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.

[Goat]

legends developing in moldern times, such as 'the election was stolen' shows that is a false claim.

the Roswell incident appears to falsify the claim that more than two generations would need to pass for legendary development to occur

I think you guys both misunderstood Craig's first point. He didn't say that this was too short a timeframe for any legendary development to occur, but more precisely:

There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts.

The examples you both gave actually bolster Craig's point, as the historical facts of the downed Air Force balloon in Roswell and the actual results of the 2020 American Presidential election are still known to us.

More broadly, though, it's not a good idea to compare examples between the ancient world and modern times. Obviously, the advent of printing and now the Internet allows information to spread more quickly -- as well as to be better retained -- than in the first century.

Are people who passionately believe there were extra-terrestrials at the Roswell crash site justified in believing such creatures were historical because the other characters in the legends were historical?

No, but this is also not Craig's second point, which again was this:

The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends."

The belief that an alien spacecraft crashed in Roswell is also not analogous to a folk tale or urban legend. That doesn't, in turn, make it true, of course. It just means it didn't develop in that particular way.

I'm wondering if oral cultures needed to reformat and restructure original historical information to make it more easily and reliably transmittable through multiple generations.

Perhaps, but the canonical gospels were written within a generation of Jesus, not multiple generations.

How much of the original historical narrative would have been sacrificed or deliberately altered for the sake of making it more orally transmittable? Is it possible for legendary development to have been a prerequisite in the development of an oral tradition since people are more inclined to remember a fantastical tale that has an element of historical truth than a less fantastical historical narrative?

Let me again point out that these questions seem a bit sideways to Craig's third point:

The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

I don't think any scholars -- including conservative Christian scholars -- think that the order of the teachings in the gospels (they differ, especially between Matthew and Luke) reflect the actual order in which Jesus taught them.

In fact, it seems likely Jesus repeated his teachings often, perhaps with significant variation. So, they have clearly been "reformatted" and "restructured" in the gospels. But that doesn't seem to be your concern here.

I could be misunderstanding something here, but circular reasoning seems to inhabit that statement. If the same stories that claim Jesus was a historical person also claim there were eyewitnesses available to restrain the embellishment of the subsequent Christian tradition, then is Dr. Craig essentially suggesting we should believe what the NT says about Jesus being a historical person because of what the NT says about the existence of eyewitnesses?

That this argument seem a bit "circular" is, I would suggest, largely a byproduct of your importing Craig's article into a thread about the historicity of Jesus, when that really wasn't the context of his work.

His fourth point largely already assumes -- as you have yourself -- that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the primitive Christian sect was founded by him. It's hard to explain why Christianity exists at all if there weren't people who witnessed what Jesus said and did.

Nearly all the people, places, and events described in the Roswell legends are historically reliable apart from the claim that the wreckage discovered by the rancher and subsequently recovered by the military was from an extra-terrestrial spacecraft. Does Dr. Craig offer the same level of confidence in the Roswell story as he does for the Gospels or is he making a special plea and applying a separate standard for sources that seem to support the historicity of Jesus?

As with the second point about folk tales, it seems to me you're reading too much into Craig's argument here.

With this fifth point, he is not saying -- as you seem to imagine -- that, because an account contains historically accurate information, therefore everything it says is true. Rather, he's trying to argue that our disposition toward the gospels should be one of "innocent until proven guilty" -- that is, accurate unless we have good reason to think it is inaccurate -- rather than the other way around, as some skeptical scholars would have it.

In other words, we should not simply dismiss the gospels out-of-hand as pure fabrications for the reasons (all of them together, not just individually) he's given. That does not logically entail the further claim that everything they say is therefore true.

And, when something is totally made up, there are no historical fact to expunge.

There is no good evidence a historical Jesus actually existed. All the stated evidence, even put together is extremely weak, and more than a bit was forgeries.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to historia in post #170]

Sorry, I'm a bit annoyed because I had spent a considerable amount of time responding to each of your comments in great detail only to watch my entire post completely evaporate after selecting the "Submit" button because the forum automatically logged me out while I was typing my response!!! Therefore, I'm not going to make an attempt at remembering everything I had written because that would require more time than I have at the moment. So, I hope you'll be satisfied with the following request instead:

Would you be able to demonstrate how Dr. Craig's line of reasoning could be consistently applied to the Roswell accounts in comparison to how he is applying them to the Gospel accounts?

[AgnosticBoy]

There is no good evidence a historical Jesus actually existed. All the stated evidence, even put together is extremely weak, and more than a bit was forgeries.

"Weak" according to who or what? If it were weak then why do the overwhelming majority of scholars, including believers and unbelievers, accept a historical Jesus?

[historia]

Perhaps, but the canonical gospels were written within a generation of Jesus, not multiple generations.

I'm not arguing with this (or anything else in your post), but to clarify your point:

1. What's the ballpark date you're using for the authorship of the Gospels?
2. How are you thinking of a generation?

As always, I go with the majority of scholars: Mark was likely written between the mid 60s to early 70s. Matthew and Luke around 80 or 85. John is maybe between 90 and 100.

As Ehrman notes in Did Jesus Exist?, pg. 76:

By the year 80 or 85 we have at least three independent accounts of Jesus' life (since a number of the accounts of both Matthew and Luke are independent of Mark), all within a generation or so of Jesus himself.

"Or so" is admittedly doing a lot of work in that sentence. Personally, I was thinking that if someone was born around 33 AD, and lived to be 60 or so (which would not be uncommon, should you survive childhood) that would be roughly a "generation." Maybe "or two" would have been an advisable caveat there.

[Goat]

There is no good evidence a historical Jesus actually existed. All the stated evidence, even put together is extremely weak, and more than a bit was forgeries.

"Weak" according to who or what? If it were weak then why do the overwhelming majority of scholars, including believers and unbelievers, accept a historical Jesus?

It's weak according to the definitions of what evidence is. There is nothing that is contemporary, and all the sources we do have were kept and preserved by the Catholic Church.,, and more than a couple of them sholw signs of modification.

[AgnosticBoy]

There is no good evidence a historical Jesus actually existed. All the stated evidence, even put together is extremely weak, and more than a bit was forgeries.

"Weak" according to who or what? If it were weak then why do the overwhelming majority of scholars, including believers and unbelievers, accept a historical Jesus?

It's weak according to the definitions of what evidence is.

Weak evidence is not defined by a formal source. I presume that's why you didn't offer any expert/ peer-reviewed sources for your claim. It seems safe to say that "weak" is your assessment. It's certainly not any of the experts assessment, and it's not weak enough to say that Jesus didn't exist.

I'm willing to say that the evidence may be "weaker" than the evidence for someone else so it's relative in that sense. I won't go as far as saying that Jesus has the weakest evidence out of everyone else whose existence we accept.

[Goat]

There is no good evidence a historical Jesus actually existed. All the stated evidence, even put together is extremely weak, and more than a bit was forgeries.

"Weak" according to who or what? If it were weak then why do the overwhelming majority of scholars, including believers and unbelievers, accept a historical Jesus?

It's weak according to the definitions of what evidence is.

Weak evidence is not defined by a formal source. I presume that's why you didn't offer any expert/ peer-reviewed sources for your claim. It seems safe to say that "weak" is your assessment. It's certainly not any of the experts assessment, and it's not weak enough to say that Jesus didn't exist.

I'm willing to say that the evidence may be "weaker" than the evidence for someone else so it's relative in that sense. I won't go as far as saying that Jesus has the weakest evidence out of everyone else whose existence we accept.

I would say the those whose evidence is weaker there is an acknowledgement it could be mythical/legendary

[Ataraxia]

The OP was written by an atheist who doubts Jesus' existence.

That’s fine, this was about whether everyone in this thread is arguing in terms of probability.

The "imperative" I was quoting here was your assertion that the "imperative necessity of their faith" drives many Christians to believe Jesus existed.

Perhaps you misinterpreted. Although it is obvious that Christian faith has always caused Christians to believe Jesus existed without any need to consult first with historians, my actual point here was that whatever arcane reasonable doubts or historical complications may technically exist about Jesus' historicity, those with such doubts should perhaps be happy enough to settle on the idea that he "probably" existed, because the context of this issue is one in which so few people would seriously consider more extreme qualifications.

Nowhere in the introduction to Did Jesus Exist? does Ehrman even suggest that an "imperative necessity of faith" drives him and other scholars to conclude Jesus existed. In fact, he says just the opposite (pg. 5)

Sure, I agree and that's not relevant to anything I said about that text. Ehrman shows that at least one scholar on this issue holds the perception that skepticism about Jesus' historicity is overwhelmingly beyond the scope of serious academics. I’ll hypothesize on how I think how faith dictates this institutional norm in the next bit.

Many of these scholars have no vested interest in the matter. As it turns out, I myself do not either. I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leaning, and my life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed.

I think this quote shows the precise way in which people like Ehrman yield to religion. Not directly, but in effect. Again, most scholars of Christianity are Christians and to them Jesus' existence is a mundane, obvious, unquestionable default position. So what Ehrman is admitting here is that he has no interest in this issue. That doesn't mean he doesn’t care about it at all, but beyond the fact that it doesn’t impact his personal beliefs, having “no interest” or stake in the issue also implies there's nothing to be gained within academia from critiquing the historical basis of Jesus. No interesting new historical conclusion a scholar could possibly assert on the issue. No way in which establishing a greater degree of qualified uncertainly about Jesus’ historicity would advance any other areas of research. So it’s not like non-Christian scholars are being forced by anyone to step aside from this topic, but the effect of this non-interest is that non-Christian scholars therefore yield this topic entirely to the default historical position, which is of course is one of core “interest” to Christians for religious reasons. That doesn't make it historically wrong, but it could be a pragmatic tacit acceptance of a prevailing Christian tradition.

How is it that critical scholars can conclude -- as many do -- that the nativity stories and resurrection accounts are legendary, that many of the sayings attributed to Jesus were invented by the early church, that any claims to his divinity were a late theological development, etc. But, when it comes to the question of Jesus' existence, these same scholars are now suddenly kowtowed by Christian tradition?

It's easier to critique a narrative than the existence of a specific character within a narrative. The main evidence used to support Jesus' existence are the religious texts themselves that contain the narratives about Jesus. But the historical critiques of the resurrection and nativity seem to utilize a higher standard of evidence for whatever reason, perhaps due to the more nuanced literary comparisons involved. The arguments against the historicity of the nativity are similar to the historicity of Jesus--that the accounts are contradictory, part of a tradition of fabricated mystical texts, written at best decades after the events described, derived from earlier non-extant texts, details not well corroborated by sources beyond the Bible, etc. But unlike the question of Jesus' historicity, a critique of Bible narratives allows historians a chance to compare and analyze historical texts at length and in depth, which is what historians like to fancy themselves doing quite a lot of.

he is not arguing that this is merely a "non-academic movement."

Maybe not “merely” one and maybe not exclusively one, but Ehrman certainly argues that skepticism about Jesus’ historicity is overwhelming non-academic.

• “I should say that the outset that none of this [skeptical] literature is written by scholars trained in New testament or early Christian studies teaching at the major, or even the minor, accredited theological seminaries, divinity schools, universities, or colleges of North America or Europe (or anywhere else in the world)“ (p 2).
• He says that virtually every expert on the planet believes Jesus existed, and then proceeds to compare the other side to conspiracy theorists and holocaust deniers (p 4-5).
• “Jesus existed, and those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda this denial serves. From a dispassionate point of view, there was a Jesus of Nazareth” (p 7).

So again he sees two sides--the dispassionate academic view and the less rational/informed/academic view and he doesn’t want to be affiliated with the non-academic side.

Consider that the two best biographies of Smith are Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling and Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History, written by a practicing Mormon and an ex-Mormon, respectively. They agree on more than they disagree -- even on points that many believing Mormons today would deny about Smith -- in large part because they both were attempting to write dispassionate, secular history.

Most religious history is not written by trained historians who aspire to this ethos. And unless academic historians have some motivation and means to challenge a traditional historical assumption, there is no reason to ever expect them to do so. I wouldn't claim to know what the unique historiographical challenges of Mormons and Muslims are, but I do know that if an expert on Mormon history (regardless of their background) made a particular claim about the life of Joseph Smith, their expertise alone would not be enough to compel a reasonable person to reserve all skepticism about the issue, given the clear potential for religious influence on the topic (my original point here).

Sure, because the University of Virginia's Mormon Studies program is housed in the Religious Studies Department.

Ha, alright, so then Virginia does have one professor on staff who is an expert on Mormon history (and she happens to be a Mormon).

But you won't find this among liberal Christian scholars, Jewish scholars, and secular scholars.

It’s not that scholars are directly coerced into holding Christian positions at the behest of powerful religious overlords. Non-Christian scholars do have centuries of experience in making their own paths of interpretation. But are there possible circumstances in which tacit acceptance of a tenuous traditional historical interpretation may be an outcome this system inadvertently produces? If so, I think the historicity of Jesus is potentially vulnerable to this.

[William]

[Replying to historia in post #170]

Sorry, I'm a bit annoyed because I had spent a considerable amount of time responding to each of your comments in great detail only to watch my entire post completely evaporate after selecting the "Submit" button because the forum automatically logged me out while I was typing my response!!! Therefore, I'm not going to make an attempt at remembering everything I had written because that would require more time than I have at the moment. So, I hope you'll be satisfied with the following request instead:

Would you be able to demonstrate how Dr. Craig's line of reasoning could be consistently applied to the Roswell accounts in comparison to how he is applying them to the Gospel accounts?

What if we were visited by aliens?

[Ataraxia]

Edit: double posted somehow.