How to Argue for The Historical Jesus
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
Are Jesus mythicists getting you down? Do they annoy you with their disruption of the free ride we get from the way history is currently written? Do you long for the good old days when we could simply silence this debate with the proper application racks, branding irons and burning stakes?
Well, while we aren't allowed to torture and murder the heretics anymore, we can at least employ tried and true methods to wearing down the skeptics and maintaining our hold on the history books. Just follow this simple formula:
Step 1: Ad Hominems, Appeals to Ridicule and Poisoning the Well
It's important to begin any arguments on The Historical Jesus with a strong opening salvo, shelling the other side thoroughly with ad hominems. Establish from the beginning that your opponent is a crack-pot, screw-ball, nut-job or conspiracy theorist. Express shock that someone would be so crazy as to deny such an "obvious historical reality".
Compliment these ad hominems with a few false comparisons. For example, suggest your opponent also believes in Dan Brown's books. Compare him/her to a holocaust denier (it never hurts to poison the well by flirting with Godwin). Doing so helps to prepare the ground for when you to the Burden-of-proof-shift later. With a bit of verbal slight of hand, you can switch roles with your opponent, becoming the grounded skeptic while he/she becomes the proponent of a crazy idea.
The good news for us is that there ARE crack pots in the Jesus myth camp. It's kind of like how there are those who think W Bush lied us into a war in Iraq and then there are the 9/11 Truthers. Both might be considered in the same camp and the apologist can gain in an argument by blurring the lines. With any luck, your opponent may make the critical mistake of citing "Zeitgeist", Acharya S, Frick and Gandy, and other crap that's out there.
Remember the apologist standby: the best defense is a good offense. Always be on the lookout for any chinks in the skeptics armor or any weak links in their arguments. When you find any, pounce on them and harp on them endlessly, even if this argument is retracted. Your objective is to poison the well and create the assumption that any weak links implies that the rest of the skeptic's position is also crap.
Step 2: The "Scholars Say" Shuffle
If your opponent is undeterred by the ad hominems and appeals to ridicule and demands that you produce evidence that The Historical Jesus existed, move to the Appeal to Authority. Claim that all scholars agree that Jesus existed. Fortunately, we still have enough pull that most scholars, even secular ones, are willing to assume the existence of Jesus to avoid any controversy.
If your opponent is able to mention the names of reputable scholars who do dispute the existence of The Historical Jesus, such as Robert Price, just use the No True Scotsman approach to dismiss them as "not a True Scholar ™". What is a True Scholar? One who accepts that Jesus existed, of course.
Now, your opponent may come up with the annoying argument that even experts are required to provide evidence to support what they firmly believe. This is why Appeal to Authority is technically a fallacy, since it can be used as a tactic to avoid providing any evidence. Nonetheless, you want to remain here in Step 2 for as long as you possibly can. A skilled apologist can stretch this out to a dozen back-and-forth posts before going to Step 3. You want to wear down both the skeptic and the audience as much as possible and the Appeal to Authority dovetails well with your earlier efforts to poison the well and shift the burden of proof.
Step 2a: The "Most Attested" Claim
You can stretch out the Scholars-Say-Shuffle by making the claim that Jesus is more attested in history than any other historical figure. Don't worry about the fact that it's not true. Say he's more attested than Julius Caesar. When the skeptic can produce a ton of evidence for Julius Caesar, say Jesus is more attested than Plato. When the skeptic can produce the writings of Plato, say Jesus is more attested than Alexander the Great. Keep mentioning other historical figures to keep the skeptic busy chasing down evidence for all these irrelevant characters. Eventually, you're sure to pick someone he/she can't find sufficient evidence for.
Also, be ready to make a variety of false comparisons. The witnesses for Julius Caesar are analogous to the dubious authorship of religious propagandists. The school of philosophy founded by Plato is analogous to a religion founded by Jesus.
Step 3: The Usual Suspects
Hopefully, you've worn down the skeptic and the audience before getting to this point. The evidence is actually rather thin but don't worry, with a little padding and always being ready to dance back to step 2, you can make it work.
