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| Did
Jesus Actually Exist? |
By Steve Benson
I would like to start with the acknowledgment that there are
those who, in the name of history, claim that Jesus was, in
fact, a real person.
For instance, pro-Christian apologist and author, Ian Wilson,
claims in his book, Jesus: The Evidence, that “had
Jesus been a mere fabrication by early Christians, we should
surely expect those Jews hostile to Christianity to have produced
a malicious rumor to this effect. From the fact that they
concentrated instead on smearing his legitimacy, we may deduce
that they had no grounds whatever for doubting his historical
evidence.”
Wilson further argues that, based on accounts from other early
Jewish sources (including the historian Josephus), “Jesus
did indeed exist.” (Wilson, pp. 62, 64-65)
The evidence contradicting Wilson's assertions are many and
compelling.
PROBLEMS WITH CLAIMS FOR JESUS’ HISTORICITY
Even Wilson admits that “it has to be acknowledged that hard
facts concerning Jesus and his life are remarkably hard to
come by.”
He concedes, for instance, that:
--the Apostle Paul, by his own admission, never knew the person
Jesus but, instead, based his entire faith on a vision he
claimed came to him about Jesus’ resurrection;
--the Gospels do not provide any physical description of Jesus;
--the year of Jesus’ birth is unknown and, based on available
evidence, indeterminable;
--there is no historical validation of King Herod’s supposed
slaughter of Jewish children at the time of Jesus’s alleged
birth;
--Jesus’ ancestry is illogically tied back to King David through
Jesus’ father Joseph;
--the author of Matthew was clearly not Jewish, as evidenced
by his mistranslation of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah’s
virgin birth;
--the overall credibility of the Matthew and Luke nativity
stories are seriously in doubt;
--there is no reliable evidence for the alleged crucifixion
of Jesus;
--the writings of Roman historian Tacitus concerning the alleged
historicity of Jesus are neither clear or specific;
--the observations of the Roman governor of Bithynia, Plithy
the Younger, do not provide reliable evidence of Jesus’ actual
existence; and even
--the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus on the allegedly
historic Jesus have undeniably been adulterated by others
with a pro-Christian spin. (Wilson, pp. 51, 54-56, 58-60)
On the question of whether Jesus really existed, the record
offers an array of formidable realities. Below is an examination
of some of the basic evidence against the claim that the man-god
of the New Testament known as Jesus actually ever lived.
THE “HISTORICAL” JESUS: A CREATION OF LATE-COMING CHRISTIAN
WRITERS
Former evangelical minister Dan Barker points out in his book,
Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, “[T]here
is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus,
not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers,
not during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his
existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity
of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great
impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.” (Barker,
p. 360)
Noted religious historian and professor of German at Birkbeck
College in London, G. A. Wells, observes in his book, The
Historical Evidence of Jesus, that if one places early
Christian documents in chronological order, it becomes evident
that “only from approximately 90 did Christians regard Jesus
as a teacher, miracle-worker and a near contemporary, crucified
under Pilate.”
These documents, Wells declares, are striking in their lack
of detail, indicating that the claims of their authors were
most likely influenced “by the Jewish wisdom literature they
knew well and by traditions they must have known concerning
actual crucifixions of living men in Palestine one and two
centuries before their time.” (Wells, pp. 216-217)
Wells concludes that “the Jesus of the earliest documents
. . . [was] someone about whose life nothing was known, who
had certainly not been a contemporary or near-contemporary
of Paul, but who was later regarded as having lived about
A.D. 30 and has having preached in Galilee before his death
in Jerusalem, perhaps because he was identified with an obscure
Galilean preacher of the same name (which after all was a
common one).” (Wells, p. 216)
A blow-by-blow summary of the evidence against historicity
claims for Jesus is offered by Canadian historian and classical
scholar Earl Doherty in his work, Why I Am Not A Christian:
“1. Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel story cannot be found
in Christian writings earlier than the Gospels, the first
of which (Mark) was composed only in the late first century.
2. There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the second
century. References in Flavius Josephus (end of the first
century) can be dismissed as later Christian insertions.
