28 Historical Figures Mentioned in the New Testament 

so how exactly do they make these summaries....... I bet it's not a person reading the books and writing the summaries themselves

@@isthatrubble Actually, it is exactly that. They have a staff of talented writers who read each book and then write the "blinks".

​@@isthatrubbleAn average reader could finish a book in 4 - 6 hours, so in a normal shift a single person could probably summarize one or two books, especially seeing as someone who read all day could likely read faster than that average. If you had just 10 people summarize one book a day for a normal 5 day work week you'd get 50 books done in a week, ~200 a month, or 2600 a year. That is with a small staff at a slow pace.

Genealogy work I did a year ago, I noticed one potential gap in your list here- what about Linus, known as a pope, saint, or martyr by various groups today, and related personnel, from 2nd Timothy 4:21, and Romans 16:13, and mentioned also by Irenaeus? (Reason this is genealogy related to me is an obscure ancient line leading to the kings of Siluria, one of whom is claimed as relation to Linus, though I did no verification on that)

​@@UsefulChartswhat do you mean 'number values associated with consonants'?!?

😂

which bone are you thinking about choosing? an extra toe bone from a Rhino would be weird.

Hopefully you won't be haunting them too just to mess with them.

Hi minecraft person

"This man seems to have been buried with a rhino bone, though we don't know why"

These really are fascinating presentations. Love them.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. A joy to watch.

Pliny proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Christians did not take the blame for Nero's fire, as church propaganda would have you believe. Here he is, in the 2nd cent. CE no less, proclaiming that he has never heard of Christians before and he happened to have been in Rome when the fire occurred. More proof for the hoax we call the bible.

That sounds familiar, if I remember correctly for a period of time many scholars assumed the Hittites were fictional as the only account of them came from the Bible until ruins started getting unearthed in the 19th century.

​​@@Kyle-qd2sythis is what i recall hearing too plus im sure useful charts could dig up more groups or peoples or places i simply dont have the time to look for

​@@Kyle-qd2syThis is a modern misunderstanding. Scholars actually knew with certainty that Hittites existed as early as the 1820s because there are many records of them left behind by Egyptians. For that matter, Ramses II left behind entire walls' worth of his side of the story of the battle of Megiddo (against the Hittites), and these had been deciphered by 1829, five years before Hattusa was discovered. The name Hattusa itself was discovered in the 1860s (cuneiform inscriptions were found) and the connection of the site with the Hittites was cemented in the 1890s. These things all happened during a time when most historians still took for granted that the Bible was a true record of history. There was basically no gap between their belief in biblical historicity and people being able to read the Ramses story. What actually happened was ironically the opposite of what the modern misunderstanding says. Historians in the 1830s believed that Ramses was exaggerating his victory. If you believe the Bible was historical, then the records of the Hittites found in the Bible would give you the mistaken image that they were a small tribal group living in the Levant, not rulers of a massive ancient empire. The discovery of Hattusa started poking holes in this understanding, and as time progressed more and more evidence that Hittites had an empire surfaced from both Egyptian and Akkadian records. The realization that the Bible was completely ignorant of the massive Hittite empire was one of the contributing factors to critical examination that led us to our modern understanding of biblical (a)historicity.

Lol, the Hittites are white people. Everyone asks where white people are in the Bible.

Would definitely like a video on that too! However, Hattites and Hittites are different peoples

"Your neutrality is praiseworthy" - I think he is trying too hard. Historians will eventually rub people the wrong way, as sacred bulls (or cult figures) are gored.

Dunno if you've heard of Dr. Bart Ehrman, but he has an excellent New Testament history podcast on Tuesdays with Megan Bowen, you can find it on RU-vid.

@@JayBandersnatch Heard of that guy but he is not serious. His claims are ridiculous, and anyone well versed in the bible will be able to adequately dismiss them.

​@@micahtshibangu7402his claims are all evidence based.

@@JayBandersnatchhe was, but now he’s gone off the deep end promoting new theories that he has no historical basis for and in fact the evidence we do have goes against his theory. His best work is his Introduction to the New Testament book, other than that I’d be careful.

@@sweetxjc I'd be interested in an example of what you propose.

The Torah is in the Bible

The Hebrew Bible video mentioned covers that side of things. A video on the Qu'ran would be cool though.

