The following is a guest post by Darthcynic

Over the past few weeks the issue of the historicity of Jesus came up out of a thread discussing whether St Paul knew Jesus’ disciples and the discussion has progressed from there. As it evolved, matters of the accuracy of the Bible and some inaccuracies on science and how I evaluate the evidence grew as offshoots of the main topic. For the sake of brevity I shall keep to the topic of an historical Jesus and deal with those other questions separately at another time. After reading Arthenor’s latest response on his blog, from the contents of previous posts in the original discussion and from some others related to the question of an historical Jesus there are some consistent differences that crop up. This largely revolves around the question of whether or not the gospels are an acceptable source of evidence for the subject at hand. To try and bring some clarity to proceedings and to make my position clear — I hope — I shall depart from simply responding in a point by point fashion and deal with matters closely related in an overall manner. To this end I intend to cover my position on what constitutes a reliable historical source and compare that to the gospels; finally I will come back to the original matter of the historical case for Jesus.

Parts of the Bible and much of the argument for the historical Jesus hinge on historical significance versus historical accuracy; the outcome of this matter would have serious ramifications for either position. One thing that is certainly agreeable is that the gospels are definitely historically relevant; they can be utilized to gain insight into the social and cultural makeup of the society and for whom they were written. The problem exists in whether they can be taken as a reliable source for the people and events that they describe, whether they can be considered as an historically accurate account of what actually occurred, just how much confidence can be placed in them? To ascertain this we must ask a few questions of them much as we would for any document purporting to be an accurate portrayal of the events it describes. For instance is it written by an interested party and hence does this mean the potential for bias to distort or even invent to cover gaps in knowledge or hazy recollection and when was it written? Is there corroboration of the events by contemporary independent or hostile parties or by other sources such as archaeological evidence? What is the provenance of the information, what is the source, from where does the information being written spring? How has this information come down to us in the here and now, do we have the original documents, have they been copied and in the process edited or added to, what is the common presentation now?

The gospels are most assuredly written by a party with a purpose; they have a religious agenda that is implicit and acknowledged by believers. Nor is this as simple as a difference between competing national or political ideologies; where ones eternal soul and salvation is concerned the potential for bias increases. Whilst the fact that there is an agenda does not specifically mean there will be distortion; there still remains that inherent bias and caution must be exercised. Put simply they cannot be accepted at face value; we should have independent or even better, hostile corroboration. The gospels are also written decades after the events they portray, with Mark appearing first. Even assuming the most Christian friendly light of being written some thirty to forty years after Jesus’ death, this is still a significant amount of time, it is well known just how weak people’s recollection of events a few months past can be never mind decades. Unfortunately as far as corroboration goes there isn’t any by any contemporary sources independent or hostile1 , so we have no means of discerning bias or fact from fiction as far as the gospels are concerned. As for their provenance, well they certainly are not written as histories so we have no means to ascertain from whence the information sprang. Nowhere are any sources for the information ever offered and no description of the means our gospel authors went to acquire the information nor what measures they undertook to verify the veracity of what they found. Other historians of the era and earlier, such as the Greek Thucydides have no trouble in informing us of their sources. So it could conceivably be all made up and we have no way of knowing; we cannot just assume truthfulness. The gospels are also often claimed as eyewitness testimony and hence this should be viewed as most reliable; they would appear to be anything but as Luke for instance makes clear in the opening verses that he is not an eyewitness and neither was his unidentified source, somewhere he says there was an eyewitness but not himself. The gospels have come down through the ages by the work largely of Christian scribes under the direction of their superiors, wherein there also lies an inherent bias and opportunity for selective editing of the originals. They now exist for us in a multitude of versions in just the English language alone; as far as I am aware there are no original copies at all.

Now it is clear from the above that there are significant —and as I see it so far— insurmountable problems with being able to accept the gospels as a dependable historical source on actual people and events. They have an agenda and potential for bias, and lacking any independent source we have absolutely no means to ascertain whether this bias is at work and to what extent. They are not contemporary accounts; they are not written by eyewitnesses and could not have been transcribed from other eyewitness accounts.2 Some elements of the story make eyewitnessing impossible, who was the eyewitness for Gethsemane, who was the eyewitness for the forty days and nights, who saw the angel appear before the women alone at the tomb, who saw Mary’s angelic visitation about things to come? Jesus was alone for the first two, there can be no witness and no one else is mentioned as being present for the others, if anyone else were there then why no mention? Also due to the shorter lifespan of the day we cannot expect that those who were present as adults at the early days to be still alive at the time of writing; their testimony must be secondhand or worse. How may we assume useful accuracy in the face of far-removed testimony and events no one could have witnessed?3 The gospels also lack corroboration, even were one to excuse the religious bias and attempt to claim that they corroborate each other, they fail; there is evidence that there has been copying from Mark by the others. Where subsequent authors encounter things not covered by Mark they do not tell the same story; for example the birth only occurs twice in the four and even they are not the same in content or chronology. It would be like two stories of a battle in which both sides won who turned up on different days. Finally, can a source be considered reliable as a historical document if it has been edited or augmented? I’d say no, as we do not know just where and what else could be edited. Alas that is exactly what has happened with the gospels; take John and his popular story of mercy to the adulteress and the famous line “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. This is well accepted (including by Christian scholars) as a fabrication, an addition probably in the first century, it even notes this in some Bible editions though not the popular KJV and notes are rarely consulted by most I’d guess. The ending of Mark is also believed and noted as an addition to round off an otherwise abrupt and open ending lacking a crucial resurrection, yet more meddling with the text.