3. The early apostles, such as Paul and Hebrews, speak of
their Christ Jesus as a spiritual, heavenly being revealed
by God through scripture, and do not equate him with a recent
historical man. Paul is part of a new ‘salvation’ movement
acting on revelation from the Spirit.
4. Paul and other early writers place the death and resurrection
of their Christ in the supernatural/mythical world, and derive
their information about these events, as well as other features
of their heavenly Christ, from scripture.
5. The ancients viewed the universe as multi-layered: matter
below, spirit above. The higher world was regarded as the
superior, genuine reality, containing spiritual processes
and heavenly counterparts to earthly things. Paul’s Christ
operates within this system.
6. The pagan ‘mystery cults’ of the period worshiped savior
deities who had performed salvific acts which took place in
the supernatural/mythical world, not
on earth or in history. Paul’s Christ shares many features
with these deities.
7. The prominent philosophical-religious concept of the age
was the intermediary Son, a spiritual channel between the
ultimate transcendent God and humanity. Such intermediary
concepts as the Greek Logos and Jewish Wisdom were models
for Paul’s heavenly Christ.
8. All the Gospels derive their basic story of Jesus of Nazareth
from one source: whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark. The Acts
of the Apostles, as an account of the beginnings of the Christian
apostolic movement, is a second century piece of myth-making.
9. The Gospels are not historical events, but constructed
through a process of ‘midrash,’ a Jewish method of reworking
old biblical passages and tales to reflect new beliefs. The
story of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion is a pastiche of verses
from scripture.
10. ‘Q,’ a lost sayings collection extracted from Matthew
and Luke, made no reference to a death and resurrection and
can be shown to have had no Jesus at its roots: roots which
were ultimately non-Jewish. The Q community preached the kingdom
of God, and its traditions were eventually assigned to an
invented founder who was linked to the heavenly Jesus of Paul
in the Gospel of Mark.
11. The initial variety of sects and beliefs about a spiritual
Christ shows that the movement began as a multiplicity of
largely independent and spontaneous
developments based on the religious trends and philosophy
of the time, not as a response to a single individual.
12. Well into the second century, many Christian documents
lack or reject the notion of a human man as an element of
their faith. Only gradually did the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed
in the Gospels come to be accepted as historical.” (Doherty,
pp. vii-viii)
LACK OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ABOUT JESUS’ LIFE IN EARLY
CHRISTIAN WRITINGS
Early Christian writings are noticeably vague about the details
of Jesus’ life. Wells quotes Gager’s observation: ”We know
virtually nothing of [Jesus’] parents, siblings, early years
(childhood, adolescence, early adulthood), friends, education,
religious training, profession, or contacts with the broader
Graeco-Roman world. We know neither the date of his birth,
not the lengthy of his public ministry (the modern consensus
of two or three years is an educated guess based largely on
the Gospel of John), nor his age at death (Luke 3:23 states
that he was ‘about thirty when he began’). Thus even an optimistic
view of the quest (of the historical Jesus) can envisage no
more than a collection of ‘authentic’ sayings and motifs devoid
of context.” (Wells, p. 217)
Similarly, former evangelical minister-turned-non-Christian
Charles Templeton points to the paucity of evidence concerning
Jesus’ life. In his book, Farewell to God: My reasons for
rejecting the Christian faith, Templeton writes:
“It may come as something as a surprise to the reader to learn
that we know remarkably little about Jesus of Nazareth. .
. .
We don’t know the date of his birth--it was certainly not
December 25 in the Year One. Nor do we know for certain where
he was born, although it was in all likelihood in the city
of his childhood, Nazareth--certainly not in a Bethlehem stable.
Nor do we know the exact date of his death, although it would
seem to have been around the year 30 A.D. The great secular
historians of that time (Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny the Younger,
Suetonius, and others) mention Jesus only briefly, making
passing reference to the fact that he preached in occupied
Palestine and was crucified by the Roman government.” (Templeton,
p. 85)
THE HISTORICAL UNRELIABILITY OF THE CHRISTIAN GOSPELS
As Wells notes, “The Gospels are widely agreed to have been
written between forty and eighty years after his [Jesus’]
supposed lifetime by unknown authors who were not personally
acquainted with him. And their miracle stories are nearly
all couched in general terms, with no indication of time or
place or details concerning the person or persons who benefited.”
