The non-Christian contemporary sources only mention the persecutions passingly and without assigning great importance to them.

Early patristic literature is dominated by apologetics and makes use of other literary forms borrowed from non-Christian sources.

Our only non-Christian source, Josephus, shows that John was at one time an Essene.

One approach uses the attestations of non-Christian sources such as Josephus and Tacitus.

Zosimus is the only non-Christian source for much of what he reports.

The approximate chronology of Jesus can be estimated from non-Christian sources, and confirmed by correlating them with New Testament accounts.

In addition, we can learn through non-Christian sources a lot of facts about Jesus that corroborate key teachings and events in his life.

Not only are they not noticed by any contemporary non-Christian sources, but none of the other gospel writers mentions this occurring.

The argument from silence that the scarcity of references to Jesus in non-Christian sources that date to the first century indicate that he did not exist.

A number of non-Christian sources are used in the quest for the historical Jesus.