Tacitus: This is the strongest piece of evidence for The Historical Jesus. It's only 100 years later and a reference so oblique that it doesn't mention Jesus by name and it has one known forgery (Chrestians was changed to "Christians") and Pilate was a Prefect, not a Procureator as governors in later centuries were known and it's so oblique that Tacitus could have been just taking Christian claims at face value. It has a lot of "little problems" but nothing so severe that it can be dismissed as easily as...
Josephus: You can shamelessly trot out the Testimonium Flavianum. Sure it's an obvious rank forgery that doesn't fit with the surrounding paragraphs and fires off all the salient bullet points of Christian theology in one paragraph in rapid-fire succession, delivered with all the zeal of a Sunday morning preacher even though Josephus was a Jew who remained so until the day he died. You can still keep him on the witness stand by claiming the paragraph is "partially authentic". When the skeptic asks if this assertion is backed by any pre-Eseubian copies, say "not exactly". When the skeptic asks if this assertion is backed by any pre-Eseubian Christians quoting the paragraph, say "not exactly". When the skeptic asks why you're so sure it's partially authentic, say "it uses words Josephus would have used and stuff."
You can also use the "Jamesian Reference" from Josephus ("brother of Jesus, James"). Hopefully, the skeptic won't have actually read the document and know the reference is to Jesus Bar Damneus.
Seutonius: He refers to "Chrestus" and Rome of the mid-1st century but hey, picky picky.
Bar Sarapion: He refers to a "wise king" of the Jews. Must be our boy.
Talmud: Sure it's a 4th century entry and refers to a 40 day trial and a "Jesus" (a fortunately common name) that had five diciples (none of them being familiar names with the Gospel character) but hey, close enough.
Thallus: His works are lost to us and we have no idea what he actually said but he is quoted by another 3rd century Christian Africanus as speaking on the eclipse that occurred when Jesus was crucified. Woo hoo!
The Gospels: They're historical documents! Are so! Are so!
The Early Church Fathers: Don't touch this one unless you really need to pad the list. A savvy skeptic may know there was a wild variety of early Christianities with an equally wild variety of ideas about who and what Jesus was and when he lived. Some thought he was crucified during the age of Trajan (circa 100 CE). Others thought he was crucified under the reign of Alexander Janneaus (circa 100 BC). The Bible itself condemns the "false Christians" who denied there was a flesh-and-blood Jesus in two different canonical epistles.
Return to "Schoalrs Say": If the skeptic shoots these pieces of evidence down, simply say, "well, the scholars don't agree with you" and dance back to step 2.
Step 4: "Ah Whaddaya Want?" or "The Incredible Shrinking Jesus"
This is the point where you solidify the shift of the burden of proof. Shrink Jesus down to where he'll nicely fall into the cracks of our knowledge of the time and place. Forget about "The Greatest Story Ever Told". He was just some obscure rabbi who had a small following and it's not reasonable to expect any contemporary scholar to have commented on him.
Hopefully, the skeptic won't bring up that in the Bible, Jesus had a ground-shaking famous and controversial ministry. He out did John the Baptist at his own gig. His fame spread far and wide to neighboring provinces. Herod Antipas asked if he was John the Baptist reborn. Rich and poor sought him out. The priests met on Passover Eve in an elaborate conspiracy to get rid of this guy. Forget about all that. Jesus was just some obscure wandering rabbi who was a religious teacher of some kind. Now prove he didn't exist!
Be ready to shift back in an instant if the skeptic questions the Thallus argument or the validity of the Gospels. That's when the ancient world was populated by fact-checking commandos that would have descended upon rabbis with military efficiency to cry "false!"
Step 5: "Hit the Reset Button"
If none of this works, just hit the reset button and ask questions already answered, present evidence already debunked and otherwise start the conversation all over again. This is called "Argumentum Ad Neuseum". Eventually, you win when the opponent gets tired and goes home.
Praise the sweet name of Jesus!
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
Are Jesus mythicists getting you down? Do they annoy you with their disruption of the free ride we get from the way history is currently written? Do you long for the good old days when we could simply silence this debate with the proper application racks, branding irons and burning stakes?
