The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ

I am convinced that this is THE book to give to anyone who doubts the historical fact of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What Habermas does in this book is to show all of the historical facts that are agreed on by a majority of scholars. It is shocking once you realize all the facts that are agreed upon by scholars, but that many of these same scholars embrace hypothesis that fit the facts in an extremely ad hoc way just to avoid the resurrection of Jesus. Habermas does all of this by looking at a variety of sources. First, he points out that the New Testament is 27 separate historical documents of which we have more copies than ANY other documents in ancient antiquity by FAR. This by itself is an extremely important point because many people a priori blow off the New Testament. Yet there is no basis in the historical method for doing so. They may a priori be embellished or contain errors, but they are the most well-attested historical documents from ancient antiquity that we have. On top of this evidence, many non-Christian sources are also considered such as Tacitus, Josephus, and Pliny, as well as several others who mention Jesus and/or Christianity. The final set of sources that are almost always overlooked are the non-canonical Christian writings of the first 2 centuries like Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, and even non-canonical gospels like Thomas, which can still give us some insight into the thoughts back in the day. Overall, the document evidence is simply overwhelming. It is a sign of intellectual bankruptcy to claim that Jesus never existed or to be skeptical about his existence.If you have read some of the other reviews, the most critical claims against Habermas have to do with the legitimacy of the Shroud of Turin, as Habermas spends a chapter discussing that artifact. This is really a moot point because if the shroud were found to be a forgery today, that would do absolutely nothing to undermine all the other evidence that Habermas presents just in the form of ancient documents. That is really where one needs to focus the arguments for the truth of the resurrection; the historical documentation because anything else acts as a smokescreen.One thing that is very helpful is that Habermas will quote an early document and then expound upon, point by point, all the information that may be gleaned from the quote. While that may seem trivial, he points out many facts in the quote that can easily be overlooked. It is helpful in the sense that we can very easily see many of the same themes, beliefs, and knowledges of the people around the time of Jesus. One example is the exegesis of 1 Cor 15:3-8, the first creed of the early Church. A TON of beliefs can be gleaned from a careful exegesis of this passage. Habermas also demonstrates that this creed is not in the typical style of the way Paul writes, and hence it represents a creed that was known far back, one not original to Paul. From this, we see that belief is a bodily, physical resurrection of Jesus was known to people very close to the time of Jesus' death, much to the chagrin of the Jesus Seminar. That is just a small sample of the kinds of insights this book provides.This book is definitely a must read and invaluable resource. Highly recommended.

This book was everything I needed in a straightforward and non-repetitive way. The facts of history that Gary R. Habermas presents in this book blew me away, especially as a Christian. I admire that he was honest and more open with the specifics of the Shroud of Turin, acknowledging that if it isn’t actually of Jesus, then it provides other helpful details of crucifixion.Gary also wrote about how historiography works at the back of the book in an appendix, I will get to that later, Lord willing.To any Christian out there, or even to the skeptic or atheist, I would recommend this book. Loaded with insights and sources relating to the life of Jesus.My favorite chapter was the ancient non-Christian sources, like Pliny the younger(Roman Government official) and Tacitus (Roman Historian).Other loaded facts about what emperor reigned during Jesus’ life was cool. (Roman Emperor Tiberius).Buy the book, read it, life is short.

Super helpful book on historical Jesus… whole chapter establishing historical person of Jesus from non-biblical sources, Roman, & Jewish. Excellent book establishing Jesus of Nazareth as historical person. If your reading or listening to the modern skeptics this book blows them out of the water.

