Problems With The Historical Existence Of Jesus Christ

[i7nvd]

I found a very convincing essay suggesting that historically, Jesus didn't exist. It can be found at [url="http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/camel.html"]http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/camel.html[/url]

Can I get some strong refutations for this essay?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I haven't read the essay entirely and I'm not going to give you extensive refutations. My reason is that Christ does not need to testify to Himself (indeed, He refused to while on earth), so we should not expect Him to have tons of historical evidence. When it comes down to the historicity of Jesus, we have a man who was not very well-known, except by a few thousand uneducated followers who mostly turned on Him and had Him crucified. Only a handful of people wrote anything about Him and most atheist scholars dismiss these accounts because they have miracles, and atheists have an inherent bias against any story containing miracles because they don't believe in miracles; any story with miracles must be fictitious. Only two reputable non-Christian historians, Josephus and Tacitus, wrote about Him, and what they wrote was extremely limited. Of course, it makes sense that they would not write much: they did not believe in Jesus and believed that His movement would die off soon enough. It was not of great importance to them.

Now, having said that, there is no good reason to believe that Jesus did not exist, as two historians attest to the fact that He did exist, though both deny that He was God. At the very least, one can gather from historical sources that Jesus did exist as a man. Scholars have gone on far less than the testimony of two famous and well-regarded historians of the period.

Of course, when modern historical scholarship disregards the sources that do testify extensively to Christ on account of their religious nature (which is only to be expected, since only His followers considered Him important enough to write about extensively), it shows a flaw inherent in the principles guiding modern historical scholarship: a bias against Christianity. Any historian faced with similar evidence outside the realm of Christianity would make bold claims in favor of the existence of a person. If an archaeologist were to find the remains of an ancient civilization in, let's say, Egypt, and all the mummies they found had a common symbol cast in gold dangling around their necks, and in a well-preserved place a few scrolls were found that gave extensive stories about the live of a pharaoh the historians had only heard of in passing from a few previously found, obscure texts, the archaeological dig would be hailed as the find of a century. If the scrolls were translated and it turned out that they were saying that the pharaoh possessed supernatural abilities, the historians would say, certainly, that he had been mythologized, but they would undoubtedly also say that he was clearly a great and powerful man who had a lasting influence on his culture, since the sign of his reign was found around the necks of so many of his citizens, even centuries after he himself died. They might even attribute his so-called supernatural abilities to real strengths, i.e. perhaps he couldn't [i]really[/i] lift the pyramids, but maybe this was exaggeration of his real strength, which still may have been great.

History treats Christianity differently, though: we have about 1.6 or so billion people worldwide, all at least professing belief in Christ. Many of them wear crosses signifying the importance (at least on the surface) of their beliefs. Many go to pray and worship Jesus Christ at least once a week. There is an entire country devoted entirely to Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, and a whole Christian civilization build by those who followed Him, and, by the way, that civilization outlived the Roman Empire and every regime that has fought to destroy it. We have thousands who have died for Him. We have scientifically unexplainable and implausible miracles recorded by the thousands, such as healings, the movement of the sun at Fatima (attested to by many, including atheists), and living heart tissue in a monstrance, cut off entirely from the rest of a body.

The flaw with modern historical scholarship is that it disregards any evidence that might be "tainted" by religion, even when trying to prove or disprove something inherently religious. Now I hope that all these scholars come to belief in Christ, but even if they don't, it's entirely unreasonable to say that He never existed when they would accept the existence of anyone else from much less evidence. I hope that they drop their arrogance and take a look at the miracles and come to believe, but even if they don't, they have to admit they have no explanation.

It's wrong and ridiculous and not at all scholarly to close your eyes and say that what you cannot see must not be there.

Jesus left behind plenty of proof, through the teachings lived out by His saints, through the Scriptures, through the existence of the Church herself. Those who refuse to see it, and even come up with apparently plausible explanations, fool themselves. It's one thing to disprove the historical accuracy of something that is commonly believed (no one can do that when it comes to Christ), it's quite another to think a lot of yourself and deny what is undeniable.

That having been said, I want to prove my point. This kind of essay is founded on a strawman fallacy. The author wants us to believe that in order for Jesus to exist, for the Christian argument to be true, we have to have a significant amount of "historical" (i.e. non-religiously-biased) evidence, in written form, from the time of Jesus. He says:

[quote]Imagine that you were a history student assigned the task of writing a paper on the life of George Washington, America's first president and one of the country's most influential founding fathers.

