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Several Biblical scholars have investigated the historicity of Jesus Christ.
Taking a starting point loosely connected with the "Tübingen school" that initiated historical analysis of Biblical texts, which is generally referred to as the Higher criticism, in the late 19th century, a number of critics have proposed that there was no historical Jesus. This position however, is a minority view among Biblical scholars.
On the Christian side, the increased importance of the Christological argument for the existence of God in modern evangelical teachings have informed questions of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth with an enhanced urgency. The usual historian's criteria of authenticity, documentation, and the like, tend to be removed from ordinary historical discourse, to take up newly important places in Christological theology.
On the opposing side of the question, perhaps most prolific of those Biblical scholars denying the historical existence of Jesus is a professor of German, George Albert Wells, who argues that Jesus was originally a myth. Another example is Earl Doherty, who suggests that Paul's idea of Jesus was derived from his reading of the Torah.
In this view, Paul never met or heard of any actual person named Jesus from Nazareth (or Bethlehem), but rather believed in a metaphysical Jesus who died on some ethereal plane at the beginning of time, or some far-off time in history. The Jesus of Nazareth character was made up after Paul's time by a composite of Old Testament prophecies, with embellishments added by many people. In this view, the interpretation of the meaning of Jesus was also informed by messianic, apocalyptic and resurrectionist myths that were common during the late Hellenistic age. A persistant idea is that his existance is based on a whisper campaign to expel the Roman rulers.
Many scholars who do not doubt the historical Jesus of Nazareth would agree that these Pauline interpretations of his sayings at secondhand and literary extrapolations from his actions and mythologized invented detail have been applied to an historical figure.
Others contend that aspects of Jesus' life as related in the New Testament were entirely derived from popular mystery religions in the Roman Empire at that time period. These religions worshipped saviour figures such as Isis, Horus, Osiris, Dionysus and Mithras, and Christian Gnosticism which flourished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries openly combined Christian imagery and stories with the beliefs and practices of Mediterranean mystery religions.
Proponents of this view generally date the gospels much later than mainstream scholars and assert textual corruption in the passages supporting the existence of Jesus in Paul and Josephus as interpolated.
Most historians do not dispute the existence of a person named Jesus; evidence for Jesus' existence 2000 years ago are by historical standards seem rather persuasive. Jesus is obviously mentioned extensively within the New Testament, but is also considered a historical figure within the traditions of Judaism, Islam, Mandeanism and other Christian traditions like Gnosticism. Apologists often contend that he gets a passing mention within historical accounts of the period, but sometimes without citing a source. John the Baptist, and James the Just are documented in Josephus, where Jesus Christ also receives a brief mention. See Josephus on Jesus and Tacitus on Jesus.
Moreover, the same historians generally agree that at least some of the source documents on which the Gospels are based were written within living memory of Jesus's lifetime. Historians therefore accept that the accounts of the life of Jesus in the Gospels provide a reasonable basis of evidence, by the standards of ancient history, for the historical existence of Jesus and the basic narrative of his life and death.
However, religious accounts are not the only evidence for Jesus' existence. Some early secular sources also mention Jesus or his followers. Will Durant wrote in his book Caesar and Christ:
- The oldest known mention of Christ in pagan literature is in a letter of the younger Pliny (ca. 110), asking the advice of Trajan on the treatment of Christians. Five years later Tacitus described Nero's persecution of the Chrestiani in Rome, and pictured them as already (A.D. 64) numbering adherents throughout the empire.... Suetonius (ca. 125) mentions the same persecution, and reports Claudius' banishment of "Jews who, stirred up by Christ , were causing public disturbances," the passage accords well with the Acts of the Apostles, which mentions a decree of Claudius that "the Jews should leave Rome." These references prove the existence of Christians rather than Christ; but unless we assume the latter we are driven to the improbable hypothesis that Jesus was invented in one generation; moreover, we must suppose that the Christian community had been established some years before 52, to merit the attention of an imperial decree.
Recourse is not necessary to later pseudepigraphical writings, such as the much later alleged letter from Herod Antipas purporting to be directed to the Roman Senate defending his (Herod's) actions concerning both John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, and said to be found among the records of the Roman Senate. Whatever their internal details, the very existence of such pseudepigraphical writings and of interpolations into authentic documents, which accumulate from the 2nd century onwards, to judge from internal evidence, has genuine historical value, in that they document a perceived need to supplement the documentation on the part of Christians who apparently felt the need to support the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, by providing the kind of documents they felt ought to have existed.
Why cultural historians do not dispute the "historicity" of Jesus
Among historians who are not Biblical scholars, the "historicity" of Jesus of Nazareth has rarely been at issue, and the reasons for this reveal something about the nature of historical inquiry. Historians remain skeptical of what they are being told in any historical text. They derive much of their information by reading between the lines. Those subtexts of Christian literature that reveal innate points of view and characteristic cultural bias, the documented activities of actual Christians and their influence on societal norms and culture are all of significance, while the 'historicity' of Jesus of Nazareth, minimally documented outside Christian sources, is not ordinarily addressed.
To take a brief analogy from another area of Antiquity, where current sensibilities are not so involved on a partisan level, Herodotus, sometimes called the "father of history" tells the following tale: the king of the Medes, Cyaxares offers some Scythian suppliants at his court the opportunity to educate a group of Median children in the Scythian language and in archery (Histories1.73.3): after being harshly treated by Cyaxares one day, for returning empty-handed from a hunt, the Scythians have their revenge by killing one of the boys in their charge and feeding him to the king (1.73.5). The historian does not question the "historicity" of the event: whether it actually happened or not cannot be usefully assessed. Instead the historian assesses the Scythian reputation as archers, Greek perceptions of Scythian culture in the 5th century BCE, resonance of the myth of Tantalus and subtexts of Hellenic distrust of all inter-cultural relations.
See also
External links
- Christian site on Josephus evidence
- Argument from Christian point of view
- Pro Jesus' existence
- Argues Jesus was originally a relatively minor figure - an excellent site
- PBS' From Jesus to Christ - There is a reason PBS's Frontline call them "storytellers."
- The Jesus Puzzle:
| Part of a series on |
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| Jesus in Christianity |
| Jesus in Islam |
| Background |
| Jesus in history |
| Perspectives on Jesus |
| Jesus in culture |
