This is Chapter Three of the book Jesus Potter, Harry Christ (2011), by Derek Murphy.
CHAPTER THREE:
Where’s the Proof? An Overview of the Evidence and Arguments for the Existence of Jesus Christ
Yamauchi’s response seemed uncharacteristically strong. ‘From time to time some people have tried to deny the existence of Jesus, but this is really a lost cause,’ he said with a tone of exasperation. ‘There is overwhelming evidence that Jesus did exist, and these hypothetical questions are really very vacuous and fallacious.’ Strobel, The Case for Christ, 81
WHEN CONFRONTED WITH ARGUMENTS that Jesus may not have been historical, the majority of Christians will refer to the hard evidence that Jesus really existed; but not without first displaying a certain sense of desperation. On the one hand, they are right – any reliable historical records that prove that Jesus was historical would automatically weaken theories to the contrary. But is there really, as Yamauchi claims, such “overwhelming evidence”?
In fact, even academics that believe Jesus was historical openly acknowledge that there are far too few reliable historical records of Jesus Christ. The handful that does exist – they maintain – are enough. But before we look at the evidence, it will be worthwhile to review some common preconceptions concerning Jesus Christ that are widespread in popular culture and that influence individuals’ beliefs on the subject.
As we’ve seen, the claim that Jesus was mythological, not historical, has a long history. It has “been refuted” time and again by Christian apologists, who are often exasperated to learn that there are still some people who won’t let it go. The majority of scholars, as well as the general public – whether religious or secular – believe that Jesus Christ was historical (that there was a historical teacher who began the movement); however, the arguments used to support this theory are often a mixture of inferences, deductions and references to common knowledge and unfounded associations. Because many readers will have these same concepts nagging in the back of their minds, it will be worthwhile to review them.
Isn’t there a great deal of evidence for the historical Jesus? Wasn’t it necessary for there to have been a founder of the Christian movement? Would the martyrs have died for a myth? Can archaeology or other sources prove the veracity of some parts of biblical narrative? Is there any historical evidence, either from within the Christian communities or without, that can support the idea of a historical Jesus? In order to be thorough, these questions need to be answered. In this chapter, therefore, we will deal with the evidence and arguments commonly used to support the idea of a historical Jesus.
Archaeological Evidence Confirms Many Biblical Accounts
Every few years there is an archaeological discovery that “proves” Christianity to be true and makes media headlines. This makes it appear that the Bible records sound historical testimonies of things that really did happen. Although there haven’t actually been any archaeological discoveries that prove Jesus was real, there have been, some claim, discoveries which enhance the reliability of the testimonies by confirming real names and places involved. If these places, mentioned by name by the writers of the gospels, really existed, and the authors had included these seemingly innocuous details into their story, it appears to raise the trustworthiness of the source. After interviewing John McRay, professor and author of Archaeology and the New Testament, Lee Strobel concludes,
Here’s the bottom line: ‘If Luke was so painstakingly accurate in his historical reporting,’ said one book on the topic, ‘on what logical basis may we assume he was credulous or inaccurate in his reporting of matters that were far more important, not only to him but to others as well’.[i]
A comparable argument, however, might be that Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code is a true story because it includes so many true facts and research; or more relevantly – that Harry Potter is true (despite amazing events) because it mentions many real places (like London) and describes accurately minute details and customs from Harry’s relatives’ muggle household. First of all, reliable testimony about mundane historical events is simply not equal to testimony about miraculous events. If a modern witness gave us a lot of firm details about a suspect, but then said something outlandish like “the suspect flew away on a pink giraffe,” we should be less inclined to believe even the commonplace aspects of his account. Why is this not also true when dealing with the Bible? Secondly, this argument avoids the main reason the historicity of Jesus is challenged at all – the similarities to older traditions. And thirdly, there are a few specific historical details recorded in the gospels that go against trustworthy historical sources. As evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins points out in The God Delusion:[ii]
Moreover, Luke screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius – a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole – but it happened too late: in 6 AD, long after Herod’s death. Lane Fox concludes that ‘Luke’s story is historically impossible and internally incoherent,’ but he sympathizes with Luke’s plight and his desire to fulfil the prophecy of Micah.
The Martyrs Would not Have Been Willing to Die for a Lie
This emotionally-charged argument goes something like this: “If there was no Jesus Christ, what did all those martyrs die for?” The online source All About Religion uses it the following way:
In light of the cruel and torturous deaths of the first and second generation Christians, all theories that Christianity is a fabricated myth, created for the personal gain of its followers, must be rejected. Even today, many will die for a belief, but none will die for a lie.[iii]
The argument assumes that if Christianity were a myth, its followers would have known about it and therefore been adverse to martyrdom. However, I believe the Christian martyrs were very convinced in their own minds that Jesus Christ was a historical person. Interestingly, not all Christians were willing to be martyrs. Christians who believed in Jesus as a spirit or non-physical entity, or who didn’t think Jesus felt real pain or suffered like humans, felt no need to die as martyrs and conscientiously avoided persecution.
St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, two of the earliest Christian martyrs, were already fighting against these “heretics” who weren’t willing to die for their cause. Ignatius, outraged, gives in essence the first instance of the martyrdom argument.
For if it is merely in semblance that these things were done by our Lord, I am also a prisoner in semblance. And why have I given myself up to death, to fire, to the sword, to wild beasts?[iv]
Why indeed? If he did not have an answer then, so close to the time of Christ, nor any proof to offer heretics who denied the physicality of Jesus, how could the mere fact of his willingness to die for his beliefs be used as evidence nearly 2,000 years later?
Christianity Could not Have Started Without a Founder
Some claim that Jesus existed because there is a Church, and it must have had a founder. This argument is used by, for example, W.K.C. Guthrie in Orpheus and Greek Religion:
If there were no other evidence for the real existence of the founder of Christianity, a strong case might still be made based on the difficulty a man might feel in accounting for the rise of Christianity without the impulse of a historic Jesus behind it.[v]
An offshoot of this argument is sometimes that, unlike Christianity, all the various pagan religions died out, and Christianity survived despite very challenging periods of persecution. Either it was “God’s Will,” or Christianity had something no one else did: a historical founder. German scholar of Greek mythology Walter Burkert uses this argument against the ancient mysteries:
The basic difference between ancient mysteries, on the one hand, and religious communities, sects, and churches of the Judeo-Christian type, on the other, is borne out by the verdict of history… With the imperial decrees of 391/92AD prohibiting all pagan cults and with the forceful destruction of the sanctuaries, the mysteries simply and suddenly disappeared.[vi]
Notice, however, the contradiction implicit in this quote: the mysteries were first outlawed, and then their sanctuaries were forcibly destroyed – after which Burkert makes it sound like the disappearance of the mysteries was mysterious and unexplainable. Not irrelevant to the survival of Christianity is the fact that the early Christian church had both a fixed authority and an organizational structure, not to mention a great deal of wealth; and that all traces of paganism were either destroyed or assimilated. This, more than a founder, can account for its preservation.
The Life of Jesus Was Prophesied in the Old Testament
This is the argument used within the Bible itself to justify Jesus Christ, and it continues to be used today. As written, the New Testament makes Jesus fulfill hundreds of Old Testament prophecies. Most of these prophecies are written in past tense about specific events and give no indication that they are to be used for the future; however, in order for orthodox Jews to accept Jesus as Messiah, he needed to appear as Jewish as possible. Therefore Jesus was made to do a lot of strange and inconvenient things (many of which were done in private or secretly), so that the gospel writers could say, “And Jesus did this, to fulfill the prophecy.”
For instance, although the “massacre of the infants” or the persecution of the child-hero is a common literary motif, the writer of Matthew links it to a passage from Jeremiah, which reads “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more” (Jeremiah 31:15).
When Herod realized that the Magi had outwitted him, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:16-18)
Incidentally, very few biblical scholars consider any of the birth narratives of Christ to be historically genuine, so similar are they to pagan mythology. If this episode didn’t happen, it makes it all the more easy to see how the writer could take a common theme, apply it to the character of Jesus Christ as a biographical episode, and link it to the Jewish tradition via prophecy. The prophecy argument is also used by Jesus himself in the gospels; however, being Jewish, it would have been natural for him to use phrases and quotes from the Old Testament in reference to his own life.
