The Quest For The Historical Jesus - Tumblr Posts
How Credible is the Evidence for the Historical Jesus?
By Author Eli Kittim
I recently had a discussion with a Christian apologist who, in reaction to our conversation, posted on his blog a list of 9 sources outside the New Testament and a series of texts composed in subsequent centuries to prove the existence of Jesus.
He mentions Josephus, who is writing roughly 70 years after the purported events, and whose references to Jesus have been the source of much controversy in that they may have been subject to Christian redaction (interpolation/expansion/alteration). Incidentally, the scholarly consensus concerning the historicity of Jesus is largely influenced by the writings of Josephus. But Josephus was presumably familiar with some of the early gospels and other NT writings. So, why should his reference to John the Baptist be considered as constituting factual history? The same could be said about his references to Jesus!
Next, he mentions Phlegon who is writing in the second century about a rumored eclipse that allegedly occurred in 29 AD. Then he mentions a group of people like Suetonius, Thallus, Mara Bar Serapion, all of whose writings are considered ambiguous with regard to Jesus (we’re not sure if the references are to Christ or not), and which range from the late 1st to the 3rd century CE.
Some of these writings refer to Christian superstitions, such as the virginal conception of Christ, including those of Celsius (whom the blogger cites) who defends paganism and actually refers to Jesus as a person born to a Roman father. Celsius is not only writing 150 years later, but he’s also embellishing the story with anti-Christian sentiment.
Firstly, these are not independent eyewitness accounts. Secondly, some of these writers have obviously been influenced by the gospels—as is the case with Celsius who is probably drawing on Matthew and Tacitus who is presumably drawing on Luke—and, thirdly, they are writing approximately 70 to 200 years after the purported events.
In other cases, we are either dealing with explicit historical inaccuracies, or with authors who are known for sometimes embellishing a story with myth. For example, Josephus is also known for his expansion on the Moses story, as we find in the Midrash, making it difficult for us to ascertain what is real and what is mythical in some of his works. Take Justin Martyr, for example, whom the blogger cites. Writing in the second century, he proved to be historically inaccurate. In his “Apology” (1.31), for instance, he incorrectly claimed that Ptolemy, under whom the Septuagint had been translated, was a contemporary of Herod. Given his inattention to historical detail, how credible is his reference to the trial of Jesus? Not to mention his reference to the census under Quirinius, which did not exist, or at least not in the way that Luke describes it. So, he’s obviously drawing on the gospel of Luke, and he is, after all, a Christian apologist.
Despite all these discrepancies and historical inaccuracies, this Christian blogger nevertheless mentions all these figures and suggests that they provide indisputable truth for the historical existence of Jesus.
In the final analysis, the fact that Jesus is not mentioned anywhere outside the New Testament for about 70 years after his alleged death should certainly raise some red flags about his existence. It means that Jesus is missing from the historical record until the late first century AD. And the earliest New Testament texts do not mention anything about a historical Jesus, or about his birth or ministry, as we find in later developments (expansions).
And yet, despite the lack of historical evidence, Christ is still who he claims to be, to wit, the son of God! After reading this essay, you might understandably wonder how I can possibly make such a claim. How could I say that Jesus never existed and in the same breath claim to believe in him? Well, because if you study the New Testament you’ll find that Jesus was never meant to come in Antiquity, but rather at the end of the world (Luke 17:30; 1 Peter 1:5, 20; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3; Hebrews 1:1-2; Hebrews 9:26; Revelation 12:1-5; etc.).
The historical Jesus is based more on mistaken assumptions about the evangelists’ intentions than careful interpretation of their writings. I’m arguing that the traditional Christian understanding of the theology of the gospels is fundamentally incorrect. We have confused apocalyptic literature with history, and turned prophecy into biography. It’s not just the evangelists’ theological problem in finding the literary means to get Jesus to Bethlehem so as to fulfill Micah’s prophecy, it’s ours as well since our “theological needs here create biographical ‘facts’" (W.D. Davies, and E.P. Sanders).
Even so, the gospels are still valid as they give us a theological outline of Christ’s life using stories that are filtered down from the Old Testament. So, in conclusion, the gospels are prophetic parables or apocalyptic stories that are to be believed (paradoxically) and handed down to posterity until the time of their fulfillment:
“Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. … After this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:26-27).
