Why Is the Bible Written?

An ancient scribe writing an ancient book

Image by Guillaume Blanchard

I had a comic book Bible when I was a kid and got a lot out of it, so I thought it was a worthwhile Quora question. 

Q: Why is the Bible written rather than drawn?

A: I kind of wish the biblical authors had added a few illustrations. Instead of his intricate description of his vision of God's throne with its wheels within wheels, it would be easier for me to grasp it with my impressionistic picture-book mind if Ezekiel just said, “And it looked like this,” and drew a picture. We know he could have done it too since a little later in his book he draws a picture of Jerusalem on a clay brick. 

 But the Bible for the most part is didactic literature, which doesn't lend itself well to artistic representation. Euclid may add diagrams to his works on geometry but one doesn't find Seneca or Marcus Aurelius drawing pictures to teach principles of Stoicism. Similarly, it is difficult to imagine the art St. Paul would need to create to accurately convey to the Ephesians that, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” One would need a comic strip or graphic novel, I would think — a large one to convey even one of Paul's shorter epistles.

 It's also worth noting that most of the tales of Jesus and the Hebrew scriptures got their start as oral traditions. Think of an old man or woman at the campfire at night surrounded by a dozen villagers as they recite the rhythmic creation story or Ruth’s gripping tale. Or an apostle telling well-rehearsed stories of Jesus of Nazareth to a new crop of disciples in a Greek lecture hall. These would have been most naturally preserved later on in written form.

 That's not to say there couldn’t have been artistic representations among the Israelites. They were certainly capable of it. The historical books of the Bible preserve descriptions of large statues of cherubim (composite human-animal creatures depicted throughout the middle east) in the Jerusalem temple along with richly embroidered tapestries of plants and more cherubim. Seal impressions showing animals and decorations have been found by archaeologists. But as in other cultures, such as Assyria, Babylon, Rome, and Greece most devotional and mythological art, as well as some legal texts (e.g., Hammurabi’s code), were done as large public statues, reliefs, paintings, and mosaics where whatever messages they were intended to convey could reach a large audience. Books back then had a more limited reach.

 That’s as far as we know right now, of course. As with all of history, a discovery could be made tomorrow that upends everything.

A Question of Throats

Image by FotoFyl / Erifyli Tsavdari

Sometimes answering anti-Christian questions on Quora doesn't require any special knowledge of biblical scholarship or Jesus' teachings. Sometimes it just requires a little logic. And this time it seemed like some people might take my answer more easily if I approached it the way an evolutionary biologist might, then transpose it into the key of Christian belief. That may make it a bit easier for the questioner to see why we aren't "bothered" by God's design of the human throat.





Q: Why aren't Christians bothered by the fact that God made man with a throat that is used for breathing and eating? It’s a highly inefficient design.

A: From an evolutionary viewpoint, regardless of our opinions of the efficiency of this design, it's widespread development in numerous animal groups (e.g., birds, reptiles, mammals, etc.) suggests that it’s a dependable, tried-and-true mechanism. Although other designs are found in nature (e.g., the spiracles and air sac design found in bees), natural selection has seemingly chosen the ”throat design” for most land animals, including humans.

Therefore Christians who see humans as designed by God needn't worry. Although their God may not have chosen a design favored by modern engineers, he has installed a mechanism in his birds, reptiles, and primates, including humans, that has proven over time to be quite satisfactory.

Was Jesus a Poet?

Jesus reciting one of his most famous works, 
'Blessed are the Poor in Spirit'

Painting by Henrik Olrik

Another answer from my 'Quora ministry':


Q: Was Jesus a Poet ? If yes, how good was he ?



A: Yes, Jesus was most definitely a poet! He certainly had the eye and soul of a poet in weaving the wild flowers that God clothed so grandly and the sparrows ‘not one of [whom] will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care’ into his teaching.

But more to the point, in common with some other ancient teachers and the Israelite prophets, much of Jesus’ teaching is cast in poetic form. Scholars have found that when they reverse-translate Jesus’ sayings back to the original Aramaic (Jesus’ native tongue) they are almost all poetry. This made it easier for the crowds to remember. The scholar Henry Wansbrough says that in Matthew especially, “the rhythm of the sayings is beautifully balanced, often with a neat double opposition (‘grapes from thorns or figs from thistles’ in Matt. 7.16; ‘the harvest is rich but the laborers are few’ Matt. 9.37).” 

