THALLUS
The supposed mention by "Thallus" of an eclipse do not provide any credible support to an historical Jesus. Richard Carrier and many others have shown that this Christian apologetic is useless as a defense of an historical Jesus.
infidels.org
Pliny the Younger
Nobody denies there were Christians. There still are.
He wrote a letter to Trajan for advice on how to deal with the Christians:
"...They affirmed, however, the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food--but food of an ordinary and innocent kind. Even this practice, however, they had abandoned after the publication of my edict, by which, according to your orders, I had forbidden political associations. I judged it so much the more necessary to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses: but I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition."
He clearly considered them as a cult and all of it as a superstition. He could not have known anything first hand about any Jesus as this was written in 112 A.D. These Christians who left the cult certainly had no first hand knowledge of any Jesus for the same reason.
Suetonius
He wrote a great deal on history. Yet the only thing apologists can contrive as a Jesus reference is a line about "Chrestus": 'As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome'. Apologists suggest this Greek name is a misspelling of Christ but they have no evidence of that, nor any evidence that Christ was goading the Jews to make constant disturbances.
Tacitus
Tacitus called it a "pernicious superstition". There is no evidence that when he refers to the object of their superstition as Christus, that he had any independent knowledge of such a person. We all know that Christians worship a Christ and that for the Founder of Christianity (Paul) Christ was never a man. There are no Roman records to show that Tacitus could have had any factual basis to confirm why the Christians worshipped Christus. For most people convinced of the absurdity of the gospel Jesus, there is no problem considering the possibility that an actual disturbed fanatic named Jesus may have anchored these beliefs, although the gospel accounts are too transparently false and contrived as to be other than dismissed out of hand.
Mara Bar Serapion
It provides no independent reference to a life of Jesus. It could have been written in the third century and about anyone. Even if he refers to Jesus his facts are wrong. The Jews did not crucify Jesus; the Romans did. His other facts are also inaccurate.
Lucian of Samosata
Lucian wrote 2 centuries after Christ. He was a satirist who wrote plays. What independent sources could have justified his "... the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world". It is like someone in a hundred years talking about how Joseph Smith was taught by Moroni--and then moving on to talk about something else.
Celsus
Wrote in the second century and thought Christianity was superstitious nonsense. He spoke mockingly of their object of worship. If anyone thinks that Celsus (in the second century) had reliable knowledge of an actual Jesus, then understand who he considered Jesus to be and consider if you still find it credible!
"Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her
living by the work of her hands. His mother had been turned out by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade,
on being convicted of adultery [with a Roman soldier named Panthera]. Being thus driven away by her husband,
and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard."
Finally, let us stop trying to invent a Jesus. If a Jesus of the gospel had lived all the greatest historians would have wrote and wrote and wrote!
This discuses some forty odd historians some who lived a few sand dunes from Jesus who had never heard of him--even though in the gospels the whole world came to witness his miracles!
holysmoke.org
Yet, aside from two FORGED passages in the works of a Jewish writer mentioned above, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there isn't ANY mention of Jesus Christ. At all. Consider: "Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacred occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place -- when Christ himself rose from the dead, and in the rpesence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. "These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, we unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.
"Justus of Tiberius was a native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He wrote a history covering this time of Christ's reputed existence. This work has perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the ninth century, who was acquainted with it, says: 'He (Justus) makes not the least mention of the appearances of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did' (Photius' Bibliotheca, code 33).
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