Jenny Hawkins's answer to Do modern historians agree that Jesus existed?

Quora.com ^ | 2019 | Jenny Hawkins ·

[daniel1212]

There is a near universal majority of scholars in many fields—historians, Bible scholars, New Testament scholars, philologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, literature, folklore and oral history specialists, paleographers, linguistics scholars in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, those in the field of the Classics, a Dead Sea scroll specialist or two, and many others—from atheist to Jew to liberal to fundamentalist Christian, who all agree Jesus existed.

Over the last two hundred years, there has also been a small group called “mythicists” who have asserted there was no historical Jesus. Very few mythicists are scholars; I know of two currently. They tend to be exclusively atheistic with an anti-religious agenda and are often former Christian fundamentalists. They tend to rely on outdated biblical criticism, much of which was not highly respected even when it was new. Mythicists tend to sacrifice sound historical method in an attempt to discredit Christianity; their theories contain little to no historical support, and they often fail to respond to the historical evidence of the Jesus’ tradition with anything beyond dismissal. Because of all of this, most scholars see the mythicist theory as a conspiracy theory—a fringe theory—not a legitimate historical theory, and so it is mostly ignored.

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The reasons mythicists give for questioning Jesus’ existence can be boiled down to a few main points:

1. SOURCES: Mythicists cite sources they believe should mention Jesus and don’t; the absence of contemporary non-biblical eye-witness accounts; and the limited sources and information about Jesus outside the Bible.
2. THE GOSPELS: Mythicists see the New Testament as undependable, non-historical, theological, internally inconsistent, fiction and therefore do not accept its testimony concerning Jesus. The mythicist theory of gospel development is based on form criticism, which says the gospels are a composite from multiple unknown people in Christian communities, over a long extended period of oral transmission, that allowed the natural development of legends/mythology to become an aspect of their content.
3. PAUL: Mythicists say Paul writes about a “celestial deity” or a “savior figure” patterned after those in the mystery cults because he makes few biographical references to Jesus and speaks of Jesus as divine. This ‘mythical celestial being’ was then “historicized” over an extended period from the first to the fourth centuries so that people came to believe Jesus was a real person after the fact.
4. HELLENIZATION: Mythicists believe there are similarities between the Christ figure and Greco/Roman mystery cults that influenced the formation of the “Christ myth”. Much of this view is dependent on the assertion that early Christianity was both widely diverse and syncretistic—that it incorporated multiple different views sharing ideas with other religions of the time.

Much of this looks legitimate at first glance. Taking a deeper look reveals unanswerable historiographical problems.

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I. SOURCES:

It is true there are very few early written sources outside the Bible mentioning Jesus, but this argument from silence only works if there is reason to expect otherwise. The reality is that few to no contemporary sources are a fact for everyone in ancient history. It is unreasonable to expect pagan writers to have paid attention to a simple country preacher—and a Jewish one at that—while he lived. Roman writers like Philo Judaeus had no interest in, and make no mention of, any of the various religious figures who sprang up around the empire of the time, so the fact there is no mention of Jesus either, carries little to no weight. It wasn’t until after his death—and resurrection—that word of him truly spread.

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• Seventeen Written Sources

There are a limited number of non-Christian extra-biblical sources making reference to Jesus, and some of them are dubious, and some are of minimal value—but there are some.

There are 17 of these extra-biblical non-Christian sources of varying quality—which is actually pretty extraordinary for the ancient world. It’s more than we have for most ancient figures. In combination, they contain a surprising amount of information concerning the life and death of Jesus—enough it is possible to create a broad outline of most of the major facts about Jesus. Of these 17 sources, 11 mention the death of Jesus. Five speak of his crucifixion. Mythicists like to dispute the validity of these references but they are accepted by everyone else.

• New Testament texts are early sources.

Mythicists often seem to forget the Bible is, originally, a set of ancient texts that can be—and are—examined accordingly. Without theology, it is still possible to find historical information.

• Conclusion

There is no unusual silence about Jesus among early non-Christian writers. The fact there is any evidence of him among them at all is quite remarkable. They corroborate his reputation as a teacher and miracle worker and the time and manner of his death.

• There is little found in ancient secular writings, but there is more than might be expected, and what is there confirms the Jesus’ tradition.

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II. THE GOSPELS

The reliability of the gospels has been a subject of vigorous debate for the last two hundred years, especially since the nineteenth century and the adoption of the “Form Critical” method of study.

