Any pre-325 CE writings where Jesus' historicity was doubted?

[Leucius Charinus]

• "For many deceivers are entered into the world,
  who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
  This is a deceiver and an antichrist." (2 John 1:7)

Pete

I'm not sure this NT text can be taken both ways. I don't know any Greek - but the wording is strange if the writer was attempting to discredit those who disbelieved a historical gospel Jesus existed.

MH

Another easter.

The writer calls such people (who refuse to say JC came in the flesh) "deceivers and antichrists". That's pretty heavy terms of discreditation. In fact by playing the antichrist card it seems to be that these "deceivers" were to be regarded as the pinnacle of (antichristian) heresy.

''Jesus Christ is come in the flesh' hardly seems to be an argument one would argue against a historical Jesus.

But the assertion in 2 John was that these (unnamed) people refused to believe that Jesus came in the flesh.

ie a human man born of a human woman. ''come in the flesh', seems to me, to refer to some theological notion of a spirit taking on flesh.

Like Julius Caesar or Augustus or Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Faltonia Betitia Proba "came in the flesh"? I see the expression as another way of saying such people were incarnated into (a human body) history. But we're all entitled to our own views. History in many aspects must remain hypothetical.

[Leucius Charinus]

I have never found a single convincing piece of evidence that anyone denied the historicity of Jesus prior to the 1600s.

Did you check those books listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of 1560?

[Giuseppe]

The writings of the Sibyls were pure fabrications attributed to a made up figure who never existed. But no ancient critic ever said that.

the same general point is proved by quoting Plutarch:

As many persons were on the vessel, the story was soon spread abroad in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius became so convinced of the truth of the story that he caused an inquiry and investigation to be made about Pan; and the scholars, who were numerous at his court, conjectured that Ehe was the son born of Hermes and Penelopê."

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/ ... orum*.html

...with the aggravating corollary that Tiberius was informed about the recent news on the death of Pan, but never informed by Pilate about the death of a Galilean demi-god. Which makes concrete the possibility that the falsified Acta Pilati were forged the fill this Jesus' handicap in comparison to Pan.

At any case, I think that there is indeed evidence of old precursors of modern mythicists in Ignatius, Philadelphians 8.

[Giuseppe]

Someone (I don't remember if Jean Kléber Watson or Solomon Reinach) has also argued that the only possible reason the Fourth Gospel doubled the visit of Jesus to Jerusalem, by placing in the first visit the episode of the expulsion of the merchands (found only in the last visit in the Synoptics), was in order to neutralize the anti-Christian rumors in Jewish circles along the following lines: "we didn't know no Jesus who was crucified in Jerusalem, indeed a such Jesus was totally unknown in Jerusalem".


In absence of alternative reasons for the editorial choice by the Fourth Gospel, I am inclined to think so, too.

[maryhelena]

• "For many deceivers are entered into the world,
  who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
  This is a deceiver and an antichrist." (2 John 1:7)

Pete

I'm not sure this NT text can be taken both ways. I don't know any Greek - but the wording is strange if the writer was attempting to discredit those who disbelieved a historical gospel Jesus existed.

MH

Another easter.

The writer calls such people (who refuse to say JC came in the flesh) "deceivers and antichrists". That's pretty heavy terms of discreditation. In fact by playing the antichrist card it seems to be that these "deceivers" were to be regarded as the pinnacle of (antichristian) heresy.

''Jesus Christ is come in the flesh' hardly seems to be an argument one would argue against a historical Jesus.

But the assertion in 2 John was that these (unnamed) people refused to believe that Jesus came in the flesh.

ie a human man born of a human woman. ''come in the flesh', seems to me, to refer to some theological notion of a spirit taking on flesh.

Like Julius Caesar or Augustus or Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Faltonia Betitia Proba "came in the flesh"? I see the expression as another way of saying such people were incarnated into (a human body) history. But we're all entitled to our own views. History in many aspects must remain hypothetical.

Thanks for reply, Pete

That is of course the problem - interpretating the NT words.
Actually, I doubt that the NT writers were writing about a historical, flesh and blood gospel Jesus.....they knew, just as any modern author knows what he/she is doing when creating stories. Ian Flemming knew his James Bond was created out of historical figures; his created figure was a literary composite - but readers are happy with the created figure and care little, if anything, of how Flemming created James Bond.
=============

Now that I think about it - James Bond and Ian Flemming - are a pretty good example of what has happened with the gospel Jesus story. The created literary figure of James Bond has had many actors play the part in movies. As the gospel Jesus historicsts have supplied many versions of their, assumed, historical Jesus figure - seditionist to pacifist - and many more inbetween....

Bond fashions have come and gone over the years as six actors have tried on the role. From Connery to Craig, the arc of the character has swung from droll menace to camp swagger and back again. His pose has softened and hardened with the times, ....
https://macleans.ca/culture/james-bond- ... he%20women.

[andrewcriddle]

Yes, Celsus makes some claim about the "real" biography of Jesus, but it is evident that these supposed "real facts" about Jesus are themselves just alternative imaginings derived from the Gospels.

