The Great Jesus debate. Did he exist at all - and if he did, what reasons do we have to believe he was divine?

[EllieArroway]

Madhairday and I have been plotting behind the scenes to have this debate as we think it will be interesting, both for us and for others.

Mad is a Christian & I am an atheist. I will leave it entirely up to her to present her case.

Mine is:

It's impossible to conclude that Jesus actually existed at all given that there's simply no evidence to work with. I am aware that the majority (although not all) of scholars, both secular & religious, have concluded that he did exist, but this is for inferential reasons not evidential ones, so the issue is nowhere near as cut and dried as many people suppose.

While I am generally happy to accept that there was some man, probably called Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus, who lived in the Galilean region at the beginning of the 1st century & who may have died by crucifixion at the hands of the Romans - I don't feel that this is particularly significant or justifies anyone in believing that he was divine.

I also believe that nearly all of the "Jesus story" - the nativity, the miracles, the resurrection etc is complete myth and never happened at all.

I have continually pointed out on many threads that "There's no evidence that Jesus existed" and been called ignorant and so forth. So, this is my opportunity to make my case and demonstrate that this is, in fact, a correct statement.

So, I'm kicking of this (hopefully) interesting discussion with:

There is no evidence that Jesus the man existed. Discuss

(By the way, this is an open discussion for anyone to join in, ask questions, make points etc, it's not just for Mad and I).

Ehwhat? No info re. early Christainity except for that which is attested to within the writings which we now call the New Testament? What a load of....

Do I need to give you a list? ;)

I just gave you one Holo. Please prove me wrong.

Ohhhh - I've just realised that we are talking at cross purposes here. Yuo are talking about evidence for the historical Jesus, aren't you? And I'm talking about evidence of early Christianity, in response to your comment; Outside of the New Testament we have absolutely no information whatsoever about very early Christianity. Zero.

Obviously, we do have quite a bit of evidence of early Christianity, but evidence for the historical Jesus is a different concern, and, as I would strongly argue, wasn't the concern of the early Christians except to assert that Jesus had lived as a man in Galilee.

Well - the above sources are all we have for early Christianity too. Doesn't actually tell us much, does it?

as I would strongly argue, wasn't the concern of the early Christians except to assert that Jesus had lived as a man in Galilee That's apologetics, not history. You can't know the thoughts or motivations of those people well enough to present an historical argument on that basis.

Occam's Razar - All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be correct. The simplest explanation here (although I'm not suggesting it's necessarily the right one because we can't know) is that no one showed much interest in an earthly Jesus because there was no such person. Just your run of the mill sky god.

Oh Ellie, what makes you think I'm motivated by apologetics? I don't even believe in apologetics! (I'm too Barthian).

You said: You can't know the thoughts or motivations of those people well enough to present an historical argument on that basis.

To which I respond: what is possible is to read lots and lots of texts from the first three centuries of Christianity, follow the logic and lines of reasoning, and see what issues or themes emerge as the biggies. If you read, for example, Justin Martyr, he is way, way more interested in proving that Jesus is the Messiah, on the basis of the Hebrew Scriptures, than he is in Jesus as a historical figure. That's not mind-reading, that's careful reading of ancient texts. And that's what I do, to the best of my ability.

Justin Martyr who's writing 100+ years after the events? Lot can happen in 100 years, thoughts and ideas change. Again, doesn't even begin to demonstrate an historical Jesus. (And, actually, he spends a lot of time trying to prove the truth of the resurrection).

There is a massive silence regarding Christianity in it's first 100 years of life. This is without doubt. Apologetics is when you try to explain away that silence with explanations for it - which may or may not be true. We don't know what's true, because we have no evidence to rely on.

Apologetics, Holo is merely defending the faith. All Christians do that - and I would expect them to. But there is a clear difference between an explanation that sounds plausible to you in the light of your faith and what is a matter of historical record.

The historical record simply does not demonstrate that Jesus the man existed. Doesn't mean he didn't, of course, but it most certainly doesn't show that he definitely did - which is what most Christians (and an amazing number of atheists) seem to think.

Hope Mad is OK & she's beating the chest infection.

Yes, that Justin Martr! What I'd say is this: pay close atention to how he tries to prove the ruth of the resurrection, again, the lines of his logic.

I found this statement of yours odd: There is a massive silence regarding Christianity in it's first 100 years of life.

No, there's not. If for some reason you wish to discount the now-canonical books of the NT (although of course they weren't canonical at the time as there was, as yet, no 'Bible' other than the gathered writings of the Hebrew Scriptures), you still have, e.g. the Didache, the letter of Clement, Barnabas...

When one pits 'apologetics' against 'history', 'scholarship' etc, it implies that one is not interested in / willing to forego history, scholarship etc., for the sake of maintaining a particular presentation of Christian faith. In my case, I see no need to do that.

