Was Jesus a Myth?
Part 1: The Question Itself

One issue in tackling this question is that there are not very many serious scholars (past or present) who have held the view that Jesus was entirely mythical. While there are many scholars who would question the historical validity of the Gospel and New Testament accounts of Jesus by saying (in varying degrees) that elements of the story are "mythical" or "legendary", only a handful would claim that the first century Jewish teacher Jesus never existed.

Will Durant in Volume 3 of his series The Story of Civilisation, Caesar and Christ, said this of the Jesus' existence:

"The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint
Paul. Some of these are of uncertain authorship; several, antedating A.D. 64,
are almost universally accounted as substantially genuine. No one has questioned
the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and
Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in his flesh. The accepted
epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.... The
contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic
gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the
enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New
Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient
worthies, for example Hammurabi, David, Socrates would fade into legend. Despite
the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record
many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed the competition of the
apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest,
Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the
references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as
to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of
bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can
doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one
generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so loft an
ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far
more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher
Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain
reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of
Western man."[1]

This seems to me to be the general consensus of the vast majority of historians.

Historical research into the life of Jesus has gone through several stages of development, driven in part by new discoveries and insights into the history of first century Palestine and in part by the dominant world-view of the day. The stages of development can roughly be categorized as (bold shows dominance of concept):

• Pre-Quest (prior to 1778, Jesus of history=Christ of faith)
• Old-Quest (1778-1906, Jesus of history?Christ of faith)
• No-Quest (1906-1953, Jesus of history cannot be known, only the Christ of faith)
• New Quest (1953-Present, continuity between Jesus of history and Christ of faith)[2]

James H. Charlesworth, an expert in the documents and history of Early Judaism & Christian origins, would say that since 1980 a new phase has developed which he simply terms "Jesus Research" because it isn't driven by a theological/ideological "quest" to find Jesus but is driven by a search for historical and cultural realities.

When looking at the breakdown of the "quests" it is easy to see how the prevalent thought of each was not only affected by current world-views, but also had impact upon the popular thinking within the church (usually trailing by 20-50 years). For example, in the minds of most Christians today the unknowing emphasis is on the "Christ of Faith" rather than the historical/cultural situations surrounding the life of Jesus and his followers. It is interesting that some of the best work being done on the historical and cultural setting of Jesus and early Christianity is outside of the Seminaries and is not being done by theologians. Seminaries tend to focus on theology rather than history. This is due to the profound impact of theologians like Albert Schweitzer and (primarily) Rudolph Bultmann during the "No Quest" stage. Schweitzer, in reaction to the 19th century "lives of Jesus" (that tended to portray the Jesus of history as simply reflections of Victorian thought), said this about Jesus:

...the truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but as spiritually risen
within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the Jesus
of history, but the spirit which goes forth from Him and in the spirit of men
strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world."[3]

Bultmann echoed these thoughts by saying:

I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and
personality of Jesus, since the early Chrisitan sources show no interest in
either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary; and other sources about
Jesus do not exist.[4]

During the "quests" scholars have made plenty of statements like these concerning the nature of Jesus and his teachings. I think much of the "Jesus as pure myth" thinking has developed out of misunderstandings/misinterpretations of some of these statements.[5] Some of these scholars, such as Albert Schweitzer, were well known, and their words had a large impact in the way people have perceived the "historical" Jesus. Bultmann may not have been so well known, but as I mentioned earlier, his thinking and theology has impacted the approach to Jesus in many seminaries. However, it is important to note that Bultmann himself would never have accepted the notion that Jesus was pure myth: "Of course 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 Palestinian community."[6]

Interestingly, one of Bultmann's own students, Ernst Kasemann, would be someone who-- combined with new insights into Early Judaism and Christian origins from documents such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi library, and a collection of works called the Old Testament Psuedepigrapha--effectively ended the "No Quest" stage of Jesus research that held to Bultmann's concept that "nothing could be known" about the historical Jesus. In his speech The Problem of the Historical Jesus delivered in 1953, Kasemann argued that "history is only accessible to us through tradition and only comprehensible to us through interpretation." He then went on to explain that the Gospels are interpreted traditions but they do record historical information and memory.[7]

Today research into the historical Jesus is going strong by scholars of different backgrounds, ideologies, and creeds. The conclusion of most historians is that the Gospels do record a large amount of history. They may be biased works of faith, but it is a faith tradition that only makes sense in light of historical realities about Jesus. Even the Jesus Seminar (which is generally viewed as a theologically liberal gathering with low views of the history contained in the Gospels) has stated that 17% of the words contained in the Gospels could be original to Jesus.[8] This is quite an advance from the Old Quest and No Quest perceptions of Jesus. The reality is that we know more about the first century teacher Yeshua min Nazaret and Saul from Tarsus than any other figures from Early Judaism . [9]

Although his works are so often quoted by apologists when replying to the question "Is Jesus a Myth?" that it borders on cliche, I think the words of C.S. Lewis are appropriate:

"...as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the
Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I
am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not
artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are
clumsy, they don't work up things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is
totally unkown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and
no people building up a legend would allow that to be so. Apart from bits
of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient
literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern
literature, until about a hundred years ago [from the 1940s] when the realistic
novel came into existence." [10]

The conclusion is that for most historians the Christian sources of the New Testament are valid sources for accepting the reality of Jesus' life. Interpretations of that life may vary, but Jesus was not simply a myth.

The complete series will look something like this:
Part 2--Documents Outside the New Testament
Part 3--The Jewish Jesus and the Gentile Church
Part 4--What did Jesus claim about himself
Part 5--What conclusions can be drawn about Salvation

NOTES
[1] Will Durant. The story of civilization. Vol. 3, Caesar and Christ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935), 555.

[2] W. Barnes Tatum. In quest of Jesus, rev. and enl. ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 79. For a quick overview of the quests up to the 1980's, Chapter 5 of Tatum's book is excellent.

[3] Albert Schweitzer. The Quest for the Historical Jesus, translated by W. Montgomery (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1968). This source is available online at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/schweitzer/.

[4] R. Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, trans. L.P.Smith and E.H. Lantero (London, 1934; reprinted 1958). This source is available online at http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=426&C=277.

[5] These scholars are not using the word "myth" to mean something completely contrived. However, the popular understanding of "myth" usually means a complete fabrication. This combined with the historical skepticism towards the Gospels in the Old and No Quest stage was a set up for misinterpretation of the scholars words.

[6] Bultmann, Jesus and the Word.

[7] James H. Charlesworth, “The Foreground of Christian Origins and the Commencement of Jesus Research.” In Jesus' Jewishness: exploring the place of Jesus within early Judaism. Shared Ground Among Jews and Christians, vol. 2 (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 81

[8] Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The five Gospels: the search for the authentic words of Jesus : new translation and commentary (New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993), 5.

[9] Charlesworth.

[10] C. S. Lewis, "What are we to make of Christ". In The Grand Miracle and Other Selected Essays on Theology from God in the Dock (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), 113.

posted by Jimmy at 11:30 AM | |