{"id":1405,"date":"2014-12-18T20:57:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T20:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/?p=1405"},"modified":"2014-12-18T21:01:27","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T21:01:27","slug":"did-historical-jesus-really-exist-the-evidence-just-doesnt-add-up-raphael-lataster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/?p=1405","title":{"rendered":"Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn\u2019t add up (Raphael Lataster)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"imrs\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the \u201cHistorical Jesus\u201d actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily-dismissed \u201cChrist of Faith\u201d (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved.<\/p>\n

By Raphael Lataster<\/strong><\/p>\n

Numerous secular scholars have presented their own versions of the so-called \u201cHistorical Jesus\u201d \u2013 and most of them are, as\u00a0biblical scholar J.D. Crossan<\/a>\u00a0puts it, \u201can academic embarrassment.\u201d From Crossan\u2019s view of Jesus as the wise sage, to\u00a0Robert Eisenman<\/a>\u2019s Jesus the revolutionary, and\u00a0Bart Ehrman<\/a>\u2019s apocalyptic prophet, about the only thing New Testament scholars seem to agree on is Jesus\u2019 historical existence. But can even that be questioned?<\/p>\n

The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity \u2013 which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources \u2013 which they also fail to identify. Filled with mythical and non-historical information, and heavily edited over time, the Gospels certainly should not convince critics to trust even the more mundane claims made therein.<\/p>\n

The methods traditionally used to tease out rare nuggets of truth from the Gospels are dubious. The\u00a0criterion of embarrassment<\/a>\u00a0says that if a section would be embarrassing for the author, it is more likely authentic. Unfortunately, given the diverse nature of Christianity and Judaism back then (things have not changed all that much), and the anonymity of the authors, it is impossible to determine what truly would be embarrassing or counter-intuitive, let alone if that might not serve some evangelistic purpose.<\/p>\n

The criterion of Aramaic context is similarly unhelpful. Jesus and his closest followers were surely not the only Aramaic-speakers in first-century Judea. The\u00a0criterion of multiple independent attestation<\/a>\u00a0can also hardly be used properly here, given that the sources clearly are not independent.<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed. Avoiding Jesus\u2019 earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his \u201cHeavenly Jesus.\u201d Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Also important are the sources we don\u2019t have. There are no existing eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus. All we have are later descriptions of Jesus\u2019 life events by non-eyewitnesses, most of whom are obviously biased. Little can be gleaned from the few non-Biblical and non-Christian sources, with only\u00a0Roman scholar Josephus<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0historian Tacitus<\/a>\u00a0having any reasonable claim to be writing about Jesus within 100 years of his life. And even those sparse accounts are shrouded in controversy, with disagreements over what parts have obviously been changed by Christian scribes (the manuscripts were preserved by Christians), the fact that both these authors were born after Jesus died (they would thus have probably received this information from Christians), and the oddity that centuries go by before Christian apologists start referencing them.<\/p>\n

Agnosticism over the matter is already seemingly appropriate, and support for this position comes from independent historian Richard Carrier\u2019s\u00a0recent defense<\/a>\u00a0of another theory \u2014 namely, that the belief in Jesus started as the belief in a purely celestial being (who was killed by demons in an upper realm), who became historicized over time. To summarize Carrier\u2019s 800-page tome, this theory and the traditional theory \u2013 that Jesus was a historical figure who became mythicized over time \u2013 both align well with the Gospels, which are later mixtures of obvious myth and what at least sounds historical.<\/p>\n

The Pauline Epistles, however, overwhelmingly support the \u201ccelestial Jesus\u201d theory, particularly with the passage indicating that demons killed Jesus, and would not have done so if they knew who he was (see: 1 Corinthians 2:6-10<\/a>). Humans \u2013 the murderers according to the Gospels \u2013 of course would still have killed Jesus, knowing full well that his death results in their salvation, and the defeat of the evil spirits.<\/p>\n

So what do the mainstream (and non-Christian) scholars say about all this? Surprisingly very little \u2013 of substance anyway. Only\u00a0Bart Ehrman<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Maurice Casey<\/a>\u00a0have thoroughly attempted to prove Jesus\u2019 historical existence in recent times. Their most decisive point? The Gospels can generally be trusted \u2013 after we ignore the many, many bits that are untrustworthy \u2013 because of the hypothetical (i.e. non-existent) sources behind them. Who produced these hypothetical sources? When? What did they say? Were they reliable? Were they intended to be accurate historical portrayals, enlightening allegories, or entertaining fictions?<\/p>\n

Ehrman and Casey can\u2019t tell you \u2013 and neither can any New Testament scholar. Given the poor state of the existing sources, and the atrocious methods used by mainstream Biblical historians, the matter will likely never be resolved. In sum, there are clearly good reasons to doubt Jesus\u2019 historical existence \u2013 if not to think it outright improbable.<\/p>\n

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Source<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Did a man called Jesus of Nazareth walk the earth? Discussions over whether the figure known as the \u201cHistorical Jesus\u201d actually existed primarily reflect disagreements among atheists. Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily-dismissed \u201cChrist of Faith\u201d (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved. By Raphael Lataster Numerous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[73,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1405"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1410,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions\/1410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mythikismos.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}