Did Jesus Exist?

well thank you very is to read for about 20 or 22 minutes or so and then take any questions you have so I often get asked why I wrote such a book and I start off with explaining why every week I received two or three emails asking me whether Jesus existed as a human being when I started getting these emails some years ago now I thought the question was rather peculiar and I do not take it seriously of course Jesus existed everyone knows the existed don't they but the questions kept coming and soon I began to wonder why are so many people asking my water only increased when I learned that I myself was being quoted in some circles miss gordon rather as saying that Jesus never existed I decided to look into the matter I discovered to my surprise an entire body of literature devoted to the question of whether or not there was a real man Jesus I was surprised because I'm trained as a scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity and for 30 years I've written extensively on the historical Jesus the Gospels the early Christian movement and the history of the church's first 300 years like all New Testament scholars I've read thousands of books and articles in English and other European languages on Jesus the New Testament and early Christianity but I was almost completely unaware as are most of my colleagues in the field of this body of skeptical literature these sundry books and articles not to mention websites are of varying quality some of them rivaled The Da Vinci Code in their passion for conspiracy and the shallowness of their historical knowledge not just of the New Testament and early Christianity but of ancient religions generally and even more broadly the ancient world but a couple of bona fide scholars not professors teaching religious studies in universities but scholars nonetheless and at least one of them with a PhD in the field of New Testament have taken this and written the balance their books may not be known to most of the general public interested in questions related to Jesus the Gospels or the early Christian church but they do occupy a noteworthy niche as a small but loud minority voice once you tune into this voice you quickly learn just how persistent and vociferous it can be and the voice is being heard loud and clear in some places even a quick internet search reveals how this flue intial such radical skepticism has been in the past and how rapidly it is spreading even now for decades it was the dominant view in countries such as the Soviet Union yet more striking it appears to be the majority view in some regions of the West today including some parts of Scandinavia the authors of this skeptical literature understand themselves to be myth assists that is those who believe that Jesus is a myth when men assists use the term myth they also seem to mean simply a story that has no historical basis a history like narrative that in fact did not happen in this sense Jesus is a myth because even though there are plenty of ancient stories about him they're not historical his life and teachings weren't invented by early storytellers he never really lived those who do not think Jesus existed are frequently militant in their views and remarkably adept at countering evidence that do the rest of the civilized world seems compelling and even unanswerable but these these writers have answers and the smart ones among them need to be taken seriously if for no other reason than to show why they cannot be right about their major contention the reality is that whatever else you may think about Jesus he certainly exists did exist that is what this book will set out to demonstrate it's striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain the necessary qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth wasn't real historical figure this is not a piece of evidence but if nothing else it should give one pause in the field of biology evolution may be just a theory some politicians painfully pointed out but it is the theory subscribe to for good reason by every real scientist and every established University in the Western world still as is clear from the avalanche of sometimes outrage postings on all the relevant internet sites there's simply no way to convince conspiracy theorists that the evidence for their position is too thin to be convincing and that the evidence for a traditional view is thoroughly persuasive anyone who chooses to believe something contrary to evidence that an overwhelming majority of people find overwhelmingly convincing whether it involves the fact of the Holocaust the landing on the moon the assassination of presidents or even a presidential place of birth will not be convinced simply will not be convinced and so with this book I do not expect to convince anyone in that boat when I do this to convince genuine seekers who really want to know how we know that Jesus did exist as virtually every scholar of antiquity of biblical studies of classics and of Christian origins in the country and in fact in the Western world agrees many of these scholars have no vested interest in the matter as it turns out I myself do not either I'm not a Christian and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda I'm an agnostic with eight misleaders and my life in views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed my beliefs would bury little the answer to the question of Jesus historical existence will not make me more or less happy content hopeful likeable rich famous for an immortal but as a historian I think evidence matters and the past matters and for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter the dispassionate the case makes it quite plain Jesus did exist he may not have been that Jesus that your mother believes in or the Jesus is the stained-glass window what are the Jesus of your least-favorite televangelist where the Jesus proclaimed by the Vatican the Southern Baptist