However Arthenor would seem to contend that none of this matter, that being old and in line with his beliefs to be more than enough to imbue the gospels with historical authenticity; that a book remains inerrant and dependable even though folks have been adding extra material. It is quite clear to me however that the gospels come nowhere near an acceptable level to be treated as a useful historical account of actual events or people. By this criterion we must also believe the events of Homer’s Odyssey, the Talmud or the Koran; why are these not entire historical records of actual events and the Bible is? Furthermore if the gospels were so clearly reliable as historical documents then there never would be a question over Jesus’ historicity and no Christian would feel any need to bother with brief and obscure ancillary references to Jesus like Josephus or Tertullian, the gospels would be more than enough. However Christians do try very hard to make those brief and obscure references work for them, one would wonder why? Lastly, I must ask what evidence is there that the gospels ‘are’ an eyewitness account as has been claimed?

In a recent Monday School, Arthenor responds to questions of the historicity of the gospels and the criterion for evaluating this by comparison to Alexander the III, or Great as he is more commonly known. He contends that there is little evidence for this historical figure yet his existence is not in doubt so why should we treat the historical reality of Jesus or the gospels any differently. Let us briefly go through the criterion I highlighted above. To begin with Alexander was not claimed as the mortal manifestation of god whose presence on this world was to save His fallen creation of man; therefore we are clear of the potential for religious bias and people amending the story at later points to adhere to a period’s dogma. Furthermore Alexander is just a man, a great leader but just a man none-the-less, his actions and events of his life generally agreed to have taken place are entirely mundane affairs devoid of miracles or the supernatural; certainly Alexander versus a supernatural Jesus has a more plausible footing in addition to any evidence. Alas we are bereft of any writings of the man himself and we are also no longer in possession of the writings on him by contemporaries such as Callisthenes or Cleitarchus; we do however have independent sources which cite the contemporary writers as their sources such as Arrian, Plutarch or Strabo.4 We know from whence the information has come unlike the gospels or Tacitus. Far more than the few I have mentioned wrote on Alexander basing their writing on the earlier accounts; this has resulted in a number of different personalities for the man, but he did exist. Neither is there anyone as time progresses who doubts his existence or writes history of the region and period as though they had never heard of Alexander, attributing the events to some other figure or remaining silent. There are also sculpture and coinage bearing his image; and some coins have been dated to the period of Alexander’s life. We also know that the expansion of Macedonia, the overthrow of the Persian Empire and other events attributed to his leadership took place. In the question of whether Alexander and Jesus are at their most basic, historical figures; the evidence for Alexander is of greater quantity, provenance and quality that is also backed by physical evidence (coins, sculpture) and events he is involved in and known to have occurred. We can be reasonably certain of Alexander’s existence; Jesus on the other hand lacks in just about every field, hence the historical doubt like any other weakly evidenced character.

Now the issues that sparked it all, the historicity of Jesus, so let us go briefly through the evidence as it stands.

The gospels have been shown to not be reliable, useful evidence in this context so they cannot be considered as far as I am concerned. St Paul does not write a history as pointed out but his writing does present some issues, and there are instances where we would expect that Paul would have defended himself or aided his proselytizing by reference to an historical Jesus should he have existed. It is not reasonable to claim that Paul was not writing Jesus biography as the gospels were doing that, to begin with Paul wrote first, there were no gospels to take care of the biography. Secondly do we honestly think that Paul and the gospel authors met and agreed who would do what, “Paul is only going to do teachings and concepts so he has agreed to make no biographical reference” what reason have we to believe that this was the case beyond a personal preference? Furthermore in relation to Paul the bulk of his writing that concerns Jesus when read without assuming a mortal person, well it makes perfect sense as referring to a non-corporeal divinity, a development on Platonic philosophical thinking extant in the area and time.5

Josephus’ passage has certainly been tampered with at least once, given this clear instance of tampering and that later church fathers like Origen who were familiar with Josephus never cited ‘any’ of the entire passage, it is entirely probable that the entire passage was a fabrication and therefore not sufficiently reliable. Tertullian, Tacitus, Phlegon etc have been shown to be believably unreliable for a variety of reasons. Thallus is practically useless, nothing remains of his work, and in fact we are not even sure if Thallus was his actual name. Worse still is that nothing survives of Africanus whom Syncellus allegedly quotes and Africanus is where we get Thallus from, third hand info over nine centuries! It is hard to get any weaker. I would guess that Arthenor is wondering how this was any different from those writing on Alexander whom we accept existed. Well there are more people quoting Alexander’s contemporary sources and Thallus was not even a contemporary source for Jesus, Alexander’s was second hand, not third and Alexander’s sources were not being related by a Christian with a religious agenda in his writing nine centuries later.

