# How many independent sources do we have of Jesus' life?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 22, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558 "2013-11-22T20:00:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/21 "2013-11-23T00:23:07Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> But we can’t do so, can we?
_I_ can. You may be having a hard time admitting it. Jesus goggles can distort reality.
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### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/22 "2013-11-23T00:28:43Z")
[Quote=Musicat]
I can [narrow down our most reliable source(s) to only one (or two or three who might have been heavily, if not exclusively, influenced by only one),]
[/quote]
In that case, can you tell us how you do so, and provide scholarly cites to back up your claims?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/23 "2013-11-23T00:53:28Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> In that case, can you tell us how you do so, and provide scholarly cites to back up your claims?
I started this thread in the hopes that scholarly cites would be forthcoming, no matter what the outcome.
I make no claim to absolute truth. I am only posing a possible scenario, which is: the Jesus story may have been started by one person, or one small group of persons, with little or no real history of true events. Much like today’s fan fiction, further developments were built upon this story; repeated, augmented, and expanded using wishful thinking, social myths, similar stories from other cultures, and imagination. In the long run, the weight of the later additions has overwhelmed the original, but are not separated by those who have no reason to question them.
Now that the pious side has weighed in, I would like to hear from others.
It appears that anyone who disagrees with you (ITR champion) is therefore not a scholar. For the record, I have read all of the works I cited; I agree that some make valid points, but not all. My personal library on this narrow topic occupies over 3 horizontal feet of bookshelf space, and includes works going back to the 1930’s. While this may not make me an expert, it does make me pretty well-read on the subject.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/24 "2013-11-23T00:56:48Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> Are you suggesting that the people Jesus hung around with—Peter, James, John, etc.—are all products of this same fertile imagination? And what about the early Christian community, which included these people and others who knew them personally? Are they also made up?
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Who can you cite who knew them personally? Our only knowledge of Peter, James, John, etc., are those names in the same suspect works. If Peter says, in a work of unknown authorship, that he knew John, that is not confirmation that either exists.
>
> What e_xternal confirmation_ do you have that Jesus “hung around with” anyone?
I wish you had given me a direct answer. I’m trying to find out how deep your skepticism goes. For example, are you willing to grant that Paul existed, or not?
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/25 "2013-11-23T00:58:48Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Now that the pious side has weighed in, I would like to hear from others.
Are you using “the pious side” to mean “those who believe Jesus existed”? Because that “side” includes plenty of nonchristians.
> [@](#):
>
> It appears that anyone who disagrees with you (ITR champion) is therefore not a scholar.
What is _your_ definition of a biblical scholar?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/26 "2013-11-23T01:09:06Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> I wish you had given me a direct answer. I’m trying to find out how deep your skepticism goes. For example, are you willing to grant that Paul existed, or not?
I don’t think it matters. Someone named Paul or someone like him, might have existed. I suspect because Paul is more recent than 0 AD/BC, that it would be easier to prove he existed, but I have not researched this. (I would be interested in any evidence either way, just for kicks.)
Besides, even if Paul was a real person, no one is claiming he saw Jesus, or was even anywhere near him. According to the Bible, he received his mandate in a vision, and we have only the word of that document about it. So the writings of “Paul” are not an “original” source for Jesus’ existence. For all we know, Paul found a copy of Q in a Galilee dumpster, saw an opportunity, and ran with it.
So, what _external_ (to the Bible) confirmation do you have that Jesus “hung around with” (your words) anyone?
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/27 "2013-11-23T01:13:36Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> In living memory the most famous advocate of the position was G. A. Wells, who had no relevant scholarly credentials and who has since changed his mind. The most active pushers of the theory today are Richard Carrier and Earl Doherty: the former is not a Bible scholar and the later is not any sort of scholar. If there is now or ever has been any debate about whether Jesus existed in journals of Bible scholarship, I’d be interested to hear about it.
Well, while I’m not a mythicist, to be fair to the position, there is Robert Price, who has a PhD in theology and in New Testament studies from Drew, and the Irish Dominican Thomas Brodie.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/28 "2013-11-23T01:16:30Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> Are you using “the pious side” to mean “those who believe Jesus existed”? Because that “side” includes plenty of nonchristians.
I am neutral as to his existence. Whether a man named Jesus ever lived or not doesn’t mean that God exists, created Adam and Eve, or sacrificed His Only Begotten Son For My Sins.
But I know a lot about how people are fooled and am conscious about biases, and if you grew up in a Christian environment where such beliefs are not open to question, it’s likely that you would take offense to the challenge.
> [@](#):
>
> What is _your_ definition of a biblical scholar?
Someone who uses research, education, and a maximum of available evidence, weighing it carefully as to validity and truth, and doesn’t have to agree with the Bible or any religious thought to make him correct. What is yours?
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/29 "2013-11-23T01:20:42Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Besides, even if Paul was a real person, no one is claiming he saw Jesus, or was even anywhere near him.
One of the Pauline letters (Galatians) claims that he met Jesus’s brother.
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### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/30 "2013-11-23T01:21:04Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> I started this thread in the hopes that scholarly cites would be forthcoming, no matter what the outcome.
If you want to read about the origins of the New Testament and the relationships of dependency among the various parts, I’d recommend the article _The Growth of the Gospel_ by Dr. Alfred M. Perry in _The Interpreter’s Bible_ study series. Also B. H. Streeter’s _The Four Gospels_, Craign Blomberg’s _The Historical Reliability of the Gospels_, and Mark Allan Powell’s _Fortress Introduction to the Gospels_. There are many theories regarding relations of dependency of the texts of the New Testament. But none of these sources or any other that I’ve read even mention your suggestion that “we can narrow down our most reliable source(s) to only one (or two or three who might have been heavily, if not exclusively, influenced by only one)”. That’s why I’ve asked you to provide a scholarly source that backs up that claim, or at the very least takes it seriously. Given the size of your personal library on this topic, quoting from such a source shouldn’t be difficult. But you’ve thus far ignored that request.
> [@](#):
>
> I make no claim to absolute truth. I am only posing a possible scenario, which is: the Jesus story may have been started by one person, or one small group of persons, with little or no real history of true events. Much like today’s fan fiction, further developments were built upon this story; repeated, augmented, and expanded using wishful thinking, social myths, similar stories from other cultures, and imagination. In the long run, the weight of the later additions has overwhelmed the original, but are not separated by those who have no reason to question them.
The argument against the gospels originating in the way you describe has been laid out countless times by countless sources, including just a few days ago on this board in the thread that I already linked to. If you’d like to respond to that argument, I’d be happy to hear your response.
> [@](#):
>
> It appears that anyone who disagrees with you (ITR champion) is therefore not a scholar.
Actually not. Whether a person is a Bible scholar is objectively determined by whether they teach, write, present, and publish in the scholarly institutions, conferences, and publications of that community, just as is true for any scholarly community. There are many issues on which many Bible scholars disagree with what I believe. Whether or not a person agrees with me has no bearing on whether they’re a scholar.
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### Author:  [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/31 "2013-11-23T01:41:39Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> Well, while I’m not a mythicist, to be fair to the position, there is Robert Price, who has a PhD in theology and in New Testament studies from Drew. . .
Holy crap. I know that guy. I was at Drew at the same time he was.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/32 "2013-11-23T01:52:03Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> One of the Pauline letters (Galatians) claims that he met Jesus’s brother.
That’s the sort of thing that could easily have been generated by reading a contemporary document. It doesn’t add anything to the very short list of “original” sources.
So we’re back to three? Two? Can we, with reasonable certainty, list sources that do not depend upon other, prior, sources, but could be considered independent?
If Q was the source for Mark and Matthew, and M & M was the source for all else, don’t we only have one? We don’t think that the writers of Mark & Matthew ever rubbed elbows with Jesus, and everyone else came later, even Paul (b. 37AD).
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/33 "2013-11-23T02:04:21Z")
As has been pointed out, the origin of all material about Jesus Christ is either (a) Jesus Christ, or (b) if Jesus Christ is a fiction, the first author of that fiction. In either case, we have just one “original source” – and the same is true for any historical (or putatively historical) personage or event. Which isn’t a terribly useful sense of “original source”.
The question in the OP, however, is not how many _original_ sources we have, but how many _independent_ sources we have. And I suggest that means, how many sources do we have for the existence of Jesus Christ which do not appear to be simply copying or repeating other sources that we have? And I think an answer might be:
1. Josephus. There is no evidence that he had access to, or drew on, any of the other sources that we have, and no reason to speculate that he needed to have done so in order to write what he (is widely accepted as having) written, i.e. the “unadorned” passage he has about Jesus.
2. Paul. He predates all the other sources we have on Jesus, so cannot have drawn on them. Plus, he actually tells us very little about the historical Jesus, which is consistent with his having little or no material to draw on.
3. Mark. He’s thought to be the earliest of the four gospels, so can’t have drawn on the others. Nothing he writes suggests that he had ever read any of the letters of Paul, or appears to have been taken from Paul.
4. Matthew/Luke. No evidence that they had ever read, or were aware of, anything written by Paul, still less that they drew on any of it. They draw extensively on Mark, but they also contain a good deal of shared material which is not taken from Mark. Which means that either Matthew (copied by Luke) or Luke (copied by Matthew) or Q (hypothetical, now lost, copied by Matthew and Luke) looks like an independent source. (Strictly speaking Q can’t be counted as an independent source _that we have_, since we don’t have it. We just have reason to think that it existed.)
5. John. Later than all the others, but not established that he drew on any of them, and certainly contains material not drawn from any of them.
So, up to five independent sources. You can debate the reliability of each of the sources, of course, and you can even debate the reality of Q, but if you reject Q then it’s hard to avoid accepting either Matthew or Luke as an independent source instead, so you still have five.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/34 "2013-11-23T03:19:41Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> If Q was the source for Mark and Matthew, and M & M was the source for all else, don’t we only have one? We don’t think that the writers of Mark & Matthew ever rubbed elbows with Jesus, and everyone else came later, even Paul (b. 37AD).
