Well, it’s that time of year again. Regular church attendees are going to have to share their pews with people who have finally decided to make it out for their second service of the year. Their belief that Jesus bled and died so they can gain eternal salvation might be unshakable, but it apparently isn’t all that motivating, considering how little these believers seem to do in response. Nevertheless, they can at least be counted on to show up for a retelling of Jesus’s miraculous birth.
But what version will they hear? More than likely, they’ll hear a “Hollywood” version of the tale that incorporates the most exciting elements of the two versions that we read about in Matthew and Luke. A quick Google search turned up this one, which illustrates my point perfectly. But what if someone tried to tell the full version? A version that included every detail that both Matthew and Luke provide?
Honestly, it just can’t be done. I had wanted to attempt it here, but there’s just no practical way to do it. For example, the version I linked to above goes like this:
The Standard Tale
- Mary’s visited by an angel who tells her about the pregnancy (Luke)
- She and Joseph live in Nazareth of Galilee, but are forced to travel to Bethlehem in Judea for a census commanded by the Roman authorities (Luke)
- They’re unable to find normal accommodations and are forced to room in an area intended for livestock. Mary gives birth there and is visited by local shepherds (Luke)
- Wise men far to the east see a star that somehow signifies the birth of the Jewish Messiah (Matthew)
- They travel for an unspecified period until they reach Jerusalem, where they inquire about the child (Matthew)
- These inquiries reach Herod, the ruler of the region, and he asks the wise men to send back word to him once they find the child, so Herod himself can also pay his respects (Matthew)
- The wise men make their way to Bethlehem, find the family, bestow their gifts, and return home via a different route (Matthew)
- An angel tells Joseph to hightail it out of Bethlehem, because Herod’s sending a posse to wipe out all the children 2 years old and under in an effort to stamp out Jesus (Matthew)
- Joseph and his family flee to Egypt and remain there until an angel tells him it’s safe to return, because Herod has died (Matthew)
- Joseph intends to go back toward Bethlehem, but after finding out that Herod’s son is in charge, he takes the family to Nazareth in Galilee (Matthew)
So what’s wrong with this story? I mean, it’s very cohesive, and it makes for a compelling tale. What’s not to like? Its only real problem is that the very books of the Bible that provide its details, contradict its overall narrative.
Two Very Different Stories
Let’s go back to Luke’s version. After Jesus’s birth and the visit from the shepherds, we don’t read about wise men or Herod’s animosity. Instead, Luke 2:22 says that after the days of Mary’s purification were over, the family went to Jerusalem. The “days of purification” are referring to Leviticus 12:1-4, where the Law of Moses stated that a woman was to be considered “unclean” for 40 days after giving birth to a male child. So when Jesus was about 40 days old, Luke claims that they all traveled to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices as thanks for his birth. While there, two elderly people see Jesus and begin proclaiming praise and prophecies concerning Jesus. And there’s no indication that an effort was made to keep any of this quiet, which is very different in tone to what we read in Matthew. Finally, in Luke 2:39, we read “And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” We’ll come back to this point in a moment.
The synopsis we looked at earlier incorporated most of Matthew’s version of the story. As we just read, his story ends very differently from Luke’s. However, it’s also significant to note that Matthew gives no indication that Joseph and Mary are from Nazareth. Matt 1:18 through the end of the chapter talks about Mary’s pregnancy, even though she and Joseph had never slept together, but it never specifies where they’re living. Chapter 2 begins with the sentence “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?'” Of course, it’s possible that Matthew still knew they were originally from Nazareth and just doesn’t bother to tell us that or divulge how they got to Bethlehem in the first place. But there are three context clues that point against such a possibility. First of all, regardless of how far the wise men had to journey, it likely took them quite a while to make the trip. When Matthew says “the east” he certainly doesn’t mean “east Jersualem,” and travel being what it was back then, any journey would have taken considerable time. The second clue is that Herod supposedly kills all the male children of Bethlehem who are 2 and under. So it’s unlikely that we’re supposed to still be thinking of Jesus as a newborn. Finally, Matthew says that when the family was able to leave Egypt, Joseph wanted to go back to Judea (where Bethlehem is). But after finding out Herod’s son was ruling, he became afraid and “went and lived in a city called Nazareth” (Matt 2:23). This is a very strange way to refer to Nazareth, if it’s where Joseph and Mary were already living.
