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*"Defense of Biblical criticism was not helped by the revival at this time of the 'Christ-Myth' theory, suggesting that Jesus had never existed, a suggestion rebutted in England by the radical but independent F. C. Conybeare." {{harvnb|Horbury|2003|p=55}}</ref>
*"Defense of Biblical criticism was not helped by the revival at this time of the 'Christ-Myth' theory, suggesting that Jesus had never existed, a suggestion rebutted in England by the radical but independent F. C. Conybeare." {{harvnb|Horbury|2003|p=55}}</ref>


The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers [[Constantin-François Chassebœuf|Constantin-François Volney]] and [[Charles François Dupuis]] in the 1790s. More recent academic advocates include the 19th-century historian and theologian [[Bruno Bauer]] and the 20th-century German philosopher [[Arthur Drews]]. Writers such as [[George Albert Wells]], [[Robert M. Price]], and [[Earl Doherty]] have re-popularized the idea in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. he philosopher [[Michael Martin (philosopher)|Michael Martin]] of Boston University writes that, while the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted and anyone arguing against it may be seen as a crank, a strong ''prima facie'' case can be constructed that challenges it.<ref>Martin 1993, p. 37.</ref> While the hypothesis has at times attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, it remains essentially without support among biblical scholars and classical historians.<ref>"No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and his basic teachings." {{harvnb|Charlesworth|2006|p=xxiii}}
The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers [[Constantin-François Chassebœuf|Constantin-François Volney]] and [[Charles François Dupuis]] in the 1790s. More recent academic advocates include the 19th-century historian and theologian [[Bruno Bauer]] and the 20th-century German philosopher [[Arthur Drews]]. Writers such as [[George Albert Wells]], [[Robert M. Price]], and [[Earl Doherty]] have re-popularized the idea in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The philosopher [[Michael Martin (philosopher)|Michael Martin]] of Boston University believes believes that while anyone arguing against the historicity of Jesus it may be seen as a crank, it is taken for granted and a strong ''prima facie'' case can be constructed that challenges it.<ref>Martin 1993, p. 37.</ref> While the hypothesis has at times attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, it remains essentially without support among biblical scholars and classical historians.<ref>"No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and his basic teachings." {{harvnb|Charlesworth|2006|p=xxiii}}
*"I don't think there's any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus. There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money who say Jesus didn't exist. But I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus." {{harvnb|Ehrman|2008}}
*"I don't think there's any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus. There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money who say Jesus didn't exist. But I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus." {{harvnb|Ehrman|2008}}
*"[T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected." {{harvnb|Wells|1988|p=218}}</ref> The biblical scholar [[Graham Stanton]] of the University of Cambridge writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the [[gospels]]&mdash;of [[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]], [[Gospel of Mark|Mark]], [[Gospel of Luke|Luke]], and [[Gospel of John|John]]&mdash;contain valuable evidence about him.<ref name="consensus">"Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher." {{harvnb|Stanton|2002|p=145}}</ref>
*"[T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected." {{harvnb|Wells|1988|p=218}}</ref> The biblical scholar [[Graham Stanton]] of the University of Cambridge writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the [[gospels]]&mdash;of [[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]], [[Gospel of Mark|Mark]], [[Gospel of Luke|Luke]], and [[Gospel of John|John]]&mdash;contain valuable evidence about him.<ref name="consensus">"Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher." {{harvnb|Stanton|2002|p=145}}</ref>

Revision as of 03:40, 17 April 2010

This article is about the view that Jesus never existed. For a fuller discussion of the documents used to establish Jesus' existence, see Historicity of Jesus. For a discussion of Jesus in the context of comparative mythology, see Jesus Christ in comparative mythology.
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The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory and nonexistence hypothesis) is the argument that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical figure, and that the Jesus of early Christianity was the personification of an ideal savior to whom a number of stories were later attached.[1]

The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis in the 1790s. More recent academic advocates include the 19th-century historian and theologian Bruno Bauer and the 20th-century German philosopher Arthur Drews. Writers such as George Albert Wells, Robert M. Price, and Earl Doherty have re-popularized the idea in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University believes believes that while anyone arguing against the historicity of Jesus it may be seen as a crank, it is taken for granted and a strong prima facie case can be constructed that challenges it.[2] While the hypothesis has at times attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, it remains essentially without support among biblical scholars and classical historians.[3] The biblical scholar Graham Stanton of the University of Cambridge writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the gospels—of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—contain valuable evidence about him.[4]

Proponents of the theory emphasize the absence of extant reference to Jesus during his lifetime, and the scarcity of non-Christian reference to him in the first century. Mythicists, as supporters of the theory are sometimes known, give priority to the epistles over the gospels in determining the views of the earliest Christians and often also draw on perceived parallels between the biography of Jesus and those of Greek, Egyptian, and Roman gods such as Dionysis, Osiris, and Mithras. Mythicists argue that, while some gospel material may have been drawn from one or more preachers who actually existed, these individuals were not in any sense the founder of Christianity. Rather, they contend that Christianity emerged organically from Hellenistic Judaism.[5]

Definition

Philosopher George Walsh writes that the origins of Christianity can be explained in one of two ways: that it originated as a myth later dressed up as history, or with an historical being who was later mythologized. The theory that it began as a myth is known as the Christ myth theory; the second as the historical Jesus theory.[6] As such, the Christ myth theory is distinct from other views such as "biblical minimalism", which, while conceding that Jesus existed, nevertheless argues that nothing can be known with certainty about his biography.[7]

Advocates

Main article: Quest for the historical Jesus

18th century

Volney and Dupuis

Serious doubt about the historical existence of Jesus first emerged when critical study of the Gospels developed in the 18th century,[8] and some English deists towards the end of that century are said to have believed that no historical Jesus existed.[9]

The primary forerunners of the nonhistoricity hypothesis are usually identified as two thinkers of the French Enlightenment, Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis.[10] In works published in the 1790s, both argued that numerous ancient myths, including the life of Jesus, were based on the movement of the sun through the zodiac.[11]

Dupuis identified pre-Christian rituals in Syria, Egypt and Persia, that he believed represented the birth of a god to a virgin mother at the winter solstice, and argued that these rituals were based upon the winter rising of the constellation Virgo. He believed that these and other annual occurrences were allegorized as the life-histories of solar deities (such as Sol Invictus), who passed their childhoods in obscurity (low elevation of the sun after the solstice), died (winter) and were resurrected (spring). Dupuis argued that Jewish and Christian scriptures could also be interpreted according to the solar pattern: the Fall of Man in Genesis was an allegory of the hardship caused by winter, and the resurrection of Christ as the "paschal lamb" at Easter represented the growth of the Sun's strength in the sign of Aries at the spring equinox.[12] Drawing on this conceptual foundation, Dupuis rejected the historicity of Jesus entirely, explaining Tacitus' reference to Jesus as nothing more than an echo of the inaccurate beliefs of Christians in Tacitus' own day.[13]

Volney, who published before Dupuis but made use of a draft version of Dupuis' work,[14] followed much of his argument. Volney differed, though, in thinking that the gospel story was not intentionally created as an extended allegory grounded in solar myths, but was compiled organically when simple allegorical statements like "the virgin has brought forth" were misunderstood as history.[15] Volney further parted company from Dupuis by allowing that confused memories of an obscure historical figure may have contributed to Christianity when they were integrated with the solar mythology.[16]

