Did Jesus actually exist?

A Jewish teacher named Jesus of Nazareth lived in first-century Judea and was executed under Pontius Pilate. This is accepted by the overwhelming majority of historians, religious or not.

• Tacitus, c. AD 116 The Roman historian records that 'Christus' was executed under Pilate during the reign of Tiberius — an independent, non-Christian source.
• Josephus, c. AD 93 The Jewish historian mentions Jesus twice. Scholars debate the exact wording of one passage, but not that Josephus referred to him.
• Pliny the Younger, c. AD 112 A Roman governor describes early Christians worshipping Christ, evidence of how early and widely the movement had spread.

Existence and identity are different questions. Showing that Jesus lived does not by itself show that any claim about him is true — and we won't pretend it does. What the evidence establishes is modest but real: there is a genuine historical figure to investigate. That is the floor we build on, not the ceiling.

"Aren't those sources written decades later, by people who weren't eyewitnesses?"

Yes, and that's worth taking seriously. By ancient-history standards a gap of a few decades is unusually short, and the sources are independent of one another. But timing is a real factor in weighing reliability, which is exactly what the next lesson examines.