Apart from the New Testament itself, the best historical documentation of Jesus' life and influence, and of the infant church surviving from ancient times, comes from Flavius Josephus, A.D. 37–101, a historian in the courts of several Roman emperors. Though Josephus was Jewish and of a priestly lineage, some Jewish people have considered him suspect because he tried to sustain a middle ground between paganism and orthodox Judaism. But since Josephus' writings date from the same period as the writing of the New Testament, historians generally consider them the most reliable general records of those times. His writings deal widely with Israel, Judah, Palestine, Rome, and (briefly) the new sect called Christians. Josephus' main description of Jesus and the church is this passage, from a section on Herod the Great from his twenty-volume work, Jewish Antiquities (Book XVIII):

About this time lived Jesus, a man full of wisdom, if indeed one may call him a man. For he was the doer of incredible things, and the teacher of such as gladly received the truth. He thus attracted to himself many Jewish people and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. On the accusation of the leading men of our people, Pilate condemned him to death upon the cross; nevertheless, those who had previously loved him still remained faithful to him. For on the third day he again appeared to them living, just as, in addition to a thousand other marvelous things, prophets sent by God had foretold. And to the present day the race of those who call themselves Christians after him has not ceased.

Josephus' Jewish Antiquities recapitulates the Torah and tries to tell the whole history of the Jewish people, from which the excerpt just provided about Jesus and the church, is just one paragraph.

It is curious that Josephus wrote so positively about Jesus and the Christians, as Christianity was considered an illegal religion in Rome at the time, and was opposed by the Jewish establishment.

Some scholars believe his positive treatment of Jesus came not from him, but from additions made by later Christian editors.