The works of Volney and Dupuis moved rapidly through numerous editions, allowing the thesis to circulate widely.[17] Napoleon may have been basing his opinion on Volney's work when he stated privately that the existence of Jesus was an open question.[18] However, their influence even within France did not outlast the first quarter of the nineteenth century,[17] as later critics showed that they had based their views on limited historical data, by for example demonstrating that the birth of Jesus was not placed in December until the 4th century.[19]

19th century

Bruno Bauer

Young man with delicate features wearing a black jacket looking slightly to the viewer's left
Bruno Bauer

Scholarly attention to the possibility of Jesus' non-existence began with the 19th-century German historian Bruno Bauer. In a series of studies produced while he was teaching at the University of Bonn (1839–1842), Bauer followed D. F. Strauss in disputing the historical value of the New Testament Gospels. In Bauer's view, the Gospel of John was not a historical narrative but an adaptation of the traditional Jewish religious and political idea of the Messiah to Philo's philosophical concept of the logos. Turning to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Bauer followed earlier critics in regarding them as dependent on Mark's narrative, while rejecting the standard view that they also drew upon a common tradition apart from Mark which is now lost—a source scholars call the Q document, Q source, or just Q. For Bauer, this latter possibility was ruled out by the incompatible stories of Jesus' nativity found in Matthew and Luke, as well as the manner the non-Markan material found in these documents still appeared to develop Markan ideas. Bauer instead concluded that Matthew depended on Luke for the content found only in those two Gospels. Thus, since in his view the entire gospel tradition could be traced to a single author (Mark), Bauer felt that the hypothesis of outright invention became possible.[20] He further believed that there was no expectation of a Messiah among Jews in the time of Tiberius and that Mark's portrayal of Jesus as the Messiah must therefore be a retrojection of later Christian beliefs and practices—an interpretation Bauer extended to many of the specific stories recounted in the Gospels.[21]

While Bauer initially left open the question of whether a historical Jesus existed at all, his published views were sufficiently unorthodox that in 1842 they cost him his lectureship at Bonn.[22] In A Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin, however, published in 1850–1851, Bauer concluded that Jesus had not, in fact, existed. Bauer's own comprehensive explanation of Christian origins appeared in 1877 in Christ and the Caesars. The religion was a synthesis of the Stoicism of Seneca the Younger whom Bauer believed had planned to create a new Roman state based on his philosophy, with the Jewish theology of Philo as developed politically by pro-Roman Jews such as Josephus.[23] In keeping with Bauer's pervasive anti-Semitism,[24] he held that Mark was in fact an Italian who had been influenced by Seneca's Stoic philosophy,[25] and that the Christian movement originated in Rome and Alexandria, not Palestine.[26]

Bauer's views proved to be foundational for much of the Christ myth community of later generations. While subsequent arguments against a historical Jesus were not all directly dependent on Bauer's work, they usually echoed it on several general points: that New Testament references to Jesus lacked historical value, that the lack of 1st-century non-Christian references to Jesus was evidence against his existence, and that Christianity originated through syncretism.[27]

Radical Dutch school

In the 1870s and 1880s, a group of scholars associated with the University of Amsterdam, who were known in German scholarship as the "Radical Dutch school", followed Bauer in rejecting the authenticity of the Pauline epistles and took a generally negative view of the Bible's historical value. Within this group, the existence of Jesus was rejected by Allard Pierson, S. Hoekstra and Samuel Adrian Naber, while others came close to that position but concluded that the Gospels contained a core of historical fact.[28]

Early 20th century

By the early 20th century several writers had published arguments against Jesus' historicity, ranging from the scholarly to the highly fanciful. In an example of the latter, the English historian Edwin Johnson denied not only a historical Jesus but nearly all recorded history prior to the 16th century AD as well.[29] Despite their unevenness, these treatments were sufficiently influential to merit several book-length responses by historians and New Testament scholars. Proponents of the Christ myth theory increasingly drew on the work of liberal theologians, who tended to deny any value to sources for Jesus outside the New Testament and to limit their attention within the canon to Mark and the hypothetical Q document.[30] Thus when the Zurich professor Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel identified just nine "pillar passages" in the Gospels which he thought early Christians could not have invented, they proved to be tempting targets for Christ myth theorists—despite Schmiedel's intention that these passages serve as the foundation for a fuller reconstruction of Jesus' life.[31] These authors also made use of the growing field of Religionsgeschichtliche—the "history of religions"—building on its anti-semitic trajectories which seemed to find sources for many Christian ideas in Greek and Oriental mystery cults rather than in the life of Jesus and Palestinian Judaism.[32] As Joseph Klausner wrote at the time, biblical scholars "tried their hardest to find in the historic Jesus something which is not Judaism; but in his actual history they have found nothing of this whatever, since this history is reduced almost to zero. It is therefore no wonder that at the beginning of this century there has been a revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth century view that Jesus never existed."[33]

J. M. Robertson

J. M. Robertson, a journalist who later became a Liberal MP, argued in 1900 that belief in a slain Messiah arose before the New Testament period within sects later known as Ebionites or Nazarenes, and that these groups would have expected a Messiah named Jesus, a hope possibly based on a conjectured divinity of that name reflected in the biblical Joshua.[34] In his view, an additional but less significant basis for early Christian belief may have been the executed Jesus Pandira, placed by the Talmud in about 100 BC.[35]

Robertson wrote that while the undisputed letters of Paul of Tarsus are the earliest surviving Christian writings, these epistles were primarily concerned with theology and morality, largely glossing over the life of Jesus. Once references to "the twelve" and to Jesus' institution of the Eucharist are rejected as interpolations, Robertson argued that the Jesus of the Pauline epistles is reduced to a crucified savior who "counts for absolutely nothing as a teacher or even as a wonder-worker".[36] As a result, Robertson concluded that those elements of the Gospel narrative which attribute such characteristics to Jesus must have developed later, probably among Gentile believers who were converted by Jewish evangelists like Paul.[37] This Gentile party may have represented Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection in mystery-plays in which, wishing to disassociate the cult from Judaism, they attributed his execution to the Jewish authorities and his betrayal to "a Jew" (Ioudaios, misunderstood as Judas).[38] According to Robertson, such plays would have evolved over time into the Gospels.[39] Christianity would have sought to further enhance its appeal to Gentiles by adopting myths from pagan cults, albeit with some "Judaic manipulation"— e.g., Jesus' healings came from Asclepius, feeding of multitudes from Dionysus, the Eucharist from the worship of Dionysus and Mithras, and walking on water from Poseidon, but his descent from David and his raising of a widow's son from the dead were in deference to Jewish Messianic expectations.[40] And while John's portrayal of Jesus as the logos was ostensibly Jewish, Robertson argued that the underlying concept ultimately derived from the function of Mithras, Thoth, and Hermes as representatives to humanity from the supreme god.