(Wells, p. 206)
Raising further questions about their credibility, many of
Paul’s letters are obvious “fusions” that were “not written
as they now stand.” (Wells, pp. 8-9)
Not only are Paul's epistles composite stories, they are notoriously
non-factual. Historian Will Durant observes: “Paul created
a theology about the man Jesus, a man that he did not even
know, 50 or more years after the death of Jesus, with complete
disregard and neglect for even the sayings that are attributed
to Jesus in the synoptic Gospels. The simple teachings attributed
to Jesus become lost in the metaphysical fog of Paul’s theology.”
(cited in Edelen, Toward the Mystery [Boise, Idaho:
Josylyn & Morris, Inc.], p. 76)
As to the origination period of the New Testament itself,
its 27 books have defied repeated attempts at reliable, universal
dating. Those portions which can be most firmly dated are,
as has been noted, the letters of Paul, which have been determined
to have been penned by 60 A.D. (Wells, p. 10)
In addition, none of the four Gospels represent the “original”
texts. As Templeton writes, “The earliest Christian records
extant are the Pauline epistles, and they were written around
50 A.D. It was another ten years or so before the Gospels
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were completed. But the names
attached to the gospels are pseudonyms--none of the authors
were among Jesus’ apostles and it is likely that none of them
so much as saw or heard him.”
Moreover, Templeton notes that these accounts “are mutually
contradictory, lack authenticity, and are in large part of
the nature of legends. The stories of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem,
his cleansing of the Temple, and his arrest, trial, and crucifixion
have about them an aura of reality but, beyond that, the various
accounts differ so radically and at so many points that, with
all the good will in the world, they cannot be reconciled.”
(Templeton, pp. 85-86)
In terms of which Gospel begat which Gospel, that of Mark
appears to have been the source for those of Matthew and Luke,
based on the virtual identicalness of many passages. Thus,
the latter two gospels “are not acceptable as independent
testimony.” The Gospel of John gives indications of reliance
on phraseology from the other three Gospels. (Wells, p. 11)
Not only are the names attached to the synoptic Gospels pseudo
in nature, the authors of the four Gospels remain, as Wells
notes, virtually anonymous, with the books offering no proof
within their texts of who actually wrote them. Adding to the
confusion, present claims to their authorship were not part
of the original documents. (Wells, p. 11)
The legitimacy of statements in the Gospels attributed to
Jesus are also suspect. For example, teachings supposedly
given by Jesus on the subject of women of Palestine divorcing
their husbands lack historical veracity, since only men were
allowed to divorce. (Wells, p. 13)
The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion are also
replete with significant historical difficulties. Luke’s account
of the trial is an obvious summary of Mark’s. Mark’s, in turn,
is full of imaginary dialogue and scenes concocted by Christian
writers who, believing in the Messianic mission of Jesus,
invented trial scenes and dialogue in which the Jews condemned
Jesus for his status as the Christ. (Wells, pp. 14-15).
Keith M. Parsons, in his Why I Am Not a Christian,
summarizes the case against the reliability of the canonical
Gospels as follows:
1. The Gospels were written by unknown persons.
“Not only did Jesus himself write nothing, but the attribution
of the gospels to his disciples did not occur until the late
first century at the earliest. . . .
‘Matthew: Written by an unknown Jewish Christian of the second
generation, probably a resident of Antioch in Syria.
‘Mark: [There is] confusion in the traditional identification
of the author . . .
‘Luke: Possibly written by a resident of Antioch and an occasional
companion of the apostle Paul.
‘John: Composed and edited in stages by unknown followers
of the apostle John, probably residents of Ephesus.’ “(cited
by Kingsbury, J.D., “Matthew, The Gospel According to,” in
Metzger and Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible
[Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993], pp. 502-506
2. The dates of the Gospels preclude them having been written
by eyewitnesses.
“. . . New Testament scholars agree fairly closely on a rather
late date for the writing of the gospels . . . Generations
of New Testament scholarship have produced a very broad consensus
that the gospels from around 70 to as late as the early second
century.”