The TNCH is equal to the Old Testament. The Qu'ran is untrustworthy because it was written by a man who did not live during the era of the people he wrote about and according to the Qu'ran itself he was illiterate. I would personally be more inclined to be interested in comparison with religions like buddhism, hinduism and sikhism.

This video came after he did one on Old Testament figures. The people in the comment were of one accord in requesting a video for the NT.

The quran isn't the same type of book as the bible. It was written entirely during mohammed life, and most of the stories are about moses, abraham, etc rather than anything that happened after the bible was made

Most of us live such insignificant lives that's there nothing to be discussed, let alone affirmed or refuted.

I won't exist in 3000 years, because earth will likely be inhabitable

@@goose93yeah but humans would probably live on another planet before that happens

Shiiiid... did I? 😅

This is the great wisdom of so-called biblical scholars. Everyone must have been invented!

It was taken from Josephus works that survive in arabic. Most likely original copies translated to arabic before the change that survive today latin version. Sam aranov cover this in his video about early Christians from Jewish perspective.

Or didn't need to 'convert' in the first place.

@@Theslavedriverswell, it’s recorded in the Gospels that the brothers didn’t believe

@@DIDCHOI As is also said about the disciples, so we can't build too much out of that ..

He is not listed among the apostles in the Gospels, but Paul calls him an apostle.

@@Ofallthings089 True, although I don't think the Gospels use the word 'Apostle' at all.

Very useful summary, thank you. Just for clarif, John the Baptist, is *the* baptist, and not one of the 12 apostles

Thank you for this. I ways appreciate when ppl do this!

Somebody get this man a poster

Some more creators I think you should watch is Inspiring Philosophy(Christian Apologist) and Ancient Egypt and the Bible(an Egyptologist), both of them are on youtube.

Do you believe in once saved, always saved? How about denominations? The Bible goes against denominations. One can be baptized and then fall away from Christ. Just because someone is baptized doesn't mean they will actually be saved once they die. Everyone has to walk a Christ-like life after being baptized to actually be saved. James 5:19-20 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. Revelation 2:10 Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.

Too bad you don't watch any videos with substance.

Coming from the guy who apparently watches and leaves comments on videos he doesn't even like. i'm so hurt.@@bartbannister394

@@bartbannister394 your comments has no substance either.

While i agree, the lack of non Christian sources for Paul make it hard to say definitely.

Historians do include him as a source. At the end of the day no one who’s letters are in New Testament knew anything about a “New Testament”. So they are understood as individual sources by historians. Christians centuries later on would put them together.

@@absentmindedshirokuma8539 well given that we have seven letters for sure written by him, I'd say that'd pretty convincing that Paul existed 😆

@@CoryTheRaven it's still Christians source.

But it is a Christian source that claims to have spoken with Peter, a disciple of Jesus, and James, brother of Jesus. It's not really doubted that this meeting took place. In fact, it's probably where Paul got his early Christian creed in 1 Cor 15. We can date back the claims of the resurrection of Jesus to within a few years of Jesus' death. Quite extraordinary, actually. As far as I know, it's the only legend (well, I do not regard it as a legend but actual history, but people differ in opinions here) that developed within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. And not just that. A legend that's so unbelievable that it should have been easy to disproof.

We know by tradition that Jakobus minor is a cousin of Jesus.

The Eastern Christian tradition consider James the Brother of the Lord, and James the Lesser to be two different people, the Brother of the Lord being the son of Joseph from a previous marriage (in this tradition, Joseph was an old widower before his engagement to Mary). In fact, you could argue that this was the traditional Western view as well, until Jerome's views (through Aquinas and Albert the Great) became the dominant and only view immediately following the Council of Trent.

@@mylifeforthelord5535No we don’t know, that is merely *catholic tradition. There are many early Christian traditions that suggests James the minor was Jesus’s blood brother including writers like Tertullian , as well as archeology such as James’s ossuary where “the brother” of Jesus is inscribed.

How large are they? 👀

Was Nero also a military general?

​@@PortugalZeroworldcup- no, Nero became emperor as the oldest (but adopted) son of Claudius.

@@Achill101 oh ok I don't know the timeline Around octavius time?

@PortugalZeroworldcup - Octavian (Augustus) was the emperor until 14CE. The following emperors were Tiberius and Caligula, then Claudius was emperor 41-54CE. Nero was born 37CE and was emperor 54-68CE when he committed suicide (he probably would have been killed otherwise).