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me!” declares the LORD Almighty. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones.” (Zechariah 13:7)
Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” (Matthew26:31)
Many of the major biographical details of Jesus in the gospels also arise out of prophecy. He had to be born in Bethlehem, for example, but he also had to be from Nazareth and then move to Egypt. And so that is how the story is written. Moreover (as we saw previously), the fact that these are real, historical cities lends credence to the idea that these events really happened. Since the identical correlation between Jesus’ life and the Old Testament prophecies is unlikely to be coincidental, the fact that Jesus actually did these things is taken as proof that he was the coming savior. However, it takes faith in the historical reliability of the Bible (and the miraculous intervention of an all-seeing God into history) before this proof can be convincing. Thus it is self-referential, equivalent to “I know the Bible is true because the Bible says so.” Skeptics will argue that the gospel writers just wrote the story of Jesus to include as many of these prophecies as possible, something that is also acknowledged by biblical scholars. It is also important to recognize that if Jesus had been a historical Jew, he would have been familiar with all of the prophecies in the Old Testament which were later interpreted to refer to him. If he had “fulfilled” them, he would have been doing so deliberately and conscientiously rather than incidentally – leaving him open to the criticism that he was a charlatan.
Jesus was the Founder of Ethics
This horribly uninformed idea, especially common in American Country music, is that all goodness, love and truth came into the world with Christ, and before him people had limited ethical ability. Alan Jackson, for example, sings:
I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith hope and love are some good things he gave us
And the greatest is love
Where were you when the world stopped turning
Anyone familiar with world literature knows that ethical considerations and practical morality have always been a concern for human civilizations. There are many pearls of ethical wisdom that can be found several thousand years before the Christian era; and in the pagan milieu that gave birth to the Christian movement, the philosophical quest for concepts such as “Truth”, “Love”, “Goodness” and “Virtue” was seen as a pressing issue of ultimate importance. Many contemporary philosophical schools urged restraint, humility, abstinence, or fasting. Jesus’ teachings on ethics were nothing new. His famous moral precepts “love your neighbor as yourself” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” are not unique to him but can be found in much earlier religious literature; a point Bertrand Russell raises in his article, Why I’m not a Christian:
You will remember that He said, “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” That is not a new precept or a new principle. It was used by Lao-tse and Buddha some 500 or 600 years before Christ, but it is not a principle which as a matter of fact Christians accept.[vii]
Now that we’ve dispelled some common preconceptions, we can turn to the actual evidence. Although I have neither the expertise nor the aspiration to judge the reliability of the testimonies and documents which have been used as proof in the historical Jesus, they are important to consider – if only because they continue to be heavily cited, scrutinized and bickered over. In the following overview, I will merely point out why they have been questioned by some scholars, why they are not considered universally reliable, and why therefore, they cannot be trusted to bear light on our present study.
Historical Evidence
In 1944, Alvin Boyd Kuhn wrote the book Who is This King of Glory? A Critical Study of the Christos-Messiah. In it he disparages not only the documents used as historical evidence for Jesus Christ, but more keenly the discrepancies that exist in the understanding of these texts and the fact that they are recommended to the faithful without acknowledging that they have been questioned by academic research:
The average Christian minister who has not read outside the pale of accredited Church authorities will impart to any parishioner making the inquiry the information that no event in history is better attested by witnesses than the occurrences in the Gospel narrative of Christ’s life. He will go over the usual citation of the historians who mention Jesus and the letters claiming to have been written about him. When the credulous questioner, putting trust in the intelligence and good faith of his pastor, gets this answer, he goes away assured on the point of the veracity of the Gospel story. The pastor does not qualify his data with the information that the practice of forgery, fictionizing and fable was rampant in the early Church. In the simple interest of truth, then, it is important to examine the body of alleged testimony from secular history and see what credibility and authority it possesses. First, as to the historians whose works record the existence of Jesus, the list comprises but four. They are Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius and Josephus. There are short paragraphs in the works of each of these, two in Josephus. The total quantity of this material is given by Harry Elmer Barnes in “The Twilight of Christianity” as some twenty-four lines. It may total a little more, perhaps twice that amount. This meager testimony constitutes the body or mass of the evidence of ‘one of the best attested events in history.’[viii]
The information gap between Christians and biblical or historical researchers has not improved in the 50+ years since the publication of Kuhn’s book. Although his claims may have been overstated and academic scholars easily dismiss him, he correctly mentions the four main historical referents to Jesus Christ which continue to be used today. Search online for any one of them and you’ll find that they are constantly and readily given as the definitive historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, on many thousands of faith-based and apologetic websites. However, among biblical scholars and church historians (even Christian academics) they are not universally accepted. Although all four of them were considered complete forgeries throughout much of the last two centuries, today an uneasy truce has been established that in general recognizes that at least some of the quotes may be partially authentic. The following is a brief overview of the passages.
The first and most widely quoted non-Christian reference to Jesus comes from Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his book, The Antiquities of the Jews. It is called the “Testimoniam Flavianum” and was written in the late first century AD.
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first ceased not, for he appeared to them thereafter again the third day, as the divine prophets foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And even now the tribe of Christians so named from him is not extinct. (18.63-64)
Some scholars argue that at least some of this passage is genuine, while others see it entirely as an inserted Christian passage (it fits poorly into the surrounding text, and the style stands out as being dissimilar). If a forgery, it may have been written by Emperor Constantine’s church historian, Eusebius, who was also the first to quote from it. While Christians today continue to use it as a proof for their faith, it was questioned as early as 1770 by Bishop Warburton of Gloucester, who called it a “rank forgery, and a stupid one, too.”[ix] Over a hundred years ago it was discounted in more depth, by a book called Christian Mythology Unveiled, written by Mitchell Logan in 1842.
The famous passage which we find in Josephus, about Jesus Christ, was never mentioned nor alluded to in any way whatever by any of the fathers of the first, second, or third centuries; nor until the time of Eusebius, ‘when it was first quoted by himself.’ The truth is, none of these fathers could quote or allude to a passage which did not exist in their times; but was to all points short of absolute certainty, forged and interpolated by Eusebius.[x]
Below is a more exhaustive treatment of this passage outlined by a Dr. Larner, first published in 1760 and reprinted in T.W. Doane’s 1882 book, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions:
1. It was never quoted by any of our Christian ancestors before Eusebius.
2. Josephus has nowhere else mentioned the name or word Christ, in any of his works, except the testimony above mentioned, and the passage concerning James, the Lord’s brother.
3. It interrupts the narrative.
4. The language is quite Christian.
5. It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting it, had it been then, in the text.
6. It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles concerning Josephus.
7. Under the article Justus of Tiberius, this author (Photius) expressly states that this historian (Josephus), being a Jew, has not taken the least notice of Christ.
8. Neither Justin, in his dialogue with Typho the Jew, nor Clemens Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from ancient authors, nor Origen against Celsus, have even mentioned this testimony.
9. But, on the contrary, Origen openly affirms (ch. xxiv., bk. i, against Celsus), that Josephus, who had mentioned John the Baptist, did not acknowledge Christ.[xi]
As Dr. Larner points out, another passage in Josephus mentions James, the brother of Jesus (20:9); this passage is less passionately contested. Despite arguments like these, the Josephus passage is mostly accepted today as partially genuine. According to Paula Fredrikson, “Most scholars currently incline to see the passage as basically authentic, with a few later insertions by Christian scribes.”[xii] Earl Doherty, however, in The Jesus Puzzle, points to the difficulty these two passages have in supporting the burden placed on them:
In the absence of any other supporting evidence from the first century that in fact the Jesus of Nazareth portrayed in the Gospels clearly existed, Josephus becomes the slender thread by which such an assumption hangs. And the sound and fury and desperate manoeuverings which surround the dissection of those two little passages becomes a din of astonishing proportions. The obsessive focus on this one uncertain record is necessitated by the fact that the rest of the evidence is so dismal, so contrary to the orthodox picture. If almost everything outside Josephus points in a different direction, to the essential fiction of the Gospel picture and its central figure, how can Josephus be made to bear on his shoulders, through two passages whose reliability has thus far remained unsettled, the counterweight to all this other negative evidence?[xiii]
The next passage is from The Annals of Roman historian and Senator Tacitus (c. 68). Tacitus is generally considered a reliable historian, which has been used to give this passage added weight.
