The evidence about Jesus is weaker than you
think
VALERIE TARICO
26 NOV 2017 AT 10:55 ET
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Depiction of Jesus Christ from the Pammakaristos
Church (Wikimedia Commons)
Before the European Enlightenment, virtually all New Testament experts
assumed that handed-down stories about Jesus were first recorded by eye witnesses
and were largely biographical. That is no longer the case.
Assuming that the Jesus stories had their beginnings in one single
person rather than a composite of several—or even in mythology itself—he probably
was a wandering Jewish teacher in Roman-occupied Judea who offended the
authorities and was executed. Beyond that, any knowledge about the
figure at the center of the Christian religion is remarkably open to debate
(and vigorously debated among relevant scholars).
Where was Jesus born? Did he actually have twelve disciples? Do
we know with certainty anything he said or did?
As antiquities scholarship improves, it becomes increasingly
clear that the origins of Christianity are controversial, convoluted, and not
very coherent.
1. The more
we know the less we know for sure. After centuries in which the
gospel stories about Jesus were taken as gospel truth, the Enlightenment gave
birth to a new breed of biblical historians. Most people have heard that Thomas
Jefferson secretly took a pair of scissors to the Bible, keeping only the parts
he thought were historical.
His version of the New Testament is still available
today. Jefferson’s snipping was a crude early attempt to address a problem
recognized by many educated men of his time: It had become clear that any
histories the Bible might contain had been garbled by myth. (One might argue
that the Protestant Reformation’s rejection of the books of the Bible that they
called “apocrypha,” was an even earlier, even cruder attempt to purge the Good
Book of obvious mythology.)
In the two centuries that
have passed since Jefferson began clipping, scores of biblical historians—including
modern scholars armed with the tools of archeology, anthropology and
linguistics—have tried repeatedly to identify “the historical Jesus” and
have failed. The more scholars study the roots of Christianity, the more
confused and uncertain our knowledge becomes. Currently, we have a plethora of
contradictory versions of Jesus—an itinerant preacher, a zealot, an apocalyptic
prophet, an Essene heretic, a Roman sympathizer, and
many more —each with a different scholar to confidently tout theirs as the only
real one. Instead of a convergent view of early Christianity and its founder,
we are faced instead with a cacophony of conflicting opinions. This is
precisely what happens when people faced with ambiguous and contradictory
information cannot bring themselves to say, we don’t know.
This scholastic mess has been
an open secret in biblical history circles for decades. Over forty years ago,
professors like Robin S. Barbour and Cambridge’s Morna
Hooker were complaining about the naïve assumptions underlying the criteria
biblical scholars used to gauge the “authentic” elements of the Jesus stories.
Today, even Christian historians complain the problem is no better; most
recently Anthony Le Donne and Chris Keith in the 2012 book Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity.
2. The Gospels
were not written by eyewitnesses. Every bit of our
ostensibly biographical information for Jesus comes from just four texts – the
Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Though most Christians assume that
associates of Jesus wrote these texts, no objective biblical scholars think so.
None of the four gospels claims to be written by eyewitnesses, and all were
originally anonymous. Only later were they attributed to men named in the
stories themselves.
While the four gospels were
traditionally held to be four independent accounts, textual analysis suggests
that they all actually are adaptations of the earliest gospel, Mark. Each has been
edited and expanded upon, repeatedly, by unknown editors. It is worth noting
that Mark features the most fallible, human, no-frills Jesus—and, more importantly, may be an allegory.
All of the gospels contain
anachronisms and errors that show they were written long after the events they
describe, and most likely far from the setting of their stories. Even more
troubling, they don’t just have minor nitpicky contradictions; they have basic,
even crucial, contradictions.
3. The Gospels
are not corroborated by outside historians. Despite
generations of apologists insisting Jesus is vouched for by plenty of historical
sources like Tacitus or Suetonius, none of these hold up to close inspection.
The most commonly-cited of these is the Testimonium Flavianum, a
disputed passage in the writings of ancient historian Flavius Josephus, written
around the years 93/94, generations after the presumed time of Jesus. Today historians
overwhelmingly recognize this odd Jesus passage is a forgery. (For
one thing, no one but the suspected forger ever quotes it – for 500 years!) But defenders
of Christianity are loathe to give it up, and supporters
now argue it is only a partial forgery.
Either way, as New Testament
scholar Bart Ehrman points
out, the Testimonium Flavanium merely
repeats common Christian beliefs of the late first century, and even if it were
100% genuine would provide no evidence about where those beliefs came from. This
same applies to other secular references to Jesus–they definitely attest to the
existence of Christians and recount Christian beliefs at the time, but
offer no independent record of a historical Jesus.
