Did Jesus even exist?

G’day everyone, Dave Deane here, and our question for the week is: Did Jesus even exist?

On Friday the 17^th of October 2014, Aussie historian John Dickson published an ABC Opinion piece titled “I’ll eat a page from my Bible if Jesus didn’t exist”. Expanding further, he wrote, quote: “Contrary to recent atheist claims, Jesus did live. I will eat a page of my Bible if someone can find me just one full Professor of Ancient History, Classics, or New Testament in an accredited uni who thinks otherwise…”

To date, John is yet to eat a page from his Bible.

Now, just to clarify: John is talking here about the historical existence of “Jesus”, not necessarily the believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. In this episode, it’s that “Jesus of history” not “Jesus of Christian faith” that we’re considering.

So what does Dickson’s unmet challenge tell us? Well, at least that John is yet to hear of a credentialed professor of Ancient History, Classics or the New Testament at any accredited institution who denies the existence of the historical Jesus.

But that’s not to say that there are not books and podcasts dedicated to the subject. The estoeric – or well out of the mainstream – view commonly associated with denying the existence of the historical Jesus is commonly referred to as “Jesus Mythicism”. Jesus Mythicism maintains that the person and story of Jesus possess no substantial claim to historical fact, or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity. Hence, the Jesus believed by Christian’s today is an invention, a myth of some sort, sown in the hearts of Christians by a misplaced faith.

What can we say by way of response to this view, to “Jesus Mythicism”?

Well, again, I just want to reimpress that John is yet to eat a page from his Bible. Indeed, there are some academics who go so far as to say we should avoid even answering questions like ‘Did Jesus even exist’ lest we lend credibility Jesus Mythicism. Consider, for example, the force of these words written by 20^th century German Professor of New Testament, Rudolph Bultmann: “Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the oldest Palestinian community. But how far that community preserved an objectively true picture of him and his message is another question…”

Now, Bultmann was, himself, quite a well-known liberal thinker, committed to demythologizing supernatural elements of the New Testament text. He believed that only faith in the proclamation of Christ necessary for Christian faith, not any particular facts regarding the historical Jesus, and yet – for all that – he still thought Jesus Mythicism was not worthy of refutation.

But the question has been asked, so I won’t be quite as dismissive as Bultmann. Indeed, a recent survey here in Australia has found that, in late 2021, only half of Australians, or 40% of us, view Jesus as a real person who actually lived. So silly or not, this is an increasingly significant question – especially here down under.

So by way of response, I want to take a little longer here and give two angles on the question – from history and then from the arguments for and against the Jesus Mythicist viewpoint.

First, a brief history of Jesus Mythicism.

I think it’s important to lay out some historical context before diving right into an answer here. There are different ways we could map out the origins of “Jesus Mythicism”. Going back to the Middle Ages and early Renaissance there were some Hermetic occult orders who argued for the complementarity of Christianity and paganism upon the basis of so-called parallel accounts they found in ancient pagan beliefs and Christianity.

Any momentum it gained at this time was short lived as the Reformation pointed people back to the original texts of Scripture.

The view saw resurgence around the time of the French Revolution in the 18^th century, with ideas concerning Gnosticism, mystery cults and dying and rising gods spreading to the rest of continental Europe, the UK and America – from philosopher theology Bruno Bauer in Germany, to Freemason Godfrey Higgins in the UK, to founding father Thomas Paine in the US.

By the mid/late 19^th century, any momentum enjoyed by Jesus Mythicism was bulldozed by Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer was a polymath; a Lutheran, a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician who went from being a scholar of Bach, to doctor of New Testament, before finally becoming a medical doctor to help lepers in Africa. Channelling his brilliance on this question, he single handedly demolished “Jesus Mythicism” in a book called Quest for the Historical Jesus where he was scathing of thinkers who were projecting their enlightenment values onto the historical sources concerning the person and work of Jesus. His conclusion was that the Jesus they were proposing is, quote, “is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb.”

From Schweitzer right through the 20^th century, Jesus Mythicism limped along as a pet theory of both village atheists and conspiracy theorists. It found support in the Soviet Union, where it was embraced by Lenin, as well as some Black Studies programs in the 60s and 70s.

Only towards the end of the 20^th century was there a change of tide. The internet and social media saw once conspiracy theorist subcultures emerge from the shadows to the light of popular culture in films by Oliver Stone and books by Dan Brown.