This statement by C. E. Schenk was made in the 1920s but is even more true today:

When one comes to the words of Jesus he discovers that in a very true sense His speech answers to the requirements for Hebrew poetry. Examples of synonymous, antithetic, synthetic and causal parallelism are the rule rather than the exception in the utterances of Jesus. For the synonymous form see Matthew 10:24; for the antithetic see Luke 6:41; for the synthetic and causal forms see Luke 9:23 and Matthew 6:7. Not alone are these forms of Hebrew poetry found in the words of Jesus, but also the more involved and sustained poetic utterances (Luke 7:31-32). 

How good was he? Well, 2000 years later people are still reciting his stuff...

Christian Copyright

Cyprian of Carthage

It's really too bad that we didn't register 'Christian' and 'Christianity' as trademarks back in ancient Rome (actually, I don't think Rome had the concept yet). Christianity was a thing back then. In other words, Jesus of Nazareth taught certain specific things that he passed on to those who followed him, and told them to tell the world. And we know what those teachings were; they haven't been lost.  

In our time though almost any belief or teaching can be called -- and is called -- "christian" by those inclined to do so.This isn't a new phenomenon, though. Cyprian of Carthage grumbled about it just 200 years after Jesus' time, pointing out that it's rather important to get it right.

__________________________

How can a man say that he believes in Christ, who does not do what Christ commanded him to do? Or whence shall he attain to the reward of faith, who will not keep the faith of the commandment? He must of necessity waver and wander, and, caught away by a spirit of error, like dust which is shaken by the wind, be blown about; and he will make no advance in his walk towards salvation, because he does not keep the truth of the way of salvation.

Cyprian of Carthage (200 - 258)
“On the Unity of the Church,”

Question: Why Use "Christian Movement?"

Winchester cathedral

Photo by Formulax

Q: Why does your site use the term "christian movement" instead of church or something?


A: Because that's what Christianity originally was -- a movement within Judaism that insisted Jesus of Nazareth was the long awaited Messiah, or "Christ" in Greek. It spread by word of mouth (Acts of the Apostles 8) and publicity (Acts 17.16-34), as movements tend to do, and eventually picked up the possibly derisive nick name "Christ-followers" (i.e., Christians).

The word we translate as "church" due to long tradition started off meaning a civic meeting:

"Is there something else you want to talk about? Then come to the regular town meeting of the people. It can be decided there," (Acts 19.39 ERV). 

The word rendered "regular town meeting" is ekklesia, the same word usually translated "church." For Jesus's early followers ekklesia didn't at all conjure up what we think of when we say "church" here on the other end of 2000 years of history. For them "church" was just a gathering, often a secret and rather dangerous one, where they could worship Jesus and learn more about his message from his students.

The purpose of Authentic Light is to teach simple, radical, historic Christianity to interested parties, particularly people who don't follow Jesus yet but might like to. One of the things that gets in the way of that, I believe, is stodgy, traditional, in-house jargon that makes the most interesting thing in the world boring.

To try and crack through that wall of jargon I use different words and phrases like 'Christian Movement' or 'Jesus' Movement' instead of the traditional church lingo.

Who Wrote the Gospels?

None of the gospels actually come out and say who their authors were, although the Gospel of John hints around.  Do we have a good idea of who wrote these four books? One of my favorite scholars, Ben Witherington, lays down what we know and can deduce.

Why Unpack?

As we were discussing in the last post, Jesus' original teaching to his disciples was slowly unpacked and developed over the following few centuries. Not changed or discarded, but filled out and explained.  But why should it be "unpacked" at all?

Why can't we just stick with "the pure word of the Bible" and ignore whatever happened after the last New Testament book was written? Or better yet (as some people say) why not go by Jesus' words alone. The Apostles never understood him anyway, you know.

One reason is this: People ask questions.

The appearance of a person like Jesus raised a lot of questions. Eventually they dawned on people and the early Christian Movement had basically two choices: either tell them to 'just believe' (which was tried), or come up with an answer. And not just any answer, not something off the top of your head. After all, you were handling a revelation from God, not just some good ideas devised by a philosopher. This required some serious thinking.

Just one example: here is a question asked by an early critic of Christianity named Celsus: If there is only one God, as Jesus himself taught, and you worship Jesus also as a God, how are the two related? "If," Celsus wrote, "these people worshipped one God alone, and no other, they would perhaps have some valid argument against the worship of others. But they pay excessive reverence to one who has but lately appeared among men, and they think it no offense against God if they worship also His servant," (Against Celsus, book 8 chapter 11 - 14)

It was this question, which Christians had already been asking themselves for awhile, that led 150 years later to the concept of the Trinity.