Nero fastened the guilt of starting the blaze and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius 14-37 at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. (Tacitus 15:44)
First of all, Tacitus was not infallible. In referring to earlier references, Tacitus confirms that Moses led a colony of lepers (the Jews) out of Israel, thus giving the rumor that the Jewish people were originally a leper colony a pseudo-historical foundation. Assmann reflects, Tacitus’ “authority as a historian imparted the dignity of authentic historical research to this product of imagination, projection, and distorted memory.”[xiv]
Even so, a strong case can also be made against the authenticity of this passage. Larner and Doane point out that it was discovered only in the 15th century (this is confirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia) and that there was “no vestige nor trace of its existence anywhere in the world” before then:
The original MSS. containing the “Annals of Tacitus” were “discovered” in the fifteenth century. Their existence cannot be traced back further than that time. And as it was an age of imposture, some persons are disposed to believe that not only portions of the Annals, but the whole work, was forged at that time. Mr. J. W. Ross, in an elaborate work published in London some years ago, contended that the Annals were forged by Poggio Bracciolini, their professed discoverer. At the time of Bracciolini the temptation was great to palm off literary forgeries, especially of the chief writers of antiquity, on account of the Popes, in their efforts to revive learning, giving money rewards and indulgences to those who should procure MS. copies of any of the ancient Greek or Roman authors. Manuscripts turned up as if by magic, in every direction; from libraries of monasteries, obscure as well as famous; the most out-of-the-way places,—the bottom of exhausted wells, besmeared by snails, as the History of Velleius Paterculus, or from garrets, where they had been contending with cobwebs and dust, as the poems of Catullus.[xv]
Nevertheless, the passage is generally accepted as authentic by modern researchers. At the same time, it has been noted that it can offer no information regarding the historical Jesus, since “Christ” is not a name and could have referred to any number of individuals. Another claim is that Tacitus is only repeating Christians’ own perception of their history.
Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan in 112 about certain Christians who refused to worship the emperor. This letter has also been used to justify the historical Jesus – although it refers only to the existence of Christians.
Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ – none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do – these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshiped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ. (Pliny the Younger 10:96-97)
Finally, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69-140), a secretary and historian to Emperor Hadrian wrote the following in his Life of Claudius: “As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome” (25:4). That this passage is referring to Jesus Christ assumes the following:
1. The “Chrestus” causing disturbance in Rome refers to a “Christ” who actually resided some years earlier in Palestine.
2. The information is not secondhand via Christian sources.
3. The presence of Christians in Rome by 49 implies the existence of an actual “Christ” rather than a developing legend.
4. “Chrestus” means “Christ,” rather than its translation “Useful One.”
Suetonius later mentions that, because of the great fire in Rome of 64 AD, “punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and harmful superstition” (Lives of the Caesars, 26:2).
Putting aside the question of whether these passages are authentic or forgeries, in fact they are not strong witnesses for the historical Jesus anyway. They were all written after the life and times of Jesus, by non-followers who had only second hand, anecdotal evidence about him. They don’t mention any of the miraculous deeds or teachings of the Bible. If anything they only support the idea that there were at the time some Christians who believed in a historical Jesus – a point which I have no intention of challenging. As Kuhn pointed out in the quote above, these meager historical sources are incongruous to the claim that the life of Jesus Christ was one of the best-attested events in history.
Some scholars have noticed, with surprise, that there are no contemporary accounts of Jesus of any kind. When used against the idea of a historical Jesus, this is sometimes referred to as the “argument from silence.” Kersey Graves, for example, writing in 1875, commented strongly on the lack of historical testimony:
The fact that no history, sacred or profane,—that not one of the three hundred histories of that age,—makes the slightest allusion to Christ, or any of the miraculous incidents ingrafted into his life, certainly proves, with a cogency that no logic can overthrow, no sophistry can contradict, and no honest skepticism can resist, that there never was such a miraculously endowed being as his many orthodox disciples claim him to have been. The fact that Christ finds no place in the history of the era in which he lived,—that not one event of his life is recorded by anybody but his own interested and prejudiced biographers,—settles the conclusion, beyond cavil or criticism, that the godlike achievements ascribed to him are naught but fable or fiction. It not only proves he was not miraculously endowed, but proves he was not even naturally endowed to such an extraordinary degree as to make him an object of general attention.[xvi]
Defenders of Christianity respond to this argument by claiming that Jesus was a small time preacher living in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, and as such shouldn’t be expected to have received much attention anyway. However, in the gospels his death and resurrection were witnessed and believed in by both Roman and Jewish officials; the word would have been sure to spread very quickly. As Mead pointed out in 1903,
It has always been unfailing source of astonishment to the historical investigator of Christian beginnings, that there is not a single word from the pen of any pagan writer of the first century of our era, which can in any fashion be referred to the marvelous story recounted by the Gospel writer. The very existence of Jesus seems unknown.[xvii]
Of course the “argument from silence” can’t prove that Jesus didn’t exist; nor can questioning the authenticity of the passages cited above. For the purposes of the present study, however, the above documents are refuted as proofs for the historical Jesus: the reason for this conclusion has nothing to do with the documents themselves, but is simply based on the perception that controversy and argumentation surrounding these documents continues, and appears irresolvable. For obvious reasons, a document used as evidence to give testimony about an individual should be a reliable and trusted source of information. If experts cannot agree on the validity of the document, and if they argue for centuries about whether or not it is genuine, a forgery, or a well-intentioned interpolation, and if in general there is no consensus, then the document should not be used as valid evidence in a research investigation.
However, that’s not to say that these passages couldn’t be used as strong supporting or secondary evidence – but only in the absence of other evidence pointing at a different solution, or after an irrefutable (or at least much more secure) primary source of testimony was first established. This is an assertion that most Christians can agree with, maintaining that the most reliable testimony of the life of Jesus Christ can be found in the Bible. On his website, Mark D. Roberts, author of Jesus Revealed, quickly dismisses the main Jewish and Roman sources used to support the historical Jesus and even makes the early Christian writings dispensable. In the end, however, he finds in the Bible plenty of evidence for the historical Jesus.
If all we had were the second-century Christian writings, we’d have a hard time sorting out what Jesus really did and said. The gulf between orthodox and heterodox treatments of Jesus was wide and growing wider in this century as Gnostics claimed Jesus as their heavenly redeemer while orthodox Christians insisted that his ministry included far more than revelation. At its core, they argued, it had to do with his death and resurrection, something the Gnostics rejected, preferring a revealer who didn’t really suffer. But, I’m glad to say, we don’t have only the second-century writings. In fact we have access to texts from the earliest days of Christian faith, writings which are collected in the New Testament.[xviii]
But is the Bible really historically accurate? Who wrote the New Testament and for what purpose? What can we learn about Jesus from the gospel stories? These questions will be explored in the next section.
The Old Testament
The modern Bible is a collection of writings that attempt to link Jesus, as a historical figure, to the much older (and more exhaustive) Old Testament, or Jewish scriptures. It was generally maintained by Christians that Jesus had come as the Jewish Messiah, and as such, the Old Testament writings were interpreted as references to Jesus and his coming kingdom. It is important to note that the New Testament was most likely written by Jews or at least scribes who were very familiar with traditional Jewish writings. Therefore, before we examine whether the New Testament is a reliable historical source, it will be advantageous to examine the Old Testament to develop an understanding of just what kind of writing it is. Specifically, is the Old Testament historically reliable and accurate?
We should also understand that the concept of an “Old Testament” is completely Christian. Although the bulk of the Old Testament is the Jewish Pentateuch or Tanach, as well as collections of Jewish writings, the organization of them into one linear text starting with the beginning of history (creation) and ending in the fulfillment of Jesus Christ (New Testament) is a reflection of Christian ideology. To Jews who continue to maintain the supremacy of their scriptures, the prefix “Old” is insulting; it reflects the Christian paradigm that Christ fulfills and supersedes the Law. It is mostly the Christian understanding of the New Testament as literal history, miracles included, which has likewise spread the view that the Old Testament is also to be read literally – a practice which conflicts with historical records.
In fact, when we study the Old Testament within the social and geographic context in which it was developed, we will see that the main stories of the Old Testament – David and Goliath, Moses and the Ten Commandments, Joseph, the Ark, the garden – are all refurbished pagan stories; assimilated and transformed to give Jews their own national heroes. This demonstrates that Jewish scribes, rather than writing in a vacuum, were already relying on a rich and very ancient literary tradition. The best example of this is from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, the greatest literary accomplishment of Mesopotamia, was widely translated throughout the ancient Middle East. There are many parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh, pagan mythology, and the Old Testament. We will focus on just one (the story of the flood) to demonstrate how closely the parallels run and how it can be effectively proven that the Old Testament borrowed from earlier sources. The similarities between the story of Noah should be apparent to anyone familiar with the biblical account of the flood.
The Babylonian Noah was named Utnupishtim, who with his wife became immortal after surviving the great food. Gilgamesh, in his quest for immortality, seeks him out and gets to hear the story first hand. The gods had decided to destroy mankind, but one god, Ea, was friendly and determined to save Utnupishtim. He told him to disregard his possessions, construct an ark according to exact specifications, and take the seed of all living plants and creatures (as well as his wife, adequate supplies and crew). Cyrus Gordon, an American scholar of Near Eastern cultures, notes that the Babylonian account is “more detailed and realistic than the biblical version because the Mesopotamians were more advanced than the Hebrews in material civilization in general and specifically in the arts of naval construction and operation.”[xix] Rains came and the ark was carried on the waters. Finally it came to rest on a mountain. The survivors sent out a dove, and then a swallow, and then a raven to determine whether the earth was dry. Utnupishtim got out and sacrificed to the gods, who hovered over the sweet-smelling sacrifice like flies.
