament provides eye-witness testimony and early records from Christian perspectives. ...

Who was Jesus in the earliest New Testament records? Did the early believers invent Christianity?

by Stephen Mitchell | Oct 16, 2020 | Jesus in History base, New Testament, New Testament origins, New Testament Reliability

In this post, I will examine the claim that the message of Christianity changed so much over its early years that we cannot be sure what is real about Jesus. Specifically, we will look at the books of the New Testament that are considered the first written. These give...

New Report… Ancient Israel more Literate than Expected

by Stephen Mitchell | Sep 14, 2020 | Jesus and History, New Testament Reliability, Old Testament

Link: Study confirms widespread literacy in biblical-period kingdom of Judah Who wrote the Old Testament and when was it written? Few of the books explicitly say who the authors were. Even the books of prophecy tell us little about how the prophecies came to be...

Eyewitnesses… Did the early Christians care?

by Stephen Mitchell | Aug 12, 2020 | Jesus and History, New Testament, New Testament Reliability

Several of the accounts in the New Testament claim to have been written by eye witnesses. Eye witness testimony is very strong in examining any historical event. Think about a criminal trial. If the prosecutors have a witness that can say “I saw him do it”, it is...