The Case for the Historical Christ

[Paul of Tarsus]

Can we make a case that Jesus really lived? Whatever else you might think of him, the answer to this question is not hard to come up with.

The first and perhaps most commonly cited reason to believe Jesus lived is that we know that the popular majority of New Testament authorities think he lived. So in the same way you can be sure that evolution has occurred because the consensus of evolutionary biologists think evolution happened, you can be sure Christ lived based on what his experts think about his historicity.

Now, one of the reasons New Testament authorities are so sure Christ existed is because Christ's followers wrote of his crucifixion. The disciples were very embarrassed about the crucifixion, and therefore we can be sure they didn't make up the story. Why would they create a Messiah who died such a shameful death? The only sensible answer is that they had to tell the whole truth about Jesus even if it went against the belief that the Messiah would conquer all.

We also have many people who attested to Jesus. In addition to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; we also have Paul and John of Patmos who wrote of Jesus. If Bible writers aren't convincing enough, then we have Josephus and Tacitus who wrote of Jesus, both of whom were not Christians. Yes, one person might write of a mythological figure, but when we have so many writing of Jesus, then we are assured he must have lived.

Finally, we have Paul's writing of Jesus' brother James whom Paul knew. As even some atheist Bible authorities have said, Jesus must have existed because he had a brother.

So it looks like we can safely conclude that Jesus mythicists have no leg to stand on. Unlike Jesus authorities who have requisite degrees in Biblical studies and teach New Testament at respected universities, Jesus mythicists are made up primarily of internet atheists and bloggers who can use the internet to say what they want without regard to credibility. They've been said to be in the same league as Holocaust deniers and young-earth creationists.

[Paul of Tarsus]

Which NT writers were embarrassed by the crucifixion?

Probably all of the writers of the New Testament were embarrassed by the crucifixion story. They reported Christ's crucifixion in the interest of historical integrity even while knowing that the story would not make for good public relations.

"Probably?" So far, that's just an assertion. Show your work.

Are you being disingenuous? Jewish sects were not known to be proud of their dead messiahs. That should be very obvious without any "work" to find out.

You said that the crucifixion was embarrassing to early Christians and used Paul's words as evidence that Paul must have (or even a softer "probably") felt some sort of shame over the crucifixion. Considering Christianity's history of proudly proclaiming itself as the "narrow way," though, that assertion doesn't carry much weight, your attempt to shift the evidentiary burden notwithstanding.

You lost me here. How does Christianity "proudly proclaiming itself as the 'narrow way'" mean that the early Christians did not feel shame over the crucifixion? Sure, the nascent Christian sect was based on a theology that excluded all saviors except Jesus, but it doesn't follow that they weren't embarrassed by Jesus' execution. They were proud of Jesus but not proud of his death.

Your claim was that nobody would invent a shameful punishment for a messianic hero, but fictional savior figures being humiliated and punished is a common theme. You then attempted to shift the goalpost by asserting without support, as though it were self-evident, that a Jewish messianic figure can't be understood in similar terms to a Greek god.

Humiliated and punished heroes may be common in gentile mythology, but aside from Job, they are rare in Judaism. And what is it about the difference between Jewish Messiahs and Greek gods you don't understand?

My response is that even aside from your claim being an unsupported argument from incredulity, it fails on its face. Jesus, Jewish or not, was presented in the Greek language, within a culturally and literary Greek milieu, and with both explicit and implicit allusions to a shared Greek mythology. Whatever else he might have been, Jesus was literally a Greek god.

Your argument is really going off the rails here. Jesus was a Greek god? When was he ever on Mount Olympus?

When the opposing viewpoints are that Jesus was myth and Jesus was real, presenting an entirely mythic portrayal of Jesus isn't evidence that he was real.

Just mentioning a person is evidence that that person may have existed.

How are you arguing that Tacitus came to refer to Jesus as "Christus" without relying on Christian information?

