Shit. What The Hell. Jesus Never Existed

[Aractus]

Ok, see, here's why Christ Mythers get so pissy with people who think he was historical: we get accused of having terrible arguments and terrible evidence, and yet mainstream historians have arguments and evidence of roughly the same caliber that we have. The only advantages they have in an argument arena are the fact that they're the consensus. That's it.

No you don't, this is the evidence that you have:

1. The Gospels and Book of Acts.
2. The Writings of Paul.
3. The other New Testament writings with clear multiple authors from the first century.
4. The so-called heretical writings about Jesus.
5. Other non-church writings from the likes of Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc.
6. Modern academic publications including peer-review publications, and academic books and chapters.
6. Books published of questionable academic quality.

Prove otherwise.

Paul is especially interesting because if you take the writings of his that aren't forged ...

Which by volume of text is most of it. And by the way, you don't get to simply call the disputed epistles "forged". Colossians for example is disputed, but is believed to be genuinely written by Paul by most scholars. 2 Thessalonians could be either genuine or not, the debate continues. So don't go thinking you can just draw a hard line. Even if 2 Thessalonians is not written by Paul, the fact that its content is vetted by 1 Thessalonians shows that it's still a genuinely contemporary writing.

As for your argument on Josephus Ant., 20.9 is believed to be genuine and references Jesus of Nazareth, and it also references his brother James and says that James was stoned to death. Ant., 18.5 references John the Baptist and has a version of his death, and it's also genuine.

Now I want to touch on the point I've made - numerous times here - where I've cautioned against relying on publications made by people who are not qualified. I've said this quite a few times about Bart Erhman - do a search and you'll see I've always said that he's perfectly fine when he talks within his area of expertise, but that when he strays from it what he has to say is of highly questionable value. And I'll kill two birds with one stone here, as I said above you can conclude from the New Testament texts that the early Christians had believed that Jesus had supernatural powers and that he had risen from the dead and appeared to the 12.

Larry Hurtado (another critical scholar) is quite critical of one of Erhman's latest books  ...

But, whereas in some of his previous general-reader books, Ehrman drew upon his recognized expertise (especially in NT textual criticism), in this book he deals with a subject on which he is not particularly known as a contributor.  So, he draws heavily on the work of other scholars (including my own), and with commendable acknowledgement.  Unfortunately, however, on several matters he seems to rely on now discredited views, or over-simplify or misunderstand things.

But before I turn to criticism, I want to note a few more positive things.  With probably the majority of NT scholars, Ehrman emphasizes that the exalted claims about Jesus reflected in the NT (e.g., that Jesus shares divine glory, divine rule, the divine name, and is to be given universal reverence) all appeared soon in the aftermath of Jesus’ execution.  These convictions were based primarily on experiences of the risen/exalted Jesus (“visions” in Ehrman’s terms) by Jesus’ followers, which conveyed the conviction that God had raised Jesus from death and had uniquely exalted him as Christ and Lord.


Ehrman (rightly in my view) also notes that these lofty claims about Jesus reflected in the NT seem to have erupted very early, so early that they are presupposed as widely shared already by the time Paul wrote his letters (from ca. 50 CE and thereafter).  In a commendable example of changing his mind, Ehrman acknowledges that prior to immersing himself in the evidence and scholarly analysis for this book, he had assumed a much slower and more drawn-out process, but was driven to conclude that these remarkable Christological beliefs erupted much earlier and much more fully than he had thought.  It’s always reassuring when a scholar admits to learning something new, and even to changing his/her mind.

Moreover, Ehrman argues (again, rightly in my view), that the early claim that Jesus is Messiah, requires us to conclude also that Jesus had excited such hopes about himself during his own ministry.  Indeed, this was likely the reason that the Roman authority moved against him and crucified him.  (“Messiah” = typically a divinely appointed ruler/deliverer, a claim that would have been seen as sedition against Rome.)  As Ehrman observes, resurrection by itself would not have connoted that Jesus is Messiah.  But, if Jesus’ followers had held such a hope during his ministry, then Jesus’ resurrection would quite readily have been taken as God’s validation of Jesus as Messiah.  (This, by the way, is basically the argument made by the great Yale NT scholar, Nils Dahl, decades ago.)

I think that part sums up neatly what I've been saying here. And here's a comment and response on his blog:

Rich Griese


David,

I think that before we can begin to decide what “the historical jesus” might have said, we have to determine if we can demonstrate that such a character ever existed. I have not seen that done to date.

Cheers! RichGriese.NET

    larryhurtado

    Rich, I’ve engaged your repeatedly stated views before. No one. No one in scholarly circles dealing with ancient Judaism and early Christianity, of any religious or non-religious persuasion holds the view that Jesus never existed. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own truth.
    Let’s move on.