Did Jesus exist?

[ZackMartin]

Hi everyone,

I thought it might be profitable to share my argument why I believe Jesus existed, and see how others respond. Please excuse the length of the post.

I believe that, more likely than not, a Jewish religious teacher called Jesus existed in 1st century Palestine, who founded a religious movement, who was executed by the Roman authorities (with some degree of involvement from the Jewish leadership also), and the religious movement he founded went on to become the historical Christianity which we all know.

Start with the study of NRMs (New Religious Movements), which are also (often less charitably) known as "cults" or "sects". NRMs come in many shapes and sizes – some of them are slight variations on an existing religious tradition, others represent a radical break from the past. We know that NRMs pop up all the time, in all societies – most of them fizzle out and are all but forgotten within a couple of generations at the most. Others which are more successful manage to become stable and lasting minorities. A handful enjoy wild success and go on to become major world religions (e.g. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam.)

So my basic assumption is that Christianity started as just another NRM, and Jesus (if he existed) was basically just another NRM leader. That isn't to exclude the possibility he was much more than that – obviously, the fact that Christianity was so successful while most NRMs die out needs to be explained, and at least part of the explanation may lie in Jesus' character, and in the distinctive qualities of his teaching. Nor should it be taken to rule in or out any religious beliefs about Jesus (e.g. that he was the Son of God, the Incarnation of God, the Messiah, that he died for our sins, that he rose from the dead, etc.) But I think "Christianity as yet another NRM" should be a minimum that everyone, whether Christians or atheists or followers of some other religion, should be able to agree on; atheists and non-Christians may make this minimum a maximum also, while Christians obviously go a lot further.

We know about many NRMs in the contemporary world, and I think it is fair to assume that the dynamics of NRM formation and evolution must have been similar in 1st century Palestine to what they are today. That is not to deny that there are cultural and technological differences that are relevant, but I don't believe they are sufficient to change the fundamental dynamics. Research suggests that NRMs are more common in periods of social and cultural instability, and the Roman-Jewish conflict in 1st century Palestine, that would explode into war in the latter half of the century, surely fits the bill for such a period.

Now, the thing we observe about contemporary NRMs, is that mythical religious founders are rare. Most NRMs, if they claim they had a certain founder, he (or she) actually existed, and actually founded the group in question. The NRM will often provide a very biased account of the founder, hiding the negatives and accentuating the positives; it is not unknown for NRMs to promote false claims of miraculous feats or marvellous adventures in exotic locales for the founder, and to hide, deny or minimise the founder's failures and wrongdoings. But an entirely mythical founder is very rare. One can point to a few groups in which this might be the case (e.g. the John Frum movement in Vanuatu) But the norm is certainly a really existent leader, however distorted the accounts of him/her.

Based on that, it seems more likely than not that Jesus of Nazareth actually exists. That the Gospels have distorted him in various ways is not unlikely, but that they have invented him out of whole cloth is unlikely to be true.

Another factor that seems to support the real existence of Jesus is the fact that the surviving accounts are unanimous in placing him in the early 1st century. Though there are some possible discrepancies between the accounts, they date to a decade either way at the most. If Jesus was mythical, it seems unlikely that the Christian movement – which clearly existed later in the 1st century – would have dated him so precisely and so recently. If by contrast, they had claimed he existed some ill-defined number of centuries ago, that would be supportive evidence of the claim that Jesus never existed. If we compare Jesus to Laozi or the Buddha, we find the claims about when he lived are more precise and more recent than the claims about Laozi or the Buddha, which suggests that Jesus is less likely to be mythical than either Laozi or Gautama. (Not that I am saying that either of those are mythical either.)

Advocates of the Jesus myth theory have various hypothesises about how an originally legendary Jesus or Christ, of vague dating, somehow got attached to a concrete historical period. There's nothing inherently impossible about those hypothesises. However, we should follow the principle of parsimony, that the simplest explanation is more likely. The explanation that a religious leader called Jesus actually existed, is simpler than complex explanations of how he was invented, so we should conclude that the actual existence of Jesus is more likely than any myth theory.

We know about very few 1st century Palestinian NRMs – we have Christianity, John the Baptist's group, Simon Magus's group, a few others with brief mentions in the historical record. But it seems likely to me that there were many more that have been lost to history. The reality is, 1st century Palestine was a far less literate and technologically advanced than today, so it is should not surprise us if many groups were never mentioned in written records. We also have to consider that the odds of written records from that period surviving is very low – what survives is a tiny fraction of what was produced – so it is likely that many groups which were mentioned in written records, those written records do not survive.