Well, while we aren't allowed to torture and murder the heretics anymore, we can at least employ tried and true methods to wearing down the skeptics and maintaining our hold on the history books. Just follow this simple formula:
Step 1: Ad Hominems, Appeals to Ridicule and Poisoning the Well
It's important to begin any arguments on The Historical Jesus with a strong opening salvo, shelling the other side thoroughly with ad hominems. Establish from the beginning that your opponent is a crack-pot, screw-ball, nut-job or conspiracy theorist. Express shock that someone would be so crazy as to deny such an "obvious historical reality".
Compliment these ad hominems with a few false comparisons. For example, suggest your opponent also believes in Dan Brown's books. Compare him/her to a holocaust denier (it never hurts to poison the well by flirting with Godwin). Doing so helps to prepare the ground for when you to the Burden-of-proof-shift later. With a bit of verbal slight of hand, you can switch roles with your opponent, becoming the grounded skeptic while he/she becomes the proponent of a crazy idea.
The good news for us is that there ARE crack pots in the Jesus myth camp. It's kind of like how there are those who think W Bush lied us into a war in Iraq and then there are the 9/11 Truthers. Both might be considered in the same camp and the apologist can gain in an argument by blurring the lines. With any luck, your opponent may make the critical mistake of citing "Zeitgeist", Acharya S, Frick and Gandy, and other crap that's out there.
Remember the apologist standby: the best defense is a good offense. Always be on the lookout for any chinks in the skeptics armor or any weak links in their arguments. When you find any, pounce on them and harp on them endlessly, even if this argument is retracted. Your objective is to poison the well and create the assumption that any weak links implies that the rest of the skeptic's position is also crap.
Step 2: The "Scholars Say" Shuffle
If your opponent is undeterred by the ad hominems and appeals to ridicule and demands that you produce evidence that The Historical Jesus existed, move to the Appeal to Authority. Claim that all scholars agree that Jesus existed. Fortunately, we still have enough pull that most scholars, even secular ones, are willing to assume the existence of Jesus to avoid any controversy.
If your opponent is able to mention the names of reputable scholars who do dispute the existence of The Historical Jesus, such as Robert Price, just use the No True Scotsman approach to dismiss them as "not a True Scholar ™". What is a True Scholar? One who accepts that Jesus existed, of course.
Now, your opponent may come up with the annoying argument that even experts are required to provide evidence to support what they firmly believe. This is why Appeal to Authority is technically a fallacy, since it can be used as a tactic to avoid providing any evidence. Nonetheless, you want to remain here in Step 2 for as long as you possibly can. A skilled apologist can stretch this out to a dozen back-and-forth posts before going to Step 3. You want to wear down both the skeptic and the audience as much as possible and the Appeal to Authority dovetails well with your earlier efforts to poison the well and shift the burden of proof.
Step 2a: The "Most Attested" Claim
You can stretch out the Scholars-Say-Shuffle by making the claim that Jesus is more attested in history than any other historical figure. Don't worry about the fact that it's not true. Say he's more attested than Julius Caesar. When the skeptic can produce a ton of evidence for Julius Caesar, say Jesus is more attested than Plato. When the skeptic can produce the writings of Plato, say Jesus is more attested than Alexander the Great. Keep mentioning other historical figures to keep the skeptic busy chasing down evidence for all these irrelevant characters. Eventually, you're sure to pick someone he/she can't find sufficient evidence for.
Also, be ready to make a variety of false comparisons. The witnesses for Julius Caesar are analogous to the dubious authorship of religious propagandists. The school of philosophy founded by Plato is analogous to a religion founded by Jesus.
Step 3: The Usual Suspects
Hopefully, you've worn down the skeptic and the audience before getting to this point. The evidence is actually rather thin but don't worry, with a little padding and always being ready to dance back to step 2, you can make it work.
Tacitus: This is the strongest piece of evidence for The Historical Jesus. It's only 100 years later and a reference so oblique that it doesn't mention Jesus by name and it has one known forgery (Chrestians was changed to "Christians") and Pilate was a Prefect, not a Procureator as governors in later centuries were known and it's so oblique that Tacitus could have been just taking Christian claims at face value. It has a lot of "little problems" but nothing so severe that it can be dismissed as easily as...
