Posting will be light today as I am embroiled in many issues and am troubled.
One question for which I’ve always received feedback is this: did a “Jesus person”—a human on which the Biblical legends of the New Testament are based—really exist? I’m not accepting that any of the deeds attributed to a “Jesus” are true, merely asking whether such a person existed around whom the legends could be woven.
Since the accounts of Jesus’s life occur in a single book that is not only hard to believe, but wrong in many details that we can test (e.g. the Exodus); and that book was surely not written by people who were Jesus’s contemporaries; and, because the four “independent” account of his life differ in crucial details, then as a scientist all I can say is that the Biblical account is flawed and gives no strong evidence for a “Jesus person.”
Yes, I know Bart Ehrman wrote a book concluding that Jesus was a real person, but not the son of God. Ehrman maintained that the “Jesus person” was an apocalyptic preacher. It’s been some years since I read that book, and so I’ve forgotten the evidence Ehrman adduced, but I can remember that I wasn’t strongly convinced.
Below are two old videos in which Christopher Hitchens addresses the issue. In the first 7-minute one, he compares with Jesus with Socrates, and concludes that there’s not that much more evidence for Socrates as a real person than for Jesus. But because Socrates’s supposed method has persisted, and has proven immensely valuable, Hitchens doesn’t really care. In contrast, Jesus asserted that people had to believe in what he said—and what he said (“take no care for the morrow. . and just follow me”) was delusional. In other words, Hitchens takes the “lunatic” view of C. S. Lewis’s “liar, lunatic, or lord” trilemma.
On the other hand, certain falsities in the Bible (getting Jesus from Nazareth to Bethlehem under a nonexistent census), suggest to Hitchens that these tortuous fabrications wouldn’t have been necessary had there not been a Jesus person. (“Otherwise, why not have him born in Bethlehem?”) This kind of “cobbling” may constitute for Hitchens weak evidence that there was a Jesus person.
Of course the reason why people are so invested in having hard proof that a Jesus person existed, even if we can’t document his miracles, is that if we can’t even show that a Jesus person existed, then all of Christianity falls apart—at least to those who want evidence to buttress their faith.
Here’s a 1½-minute video, Hitchens says that there’s no firm evidence he existed, even in light of Ehrman’s book. (“There’s no reason to believe that he did [exist].”) In contrast, Hitchens says that Muhammad is a figure of history, but of course he rejects any claim that an angel dictated the Qur’an to Muhammad.
I’m sure people will have divergent opinions. I am not bothered by being pretty agnostic on Jesus, but some of my friends, even nonbelievers, are. And that puzzles me.
Yes. There did exist a preacher named Yeshua in Galilee and thereabouts during the early decades of the first century. I know that for the same reason I know that there exists right now a priest named Michael in the city of Philadelphia. It is a statistical certainty. Yeshua was a common name and Judea and Galilee and the general region was infested with preachers, wannabee prophets, and religious fanatics of all stripes and kinds.
The sensible question would be, “Did there exist a preacher named Yeshua who even slightly resembled the fictional persona described in the Gospels?” Who knows? I am slightly open to the idea that a dude named Yeshua existed who preached moral ideas slightly similar to the Sermon on the Mount. I am less open to the idea that there was a dude named Yeshua who walked on water and fed a multitude with two fish and five loaves.
I don’t think there is any significant evidence for a historical Jesus. It’s instructive to compare him to a near-contemporary, Julius Caesar, for whom we have (1) writings in his own hand; (2) writings attesting to his existence, from people who were not necessarily his followers; (3) coins; (4) contemporary sculpture. (There are probably other lines of evidence, but I’m typing this off the top of my head).
None of this exists for Jesus. The passages in Josephus are later interpolations into the text; he’s not mentioned in Philo, where one would have expected him to be (a clear case in which absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence), or in contemporary Roman writers. No writings, coins, or sculpture.
One need not even leave the letter “L” to answer Lewis’ trilemma: legend. Based on messianic passages in the Old Testament, the nature of social ferment at the time, and mythopoesis. Think Hercules, King Arthur…
I have to quibble with a couple of things here:
That’s all accurate, but you’re setting the bar really high here—at least if you believe Jesus was some Jewish peasant and not The Son of God). Julius Caesar was one of the most famous Romans of all time, and he was also a talented writer—a rare combination—which is why his works have survived until today. Not many people from antiquity could meet that high a standard. (Other famous people of ancient times, like the emperor Claudius or King Ptolemy of Egypt, wrote books but they went into oblivion over the ages, maybe because they just weren’t that good—who knows.) For comparison: Cleisthenes, the founder of Athenian democracy, didn’t leave much trace in the historical record despite being the leader of Athens for several years—and Athens was one of the most literate cities in the ancient world. A lot of what we know about him comes from Herodotus, who was writing about 50 or 60 years after Cleisthenes died. The same applies to other big names of antiquity: most of what we know about Alexander the Great and Hannibal of Carthage comes from historians who wrote centuries after the fact (although, to be fair Alexander and Hannibal minted coins and Alexander left a couple of contemporary inscriptions, but most people didn’t have that kind of power.) The problem is that the vast majority of texts from Greco-Roman times has simply vanished. What we have today is a meager sample.
To be clear: I’m not making a case for the historical Jesus here; I’m just saying that a lot of atheists/agnostics hold the existence of Jesus to a higher standard of proof than that of other historical figures.
That’s a reasonable position, but it’s still hotly contested by experts. You can find reputable people on either side of the debate.
Also, you’re probably aware that Tacitus mentioned Jesus, and he’s pretty much considered the gold standard among ancient historians (although I will concede that standards of historical research were lower in those days than they are today.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus
Maybe the evidence for Jesus wouldn’t hold up in court today, but people have accepted the existence of other ancient figures based on similar or even weaker evidence.
I think all those are safe to bring forward ; after all, it’s Christians who persist in saying we have more proof for Jesus’ existence than for Cesar, or other famous antique people.