Given that, it should not surprise us that there are no contemporary records surviving of Jesus' existence; some possibly were made – e.g. of his condemnation to death – but those do not survive. While from our perspective in history, Jesus is a fascinating character, as founder of a major world religion, many of his contemporaries would not have distinguished him from the countless other minor religious leaders who existed at the time, and could not foresee that his movement would flourish while others perished. So I think demanding stronger historical evidence of Jesus existence is misguided – his actual existence is more likely than not, even given the absence of evidence, which is completely unsurprising.

As well as thinking it likely that there existed a 1st century Palestinian Jew called Jesus who started a religious movement, I think there a few other facts we can establish about him as more likely than not true. Firstly, that he was originally a follower of John the Baptist, but went on to found a separate movement, which drew upon some of John the Baptist's following (even while other followers of John the Baptist chose not to follow him.) The Gospels imply that he began his independent ministry before John the Baptist's execution – I see no reason to doubt that – but likely John the Baptist's removal from the scene helped to draw a significant chunk of John's following to Jesus instead. It is very common for the founder of an NRM to have a background in one or more pre-existing religious movements, in particular pre-existing NRMs, so this information about Jesus matches what we know from the contemporary world of NRMs. In any event, it seems more likely that Jesus actually followed John at some point, than that Jesus or his followers invented the connection (again, prefer the simpler explanation.) The Gospels present John the Baptist as wholeheartedly endorsing Jesus – possibly true, but it would not surprise me if their relationship was more complex than the Gospels describe.

Secondly, that he was executed by the Romans. There is nothing surprising about the Romans executing a religious troublemaker – they probably did it quite frequently, and they probably executed many Palestinian NRM leaders whose names are lost to history. It seems rather unlikely that Christians would claim that their founder was executed by the Romans unless he actually was – what could they gain by such a claim? While some have suggested a fake execution, or a substitute execution, as an explanation for his claimed Resurrection, I think the theory that he was actually executed is much more likely even given the claimed Resurrection, and some other explanation for the Resurrection must be found (whether that be the believing one, or an alternative sceptical hypothesis.) The reasoning is simple – in history, the execution of the leaders of NRMs has been a very common occurrence; known incidents of fake executions or falsely claimed executions or substitute executions are about zero. While the Resurrection is a rather unique claim, I'm not convinced that is sufficient justification for us to overcome the inherent unlikelihood of such a scenario.

I think it likely that the Jewish authorities had some role in his death – they certainly would have reasons to want him dead (as indeed, they would have reasons to want most or all NRM leaders dead, as upsetting the religious status quo and threatening their authority.) So likely the Jewish authorities encouraged the Romans to execute Jesus, but I doubt the Romans required any great encouragement. As such, I am sceptical of the Gospel accounts of the Romans as reluctant executioners – I think the Gospel authors felt the need to minimise Roman responsibility for political reasons, while feeling no such qualms about laying all the blame on the Jewish authorities.

As to the Resurrection itself – I am doubtful we can reach any certain historical conclusions about this issue – my fundamental position is agnosticism, and I think this is going to remain one of the great mysteries of human history (I think one day we'll all know the answer, but I think not in this life). But I will save discussing the resurrection for another thread.

Regards, Zack

[Pilgrim]

Yes. Jesus existed. Next question please.

[Kane]

Yes. Jesus existed. Next question please.

You come across as really dismissive. I think it's an interesting question, and I appreciate Zack's efforts to re-visit this question. You don't have to respond if you don't want the conversation.

[shunyadragon]

As far as what is known of the facts of history at the time Christ lived, I agree pretty much with Zack as a foundation for further discussion.

[headheart]

Start with the study of NRMs (New Religious Movements)

Zack,

Would you please provide links to your sources?

Sincerely,
HH'Eric (reader)

[ZackMartin]

Zack,

Would you please provide links to your sources?

Sincerely,
HH'Eric (reader)

My primary claims are:

Lots of NRMs exist today - hard to point to a specific source for this. J. Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religion probably constitutes plenty of evidence.

NRMs most commonly have real founders - this is more a matter of impression. But you could look through resources, such as Melton's Encyclopedia, and try to divide NRMs into two groups, those in which the claimed founder is known to exist, and those in which there are serious doubts about the existence of the claimed founder. I think you will find the first group is much larger than the second.