And today, it seems, there are endless books and doco’s and podcasts with new sensationalistic mythicist views, lending from the superficially plausible to the completely insane. On the very, very far outlier fringes of academia, names such as Robert M. Price, Dan Barker, Richard Carrier, and even our very own Aussie lecturer at Sydney University – Raphael Lataster – continue to pedal doubt despite overwhelming reason to the contrary, as to whether Jesus ever existed.

So what, then, are the arguments for and against the reality of the historical Jesus? This is a second angle I’d like to consider.

Briefly, the motivations for Jesus Mythicism are wide and varied. Most of them can be traced back to a threefold argument put forward by Bruno Bauer – questioning the testimony of Paul’s letters; the historical reliability of the gospels; and the lack of testimony concerning Jesus in non-Christian sources from the first and second centuries.

On the testimony of Paul’s letters, Jesus Mythicists have argued that the lack of biographical information casts serious doubt on an historically existing Jesus. At best, Paul seems to paint Jesus as a celestial figure which believers have historicized in the gospels at a later date. take Lecturer from Sydney Uni, Raphael Lataster, as an example. He argues, on the basis of Galatians 1:12 where Paul says “For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” that Paul is ruling out all human sources of knowledge concerning the person of Jesus.

Well, Raphael’s eccentric claim is shipwrecked on 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, the earliest datable Statement of Christian believe we have on the historical person of Jesus, that happens to be written by Paul with unmistakable dependence upon human sources for knowledge. Look it up for yourself!

Another point: Paul’s purpose in writing his letters wasn’t to meet the criteria of contemporary sceptics of Jesus’ historical personage – they were written to address all manner of social, practical and doctrinal issues in the course of founding the Christian church. And yet, along the way, contrary to Jesus Mythicists, we do have unmistakable statements of Jesus’ historical personage. Galatians 4:4 Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the law…” Romans 1:4, Jesus “was the see of David, according to the flesh… declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead”… These is a near insurmountable mountain historical NT data one has to push away before the celestial theory of Jesus Mythicism can be taken seriously, and this isn’t even to begin considering the historicity of the gospels, and the book of Acts.

All in all, the problem with the argument from Paul’s letters is that it is an argument from silence of a specific statement that ‘Jesus was a historical person’; one which, along the way, ignores the clear historical statements of Paul about Jesus’ person and teachings, and one which, also, uses a double standard in that, while Paul never says explicitly states ‘Jesus lived on earth’ he never says – explicitly – that ‘Jesus was a purely celestial being.’ So why take the latter and deny the former?

On the reliability of the four gospels, it is often argued on grounds of comparative religious studies that these accounts are entirely mythological. On weight of parallels between the gospel narratives and other various Jewish and pagan myths suggest that Jesus was not a historical person, but rather a heavenly copy, paste and compile from pagan and Jewish antiquity. Some have even suggested that the Egyptian god Horus shares so much in common with Christ, the two refer to the same mythical tradition. Without opening up that can of Jesus and Horus worms, I’d simply encourage anyone listening to read the original sources and compare the accounts for yourselves. I’m year to read or hear of an Egyptologist who subscribes to every alleged parallel between Jesus and Horus. Time and again scholarship has dismissed this kind of parallelomania for distorting the evidence and following through with logical fallacies which try to cut a mythical Jesus out of whole cloth.

To the contrary, what we have are 4 interdependent gospel accounts, each based on earlier traditions. I mean, take the earliest Gospel we have – Mark – as an example. Mark was written around 70AD, some 40ish years after Jesus death, and seems to have it’s own underlying textual tradition, whether oral or written, that somehow fits into that 40year time gap. So the question is: regardless of the traditions influencing the earliest gospel of Mark, who or what accounts for these traditions? Historians have noted there is simply not enough time for mythological or legendary influences to expunge the historical fact of a movement AWAY from Galilee and Judea where eye-witnesses to the events yet lived! The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased; nor, moreover, is there any evidence on offer in the early church for a Christ mythicist Christology that would lend support to this argument. Religious movements need founding, and it seems difficult to explain Christianity apart from a real, historical person named Jesus.

