Sunrise over the sea of Galilee \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo by Grant Barclay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A reader of this blog has chosen to spend at least a portion of his Easter weekend trying to share the good news that Jesus is merely a fictional character. \u00a0He reminds me of this column that I published in the Deseret News<\/em> for 12 July 2012:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bart Ehrman is a respected New Testament scholar who holds a professorial chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Furthermore, in addition to his academic works, he\u2019s published four New York Times<\/em> best-sellers.<\/span><\/p>\nFormerly a fundamentalist Protestant and biblical inerrantist, but unable to square that position with his studies, he moved during graduate school to liberal Christianity. Today, though, he reports, \u201cI am an agnostic with atheist leanings,\u201d and his popular books have criticized basic traditional Christian views of Jesus and the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\nGiven that background, it\u2019s likely that many nonbelievers, hearing that his newest book would pose the question \u201cDid Jesus Exist?\u201d expected him to answer \u201cNo.\u201d If they did, though, they\u2019ve surely been disappointed. The subtitle to his book is \u201cThe Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nEhrman says that he urgently wants to get to the topic of how Jesus came to be seen as divine, and promises that his next book will be devoted to that subject. Already in this volume, though, he offers some hints (scarcely surprising to those familiar with his work and similar New Testament scholarship) of what he\u2019ll argue \u2014 Daniel Boyarin\u2019s even newer book, The Jewish Gospels<\/em>, will serve as a nice counterpoint to Ehrman\u2019s views \u2014 but he says that, to his surprise, he\u2019s felt obliged to deal first with a more pressing prior issue: Before debating who Jesus really was, we have to decide whether he ever even lived.<\/span><\/p>\nEvery week, Ehrman reports, he receives two or three emails asking whether Jesus actually existed. \u201cWhen I started getting these emails, some years ago now, I thought the question was rather peculiar and I did not take it seriously. Of course Jesus existed. Everyone knows he existed. Don\u2019t they?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBut, clearly, they don\u2019t. So he looked into the matter and discovered a whole \u201cliterature,\u201d as it were, dedicated to arguing that Jesus is a mythical figure, no more real, historically speaking, than Zeus or Frodo. He knew, of course, that the notion that Jesus was mere fiction was, for decades, the dominant view in the officially atheistic Soviet Union, but he was surprised to learn that it\u2019s now become the majority view in some areas of the West, including parts of Scandinavia.<\/span><\/p>\nProfessionals in the field of New Testament and early Christian studies ignore this body of \u201cmythicist\u201d writing. None of those who have produced it, Ehrman observes, are scholars trained in the New Testament and early Christian history holding relevant academic appointments at mainstream institutions. Of the scholars with the appropriate professional background and employment, he says, \u201cnone of them, to my knowledge, has any doubts that Jesus existed. \u2026The view that Jesus existed is held by virtually every expert on the planet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nNow obviously, and as Ehrman expressly admits, the sheer fact that the consensus of experts overwhelmingly \u2014 indeed, essentially unanimously \u2014 declares that Jesus was a real historical person doesn\u2019t prove that he was. Nor does it refute the \u201cmythicists.\u201d Consensus opinion has often been (and will be) wrong. That\u2019s why he\u2019s written his book. In clear, accessible prose, it lays out a series of arguments for an authentically historical Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\nEhrman has, he says, \u201cno vested interest in the matter.\u201d \u201cI am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cMy life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed. My beliefs would vary little. The answer to the question of Jesus\u2019 historical existence will not make me more or less happy, content, hopeful, likable, rich, famous or immortal. But as a historian I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nA few weeks ago, I read the claim from a disaffected Latter-day Saint that Jesus probably didn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s a matter of faith, he said.<\/span><\/p>\nNo. It\u2019s not. Bart Ehrman is living proof that it\u2019s a matter of historical evidence, not of faith. And he\u2019s not alone.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cJesus existed,\u201d he writes, \u201cand those vocal persons who deny it do so not because they have considered the evidence with the dispassionate eye of the historian, but because they have some other agenda that this denial serves. From a dispassionate point of view, there was a Jesus of Nazareth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 A reader of this blog has chosen to spend at least a portion of his Easter weekend trying to share the good news that Jesus is merely a fictional character. \u00a0He reminds me of this column that I published in the Deseret News for 12 July 2012: \u00a0 Bart Ehrman is a respected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8834,1356,9803,9284,9806,5,1369,4264,7131],"class_list":["post-84269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bart","tag-christ","tag-ehrman","tag-existence","tag-fiction","tag-history","tag-jesus","tag-myth","tag-mythicism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Dawn](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/06\/800px-Israel_Sunrise_over_Sea_of_Galilee_16037234180.jpg\")
<\/a>