To fully understand this book and the reviews posted here one must comprehend that in modern day world there are three distinct groups that research the bible they can be broken down as follows1 The Christians (Those people who believe that the bible is the word of god of which Gary Habermas would fall under)2 The Liberal Scholars (This group is made up of people who are trying to show that the bible is completely wrong and man made and in some cases that Jesus was not a historical figure.)3 The Secular Historians (The largest of the three groups whose goal seems to be historical accuracy without commenting on the theistic aspect, they virtually unanimously agree that Jesus Christ did exist and probably preformed miracles although they label them as magic and was considered to be either the son of god or a great prophet.)What is surprising about this book is that while it is written by a Christian to help forward his Christian beliefs it is quite obvious that the author has stuck mostly to the work of the Secular Historians. In some cases he has erred on the liberal side of the secular historians sometimes not presenting the cases as strongly as one would think he could.This raises an interesting point in reviewing this book. While I would think that he would rely solely on Christian sources he does not, instead he proves his point in a highly convincing way using Secular sources. I applaud the author and I hope that more of the naysayers and negative reviewers could be so truthful. It would be interesting to see if a liberal scholar could uphold their position using only secular sources. I doubt it, but I don't think they would even try.Anyhow back to this book, I found it fair, historically accurate, slightly dated, but then again any book dealing with history is dated as soon as it is written and best of all enjoyable for those who are non-Christians but enjoy history.

It’s a good overview of thing to look up and research about the history of Jesus. While it doesn’t go into detail about certain things, it does give a good summary of things for you to look up and research more if you wanted. It does give good arguments for a basic defending of the historical accuracy of the Bible. I really enjoyed this book and I will be doing more research into church fathers and extra biblical sources to grasp more of what Gary was presenting in this book.

Habermas' work delves into the Historical Evidence for the Life of Christ. It looks into archaeological and Historical data and makes historical and careful conclusions based on this data. Habermas uses a historical approach and examines the evidence as a historican not a theologian- is this good or bad? Well seeing that the documents looked at are historical an Historical approach is the proper approach- theological approaches unfortunately ignore the evidence presented in archaeology and Manuscripts and write it the way they want. A truly historical approach asks questions like who wrote this? When was it written? What proof is there that this is produced by who it says produced it? What evidence is there that the artefact/ document is authentic? These are questions any bonafide historian asks when they come accross evidence. After all if Jesus Christ wasnt a real historical person then the whole of Christianity is pointless and a waste of time.Habermas looks at early evidence about Jesus and based on this evidence- from non Christian and hostile sources as well as Christian sources concludes that Christ existed that he was crucified and buried and that something happened after the burial. The sources which state what happened are examined and they hold up pretty well to inspection and scrutiny as to their date and content.The Jesus of the Bible is the historic Jesus is the conclusion of the book- a conclusion which is backed up by examining the evidence- what that means to us is quite a different question-it is interesting that in the Gospels no one doubted that Jesus existed what was in question was who he was and what he was doing. These two questions still confront us today- how we respond to the answers are of vital importance.

This is a sound piece of writing. It is well presented, well referenced, very readable. It points to additional sources for confirmation of the claims made and for further research. I would recommend this text for: 1) Christians as a source of information to help defend the historicity of Jesus; and 2) to doubters as reason why Christians are confident about their faith; 3) I also highly recommend the book to mythicists as a plain, accessible refutation/rebuttal to their hypothesis of the non-existance/mythical nature of Jesus.

Well written and well balanced treatise. Good source references. I was looking for facts and good textual criticism got them both.Yes the author has an agenda but dont we all. I wish the Dawkins of this world were as open minded and balanced in their synopsises.

Excellent read, factual, and truthfulJesus is the truth.

Dr. Habermas vergleicht die Ergebnisse von verschiedenen Bibelforschern und Historikern, um auf einige großteils akzeptierte Fakten über den historischen Jesus zu schließen. Diese Fakten nennt der Autor, "minimal facts", also minimale Fakten.Die Schreibweise von Dr. Habermas ist leicht verständlich, aber man merkt, dass dieses Buch ein apologetisches Ziel verfolgt. Der Autor will von den präsentierten Fakten auf die Auferstehung Jesu schließen, indem er natürliche, alternative Erklärungen für die Entstehung des Christentums als unvernünftig erklärt. Die minimalen Fakten lassen sich schwer anzweifeln, aber seine Konklusion sollte man als Glaubensbekenntnis verstehen.Ich kann das Buch weiterempfehlen, da man beim kritischen Lesen zumindest einen interessanten Blickwinkel auf das Leben Jesu kennenlernt.