The Mythicist House of Cards
Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 6:39 am
----- author: "ANONYMOUS" ------
(Actually, some PMK guy on Usenet circa 1997... come a long way? or a long way down? you decide... )
By my napkin math, this makes the author approximately 16 years old, give or take a month...
It dates approximately 3-4 months after the author's moment of atheistic clarity.
I'm pretty sure the author plagiarized JP Holding a little itty bit, just looking over it again...
Seems unintentionally humorous, looking back at it now, considering... and the style is just awesome...
If nothing else it is a proof of the great amount of leftover baggage you can carry with you, even if you are actually a bona fide atheist.
The author's moment of skepticism of Jesus wouldn't come until 2001, after reading the website and first book of Earl Doherty.
After that, he took some time off to play video games as a hobby... the conclusion reached led almost immediately on to disinterest in the subject...
Sometime after that, he hid his old review of Doherty's book from his Earthlink website and returned to discussing these matters, but ambiguously.
Around 2006 he blipped off the radar again, and sometime after that, he found love (and marriage).
Only in the last few years has the full realization both of what he had learned, and of what that means he must do and say, more or less as an ethical imperative, set in. No longer could he conceal his best and most honest appraisal of the full extent of the evidence, just to better 'fit in' with the 'it' crowd, among whom he suspected that a great number would instantly demote him mentally for so much as the mere word (the reasons behind it would not matter) and subsequently regard his other opinions as generally being of less weight than otherwise.
Still hoping that might not be as true as he suspected... finding it only a little more true than he had hoped. Slowly, so slowly, the times do seem to be changing. The topic seems more open for discussion, in some circles where it might not have been on the docket. And I'm doing my part to see it that way.
---======<<<<<<< THE MYTHICIST HOUSE OF CARDS >>>>>>>======-----
A surprising number of atheists on these ngs subscribe to the mythicist
hypothesis that Jesus did not exist. Although they place themselves
with about 0.1% of scholarship on the historical Jesus with this
position, they are often surprisingly uncritical in their endorsement of
the theory. This paper is a critique of this theory and a defense of
the historical Jesus. A fuller treatment of the existence of Jesus
would involve much more detailed NT studies, of which mythicists in
particular seem woefully unaware. (I've even heard mythicists on this
ng date the NT later than A.D. 150, something no historian has done
since the turn of the century!)
After reading some of the mythicist literature, it seems that their
presentations generally take this form:
1. Make a shocking and provocative introduction about Jesus and
Christianity. Their ideas are radical and the mythicists know it. In
the real world of historical scholarship they are taken about as
seriously as those who say that Jesus spent time in India or any of a
number of fringe joke theories. Some mythicists hold positions as
ludicrous as that the NT was written by the Pisos or a first century
mushroom cult. This tiny band of pundits led by some professor of
German would hardly be given the time of day in an ancient history
department, thus they must pander to the masses.
The mythicist will often admit their deep anti-Christian bias in the
prologue. They will also often argue against the existence of Jesus
based on the assumption that Christianity is false. Just look at the
introduction to this popular essay:
"Despite the lack of evidence for Jesus's existence many Jews have made
the tragic mistake of assuming that the New Testament story is largely
correct and have tried to refute Christianity by attempting to
rationalize the various miracles that allegedly occured during Jesus's
life and after his death. Numerous books have been written which take
this approach to Christianity. This approach however is hopelessly
flawed and is in fact dangerous since it encourages belief in the New
Testament." (Hayyim ben Yehoshua, THE MYTH OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS,
gopher://shamash.org:70/00/judaica/answers/missionaries/mythj.txt)
This approach could hardly be called rational or intellectually honest.
We will deny that Jesus existed, not because Jesus didn't exist, but to
shut down Christianity? (It is interesting that Hayyim criticizes them
for the relatively minor "rationalization" that needs to be done to
dismiss of the miracle claims compared to the MAJOR rationalization that
needs to be done to dismiss not only of that but also of Jesus'
existence in the first place. Another hypocrisy: Why is belief in the
OT any better than belief in the NT? There is FAR more evidence for the
existence of Jesus than there is for people such as Moses.)
2. Take a "guilty until proven innocent" approach to history.
Mythicists almost never provide evidence *for* their ideas. Their
assumption is that Jesus didn't exist, and if it is in any way possible
to twist the data ad hoc so as to be consistent with their assumption,
the mythicist will consider their case made. However, history is
usually conducted in the exact *opposite* fashion: we consider some
document or reference within it reliable unless there is reason for
doubt. If modern historical scholarship would adopt the "guilty until
proven innocent" tact, the vast majority of accepted history would have
to be discarded. In the words of historian McEleney, the correct
principle in historical research is:
"...a presumption which one exercises in the reading of all history.
Without it no historiography, ancient or modern, would win acceptance.
Briefly, it is this, that one accepts a statement upon the word of the
reporter unless he has reason not to do so" (CBQ 34 (1972), p.446)
3. Go through each extra-Biblical reference and try to show that it is
possibly(!) a Xian interpolation or possibly(!) gathered from Xians,
thereby rendering it worthless(?) as evidence. Before the mythicist can
even get of the ground, s/he has to go through Josephus, Tacitus,
Suetonius, Mara Bar-Serapion, the Talmud, Pliny the Younger, Lucian,
Thallus, and Phlegon - and that's just among non-Christian writers!
(One would wonder why all this would even be necessary if Jesus'
non-existence were so obvious, or why the enemies of Christianity didn't
expose it for the fraud that it was instead of acknowledging the
existence of Jesus. I guess it's just one of those "mysteries."
Anyways...)
4. Marvel at the great "silence" of the mythicist's own making
concerning Jesus outside of Christian writings. Their premise is wrong,
there is plenty of extra-Biblical attestation to Jesus, in fact, a
surprising amount for the average cult leader IMO, but let us pretend
that there isn't. Arguments from silence are generally considered
rather weak in the first place. To even be half-decent, an argument
from silence must prove (1) that the author would have known about it if
it happened and (2) that the author would have written about it if he
had known about it. Neither is the case with Jesus. Jesus' ministry
took place entirely within Palestine, so it is unclear how the mythicist
expects most historians to have known about it. It is also unclear why
they think Jesus would be of great concern to non-Christians. You have
to wonder how much of a stir some mythicists would expect your average
cult leader to or how important they think Jesus would be to
non-Christians. To quote Harris' illustrative anecdote:
"Behind the call for additional non-Christian witnesses to the existence
of Jesus is the refusal to accept the testimony of the four writers we
do have. Should we reject the four because they are not forty? The
silence of the imaginary majority cannot overthrow the clear testimony
of the few. This demand for other witnesses reminds me of the anecdote
about a man accused of theft. At his trial the prosecuting attorney
brought forward four witnesses who saw him commit the crime, while the
defense attorney introduced as evidence fourteen persons who did not see
him do it. Needless to say, the man was found guilty!" (Harris, Murray.
3 Crucial Questions About Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994.)
4. Impugn the integrity of the New Testament record. This is generally
done by (A) trying to find discrepancies and errors, (B) trying to show
that the NT writers were biased and distorted the facts, (C) arguing
that the later evangelists simply drew on their predecessors and
embellished, and (D) trying to find parallels to the stories about Jesus
in non-Christian literature.
As for the discrepancies, my opinion is that they are generally minor
and easily resolvable. Such minor details certainly have no bearing as
to whether the gospels are based on a historical person. There is also
the unstated assumption that a reliable historical text must be
innerant. However, if this were the case, we would be forced to throw
out nearly all history!
In fact, I think that the amount of consistency in the gospels generally
points in the other direction: *towards* the gospels being based on a
historical person. For example, consider some of the "contradictions"
often brought forward, those between the infancy narratives of Luke and
Matthew. Luke and Matthew weren't copying off each other, they were
written around the same time in different places, nor did they draw on a
common source as far as we can tell (no infancy narrative in Mark). The
apparent minor discrepencies, such as who Joseph's father was, as well
as the different forms that they write their geneaologies in, and the
different things that they focus on, also are evidence against
collusion. So Matthew and Luke drew on different traditions concerning
Jesus that, while having slightly diverged from the facts over 50 years,
still remained basically the same (such as who Jesus' parents were,
generally where and when he was born, etc.). If the gospels were
exactly the same, THEN I would suspect that the evangelists made it up
amongst themselves years later. If the gospels flatly contradicted each
other on non-trivial points, THEN I would suspect that the evangelists
independently fabricated their stories. As it is, this is exactly what
we would expect from stories with a historical core.
