If Plato Existed, Why Not Jesus?

"Ecce Homo" ~ Behold, the Man
Antonio Ciseri

Ideas outlive empires.

Athens has long since fallen, the Roman Empire a ruin. Yet the ideas forged in those civilizations still shape our laws, politics and moral vocabulary. Plato continues to influence philosophy classrooms. Aristotle still frames logic and ethics. No one seriously questions whether they existed.

And yet, from time to time, one still hears the claim: Jesus never existed. That's always struck me as odd.

Consider Plato. He died around 347 BC. Yet the earliest complete manuscripts of his works date to roughly the ninth century AD — about 1,200 years after his death. We possess fragments from earlier centuries, but the substantial copies that survived are medieval. And no one loses sleep over this.

But let's pursue this further.

On a number of occasions over the years I've heard people defend the existence of Jesus by citing the historians Josephus (c. 37-100) and Tacitus (c. 56-120). Both of these scholars lived within a generation or two of those historical first century events, each one making references to Jesus. Josephus wrote of "Jesus who was called Christ" and Tacitus referred to him a "Christus," who was executed under Pontius Pilate. These historic references are widely accepted as genuine by an overwhelming majority of classical scholars.

As for authenticity, the pattern for these ancient historians is identical to the Greek philosophers. Tacitus, the Roman historian who wrote in the early second century, survives in manuscripts dating roughly 800–900 years after he wrote. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century, is preserved in copies from roughly 900 years later.

Modern historians accept their existence and their writings without hesitation.

Now compare that with the New Testament. The New Testament documents were written in the first century — roughly between 50 and 100 AD. The earliest fragment of the Gospel of John dates to around 125–150 AD — within decades of composition. Large portions of the Gospels and Paul’s letters survive from the second and third centuries. By the fourth century, we have nearly complete codices of the entire New Testament.

In other words, the manuscript gap for the New Testament is measured in decades and centuries — not nearly a millennium.

From a purely textual standpoint, the New Testament is one of the best-attested bodies of literature in the ancient world. Thousands of Greek manuscripts survive, along with thousands more in Latin, Syriac, and other languages.

None of this proves theology. Nor does it prove miracles. Or the resurrection. But it does make one narrow point very difficult to avoid: Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person. 

If we accept the existence of Plato based on manuscript transmission, and Tacitus based on later copies, and Josephus based on medieval preservation, then it is inconsistent to deny Jesus’ existence on documentary grounds.

One may reject Christianity, dispute doctrine or argue about interpretation, but to claim that Jesus never lived requires applying a radically different historical standard to him than we apply to every other figure of antiquity. 

Which begs the question, why are people so adamant about denying his existence? 

Empires fall. Manuscripts decay. But ideas endure — and so do the records of the men who first carried them into the world. Denying that Jesus did the same is not bold scholarship. It's simply unreasonable.