Convention the local mega church or the California Gnostic but he didn't exist and we can say a few things with relative certainty about him now I skip over from the introduction to read a couple pages on what myth assists typically said the case that most myth assists have made against the historical existence of Jesus involves both negative and positive arguments with far more of the former on the negative side mythos is typically stressed that there are no reliable references to the existence of Jesus in any non-christian sources of the first century Jesus allegedly lived until about the Year thirty C II but no Greek or Roman author or any other non-christian Oliver for that metric matter mentions him for over 80 years after that if Jesus was such an important figure or even he wasn't so important wouldn't there be a reference to him in some of our many surviving sources from the first century we have the writings of historians politicians philosophers religious scholars poets and scientists we have inscriptions placed on buildings and personal letters written by average people in none of these non-christian writings of the first century is Jesus ever mentioned not even once they just typically argue by those who hold the Jesus historical existence that he is in fact mentioned by one other this is the counter to the mythos is that he's mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus who wrote a number of surviving books near the end of the first century mythos is however claimed that the two references to Jesus and Josephus is book Jewish antiquities these are the only two references in all of those sequences abundant writings that these two references were not written originally by Josephus but were inserted into his writings by later Christian scribes if these myth assists are right this would mean that we don't have a single reference to Jesus in non-christian texts before the writings of plenty a Roman governor of a province in what is now Turkey in a 112 C II and in the writings of Roman historian Tacitus and Suetonius a few years later some mythos is claimed that these references to were inserted into these writings that they are not original we'll be looking at all these references soon pronounced enough to note that misses this argue that it is hard to believe that Jesus would not be talked about argue with commented on or even mentioned by writers of his own day or in the decades afterward if he really existed in addition they typically claim that the historical Jesus does not appear prominently even in early Christian writings apart from the New Testament Gospels in particular they maintain that the Apostle Paul who wrote more books of the New Testament anywhere else cept hardly anything about the historical Jesus or that he said nothing at all this may come as a shock to most readers of the New Testament but a careful reading of Paul's letters shows the problems Paul has a lot to say about Jesus death and resurrection especially the resurrection and he clearly worships him as his Lord but he says very little indeed about anything that Jesus said and did while he was alive why would that be if Jesus was in fact a historical person why doesn't fall quote the words of Jesus such as the Sermon on the Mount why does he never refer to any of Jesus parables why doesn't he indicate what Jesus did why not mention any of his miracles his exorcism his controversy his trip to Jerusalem his trial before Pontius Pilate and so on what this means is that Matthew Mark Luke and John are our only real sources for knowing about the historical Jesus and myth assists find these four sources highly problematic as the sort of historical documents for one thing they were written near the end of the first century at best four or five decades or more after Jesus allegedly lived if he really did live wouldn't we have some earlier sources and how can we rely on such hearsay from so many years later moreover myth assists typically point out that the Gospels could not be trusted in what they do say there are many accounts of what Jesus said and did are chock-full of contradictions and discrepancies and so are completely unreliable the Gospels are thoroughly biased toward their subject matter and so do not present anything like this interest in history as it really was they can be shown to have modified the stories they relate and in some places they obviously have made up stories about Jesus in fact virtually all or even all of the stories many have been invented this is especially the case with the so-called miracles of Jesus narrated by the Gospel writers to convince others to believe in him but incredible to the point that well they're literally incredible not to be believed I'm summarizing the mythos positioning furthermore many Memphis's insists that the four Gospels ultimately go back to just one of the Gospels mark on which the other three were based this means that of all the many writers pagan Jewish and Christian that we have in the first century assuming that mark is written words early as the first century we have only one that describes a readmission for life the historical Jesus how plausible is that if Jesus actually lived giving all these problems submit assistance insists that the burden of proof rests on anyone who wants to claim that Jesus did in fact exist how to do these negative arguments is one very important positive one that the stories about Jesus many of them incredible all of them based on late and underline witnesses are parallel time and again in the myths about pagan gods and other divine man discussed in the ancient world and so mythos is typically appealed to accounts of other gods or demigods such as Heracles Osiris Mithras Addis Adonis and Dinah - Dinah Isis who were sorry who were said to have been born on December 25th - a virgin mother - the miraculous deeds from the sake of others - have died often for the sake of others