An Atheist’s Defense of the Historicity of Jesus

[rug]

September 4, 2014
by Neil Carter

I can’t believe I’m feeling the need to do this, but today I’d like to write a brief defense of the historicity of Jesus.

When climate change deniers want to insist that our actions have no impact on global temperatures, they display a remarkable disdain for an entire discipline populated by credentialed professionals in that field who say otherwise. It doesn’t seem to bother the deniers that they themselves have no specialization in the academic field they disparage because in any field of study there will always be at least some small contingent who go against the consensus. The existence of those outliers is justification enough for the deniers to say, “This business is far from certain, you know. Just look at these four people who disagree!”

That’s how I feel when people in the skeptic community argue that Jesus never existed. They are dismissing a large body of work for which they have insufficient appreciation, most often due to the fact that they themselves have never formally studied the subject. And yes, I know that the study of religon and of antiquity is a far “softer” field of study than climatology (and therefore more subject to personal bias). But that doesn’t mean we can’t reasonably conclude anything at all about the distant past. There are at least a handful of things about the origins of the Christian religion which we can reasonably conclude based on the things that we know. Among them are that there was most likely a guy named Jesus who preached and was killed outside Jerusalem, and that after his death a diverse following emerged which built around that event a narrative which grew to become the Christian faith.

The existence of two or three professionals within the study of antiquity claiming that Jesus never existed does not signal a sea change in that field. There haven’t been any new discoveries in the past few years which signal any significant changes in that discipline. The only thing I see that’s changed is public opinion.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2014/09/04/an-atheists-defense-of-the-historicity-of-jesus/

[meti57b]

1. Jesus probably did exist. He was a Jew and an insurrectionist against the Romans.......

The Romans apparently did not like insurrectionists so they gave Jesus their worst form of punishment .... the cross.

When they (Romans) asked the crowd, that attended the execution, which of the three, (Jesus and two thieves), to forgive and let go, the crowd knew it would be curtains for whomever chose to let Jesus go free. So they asked for one of the thieves to go free.

That's my theory.

[cbayer]

2. I never understood this argument or what people think they win when they make it.

Do they think it totally invalidates christianity? Even if the person Jesus didn't exist, it wouldn't change a thing. Like all enormously important historical figures, there is no doubt that things have been distorted over time.

But what does it really matter, anyway.

[edhopper]

4. So if none of the events

that are the very basis for Christianity, especially the crucifixion and resurrection, not to mention the man himself ever were real, it doesn't invalidate any of the precepts of that religion?

The logic of this is truly mind boggling.

[cbayer]

5. No, it doesn't, because I do not believe anyone will ever come up

with convincing evidence either way.

After all these years of both sides trying to prove or disprove this, it seems highly unlikely that it will ever happen.

So what is the point of arguing it? Just so someone thinks they win?

The logic of that is truly mind boggling.

[edhopper]

6. That's different

the way you phrased it was even if we knew Jesus did not exist, it would not invalidate Christianity.
You seem to mean we can never really know.
I don't agree with that, but it makes more sense as far as your opinion.

[cbayer]

17. You are correct. I worded this badly.

I don't think there will ever be definitive evidence, so even if someone makes a strong claim, it really makes no difference.

[rug]

7. I think the overwhelming weight of scholarship is that he did exist.

He makes a good point about the quality of arguments against it and the eagerness with which many are willing to give them a pass.

But it does matter to Christianity. Had he not existed it would simply be a philosophy with a gloss, one of many.

[cbayer]

16. You are right. I worded that very badly.

IMO, there will never be a definitive case for the lack of existence, so even if people make that claim, it makes not difference. It changes nothing about Christianity.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. That's not true.

It matters a great deal to Christians. I know MANY Christians that would drop the whole thing if you could even prove that the resurrection didn't happen.

C.S. Lewis's 'Trilemma' and countless other opinion pieces were authored to counter just such a contingency.

Now, I don't think they would necessarily just start being atheists, they would, in my estimate, by and large immediately seek refuge in some other religion. But they would drop Christianity like a hot potato, you bet.

(Which I would personally probably not like overmuch, because at least some of them would embrace much more regressive religious doctrines along the way.)

[cbayer]

20. As I noted above, I worded this badly.

I don't think you will ever be able to prove anything, so that is why I don't think it matters.

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Fair enough.

I think I walked away from the PC, after I saw that post and hit reply. I didn't read the rest of the thread, and I should have before I responded. You did indeed address that.

[Starboard Tack]

22. Good point!

If you are an addicted smoker and your brand starts to taste bad, you'll probably just switch brands. I canrelate. I smoked American Spirit for a while, before giving up the whole tobacco thing.

