Interesting article from the science/history perspective about Jesus likely not existing. This really provides interesting food for thought... We know a history scholar who has come to the same conclusions as
this article that Jesus didn't exist - but that doesn't mean that the
things that his figure said about treating others as you want them to
treat you, and love one another is a bad thing- it's all good!
I have grown beyond organized religion into spirituality. Religion is a baseline for learning how to treat people UNTIL it is mis-used to destroy the life and welfare of others. People can worship their religions as long as it doesn't force others to do so, or adversely affect the lives of others, but that line is continually crossed.
My question is, if Gilgamesh was written around the same time, why isn't he considered a real figure along with the dragons he battled? What about the Greek and Roman Gods, who also taught similar lessons that Jesus did? Why aren't they considered former living people? Keep an open mind and read on.
Did the historical Jesus exist? A growing number of scholars don’t think so
Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are
“mythologized history.” In other words, they think that around the
start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben
Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed
that grew into Christianity.
At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories
like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb
borrow and
rework mythic themes
that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that
screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements.
In this view, a “historical Jesus”
became mythologized.
For over 200 years, a wide ranging array of theologians and
historians—most of them Christian—analyzed ancient texts, both those
that made it into the Bible and those that didn’t, in attempts to
excavate the man behind the myth. Several current or recent bestsellers
take this approach, distilling the scholarship for a popular audience.
Familiar titles include
Zealot by Reza Aslan and
How Jesus Became God by
Bart Ehrman.
But other scholars believe that the gospel stories are actually
“historicized mythology.” In this view, those ancient mythic templates
are themselves the kernel. They got filled in with names, places and
other real world details as early sects of Jesus worship attempted to
understand and defend the devotional traditions they had received.
The notion that Jesus never existed is a minority position.
Of course it is! says David Fitzgerald, author of
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All . For
centuries all serious scholars of Christianity were Christians
themselves, and modern secular scholars lean heavily on the groundwork
that they laid in collecting, preserving, and analyzing ancient texts.
Even today most secular scholars come out of a religious background, and
many operate by default under historical presumptions of their former
faith.
Fitzgerald is an atheist speaker and writer, popular with secular students and community groups. The internet phenom,
Zeitgeist the Movie
introduced millions to some of the mythic roots of Christianity. But
Zeitgeist and similar works contain known errors and oversimplifications
that undermine their credibility. Fitzgerald seeks to correct that by
giving young people interesting, accessible information that is grounded
in accountable scholarship.
More academic arguments in support of the Jesus Myth theory can be
found in the writings of Richard Carrier and Robert Price. Carrier, who
has a Ph.D. in ancient history
uses
the tools of his trade to show, among other things, how Christianity
might have gotten off the ground without a miracle. Price, by contrast,
writes
from the perspective of a theologian whose biblical scholarship
ultimately formed the basis for his skepticism. It is interesting to
note that some of the harshest debunkers of fringe Jesus myth theories
like those from Zeitgeist or Joseph Atwill (who tries to argue that the
Romans invented Jesus) are from serious Mythicists like Fitzgerald,
Carrier and Price.
The arguments on both sides of this question—mythologized history or
historicized mythology—fill volumes, and if anything the debate seems to
be heating up rather than resolving. A growing number of scholars are
openly questioning or actively arguing against Jesus’ historicity. Since
many people, both Christian and not, find it surprising that this
debate even exists—that credible scholars might think Jesus never
existed—here are some of the key points that keep the doubts alive:
1. No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef. In the
words of
Bart Ehrman (who himself thinks the Jesus stories were built on a
historical kernel): “What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time
of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there
is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There
are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there
are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing
references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the
years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of
the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus
in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress
that we do have a large number of documents from the time – the writings
of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government
officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving
inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on
papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name
ever so much as mentioned.” (pp. 56-57)
2.
The earliest New Testament writers seem ignorant of the details of Jesus’ life, which become more crystalized in later texts. Paul
seems unaware of any virgin birth, for example. No wise men, no star in
the east, no miracles. Historians have long puzzled over the “Silence
of Paul” on the most basic biographical facts and teachings of Jesus.
Paul fails to cite Jesus’ authority precisely when it would make his
case. What’s more, he never calls the twelve apostles Jesus’ disciples;
in fact, he never says Jesus HAD disciples –or a ministry, or did
miracles, or gave teachings. He virtually refuses to disclose any other
biographical detail, and the few cryptic hints he offers aren’t just
vague, but contradict the gospels. The leaders of the early Christian
movement in Jerusalem like Peter and James are supposedly Jesus’ own
followers and family; but Paul dismisses them as nobodies and repeatedly
opposes them for not being true Christians!
Liberal theologian Marcus Borg
suggests
that people read the books of the New Testament in chronological order
to see how early Christianity unfolded. “Placing the Gospels after Paul
makes it clear that as written documents they are not the source of
early Christianity but its product. The Gospel — the good news — of and
about Jesus existed before the Gospels. They are the products of early
Christian communities several decades after Jesus’ historical life and
tell us how those communities saw his significance in their historical
context.”
3.
Even the New Testament stories don’t claim to be first-hand accounts.
We now know that the four gospels were assigned the names of the
apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, not written by them. To make
matter sketchier, the name designations happened sometime in second
century, around 100 years or more after Christianity supposedly began.
For a
variety of reasons,
the practice of pseudonymous writing was common at the time and many
contemporary documents are “signed” by famous figures. The same is true
of the New Testament epistles except for a handful of letters from Paul
(6 out of 13) which are broadly thought to be genuine. But even the
gospel stories
don’t actually say, “I was there.” Rather, they claim the existence of other witnesses, a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has heard the phrase,
my aunt knew someone who . . . .
4.
The gospels, our only accounts of a historical Jesus, contradict each other. If you think you know the Jesus story pretty well, I suggest that you pause at this point to test yourself with the
20 question quiz at ExChristian.net.
The gospel of Mark is thought to be the earliest existing “life of
Jesus,” and linguistic analysis suggests that Luke and Matthew both
simply reworked Mark and added their own corrections and new material.
But they contradict each other and, to an even greater degree contradict
the much later gospel of John, because they were written with different
objectives for different audiences. The
incompatible Easter stories offer one example of how much the stories disagree.
5.
Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.
They include a cynic philosopher, charismatic Hasid, liberal Pharisee,
conservative rabbi, Zealot revolutionary, nonviolent pacifist to borrow
from a much longer list
assembled by Price.
In his words (pp. 15-16), “The historical Jesus (if there was one)
might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a
Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage. But he cannot very
well have been all of them at the same time.”
John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar grumbles that “the stunning diversity is an academic embarrassment.”
For David Fitzgerald, these issues and more lead to a conclusion that he finds inescapable:
Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and
the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint
translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews,
complete with pagan rituals like a Lord’s Supper, Gnostic terms in his
letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors’
longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions.
In a soon-to-be-released follow up to
Nailed, entitled
Jesus: Mything in Action,
Fitzgerald
argues that the many competing versions proposed by secular scholars
are just as problematic as any “Jesus of Faith:” Even if one accepts
that there was a real Jesus of Nazareth, the question has little
practical meaning: Regardless of whether or not a first century rabbi
called Yeshua ben Yosef lived, the “historical Jesus” figures so
patiently excavated and re-assembled by secular scholars are themselves
fictions.
We may never know for certain what put Christian history in motion. Only time (or perhaps time travel) will tell.