On the lack of testimony concerning Jesus in non-Christian sources, we have, for example, one Australian rationalist publication titled, “The Origins of Christianity: from Jewish revolution to a state religion”, which asks the question: “if Jesus was so important, how come there is no reference to Jesus in a letter from Pilate to Tiberius?” Well, as historians know, we don’t have any existing letters from Pilate to Tiberius! What we have here is a classic case of the Dunning Kruger Effect: the less you know about something the more you think you know, while the more you know the less you think you know.

This argument just lacks knowledge of how history is done. To completely reject testimony on the basis of a lack of evidence is NOT reasonable, lacking any openness to the testimony of what actually happened, namely the information we have in the gospels. In the words of Professor Graham Stanton of Cambridge University, quote “As every student of ancient history is aware, it is an elementary error to suppose that the unmentioned did not exist…”

Furthermore, this argument on the lack of testimony concerning Jesus in non-Christian sources doesn’t seems to make light of the non-Christian testimony we do, indeed, have, from Roman and Jewish sources: Tacitus, Seutonius, Pliny the Younger, Flavius Josephus, the Jewish Talmud – these are early non-Christian sources which corroborate the basic facts concerning the life and death of the historical Jesus and his followers.

In addition to these, we could add other Jesus Mythicist arguments such as misquotations from the early Church Fathers, or conspiracies playing into the a-historical Dan Brown Da Vinci Code drama, such as the church approving the Biblical canon at the Council of Nicaea under Constantine – a council which, in reality, had nothing to do with the Biblical manuscript tradition or four Gospels, which were well established some centuries earlier.

In sum, we have considered a brief history of Jesus Mythicism, and some arguments for and against it’s position to conclude,on account of its methods and arguments, that Jesus Mythicism – the view denying the existence of the historical Jesus – is not to be taken seriously outside the confines of the internet. Jesus Mythicism consists, in my view, of spurious speculation founded upon outdated dismissed comparisons, defended by any number of excuses evidencing a dogmatic kind of confirmation bias.

As GK Chesterton suggested – ‘don’t remove a fence until you understand why it was put there’. That, to me, is perhaps the knock-down logic against Jesus Mythicism, in its failure to produce any adequate alternative for the rise of Christianity apart from the historical personage of Jesus.

Whether or not Jesus is the incarnation of God offering salvation from sins and eternal life is one question; whether a historical man named Jesus who founded the Christian religion is another. And on this latter point, it doesn’t take professing Christians to make this case. Well known critic of religion, agnostic Bart Ehrman, has written, quote, “He [Jesus] certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees.” The fact is, all of the historical data shows that a historical person names Jesus fits with first century Judaism in such a way that it dominates any claim to the contrary that Jesus was a later invention rejected back into the gospel accounts.

So, practically speaking where does this leave us? Well, with 49% of Aussies supposedly denying the historical person of Jesus, it seems to me that Christians have some work to do. As Albert McIlhenny writes in his helpful book, “A Quick Survey of Jesus Mythicism: New Paradigm or Old Pseudoscholarship?” –

“how long do we expect this to go on? Is there a point where Jesus mythicism will collapse from the weight of its own silliness? Probably, but that will not occur for some time in the distant future… In academia, one might expect a mythicist here and there – that has always happened – but not any major swing in their direction. The clear errors of the current crop of Jesus mythicists are too well documented and their conduct too childish to get much of a hearing in academia… The movement could be cut short if local churches took the time to teach their members how to better answer these and stopped trying to compete with HBO for entertainment value, but I do not expect that to change anytime soon. A church educated on their faith and how to defend it would see through then nonsense quickly. Even one that just knew the Bible well would be able to counter many of the arguments presented by mythicists (e.g., the distortions of Paul) without much effort. Until the time the Church once again takes the faith seriously, we can expect Jesus mythicism to do well – particularly among former fundamentalists.”

For my part, I want to say to you, my listeners, that at the very least the question of Jesus’ existence merits consideration. In the words of Paul: “No matter how many the promises of God are, they have become ‘yes’ by means of [Christ].” (2 Cor. 1:19, 20)

If we don’t get Jesus, we don’t get God. Period. That’s Christ-ian claim.

May we all weigh the significance of the DISTINCTION in the questions Jesus put to his followers in Mark 8:28-29

First, “Who do people say that I am?” – in other words, the question of the “historical Jesus” one thing… but it’s not everything… So Jesus turns again and asks: “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”

I stand with Peter and say: “You are the Christ.”