So Matthew gives no indication that Joseph and Mary were just visiting Bethlehem. He never mentions a manger; instead, he references a house that they were staying in. He never talks about the shepherds from the fields, but has wise men who visit the child. He includes a story about Herod slaughtering a town’s children, though no other historical or biblical source ever mentions this. He claims that the family flees to Egypt until Herod’s death, that they want to return to Bethlehem, but finally settle in “a city called Nazareth.”
Luke, on the other hand, says that Nazareth is their home town, and they’re only visiting Bethlehem. He has no story about wise men, but does talk about shepherds from the fields that visit the newborn Jesus. Instead of Herod attempting to hunt them down and a subsequent flight to Egypt, the family travels straight to Jerusalem, where Herod lives. And there’s no effort to keep Jesus’s identity secret while they’re there, as two elderly prophets begin proclaiming who he is. And after making their sacrifices, the family simply goes back home to Nazareth, far from Herod’s reach (not that Luke indicates Herod’s even interested).
Can These Stories Be Put Together?
The main sticking points between the stories are the flight to Egypt and the trip to Jerusalem. On the one hand, Luke is very clear about his timeline: Jesus was only about 40 days old when they went to Jerusalem and then went home to Nazareth. Matthew doesn’t give specifics on how old Jesus was when the family was forced to flee to Egypt, except that it must have occurred before he was 2 years old.
Could the trip to Egypt have happened before the trip to Jerusalem?
No. First of all, considering all the details Luke provides, why would he have left out such an important event? Secondly, this means Herod would have needed to die within the 40 day purification period, but Matthew tells us that this still wouldn’t have been good enough, because Joseph was determined to avoid all of Judea while Herod’s son was reigning. There’s simply no way he would have felt safe enough to travel directly into Jerusalem. That just makes no sense.
Could the trip to Egypt have happened after the trip to Jerusalem?
No. Luke 2:39 is clear that the family went straight back to Nazareth after their trip to Jerusalem. And considering Luke claimed that Nazareth was already their home, why would they have needed to go back to Bethlehem anyway?
In fact, Luke’s claim that the family was from Nazareth creates a lot of problems for Matthew’s account. Nazareth was far outside of Herod’s reach. So if Herod really had hunted Jesus in Bethlehem, the family could have simply gone back to Nazareth rather than flee to Egypt. But this isn’t a consideration in Matthew’s account, because for him, the family has never been to Nazareth until they simply can’t go back to Bethlehem anymore, even after Herod’s death (Matt 2:23).
Additional Problems
I don’t want to spend too much time here, but for completeness sake, I need to mention a couple of historical issues. Both Matthew and Luke say that Jesus is born during the reign of Herod the Great. Historians usually place his death in 4 BCE, which means Jesus would have been born sometime before that. However, Luke says that Mary and Joseph had traveled to Bethlehem, because Quirinius, the governor of Syria, had commanded a census. However, Quirinius didn’t become governor of Syria until 6 CE — 10 years after Herod’s death. You can find additional resources about these two issues here.
Finally, Luke’s claim is that this census required Joseph to travel back to his ancestral home of Bethlehem, since he was of King David’s lineage. But David would have lived some 1000 years before Joseph. It’s ludicrous to think that the Romans would have cared about such a thing, or that they would have wanted their empire to be so disrupted by having people move around like that for a census. It would have been an impossible feat and would have made for a highly inaccurate, and therefore useless, census.
What Do We Make of All This?
The easiest way to understand why these accounts have such major differences in detail is to understand why either writer bothered with a story about Jesus’s birth at all. You have to remember that the writers of Matthew and Luke didn’t know one another and didn’t know that they were both working on the same material. They certainly didn’t know that their books would one day show up in the same collection. Both of them were working with two basic facts: Micah 5:2 seemed to prophesy that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem; Jesus came from Nazareth (John 1:45-46).