Historical Jesus Vs Eschatological Jesus: On the Question of the Historicity of Jesus
Is Paul a Witness to the Historical Jesus?
By Goodreads Author Eli Kittim
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Paul: The Visionary Witness
Paul is the earliest New Testament writer. And there is compelling textual evidence for concluding that Paul’s witness to Christ is exclusively based on visionary experiences (see Acts 9.3-5; Rom. 16.25-26; 2 Cor. 12.2-4). Critical scholarship would unequivocally concur that Paul never saw Jesus in the flesh. Yet on the very basis of his own personal revelations, which exclude human sources, Paul’s knowledge of Christ surpassed that of his contemporaries. In Gal. 1.11-12, Paul makes it abundantly clear that he’s not a reliable witness to the historical existence of Jesus. He writes:
For I want you to know, brothers and sisters,
that the gospel that was proclaimed by me
is not of human origin; for I did not receive it
from a human source, nor was I taught it,
but I received it through a revelation of
Jesus Christ.
Along similar lines, the German New Testament scholar and historian, Gerd Lüdemann, from the University of Göttingen, ascribes the belief in Jesus’ resurrection primarily to Paul’s visions. In his book (“The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology,” Translated by John Bowden [London: SCM, 1994], 97, 100), he writes:
At the heart of the Christian religion lies a
vision described in Greek by Paul as
ophehe——‘he was seen.’ And Paul himself,
who claims to have witnessed an
appearance asserted repeatedly ‘I have
seen the Lord.’ So Paul is the main source
of the thesis that a vision is the origin of the
belief in resurrection.
——-
Bart Ehrman Says that Paul Tells Us Nothing About the Historical Jesus
Bart Ehrman, who is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, once wrote on his blog:
Paul says almost *NOTHING* about the
events of Jesus’ lifetime. That seems weird
to people, but just read all of his letters.
Paul never mentions Jesus healing anyone,
casting out a demon, doing any other
miracle, arguing with Pharisees or other
leaders, teaching the multitudes, even
speaking a parable, being baptized, being
transfigured, going to Jerusalem, being
arrested, put on trial, found guilty of
blasphemy, appearing before Pontius Pilate
on charges of calling himself the King of the
Jews, being flogged, etc. etc. etc. It’s a
very, very long list of what he doesn’t tell us
about.
Even Kurt Aland——the German Bible scholar who founded the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, and one of the principal editors of the Nestle-Aland-Novum Testamentum Graece——went so far as to question the historicity of Jesus. In his book (“A History of Christianity,” vol. 1 [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985], p. 106), he writes:
the real question arises . . . was there really
a Jesus? Can Jesus really have lived if the
writings of his closest companions are filled
with so little of his reality . . . so little in them
of the reality of the historical Jesus . . . .
When we observe this——assuming that the
writings about which we are speaking really
come from their alleged authors——it
almost then appears as if Jesus were a
mere phantom.
No wonder, then, that in his magnum opus (the Epistle to the Romans) Paul sets about describing the gospel of Christ NOT as a biography or an objective historical account but rather as a *revelation* that has been “promised beforehand” through the agency of the Holy Spirit (1.1-3 NRSV):
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be
an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
which he promised beforehand through his
prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel
concerning his Son.
——-
Conclusion
Gerd Lüdemann, professor of History and Literature of Early Christianity, concluded an essay——(“Paul as a Witness to the Historical Jesus” in R. Joseph Hoffman, “Sources of the Jesus tradition: separating history from myth” [Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2010], p. 212)——with the following sentence:
In short, Paul cannot be considered a
reliable witness to either the teachings,
the life, or the historical existence of
Jesus.
Christianity preserved the apocalyptic literary tradition of Judaism and reevaluated it in light of its own messianic revelations. The New Testament refined this type of literature as it became the vehicle of its own prophetic and apocalyptic expressions. Apocalypticism, then, not historiography, is the *literary style* of the New Testament, which is based on a *foreknowledge* of future events that is written in advance! It is therefore thought advisable to consider the collection of New Testament writings as strikingly futurist books (see Lk 17.30; Heb. 1.2; 9.26b; 1 Pet. 1.10-11, 20; 2 Pet. 1.19; 1 Jn 2.28; Rev. 19.10d; 22.7, 10, 18, 19)!
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