William Benjamin Smith

At around the same time, William Benjamin Smith, a professor of mathematics at Tulane University, argued in a series of books that the earliest Christian sources, particularly the Pauline epistles, stress Christ's divinity at the expense of any human personality, and that this would have been implausible if there had been a human Jesus. Smith therefore believed that Christianity's origins lay in a pre-Christian Jesus cult—that is, in a Jewish sect that had worshiped a divine being named Jesus in the centuries before the human Jesus was supposedly born.[41] Evidence for this cult was supposedly found in Hippolytus' mention of the Naassenes and Epiphanius' report of a Nazaraean or Nazorean sect that existed before Christ.[42] In this view the seemingly historical details in the New Testament were built by the early Christian community around narratives of the pre-Christian Jesus.[43] In keeping with his theory, Smith also argued against the historical value of non-Christian writers regarding Jesus, particularly Josephus and Tacitus.[44]

Arthur Drews

A middle-aged man with a small pointed beard and black bow-tie in profile
Arthur Drews

Die Christusmythe ("The Christ Myth"), first published in 1909 by Arthur Drews, a professor of philosophy at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe,[45] brought together the scholarship of the day in defense of the idea that Christianity had been a Jewish Gnostic cult that spread by appropriating aspects of Greek philosophy and Frazerian death-rebirth deities. Drews wrote that his purpose was to show that everything about the historical Jesus had a mythical character, and there was no reason to suppose that such a figure had ever existed.[46]

His work proved popular enough in both his native Germany and abroad that prominent theologians and historians addressed his arguments in the Hibbert Journal, the American Journal of Theology, and other leading journals of religion.[47] At least two monographs on the historicity of Jesus were written partially in refutation of Drews.[48] In response to his critics, Drews participated in a series of public debates, the best known of which took place in 1910 on January 31 and again on February 1 at the Berlin Zoological Garden against Hermann von Soden of the Berlin University, where he appeared on behalf of the League of Monists. Attended by 2,000 people, including the country's most eminent theologians, the meetings went on until three in the morning. The New York Times called it one of the most remarkable theological discussions since the days of Martin Luther, reporting that Drews caused a sensation by plastering the town's billboards with posters asking, "Did Jesus Christ ever live?" According to the newspaper his arguments were so "graphic" and "ruthless" that several women had to be carried from the hall screaming hysterically, while one woman stood on a chair and invited God to strike Drews down.[49]

Other writers

Other writers around this period argued along similar lines. A. D. Loman wrote that episodes such as the Sermon on the Mount were fictions written to justify compilations of pre-existing liberal Jewish sayings. G. J. P. J. Bolland argued that Christianity evolved from Gnosticism and that Jesus was merely a symbolic figure representing Gnostic ideas about God.[50]

G. R. S. Mead wrote that Jesus was based on an obscure personage recorded in the Talmud who lived around 100 BCE. Albert Kalthoff wrote that Jesus was an idealized personification created by a proto-communist community and that incidents in the gospels were adapted from first-to-third century Roman history.[51] Peter Jensen saw Jesus as a Jewish adaptation of Gilgamesh whom Jensen regarded as a solar deity.[52] Joseph Wheless wrote that there was an active conspiracy among Christians, going back as far as the second century, to forge documents to make a mythical Jesus seem historical.[53] The philosopher Bertrand Russell said in his 1927 lecture "Why I Am Not a Christian" that historically it is quite doubtful that Christ ever existed at all.[54]

Marx, Lenin, Engels, and Soviet adoption

Vladimir Lenin, the first head of the Soviet state, regarded the Christ myth theory as established fact.[55]

Craig Evans writes that the belief that Jesus had never existed was picked up by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and became the official view of Marxism.[56] Several editions of Drews's The Christ Myth were published in the Soviet Union from the early 1920s onwards, and were used in the state's anti-religion campaigns; Lenin argued that it was imperative in the struggle against religious obscurantists to form a union with people like Drews.[57] James Thrower writes that Lenin, who led the Soviet state from 1917 to 1924, approached Drews's account as an established fact in his 1922 essay "On the importance of militant materialism."[55] That year, all religious books were removed from public libraries and bookshops, and Drews's theory was elevated to the rank of objective truth, included in school and university textbooks.[58] Public meetings asking "Did Christ live?" were organized in which the Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky debated with clergymen.[59]

Academics in the USSR continued to promote the Christ myth theory throughout the state's early history, and although the theory was never discarded, it came to be replaced by the explanation offered by Engels in his 1895 essay, "On the Early History of Christianity." The existence of Jesus was accepted, but the mythological aspects of the narrative were stressed, as was the debt owed to the Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.[60]

Late 20th century

John M. Allegro

Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John M. Allegro argued in two books—The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979)—that Christianity began as a shamanic cult centering around the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms,[61] and that it had derived its central mythos from Essene sources. In a forward to The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, Mark Hall writes that Allegro suggested the scrolls all but proved that a historical Jesus never existed. "According to Allegro," he wrote, "the Jesus of the Gospels is a fictional character in a religious legend, which like many similar tales in circulation at the turn of the era, was merely an amalgamation of Messianic eschatology and garbled historical events".[62]

George Albert Wells

Graham Stanton writes that the most thoroughgoing and sophisticated of the arguments that Jesus did not exist were set out in several books by G. A. Wells, emeritus professor of German at Birkbeck College, London—including Did Jesus Exist? (1975) and The Jesus Legend (1996)—though he nevertheless writes that Wells' arguments rest on shaky pillars.[63] Emphasizing the New Testament epistles and the paucity of early non-Christian documents attesting to a historical Jesus, Wells argued that the Jesus of earliest Christianity was a pure myth, derived from mystical speculations stemming from the Jewish Wisdom tradition. According to this view, the earliest strata of the New Testament literature presented Jesus as "a basically supernatural personage only obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period in the past".[64]

In The Jesus Myth (1999), Wells altered his position, making the case that there were two distinct figures of Jesus: the mythic Jesus of Paul and a minimally historical Jesus whose teachings were preserved in Q. Wells spelled out his position in an online essay in 2000: "In the gospels, the two Jesus figures—the human preacher of Q and the supernatural personage of the early epistles who sojourned briefly on Earth as a man, and then, rejected, returned to heaven—have been fused into one. The Galilean preacher of Q has been given a salvific death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the Pauline and other early letters), but in a historical context consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching. Now that I have allowed this in my two most recent relevant books ... it will not do to dub me a "mythicist" tout court".[65] Robert Van Voorst has described this change of mind as an "about-face" and a rejection of the Christ myth,[66] a sentiment shared by some within the Christ myth community itself.[67]

21st century

Robert M. Price

refer to caption and adjacent text
American theologian Robert M. Price argues that we will never know whether Jesus existed, unless someone discovers his diary or skeleton.[68]

Theologian Robert M. Price has supported the theory in a series of books, including Deconstructing Jesus (2000), The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003), and Jesus is Dead (2007), as well as in contributions to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009), and as a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of 150 writers and scholars who study the historicity of Jesus.[69] Price argues that Christianity is largely a Judaized synthesis of Egyptian, Greek, and Buddhist myths,[70] and that the New Testament's picture of Jesus is the historicization of a mythic deity.[71] He bases his argument on the absence of contemporaneous sources who discuss a miracle-working Jesus, and argues that the epistles, written before the gospels, do not constitute evidence of his existence.[72]

Price's position is that if critical methodology is applied with ruthless consistency, one is left in complete agnosticism regarding Jesus's historicity.[73] He writes: "Is it ... possible that beneath and behind the stained-glass curtain of Christian legend stands the dim figure of a historical founder of Christianity? Yes, it is possible, perhaps just a tad more likely than that there was a historical Moses, about as likely as there having been a historical Apollonius of Tyana. But it becomes almost arbitrary to think so."[74] He said in 2009 that unless someone discovers Jesus's diary or skeleton, we'll never know.[68] While recognizing that he stands against the majority view of scholars, he cautions against attempting to settle the issue by appeal to the majority, arguing that received opinion or the consensus of scholars may be wrong, and that appealing to it is an abdication of responsibility.[75] He said during a debate with William Lane Craig: "I am glad to confess that the opinion of the majority of scholars makes no difference whatever to me. In fact, in the gospels, after all, it's the consensus of scholars in the Sanhedrin that condemns Jesus to death."[76]