Now there are also those writers that suggest against a historical Jesus; Theophilus (a Christian) never mentions Jesus and when asked to show his unbelieving doubter one example of resurrection he is silent, no mention of those Jesus raised and nothing about one of Christianities greatest moments, Jesus’ own resurrection, the crucial event that offers mankind a means to escape his inherited sin. Surely this silence where he should have had much to say is most bizarre? Minucius goes further by denying the crucifixion; in the discussion the pagan makes a series of allegations against Christian beliefs and acts, things like eating babies, worshipping a criminal who was crucified, etc. Minucius after some indignant shock explicitly denies that Christians worship a criminal that was crucified, or that mortal man could ever be believed as god. Now if he were just refuting the criminal notion he would have clarified that Christians worshipped their savior who was crucified, he does no such thing and instead moves on to refute the other falsehoods. Theophilus certainly appears to have no idea of the historical Jesus and Minucius’ words deny central tenets of the historical narrative and modern Christianity.6

As it stands there is a very compelling argument against most people’s simple assumption that Jesus did exist; it is by no means a cast iron case that completely removes Jesus from the historical record without question, but it is very compelling. Those who argue for an historical Jesus only, must elect to selectively interpret evidence in its pro light only and often with unconvincing reasons as to why anyone else should do likewise. To get around those authors who remain silent on events they could reasonably be expected to have recorded and those who appear to be unfamiliar with the historic Christ; the pro-argument engages in weak refutation, specially limited premises and wordplay “not claiming that Jesus ever lived on earth is not the same as claiming He never lived on earth”, how that refutes Theophilus’ puzzling silence is beyond me. Finally those arguing for an historical Jesus are at great pains to ensure the gospels continued inclusion; they must be kept as without them the pro-argument becomes severely depleted.

Some, such as Arthenor, are also keen to ensure that those who doubt a historical Jesus have a bias for doing so attached to them. I am in two minds as to whether or not I should delve further into the realm of bias, but I feel that it is too significant to pass unexamined. I will preface the following by acknowledging the plain fact that I may also be biased, certainly as far as the existence of god and the veracity of the Bible is concerned. As far as an historical Jesus goes I would very much doubt it, previously I still believed as an atheist that there was an actual historical figure of Jesus, no supernatural attributes but real nonetheless, and then I encountered a compelling argument against. So I feel there is no ad hominem in pointing out that a believer has a fundamental bias, a very strong bias as their faith, the entirety of their religious life hangs on it; there must be a Jesus as everything revolves about him. This would only be significantly stronger if that person also believed the Bible to be the inerrant, literal word of god; that is a titanic drive to find for one conclusion only or it all becomes undone. Especially if there is no allowance for the possibility that they may be wrong and what it would take to prove that. This scope for a pro-bias on the part of believers potentially muddies any investigation and pro-argument by them, is the argument reasonable or just one that supplies the best pro position? That is why I think there is also a desire to assign a bias on the part of those arguing against Jesus’ mortal existence, to give them that same muddiness and level the playing field. Like I pointed out Jesus’ existence or not makes no difference to me and hence why Arthenor then sought to invoke the stock skeptic character, to purchase bias by any means possible in suggesting an alleged philosophical position on other matters is the same as regards the historical argument. I am not saying that I am unequivocally free of bias but I think that I have refuted this allegation and over the posts provided a solid if brief refutation of the notion that an historical Jesus is the only or most reasonable conclusion; that there is a good case for doubt and Jesus may very well, have never existed.

For a more in depth and expansive argument on the issue of the historical Jesus try Earl Doherty’s site http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm and Ebon Musings article “Choking on the Camel” at http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/camel.html .  Where I first encountered the argument against the historical Jesus, and the source for some of the points I have raised and I thank them for presenting their findings.

Footnotes:

1. The Talmud being a religious text suffers the same suspicion we must exercise with any religious text, it can also be viewed as simply combating early 1st century Christian dogma on purely theological grounds. This seems sufficient reason to not view it as corroboration, not that it corroborates much, its story being different and also written after the fact.
2. These guys were certainly not present as adults for the conception or birth.
3. Note though that we have no sources and so we cannot even tell if it is testimony or fiction.
4. Even though Plutarch notes that he does not write histories but rather biographies, he is writing about historical characters.
5. The passages Arthenor cited included Romans 1:1, 5:12-15, 8:3 – do not explicitly reference an historic entity, two do not use any mortal qualification at all, very weak; the rest are of questionable origin, some of Paul’s epistles are believed by some to not be authored by him, these are Colossians, Ephesians, Titus and Timothy 1 & 2.
6. Tatian and Athenagoras who are also Christian, seem unfamiliar with the historical Jesus, puzzling no?