Can you give a source to read about that? Would love to learn more about it

@@zac8033 If either of those links gets nixed by RU-vid on copyright grounds, (1) f*** capitalism for introducing artificial scarcity into scholarship so it can profit off it, and (2) I got them both from the "sources" section of the Wikipedia article on Attarsiya (which, I know, Wikipedia, but I've studied Classics and can assure you that these sources do at least seem to be from mainstream scholarship and not crazy randos).

What up mr myth vision.

this video obliterates the myths of @MythVisionPodcast completely

@@noahwamalwa4385 Both channels do. This guy just does it much more nicely

Debunked your Jesus is made up videos

@@lxfj2128 Not really. He might have reinforced it. A guy walking the streets named Jesus is a lot different than a guy whose sacrifice is the only route to this unseen heaven

Just like biblical and historical evidence proves that jesus and his apostles were vegatarians biblical and historical evidence also proves that the trinity, atonement, original sin and hell are very late misinterpretations and are not supported by the early creed hence its not a part of Christianity I pray that Allah swt revives Christianity both inside and out preserves and protects it and makes its massage be witnessed by all people but at the right moment, place and time The secred text of the Bible says ye shall know them by their fruits So too that I say to my christian brothers and sisters be fruitful and multiply Best regards from a Muslim ( line of ismail )

Jesus vegetarian??? He ate fish and lamb at least....

And drunk wine

@@daviddrake727 grape juice, sorry

It's very likely, but far from undeniable. The historical evidence outside of Christian sources is late, thin and very likely not independent of Christian tradition. That's not surprising - Jesus wouldn't have been important to anyone but Christians until the new religion became significant.

no

Yes, correct. Should be acts 12:1

Associates for Biblical Research has a lot of great videos that do that. I highly recommend.

I think that's included here - or would be if they had been mentioned elsewhere. James the brother of Jesus is the only one - though not one of Jesus's disciples, Paul does describe him as a leading figure in the movement in his time. John the Baptist gets an honorable mention - not one of Jesus's followers of course, but treated by the Gospels as a precursor. Even Paul isn't mentioned outside of Christian sources. We're pretty sure he exists of course, due to his own writings. And he mentions at least Peter and James - I'm not sure if he names any of the others, though he mentions the "twelve" in aggregate.

It depends on whether you want to add church fathers to the list of potential sources. Because yes, then there are plenty of mentions outside of the Bible. After the apostles, a second generation of church fathers took over, and then more generations followed. And many of those people left writings discussing how the information they received was received and transmitted this to others. Their writings confirm quite a lot of characters, but they are Christian sources obviously. So I guess you'll have to read those with historical glasses. Personally, I think it unlikely that they invented people. Think whatever you want about Christianity but it's unlikely the people that founded and helped build the church didn't exist or that these early church founders are simply made up.

@@Jarige2 Thanks for the reply..I'm Catholic and I'm positive that all of the apostles mentioned in the New testament are real people that existed. I don't have an argument about that. To me it is very interesting to see if they were mentioned outside the bible. I love history and I'm just curious brother.

Still doesn't make the bible any less a fairytale. I read a Batman comic book that mentions George Washington. Does that mean Batman is real?

@@bartbannister394 batman is still real book that influence lot of people that make reference of event happening in real life. If something happening with humanity that make it batman comic as one of very few manuscripts that survive into the future, Batman WILL become important historica source. because it still take real life reference. The illiad, the Mahabharata, the Norse Sagas, The Arthurians, the Gilgamesh, the ShiJi, all was once THE Batman of their era, and look how important they are today as historical sources. Bible is no different. It still important historical sources regardless if Moses real or not. So what if it's fairytale? It still important historical documents that reflect what people thought at the time it was written that influence lot of people. That alone make it worth to study.

@@absentmindedshirokuma8539 Yeah, the bible is a historical document, but this doc made the assumption that because it has some real history, the whole thing is true.

@@bartbannister394 so does every other book made at the time. What's your point? It's not the document problem. People back then just write that way. It's the task of current scholar to analyse which one that contains historical evidence and which one that isn't.

@@absentmindedshirokuma8539 None of the ancient writings you mentioned have been altered like the bible. The copies of Homer we have from antiquity are identical. The bible, on the other hand, has been altered, added to and copied from earlier stories. Just check out the differences between the oldest bibles and today's bible. They are so different, they can be considered two different religions. The earliest Christians would laugh at today's bible.