Other writers

Earl Doherty writes that no historical Jesus stands behind even the most primitive hypothetical sources of the New Testament,[77] since Jesus was originally a myth derived from Middle Platonism with some influence from Jewish mysticism,[78] with belief in a historical Jesus only emerging among Christian communities well into the second century.[79] Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy write that the Gospels "can tell us nothing at all about an historical Jesus because no such man ever existed."[80] They maintain that a Gnostic belief in a purely mythical Jesus was the original form of Christianity which was supplanted and then suppressed by the Catholic Church—a development the authors describe as "the greatest cover-up in history."[81] D. M. Murdock (publishing in part pseudonymously as Acharya S) believes that Christianity is an on-going conspiracy.[82] She has argued that virtually all the New Testament documents are "forgeries",[83] with the canonical Gospels (all composed in the late second century)[84] misrepresenting as historical a Jesus who was initially understood as a solar myth.[85]

Arguments

Scarcity and unreliability of extra-biblical sources

Christ myth theorists often cite the lack of contemporaneous non-Christian sources that mention Jesus, arguing that such an absence of evidence constitutes evidence of absence.[86] The few non-Christian sources that do, however, refer to Jesus are routinely deconstructed, with some (such as the remarks of Josephus) being rejected as corrupt and others (such as Tacitus’ passing reference) being relativized as dependent on the confused beliefs of later Christians and thus providing no independent corroboration of their claims.[87]

Advocates also sometimes reject the testimony of the Apostolic Fathers such as Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, which seem to indicate an early belief in a historical Jesus. Their writings are either dismissed as forgeries, or the most pertinent passages in their works are bracketed as later interpolations.[88]

Evolution of New Testament literature

Proponents of the Christ myth theory note that among the New Testament documents, the epistles—specifically the undisputed epistles of Paul—constitute the oldest sources related to Jesus. Advocates also note that within this earliest stratum of Christian literature, references to biographical details and teachings associated with Jesus are relatively rare.[89] Further, the fuller depictions of Jesus’ life and ministry found in the Gospels demonstrate a textual interdependence which Christ myth theory advocates argue undermines the notion that multiple independent sources stand behind the accounts. On this basis, proponents often theorize that the epistles present an early belief in a purely mythical savior-figure who was subsequently historicized (perhaps in a conscientiously allegorical fashion) by the Gospel According to Mark, with Matthew, Luke, and John further imaginatively embellishing Mark’s narrative in their own derivative Gospels.[20]

Mythological parallels

Main article: Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
Depictions of two mothers, seated, with their respective children on their laps
Isis & Horus and Mary & Jesus

An argument commonly presented in connection with the Christ myth theory is that the biblical material related to the life of Jesus bears allegedly striking similarities to both Jewish and pagan stories which preceded it.[90] Parallels are often cited between Jesus and Old Testament figures such as Moses, Joseph, and Elisha and a wide range of pagan mythological personages.[91] For example, proponents have claimed that, according to classical mythological sources, Mithras was born to a virgin mother,[92] Horus had twelve disciples,[93] Attis was crucified,[94] and Osiris was resurrected from the dead.[95] Sometimes appeal is made to broader anthropological understandings of religion and ritual patterns of human behavior as postulated by James Frazer and others in such works as The Golden Bough.[96] Christ myth advocates believe that the parallels demonstrate borrowing, with the early Christian community adapting existing mythologies to their particular socio-religious tastes.[97] These parallels are further thought to extend to every identifiable element of Jesus' biography, rendering the biblical portrait of Jesus entirely explicable by reference to literary antecedents and thus making a historical figure superfluous.[98]

Reception

Historical responses

The Christ myth theory has never achieved mainstream academic credibility.[99] From its very inception it provoked scholarly refutations, often of rather dismissive sorts. The earliest of these were satirical treatments by Richard Whately and Jean-Baptiste Pérès entitled "Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte" (1819)[100] and "Grand Erratum" (1827)[101] respectively. These works utilized the skepticism of Dupuis and others in a tongue-in-cheek fashion to argue against the historical existence of Napoleon Bonaparte—who was still alive at the time Whately published.[102]

More sober refutations of the Christ myth were published at the dawn of the twentieth century.[103] In 1914, Fred C. Conybeare published The Historical Christ, in which he argued against Robertson, Drews, and Smith in favor of Jesus' historical existence.[104] Conybeare was followed by the French biblical scholar Maurice Goguel, who published Jesus of Nazareth: Myth or History? in 1926.[105] In this text, described by R. Joseph Hoffmann as "perhaps the best of its kind",[106] Goguel rejected arguments for a "pre-Christianity" and argued that prima facie evidence for a historical Jesus came from the agreement on his existence between ancient orthodox Christians, Docetists, and opponents of Christianity. Goguel proceeded to examine the theology of the Pauline epistles, the other New Testament epistles, the gospels, and the Book of Revelation, as well as belief in Jesus' resurrection and divinity, arguing in each case that early Christian views were best explained by a tradition stemming from a recent historical Jesus.[105]

Later editions of Albert Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus likewise contained a lengthy section on the Christ myth theory, ultimately concluding, "... that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely."[107] Further refutations were produced by various scholars in response to novel articulations of the theory throughout the last century, with some of the more substantial contemporary treatments being R. T. France's The Evidence for Jesus (1986),[108] Robert Van Voorst's Jesus Outside the New Testament (2000),[109] and The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (2007),[110] coauthored by Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd.

Beyond these general treatments of the Christ myth theory as a whole, responses connected to specific exponents of the theory have also been offered. Of the theory's more recent advocates, John Allegro,[111] G. A. Wells,[112] Robert Price,[113] Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy and D. M. Murdock,[114] and Earl Doherty have each been the subject of such critical comments.[115]

Arguments for a historical Jesus

Main article: Historicity of Jesus

The scholarly mainstream routinely notes [who?] that while many versions of the Christ myth theory assume that Christianity had obscure beginnings, such views fail to notice that early Christians appealed to historical events already known by the general public.[116] For example, Acts records such an appeal before King Agrippa: "For the king knows about these matters, and I speak to him also with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escape his notice; for this has not been done in a corner.”[117] Further, early Christians opposed speculative and mythical notions by appealing to eyewitness accounts. [clarification needed] [118] In addition, a number of commonly accepted critical criteria are used to support the historicity of Jesus: the criterion of multiple attestation, of enemy attestation, and of embarrassment or double dissimilarity.

Criterion of multiple attestation

In contrast to Bruno Bauer's view, modern scholars believe that Mark is not the only source behind the synoptic Gospels. The current predominant view within the field, the Two-Source hypothesis, postulates that the Synoptic gospels are based on at least two independent sources (Mark and "Q"), and potentially as many as four (Mark, "Q", "M", and "L").[119] According to this view, additional corroboration, in relatively early material referencing a historical Jesus, can also be found in the Gospel According to John,[120] and the epistles of Paul.[121]

Of enemy attestation

Despite the misgivings of Christ myth theorists, mainstream scholarship believes the writings of Josephus contain two authentic references to Jesus. One of these, Josephus' allusion in The Antiquities of the Jews to the death of James, is almost universally accepted as legitimate.[122] The reference, written by the Jewish Josephus, describing James as "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ", is seen as providing attestation independent of the early Christian community. Josephus' fuller reference to Jesus, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, while suspected of containing later interpolations, is nevertheless also believed by a large majority of scholars to preserve an original comment regarding Jesus.[123]

Of embarrassment or double dissimilarity

The historian Will Durant has applied the criterion of embarrassment to the question of Jesus' historicity, writing: "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."[124]

