Good summary of the evidence for Jesus.

Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up.

There are clearly good reasons to doubt Jesus’ historical existence.

By Raphael Lataster 


Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily- dismissed “Christ of Faith” (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved.

Numerous secular scholars have presented their own versions of the so-called “Historical Jesus” – and most of them are, as biblical scholar J.D. Crossan puts it, “an academic embarrassment.” From Crossan’s view of Jesus as the wise sage, to Robert Eisenman’s Jesus the revolutionary, and Bart Ehrman’s apocalyptic prophet, about the only thing New Testament scholars seem to agree on is Jesus’ historical existence. But can even that be questioned?

The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources – which they also fail to identify. Filled with mythical and non-historical information, and heavily edited over time, the Gospels certainly should not convince critics to trust even the more mundane claims made therein.

The methods traditionally used to tease out rare nuggets of truth from the Gospels are dubious. The criterion of embarrassment says that if a section would be embarrassing for the author, it is more likely authentic. Unfortunately, given the diverse nature of Christianity and Judaism back then (things have not changed all that much), and the anonymity of the authors, it is impossible to determine what truly would be embarrassing or counter-intuitive, let alone if that might not serve some evangelistic purpose.

The criterion of Aramaic context is similarly unhelpful. Jesus and his closest followers were surely not the only Aramaic- speakers in first-century Judea. The criterion of multiple independent attestation can also hardly be used properly here, given that the sources clearly are not independent.

Paul’s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed. Avoiding Jesus’ earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus.” Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12).

Also important are the sources we don’t have. There are no existing eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus. All we have are later descriptions of Jesus’ life events by non-eyewitnesses, most of whom are obviously biased. Little can be gleaned from the few non-Biblical and non-Christian sources, with only Roman scholar Josephus and historian Tacitus having any reasonable claim to be writing about Jesus within 100 years of his life. And even those sparse accounts are shrouded in controversy, with disagreements over what parts have obviously been changed by Christian scribes (the manuscripts were preserved by Christians), the fact that both these authors were born after Jesus died (they would thus have probably received this information from Christians), and the oddity that centuries go by before Christian apologists start referencing them.

Agnosticism over the matter is already seemingly appropriate, and support for this position comes from independent historian Richard Carrier’s recent defense of another theory — namely, that the belief in Jesus started as the belief in a purely celestial being (who was killed by demons in an upper realm), who became historicized over time. To summarize Carrier’s 800-page tome, this theory and the traditional theory – that Jesus was a historical figure who became mythicized over time – both align well with the Gospels, which are later mixtures of obvious myth and what at least sounds historical.

The Pauline Epistles, however, overwhelmingly support the “celestial Jesus” theory, particularly with the passage indicating that demons killed Jesus, and would not have done so if they knew who he was (see: 1 Corinthians 2:6-10). Humans – the murderers according to the Gospels – of course would still have killed Jesus, knowing full well that his death results in their salvation, and the defeat of the evil spirits.

So what do the mainstream (and non-Christian) scholars say about all this? Surprisingly very little – of substance anyway. Only Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey have thoroughly attempted to prove Jesus’ historical existence in recent times. Their most decisive point? The Gospels can generally be trusted – after we ignore the many, many bits that are untrustworthy – because of the hypothetical (i.e. non-existent) sources behind them. Who produced these hypothetical sources? When? What did they say? Were they reliable? Were they intended to be accurate historical portrayals, enlightening allegories, or entertaining fictions?

Ehrman and Casey can’t tell you – and neither can any New Testament scholar. Given the poor state of the existing sources, and the atrocious methods used by mainstream Biblical historians, the matter will likely never be resolved. In sum, there are clearly good reasons to doubt Jesus’ historical existence – if not to think it outright improbable.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... deddea8a8c

Hi Geo

Thanks very much for sharing this excellent summary from Raphael. Here are a couple of brief points worth adding.

Jesus Christ was clearly imagined in advance, for example in the writings of the prophet Isaiah, with such clarity and political relevance that there was widespread expectation that a real person would fulfil the prediction. Due to the way Jesus became a focus of both ritual and belief, the psychological and social yearning for a messiah meant that over time the imagination became, as they say in the trade, reified. It makes more sense to date the first descriptions of Jesus to the Old Testament, well before Paul.