• Oral Culture

Much of the belief in the undependability of the gospels has been based on the form critics’ understanding of how oral history would have worked in that period between the death of Christ and the writing of the gospels. The model form critics assumed to base their studies on were “Icelandic folk tales” and as it turns out, that was a “rather inappropriate, and also, a very rigid model of oral tradition that we can't, really, now justify”.

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We currently have decades of research into extant oral cultures, and we know much more about how it likely worked in the first century than the form critics did. Oral tradition, it turns out, doesn’t work like they thought and the conclusions based on their assumptions can no longer be seen as valid.

Birger Gerhardsson’s paradigm-altering work on Jewish rabbinical practices has also forever altered our understanding of the oral dynamic that was likely at work in early Christianity.

• Did Early Christians Care About Accuracy?

The question is, how important would it have been to early Christians to remember Jesus’ teachings accurately?

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1. Just as Jewish and Greek teachers gathered disciples, Jesus gathered His disciples purposefully, and trained them to carry on after His death.
2. Jesus used the Old Testament prophets' practice of “proclaiming the word of God” which demanded accurate preservation from Jewish-trained people. This is probably partly why the “sayings of Jesus” exhibit the least variation of all gospel content.
3. Jesus' presentations of Himself as Messiah would also have reinforced His follower’s need to preserve His words accurately. In Jewish culture, verbatim transmission occurred when the teacher was viewed as divinely inspired.
4. 90% of Jesus' teachings and sayings use mnemonic methods similar to those in Hebrew poetry. 80% of his teaching is structured in parallelism of one type or another. Verbatim transmission can occur if material has a recognized form like parallelism.
5. Jesus trained His disciples to teach His lessons. Verbatim transmission can occur when material is handed down by a group with specialized training.
6. There were probably notes to aid memory. Jewish boys were educated until they were twelve, so at least some of the disciples likely knew how to read and write. The historian Papias refers to Matthew as ‘the note taker.’

It was for profoundly theological reasons that early Christians were concerned with faithful memory of the past. The likelihood of the Disciples being “casual” about passing on the words and teachings of someone they saw as the source of their salvation is low. The likelihood of them being careful is high.

If oral teaching was dependable, then the gospels have a dependable foundation.

• Early Dating

Undependability is also hung on the late dating of the gospels, but late dating is no longer simply an accepted majority view.

The list of scholars supporting early dating has now grown for multiple reasons.

• The Rylands Papyri, found in Egypt, contains a fragment of John, and dates to A.D. 110-130.
  • This indicates the book of John, which is universally accepted as the last of the four gospels, was completed long enough before A.D. 130 for the gospel to be written, hand copied, then make its way down from Greece into Egypt, making a first century date for the composition of John most highly probable.
  • The John Rylands fragment and the Skeat and Bell papyri, both reflect the Greek language style and vocabulary of the first century—not the second or third—indicating the material was taken from an earlier text. These fragments contain multiple stories from the first three gospels as well as the gospel of John providing further support for a first century date for John.
• Clement of Rome sent a letter to the Corinthian church in A.D. 95. in which he loosely quoted from the Gospels and other portions of the N.T. supporting both their existence and common knowledge of them before the end of the first century.
• Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, wrote a letter before his martyrdom in Rome in A.D. 115, quoting all the Gospels and other N.T. letters.
• Polycarp wrote to the Philippians in A.D. 120 and quoted from the Gospels and N.T. letters.
• Justin Martyr (A.D. 150) quotes John 3.
• Papias, as quoted in Eusebius, wrote his histories between 80 and 100 and speaks of Matthew and Mark as already written.
• Internal evidences support the gospels having been written before the deaths of Peter and Paul (probably under Nero) and before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. This is largely an argument from silence, which is notoriously difficult to make, but if there is reason to expect comment, and there is none, it carries some weight.
  • The gospels include the deaths of John the Baptist, Stephen, and James, and there is no valid reason to think they would not have included the deaths of such early Christian luminaries as Peter and Paul as well if they had happened before or while the gospels were being written. They died in the sixties.
  • The gospels include the recommendation from Jesus that when his followers see the ‘signs’, they should ‘flee to the mountains’ when in fact they fled to the Eastern plains instead. If this were written after 70 AD, when this was known, wouldn’t it be written to reflect what actually happened? Why include what everyone would have known was a glaring error—especially what would look like an error on the part of Jesus? There seems little possible explanation except for it being written before events took place.
• Late dates for the gospels all hang together on the assumption that Mark must have been written close to the time of the fall of Jerusalem (70 AD) because of the predictions in Mark 13, but those are assumptions not in evidence.
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• Contradictions

Contradictions in the biblical texts are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the Gospels agree remarkably well and form a consistent portrait. Ironically, if the texts were identical, that would invalidate the texts, as that would indicate collusion of the type “let’s get our stories straight.” The Gospels share some verses, but they are also each highly unique and individual.