Introducing Theologian Thursday

Today I'm starting a new feature here at Authentic Light called Theologian Thursday! Don't all cheer at once.

Every Thursday I will haul in a famous theologian and have her or him discuss a topic that is -- or should be -- important to people interested in following Jesus of Nazareth. I know this sounds thrilling and I'll have a ready-made audience (Note: sarcasm) but I probably ought to explain it a little anyway.

As we've discussed elsewhere, Jesus entrusted his movement with a series of revelations -- God communicating with humans throughout history -- of which he himself is the ultimate one. His revelation -- his life, death, resurrection, and teaching -- is the key to understanding all the other revelations that came before. The things God revealed over time to Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and all the rest are only fully grasped by looking at them through the lens of the appearance of the Messiah -- through the lens of Jesus and what he himself revealed about God. He explained this plainly to his apostles before he left (Gospel of Luke 24.26-27 and 44-48), and he gave examples throughout his career (see basically the entire Gospel of Matthew for that).

But what he didn't do is write a detailed, systematic, exhaustive explanation of his doctrines or a complete commentary on the Old Testament. Instead he left us with the revelation embodied basically in the Bible. He left us the Holy Spirit "who will lead you into all truth" (Gospel of John 16.13). And he left us... theologians.

Why Theologians?

Theologians are a little like scientists: the data a scientist studies is the universe and they just have to take it the way it is, rough edges, mysteries and all, and do the hard work needed to understand it.

A theologian's data is God's revelation encapsulated in the Bible. It's presented to us in a wondrous hodge-podge of history dealing with family squabbles, history dealing with geopolitical squabbles, laws, poems, philosophical discussions, prophetic announcements, erotic songs, letters, laments over fallen cities and fallen people. And above it all, Jesus Christ. Theologians are the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and explaining it all.

On Theologian Thursdays I'll be bringing in the cream of the crop (living and dead), the acknowledged experts in their fields and let them take the floor. I'm using a very wide definition of  a "theologian" that includes not just scholars but regular preachers, authors, hymn writers, mystics, and just regular people who studied, thought, prayed, and contributed something about God and what he has revealed to humanity. Also, there's no time limit: these theological musings may be one brief paragraph or stretch into the blog equivalent of pages and pages (not usually though).

What We're Looking For

Some theologians, like some car repairmen, are better than others. Some are only good on one subject and not terribly impressive or downright misleading in other areas. And of course some are just awful, no matter what their advertising may say.

As you've probably guessed if you've read this blog for a while, my criteria for picking theologians is ordinary, everyday, garden variety Christianity. Or to put it another way, the stuff that was taught by Christ to his Apostles, passed on by them to the Christian Movement, and it's ramifications largely unfurled and explained by around AD 400. That doesn't mean we'll only invite theologians from that era, just that we want people who teach the consensus reached by the Christian Movement doing the hard work of theology during that time. To put it a third way, simple, historical, authentic Christianity. Fortunately (providentially?), there are and have been many around who teach that.

First Up

Our first Thursday theologian, who will be posted about 2 hours from now, is Dr. Georgia Harkness on providence and a God who is personal.

Questioning Basil

An old Romanian painting of Basil
Courtesy of Țetcu Mircea Rareș

Oddly enough, out of all the stuff I've written here recently the post that generates a question is Sunday's quotation of Basil the Great about the Holy Spirit. And not so much on what he said but why we should care what he said at all. I thought it was a great question but it appeared on my personal Facebook page. So I've made it into today's post.

My response was typed during breaks while doing my real life job, so it's not the most well written, but other than cleaning up the spelling and inserting links and brief annotations for context's sake, it's the way I wrote it.

___________________

Q: What does a guy in the early 4th century that was rife with superstition and political intrigue, just a couple decades after Constantine, ignorant of quantum theory, relativity theory, etc. etc. know about the nature of God? Isn't time for a "New" conference on the nature of God?


A: My short answer to the original question about the 'guy in the early 4th century' is that he's an integral part -- one of the most integral, in fact -- of the subject of my blog. My theme is classic early, consensual, ecumenical Christianity as it developed over the first 5 centuries and that what many people take as Christianity today (fundamentalism and progressivism in particular) is only superficially like it.

