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Why People Doubt Jesus Existed

Oberon

Well-Known Member
Why do people think Jesus didn’t exist? A theory

Reasons for disbelief:

Even for the religiousforums, there have been an unusual number of posts on whether or not Jesus was a historical person. Often and on during my time here I have seen the same issue crop up, die out, then sometime later crop up again. At the moment, however, there are three active threads on this subject, which is sort of unusual. And once again I find myself addressing the same points, often with the same people.

In addition to simply engaging in the various debates, I started thinking about the phenomenon as a whole. After all, this forum is hardly the first time I have come across large groups of people believing Jesus never existed, no matter how many articles, books, monographs, etc, I cite. They almost invariably will never read them, and my ability to get all the points across can only amount to summaries which can be easily rejected.

So I began to wonder what exactly is behind this widespread phenomenon, particularly when it is contrasted with the view of all the people in the best position to know (biblical scholars, NT scholars, scholars of ancient Judaism, classicists, etc). And I came up with the following ideas:

The most obvious reason is that a lot of people aren’t Christian. However, this isn’t an adequate explanation. First, a great many scholars who have worked in one way or another in historical Jesus research aren’t Christian either. Second, there are a lot of Christians who would write off another historical figure as mythical if similar evidence were given. Finally, there are many Christians who don’t view the NT as having any historical value anyway: it is true because it is God’s word.

The real reasons have a lot more to do with several related issues or trends or whatever within the modern world. One obvious place to begin, given that we are talking about history, is how most people view the genre history, and what they believe it is. Even within the past fifty to a hundred years, global literacy rates have risen enormously in many places which were largely illiterate. Not to get into politics, but in industrialized nations (or more particularly, nations with public education) virtually everyone knows how to read. Also, even for those people who hate reading, through school most have been forced to read history books.

There is an obvious and vast gulf between history written today and the gospels. I’m not just talking about extremely erudite books and monographs written by professors of history. Even the popular conspiracy theory books on how Bill Clinton and his wife had people murdered or Bush engineered 9/11 so that he could go to war are, despite their reliance on hearsay, rumor, and enormous speculation, far more recognizable to the modern mind as history.

Along with this widespread knowledge of what history is (or ought to be) often comes a complete lack of how history was written in the past, particularly the ancient past. Most of the laypeople who read about ancient Rome, for example, don’t ever actually read the primary sources. They don’t know what biographies or histories looked like back then. Even those who have actually read some classical sources generally only read the most famous, and generally in translation. This makes it quite difficult, if not impossible, for most people to look at the gospels in relation to other works of ancient history.

Coinciding with the above is the widespread knowledge of who Jesus is and even where his story comes from. Christianity is the largest religion in the world, has been a driving force for centuries upon centuries, was and is a missionary religion, and you’d have to look pretty long and hard to find somehow who hadn’t heard of Jesus and the bible. There are a few other figures from antiquity that most people know about, e.g. Socrates or Plato, but far fewer of these actually are aware of where our information on Socrates or Plato come from.

Then there is the change in culture and belief since the so-called Enlightenment, the rise of science, and the rise of a particular world-view often dominated by what science can confirm. Even for the religious, particularly for the largest religions, science and scientific evidence are very important; just not when it comes to faith (unless it is someone else’s faith).

All these factors combine in an interesting way. First, without knowing the nature of ancient history or the sources we have, but being aware of the gospels as religious texts filled with implausible to impossible stories, it is easy to write them off as completely mythical, and (given what appears to be very little evidence outside of Christian sources) therefore conclude that Jesus never existed.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
Reasons why the experts believe


So why is it that the experts (with the exception of maybe half a dozen in the past 100+ years, most only possessing expertise in related fields), even the most skeptical, Christian or not, all agree that at the very least we know Jesus was a historical figure who lived in first century Palestine, had followers, was executed, and a movement began in his name? What do “they” know that others don’t?

The Discipline of History and how its methods determine Jesus’ historicity

The answer is related to and builds off of the reasons I outlined above as to why so many simply write off the concept of a historical Jesus. Historians of ancient history are not just familiar with how history is written today, or even how it has been written. They are aware that modern history is a discipline (I don’t call it a science, and most don’t, although there are a few who argue it is) which employs tested and tried methods and has developed and evolved over the past several centuries. Not only have historians built on the methods and research employed by other historians, they have also increasingly made use of other fields. Research and methods from anthropology, psychology, sociology, linguistics, and so on have now been used for a long time by historians, aiding in the reconstruction of the past.

