Why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus?

             Acknowledgment that there was an actual Jewish man named Yeshua who lived in the areas of modern Israel and Palestine (the Herodian kingdom of Judea) during the first half of the first century is almost universal. Virtually no reputable scholars will deny that. That he existed is the only fact on which almost everyone can agree.

So, why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus? Well, the truth is there if you look. The best way to get noticed in those times was to be born wealthy or to be politically connected. Or, to cause trouble for those people, the ones who mattered.

Jesus was a nobody because he was not a Roman citizen. Almost none of the Jews of that day were.

Jesus was a nobody because he was from a hick country town. None of the residents of Nazareth mattered until it came time to pay taxes. They were considered to be uneducated, unsophisticated, and to have very odd strong speech accents.

Nazareth was a worker’s residential village of about 200 to 400 people. None of its residents were wealthy or politically important in any way.  John 1:46 echoes what was probably a common sentiment: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

The town is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament, the Jewish Talmud, or the writings of contemporary historians like Josephus. The town was ignored and its residents were ignored.

A literal translation of the Greek text of John 1:46 reads like this: “and said to him nathaniel out of nazareth is able any good thing to be says to him philip come and see.” (There was no capitalization, punctuation, or spaces between words in these texts.)

At first, Jesus was ignored and rejected even in Nazareth. He was considered to be odd and just a carpenter. One time, his brothers went to get him before he embarrassed the family. Mark 3:21. They thought he was Ἐξέστη.

Ἐξέστη means to "to stand out of,” here meaning out of one’s mind, losing one’s senses, becoming irrational, out of one’s wits, or overwhelmed.

After he became established as a respected teacher, Jesus’ ministry was primarily in the rural towns among the poor people. All the Jewish wealth and power was concentrated in Jerusalem.

            It was not until the final three years of his life that Jesus was noticed outside of Nazareth. He soon became a very hot topic of intense discussion and he was quickly disposed of when he became a problem for the people who mattered.