On its face, this seems like a simple assignment. Encyclopedias and textbooks full of biographical information about Washington, written by notable scholars on his life, abound. Any one of them would provide enough material for a reasonably detailed report. However, this is not good enough for a diligent student such as yourself. To get the most detailed and accurate picture requires skipping the modern references, which were written centuries after the fact, and going straight to the original sources. You decide to base your report on first-hand evidence: letters written by Washington himself, accounts of his life written by people who knew him personally, and stories of his sayings and deeds recorded while he was still alive.

But, as you comb the records, you find something strange: you cannot seem to locate any first-hand sources. Though Washington is claimed to have done many wonderful things - leading the Continental Army, freeing the American colonies from British rule, presiding over the convention that wrote the U.S. Constitution, becoming the first President of the United States - somehow, there are no records of these deeds written by people who actually saw them happen, or even by people who were alive at the time. The historians who were alive during Washington's lifetime, as well as the ones that lived soon afterward, do not mention him at all. The first mentions of him come in disputed and scattered records written decades after his death; over time, these mentions grow more numerous until, by about a hundred years after his death, a chorus of historians who had never seen or met Washington themselves all testify to his existence and his deeds. It is their writings, not any first-hand evidence, that have filtered down to modern times to create the abundance of records we have today.[/quote]

You can see how this doesn't apply to Christ (though, indeed, it would be startling with regard to President Washington, and that is what the author is hoping the story will do: startle you and get you to think that this scenario must be similar to the one involving Jesus).

There are a few problems. First, as I said before, Jesus' followers were all poor and uneducated. They could not write. Even those that could write probably wouldn't have considered Him to be the Messiah (remember, Jesus was a bit cryptic about this and even forbade His apostles to tell anyone until after the Resurrection). Given that there had been many false prophets and pseudo-messiahs, it's really no surprise that, while people followed Him, no one wrote anything about Him. Most of them couldn't write, and even those who could have probably wouldn't have taken the time until they could know for sure that Jesus wasn't just another false prophet. Second, Jesus was never in a earthly position of power. While it would be startling for a US President not to have anything written about him by eye-witnesses, friends, and even enemies, it's not a huge surprise that a small-name carpenter from the backwoods (Nazareth was regarded as a terrible place to come from) would not get much attention from educated people who could read and write, especially in a crummy place like Palestine, which was regarded as one of the worst places to be assigned if you were in the Roman government. The most well-educated people Jesus probably met were the Roman Centurian, Herod, and Pontius Pilate. The centurian probably didn't know how to write well, Herod probably didn't care (and if he did care, he wouldn't have written anything, as Jesus would have been his rival for the throne), and Pontius Pilate crucified Him, so there's not much reason to believe that He thought much of Christ. After the Resurrection, Jesus was seen mostly by His apostles, and even some of them doubted. Why should we think that any non-Christians would have put much belief in it? Third (and this is where the strawman fallacy comes in), the author wants us to believe that in order for Christian claims to be true (and evidently, this is supposed to be by Christian standards of "proof," since we're the ones he's trying to prove this to), there must be written source material from non-biased sources, nevermind the fact that the Christian faith was handed on mostly orally. Christian communities were already well-established by 100 AD and even atheists admit that (it's actually about the latest date most atheist Bible scholars will give you). Christian communities obviously centered around Jesus and His apostles.

My point is simply that those people who will not believe and will not allow themselves to see will try to come up with rationalizations for why they don't believe, but those rationalizations will always be flawed and based on faulty logic.

Anyway, I'm moving this thread to Transmundane Lane so that better apologists than myself can pick his arguments apart bit by bit.

God bless,

Raphael

[CatherineM]

There was a time when atheists were content to just say that God doesn't exist. There are people who say that King David didn't exist because there is no historical proof. When archeologists dig up an old city with an inscription of David somewhere, everyone goes nuts. In the Middle East, providence in archeology is used as a battering ram.

These kinds of folks have been trying to shake our faith for 2000 years. Killing us, discriminating against us didn't work. Now they are trying to use scholarship to show that we are just plain stupid to believe as we do. Ancient writers didn't write the way we do now. Things that were a given, didn't need to be written down. Oral histories that are later written down are always suspected, but are surprisingly accurate. I've been working on a family genealogy for the last several years, and when researching the oral histories, almost all have proven to be accurate, even some that are several hundred years old. Those things that turned out to not be accurate, were close, and understandable, but didn't change the overall story.