Carrier's talk of a cosmic Jesus crucified in the heavens, which he accepts from Earl Doherty, does not make sense. The real basis for this myth is seen in the Chi Rho Cross depiction of the celestial equator equinox point crossing the first fish of Pisces in 21 AD. There is no clarity in the Carrier/Doherty thesis, whereas the basis in precession of the equinox is elegant and compelling, although to date it has not yet been presented in simple persuasive form. That is what I plan to do.

Raphael works at the department that my father used to run, Religious Studies at University of Sydney, but I have hardly been able to get anyone there to speak to me. When I presented the above ideas in a paper I was told that I was not showing a proper academic disdain for traditions that are held in contempt by the scholarly tradition. Peope who discuss these sort of topics are generally shunned as pariahs.

geo wrote:Good summary of the evidence for Jesus.
By Raphael Lataster 

Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the “Historical Jesus” actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily- dismissed “Christ of Faith” (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved.

He does not start out well, arguing a false dichotomy which leaves out most biblical scholars, for example. To be a believer does not necessarily imply affirmation of miracles - there is a perfectly logical alternative, and it is widely accepted among college-educated Christians. Lataster seems to be completely ignorant of it. Credibility dropping fast.

Numerous secular scholars have presented their own versions of the so-called “Historical Jesus” – and most of them are, as biblical scholar J.D. Crossan puts it, “an academic embarrassment.” From Crossan’s view of Jesus as the wise sage, to Robert Eisenman’s Jesus the revolutionary, and Bart Ehrman’s apocalyptic prophet, about the only thing New Testament scholars seem to agree on is Jesus’ historical existence. But can even that be questioned?

The embarrassment is the wide difference between accounts of what is going on. You could get a similar debate about Zoroaster if people took him as seriously. The fundamental problem is that Jesus was important, but not for the reasons which lead to historical attestation. Zoroaster is roughly in the same category. The fact that academics will tend to construct harmonizations which emphasize a single possible narrative tells us far more about academics than it does about ancient prophets.

The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith.

An abuse of language. The Pythagoras of Faith has lots of legendary miracles associated with him, but that doesn't mean there was no Pythagoras. The Christ of Faith is a construction meant to place Jesus of Nazareth within the context of the Jewish faith. All of the sources agree that he behaved like someone who was 1) claiming the role of Messiah, a complex and subtle role, in Jewish tradition; and 2) presenting it squarely in the context of a peaceful and redemptive figure who explicitly would not act militarily. Both of these points, and the implication for the nature of the sources, are lacking in standard presentations by mythicists (those who reject historicism), which leads to their gross misinterpretation of the available evidence.

These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them.

This is obviously true and no scholar is taken seriously who works from an apologetic perspective, claiming that the miracle stories are provided because they are historically accurate.

The methods traditionally used to tease out rare nuggets of truth from the Gospels are dubious.

The methods cited are for "internal use." That is, they are an effort to distinguish between material which can be taken as relatively reliable vs. material (such as nearly all the anti-Semitism in the New Testament) which are present due to later polemical concerns. They are rarely put forward as criteria for historical authenticity per se.

Paul’s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed.

There is a huge gap between what we can "dogmatically declare must be true" and what is our "best guess as to the explanation of the evidence we have." Mishandling of the Pauline evidence is one of the most serious of Carrier's offenses against credibility.

Avoiding Jesus’ earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus.”

This is simply false. Carrier does intellectual backflips to deny the evidence, thin as it is, but Paul references Jesus as a human on earth in several passages. If you have to choose between "Paul saw Jesus in cosmic significance, and therefore proposed interpretations about him which are otherworldly" and "Paul saw Jesus as an otherworldly entity and happened to make a few chance references which, if understood through gnostic eyes, are not really about earthly life," the former is much more persuasive.

Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12).

These are both complete and willful distortions of the evidence. Paul references receiving information from other early Christians, including "the brother of the Lord" and the Galatians reference is to the nature of "the Gospel" being revealed, not the events it interprets. Credibility ready for flushing.

All we have are later descriptions of Jesus’ life events by non-eyewitnesses, most of whom are obviously biased.

This is a fair discussion of the lack of attestation. However, lack of attestation is pretty typical for religious figures. We have no extra-Biblical confirmation for Elijah and Jeremiah, but the most sensible interpretation is that they were real people who did not do miracles, despite claims of such for Elijah, but who did matter to the Jewish religion.

One scholar I was corresponding with pointed out the thin evidence for the existence of Pontius Pilate, a public figure much more involved in the matters about which important writers would concern themselves. Josephus and Philo attest to him, because he caused trouble by not respecting Jewish traditions. There is a single stone remnant with an inscription that is fairly unambiguous. And he ruled an unruly province for the empire of the time, giving him protection against the anonymity in which most lives are conducted.

support for this position comes from independent historian Richard Carrier’s recent defense of another theory — namely, that the belief in Jesus started as the belief in a purely celestial being (who was killed by demons in an upper realm), who became historicized over time.

Carrier makes some interesting points, and some are important. But the document he identifies as explaining the figure killed by demons in an upper realm is very problematic. Its dating permits a post-Jesus chronology, in which case it could be a fantasy presentation of the Jesus story in highly mythological terms, along the lines of the book of Revelation or several of the gnostic texts, or it could be completely irrelevant to Christianity. If you read his interpretation of the text, in OHJ, it is not even clear he is making the most obvious interpretation of the text presented, as he asserts several interpretations helpful to his thesis without recognizing that they are interpretations, much less making an argument for them.

To summarize Carrier’s 800-page tome, this theory and the traditional theory – that Jesus was a historical figure who became mythicized over time – both align well with the Gospels, which are later mixtures of obvious myth and what at least sounds historical.

As I have stated before, it seems to me the Carrier-Price hypothesis is possibly true. There are huge gaps in our evidence, and I simply disagree with those saying there is a solid case for historicity. But the argumentation on the mythicist side undermines its own credibility. It does not even pretend to be weighing up the evidence carefully, (with the exception of Carrier's use of Bayesian argumentation, which does pretend to objectivity but undermines that pretense regularly).

The Pauline Epistles, however, overwhelmingly support the “celestial Jesus” theory, particularly with the passage indicating that demons killed Jesus, and would not have done so if they knew who he was (see: 1 Corinthians 2:6-10). Humans – the murderers according to the Gospels – of course would still have killed Jesus, knowing full well that his death results in their salvation, and the defeat of the evil spirits.

This is extremely tendentious. Borg and Crossan, not explicitly aiming to refute mythicism, make a solid case (in "the First Paul") that the principalities and powers of Paul's rhetoric are representations of the way power structures of empire work. There is no reason to suppose he meant they were celestial entities acting celestially, with the obvious interpetation being that malign spiritual forces (spirit in Paul is a sort of Platonic category comprising "intellectual" and "social" as well as "other-wordly") are at work in human power structures and social patterns. Sometimes the same terms are used quite explicitly for actual rulers as he uses when he argues that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers."

Lataster's spin that humans would have gladly killed Jesus to thereby secure salvation is a laughably Medieval interpretation of the whole salvation theology. Paul's view of the matter is presented in the first four chapters of I Corinthians, complete with the views of "the Jews" and "the Greeks", and he explicitly denies that "the wise" can make any sense of a crucified Messiah.

While Carrier and others have found interesting parallels to non-Jewish dying-and-rising myths, they neglect the obvious evidence that 1) Jesus saw himself as dying at the hands of the powers of violence, and 2) the rising part came as a surprise to the Christian community. The peaceful, suffering Messiah harmonizes rather well with the prophetic literature, which was already revising the concepts of salvation and Messiah before Jesus picked up on their view.

Mythicists have a long way to go before they can present a convincing case that the best explanation of the available evidence is some version of mythicism.

Ehrman and Casey can’t tell you – and neither can any New Testament scholar. Given the poor state of the existing sources, and the atrocious methods used by mainstream Biblical historians, the matter will likely never be resolved.