3. The Gospels are rooted in unreliable oral traditions.
“Written records of Jesus’s words or ministry were simply
not needed or wanted until the end of the apostolic age with
the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in 64. The writing of [the]
Gospels was a task for second-generation Christians. . . .
“[T]he word-for-word similarities of the synoptic Gospels
are very unlikely to be due to the verbatim recollection of
the original eyewitness. Oral traditions simply do not form
that way. Rather, those precise parallels are much more likely
due to common use of written sources. Hence, the synoptic
Gospels are not independent eyewitness accounts but textually
interdependent syntheses of earlier oral traditions.”
4. The Gospels are theologically biased with an apologetic
agenda.
“'[The Gospels] . . . can no longer be read as direct accounts
of what happened, but rather as vehicles for proclamation.
Such was their original intention.’" (cited in Reginald H.
Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives
[New York, New York: The Macmillan Company,1971] p. 172)
5. The Gospels contain fictional forms.
“The gospels are clearly not biography in the modern sense
. . .
‘Christians have never been reluctant to write fiction about
Jesus, and we must remember that our four canonical Gospels
are only the cream of a larger and varied literature.’" (cited
in Helms, R., Gospel Fictions [Buffalo, New York: Prometheus
Books, 1988], pp. 11-12)
6. The Gospels are inconsistent with each other.
“A careful study of the four Gospels in comparison with each
other will show that there is little agreement among the Gospel
writers as to the order in which Jesus said and did what is
reported of him. . . .
“A striking discrepancy concerns the accounts in the synoptics
of Jesus’s resurrection appearances to his disciples. . .
.
“[There is] inconsistency between Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies
[of Jesus].”
7. The Gospels are inconsistent with known facts.
“Luke’s nativity story [is] demonstrably false . . .
‘. . . [T]he Roman census would not have affected Nazareth
in any case, as Galilee was not under Roman rule but had its
own ruler, the ‘tetrach’ Herod Antipas, son of King Herod.’"
(cited in Arnheim, M., Is Christianity True? [Buffalo,
New York: Prometheus Books, 1984], pp. 10-11)
8. There is no independent support of Gospel claims.
‘ . . . [P]agan sources do not confirm the resurrection. .
. . [T]here is good reason to suppose that [a well-known passage
from Tacitus] was written nearly ninety years after the alleged
death of Jesus and was based not on historical research but
on information provided by Christians of the second century.
. . .
‘Other pagan writers such as Suetonius and Pliny the Younger
provide no support for the Resurrection of Jesus since they
make no mention of it. . . . Thallus, in a work now lost but
referred to by Africanus in the third century, is alleged
to have said that Jesus' death was accompanied by an earthquake
and an unusual darkness that he, Thallus, according to Africanus,
wrongly attributed to an eclipse of the sun. However . . .
it is unclear when Thallus wrote his history or how reliable
Africanus’s account of Thallus is. Some scholars believe that
Thallus wrote as late as the second century and consequently
could have obtained his ideas from Christian opinion of his
time.’" (cited in Martin, M., The Case Against Christianity
[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1991],
p. 86)
“’Non-Christian evidence is too late to give any independent
support to the gospels. . . .
“’Rabbinic references to Jesus are entirely dependent on Christian
claims, as both Christian and Jewish scholars have conceded.’"
(cited in Wells, G.A., Who Was Jesus? [La Salle, Illinois:
Open Court, 1989], pl. 20)
9. The Gospels testify to matters beyond belief.
“The Gospels are full of miraculous tales that, in any other
context, would be taken to completely destroy the author’s
credibility. What would we think of an alleged witness who
swears that he saw Ms. Smith commit the murder and then abscond
quickly on her broomstick? Why not regard reports of walking
on water or raising the dead in the same light? Religious
people often employ a curious doublethink here that permits
them to treat reverently stories that, encountered anywhere
else, would get very short shrift.” (Parsons, pp. 43-70)
FURTHER LACK OF PAGAN EVIDENCES FOR THE HISTORICITY OF
JESUS
A favorite pagan source cited by Christian believers verifying
the life of a “real” Jesus is that of the Roman historian
Tacitus, who wrote that “Christians derive their name and
origin from Christ, who was executed by sentence of the procurator
Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.”
