Is Jesus Mentioned Outside the Bible?

If you've ever stopped in and looked around a Christian bookstore, or even the Christian literature section of your local bookstore, the obvious answer is 'Yes". Of course that's only after the fact, starting around the 4th Century and is also a smart aleck answer. I feel the need to answer the question requires my beliefs to be inserted into this banter.

In sheer Jesus-style interrogation, I answer the question with a question. Why would Jesus be mentioned outside the Bible? The Romans have an infamous history of destroying history they deem as unfit, unreliable, or that which can tarnish their image. Recount the tale of the Library at Alexandria. While no definitive reason has been determined as to why it was burned, there is a major agreed theory that Romans were trying to change, if not get rid of certain history and knowledge.

Pontius Pilate is the only confirmed character mentioned in the New Testament, but someone must have carried on the tradition since Jesus' ascension. St. Augustine's "Confessions" was published awfully close to the events detailed in the book of Acts. Too close to be inspired by a false doctrine considering the New Testament was not a widely published book in his time. Consider this scenario: the Roman Empire was faced with a major uprising led by a single man, a man led by a deity which the Romans not only did not believe in but despised. Jesus posed a major threat to this empire, but also revealed the weakness within its power. Should Jesus allowed to flourish within Roman history? Certainly not. Writing Jesus into Roman history (which were the only other people writing history at the time) would be devastating. Not only did they put an innocent man to death, they killed the Son of God. Not an especially charming thing to include in their annals.

A simple answer to this question would be that supposing Jesus really existed and everything really happened the way it says in the Bible, the Roman Empire would not want to record it. Roman historians knew this, and considering all Roman historians had to report to the counsel and all the higher ups, they knew better than to mention anything about Jesus. Besides the fact that they would do everything in their power to crush the Christian movement. What a better way to convince people Jesus didn't exist than to "conveniently" exclude Him from your history. Picture this: if Hitler's rise to power began thousands of years ago and the people around that time had a feeling that his eminence would result in devastating results, wouldn't they do everything in their power to denounce him? The same goes with Rome versus Jesus. They wanted people to forget about Him and forget about Him they did.

Remember, everything in the New Testament after Acts are letters written, exhanged, and recorded in secret. It is likely there are many more letters that never made it into the Bible because they were intercepted by Roman soldiers. Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace. The Romans were not big fans of peace. So there you go, my take on this topic.