My longer answer is that I'm all in favor of research into whatever relation there may be between God and quantum physics (John Polkinghorne, Theoretical physicist/Priest, has some interesting ideas there), and I would add Neuroscience too. I'm especially fascinated with the work on reproducing some mental states usually associated with deep religious experiences. And the 4th century certainly was superstitious (though not as much as is usually made out, especially for well-educated people like a Basil or an Augustine) and politics was rampant as in all ages. You might remember my view of Constantine and the intermingling of Christianity with the state -- any state [Which is that it was one of the worst things ever to happen to the Christian Movement].

Validity

But I'm not sure that affects the validity of what Basil was doing on the nature of God. The basic presupposition of Christianity is that God revealed himself supremely through 'the Christ event' [fancy theologian-speak for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus]. That's one of the things about Christianity that bothered the Romans, that it was a revealed religion, not a philosophy or even a mystery religion. Because of that it was passed down from Jesus to the Apostles to the Church at large as a deposit of faith given "once for all to the saints." [In other words, since it was a revelation and not a philosophy or nature religion, it was by its nature something you received and tried to explain, the way physicists try to explain the universe.] 

The Father-Son-Spirit aspect was there from the beginning [in Second Letter to the Corinthians chapter 13 verse 13 for instance] (though not the trinitarian theology, of course). At first there wasn't a lot of deep thought about it, [i.e., the relation of Father to Son to Holy Spirit] except by Paul and to some extent John. But as evangelism continued, they ran into educated fellows like Celsus who wanted to know how we reconciled the one God with the man Jesus, who was worshiped, called 'Lord', prayed to and various other things that usually pertain to God. 

Basil and others weren't trying to do something quantum physics would help them on, I don't think. What they wanted was to define, as well as possible from the rather spare data left by Christ and the Apostles, the inner life of God.  

So what Ignatius, and Justin Martyr,  Irenaeus and Tertullian, Theophilus of Antioch, Arius (I'd include him too) and Athanasius and on down to Basil were doing was unrolling this revelation, this deposit, puzzling out which scenario covered the data (of the revelation) most completely, and struggling to come up with words with enough precision to describe their conclusion. And then, right after they produce their best effort, you find Basil and Augustine et. al. warning that even that doesn't quite do it; it's just the best try of the greatest Christian minds of their age.

The key words they used, "Ousia" and "hypostasis," were cutting edge Greek philosophy at the time, and their work has stood up well for 2 millennia. I'm not sure we have better today.

Answers to Snarky Questions

As promised I'm going to limber up and take my best shot at answering those impertinent whipper-snappers' obnoxious questions about Jesus.  I'm purposly keeping my answers short, since they're kids:

1. Why didn't baby Jesus zap King Herod?

Well...

Snarky Jesus Questions

Regetably, Fistful of Farthings and the video have since disappeared. But the questions remain.

I found this on Matthew Crowe's Fistful of Farthings blog sometime back. Actually, I think it would make an excellent sermon (or perhaps sermon series) if this were played as the "text" and then thoughtful, non-boilerplate answers were given. When you blow away the snarky prodigy attitude, there are some decent questions here that deserve to be answered. Most are just due to fuzzy theology that confuses a lot of people, not just kids with a team of writers behind them. Why did God kill Jesus if he was so precious to him, anyway?

Below the video I've listed the little twerp's 11 questions. How would you respond to them? I'll probably do another post this weekend where I make my own stab at it.




The 11 Snarky Questions
1. Why didn't baby Jesus zap King Herod?

2. Did baby Jesus hold off zapping Herod because he knew when Herod got to hell he could roast him till his eyeballs exploded?

3.Why does God only give the Sun 15000000000000000 (??) years before it dies?

4. Why didn't Jesus shapeshift into a Roman so he could kill them all without anyone suspecting?

5. If somebody took a rocket to Heaven and punched Jesus in the face would Jesus deck him? Or would he say, "Oooo, I forgive you?"

6. Wasn't it a bit selfish of humankind for Jesus to die for us?

7. Couldn't Jesus have done it a different way, such as writing a letter to everyone warning them to be good or something very bad would happen to them?

8. When he was crucified why didn't Jesus ask God to send a meteorite to kill all the soldiers?

9. If Jesus was the most precious thing to God, why did he kill him?

10. Would Jesus forgive somebody that stole his mobile phone?

11. What would Jesus do if a Polar Bear attacked him? (NOTE: "Zapping it" is the wrong answer because Polar Bears are virtually extinct. There are only 5 left.)

Ancient Writers Who Mention Jesus

Many people aren't aware of just how much evidence there is for Jesus in ancient documents outside the New Testament. In fact, considering that he was to all appearances just a wandering peasant teacher in a backwater of the Roman empire the evidence for Jesus is quite good.