Since those two facts were at odds with one another, it’s easy to see how both writers would have been compelled to explain how Jesus could be from Nazareth but still be from Bethlehem. Unfortunately for them, close comparison shows that both versions simply can’t be true.
How would people react if they showed up for church this weekend and were presented with the full details from both of these stories? I like to think it would spur many of them into deeper study. That it would possibly make them question some of the things they’ve been taking for granted. But 2016 has been pretty demoralizing when it comes to the number of people who seem concerned about what’s true, and I’m not sure how many of them would see this information as a call to action. I know there are people who can be changed by facts. Perhaps there aren’t as many of them as I once thought, but I know they’re out there. And with the way information spreads these days, I’m sure they’ll eventually find the facts they’re looking for.
Finding Truth 
The point is, the evidence cited for his existence as non-negotiable, is simply based on gospel texts and a few mentions that have hearsay or make-beleive written all over them and have been a given a pass; a Get out of jail Free card, if you like.
Why would anyone accept the passage in Tacitus for example, if one is aware of the history of the Annals?
Why was the entire TF of Josephus once flatly rejected as fraudulent, by a great many Christians to boot, and now, only fairly recently has it been dragged into the light as a possible, bare bones reference?
How the hell does anyone know someone called Jesus was baptized by someone called John the Baptist?
”Well Christianity must have begun somehow … with someone.”
Really? Why must there be a genuine historical character at the back of the story?
The evidence against there ever having been such a character has the makings of a small mountain.
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@Unklee
And here we go again … the presupposition that the character Jesus of Nazareth was real.
You are simply plastering over the cracks with a literary explanation how this character might relate to the Old Testament. We might just as well include the way Harry Potter might relate to the tale of Lord of the Rings.
Your judgment will be forever blighted by your belief this is a man-god, and you cannot get away from this fact.
You are simply unable to divorce yourself from this belief in the supernatural.
It is what you are and has defined most of your life to date.
Your view is much the same as that of an archaeologist like James Hoffmeir and the way he regards the Exodus.
You will tap dance around confronting his belief in an (apparent) literal Exodus as you will your own.
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@ unklee
I would like to add:
It has always baffled me why Christians have striven so hard to provide undeniable evidence for their beliefs when the literary mentor for their worldview – the bible – or at least the interpretation a Christian of your particular brand believes, is exhorted to rely solely on faith.
It is through grace alone you are saved and by faith alone you shall pass through the Pearly Gates, where you will sit on His right hand, forever to gaze lovingly into the eyes of your long-haired blue-eyed, Aramaic Adonis, drinking gin-slings while you watch the sun go down on an ever increasing secular world; a world created by His own hand no less.
Therefore, what is it to you if the earth is round or flat or if there really was a global flood?
Seriously, why do you even care about global warming, pollution or nuclear war.
After all, you are nothing but an unworthy sinner in your own eyes. As long as you beleive that Jesus of Nazareth is God you are in the pound seats, right?
So the crux of my question is, why the hell do you give a Polar Bear’s fart in an Arctic Blizzard about em> evidence ?
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For those who are interested in digging deeper, Paul Davidson has just posted out an item on his blog pointing out how the Genealogies and related stories in Chronicles suggest that Joseph’s descendants were in Israel the whole time (i.e. never came out of Egypt):
https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/the-story-of-ezer-and-elead-and-what-it-means-for-the-exodus/
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ColorStorm,
I agree with Nate, “natural” doesn’t mean “made by man,” it just means natural, which the moon and water are.
Again, we could argue and imagine what the first cause was, or what first cause even means, but since that’s all speculation and claims that could not be proven at this time, I again suggest that for argument’s sake, we simply agree – there was a first cause, and everything we have is the result of a supernatural intelligent design.
From this presumed starting place (and it is presumed), can you demonstrate how you arrive at “God of the Bible,” and eliminate all other possible god(s) or supernatural beginnings? And I mean demonstrate, because merely saying, “Therefore the Bible,” is just a claim without support. If that’s how you get there, that’s fine enough for you, but you should have the wherewithal to realize what it is why others wont be as quick to join in on your “just because.”