Exploring the similarities between these two literary traditions, Gordon makes a clear argument regarding their relationship:
Here we need to say a special word about the relationship between the flood accounts as preserved in the Bible and in the Gilgamesh Epic. It is obvious that the two versions are strikingly similar and must be related in some way. The consensus of scholars is that the Babylonian version influenced the Israelite version. The reasons for this are manifold. First, all things being equal, a greater society is more likely to influence a lesser society than vice versa. Babylonia was the dominant culture of the Asiatic near East and Israel represented a backwater of sorts. Secondly, the manner of destruction, i.e., by flood, is typical of Mesopotamia, where the great Tigris and Euphrates Rivers regularly flooded their banks and cause havoc and destruction. Israel, by contrast, is very arid; it is unlikely that anyone in that part of the Near East would conceive of a divine destruction of the people through flooding. Third, the geography of the biblical accounts points to a Mesopotamian origin. Noah’s ark lands on the mountains of Aratat, at the headwaters of the Tigris and the Euphrates; if the story had originated in Canaan we would expect Mount Hermon (c 7,500 feet high), for example, as the locale of the ark’s resting place. Fourth, as we have seen, the Gilgamesh Epic was the literary masterpiece of antiquity, and one fragment even has been found in the land of Israel (at Megiddo). Fifth, the earliest Hebrews come from Mesopotamia, and it is unlikely that Abraham and his entourage would have been unfamiliar with the story.[xx]
Interestingly, the fact that flood stories appear also in other cultural myths have been used to support the reliability of the Bible; however in this instance, the parallels are so precisely mirrored – the releasing of the birds, the sweet-smelling sacrifice that pacified the god (Genesis 8:20-12) – that this cannot be an instance of a universal tradition, but rather a direct influence. Although the Bible seems to give a clear picture of the history of mankind from the beginning of creation until the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ, the truth is that there were already extremely advanced and developed civilizations before the Old Testament was written, and the Old Testament authors were undoubtedly influenced by these civilizations.
For example, before Yahweh gave the Jews their 10 commandments, the first king Urnammu of the Third dynasty of Ur (2028-1920BC), developed the first code of laws known anywhere in the world. There are also countless business documents of this period, dated by month and even to the day. Soon thereafter, the king of the Babylonian First Dynasty Hammurapi (1704-1662) made a much more advanced code of law: there were three classes of society, rich, middle and slaves. Prices were fixed. Laws were precise and included traffic violation, marriage, care of children, and a Veteran’s Bill of Rights. Moreover, it was specifically devoid of legalistic jargon – so that anybody could understand the law.
The Jews were heavily influenced by their 70-year Babylonian exile, something that can be seen, for example, in their calendar. “Babylonian unity is reflected by the spread throughout the land of a single calendar, whose month names persisted to the end of Babylonian history, and which live on in the religious calendar of the Jews, who adopted it during the Babylonian Exile.”[xxi] This is not to say they assimilated; in fact the extreme disapproval of adapting outsider customs and pagan religions, as well as the ritualistic laws and strict punishments for idolatry, may have been formulated as a way to protect an autonomous Jewish identity.
In addition, many of the stories in the Old Testament disagree with archaeological evidence. In the story of Exodus, for example, Moses led his people out of Egypt and across the river into Canaan, where they destroyed the Canaanite cities and decimated the local population. As Karen Armstrong, author of The Bible: A Biography, points out,
Israeli archaeologists, who have been excavating the region since 1967, have found no evidence to corroborate this story; there is no sign of foreign invasion or mass destruction, and nothing to indicate a large-scale change of population. The scholarly consensus is that the story of Exodus is not historical.[xxii]
The Old Testament is a collection and compilation of Jewish writings, which reflect the Jewish belief in a national divinity and His covenant with them as a people. However, rather than an account of historical events, the Old Testament is an Israel-centered pastiche, which reflects the cultural and ethnographic heritage of the Jews, and for which the various writers freely used and adapted existing literatures from different traditions. It was then organized, translated and copied by Christian scholars, who interpreted it as a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. Although many of the accounts in the Old Testament may be historical – i.e. the names of specific places or rulers – the writers in general adopted myth, fable and folklore and tied it into current Jewish happenings, as a commentary on contemporary events. In identifying this process in the Old Testament, we already have a working model of how the New Testament gospels may have been written.
The New Testament
It is awkward to talk about the New Testament as providing proof for the historical Jesus, if only because of the stark contrast in respective beliefs concerning the Bible. Many people believe firmly, without a doubt that the New Testament is not historical; and others believe just as firmly that it is. Although it has long been concluded by literary experts, biblical exegetes, and historical scholars that the four gospels of the New Testament reflect specific theological trends within the early church rather than dispassionate historical reports, they are still considered eye-witness testimonials and historical evidence by perhaps the majority of Christians (and thus a large portion of the world population).
As I mentioned previously, we should not be concerned here with proving the matter one way or another; all that is needed is to fully understand the various reasons why each side claims what it does. To begin with, it can be reiterated that the academic community hasn’t considered the gospels as eye-witness accounts since the early days of biblical criticism (although they might say the gospels reflect the genuine or authentic spirit of the early church). In 1986 for example, Robert Funk created the Westar Institute with the aim of exploring the reliability of the New Testament as testimony. He organized the Jesus Seminar, an inter-disciplinary panel of scholars, to investigate the historical accuracy of the New Testament sayings of Jesus. In 1993, the seminar published the findings of their vote-based investigation, in a work called, The Five Gospels.[xxiii] Their conclusion was that only 16% of the words attributed to Jesus in the gospels may have actually been spoken by him.
Some of the reasons for this are not difficult to find if reading the Bible objectively. For example, the gospels never say “I saw Jesus do this and was afraid.” Instead, they use the third person – as would someone telling a story or legend – and say, “The disciples saw Jesus do this and were afraid.” They frequently talk about things that happened behind closed doors or among their rivals.
They are also incredibly impersonal; they share no private conversations or anecdotes, no complaints, and no worries or thoughts of the author (which might be expected if the author had traveled in an intimate band of companions for a year). Moreover, scholars generally agree that Mark came first, and the other two Synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke, copied from him and added their own material to support the agenda of their community. In Mark, the earliest gospel, there was no birth story and no account of the resurrection (the current ending of Mark, which includes Jesus appearing to his disciples, is considered a late addition.) Mark may have been based on an earlier tradition or literature that scholars refer to as “Q.” Daniel Wallace of the Dallas Theological Seminary and Executive Director for the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, has written an excellent paper, “The Synoptic Problem,” exploring some of these issues.[xxiv]
In fact there is nothing in the text themselves that would give the impression that they are eye-witness accounts; it is only tradition, which later gave the gospels names of specific apostles, which has led to the modern belief that they were written by original followers of Christ. The fact that they were not is universally accepted among scholars; although some claim that they still record genuine testimony, passed down from original witnesses. “Pseudonymity was the rule until 135 at least… then writings were placed under names of apostles to demonstrate that they represented the ‘true workings of the spirit’ and guaranteed orthodoxy.”[xxv]
What are the gospels, if not eye-witness accounts? To understand why and how the gospels were written, we need to remember that the first few centuries of Christianity were filled with controversies. Dozens of schisms, sects, and communities worshipped Jesus independently and called each other heretics. Some groups, in order to claim authority, tried to create a direct link of transmission between themselves and the disciples who actually knew Jesus. The concept of “apostolic succession” was an attempt to strengthen the particular ideology of certain Christian communities. Moreover, communities selected, altered or crafted stories about Jesus to support their own particular theology and to raise the status of the apostle their group claimed to have received direct transmission from.
Many Christian communities were the result of the hard work of the apostle Paul, whose letters (both authentic and those forged in his name) make up nearly half of the New Testament. Interestingly, it seems Paul himself was completely against the idea of apostolic tradition. He argued that believers could experience Jesus personally – without any human intermediary – and that this metaphysical experience of Jesus made them equal to any others: “I did not receive it [the gospel] from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:12) “Am I not an apostle, have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1:Cor. 15:7).
