it existed in 33 AD.
Spork: Flavius Josephus is almost certainly an interpolation by the Roman Catholic Church. Josephus was a practicing Jew who would have been guilty of blasphemy had he made the statements about Jesus called the Christ that he allegedly made. Josephus remained Jewish until he died and never converted to Christianity. Ergo, it's extremely illogical that he made these comments. Further, even conservative Christian scholars have brough at least half of what Josephus wrote into doubt. Thus, since half has been discredited even by conservatives, it's likely that the entire account was falsified by a scribe in the early church. Bear in mind, Josephus's histories were preserved by the Catholic church and no place else. So, we'll never know.
There are only a few references to Jesus, called the Christ, from that era.
Josephus: (discussed above)
Tacitus: wrote the following:
Quote:
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Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures 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 Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.
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Still doesn't prove the actual existence of a man called Jesus. Christ, in aramaic, meant only LORD, it wasn't a surname. And, this is a reference to the followers of a particular mystery religion, but it doesn't prove the existence of an actual Jesus. It proves only that there was a religion who followed a person named Christus...
Issues with this source:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/tacitus.html
Far from definitive, suffice it to say.
a bit more on this topic, for those who might be interested...
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...er/hojfaq.html