I am one of those “Godless, liberal, inveterate skeptics” also. I’ve yet to read a compelling argument that Jesus was a total myth. And, by “total myth” I mean that there just wasn’t any guy named Jesus who lived in ancient Israel about 2,000 years ago claiming to be the Messiah. On this theory, some group of guys made up a totally fictitious tale about Jesus, and sold it to a gullible public. It seems to me far more plausible Jesus existed, and was a charismatic preacher. He just had this misfortune to get killed off early in his ministry, and some loyal followers took the tale from there.
I believe there was a pot or something referring to “Joshua brother of James and son of Joseph” which, considering the prevalence of the names in that time and place, was statistically likely to refer to the real man the Gospels stories centre on? This is the only non-Biblical evidence I know of supporting the real existence of Joshua (Jesus).
So, agreed. But I would take issue with this:
I would suggest that there was no"misfortune" about it. Jesus read the Scriptures and actively sought to have them fulfilled by he and his followers. There is a word for causing criminal damage to the holiest Temple in Judea on one of the holiest days of the year, and uttering quasi-revolutionary sentiments when questioned by the head of a brutal Roman occupation. It is not “misfortune”. It is suicide.
I think that the time between Jesus purported death and when writings about his life were first put to paper is too short for him to be a complete myth. I think there probably WAS a man who is at the center of the legend. However, I think a lot of things were grafted on to the Jesus persona after the fact…other mens lives, legends, myths, etc.
This was written just decades after the death of Jesus. Josephus himself was not a Christian, so he would have no particular reason to want to lie. Note this passage we have today seems to have been interpolated by a later Christian editor. However, at the core it looks like Josephus was saying Jesus did exist, but he didn’t think he was the Son of God, or even a prophet of God.
Note also on that page the quote from Tacitus about Jesus written early in the second century C.E. As Tacitus calls Christianity a “pernicious superstition”, he obviously wasn’t a believer. However, this Tacitus passage may just mean that he assumed that there was an actual Jesus, and never considered the faith was based totally on a myth.
Good point. And, this would tend to suggest why his early followers would carry on his preaching after his death. If they believed he was the Messiah, they wouldn’t care much of the danger they were putting themselves in. Charismatic religious leaders throughout history have persuaded followers to risk their lives, and even knowingly to commit suicide, to follow them. Even after their own death. Much more difficult to imagine a bunch of guys making up a myth about a person who never existed, and then be willing to die for their own bogus tale.
No, that would be theburial box of Jesus’ brother, and scholars are not at all sure that it’s authentic. The box has a shady history (no one knows exactly where it came from) and some writing experts argue that the “brother of Jesus” part of the inscription was added later.
Yep, you are right. The problems here is that as you wrote the authenticity is shady, and also the fact all this hinges on the the fact “Jesus and Joseph were fairly common names of that era; James, slightly less so. Statistical analysis suggests that the possibility of these three names occurring in the given relationships (son of Joseph, brother of Jesus) is very small.” So not only is the authenticity dubious, even if someone thinks it hasn’t been tampered with this all comes down to statistics. Personally I believe in the existence of a historical Jesus. However, I sure as heck want better evidence than this to back up that claim.
I don’t know about this; myths spread quick and fast. There were myths about Wild Bill (IIRC) and about various other historical figures-during their lifetimes and what not.
Was a whole myth created and elaborated on? In my mind it’s a possibility. My in box is choked with urban legends about people who never existed, so I’d have to say that it’s a distinct possibility that back 2,000 years ago the case would have been similar.
I’m not entirely a mythicist yet. I think if a Jesus did exist, then there is nothing in either the gospels or writings of Paul that resemble who he was-so there might as well have not been a historical Jesus.
IIRC a similar case is made for Confucious never existing.
I have read that the three “synoptic” gospels were written in the time frame of 40-70 AD. As the name implies, these gospels generally agree…with significant differences. Why were the authors of these gospels unable to come up with a common story?
And, the final gospel (John) differs so much from the others that it reads as if from a toatlly independent source. Historians date John to 100-120 AD (with some claiming a date as late as 200AD. Why was John written so late?
I’m not surprised at the paucity of information about Jesus…he never travelled more than 100 miles from his place of birth.
The most common theory is that the synoptic gospels were all based on what is called the “Gospel of Q”, which was lost. If this hypothetical Gospel of Q existed, this is a reasonable explanation. In fact, the reason this Q gospel is thought to have existed in that there is too much similarity between the synoptic gospels. John can be explained by being an independent witness. What one witness considers to be the important parts of the story may be different than other witnesses.
And Jesus may have travelled a thousand miles away from where he was born. However, his ministry was a scant 3 years; starting when he was about 30. The Biblical texts mostly were concerned with his ministry. Before that, only the story of his birth was an issue.
I must have been unclear…a failing of mine when I’m writing in a rush. I wasn’t saying that parts, or even most of the Jesus persona weren’t myth or legend…or conflated from the lives of others. I actually think this WAS the case. But like your Wild Bill example, at the core there WAS a man (or men)…so the entire thing wasn’t made up from whole clothe. I think this is the case with Jesus…that there was a man (or men) at the core of it, and that myths and legends were appended on.
Is there any good reason to think that it is very unlikely that the earliest Christian writings wouldn’t have been thought to have made it to where Jesus was crucified in a reasonably short period of time? The synoptic gospels are thought to be written before 70 C.E. They don’t mention the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., which would have been expected if written later than that as this would have fulfilled a prophecy of Jesus. This would mean when they were written, if the crucifixion occurred, many people who witnessed it would have been still been alive. If these gospels did make it quick to Jerusalem, and nobody could recall someone named Jesus who was thought to be the Messiah being crucified, if word of this got it then this would blow the hoax if it was one. (As John wasn’t so much interested in historical details around the life of Jesus, but his miracles, etc. he might be expected to leave out the destruction of the Temple.)