He argues that if the Gospels were entirely imaginative, these and other issues in the life of Christ would probably not exist; a purely creative narrative would likely present Jesus in strict conformity with preexisting messianic expectations. The fact that the New Testament documents record otherwise embarrassing elements therefore strongly indicates their rootedness in historical events.[125]

Rejection of alleged mythological parallels

A statue of a young man wearing a Phrygian cap, encased partly in rock, holding a knife and a torch
Mithras born from the rock

In addition to affirming the historical existence of Jesus on the basis of documentary evidence, mainstream critical scholarship rejects the central supportive argument of the Christ myth theory: namely, that early material related to Jesus can be explained away with reference to pagan mythological parallels.[126] Scholars believe that Jesus is to be understood against the backdrop of first century Palestinian Judaism,[127] an emphasis on broader Hellenistic religious categories having been "largely abandoned." [clarification needed][128] Further, mainstream scholarship generally rejects the whole concept of homogenous dying and rising gods—[129] the validity of which is often presupposed by advocates of the Christ myth theory. The few academics who continue to support the "dying and rising gods" construct nevertheless repudiate the idea that Jesus fits the wider pattern.[130]

Furthermore, attempts to equate elements of Jesus' biography with those of mythological figures are widely seen as inaccurate and historically slipshod.[131] For example, far from presenting Mithras' origin as an analogue of Jesus' virgin birth, classical sources depict Mithras emerging fully grown, partially clothed, and armed from a rock—[132] possibly after the rock had been inseminated.[133] In other cases, often such supposed parallels are based on the interpolations of skeptical critics themselves: parts of Jesus' biography and early Christianity being inappropriately projected onto the stories of mythical pagan personages, only to be then "discovered" and cited as parallels.[134] Scholars further note that the very idea that early Christians would consciously incorporate pagan myths into their religion is "intrinsically most improbable,"[135] given their cultural background,[136] as evidenced by the strenuous opposition that Paul encountered from other Christians for even his minor concessions to Gentile believers.[137]

Methodological concerns

Scholars often note more basic methodological problems with the Christ myth theory.[138] While advocates often rely heavily on arguments from silence (such as the lack of references to Jesus in histories produced during the period,[139] and the silence of Paul regarding much of Jesus' life), specialists regard such arguments with deep suspicion, noting that various sources may not mention Jesus for any number of reasons.[140] Further, while many Christ myth theorists draw parallels between early Christianity and Hellenistic mystery religions, relatively little is actually known about the beliefs and practices of the latter.[citation needed]

Scholars from a range of ideological viewpoints have further suggested that the Christ myth theory is plainly unsupported by the evidence, and moreover that it can only be maintained through willful disregard of that evidence.[141] Attempts to prove or disprove the existence of a historical Jesus in such a context, they argue, often degenerate into a methodological "black hole" in which all would-be evidence for a historical Jesus is deconstructed into irrelevancy.[142] These issues have led a number of scholars to classify the Christ myth theory as a form of denialism and to analogize it to a variety of fringe theories.[143] As Mark Allan Powell, the chairman of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, writes, "A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical person Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today—in the academic world at least—gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat."[144]

Public opinion

A 2005 study conducted by Baylor University found that one percent of Americans in general and 13.7 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe that Jesus is a fictional character.[145] Comparable figures in Britain indicated that 13 percent of the general population and 40 percent of atheists do not believe in the existence of Jesus, according to a 2008 ComRes poll,[146] while a 2009 McCrindle Research study found that 11 percent of Australians doubt that Jesus was a historical figure.[147]

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Christ myth theory.
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Notes

