Why do I never hear anything about Jesus when I read about Roman history of the time. As in 30 BCE to 30 CE.

by unfortunape

When I read about Roman emperors that were active around the time of Jesus' life and recently after I never see anything mentioned about Jesus. This is the central figure of one of the largest religions in the world and reading the history of the powers of the time he seems non existent. Was the life and death of Jesus an event that was not really impactful on contemporary Roman high society?

JJBrazman

I’m not going to address the question of historicity of Jesus because that’s clearly covered elsewhere.

To start with, the period you’re asking about is largely before the point at which Jesus was born, let alone when he would have been even remotely notable or relevant to the Empire at large.

Jesus’ birth is usually taken to be somewhere around 4 BCE, the year of the death of Herod of Judea. This would not have been a notable event from the perspective of the Roman Empire. Our best guesses as to the population of the Roman Empire at the time lie at around 50 million people - and at the point of his birth, Jesus would have been far from the centre of the Empire politically, economically, and geographically.

After that, even the Bible suggests that Jesus did nothing of particular interest until he began his ‘ministry’, ie. started actively teaching. Again, we don’t have an exact date for this, but Luke claims that he was about thirty years old at the time, and there are a number of other references that broadly line up with this, meaning that Jesus would only have even started to put himself on the map in the latter few years of the time window we’re interested in.

But even then, even up to the point of his death (which is usually estimated as being in 30 or 33 CE), Jesus did nothing that bore any immediate relevance to the wider Roman Empire. He was by no means the only itinerant ‘miracle worker’ of the time - we also know of ‘Honi HaMe'agel’, ‘Simon Magus’ and others, so not even the claims of his resurrection can be considered particularly notable (Honi is associated with a not-dissimilar story of falling into a long sleep for many years and waking again).

The time period you’re considering includes the establishment of the Roman Empire in 27 BCE, the first proper succession in the handover to Tiberius, and a massive expansion to the empire itself including the conquest of Egypt & Hispania. All this was accompanied by numerous killings, wars, decrees, and triumphs - and Jesus is relevant to none of it.

It took a long time for Christianity to be taken seriously by the Romans - Tacitus writes that Nero blamed them for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE, one of the earliest references to Christianity that we have, when they were a relatively unknown sect. The next time they really became relevant to the Empire was a persecution 100 years later.

So in answer to your question, you don’t hear anything about Jesus between 30 BCE & 30 CE, or even for some considerable time after, because Jesus’ existence simply wasn’t relevant to the larger Roman Empire. He was just one individual in an empire of millions, and he wasn’t particularly notable in any way that seemed apparent at the time (except to the Christians, who were one of very many fringe religious sects at the time).

Randvek

You might be interested in this previous answer to a similar question by u/talondearg. It indirectly answers your question, and might be a good read while you wait for a more direct response!