I’ve never understood why Josephus’ real or interpolated remarks regarding Jesus are considered to be of any significance at all. Josephus was writing two or three generations after the supposed death of Jesus, such that his comments on Jesus are not any sort of first-hand evidence and instead simply reflect what he had been told — presumably by Christians. As such, Josephus’ remarks regarding Jesus are of no greater weight in establishing the actual existence of Jesus than the gospels are.
I don’t have a work of Josephus in front of me at the moment, but I recall that he also wrote about Mark Antony, Cleopatra, and King Herod, who are generally accepted as historical figures. All of these people died before the birth of Jesus, yet historians generally regard Josephus as a credible source for that era, even though he was writing over a century after the events he chronicles. If you’re going to dismiss Josephus’s testimony about Jesus on the grounds that Josephus wasn’t a contemporary source, then you’ll have to throw out his testimony about Cleopatra et. al and dozens of other people. (I’m assuming for the sake of argument that Josephus’s passage about Jesus is genuine. If it’s a forgery—which is totally possible—then all bets are off.)
I also have to point out that a lot of ancient writers, probably the majority of them, were relying on second- or third-hand accounts from writers who lived decades or even centuries earlier, and yet historians take the later accounts seriously. A prime example: our first continuous narrative of the campaigns of Alexander the Great was written by a guy named Diodorus of Sicily, who was writing roughly two-and-a-half centuries after Alexander died. The same applies to a lot of other ancient historians: Herodotus, Plutarch, Livy, and others often wrote about events that happened centuries before they were born, and in a lot of cases, we don’t have anything else to go on.
The point here is that a lot of Jesus mythicists apply their skepticism selectively. Most historical writing from antiquity simply could not survive that level of scrutiny.
On my reading list is “Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life” by UChicago philosopher Agnes Callard. I don’t know that she has reason to take up a question of his actual existence.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213395473-open-socrates
Bear in mind that the stories were not developed by one person at one time (making it easy to be coherent). It started with the “Mark” account (who called Jesus “The Nazarene”).
Then “Matthew” and others took the story and adapted and embellished it for theological reasons. But they weren’t starting from scratch, they were presumably talking to a community already familiar with Mark’s account. So if (for theological reasons) they wanted a birth somewhere else, in Bethlehem, then they had to contrive it.
I don’t have it at my finger-tips, but I did read a piece suggesting that the evidence for Mohammad’s existence as a historical figure was also dubious. While I can’t say that the single piece was definitive, it certainly was enough to raise doubts in my mind.
That is extremely dubious. I have read such theories that maybe Muhammad didn’t exist. I think they are ridiculous nonsense. Muhammad, within his lifetime, had actual power and the Arabs under his command waged wars with Persians and Byzantine Romans. There are nonIslamic historical records of this.
If you take the position that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, then a corollary would seem to be that mundane claims only require mundane evidence. And ‘First century peasant starts a religious cult’ certainly seems to be a mundane claim. I think the mere existence of a cult around Jesus is decent proof that there probably was a Jesus who started it all. I mean, it’s not like King Arthur or Robin Hood where any historical inspiration has been lost to the mists of time. You’ve got an early literate convert in Paul writing about the cult soon after Jesus would have been executed, and even mentioning Jesus’s brother by name in Galatians 1:19.
Also, it’s not ‘one book’ that mentions Jesus. It’s a bunch of short writings (independent to various degrees) that were later incorporated into the canonical collection by tradition, but there were other writings (including gospels) besides just those canonical ones, not to mention the brief mentions in Josephus (even if the Testimonium Flavianum got doctored up by later Christians).
Sure, then you can get into further lines of evidence like the criterion of embarrassment. But just on the face of it, a cult around a guy actually being founded by that guy seems like the simplest explanation. Anything else (like the mythical Jesus ideas) seems like adding on needless complexity.
Of course, getting from historical inspiration to the Bible included lots of embellishment, but we’ve got plenty of urban legends and tabloid stories about modern day people, not to mention misattributed stories and quotes, so it’s not like that’s anything unheard of.
Religious cults usually have both founding leaders (Joseph Smith, maybe Mohammed, maybe James or Paul) and gods (Angel Moroni, Angel Gabriel, maybe Jesus?), and the god-like beings tend to be inventions. The existence of Greek/Roman cults with gods like Zeus is not evidence that “Zeus” was originally a real person.
Paul’s writings are strong evidence against a recently-lived Jesus. What does he do after Damascus, and (supposedly) learning that the Son of God had recently lived in nearby communities? Surely he would go and sit at the feet of people who had lived with Jesus and learn everything about him?
But no, he tells us explicitly that he spoke to no-one, and wandered around Arabia for three years. That makes sense only if Paul is utterly unaware of the concept of a recently-lived Jesus, and seeks to learn only from scripture and visions.
Indeed, he tells us explicitly that he got his teachings from no-one, but that they came from scripture and visions. He is openly contemptuous of the authority of others (James, Peter, etc) who (supposedly) would have lived alongside Jesus. He has no conception that they could reply “look mate, I lived with Jesus, you didn’t”. He quotes scripture (the OT) about 100 times in his writings, but there’s hardly any of the teachings of Jesus or tales of Jesus that later appeared in the gospels. He never makes any distinction between “disciples” (who had met Jesus) and “apostles” like himself (who had not).
As for the “brother” of Jesus mention, first he says “brother of the Lord” (not brother of Jesus), so it has a religious emphasis rather than a personal one, and two sentences earlier he uses the very same Greek word for “brother” where everyone agrees that he was using “brother” to mean “fellow Christian”.
Or made up entirely. The evidence is against there being an undoctored original that was then doctored. For starters, the preceding and following passages only make sense if the entire thing is excised.
The god-like being in Christianity is the God of Judaism, and potentially the Son of Man. Judging by how the gospels developed, the early Christian beliefs (like Mark) were that Jesus was born a normal person who was only adopted by God at his baptism. And the Son of Man language was probably originally about some figure Jesus was predicting, not Jesus himself, and it was only as the cult morphed that Jesus and the Son of Man became conflated.