Here are some of the main documents (A growing collection):



Julius Africanus

Thallos (fl. AD 55) Roman Historian, as cited by Julius Africanus (c. AD 160-c. 240) Christian Historian (translated by Robert E. Van Voorst, Professor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary)
“In the third [book] of his histories, Thallos calls this darkness [at the death of Jesus] an eclipse of the sun, which seems to me to be wrong.” (Jesus Outside the New Testament, pg. 20, Robert E. Van Voorst, William B Eerdmans Publishing, © 2000)

Flavius Josephus (AD 37-c. 100) Jewish Historian (translated by Paul L. Maier, Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University)
Jesus (Longer Version)
“About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was the achiever of extraordinary deeds and was a teacher of those who accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When he was indicted by the principal men among us and Pilate condemned him to be crucified, those who had come to love him originally did not cease to do so; for he appeared to them on the third day restored to life, as the prophets of the Deity had foretold these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.” (Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII, 63, from Josephus: The Essential Writings, pg. 265, translated by Paul L. Maier, Kregel Publications, © 1988)

Jesus (Agapius Version)
“At this time there was a wise man called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. Many people among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive. Accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have reported wonders. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.” (Ibid, pg. 264)

[Note on the Agapius version: “Although the passage is so worded [as in the first version given above] as early as Eusebius (c. AD 324), scholars have long suspected a Christian interpolation, since Josephus would not have believed Jesus to be the Messiah or in his resurrection and have remained, as he did, a non-Christian Jew. In 1972, however, Professor Schlomo Pines of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem announced his discovery of an Arabic manuscript by the tenth-century Melkite historian Agapius, in which this Josephan passage is expressed in a manner appropriate to a Jew, and which corresponds so precisely to previous scholarly projections of what Josephus originally wrote that it is substituted in the text above. While the final sentence is not in Agapius, Pines justifiably concludes that it was in the original Josephan text.]

The Stoning of James
“The younger Ananus, however, was rash and followed the Sadducees, who are heartless when they sit in judgment. Ananus thought that with Festus dead and Albinus still on the way, he would have his opportunity. Convening the judges of the Sanhedrin, he brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law, and condemned them to be stoned to death.

“The people of Jerusalem who were considered the most fair minded and strict in observing the law were offended by this. They secretly urged King Agrippa to order Ananus to desist from any further actions of this sort.” (Antiquities of the Jews, XX, 200-201, from Josephus: The Essential Writings, pg. 276, translated by Paul L. Maier, Kregel Publications, © 1988)

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD c. 55-c. 117) Roman Historian (Translated by Michael Grant, Historian, President and Vice-Chancellor of the Queen’s University of Belfast)
“But, neither human resources, nor imperial munificence, nor appeasement of the gods, eliminated sinister suspicions that the fire [i.e., the great fire which burned down much of Rome] had been instigated. To suppress this rumour, Nero fabricated scapegoats – and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judaea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome. All degraded and shameful practices collect and flourish in the capital.

“First, Nero had self-acknowledged Christians arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers of others were condemned – not so much for incendiarism as for their anti-social tendencies (or, ‘because the human race detested them.’ Latin: ‘odio hunani generis’). Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animals’ skins, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight. Nero provided his Gardens for the spectacle, and exhibited displays in the Circus, at which he mingled with the crowd – or stood in a chariot, dressed as a charioteer. Despite their guilt as Christians, and the ruthless punishment it deserved, the victims were pitied. For it was felt that they were being sacrificed to one man’s brutality rather than to the national interest.” (The Annals of Imperial Rome, XV, 44, (pp. 365-366), translated by Michael Grant, Penguin Books, © 1971 [1981 ed.])

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 70-c. 140) Roman historian.  (Translated by J. C. Rolfe)

Disturbance During Claudius’ Reign
“He [Emperor Claudius] allowed the people of Ilium perpetual exemption from tribute, on the ground that they were the founders of the Roman race, reading an ancient letter of the Senate and people of Rome written in Greek to king Seleucus, in which they promised him their friendship and alliance only on condition that he should keep their kinsfolk of Ilium free from every burden. Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (Latin, ‘Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit’), he expelled them from Rome. He allowed the envoys of the Germans to sin in the orchestra, led by their naïve self-confidence.” (The Lives of the Caesars, Claudius 25, translated by J. C. Rolfe, from The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, pg. 14, ed. by C. K. Barrett, Harper & Row San Francisco, Revised edition ©1987)