Josephus: You can shamelessly trot out the Testimonium Flavianum. Sure it's an obvious rank forgery that doesn't fit with the surrounding paragraphs and fires off all the salient bullet points of Christian theology in one paragraph in rapid-fire succession, delivered with all the zeal of a Sunday morning preacher even though Josephus was a Jew who remained so until the day he died. You can still keep him on the witness stand by claiming the paragraph is "partially authentic". When the skeptic asks if this assertion is backed by any pre-Eseubian copies, say "not exactly". When the skeptic asks if this assertion is backed by any pre-Eseubian Christians quoting the paragraph, say "not exactly". When the skeptic asks why you're so sure it's partially authentic, say "it uses words Josephus would have used and stuff."
You can also use the "Jamesian Reference" from Josephus ("brother of Jesus, James"). Hopefully, the skeptic won't have actually read the document and know the reference is to Jesus Bar Damneus.
Seutonius: He refers to "Chrestus" and Rome of the mid-1st century but hey, picky picky.
Bar Sarapion: He refers to a "wise king" of the Jews. Must be our boy.
Talmud: Sure it's a 4th century entry and refers to a 40 day trial and a "Jesus" (a fortunately common name) that had five diciples (none of them being familiar names with the Gospel character) but hey, close enough.
Thallus: His works are lost to us and we have no idea what he actually said but he is quoted by another 3rd century Christian Africanus as speaking on the eclipse that occurred when Jesus was crucified. Woo hoo!
The Gospels: They're historical documents! Are so! Are so!
The Early Church Fathers: Don't touch this one unless you really need to pad the list. A savvy skeptic may know there was a wild variety of early Christianities with an equally wild variety of ideas about who and what Jesus was and when he lived. Some thought he was crucified during the age of Trajan (circa 100 CE). Others thought he was crucified under the reign of Alexander Janneaus (circa 100 BC). The Bible itself condemns the "false Christians" who denied there was a flesh-and-blood Jesus in two different canonical epistles.
Return to "Schoalrs Say": If the skeptic shoots these pieces of evidence down, simply say, "well, the scholars don't agree with you" and dance back to step 2.
Step 4: "Ah Whaddaya Want?" or "The Incredible Shrinking Jesus"
This is the point where you solidify the shift of the burden of proof. Shrink Jesus down to where he'll nicely fall into the cracks of our knowledge of the time and place. Forget about "The Greatest Story Ever Told". He was just some obscure rabbi who had a small following and it's not reasonable to expect any contemporary scholar to have commented on him.
Hopefully, the skeptic won't bring up that in the Bible, Jesus had a ground-shaking famous and controversial ministry. He out did John the Baptist at his own gig. His fame spread far and wide to neighboring provinces. Herod Antipas asked if he was John the Baptist reborn. Rich and poor sought him out. The priests met on Passover Eve in an elaborate conspiracy to get rid of this guy. Forget about all that. Jesus was just some obscure wandering rabbi who was a religious teacher of some kind. Now prove he didn't exist!
Be ready to shift back in an instant if the skeptic questions the Thallus argument or the validity of the Gospels. That's when the ancient world was populated by fact-checking commandos that would have descended upon rabbis with military efficiency to cry "false!"
Step 5: "Hit the Reset Button"
If none of this works, just hit the reset button and ask questions already answered, present evidence already debunked and otherwise start the conversation all over again. This is called "Argumentum Ad Neuseum". Eventually, you win when the opponent gets tired and goes home.
Praise the sweet name of Jesus!
"You don't need facts when you got Jesus." -Pastor Deacon Fred, Landover Baptist Church
™: True Christian is a Trademark of the Landover Baptist Church. I have no affiliation with this fine group of True Christians ™ because I can't afford their tithing requirements but would like to be. Maybe someday the Lord will bless me with enough riches that I am able to.
And for the lovers of Poe, here's your winking smiley:
™: True Christian is a Trademark of the Landover Baptist Church. I have no affiliation with this fine group of True Christians ™ because I can't afford their tithing requirements but would like to be. Maybe someday the Lord will bless me with enough riches that I am able to.
And for the lovers of Poe, here's your winking smiley:
