This blog post is going to address two very simple straightforward questions:
Did Jesus exist?
Was Jesus executed (through crucifixion)?
To give the answer right away: New Testament historians universally answer both questions with a clear “yes”, and these questions are not a contemporary matter of debate or dispute among New Testament historians today. So let’s start.
MY GENERAL APPROACH
Let me first begin with stating that I am not a New Testament scholar, and since I’m already studying statistics, and do not have the time, money or resources to also study New Testament history on top of that. So what should I do? Well, I do the same what any sane person should do: Listen to the educated opinions of New Testament scholars. Thus, in this blog I shall not, as some commoners do, make some arguments based on roughly put together concepts that are vaguely based on what one hears here and there. That will not be sufficient: in order to make and evaluate arguments in a certain field of knowledge, one truly needs deep proper knowledge regarding that field. So I will not do that. On the contrary, I am merely going to make my opinion that which is the opinion of mainstream science.
This is, of course, quite normal. If you don’t know anything about, say, quantum physics, the best thing to do to find out about that topic is by inquiring with quantum physicists. Similarly, I will simply present whatever is the consensus of the vast majority of New Testament scholars.
QUESTION 1: DID JESUS EXIST?
The answer to this question is: YES. In fact, there are almost no New Testament scholars/historians who have a teaching position at any University in the Western world who deny Jesus existed. The only people who deny Jesus existence are the so-called "Christ Mythicists", which basically is the atheist equivalence of the young earth creationist (except they deny some parts of human history instead of parts of natural history). In fact, the question of Jesus’ existence is not even an issue in New Testament history! New Testament scholars generally have no debates amongst themselves with the question “Did Jesus exist?”. The kind of debates and discussions New Testament scholars have amongst themselves are often about what Jesus probably did say or did not say, and about Jesus’ resurrection, which obviously implies Jesus’ existence. They do not have academic debates amongst themselves whether Jesus existed just as – generally speaking – evolutionary biologists do not debate amongst themselves whether evolution is true. Evolution is mostly debated among creationists, and statements that evolution is true is mostly given by evolutionary biologists when addressing non-academics. In a similar fashion, New Testament scholars only discuss the obvious fact of Jesus existence when addressing the common folk, not during debates amongst themselves.
Unfortunately historians tend to keep to themselves and their academic colleagues. Among New Testament scholars this true even more so, which is highly ironic seeing today’s interest in the New Testament. Luckily, there are some New Testament scholars who do not mind moving among us mere mortals. So let us take a look at what New Testament scholars generally have to say about the general opinion of New testament scholar on the existence of Jesus, by taking a few quotes. I shall focus on non-Christians primarily (because some atheists a-priori seem to disbelieve Christians, which is regrettable). So, some quotes:
>> “Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds — thousands? — of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study. But even taking these into account, there is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.” – Bart Ehrman, 2012, “Did Jesus Exist?”, The Huffington Post, URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html
>> “Some skeptics have maintained that the best account of the biblical and historical evidence is the theory that Jesus never existed; that is, that Jesus’ existence is a myth (Well 1999). Such a view is controversial and not widely held even by anti-Christian thinkers.” – “Skeptical Perspectives on Jesus’ Resurrection”, by Michael Martin, 2011, Delbert Burkett’s The Blackwell Companion to Jesus, Oxford: Blackwell, p 285.
>> “The information about Jesus which can be gleaned from sources other than the gospels – a few references in Josephus, one in Tacitus, and the information implicit in Paul’s letters, for example – does little more than confirm the historical reality of Jesus and the general time and place of his activity. …. He was a Galilean, and it is likely that his principal teaching and healing activity was in Galilee, but he was executed in Jerusalem. – W. Horbury, W.D. Davies, et al., 1999, The Cambridge History of Judaism: The early Roman period, Volume 3.
>> (...) This emerged with particular clarity in engaging with the opinion that Jesus did not Exist. This view is demonstrably false. It is fuelled by a regrettable form of atheist prejudice, which holds all the main primary sources, and Christian people, in contempt. This is not merely worse than the American Jesus Seminar, it is no better than Christian fundamentalism. It simply has different prejudices. – Maurice Casey, 2010, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching. Note: Emphasis was already present in the original though in the form of italics. I changed it into bold because the entire quote was already in italics.
>> “ Vermes’s exploration of these events begins three centuries earlier with the flesh-and-blood Jesus. Did such a man really exist? “I would say it is much more likely that he did than he didn’t,” says Vermes. “To believe that he had been imagined or invented is a much harder task than to rely on the available evidence, which is obviously not as clear-cut as one would like, but is sufficiently good to say that somebody by the name of Jesus existed around the time when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea in the first century AD.” ” – Interview with Geza Vermes, “A new church is born”, History Extra, 2012, http://www.historyextra.com/feature/new-church-born
>> “Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed”. – Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p. 145, 1989, Oxford University Press.
>> “The Jesus Seminar” is almost the historians’ equivalent to the Intelligent Design. And like virtually all forms of “almost science yet still pseudo-science” (and worse forms), they were formed in America. They basically try to strip away as much historical knowledge about Jesus as possible.. They are formed by a group of mostly non-Christians, as well as people who call themselves Christians but who – given their disbelief in the resurrection – cannot truly appreciably be considered as “Christians”. Though this group as a whole is no longer active, its still members are, and with the same commitment (and still primarily in America). Even this group, members of the former Jesus Seminar, even they have a hard time denying Jesus’ existence. Let me share some quotes from this group: 1) John Dominic Crossan (founder of “The Jesus Seminar”): “If I understand what Earl Doherty (a Jesus myther) is arguing, Neil, it is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as an historical person, or, at least that historians, like myself, presume that he did and act on that fatally flawed presumption. I am not sure, as I said earlier, that one can persuade people that Jesus did exist as long as they are ready to explain the entire phenomenon of historical Jesus and earliest Christianity either as an evil trick or a holy parable. I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold-war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying” – J.D. Crossan, 2000, “Historical Jesus: Materials and Methodology”, XTalk. || 2) Robert J. Miller: “We can be certain that Jesus really existed (despite a few highly motivated skeptics who refuse to be convinced), that he was a Jewish teacher in Galilee, and that he was crucified by the Roman government around 30 CE” – Robert J. Miller, 1999, The Jesus Seminar and its Critics, p 38. || 3) Marcus Borg: “An examination of the claims for and against the historicity of Jesus thus reveals that the difficulties faced by those undertaking to prove that he is not historical, in the fields both of the history of religion and the history of doctrine, and not least in the interpretation of the earliest tradition are far more numerous and profound than those which face their opponents. Seen in their totality, they must be considered as having no possible solution. Added to this, all hypotheses which have so far been put forward to the effect that Jesus never lived are in the strangest opposition to each other, both in their method of working and their interpretation of the Gospel reports, and thus merely cancel each other out. Hence we must conclude that the supposition that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely. This does not mean that the latter will not be proposed again from time to time, just as the romantic view of the life of Jesus is also destined for immortality. It is even able to dress itself up with certain scholarly technique, and with a little skillful manipulation can have much influence on the mass of people. But as soon as it does more than engage in noisy polemics with ‘theology’ and hazards an attempt to produce real evidence, it immediately reveals itself to be an implausible hypothesis” – Marcus Borg together with N.T. Wright (N.T. Wright himself is NOT part of the Jesus Seminar, mind you), 2007, “A Vision of the Christian Life”, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, p 236.
>> I would like to end with a quote from a Christian this time, because I would like to quote N.T. Wright, who is one of the leading New Testament scholars alive today: “The historical evidence for Jesus himself is extraordinarily good. I have no idea whether the Alpha teachers have gone into the detail of how we know about things in Palestine in the first century, but the evidence dovetails together with remarkable consistency, as I and many others have shown in works of very detailed historical scholarship. From time to time people try to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, but virtually all historians of whatever background now agree that he did, and most agree that he did and said a significant amount at least of what the four gospels say he did and said.” – N. Tom Wright, 2009, “The resurrection was as shocking then as it is now”, The Guardian, URL: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/aug/03/christianity-resurrection-religion .
QUESTION 2: WAS JESUS CRUCIFIED?
YES. That’s the answer. Jesus’ crucifixion, along with Jesus’ baptism, is considered the most certain fact of Jesus’ life. Denying Jesus’ crucifixion is like denying Jesus’ existence: utterly beyond the scale of reasonable doubt. Anyways, let me just start with some quotes right away (as always, I try to stick with non-Christian scholars, unless stated otherwise):
>> “...if there is any fact of Jesus' life that has been established by a broad consensus, it is the fact of Jesus' crucifixion.” – Paul Rhodes Eddy & Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, page 172, 2007.
>> “I shall first offer a list of statements about Jesus that meet two standards: they are almost beyond dispute; and they belong to the framework of his life, and especially of his public career. (A list of everything that we know about Jesus would be appreciably longer.): Jesus was born c 4 BCE near the time of the death of Herod the Great; he spent his childhood and early adult years in Nazareth, a Galilean village; he was baptised by John the Baptist; he called disciples; he taught in the towns, villages and countryside of Galilee (apparently not the cities); he preached ‘the kingdom of God’; about the year 30 he went to Jerusalem for Passover; he created a disturbance in the Temple area; he had a final meal with the disciples; he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the high priest; he was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.” – E.P. Sanders, The Historical figure of Jesus, page 10 – 11.
>> “The fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable, despite hypotheses of a pseudo-death or a deception which are sometimes put forward. It need not be discussed further here.” – Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of the Christ, page 50.
>> “The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans is one of the most secure facts we have about his life.” – Bart Ehrman, in his own blog: https://ehrmanblog.org/why-was-jesus-killed-for-members/
>> “Some judgments are so probable as to be certain; for example, Jesus really existed, and he really was crucified, just as Julius Caesar really existed and was assassinated. (...) We can in fact know as much about Jesus as we can about any figure in the ancient world” – Marcus Borg, 1999, “Chapter 5: why was Jesus killed”, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.
>> “The information about Jesus which can be gleaned from sources other than the gospels – a few references in Josephus, one in Tacitus, and the information implicit in Paul’s letters, for example – does little more than confirm the historical reality of Jesus and the general time and place of his activity. …. He was a Galilean, and it is likely that his principal teaching and healing activity was in Galilee, but he was executed in Jerusalem. – W. Horbury, W.D. Davies, et al., 1999, The Cambridge History of Judaism: The early Roman period, Volume 3.
>> “There is a consensus of sorts on the basic outline of Jesus’ life. Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptised by John, debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God’s will, engaged in healings and exorcisms, taught in parables, gathered male and female followers in Galilee, went to Jerusalem, and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius Pilate (26-36 CE).” - Amy Jill-Levine, et al., 2009, page 4.
>> “The Jesus Seminar”, as discussed earlier, basically try to “debunk” as much historical knowledge about Jesus as possible. They are formed by a group of mostly non-Christians, as well as people who call themselves Christians but who – given their disbelief in the resurrection – cannot really be considered as such. Though this group as a whole is no longer active, it’s still members are, and with the same commitment. Even this group, members of the former Jesus Seminar, even they have a hard time denying Jesus’ death (and that’s saying something).Time for some quotes from this group: 1) John Dominic Crossan (founder of “The Jesus Seminar”): “Jesus’ death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be. For if no follower of Jesus had written anything for one hundred years after his crucifixition, we would still know about him from two authors not among his supporters. Their names are Flavius Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus.” – J.D. Crossan, 1994, Jesus: A revolutionary biography, p 145. || 2) Robert J. Miller: “We can be certain that Jesus really existed (despite a few highly motivated skeptics who refuse to be convinced), that he was a Jewish teacher in Galilee, and that he was crucified by the Roman government around 30 CE” – Robert J. Miller, 1999, The Jesus Seminar and its Critics, p 38.
>> It seems unfair not to mention any Christian scholars, so here I chose another exceptionally high-ranking NT historian: Professor Dr James Dunn. He writes: Two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent. (...) One is Jesus’ baptism by John. The other is his death by crucifixion. Because they rank so high on the ‘almost impossible to doubt or deny’ scale of historical facts, ...” – James Dunn, 2003, Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the making, page 339.
>> And, let’s not forget bloody WIKIPEDIA. Yes, all this time, one could’ve just take a quick look at a few Wikipedia sites to get to know the general consensus of historians on the matter of Jesus’ crucifixion and (of course) existence. But, I bet most people who deny Jesus' existence or crucifixion have not even taken the time of barely a few minutes to check out this very accessible website. Why read Wikipedia when you can read popular nonsense rants elsewhere, right? So, here are a few wiki pages. Feast your eyes on them pages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus#Crucifixion ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Events_generally_accepted_as_historical
NOTE: Although these quotes were by very qualified historians, I feel the need to make sure to inform the reader that all quotes in this blog were people who have (at least) a PhD in New Testament scholarship. In fact, the vast majority of these quotes come from professors.
THE OVERALL CONSENSUS
Dr Gary Habermas is a philosopher and historian, and a specialized expert in cataloguing trends in contemporary historical science. He has written several articles (one or two of which can be found online, though abbreviated) for several different journals regarding New Testament history, regarding the consensus opinion of historians regarding Jesus (especially post-mortem experiences, but that is not the focus of this blog post) in the Western world from 1975 up until now. It can be said with great certainty, that almost no doctor of New Testament history today denies Jesus’ existence or death.
A few of the articles, available online (Google’s your best friend):
- Gary Habermas, 2005, “Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying?”, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3.2, pp. 135-153.
- Gary Habermas, 2012, “The Minimal Facts Approach to the Resurrection of Jesus: The Role of Methodology as a Crucial Component in Establishing Historicity”, Southeastern Theological Review, p 15-26.
Now I would like to discuss some of the more face-palmy responses I sometimes get from *some* people regarding all that has been written in this article...
ATHEISTS WHO DENY SCIENCE VS CHRISTIANS WHO DENY SCIENCE
Now, undoubtedly, one could probably find some New Testament historian somewhere who denies Jesus existed. The situation here is similar to that of evolutionary biology: undoubtedly one can find an evolutionary biologist who denies evolution (for example Dr Jonathan Wells), but among professors of evolutionary biology in the Western world there are virtually no evolutionary biologists who deny evolution. And here lies the ugly irony: When a Christian denies science (i.e. evolutionary biology) everyone fires up and shows the stupidity of denying science. But if an ATHEIST denies science, ‘Oh no then it’s OK’ (apparently).
COMMON RESPONSES
So, the remainder of this blog post will primarily be lists of things I heard or read non-Christians say to deny the existence of Jesus despite the fact that all academically trained professors who are experts in New Testament history and teach at accredited Universities in the Western world overwhelmingly affirm that Jesus existed and was executed through crucifixion.
>> Bart Ehrman says Jesus did not exist. Throughout recent years many atheists have massively shared some quotes from Bart Ehrman saying that Jesus did not existed. Some of these quotes are stripped out of context, others are completely fabricated (but they are fabricated by atheists, so then it’s OK :P ). Eventually he was invited for an interview by the atheist oriented radio program “The Infidel Guy”, in which the host clearly hoped that Bart would completely destroy Christianity (a large portion of this interview can be found on YouTube, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE). Instead, the opposite happened. To quote one of the many things Dr Ehrman said: “I don’t know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus”, and: “We have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from his time period!”. Eventually, unhappy about being misquoted so often, Dr Ehrman wrote the book "Did Jesus Exist?"in which he completely tackles virtually all Christ myth arguments.
>> Historical science isn’t a real science. Another argument which is paradoxically also often given by creationists. Just like creationists claim that natural history (evolution, big bang, etc.) is not real science, some atheist fundamentalists claim that human history is not real science. Go figure. Clearly, this argument is fallacious.
>> There are historians who deny Jesus existence. Well I went through all that discussion earlier, but, ironically, the historians atheists like to mention do not have a teaching position in contemporary New Testament scholarship. Often mentioned names are Richard Carrier, Robert Price, Raphael Lataster, and Thomas Bordie. Carrier is not a New Testament scholar/historian, Price and Lataxter do not have a teaching position in NT history, and Thomas Bordie is dead. Speaking of the dead, sometimes people tend to name historians who either to lived a bit too long ago to be considered part of contemporary science (New Testament historical research is not as old as physics) or even lived before New Testament history as an academic research branch existed! Such historians are for example Bruno Bauer and George Albert Wells. Sometimes people who are not even remotely historians are called for proof (i.e. John Mackinnon Robertson, Paul-Louis Couchoud, Earl Doherty, Thomas William Harpur). Nonetheless, I can play this way also. I could name evolutionary biologists who deny evolution (Dr Jonathan Wells, for example). Obviously, there is an exception for every group. It is the big picture of science that should not be ignored. PS: No, I do not deny evolution; I'm just trying to make a point.