Against the teachings of Paul, and unlike the earliest Christian texts (such as the Didache[xxvi] (c. 50-120AD) in which roles are merit based and there is no hierarchy, or the book of Matthew, which rejected fixed forms of ritual) by around 100BC a body of teaching was becoming established to which appeal could be made. Its authenticity could be guaranteed by reference to the apostles and to Christ himself, and it was represented by an ordered hierarchy that could claim descent from apostolic times.[xxvii]
Faced with controversy on all sides, the early church fathers developed a canon (or plumb-line) of “orthodox” writings; the criteria for which was that they could be traced back to a disciple of Christ. Thus, they could claim absolute authority via direct apostolic transmission. However, in order to validate the appropriate texts, pseudepigraphy (forgery) was used to assign the texts to various apostles. As Hermann Detering comments,
The history of the investigation of the New Testament writings has led to the generally recognized conclusion that of the all-together twenty-seven writings in the New Testament, apart from those that supposedly derive from Paul – not a single one can be traced back to an apostle, or a student of an apostle – and this is the case even though all the writings of the New Testament claim direct or indirect apostolic authorship, which then constitutes the presupposition for their inclusion in the canon![xxviii]
The communities that insisted on a fixed canon and apostolic tradition were the same communities preaching a Jesus “in the flesh,” as opposed to one that came only in appearance; thus they naturally had a stronger claim to the historical transmission of dogma or truth. Other communities with a more integrative, spiritual focus also began to use apostolic tradition to justify their teachings; but without a clear, physical human founder, their claim of authenticity was weakened. This is probably why in the Bible, which is a result of a “normative Christianity,” Peter (considered one of the actual disciples) is made the rock on which Jesus founded his church, rather than Paul (who never met Jesus).
In the apocryphal gospel of Thomas, however, Jesus chose James to be ruler. In the gospel of Mary Magdalene, we find it is Mary who was closest to Jesus and had been given ultimate knowledge. In fact it was quite easy for a sect or community to attribute their theology to Jesus – they could just claim another revelation from the spiritual Christ, or a private conversation between him and a disciple not yet recorded. This opportunity was fortified by the fact that Jesus had resurrected, and could appear in the flesh (or in dreams) to anybody, at any time. It was probably this atmosphere of intense competition that made it necessary for the orthodox to deny the spiritual Jesus as much as possible and emphasize his one-time-only historicity. As such, they could codify a set of gospels to which nothing more could be added. (Even so, they constantly had to fight against communities who claimed Jesus had revealed secret knowledge to other disciples).
At the same time, it is worth noting the style of the earliest Christian documents with regard to Jesus. Rather than the eye-witness testimonials which we would expect, they refer very generally (if at all) to Jesus, and rarely in a human context. The impression of Jesus Christ was interpreted less in terms of the Gospels than in those of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.[xxix] 1 Clement and the Didache present Christ as “the servant,” and quote Isaiah to demonstrate qualities of Christ, rather than any historical events. For example, they would say that Christ was humble; not because of his humility under Pilate, but because Isaiah said he would be.
Likewise, Clement 1 proves the possibility of immortality through a reference to the phoenix, instead of the empty tomb. Ethical teachings of the early communities were based on the “Two Ways” of Job, the Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastics rather than the Sermon on the Mount. Judith and Esther are used as examples of self-sacrificing, modest women; not Mary Magdalene or Jesus’ mother.
The Jesus of the early Christian communities, rather than a recently deceased historical person, was primarily a literary construct – a synthesis based on an academic exegesis that interpreted Jewish scripture as prophecy about the coming Messiah. Karen Armstrong explains how a “blurring” of several Old Testament motifs was used to form the character of Jesus Christ.
They were also attracted to the mysterious figure of the servant in Second Isaiah, whose suffering had redeemed the world. The servant had not been a messianic figure, but by constantly comparing the servant with Jesus Christos, using the same ‘blurring’ technique, they established for the first time the idea of a suffering messiah. Thus three separate figures – servant, messiah and Jesus – became inseparable in the Christian imagination.[xxx]
As Armstrong points out, this Christian exegesis was so thorough that “there is scarcely a verse in the New Testament that did not refer to older scriptures,” and that, therefore, “some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that it would be possible to construct an entire gospel from the Jewish scriptures, without quoting a single word by Jesus himself.”[xxxi]
The gospel story about Jesus Christ begins with his theological role and relationship with the Old Testament; however at the same time, there are anomalous elements that could not have come from Judaism. The Holy Communion, for example, is in direct violation of the command in Leviticus 17:12 not to eat raw blood.
Early writings like the Didache[xxxii] mention Jesus only as the “servant to God” who initiated the Eucharist. The Didache doesn’t mention Christ’s resurrection; and while it speaks of a “Son of God” and “Lord,” this figure is never explicitly identified with Jesus Christ. He was expected to arrive, rather than being present. The Didache also lists ethical commands, without linking them to Jesus. Do not do to others what you would not done to you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Pray for your enemies. If someone takes your cloak, give him your coat. The meek shall inherit the earth. These maxims were part of the “Way of Life” (as opposed to the “Way of Death”) and would later be attributed to the figure of Jesus.[xxxiii]
The specific details of the gospel, and the story of the human, physical life of Jesus, were told only when needed by Christian communities to confront the claims that Jesus had not lived a human life. In the second century there was no canon of prescribed texts because there was “as yet, no standard form of Christianity.”[xxxiv] Jesus Christ was then placed in a historical context, and pre-existing statements (like those from the Didache[xxxv]) were prefixed with “Jesus said –.” According to W.H.C. Frend in The Rise of Christianity,
Communities needed an account of the life of the Savior for their edification and in order to refute those who denied that he was the Messiah or claimed that his ministry was not real.[xxxvi]
Part of the confusion over the gospels is that they appear to be historical; they are written in a way, and with the inclusion of historical data, which makes them seem like historical documents. This stylistic feature is often pointed out as evidence. Craig Blomberg for example, Professor of the New Testament at the Denver Seminary in Colorado, argues,
But if you’re going to be convinced enough to believe, the theology has to flow from accurate history. Besides, there’s an important piece of implicit evidence that can’t be overlooked. Consider the way the gospels are written – a sober and responsible fashion, with accurate incidental details, with obvious care and exactitude. You don’t find the outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing that you see in a lot of other ancient writings.[xxxvii]
Overlooking the claim that a story about a man who walks on water, pulls coins out of fish and rises from the dead is “sober and responsible” and not “outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing,” we could easily argue that the gospels were written in this particular style precisely because the authors wanted them to be considered as historical testimonies – which in no way proves that they actually were. The gospels that were canonized were the ones that presented Jesus the man; and they were chosen because they focused on the physical Jesus and could support a claim of apostolic tradition and the authority of a particular Christian community (with the exception of John, which presents Jesus in transcendental terms that for many were irreconcilable with a physical human being). Some scholars have argued that it is the consistent style of these gospels that implies a historical mover behind them. Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian C.H. Dodd takes this approach:
The Synoptic writers give us a body of his sayings so coherent, and withal so distinctive in style, manner and content, that no reasonable critic could doubt that whatever reservations he might have about individual Sayings, we find reflected here the thought of a single, unique teacher.[xxxviii]
Early Christian writings, however, testify that like the Old Testament, the stories in the New Testament were allegories deliberately written as “historical narratives” that held deeper meaning meant to be interpreted. Christian apologist Origen, in Contra Celsum, writes:
It is sufficient however, to represent in the style of a historical narrative what is intended to convey a secret meaning in the garb of history, that those who have the capacity may work out for themselves all that relates to the subject. (Book 5, Chapter 29)
In fact, for much of its existence, it was understood that the Bible was meant to be treated as allegory. Origen’s three levels of meaning in exegetical practice formed the basis of biblical study well into the Middle Ages. But along with the Reformation, and the Protestant cry of sola scriptura, came an emphasis on a literal reading of the Bible. The complications inherent in mixing spiritual allegory with historical fact are many. Richard Dawkins points out one such example in The God Delusion. In Christian theology, Jesus is the “New Adam” necessary to redeem the sin of Adam; but Adam, or “first man,” is without question a literary construct – his alleged transgression merely a theological explanation for why there is sin in the world. Even if a real Jesus did come in the flesh, why would his actions remove the “stain of sin” from a mythical figure?
To cap it all, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of the original sin, never existed in the first place: an – awkward fact – excusably unknown to Paul but presumably known to an Omniscient God (and Jesus, if you believe he was God?) – which fundamentally undermines the premise of the whole nasty theory. Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn’t it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual?[xxxix]
Jesus and the Stoic Philosophers
What about the teachings of Jesus found in the New Testament? Can they be traced to innovative ideas that may have come from a historical founder? Actually, many “Christian” ideas were already present in Jewish spiritual communities and pagan philosophy. The Pharisees, for example, systematized works of mercy and charity towards the poor, as well as care of the dead (burial of corpses and care of graves), which was to become characteristic of Christian practice. They also already believed in an afterlife and a last judgment:
Nonetheless, the Pharisaic belief in the afterlife, in its rewards and punishments, in angels and demons, and also in the ability of each individual to repent of sins and earn forgiveness, and of the duty to die for the Torah rather than compromise its prescriptions, were accepted by the people. Lazarus’s sister Martha took it as a matter of course that her brother would rise again in the resurrection at the last day.[xl]
The Jesus movement appears unique in preaching that, rather than at the end of time, the Kingdom and the resurrection was to be found right now – in this lifetime. This passionate and motivating belief, however, can be traced to the community at Qumran:
Like Jesus himself and the early Christians, the Covenanters expected the rapid end of the age, they were concerned with membership of the future kingdom, and they shared with Jesus’ followers a deep interest in discovering signs that might warn them of the approach of the end.[xli]
A similar theme is found in the Stoic writings. The Stoic doctrine of the “world conflagration” described the destruction of the present scheme of things so that it may begin anew. Hence, Epictetus teaches non-attachment, and “not to stray too far from the ship.”
