(18 votes, average: 4.78 out of 5)
Loading...This post continues my 10-part interview with Ben Witherington dealing with “mythicists,” those who claim that there never actually *was* a man Jesus, but that he is a complete fabrication, a myth. In Did Jesus Exist, I try to show why that is simply not true. But if he did exist, and the Gospels say things about him that probably didn’t happen, how do you separate the fact from the fiction? Here Ben asks me questions related to that idea, and I give some responses.
Q. Various mythicists have tried to argue that in fact there is only one source, namely Mark, that provides evidence that Jesus existed and presumably he made up the idea? Why is this not a fair representation of the evidence, and why do you think it is that various of them hardly even deal with the evidence from Paul?
A. Most mythicists claim that Paul never mentions the historical Jesus or says anything about him, but that he only speaks of a “mythical Christ” who was not a real human being. That is completely wrong. Paul tells us that Jesus was born of a woman, that he was born Jewish, that he had brothers, one of whom was named James (whom Paul personally knew), that he had twelve disciples, that he ministered to Jews, that he taught that it was wrong to get a divorce and that you should pay your preacher, that he had the last supper (Paul indicates what Jesus said at the time), and that he was crucified. Anyone who says that Paul never mentions the historical Jesus or never refers to his teachings simply hasn’t read the letters of Paul.
For anyone at all interested in history, knowing about Jesus should be a rather important matter. This is the kind of thing we deal with on the blog all the time. Why not join? It doesn’t cost much and every bit of your membership fee goes to thelp those in need. Click here for membership options
Can’t we take it from Jerome that the earliest greek manuscripts he examined contained the PA?
Off hand I can’t recall his comment. Do you happen to have it?
Letter to Marcella
“the Latin manuscripts of the Scriptures are proved to be faulty by the variations which all of them exhibit, and my object has been to restore them to the form of the Greek original”
Preface to the gospels
“Therefore, this present little preface promises only the four Gospels, the order of which is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, revised in comparison with only old Greek books.”
Sorry — I forgot what I was asking you for quotations from Jerome about. Jerome certainly did want to bring some order to the chaos of the Latin manuscripts by making the Latin translation more in line with the Greek. What he didn’t appear to appreciate was just how widely variant the Greek manuscripts were, although of course he knew a good bit about that (as did his predecessors, such as his eventual nemesis Origen, who said a good deal about it). But Jerome’s point is that many of the LATIN translations had MISTRANSLATED the Greek, and he wanted the transition from one language to another be more adequate. There were lots of Latin texts and some of them were simply bad translations by people who were not philologically trained.
I think when Jerome says later that “many greek and latin texts” contain the PA its an acceptance that many manuscripts don’t contain it.
But when he says in his preface
“readings at variance with the early copies cannot be right… if we are to glean the truth from a comparison of many, why not go back to the original Greek and correct the mistakes … and all that has been inserted or changed by copyists more asleep than awake … they have been revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts, only early ones have been used”
shouldn’t the conclusion be that Jerome saw the PA in at least some early greek manuscripts?
I would assume so. Remind me: where are you getting this quotation that Jerome found it in “many Greek mss”? I’m not near my books just now to look it up. In any event, as I think I mentioned, we know of references to the story prior to Jerome, but we don’t have others indicating that it could be found in the Gospel of John (e.g., Diascalia; Didymus the Blind; possibly Papias. Eusebius indicates I believe that it was in the Gospel of the Hebrews)
“many Greek mss” is found in Against Pelagians written around 415 so much later then his vulgate. Its as if his inclusion of the PA had by this time been questioned and this is his admission that its found in many but not most copies.
But it would mean the fact that the earliest copies we now have don’t contain the PA is somewhat of a historical accident.
“in ev. sec. Ioh. in multis et Graecis et Latinis cdd. invenitur de adultera muliere quae accusata est ap. dominum” (Against the Pelagians; 2:17 circa 415)
“in the Gospel according to John in many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, is found the story of the adulterous woman who was accused before the Lord.”
Could be that Jerome’s ‘multis et Graecis’ is an overstatement here (it would not be the only time). Otherwise, our earliest evidence for the Pericope de Adultera in Greek is in the Codex Bezae – which is usually reckoned later than Jerome.
But we would not expect Jerome to have included the PA in his Vulgate Gospel of John (as he did) had he not at least some Greek exemplar beside the Old Latin. Maybe he had learned of these from Didymus the Blind?