Look, I don’t have a huge emotional investment in this debate. And I don’t think the evidence is 100% definitive one way or the other. But Jesus founding the cult that followed Jesus seems like a pretty mundane thing. I mean, even in the modern day, such cults are a dime a dozen (see, for example, Sathya Sai Baba as a pretty similar figure to Jesus).
I’ve actually been doing a bit more thinking about this comment of yours:
“Religious cults usually have both founding leaders (Joseph Smith, maybe Mohammed, maybe James or Paul) and gods (Angel Moroni, Angel Gabriel, maybe Jesus?), and the god-like beings tend to be inventions.”
I already mentioned how the Son of Man could have been the new invention in Christianity per your model. But the more I think about it, I’m just not sure how true your claim is in general. I mean, yes, religious cults will have some type of religious aspect (i.e. a god), but how often is a new god/character invented, rather than just a new spin on the existing god, and if new, how often is the invention separate from the founder?
For example:
Jim Jones (plain old Christianity)
Sathya Sai Baba (claimed he himself was divine)
Sun Myung Moon (Christianity with a cult of personality around himself)
David Koresh & the Branch Davidians (claimed himself as the prophet)
Ellen White & Seventh Day Adventists (another one claiming herself as the prophet)
The counter would be that “Jesus” was not a figure newly-invented by the nascent cult, but was a divine figure that they discerned in the OT scripture, in the books of Daniel and Isaiah and others, in the approx 100 places where Paul cited the OT in his writings, and in non-canonical writings such as the “Ascension of Isaiah”. (I’m not at all expert on this, but people like Carrier have written extensively about this.)
The idea is that Paul thought of “Jesus” as real, but as a divine being known about from OT scripture (plus, presumably, visions). [Of course that’s pretty much how Christians today regard Jesus (though with the NT added to the OT).]
Only later, in the aftermath of the destruction of the Jewish temple by the Romans, did “Mark” write an allegory that turned Jesus into a recently-lived human.
Scientology, considered a religion by the US government (and entitled to tax privileges) has a number of gods and demons, and no one person behind them all. They were simply made up by L. Ron Hubbard.
The same is true of the panoply of Greek and Roman gods, which were also the subjects of numerous writings and had large cult followings, including the construction of massive temples.
There’s another possibility here: Jesus, the mythical man-god of Christianity, or whatever you want to call him, was based on a real historical figure, a charismatic preacher/political agitator who lived in first-century Galilee, and a bunch of legends grew up around him in the same way that legends grew up around Alexander the Great or Augustus (see my other comment in the thread for more detail).
I totally agree and I want to make a few related points:
(1.) In modern times, various cults—or “new religious movements,” if you want to be politically correct—have sprung up under the leadership of charismatic founders like David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite, L. Ron Hubbard et. al. Textual evidence suggests that the same thing was going in antiquity: weird cults were founded by Pythagoras, Alexander of Abonoteichus, Mani (the founder of Manichaeism) and others.
(2.) Other political agitators and wanna-be messiahs were active in Judea before and after the time of Jesus: Judas of Galilee, Simon of Peraea, Simon bar Kokhba, and a couple of other ones. (Wikipedia gives a partial list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_messiah_claimants ) The historian Tacitus also writes about a Gaulish man named Mariccus who declared himself a god and launched a revolt against the Romans in AD 69. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariccus ) The idea of a god-man / messiah / political rebel was a recurring phenomenon in antiquity.
(3.) A lot of well-documented historical figures in the ancient Mediterranean world became the focus of supernatural legends and were even considered divine, like Pythagoras, Plato, Alexander the Great, Augustus, or going back further, Imhotep of Egypt. E.g., Plato was reputed to be the son of the god Apollo among later writers and Alexander the Great allegedly came back from the dead during the 3rd century A.D. In fact, supernatural legends about famous people of antiquity were probably the norm, not the exception. Anybody who wants to learn more should check out How the Gospels Became History by David Litwa or Miracles in Greco-Roman antiquity by Wendy Cotter.
In light of all that, I don’t think there’s anything remotely improbable about a Jewish preacher / political rebel who founded a new religion, got executed by the Romans, and received divine honors after his death. All of this has plenty of historical precedent if anyone wants to delve into the primary sources. This seems to me a simpler explanation than the elaborate theories cooked up by writers like Earl Doherty or Robert M. Price (although I don’t want to criticize Price too much because he wrote a brilliant takedown of the Christian apologist William Lane Craig).
P.S. I keep editing this because WordPress keeps gumming up the formatting. Hope my comments gets through.
It seems almost certain that there was a human named Jesus that the Bible refers to. Most scholars believe this because there actually are a fair number of independent sources. The 3 canonical gospels (obviously partially copied from one another), Gospel of John, Letters from Paul, and various non-biblical sources (at least 3 different ones) all support the notion of a historical figure that became the Jesus mythology. Historians typically require at least 2 independent sources to assume something is historical. This easily meets that definition. In fact, one could argue there is more evidence for his existence than many other figures considered historical from that time period. That many of these sources come from a time period when there would have been eyewitnesses (40-80 AD) and at least some of the authors (e.g., Paul) appear to be direct witnesses, it seems more likely than not that he was a real person, probably a charismatic leader of some sort as they were certainly popular when the Romans occupied the region.
Now all the supernatural stuff; yeah that part is clearly not real.
I don’t think you can fairly count the Gospels as evidence for the existence of Jesus, especially given their contradictions about elements of his life, and, most importantly, because they were written to prove he existed. The same is true for the other books of the New Testament. I have seven books telling me a boy named Harry Potter exists.
You men there is some question about Harry Potter’s existence? Millions of his
followers will be devastated.
Paul doesn’t even claim to be a direct witness to a living-as-a-human Jesus. Nor do any of the gospel writers. Nor do the gospel writers even claim to have talked to anyone who had met Jesus.
And only Paul’s letters are likely in your AD 40 to 80 time frame. And you don’t even have two properly independent sources: “Mark” would have had Paul’s letters; and the other three gospel writers re-worked “Mark”. And any of the non-Biblical accounts are much later and are not independent and are really only evidence of the existence of a cult of Christians, not of Jesus.