On a voyage, when the ship calls at the port and you go ashore for water, it amuses you to pick up a shell or a plant by the way; but your thoughts ought to be directed to the ship and you must watch lest the captain call, and then you must throw away all those things, that you may not be flung aboard, tied like the sheep. So in life, suppose that instead of some little shell or plant, you are given something in the way of wife or child nothing need hinder. But, if the captain call, run to the ship letting them all go and never looking round.[xlii]
Early Christianity developed a similar doctrine of the End of Times, when God would destroy the world with fire and natural disasters, and Jesus would return to judge the living and the dead.
Immediately after the distress of those days, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. (Mat 24:29-31, NIV)
On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:25-28, NIV)
Rather than Epictetus’ metaphor of the ship, the gospel writers preferred the parable that Jesus would come “like a thief in the night.”
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. (2 Peter 3:10, NIV)
Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed. (Revelation 16:15, NIV)
The Qumran community used a dualistic system marked by light and dark symmetry – the two ways or two paths – which is in common with early Christian texts. The Manual of Discipline, for example, reads “Now this God, created man to rule the world and appointed for him two spirits he was to walk with until the final Inquisition.”[xliii] This division, between a higher, divine self, and a lower, animal self, was also common in most pagan philosophical and spiritual traditions. It was believed that developing the higher self would lead to life, while giving in to the passions of the body would lead to death.
Stoicism also taught, like the Gospel of John, that the Word of God (Spermaticos Logos) was the creative force through which the universe was created, that existed with the Father in the beginning, and descended even into men. According to Seneca,
This fabric which you see, wherein are divine and human, is one. We are members of a great body. Nature has made us of one blood, has implanted in us mutual love, has made us for society.
The gods are not scornful, they are not envious. They welcome us, and, as we ascend, they reach us their hands. Are you surprised that a man should go to the gods? God comes to men, nay! Nearer still! He comes into men. No mind (mens) is good without God. Divine seeds are sown in human bodies, and will grow into likeness to their origin if rightly cultivated.[xliv]
As Bultmann pointed out, if the ideas recorded in the New Testament as teachings of Jesus were already present in his environment, they cannot have originated with him. Specifically, although he may have been a Jewish teacher or rebel leader who drew from those beliefs and formulated his own message, those teachings – not being original – cannot be used to identify or locate the historical Jesus.
The reverse, however, is also true. Just because the New Testament may not refer to a specific, unique historical person, and instead may be a compilation of Christian theology, beliefs and mythology, doesn’t prove that there was not a historical founder behind them. The conclusion can only be that the gospels of the New Testament are not focused on the historical Jesus, and as such should not be expected to give strong evidence of him. Without conflicting evidence, there is no reason not to take them at face value as relating to a specific historical individual:
In their final form the Gospels are works reflecting the faith and attitudes of Christian communities some two generations after the crucifixion. Their writers were concerned with “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1) and not with historical biography. The story they tell, however, can hardly relate to a situation other than Palestine in the first half of the first century A.D. and to an individual who lived in those times.[xlv]
The story of the gospels is about an individual that lived in a specific period of history, and, as recent scholarship has proved, we can generate a lot of details about that individual by researching relevant historical data. But it should not be forgotten that this method begins with the hypothesis of a historical Jesus.
To elaborate this point, consider the novel Gone with the Wind. It is about a woman named Scarlett O’Hara, who lived during a specific episode of American history – the civil war. Gone with the Wind is full of passion, relationship, adventure and dialog, and made realistic by the inclusion of history-specific details, such as descriptions of soldiers’ uniforms or references to real battles that took place or real political leaders. However, we recognize that Gone with the Wind is a story written in a certain genre: historical fiction or historical narrative. It can move us, inspire us, motivate and entertain us; and a person like Scarlett may really have existed and had similar experiences. However, by examining the literary components, we can separate the fact from fiction.
Many scholars still believe that the gospels preserve genuine Jesus-inspired traditions, recollections and evidences of Christianity’s historical founder, and in the absence of other indicators, biblical studies would do well to continue searching for him. However, there is other evidence, which is discarded for being irrelevant simply because it doesn’t lead to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was historical. This circular argument is that any evidence which describes Jesus in non-historical terms has no relevance to the historical Jesus. At the same time, some of this evidence comes from Christ-worshipping communities and traditions, and therefore can be useful in understanding the development of Christian history and ideology.
The Gnostic Gospels
In 1979 Professor of Religion at Princeton University Elaine Pagels first published her book The Gnostic Gospels, a popular introduction to the ancient manuscripts discovered near the upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1943. The word “Gnostic” refers to possessing intellectual or spiritual knowledge. These documents, which were buried to avoid persecution in the 3rd or 4th century, depict a Jesus concerned with illusion and enlightenment rather than sin and repentance. According to Pagels, “Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide who opens access to spiritual understanding.” Pagels’ book revealed that the early Christian communities were diverse, held vastly differing beliefs about their savior Jesus Christ, and used several gospels that were not included in the Bible.
Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institutions. But every one of these – the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure – emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century. Before that time, as Irenaeus and others attest, numerous gospels circulated among various Christian groups, ranging from those of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to such writings as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth, as well as many other secret teachings, myths, and poems attributed to Jesus or his disciples. Some of these, apparently, were discovered at Nag Hammadi; many others are lost to us. Those who identified themselves as Christians entertained many – and radically differing – religious beliefs and practices.[xlvi]
But can the Gnostic Gospels really tell us anything about Jesus? Traditional biblical scholars insist that Gnosticism was a schism or heresy from the original Jesus movement, and that it was most pagan and had nothing to do with the authentic teachings of Jesus. This argument was used early by the church, who claimed ultimate possession over the Christian legacy. As Frend relates,
An assumption, which started early and continues to hold weight today, is that these Gnostic communities came late and as such have no bearing on the historical Jesus. Tertullian, for example, argues that Gnostics had no right to use scripture in any way. They were usurpers, latecomers whose sects had come into being long after the church had established itself and therefore held a possessory right over Scripture.[xlvii]
Today “Gnostic” is commonly used as a broad term to refer to certain groups and ideas of the 2nd century. Anything Gnostic then, by definition, can be satisfactorily restrained to the safety of the second century as an offshoot of mainstream Christianity. Another method used to marginalize Gnostic writings is to say they are not concerned with the historical Jesus, or don’t believe in him, and therefore have nothing useful to say about him. It can be demonstrated, however, that the beliefs and ideologies of Gnosticism come directly from traditions that are older than mainstream Christianity. Therefore, rather than offshoots of orthodox Christianity, they actually represent co-existing, contemporary communities which developed around the same time as normative Christianity. Although I will not argue that the Gnostic gospels have more authority or are earlier than the canonical ones, I think it reasonable to accept that they may have at least something to tell us about the diverse early practices of worshipping Jesus, as well as the reliability of the tradition of a historical founder.
Gnosticism is basically a philosophical form of Christianity that focuses on esoteric wisdom and metaphysics. Many Gnostics believed in dualism: the earth is the lowest of seven universes or planets, and our souls (remnants from the perfect light of the first world) are stuck here in corrupted, physical bodies. We can find these beliefs in Saturnius (c. 100-120), the disciple of Menander (c. 60-100), who was the disciple of Simon Magus. The world was viewed as evil matter, and Christ came to save us from the “seven angels” (planets or powers) – one of whom was the Yahweh of the Old Testament.[xlviii] As was already pointed out, “orthodox” Christianity also had strong dualistic tendencies; but with the emphasis on the historical Jesus and resurrection of the flesh, it became problematic to vilify the physical body.
Influenced by logical inquiry and pagan philosophy, Gnostics read the Old Testament description of Yahweh (which shows him to be possessive, jealous and angry) and concluded that he could not be the real God, who must be perfect. Instead, they called him Demiurge – a malevolent force that produced the world by blunder.