  1. ^ "Negative as these [hyper-minimalist] conclusions appear, they must be strictly distinguished from the theories of the mythologists. According to the critics whom we may term minimalists, Jesus did live, but his biography is almost totally unknown to us. The mythologists, on the other hand, declare that he never existed, and that his history, or more exactly the legend about him, is due to the working of various tendencies and events, such as the prophetic interpretation of Old Testament texts, visions, ecstasy, or the projection of the conditions under which the first group of Christians lived into the story of their reputed founder." Goguel 1926b, pp. 117–118
    • "If this account of the matter is correct, one can also see why it is that the 'Christ-myth' theory, to the effect that there was no historical Jesus at all, has seemed so plausible to many," Meynell 1991, p. 166
    • "Defense of Biblical criticism was not helped by the revival at this time of the 'Christ-Myth' theory, suggesting that Jesus had never existed, a suggestion rebutted in England by the radical but independent F. C. Conybeare." Horbury 2003, p. 55
  2. ^ Martin 1993, p. 37.
  3. ^ "No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and his basic teachings." Charlesworth 2006, p. xxiii
    • "I don't think there's any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus. There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money who say Jesus didn't exist. But I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus." Ehrman 2008
    • "[T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected." Wells 1988, p. 218
  4. ^ "Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher." Stanton 2002, p. 145
  5. ^ Wells 1999a, p. 99
  6. ^ Walsh, George. The Role of Religion in History. Transaction 1998, p. 58.
  7. ^ Goguel 1926b, pp. 117–118
  8. ^ Goguel 1926a, p. 11
  9. ^ Goguel 1926a, p. 14; Van Voorst 2000, p. 8
  10. ^ Schweitzer 2001, p. 355; Weaver 1999, p. 45
  11. ^ Wells 1969; Schweitzer 2001, p. 527 n. 1; Volney 1791; Dupuis 1984
  12. ^ Wells 1969, pp. 153–156
  13. ^ Wells 1969, pp. 159–160
  14. ^ Wells 1969, p. 151
  15. ^ Wells 1969, p. 155
  16. ^ Wells 1969, p. 157
  17. ^ a b Goguel 1926b, p. 117
  18. ^ Schweitzer 2001, p. 356
  19. ^ Solmsen 1970, pp. 277–279
  20. ^ a b Schweitzer 2001, pp. 124–128
  21. ^ Schweitzer 2001, pp. 128–136
  22. ^ Schweitzer 2001, pp. 124, 139–140
  23. ^ Engels 1882; Pfleiderer 1893; Moggach 2003, p. 184
  24. ^ Fiensy 1995, p. 91
  25. ^ Pfleiderer 1893
  26. ^ Schweitzer 2001, pp. 140–141
  27. ^ Van Voorst 2000, p. 9
  28. ^ Schweitzer 2001, pp. 356, 527 n. 4; Van Voorst 2000, p. 10
  29. ^ Johnson 1887; unknown 1904
  30. ^ Weaver 1999, pp. 46–47; Schweitzer 2001, pp. 359–361
  31. ^ Weaver 1999, p. 47
  32. ^ Arvidsson 2006, pp. 116–117
  33. ^ Klausner 1989, pp. 105–106
  34. ^ Robertson 1902, pp. 6–12; Weaver 1999, p. 58
  35. ^ Robertson 1902, pp. 14–15
  36. ^ Robertson 1902, pp. 2–3
  37. ^ Robertson 1903
  38. ^ Robertson 1902, pp. 21, 32–33
  39. ^ Robertson 1902, pp. 87–89
  40. ^ Robertson 1902, pp. 22–25
  41. ^ Case 1911, p. 627
  42. ^ Schweitzer 2001, p. 375
  43. ^ Schweitzer 2001, p. 378
  44. ^ Van Voorst 2000, p. 12
  45. ^ Drews 1998
  46. ^ Weaver 1999, p. 50; Wood 1934, p. xxxii; Warfield 1913, pp. 297 ff.; Berdyaev 1927
  47. ^ Gerrish 1975, pp. 3–4
  48. ^ Case 1912; Conybeare 2009
  49. ^ Case 1911, p. 2 n. 1; unknown 1910, p. 1
  50. ^ Bolland 1907
  51. ^ Goguel 1926a, pp. 22–23; Schweitzer 2001, pp. 279–283
  52. ^ Goguel 1926a, p. 23; Schweitzer 2001, pp. 369–372
  53. ^ Wheless 1930
  54. ^ Russell 1967, p. 16
  55. ^ a b Thrower 1983, p. 426.
  56. ^ Evans 1993, p. 7 n. 22
  57. ^ Haber 1999, p. 347
  58. ^ Nikiforov 2003, p. 749;Metzger 1956, pp. 246–247
  59. ^ "There were chronic difficulties with one popular form of propaganda that was particularly dependent on cadres—public debates between regime activists and representatives of the Church. These meetings featured clergy and activists facing each other on questions such as 'Did Christ live?' In the mid-1920s, the Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatolii Lunacharskii, and the Renovationist leader, Aleksandr Vvedenskii, debated several times in highly publicized meetings. These debates and the locally arranged clashes were popular throughout the 1920s."Peris 1998, p. 178
  60. ^ Thrower 1983, pp. 425 ff.
  61. ^ Allegro 1970
  62. ^ Allegro 1992, p. ix
  63. ^ Stanton & 2002 143
  64. ^ Wells 1999b
  65. ^ Wells 2000
  66. ^ "A final argument against the nonexistence hypothesis comes from Wells himself. In his most recent book, The Jesus Myth, Wells has moved away from this hypothesis. He now accepts that there is some historical basis for the existence of Jesus, derived from the lost early 'gospel' 'Q' (the hypothetical source used by Matthew and Luke). Wells believes that it is early and reliable enough to show that Jesus probably did exist, although this Jesus was not the Christ that the later canonical gospels portray. It remains to be seen what impact Wells' about-face will have on debate over the nonexistence hypothesis in popular circles." Van Voorst 2003, p. 660
  67. ^ A blurb by Robert M. Price appears on the back cover of The Jesus Myth stating, "Wells has now abandoned the pure Christ Myth theory for which he is famous...." Wells 1999a
  68. ^ a b Jacoby, David A. Compelling Evidence For God and the Bible: Finding Truth in an Age of Doubt. Harvest House Publishers, 2010, p. 97.
  69. ^ Van Biema, David; Ostling, Richard N.; and Towle, Lisa H. The Gospel Truth?, Time magazine, April 8, 1996.
  70. ^ "I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock: 'we assert that Christianity constitutes Gnosticism historicized and Judaized, likewise representing a synthesis of Egyptian, Jewish and Greek religion and mythology, among others [including Buddhism, via King Asoka’s missionaries] from around the "known world"' (p. 278). 'Christianity is largely the product of Egyptian religion being Judaized and historicized’ (p. 482)." (interpolation original to Price), Price 2009b
  71. ^ Price 2009a, p. 230
  72. ^ The Historical Jesus: Five Views, pp. 62–63.
  73. ^ "... their own criteria and critical tools, which we have sought to apply here with ruthless consistency, ought to have left them with complete agnosticism ..." Price 2003, p. 351
  74. ^ Price 1999
  75. ^ The Historical Jesus: Five Views, p. 61.
  76. ^ Robert Price, debate with William Lane Craig, timestamp 22:42
  77. ^ "Perhaps the Q sect at its beginnings adopted a Greek source, with some recasting, one they saw as a suitable ethic for the kingdom they were preaching. In any case, there is no need to impute such sayings to a Jesus; they seem more the product of a school or lifestyle, formulated over time and hardly the sudden invention of a single mind." Doherty & 2000?
  78. ^ Doherty 1997
  79. ^ "Most astonishingly, all the major apologists before the year 180, with the sole exception of Justin (and a minor apologist from Syria, Aristides), fail to include an historical Jesus in their defences of Christianity to the pagans. This includes Tatian in his pre-Diatessaron days. Instead, the apologists bear witness to a Christian movement which is grounded in Platonic philosophy and Hellenistic Judaism, preaching the worship of the monotheistic Jewish God and a Logos-type Son; the latter is a force active in the world who serves as revealer and intermediary between God and humanity. Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras of Athens, Tatian in his Apology, Minucius Felix in Rome (or North Africa) offer no beliefs in an historical figure crucified as an atoning act, nor in a resurrection. (Nor do they have anything in common with Paul.) In not one of them does the name Jesus appear, and none speak of an incarnation of their Logos." Doherty 1997
  80. ^ Freke & Gandy 2006, p. 71
  81. ^ Freke & Gandy 1999, p. 10
  82. ^ Bennett 2001, p. 208
  83. ^ "So it appears that Paul, even thouh he speaks of 'the gospel,' has never heard of the canonical gospels or even an orally transmitted life of Christ. The few 'historical' references to an actual life of Jesus cited in the epistles are demonstrably interpolations and forgeries, as are the epistles themselves," and, "It is clear that the canonical gospels are of a late date, forged long after the alleged time of their purported authors." Murdock 1999, pp. 33 & 40
  84. ^ Murdock 1999, pp. 36–40
  85. ^ Murdock 1999, pp. 146 ff.
  86. ^ Eddy & Boyd 2007, p. 165; E.g. Wells 1971, p. 2
  87. ^ Eddy & Boyd 2007, p. 166; E.g. Van Voorst 2000, p. 12
  88. ^ E.g. "I suspect that another major tool of Roman propaganda was the Epistles of Ignatius, which, like the earlier Tübingen School but unlike Walter Bauer, I regard as spurious." Price 2000, p. 27
    • "I tend to think that 1 Clement, which is pseudonomous and seems to me to make references to the apocyphal gospel traditions, and Ignatius' letters, which other others have argued before, are not as early as their supposed to be." Robert Price, debate with William Lane Craig, timestamp 54:37
    • Murdock 2004, p. 412
  89. ^ Eddy & Boyd 2007, p. 201; E.g. Doherty & 2001?
  90. ^ Eddy & Boyd 2007, p. 133
  91. ^ Murdock 2007, pp. 114–122; Freke & Gandy 1999, pp. 4–6
  92. ^ Robertson 1903, pp. 338–340
  93. ^ Murdock 2009, pp. 261–284
  94. ^ Murdock 1999, pp. 107
  95. ^ Freke & Gandy 1999, p. 56