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@will
Please do not attribute to me something I never intended. I never said ‘natural is made by man.’ I said this:
‘There is NOTHING natural as to the beginning, ie, the origin of origins.
It was all supernatural. Don’t think so? The light of the moon, even though temporary, is supernatural.’
Now then, I have said enough, and it is pointless to continue. There is nothing ambiguous in what I’ve said. God’s word crushes your petty gripes and the complaints of all men. Period.
That’s plenty of proof and your conscience knows it.
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yeah, it’s what I thought.
Be well, ColorStorm.
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@Peter.
What an excellent link, Pete.
Gracias, Senor
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@Colorstorm
Is this a promise or are you just pulling our legs?,
Remember, it is generally only the Christians on this blog who tell porky-pies,so we will be watching ….!
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And the moonlight is the sunlight reflecting off of the moon’s surface, this is actually the opposite of supernatural, as it can be perfectly explained by physical and natural processes.
Just like a rock falling out of someone’s hand isn’t supernatural.
A man who’d been dead for three days, bringing himself back to life and then flying away is a good candidate for supernatural – except so far that sort of thing is just claimed by other men, who offer no evidence other than their said so.
Just like a rock floating out of someone’s hand – it’ll take more than their word or unsupported claim before people actually believe it.
If accepting their word until they’re proven absolute false is the position you take, then does that mean you accept all such claims, or only when they’re inline with your particular religion? And if the latter, is a Muslim or Mormon justified in doing the same with their religions and holy texts?
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That’s nice william. You keep thinking the moon is a result of a ‘natural accident.’
‘He made the stars also,’ and the nativity account is good as gold.
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except it isn’t and they aren’t.
In this post and the resulting thread, it has been demonstrated and explained why and how the moon is natural, not supernatural, and that Matthew and Luke make the birth narrative even more ridiculous.
Your rebuttal to those is really nothing more than, “nuh uh!”
You have presented no evidence. You haven’t bothered lining Matthew and Luke side by side to discuss the issues. I am not sure why you can’t seem to understand the difference between unsubstantiated claim and supported claim, but I think this fact seems to be why we cannot seem to move on.
“Jesus, just because,” is going to be the new evangelical bumper sticker. At least I hope so, because when i create it, it would be nice to see sale revenue.
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I’m not saying there had to be a genuine character behind the story. The “first cause” may have just been someone who invented the idea of Jesus entirely. But as far as I know, we don’t have any evidence of that happening. Right now, Occam’s Razor suggests (at least to me) that the simplest explanation for different accounts of a person named Jesus and a movement that began worshiping him shortly after the time in which he would have lived is that a guy named Jesus probably existed. I don’t think he did any of the miraculous things that are claimed about him, but it’s not hard for me to believe that a Jewish preacher with that name lived during that time, because it’s a very ho-hum sort of claim.
If Tacitus was the only source we had about Vespasian, we’d still probably believe that Vespasian was a real person who ruled Rome for a time. The fact that Tacitus claims he performed a miracle doesn’t mean we should believe the miracle, nor does it mean we should doubt Vespasian’s existence. Most of his claims about Vespasian are believable and rather mundane.
In many ways, I don’t think any of this is a big deal at all, and I find myself wondering why we’re even bothering to debate it. But then your last comments to unkleE remind me. I agree with you in thinking that unkleE’s overall position on Christianity is wrong. But I think your line of attack on him is unfair and rather inaccurate:
Your tone toward him sounds harsh, and I think it’s unjustified. You’re overplaying your hand, because it has not been proven that Jesus was a myth. This is what I’m talking about when I say that we atheists put ourselves in a bad position when we try to argue this way. We want to criticize believers for holding onto positions that they can’t justify, but then we try to do the same thing from the opposite direction. How is one better than the other?
UnkleE gets a lot of flack for pointing to scholarly consensus as much as he does, but at least he’s a Christian who’s concerned with the consensus of critical scholars! I wish the Christians in my family were that concerned!