Gnostic writings demonstrate a synthesis of Jewish and pagan thought, and also employ New Testament figures like Jesus, Peter, John, Mark, Paul and Mary. A few of the most influential Gnostic teachers were Basilides (c. 130-150), Valentinus (c. 140-160) and Heracleon (c. 170-180). Basilides taught the Demiurge, and claimed the crucifixion was not real (for Christ could not suffer). In Basilides’ account of the Passion, Simon of Cyrene takes on the appearance of Jesus, and Jesus stands by and laughs in scorn as the Jews try to kill him. Interestingly, Simon of Cyrene also appears in the gospel of Mark, as the bystander who carries the cross for Jesus (Mark, 15:21).
In the account of Valentinus (c. 140-65), Sophia, a great Goddess, gave birth to the creator of the universe (the Demiurge) but then fell into matter and became trapped (or in some accounts, sacrificed herself.) A savior, Jesus, is sent to Sophia. He separates her from her passions, saving her. Like all Gnostic myths, the symbols are meant to be interpreted. Sophia means “wisdom,” and it is she who is also found in the book of Wisdom. The qualities of Wisdom are very similar to those later given to the “Logos,” which were then placed onto the person of Jesus Christ:
Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; she is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things. She is a breath of the power of God, pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; so nothing impure can find its way into her. For she is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God’s active power, and image of his goodness. Although she is alone, she can do everything; herself unchanging, she renews the world, and, generation after generation, passing into holy souls, she makes them into God’s friends and prophets; for God loves those who dwell in wisdom. (Wisdom 7:24-28)
When we reflect that “Sophia” or wisdom is what the Gnostics prized above all else, the book of Wisdom actually seems more attune to gnosticism than what became orthodox Christianity. Although the above qualities given to Wisdom could also be attached to the Holy Spirit, they certainly reflect a pre-Christian trend which was more common to Gnostics and pagans than to early Christianity. According to the myth, when Sophia fell to the earth she became trapped in “dirt” (humanity); giving human beings the spark of the divine, or reason. Jesus, for Valentinus, was the savior who came to liberate our souls or higher selves from the prison of the flesh.
Clement of Alexandria (c.150 – 215), considered a saint by the church until the 17th century, believed that Jesus had a true human nature but felt no emotions, pleasure or pain. Clement also quoted from Valentinus, who said that “Jesus ate and drank in a manner peculiar to himself and that the food did not pass through his body” (Miscellanies VI.9.71 1-2). A fragment (in a Latin translation) of a commentary of Clement’s on the first Epistle of John contains the following curious statement, which directly contradicts the biblical story of “doubting Thomas”:
It is said in the tradition that John touched the surface of the body of Jesus, and drove his hand deep into it, and the firmness of the flesh was no obstacle but gave way to the hand of the disciple.[xlix]
Clement was familiar with Indian religions and customs, and it has been pointed out that his spiritual beliefs may have been more Buddhist than Christian. This just shows the ease and ability with which Jesus’ Gnostic followers integrated with other traditions.
Basilides also interpreted scripture allegorically and related it freely to other myths. Based on the writings of Paul (Romans 7:9), Basilides taught the “transmigration of souls” (reincarnation), a common theme shared between Orphism, Plato and mystery cults. Heracleon, like Paul, criticized the orthodox for still acting like Jews; celebrating Passover in the Eucharist and making the mistake of interpreting literary events historically.[l]
According to Heracleon (and most Gnostics), spiritual beings comprehended the passion of the savior as spiritual allegory for their own restoration to the Father. Heracleon also taught that the baptism of John was only for the body, and thus imperfect, while the baptism of the Gnostics is spiritual. Significantly, according to New Testament writings, early Christianity originally had two baptisms – one of the flesh and one of the spirit. John’s baptism is of water, while Jesus’ baptism is of fire and the holy spirit. In Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul finds whole communities that did not receive the 2nd baptism. The fact that modern Christianity celebrates only one baptism is an indication of what has been lost.
Marcion (85-165) distinguished between the Demiurge, who symbolized righteousness (reward and punishment) and the real god, which was pure goodness. Citing from Isaiah, Marcion pointed out that Yahweh was the creator of evil: “I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). This vengeful creator god was not the same as the meek, passive Jesus. Jesus is the inner man, and though revealed as a man was not a man; he had a body only in appearance, and was subject to no nativity or passion, except in appearance.
Therefore, Marcion was against tying Jesus to the Old Testament or keeping Jewish Law. After nine years living and teaching in the Christian community in Rome, Marcion was finally expelled. As was customary, he had donated money and property to the church when he joined, and this was returned to him. When he was barred from orthodoxy, he used his fortune to start his own churches, in which membership was restricted to the truly dedicated. In Marcion’s churches you had to abandon all family ties and obligations. Baptism was granted only to those ready to abandon the world and its joys.
According to Frend, “This was, however, the way leading to the status of a respected sect, such as the Parsees in India, but not to that of world religion.”[li] Marcion’s god was not interested in flaming fire and eternal punishment. This passive and meek god was derided by the orthodox, who did not see how a good god could make people behave.
Listen, you sinners, and any of you not yet so, that you may be able to become so. A better god has been discovered, one who is neither offended nor angry nor inflicts punishment, who has no fire warming in hell, no gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness. (Tertullian 144)
The orthodox position, which stressed fear of punishment and hope for reward, blind faith and a fearsome god, proved conducive to establishing a grounded historical movement. The Gnostics, on the other hand, melted too easily into their surrounding environment; however, it should be pointed out that the triumph of Christianity was due more to the specific beliefs of orthodoxy rather than the teachings of a potentially historical founder.
To worship an unknown God, sending Christ as a “healthful Spirit swooshing down from heaven” on an alien world to guide humankind, was to make Christianity into another mystery religion with no roots in the past… The good-natured spirit preached by Marcion was not one to inspire most would-be Christians to break from the world and accept the test of martyrdom.[lii]
The main difference between orthodoxy and Gnosticism is that, while orthodoxy was developing a canon, a hierarchy, rules and regulations, and an organizational structure, the Gnostics were searching for truth. Gnostics were “intellectually superior and better attuned to the ideas of their age than were their orthodox rivals, and they were less bound to what was hardening into formal and legalistic tradition.”[liii] They drew easily from contemporary philosophies and literature; Homer, Plato and Paul were placed on the same level of authority.
When they encountered a contradiction or logical problem within their gospels or beliefs, they fixed them; which led to the rapid expansion of Gnostic sects. Their ideas were based on reason and intelligence rather than revelation. These values made it easy for them to blend into the intellectually progressive environment of the Roman Empire.
The Gnostic teachers therefore stood in the mainstream of second-century religious speculation. They molded current ideas into their own systems, and associated them with Christ, the heavenly Messenger, who had appeared on earth in historical times.[liv]
For the same reason, critics claim that Gnosticism can say nothing about the historical Jesus because it is too pagan. However, the synthesis between Judaism and paganism had begun before the arrival of Jesus, and most of the elements used by the Gnostics predate Christianity.
It is impossible to think of the emergence of Gnosticism in the second century without the background of wisdom literature, of Philo, and the speculative preoccupation throughout Jewry with angelology, with the planets and the zodiac, and with mysteries connected with the sacred name of Yahweh. In these respects, it was one more successful manifestation of that extraordinarily vigorous Jewish culture that flourished at the time of Jesus, and of which Christianity was largely the heir.[lv]
As was pointed out earlier, the main reason for discarding the Gnostic gospels in the quest for the historical Jesus is because they do not present the narrative picture of Jesus that we’ve come to expect. They are talking about some other Jesus entirely; and if Jesus did exist as presented in the gospels, the Gnostic gospels must be mistaken.
And yet it is difficult to see how the appearance of the historical figure of Jesus Christ could produce one community which remembered him as a human being and several other communities which worshiped him as an eternal, spiritual entity. On the other hand, a model of how certain Jesus-based communities developed the need of a historical Jesus to justify their unique beliefs about a physical resurrection, which is supported by all available evidence, can be presented very clearly.
It is also possible to show that the tradition of a historical Jesus may have appeared later than the Gnostic tradition: Justin Martyr and Irenaeus record that Gnosticism started from Simon Magus, a popular magician-preacher recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Simon’s teachings, meanwhile, seem to have been rooted in the Essene community:
Simon, then, had been active “for a long time,” and his teachings concerning “the Great Power” was acceptable throughout the whole Samaritan people… If Simon himself was a disciple of a previous teacher named Dositheus, then the pre-Christian origins of the movement that came to be identified as Gnosticism would be evident, for Dositheus seems to have been connected at one time with Essenes.[lvi]
According to Detering, who claims that all of the Pauline letters were fabricated by the Gnostic Marcion (scholars agree Marcion was the first to reference them), Simon represented the first Christian mission, which was then brought back down to earth by the more sober Peter.