I hope that Mad is okay too. She is a superstar! :)

One doesn't wish to do anything of the kind. One has no option.

Yes - I am aware that there is "in house" theological literature of the time, written by Christians for Christians. The gospels for a start. Since this is supposed to be a discussion about Jesus specifically and whether he existed as a human being, the Didache and so on are completely irrelevant

Again, if I wanted to prove that Christians existed and they believed in Jesus - those sources prove that, as do the gospels & NT as a whole. Job done.

BUT THEY DO NOT PROVE THAT JESUS DID. Not one of those sources was actually written by anyone who was even alive when Jesus was supposed to have been, let alone anyone who spoke to him or heard him teach.

When I say there was a big silence about Christianity, I mean within the historical record as a whole. Christians themselves weren't being particularly silent to each other - but they were making not the slightest impact on anyone else.

How do you explain the fact that our historians of the time tell us all about silly little Messiah claimants trying to fulfil the Micah prophecies, people who claimed to be able to fell the walls of Jerusalem with a single word, people who claimed to be able to part the Red Sea - but not the merest whisper of someone who was preaching to and performing miracles in front of thousands, who was the subject of a completely illegal trial (which would NEVER have happened over passover, by the way, and which would NEVER have involved releasing a thief like that)? And the fact that he was supposed to have walked out of his own tomb three days after his death seems to have escaped the notice of absolutely everyone - except Christians who were already believers?

If we're supposed to believe that Christianity spread "like wildfire" to the degree that it had reached the ears of foreign gospel writers within a generation - then why are Christians the ONLY people who had ever heard this stuff?

I think Christianity was essentially invented by Paul - who never said that Jesus existed as a man. The story was taken up by Mark, in a gospel which is clearly allegorical rather than historical, and continued by Matthew & Luke (who were copying wholesale from Mark and adding bits to suit themselves) and eventually John. Other gospels were written at the same sort of time too, but were clearly so stupid that even Christians eventually abandoned them. Eventually, enough time had passed that it was easy for Christians to believe that Jesus really existed because there was no way of showing that he didn't.

There is no way of explaining how it is that, at no point, in the history of Christianity did Christians have the first clue where the tomb was that Jesus supposedly walked out of. We're really supposed to believe that they weren't interested. Really?

"There is no way of explaining how it is that, at no point, in the history of Christianity did Christians have the first clue where the tomb was that Jesus supposedly walked out of. We're really supposed to believe that they weren't interested. Really?"

They weren't interested in the tomb because the early witnesses to the resurrection had seen the risen Christ thus there was no need to go and make a shrine of the tomb. Simples as the meercat says....

And what do we hear from these early "witnesses"?

Nothing. Not even enough to prove that they even existed

That's like saying - there's no need to go and visit Graceland because the people who knew Elvis tell us he lived there and that's enough for us.

Bizarre.

Ellie, I've said this before, but I'll say it again: first- and second-century Greco-Roman-Jewish communities of the Med are so different to post-Enlightenment (post-modernist?) western Europe.

One of the big differences is this: in the first and second century, writing things down was seen as a poor substitute for physical presence. In matters of truth, a person was trusted more than a scroll. Therefore, if you had a person deemed to be a reliable witness, there was no need to write things down. One of the interesting things about Paul is that he was very much an incidental letter writer; he generally only wrote to communities when he couldn't be present with them. I could back all these assertions up with references etc.

So that's the answer from a first-century historical perspective. The witneses who were with Jesus talked to each other,and to others, and eventully pepole had to start writing things down becaues the reliable witnesses who were with Jesus were dying out (which makes sense of the timing of the writing of the gospels). In the meantime there's a strand of Pauline tradition, as well as other Jesus-traditions like the letter of James, which I have argued is v. early, which talk about the kind of ideas / traditions that were starting to grow around the person of Jesus. And tbh, Greenheart is right re. the tomb, which goes back to my post re. pilgrimage of the other day.

This is not 'apologetics' or playing fast and loose with the historical sources, it's a valid historical argument. Just because it's being put forward by a Christian doesn't automatically make it apologetics, or suspect, or wrong - the implication of that way of thinking is that quite worrying.

I still haven't addressed the issue of what Paul believed about Jesus but, with all due respect, I think you're wrong, and I'll be back later to say why.

One of the big differences is this: in the first and second century, writing things down was seen as a poor substitute for physical presence

And I've said this before (again and again and again) but I'll say it again......that is an EXPLANATION for the silence, not a contradiction that there was any such silence.

And, by the way....the physical presence of who, exactly? Jesus? He was dead by the time Christianity got up and running. The "witnesses"? Where is the evidence that they ever told anyone anything? None of the gospels were written according to witness statements - even Luke admits that.