Completely agree with Coel (and with his reply to Jeff Lewis above that). I would just add that none of the extra-Biblical sources stands up to scrutiny. The one in Suetonius is not about Jesus; of the two in Josephus, one is a scribal interpolation and the other a blatant forgery; and the ones in Tacitus and Pliny the Younger may also be forgeries, but even if genuine, all they prove is that by about 120AD Christians believed that Jesus had been born, crucified and resurrected here on earth. Which is not evidence that those beliefs are well founded.
I’ve never heard any professional historian say that. If you’re going to take that attitude, you could just as well say that every work of ancient history is forged; I don’t know why you would focus on Tacitus and Pliny in particular. (Although the passages in Josephus are a different matter; those seem kind of fishy because they don’t quite jibe with the surrounding text.)
In the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, Jesus is mentioned twice. One of these is clearly a medieval interpolation; the second mentions “James, the brother of Jesus.” More importantly Josephus tells of a number of personages preaching one doctrine or another. The Romans saw them as troublemakers and dispatched them quickly, among them John the Baptist. Those were turbulent times in Judea so it is not surprising that such people existed. One might call Jesus an “apocalyptic Pharisee” predicting the coming of God’s kingdom; the Romans saw this as threatening. His trial was political and he was dispatched like the others (crucifixion was punishment for political crimes against the state). The background of the story reflects a historical reality. Unlike with the others, Jesus’ followers were able to create a viable ideology. But of course most of the tales about him are purely legendary.
This question always cracks me up.
Rationalists (who by their very nature tend to be irrational) flinch in horror at the idea of an historical Jesus and will split hairs ad infinitum to avoid the obvious answer.
Peter is generally considered to have actually existed.
Also, Andrew, Mark, Phillip and Thomas.
Other apostles and disciples have less historical evidence to them up.
However, almost no one doubts there was an historical Paul, who never met Jesus but did meet almost all the apostles and disciples.
In order to doubt there was a historical Jesus, you have to posit the ridiculous idea that a bunch of people got together to create and then promote a fiction that caused them incredible harm and did a sufficiently good job that they were able to convince Paul, who was a student of Gamaliel.
Well, assuming that there is nothing supernatural, it seems like all religions were created by a bunch of men who created a fiction.
Do you assume all religions are supernatural?
Are the Unitarians a religion?
I’ve seen this line of argument before from religious apologists who even go so far as to say it proves Jesus was resurrected. After all, why would you claim such a thing if it weren’t true and it would lead to your own persecution?
As an aside, Falun Gong is a religious movement in China whose adherents believe in – amongst other things – the existence of shape shifting aliens who are capable of inter dimensional travel in their UFOs… they also happen to be repressed by the Chinese government and suffer from forced idealogical conversion, imprisonment, forced labour, torture and sometimes death.
Could I therefore argue, that “in order to doubt there was a group of aliens capable of inter dimensional travel in their UFOs [historical Jesus], you have to posit the ridiculous idea that a bunch of people got together to create and then promote a fiction that caused them incredible harm and did a sufficiently good job that they were able to convince up to 20 million other adherents [Paul, who was a student of Gamaliel].”
It seems to me that humans are more than capable of creating any number of myths even if it does lead to their own suffering or persecution… particularly in the more ignorant backwaters of the Middle East some 2000 years ago.
Excellent counterargument. I tend to assume that Falun Gong is a psychological crutch resulting from the stress of living under the CCP. However, that automatically leads to the argument that early Christianity prospered as a means of coping with the stress of Roman occupation.
I still maintain that Occam’s Razor cuts down the argument that Peter could have been an historical person but not Jesus (assuming one can think of Jesus as a person).
I also disagree with your characterization of ancient ignorance. People in the 1st century trained in tradition of Rabbi Hillel would have been far less ignorant than the majority of 21st century advance degree holders.
Of course there are degrees of agnosticism regarding Jesus’ existence. I have read Bart on the subject and listened to Robert Price at one of the Imagine’s. I have been convinced that I don’t have the skill set to determine with any certainty the historicity of Jesus.
Having said that, if somebody put a gun to my head and said make a bet, I would probably bet in favour of some kind of seed for the myth of Christ, based on some non-descript Joshua.
I don’t quite know what to make of the debate. Unlike, say, the proof of Fermat’s last theorem which even very few mathematicians have the knowledge to assess, the evidence for the existence or not of Jesus seems accessible to the average person. Yet many people have concluded that he probably didn’t exist while, according to Bart Ehrman, nearly all biblical historians believe that he did.
The problem is that the “experts” on Jesus have always been devout Christians (even almost all today’s leading scholars at least were devout Christians in their younger years, including Bart Ehrman who is cited above). They’re not disinterested investigators. Also, any professor of New Testament or Religious Studies who is harboring doubts should probably keep them to herself, if she wants to keep her job.
But unlike Fermat’s last theorem, it really isn’t hard to do one’s own research — what is the strength of the actual evidence for a living, breathing, earthly Jesus, pro and con? Spoiler alert: con wins.
I lay out my case here.
Rather than press the conclusion that this person probably did not exist, or favor the suggestion that this person did exist (but that his deeds were later greatly exaggerated), for some time now I simply think that We Don’t Know.
I asked ChatGPT to put together a table on the existence of Jesus. See link below:
https://chatgpt.com/share/67d47296-da1c-800e-84eb-856e9d600f6a
I’ve been putting a question to a number of different AI chat bots. Not one of them got the answer right the first time. Eventually, after various prompts the question gets answered. However, they all revert to their earlier, wrong answer, when asked on a different day. Eventually, ChatGPT gets the answer right (though perhaps after a few chats it now knows I don’t want a religious/theological answer…..)
The question: ‘name the king of the Jews executed by Rome’. Answer: Jesus of Nazareth. Christian theology, it seems, has allowed the AI chat bots to default to theology – and by doing so has side-lined Jewish history.