My claim that the dynamics of NRM formation are fundamentally the same in 1st century Palestine as today. Well, first of all we'd need to look at theories about how NRMs form.

Stark and Bainbridge's book A Theory of Religion gives a good presentation of some theories about how NRMs/cults/sects form. (Despite their use of the word "cult", they don't mean it in a pejorative sense, they simply mean a new religious group with innovative doctrines - by that definition, Christianity started as a "cult" - by contrast to a sect, which does not introduce much in the way of innovative doctrines, but rather urges a return to the original doctrines with greater fervour) Of course this is just their theory - there are others - but one thing I like about their theory is they try to integrate multiple existing theories, and produce a multidimensional account of cult/sect formation, rather than trying to reduce it to a single factor. Although as sociologists they attempt to explain the origin of religious groups in primarily secular terms, they argue that doing so is not necessarily incompatible with personal religious belief (although neither does doing so require any such belief). Here's a a paper they wrote, but you need to find a library with JSTOR access (or pay $29 to read it).

A couple of other books they wrote individually - Bainbridge's "Satan's Power" provides a summary of this theory, and attempts to apply it to a particular group (The Process Church of the Final Judgement - a now defunct group that flourished in the 1970s - they began as a breakaway from Scientology, but soon evolved into a somewhat bizarre fusion of Christianity with Satanism). Rodney Stark's "The Rise of Christianity" attempts to apply the same set of theories to the spread of Christianity (his focus is not on Jesus and the first disciples, but rather on how Christianity evolved from a small and obscure cult into the state religion of the Roman Empire within a handful of centuries.)

I think if you study Stark-Bainbridge theory, the generic terms in which it is expressed suggests that it is not overly dependent on the historical period. The fact that the authors have tried - I think with reasonable success - to apply theory to both the modern day and the ancient world (in Stark's book) is evidence for that. In any case, uniformitarianism suggests we should assume the principles of sociology are equally applicable in different historical periods unless and until someone proposes a good reason to believe they aren't.

Zack

[headheart]

Hi Zack,
Thanks for the effort. I've copied across some links to a folder and though I won't be buying the article, I'll certainly have a good look at them in the morning, after I've given your OP a thorough going over.

Peace, Eric.

[Doug Shaver]

I believe that, more likely than not, a Jewish religious teacher called Jesus existed in 1st century Palestine, who founded a religious movement, who was executed by the Roman authorities (with some degree of involvement from the Jewish leadership also), and the religious movement he founded went on to become the historical Christianity which we all know.

That is what just about everybody thinks, including virtually all scholars in the relevant academic disciplines. A lay person cannot be faulted for assuming that there is a good reason for such a consensus. The problem lies with arguments for Jesus' historicity that include the assumption in their premises.

So my basic assumption is that Christianity started as just another NRM, and Jesus (if he existed) was basically just another NRM leader.

I have a problem with your second conjunct. I'm not saying it couldn't have been so, but I don't think we should dismiss the possibility that if Jesus existed, he had no intention of starting any new religious movement. All the teachings that are unique to Christianity could have originated among his followers after he died.

That isn't to exclude the possibility he was much more than that

I agree that we must not exclude that possibility when we're beginning our investigation. If we're going to rule it out, we have to let the evidence do that for us.

obviously, the fact that Christianity was so successful while most NRMs die out needs to be explained, and at least part of the explanation may lie in Jesus' character, and in the distinctive qualities of his teaching.

Yes, it may lie there. Or it may not. If alternative explanations are improbable, this needs to be demonstrated, not assumed. And that means, among other things, not assuming the truth of Christian legends about how successful the movement was during its formative years.

Nor should it be taken to rule in or out any religious beliefs about Jesus (e.g. that he was the Son of God, the Incarnation of God, the Messiah, that he died for our sins, that he rose from the dead, etc.)

Sure. If all we're asking is whether the man actually existed, then the truth or falsity of those claims is beside the point.

We know about many NRMs in the contemporary world, and I think it is fair to assume that the dynamics of NRM formation and evolution must have been similar in 1st century Palestine to what they are today.

I'm OK with that.

But an entirely mythical founder is very rare. One can point to a few groups in which this might be the case (e.g. the John Frum movement in Vanuatu) But the norm is certainly a really existent leader, however distorted the accounts of him/her.

I'd like to see the data on which that claim is based. I think the rarity of ahistorical religious founders has been exaggerated. The case of John Frum might not be as atypical as most people suppose.

Based on that, it seems more likely than not that Jesus of Nazareth actually exists.

As a default or prima facie hypothesis, I'd say that was unobjectionable. Ideally, we would begin our analysis of the evidence without assuming anything one way or the other, but that might be too much of ask of ourselves, all things considered about human nature.

Another factor that seems to support the real existence of Jesus is the fact that the surviving accounts are unanimous in placing him in the early 1st century.

How does that follow? How does the unanimity of the accounts, regarding this particular datum, make the man's nonexistence improbable?

it seems unlikely that the Christian movement – which clearly existed later in the 1st century – would have dated him so precisely and so recently.

Why?

You might have a point if we could presuppose the conventional dating of the gospels, but that presupposition depends on other presuppositions about the reliability of orthodox traditions about Christianity's origins, which seem to be largely dependent on Eusebius.

I don't dispute that Christianity, in some form, had come into existence by the late first century. I do dispute that the canonical gospels were written during that period. They could have been, but there is no unambiguous attestation to their existence before the late second century. If you think you have evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

If by contrast, they had claimed he existed some ill-defined number of centuries ago, that would be supportive evidence of the claim that Jesus never existed.

Right. But, from "If A, then not-B," you cannot infer "Not-A, therefore B."

If we compare Jesus to Laozi or the Buddha, we find the claims about when he lived are more precise and more recent than the claims about Laozi or the Buddha, which suggests that Jesus is less likely to be mythical than either Laozi or Gautama. (Not that I am saying that either of those are mythical either.)

I haven't done my own research on this point, but I gather from reliable sources that many scholars have become convinced that Laozi and Gautama did not exist.

As for your argument from proximity, here is an object lesson. In 1863, a magazine called The Atlantic published a short story by an author named Edward Everett Hale, titled "Man Without a Country," about a man named Philip Nolan, who, according to the story, had died just nine years earlier, in 1863. Many of The Atlantic's readers thought it was a true story, though in fact Philip Nolan was entirely the product of Hale's imagination.

However, we should follow the principle of parsimony, that the simplest explanation is more likely.

Parsimony is irrelevant unless applied to competing explanations that purport to account for all of the relevant evidence. If we try to explain nothing more than how the canonical gospels came to be written, then a historical Jesus might indeed be the simplest hypothesis, but that would leave a ton of other evidence relevant to Christianity's origins unaccounted for.

I think demanding stronger historical evidence of Jesus existence is misguided

Nonexistent evidence is inadmissible in any debate. If we don't have the evidence, then we cannot use it, and it doesn't make a bit of difference why we don't have it.

his actual existence is more likely than not

You're assuming your conclusion here. That is not how you win debates, unless the only people you want to convince are those who already agree with you.

It seems rather unlikely that Christians would claim that their founder was executed by the Romans unless he actually was – what could they gain by such a claim?

You're leaving out a lot of context. That would be an excellent question, if the only thing Christians were saying about their founder was "He was executed by the Romans." But that was not all that they had to say about him, and so your question, as stated, is irrelevant.

in history, the execution of the leaders of NRMs has been a very common occurrence

Well, in that case, the notion that there was something improbable about Christians claiming such a fate for their founder loses its credibility, doesn't it?

While the Resurrection is a rather unique claim . . . .

Not really. Some of the incidental details of the gospel narratives might be unique to them, but the general idea of a dying and rising divinity had been around for quite a while by the time they were written.

[ZackMartin]

Hi Doug

So my basic assumption is that Christianity started as just another NRM, and Jesus (if he existed) was basically just another NRM leader.

I have a problem with your second conjunct. I'm not saying it couldn't have been so, but I don't think we should dismiss the possibility that if Jesus existed, he had no intention of starting any new religious movement. All the teachings that are unique to Christianity could have originated among his followers after he died.

What constitutes a new religious movement? Sometimes an NRM is a completely new religion, sometimes it is just a reform movement within an established religion. The self-proclaimed prophet or guru with strange new teachings is an NRM founder, but so is the minister who starts a new church because he believes the existing one's are lax and liberal and de-emphasising fundamental doctrines. (According to one system of terminology, the former type of NRM is called a "cult", the later type is called a "sect" - no pejorative meanings intended.) So I agree it is an open question whether Jesus intended to start a movement with radically new beliefs, or whether he was just trying to lead a movement to reform Judaism and return it to a purer form. But in either case, he'd still be an NRM founder.

obviously, the fact that Christianity was so successful while most NRMs die out needs to be explained, and at least part of the explanation may lie in Jesus' character, and in the distinctive qualities of his teaching.

Yes, it may lie there. Or it may not. If alternative explanations are improbable, this needs to be demonstrated, not assumed. And that means, among other things, not assuming the truth of Christian legends about how successful the movement was during its formative years.

I agree that some of the NT accounts of Christianity's early success could be exaggerated. But still, considering the movement overall, it was wildly successful - in less than three centuries becoming the religion of the Roman Emperor, in less than four centuries becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire (with its competitors subjected to persecution), and going on to many further successes. How the religion started is not the sole factor in its success, but it's clearly an important factor - if it fizzled out in the first few decades (as many other movements do, arguably even most), it would never have reached the heights of its later centuries.

But an entirely mythical founder is very rare. One can point to a few groups in which this might be the case (e.g. the John Frum movement in Vanuatu) But the norm is certainly a really existent leader, however distorted the accounts of him/her.

I'd like to see the data on which that claim is based. I think the rarity of ahistorical religious founders has been exaggerated. The case of John Frum might not be as atypical as most people suppose.

I'm not aware of any hard data on this question - all I have is my impressions. But I can propose a method by which we might attain this data:

Take a reference work on religious groups, for example Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions. Either go through all the religions in the work, or to make the study more feasible, just take a random sample. Then first of all we want to divide them into two groups, those who claim some primary founder figure, and those which don't which don't make any such claim. Then we go through each of groups who claim to have a primary founder. Directly researching the evidence of the founder's existence could well be daunting and somewhat subjective, so let me propose the following: do a literature search and review for the founder, look for any authors suggesting the founder did not exist. If there are any such suggestions, we put the religion in one group (founder's existence doubted by some), if no such articles are found, we put the religion in another (no known doubts about founder's existence.) I haven't actually carried out this study as yet, but I believe that if I did, the results would meet my expectations.

Another factor that seems to support the real existence of Jesus is the fact that the surviving accounts are unanimous in placing him in the early 1st century.

How does that follow? How does the unanimity of the accounts, regarding this particular datum, make the man's nonexistence improbable?

Suppose that instead the Gospels disagreed about when he lived. Suppose one Gospel said he lived one hundred years earlier than the others do. Surely, you would agree, such a fact would support - without proving - the case that Jesus was mythical? Certainly, the fact that different sources disagree which century Laozi lived in is claimed as evidence for the theory that Laozi is a myth. So, conversely, the absence of such a disagreement, while not convincing proof of Jesus actual evidence, it surely increases the probability of his existence relative to what it would be were the opposite true.

it seems unlikely that the Christian movement – which clearly existed later in the 1st century – would have dated him so precisely and so recently.

Why?

The myth proponents need to explain how the myth got hooked to a particular time period. I think the formation of a myth about a non-existent someone, claimed to live at a vaguer and more ill-defined point in the past, is easier to explain than a myth about a non-existent someone claimed to live at a more recent and defined historical period. If the myth or legend is based around a historical core, then it is straightforward to explain its hooking to a specific time; in the absence of any such core, such hooking is more difficult to explain, and a vaguer time period is a more likely outcome.

I believe most myths and legends form, rather than one guy sitting down and just making it all up, rather they tend to form by slow accretion through many people. A process of slow accretion through many people is, I believe, more likely to result in vaguer and more distant dating than more recent and concrete dating. (That's not to say that no myths or legends ever form by just one guy sitting down and making it all up - a sceptic would suppose that is how the Book of Mormon was written - I'm just stating the belief that myths and legends formed by slow accretion are more likely than myths and legends formed as more deliberate fictions.)

You might have a point if we could presuppose the conventional dating of the gospels, but that presupposition depends on other presuppositions about the reliability of orthodox traditions about Christianity's origins, which seem to be largely dependent on Eusebius.

I don't dispute that Christianity, in some form, had come into existence by the late first century. I do dispute that the canonical gospels were written during that period. They could have been, but there is no unambiguous attestation to their existence before the late second century. If you think you have evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

If you don't accept the usually proposed dates, what do you propose instead? And why do you think your dates are more likely than the ones usually suggested?

If by contrast, they had claimed he existed some ill-defined number of centuries ago, that would be supportive evidence of the claim that Jesus never existed.

Right. But, from "If A, then not-B," you cannot infer "Not-A, therefore B."

I agree with you as a matter of deductive logic, but that is not we are dealing with here, we are dealing with probabilities. The lack of supportive evidence for a claim is supportive evidence for the opposing claim - not necessarily strong evidence, but evidence nonetheless.

As for your argument from proximity, here is an object lesson. In 1863, a magazine called The Atlantic published a short story by an author named Edward Everett Hale, titled "Man Without a Country," about a man named Philip Nolan, who, according to the story, had died just nine years earlier, in 1863. Many of The Atlantic's readers thought it was a true story, though in fact Philip Nolan was entirely the product of Hale's imagination.

My argument is not that "recent cannot be invented". It is that "recent is less likely to be invented". No single example can prove or disprove a claim about mere likelihood - claims about likelihood openly claim the existence of exceptions to them. They simply state the exceptions are uncommon, and to really prove or disprove them, you have to consider many cases (ideally chosen at random) rather just single incidents that support one side or the other.

I also think, if Jesus is a myth or legend, he is more likely to be a myth or legend formed by slow accretion through many individuals, as opposed to a single individual sitting down and making it all up. Given that, your example, being an elaborate deliberate fiction by a single author, is of questionable relevance.

However, we should follow the principle of parsimony, that the simplest explanation is more likely.

Parsimony is irrelevant unless applied to competing explanations that purport to account for all of the relevant evidence. If we try to explain nothing more than how the canonical gospels came to be written, then a historical Jesus might indeed be the simplest hypothesis, but that would leave a ton of other evidence relevant to Christianity's origins unaccounted for.

I'm not sure what evidence Jesus myth theory can explain that the Jesus actually existed theory can't. Unless someone can point to such evidence, the principle that we should prefer the simpler theory stands.

Let me share two theories. Both are sceptical (a Christian would be unlikely to subscribe to either), but one accepts Jesus as real and the other denies he existed:

Theory 1: Guy called Jesus existed. Started a new religious movement. Offends the authorities (both Roman and Jewish). He is executed. His distraught followers begin to experience visions of him, a sense of his presence. Let's suppose these experiences were something like grief-fuelled hallucinations and/or collective hysteria, etc - similar to claims that people have seen ghosts of their dead loved ones - they may also have something in common with contemporary claimed mass sightings of apparitions of e.g. the Virgin Mary. Over time, this resurrection experience grows in the retelling to become something much more corporeal. His disciples don't actually know where he is buried, but over time a legend of the discovery of an empty tomb forms. From initially believing Jesus is some kind of Messianic figure, over time he gets elevated in importance in their conception until he merges with God, and this elevation evolves in time into the doctrine of the Trinity. Possibly Jesus laid some seeds for this in his teaching. (An interesting contemporary comparison, is the Lubavitcher Rebbe; a small minority of extreme Lubavitcher messianists, known as Elokists, have suggested that the Rebbe is God. While it can't be ruled out that this is somehow a product of Christian influence, even if unconscious, it could also be evidence that a progression in thought from Messiah to Deity is plausible.)

Theory 2: A new religious movement myth forms based on a myth that this guy Jesus existed, even though he never did. Somehow (maybe due to influences from existing traditions, maybe independently), they develop the idea of a resurrected saviour. They invent the idea that the Roman authorities executed him, etc.

Theory 1 seems more plausible to me than Theory 2. Both theories involve some legend-making, but Theory 1 has legendary material accreting around a historical core, while Theory 2 has legendary material being produced out of some abstract set of religious ideas. Both theories can probably provide some explanation for all the evidence available to us, but Theory 1 seems simpler to me - the development of legends around what are plausibly actual historical events is easier to explain than the development of legends out of abstract religious ideas alone.

in history, the execution of the leaders of NRMs has been a very common occurrence

Well, in that case, the notion that there was something improbable about Christians claiming such a fate for their founder loses its credibility, doesn't it?

Compare the following three scenarios: (1) actually existent religious leader is executed; (2) actually existent religious leader is falsely claimed to have been executed; (3) non-existent religious leader is falsely claimed to have been executed. Considering the historical record, how many clear examples do we have for (1), (2) or (3)? We can point to heaps of examples of (1), but few or no cases of (2) or (3). We have plenty of cases of (1) that no one doubts; there are some claimed cases of (3), Jesus obviously being one of them, but I don't think we have any definitely proven cases, and I don't even think the claimed cases are very many. I'm not aware of even any claimed cases of (2). That suggests that (1) is much more likely than (2) or (3).

Zack

[Doug Shaver]

So I agree it is an open question whether Jesus intended to start a movement with radically new beliefs, or whether he was just trying to lead a movement to reform Judaism and return it to a purer form. But in either case, he'd still be an NRM founder.

OK.

And that means, among other things, not assuming the truth of Christian legends about how successful the movement was during its formative years.

I agree that some of the NT accounts of Christianity's early success could be exaggerated.

The only NT account we have is in the Acts of the Apostles. Its narrative of the church's formative years is not credible to anyone not antecedently convinced of the truth of Christian orthodoxy.

But still, considering the movement overall, it was wildly successful - in less than three centuries becoming the religion of the Roman Emperor, in less than four centuries becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire

No matter how you define success, Christianity could not succeed without at least surviving, at it appears that for the first century or two of its existence, all it did was survive. And, we cannot just assume that fourth-century Christianity was basically the same as first-century Christianity. Of course, that is what fourth-century Christians were saying about themselves, but we cannot just take their word for it.

How the religion started is not the sole factor in its success, but it's clearly an important factor

Regardless of how it starts, any religion needs to do only one thing in order to survive and to succeed, if it succeeds. That is win converts. If you're going to claim that a religion has to be telling the truth in order to win converts, I have two words for you: Mormonism and Scientology.

I'd like to see the data on which that claim is based. I think the rarity of ahistorical religious founders has been exaggerated. The case of John Frum might not be as atypical as most people suppose.

I'm not aware of any hard data on this question - all I have is my impressions. But I can propose a method by which we might attain this data:

I don't have hard data, either. Until one of us gets some, I'm afraid it's just your subjective impression against my subjective impression.

Having noted my objection for the record, I will stipulate for the sake of this discussion that if a successful religion claims to have been founded by a particular historical person, it is unusual for that person not to have actually existed.

Another factor that seems to support the real existence of Jesus is the fact that the surviving accounts are unanimous in placing him in the early 1st century.

How does that follow? How does the unanimity of the accounts, regarding this particular datum, make the man's nonexistence improbable?

Suppose that instead the Gospels disagreed about when he lived. Suppose one Gospel said he lived one hundred years earlier than the others do. Surely, you would agree, such a fact would support - without proving - the case that Jesus was mythical?

Very possibly, but not necessarily. Such a fact would have to be considered in the context of all the other evidence. What it might well support, in light of the other evidence, would be a hypothesis about competing ideological or polemical agendas of the gospel authors.

This is a point that I think is way too often ignored -- by those sides -- in these debates. No theory of Christian origins can be established by appealing to any portion of the evidence. Nothing that the gospels say about Jesus, whether they agree or disagree, can either prove or refute his actual existence.

it seems unlikely that the Christian movement – which clearly existed later in the 1st century – would have dated him so precisely and so recently.

Why?

The myth proponents need to explain how the myth got hooked to a particular time period.

They have done that. Have you actually read any mythicist literature? Or have you limited your reading to historicist commentaries on mythicist writings?

There is not yet any canonical version of the "Christ myth theory." That is one reason why I myself prefer, as a generic term of reference, "ahistoricism" to "mythicism." The mythicist theories are just a subset of all the theories that deny the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

In most cases, mythicists do not claim that the Christ in "Christ myth" was the gospels' Jesus of Nazareth. The mythical Christ rather was the Christ of the Pauline epistles, who according to mythicists inhabited not this world but a Platonic spirit world in which the crucifixion and resurrection occurred. These mythicists believe that the gospels originated, many decades if not a whole century after Paul's lifetime, as works of edifying fiction, not intended by their authors to be biographical sketches of any founder of their religion. Not until sometime after the gospels began circulating did some Christians come to believe that the stories were supposed to be factual narratives, but in due course those Christians became dominant, and the Pauline writings were reinterpreted to make them consistent with the new orthodoxy.

This is all, of course, a gross oversimplification, and it is a layman's simplification. If you wish really to understand where these theorists are coming from, you have no alternative but to read the books in which they explain their thinking in proper detail.

I don't dispute that Christianity, in some form, had come into existence by the late first century.*I do dispute that the canonical gospels were written during that period. They could have been, but there is no unambiguous attestation to their existence before the late second century. If you think you have evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

If you don't accept the usually proposed dates, what do you propose instead? And why do you think your dates are more likely than the ones usually suggested?

I propose that they written in their present form during the second century.

I don't think the evidence is sufficient to support the conventionally proposed dates. The existence of the canonical gospels is not unambiguously attested prior to Irenaeus, and I think there is good reason to believe that this would not be the case if the conventional dating were correct.

If by contrast, they had claimed he existed some ill-defined number of centuries ago, that would be supportive evidence of the claim that Jesus never existed.

Right. But, from "If A, then not-B," you cannot infer "Not-A, therefore B."

I agree with you as a matter of deductive logic, but that is not we are dealing with here, we are dealing with probabilities.

Yes, we're dealing with probabilities, which means we're stuck with inductive rather than deductive arguments. But induction does not license disregard for deductive validity, and in no case does it convert a fallacy into a good argument.

The notion that there is some kind of disconnect between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning, such that deduction is not even relevant to induction, is a myth. The philosophical study of inductive reasoning is among other things a quest for some way to reduce it to deductive reasoning. It has not succeeded yet to everyone's satisfaction, but it continues.

The lack of supportive evidence for a claim is supportive evidence for the opposing claim - not necessarily strong evidence, but evidence nonetheless.

That depends. Lack of evidence for a claim A is evidence for a counterclaim B only when (1) B is the only credible alternative to A and (2) there is a cogent argument for thinking that if A were true, then we would have evidence for it.

My argument is not that "recent cannot be invented". It is that "recent is less likely to be invented".

The relevant likelihood of not likelihood of invention. Stories about recent events are invented all the time. Just check out the fiction section of any bookstore. For our discussion, the relevant likelihood is likelihood of being believed notwithstanding invention. Is it, as a matter of fact, all that unusual for lots of people to believe a story about events that did not actually occur, involving people who did not really exist, even if those events were said to have occurred quite recently, maybe even within their own lifetime? I don't think so.

Maybe the relative frequency is pretty low. I can stipulate that. But, for any particular story that is widely believed, that gives us only a prima facie judgment about the probability of its being true. We are then obliged to look at the pertinent evidence to see whether it suffices to overrule our prima facie judgment. We cannot begin and end the investigation with the argument "Whenever lots of people believe a story about recent events, the story is usually true; lots of people believed this story about recent events; therefore, this story was probably true."

I also think, if Jesus is a myth or legend, he is more likely to be a myth or legend formed by slow accretion through many individuals, as opposed to a single individual sitting down and making it all up.

I do not believe, and have never argued, that that is what happened in the case of stories about Jesus. That is not a Christ myth theory. That is a Christ fraud theory.

I'm not sure what evidence Jesus myth theory can explain that the Jesus actually existed theory can't. Unless someone can point to such evidence, the principle that we should prefer the simpler theory stands.

I'm not saying that there is anything historicist theories cannot explain. I am saying that the historicist theories depend for their explanations on more ad hoc assumptions, or less plausible ones, than are needed by mythicist theories.

Of course such a judgment is irreducibly subjective. I have never seen a good metric for parsimony. There is plenty of room for reasonable people to disagree about who is putting Occam's razor to better use, but reasonable disagreement must entail actually identifying the disputed assumptions and having a civilized dialogue about their credibility.

For example, some people in this forum, if I understand them correctly, assume that all the patristic writers should be considered reliable until proven otherwise. I reject that assumption, but I'm not going to insult the intelligence of everyone who thinks it's a justified assumption.

Compare the following three scenarios: (1) actually existent religious leader is executed; (2) actually existent religious leader is falsely claimed to have been executed; (3) non-existent religious leader is falsely claimed to have been executed. Considering the historical record, how many clear examples do we have for (1), (2) or (3)?

You are focusing on data from the history of religions. I am focusing on data from the history of human doxastic behavior in general. In any historical inquiry, I see no need to give special treatment to religion.

[headheart]

Hi Zack,
Though my studies are of a different sort to yours, I wondered if you'd read:
a. Four Idols by Francis Bacon and b. Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.
They just popped up in my reading list and from the look of them, I think they might be useful to you as well.
Peace,
Eric.