So how does this relate to historical Jesus research?

The Nature of Ancient History: The sources and how scholars use it


As I said above, most people are aware (either from reading it or just from general culture knowledge) who Jesus is, what he is said to have done, and that most of this comes from the New Testament, a religious document. What very few are aware of is how closely the gospels resemble other works of ancient history. Ancient history was filled with rumor, myth, magic, hearsay, etc. Ancient historians, while they often read the works of other ancient historians, had skepticism of the written word and liked either to witness things themselves or to hear it from witnesses or from those who heard it from witnesses and so on. Moreover, many of the sources modern historians use to reconstruct ancient history aren’t from ancient histories at all. They use letters, plays, poetry, etc, searching for scraps of historical data. For virtually all of the figures we know from ancient history, we have precious little information about. A reference in X literary work combined with the same name on a statue or official list, and lo and behold! We have a historical figure, even if we know nothing about him.

When modern historians do use ancient biographies or histories, it often doesn’t make it much easier. From Herodotus, the father of history (who began his work by weaving a bunch of myths together and making appear like history) to Plutarch and Pliny, these sources have to be viewed and read carefully, and this is where the techniques and tools of the historian come into play.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
The Gospels as a type of history

So let’s bring this back to Jesus research. One of the first things the layperson does when arguing that there is no historical Jesus is to point out that outside of the Christian sources (clearly biased) there is little to nothing about him. There are, however, several fundamental mistakes with this approach. First, ALL histories (modern included) are biased, and this is especially true of ancient sources. Some historians were better than others, but they would still write about how their emperors were born from the gods, report miracles and myths, and so forth. This doesn’t make them historically worthless, it just means they have to be critically examined. The same is true of the gospels. In fact, for various reasons, there is no area of ancient history I am aware of which has been and continues to be more critically examined than Jesus research. I am often amazed at the level of speculation accepted in classical studies which would never fly in Jesus research.

There have been numerous comparisons by respected scholars (to the point where this is a consensus opinion) that the gospels are a type of ancient biography similar to (or modeled on) the Greco-roman biography. This is important, because it means the authors set out consciously to write history, rather than religious myth. This can easily be seen when one actually reads the primary sources of myth (such as the Hymn to Demeter or the Iliad) and then the gospels. The gospels set events in a historical time and place, close to composition. The Iliad talks mainly about a war and people from a time long past, and incorporates smaller myths within that great epic which occurred in an even MORE remote past (yet interestingly enough, even these clearly mythical poems contains shreds of historical data, such as the historical place of Troy. In fact, I was talking to an old classics associate not so long ago who said that they actually found royal inscriptions dating to the age in which the Homeric epics take place which name Achilles and other).

The point is, modern historians of the ancient world know you can’t simply write off documents like the gospels simply because they are religious, clearly biased, and almost certainly not written by eyewitnesses. Several centuries of study has gone into finding the best ways to reconstruct history from fragmentary and problematic sources.

In fact, with the gospels, we are in luck. As I mentioned earlier, most of the names of historical figures which have come down to us we know almost nothing about, other than that they lived, and maybe where and roughly when. Often, biographies of important figures were written several centuries after the death of the person in question.

With Jesus, we have four ancient biographies, the first written while eyewitnesses were still be around. All were likely composed in the first century.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
Getting hung up on dates


This brings up another important point. Many Jesus-myth advocates are quick to point out that the gospels were written decades after Jesus had died. This is true. However, it is easy to get stuck on the dates: Jesus died in the 30s, while Mark was written c. 70, Matthew and Luke probably in the 80s, and John probably in the 90s). These seem like big gaps in time. They really aren’t.

My grandfather fought in WWII, in the first half of the 40s. It wasn’t until about 40 or 50 years later (I think I had just finished college the first time and joined the army) that I asked him about it. He told me a great deal. It’s possible, even likely, that he misremembered things, or that his experience of a particular event was different than those around him, and so on. The point is, however, that the 35+ gap between Jesus’ death and the gospels isn’t actually all that long. Mark didn’t write his gospel as a baby. If he wasn’t alive while Jesus was, he certainly grew up as Jesus’ followers spread. And there were plenty of followers still alive during his life to hear these stories and teachings. The same goes for Matthew and Luke, and even possibly for John. The point is you can’t focus on the exact dates of composition compared with Jesus’ mission and death. What is important is the overlapping lives and generations involved.