The correct answer to the question: Antigonus II Mattathias, King and High Priest of Judaea. Executed in Antioch by Marc Antony in 37 b.c.
If we are seeking to understanding early Christian origins then it is necessary to turn to Jewish history, especially Hasmonean history. While the events of 70 c.e. and 135 c.e. are important, so are the events at the start of the Roman occupation of Judaea. (63 b.c. and 37 b.c.) History, when set alongside the gospel story, suggests that a reflection of Jewish history is being incorporated into that story. It’s Jesus figure becomes a symbol of the fall, the death, of the Hasmonean dynasty. If, as Christian theology asserts, it’s Jesus figure rose from the dead and it’s Paul figure preached a spiritual kingdom rather than an earthly one, then that spiritual kingdom finds it’s roots in the death of the Hasmonean kingdom. (Luke placing his Jesus crucifixion story around 70 years from the execution of Antigonus – history remembered – in this case under the nose of Roman occupation)
”Dion Cassius says, ‘Antony now gave the Kingdom to a certain Herod, and having stretched Antigonus on the cross and scourged him, which had never been done before to a king by the Romans, he put him to death’. The sympathies of the masses for the crucified king of Judah, the heroic son of so many heroic ancestors, and the legends growing, in time, out of this historical nucleus, became, perhaps, the source from which Paul and the evangelists preached Jesus as the crucified king of Judea.” (History of the Hebrew’s Second Commonwealth, 1880, Cincinnati, page 206)
Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), scholar and novelist.
There is no historical evidence for the existence of the gospel Jesus figure. However, that gospel figure does reflect historical realities under Roman occupation of Judaea. An historical Jesus, of whatever variant scholars devise, is no substitute for the history that is reflected within that literary figure. A history that is able to stand on the ground, so to speak, and thus able to throw light upon the roots of early Christian origins.
This is a fun question. In moments like this, I have to review :
“Jesus” is a name. As in, what really exists are human beings. Which one was named “Jesus”? Was it the Jesus?
I know that’s a “drowning in 2 inches of water” thought, but it matters as to what’s true given the evidence (Bayes). So there is also a likelihood there was a person not named “Jesus” that did preach the words as “recorded” in the Bible. This is the sort of line of analysis that has to be done.
The second thought that arises is : without a birth certificate, … or, even other things … let’s not go there … all we have is the Bible. There’s literally nothing else. Not even … well, now I have to go check the Gnostic writings – but they don’t refer to the Bible per se, it’s just tacit.
I think the idea of Socrates’ existence is a good comparison. If a literal person whose name was Socrates and who wrote all Socrates’ work existed, or not, the ideas are still there.
Love to hear Hitch – so good he was captured on video… unlike Jesus. 😁
Back when I was a theology student—young, earnest, and already wondering how to spin “Master of Divinity” into a LinkedIn skill endorsement—I learned something that stuck. In our history and comparative religion classes, we were told, quite casually, that walking around claiming to be the Son of God was basically the hot trend of the Hellenized world. Everyone was at it. If you weren’t flirting with divinity, were you even networking?
Jesus, it turns out, wasn’t exactly a unicorn. More like… well, fairly on-brand. A familiar figure in a time when self-deification was the ancient equivalent of a verified checkmark. And that’s before you even get to Egypt, where Pharaohs had long cornered the market on god-king influencer culture, running what we’d now call the original personal brand—sponsored by Ra.
So yes, we were explicitly taught this in seminary. Imagine the cognitive dissonance of sitting in theology class, dutifully parsing doctrines of incarnation, while also knowing that in the ancient world, everyone and their donkey thought they were divine. At least, I felt the dissonance. Why did it matter whether Jesus was a historical figure, if his claims to godhood were as common as a philosopher in need of a patron? Who cares if he lived or died, when the real headline is that the ancient world was suffering from an epidemic of the god complex—where a rather suspicious number of people sincerely believed they were God incarnate.
I have read that in ancient times that ‘divinity’ was not a ‘reserved’ hard category but a more gentle scale.
At one end you had ordinary people, then heroes, then semi divine kings/queens, then full ‘gods’ of various ranks. And importantly you could move up the divinity scale by your own efforts (or public recognition).
So it is quite possible that an apocalyptic preacher, now known as Jesus, did exist but he has had ‘divinity’ of some degree thrust upon him. A legend of divinity might be a useful fiction to those who needed it.
I tend to sit in the Bart Erhman camp with a tinge of agnosticism. And certainly will say a definite no to any of the supernatural aspects of his time on earth. Simply put. My view is he was a poor messianic preacher for the backwaters of Gallilee who wandered into Jerusalem thinking he could overthrow the ruling Jewish classes of the Pharisees and the Saduccess and they used the Romans “to rid them of this meddling priest”. John took over the bits and pieces of a divided messianic Jewish cult, found an audience in the Gentiles, had a bit of a turf war with Peter and James, did away with the overburdsome mosaic laws and founded christianity.
That my hypothesis anyway.
And just to be that guy. Hitch tends to use solipsisms to get his point across. Alex Conner is much better at the developing the logical argument. That said I love Hitch’s work. He boldly went where no man had never gone before. Right to the heart of the matter, in public and directly to the purveyors of the supernatural charlatans
It has been a while since I read Ehrman’s book as well. But I do recall thinking that if this is the best case that can be made for Jesus being an historical figure then he didn’t exist.
How much of the life of Jesus needs to be attributed to one person to believe that such a person existed? Leaving aside the miracles which only true believers accept, suppose there was a person who went around preaching, pretending to heal, making claims about the kingdom of god and stirring up trouble in the temple, pretty much as the gospels tell. But suppose the sermon on the mount was preached by a different person and it was someone else again who went and fasted in the desert for 40 day and nights, but these events got attributed to the Jesus character. Do we say that Jesus existed or not?
If gospel Jesus is a composite literary figure – then there is no historical Jesus. What would be the point of various bits and pieces of historical individuals being placed upon an itinerant preacher from Nazareth? His identity squashed by the imputing of the ‘glory’ from men of renown….The new Churchill – whoever that symbolism might be attributed do – could never outshine the original. Interestingly, some years ago, Earl Doherty said this:
“I can well acknowledge that elements of several representative, historical figures fed into the myth of the Gospel Jesus, since even mythical characters can only be portrayed in terms of human personalities, especially ones from their own time that are familiar and pertinent to the writers of the myths.”
Gospel Jesus as James Bond…….at least the constituent parts could provide an open doorway to historical figurers, historical figures that were of interest to the gospel writers.
The truth of a hypothesis is always just a matter of probabilities, never apodictic. In any case, as with most alleged historical facts, it probably does not matter in the slightest whether a “Jesus person” really existed. Suppose, by analogy, it could be proved beyond doubt that the US Constitution was never properly ratified. Such a discovery would not mean that the US government would suddenly disappear, leaving only a large ungoverned space between Canada and Mexico. The discovery of such a flaw in the ratification process would have no practical effect whatsoever. Ditto for most other supposedly foundational facts of history.
Strangely, I just finished watching Heretic (2024, with Hugh Grant as a baddie). Our host would enjoy the first half hour as he torments (intellectually) a couple of Mormon missionaries with Richard Carrier style God Who Wasn’t There stuff*, but then it becomes a run of the mill horror movie.
*Far better than being tormented with Carrier’s other obsession.
People believe God exists and that belief is almost certainly untrue. That people could believe that a non-existent Jesus existed is unsurprising, probable even
My own view is that the Jesus we know today is a composite character comprised of a mix of real and imagined people and events.
It’s all The Passover Plot! 🙂
Sorry to see you are troubled. I hope it is merely an intellectual angst of teasing out the strands of the many issues embroiling your mind right now and nothing more serious.
I’m reading the recent, ‘Heresy, Jesus Christ and the other Sons of God’ by Catherine Nixey. The whole of the Roman world was infested with a confusion of Jesus types, miracle workers, faith healers, demi-gods, and such like. Eye opening.
Just about to start that. Glad to hear it is entertaining. Her prior book about the Christian destruction of the classical world was interesting, if depressing.
I’ve just been able to find it! Nearly 11 years ago, Ben Goren did a guest post on WEIT entitled ‘On the Historicity of Jesus.’ His exposition led to a resounding ‘no!’
Every now and again the topic returns here. For me, it’s always salutary to re-read Mr. Goren’s essay. I agreed with him then, agree with him now.
+1. I remember that post.
I’m sure there may have been a human being called Jesus as there is a guy named John living today. Jesus Christ is just a name someone came up with that could have been popular at the time. Some person wrote a myth to try and give people hope that there is a good life coming later on. If it wasn’t for death, I doubt religion would be around.
As far as some human being that is something more than a human being, no
I don’t think there was a Jesus Christ. I’ve always been curious what people think this JC could have possibly done? I’ve only met people that are fallible and come with human frailties.
I miss Ben’s voice here.
As far as I know there are only two peer-reviewed books on Jesus Mythicism: On the Historicity of Jesus by Dr. Richard Carrier, and Questioning the Historicity of Jesus by Raphael Lataster. I’ve read both. Carrier’s book is the gold standard of Mythicism. He uses Bayesian logic to determine the mathematical probability that Jesus was a real human being. He arrives at a 2:1 factor that it is twice as likely that he didn’t exist. But he is extremely generous in his calculations and off-the-record thinks it is a much higher unlikelihood.
Carrier has called out Ehrman for his assertion that “of course he existed” because it is the result of a flawed methodology. If you are going to make that claim, you need solid evidence to back it up and there simply isn’t any.
Carrier also examines the Rank-Raglan mythotypes of dozens of dying-and-rising (DRS) savior gods that existed in virtually every culture in the Mediterranean, and long before the invention of Jesus. The fact that religious syncretism was widespread throughout the empire lends to the idea that Paul simply created a Jewish version of the DRS. We know none of those gods existed as humans, so why would Jesus be the exception. Carrier’s take on DRS god Osiris below.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/23816
Truth is, there is only one document in existence that is the narrative of the Jesus everyone knows about and that is the Gospel According to Mark. An anonymous author who provides zero sources and written near the end of the first century. Not exactly a valuable document to a historian. All attempts to claim otherwise (Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc) are weak apologetics.
“A” Jesus probably existed. “The” Jesus, most certainly not.
Ken Humphreys looked at all the ideas supporting the case that Jesus never existed and wrote it in a book “Jesus never existed” and has a Youtube channel misspelt with an e missing , “JesusNeverExistd”
This is my preferred position as i basically don’t want anything to do with middle eastern origin religions. [But i can acknowledge and respect any decent points made in Christianity etc.]
John 4v16 has Jesus meeting a woman at Jacob’s well.16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her “True enough, you have had 5 husbands and currently living with a man who isn’t your husband.”
I just think v19 is crying out to be; and the woman replied, “Well Jacob had two wives. Who is counting anyway ? Come on tell us all how many partners you’ve had Jesus or are you still a virgin ? And by the way my name is Samantha, write it down before you forget. Let me know if you want me to help your remember it”
Why does it matter whether any religious or wisdom sharing person actually existed? What matters are the cultural and spiritual insights many people believe those figures left behind.
The best argument by a skeptic of the historicity of Jesus is Stephen Law’s essay in the journal Faith and Philosophy: “Evidence, Miracles, and the Existence of Jesus” (2011). We (Cavin and Colombetti) published a criticism of Law in the same journal. Here is the abstract:
“We use Bayesian tools to assess Law’s skeptical argument against the historicity of Jesus. We clarify and endorse his sub-argument for the conclusion that there is good reason to be skeptical about the miracle claims of the New Testament. However, we dispute Law’s contamination principle that he claims entails that we should be skeptical about the existence of Jesus. There are problems with Law’s defense of his principle, and we show, more importantly, that it is not supported by Bayesian considerations. Finally, we show that Law’s principle is false in the specific case of Jesus and thereby show, contrary to the main conclusion of Law’s argument, that biblical historians are entitled to remain confident that Jesus existed.”
