(10 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading...I’ve been doing some reading in preparation for a two-lecture on-line course called “Did Jesus Really Exist” scheduled for July 19. You can find out about it here: https://courses.bartehrman.com/did-jesus-really-exist. It’s a freebie, so, well, feel free to get it for free!
Even though I’m pumped to do this course, and I don’t really much enjoy reading about it (that is, reading the work books that argue Jesus did not exist). I once did, back when I wrote my book Did Jesus Exist. But unlike most issues I deal with, I don’t find it very interesting or intellectually challenging. Still it’s a topic that comes up a lot among lay people, especially over the past 20 years or so, and so I feel a need to address it, and will do so with vigor.
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Just one question. Have you ever changed the view of a Mythicist? I’ve seen this debate before with Dr. Price and wondered if anyone came up to you after the debate and said you changed their view.
Me.
Oh!!
Dr. Ehrman,
If you’ve never heard of Tim O’Neill, he has a nice site where he spends thousands upon thousands of words doing the minutia of what you describe above of the tedious and exhausting arguing against mythicists.
He speaks of you positively, and is not particular enamored with Richard Carrier. People can learn a lot at his site. He doesn’t seem to mind going as deep in the weeds as needed.
https://historyforatheists.com/jesus-mythicism/
Interesting. Thanks. No, I don’t know him or his site. More power to him!
I believe you have discovered Brandolini’s Law (aka, the Bullsh*t Asymmetry Principle): “The amount of energy needed to refute bullsh*t is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”
One other author, Howard Teeple, discusses whether or not Jesus existed in his book How Did Christianity Really Begin, A Historical-Archaeological Approach. He concludes that Jesus actually did exist.
1/“[Jesus was] an archangel who was crucified in outer space.”
No cap, I read this and went to a mirror to make sure my face wasn’t drooping.
Down the clickhole I went, where I came across Dr. Richard Carrier. Dr. Carrier’s educational background is pretty impressive. Dr. Carrier led me to your debate with Dr. Robert Price, who is no dummy either. Then – thank you YouTube algorithm! – I stumbled across Dr. Ammon Hillman who, though a *bit* eccentric, has an enviable educational pedigree (I mean WTF? But still).
After all that, a question first and an observation of their viewpoints second: 1) where’s the academic rigor behind these ideas? I don’t know what the equivalent of JAMA/Lancet is in your world, but I’m certain there is no shortage of refereed journals in biblical studies. Where’s the scholarship? Go to the mat. These men are not strangers to defending a thesis. And; 2) apparently, traditional biblical scholars are all a bunch of dupes. You never read anything in Greek outside of the Bible (news to you!). You’re historically and/or theologically misguided/illiterate (Princeton PhDs! Come on down to Pizza Planet and grab – THE CLAW – yours today!).
Thanks. Rigor: depends whom you ask, I suppose. Dupes: I guess if you’re a realy dupe you don’t realize you’re a dupe….
2/ (continuing) Your jobs rely on burying your heads in the sand (after all, atheists have a vested interest in fighting rear-guard actions to defend the historical existence of Jesus, to wit). Oh, and one of my personal faves: biblical scholars don’t know anything about classics and the two departments never overlap (you should march down to Murphey on Monday and resign your appointment immediately!).
There are creationists at Bob Jones with real PhDs from respected universities. Ken Ham has two science PhDs on his board. One of the leading climate science denial groups has a Nobel prize winner on its board (he’s not a climate scientist but he ain’t stupid, obvi).
And yet over in science world, none of them are taken seriously, for easily demonstrable reasons Still, anti-science needs to be pushed back on constantly, and it’s INCREDIBLY exhausting. I don’t have to imagine your frustration: I live it, albeit in a different lane.
I don’t know biblical scholarship very well – at all? – but I would like to learn more. And, as tedious as it is, if mysticism is insidious fringe bordering on crank, who else more clearly communicates dense biblical concepts, than, yano…?
My $.02
/rant
FWIW, I’ve long had an adjunct appointment in the Classics Department at UNC, and one of the superb scholars there (he was actually one of Carrier’s teachers at Columbia, I believe), is adjunct in ours and regularly sits on our PhD committees for New Testament/Early Christianity exams and dissertatoins.
Vincent Bugliosi’s book on John Kennedy’s assassination, debunking conspiracy theories, ran to 1,632 pages, with a CD-Rom comprising about another 1,000 pages of citations.
