Author Dr. TC Schmidt told Fox News Digital that historians have been searching for evidence of Jesus outside of the New Testament, preferably from the first century from a non-Christian.
There are several ancient texts outside the Bible that mention the historical Jesus. Perhaps the most debated was written by the Jewish historian Josephus in the early first century, only 60 years after Christ's death and resurrection.
Fox News reported Schmidt believes that Josephus' writings are more historically reliable that previously thought.
Speaking also with American Family News (AFN), Schmidt says one of Josephus' very famous statements is a paragraph about Jesus that has been long known to scholars but has been held in suspicion.
"Scholars believed that this account was doctored by later Christian scribes because it was far too Christian-sounding for a non-Christian Jew like Josephus to have written," Schmidt explains.
In his writings, Josephus wrote that Jesus lived during the reign of Pontius Pilate. That he had many disciples of Jewish and Greek extraction.
"He says that Jesus was thought to be the Christ. He says that Jesus worked supernatural deeds," Schmidt states.
Josephus also wrote about the resurrection.
"He also says that Pontius Pilate had Jesus crucified, and that according to the disciples, three days later, Jesus appeared to them alive again," Schmidt says.
In his book "Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ," Schmidt applies something called stylometric analysis to prove that every word in the disputed passage was written by Josephus, not by later scribes.
"I apply new computer databases to meticulously search the works of Josephus to see if the style of the passage matches the style of Josephus," Schmidt says.
As Schmidt told Fox News, his work shows the phases in the passage can be indexed back to Josephus and sounds like something he would say.
"The style of the passage matches Josephus, and the claims of the passage match what Josephus would have said as a non-Christian Jew. In other words, the passage looks totally authentic. What this passage does is that it solidifies Jesus in history," Schmidt said.
Schmidt's book can be downloaded for free at JosephusAndJesus.com courtesy of the Institute for Christian Reflection.