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@ will
And whosoever is interested. I am not spoon feeding you answers to your gripes to satiate your curiosity. The accounts are good. Do your own studies. If I pointed out every single bitching gripe and explained them, that would not satisfy you. And you know it.
There would be another complaint, then another, then another, and a thousand more, and you know it. Take the time to consider your so-called contradictions. They all have answers. every one.
God’s word is good. Very good. Tkx to nate for the indulging, but adios.
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Let me quickly add something else:
My last comment may have sounded harsh, too, so I apologize if it did. I admire you a great deal (your wit, especially), and you’ve looked into the mythicist stuff more than I have. I don’t really blame you for having your position on it. It just seems to me that you overreach when you make it sound like this is a settled issue. If anyone could currently claim that the issue is settled, it’s the historicity crowd, just based on scholarly consensus if nothing else.
Hope that helps explain my position a bit better… I still love you, Ark 😉
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ColorStorm,
I have done my own study, my comments here on this blog illustrate where it has led me. You say my conclusions are incorrect. I’m just asking you to support and defend your, so far unsupported, claims.
Nate didn’t just write, “Jesus’s Birth Narrative in the Bible is dumb and wrong,” he explained what the problems were after showing the text from Matthew and Luke side by side.
That’s not spoon feeding, it’s making a case. The added bonus is that he made a logical case and walked us all down his thought process, and then invited us to discuss it, whether we agreed or didn’t agree.
Do you see the difference between that and what you’re doing?
I have to wonder why you’re even on a blog discussion if you don’t want to actually discuss anything. Several of us are eager and willing to discuss with you and would like to see if your position is based on anything tangible, or if it really all does boil down to a “said so.”
At this point, it’s pretty evident, I think – but I’m still willing to engage if you ever decide to take a stab at it.
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On Sunday I was driving my kids around town to their sports practices and I noticed the number of churches in one particular neighborhood. There was a church on practically EVERY street corner! And they weren’t Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, etc., they were almost all non-denominational; one right after another: non-denominational after non-denominational after non-denominational. Why do they need to have so many DIFFERENT non-denominational churches all in the same neighborhood???
Answer: Because Jesus is telling a different version of the truth to each church and each pastor!
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Oh, I most certainly do not consider this a settled issue by a long, long chalk, Nate.
Hence my quip about the Believers having a 2000 year head start.
And be as harsh as you like, my man.
Seriously, it’s about time we all stopped pussy footing around this issue and demanded the same standards for this area of history as we do for many other areas and not utter such patronizing platitudes as, ”Well what sort of evidence would you accept?”
What I am saying is this: belief based upon what is touted as evidence, which most biblical scholars and historians have agreed to and can be regarded as pretty much proof positive based on generally accepted historical methods is simply not proof positive , as good as it gets, a closed book, a slam dunk or any other metaphor they care to name.
In all honesty, it isn’t even reasonable. But there is a huge amount at stake – jobs for one thing, and his is not to be sniffed at.
For example,how can there even be a question surrounding something like the Empty Tomb?
There is no evidence and we are already aware of the burial traditions for criminals.
Crucifixion? Based on what?
Dates of the gospels? Guesswork.
We know the gospels are fraught with error and outright fraud so they are, like the Pentateuch quite likely, simply works of historical fiction.
It is recognized that biblical claims of historicity are often cut more slack than other areas of history, and some like Carrier has pointed this out,I believe.
So the Minimum Facts argument as touted by the likes of Habermas for example, is simply a load of tosh.
Not least because of the word ”Facts”, so blithely inserted into the sentence, which creates a false impression, not only with believers, but in many cases non-believers also, who by and large, are ignorant of this area of study.
So maybe it’s time to set aside old beliefs and find out what historians really know – or don’t – and what we are not being told.
You’re good people , Nate.
Fear not for my skin. As far as being ”called out” on this topic, it is thick as Rhino hide.
Ark.
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Ark
Religious topics absolutely have operated on different standards for centuries. Fortunately, critical scholarship now strives to apply secular methodology to the subject matter. That’s why academia now recognizes that much of the Bible is legend, myth and propaganda, rather than a recounting of history.
That said, I don’t see why the empty tomb story has to be classified as “bullshit.” It seems perfectly plausible to me that the idea of a risen Jesus could have arisen, in part, because his followers found an empty tomb. That doesn’t imply anything supernatural. Perhaps they went to the wrong place, or perhaps the body was removed before they got there. An empty tomb provides some plausible basis for the ensuing belief. We can’t say for certain whether that was a real historical event, but it is certainly plausible and I would argue that a reconstruction that involves some sort of empty tomb makes more sense than one that involves complete mythicism, an actual resurrection or resurrection hallucinations when the followers actually know where the body is.
He definitely could have worded that more carefully. I think the general idea of academic debate is not about whether anybody with a relevant PhD disagrees, but whether A) the dispute is taking place within the standard academic process (peer reviewed journals), and B) the matter is at least considered disputed by a non-trivial number of academics.
There are also qualified biologists and geologists — people with real PhD’s — who argue that the earth is around 6,000 years old, but we would not argue that there is dispute among professional biologists and geologists about evolution and the age of the earth. I think that is the sense Burke intends.
Excellent question. I would defer to more qualified people than myself for any really authoritative answer, but my lay sense is that we would need A) some substantive evidence of the existence of a mystical Jesus cult, preferably one that pre-dates the life of Jesus (mythical figures tend to be euhemerized long after their invention, not as soon as they were invented), B) substantive evidence of a purely mystical Jesus cult that existed alongside the group(s) who believed Jesus was a real figure, and/or C) early critics of Christianity who allege Jesus was a myth.
However, all we seem to have is groups who believed Jesus was a real figure. Some groups (docetics) believed he was a spiritual figure who only appeared to take physical form, but that’s a theological debate over his “substance” and not a debate over whether this Jesus figure existed. There were also a variety of views about whether (or how) he was divine, but again that presumes a literal Jesus. And I am not aware of any early critics of Christianity who argue that Jesus was a myth. That does not seem to be a criticism the early church fathers felt any need to rebut.
In the absence of substantive evidence of the groups from which the Jesus figure was supposed to have emerged — or evidence of sects who maintained the celestial-only version of Jesus — it seems far, far more plausible to assume that these followers of Jesus sprang up around an actual Jesus. For what it’s worth, the Ascension of Isaiah seems more like an allegorical tale — sort of an early Pilgrim’s Progress — rather than evidence of a substantive celestial-only sect.
What? I never said that, or anything like that. I am actually sympathetic to non-Q hypotheses. I think the rapid early development of the gospels seem to suggest a multiplicity of sources that early Christians were rapidly revising and extending. It may be that the authors of gMatthew and gLuke copied gMark and Q. Or it may be that all three authors copied a variety of earlier texts, each keeping, editing or extending those texts in their own way. Or it may be something else. I’m sympathetic to those ideas, but I’m also aware that occam’s razor suggests it is unwise to multiply the assumptions unnecessarily. Given the evidence we have, it seems to me that some sayings text is a simple explanation for the commonalities and differences seen in gMatthew and gLuke. But I have no a priori objection to some other explanation of the synoptics. It seems likely to me that the actual development of these texts is probably more complex than the explanations we have. But we have to work with the evidence we have and the Q hypothesis explains a few things that the Farrer hypothesis leaves hanging.
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@Jon
At the risk of running foul of being accused of taking this sentence out of context, and realizing you might have wanted a more fuller response to your comment, but just so’s I can get a greater feel of what YOU consider the evidence for historicity is in a more succinct fashion, can you bullet point your list of current ”non negotiable” evidence, please?
Ta.
Ark
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So it’s widely and commonly accepted that Jesus was probably a real guy, who people used to base Christianity around, but all we have that lends any credence to that broadly accepted possibility is the religion itself (which had to start and be based off of something) and the New Testament. And since the 2 biggest resources there are, are the religious, some (although not the majority) believe that Jesus was a complete myth, and actually based off of no one real.
Is this, or something similar, agreeable?