Oops!

that doesn't necessarily help you, when you think of the more than 500 years between josephus and the start of islam and the predominance of christianity in the areas adjacent to the forming muslim world, prior to the formation of islam, i.e., the arabic version of josephus are also just based on versions from potentially christian authors.

@@ricomeitzner7584 "Help you" as in help whom? I don't think singam is arguing that this authenticates the mention of Jesus, but that this would be evidence in favor of the idea presented by Matt that the Testimonium has been embellished by Christians. Doesn't prove that the stripped-down version in Matt's video is original - doesn't _prove_ anything, really - just adds to the evidence that the surviving Greek text isn't original. ("Greek original"? Apparently Josephus wrote _Antiquities_ in his own language, Aramaic, and later translated it into Greek to reach a wider audience. So it's original in the sense that he did his own translation. Do we know whether the Arabic version was translated from Aramaic or from Greek?)

Very interesting, though mildly amusing that you conclude there is a god. Certainly the Ceaser's were from a polytheistic society so they wouldn't be concerned about other god's existing, though they would take issue with the claim that there was only one god, and it wasn't Roman.

He's probably talking about the Deir Alla inscription, which was actually discovered back in 1967. The reason why I didn't include it in my previous video is that the inscription dates to c. 800 BCE, whereas Balaam was supposed to have lived c. 1300 BCE. So it's not a contemporary reference. It is however very interesting because it demonstrates that by the later iron age, there were various different literary traditions about an earlier religious figure named Balaam.

@@UsefulCharts thank you for your reply, Matt. I learn a lot from you and Dan. I'm a Electronics Engineer and a Physics and Math teacher at college level but History, and your scientific approach of the Bible is something that I enjoy much!!!! Keep doing your great work!!!!!!

@@UsefulCharts great video

Funny. I literally just came from a different channel that showed and talked about that.

@CipiRipi00 I am aware of that thank you. Was just saying that there can be mentions of it in the Old testament video. I saw tham on the chart in this video.

@CipiRipi00 just cheked it, and it end's up with Artaxerxe, Persean Emperor.

Well, you did answer the reason why they probably weren't included in these two videos. They are there implied but not by name.

@@davidchez513 i kow, but still worth mentioning any way, even if not add a check mark 😉

Amen! Alelujah to the lamb who was Slain and Resurrected!

Thats completely bs Pauls letters with hymns honoring Christ that in themselves are dated to the 40s debunks your claim, were as Pauls letters are dated to the 50-60s

@@henryy-tq8tn If you mean 40 AD Jesus died 10 years prior to that so it’s still in the timeframe. So are 50-60 AD

@@gojira4036 if he was being worshipped in 40ce then how does that translate to it having taken 120 years?

@@henryy-tq8tn Because you cannot read. I said it’s good that they didn’t start worshipping 120 years afterwards and it was close to the time after his death

There's no point, since there's essentially no historical record for any of them. All you could do is echo what's in the Bible and talk about what early Church tradition added. But we know in many cases that early Church tradition is wrong, so it's hard to say anything with any certainty.

We have apocryphal non-canonical sources like the "Acts of Thomas" about Apostle Thomas' journey to India written in 3rd Century. It does contain some historical people like the Indo-Parthian King Gondophares who ruled from 19-46 AD.

Most of them can be certainly labeled as legendary figures that were greatly exaggerated by the Church tradition and the apocryphal texts.

Good point. I guess, as a Jew, Josephus was aware that 'Christ', the translation of 'messiah', was a title. In contrast, the pagan Tacitus seems to believe that 'Christus' is simply the (rather strange) name of a man (he doesn't mention the name 'Jesus', for example). So it makes sense not to translate it.

Because Tacitus was obviously writing in Latin to _report_ what he was told by local people who were followers of Paul (long after Paul died.) Tacitus was not trying to use a Greek word to explain a religious concept (i.e. the _anointing_ ). How much time Tacitus spent interviewing early Christians we cannot know, but because Tacitus just briefly mentions the group we can assume he did not spend much time.

I’m not asking about the term Josephus or Tacitus used. They both used the same term; the former-writing in Greek-used Χρῑστός; the latter-writing in Latin used Chrīstus. I’m simply wondering why the English translations presented here keep the suffix in one but not the other. It’s just a bit inconsistent from a translation perspective.

@@NovaSeven My assumption is they were written like that to denote which passage belongs to Latin and which to a Greek source.

lol

the fact we write in our names and about ourselves all the time its so different from the ancient time

Right. My mistake.