Tacitus probably did get the name "Christus" from Christians, but his knowledge of Jesus and Jesus' execution was probably based on other sources.

"James is special because he's special" doesn't buy you much.

Who's saying that? I'm saying that James was special because he was the sibling of Jesus which explains his prominence in the emerging Christian sect. Watch the straw-man arguments, please!

Your argument was that there was "something" special about James and that "something" was that he was the brother of Jesus.

Now you've got it right.

Since there are already enough "somethings" to go around, being the brother of Jesus loses the explanatory power you want it to have even if it happens to be true.

Where did those "somethings" come from if James wasn't Jesus' brother?

Unless you're trying to score points on a technicality and you're talking about James the Plumber or something, Paul only knew one important Christian James because he could refer to James without qualification (1 Cor 15:7) and his contemporary Christian audience knew exactly who he was talking about.

Your fallacy here is your assumption that if Paul referred to a James without qualification, then he only knew one James. Paul may simply have neglected to qualify the James he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:7. People sometimes refer to people with the same names without distinguishing them.

These "writing-style" arguments are weak because they assume that when people write, they always write the same way. I think that's a false assumption. Do you always write the same way speaking of people the same way? I don't. Paul may simply have altered his way of referring to kin in the two epistles not being perfectly consistent.

That's both a straw man and an apologetic hail Mary.

How is that a straw-man argument on my part? You were arguing differences in the way Paul wrote when he referred to kin, and I pointed out that that is a weak argument.

The reasoning isn't an assumption that people always write the same way, but the observation that people do so in general.

Good. Then you understand that Paul's referring to kin in different ways doesn't mean much regarding what he said about James, the brother of the Lord. There are always exceptions to any rule, and writing style is no different.

My claim wasn't proof that Paul meant something other than a natural sibling, but that Paul had particular patterns when writing about certain literal things. Since Paul also wrote a lot of weird, allegorical things, the absence of the patterns for literal writing increases the probability that he was writing figuratively. Since your exact argument is that Paul was most likely writing literally, those writing patterns are extremely relevant to the discussion.

I don't know how much Paul wrote "literally" whatever that might mean, but I think that his referring to James as the "brother of the Lord" most likely meant that James ate at the same breakfast table as the boy Jesus did. So a sibling is no more literal than some other meaning of the word brother--it's just more obvious. If you disagree, then you then have the burden of demonstrating that brother meant something other than the most common understanding. Citing Paul's writing habits, while important in some contexts, doesn't prove much as far as what he meant by the word "brother."

I'm sorry if your arguments don't convince me.

[Difflugia]

What other source, other than Christians, would Tacitus have needed to rely on? Even if he relied on Christians, wouldn't that at times yield accurate information? Wouldn't Christians know many details about their religion better than anyone else?

I don't think he needed another source. Paul of Tarsus does because Tacitus wouldn't have been that dumb.

The argument is that Tacitus corroborates a particular Christian claim, but it can only be confirmation if it's an independent source. If there are reasons to think that Tacitus relied on Christians for his information in the first place, he's not an independent source.

[Tcg]

Probably all of the writers of the New Testament were embarrassed by the crucifixion story.

Probably? That's what you present as verifiable evidence to support your claim?

They reported Christ's crucifixion in the interest of historical integrity even while knowing that the story would not make for good public relations.

You've yet to show this is based on historical integrity. More importantly, not good public relations? Christianity seems to have done quite well basing itself on this story. Look at the Catholic branch for instance, in spite of all their scandals resulting from repeated sexual abuse and cover ups they're still the largest branch of Christianity.

In case you haven't noticed, this is a rather popular symbol for them:




Tcg

[Difflugia]

Are you being disingenuous? Jewish sects were not known to be proud of their dead messiahs. That should be very obvious without any "work" to find out.

The novelty of a dead messiah amongst Jewish sects doesn't imply that any that had one were ashamed of it.

