DID JESUS EXIST?
The historical argument for Jesus of Nazareth
By Bart D. Ehrman. Harper Collins. 361 pages. £18.99
ISBN 978 0 062 204 608
Readers of Evangelicals Now are by now doubtless familiar with the character of the works of Bart Ehrman, agnostic ex-evangelical biblical critic.
Usually, his books popularise biblical liberalism, and for that reason are widely and intensely utilised by Islamic polemicists. For once, however, there are some points in his latest book that will be of interest to evangelicals, but which Muslim propagandists will probably want to ignore.
Mythicists
Yet again, Ehrman has demonstrated that he is an engaging writer, gifted with the ability to make complex issues accessible to the layman. This characteristic is especially useful here, since the objects of his critique in this book are ‘mythicists’ — ‘those who believe that Jesus is a myth’ (p.3), i.e. that there never was a historical person called Jesus of Nazareth who lived and died around 2,000 years ago. Note that the previous sentence did not say ‘and rose and ascended’ — ‘mythicists’ are not just attacking any supernatural claims about Jesus, they even deny that any such person ever existed. This is far-out, extremist scepticism, which Ehrman notes was the kind that for decades ‘was the dominant view in countries such as the Soviet Union’.
Immediately, one can imagine why militant atheists such as Marxists would find such opinions congenial to their ideology. Normally, academic scholars would not pay them much — or any — attention, but the internet has allowed mythicists new access to multitudes — and Ehrman notes that mythicism seems to be the majority view in some Western regions, including parts of Scandinavia. He also observes that mythicists are ‘frequently militant in their views’ and ‘adept’ at countering evidence from opponents. For these reasons this book, in answering mythicist claims, is worth exploring.
Forefathers of scepticism
Ehrman provides a brief history of mythicism, which interestingly began during the French Revolution with the work of Constantin François Volney in 1791, and then Charles-François Dupuis in 1795. Ehrman does not mention it, but during the early years of the Revolution a decided crusade of de-Christianisation was encouraged by the new regime, with Notre Dame and other buildings transformed into Temples of Reason, celebrating the atheistic ‘Worship of Reason’. Essentially, the works of Volney and Dupuis posited the original existence of a universal religion, in which Jesus was a sun god (p.15).
Later, the British rationalist J.M. Robertson, who wrote Christianity and Mythology in 1900, suggested that, while there may have been a man named Jesus, the Christ of faith was actually based on existing fertility cults. Significantly, Robertson’s works are still utilised by Islamic polemicists. More recent figures include Earl Doherty, the former evangelical Robert Price, Tom Harpur, George A. Wells and Acharya S (D.M. Murdoch).
All are heavily sceptical, and we sometimes find a recrudescence of the idea of Jesus as an astrological deity. It is not possible to address their views in detail here, but it should be noted that Ehrman observes that ‘mythicists as a group, and as individuals, are not taken seriously by the vast majority of scholars in the fields of New Testament, early Christianity, ancient history, and theology’ (p.20).
Defending Jesus
To get to the meat of Ehrman’s response, he accepts that there is no archaeological evidence for Jesus’s existence, but then neither is there ‘for any non-aristocratic Jew of the 20s CE, when Jesus would have been an adult’ (p.42). He notes that there is some archaeological evidence for Pontius Pilate’s rule in Judaea, such as coins and a fragmentary inscription discovered in 1961, but no writings from him, and no Roman records (p.44). Beyond that, Pilate is mentioned in Josephus, Philo, Tacitus and the Gospels — barely a footnote in history, so why should there be anything for Jesus? We should remember that Roman Palestine was an unimportant province of the Empire, inhabited by people with religious and ethical ideas at variance with most of the subjects of Rome. The general reaction among people outside the Land — even if people had heard of Jesus’s life and death — would have been ‘another religious fanatic or rebel spouted his nonsense and was executed — so what?’
As for miracles, Ehrman refers to the first century miracle-worker Apollonius of Tyana (p.208), which illustrates that Roman Empire subjects would be familiar with ideas of people moving in the supernatural, and would either ignore them as what one would expect from those blessed with supernatural powers (think of the Delphic Oracle) or dismiss such reports — especially from an imperial backwater — as simply delusions of religious fanatics.