Christians Punished by Nero
“During [Nero’s] reign many abuses were severely punished and put down, and no fewer laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing the people.” (Ibid, Nero 16, pg. 16)

Pliny the Younger (c. AD 61-c. 113), Roman civil servant and writer, governor of Pontus-Bithynia from AD 111-113. Book 10, Letter 96 of his Letters (translated by Robert E. Van Voorst, Professor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary)
“Since I have begun to deal with this problem, the charges have become more common and are increasing in variety, as often happens. An anonymous accusatory pamphlet has been circulated containing the names of many people. I decided to dismiss any who denied that they are or ever have been Christians when they repeated after me a formula invoking the gods and made offerings of wine and incense to your image, which i had ordered to be brought with the images of the gods into court for this reason, and when they reviled (or “spoke ill of,” or “cursed”) Christ. I understand that no one who is really a Christian can be made to do these things.

“Other people, whose names were given to me by an informer, first said that they were Christians and then denied it. They said that they had stopped being Christians to or more years ago, and some more than twenty. They all venerated your image and the images of the gods as the others did, and reviled Christ. They also maintained that the sum total of their guilt or error was no more than the following. They had met regularly before dawn on a determined day, and sung antiphonally a hymn to Christ as if to a god. They also took an oath not for any crime, but to keep from theft, robbery, and adultery, not to break any promise, and not to withhold a deposit when reclaimed.” (Jesus Outside the New Testament, pg. 25, Robert E. Van Voorst, William B Eerdmans Publishing, © 2000)

Did He Exist? What Scholars Say

Once in a while you see a website or book insisting that Jesus never existed. Strangely, they're never by professional historians. That's because Jesus' existence and the basic outlines of his life are among the more secure facts of ancient history.

Here is what some scholars say:

(If you have a favorite scholar quote on the historicity of Jesus, feel free to leave it in the comments. I collect them!)

Michael Grant, Late world-renowned Historian, (Expert on ancient classical civilization)

“If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.”

"In recent years, no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." (Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels, pp. 199-200, Charles Scribner’s Son’s, 1977)

Geza Vermes, late Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, U.K. (Noted scholar on the Dead Sea Scrolls and expert on the historical Jesus)
"Jesus of Nazareth (c. 6/5 BCE - 30 CE) was a Jewish charismatic prophet, healer, exorcist, and teacher whose message was centered on the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God..." (Note: Vermes' entry is based on the conclusion that Jesus existed and that we can know a considerable amount about his life using historical methodology). (Who's Who in the Age of Jesus, pg. 130, Penguin, 2005)

Bart Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (leading american New Testament scholar and an agnostic atheist).
"Few of these mythicists (i.e., people who say Jesus is a myth) are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds — thousands? — of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study. But even taking these into account, there is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology...

"With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the Gospels (and the writings of Paul) — sources that originated in Jesus’ native tongue Aramaic and that can be dated to within just a year or two of his life (before the religion moved to convert pagans in droves). Historical sources like that are is pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind. Moreover, we have relatively extensive writings from one first-century author, Paul, who acquired his information within a couple of years of Jesus’ life and who actually knew, first hand, Jesus’ closest disciple Peter and his own brother James. If Jesus did not exist, you would think his brother would know it...

"Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed."  (Ehrman, Bart D. (2013-03-20), "Did Jesus Exist?" huffingtonpost.com).


Robert E. Van Voorst, Professor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary, Holland, MI
“The theory of Jesus’ nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question.” (Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, pg. 14, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000.)

“The nonhistoricity thesis has always been contoversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. Moreover, it has also consistently failed to convince many who for reasons of religious skepticism might have been expected to entertain it… Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted.” (Ibid, pg. 16)

Otto Betz, Professor in Residence of New Testament, University of Tubingen, Germany (Respected Qumran scholar)
“No serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus.” (What Do We Know About Jesus? pg. 9, Westminster, 1968)


Rudolph Bultmann, late professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg (Influential scholar, major proponent of Form Criticism and "demythologization" of the Gospels)
“The doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the oldest Palestinian community. But how far that community preserved an objectively true picture of him and his message is another question.” (Jesus and the Word, pg. 13, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934, 1958)

“By no means are we at the mercy of those who doubt or deny that Jesus ever lived.” (“The Study of the Synoptic Gospels,” in Form Criticism, translated by Frederick C. Grant, pg. 60, Harper and Brothers,© 1962)