How can you have history filled with miracles?

This brings us to one of the most frequently voiced objections to viewing the gospels as historically valuable. They are filled with miracles! If one isn’t a believer, clearly these miracles didn’t happen.

Again, this conclusion is flawed, and it is easy to demonstrate how. Over a few centuries across Europe, roughly 30-60 thousand people were executed for doing things like consorting with the devil, performing witchcraft, etc. People living at the time observed certain activities, interpreted them in certain ways, and as a result person X was executed for being a witch.

There are and have been countless shrines around the world, some more famous than others. There are numerous stories told by eyewitnesses and by the “cured” themselves of miraculous cures. People were there, saw an event, interpreted it a particular way, and called it a miracle.

Throughout time and in many, many, cultures there have been shamans, “witch-doctors,” faith-healers, “white” magicians, etc. There are plenty of recorded examples (even today) of such people performing acts which witnesses claim to be miraculous.

What is the point of all these examples? Just because miracles occur in the gospels doesn’t mean the events themselves are unhistorical. In other words, Jesus could very well have been seen by eyewitnesses doing something which was thought by them to be a miraculous cure of a blind man. Maybe it was a miracle, maybe it was a hoax, maybe it was a faith healing, maybe the guy just had something in his eye and Jesus accidently dislodged it. We don’t know. What we do know is that even if we don’t believe miracles or magic are possible, it is entirely possible for someone to do things which others, even eyewitnesses, think are miracles.

In other words, the gospels can record miracles and still be accurately reporting historical events as they were interpreted by bystanders. As a consequence, no good historian will write off the gospels, or even the miracle stories, just because the miracles didn’t actually happen the way they were reported.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
Bringing in help: Sociology, anthropology, and the study of religious movements

As I mentioned earlier, the discipline of history has been aided by bringing in research from other disciplines. One of the many useful implementations of this has been looking at the nature of the Jesus sect from research into how various types of religious movements grow, fail, evolve, etc. Although all to frequently popular books and websites discuss similarities between Jesus and other mythical figures (which are often either blatant distortions of the myths, or are taken from myths like Mithras which date long after Jesus, or are superficial similarities where changed wording makes the comparison stronger). In addition to ignoring the actual primary sources for the myths (which are totally different in genre, form, etc, to the gospels) these comparisons miss something far more fundamental: the nature of the cults referred to. There are many different classifications of religions, but I am concerned here with three: cults (in the Greco-roman sense), sects, and movements. These are not always mutually exclusive, but there are important elements often ignored when Jesus-myth advocates consider the Jesus sect. Cults in the ancient Greco-roman world were both “global” and “local.” That is, you could find a cultic practice that existed in only one spot, or you could find one that existed all over the place but was “localized” in that this or that city or village viewed the foundation myth or myths a particular way which differentiated it from others. What is most important is that all these cults are formed around an ancient myth which often comes from some way to explain natural forces or some other phenomena. They “foundation” myth takes place in a time long past, and there is rarely anything which nails it down to anything historical.

Sects and movements are different. Sects, of course break away form a larger group. Movements can to, but the important part of many movements is that one person starts it, and the movement is formed around that person. This phenomenon has occurred throughout the ages and happens today.

So how do we know that the Jesus movement was started by a historical Jesus? In addition to the gospels, which tell a lot about Jesus’ mission, we also have many documents (mostly letters, but also Acts) which are from the first century, some even written by contemporaries of Jesus (Paul). Although there is very little historical information about Jesus in the documents, there is a wealth of information as to the evolution, growth, and nature of the Jesus movement. With this information, we can compare the early church with other similar movements, as has been done. And we can see, using sociological studies of religion, that without Jesus we can’t explain the evidence we have for the structure, growth, etc, of the early Christians. The documents clearly show a number of leaders in the community, which is typical when the founder of a movement dies (from Muhammad to the modern day). All the documents also point to Jesus as the founder. By applying what we know about religious movements in general with the evidence we have of the early church, Jesus becomes the only way to explain how the Jesus sect came to be.

Finally, the other sources:

Even if all we had were Christian sources, we would have far more than enough to say with certainty (as far as historical certainty goes) that Jesus existed.

There is, however, more. This has been discussed elsewhere, but perhaps the most important example is the unquestioned reference to James, the brother of Jesus, called Christ, by Josephus, important because this James is also found in Paul’s letters, who knew him, and in the gospels.