Ample evidence exists, however, to show that Tacitus was simply
repeating what he had been told by Christian informants.
First, as Wells demonstrates, Tacitus identified Pilate by
the rank of procurator, which title was a Roman administrative
office from the second half of the first century.
Next, Tacitus failed to identify Jesus by name, but merely
referred to a person put to death who went by the title of
Christ.
Finally, Tacitus was an opponent of Christianity and therefore
would have been inclined to repeat the Christian view of the
day that Christianity was of recent vintage, given that the
Roman government countenanced only ancient cults. (Wells,
pp. 16-17)
Barker observes that even if other pagan writers had made
reliable reference to Christianity, they did so too late in
the game to be considered first-century witnesses. These include
the writings in of Suetonius in his Twelve Caesars,
as well as the record in 112 A.D. by Pliny the Younger--both
of which fail to mention Jesus by name.
Barker notes that also failing to specifically mention Jesus
was a second-century Roman satirist name Lucian who wrote
of a “man crucified in Palestine,” whose death provided the
foundation for the Christian faith. However, Lucian was simply
repeating the beliefs of Christians and not presenting compelling
historical evidence.
Barker further mentions the Christian believer's penchant
for invoking an undated fragment from a personal letter written
by a Syrian named Mara Serapion to his imprisoned son, in
which the father mentions that the Jews had killed their “wise
king.” This purported evidence, nonetheless, contradicts the
New Testament version of Jesus’ death, in which, of course,
the Romans are blamed for his crucifixion. Even if it is an
authentic letter, Barker argues that it most likely refers
to someone else, since the Jews had, in fact, killed other
religions leaders, including the Essene Teacher of Righteousness.
(Barker, pp. 364-366)
ALLEGED HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE MAN JESUS IN THE WRITINGS
OF JOSEPHUS
In his work (circa 90 A.D.), The Antiquities of the Jews,
Flavious Josephus, a messianic Jew and respected Roman historian,
supposedly wrote:
“Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it
be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful
works--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.
He drew over to him both many of the Hews, and many of the
Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion
of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the
cross, those that love him at the first did not forsake him,
for he appeared to them alive against the third day, as the
divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other
wonderful things concerning him, and the tribe of Christians,
so named from him are not extinct at this day.”
Barker dispenses with the claim that this is the authentic
Josephus with the following observations:
1. This paragraph about Jesus did not appear until the
advent of the fourth century.
The disputed writing surfaced during the time that Bishop
Eusebius, a close ally of the Roman emperor Constantine, was
helping to fashion what would eventually become the orthodox
version of Christianity. Barker notes that it was Eusebius
who had argued it was justifiable for Christians to, in effect,
“lie for the Lord” and that it was he who was the first person
known to have cited this alleged Josephus account. As Barker
notes, many Bible experts have concluded, in fact, that Eusebius
forged the paragraph in question and then attributed it to
Josephus.
2. The paragraph in doubt appears completely out of context.
It is dropped into Josephus’ writings after the historian
gives an account of Roman taxation, various Jewish religious
sects, Herod’s municipal building projects, the comings and
goings of priests and procurators, the planning of seditious
plots against Pilate, and Pilate’s construction of Jerusalem’s
water supply using religious monies, which led to a Jewish
protest, followed by Pilate’s bloody suppression of it. The
questionable paragraph then follows, after which Josephus
goes on to speak of “another terrible misfortune [that] confounded
the Jews . . .” As Barker notes, only a Christian would have
regarded this as a misfortune for Jews. Josephus himself was
an orthodox Jew and would not have so described it.
3. Not being a believer in Christianity, Josephus would
also not have used the language of a Christian convert in
referring to Jesus as “the Christ.”
4. Josephus would also not have used the term “tribe of
Christians,” since Christianity did not achieve organizational
status until the second century.
5. Josephus’ alleged paragraph on Jesus portrays Josephus
as having no other familiarity with the alleged Christian
Messiah.
