I had no plans on writing about this at the moment, but I
feel a need to climb on my soapbox. I
have been surprised by the amount of columnists from various news feeds who
have recently attempted to make the case that Jesus never existed. What’s more, in the “comments” section you
will find both people wowed by this information and ridiculous rebuttals while
I am left dumbfounded by all the one-sided lazy thinking. One of the columns I read used John Crossan
and Bart Ehrman (both of which are more or less are atheist/agnostic scholars
of Christian history) to prove the point that a historical Jesus did not
exist. Though I would normally have more
respect for this article, because it actually managed to use academic sources
to support their view, the last time I checked both Crossan and Ehrman believe
that there is enough evidence to support Jesus’ existence. The central aspect
of their critiques and arguments has been elsewhere such as transmission of
texts, and overall historical pictures of Jesus, but not existence.
The most recent
article I read based its argument on Michael Paulkovich’s recent book, No Meek Jesus: Christianity’s Lies, Laws and
Legacy. In all fairness I have not
read his book, but what I can gather from its synopsis, reviews, excerpts and
his author’s bio, Paulkovich is hardly a voice of history or ancient
literature. He is a columnist for an
atheist-based magazine, freelance writer and inventor which, in my eyes,
automatically makes him suspect until proven competent. Don’t worry, I approach Christians with
similar credentials and their “groundbreaking” work in ancient history and
literature with the same amount of caution.
Nevertheless, the main reason I would challenge Paulkovich’s book is
because his historical work, from what I can see, forces faulty conclusions[1] and every instance of
scripture he attempted to explain was not only wrong, but insulting to anyone
who has even a basic sense of ancient literary interpretation. My point at the
moment, however, is not actually to counter every point of his argument, but to
show why there is evidence to support a Jesus of history.
The Disciples
The very
fact that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are present in canon is proof enough for
some that Jesus existed, but many others are not so convinced they are reliable
sources. While I cannot go into any real
depth on their reliability I will suggest further reading that makes its own credible case for it:
1. Paul
Eddy & Greg Boyd, The Jesus Legend makes
the Synoptic case using the historical method, oral traditions, and witnesses
to show Matthew, Mark and Luke’s reliability.
2. Craig
Blomberg’s The Historical Reliability of
the Gospels, takes on contradictions and omissions of the Gospels.
3. Or
something not quite as lengthy as these two, but deals with many of the same
issues is James D.G. Dunn’s Jesus, Paul
and the Gospels.
Nevertheless, one aspect for the
case of a historical Jesus, that I will briefly make, is not the verbal
testimony of those who claimed themselves to be Jesus’ disciples, but a
specific action of theirs: willing martyrdom.
I struggle to see how people who supposedly fabricated someone’s
existence would meet a violent end to protect such a pointless lie. First, we see Stephen and James were recorded
in Canonical texts as having died because of their attesting to Jesus’ message
and work (Acts 7:54-60; 12:1-2). Second,
according to sources of Christian history, Peter was crucified upside-down
because of his continued spreading of the Gospel. Third, while John probably
died from natural causes, he lived his life out in exile on something of an
ancient prison camp-island called Patmos for the same reason (Rev. 1:9). Lastly, Paul, though not a direct disciple of
Jesus, died at the hands of Rome by beheading after being warned several times
to stop his Christological teachings.
These are the most probable to be
true of the accounts of Christ’s followers’ deaths, but I know this is not
convincing to all. So, if nothing else
there are records from ancient historians (like Tacitus and Suetonius) that
confirm the Roman Emperor Nero did carry out persecutions and killings on a
Jewish sect who caused disturbances among the Jews and had become mockingly
termed Christians (little Christs/Messiahs). The name alone was given on
account that they followed the teachings of their persecuted peasant messiah. Since this is in the time period when
Christ’s direct followers were still alive, it is not unlikely that they would
have received the brunt of it. Nevertheless, this points to a people who were possibly
willing to die because of Jesus which does not insinuate a fabricated myth.