I suppose the problem is that we don’t have many mss of John earlier than when Jerome was writing, but it’s true that it’s very hard indeed to believe there were “many” of them. Jerome, as you know, was inclined to exaggeration when it suited his purposes. I wrote an article very early in my career arguing that Didymus did not know the PA from the Gospel of John, but in other forms from other gospel accounts. (I believe I was the first to make note that he appears to refer to the episode) (Well, the first NT scholar anyway.)
We have four earlier manuscripts of John; two papyri (P66 and P75,) and two uncials (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) none of which have the PA. These are commonly classsed as ‘Alexandrian’ witnesses. Plus it is in neither the gothic nor ethiopic versions; both of which were created a few decades before the time that Jerome was writing, and which are commonly reckoned to witness the ‘Byzantine’ text in its 4th century form.
It is also absent from one Old Latin witnesses of John dating from before Jerome – Vercellensis; but it found in the Latin side of the Codex Bezae, and in the Codex Palatinus – which are reckoned later.
But it must have been knocking around somewhere; and Jerome clearly liked it anyway.
Yup, it was around. Bezae is around 400 CE.
If Jesus were real, why did ANY stories need to be made up? Water to wine (common story elsewhere), smashing moneychangers tables (after the first one, the Roman Temple guards would have swatted Jesus like a mosquito), feeding thousands with a few loaves and fishes (has a perfect explanation as mystic story-telling), raising Lazarus from THE DEAD with no historical attestation (ditto on the mystic parallel), walking on water (yet another parable), during the guard’s ear (another simile), needing a kiss to i.d. aforementioned notorious Temple criminal (still another mystic parable). Wouldn’t these guys be scrupulously accurate historically? Richard Pervo demolishes Acts as history, Hyam Maccoby shows that Jesus follows the mold of the community scapegoat. The entire narrative taken as a whole is fantastical to the extreme. In a word: ridiculous.
I’m not sure I understand the question. Every real person who has ever existed has had stories made up about them.
We know George Washington was real, and stories were made up about him, such as the famous chopping down of the cherry tree.
Stories could be made up to glorify Jesus, or to make him fit a preconceived theology. For example, it was well known that Jesus was a Galilean from Nazareth, so stories were made up (related by Matthew and Luke) claiming he was actually born in Bethlehem.
I accept that most modern Biblical scholars use Q, M, and L. Are these lost manuscripts or oral traditions? If manuscripts, how do scholars estimate the probability that a particular saying or story is based on a credible source, as opposed to a compelling tale the author picked up at the market that morning?
Q has to be a written source; otherwise the extensive verbatim agreements of its two independent witnesses cannot satisfactorily be explained. M and L can represent more than one source, possibly one or more written. Luke does sya he’s had “many” predecessors who have written accounts, so I’d assume he had more than Mark and Q. But some of their stories they may well have heard over coffee that morning….
Although I have a Masters in history, I always learn so much from you about methodology and tools a historian uses to find out what probably transpired in the past.
What I would like to ask you, though, is related to one of these tools, namely the criterion of dissimilarity. Isn’t it reasonable to suspect that some clever fellows in the past could predict that people would use such a criterion on them (and not necessarily in the future)? I mean, if some Jews wanted to devise an ultra alternative Messiah and get away with it, wouldn’t their success hinge exactly on the fact that people would think “Hey, that’s too alternative to be made up!”
Interesting thought experiment. My view is that it’s not impossible, since almost nothing is. But I don’t know of anything analogous to that in antiquity, where someone tried to *convince* others of the truth of what they say by making sure it is not at all what everyone already thought. If you’re trying to convince someone that Jesus was really a Jew, you wouldn’t tell stories about him being an avid follower of Zeus who had no time for the law of Moses.
Dr. Ehrman, I thought you should listen to how you impacted this individual. You have impacted thousands of more in a similar way.
https://youtu.be/Khxeek9kdag?t=5050
Thanks.
I apologize if I’ve asked this before, but why do we need both M and L? Isn’t it easier to assume that Matthew took some stories from Q and Luke took others. When they picked the same stories, that’s “Q”, and where they picked different stories that’s “M” and “L”. That way you need only one undiscovered document. What am I missing?