Barker observes that the Roman historian thus simply repeats
what Christians would have already known, while adding virtually
nothing to the Gospel accounts. In fact, Josephus’ supposed
brief mention of Jesus is the only reference in all of his
expansive writings to Christianity.
6. The paragraph does not reflect the careful wording of
a responsible historian.
Rather, says Barker, it is written in the fervent language
of a believing Christian and, further, is given with no citation
of predictions from Hebrew prophets who supposedly foretold
Jesus’ advent. (Barker, pp. 362-363)
Other weaknesses in the Gospel tales which undermine claims
to their accounts of an historical Jesus include the following:
NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Templeton points out that the accounts of Matthew and Luke
differ on fundamental points regarding the birth of Jesus.
For example, at the time Luke says Jesus was being circumcised
and Mary was being purified in Jerusalem, Matthew claims Joseph,
Mary and Jesus were in hiding in Egypt, waiting for Herod
to die.
Additionally, there is nothing in the historical record that
mentions the supposed Herod-ordered slaughter of every male
child in Bethlehem. Concludes Templeton, “It seems likely
that the birth in Bethlehem was inserted into the story at
a later date to validate the clams made by Jesus’ followers
that, through Joseph, he stood in a direct line of descent
from King David, whose roots were in Bethlehem.” (Templeton,
p. 91)
As to the Christian claim that Jesus was God, born of an unwed
Jewish virgin who conceived through the power of the Holy
Ghost, Templeton bluntly concludes, “If one approaches the
New Testament account with an open mind and unflinching realism,
the evidence clearly indicates that Jesus was an illegitimate
child who, when he came to maturity, resented it and was alienated
from his parents and siblings.” (Templeton, p. 93)
NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS' RESURRECTION
Except for the claims made by anonymous Gospel writers, no
evidence exists that Jesus ever rose from the dead. In fact,
Gospel accounts of the alleged resurrection are, from a realistic
point of view, completely implausible.
If, as Templeton observes, Jesus’ resurrection was accompanied
by a extraordinary earthquake, the wholesale rending of the
Temple veil and a large-group resurrection of the dead witnessed
by many, why do these phenomenal events merit but a single
sentence in Matthew--and virtually no mention in the other
Gospels or in contemporary historical accounts?
Writes an understandably skeptical Templeton: “Let the reader
imagine the scene: The astonished spectators, the gathering
crowd, the family members and friends, weeping and delirious
with excitement. Surely someone would have plied them with
questions: ‘What happened as you died?’ ‘Did you see God?’
‘What is Heaven like?’ ‘Were you reunited with our parents
and other members of your family?’ Surely the answers to these
and other questions like them would have flashed across Palestine
within hours and been recorded somewhere. But there is not
one word of it in history. The entire resurrection story is
not credible.”
Add to this the fact that the four Gospel accounts of the
resurrection not only differ from one another on many major
points but are irreconcilably at odds with Paul’s account
in I Corinthians on who Jesus supposedly appeared to after
rising from the dead. (Templeton, pp. 120-122)
NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF JESUS PERFORMING MIRACLES
Templeton persuasively explains the afflictions suffered by
those in the Gospel accounts, which were supposedly healed
by Jesus’ miraculous powers:
“Most of the illnesses that afflict humans were beyond the
comprehension of the men and women of that day and, of course,
beyond Jesus’ comprehension, too. No one at that point in
history had even a rudimentary understanding of the causes
of physiological or psychological illnesses or of the various
other afflictions to which humankind is subject. Most thought
of them as punishments from God or the machinations of Satan
or other evil spirits.
“When, for instance, epilepsy brought on a seizure that caused
the victim to collapse and writhe on the ground as though
struggling with an internal enemy, when food poisoning produced
a paroxysm of vomiting, when a raging fever led to intense
shivering and delirium, or when a migraine attack produced
visual aberrations and excruciating pain, it seemed reasonable
in that pre-scientific time to interpret such phenomena as
the work of an evil spirit. And, when the affliction passed,
it was equally reasonable to interpret it as the triumph of
a benign spirit over a malign.