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Non-negotiable evidence for Q? I think the only really non-negotiable evidence we have for Q is the existing synoptic texts, plus I suppose some of the patristic texts that quote or reference the existing synoptic texts and give us some independent, external confirmation about what texts said at various times. But so far as I know, it’s mainly just a question of trying to identify the best explanation for the commonalities and differences in the texts we have.
Unless you are referring to the historicity of Jesus, in which case I think I’ve mostly addressed that earlier. We have various texts and authors over the course of about 70-80 years that reference Jesus as a real human figure. Paul (who, remember, is writing theological letters, not introductory stories, to churches) makes a few references to Jesus-the-human figure (brother, born of woman, crucifixion, resurrection, etc), though of course he mostly talks theology and responds to current issues the communities are undergoing rather than re-telling the introductory narratives. And remember, Paul is not just talking to churches/communities he founded, but is also writing to some groups that were founded by others before he encountered them, so there were others spreading the Jesus movement. The synoptic gospels obviously share a great deal of content, but they also have unique content, indicating that oral and written stories were being told about Jesus and had spread far from Galilee/Jerusalem to more Greek-speaking audiences. Then mentions by Josephus, Clement and Tacitus are not first-hand eyewitness testimony to the life of Jesus, but they do show what people said and believed at that time, which is about as close as historians of the era can get.
So we have early evidence of a Jesus movement, writings about Jesus as a human leader of the movement who was executed, and later (as the movement spread around the Roman empire) writings about the movement by non-Christian sources who identify Jesus as the founder and object of worship of the movement.
“There was probably some guy named Jesus” just makes a lot more sense than “this guy everybody is talking and writing as if he was a real person was probably just invented from scratch.” Especially since Jesus was considered the “messiah” by the movement. As odd as a crucified messiah was, a completely non-earthly messiah would be even weirder.
It would be like finding some textual evidence of Scientology 1000 years in the future. Chances are, that L Ron Hubbard guy really did exist. And while he wasn’t the Super-Amazing, super-human wonderworker that Scientologists held him out to be, he probably did exist and founded that movement. Presumably, future scholars would be able to distinguish between the supernatural legends (OT powers, Xenu, thetans), the hagiographic embellishments (the claims made about his college and work experience, or his influence and expertise) and the authentic life of Hubbard (he was a prolific writer who began a movement based on some of his ideas, went away to sea for many years and then eventually died in hiding, after which his movement evolved).
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@Jon.
I am not sure if your last this comment was meant for me, or William, but if for me, then I didn’t express myself clear enough; can you please simply bullet-point your current list of non negotiable points of evidence,preferably like this. Exposition isn’t necessary.
1. Jesus was a Jew
2. Born in the time of Herod, etc or whatever you consider non negotiable based on your understanding of consensus or your own study.
Once again,
Thanks
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Ark, I have a question for you. I haven’t studied Mythicism much, so forgive me if this is an ignorant question. How do mythicists explain Paul’s statement in his letter to the Galatians in which he claims that he met in Jerusalem for two weeks with James the brother of Jesus?
1. Paul was lying. (Since Jesus did not exist, Paul could not have met with someone who claimed to be the brother of the mythical Jesus.)
2. Paul himself was a mythical person, invented by later Christians.
3. Some other explanation.
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@Gary
I am inclined to beleive ”Paul” is another narrative construct.
I base this upon the complete lack of verifiable historical evidence for him outside the bible, and especially among Jewish literature. Also, so much of the epistles are either pseudoepigraphic or even where they are considered genuine, some beleive have been strung together piece meal and are not full ”letters” at all.
I am not saying someone real did not compose the genuine epistles,of course they did, only that the em>name , Paul, is tagged on and cannot be attributed to a person with this name, much like the gospels.
There is also a school of thought that believes as it was Marcion who is claimed to have ”discovered” the original epistles that he simply wrote those ones considered genuine himself.
I wish I could remember the link where I read this, so I apologise that this merely sounds like pie in the sky, and you can crucify me if you think I am making that up!
Furthermore, if one considers the amount of nonsense in Acts, to my mind, it becomes ever more a stretch to find any degree of historical truth to the tale, which only seems lacking the words, Once upon a time.
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