An essay on Christ's very existence. Let's break it down.

by Spectrum 15 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Spectrum

  The article can be found at
  http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html
  
  It is an interesting read but I've found some weak points.
  1) The excert below for example shows that the author is trying so hard to prove his thesis that he actually sounds silly trying to make out that the Roman justice system was the best thing since sliced bread. The Romans crucified people left right and centre. Roman soldiers were beaten to death by their comrades if they didn't perform well in battle.
  "
  Nothing could be more improbable than the story of Christ's crucifixion. The civilization of Rome was the highest in the world. The Romans were the greatest lawyers the world had ever known. Their courts were models of order and fairness. A man was not condemned without a trial; he was not handed to the executioner before being found guilty. And yet we are asked to believe that an innocent man was brought before a Roman court, where Pontius Pilate was Judge; that no charge of wrongdoing having been brought against him, the Judge declared that he found him innocent; that the mob shouted, "Crucify him; crucify him!" and that to please the rabble, Pilate commanded that the man who had done no wrong and whom he had found innocent, should be scourged, and then delivered him to the executioners to be crucified! Is it thinkable that the master of a Roman court in the days of Tiberius Caesar, having found a man innocent and declared him so, and having made efforts to save his life, tortured him of his own accord, and then handed him over to a howling mob to be nailed to a cross? A Roman court finding a man innocent and then crucifying him? Is that a picture of civilized Rome? Is that the Rome to which the world owes its laws? In reading the story of the Crucifixion, are we reading history or religious fiction? Surely not history.
  "
  2) He contends that the Christians in the NT are ficticious and yet Pilate, Ciaphas and Herod are not. Why should the rest be?
  
  Anybody want to question other parts of this person's article?
• 

  Sad emo

  My starter for ten is that he says this:

  Whether Christ did, or did not live, has nothing at all to do with what the churches teach, or with what we believe, It is wholly a matter of evidence. It is a question of science. The question is -- what does history say?

  And then in the very next paragraph starts bemoaning the fact that there is no mention of events in Marks gospel such as the virgin birth!!

  What, then, is the evidence that Jesus Christ lived in this world as a man? The authorities relied upon to prove the reality of Christ are the four Gospels of the New Testament -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These Gospels, and these alone, tell the story of his life. Now we know absolutely nothing of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, apart from what is said of them in the Gospels. Moreover, the Gospels themselves do not claim to have been written by these men. They are not called "The Gospel of Matthew," or "The Gospel of Mark," but "The Gospel According to Matthew," "The Gospel According to Mark," "The Gospel According to Luke," and "The Gospel According to John." No human being knows who wrote a single line in one of these Gospels. No human being knows when they were written, or where. Biblical scholarship has established the fact that the Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four. The chief reasons for this conclusion are that this Gospel is shorter, simpler, and more natural, than any of the other three. It is shown that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were enlarged from the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark knows nothing of the virgin birth, of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Lord's prayer, or of other important facts of the supposed life of Christ. These features were added by Matthew and Luke.

  He also forgets that there were numerous other gospels written, it's just that the church took these four. I'm not saying whether they chose the correct four, just making the point that there are other accounts of Jesus' life.

  Actually he does mention the other accounts a little later - but dismisses them all outright as total forgeries - so they don't count!!

  He believes that Paul existed. Interesting. I'd say that whether or not Paul altered his Christology for whatever reasons, he must have based it upon somebody! But according to this guy, because Paul doesn't mention significant episodes recorded in the gospels (ok let's forget the crucifixion, ressurrection and last supper shall we?!) Paul's Christ was a figment of his imagination!

  Funny how he also accepts that Paul wrote all his epistles when Biblical scholars have disputed his authorship of certain ones!

  He only seems to come up with potentially valid suggestions right at the very end of the article - pity he didn't address these in the same way as he pulls the gospels apart!
• 

  Spectrum

  Sad emo,
  
  "He only seems to come up with potentially valid suggestions right at the very end of the article - pity he didn't address these in the same way as he pulls the gospels apart!"
  
  Good point he's just doing a pick & mix, whatever suits his bias.
  
  I always thought Palestine was a backwater to the Romans and scholars of the day, so yet another Prophet probably didn't carry much interest. I imagine Jesus existed, was maybe a very nice man that knew how to spin the old testament to suit his vision for a better future. Few people of the day took to this vision and then it just built up momentum over the decades and centuries.
• 

  Narkissos

  Not the best essay indeed on this side of the debate. Robert M. Price's The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man makes a far better argument imo.