One of my husband's academic areas is the study of meteorites and comets. He doesn't do it with a telescope, he does it in dusty libraries studying ancient manuscripts and sagas. Most "real" scientists think that looking at astronomical observations from 1500-3000 years ago is worthless. His latest discovery was a comet mentioned in Japanese histories from the year 325AD, and correlated to a known comet. I can't imagine anything more boring, but it shows that ancient writings and oral histories can be trusted in a large number of cases.

I always question why scholars would want to try to disprove that Jesus was a real person. If they don't believe in him, why would they care if anyone else does? Have they tried to prove that Mohammad wasn't a real person, or Buddha? The worst thing you can do to a "scholar" is to ignore them. These Jesus Seminar people are so frustrating.

[abercius24]

[quote]The problem with the Talmud is this - it is not an objective history, but a polemic. It is obvious that the above verse is not a description of something that actually happened; rather, it is a Jewish retort to the New Testament accusation that the trial and execution of Jesus took place secretly and in haste. Theological biases render historical accounts unreliable, and this is just as true for the Jews who were answering Christian accusations as for the Christians who were making them. By the time the Talmud was compiled, centuries after Jesus' alleged death and after the Jewish War which caused vast destruction in Jerusalem and scattered the Jewish people to the winds, third-century rabbis would have been in no position to be able to refute the very existence of Jesus (not to mention that they also lacked the exegetical techniques that would have allowed them to even suspect such a possibility). It would have been much easier to grant his existence and then slant the stories about him to favor their side of the argument rather than the Christians', and this is exactly what happened.

Furthermore, the Talmud is without value as a historical account because it dramatically contradicts the Christian version of events, and even contradicts itself in numerous places, when speaking about Jesus. Note that the above verse says he was hanged, not crucified. There are others that say he died by stoning, not at Calvary, but at Lydda, and not by the Romans, but by the Jews. Some Talmudic verses say Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier, others say he was a magician. One mention of Jesus places his life at the time of the Maccabean kings, around 100 BCE, while another says his parents were contemporaries of a second-century rabbi. Such fragmented and inconsistent accounts show that the Talmud cannot possibly be accurate history; if it were describing true events, it would be impossible for it to contradict itself. This, combined with its late writing date, makes it even weaker than the other accounts as evidence of Jesus' existence.[/quote]

This argument against the testimony of the Talmud is greatly flawed. The Rabbis convened the Council of Jamnia circa 100 A.D. in response to the Christian movement. And instead of denying the history their fathers told of Jesus and the Christians, they explicitly recognized His existence and rejected the Christian interpretation thereof. The Talmud reflects this general position.

As far as a requirement for "objective history", that is a modern concept that is seldom if ever found in ancient times. Historians use what evidence they can find as long as they believe it to be authentic. "Evidence" of a person's existence does not necessarily depend on a viable "historical account". Credibility can be found in the evidence alone, which is the case with the Talmud.

And as far as "contradictions" go, no historical account is without contradictions. The contradictions found in the Talmud, though, are with regards to [u]details[/u] of Christ's life, not with regards to His [u]existence[/u]. So those contradictions pointed out are not relevent to the case. Apart from that, there are reasonable explanations of the Talmud's account. For example, "hanging" in Roman times [u]meant[/u] crucifixion.

As well, oral tradition has been found in some sense to be a reliable source of history. In fact, the vast majority of any peoples' history is found in oral tradition. Historians recognize this and use that fact to aid them in their research. They simply don't like the idea of quoting millions of people as the main source of their ideas. But for us and our reasons to believe, the testimony of a million people is good enough.

Edited August 11, 2008 by abercius24

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='abercius24' post='1623886' date='Aug 11 2008, 03:24 AM']Apart from that, there are reasonable explanations of the Talmud's account. For example, "hanging" in Roman times [u]meant[/u] crucifixion.[/quote]
I just wanted to verify that the language in the ancient liturgical practice of the Veneration of the Cross is "ecce lignum crucis in quo salus mundi pependit." Pependit comes the same root word as pendulum, it refers to something that is hanging. It is reasonable to see that "hanging" can refer to crucifixion.