As for the Christians being biased, "biased towards what?" If we were
arguing against the gospels as evidence of Jesus' divinity and miracles,
then this might be a decent argument: Jesus' followers were certainly
going to write favorably of him and the evangelists had a mission to
convert people to Jesus (Jn 20:31). But if Jesus never existed in the
first place, where did this bias come from? Before the movie came out,
were you biased towards writing a biography of Forrest Gump? Were you
biased towards writing about him growing up in Alabama, fighting in
Vietnam, playing tennis in China, shaking hands with the president,
etc.? Silly, right? So, if Jesus never existed in the first place, how
could the evangelists be biased towards writing about Jesus being born
in Palestine, preaching and gaining disciples, conducting the Last
Supper, being crucified under Pontius Pilate, etc.? It is funny to see
mythicists trip up time after time in their writings, often arguing, in
effect, that the evangelist had the fictional Jesus do something because
it sounds like something Jesus would do in the NT! Also, it should be
noted that bias has no connection with whether what they say is true or
not: one could just as easily be biased towards what is true as towards
what is false. Much of history, such as the Holocaust, is reconstructed
primarily from 'biased' authors. Some historians would maintain that
everyone is biased.
There is little in the way of cogent argument that the evangelists
simply expanded on their predecessors. There is just as much evidence
against it: (1) the earliest gospel, Mark, has many details that the
laters leave out, (2) John has many details that the synoptics don't,
making a strong argument that Johannine tradition is based an
independent eyewitness, (3) the contemporaneous gospels, Matthew and
Luke, share many of the same traditions while not in the exact same
details, and (4) the claims that the gospels make for themselves, such
as the prologue to Luke, suggests that the earlier gospels were only
used to round out other traditions that also go back to eyewitness
testimony.
I find that the parallels are largely wanting and crumble under close
inspection. Between any two religions, you can always find "parallels"
of universal things like light, life, death, rebirth, etc. Their vague
nature ("a dying and rising god") don't explain why the Christians
placed their 'fictional' Jesus in history, with reference to real people
and places, in great detail. Perhaps it is a lack of imagination, but I
can't see the author of Mark sitting there with myths from Egypt, India,
Greece, and all over the globe in front of him, carefully picking bits
of each to work into this "Jesus" character, deciding to make Jesus the
founder of their religion 40 years ago, deciding to make his ministry in
first century Palestine, deciding to have him visit this city and then
that, deciding to have him conduct the Last Supper, deciding to have him
tried by the Sanhedrin, deciding to have him crucified under Pontius
Pilate, deciding to have Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus, deciding to
have Mary Magdelene find the empty tomb (because he remembered something
about some Egyptian god getting chopped up and restored to life),
getting people to believe and spread this "Good News," and going to bed
to sleep at night! I never see data advanced that there was actual
borrowing, and to just show a parallel and conclude that one influenced
the other is a false cause fallacy. (EG, some credulous "skeptics" cite
the gods of Mexico!) Moreover, the alleged parallels often result from
liberal scholars uncritically describing pagan beliefs and practices in
Christian language and then marveling at the striking parallels they
think they've discovered. For a more detailed analysis on possible
pagan influence on Christianity, visit
http://christiananswers.net/summit/nash2.html
5. Engage in extravagant speculation concerning the origins of
Christianity and the NT instead of accepting the obvious conclusion that
they are based on a historical personage who founded Christianity more
or less as the NT records. More than any extra-Biblical references to
Jesus, the existence of the Church and the New Testament is powerful
prima facie evidence for the existence of Jesus. The complicated ideas
of mythicists easily fall prey to the principle of parsimony (a.k.a.
KISS or Occam's Razor).
Although mythicists try to date the NT as late as possible without
stretching credibility, they have been consistently refuted as we
learned more about the origins of the NT. Today the "upper bound" on
dating the gospels are A.D. 100 for John, A.D. 90 for Matthew and
Luke-Acts, and A.D. 70 for Mark. Many are even pushing to date the
gospels between A.D. 50 and 70. The people, oral tradition, and
probably shorter written sources (passion narratives, miracle stories,
collections of sayings, etc.) that the evangelists drew upon must have
been around for decades before then. The epistles (such as 1
Corinthians c. A.D. 56), which are generally dated even earlier than the
gospels, refer to Jesus' Davidic descent, life in the flesh, betrayal,
Last Supper, death, burial, Resurrection, appearances, ascension, and
other details. Paul's formula concerning the Resurrection (1Cor 15:3-7)
is a hymn that translates easily into Aramaic, is designed for
memorization, and dates within 6 years of Jesus' (alleged) death, when
Paul picked it up in Jerusalem at the time of his conversion (which we
know because of Acts and his writings and because it is too embarassing
for the Church to have made it up). As we shall see below, Tacitus and
Suetonius confirm the early existence of Christians, who were already in
Rome around as early as the 40s and 60s. So we see that believers in
Jesus go far back, within just a few years of Jesus' (alleged) death c.
A.D. 30.
There is no evidence that Christians existed before A.D. 30. All the
evidence we do have - from the New Testament, from Josephus, from
Tacitus, from everyon (below) - connects Christianity with the Christ
who preached in first-century Palestine and was crucified under Pontius
Pilate c. A.D. 30. The NT is replete with references to actual people
and places, making it very difficult to consider it all legend and
impossible to date the origins of (at least the vast majority of) the
traditions surrounding Jesus before A.D. 30. While rejecting the
existence of Jesus, mythicists generally accept the existence of many if
not most of the people referred to in the NT, such as Herod, Pontius
Pilate, the high priests, John the Baptist, James (brother of Jesus),
Paul, and other apostles (unless they are the kind of mythicist which is
just utterly ignorant or extremely skeptical of history). Just look at
how careful Luke is to situate events in history (Lk 3:1-2): "In the
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was
governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother
Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias
was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and
Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the
desert." (BTW, some skeptics once thought that Lysanias was a goof
because there was no independent confirmation of his existence, but
confirmation has been found. Better watch those arguments from
silence!) Jesus' ministry takes place, not in some mythical land of Oz,
but in first century Palestine. The geography and socio-political
atmosphere of the place and times is accurately portrayed in the
gospels.
So we see that, according to the mythicist hypothesis, people
mysteriously began telling stories about, preaching and living and dying
for, and converting others to a religion centered on a non-existent
person who supposedly lived only a few years earlier and that they had
allegedly lived with. Although the central figure of their beliefs was
entirely mythical, they carefully intertwined their stories with
accurate geography and actual people. After just a few decades (no more
than two generations), the traditions concerning this non-existent
figure comprised four fairly lengthy and largely consistent books, as
well as references in many letters. Commenting on Wells:
"The alternative thesis is that within thirty years there had evolved
such a coherent and consistent complex of traditions about a
non-existent figure such as we have in the sources of the Gospels is
just too implausible. It involves too many complex and speculative
hypotheses, in contrast to the much simpler explanation that there was a
Jesus who said and did more or less what the first three Gospels
attribute to him. The fact of Christianity's beginnings and the
character of its earliest tradition is such that we could only deny the
existence of Jesus by hypothesizing the existence of some other figure
who was a sufficient cause of Christianity's beginnings - another figure
who on careful reflection would probably come out very like Jesus!"
(Dunn, James G. D. The Evidence for Jesus. Louisville: Westminster,
1985.)
6. Go around claiming that Jesus certainly didn't exist and that anyone
who accepts his existence is an illogical idiot.
In addition to the most powerful NT evidence, which stands unless there
is an explanation more plausible than the existence of Jesus, I would
like to comment on Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Mara Bar-Serapion, and
the Talmud. I think that Josephus alone is enough to prove Jesus'
existence. The other references, while perhaps inconclusive in and of
themselves (although the evidence from Tacitus is very powerful, about
on par with Josephus), do provide a cumulative case for Jesus'
existence.
JOSEPHUS
There is an undisputed reference to Jesus in chapter 20 of Josephus'
_Antiquities_:
Antiquities 20.9.1. "But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received
the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring;
he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above
all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such
a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was
now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council
of judges, and brought it before the brother of Jesus the so-called
Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having
accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned."
Here are the reasons that this passage is considered authentic (rather
than a later Xian interpolation):
1. There is no reason to suspect this of being an interpolation. Thus,
according to the normal "innocent until proven guilty" approach to
history, this should be considered authentic.
2. Josephus' emphasis is not on Jesus or James, but on why Ananus was
deposed as high priest.
3. Josephus' account of James being stoned is different from the
account given by the church historian Hegesippus, who has James being
thrown from the roof of the Temple.