Summing up (mainly because I am tired of writing, but I might pick this up later):

There are many people who want Jesus to by a myth just as there are many who want the bible to be literally true in every word. But as I have tried to show, the skepticism is largely due to other factors. On a basic level, it deals with the lack of even very intelligent people who haven’t the right background to understand how ancient sources like the gospels are and should be approached.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
I think this is very well written out. It was a lot longer than I expected when I first started reading, but was very informative. A great post.
 

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
Great post Oberon. I'm thinking we should make this thread a sticky and use it as a link to answer all the unintentionally(?) off-topic posts that threads on this topic usually generate.

I do think you may be down-playing the emotional factors behind so many people's refusal to be open-minded about the topic though.

Reasons for disbelief:

Even for the religiousforums, there have been an unusual number of posts on whether or not Jesus was a historical person. Often and on during my time here I have seen the same issue crop up, die out, then sometime later crop up again. At the moment, however, there are three active threads on this subject, which is sort of unusual. And once again I find myself addressing the same points, often with the same people.
*emphasis mine*

This phenomenon all by itself is enough to suggest to me that the main issue is an emotional one; it shows that the people you're attempting to reason with on this topic either haven't bothered to consider what you're saying or started to and then stopped because they felt threatened by it.

Christianity is a tall, tall tree growing out of a deep, deep hole. The people in the tree can't afford to look down at it's roots because they're afraid if they did, they might fall out. The people on the edge of the hole can't afford to look down at it's roots because they're afraid if they did, they might fall in.

There are many people who want Jesus to by a myth just as there are many who want the bible to be literally true in every word.

Yes, :yes: I think this is the crux of the problem. Some people need to believe that there's nothing true in Christianity just as some Christians need, as you said, every word to be true. The result being that neither can afford to take an honest look at it.

But as I have tried to show, the skepticism is largely due to other factors.
On a basic level, it deals with the lack of even very intelligent people who haven’t the right background to understand how ancient sources like the gospels are and should be approached.

I agree to an extent, but when we see the same people refusing to reconsider their views even after being shown (sometimes repeatedly) that their whole approach is flawed, I think that's a pretty clear indication that you're dealing with someone who's operating under an irrational, fear-based prejudice rather than a genuine but mis-informed interest.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
First, thanks for the comments folks. I didn't actually think anyone would read this. I was just thinking and started writing, so this was kind of a rant.

I do think you may be down-playing the emotional factors behind so many people's refusal to be open-minded about the topic though.

Very true. I didn't really get into addressing the people who go out of their way to find any evidence (no matter where it is from) to support the mythicist view.

I agree to an extent, but when we see the same people refusing to reconsider their views even after being shown (sometimes repeatedly) that their whole approach is flawed, I think that's a pretty clear indication that you're dealing with someone who's operating under an irrational, fear-based prejudice rather than a genuine but mis-informed interest.

That is a factor for some, certainly. Then there are the reactions of some I am genuinely puzzled by. For example, one member in particular who is intelligent and well-informed on any number of topics, yet considers reading one book by a guy with a B.A. in classics good enough to counter hundreds of years of scholarship. While I understand that any explanation on a forum of the reasons for the near-universal acceptance by experts that at the least Jesus existed is bound to by a mere summary, I don't understand why people can simply reject this totally. I could understand if this debate were taking place 200 years ago, when people could lose jobs and and worse for stating that Jesus never existed. But now? Particularly given the fact that many experts on christian, and so much scholarship has been written which is at least as opposed to christian belief as a mythical Jesus. After all, if renowned scholars can say that Jesus' body was eaten by dogs, or (even earlier) that virtually nothing in the NT can be considered reliable, or (earlier still) that Jesus was just a failed prophet, how can anyone reasonably argue that the only thing keeping the universal belief among scholars that Jesus existed be the "hold" christianity has on the scholarship?
 

dust1n

Zindīq
People still argue about this? What difference does it make? Just because he 'existed' doesn't mean his Bible is accurate, that we was really anyone other than an intelligent guy, or that his teaching or dogma's have any real sort of relevancy today.
 

logician

Well-Known Member
"
There are many people who want Jesus to by a myth just as there are many who want the bible to be literally true in every word."

LOL , the latter outnumber the former by probably a billion people. What a misleading statement.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
"
There are many people who want Jesus to by a myth just as there are many who want the bible to be literally true in every word."

LOL , the latter outnumber the former by probably a billion people. What a misleading statement.