In sum, while well-established historic figures like Alexander the
Great are supported by multiple lines of evidence, in the case of Jesus we have
only one line of evidence: the writings of believers involved in spreading the
fledgling religion.
4. Early
Christian scriptures weren’t the same as ours. At the time
Christianity emerged, gospels were a common religious literary genre, each promoting
a different version or set of sacred stories. For example, as legends of Jesus
sprang up, they began to include “infancy gospels.” As historian Robert M. Price notes,
just as Superman comics spun off into stories of young Superboy
in Smallville, Christians wrote stories of young Jesus
in Nazareth using his divine powers to bring clay birds to life or peevishly
strike his playmates dead.
Early Christians didn’t agree on which texts were sacred, and
those included in our New Testament were selected to elevate one competing form
of Christianity, that of the Roman Church over others. (Note that the Roman
Church also proclaimed itself “catholic” meaning universal.)
Our two oldest complete New Testament collections, Codex Siniaticus and Codex Vaticanus only
go back to the beginning of the fourth century. To make matters worse, their books
differ from each other – and from our bibles. We have books they don’t have;
they have books we don’t have, like the Shepherd
of Hermas and the Gospel of Barnabas.
In addition to gospels, the New Testament includes another religious literary genre—the
epistle or letter. Some of our familiar New Testament epistles like 1 Peter, 2
Peter and Jude were rejected as forgeries even in ancient times; today scholars
identify almost all of the New Testament books as forgeries except for six
attributed to Paul (and even his authentic letters have been re-edited).
5. Christian
martyrs are not proof (if they even were real). Generations
of Christian apologists have pointed to the existence of Christian martyrs as proof
their religion is true, asking “Who would die for a lie?” The short answer, of
course, that all too many true believers have died in the service of falsehoods
they passionately believed to be true—and not just Christians. The obvious
existence of Muslim jihadis has made this argument
less common in recent years.
But who says that the Christian
stories of widespread martyrdom themselves were real? The Book of Acts records
only two martyr accounts, and secular scholars doubt that the book contains
much if any actual history. The remaining Christian martyr tales first appeared
centuries later. Historian Candida Moss’ 2014
book The Myth of Persecution gives
a revealing look at how early Christian fathers fabricated
virtually the entire tradition of Christian martyrdom—a fact
that was, ironically enough, largely uncovered and debunked by later Christian
scholars.
6. No other
way to explain the existence of Christianity? Most people,
Christians and outsiders alike, find it difficult to imagine how Christianity
could have arisen if our Bible stories aren’t true. Beyond a doubt,
Christianity could not have arisen if people in the first century hadn’t believed them to be true. But the
stories themselves?
Best-selling New Testament
scholar Bart Ehrman believes that
the biblical stories about Jesus had their kernel in the person of a single itinerant
preacher, as do most New Testament scholars. Historian Richard Carrier and David Fitzgerald
(co-author of this article) take an opposing position—that the original kernel
was a set of ancient mythic tropes to which unsuspecting believers added
historical details. Ehrman and Carrier may be on
opposite sides of this debate, but both agree on one important fact: the only
thing needed to explain the rise of Christianity is the belief fostered by the
rival Christian preachers of the first century.
Witchcraft, bigfoot, the idea
that an American president was born in Kenya, golden tablets revealed to a 19th century
huckster by the Angel Moroni . . . we all know that false
ideas can be sticky—that they can spread from person to person, getting elaborated
along the way until they become virtually impossible to eradicate. The
beginnings of Christianity may be shrouded in mystery, but the viral spread of
passionately-held false ideas is becoming better understood by the year.
Keeping
Options Open
University of Sheffield’s
Philip Davies—who believes that Christianity probably began with a single Jesus,
acknowledges that the evidence is fragile and problematic. Davies argues that the only way
the field of New Testament studies can maintain any academic respectability is by
acknowledging the possibility that Jesus didn’t exist. He further
notes this wouldn’t generate any controversy in most fields of ancient history,
but that New Testament studies is not a normal case.
Brandon University’s Kurt
Noll goes even further and lays out a case that the question
doesn’t matter: Whether the original Jesus was real or
mythological is irrelevant to the religion that was founded in his name.
That is because either way,
the Christ at the heart of Christianity is a figure woven from the fabric of mythology.
The stories that bear his name draw on ancient templates imbedded in the Hebrew
religion and those of the surrounding region. They were handed down by word of
mouth in a cultural context filled with magical beings and miracles. Demons
caused epilepsy. Burnt offerings made it rain. Medical cures included mandrakes and dove blood.
Angels and ghosts appeared to people in dreams. Gods and other supernatural beings
abounded and not infrequently crossed over from their world to ours.
Who, in the midst of all of this, was Jesus? We may never know.
Note: This story was co-authored with David Fitzgerald