Looking forward to the course 🙂
I feel as if you may be misrepresenting a position or two to somehow prove a “technicality” of language here. Christians love to quote you when you say this, so they can point to you and say, “Even this non-beleiver believes in Jesus!”. When the person described in the texts and by almost every one of the 40k or so Christian sects is an outright physical impossibility. Was there a human man named “Jesus” who was an itinerant preacher at the time, whom all these myths were tacked onto? Sure, it’s possible, even highly probable. But that doesn’t mean that Jesus, as described, existed. When people say that “Jesus never existed”. A lot of them ALSO quote you. The issue I have is the ambiguous language you use, which, like the Bible, is used to prove two different points, when you explain everything else so clearly and exactly.
I’m not sure which language I use on the matter you consider to be ambiguous? Mythicists do not believe there was a historical human, Jesus of Nazareth, but that he was either invented whole cloth or was fabricated out of a myth connected with a god-being Christ who was crucified in the heavenly realms, but never lived on earth. I think Jesus was a real human being. Do you see the difference as ambiguous?
Brandolini’s Law:
The amount of energy needed to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
Look it up !
sketchplanations.com/the-bs-asymmetry-principle
I may be missing something, but isn’t 75 BCE more like 55 years before Jesus us traditionally thought to have been kiled, not 105?
55 years after 75 BCE was 20 BCE. Jesus probably died around 30 CE, so 105 years after 75 BCE.
“as opposed to an archangel who was crucified in outer space (literally one of the common mythicist claims)?”
Do most of the mythicists say this is what was thought by the people in Jesus’ day or is this what most of the mythicists actually think?
They’re talking about the early Christian views, not their own. They are almost always atheists who don’t believe in supernatural beings of any kind..disabledupes{1a01f71f738ccb6952ac0bed521ed96b}disabledupes
I’ve lately come across YouTube creators promoting the mythicist version of history with some pretty silly “evidence.” One popular idea is citing the Romans’ notorious proclivity for meticulous record keeping and the alleged absence of Jesus from those records.
I am always happy to point out that even if Rome did record the name of every person they crucified in the provinces — not bloody likely — such records were lost long ago.
I ask them to tell me the location of the giant repository in Rome that preserved centuries of Imperial records through the multiple sacks of the city. (What a shame there isn’t such a thing!) Of course they have no answer.
For more information about why Mythicism is wrong about history see: https://historyforatheists.com/jesus-mythicism/ It has 18 long essays about various sub topics by a real historian.
I really, really don’t get the mythicist arguments about 1 Clement. 16:8 literally quotes a section of the Greek Isaiah that includes the line “his life was taken from the earth”. How else should we take that?
And he quotes the same set of teachings of Jesus that Polycarp does (Luke 6:36-38/ Matthew 7:1-3), in essentially the same way. If Polycarp is quoting what he thinks are the words of the historical, earthly Jesus, why shouldn’t we think 1 Clement is doing exactly the same thing?
In my years as a college professor, I received many items (snail mail, then email) claiming to prove Einstein wrong or to solve all the issues of quantum mechanics, or … My career was focused on teaching and administration; I can’t imagine how much of this stuff went to those doing front line research!
I’ve been reading you for 7 years and my beliefs about god are very similar, I believe. Atheist regarding the old guy in the sky watching every move we make & agnostic as to whether there may be some kind of super intelligence existing outside of the universe about which we know nothing. I don’t find any ambiguity in the statement that Jesus existed as a human in Palestine when it was governed by the Roman Empire & that his teachings and execution led to the many Christian religions that exist today. I’ve never heard you state any other beliefs about him. I find the above comment puzzling.
Looking forward to viewing the course, Bart. Thanks!
Bart’s lament in this post: That it takes a huge effort to debunk conspiratorial claims, is aligned with Sam Harris’s argument for not interviewing anti-vaxers and conspiracy theorists. Harris argues that interviewing these people gives them a platform to throw out unsubstantiated claims. Each claim requiring hours, or maybe weeks, of research and effort to refute. A delay that makes any counter-argument ineffectual.
I imagine the first and second century Roman authorities expressing the same exasperation when confronted by Christian claims…
I don’t see anything about what *time* the talk is taking place on July 19th, here or in the link about the talk. TBA or an oversight? (or am I just missing it?)
I believe when you register you will be sent two emails with fuller details. You can register at
I am not a scholar but have been an avid reader of yours for quite some time. I believe the school of thought you represent is persuasive as history. However, ill stick to my lifelong beliefs on faith. The arguments of the mythicists are very entertaining. And its not so much the evidence they present but how they extrapolate it! I can understand how early Christianity borrowed what worked in developing their story from this. I believe you’re stuck in the situation where you have to argue that the lack of evidence is evidence of something. Good luck!
Indeed some people are abandoning the mythicist position. Derek at “Mythvision” channel ( the clue is in the name) was a mythicist but is no longer.