You lost me here. How does Christianity "proudly proclaiming itself as the 'narrow way'" mean that the early Christians did not feel shame over the crucifixion?

Your claim was that an assertion of Jewish difficulty implies that Christians were ashamed of the underlying reason. If Christians were instead proud of such declarations (Matthew 19:23-24, anyone?), it just becomes a non sequitur.

Sure, the nascent Christian sect was based on a theology that excluded all saviors except Jesus, but it doesn't follow that they weren't embarrassed by Jesus' execution.

You're right. It doesn't follow that they weren't. It also doesn't follow that they were. That's what non sequitur literally means.

They were proud of Jesus but not proud of his death.

Your only presented evidence has been that one non sequitur.

You then attempted to shift the goalpost by asserting without support, as though it were self-evident, that a Jewish messianic figure can't be understood in similar terms to a Greek god.

Humiliated and punished heroes may be common in gentile mythology, but aside from Job, they are rare in Judaism. And what is it about the difference between Jewish Messiahs and Greek gods you don't understand?

So, it's self-evident with no other support, then?

Your argument is really going off the rails here. Jesus was a Greek god? When was he ever on Mount Olympus?

As far as I'm aware, I listed enough diagnostic details to satisfy "Greek" and "god." If you now want argue that Olympus creates an important difference, then I'm interested to see where you go with it.

Just mentioning a person is evidence that that person may have existed.

As long as that's the limited sense in which you mean "evidence," then yes, you're technically correct.

Tacitus probably did get the name "Christus" from Christians, but his knowledge of Jesus and Jesus' execution was probably based on other sources.

So you keep asserting.

"James is special because he's special" doesn't buy you much.

Who's saying that? I'm saying that James was special because he was the sibling of Jesus which explains his prominence in the emerging Christian sect. Watch the straw-man arguments, please!

That's not all you claimed. You argued that James' wasn't special (or special enough?) without being Jesus' brother. You then claimed that the other reasons to be special counted as more evidence that he was Jesus' brother, hence my correct characterization of your argument as circular.

Where did those "somethings" come from if James wasn't Jesus' brother?

His sparkling personality? His hip, trend-setting choice in sandals? His crowd-pleasing, but specious debate style that his opponents dubbed "the James juke?"

Who knows? Without evidence, any of those speculations is equally valid. Incredulity isn't evidence.

Your fallacy here is your assumption that if Paul referred to a James without qualification, then he only knew one James. Paul may simply have neglected to qualify the James he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:7. People sometimes refer to people with the same names without distinguishing them.

If anything, my fallacy is treating Paul as a competent author. Remember that your argument depends on one of Paul's statements only being understandable in a particular, literal way, but now you're arguing that Paul was inexpert at making his thoughts understandable.

These "writing-style" arguments are weak because they assume that when people write, they always write the same way. I think that's a false assumption.

How is that a straw-man argument on my part? You were arguing differences in the way Paul wrote when he referred to kin, and I pointed out that that is a weak argument.

I explained that. You even quoted it:

The reasoning isn't an assumption that people always write the same way, but the observation that people do so in general.

You restated the argument in a way that changed it.

Good. Then you understand that Paul's referring to kin in different ways doesn't mean much regarding what he said about James, the brother of the Lord.

There's a pretty wide gulf between the existence of exceptions and "doesn't mean much."

There are always exceptions to any rule, and writing style is no different.

There certainly are, but your argument now depends on Paul having deviated from his pattern in the single situation that otherwise renders your conclusion suspect. You're just arguing that the wing falling off the plane didn't cause the crash because planes sometimes crash anyway. In the words of apologists everywhere, "anything's possible."

I don't know how much Paul wrote "literally" whatever that might mean, but I think that his referring to James as the "brother of the Lord" most likely meant that James ate at the same breakfast table as the boy Jesus did.

That's a literal understanding of "brother," the son of a common parent.