“Many illnesses, then as now, were psychosomatic and could
be ‘cured’ when the sufferer’s perception changed. Just as
today a placebo prescribed by a physician in whom the patient
has faith can effect an apparent cure, so, in earlier time,
faith in the healer could banish adverse symptoms. With each
success the healer’s reputation would grow and his powers
would, as a consequence, become more efficacious.
“It would appear evident that this is what happened with Jesus
. . .
“It is clear in the text that Jesus was seen by the general
populace as a wonder-worker. The stories of his exploits were
before him--by word of mouth, of course, and thus subject
to embellishing--and when he entered a town the state of heightened
expectation would often be close to mass hysteria. As a consequence,
the apparently miraculous would happen.” (Templeton, pp. 111-112)
Finally, as Barker points outs, a miracle cannot be considered
historical if it is “defined as some kind of violation, suspension,
overriding, or punctuation of natural law. . . . In order
for history to have any strength at all, it must adhere to
a very strict assumption: that natural law is regular over
time.
“Without the assumption of natural regularity, no history
can be done. There would be no criteria for discarding fantastic
stories. Everything that has ever been recorded would have
to be taken as literal truth.
“Therefore, if a miracle did happen, it would pull the rug
out from history. The very basis of the historical method
would have to be discarded. You can have miracles, or you
can have history, but you can’t have both.” (Barker, p. 377)
CONCLUSION: POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF THE JESUS MYTH
Various propositions have been advanced to account for the
rise of the Jesus myth. Barker lists the following as possibilities:
1. It was “patterned from a story in the Jewish Talmudic
literature about the illegitimate son of a woman named Miriam
(Mary) and a Roman soldier named Pandera, sometimes called
Joseph Pandera.”
2. It “grew out of a pre-Christian cult of Joshua,” originating
in tensions between two different Joshua factions.
Interesting in this regard is the fact that “Jesus” is the
Greek word for “Joshua." As Barker notes, in Mark 9:38, “the
disciples of Jesus saw another man who was casting out devils
in the name of Jesus (Joshua).”
3. It was “simply a fanciful patchwork of pieces borrowed
from other religions.”
Pagan myths are peppered with their own pre-Jesus accounts
of Last Suppers, passion play-outs, crucifixions of sun gods,
virgin births and latter-day climatic battles between the
forces of good and evil.
4. It followed from “a pre-Christian Jesus cult of gnosticism,”
based on since-discovered ancient writings which declare,
“I adjure thee by the God of the Hebrews, Jesus.”
5. It could have arisen “as the personification of Old
Testament ‘wisdom,'" which did not rely on any historical
basis for claims of a pre-existent, literal redeemer.
6. It may have resulted from so-called “self-reflective
fiction,” wherein “literary parallels [are drawn] between
Old and New Testament stories” through the use of “skeletal
templates into which the Jews placed [them].”
In such cases, the tales are similar in not only content,
but in structure, as with stories from the Old and New Testaments
involving storms, the raising of widows’ sons from the dead,
and miraculous episodes of so-called “food multiplication.”
7. It could have found origin in an earlier account of
the crucifixion of a Messiah and Lawgiver figure known as
the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, who was put to death
in 88 B.C.
8. It could have been based on a naturalistic explanation
that the resurrection story was essentially historically reliable,
“but that Jesus merely fainted, and was presumed to be dead,
coming back to consciousness later.” (Barker, pp. 372-376)
_____
Bibliography
Barker, Dan, Losing
Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist [Madison,
Wisconsin: Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1992)
Doherty, Earl, The
Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?
(Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Humanist Publications, 1999)
Edelen, William, Toward the Mystery (Boise, Idaho:
Joslyn & Morris, Inc., no publication date)
Parsons, Keith M., Why
I Am Not A Christian [Atlanta, Georgia: Freethought
Press, 2000]
Templeton, Charles, Farewell
to God: My reasons for rejecting the Christian faith
[Toronto, Ontario, Canada: McClelland & Stewart, Inc., 1996)
Wells, G.A., The
Historical Evidence for Jesus (Buffalo, New York:
Prometheus Books, 1988)
Wilson, Ian, Jesus:
The Evidence [San Francisco, California: Harper &
Row, Publishers, 1984) |
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