4. The designation "brother of Jesus" contrasts with Christian practice
of referring to James as the "brother of the Lord" (cf. Gal. 1:19;
Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 2.23.4).
5. The passage is found in the main Greek-manuscript edition of The
Antiquities without any notable variation.
6. The early fourth-century Church historian Eusebius quotes this
passage in his Ecclesiastical History (2.23.22)
7. Origen refers to this passage in his _Commentary_on_Matthew_ 10.17,
indicating that it was in Josephus prior to his time (about A.D. 200).
8. If a Xian was tampering with this passage, he would probably also
want to deny the charges against James.
9. If a Xian was tampering with this passage, he would probably take
the oppurtunity to assert the messiahship of Jesus more definitely.
10. The word Christ began to be used as a proper name very early among
Gentile Christians, but the phrase "called the Christ" betrays the use
of Christ as his proper name, and so probably reflects Jewish rather
than Christian usage.
11. The passages is not Christian. A Jew working under Romans would
have no problem making those statements.
12. Josephus is generally careful to supply details to locate his
characters in history. As James is a common name, if Josephus simply
referred to "James and certain others," one would be compelled to ask
"which James?" If Josephus simply said "James, the brother of Jesus,"
one would ask, "Which Jesus? You have already mentioned at least
thirteen others named Jesus." Josephus used more precise language in
saying "James, the brother of Jesus who is called the Christ," and there
is no reason to doubt the authenticity of this statement. Now, this
would seem to imply that the reader would be familiar with a certain
"Jesus who is called Christ" and that there would have been an earlier
reference to him. This draws our attention to chapter 18 and the
Testimonium Flavianum.
(If a DOZEN reasons aren't good enough for you, then we ought to reject
all of history as forgery!)
Antiquities 18.3.3. "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if
it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a
teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to
him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ,
and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had
condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not
forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the
divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful
things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are
not extinct at this day."
According to Feldman's discernible statistics (Feldman, Louis H.
Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984): 4
scholars regard the Testimonium Flavianum as completely genuine, 6 more
as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several
interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.
Here are some of the reasons for considering it authentic:
1. The passage is in all extant manuscripts of Antiquities. Eusubius
quotes it in his _History of the Church_, written A.D. 325, and again in
his _Demonstration of the Gospel_, written somewhat earlier.
2. The authenticity of the shorter passage lends further support to the
authenticity of the longer passage. The reference to "Jesus the
so-called Christ" presupposes an earlier reference; the Testimonium is
that reference.
3. According to the gospels, the Jews were primarily responsible for
Jesus' death. This tendency to blame the Jews and absolve the Romans of
the crime became even more apparent among second and third century
thought. (Some apocrypha would almost have us believe that Pilate
converted to Christianity!) However, Josephus says, "Pilate...had
condemned him to the cross." The Testimonium Flavianum lays the blame
on the Romans and does not mention anything about Jewish authorities
sentencing Jesus. The Jews are merely "the men of highest standing
among us" who made a "suggestion" to Pilate. It is difficult to explain
how the hands of a Christian interpolator near the time of Eusebius
would have left this intact.
4. Mason notes that "Christian copyists were quite conservative in
transmitting texts" and would have been committing "an act of
unparalleled scribal audacity" by creating the Testimonium out of the
whole cloth, without an original Josephan core (Mason, Steve. Josephus
and the New Testament. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1992). Moreover, Christian
copyists also handled the works of the Jewish historian Philo for
hundreds of years; yet we have no Testimonium Philoum to wrangle over!
5. The passage is mostly non-Christian. As we will see below, there is
only reason to suspect those parts of the passage that are Christian
("if it be lawful to call him a man," "He was the Messiah," and "for he
appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had
foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning
him"). Thus, according to the normal "innocent until proven guilty"
approach to history, the rest should be given the benefit of the doubt.
Josephus could easily have said positive things about Jesus without
accepting His divinity. It is clearly a wrong-headed approach to reject
all the nice things said about Jesus in the passage, which does not
appreciate the possibility that while some Jews followed Jesus
completely, others merely admired him "for his honesty, charisma, and
teachings." (Charlesworth, James H. - Jesus Within Judaism. New York:
Doubleday, 1988)
6. Much of the vocabulary and style matches that of Josephus. His
opening phrase, "Now about this time..." is used regularly to the point
of nausea. The description of Jesus as "a wise man" is not typically
Christian, but it is used by Josephus of, for example, Solomon and
Daniel. Similarly, Christians did not refer to Jesus' miracles as
"astonishing deeds" (paradoxa erga), but exactly the same expression is
used by Josephus of the miracles of Elisha. And the description of
Christians as a "tribe" (phylon) occurs nowhere in early Christian
literature, while Josephus uses the word both for the Jewish "race" and
for other national or communal groups.
Objection: Maybe a clever Xian interpolater copied the style?
This "objection" is a clear demonstration of what I said at the
beginning: the mythicist assumes that Jesus did not exist and twists
data ad hoc to fit the assumption. This kind of "meta-skepticism" is
impenetrable by design. Here the mythicist uses the "guilty until
proven innocent" fallacy not once, not twice, but three times! Consider
the exchange:
Anti-J: "Jesus doesn't exist."
Pro-J: "How do you know? Moreover, Josephus refers to Jesus in the
Testimonium Flavinium."
Anti-J: "That's all just a later Xian interpolation."
Pro-J: "How do you know? Moreover, the vocabulary and style matches
that of Josephus on several counts."
Anti-J: "The interpolater was clever enough to copy the style. Instead
of using his native vocabulary, he searched Josephus to find
corresponding words that, while rare in Christian circles, were used
frequently by Josephus. This is because he knew that centuries later
people would be analyzing this passage for style and vocabulary to see
if it matches that of Josephus instead of that of a Christian."
Pro-J: "How do you know? Moreover, you claim that our interpolater was
exceptionally brilliant and erudite, intimately familiar with the
nuances of Josephan vocabulary as compared to Christian, almost to the
point of having prophetic powers, and took great pains to elude even the
critical analysis of 20th century historians, but your own words betray
you. According to you, our master of interpolational skills, taking
every possible precaution against arising suspicion, also makes the
'obviously bogus' statement that 'He was the Messiah.' So much for that
theory."
There is only good reason to suspect the Christian parts mentioned, and
I consider them a double-edged sword, as some of them also undercut the
mythicist's position:
1. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a believing Jew working under
Romans, would have written, "This was the Messiah." This would make him
suspect of treason, but nowhere else is there an indication that he was
a Christian.
A. However, if this were true, then our style-copying interpolater above
would have been bright enough not to have written it down. Thus you
admit that the passage was originally authentic and, therefore, that
Jesus existed.
B. This puts another nail in the coffin in your already weak arguments
from silence. Even if a Jewish or Roman historian had indication that
Jesus was more than a man, it is unlikely that he would have written
that down, for exactly those reasons. And even if one did write it
down, wouldn't we be a might suspicious of that coming from a Jew or
Roman? Those that believed that Jesus was the Messiah would later be
called "Christians," so it is unfair to charge as evidence against His
existence that there are no non-Christian references to Jesus Christ.
That's almost a tautology.
2. Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that
Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."
A. I thought that mythicists didn't trust Christian writings.
B. The way that is phrased, "…as the Christ," seems to indicate that
Josephus believed in Jesus, just not as the Messiah. This is further
confirmation that Josephus originally had references to Jesus.
3. If the passage as we have it today was originally in Josephus, then
Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, or Origen would almost
certainly have quoted it for its tremendous apologetic value.
So we se that the Testimonium Flavinium has on original Josephan core
and probably embellishments by a Christian copyist. How did these
questionable phrases get into the Antiquities? Much as certain people
scribble "replies" in the margins of their books, so some scribe(s)
perhaps added the questionable phrases as commentary - and then they
were later carelessly incorporated into the text. (Meier, John P. - A
Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. New York: Doubleday,
1991. At this writing, in two volumes, with a third in the works. Volume
Two, dated 1994, differentiated by the addition of "2")
These phrases are almost certainly from our "sneaky" interpolater: "if
it be lawful to call him a man," "He was the Christ," and "for he
appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had
foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him."
The phrase "if it be lawful to call him a man" is parenthetically
connected to the narrative and grammatically free and could easily have
been inserted by a Christian. A Christian interpolator would have
considered the description of Jesus as merely "wise" to be insufficient,
and so would want to add something else. As for the other two, unless
Josephus was a Christian, there is no way he could have written that.
As we noted above, these phrases are probably from Josephus. "Now there
was about this time Jesus, a wise man": Josephus typically begins that
way, and the description of "a wise man" is also characteristic of
Josephus, not Christians. Josephus would have appreciated much of what
Jesus said and did without accepting his divinity, as do many today.