[tinytherese]

If you want to really find out about the historical existence of Christ, as well as archealogical proof, a psychological analysis of Him to see if He was crazy or not (called Himself God), and more check out Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ." When he was an atheist or agnostic, depending on how you look at him, undergoes a hardcore investigation. I learned soooooooo much from reading it, including evidence for the Passion, death, and resurrection of Our Lord.

There's also "The Case for Creator" and "The Case for Faith" also by Strobel, but I haven't read those. Despite that, considering the other book these must be great.

[dairygirl4u2c]

as to the argument that surely something somewhere would have been written, more objectively verifable... that's a good argument. not definitive but good.

this is probalby the best retrot tho, from raphael:

"Christian communities were already well-established by 100 AD and even atheists admit that (it's actually about the latest date most atheist Bible scholars will give you). Christian communities obviously centered around Jesus and His apostles."

if communities existed,,, surely we shouldn't put so much emphasis on the writings.
besides, paul wrote to the communities early on. they existed, early on. it surely goes back before 100 if they existed then,,, and next to surely existed during paul's time.

the only real problem that needs addressed is the stuff about first hand witnesses, other than the bible. that's always been the weakness that i can think of. the bible is good enough for me, and that the communities existed etc but. yeah.

[dairygirl4u2c]

ie first hand witneses to the claims of jesus.
obviously jesus existed, and people who deny it are by far in the minoiryt and denying history,,, probably are not informed about the history of it all. the question is more on his saying and doings etc.

[dairygirl4u2c]

st. paul himself is a pretty compelling figure. he was writing to christian communities that ostensibly already existed. he seems to have had a vision etc. it'd be a lot to expect a phony religion, and then someone having a delusion and spreading it so profoundly. possible but doesn't like likely.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1630492' date='Aug 18 2008, 11:08 AM']st. paul himself is a pretty compelling figure. he was writing to christian communities that ostensibly already existed. he seems to have had a vision etc. it'd be a lot to expect a phony religion, and then someone having a delusion and spreading it so profoundly. possible but doesn't like likely.[/quote]
That's how the Mormons and Scientologists operate. Someone had a vision of a phony religion, and went about spreading it around.

[Ziggamafu]

Christianity is entirely centered on historical events surrounding a historical man. If the history isn't there, then the religion falls. Well and good. But what if the stories of the alleged history are nothing more than fictions drawn up at least a few decades after the "fact"?

Impossible. Why? We know that the first letter to the Thessalonians dates to the forties - perhaps less than a decade after the Ascension. And the letter was written to an already organized Church, which we can assume had existed for some time.

For a religion that owes its existence to real history to have actually been based on fabrications would require a great deal of time to allow myth to be conveyed as fact. Especially when the things marketed as "facts" are so fantastically amazing.

New cults were a dime a dozen at the time. There would be no motive to risk societal isolation and raised eyebrows for "just another cult". Especially one of which the leader was [i]crucified[/i] and which proposed its entire basis to be not mere fancy and tall-tales or invisible spirituality but true, flesh-and-blood history.

The claims of Christianity were a scandalous revolution. No way would someone join up with that craziness unless it had a verifiable, solid basis. Real history. I suggest F.F. Bruce's [i]The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? [/i] for further reading.

[4588686]

[quote name='Raphael' timestamp='1218382981' post='1623432']
I haven't read the essay entirely and I'm not going to give you extensive refutations. My reason is that Christ does not need to testify to Himself (indeed, He refused to while on earth), so we should not expect Him to have tons of historical evidence.

[/quote]


Well. At least you didn't stray into circular reasoning.

[BarbTherese]

"Evidence for Jesus outside The New Testament"
[url="http://www.catholictruths.com/articles/jesusoutsideevidence.html"]http://www.catholict...deevidence.html[/url] . . .


[url="http://www.catholictruths.com/articles/jesusoutsideevidence.html#one"]1. Tacitus [/url]
[url="http://www.catholictruths.com/articles/jesusoutsideevidence.html#two"]2. Pliny the Younger [/url]
[url="http://www.catholictruths.com/articles/jesusoutsideevidence.html#three"]3. Josephus[/url]
[url="http://www.catholictruths.com/articles/jesusoutsideevidence.html#four"]4. The Babylonian Talmud[/url]
[url="http://www.catholictruths.com/articles/jesusoutsideevidence.html#five"]5. Lucian [/url]