and who had been raised from the dead and later departed to live in the divine realm I've already sent a few words about such claims and will examine them in greater detail later later point where now it's enough to stress that myth assists make a two-pronged argument given the negative argument that we have no reliable witness that even mentions a historical Jesus and the positive one that his story appears has been modeled on the accounts whole of other divinities it is simplest to believe that he never existed but was invented as another supernatural being in this reading of the evidence Christianity is founded on a myth okay so after laying out the myth of this position I start talking about what evidence there is for there being an historical Jesus and I actually begin by talking about what we don't have as evidence some stuff you might think we would have we don't have so what we don't have they may be useful to start by considering what we do not have by way of historical records for Jesus to set the stage for a more detailed consideration in the next chapter of what we do have so first physical evidence to begin with there is no hard physical evidence for Jesus eighteen hundred years before photography was invented including no archaeological evidence of any kind this is not much of an argument against Jesus existence however since there is no archaeological evidence for anyone else living in Palestine in Jesus day except for the very upper crust elite aristocrats who are occasionally mentioned in inscriptions we have no other archaeological evidence even for any of these persons in fact we don't have archaeological remains for any non aristocratic Jew of the 20s CV when Jesus would have been an adult and absolutely no one thinks that Jesus was another crack upper class aristocrat so why would we have archaeological evidence of his existence we also do not have any writings from Jesus to many people this may seem odd but in fact it's not odd at all the vast majority of people in the ancient world could not write that we'll see in greater detail there are debates about Jesus literacy if of course he lived but even if he could read there are no indications from our early sources that he could write and there's no reference to any of his writings in any of our Gospels so there's nothing strange about having nothing written or nothing in writing from him I should point out that we have nothing in writing from over 99.99 percent of people who lived in antiquity that doesn't mean of course that they did live it means that we want to show that any of them live we have to look for other kinds of evidence next non-christian sources it's also true as the Mythbusters have been quick to point out and as I've already read that no Greek or Roman author from the first century mentions Jesus it would be very convenient for us if they did but alas they do not at the same time the fact is again a bit you're irrelevant since these same sources do not mention many millions of people who actually did live Jesus stands it was a vast majority of living breathing human beings of earlier ages moreover it is an error to argue as it's sometimes as is sometimes done by one myth assists or another that anyone as spectacular as Jesus allegedly was who did so many miracles and tastic these would certainly have been discussed or at least mentioned in pagan sources if he really did exist surely anyone who could heal the sick cast out demons walk on water feed the multitudes with only a few loaves and raise the dead would be talked about the reason this line of reasoning is in error is that we are not asking whether Jesus really did miracles and if so why they and he are not mentioned by pagan sources we're asking whether Jesus of Nazareth actually existed only after establishing that he did exist can we go on that ask if he did miracles if we decide that he did only then can we revisit the question of why no one in that case mentions him but we may also decide the historical Jesus was not a miraculous being but a purely human being in that case it's no surprise that Roman sources never mentioned him just as it just as it is no surprise that these same sources never mentioned any of his uncles aunts cousins nieces or nephews weren't fact nearly any other two of his day in that connection I should reiterate that it is a complete myth in the mythos of sense that Romans kept detailed records of everything and that as a result we are unfortunate ly well informed about the world of Roman Palestine and should expect them to hear about Jesus if he really lived if Romans kept such records where were they we certainly don't have any think of everything we do not know about the reign of Pontius Pilate as governor of Judea we know from the Jewish historian Josephus that Pilate ruled for 10 years between 26 and 36 evie it would be easy to argue that he was the single most important figure for Roman Palestine for the entire length of his rule and walked records from this decade do we have from his brain what Roman records of his major accomplishments his daily itinerary the decrees he passed the laws he issue the prisoners crime the death warrants he signed his scandals his interviews his judicial proceedings we have none nothing hello I might press the issue further what archeological evidence do we have without pilots rule in Palestine we have some coins that were issued during his reign one would not expect coins about Jesus since he didn't issue any and we have one only one fragmentary inscription discovered in Caesarea maritima in 1961 that indicates the pilot was the Roman prefect nothing else and what writings do we have bring him not a single word does that mean he didn't exist no he's mentioned in several passages in Josephus and in the writings of the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo and in the Gospels he certainly existed even though like Jesus we have no records