Was Jesus ever mentioned in the Old Testament?

Pay your brother whatever it is you bet. You loose.

I "believe" there is no historical evidence that he ever existed as described in the new testament either... leaves you "word of mouth" in both instances.... so neither of you are right... but of course, i could be wrong.

There is some historical evidence that Jesus existed as a man, he gets an honorable mention by a Roman historian. It's the miracles that are up for grabs.

Was the historian writing during or soon after Jesus's lifetime?

I'm no expert, so here' s the Wiki version:

Tacitus & Jesus

And certainly the Jewish historian Josephus deserves a mention:

Josephus on Jesus

About Tacitus and Josephus[/u]

Yeah. This is like betting on Mr. T in that one Rocky movie.

The old testament, also known as the hebrew bible, was the bible Jesus grew up with. He's not mentioned in it.



Btw, this is from a wiki seach on Tacitus:
"Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 - c. 117)..."

So he writ shortly after the death of Jesus.

Based on what I see here, it would seem that no historian outside of the Church wrote about Jesus until at least a generation after his death.

In fact, no non-christian historian writes about Jesus at all, except to comment that there are christians. Even those examples to which christians refer are often problematic. Claiming that Tacitus and Josephus speak of "the Christ" or of christians at a time when christians did not use the term "Christ" or christians is more than a little suspect. It is one strong reason why passages in Tacitus and Josephus are considered to be ham-handed interpolation by later christians. The famous passage in Tacitus (which is almost certainly a later and clumsy interpolation by a christian writer) does not actually state that any such individual existed, only that there was such a cult. But both in the case of Tacitus and of Josephus, references to "Christians" are anachronistic, because christians didn't call themselves christians at the time that either man lived. In the case of Josephus, there is also the problem that he was a devout Jew, and claiming that there had been a messiah, when his own view of Judaism denied that, is an absurdity. For that reason alone, the passage alleged by christians is suspect.

The christians were so far below the radar of the Romans that they are uniformly referred to in official documents as Jews (Tacitus as an imperial official leaned heavily on government records, both the "Acts of the Senate," and the "Acts of the Roman People").

The references made to Pliny and others in the second century and later are no more reliable as evidence that there had ever been a putative Jesus--they only provide evidence that there was such a cult. Specifically, in the case of Pliny, the only references are to a Judaic cult which fomented discontent (often translated as "christian" when rendered in other languages, the term does not appear in the Latin). In his famous letter to the emperor Trajan (as far as the internal evidence available, it appears that all or almost all of Pliny's correspondence as an imperial official has survived), and Trajan's response, the Emperor commends him on restraint, states that he (Trajan) is contemptuous of people who denounce their neighbors, and also states that he (Pliny) is not to tolerate public contempt of the forms of the state religion. Basically, Trajan's policy toward recalcitrant Jews was "don't ask, don't tell." If the Jews did not publicly flout the practice of the official state religion, they would not be molested. The empire tolerated any religion, so long as everyone in the empire at least paid lip-service to the official state religion. It is not even clear that Pliny is always writing about christians, as other Jews (remember that Romans made no distinction in their own writings between christians, Jews and confessional Jews) often refused to make public sacrifices at the temples--it would be impossible in many cases of ancient Roman writers to know if they are writing about chrisitians or not. This doesn't stop christians from leaping on passages in imperial documents and correspondence to claim they have evidence both that the putative Jesus existed, and that christians were officially persecuted in the empire at a time when the empire was sublimely indifferent to the existence of their cult.

This is a very interesting topic. I myself have questioned the existence of Jesus, not as a man (he might have been just a good and simple man), but all the miracles they said he did. From what I understand, the New Testament is just a collection of writings that a Committee selected among numerous ones to put together the way they like the story to be presented to us.

Most of what is now considered the "accepted canon" of christianity was selected, not by a committee, but by Origen, a scholar in Alexandria in the late 2nd and early 3rd century CE. You can read about Origen here (clickity-click). Origen wrote a list of all known "gospels" in his time, and commented on the reliability of the text, and whether or not he thought it was genuine. Origen was not without his personal prejudices, but he kept up a high academic standard. Unfortunately, we don't know the basis for most of his decisions. Subsequent to Origen, the most important christian scholars with regard to the canonical texts were Pamphilus and Eusebius. Pamphilus was born just a few years before Origen was thought to have died, and Eusebius was born 23 years after that. Pamphilus amassed quite a large library of church texts, and texts from Jewish sources on the subject of Judaism and theology in general. Eusebius became a scholar in the home of Pamphilus when he was a young man, and always revered and honored Pamphilus. You can read about Eusebius here.

In 325 CE, a church council was convened at Nicea, with the intention to resolve conflicts in the church. This was the church council which created the Nicean creed, the basis for "official" christianity for many centuries to come, even after the Roman church split off from the Orthodox and Byzantine churches. This may be why you consider that the accepted canon was chosen by a committee--it was established at the council of Nicea. Actually, though, church scholars such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Pamphilus had already, relying upon the scholarship of Origen, established the accepted canonical texts, usually through the simple method of correspondence between scholars and bishops. (Early bishops were usually expected to be scholars, and early scholars were often made bishops--it was important to have knowledgeable men in a time when most people were illiterate, and when "heresy" flourished because any glib preacher could sway the crowd.)

You can read about the first Nicean council here. There have been many foolish and false things repeated about church councils in general, but particularly about the first council at Nicea. At this link, you can read a summary of what the author alleges are false claims circulating on the internet, and his refutations of them. Finally, this page about Origen discusses what standards he used to determine whether or not a scriptural passage was genuine, and mistakes he may have made.

Re: Was Jesus ever mentioned in the Old Testament?


There are numerous prophecies regarding Christ in the Old Testament.

It was written that He would be of David's family, that He would be born in Bethlehem, that He would be called a Nazarene, that He would receive punishment for sins not His own, that He would be called the Mighty God, that He would speak to the House of Israel AND show Light to the Gentiles, etc.

Setanta, thank you for all those explanations and links, I am going to spend some time reading them to learn more because I am truly interested.

Real life, but don't the Jews believe that Jesus was not the one they were waiting for and that they are still waiting for their Saviour to come? But my question is to save the Jews from whom or from what? I am really puzzled.

bm

ditto

Jesus was definitely mentioned in the Old Testament but by a different name:Lucifer.

Lucifer is mention in Isaiah 14:12 and Jesus is identified as Lucifer in Revelation 22:16

Jesus is Lucifer/Helel/Morning Star.

Neither the word Lucifer, nor helel is in Revelation 22:16

The 'identification' that you propose is a figment of your imagination.