Not all of them, only Matthew and Luke. The “two-source” hypothesis of the synoptics works like this.
Mark was the first gospel written. The current consensus on Mark is that it was written during the Jewish-Roman war (66-70 CE) and that it was probably written just before the destruction of the Temple (around 68 or 69 CE). Mark focuses on Jesus’ ministry and it does not have a Nativity or Resurrection narrative (it ends on an undeveloped Empty Tomb narrative).
Matthew is generally dated around 80 CE and it incorporates, virtually verbatim, about 80% of the Gospel of Mark. Matthew also adds a Nativity, builds on Mark’s Passion and adds a Resurrection narrative as well as some pericopes and sayings which don’t appear in Mark. More on that in a second.
Luke probably dates to the mid 90’s CE (It shows an awareness of Josephus which pushes it to at least 94 CE). Luke, like Matthew, uses quite a bit of Mark as well as his own Nativity and Resurrection and adds his own innovations to the Passion.
Luke also includes, word for word in Greek, a sizable amount of material which is found in Matthew but not in Mark. This shows that Matthew and Luke used a common written source in Greek. This is the hypothetical “Quelle” source (quelle is German for “source”) called “Q” for short. No extant manuscript for this has ever been found. It is a theoretical sayings gospel inferred from Matthew and Luke.
Because of the amount of common material, Mark, Matthew and Luke are called the synoptics.
John is the last Gospel written (about 100 CE). It is not literarily dependant on the synoptics but it is generally thought that John had some awareness of synoptic traditions via oral traditions. John has the most “divine” Jesus and is considered the least historical.
As to the crux of the OP, there are two semi-contemporary extra-Biblical sources which make reference to Jesus. One is Josephus, who does it twice. Josephus’ first reference to Jesus is almost unanimously regarded as being at least partially interpolated, but there is something like a consensus that the interpolations are built on an authentic original reference. Here is the full quote with the alleged interpolations in red:
At least one manuscript has been found without the interpolations but it’s not in the original Greek (IIRC, it’s translated into Arabic).
The Testimonium Flavium is angoing source of heated debate. Here is a good place to read the arguments for all sides.
Josephus also refers to execution of one “James, the brother of Jesus, who was called ‘Christ.’”
This reference is more accepted and may be the strongest extra-Biblical evidence we have for the historicity of Jesus.
Then again, there are dissenters who argue that the entirety of both Josephus references are forgeries.
Tacitus also makes reference to Jesus in his Annals:
This seems to be confirmation from a Roman historian that Jesus was a real person, but the standard comeback from mythicists is that Tacitus probably just got his information from Christians.
One of the cornerstones of the mythicists’ argument is that the Pauline letters say virtually nothing about the historical Jesus. Paul quotes Jesus only once (a eucharistic invocation that sounds suspicially Hellenistic), and says nothing about any of Jesus’ birth, deeds, sayings, ministry or miracles other than the resurrection. Paul speaks only of a more cosmic and abstract “Christ.”
For this reason, some mythicists such as Earl Dougherty have concluded that “Christ” came first as a mythological idea and that “Jesus” came later as an attempt to give this fgure a life and a history.
It’s a minority view.
Is there any rock solid, irrefutable, in your face evidence that Jesus was a real person? No. But the circumstancial evidence is pretty good. We have early and multiple idependent attestation to historicity, including from non-Christian sources. We have an early common sayings tradition, and we have a crucifixion which meets a test of rather extreme disimilarity. That is, a mythical Jesus would not have been executed by his creaors. The fact that every single source, Christian and otherwise, agrees that Jesus was crucified lends an air of historical credibility because it was not what was expected of the Messiah. It was actually an obstacle to the conversion of Jews. Any group who was intentionally inventing a Messiah would not have deliberately handicapped itself so much by having him executed as a criminal before he can fulfill any prophecies.
Good point here on if Jesus was purely mythic, it doesn’t parse that they would have him die by being crucified. Not only doesn’t it fit the Jewish expectations, but if there was no crucifixion of someone called Jesus, the lack of any independent witnesses to such would be a complication. A more reasonable explanation was that the crucifixion happened, there were many witnesses to it, thus at that point since they couldn’t deny it, they had to come up with a story that explained it.
I don’t know too much about this, but is it also possible, alternatively, that instead of Matthew and Luke both using Q as a source, that Luke just used Matthew? So, you’d have Mark, and then Matthew uses Mark and adds the other stuff, either from some sort of oral tradition, a lost gospel, or stuff he just made up, and then Luke uses Matthew?
There are some who argue this but the main objection to Luke using Mark is that they have completely different and contradictory Nativities. If Luke was coying matthew he should have copied his Nativity as well, but Luke writes a contradictory geneology, omits the slaughter of the innocents and the flight to Egypt, add the census and the “no room at the inn” gag, eliminates the magi and adds the shepherds. They are completely different stories which indicates that Luke had no awareness of Matthew’s gospel.
Since Mark has no Nativity and Q is a sayings gospel with minimal narrative framings, no Nativity and no Passion, it is generally believed that Matthew and Luke both used Mark and Q as much as they could but each had to create his own Nativity.
Those who favor Luke using Matthew have to explain the contradictory Nativities.