Roman sources
Ehrman notes Roman references to Christ ‘as a god’ in Pliny, 112 AD, to ‘Chrestus’ in Suetonius, 115, Tacitus, 115. By this time the Christian movement had burst the bounds of the Levant, and so we find limited mentions of Christ because of the growth of his followers. The references are not expansive, but we should remember that even at the accession of Constantine in 313 Christians amounted to only around 5% of the Empire; in the first and early second centuries, their numbers would have been considerably smaller (ask yourselves: how often does one see an article about Jains or Christadelphians in modern British media?). Suetonius refers to them in the course of referring to Claudius expelling Jews from Rome ‘because of riots that had occurred “at the instigation of Chrestus”‘ (p.53). Tacitus mentions Nero scapegoating them for the 64 fire of Rome. Tacitus refers to Christ being ‘put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate, while Tiberius was emperor’ (p.55). Mythicists claim that these comments are later Christian interpolations!
Jewish sources
After this, Ehrman examines Jewish sources, especially Josephus. Since Josephus was a Jewish commander during the Jewish war (66 AD) and lived to the end of the century, his career is largely coterminous with that of the writing of the New Testament. In his book The Antiquities of the Jews he refers to the martyrdom of James in 62, ‘whom Josephus identifies as “the brother of Jesus, who is called the messiah” (Antiquities 20.9.1)’ (p.59). There is of course a longer reference in Antiquities 18.3.3, where Josephus refers to Jesus being the Messiah, having been crucified, and apparently rising from the dead. It is not just mythicists who think that Christians have interpolated this passage, but they go beyond this in claiming that the entire passage is a Christian invention (p.61). Ehrman’s attempted reconstruction of the supposed original text still involves Jesus being crucified and, implicitly, one who does miracles (for a fuller consideration of this topic the reader may wish to consult R.T. France’s book The Evidence for Jesus).
Don’t rush to the shops
Before everyone rushes out to buy Ehrman’s book, his usual approach to the Bible is manifested in his treatment of the Gospels, which he regards as ‘filled with non-historical material, accounts of events that could not have happened’ (p.71). Nonetheless, he holds that ‘there is historical information in the Gospels’ which ‘needs to be teased out by careful, critical analysis’. Because they are first-century works, and because, to one degree or another, despite using material in common (the Synoptic Question), they also have distinct sources, they provide evidence for the historicity of Jesus.
Furthermore, Paul, the earliest New Testament writer, provides us with evidence about the reality of Jesus’s existence, and it should be remembered that he transmitted traditions ‘from those who came before him. This is clearly implied when he says that he “handed over” what he had earlier “received”, technical language in antiquity for passing on traditions and teachings among Jewish rabbis’ (p.130). These pre-Pauline sources included ‘Cephas and James’, around 35 or 36 AD (p.131). The fact that Paul met ‘Jesus’s closest disciple and his own brother throws a real monkey wrench into the mythicist view that Jesus never lived’ (p.146).
How it might be useful
There is much else in this book — for example, Ehrman does a fine demolition job on the idea that Christianity borrowed from so-called pagan notions of dying-and-rising gods (p.221ff), a favourite among both atheist and Islamic polemicists, which he dismisses because ‘there are serious doubts about whether there were in fact dying-rising gods in the pagan world and, if there were, whether they were anything like the dying-rising Jesus’. However, his usual scepticism emerges even at this point, since he claims that the earliest Christians did not believe Jesus was God! Ehrman’s book is not one for the church bookshop, but its value rests in counter-polemics with respect to some of the issues raised here, since Ehrman is an ‘agnostic with atheist leanings’ (p.5), and so his testimony might be more appealing to sceptics than books written by Christian apologists.
After all, the next time some Islamic polemicists quote Ehrman in regard to his views on biblical criticism, evangelicals can now respond by observing that his position on the crucifixion or on Paul’s reception by the earliest Christians is at variance with theirs.