"Jesus argued against the zealous revolutionaries and was not an
apocalyptic fanatic; Jospehus would have admired this argument and
position. Jesus uttered many wise and philosophical maxims and Josephus
was fond of Jewish wisdom and of Greek philosophy" (Charlesworth, James
H. - Jesus Within Judaism. New York: Doubleday, 1988). Indeed, the
description of Jesus as a "wise man" is less than one would expect from
those who believed Him to be the incarnate Logos who rose bodily from
the dead on the third day. The phrase "for he was a doer of wonderful
works" is not necessarily Christian, and, as we noted above, the term
"paradoxa erga" is characteristic of Josephus, not Christians. The
Greek word paradoxos can mean strange, surprising, or wonderful.
Christian translators would naturally assume that Josephus meant the
latter, where he more likely meant the second or first. The second
phrase, "a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure" was
perhaps the subject of a mistranslation or change, replacing taethe
(unusual, strange) with talethe (truth). "He drew over to him both many
of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles" is a neutral observation. The
phrase "and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among
us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first
did not forsake him" is from Josephus because, as we noted above,
Christians were much more condemning of the Jews, while Josephus lays
the primary blame on Pilate. The phrase "And the tribe of Christians so
named from him are not extinct at this day" uses the word "phylon" for
tribe, which is also characteristic of Josephus, not Christians.
Thus I would suggest the follow reconstruction of the Testimonium
Flavianum: "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, [if it be
lawful to call him a man,] for he was a doer of strange works, a teacher
of such men as receive the unusual with pleasure. He drew over to him
both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. [He was the Christ,]
and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had
condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not
forsake him; [for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the
divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful
things concerning him]. And the tribe of Christians so named from him
are not extinct at this day."
Some bogus objections to our reconstruction:
1. It is a glowing description of Jesus as the Christ which no orthodox
Jew could have written.
This assumes that the Testimonium, as we now have it, could not be an
embellishment of an authentic core. But that is precisely the view that
most scholars and I defend. This objection is an example of too-extreme
black-and-white thinking about Jewish reaction to Jesus. On the one
hand, Origen noted that Josephus was not a Christian, so he could not
have written the passage with the questionable verses; on the other
hand, if it had been a hostile recounting, Origen probably would have
singled it out for rebuke (Feldman, Louis, ed. Josephus, Judaism, and
Christianity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987).
2. If Josephus had written this, and actually believed it, he would not
have restricted himself to a mere ten lines.
But Josephus only mentions John the Baptist once, at similar length, yet
no scholar argues that John the Baptist never existed because he is only
given a few lines in Josephus. Since John the Baptist was in many ways
a figure to Jesus, it's therefore arbitrary to apply this criticism to
Jesus. (Interestingly, G.A. Wells accepts the integrity of the John the
Baptist passage!)
3. The passage occurs out of context where Josephus is discussing the
misfortune of the Jews.
This is problematic. Even if the passage is out of context, that does
not imply that the passage is an interpolation. It was common for
ancient writers to insert extraneous texts or passages which seemingly
interrupt the flow of the narrative (whereas today the material would be
placed in a footnote):
"A further main reason why ancient historiography differed from its
modern counterparts was provided by digressions. They were far more
frequent in Greek and Roman writings than in our own. For one thing,
there was a simple technical explanation for such digressions. Nowadays
we have footnotes; the ancients did not, so that what would now be
relegated to a footnote had to appear in the text. But there was also a
deeper philosophical explanation. The Greek and Roman historians wanted
to supply background..." (Michael Grant, Greek & Roman Historians:
Information and Misinformation (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 53)
Moreover, as E. Mary Smallwood argues, this was particularly
characteristic of Josephus:
"One feature of Josephus' writing which may be disconcerting to the
modern reader and appear inartistic is the way in which at times the
narrative is proceeding at a spanking pace when it is unceremoniously
cut short by a paragraph or a longer passage of material unrelated or
only marginally related to the subject in hand, and then resumed equally
abruptly. Basically, these interruptions are of two types, with
different reasons behind them, and it may therefore be helpful if a word
is said here about the conventions of ancient historiography, which
differed considerably from ours.
"One type of interruption, such as a sudden move to another theatre of
war, occurs because ancient historians usually wrote
annalistically---literally, by years ...
"A quite different explanation lies behind other interruptions to the
flow of the narrative. The ancient world never invented those useful
lay-bys in which the modern author can park essential but intractable
material, and thus avoid breaking the main thread of his argument, the
footnote and the appendix ... what we relegate to notes and appendixes
appeared as digressions." (Josephus, "The Jewish Wars". Translated by
G.A. Williamson. Revised with introduction by E.
Mary Smallwood. Penguin Books, 1981, pp. 20-21)
I see no reason to believe the Testimonium occurs out of context. For
example, New Testament scholar R.T. France has argued that Josephus is
simply listing events that happened during or near Pilate's reign. And
Steve Mason thinks that Josephus is merely "trying to paint a picture of
escalating tension for Jews around the world." It is therefore unclear
why the Testimonium is "out of context."
Mason's exposition makes the picture quite clear. Here is the outline
of events under Pilate as given by Josephus:
* 18.35 Pilate arrives in Judea.
* 8.55-9 Pilate introduces imperial images in the Temple, causing a
ruckus.
* 18.60-2 Pilate expropriates Temple funds to build an aqueduct.
* 18.63-4 The Testimonium appears.
* 18.65-80 An event set in Rome, not involving Pilate directly, having
to do with the seduction of a follower of Isis in Rome.
* 18.81-4 An account of four Jewish scoundrels; also not directly
involving Pilate.
* 18.85-7 An incident involving Pilate and some Samaritans.
* 18.88-9 Pilate gets the imperial boot.
As can be seen, this is by no means a set of connected events. Pilate
has a role in all of them; but it is not even certain that Josephus is
giving these events in chronological order.
4. The passage was written so late (c. A.D. 93) that the authentic
material in the Testimonium could be based on the gospels.
This criticism seems multiply flawed. First, Josephus uses
distinctively non-Christian terminology, making it most improbable he
received his information from Christian sources. For example, `wise
man' is used of Solomon and Daniel as occult sages; `incredible deeds'
is not a Christian description of miracles; `worker' is a Greek
technical term for literary poet; etc. Second, it is unclear why
Josephus would have mentioned Jesus and Christianity at this point in
Antiquities at all "unless he was convinced that the career and
execution of Jesus was an actual event which occurred during the
governorship of Pilatus." And third, as a Jew who lived most of his
life in Palestine, Josephus was in a position where he could have the
means and motive to verify what he was told. Moreover, the rest of the
Antiquities does not support the claim that Josephus relied on
Christians for his information.
This line of reasoning is used in part by Wells, who claims that even if
he agreed that the Josephus passages were genuine, they would be "too
late to be of decisive importance"! As Harris points out, our best
references to the Emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) come from historians who
lived much later than he did (Tacitus, c. 115 AD; Suetonius, c. 120 AD;
Dio Cassius, 230 AD), so this is hardly reason to dismiss Josephus'
testimony concerning Jesus!
5. The passage does not appear until the fourth century.
If the Testimonium Flavianum contains Christian embellishments upon a
historical core, then the authentic version of this passage probably
would not have been very useful to the early church fathers before
Jesus. Assuming that contemporary reconstructions of the passage are
accurate, it is difficult to imagine why the early church fathers would
have cited such a passage. The original text probably did nothing more
than establish the historical Jesus. Since we have no evidence that the
historicity of Jesus was questioned in the first centuries, we should
not be surprised that the passage was never quoted until the fourth
century. This agrees with Origen's use of the passage, as noted above.
Indeed, this is a primary reason why the Jesus myth is not taken
seriously: we have no evidence that the historicity of Jesus was
questioned in the first centuries. Certainly if Jesus did not exist,
this would have been the first thing that opponents of Christianity -
especially those in the Jewish community - would have jumped on. Of
course, quasi-scholars like Wells would say that such arguments existed,
but they weren't written down, or Christians covered them up, or we
haven't found them yet. Such is the level of desperation the mythicists
go to - and it is yet another reason why their work is not taken
seriously even by most skeptics. And speaking of Wells, we have seen
how he deals with the Josephus passages: quite simply, to quote Meier,
the Josephus passages in Wells' work are "quickly and facilely dismissed
without detailed examination." Evaluations like this, from fair and
scholarly professionals like Meier, should give us pause before giving
any credibility to the Christ-mythicists led by some professor of
German.
[cont'd]
(Actually, some PMK guy on Usenet circa 1997... come a long way? or a long way down? you decide... )
By my napkin math, this makes the author approximately 16 years old, give or take a month...
It dates approximately 3-4 months after the author's moment of atheistic clarity.
I'm pretty sure the author plagiarized JP Holding a little itty bit, just looking over it again...
Seems unintentionally humorous, looking back at it now, considering... and the style is just awesome...
If nothing else it is a proof of the great amount of leftover baggage you can carry with you, even if you are actually a bona fide atheist.
The author's moment of skepticism of Jesus wouldn't come until 2001, after reading the website and first book of Earl Doherty.
After that, he took some time off to play video games as a hobby... the conclusion reached led almost immediately on to disinterest in the subject...
Sometime after that, he hid his old review of Doherty's book from his Earthlink website and returned to discussing these matters, but ambiguously.
Around 2006 he blipped off the radar again, and sometime after that, he found love (and marriage).
Only in the last few years has the full realization both of what he had learned, and of what that means he must do and say, more or less as an ethical imperative, set in. No longer could he conceal his best and most honest appraisal of the full extent of the evidence, just to better 'fit in' with the 'it' crowd, among whom he suspected that a great number would instantly demote him mentally for so much as the mere word (the reasons behind it would not matter) and subsequently regard his other opinions as generally being of less weight than otherwise.
Still hoping that might not be as true as he suspected... finding it only a little more true than he had hoped. Slowly, so slowly, the times do seem to be changing. The topic seems more open for discussion, in some circles where it might not have been on the docket. And I'm doing my part to see it that way.
---======<<<<<<< THE MYTHICIST HOUSE OF CARDS >>>>>>>======-----
A surprising number of atheists on these ngs subscribe to the mythicist
hypothesis that Jesus did not exist. Although they place themselves
with about 0.1% of scholarship on the historical Jesus with this
position, they are often surprisingly uncritical in their endorsement of
the theory. This paper is a critique of this theory and a defense of
the historical Jesus. A fuller treatment of the existence of Jesus
would involve much more detailed NT studies, of which mythicists in
particular seem woefully unaware. (I've even heard mythicists on this
ng date the NT later than A.D. 150, something no historian has done
since the turn of the century!)
After reading some of the mythicist literature, it seems that their
presentations generally take this form:
1. Make a shocking and provocative introduction about Jesus and
Christianity. Their ideas are radical and the mythicists know it. In
the real world of historical scholarship they are taken about as
seriously as those who say that Jesus spent time in India or any of a
number of fringe joke theories. Some mythicists hold positions as
ludicrous as that the NT was written by the Pisos or a first century
mushroom cult. This tiny band of pundits led by some professor of
German would hardly be given the time of day in an ancient history
department, thus they must pander to the masses.
The mythicist will often admit their deep anti-Christian bias in the
prologue. They will also often argue against the existence of Jesus
based on the assumption that Christianity is false. Just look at the
introduction to this popular essay:
"Despite the lack of evidence for Jesus's existence many Jews have made
the tragic mistake of assuming that the New Testament story is largely
correct and have tried to refute Christianity by attempting to
rationalize the various miracles that allegedly occured during Jesus's
life and after his death. Numerous books have been written which take
this approach to Christianity. This approach however is hopelessly
flawed and is in fact dangerous since it encourages belief in the New
Testament." (Hayyim ben Yehoshua, THE MYTH OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS,
gopher://shamash.org:70/00/judaica/answers/missionaries/mythj.txt)
This approach could hardly be called rational or intellectually honest.
We will deny that Jesus existed, not because Jesus didn't exist, but to
shut down Christianity? (It is interesting that Hayyim criticizes them
for the relatively minor "rationalization" that needs to be done to
dismiss of the miracle claims compared to the MAJOR rationalization that
needs to be done to dismiss not only of that but also of Jesus'
existence in the first place. Another hypocrisy: Why is belief in the
OT any better than belief in the NT? There is FAR more evidence for the
existence of Jesus than there is for people such as Moses.)
2. Take a "guilty until proven innocent" approach to history.
Mythicists almost never provide evidence *for* their ideas. Their
assumption is that Jesus didn't exist, and if it is in any way possible
to twist the data ad hoc so as to be consistent with their assumption,
the mythicist will consider their case made. However, history is
usually conducted in the exact *opposite* fashion: we consider some
document or reference within it reliable unless there is reason for
doubt. If modern historical scholarship would adopt the "guilty until
proven innocent" tact, the vast majority of accepted history would have
to be discarded. In the words of historian McEleney, the correct
principle in historical research is:
"...a presumption which one exercises in the reading of all history.
Without it no historiography, ancient or modern, would win acceptance.
Briefly, it is this, that one accepts a statement upon the word of the
reporter unless he has reason not to do so" (CBQ 34 (1972), p.446)
3. Go through each extra-Biblical reference and try to show that it is
possibly(!) a Xian interpolation or possibly(!) gathered from Xians,
thereby rendering it worthless(?) as evidence. Before the mythicist can
even get of the ground, s/he has to go through Josephus, Tacitus,
Suetonius, Mara Bar-Serapion, the Talmud, Pliny the Younger, Lucian,
Thallus, and Phlegon - and that's just among non-Christian writers!
(One would wonder why all this would even be necessary if Jesus'
non-existence were so obvious, or why the enemies of Christianity didn't
expose it for the fraud that it was instead of acknowledging the
existence of Jesus. I guess it's just one of those "mysteries."
Anyways...)
4. Marvel at the great "silence" of the mythicist's own making
concerning Jesus outside of Christian writings. Their premise is wrong,
there is plenty of extra-Biblical attestation to Jesus, in fact, a
surprising amount for the average cult leader IMO, but let us pretend
that there isn't. Arguments from silence are generally considered
rather weak in the first place. To even be half-decent, an argument
from silence must prove (1) that the author would have known about it if
it happened and (2) that the author would have written about it if he
had known about it. Neither is the case with Jesus. Jesus' ministry
took place entirely within Palestine, so it is unclear how the mythicist
expects most historians to have known about it. It is also unclear why
they think Jesus would be of great concern to non-Christians. You have
to wonder how much of a stir some mythicists would expect your average
cult leader to or how important they think Jesus would be to
non-Christians. To quote Harris' illustrative anecdote:
"Behind the call for additional non-Christian witnesses to the existence
of Jesus is the refusal to accept the testimony of the four writers we
do have. Should we reject the four because they are not forty? The
silence of the imaginary majority cannot overthrow the clear testimony
of the few. This demand for other witnesses reminds me of the anecdote
about a man accused of theft. At his trial the prosecuting attorney
brought forward four witnesses who saw him commit the crime, while the
defense attorney introduced as evidence fourteen persons who did not see
him do it. Needless to say, the man was found guilty!" (Harris, Murray.
3 Crucial Questions About Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994.)
4. Impugn the integrity of the New Testament record. This is generally
done by (A) trying to find discrepancies and errors, (B) trying to show
that the NT writers were biased and distorted the facts, (C) arguing
that the later evangelists simply drew on their predecessors and
embellished, and (D) trying to find parallels to the stories about Jesus
in non-Christian literature.
As for the discrepancies, my opinion is that they are generally minor
and easily resolvable. Such minor details certainly have no bearing as
to whether the gospels are based on a historical person. There is also
the unstated assumption that a reliable historical text must be
innerant. However, if this were the case, we would be forced to throw
out nearly all history!
In fact, I think that the amount of consistency in the gospels generally
points in the other direction: *towards* the gospels being based on a
historical person. For example, consider some of the "contradictions"
often brought forward, those between the infancy narratives of Luke and
Matthew. Luke and Matthew weren't copying off each other, they were
written around the same time in different places, nor did they draw on a
common source as far as we can tell (no infancy narrative in Mark). The
apparent minor discrepencies, such as who Joseph's father was, as well
as the different forms that they write their geneaologies in, and the
different things that they focus on, also are evidence against
collusion. So Matthew and Luke drew on different traditions concerning
Jesus that, while having slightly diverged from the facts over 50 years,
still remained basically the same (such as who Jesus' parents were,
generally where and when he was born, etc.). If the gospels were
exactly the same, THEN I would suspect that the evangelists made it up
amongst themselves years later. If the gospels flatly contradicted each
other on non-trivial points, THEN I would suspect that the evangelists
independently fabricated their stories. As it is, this is exactly what
we would expect from stories with a historical core.
As for the Christians being biased, "biased towards what?" If we were
arguing against the gospels as evidence of Jesus' divinity and miracles,
then this might be a decent argument: Jesus' followers were certainly
going to write favorably of him and the evangelists had a mission to
convert people to Jesus (Jn 20:31). But if Jesus never existed in the
first place, where did this bias come from? Before the movie came out,
were you biased towards writing a biography of Forrest Gump? Were you
biased towards writing about him growing up in Alabama, fighting in
Vietnam, playing tennis in China, shaking hands with the president,
etc.? Silly, right? So, if Jesus never existed in the first place, how
could the evangelists be biased towards writing about Jesus being born
in Palestine, preaching and gaining disciples, conducting the Last
Supper, being crucified under Pontius Pilate, etc.? It is funny to see
mythicists trip up time after time in their writings, often arguing, in
effect, that the evangelist had the fictional Jesus do something because
it sounds like something Jesus would do in the NT! Also, it should be
noted that bias has no connection with whether what they say is true or
not: one could just as easily be biased towards what is true as towards
what is false. Much of history, such as the Holocaust, is reconstructed
primarily from 'biased' authors. Some historians would maintain that
everyone is biased.
There is little in the way of cogent argument that the evangelists
simply expanded on their predecessors. There is just as much evidence
against it: (1) the earliest gospel, Mark, has many details that the
laters leave out, (2) John has many details that the synoptics don't,
making a strong argument that Johannine tradition is based an
independent eyewitness, (3) the contemporaneous gospels, Matthew and
Luke, share many of the same traditions while not in the exact same
details, and (4) the claims that the gospels make for themselves, such
as the prologue to Luke, suggests that the earlier gospels were only
used to round out other traditions that also go back to eyewitness
testimony.
I find that the parallels are largely wanting and crumble under close
inspection. Between any two religions, you can always find "parallels"
of universal things like light, life, death, rebirth, etc. Their vague
nature ("a dying and rising god") don't explain why the Christians
placed their 'fictional' Jesus in history, with reference to real people
and places, in great detail. Perhaps it is a lack of imagination, but I
can't see the author of Mark sitting there with myths from Egypt, India,
Greece, and all over the globe in front of him, carefully picking bits
of each to work into this "Jesus" character, deciding to make Jesus the
founder of their religion 40 years ago, deciding to make his ministry in
first century Palestine, deciding to have him visit this city and then
that, deciding to have him conduct the Last Supper, deciding to have him
tried by the Sanhedrin, deciding to have him crucified under Pontius
Pilate, deciding to have Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus, deciding to
have Mary Magdelene find the empty tomb (because he remembered something
about some Egyptian god getting chopped up and restored to life),
getting people to believe and spread this "Good News," and going to bed
to sleep at night! I never see data advanced that there was actual
borrowing, and to just show a parallel and conclude that one influenced
the other is a false cause fallacy. (EG, some credulous "skeptics" cite
the gods of Mexico!) Moreover, the alleged parallels often result from
liberal scholars uncritically describing pagan beliefs and practices in
Christian language and then marveling at the striking parallels they
think they've discovered. For a more detailed analysis on possible
pagan influence on Christianity, visit
http://christiananswers.net/summit/nash2.html
5. Engage in extravagant speculation concerning the origins of
Christianity and the NT instead of accepting the obvious conclusion that
they are based on a historical personage who founded Christianity more
or less as the NT records. More than any extra-Biblical references to
Jesus, the existence of the Church and the New Testament is powerful
prima facie evidence for the existence of Jesus. The complicated ideas
of mythicists easily fall prey to the principle of parsimony (a.k.a.
KISS or Occam's Razor).
Although mythicists try to date the NT as late as possible without
stretching credibility, they have been consistently refuted as we
learned more about the origins of the NT. Today the "upper bound" on
dating the gospels are A.D. 100 for John, A.D. 90 for Matthew and
Luke-Acts, and A.D. 70 for Mark. Many are even pushing to date the
gospels between A.D. 50 and 70. The people, oral tradition, and
probably shorter written sources (passion narratives, miracle stories,
collections of sayings, etc.) that the evangelists drew upon must have
been around for decades before then. The epistles (such as 1
Corinthians c. A.D. 56), which are generally dated even earlier than the
gospels, refer to Jesus' Davidic descent, life in the flesh, betrayal,
Last Supper, death, burial, Resurrection, appearances, ascension, and
other details. Paul's formula concerning the Resurrection (1Cor 15:3-7)
is a hymn that translates easily into Aramaic, is designed for
memorization, and dates within 6 years of Jesus' (alleged) death, when
Paul picked it up in Jerusalem at the time of his conversion (which we
know because of Acts and his writings and because it is too embarassing
for the Church to have made it up). As we shall see below, Tacitus and
Suetonius confirm the early existence of Christians, who were already in
Rome around as early as the 40s and 60s. So we see that believers in
Jesus go far back, within just a few years of Jesus' (alleged) death c.
A.D. 30.
There is no evidence that Christians existed before A.D. 30. All the
evidence we do have - from the New Testament, from Josephus, from
Tacitus, from everyon (below) - connects Christianity with the Christ
who preached in first-century Palestine and was crucified under Pontius
Pilate c. A.D. 30. The NT is replete with references to actual people
and places, making it very difficult to consider it all legend and
impossible to date the origins of (at least the vast majority of) the
traditions surrounding Jesus before A.D. 30. While rejecting the
existence of Jesus, mythicists generally accept the existence of many if
not most of the people referred to in the NT, such as Herod, Pontius
Pilate, the high priests, John the Baptist, James (brother of Jesus),
Paul, and other apostles (unless they are the kind of mythicist which is
just utterly ignorant or extremely skeptical of history). Just look at
how careful Luke is to situate events in history (Lk 3:1-2): "In the
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was
governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother
Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias
was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and
Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the
desert." (BTW, some skeptics once thought that Lysanias was a goof
because there was no independent confirmation of his existence, but
confirmation has been found. Better watch those arguments from
silence!) Jesus' ministry takes place, not in some mythical land of Oz,
but in first century Palestine. The geography and socio-political
atmosphere of the place and times is accurately portrayed in the
gospels.
So we see that, according to the mythicist hypothesis, people
mysteriously began telling stories about, preaching and living and dying
for, and converting others to a religion centered on a non-existent
person who supposedly lived only a few years earlier and that they had
allegedly lived with. Although the central figure of their beliefs was
entirely mythical, they carefully intertwined their stories with
accurate geography and actual people. After just a few decades (no more
than two generations), the traditions concerning this non-existent
figure comprised four fairly lengthy and largely consistent books, as
well as references in many letters. Commenting on Wells:
"The alternative thesis is that within thirty years there had evolved
such a coherent and consistent complex of traditions about a
non-existent figure such as we have in the sources of the Gospels is
just too implausible. It involves too many complex and speculative
hypotheses, in contrast to the much simpler explanation that there was a
Jesus who said and did more or less what the first three Gospels
attribute to him. The fact of Christianity's beginnings and the
character of its earliest tradition is such that we could only deny the
existence of Jesus by hypothesizing the existence of some other figure
who was a sufficient cause of Christianity's beginnings - another figure
who on careful reflection would probably come out very like Jesus!"
(Dunn, James G. D. The Evidence for Jesus. Louisville: Westminster,
1985.)
6. Go around claiming that Jesus certainly didn't exist and that anyone
who accepts his existence is an illogical idiot.
In addition to the most powerful NT evidence, which stands unless there
is an explanation more plausible than the existence of Jesus, I would
like to comment on Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Mara Bar-Serapion, and
the Talmud. I think that Josephus alone is enough to prove Jesus'
existence. The other references, while perhaps inconclusive in and of
themselves (although the evidence from Tacitus is very powerful, about
on par with Josephus), do provide a cumulative case for Jesus'
existence.
JOSEPHUS
There is an undisputed reference to Jesus in chapter 20 of Josephus'
_Antiquities_:
Antiquities 20.9.1. "But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received
the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring;
he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above
all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such
a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was
now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council
of judges, and brought it before the brother of Jesus the so-called
Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having
accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned."
Here are the reasons that this passage is considered authentic (rather
than a later Xian interpolation):
1. There is no reason to suspect this of being an interpolation. Thus,
according to the normal "innocent until proven guilty" approach to
history, this should be considered authentic.
2. Josephus' emphasis is not on Jesus or James, but on why Ananus was
deposed as high priest.
3. Josephus' account of James being stoned is different from the
account given by the church historian Hegesippus, who has James being
thrown from the roof of the Temple.
4. The designation "brother of Jesus" contrasts with Christian practice
of referring to James as the "brother of the Lord" (cf. Gal. 1:19;
Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 2.23.4).
5. The passage is found in the main Greek-manuscript edition of The
Antiquities without any notable variation.
6. The early fourth-century Church historian Eusebius quotes this
passage in his Ecclesiastical History (2.23.22)
7. Origen refers to this passage in his _Commentary_on_Matthew_ 10.17,
indicating that it was in Josephus prior to his time (about A.D. 200).
8. If a Xian was tampering with this passage, he would probably also
want to deny the charges against James.
9. If a Xian was tampering with this passage, he would probably take
the oppurtunity to assert the messiahship of Jesus more definitely.
10. The word Christ began to be used as a proper name very early among
Gentile Christians, but the phrase "called the Christ" betrays the use
of Christ as his proper name, and so probably reflects Jewish rather
than Christian usage.
11. The passages is not Christian. A Jew working under Romans would
have no problem making those statements.
12. Josephus is generally careful to supply details to locate his
characters in history. As James is a common name, if Josephus simply
referred to "James and certain others," one would be compelled to ask
"which James?" If Josephus simply said "James, the brother of Jesus,"
one would ask, "Which Jesus? You have already mentioned at least
thirteen others named Jesus." Josephus used more precise language in
saying "James, the brother of Jesus who is called the Christ," and there
is no reason to doubt the authenticity of this statement. Now, this
would seem to imply that the reader would be familiar with a certain
"Jesus who is called Christ" and that there would have been an earlier
reference to him. This draws our attention to chapter 18 and the
Testimonium Flavianum.
(If a DOZEN reasons aren't good enough for you, then we ought to reject
all of history as forgery!)
Antiquities 18.3.3. "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if
it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a
teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to
him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ,
and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had
condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not
forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the
divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful
things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are
not extinct at this day."
According to Feldman's discernible statistics (Feldman, Louis H.
Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984): 4
scholars regard the Testimonium Flavianum as completely genuine, 6 more
as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several
interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.
Here are some of the reasons for considering it authentic:
1. The passage is in all extant manuscripts of Antiquities. Eusubius
quotes it in his _History of the Church_, written A.D. 325, and again in
his _Demonstration of the Gospel_, written somewhat earlier.
2. The authenticity of the shorter passage lends further support to the
authenticity of the longer passage. The reference to "Jesus the
so-called Christ" presupposes an earlier reference; the Testimonium is
that reference.
3. According to the gospels, the Jews were primarily responsible for
Jesus' death. This tendency to blame the Jews and absolve the Romans of
the crime became even more apparent among second and third century
thought. (Some apocrypha would almost have us believe that Pilate
converted to Christianity!) However, Josephus says, "Pilate...had
condemned him to the cross." The Testimonium Flavianum lays the blame
on the Romans and does not mention anything about Jewish authorities
sentencing Jesus. The Jews are merely "the men of highest standing
among us" who made a "suggestion" to Pilate. It is difficult to explain
how the hands of a Christian interpolator near the time of Eusebius
would have left this intact.
4. Mason notes that "Christian copyists were quite conservative in
transmitting texts" and would have been committing "an act of
unparalleled scribal audacity" by creating the Testimonium out of the
whole cloth, without an original Josephan core (Mason, Steve. Josephus
and the New Testament. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1992). Moreover, Christian
copyists also handled the works of the Jewish historian Philo for
hundreds of years; yet we have no Testimonium Philoum to wrangle over!
5. The passage is mostly non-Christian. As we will see below, there is
only reason to suspect those parts of the passage that are Christian
("if it be lawful to call him a man," "He was the Messiah," and "for he
appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had
foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning
him"). Thus, according to the normal "innocent until proven guilty"
approach to history, the rest should be given the benefit of the doubt.
Josephus could easily have said positive things about Jesus without
accepting His divinity. It is clearly a wrong-headed approach to reject
all the nice things said about Jesus in the passage, which does not
appreciate the possibility that while some Jews followed Jesus
completely, others merely admired him "for his honesty, charisma, and
teachings." (Charlesworth, James H. - Jesus Within Judaism. New York:
Doubleday, 1988)
6. Much of the vocabulary and style matches that of Josephus. His
opening phrase, "Now about this time..." is used regularly to the point
of nausea. The description of Jesus as "a wise man" is not typically
Christian, but it is used by Josephus of, for example, Solomon and
Daniel. Similarly, Christians did not refer to Jesus' miracles as
"astonishing deeds" (paradoxa erga), but exactly the same expression is
used by Josephus of the miracles of Elisha. And the description of
Christians as a "tribe" (phylon) occurs nowhere in early Christian
literature, while Josephus uses the word both for the Jewish "race" and
for other national or communal groups.
Objection: Maybe a clever Xian interpolater copied the style?
This "objection" is a clear demonstration of what I said at the
beginning: the mythicist assumes that Jesus did not exist and twists
data ad hoc to fit the assumption. This kind of "meta-skepticism" is
impenetrable by design. Here the mythicist uses the "guilty until
proven innocent" fallacy not once, not twice, but three times! Consider
the exchange:
Anti-J: "Jesus doesn't exist."
Pro-J: "How do you know? Moreover, Josephus refers to Jesus in the
Testimonium Flavinium."
Anti-J: "That's all just a later Xian interpolation."
Pro-J: "How do you know? Moreover, the vocabulary and style matches
that of Josephus on several counts."
Anti-J: "The interpolater was clever enough to copy the style. Instead
of using his native vocabulary, he searched Josephus to find
corresponding words that, while rare in Christian circles, were used
frequently by Josephus. This is because he knew that centuries later
people would be analyzing this passage for style and vocabulary to see
if it matches that of Josephus instead of that of a Christian."
Pro-J: "How do you know? Moreover, you claim that our interpolater was
exceptionally brilliant and erudite, intimately familiar with the
nuances of Josephan vocabulary as compared to Christian, almost to the
point of having prophetic powers, and took great pains to elude even the
critical analysis of 20th century historians, but your own words betray
you. According to you, our master of interpolational skills, taking
every possible precaution against arising suspicion, also makes the
'obviously bogus' statement that 'He was the Messiah.' So much for that
theory."
There is only good reason to suspect the Christian parts mentioned, and
I consider them a double-edged sword, as some of them also undercut the
mythicist's position:
1. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a believing Jew working under
Romans, would have written, "This was the Messiah." This would make him
suspect of treason, but nowhere else is there an indication that he was
a Christian.
A. However, if this were true, then our style-copying interpolater above
would have been bright enough not to have written it down. Thus you
admit that the passage was originally authentic and, therefore, that
Jesus existed.
B. This puts another nail in the coffin in your already weak arguments
from silence. Even if a Jewish or Roman historian had indication that
Jesus was more than a man, it is unlikely that he would have written
that down, for exactly those reasons. And even if one did write it
down, wouldn't we be a might suspicious of that coming from a Jew or
Roman? Those that believed that Jesus was the Messiah would later be
called "Christians," so it is unfair to charge as evidence against His
existence that there are no non-Christian references to Jesus Christ.
That's almost a tautology.
2. Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that
Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."
A. I thought that mythicists didn't trust Christian writings.
B. The way that is phrased, "…as the Christ," seems to indicate that
Josephus believed in Jesus, just not as the Messiah. This is further
confirmation that Josephus originally had references to Jesus.
3. If the passage as we have it today was originally in Josephus, then
Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, or Origen would almost
certainly have quoted it for its tremendous apologetic value.
So we se that the Testimonium Flavinium has on original Josephan core
and probably embellishments by a Christian copyist. How did these
questionable phrases get into the Antiquities? Much as certain people
scribble "replies" in the margins of their books, so some scribe(s)
perhaps added the questionable phrases as commentary - and then they
were later carelessly incorporated into the text. (Meier, John P. - A
Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. New York: Doubleday,
1991. At this writing, in two volumes, with a third in the works. Volume
Two, dated 1994, differentiated by the addition of "2")
These phrases are almost certainly from our "sneaky" interpolater: "if
it be lawful to call him a man," "He was the Christ," and "for he
appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had
foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him."
The phrase "if it be lawful to call him a man" is parenthetically
connected to the narrative and grammatically free and could easily have
been inserted by a Christian. A Christian interpolator would have
considered the description of Jesus as merely "wise" to be insufficient,
and so would want to add something else. As for the other two, unless
Josephus was a Christian, there is no way he could have written that.
As we noted above, these phrases are probably from Josephus. "Now there
was about this time Jesus, a wise man": Josephus typically begins that
way, and the description of "a wise man" is also characteristic of
Josephus, not Christians. Josephus would have appreciated much of what
Jesus said and did without accepting his divinity, as do many today.
"Jesus argued against the zealous revolutionaries and was not an
apocalyptic fanatic; Jospehus would have admired this argument and
position. Jesus uttered many wise and philosophical maxims and Josephus
was fond of Jewish wisdom and of Greek philosophy" (Charlesworth, James
H. - Jesus Within Judaism. New York: Doubleday, 1988). Indeed, the
description of Jesus as a "wise man" is less than one would expect from
those who believed Him to be the incarnate Logos who rose bodily from
the dead on the third day. The phrase "for he was a doer of wonderful
works" is not necessarily Christian, and, as we noted above, the term
"paradoxa erga" is characteristic of Josephus, not Christians. The
Greek word paradoxos can mean strange, surprising, or wonderful.
Christian translators would naturally assume that Josephus meant the
latter, where he more likely meant the second or first. The second
phrase, "a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure" was
perhaps the subject of a mistranslation or change, replacing taethe
(unusual, strange) with talethe (truth). "He drew over to him both many
of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles" is a neutral observation. The
phrase "and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among
us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first
did not forsake him" is from Josephus because, as we noted above,
Christians were much more condemning of the Jews, while Josephus lays
the primary blame on Pilate. The phrase "And the tribe of Christians so
named from him are not extinct at this day" uses the word "phylon" for
tribe, which is also characteristic of Josephus, not Christians.
Thus I would suggest the follow reconstruction of the Testimonium
Flavianum: "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, [if it be
lawful to call him a man,] for he was a doer of strange works, a teacher
of such men as receive the unusual with pleasure. He drew over to him
both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. [He was the Christ,]
and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had
condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not
forsake him; [for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the
divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful
things concerning him]. And the tribe of Christians so named from him
are not extinct at this day."
Some bogus objections to our reconstruction:
1. It is a glowing description of Jesus as the Christ which no orthodox
Jew could have written.
This assumes that the Testimonium, as we now have it, could not be an
embellishment of an authentic core. But that is precisely the view that
most scholars and I defend. This objection is an example of too-extreme
black-and-white thinking about Jewish reaction to Jesus. On the one
hand, Origen noted that Josephus was not a Christian, so he could not
have written the passage with the questionable verses; on the other
hand, if it had been a hostile recounting, Origen probably would have
singled it out for rebuke (Feldman, Louis, ed. Josephus, Judaism, and
Christianity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987).
2. If Josephus had written this, and actually believed it, he would not
have restricted himself to a mere ten lines.
But Josephus only mentions John the Baptist once, at similar length, yet
no scholar argues that John the Baptist never existed because he is only
given a few lines in Josephus. Since John the Baptist was in many ways
a figure to Jesus, it's therefore arbitrary to apply this criticism to
Jesus. (Interestingly, G.A. Wells accepts the integrity of the John the
Baptist passage!)
3. The passage occurs out of context where Josephus is discussing the
misfortune of the Jews.
This is problematic. Even if the passage is out of context, that does
not imply that the passage is an interpolation. It was common for
ancient writers to insert extraneous texts or passages which seemingly
interrupt the flow of the narrative (whereas today the material would be
placed in a footnote):
"A further main reason why ancient historiography differed from its
modern counterparts was provided by digressions. They were far more
frequent in Greek and Roman writings than in our own. For one thing,
there was a simple technical explanation for such digressions. Nowadays
we have footnotes; the ancients did not, so that what would now be
relegated to a footnote had to appear in the text. But there was also a
deeper philosophical explanation. The Greek and Roman historians wanted
to supply background..." (Michael Grant, Greek & Roman Historians:
Information and Misinformation (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 53)
Moreover, as E. Mary Smallwood argues, this was particularly
characteristic of Josephus:
"One feature of Josephus' writing which may be disconcerting to the
modern reader and appear inartistic is the way in which at times the
narrative is proceeding at a spanking pace when it is unceremoniously
cut short by a paragraph or a longer passage of material unrelated or
only marginally related to the subject in hand, and then resumed equally
abruptly. Basically, these interruptions are of two types, with
different reasons behind them, and it may therefore be helpful if a word
is said here about the conventions of ancient historiography, which
differed considerably from ours.
"One type of interruption, such as a sudden move to another theatre of
war, occurs because ancient historians usually wrote
annalistically---literally, by years ...
"A quite different explanation lies behind other interruptions to the
flow of the narrative. The ancient world never invented those useful
lay-bys in which the modern author can park essential but intractable
material, and thus avoid breaking the main thread of his argument, the
footnote and the appendix ... what we relegate to notes and appendixes
appeared as digressions." (Josephus, "The Jewish Wars". Translated by
G.A. Williamson. Revised with introduction by E.
Mary Smallwood. Penguin Books, 1981, pp. 20-21)
I see no reason to believe the Testimonium occurs out of context. For
example, New Testament scholar R.T. France has argued that Josephus is
simply listing events that happened during or near Pilate's reign. And
Steve Mason thinks that Josephus is merely "trying to paint a picture of
escalating tension for Jews around the world." It is therefore unclear
why the Testimonium is "out of context."
Mason's exposition makes the picture quite clear. Here is the outline
of events under Pilate as given by Josephus:
* 18.35 Pilate arrives in Judea.
* 8.55-9 Pilate introduces imperial images in the Temple, causing a
ruckus.
* 18.60-2 Pilate expropriates Temple funds to build an aqueduct.
* 18.63-4 The Testimonium appears.
* 18.65-80 An event set in Rome, not involving Pilate directly, having
to do with the seduction of a follower of Isis in Rome.
* 18.81-4 An account of four Jewish scoundrels; also not directly
involving Pilate.
* 18.85-7 An incident involving Pilate and some Samaritans.
* 18.88-9 Pilate gets the imperial boot.
As can be seen, this is by no means a set of connected events. Pilate
has a role in all of them; but it is not even certain that Josephus is
giving these events in chronological order.
4. The passage was written so late (c. A.D. 93) that the authentic
material in the Testimonium could be based on the gospels.
This criticism seems multiply flawed. First, Josephus uses
distinctively non-Christian terminology, making it most improbable he
received his information from Christian sources. For example, `wise
man' is used of Solomon and Daniel as occult sages; `incredible deeds'
is not a Christian description of miracles; `worker' is a Greek
technical term for literary poet; etc. Second, it is unclear why
Josephus would have mentioned Jesus and Christianity at this point in
Antiquities at all "unless he was convinced that the career and
execution of Jesus was an actual event which occurred during the
governorship of Pilatus." And third, as a Jew who lived most of his
life in Palestine, Josephus was in a position where he could have the
means and motive to verify what he was told. Moreover, the rest of the
Antiquities does not support the claim that Josephus relied on
Christians for his information.
This line of reasoning is used in part by Wells, who claims that even if
he agreed that the Josephus passages were genuine, they would be "too
late to be of decisive importance"! As Harris points out, our best
references to the Emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) come from historians who
lived much later than he did (Tacitus, c. 115 AD; Suetonius, c. 120 AD;
Dio Cassius, 230 AD), so this is hardly reason to dismiss Josephus'
testimony concerning Jesus!
5. The passage does not appear until the fourth century.
If the Testimonium Flavianum contains Christian embellishments upon a
historical core, then the authentic version of this passage probably
would not have been very useful to the early church fathers before
Jesus. Assuming that contemporary reconstructions of the passage are
accurate, it is difficult to imagine why the early church fathers would
have cited such a passage. The original text probably did nothing more
than establish the historical Jesus. Since we have no evidence that the
historicity of Jesus was questioned in the first centuries, we should
not be surprised that the passage was never quoted until the fourth
century. This agrees with Origen's use of the passage, as noted above.
Indeed, this is a primary reason why the Jesus myth is not taken
seriously: we have no evidence that the historicity of Jesus was
questioned in the first centuries. Certainly if Jesus did not exist,
this would have been the first thing that opponents of Christianity -
especially those in the Jewish community - would have jumped on. Of
course, quasi-scholars like Wells would say that such arguments existed,
but they weren't written down, or Christians covered them up, or we
haven't found them yet. Such is the level of desperation the mythicists
go to - and it is yet another reason why their work is not taken
seriously even by most skeptics. And speaking of Wells, we have seen
how he deals with the Josephus passages: quite simply, to quote Meier,
the Josephus passages in Wells' work are "quickly and facilely dismissed
without detailed examination." Evaluations like this, from fair and
scholarly professionals like Meier, should give us pause before giving
any credibility to the Christ-mythicists led by some professor of
German.
[cont'd]