None of the people writing about Jesus had ever been in his physical presence - including Paul, and they don't even say that they had been in the "physical presence" of anyone who'd so much as laid eyes on Jesus.

And I am far more interested in the wider historical picture - which is staggeringly silent on the issue of Jesus & Christianity at all. That Christians were passing on information to EACH OTHER is without question but to try and make an objective judgement from this that it somehow proves Jesus actually existed is clearly fallacious. You do realise that we have multiple, multiple examples of human beings telling each other that x,y,z is true when it turns out not to be true at all, right?

Could I argue that Mithras truly existed and the fact that there are no eyewitness accounts proving this is because they relied on "physical presence" rather than the written word? Could I make the same argument for any and all Gods who have existed since time began? Well, I could - but it would get me precisely nowhere. And it doesn't in this case.

By trying to explain this silence, Holo you are doing me the rather massive favour of demonstrating that I'm right, and there is indeed a "silence". Thank you.

Actually I'll keep posting as I'm waiting for a phone call! :)

So, what did Paul believe about Jesus? Elie, you've re-iterated the post-Bultmannian account of the growth of Christianity, very popular in mid-20th c. biblical studies, not much so now.

You said: (sorry if you think that quoting you is pedantic - I just want to make sure that I get you right):

Then when we look closely at what Paul actually said, it doesn't look as if he thinks Jesus existed as a man at all. He seems to have considered that the few facts he does pass on (the crucifixion and resurrection) happened in a higher plane of existence altogether - which would be 100% typical of how people generally did regard events in the lives of their gods. They believed (virtually all of them) that there were various levels of existence, and Earth was just one.

Okay - so yes, let's look closely at what Paul said. Let's look at Philippians 2, an undisputed Pauline letter which includes what seems to be a hymn which was either quoted by Paul to fit the letter, or written by Paul in the letter (that question is much debated):

2:5: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death?
even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

So, a few quick points about the words used. In v. 6 and 7 the word 'form' is used, and it's the same word in Greek - morthe - so whatever Jesus was vis-a-vis God (i.e. whatever it means to say that Jesus was in the form of God), he became that same thing vis-a-vis humanity. In v7 Paul repeatedly emphasises the humanity of Jesus; the 'death on / of a cross' isn't a mystical symbol of redemption here, it's a nasty instrument of torture.

In v.9 'God gave him the nmae that is above every other name' - for 1st c. Jews that cuold only be one name, the name YHWH - in other words, whatever God is in his divine identity, Jesus is too. So in this hymn we see a narrative of Jesus as divine (in the form of God) who became human (in the form of a slave) and, becaues of his human death, was given inclusion in the divine nature (the name of God). NOw there is much more to sayt about this - but I need to go now. What do you make of this passage, Ellie?

Must go but Ellie, surely people takling to each other isn't silence?

Oh - and it's nonsensical to try and pretend that early Christians weren't interested in trying to demonstrate that Jesus did really exist. Luke himself makes it very clear that he has "investigated" the matter and that he believes he is basing his account from witness statements from long ago. He wants to try and demonstrate to Theophilus that this stuff really did happen:

"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, 1:2 even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, 1:3 it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus; 1:4 that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed"

Unfortunately, he clearly doesn't know who these eyewitnesses were supposed to be and never quotes or names them anywhere.

Must go but Ellie, surely people takling to each other isn't silence?

The silence of the HISTORICAL RECORD!

Please, please can I stop having to repeat myself?

Must go but Ellie, surely people takling to each other isn't silence?

Not sure why that re-posted - sorry! :)

Ellie, the thing is this: you seem to have a load of expectations that the Gospel writers and other writers of the first century ought to play by your rules by citing their sources etc. But why should they? Why should Luke name his sources?

Try this thought-experiment: if you went to a beautiful south pacific island and learnt the language and started to learn the history of this beautiful island, and found that there wasn't much history written down until relatively recently because the peoples of the island preferred to sit around a fire in the evenings and pass down the stories of their peoples, would you expect there to be a 'historical record' of this pepoles? Would you say that this was a people 'silent' regarding its past? Would you not be somewhat missing the point? I am genuinely as you seem not to have made that leap between the way things work inside your head, and the ways in which things work in very different cultures. Maybe I get it because I've travelled a lot and done a lot of work on the 1st and 2nd cs. Remember that quote; 'the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.'

Ellie, the thing is this: you seem to have a load of expectations that the Gospel writers and other writers of the first century ought to play by your rules by citing their sources etc. But why should they? Why should Luke name his sources?

Oh, man

It's not about whether anyone SHOULD be naming sources, but about whether or not they DID. When they don't, then we have no reliable way of assessing the veracity of the claim.