J. M. Roberts, Historian, Warden at Merton College, Oxford University
“Into this electric atmosphere Jesus was born in about 6 BC… The evidence for the facts of his life is contained in the records written down after his death in the Gospels, the assertions and traditions which the early Church based on the testimony of those who had actually known Jesus. The Gospels are not by themselves satisfactory evidence but their inadequacies can be exaggerated. They were no doubt written to demonstrate the supernatural authority of Jesus and the confirmation provided by the events of his life for the prophecies which had long announced the coming of Messiah. This interested and hagiographical origin does not demand scepticism about all the facts asserted; many have inherent plausibility in that they are what might be expected of a Jewish religious leader of the period. They need not be rejected; much more inadequate evidence about far more intractable subjects has often to be employed. There is no reason to be more austere or rigorous in our canons of acceptability for early Christian records than for, say, the evidence in Homer which illuminates Mycenae.” (History of the World, pp. 209-210, Oxford University Press New York, 1993)


Ian Wilson, British Journalist. Degree in Modern History from Magdalen College, Oxford, 1963
“On the most rational grounds, therefore, we may be confidant that Professor Wells [a modern Jesus skeptic] is wrong, and that Jesus did indeed exist.” (Jesus: The Evidence, pg. 65, Harper & Row, 1984)


N. T. Wright, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, leading historian on Jesus.
“We know for certain that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. That is one of the most secure facts in the history of the world.” (The Original Jesus: The Life and Vision of a Revolutionary, pg.18, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1996)

“If Christianity is not rooted in things that actually happened in first-century Palestine, we might as well be Buddhists, Marxists or almost anything else. And if Jesus never existed, or if he was quite different from what the Gospels and the church’s worship affirms him to have been, then we are indeed living in cloud-cuckoo-land.” (The Challenge of Jesus, pg. 18, InterVarsity Press, 1999)

Richard A. Burridge, Historian and Dean of King's College, London.
"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." (Jesus Now and Then,  pg. 34, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004

I. Howard Marshall,  Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis and honorary research professor at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland
"To explain the rise of this tradition [of Jesus' life] without the hypothesis of Jesus is impossible. It is significant that the vast majority of modern writers who are interested in disputing the truth of the Christian religion are content to argue for an unorthodox picture of Jesus rather than to argue that he never existed." (I Believe in the Historical Jesus, pg. 16, Eerdmans, 1977).


F.F. Bruce, Late Rylands professor of biblical criticism and exegesis, University of Manchester, U.K.
“Some writers may toy with the fancy of a ‘Christ-myth,’ but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the ‘Christ-myth’ theories.” (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, pg. 119, InterVarsity Press, 1972)


Werner G. Kummel
“The denial of the existence of Jesus… [is] arbitrary and ill-founded.” (The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems, pg. 447, note 367, Abingdon, 1972)


Kenneth S. Latourette, Late Sterling Professor of Missions and Oriental History and Fellow of Berkeley College in Yale University
“Although our accounts of Jesus are brief, they enable us to know him and his teachings as well as we can know any figure of like antiquity. He made so profound an impression upon those who were his intimates that their memories of him, some of them put into written form within a very few years after the events they record, enable us to have a vivid picture of him and his characteristics. His sayings, given as they were in pithy sentences or in stories of extraordinary beauty and imagery, could not fail to fasten themselves in the memories of the more thoughtful who heard them. They lent themselves to the kind of repetition which did not blur or distort them and were early collected in written form. Even if we did not have the four brief accounts which we call the Gospels we could gain a fairly adequate impression of him and of the salient points of his life, teachings, death, and resurrection from references in letters of his followers written within a generation of his death.” (A History of Christianity, Volume I: Beginnings to 1500, pp. 34-35, Harper San Francisco, 1975)

“It may seem to be a banality to say that Christianity cannot be understood apart from [Jesus]. Yet repeatedly through the centuries and in our own day there have been those who have regarded Jesus as unimportant in the origin and initial growth of Christianity. In contrast to this view, the author is convinced that without Jesus Christianity is not only unintelligible: it would never have been. The fashion in which Jesus Christ has shaped the faith which bears his name and the degree to which his professed followers have embodied him or departed from him never ceases to be both fascinating and significant.” (Ibid, pg. xxi).