Yes, that’s theoretically possible of course. The problem is that the Q material is almost entirely sayings and M and L are extensively narratives (though not only). Some of that material of course may indeed have come from Q, just as the Passion material may have. (My point: Q seems to have a different focus/orientation/set of concerns from non-Q)
As you rightly pointed out in a previous post. history is about probabilities (and not the Bayesian ones utilized by Rich Carrier). My question though, is If wholesale fabrication were the case as proposed by mythicists, what precisely would the “historical Jesus”, have contributed? If the myth had no dependence on “the man” and “the man” gave nothing to the myth, is not the real irrelevance not the arguments for the mythic Jesus but the claims made for a historical Jesus? There is no doubt that there were thousands of Jesuses (Jesii?), named for the Jewish hero Joshua; and since, with the gospels, we are in the realm of hagiography, the idea of a dead messiah works just as well as an actual but unknown dead messiah. Indeed, the latter resolves into the former. I understand your argument from dissimilarity and multiple independent attestation (apologist like to call it a “cumulative case”). But are these really just relying too heavily on more hypothetical sources and are they truly that “honest” (even translating back into the Aramaic for context and nuance for some passages)? A fib is a fib… regardless of the language (not that I hold that position).
I”m afraid I’m not quite followoing your argument. I don’t think any historical scholar would say that the man Jesus had no relation to the legends that sprang u in his wake. And the two criteria you mention are the ones used by all historians dealing with every historical figure (Caesar, Napolean, Lincoln), even if they are not *called* that in the books you read about them.
i think you make an excellent point on not using the “positive criteria” in a negative way; though I had not thought of it in precisely those terms, that makes great sense. I think I have seen some people argue for dissimilarity from contemporaneous Judaism as a criterion as well, if one wants to show that Jesus (not his tradition) taught a given precept or parable. But that would also be way overbroad if used negatively, wouldn’t it? Certainly, any human would share much or most of the customs and beliefs of his time and culture and religion.
That’s right. That’s called double-dissimilarity, and I’ve never seen teh logic of it. The stories were being told by followers of Jesus, not by -non-followers, and so you’re looking for traditions that the storytellers themselves would not be inclined to invent.
“The Messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power, not someone who was weak and powerless.”
“This means that if the followers of Jesus were going to make up the claim that he was the messiah they would not ALSO make up the claim that he was crucified, since that was the LAST thing that would happen to the messiah.”
Dr, does this mean that the conversation between peter and jesus in
mark 8:27-35 is fictional? the crucifixion is back projected ? if we go by todays evangelist interpretation, isaiah 53 knew of a crucified messiah, so from evangelist position, how would that be the last thing that would happen to the messiah?
Isaiah 53 is not referring to a future messiah; that’s an interpretation imposed on the text only by Christians (it was never interpretetd that way by Jews), only after they came to think that Jesus was a crucified messiah, and as they started looking for Scriptural “proof” that it was all according to plan. I do think that the BASIC message of Mark 8:35-37 may have gone back to Jesus (not 8:34): to find true life with God means sacrificing your life for the sake of others.
“to find true life with God means sacrificing your life for the sake of others.”
why sacrifice when you can learn? why sacrifice when you can teach?
When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.
the pauline message teaches that god gave up on the thought that humanity can produce the good works, the ot god didnt give up on this thought.
YOU ARE 100 % CORRECT
“The Messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power, not someone who was weak and powerless.”
“This means that if the followers of Jesus were going to make up the claim that he was the messiah they would not ALSO make up the claim that he was crucified, since that was the LAST thing that would happen to the messiah.”
Almost all the children of Abraham who believe in the coming of the Messiah also believe that he would be killed or crucified. He will be an outstanding Jewish leader, a man of God and a champion for the establishment of the kingdom of God.
Paul says that Christ was born of a woman, as the prophet Isaiah also says. That is, according to the prophecy of Isaiah.
Why do you think Paul had to make it clear to the Galatians that Christ was born of a woman?
I’ve often wondered. Part of it may be that he was teaching that Jesus had been a pre-existent divine being (Phil. 2:5-8) and needs to make sure that they understand that this did not mean he just kind of showed up one day from heaven.
Because he knew he wasn’t. Spouter of Lying. When you gonna catch on?
What is the consensus of scholars on the historical accuracy of the sources that we have about Jesus? I realize that historians deal in probabilities so how much of what we know about Jesus is probably true? Is most of it low or unknown probability of being true?
For critical scholars the sources contain some reliable information and some unreliable, so like all sources from teh ancient world have to be treated critically with criteria of evaluation.
Granted that Jesus existed, it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that he was well aware of various prophecies regarding a messiah. And since there was a lot of apocalyptic expectation, not surprising that he picked up a lot of that as well, particularly from John the Baptist, and he was surely aware of that figure and probably familiar with his teachings. But it’s always something of a mystery why someone would go beyond belief and expectation and begin to think, “I am that unique and special person, named in prophecy, and I have a divine mission!” Jesus does not seem to have been the only person in those days who had a somewhat exalted view of himself. But you have to wonder how one gets to that point. What did it for David Koresh? What did it for other messianic pretenders? It seems rather crazy, frankly. Megalomania, delusion, a touch of psychosis? If it had been possible to treat Jesus with modern anti-psychotic meds, would all that have gone away? I doubt that he imagined himself to be the son of god, or a divinity, but, still, he seemed to view himself as someone pretty darned special.