from this day or writings from this Hannah and what is striking is that we have far more information about Pilate than about any other governor of Judea in Roman times and so it's a modern myth to say that we have extensive Roman records from antiquity that surely would have mentioned someone like Jesus had he existed it's also worth pointing out that Pilate is mentioned only in passing in the writing of the one Roman historian Tacitus who does name him moreover that happens to be in a passage that also refers to Jesus in the the annals of Rome the book 15 if an important Roman aristocratic ruler of a major province is not mentioned any more than that then the Greek and Roman writings what are the chances that a lower-class Jewish teacher which Jesus must have been is everyone degrees would be missing in that almost none I might add that our principal source of knowledge about Jewish Palestine in the days of Jesus comes from the Jewish from that from the historian josephus a prominent aristocratic Jew who was extremely influential in the superiors of affairs of his day and how often is Josephus mentioned in Greek and Roman sources of his own day the first century CE II never think of an analogy if a historian 60 years from now were to write up a history of the American South and say the 20th and 21st centuries is a likely dimensions lockable pleasure thought was not here I hope flacco is my brilliant colleague who teaches courses in ancient philosophy Gnosticism varieties of early Christianity and other subjects would they mention Sacco almost certainly not what does that prove technically speaking for nothing but it does suggest either the slock though never existed or that he did not make a huge impact on the political social or cultural life in the South as it turns out Locke who does exist I bought him dinner last night so if he is not mentioned in a future history of the south it will no doubt me because he did not make a big impact on the south to show he existed one would have to look at other evidence for example copies of the two books he's written unlike Jesus slawko can write very well and unlike the first century we have the mass production and distribution of books plus libraries to house the minute so too with Jesus if he is rarely mentioned it is barely relevant to the question of his existence it's possible that he simply made too little impact just like the overwhelming mass of people who lived in the Roman Empire of the first century many Christians know do not want to hear that Jesus did not make an enormous splash on the world day but it appears to be true does that mean me did not exist no it means that to establish his existence we need to look at other kinds of evidence so for the bulk of the book I look at the evidence from the New Testament Gospels especially and from the writings of the Apostle Paul and I devoted a chapter to two key arguments that pretty much cinch the case that Jesus must have lived one of which is easy to summarize the Apostle Paul actually knew Jesus closest disciple Peter as he tells us and he knew Jesus brought brother James and if I argue if Jesus didn't exist you would think that his brother would know it and there's actually one other argument that's too complicated to go into that that's sin jesus almost certainly existed I want to just end by reading a page or so on one of the common arguments used by ethicist about Jesus one of the most widely asserted claims found in the mythos literature is that Jesus was an invention of the early Christians who had been deeply influenced by the prevalent notion of a dying and rising God as found throughout pagan religions of antiquity the theory behind this claim is that people in many ancient religions worshipped gods who died and rose again Osiris Attis Tammuz Heracles Mel carte else moon Bale and so on originally the theory goes these gods were connected with vegetation and were worshiped in fertility cults just as every year the crops die in winter but then come back to life in the spring so do what the gods who are associated with the crops they die when the crops do and go to the underworld but then they revive with the crops and reappear on earth raised from the dead they are worshiped then as dying rising deities Jesus in this view was the Jewish version of the pagan fertility deity invented by Jews as a dying and rising God only later did some of the demo tapes of this Jewish deity his store sizes exist and begin to claim that he was in fact a divine human who had once lived on earth who had died as it rose again once the historicizing process began it continued rapidly until stories were told about this dog man and eventually a whole set of narratives were invented by authors like mark the author of our first gospel these narratives were not based on real history however they were based on myths that had been his stories this view the invention of Jesus is nearly ubiquitous among myth assists there are however two major problems with this view that Jesus was originally invented as a dying rising God modeled on the dying and rising gods of the pagan world first there are serious doubts about whether there were in fact dying rising gods in the pagan world and if there were whether they were anything at all like the dying rising Jesus and the answer probably is no that we're not gods like that second there is an even more serious problem that Jesus could not have been invented as a dying rising God because his earlier because his earliest followers did not think he was gone I go on and show that so I've tried to put something that will offend everybody in this book I'll stop there thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: UNC College

Views: 159,981

Rating: 4.2508273 out of 5

Keywords: religious studies, Bart Ehrman, Jesus (Deity)

Id: hnybQxIgfPw

Length: 26min 41sec (1601 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 26 2012