[Silent3]

3. I don't think I've heard too many people stomp their feet down declaring that Jesus did not exist.

Mainly what I've been hearing lately is that the evidence for the historicity of Jesus isn't quite so solid as many would have you believe, especially when you take into account how much of the research has been conducted, and data interpreted, by those with a strong Christian bias. Further doubt is cast by how long after the supposed time of Jesus many of the purported supporting documents have been written, and whether or not more recent copies of supposedly much older original documents are actually accurate copies, uninfluenced by the biases of those making supposed copies during times when Christianity was already well established.

What historical research certainly doesn't support is treating the Bible as if it were a history book, nor anything at all about the supposed divinity of Jesus. Jesus is either mythologized history or historicized mythology, take your pick.

[rug]

8. There have been many posts in here declaring just that, though with glee instead of foot stomping.

The bottom line is there are huge holes in the arguments against the historicity of Jesus, holes too many are only too willing to overlook.

[edhopper]

9. Are we talking about

there being a man, Yeshua, at that time and was probably a preacher of some kind.
Or that the Jesus of the scripture existed?

[rug]

15. No, there is a contingent that says flat out there is no evidence of that character existing.

The corollary to that is that it he was made up decades, if not centuries, later for reasons I've yet to hear explained. Look around, you'll find the threads here and there.

[edhopper]

18. Okay

I don't have a dog in that fight.
My sense of it is someone existed that the Gospels were based on. But I have doubts of the veracity of any of it.
I also think there were existing mythologies overlaid on the story of Jesus.

[goldent]

10. It quickly became clear to me that the argument against Jesus

existing was based on an agenda. It reminds of the moon mission deniers where you start with the conclusion and then find bits of evidence to support it. I watched the documentary by the moon mission deniers and it was pretty convincing! And I lived during the moon landings!

In a recent thread, one of the arguments against Jesus existing was lack of birth records, trial records, and death certificates This would be great Onion material.

[okasha]

12. We have a particularly eager poster here

who has repeatedly produced a chart proclaiming that Jesus was "just like" half a dozen other divine figures born to virgin mothers on Dec. 25, all of them likewise "resurrected." I've several times asked this poster to cite the original sources for this material, but of course she can't. Mithras' "mother" was a rock; Isis had been married to Osiris for literally eons before Horus was conceived; and Krishna was Devaki's eighth child, born, according to the Bhagavada Purana, on August 17.

What the originator of this chart has done is take a handful of elements from the gospel narratives and attribute them to the "just like" divinities, quite without regard to what each god's mythos actually says about him.

The thing I find remarkable is that no one who has posted this chart has ever bothered to fact check it.

Talk about blind faith--they haz it!

[Ron Obvious]

11. I've never heard anyone say he definitely did not exist..

Just that the extra-Biblical evidence for his existence is extremely weak. There should be much more than a simple mention in Josephus (likely an insert by a Christian copyist) if he was as significant a figure as he is by some thought to be.

There likely was a historical Jesus, a composite of more than one mystic or travelling rabbi and orator. You could hardly heave a brick in ancient Judea without hitting an apocalyptic cult leader in those days, and I'm sure some of the stories have a basis in fact.

One of the reasons I believe there is likely some historical foundation, is because of how unimpressive the miraculous stuff is to modern readers. Water into wine? The loaves and fishes? He might as well have been going around saying "Take a card, any card".

The evidence for historical Jesus isn't more convincing than the evidence for the historical King Arthur in my opinion, but you can't prove a negative, so it's intellectually dishonest to say there couldn't have been a historical Jesus.

[okasha]

13. Everybody has 20-20 hindsight.

Last edited Sat Sep 6, 2014, 08:04 PM - Edit history (1)

While Jesus's followers obviously thought he was a significant figure, all the Romans would have seen was yet one more rabble-rousing Jew likely to spark a rebellion. They dealt with him exactly as they dealt with other rabble-rousing natives throughout the Empire. They shut him down and executed him as a rebel.

Until Paul began to evangelize along the coast of Asia and into Greece, Jesus's followers remained fully Jewish, centered in Jerusalem and led by his brother Jacob. It wasn't until the High Priest Annanas had Jacob illegally executed 25 years later that they came to official attention again. That incident produced a brief mention of Jesus by Josephus that probably is not interpolated.

Mentions by Tacitus and Pliny come a bit later, after the fall of Jerusalem in CE 70, when the church became both gentile in membership and Pauline in theology. Then, and only then, did Jesus, the obscure Jewish rebel, become a significant figure in history.

By the way, scholars in the field are now pretty certain that King Arthur was an actual historical figure, probably based at Cadbury.

[edhopper]

14. And the biblical Jesus

probably was as similar to the real man (or men) as the real 5th Century Arthur was to the ruler of Camelot.

[carolinayellowdog]

23. I disbelieve in Christian doctrines but the "mythicists" strike me as a nutty cult

The quality of their arguments puts them in the category of "alternative historians" and "Acharya S" in particular strikes me as a cult leader type.