Outside Sources
Outside Sources
The main thrust of the conspiracy
against Jesus’ existence (Which I assume Paulkovich is re-hashing) is that
there is virtual silence from sources outside Biblical texts. Shouldn’t we hear more about the feats of
this miracle-working teacher from the non-Christian writers too? As a preliminary statement, if we are thinking
of historical accounts in modern terms then, yes, the Jesus accounts would have
been widespread, but there is an inherent error in the assumption that ancient
history should be viewed the same way. Three
points Eddy and Boyd highlight are these:
1. There
is no reason to assume that Jesus would have had international recognition. In this time period news traveled by word of
mouth and thus spread slower and much more haphazardly. Moreover, this does not guarantee that Jesus
caught the attention of most people in Galilee as it was a time of much unrest
both for social and political movements that were fighting for people’s
loyalties. While there was talk of
occasional crowds following Jesus, his message may not have expanded beyond
this region during Christ’s ministry.
2. There
is no reason to think just because the Roman historians had heard of Jesus that
they would be interested in recording the actions of what looked like a
troublemaking peasant Jew. Roman
historians were interested in the movement of the Roman Empire.
3. Most importantly, a large sum of the
literature from the ancient world has been lost to us. The writings of the Roman historian Tacitus,
for example, only exist within two manuscripts and while it is a good portion
of information it is believed to only be half of what he wrote.[2] Therefore, if the silence of historians was
an issue there could have been real reasons for it.
With that said, the lack of
independent non-Christian sources is not actually a problem and I am surprised
(though I shouldn’t be, it is a money maker after all) when every few years
someone new writes yet another best-selling controversial book that says this. While I will admit that there is not an
overwhelming amount of sources, the ones we do have need not be ignored.
The first two, which I drew from
already, were Tacitus and Suetonius.
Tacitus blamed the great fire of Rome on the Christians and offers the
explanation that “Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of
Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate (Annals
15.44).”[3] So also, Suetonius notes
that the Jews were exiled from Rome by Claudius as they were always making
disturbances because of a troublemaker called Chrestus.[4] None of this tells us anything about Jesus
but points to his existence.
Twice in Josephus’ Antiquities, he references Jesus. While the main passage of the Jesus’ account
does look like it was edited and enlarged, in its original shorter form says
that Jesus was “a wise man… a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of the people”
who had a significant following prior to being executed on the cross by Pilate
(Antiquities 18.63-64).[5]
The last significant source I will
offer, though there are more, come from the Rabbinic tradition in a text known
as b. Sanhedrin. It makes reference to a man named Yeshu
(Yeshua is Jesus in Hebrew) who was hanged on the eve of Passover and is
described as being the magician who beguiled Israel and led her astray
(43a).[6] While this alone will not
carry us very far in building a historical portrait of Jesus, I think it is
safe to say that Jesus was more than fabricated myth or legend.
[1] I determined this from Paulkovich’s
conclusion in which he believes that because there are opposing views of Christ
in the writings of Paul, Marcion and Matthew, a lack of voices from Bethlehem
and Nazareth and many other mysteries surrounding Jesus that this can only mean
he was mythical. The central problem
with arguments like this is that there are just as many and more issues and
mysteries surrounding other ancient peoples (i.e. Homer, Socrates, Shakespeare,
various Pharaohs and Emperors, and so on) and I doubt these same people would
question their existence.
[2] Paul Rhodes Eddy & Greg
Boyd. The Jesus Legend: A Case for the
Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Publishing 2007), 168.
[3] James D.G. Dunn. Jesus, Paul and the Gospels (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing 2011), 3.
[4] Paul Rhodes Eddy & Greg
Boyd. The Jesus Legend, 176.
[5] James D.G. Dunn. Jesus, Paul and the Gospels, 3.
[6] Ibid, 4.
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