I think the problem is when I say Jesus did, or very likely existed, it naturally comes with all the baggage of a divine, miracle working, born of a virgin, son of God for which I have found precious little evidence but people just assume I believe.
I get the impression there are two types of “mythicists”: ones who believe the individual referred to (“Jesus”) never existed, and others who will grant his historicity but disclaim “myths” built around him (virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, ascension, etc). Much like the ballad of Davy Crockett…an historical figure with exaggerated feats attributed to him in song.
I’m not familiar with people who claim that there are myths connected wiht Jesus being called “mythcists”? That’s the view of most critial scholars.
Thanks for this Bart…I hear you and could not agree more…so very frustrating and I get asked that all the time in interviews, and one is expected a sound bite answer…and the latest is Paul did not exist and all his letters, and the book of Acts where “made up” in the 2nd century…Sigh…
I share your frustration with this sort of thing. The little bits I’ve read of the mythicists lead me to believe that they rely on the dreaded “Gish Gallop” style of argument: string a bunch of conclusions together, each of which would take hours to explain and refute, and give the impression of having a fortress of evidence by sheer volume.
OMG: Another conspiracy!
You once cited Zuntz in a debate with Wallace, so you know full well that someone put a book of Paul’s letters on the market around 100 CE, and that we have no earlier evidence of their existence. Furthermore, the letters are the only evidence of the people and congregations mentioned in them. There is no criterion for determining whether a text is literary fiction or authentic correspondence based solely on its content. The letters could be authentic, they could be epistolary novels, and the chances are 50/50. This is true regardless of the outcome of the biblical scholarly vote. Facts don’t care about our feelings.
The Gospels are no better. The first confirmation of their existence is the beginning of the 2nd century. Mark could have been written in 65 CE or 97 CE. Both dates are equally valid. 1 Clem – also cannot be considered authentic, since confirmation of its existence dates from the mid-2nd century.
According to the rules of logic, mythicism is as likely as historicism in this situation, since we have managed to find the starting point for Josephus. And it is difficult to ask him today whether he invented the Risen One or not.
I know full well that’s what Zuntz said, yes. As with most scholars, even though Zuntz was a particularly brilliant one, he said things that are no longer seen as tenable. I’m not against hte idea that there were collectoins of Paul’s letters that early, but I don’t think there’s any way there was a collection of all (and only) the ones in the NT today. There is certainly no evidence of it.
There are pleny of criteria for determining the difference between authentic and inauthentic writings based on their content. It is a practiced used in every field of literary studies. It’s not like proving a chemical reaction, since it’s a matter of probabilities rather than repeated experimentation, but its often virtually irrefutable. There’s no way on God’s green earth that Paul wrote 3 Corinthians or the letters to Seneca.
I would say it’s pretty clear Josephus did not invent “the Risen One”
Specialists can distinguish letters written by a single author. But that’s where their effectiveness ends. Whether the author of the letters is Paul or an unknown ghostwriter—there’s no effective method to determine this if we only have the text. And Bruno Bauer, Loman, Detering, Livesey, and Trobisch all knew this. That’s precisely the case. Trobisch recently said it publicly. The text itself, without external information, cannot prove its authenticity and dating. And that’s an indisputable fact. The entire discussion about Paul’s authenticity is a beauty contest of arguments. In my opinion, attributing them to Marcion is simply naive. Such an irrelevant digression.
Zuntz’s handwritten sketch shows that the first evidence of a collection of letters appeared at the turn of the century, 40 years after Paul’s passing. Regardless of how many editions of the Corpus there were—the question is whether the original circulation of the letters, their recipients, and the congregations involved aren’t just invented traditions. Someone brought them the letters, and that’s all they had. They knew as much about Paul as we do. Which didn’t stop them from later writing Acts of the Apostles, Acts of Paul, Acts of Paul and Theckla.
Risen One
Information about the historical Jesus from the entire Pauline Corpus is contained within the information provided in a few dozen words by Josephus’s TF and in the verse about James the Lord’s brother from book XX of Ant. The author of the letters does not go any further. A few words suffice for him about the historical Jesus. We don’t know whether he was familiar with the Gospel content or not. If he was, he effectively omitted it and simply ridiculed the Gospel heroes.
First came Ant from the TF, which was enthusiastically received by the public.
We want more!
OK. You are welcome
Simple as that. From the content management point of view historical or mythical means nothing. Popular is a keyword.
Jarek:
“There is no criterion for determining whether a text is literary fiction or authentic correspondence based solely on its content.”
Bart:
“There are plenty of criteria for determining the difference between authentic and inauthentic writings based on their content.”