Gary R. Habermas, Professor and Department Chairman of Philosophy and Apologetics at Liberty University
“Comparatively few recent scholars postulate that Jesus never lived. Such positions are usually viewed as blatant misuses of the available historical data.” (The Verdict of History: Conclusive Evidence for the Life of Jesus, pg. 31, Thomas Nelson, 1988)

“Virtually no writers have asserted that Jesus did not exist or have attempted to cast virtually total doubt and obscurity on his life and ministry. But, such efforts are refuted by the early and eyewitness testimony presented by Paul and others, by the early date of the Gospels, by the corresponding historicity and trusworthiness of the Gospels, and by the failure of the mystery religions to explain the Christian faith.” (Ibid, pg. 36)


Peter Jennings, late Journalist, ABC-TV Network Anchorman (Not a scholar but still an interesting perspective)
“Though in the special (Peter Jennings Reporting: The Search for Jesus, broadcast 6/19/00) we don’t deal at length with the Resurrection, I’m struck by the intenseness of the debate and the intensity of belief: something happened after Jesus was executed that created this momentum that led to Christianity becoming the official religion of the empire.” (“Jennings on Jesus,” Christianity Today, June 12, 2000, pg. 72)

Jesus' Family Tomb?

Last Sunday the Discover Channel ran a documentary that claimed a tomb found near Jerusalem in 1980 is actually where Jesus and his family -- including Mary Magdalene, whom he supposedly married -- are buried.

First century middle eastern people had the rather macabre custom of letting the dead rot for a year, then gathering up their bones and putting them in a limestone box called an ossuary. Sometimes they scratched the dead person's name on the box, but in most cases they left it blank. If a particularly honorific person's bones were inside they might put some effort into the inscription (as was the case with the famous "James Ossuary"). Usually, it was just chicken scratchings.

The main reason the show gave for this being Jesus' tomb seemed to be that the names on the bone boxes found inside were, with a little stretching in some cases, similar to the names of some people in the Gospels -- names like Joseph, Mary, Jesus, among others. There was also some DNA evidence introduced from 2 of the boxes (the bones were long gone, buried when they were first discovered), which was only able to show that they weren't genetically related.

And quite a lot was made of the odd version of the name "Mary" on one ossuary because it appears in a book written at least 300+ years later possibly referring to Mary Magdalene. This was followed in the inscription by the word "Mara," taken by the producers to be the aramaic word for "Master" and to refer to Mary Magdalene as well. Linguistic scholars say this much more likely the name "Martha" and was either a second name or the name of another person whose bones were put in the same box -- a baby daughter, for instance.

As Dr. Ben Witherington points out in his blog, virtually all historians and biblical scholars -- including those interviewed during the program -- do not accept it's conclusions. The scholarship on the show was mediocre in my opinion -- on the level of the search for Atlantis or the Da Vinci Code. But most people do not have the time to deeply study ancient greek and aramaic scratchings on 2000 year old bone boxes. An exciting TV show backed with selective use of facts and cool reinactments can seem quite convincing.

Something that weighs more heavily with me is this simple fact: This was not a secret tomb. In the 1st century, as all admit, this was an easily seen tomb sitting in a field near the major city of Jerusalem. As you can see in the photograph, it was even nicely decorated.

But the Christians asserted that Jesus of Nazareth had come back to life and that this verified he was really the long-awaited Messiah. Rather than go through a lot of trouble, all the Powers That Were had to do to stop the Christian movement was produce his body. If it could be demonstrated that Jesus hadn't come back from the dead but was actually still lying among them, the whole thing would go to pieces.

This was not lost on the early Christians. As St. Paul said, writing 20-something years after the crucifixion, "If Christ hasn't come back to life, our message has no meaning and your faith also has no meaning, " (First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 15, verse 14).

I'm not going to make the more obvious point that nobody -- Jew or Roman -- ever claimed back then to have found the body of Jesus. Those who opposed Christianity always had to do so on other grounds. But I will point out that if the truth actually was that his followers spirited their crucified master's body away and reburied it so they could rather pathetically continue spreading his teaching and pretending he was alive, they certainly wouldn't have done so in this tomb.

If you're trying to say a dead man is alive, you do not put him in a visible tomb near the place his enemies killed him. You also do not have his relatives and supposed wife interred there in their own burial ceremonies over the years, acting as pointers to the location. And you don't write his name on his ossuary.

If the body of Jesus is in a grave somewhere (which, incidentally, I do not for a moment believe), it is in an inconspicuous hole far away from Jerusalem, and his bone box, if he got one, is anonymous.

To quote Paul again: "But, in reality, Christ has risen from among the dead, being the first to do so of those who are asleep. "