It is probably true that the matter will not be resolved satisfactorily. It is also impossible to show that Carrier is not simply an academic entrepreneur, trying to make a name for himself by assembling evidence in a specious manner in order to make maximum splash and gather the largest internet following he can. A click-bait con man, in other words. Certainly you can find plenty of peole who swallow his material as credulously as the "mainstream Biblical historians" of Lataster's complaint.

A brief comment on your post, which was well reasoned and knowledgeable. When you say that college-educated Christians manage to have faith while viewing the miracles as the stuff of legend, are you including the miracle, which is that Jesus was immortal, rose from the dead, and is actually present today? Believing in that very miracle is what makes one a Christian, in my opinion. I would never argue, though, that one could not claim to be a Christian if he or she has some other, perhaps allegorical, interpretation of the death and resurrection. Jefferson of course disallowed any hint of the miraculous, viewing Jesus as a spiritual exemplar. I really don't know if he ever declared himself to be Christian, however.

I agree that mythicists don't do a good job with Paul's letters, claiming that an interpretation of one or two passages negates the plain references to an earthly Jesus. They always make the point that Paul could have bolstered his argument for Jesus by citing details of his life. What if Paul didn't think that such an argument needed to be made? The existence of Jesus wasn't questioned until the modern era. Even the Roman enemies of Christianity never made the charge of a fictional Jesus.

On further thought, I do do recall Jefferson saying he was a Christian, based on values derived from Jesus.

Harry Marks wrote:As I have stated before, it seems to me the Carrier-Price hypothesis is possibly true. There are huge gaps in our evidence, and I simply disagree with those saying there is a solid case for historicity. But the argumentation on the mythicist side undermines its own credibility. It does not even pretend to be weighing up the evidence carefully, (with the exception of Carrier's use of Bayesian argumentation, which does pretend to objectivity but undermines that pretense regularly). . . . Certainly you can find plenty of peole who swallow his material as credulously as the "mainstream Biblical historians" of Lataster's complaint.

Thanks for your thorough response. I agree with many or most of your points, though admittedly I have a much more superficial knowledge of the sources mentioned. It does seem Lataster uses very broad brush strokes here to make his point. And it also sounds like you almost agree with his conclusion: "Given the poor state of the existing sources, and the atrocious methods used by mainstream Biblical historians, the matter will likely never be resolved. In sum, there are clearly good reasons to doubt Jesus’ historical existence – if not to think it outright improbable."

DWill wrote:When you say that college-educated Christians manage to have faith while viewing the miracles as the stuff of legend, are you including the miracle, which is that Jesus was immortal, rose from the dead, and is actually present today? Believing in that very miracle is what makes one a Christian, in my opinion.

I phrased my statement carefully. There is an alternative which does not make use of the supernatural. Crossan, for example, argues that there was a "Resurrection Event" which could have been visions (what we call hallucinations, today) and almost certainly included the reconstitution of the movement, which was calling itself "the Body of Christ" by the time of Paul, after Jesus was executed by the Romans.

Many college-educated Christians accept the entire non-supernatural version, as I do. A larger group is somewhere in the middle, decisively rejecting literalism about seven-day creation, for example, and Noah's flood, often rejecting Jesus literally walking on water and inducing Peter to do the same, but having trouble with any version of Resurrection other than the literal one (although which literal one gives some trouble.) Quite a few, maybe as many as affirm a non-supernatural Resurrection, would consider belief in a non-supernatural Resurrection as disqualification from the category of Christian.

It is true that the Resurrection is central to Christian beliefs and teaching. In whatever form one believes it, it affirms that God vindicated Christ and showed a power stronger than that of the Romans. Their power was the power to put someone to death. I believe this is a sort of affirmation of "soft power": moral truth has intrinsic appeal whose persuasiveness is not traded off against threats of violence. You can make me change what I say, by threatening me, but by doing so you make it less likely, not more, that I will change what I consider to be right.

To affirm that a person willing to be martyred for this "soft" view of truth and salvation is in fact the promised one, the deliverer, is to make a strong statement about the relationship between God and humans. The fact that it was combined with strong themes of forgiveness of sinners, acceptance of outcasts, and transcendence of legalism makes it a good fit with the more avant-garde themes of the prophets and thus a further development of Judaism.