Jesus of history?

A fictional archaeologist in the 1979 book Act of God, by Charles Templeton, says that there is no mention of Jesus in secular history. Not so much as a reference outside of the Bible by the Romans or Josephus. Though no serious historian of the Biblical time, whether Christian, Jew, or Agnostic, denies that Jesus existed and that Christs resurrection was the bedrock of the Christian faith from the beginning, there are some today who may still say that Jesus probably never existed in history or that his divinity wasn't made up till centuries later. Is this true? No.

Even some of the most skeptical historians believe the Bible gives at least a good historical outline of the life of Jesus, even if they deny the reported miracles. But there are also non-biblical references to Christ and what the early Christian church believed. Here are some examples:

Josephus
Josephus was a Jewish Historian born in A.D. 37. In his book, The Antiquities, he makes a couple of references to Jesus. One is in dispute, but is still important. In the first one he talks about a trial in which a man named James, the brother of Jesus, was sentenced to be stoned.

"He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned."
The Antiquities 20.200

The Bible also says that a man named James was Jesus' brother and didn't come to believe in him as the messiah till after his death. He wrote the book of James in the New Testament.

The next one is disputed amongs scholars. All of them, even believers, know that there are some interpolations in this text, but on the whole it's considered authentic. Here it is.

"About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."
The Antiquities 18.63-64

As I said, there is some dispute about the authenticity of this passage. The parts that I underlined are parts that are considered authentic to Josephus. The other parts generally aren't, cause they seem to show that he professed belief in Jesus, but he was a Jew, not a Christian. Still, even without these parts, there's still a recognition that a man named Jesus existed, that he was a wise teacher and did many extraordinary things, he won over many people, he was condemned by Pilate to be crucified, and people still loved him even after that.

Tacitus
Tacitus was a Roman Historian and a senator. In A.D. 115 he explicitly states that Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devestated Rome in A.D. 64. Here's his passage on the Christians.

"Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite torture on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome... Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty: then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted , not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind."
Annals 15.44 (underline added for emphasis)

This shows that crucifixion was an extreme penalty at the time and it's any wonder why anyone worships Jesus as God when he was punished in that way, especially when Jews believed that anyone crucified was considered cursed by God. It also seems to show that Christians were very persistent. They were persecuted harshly in that time, but they never died out.

Pliny the Younger
He was the nephew of Pliny the Elder, the famous encyclopedist who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Pliny the Younger was the governor of Bithnynia. In one of his letters he wrote this about Christians.

"I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakable obstinacy ought not go unpunished...
They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselved in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to find themselved by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultry...
This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they called deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths."
Letters 10.96 (underlines added for emphasis)

This letter was probably written in about A.D. 111. It attested to the fact that Christianity spread rapidly among many different kinds of people, they worshipped Christ as God, maintained high ethical standards, and weren't easily swayed from their beliefs.

A little known Syriac writer named Mara Bar-Serapion gives what is believed to be a reference to Jesus. It's also in dispute cause it may have been written in the third century, but the earliest dating is A.D. 73. He doesn't actually mention his name, but it fits the description of that happened quite well. It's a bit disputed because he doesn't actually say "Jesus," but we know of no one else that this could describe.

What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise king die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given

An Assyrian satarist known as Lucian of Samosata wrote some things about Christians. You'll also find his interesting perception of Christians by reading one of his satires called The Passing of Peregrinus.

"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day-the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account."

Also the Jewish Talmud, an important Jewish work finished in about A.D. 500, talks of Jesus as a false messiah who practiced magic and was justly condemned to death. They also say he was born of Mary and a Roman soldier, implying that there was something strange about his birth. This is a more negative account than the Gospels give us, but it certainly sounds very much like the professing messiah who did miracles that we read in the Gospels. On top of that there are the second century church fathers such as Clement of Rome and Polycarp, who attest to the teachings of Christ in the Gospels.

And there's a brief blog on the extrabiblical accounts of Jesus and early Christianity. If one does not believe Jesus is God, these certainly won't prove it, but it should at least prove that Jesus did exist and that the beliefs that we as Christians have today weren't made up centuries after Christs death.

For more information on this stuff I recommend reading The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.