This and other articles in criticism of Christian apologetics and, specifically, against the Resurrection can be accessed from philpapers.org:
https://philpapers.org/s/Carlos%20A.%20Colombetti
We have a contemporary source: Paul, who was the head of the persecution in Jerusalem -where the crucifixion supposedly happened- in the 30s. If Jesus existed, we should be able to find some concrete evidence in the epistles of Paul, but there is none.
It’s not just Bart Ehrman. It’s a consensus view in critical scholarship from both believer and unbeliever alike. There is always some contrarian fringe character that gets a lot of attention (Carrier) akin to someone like Andrew Wakefield with vaccines or Ken Ham with evolution. There is no evidence of Jesus’s existence? How much do you want? There won’t be a coin with his image (he wasn’t important enough in life) or a writing penned by himself (probably illiterate and thought the end was imminent so it didn’t matter). What we do have is everyone writing about him assuming he was an actual person. Paul is our very earliest source and despite what some above commenter thinks, clearly thinks Jesus was a real person. He says Jesus was born of a woman. He mentions Jesus’ crucifixion ad nauseam. He mentions things that Jesus said. He mentions meeting Peter and Jesus’ brother! A contemporary spends time with Jesus’ brother and we think that’s not incredibly strong evidence that at least there is some historical person behind this? I’m as much of an atheist as anyone but mythicism to me is akin to flat-eartherism.
Everyone writing about him? Read Peter Nothnagle’s document under his name “Peter N”.
And you are aggressive and rude for a first post. Did you just come bulling your way in here touting Jesus’s existence without reading the posting rules, which encourage civility.
How much evidence do I want? More than exists, which is only in the Bible; nowhere else that’s reliable. Such a paucity of sources for such a famous man.
Thanks, Jerry. Jon, everything you bring up is discussed in my paper, referenced above.
In defense of Richard Carrier, although he may well be “some contrarian fringe character”, he’s also a fully qualified ancient historian who makes a strong case for the non-historicity of Jesus in an academic, peer-reviewed book.
This is what Carrier has to say about “the consensus”:
Hi, Peter. In your document—from which I learned a lot—there’s a paragraph about the timeline that seems to imply that Paul—contrary to what I thought—was persecuting the new sect for more than just a couple of years in Jerusalem. Am I reading it correctly?
“In his letter to the Galatians, Paul records that he had made a career out of persecuting Christians, then he “saw the light” and underwent his conversion, then spent time in Arabia, then at least seventeen more years passed, and finally he sat down to write his letter – which seems to have been in about the year 53. But if you believe the gospels, Jesus was born in the year 1 and died in about 33, at the end of a ministry that lasted only a year. That would mean there must have already been established communities of practicing Christians in Paul’s homeland – far away from Palestine in what is now modern Turkey – even while Jesus of the gospels was alive, before his ministry began, and years before his disciples started spreading the word!
Yes, New Testament scholars should be worried when they can’t supply historical evidence for their Jesus figure. But Carrier should also be worried because he can’t supply historical evidence for his ‘Jesus from Outer Space’ theory. To counter the Jesus historicists requires a historical argument. Carrier does not have one. He has theological arguments, interpretations from New Testament texts. The Jesus historicists simply walk on – interpretating texts, as Christian heresy hunters have demonstrate from day one, is anyone’s game. The fundamental claim in the gospel narrative is that Rome executed a ‘king of the Jews’. That claim cannot simply be challenged, answered, by a theological argument. Carrier needs to step away from pure theological imagination and sink his boots into the muddy historical trenches of Roman occupied Judaea.
I think you’re engaging in a variety of the No True Scotsman fallacy, i.e. “No reliable evidence supports the existence of an historical Jesus.”
Are you saying that I am rejecting any evidence in favor of a real Jesus a priori? I don’t think so. I’ve been studying the topic for years. Your objections to the Jesus-myth hypothesis have all been quite adequately answered by experts who have set aside their preconceptions and applied modern methods of scholarship. It’s fascinating reading!
Richard Carrier, “contrarian fringe character” or not, is the go-to source for responsible scholarship and facts. His blog, richardcarrier.info, has a “search” function — have a look!
This is a question that interests me, and I did some investigation into it some time ago, forgive me if I’ve forgotten most of the sources.
I think Jeff Lewis’s point that “I think the mere existence of a cult around Jesus is decent proof that there probably was a Jesus who started it all.” Is a good one. There probably was a Jewish preacher, who was from Nazareth, possibly a follower of John the Baptist, who fell foul of the Jewish/Roman authorities in Jerusalem and was crucified. The lack of contemporary evidence other than the gospels is easily explained by the context of the politics of the 1st C Judea. In the second half of that century there was a huge Jewish revolt in in the territory, and a massive Roman counterattack, which ultimately lead to the expulsion of the Jews from their homelands. The levels of destruction of resources on both sides would have been massive, and it is not at all surprising that many historical records from both sides might have been lost. I did read that the Ebionites, the family and followers of Jesus, denied the virgin birth and, I think, Christ’s divinity. Unfortunately, their records, if ever written down at all, have been lost. The only contemporary records I know of that did survive are the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Essenes of Qumran, are the Jewish ascetic sect who are believed to have written the scrolls. Some believe they may have influenced John the Baptist, and perhaps Jesus himself. It is known that the Essenes did believe, like Jesus, that the Second Coming, was imminent. Unfortunately, the Essenes were famously opaque in their writing. They did not use names in their texts, they used epithets like “The Teacher of Righteousness” so if there was a reference to Jesus it may not have been discernible in the text. However, my own impression is that we might be overegging the pudding here. In a period of such instability, there may have been many rebellious Jews killed by the authorities for their beliefs including, of course, John himself. From a modern perspective, we think Jesus’ life must have been a massive and important event, but why? Jesus may just have been another dead Jew, barely worth the column inches. According to Josephus’s account, however, the Jesus cult did persist, and the Roman authorities did employ people like the then Saul of Tarsus to suppress their influence. It is thought that Saul/Paul may have had left temporal lobe epilepsy, which is known to cause profound transcendental/religious experiences, which may have led to his conversion on the Road to Damascus. (In one of his letters he mentions some undefined disability.) It was Paul’s view of Jesus derived from his “divinely inspired” visions that prevailed. As I understand it, when Paul met Jesus’ disciples – the Ebionites – they hated him and tried to kill him. He only survived because he went to the authorities and announced that he was a Roman citizen. It does seem to be true that the Pauline version predominated, and that the virgin birth, miracles and his birth re-assigned to Bethlehem, could well have been post-hoc accommodations to establish Jesus’ status as the Messiah and Son of God. It could well be that the writers of the gospels were coerced, or had their texts revised to reflect this belief.