"Let us imagine what a Jew- let alone a philosopher- might say to Jesus: 'Is it not true, good sir, that you fabricated the story of your birth from a virgin to quiet rumors about the true and unsavory circumstances of your origins? Is it not the case that far from being born in the royal David's city of Bethlehem, you were born in a poor country town, and of a woman who earned her living by spinning? Is it not the case that when her deceit was uncovered, to wit, that she was pregnant by a roman soldier called Panthera she was driven away by her husband- the carpenter- and convicted of adultery?"

"I could continue along these lines, suggesting a good deal about the affairs of Jesus' life that does not appear in your own records. Indeed, what I know to be the case and what the disciples tell are two very different stories... [for example] the nonsensical idea that Jesus foresaw everything that was to happen to him (an obvious attempt to conceal the humiliating facts)."

Out of interest, how is it evident that Celsus's information about Jesus that does not appear in Christian's records are just alternative imaginings derived from the Gospels?

He never says anything that is not based on the Gospel stories. HIs account of the birth is obviously derived from the Gospel stories. There is of course no reason to think those stories had any basis in fact, so only offering alternative versions of those same stories is nothing at all really. Saying, "His mother Mary was really just a whore who lied to her carpenter husband," isn't evidence of knowledge of alternative information, it is merely a denigrating interpretation of the espoused story.

"I could go on and on telling you things you don't know" (but I won't). Mean come on. He says nothing there. The one example that we are given is clearly just a logical rationalization of claims made in the Gospels. It's not evidence of "real knowledge" of the "real person" its someone offering a rational alternative to a fantastical story.

He didn't foretell his own death, the writers of his biography just made that up to hide the fact that he had no idea what was coming. Like saying, "I meant to do that" when you fall off your bike while trying to do a trick.

This is nothing more than the typical stuff people do today. Coming up with rational explanations for claims made in the stories. Its like when someone says, "Jesus didn't really 'walk on water', what actually happened was there was a freeze and he walked on ice, but people didn't realize it." That's not an alternative account of what really happened, that's just trying to come up with a rational explanation for how a claim made in the story could have literally happened and be scientifically explainable. That's all that Celsus ever does.

There are significant parallels between the account of Celsus' Jew and later anti-Christian Jewish material. This suggests that Celsus is in touch with actual Jewish tradition.

Andrew Criddle

[Giuseppe]

Where Celsus is very close to put implicitly in doubt the historicity of Jesus is when he raises the accusation that 'the doctrine is secret'. The only way a such claim can be interpreted as an accusation, is that the secret belief is radically different from the public belief, to the point of being a denial of it.
That just that is the implication (a denial of the exoteric belief), is made clear by the Origen's reply: how can the doctrine be secret, when all the world knows that Jesus was crucified on the earth?

Moreover, since he frequently calls the Christian doctrine a secret system (of belief), we must confute him on this point also, since almost the entire world is better acquainted with what Christians preach than with the favourite opinions of philosophers. For who is ignorant of the statement that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that He was crucified, and that His resurrection is an article of faith among many, and that a general judgment is announced to come, in which the wicked are to be punished according to their deserts, and the righteous to be duly rewarded? And yet the mystery of the resurrection, not being understood, is made a subject of ridicule among unbelievers. In these circumstances, to speak of the Christian doctrine as a secret system, is altogether absurd. But that there should be certain doctrines, not made known to the multitude, which are (revealed) after the exoteric ones have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric. Some of the hearers of Pythagoras were content with his ipse dixit; while others were taught in secret those doctrines which were not deemed fit to be communicated to profane and insufficiently prepared ears. Moreover, all the mysteries that are celebrated everywhere throughout Greece and barbarous countries, although held in secret, have no discredit thrown upon them, so that it is in vain that he endeavours to calumniate the secret doctrines of Christianity, seeing he does not correctly understand its nature.

[StephenGoranson]

Williams, A. Lukyn, Adversus Judaeos: a Bird's-eve View of Christian Apologiae Until the Renaissance (Cambridge: The University Press, 1935), as I recall, does not support the claim that the issue was whether Jesus existed.

[Giuseppe]

Williams, A. Lukyn, Adversus Judaeos: a Bird's-eve View of Christian Apologiae Until the Renaissance (Cambridge: The University Press, 1935), as I recall, does not support the claim that the issue was whether Jesus existed.

in the note of comment to 1:7 (in my Italian translation of Contra Celsum), the translator is in pain to prove that Celsus couldn't accuse the Christian doctrine of secrecy "when the same Celsus knew perfectly the Christian doctrine". But it is evident that he is reluctant to imply the logical implication: that Celsus was showing his doubts about the content of the official doctrine (including, inter alia, the claim that "Jesus was crucified") precisely in virtue of the accused secrecy of the doctrine.

People accuse an institution of secrecy (for example, talking about the existence of the Deep State) when they don't believe the public message by it. In this case, it is sufficient the claim: "The Deep State exists" as an act of accusation, and the inference is already visible even if not said: the official message is false.

[StephenGoranson]

If you think your argument about non-existence is persuasive (which I do not), why did you not present any previous such observer in support of your analysis? Or are you the first to finally see "truth"?