Other understandings of "brother," like Christians referring to each other as "brethren," are figurative.

So a sibling is no more literal than some other meaning of the word brother--it's just more obvious.

I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader.

If you disagree, then you then have the burden of demonstrating that brother meant something other than the most common understanding. Citing Paul's writing habits, while important in some contexts, doesn't prove much as far as what he meant by the word "brother."

You're the one asserting that "brother" necessarily means the son of a common parent and that's why Jesus isn't a myth. All I have to prove is that there's a reasonable chance Paul didn't mean that. Paul mixed literal and metaphor so often that he had a way to distinguish literal familial relationships from figurative ones and the context suggests that this one's figurative. He might have forgotten to clue the reader in this time (anything's possible, right?), but that seems a strange way to support a "common understanding" of what Paul wrote.

I'm sorry if your arguments don't convince me.

I am, too.

[AgnosticBoy]

What other source, other than Christians, would Tacitus have needed to rely on? Even if he relied on Christians, wouldn't that at times yield accurate information? Wouldn't Christians know many details about their religion better than anyone else?

I don't think he needed another source. Paul of Tarsus does because Tacitus wouldn't have been that dumb.

The argument is that Tacitus corroborates a particular Christian claim, but it can only be confirmation if it's an independent source. If there are reasons to think that Tacitus relied on Christians for his information in the first place, he's not an independent source.

I can understand why people would expect independent sources but they also have to factor in the type of information and the availability of sources. If the information is about someone's personal thoughts on a matter (person x), then I'd go to person x instead of some independent source.

In terms of availability of information, I wouldn't have expected there to be much independent (non-Christian) documented sources on the origins of Christianity in the 1 century CE given the fact that Christianity was just starting. Writing was not even prevalent back then as it is now. I mean today, we can instantly document events with cellphone videos, etc, but back then the process of documenting was much more drawn out given the literacy level, availability of material, and again, we have to give independent literate sources time to get to know the details if they weren't already in the inner circle of Christianity.

[AgnosticBoy]

So we see that there's scholarly research on biblical matters where the bible is seen through the lens of that society. My point being that history shows us that political and even thelogical motives have been applied to the bible, in its writing, its interpretation, and all such as that.

With that right there in mind, we shouldn't fuss us up one bit if someone says they reject claims of Jesus' alleged 'historicity'. We simply do not know, can not know if the dude ever actually existed, no matter how upset some folks become upon encountering that fact.

All or most of history fits your point, but we don't find historians remaining agnostic about history. If they applied your standard then nothing could be known, so they obviously have to scale their standards and go with the best of what they have. At least in the 1st century, Dr. Bart Ehrman has stated that we have more documentation for Jesus than we do for any other historical figure from that time period.

Also, if we're really interested in bringing up all areas of doubt, then we can also apply that to science. Science can't give us absolute truths and certainty. Should we therefore say that it's okay to be agnostic towards scientific claims? I'm sure, no one would dare to live like that. So then we go on inquiring about the natural world with best tool we have, just as history is the best tool we have when it comes to knowing about the past.

[JoeyKnothead]

So we see that there's scholarly research on biblical matters where the bible is seen through the lens of that society. My point being that history shows us that political and even thelogical motives have been applied to the bible, in its writing, its interpretation, and all such as that.

With that right there in mind, we shouldn't fuss us up one bit if someone says they reject claims of Jesus' alleged 'historicity'. We simply do not know, can not know if the dude ever actually existed, no matter how upset some folks become upon encountering that fact.

All or most of history fits your point, but we don't find historians remaining agnostic about history. If they applied your standard then nothing could be known, so they obviously have to scale their standards and go with the best of what they have.

That's my point - we can't know that Jesus actually existed, or didn't.

At least in the 1st century, Dr. Bart Ehrman has stated that we have more documentation for Jesus than we do for any other historical figure from that time period.

We have documentation that cows jump over the moon, that doesn't mean they really do.

Also, if we're really interested in bringing up all areas of doubt, then we can also apply that to science. Science can't give us absolute truths and certainty. Should we therefore say that it's okay to be agnostic towards scientific claims? I'm sure, no one would dare to live like that. So then we go on inquiring about the natural world with best tool we have, just as history is the best tool we have when it comes to knowing about the past.

When a scientist comes in here claiming they have scientifically valid evidence regarding Jesus' non/existence, we can all fuss at him when he does.

The fact remains, we can't know[/] that Jesus existed. Anyone who'd declare they do know, either way should be met with skepticism.

[AgnosticBoy]

That's my point - we can't know that Jesus actually existed, or didn't.

Sure, we can't know with absolute certainty. According to the experts in the field, we can know with a probable amount of certainty.

[JoeyKnothead]

That's my point - we can't know that Jesus actually existed, or didn't.

Sure, we can't know with absolute certainty. According to the experts in the field, we can know with a probable amount of certainty.

My point was to show that we shouldn't think 'non-existers' are any more wrong, or right, regarding Jesus' non/existence. We simply cant know.

If folks wanna think he 'probably' existed, I don't much fret. Just like there's probably teapots in orbit around Mars. We just don't know either way.

[Paul of Tarsus]

Are you being disingenuous? Jewish sects were not known to be proud of their dead messiahs. That should be very obvious without any "work" to find out.

The novelty of a dead messiah amongst Jewish sects doesn't imply that any that had one were ashamed of it.

Avoiding dead Messiahs was no doubt a priority among the Jewish sects of that day.

Your claim was that an assertion of Jewish difficulty implies that Christians were ashamed of the underlying reason. If Christians were instead proud of such declarations (Matthew 19:23-24, anyone?), it just becomes a non sequitur.

I have little idea of what you're talking about here.

They were proud of Jesus but not proud of his death.

Your only presented evidence has been that one non sequitur.

What non sequitur?

Humiliated and punished heroes may be common in gentile mythology, but aside from Job, they are rare in Judaism. And what is it about the difference between Jewish Messiahs and Greek gods you don't understand?

So, it's self-evident with no other support, then?

What's self evident with no other support? Your question here doesn't seem to have much to do with what I said about the differences between Jewish and Greek beliefs.

Your argument is really going off the rails here. Jesus was a Greek god? When was he ever on Mount Olympus?

As far as I'm aware, I listed enough diagnostic details to satisfy "Greek" and "god." If you now want argue that Olympus creates an important difference, then I'm interested to see where you go with it.

You mentioned something about Hellenism and syncretism; is that what you mean by "diagnostic details"? If so, I think it's obvious that those who wrote of Jesus tossed in some Greek theological motifs to their stories, but that hardly qualifies Jesus as a Greek god.

Tacitus probably did get the name "Christus" from Christians, but his knowledge of Jesus and Jesus' execution was probably based on other sources.

So you keep asserting.

The Romans had a thriving empire, and to make that empire possible required record keeping. Tacitus, then, probably had non-Christian sources available to him regarding the execution of Jesus. As such, he was not merely repeating what Christians believed, and his testimony about Jesus is corroboration that there was a Jesus.

You argued that James' wasn't special (or special enough?) without being Jesus' brother.

No, I'm saying that James (Galatians 1:19) was special and notable because he was Jesus' brother. He could have been notable for other reasons, but that's beside the point I'm making.

Remember that your argument depends on one of Paul's statements only being understandable in a particular, literal way, but now you're arguing that Paul was inexpert at making his thoughts understandable.

Yes, Paul could be difficult to understand, but it's still a good idea to interpret what he said using the most obvious explanations.

All I have to prove is that there's a reasonable chance Paul didn't mean that.

No, you need to demonstrate that when Paul referred to James as "brother of the Lord," he meant something other than sibling.