  96. ^ Drews 1998, pp. 66–67, et al.; this despite the fact that Frazer himself was quite dismissive of the theory: "The historical reality both of Buddha and of Christ has sometimes been doubted or denied. It would be just as reasonable to question the historical existence of Alexander the Great and Charlemagne on account of the legends which have gathered round them… The attempt to explain history without the influence of great men may flatter the vanity of the vulgar, but it will find no favour with the philosophic historian." Frazer 1919, p. 311
  97. ^ Eddy & Boyd 2007, pp. 134 ff. E.g. "Acharya S. ventures that 'the creators of the Christ myth did not simply take an already formed story, scratch out the name Osiris or Horus, and replace it with Jesus' (p. 25). But I am pretty much ready to go the whole way and suggest that Jesus is simply Osiris going under a new name, Jesus, 'Savior,' hitherto an epithet, but made into a name on Jewish soil." Price 2009b
  98. ^ "Every detail [of Jesus' biography] corresponds to the interests of mythology and epic." Price 2009a
  99. ^ "The scholarly mainstream, in contrast to Bauer and company, never doubted the existence of Jesus or his relevance for the founding of the Church." Evans 1993, p. 8
  100. ^ Whately 1874
  101. ^ Pérès 1905
  102. ^ Evans 1905, pp. 5 ff.
  103. ^ See the list provided in Evans 1993, p. 8 n. 24
  104. ^ Conybeare 2009
  105. ^ a b Goguel 1926a
  106. ^ Hoffmann 2006, p. 34
  107. ^ "An examination of the claims for and against the historicity of Jesus thus reveals that the difficulties faced by those undertaking to prove that he is not historical, in the fields both of the history of religion and the history of doctrine, and not least in the interpretation of the earliest tradition are far more numerous and profound than those which face their opponents. Seen in their totality, they must be considered as having no possible solution. Added to this, all hypotheses which have so far been put forward to the effect that Jesus never lived are in the strangest opposition to each other, both in their method of working and their interpretation of the Gospel reports, and thus merely cancel each other out. Hence we must conclude that the supposition that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely. This does not mean that the latter will not be proposed again from time to time, just as the romantic view of the life of Jesus is also destined for immortality. It is even able to dress itself up with certain scholarly technique, and with a little skillful manipulation can have much influence on the mass of people. But as soon as it does more than engage in noisy polemics with 'theology' and hazards an attempt to produce real evidence, it immediately reveals itself to be an implausible hypothesis." Schweitzer 2001, pp. 435–436
  108. ^ France 1986
  109. ^ Van Voorst 2000
  110. ^ Eddy & Boyd 2007
  111. ^ Upon the publication of Allegro's relevant work, his "thesis was dismissed by fifteen experts in Semetic languages and related fields who lodged their protest in a letter that was published in the May 26, 1970 issue of The Times... They judged that Allegro's views were 'not based on any philological or other evidence that they can regard as scholarly.'" Further, John A. T. Robinson stated that if Allegro's style of reasoning appeared in other academic disciplines it "would be laughed out of court." Habermas 1996, p. 46
  112. ^ "[A]n attempt to show that Jesus never existed has been made in recent years by G. A. Wells, a Professor of German who has ventured into New Testament study and presents a case that the origins of Christianity can be explained without assuming that Jesus really lived. Earlier presentations of similar views at the turn of the century failed to make any impression on scholarly opinion, and it is certain that this latest presentation of the case will not fare any better. For of course the evidence is not confined to Tacitus; there are the New Testament documents themselves, nearly all of which must be dated in the first century, and behind which there lies a period of transmission of the story of Jesus which can be traced backwards to a date not far from that when Jesus is supposed to have lived. To explain the rise of this tradition without the hypothesis of Jesus is impossible." Marshall 2004, pp. 15–16
  113. ^ "This is always the fatal flaw of the 'Jesus myth' thesis: the improbability of the total invention of a figure who had purportedly lived within the generation of the inventors, or the imposition of such an elaborate myth on some minor figure from Galilee. [Robert] Price is content with the explanation that it all began 'with a more or less vague savior myth.' Sad, really." Dunn 2009, p. 98
    • "[Robert] Price thinks the evidence is so weak for the historical Jesus that we cannot know anything certain or meaningful about him. He is even willing to entertain the possibility that there never was a historical Jesus. Is the evidence of Jesus really that thin? Virtually no scholar trained in history will agree with Price's negative conclusions. ... In my view Price's work in the gospels is overpowered by a philosophical mindset that is at odds with historical research—of any kind ... What we see in Price is what we have seen before: a flight from fundamentalism." Evans 2008, p. 25
    • "[Price's] writing is not a serious discussion of the issues among one’s scholarly peers but rather comes across as an extremely bitter rant," Costa 2009
  114. ^ "What about those writers like Acharya S (The Christ Conspiracy) and Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries), who say that Jesus never existed, and that Christianity was an invented religion, the Jewish equivalent of the Greek mystery religions? 'This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this. I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this.'" Ehrman 2007, p. 55
  115. ^ "If I understand what Earl Doherty is arguing, Neil, it is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as an historical person, or, at least that historians, like myself, presume that he did and act on that fatally flawed presumption. I am not sure, as I said earlier, that one can persuade people that Jesus did exist as long as they are ready to explain the entire phenomenon of historical Jesus and earliest Christianity either as an evil trick or a holy parable. I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold-war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying." Crossan 2000
  116. ^ Bromiley 1982, p. 1034
  117. ^ Acts 26:26
  118. ^ Henry 1999, p. 162
  119. ^ "The theory that Matthew and Luke used both Mark and Q as sources is called the Two Document Hypothesis. In addition to these two written documents, two oral (or written) sources have been postulated to explain the presence of distinctive Matthean and Lukan material. “M” refers to the material found only in Matthew, such as the coming of the Magi, the slaughter of children by Herod, and the flight an return of Jesus and his family from Egypt. “L” refers to the material only found in Luke, such as the birth of John the Baptist, Mary’s magnificat, the visit of the shepherds, and the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple. This expanded version of the theory, postulating that M and L included additional written sources, is sometimes called the Four Document Hypothesis… Unlike Mark and Q, however, it is difficult to determine if M and L are (1) oral or written sources or (2) the literary creations of the authors. The documentary hypothesis outlined here has been followed by a majority of biblical scholars since the beginning of the twentieth century." Puskas & Crump 2008, pp. 53–54
  120. ^ Bauckham 2006, pp. 358 ff.
  121. ^ Barnett 2001, pp. 57–58 Barnett indicates that, among other details, the Epistles describe Jesus as 1) descended from Abraham, 2) descended from David, 3) was 'born of a woman', 4) lived in poverty, 5) was born and lived under the law, 6) had a brother named James, 7) led a humble lifestyle, and 8) ministered primarily to Jews.
  122. ^ Feldman 1992, pp. 990–991
  123. ^ "In Josephus and Modern Scholarship: 1937–1980 (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), [Louis] Feldman surveys more than one hundred scholarly writings on Josephus… Asked to make a rough assessment of where contemporary scholarship stands on the authenticity of the Testimonium as a whole, he responded, 'My guess is that the ratio of those who in some manner accept the Testimoium would be at least 3 to 1. I would not be surprised if it would be as much as 5 to 1.'" Habermas & Licona 2004, pp. 268–269
  124. ^ Durant 1972, p. 557
  125. ^ "Since the Enlightenment, the Gospel stories about the life of Jesus have been in doubt. Intellectuals then as now asked: 'What makes the stories of the New Testament any more historically probable than Aesop's fables or Grimm's fairy tales?' The critics can be answered satisfactorily ... For all the rigor of the standard it sets, the criterion [of embarrassment] demonstrates that Jesus existed." Segal 2005
  126. ^ "Myth is a term of at best doubtful relevance to the study of Jesus and the Gospels." Dunn 1992, p. 566
    • "[T]here is hardly a reputable scholar today who supports the legitimacy of these so-called parallels" Bromiley 1982, p. 1034
  127. ^ "[T]he Gospels, indeed the whole NT have a profound indebtedness to early Judaism and Jewish ideas about salvation, this life, resurrection, heaven and hell, clean and unclean, the sabbath, circumcision, the nature of God etc. They are also suffused with the Jewish concern for history, for their God was a God who intervenes in history, and they were not looking for a mythical messiah, but rather a flesh and blood one who would rescue them from their oppressors. The universe of discourse is again and again Jewish, not Greco-Roman at its core. Thankfully the vast majority of scholars, Jewish, Christian, or of no faith at all have long since realized that the NT and its ideas, and Jesus himself cannot be explained or explained away using the tired old arguments of the Religionsgeschichte Schule. The discussion has moved on ..." Witherington 2009