Your "thought experiment" is completely irrelevant. If I wanted to assess the historical accuracy of a rather monumental claim that the islanders were making (ie: God lived, died and was born again) I would find myself completely unable to do so if there was not the slightest physical evidence of any kind demonstrating it. Could I say with certainty that it didn't happen? No. Could I say with any degree of certainty that it did? Absolutely not. Particularly when all the major players were dead and no one has a record of what they did or didn't say.

Remember - Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (Carl Sagan). There is no evidence at all that any of this extraordinary stuff happened, let alone "extraordinary" evidence.

This is the difference between history and theology. One is an academic endeavour, and one is making up explanations that you think sound right.

Oh, and the Phillipians passage is known as the Kenosis hymn. It was Paul quoting the words of a song. You don't know this? Does me singing Nellie the Elephant prove that Nellie the elephant is real?

I still think that you're missing the point I am actually making, Holo. I'm not trying to disprove Jesus - that's not possible. I'm showing how shaky and virtually non-existent the evidence actually is.

Once again, you prove my point by trying to explain away the lack of evidence by saying things like "Do you think the gospel writers should play by your rules?" Way to completely miss the point

Quite astonished this stuff didn't come up during your theology degree, to be frank. It's usually well known to theologians.

Just v quickly, a few points: we don't know for a fact that Paul was quoting a hymn. That is debated. If he were, your Nellie the Elephant analogy is not apt; Paul wild not quote something with which he disagreed, except to refute it.

Secondly, and banging my head against a brick wall for the last time, you seem to be convinced of my 'theological' motivation, which you are pitting against 'history'. Do you basically believe that Christians are, by virtue of their belief, debarred from historical enquiry into the history of the Christian faith?

Also, be aware that 'theologians' span a multitude of approaches, methodologies, arguments, etc etc etc. There are very good theologians who would agree with my take on things as I've presented it today. There isn't one 'theological' party line that all theologians agree with; that would be weird.

Finally, the thing I don't understand (genuinely) about your approach is that you seem to lack contextual knowledge of the 1st c, and you seem not to value it or give it any role in your thinking. Do you think that's unfair, or have I just missed the bit when you carefully consider modes of communication, letter writing etc (as distinct from more self-consciously literary forms), group identity formation and so on?

I'm so glad this has continued.

It's very entertaining.

Well, your posts always make me laugh like a drain, Dione, so I'm glad to return the favour.

"Paul wild not quote something with which he disagreed, except to refute it" No, he wouldn't. But singing a song about someone doesn't prove that the person you're singing about is actually real, clearly. So presenting it as "evidence" in a debate about historicity is clearly fallacious. I'm a bit surprised that you have. There are better examples within Paul's writing. I'll address them when you Google remember them.

Secondly, and banging my head against a brick wall for the last time, you seem to be convinced of my 'theological' motivation, which you are pitting against 'history'. Do you basically believe that Christians are, by virtue of their belief, debarred from historical enquiry into the history of the Christian faith? Not debarred, no. But as you are continually demonstrating they seem to think that theological excuses/explanations for things = historical evidence. They don't.

Finally, the thing I don't understand (genuinely) about your approach is that you seem to lack contextual knowledge of the 1st c, and you seem not to value it or give it any role in your thinking. Do you think that's unfair, or have I just missed the bit when you carefully consider modes of communication, letter writing etc (as distinct from more self-consciously literary forms), group identity formation and so on?

Utterly irrelevant to the point I'm making - so patronise away all you like, Holo. The fact that you keep trotting out this nonsense indicates to me that the tenor of this debate is still sailing entirely over your head.

Clearly you are not aware, but there ARE good arguments for the existence of Jesus that can be made when we look at context, who was writing and why, for example. If you notice, I began the debate by saying that I feel there quite possibly WAS a man by the name of Jesus - but this is for inferential, not evidential reasons. We can only infer things when we look at the wider historical picture, which I have done. So, kindly do not accuse me of basically not knowing what I'm talking about when I would suggest that because you have not raised with me the inferences that can be made (and ARE made by historians) and why they can be made, that it might be you who is struggling in this department.

Historians look firstly for primary or secondary sources. In this case we have neither.

They then zoom out and look at the wider picture and make inferences from that - and in this respect there are a few reasonable inferences that can be made.

Perhaps someone will come along who knows about this to discuss them.

Looking at your op, no I dont think it is ignorant on your or anyone else's part to say that there is and will not be any evidence in the way you may mean evidence, to say that Jesus existed.

The "evidence" for some Christians is what is in their hearts and minds.

The "evidence" for some Christians is what is in their hearts and minds

Fascinating. So the only evidence for Jesus exists in the minds of the people who believe in him. I agree.