>> Historians agree that someone by the name of Jesus existed, but it wasn’t the Jesus of the New Testament. Really? So someone whose name was Jesus, who lived and taught in Galilee, who was a miracle worker, who was baptised by John the baptist, who was crucified, and about whom people said they saw him after his death, THAT guy? Is one expecting more than one such Jesus? Or is one simply denying all what historians are saying?
>> We should only look at sources outside of the Bible. This objection portrays a tremendous lack of understanding of the historical methodology. For the New Testament is a collection of the earliest and most primitive sources on Jesus. To ignore them would irrationally mad.
>> The New Testament is by its very definition unreliable because Christians believe in it. Excuse me. So because some group of people say a certain collection of documents is inspired, somehow that affects the historical reliability of the documents? For those not blessed with common sense, allow me to create a thought experiment. Imagine that we have here a book written by a historian. Nobody doubts it. Now imagine, that I right now proclaim this book to be an object of my faith. Using the broken reasoning used in the objection in question, one would now have to ban this book from historical research for the mere reason that it has become an object of MY faith. Surely, that is ridiculous, for why should any historian care what I believe? The historian is interested in what a text says, and compares this to what other texts say, and tries to determine the age of the text and other factors important for historians. What some random common-folk say about these documents is completely irrelevant – regardless if what they say is correct or not. Perhaps the atheist who claims this thinks that the New Testament is one book written by some mad conspirator in the Early Church (yes, I know these folks are out there). I think Dr Craig has done a better job handling such stupidity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaAWj9yv6DY).
>> Historians are biased towards Christianity. Well, if that’s the case, then why is it not OK for Christians to deny evolution? After all, evolutionary biologists could be said to be biased towards atheism. Besides, this is completely untrue, there are a great many religions (including atheism) among New Testament Historians. Besides, New Testament historians – even the Christian ones – do their historical research with an enormous amount of scepticism. PS: No, I do not deny evolution; I am just making a comparison.
>> There is a conspiracy that forces NT scholars to say Jesus existed. Seriously?
>> New Testament scholars are more lax with their historical research and methodology than other forms of history. Not only is this completely false, the exact opposite is the case. New Testament history is taken with FAR more scepticism and with much higher demands of proof than ANY other form of ancient history and antiquity. As philosopher Prof J.P. Moreland (yes, a Christian) observes: “Most historians accept the textual accuracy of other ancient works on far less adequate manuscript grounds than is available for the New Testament.” – J.P. Moreland, 1987, Scaling the Secular City, page 136. || Moreover, New Testament Scholar R.T. France states: “The student of the history of Jesus is, from the point of view of textual criticism, on vastly safer ground than the student of the life of Julius Caesar or indeed of any other figure of ancient history” – R.T. France, 1986, The Evidence for Jesus, page 137.
>> There are many New Testament scholars who have vastly different ideas about Jesus. When it comes to Jesus' existence, baptism and crucifixion, New Testament historians are in virtually universal agreement. Moreover, most extreme variances come from members of the now defunct "Jesus Seminar". Mainstream scholars have also some considerable variation (of course), though less extreme. But these variations do not matter, if all agree about Jesus' existence and crucifixion.
>> NT historians simply “assume” Jesus’ existence based on previous historians. Yes, people actually say things like this. This is not how science works. Scientists do not blindly follow their fore-bearers.
I still cannot believe in this modern (supposedly intellectual) age I still have to defend something as well grounded and universally accepted in historical science as the existence of Jesus, but then again I sometimes also have to defend evolution, so I guess both some Christians and some atheists tend to be anti-science, just in different fields of science. I'm sure the irony has not escaped the reader.