It may surprise you that most Christians don't believe that the bible is literally true in every word.

Even our earliest interpreters thought that the Bible had several different genres (etc) that can't be interpreted literally.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
"
There are many people who want Jesus to by a myth just as there are many who want the bible to be literally true in every word."

LOL , the latter outnumber the former by probably a billion people. What a misleading statement.

Let's see, the largest christian denomination is catholicism, with about a billion members. The official position of the catholic church is that the bible is NOT literally true in every word. The same goes for any number of denominations. Only a minority are literalists. So the numbers of the two groups are closer than you think.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
Let's see, the largest christian denomination is catholicism, with about a billion members. The official position of the catholic church is that the bible is NOT literally true in every word. The same goes for any number of denominations. Only a minority are literalists. So the numbers of the two groups are closer than you think.

Yeah, I dunno... perhaps there are as many "radical biblical literalists" as there are "positivist armchair historians" as there are people who spent their whole lives in American schools and don't know basic math, geography, and politics.

[youtube]on97HUNYIKs[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on97HUNYIKs
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
While I understand that any explanation on a forum of the reasons for the near-universal acceptance by experts that at the least Jesus existed is bound to by a mere summary, I don't understand why people can simply reject this totally. I could understand if this debate were taking place 200 years ago, when people could lose jobs and and worse for stating that Jesus never existed. But now? Particularly given the fact that many experts on christian, and so much scholarship has been written which is at least as opposed to christian belief as a mythical Jesus.
And some scholarship has been written on a mythical Jesus, which I think factors into why some people believe that Jesus was mythical. Take Tom Harpur's The Pagan Christ or some of the books that Robert Price have written.

Also, I think another big reason for the rejection of a historical Jesus is Christians themselves. Most people's interaction with the stories of Jesus aren't going to be through scholars, they're going to be through everyday Christians; a person could go through their entire life without ever hearing any evidence for Jesus' existence apart from the Bible. In that climate, can you really blame people who have no reason to trust the Bible questioning the existence of Jesus?

Speaking personally, for a while I leaned toward the conclusion that Jesus probably didn't exist: I saw too much connection between the Gospel stories and earlier myth. Now, I lean more the other way: I think that there probably was a historical person who was the seed for the Jesus myth, but this person's story has had so much added and subtracted that it probably bears little to no resemblance to the actual man.

If Jesus the man existed, so be it. However, I don't think it's that big of an issue, because I wholeheartedly reject the idea that his mythic qualities... i.e. the things that Christians are generally concerned with today, are rooted in historical fact. And in that respect, I think my approach is in accordance with normal historical method: we can acknowledge the existence of Caesar or the Egyptian pharaohs without accepting the claims of their godhood or divine nature; same for Jesus.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
I think the movie The God Who Wasn't There didn't do much for the situation either. I think Brian Flemming shows why there is a number of people who reject a historical Jesus. A careful analysis of his work shows that most of the research he did was probably done off of websites which these false claims are being made (not saying he is lying at all, just that he thinks the information he found, that is flawed, is truly correct).

Looking up sites about Jesus not existing usually comes back with information that is very faulty. It's information that has been passed as truth, and people then begin thinking that it is.

On a side note, I was quite surprised to see multiple threads on the Jesus myth. When I posted mine, I did a quick search to make sure there weren't any in the process, but I must have miss it.
 

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
What is most important is that all these cults are formed around an ancient myth which often comes from some way to explain natural forces or some other phenomena. They “foundation” myth takes place in a time long past, and there is rarely anything which nails it down to anything historical.
That's a good case. people sometime devalue the Jewish platform of early Christianity and eagerly adopt the notion that it was highly influenced by Hellenistic elements. this notion also ignores the dismay of Jewish Christians to the compromises Paul made with gentile Christians.
 

Amill

Apikoros
In my opinion it doesn't really matter, but how much of a resemblence to the bible does this historical jesus need to have to count? I mean anyone could simply claim that some dude who said a few good things counts as the historical Jesus. How much of the story is allowed to be made up or stolen from other myths before we shoul stop caring if the person was real or not?
 

logician

Well-Known Member
It may surprise you that most Christians don't believe that the bible is literally true in every word.

Even our earliest interpreters thought that the Bible had several different genres (etc) that can't be interpreted literally.

I'll give an inch here and say the billion believe in a literal Jesus man-god, not every word in the bible(although there are many who do).
 
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