It’s not about translation of the number it’s about the name- 666 or 616 if you choose Neron or Nero, both ways of writing his name at the time

Oh that’s so sad 😳😳😳😳

Atheism is a fath and a religion by itself. You view and put a faith that the universe has no creator. Mani the atheist is one of your teacher he is mentioned the in the book Psalms of David.

​@@greenpulseeducation5002 it really isn't

This video alone has made me a non atheist

It wouldn't surprise me if there has not yet been any extra biblical evidence supporting the existence of Paul. This video seemed to demonstrate only those who held high positions of power or held a position of extreme public suspicion (enough for people to write about it) seem to have extrabiblical documentation. It's my feeling, however, that the Pauline epistles of the New Testament are themselves a strong suggestion that a person by the name of Paul did exist and served the early Christian churches. While other parts of the New Testament (such as the Gospels) might do best to prove the existence of certain characters, the fact that there are 13 books written (as it seems) by the same author, who identifies himself often, seems like good evidence of his existence. There are individuals with much less documentation that we agree existed. So even if it's from the Bible, I feel Paul's existence is well-supported.

No close contemporary source for Paul outside the bible. I think the closest we have for record about paul from outside sources was a Talmud commentary made in 700 ce with tradition that could be traced as far back as 400 ce. But thats too far from his lifetime to be counted as reliable.

@@absentmindedshirokuma8539 I see. And yet I have heard scholars (including Matt in his videos) talk about Paul as if he was a historical character. Or rather, I have never heard anyone question the fact that he was. Perhaps, in his case, the authorship of his epistles (the authentic ones, at least) can be considered proof enough?

@@ruyfernandezI think it’s because of Pauls importance in a lot of things in the Classical Era. Could be entirely wrong tho. I think it’s a similar situation with many of these figures from this era that there hasn’t been any or enough archaeological evidence proving he’s real. Now why that is could be several reasons I believe there was evidence but during either the burning of Rome, one of the many sackings of Rome or the Burning of the Library of Alexandria by early radical christian groups and other non Roman groups (like the germanic tribes, gauls etc) it was destroyed and thus no longer exists.

@@ruyfernandez linguistics study can proof that some pauline epistle are definitely genuine from vocab and grammar analysis, so that a single contemporary source. Some may say that those linguistics study are enough, but skeptics need comparable contemporary sources. So understandable since paul sadly didn't have those.

There's dispute about that though. Some have contended that James, the son of Alpheus, could be the same figure as James the brother of Jesus. Certainly Jerome identified James the son of Alpheus, James the Less, and James the brother of Jesus as the same figure.

Honestly, that seems to me to be one of the most interesting unknown bits in the early history of the Church. Why does James the brother of Jesus play so little a role in the Gospels, but become so prominent by Paul's time? Even if he was James son of Alpheus, that's a minor figure among the apostles.

@@Essex626 Well, that's extremely unlikely given the penchant of the gospel writers to use identifiers to differentiate and specify the persons in scope. One of the key usage of identifiers was kinship. That's how we know that John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins, and "Big James" and John were brothers and sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew were brothers and sons of Jonah.

@@christimacc and yet there is much dispute through the writings of Christians before us about who is who. The idea that we know better know than people who studied the same books 1000 or 1500 years ago is not warranted. The Bible uses multiple identifiers for people, sometimes without saying that it is doing so. For example--Mark and Luke both mention the calling of one Levi, son of Alpheus, a tax collector. It Never says this is the same person as Matthew, the apostle who had been a publican. It is rather through context that the link is established. I am not stating here confidently that these should be identified with one another. What I stating is that when scholars of 1000 AD, 500 AD, or 125 AD hold an opinion on the identifications of people recorded in Scripture, their views should not be discarded simply because it's old and doesn't match our conceptions.

@@Essex626 Then you and I are on the same page.

Doesn't really seem like something for UsefulCharts. As the name suggests, this channel is about doing and explaining the research behind the construction of a useful chart. I'm not sure what sort of chart you could make out of a passage in Josephus.

Sam aronow already discussed this topic in his video.

@absentmindedshirokuma8539 awesome thank you. Do you mind linking it?

@@Out-to-Pastor can not link on RU-vid, look up his video about the birth of Christianity part of herodian era series.

@@absentmindedshirokuma8539 thabk you for the help