  128. ^ "Third, the miracles of Jesus are interpreted more carefully and more realistically in context, with the result that they are now viewed primarily as part of charismatic Judaism, either in terms of piety or in terms of restoration theology (or both). The older notion that the miracle tradition is relatively late and of Hellenistic origin, perhaps the product of theios anèr ideas, has been largely abandoned." Evans 1993, pp. 17–18
  129. ^ "[I]t is presently impossible to accept a general category of a 'dying and rising god' in the ancient Mediterranean and Levantine world." Smith 1994, p. 70
    • "There is now what amounts to a scholarly consensus against the appropriateness of the concept. Those who still think differently are looked upon as residual members of an almost extinct species." Mettinger 2001, p. 7
  130. ^ "There is, as far as I am aware, no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct, drawing on the myths and rites of the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world." Mettinger 2001, p. 221
  131. ^ "[P]ast studies of phenomenological comparisons have inexcusably disregarded the dates and the provenience of their sources when they have attempted to provide prototypes for Christianity." Yamauchi 1974
  132. ^ Ulansey 1991, p. 35
  133. ^ Burkert 1989, p. 155 n. 40
  134. ^ "Of course if one writes an imaginary description of the Orphic mysteries ... filling in the large gaps in the picture left by our data from the Christian eucharist, one produces something very impressive. On this plan, you first put in the Christian elements, and then are staggered to find them there." Bevan 1929, p. 105
    • Interviewer: "The claims about this particular sky God then, Horus, are that he was born on December the 25th, he was adored by three kings, he grew up, he had twelve disciples, he was crucified, and then he was resurrected. Well, that sounds like the Jesus story." Chris Forbes: "It does—because that’s what it is. But it’s not the Horus story." Forbes 2009
  135. ^ Brandon 1959, p. 128
  136. ^ "Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths of mythical gods seems so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit." Grant 1995, p. 199
  137. ^ "[T]he early Palestinian Church was composed of Christians from a Jewish background, whose generally strict monotheism and traditional intolerance of syncretism must have militated against wholesale borrowing from pagan cults. Psychologically it is quite inconceivable that the Judaizers, who attacked Paul with unmeasured ferocity for what they considered his liberalism concerning the relation of Gentile converts to the Mosaic law, should nevertheless have acquiesced in what some have described as Paul’s thoroughgoing contamination of the central doctrines and sacraments of the Christian religion." Metzger 1968, p. 7
  138. ^ E.g. "This dialectic process whereby the Christ-myth theory discredits itself rests on the simple fact that you cannot attempt to prove the theory without mishandling the evidence." Wood 1934, p. 54
  139. ^ John E. Remsburg's list of historians from the period who did not mention Jesus, published in his book The Christ, has been influential in this regard.
  140. ^ France 1986, pp. 19 ff.
  141. ^ "In the last analysis, the whole Christ-myth theorizing is a glaring example of obscurantism, if the sin of obscurantism consists in the acceptance of bare possibilities in place of actual probabilities, and of pure surmise in defiance of existing evidence." Wood 1934, p. xxxiii
    • "Few people dispute that Jesus is a historical figure. And those who do do so arguably out of ignorance or in disregard of powerful evidence," Köstenberger 1999, p. 216
    • "[T]he people you're talking to [(i.e. Christ myth advocates)] are impervious to scholarship," Craig 2009
    • "[A] 'real' archeological or textual discovery of indubitable quality ... would not persuade die-hard mythers," Hoffmann 2009
  142. ^ DeConick 2009
  143. ^ "Most scholars regard the arguments for Jesus' non-existence as unworthy of any response—on a par with claims that the Jewish Holocaust never occurred or that the Apollo moon landing took place in a Hollywood studio." McClymond 2004, pp. 23–24
    • "This way of doing history might play for those with ears eager to cash out the results, but for everybody else this is simply nonsense. The very logic that tells us there was no Jesus is the same logic that pleads that there was no Holocaust. On such logic, history is no longer possible. It is no surprise then that there is no New Testament scholar drawing pay from a post who doubts the existence of Jesus. I know not one. His birth, life, and death in first-century Palestine have never been subject to serious question and, in all likelihood, never will be among those who are experts in the field. The existence of Jesus is a given." (emphasis original) Perrin 2007, p. 32
    • "An extreme view along these lines is one which denies even the historical existence of Jesus Christ—a view which, one must admit, has not managed to establish itself among the educated, outside a little circle of amateurs and cranks, or to rise above the dignity of the Baconian theory of Shakespeare." Bevan 1930, p. 256
    • "A phone call from the BBC’s flagship Today programme: would I go on air on Good Friday morning to debate with the aurthors of a new book, The Jesus Mysteries? The book claims (or so they told me) that everything in the Gospels reflects, because it was in fact borrowed from, much older pagan myths; that Jesus never existed; that the early church knew it was propagating a new version of an old myth, and that the developed church covered this up in the interests of its own power and control. The producer was friendly, and took my point when I said that this was like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese." Wright 2004, p. 48
    • "Finley: There are some people in the chat room disagreeing, of course, but they’re saying that there really isn’t any hardcore evidence, though, that… I mean… but there isn’t any… any evidence, really, that Jesus did exist except what people were saying about him. But… Ehrman: I think… I disagree with that. Finley: Really? Ehrman: I mean, what hardcore evidence is there that Julius Caesar existed? Finley: Well, this is… this is the same kind of argument that apologists use, by the way, for the existence of Jesus, by the way. They like to say the same thing you said just then about, well, what kind of evidence do you have for Jul… Ehrman: Well, I mean, it’s… but it’s just a typical… it’s just… It’s a historical point; I mean, how do you establish the historical existence of an individual from the past? Finley: I guess… I guess it depends on the claims… Right, it depends on the claims that people have made during that particular time about a particular person and their influence on society ... Ehrman: It’s not just the claims. There are… One has to look at historical evidence. And if you… If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust?" Ehrman 2008
    • "You know that you can try to minimize your biases, but you can't eliminate them. That's why you have to put certain checks and balances in place… Under this approach, we only consider facts that meet two criteria. First, there must be very strong historical evidence supporting them. And secondly, the evidence must be so strong that the vast majority of today's scholars on the subject—including skeptical ones—accept these as historical facts. You're never going to get everyone to agree. There are always people who deny the Holocaust or question whether Jesus ever existed, but they're on the fringe." Licona 2007, p. 112
    • "If I understand what Earl Doherty is arguing, Neil, it is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as an historical person, or, at least that historians, like myself, presume that he did and act on that fatally flawed presumption. I am not sure, as I said earlier, that one can persuade people that Jesus did exist as long as they are ready to explain the entire phenomenon of historical Jesus and earliest Christianity either as an evil trick or a holy parable. I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold-war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying." Crossan 2000
    • "I think this is my #1 reason for not being a mythicist. I consider it appropriate to create and/or adopt a theory that fits the evidence, rather than vice versa, whenever possible and to the greatest extent possible. This is also, I suspect, the #1 reason that I've compared mythicism and creationism. It is not that history and the natural sciences function in precisely the same way or offer comparable levels of certainty. They don't. But in the case of both mythicism and creationism (both of which have many permutations and varieties) I see a deliberate attempt to reinterpret evidence to fit an already-adopted theory, when that evidence can be explained in a straightforward and persuasive matter by another theory." McGrath 2010
  144. ^ Powell 1998, p. 168
  145. ^ Stark 2008, p. 63; Bader 2006, p. 14
  146. ^ ComRes 2008
  147. ^ Zwartz 2009; Centre for Public Christianity 2009

References

Further reading

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