Maybe that’s the only reason we are even talking about it, or think it’s interesting.
It would be helpful to understand what evidence people think is needed to presume the actual existence of figures mentioned only, or almost only, in religious texts. As already asked above, should we conclude that the Apostles really existed? What about Paul? Or Hillel?
IIRC, Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist? had Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews do a LOT of heavy lifting.
Reply to David. comment 31.
Indeed, what about Paul…..
Thomas Brodie, in his 2012 book, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus, set down his argument for the New Testament figure of Paul as a literary figure. (He also holds to a literary Jesus. A Dominican priest he paid the price for ‘coming out’ by being sanctioned and prohibited to teach Catholic theology)
A new book, by Nina Livesey – The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (Dec 2024, Cambridge University Press …at a sky high price for a Kindle ebook…) challenges the notion of a historical Paul.
A few points from her book:
”In Chapter 2, I challenge several central assumptions of the authentic-letter perspective. These include the historicity of Paul, Pauline activity firmly dated to the mid-first century ce, and the historicity of Pauline communities. I likewise reassess the characterization and date of early external evidence of Pauline letters. The chapter more generally indicates a widespread lack of evidence for assumptions grounding the authentic-letter perspective.”
Livesey, Nina E.. The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (p. 134).
”These passages exploit the use of known political figures and/or events. That the passages place Paul into situations that pertain to these persons and events is insufficient evidence to guarantee his historical presence or a reliable Pauline chronology. By turning to these passages to date Paul’s activities, Pauline scholars fall victim to literary features that seek to advance narrative interest, confusing fiction for facts.”
Livesey, Nina E.. The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (pp. 202-203). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
The scholarly consensus dates Paul to pre 70 c.e. Acts places him in Corinth during the time of Gallio. That is the only ‘assured’ date for Paul in Acts. But, as Nina Livesey wrote above, connecting a narrative figure to an historical figure does not support historicity for that figure. Why does Acts place Paul in Corinth in the time of Gallio ? NT scholars will say – there you go – historical Paul is first century. But they forget not only what Nina Livesay says in the above quote – they fail to realize that a follow on story – Jesus then Paul – does not mean follow on in a chronological order – a narrative sequel is not limited by the chronology of it’s first setting. Nina Livesey places the Pauline writings to the mid second century. In essence then – Jesus followed chronologically by Paul is simply the Reader’s Digest condensed narrative version of early christian origins.
So what is the relevance of Acts placing Paul in Corinth under Gallio ? I asked AI Grok to write a poem:
Grok
”Write a poem about ancient Corinth. It’s destruction by Rome and its later rebuilding. Use its historical life, death and rebirth, it’s resurrection, as a symbolic reference to the execution and resurrection of Jesus. Preached by the apostle Paul in Corinth.
”Here’s a poem inspired by the rich history of ancient Corinth, weaving its destruction by Rome, its rebuilding, and its symbolic resonance with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, as preached by the Apostle Paul:
Corinth Reborn
Beneath the sun where marble gleamed,
A city thrived, its pulse a dream—
Corinth, proud, with bustling streets,
Where merchants sang and cultures meets.
Temples rose to gods of old,
Aphrodite’s gaze in gold,
A harbor kissed by waves of blue,
A world alive, a spirit true.
But Rome, with iron in its hand,
Swept wrath across the Grecian land.
In fury’s flame, the city fell,
A tale of ash too bleak to tell.
The walls were rent, the altars torn,
A silence born where life had sworn.
Mummius struck, and Corinth died,
Its heartbeat stilled, its pride denied.
Yet earth remembers what was lost,
A seed beneath the ruin’s cost.
Time turned, and hands rebuilt the stone,
A city rose from dust and bone.
Not grand as once it stood before,
But living still, with hope restored.
Through broken past, a new breath came,
Resurrection whispered in its name.
So Paul arrived, with words aflame,
To speak of One who bore the same—
A life, a death, a tomb’s dark call,
A rising that redeemed the fall.
In Corinth’s streets, where shadows bled,
He preached of Christ, the living bread.
The cross, like Rome’s unyielding might,
Had slain the Son in endless night.
But as Corinth woke from death’s embrace,
So Jesus broke the grave’s cold space.
The city’s scars, a mirror held,
To truth the apostle’s voice compelled:
From ruin springs eternal gain,
From loss, a love that breaks the chain.
Corinth rebuilt, a sign, a plea,
Christ’s victory for all to see.
Now columns stand, both cracked and whole,
A testament to flesh and soul.
The agora hums with echoes faint,
Of Paul, of promise, of the saint.
Through time, the tale forever binds—
A city’s fate, a Savior’s mind—
In death, in life, in stone, in word,
Resurrection’s song is ever heard.
”This poem reflects Corinth’s historical arc—its prosperity, its destruction by the Roman general Lucius Mummius in 146 BCE, and its eventual rebuilding under Roman rule a century later. It parallels this cycle with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, a message Paul carried to the Corinthians, as recorded in the New Testament (Acts 18, 1 Corinthians). The imagery ties the physical rebirth of the city to the spiritual renewal Paul proclaimed.”
==============
Methinks, it’s interesting to have a history book alongside when attempting to get a grip on what the New Testament narrative is attempting to articulate.
This comment is 150% longer than recommended (see the Roolz). Please keep them within limits in the future
My mistake. Apologies.