Bart’s examples about 3 Corinthians or the letters to Seneca clearly show that, in some cases, we can determine that these are forgeries based solely on their content.
But what about the seven undisputed letters?
Were those letters really written by an itinerant Diaspora Jew named Paul around the 50s CE?
Or was it all a later invention, and Paul is just a literary character—about as historical as Moses?
I think that’s Jarek’s point when he says:
“The letters could be authentic, they could be epistolary novels, and the chances are 50/50.”
Personally, I’m absolutely sure that six of the seven were written by an itinerant Diaspora Jew named Paul around the 50s CE.
Why? Well… it’s gonna take me more than 200 characters to explain.
Undisputed is an illegitimate conclussion in this case. Too far-fetched with no testimonies with no proof.
“Undisputed” just means that a majority of specialists in the field agree on it.
So… what do You think?
For one thing, I think I don’t know what you’re wondering about when you ask what I think!
I apologize for the chaotic “unasked” question. My point is that historicism and mysticism make no sense when faced with irresolvable alternatives.
All we can do is use minimalism and define upper limits for the creation of the NT texts. These are the dates of their first confirmation. As Goodacre said, GMark could have been created in the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Any date is valid.
The Pauline epistles were written between 41 and 100 CE.
Then it’s enough to note that Josephus falls within this broadly defined period.
The rise of a religion begins with exciting news and the enthusiasm of its recipients, who decide that it’s an important project for them. For a project to survive, content is essential, whether real or imagined. You can generate enthusiasm with a brief message, but sustaining it requires much more substance.
All the content of the New Testament and the Apocrypha pretends to be real and is fraudulently attributed to people from the past.
Religion could have arisen between Rome and Jerusalem through a process of natural growth, a gradual accumulation of tradition.
And here it turns out that this entire tradition is jumping out of a hat after Josephus, from which it draws.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-SuNSyBgzyhno7dQ_ZCo_CaaJeKMl6lu/view?usp=sharing
Er no “undisputed” means completely accepted, not called into question or disputed.
That is definitionally not a majority as that could be just 51% !
Dr. Ehrman, what is your explanation for the well-known problem of Paul almost never relying on the Christ-sayings to prove his theological points? If he thought Jesus was god between virgin birth and crucifixion, he could not possibly have thought explicit quotations from the words of God on earth were less authoritative for the new covenant than explicit quotes of YHWH in the Old Testament, could he? Yet we are startled to find that when Paul argues in one of his 7 authentic epistles that the Jews heard the gospel and rejected it, he does not do what is natural and refer to Jesus (who preached a gospel which the Jews rejected), he instead relies *solely* on Old Testament quotations to prove the point (Romans 10:15-21) (!?).
It’s a much debated point; I deal with it on my course, Paul and Jesus: The Great Divide (you can find it on http://www.bartehrman.com/courses). Among the main options are that (a) the teachings of Jesus were mainly irrelevant to what he was writing about in his letters; (b) he himself was not much interested in the life of Jesus but only his death and resurrection; (c) he actually didn’t know much at all about what Jesus taught. I’d say all these views have their strengths and weaknesses, and I suspect possibly all of them are true in part….
Two other important points: 1) Paul gives no indication that he knows about the virgin birth and 2) He does talk about Jewish rejection of Jesus himself in 1 Thess. 2:14-16.
If what is being said about conspiracy theories is true, then Judaism is just as much a conspiracy theory as Christianity. There were scribes that wrote. J, E, D, and P existed, whoever they were. The characters they created and described did not. Yet a religion based on those characters arose and persisted. Why is it surprising that one conspiracy theory begat another?
I get your point, but I”m not sure that “conspiracy theory” is quite the right category for religions that developed slowly over time. Not every legend, rumor, piece of hisotrical misinformation, or gossip, for example, is a conspiracy theory. If so, the term loses its edge.disabledupes{fa7ab5e81d83e9de553a2673fc563e80}disabledupes
Thank you, Dr. Ehrman,
The last line of your reply is exactly my point. Neither of these scenarios is what “we” call a conspiracy theory.
“911 is an inside job”. That’s a conspiracy theory. What minimal mythicism proposes is not that some cabal got together and planned a prank or deliberately set out to lie to and hence fool people. (Although the unspoken end goal of raising cash is similar…)
It IS about admitting when we don’t know what we don’t know and not pretending otherwise. IMO it is not deserving of its screed-inducing tirades from its detractors. To place or try to frame the discussion in the context of UFOs, aliens, 911 or Holocaust denial, etc. is unwarranted and bad form.
Thank you for listening.
Michael