It can be inferred that this Simon had also turned to the Gentiles and carried out missionary activity here as well. Even the Pseudo-Clementines could not avoid mentioning Simon’s great missionary success; through him even before Peter, many Gentiles were supposedly converted to Christianity.[lvii]
If Simon’s teachings (which are very similar to Marcionite and Valentinian ideas) can be traced back to the Essenes – even if contemporary scholarship only labels them “Gnostic” in their later, second century form – then they preserve the earliest form of Christianity, which was later altered to fit the idea of a suffering, physical Messiah. Noting that St. Paul fits more snugly in the Gnostic tradition than in the orthodoxy which later embraces him, Deterring goes as far as to argue that Paul and Simon were actually the same figure.
Orthodoxy continues to claim that its gospels are earlier – closer in time to the actual life of Jesus Christ and thus authoritative – while maintaining that Gnosticism is a later offshoot because, given a historical Jesus, it had to be. Much more important, however, are the ideas contained within both traditions. The canonic gospels present the unique ideology and values of a Christian community that was dissimilar to its environment by believing in the physical Christ, and they were chosen for precisely that reason. However, even if they are read literally and seem to describe Jesus the man, there are symbols, motifs and elements in them which stem from the same mystic and philosophical blend of paganism and Judaism which also gave rise to Gnosticism, lending credence to the claim that the story was originally created by those who intended it to be interpreted allegorically.
Conclusions and Summary
One response to challenges that Jesus wasn’t historical is, there is no evidence that can prove Jesus didn’t exist. Of course this is true, but it is also meaningless: if Jesus did not exist, then why would there be any evidence? In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the inability of evidence to disprove matters of faith is a motif illustrated by Xenophilius Lovegood: when the skeptical Hermione asks how the Resurrection Stone can be real, Xeno’s response is short and instructive: “Prove that it is not.”[lviii]
At the same time, it is possible that Jesus did exist and left no evidence; we should not doubt a historical founder of Christianity simply because there are no contemporary records of him, and only a handful of later (possibly forged) accounts. However, in searching for the truth, we cannot afford to automatically discount evidence from external traditions that problematize the historical Jesus on the grounds that they fail to edify his actual existence.
As I’ve demonstrated in this chapter, the danger in trusting the Bible as a historical testimony is that it was written for precisely that purpose. Given the fact that the New Testament, narrative version of Jesus Christ’s ministry was written in response to the pre-existing communities and teachers such as Simon, it represents exactly the idea of a historical Jesus, which was necessary to secure its own authority, rather than reliable history.
Even if none of the above arguments and evidences for Jesus Christ were convincing, it would still be very acceptable to believe, in the absence of other indicators, that he was a historical person. It can be maintained that there was an oral tradition based on the teachings of Jesus Christ that was later written down in the gospels, which viewed him as a blend of Messiah and the suffering servant of Isaiah. These texts might have included the immediate expectation of the apocalypse and a connection with Jewish scriptures, and became quickly inundated with pagan elements, leading to the rise of Gnosticism.
Unfortunately, as has long been noted by critical historians, when you begin identifying the specific features that did not come from Jesus and taking them away from him, there is virtually nothing left. The problem intensifies when you look outside of Judaism and compare Jesus to older mythological and religious traditions. This is true especially of his central features: his resurrection and ascension, miracles and teachings, forgiveness of sins, relationship to God, and role in creation as the Logos or Word. Is the evidence for the historical Jesus strong enough to save him from this unraveling process? The short answer is no – in fact, it points in the other direction: that Jesus may have originally been a literary metaphor and religious symbol, which became historicized deliberately for a specific agenda.
The goal of the previous chapters has been to establish the basis of the controversy surrounding the historical Jesus, analyze the relevant modern assumptions and pre-established beliefs about the subject, and re-examine critical evidence in the debate. At this stage, if nothing else, we can say that the question of Jesus Christ’s true nature remains an enigma which traditional evidence and Christian accounts of history do not explain. In the absence of evidence supporting the idea of a historical Jesus Christ, the historicity of Jesus Christ itself cannot be used to differentiate him from other mythological traditions (including the modern myth of Harry Potter); hence when we discover a parallel between Jesus Christ and earlier mythology and literature so precise that it is unlikely to be coincidental, we must assume it has been assimilated into the literary tradition surrounding Jesus rather than recording a factual, historical occurrence. Identifying the literary, mythological Jesus from the gospels, it will be easier to compare this figure to Harry Potter – one literary figure to another.
To this end, in the following chapter I will give descriptions of the major deities and mythical figures that have been compared to Jesus Christ, using ancient testimonies and Christian sources. Special attention will be paid to the timeline so that priority can be established.
[i]Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1998), 99.
[ii]Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 94.
[iii]Drive Thru History with Dave Stotts, (Palmer Lake, CO: Coldwater Media, 2005),http://www.allaboutreligion.org/polycarp-video.htm.
[iv] W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 138.
[v]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion(London: Methuen, 1952; rpt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 1993), 3.
[vi] Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 53.
[vii]Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian,http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz /whynot.html.
[viii] Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Who is This King of Glory? A Critical Study of the Christos-Mesiah Tradition (Elizabeth, NJ: Academy, 1944), 258–59.
[ix]Acharya S. [D.M. Murdock],“The Jesus Forgery: Josephus Untangled,” http://www.truthbeknown.com/josephus.htm.
[x] Mitchell Logan, Christian Mythology Unveiled (1842; rpt. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004), 79.
[xi]T.W. Doane, “Appendix D,” in Bible Myths And Their Parallels In Other Religions (New York: Commonwealth,1882), 564-568, http://www.archive.org/details/biblemythsandthe00doanuoft.
[xii] (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, page 249)
[xiii] Quoted inAcharya S. [D.M. Murdock],“The Jesus Forgery: Josephus Untangled,” http://www.truthbeknown.com/josephus.htm.
[xiv]Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 43.
[xv]T.W. Doane, “Appendix D,” in Bible Myths And Their Parallels, 566 n. 1.
[xvi] Kersey Graves, “All History Ignores Him,”in The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviours(Reprint of the 1875 edition, Forgotten Books, 2007) 260, http://books.google.com/books?id=9ysYffLU-mcC&pg=PA260&lpg=PA260&dq=Kersey+graves+all+history+ignores+him
[xvii]G.R.S. Mead, Did Jesus Live 100BC?(London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1903), 48,http://www.christianorigins.com/mead/ch3.html.
[xviii]Mark D. Roberts, “How Can We Know Anything About the Real Jesus?”http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/knowaboutjesus.htm.
[xix]Gordon and Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East,4th ed.(New York: W.W. Norton, 1997),48.
[xx]Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 50.
[xxi] Gordon and Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 78.
[xxii] Karen Armstrong, The Bible: A Biography (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007), 5.
[xxiii] Robert Funk, et al. The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993).
[xxiv] Daniel Wallace, “The Synoptic Problem,”http://bible.org/article/synoptic-problem.
[xxv]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 243.
[xxvi]Didache 44, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html.
[xxvii]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 137.
[xxviii]Hermann Detering,“The Falsified Paul,”43.
[xxix]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 136.
[xxx]Karen Armstrong, The Bible, 68.
[xxxi]Karen Armstrong, The Bible,68.
[xxxii]Didache,45.
[xxxiii]Didache,46–47.
[xxxiv]Karen Armstrong, The Bible, 66.
[xxxv]Didache, 48.
[xxxvi]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 135.
[xxxvii] Quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, 40.
[xxxviii] C.H. Dodd (b.1884; d.1993); quoted in W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 55.
[xxxix]Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 253.
[xl]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 25.
[xli]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 28.
[xlii]Quoted in T.R. Glover, Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire(London: Methuen, 1909; rpt. Boston: Beacon, 1960), 50.
[xliii]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 29.
[xliv] Quoted in T.R. Glover, Conflict of Religions, 61-63.
[xlv]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 55.
[xlvi]Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979), xxii – xxiii.
[xlvii]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 282.
[xlviii]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 160.
[xlix] Cited inT.R. Glover, Conflict of Religions, 299.
[l]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 210.
[li]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 216.
[lii]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 217.
[liii]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 230.
[liv]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 202.
[lv]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 203.
[lvi]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 160.
[lvii]Detering, “The Falsified Paul,” 159.
[lviii]Greg Garrett, “Magic, Faith, and Belief In Harry Potter,” The Other Jesus: A Blog for the Other Christians, http://theotherjesus.com/?p=233.
Tags: Christian history, Christianity, did Jesus exist, early church, Gnostic Gospels, Gnosticism, Harry Potter, historical Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus evidence, JK Rowling, josephus, Pagan Christ, Paganism, pliny, Stoic philosophy, Stoicism, Who was Jesus