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1. Differences are not necessarily errors; alleged inconsistencies among the Gospels have received at least plausible resolutions.
2. If we invalidated all ancient history based on the occasional error there would be no ancient history.
3. Biblical scholar Murray Harris says "… the presence of discrepancies in circumstantial detail is no proof that the central fact is unhistorical."

• Fiction

Mythicists claim the genre of the Gospels are myth or legendary fiction which have imposed "a fictitious historical narrative" on a "mythical cosmic savior figure" by weaving together various pseudo-historical Jesus traditions, most notably the "supernatural personage" of Paul's epistles and "ideas from Jewish Wisdom literature". (Paul will be addressed in the next section).

• Scholars of mythology agree that myth requires time in the kind of uncontrolled anonymous oral transmission form criticism first imagined.

The great myths and legends were not authored by individuals … but were evolved naturally and instinctively by unconscious processes in oral traditions. Even if they started out as …true stories, … they still ended up for long periods of time in oral traditions and that became the principal dynamic behind their creation.

1 Corinthians 15 demonstrates that teachings about Jesus did not do this. The gospel of Jesus did not have the opportunity of such a time frame but instead began immediately after Jesus’ death.

• Legend only develops when there is no longer access to facts that counter it. If there were witnesses, they need to be long gone. In the case of Charlemagne, the church used written records to counter legends that began about him more than a century after his death. The eye-witnesses of the Gospels were still alive and participative when the gospels were being written. The gospels were intended as a record of the facts.
• Legends only say nice things about their heroes—they are the heroes and their virtues are larger than life—whereas actual history is describes people “warts and all.”
• The Gospels describe people warts and all:

“Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed—the competition of the apostles for high places in the kingdom, their flight after Jesus’ arrest, Peter’s denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them.” (Will Durant, p.557, Caesar and Christ)

• Historicizing The Fiction

Believing the gospels are fiction requires the hand-in-hand view that these works of fiction later became accepted as history. Historical and literary material can and often does acquire mythological qualities over time but nowhere is there a theory for how the reverse could occur—outside of its alleged connection to Jesus—and a theory based on one example is not a good theory. (This is nothing more than special pleading.)

The fatal flaw in this contrived idea requires the existence of an original "mythic Jesus Christianity" that existed alongside the later and better known "historical Jesus Christianity" until the latter won the battle for dominance and wiped out any reference to the former.

This is completely implausible. While the idea of Machiavellian early Christians completely erasing all trace of earlier forms of Christianity may appeal to zealots and conspiracy theorists, it simply doesn't square with the evidence.

It's true that later "orthodox" forms of Christianity were happy to burn the books of their "heretical" rivals to keep them from infecting the faithful. But this doesn't mean they were also happy to wipe out all trace or mention of these "heresies". On the contrary, they were keen to write long and detailed books explaining why their heretical rivals were wrong and why the orthodox view was right.

They often distorted their rivals' ideas when they did this and sometimes the heresy in question had been dead for so long they were confused about precisely what the heretics in question had even believed (they just knew they were wrong), but they certainly didn't erase all mention of them. They felt it was important to refute even minor or long dead heresies in as much detail as possible, just in case they rose up again (as some did occasionally).

In all these apologetic, anti-heretical literatures there is NO reference to what should have been the biggest and most threatening heresy of all - the heresy that the historical Jesus never existed. Not only would this supposed "mythic Jesus Christianity" be a major threat to "historical Jesus Christianity" even after it had declined and vanished, it would actually have been THE major threat by merit of the fact that it was the original form of Christianity.

Yet we find not a whisper about it in any of this literature. These ancient writers took the time and trouble to condemn tiny and long-extinct heretical sects, yet ignored the elephant in the room and made no mention of this primary threat to their interpretation of Jesus.

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This is ridiculous—unless the whole idea of ‘historicization’ is bunk. Then it makes perfect sense.