Well, Q is theoretical, and assuming Q existed, Mark is independent of Q. (The two source theory says that there was Q, which was just a sayings Gospel, and there was Mark, and then Luke and Matthew drew from Q and from Mark.
But, I mean, how original is original? What are you willing to count as an original source? Because Paul seems to be almost a contemporary of Jesus, writing, if you follow traditional dates, 20-30 years later, and has certainly heard of Jesus, and is writing to communities people who have heard of Jesus too and are following teachings or traditions of his.
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/35 "2013-11-23T04:53:16Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> . . . So, what _external_ (to the Bible) confirmation do you have that Jesus “hung around with” (your words) anyone?
The problem with this question is that when Paul, Mark, etc were composed they _were_ “external to the bible”. Their canonisation as scripture was (a) somewhat later, and (b) not something done (or, so far as we know, sought) by the original authors.
Can we say than an otherwise credible source is retrospectively discredited if, later, it is canonised as scripture? I don’t see that we can. Consequently it seems to me that whether a particular text has been canonised as “biblical” tells us nothing, one way or the other, about the historical credibility of the text.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/36 "2013-11-23T09:53:13Z")
If you’ve read all the books, then why don’t you make a case for the mythical Christ?
I’m an atheist but am very interested in the subject. The latest thread didn’t seem the least bit persuasive.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/37 "2013-11-23T10:40:50Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Which would explain the lack of evidence compared to, say, Greek personages
No, we really don’t have much evidence about many important “Greek personages”. We really have very little information, and much of that from much later sources, about all the presocratic philosophers, for instance, or older poets such as Sappho.
Even for Socrates, we are not that much better off. Although we have three contemporary sources about him, Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes, (and the first, in particular, at considerable length), in fact they give quite contradictory pictures of what he was like, and all three are clearly very biased. Most of what Plato says he said and did is undoubtedly just made up by Plato, to serve Plato’s own rhetorical aims. Xenophon may not be much better, and Aristophanes’ very brief sketch of him is so radically different from the portraits painted by Plato and Xenophon that it is hard to believe that he ad anyidea what he was talking about.
As **ITR champion** says, we have better sources on Jesus than on most prominent ancient figures.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/38 "2013-11-23T13:52:42Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Besides, even if Paul was a real person, no one is claiming he saw Jesus, or was even anywhere near him. According to the Bible, he received his mandate in a vision, and we have only the word of that document about it. So the writings of “Paul” are not an “original” source for Jesus’ existence. For all we know, Paul found a copy of Q in a Galilee dumpster, saw an opportunity, and ran with it.
I’m the OP of the thread linked to above by **ITR Champion**. I’m skeptical that we have enough evidence to reasonably establish that Jesus existed. But speaking for the mainstream position:
We don’t have the “original” witnesses you’re looking for, but above you said you’re trying to get as “original” as possible. Paul is once removed from Jesus–he knew Peter, and Peter knew Jesus. I’d say that’s the most original source we have.
You said you were looking for sources outside the Bible. There aren’t any. But I’m not sure why you’re looking for external sources–presumably they, too, could as easily be cases of “finding Q in a dumpster” as the Biblical texts could be.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/39 "2013-11-23T13:57:14Z")
Richard Carrier is a historian of Rome, specializing in the time in question, so it seems he’s qualified to say something about the existence of Jesus.
OTOH there are clear biases to suspect here–as he’s been an activist Atheist since before he even began graduate study, and was a mythicist before he completed his studies (I think). So you have to take all that into account.
I personally find his arguments very convincing even taking this into account, but it should be kept in mind.
Doherty, while he may not be a credentialed scholar, is acknowledged by historians to be “pretty damn good for an amateur” so to speak, and that’s not nothing.
What strikes me is what happens when you _do_ see Carrier and Doherty interact with relevant historians and NT scholars. You see, basically, traditionalists tending to not even understand D&C’s arguments, and resorting to fallacious reasoning, and things like that. These dialogues seem really damning to me.
Anyway in the other thread I’m still in the middle of going through Ehrman’s book. I’ve had to halt for a while due to major life events but I’ll return.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-independent-sources-do-we-have-of-jesus-life/674558/40 "2013-11-23T14:55:50Z")
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
The references found in Antiquities have no parallel texts in the other work by Josephus such as the Jewish War, written 20 years earlier, but some scholars have provided explanations for their absence.
…
A number of variations exist between the statements by Josephus regarding the deaths of James and John the Baptist and the New Testament accounts. Scholars generally view these variations as indications that the Josephus passages are not interpolations, for a Christian interpolator would have made them correspond to the New Testament accounts, not differ from them.
[/QUOTE]
(What _is_ the explanation for Josephus not mentioning Jesus in his earlier book?)
How fast could memories become muddled? People who read Josephus and the early Gospels wouldn’t remember Jesus but they would have known people who would have talked about Jesus … but weren’t speaking of Jesus if instead he didn’t exist. Would this incongruity have been noticed?
There are various arguments that Jesus’ existence is a “least special pleading” solution. For example, if a cult wanted a martyred messiah why invent one, if they could use the real-life John Baptist instead?
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