Reports of the way it was

Reading the book of Luke might make us ask, “who are some other historians of Bible times?”  Admittedly, I usually hop right into study notes in my Bibles or myriad other commentaries like we find on Biblehub.com. But sometimes, I want to have the report from someone who was there.  That’s when I go to the writings of Josephus.  He actually has a full name, but you can always search him by Josephus. 

He was born in Jerusalem just after Jesus was crucified and died in 100 AD.  So, he was actually he there!  He must have grown up listening to the adults in his life telling of the amazing things that Jesus did. He lived as the church was being established and growing.  Josephus wrote a lot about the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the temple in AD 70.  Other historians of the time were Philo and Tacitus – and several others – but these three will get you started if you love history.  These guys won’t encourage you in your faith necessarily, but they wrote much about what the world was like when the New Testament was being written and add a great deal of texture to our knowledge.