Could you do a little review sometime of why you prefer the Q hypothesis to the simpler possibility that Luke had a copy of Matthew, as advocated by Marc Goodacre and his disciples Ian Mills and Laura Robinson? Thanks
Sure — I’ve done it on the blog before. Just look up Q hypothesis or Synoptic problem and you’ll see.
Scholars have rejected that in the late 20s/early 30s, Jesus accurately predicted Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies and the Temple would be destroyed. Gospels have been dated after AD 70 for this reason.
At 1 Thessalonians, 5th Chapter, Verse 3, Paul says, “destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
Is there anywhere else where Paul joins Jesus in predicting destruction in Judea?
Paul says anywhere that his Revealed Jesus also revealed Apocalypse: Tribulation followed by the Son of Man ushering in the Kingdom of God?
1 Thess 5:3 is not talking about Judea, but about people in Thessalonica and elsewhere who have not come to believe in Jesus.
David Wenham, lecturer in New Testament at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England, faculty member of Theology, Oxford University, author of Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity published by Eerdmans
Wenham says, the synoptic parallel at 1 Thess 5:3 is Luke’s conclusion to the eschatological discourse at 21: 34-36. …pray that you may have the strength to escape all that is about to happen [suddenly]; pray that you may have the strength to stand before the Son of Man.
Steefen: Paul is telling the Thessalonians about Jewish Apocalypticism, tribulation, death, judgment (the Son of Man judges all). Paul is enlarging Eschatology beyond Judea. Earlier, in chapter 2:14-16, Paul tells them Judea is ground zero because the Jews killed both Jesus and other Jewish prophets–and they are hindering me (Paul) from telling Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, the utmost wrath has come upon them: Parable of the Wicked Tenants (God will give the Land to other People), the Land will be surrounded by armies [Zealots will seal themselves in the Temple, Idumeans will kill high priest Jesus of Gamala there] and the Temple will be destroyed.
One scholar sees the scripture talking about Judea but you do not?
I’m not sure what you’re asking. Paul is certainly talking about Judea as the place where Jesus was killed and the earliest followers of Jesus were persecuted. Did I say something else at some point? (There’s nothing to think that Paul knew the passage in Luke of course, since Luke was writing about 30 years later.)
“In fact, I think it can be shown that the story originated as two different stories that were in circulation, independently of one another in the second, third, and fourth centuries, until they were combined in our canonical version; there may be some historical merit in one of these two stories, but the other is almost certainly legendary. That takes a very long article to demonstrate, however, and I will not try to do so here.”
Have you already posted on this two stories hypothesis on the blog? I can’t seem to find anything about it, or it is explained in “Did Jesus Exist” (been a while since I read that).
I personally wouldn’t mind a (very) long explanation (and I hope others also don’t mind).
No, I never have. It’s pretty technical stuff that requires some understanding of biblical scholarship to make sense of the article. I guess I could give it a stab. But my sense is that the conclusion can be made interesting but it’s very hard to state the argument in a way that is simultaneously interesting and compelling….
Bart, would you say that the criterion of dissimilarity strongly establishes that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who believed that the end times were right around the corner? Dissimilar in that later theologians found this hard to deal with, had to explain why the end hadn’t come (as in 2 Peter).
Yup, that’s the theme of my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium..
Yup. I consider that your most significant book, right up there with E. P. Sanders, “The Historical Figure of Jesus”. Perhaps you should have brought up that example of dissimilarity in the interview with Ben, his response would have been interesting.
I have told mythicists: in discussions with Christians, “Jesus never existed” is not nearly so effective as “Jesus made a big mistake”.
Is there evidence that Jesus thought more deeply about the Kingdom than slogans (“The first shall be last.” “Love your enemies”)? Would there be births? Would there be aging? Would there be deaths? Who would sweep the streets? Who would slop the hogs (well, not that for sure)? Who would mend the scrolls? Would there be surprises, delights, relief from boredom? Would it be dynamic , or frozen in righteous amber?
I’d say that he may well have thought more about it, but no, there’s no actual evidence that he did.
I ask because I suspect that the complexities make it beyond the capabilities of a human mind to devise a perfect Utopia. But if Jesus did, it would surely be a sign of divinity.