  The literary analysis of the Gospels, their inner contradictions, their relationship to the Greek "Old Testament" (Septuagint) and other contemporary literature provides overwhelming evidence that none of them is a mere "record of events". While it is a somewhat obvious conclusion that the Jesus(es) of the Gospels never existed as they portray him, it is about impossible to prove that some of the Jesus tradition is not related to some "historical Jesus". But the very fact that there is no agreement on which part of the Gospels would rest on such historical basis is food for thought.
• 

  Navigator

  It would be an erroneous assumption to assume that all the standards of Roman law would apply in a backwater province like Judea. That province had a reputation of being rebellious and hard to govern. Pilate was a politician first and foremost. He was not above throwing an innocent man's life away in order to keep the peace.
• 

  Spectrum

  Narkissos,
  
  "While it is a somewhat obvious conclusion that the Jesus(es) of the Gospels never existed as they portray him"
  
  I think a few clergy will take you up on it though as This is your personal opinion, based on ....?
• 

  Liberty II

  One of the first things that ever made me wonder if Jesus was in fact a real person is the "Last Supper" story. How could a group of people born and raised as Jews have contrived such a disgusting symbology as Jesus does in his bread is human flesh and wine is human blood ritual for a Jewish audience? Jews will not even eat flesh from unclean animals the worst of which would be humans nor will they drink the blood of any animal, hence the strict code of Koshering to remove all traces of blood. It would be sickening to them to imagine food in such a way.

  I like to use the example of a host at a modern western dinner party asking his guests to imagine that the beer is urine and that the snacks are symbolic of fecal matter. No one in their right mind would say such a thing at even a secular occasion let alone a religious event. The Last Supper story is more than enough proof to at least question the reality of a Jesus and the Gospels as the true recounting of a real Jewish holy man. The bread and wine story is so obviously of Pagan origin from cultures where the thought of drinking blood and eating human flesh would be much more accepted and traditional than in Judaism and is therefore far more likely to have been written long after the days when most early Christians would still have been culturally Jewish.

  The example of how Pilot capitulates so easily to a Jewish mob who are nothing but the defeated subjects of Rome (and Greece, Persia, Babyalonia,Assyria etc.) is so out of charactor for a tough Roman Official that it also smacks of a story made up later long after the reality had passed into history. The fact that Palistine was a backwater in the Empire actually makes such a capitulation of Roman authority to a mob even less likely. Add to this that a known murderer is offered for release by Pilot makes the story even less likely.
• 

  Narkissos

  Spectrum,

  "While it is a somewhat obvious conclusion that the Jesus(es) of the Gospels never existed as they portray him"
  
  I think a few clergy will take you up on it though as This is your personal opinion, based on ....?

  Your quote removed my italics which were essential to me.

  (1) Taking the four Gospels as 100 % historical would require at least 4 historical characters because of the narrative contradictions -- e.g. one dying the day after the Passover meal (Synoptics), one dying the day before the Passover meal (John); one insulted by two thieves (Mark), one insulted by one thief and defended by the other (Luke)... hundreds of problems of this kind, big or small.

  (2) More seriously, central to the "Jesus of faith" (whether of any given Gospel or the broader figure resulting from popular harmonisation between them) are features which almost everybody except hardcore fundamentalists regard as mythical, legendary or literary developments -- such as the virgin birth, the miracles (e.g. walking on the sea) and, last but not least, the third-day resurrection. The conclusion (already pointed out by scholars like Schweitzer or Bultmann) is that the "Christ of faith" is distinct from any "historical Jesus".

  My point is that the debate whether a "historical Jesus" existed at all is not as central to Christianity as one could naively believe, because much of Christianity rests on mythical, legendary or literary developments anyway.
• 

  Narkissos

  Liberty II,

  One interesting thing about the Eucharist is that the "blood-and-flesh" version (shared by Paul and the Synoptics) is just one among others. Note the very different presentation in the Didachè (chapter 9):

  Now concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way. First, concerning the cup:

  We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David Thy servant, which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever..

  And concerning the broken bread:

  We thank Thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom; for Thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever..

  Note the sapiential insistance on knowledge (also present in a somewhat more Gnostic form in GJohn 6, if you discount the probably later addition in v. 51-58).
• 

  BlessedStar

  How could a group of people born and raised as Jews have c ontrived such a disgusting symbology as Jesus does in his bread is human flesh and wine is human blood ritual for a Jewish audience?

  Symbolic only. It's not about drinking blood or eating flesh.

  blessedstar