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• Conclusion

There are issues concerning the writing of the synoptic gospels that remain unresolved, yet most have been sufficiently addressed to conclude, on strictly historical grounds, that the Synoptic Gospels are generally historically reliable and provide a dependable picture of the ministry and teaching of Jesus.

• What we have learned of orally dominant cultures gives compelling reasons to accept that the earliest traditions about Jesus were transmitted in a faithful historically reliable fashion.
• There are multiple reasons to believe the four evangelists wrote with historical intent—and by ancient standards—with historical competency, and there is no evidence otherwise.

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III. PAUL’s MYTH

1. The well known mythicist scholar Richard Carrier has three main points that argue in favor of Paul seeing Jesus as a non-corporeal “celestial” being. In the first, Carrier notes Jesus is mentioned over three hundred times by Paul, but there is little concrete information about Christ's earthly life in the Pauline epistles. Carrier concludes Paul is actually writing about a “celestial deity” named Jesus and not a real human.

• Paul’s Concrete References

It’s true Paul does not make a lot of references to Jesus' earthly life, but that is probably not significant by itself, since the type of literature Paul wrote did not call for much biographical data. Paul makes a reference to the fact the people he was writing to already knew ‘the basics’. It’s reasonable to surmise these basics would have included information about Jesus’ biographical data.

What is more significant is that even in letters of instruction, he does make some biographical references:

• Paul says Jesus was born as a human, of a human mother and born a Jew (Galatians 4:4).
• He repeats that he had a "human nature" and that he was a human descendant of King David (Romans 1:3) of Abraham (Gal 3:16), of the Israelites (Romans 9:4-5) and of Jesse (Romans 15:12).
• Paul mentions Jesus was executed by earthly rulers (1 Cor. 2:8) that he was crucified (1 Cor 1:23, 2:2, 2:8, 2 Cor 13:4) and that he died, and was buried (1 Cor 15:3-4).
• And he says Jesus had an earthly, physical brother called James who Paul himself had met (Galatians1:19).
• Paul's sparse but real outline of the life of Jesus matches that of the Gospels.

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• Peter and Paul’s Beliefs

2. According to Carrier, the genuine Pauline epistles show that the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul believed in a visionary or dream Jesus, based on a pesher (interpretation) of Zechariah 6 and 3, Daniel 9 and Isaiah 52–53 from the Septuagint.

The story of Jesus does not follow the pattern of Jewish pesher.

• The claims Jesus’ identity was bound up with YHWH’s, the notion of a crucified Messiah, an individual resurrection, the dull cluelessness of his disciples, the unsavory type of crowd Jesus attracted, the failure of his apostles to stand by him at his death, the role of the women—the list of characteristics contrary to hero-myths or Jewish pesher is long.

An important descriptive statement of what Peter and Paul actually believed is found in First Corinthians 15:3–8 rather than commentaries.

• 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 are verses universally believed to be the oldest in the New Testament dating to within months to four years after Jesus’ death, so it must rightfully be seen as representative of what the first believers actually believed.
• These verses say Christ died, was buried, rose, and lists his post-resurrection appearances.
• Paul did not compose these verses, he received them and passed them on. He most likely received them from Peter and James when he first visited Jerusalem as a new convert.
• They are evidence of the earliest beliefs concerning Jesus being based on the death of a living person which was seen as a recent historical event.
• Carrier says: “it’s the only thing Peter (Cephas) and the other pillars (James and John) could have been preaching before Paul joined the religion. … The way Paul writes about the sect makes clear he believed this was the creed Christians were preaching before his conversion; and he claims that the original apostles confirmed this to him years later, and he could hardly have been making that up, as he’d have been exposed the moment anyone checked this with them. So the Corinthian Creed, at least verses 3-5, definitely existed and was the central “gospel” Christians were preaching in the early 30s A.D.”
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Agreed. It is the only thing they were preaching. This is consistent with the book of Acts. That means, Jesus as a person who had died and rose from the dead was being preached—from the mid thirties onward—by Paul—immediately after his conversion—in the 30s—not at some later point down the road.

The timing here is critical.

3. Carrier further argues that according to Paul (Philippians 2.7), Christ "came 'in the likeness of men' (homoiomati anthropon) and was found 'in a form like a man' (schemati euretheis hos anthropos) and (in Rom. 8.3) that he was only sent 'in the likeness of sinful flesh' (en homoiomati sarkos hamartias). This is a doctrine of a preexistent being assuming a human body, but not being fully transformed into a man, just looking like one." This is a kind of gnosticism as gnostics believed all matter—such as the human body—was inherently evil.

• Appearance

Paul did believe Jesus had been a pre-existant divine and “celestial” being before becoming human—that point is argued by some, but the evidence is overwhelming—Carrier is right on that point. The problem for Carrier—one of them anyway—is that this belief does not preclude, or prove, that Paul did not also believe Jesus became a real human man.

The Philippians 2 hymn includes two sets of parallel statements moving from “the form of God” (en morphē Theou) in verse 6 to “the form of a servant” (morphēn doulou) in verse 7; both use morphé meaning embodiment, so the outer and inner essence are in harmony—which is not simply outward appearance. But the most crucial term demonstrating Carrier’s error is genomenos which means having been made or having become. It signifies a change of condition and is most often used in association with being born. He came into being, was born, as one of the human race.

In this hymn, Christ’s voluntary act of emptying himself is paralleled with his act of humbling himself to the point of death. This indicates a conscious, participative, individual and not a “personification.”

But context is everything. Romans 8:3 uses omoiōmati which is a “likeness” rather than an essence (morphé)—because this verse says Jesus was made “in the likeness of sinful flesh”—meaning he wasn’t actually made sinful. He just looked like men who were.

Romans 8:3 is very difficult to translate, because it contains grammatical problems. The common view is that v.3 is grammatically incomplete—it’s called an ‘ananacolouthon.’ For Carrier to claim he has the definitive translation for this long-standing puzzle is simply false. No one does.

• The general religious environment of first century Jewish Palestine would not have provided a natural environment for creating a myth about a God-Man. Jews denigrated and resisted and ridiculed pagan religious views. They believed the world needed YHWH. Not a one of them believed Judaism needed more of what would have been apostacy for them.
• The fact His story was accepted while his mother and brothers lived—that Mary his mother is listed among the crowd receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that his brother James—once his staunchest skeptic—became the leader of his followers in the Jerusalem church—where it all happened; these too deny myth and legend.
• How did this story of a historical person come about—quickly enough to be recorded in the creed that ended up in 1 Corinthians 15? There were not centuries—there were barely a few years at the outside in which to invent—and then historicize—this Jesus. The speed of Christ-worship exploding into history denies myth and legend.
• Delusion

Other mythicists have accepted that Paul truly believed and was simply delusional. After all this time, that is impossible to fully prove or disprove. However, it is possible to look at delusion itself, its characteristic behaviors, and what the likelihood of that would involve.

• Delusions don’t generally manifest in a single one time event. They recur. Paul only saw Jesus once.
• Delusional disorder generally includes mood symptoms such as anger paranoia and depression. Paul wrote on love and joy more than any other New Testament writer.
• Delusional disorder is always accompanied by hallucinations connected to the delusion. There is no record of Paul having further “visions” which might be interpreted as hallucinations after the original vision of Christ.

There is no support among contemporary Psychiatry for the position that religious belief is symptomatic of delusion, so it would have to be shown separately about Paul specifically, and there is nothing to support the idea that Paul was delusional.

• Conclusion

While Paul was persecuting Jesus’ followers, and once he joined them, evidence supports that Paul believed he was dealing with recent historical events involving the death and resurrection of a real man.

• Paul’s letters reveal that both Paul and the recipients of his letters, believed Jesus had lived in the recent past and that they knew a good bit about the events of Jesus’ life and his teachings.
• Did Paul believe in the divine pre-existence of Jesus? Absolutely. Does that prove he didn’t also believe Jesus became a real human man? No; one does not automatically preclude the other. It isn’t enough for mythicists to prove Paul believed Jesus was divine; they must also prove he disbelieved Jesus was ever human—and that has not and can not be done.

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IV. HELLENIZATION

Mythicists say early Christianity was widely diverse and syncretistic, (sharing common philosophical and religious ideas with other religions of the time). These included the ideas of personified aspects of God and proto-Gnosticism, and of the salvation figures—featured in mystery religions—who were supposedly a dying and rising god.

It should be noted up front that there are a number of interesting similarities between aspects of Christianity and Greco-Roman mystery cults. The question, however, is whether these similarities represent any substantive influence—consciously or unconsciously.

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1. Is it historically probable Paul borrowed from Greco-Roman mythology and pagan mystery cults to create a new “Christ cult?”
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   1. Paul was an orthodox Jew who describes himself as a “Pharisee among Pharisees.” He was strict. The Law was strict. Paul killed people who did what mythicists accuse Paul of doing. What would have motivated him to change that?
   2. First century Judaism was not syncretistic. There is no evidence they were open to Hellenistic religious ideas; none of their writings or the writings of others about them support that idea.
   3. Evidence suggests the contrary idea—that they were intensely resistant to pagan ideas—precisely because they were surrounded. Judaism did not keep its identity intact through two millennia of wandering among foreign nations by being syncretistic.
   4. All indications are early Christians shared this same aversion.
2. Virtually all the evidence for the mystery cults comes from the second to the fourth centuries.
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   1. If there was a line of influence, it is more reasonable to assume that, in the face of the growing influence of Christianity, the mystery cults responded by borrowing from Christianity—not the other way round.
   2. Mystery cults were not widespread or evangelistic and there is no evidence and little reason to believe Paul would have been well enough acquainted with them to be influenced by them even if he’d been willing to be.
3. The differences between Christianity and the mystery religions are pronounced and any similarities are of the most general type.
   1. There is a wide-ranging consensus today that detailed assessment of the “parallels” undermines any similarity.
   2. Mithras and Horus are the two most frequently offered sources for Jesus, but evidence indicates the Mithras cult did not become popular in the west until the second century. Any similarities with the Horus myths are manufactured by imagination and compiled from several centuries of different myths—something first century people would not have had access to.
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4. The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer was written in 1890 and was the first to propose the idea of seasonal dying and rising gods being the role model for Christ’s resurrection. Subsequently, anthropologists of later generations began researching and found—there aren’t any. Most scholars today say the classification of “dying and rising” gods is an “imaginative” construct created by Frazer as “possibility” only—a possibility that didn’t pan out. It is an idea without historical evidence. This pattern never actually existed in Mediterranean religions.
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   1. In each case of “dying and rising gods” there is either no death, or no rising back to life like Jesus—or no god to begin with.
      1. There are two myth traditions of Adonis; in one there is no death, and in neither is there resurrection. In one there is bilocation,
      2. Adonis is connected to resurrection only after Christianity’s influence is spreading.
      3. Attis is not a dying and rising god; in his myth he is not a god at all.
      4. Osiris is not resurrected. He is murdered, dismembered, then rejoined and revived as a mummy ruling the world of the dead. He did not rise back into the land of the living.
      5. Tammuz (Dumuzi) descends to the underworld, comes back and is killed and sent back to the underworld; one version has him bilocating like Adonis. He does not rise back into the land of the living in either version.
      6. Demeter/Isis, Dionysus, Heracles, Marduk, Marqart, —they all date late, or don’t die, or aren’t resurrected, or aren’t actually gods.

• Conclusion

There is no prima facie evidence the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construction.

When studied against its Jewish background, the death and resurrection retains its unique character in the history of religions.

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History and Theology in the Orthodox View

• In the gospels, Jesus is depicted as a historical figure from the recent past. In the mystery religions, there is never such a claim. Events concerning the gods all take place in the timeless mythical realms.
• The gospel writers distinguish Jesus’ past from their own present by taking great care with differing terminology.
• Vocabulary words common to ‘before’ and ‘after’ the Easter event bear different nuances. Idiom suits the time.
• The way Jesus refers to himself in the gospels does not correspond to how early Christians referred to him.
• The sayings of Jesus display a characteristic idiom and vocabulary not found in early Christian usage.

Early Christians were interested in the past history of Jesus because they considered it religiously relevant. Jesus was more than the founder of a movement, he was the source of salvation, and this was understood in thoroughly Jewish terms. It was fulfillment of the covenant promises with all the history-making significance of Israel’s God.

• Conclusion

When we experience “myth” as disclosing profound truths about ourselves and our world, we are able to recognize that in the Jesus story, the deep truths of myth and history are fused.

In other words, there are no grounds for concluding the Jesus story is non-historical legend as some myths are, but there is every reason to conclude it is mythically as well as historically true.

It is this very conjunction of “myth” and history that creates the mystery of Christianity’s beginnings.

And therein lies the basis for the ultimately unanswerable problem for all mythicists: what is a viable alternative explanation for why Christianity began?

If Jesus wasn’t real, if he never lived, if he wasn’t there teaching his followers that he was the Messianic fulfillment of centuries of Jewish prophecy—what was the impetus that began it all? How is it possible to explain the apostles behavior? Their personality changes? Their commitment? Their endurance? Their deaths? How and why did it all start?

Mythicist arguments fail on a purely historical basis. They do not stand up to scrutiny.

I freely acknowledge that no amount of strictly historical reasoning or evidence can take the place of a relationship with the living Christ.

But it can clear a path.

I hope I have done that effectively.

Footnotes

[1]

Jenny Hawkins's answer to I always hear people say: "We know for sure that Jesus did exist". How do we know this? I've heard that there was no mention of him in Roman writing, so is it contextual evidence or is there more concrete evidence?

[2]

Richard Bauckham Responds

[3]

Oral Traditions as Sources - Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History

[4]

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001395/139564eo.pdf

[5]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00293650500402357?src=recsys&journalCode=sarc20

[6]

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.495.3537&rep=rep1&type=pdf

[7]

https://books.google.com/books?id=I9zugAzB_-gC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=Riesner,+%22Jesus+as+Preacher+and+Teacher,%22+Jesus+and+the+Oral+Gospel+Tradition,+JSNTMS+64,+ed.+Henry+Wansbrough+(Sheffield:+Sheffield+Academic+Press,+1991)&source=bl&ots=TuKmmvuupy&sig=-ATXFxgd7Zf1NOMoysQtoBD5ogY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3jMuWy9naAhUh9YMKHau8CnAQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=Riesner%2C%20%22Jesus%20as%20Preacher%20and%20Teacher%2C%22%20Jesus%20and%20the%20Oral%20Gospel%20Tradition%2C%20JSNTMS%2064%2C%20ed.%20Henry%20Wansbrough%20(Sheffield%3A%20Sheffield%20Academic%20Press%2C%201991)&f=false

[8]

Jenny Hawkins's answer to Is there evidence to suggest that the gospels were dated earlier than 70 AD, with the exception of John?

[9]

Jenny Hawkins's answer to Do any of the textual variants affect the Christian doctrine?

[10]

Tim O'Neill's answer to What is the evidence that the Apostle Paul thought of Jesus as a real person?

[11]

Dating the Corinthian Creed - Richard Carrier

[12]

Jenny Hawkins's answer to Could the New Testament documents be a conspiracy of subversion rather than actual accounts?

[13]

Jenny Hawkins's answer to How much of Christianity was appropriated from Paganism?

[14]

https://www.tms.edu/m/msj22c.pdf

[15]

Horus Manure: Debunking the Jesus/Horus Connection

[16]

23 Reasons Why Scholars Know Jesus Is Not A Copy Of Pagan Religions.

[Big Red Badger]

IIRC His first book “The Case for Christ” was a Christmas present to many in my cicle...
Never got any feedback back ——
.

[TalBlack]

Who the hell are modern historians that their opinion should matter to anyone but themselves?

[daniel1212]

Our new God, AI, tells me that there is roughly a 95% possibility that Jesus Christ actually existed.

While Claude-3-Haiku Poe said "as an AI assistant, I do not feel comfortable speculating on the percentage likelihood of Jesus Christ's historical existence" perplexity.ai did not "feel" so unqualified, Based on the scholarly consensus presented in the search results, the possibility that Jesus Christ actually existed is extremely high, estimated at approximately 99%. The vast majority of historians and scholars, both religious and secular, agree that Jesus was a historical figure135. Multiple independent sources from the first century, including both Christian and non-Christian texts, provide evidence for Jesus' existence3. Bart Ehrman, a prominent New Testament scholar, states that "virtually all historians and scholars have concluded Jesus did exist as a historical figure"5. Similarly, historian James Dunn asserts that "Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed"5.

While there is debate about specific details of Jesus' life and teachings, the core historical facts of his baptism by John the Baptist and his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate are considered "almost impossible to doubt or deny" by scholars3. It's important to note that this consensus refers to the historical existence of Jesus as a person, not necessarily the supernatural claims associated with him in religious traditions.

[daniel1212]

I asked a question in response to the last sentence by https://www.perplexity.ai/, "you could ask yourself what the likelihood would be of a religion arising rather rapidly within decades after the death and claimed resurrection of its Founder - which could be easily refuted - in an environment hostile to it, and which depended based credible claims of continued supernatural events." It responded in 2 seconds(!):

You raise an important point about the rapid rise of Christianity in a hostile environment, which indeed presents a compelling argument for the credibility of its claims. The early spread of Christianity, occurring within decades of Jesus' death and claimed resurrection, is a remarkable historical phenomenon that warrants consideration. Several factors contribute to the uniqueness of Christianity's early growth:

1. Timing and location: Christianity emerged in Jerusalem, where Jesus' crucifixion occurred, allowing for easy verification or refutation of its claims17.
2. Hostile environment: Early Christians faced significant opposition and persecution, yet the faith continued to spread rapidly25.
3. Eyewitness accounts: The movement was based on claims of firsthand experiences with the resurrected Jesus, including appearances to large groups4.
4. Supernatural events: Early Christian writings and historical accounts describe ongoing miraculous occurrences, which attracted converts11.
5. Rapid growth: Despite initial hostility, Christianity experienced explosive growth across the Roman Empire and beyond within the first century47.
6. Cultural impact: The movement's appeal to women and marginalized groups contributed to its expansion, challenging societal norms8.

This combination of factors distinguishes early Christianity from other religious movements, such as Islam, which emerged in a different historical context and spread through different means. The rapid growth of Christianity in the face of severe opposition and its reliance on verifiable claims about recent events does present a unique case in religious history. This historical phenomenon, while not conclusively proving supernatural claims, certainly provides a strong foundation for the faith of many believers and merits serious consideration by skeptics.

[Species8472]

Google ”Pfander films”and dr Jay Smith. Islam is a complete fake and the proto-Quran was written in Aramaic about Jesus!
https://youtu.be/sd1isjyhihk?si=NrTs3m1QQ8FwlO6J

[b4me]

I thought Lee Strobel wrote the case for Christ?

Newspaper guy in Chicago who researched Jesus for some years before finally admitting it took more faith to deny Jesus than to accept truths he researched.

[Big Red Badger]

You are Correct-—
Thanks!

[Elsie]

Phew!

Now that it is almost universally decreed that He DID exist, the most important question is the following:

King James Bible
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

 

 New International Version
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”


English Standard Version
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

 

 

One fella's answer has been recorded as:

Matthew 16:16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

 

 

 

Have you ever wonder where he came up with that?

 

Well, this Jesus (whom we've just all agreed that He existed) said:

17 King James Bible
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

 

 

(Now is where the Catholcs tend to jump in and post...)

 

[Elsie]

So, the question is STILL asked today two millenia later...

“Who do you say I am?”

[mewzilla]

What does it matter what historians, or scientists for that matter, think?

[Elsie]

Is there as much question to the existence of Muhammed?

There is one about the horse he rode around on...

FYI the above link will take you to a website run by people who DO believe Jesus existed, but do NOT believe that He was/is the Son of GOD.

[Elsie]

Still going strong...

https://www.christianbook.com/evidence-verdict-changing-skeptical-unabridged-audiobook/josh-mcdowell/9781538477113/pd/8477113?utm_source=bing&utm_id=313107482&utm_campaign_id=313107482&kw=%2Fpd%2F&mt=b&dv=c&event=PPCSRC&p=1229935&cb_src=bing&cb_typ=search&cb_cmp=313107482&cb_adg=1241348712202415&cb_kyw=%2Fpd%2F&snav=BSEARCH&msclkid=a77a67c2b41913233874005485b920d8&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=B_Search%3A%20NB%20Dynamic%20Search%20Ads&utm_term=%2Fpd%2F&utm_content=DSA%20detail%20pages

[Elsie]

Well, Mormonism has 3 witnesses and EIGHT witnesses!

Some who left the church then came back, others who stayed.

Even today, each member needs a WITNESS to the things he is supposed to believe in.

---

Testimony of Three Witnesses

 

Testimony of Eight Witnesses

 

Testimony

[Elsie]

Yup!

Now, knowing this, what are we to do??

---

John 6:67-69

67 So Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you want to leave too?”
68 Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that You are the Holy One of God.”

[Elsie]

It just needs to read more...

[Elsie]

Ya know Dallin, we have been knocking on doors for nearly a year now, and we ache for home, but we REALLY need to get to get at least ONE 'seeker' under our belt before turning into RMs.

I know, Aaron, but the world is just so hecky-darned hostile to us. What have WE done to upset so many folks?

[Big Red Badger]

Fascinating!
.
Mormons got fancy Buildings too.

[Elsie]

If you get an email and the subject line is “Knock Knock” don’t open it, it is from a JW working from home.

[Big Red Badger]

CANDY GRAM !

HA!

[Elsie]

Some CAtholics, a few JWs, and two members of The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints show up on your porch...

(fill in blank)____________________________________________