Loading...CONTINUATION! Ben Witherington, a conservative evangelical Christian New Testament scholar, has asked me to respond to a number of questions about my book Did Jesus Exist, especially in light of criticism I have received for it (not, for the most part, from committed Christians!). His blog is widely read by conservative evangelicals, and he has agreed to post the questions and my answers without editing, to give his readers a sense of why I wrote the book, what I hoped to accomplish by it, and what I would like them to know about it. He has graciously agreed to allow me to post my responses here on my blog, which, if I’m not mistaken, has a very different readership (although there is undoubtedly some overlap). It’s a rather long set of questions and answers – over 10,000 words. So I will post them in bits and pieces so as not to overwhelm anyone. The Q’s are obviously his, the A’s mine.
Some of Ben Witherington’s most popular books are The Jesus Quest, and The Problem with Evangelical Theology, among others.
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Q. In the middle portion of your book, you place a great deal of emphasis on what is usually called the criteria of multiple attestation to demonstrate that Jesus surely existed. Would you explain briefly why historians place so much stock in this criteria, and why it is especially important when dealing with the question of the existence of Jesus.
A. Multiple attestation is one of the most important historical criteria for establishing what happened in the past – not just for historical Jesus research, but for any serious historical research. If the sources to a historical person or event are biased, then it is impossible to know if one of them has just “made something up,” if it is our only witness. But if there are several sources available that independently indicate that an event happened (or that a person lived, etc.), then no one of them could have made it up – since they all report it without having conferred with one another. Some scholars see this criterion as the most important one available for establishing what happened in the past.
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Bart,
Great answers to these questions. I can see where the mythicists can easily come up with the idea that Jesus was the figment of someone’s imagination. For example, if you don’t believe Jesus was God and he didn’t in fact raise from the dead, then the early witnesses “lied” about his resurrection and appearing in front of the disciples (and others). At the very least, you would conclude these witnesses were delusional. So, it’s not a big step to say that the whole thing was made up. Otherwise, you’re left with nitpicking as to what is real and what is made up. It’s hard to be in the middle of all this as an historian, since you’re left with sifting through some pretty incredible stories, is it not? It would like trying to prove if Hercules “the man” really existed, and not the demi-god . One wouldn’t even try because of the metaphysical stories around him, right? it’s just easier to say the whole thing is made up rather than separate the truth from the made up. As an historian, I guess you’re looking to find the historical truth by all means possible. Do you find it difficult separating truth from fiction and the relevance it has on historical fact?
Looking forward to your thoughts,
Gonzalo
Ah, you need to read my book! Or even better, where I deal with this issue headon, my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.
I was introduced to your work with Misquoting Jesus, and I’ve read all your B+N books since then, except for your last one (I haven’t got around to it). So I making my way backwards through your books, and I read Lost Chrisitianities at the beginning of the year. But Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet is on my reading list. I still have this feeling that your next B+N book will be my favorite: How Jesus Became God. And it may indirectly answer some of questions above…
I really enjoy your blog, thanks!!
I highly recommend Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet. It is definitely one of my favorites from Bart. I think the primary reason is that in terms of the NT it covers the biggest questions in history, textual criticism, and theology.
Gonzolagandia, you posted:
“For example, if you don’t believe Jesus was God and he didn’t in fact raise from the dead, then the early witnesses “lied” about his resurrection and appearing in front of the disciples (and others). At the very least, you would conclude these witnesses were delusional. So, it’s not a big step to say that the whole thing was made up. Otherwise, you’re left with nitpicking as to what is real and what is made up.”
Wouldn’t you agree that this is a false dichotomy? That’s my problem with Christian attempts to defend the faith; for them it’s all gospel truth or it’s all just one big fat lie. There are other possibilities. One is that the disciples were deluded yet very sincere. Why do believers assume that the disciples died for a lie, knowing it was a lie? Where is the evidence that they absolutely knew it was a lie that they were dying for?
Matthew
Yes, my view is that history is a *lot* more ambiguous and nuanced than the typical Christian apologist allows (or imagines!).
Personally, I think that the apostles were either insane with grief during the resurrection, or they were all stoned–and not in the biblical sense.
Mathew, you make some good points. I referred to the disciples being delusional only half heartedly. It’s really hard to imagine they were ALL delusional at the same time, as so many of them saw Jesus after his death (and according to the gospel of Mathew, lots more “holy people” were wandering the city also after Jesus’ death). I think that somewhere along the line, the resurrection story took hold, which would be explained as to why the first gospel written, Mark, doesn’t include anything about the resurrection (the last verses were added afterwards). So I think a “lie” was told somewhere along the line, and people knew it. I think Dr. Ehrman mentions this in one of his books. Or I suspect hh WILLin his next B+N book!
This seems obvious but just occurred to me (happens all the time!): it was not only the Christians who knew Jesus was crucified but their *opponents* knew it as well or the Christians would not have worked so hard to account for it. The opponents of the Christians *accepted* Jesus existed when it would have been a much easier argument that he hadn’t existed, where they able to make it. Jesus existence was apparently generally knowledge. I know you bring this up in Did Jesus Exist? I’ve read it–but it just really sunk in now.
It seems like the discussion is ultimately over whether Jesus was a myth…or a failed apocalyptic prophet. Either way, the Jesus most Christians know (or knew, in my case) didn’t actually exist.
I mean, lets be honest, if they discovered that Jesus was basically a Hercules or Mithras figure that never literally walked the Earth, Christians would just move the goal post and say that he was “always supposed to be a spiritual figure”, but the idea that Jesus was basically a deluded Rabbi who predicted the imminent end of the World and whose message only continued because his followers were very adept at changing it to suit the culture, is tremendously more depressing than him being a Jewish version of Krishna.
Obviously we can never really know what happened on that Easter morning. The important thing is that for whatever reason, the disciple believed he was resurrected from the dead and were willing to bet their lives on it. Paul only encountered Jesus in a vision and he was willing to bet his life.
On the other hand, does it strike anyone other than me that in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus appeared only to the two men on the road and then to the eleven, and then ascended into Heaven, all apparently within a day or so. The the same author in Acts says that he walked on Earth for 40 days an was seen by many?
Yup, it’s a big problem! I deal with it in my book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture….
Bart, you wrote, “Christians who think that is what the messiah was supposed to be have been influenced by OT passages such as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, which seem to speak about a future suffering person whose death will make people right with God.” However, before verse 10, in English at least, the references to this suffering person are in the past tense. Could you say a little about tenses (or lack of them) in Hebrew and how, if verses 1-9 are past tense in the Hebrew too, people would read this and think the suffering servant would be in the future?
Maybe I’ll post on this soon.