To the devout Christian, the idea that Jesus Christ was not a real historical person is unthinkable, if not downright heretical. Yet the fact remains that, despite the efforts of countless believers through the ages to find the historical Jesus, their efforts have failed to produce any tangible results. Christianity is, in fact, a religion that prides itself on being historically well-documented. As will be shown in this leaflet, there is absolutely no evidenced that any such person as Jesus ever existed. Let us examine the evidence objectively.
It must first be noted that even if he did in fact exist, this Jesus seems to have had no impact or influence on his contemporaries or on the world he supposedly lived in. There is not a single surviving document from the time he was supposed to have lived that refers to him. The records of the Roman Empire are silent. While the first half of the First Century is considered to be one of the best-documented periods in antiquity, and while there are dozens of Jesus' contemporaries whose works have survived, no one speaks of anybody by that name. This is indeed odd for someone who supposedly had the single most important message in human history. Moreover, all the supposed miracles of that time, as reported in the New Testament (such as darkness descending over the entire land for three hours and all the bodies that were said to have come out of their graves and entered Jerusalem) went unreported by the rest of the world. This includes all the wondrous deeds attributed to Jesus himself.
Even if Jesus did exist, what can truly be said about him? He founded no universities, discovered nothing, wrote nothing, and founded no new lands. At best, he was a minor cult leader whose ignorant and gullible followers failed to write a single word about him, or report his message to the proper authorities. If Jesus was sent by god to inspire everyone, he didn't do a very good job! Christian apologists have long pointed to the works of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (c.37-100 CE) as proof of the historicity of Jesus. This is widely cited as the best evidence of Jesus' historical existence. The claim rests upon a single paragraph in Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews." It reads as follows:
... "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was (the) Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had him condemned to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."
It must first be pointed out that Josephus was writing some six decades after the supposed crucifixion, so he would have had no first-hand knowledge of Jesus' existence. Josephus would have been working with second hand evidence at best. The passage is an obvious forgery and has been recognized as such by historians for over two centuries. Its brevity alone casts doubt on its authenticity. Josephus was a writer with a penchant for great detail on the most trivial matters. His works are tedious in their detailing the lives of minor criminals, customs officials, governmental economic figures, and the like. There are in fact six other Jesuses in his works; the one everybody knows today receives the shortest shrift, again illustrating just how unimportant he was considered to be by his contemporaries.
In addition, the passage does not seem to fit sequentially with either the preceding or the subsequent paragraph. When one reads it in context, it stands out as something that occurred to the writer as an afterthought, and one is left with the distinct impression that it was added later. Such is indeed the case; most historians now recognize it as having been authored by the fourth-century Christian writer Eusebius. However, it is the wording of the paragraph itself that provides the most damaging testimony of the spuriousness of the passage. The writer refers to Jesus as "the Christ" and the whole paragraph has an undeniably pro-Christian flavor to it. Josephus was a devout Jew; he could not have written the passage.
Finally, if all this were not enough, we possess copies of Josephus' work dating prior to Eusebius, and the passage is not in them. Obviously, the early church recognized the paucity of historical evidence supporting the actual existence of its central character. It is a telling tribute to the duplicitous nature of institutionalized Christianity that this forgery remains an obscure fact to so many people. Clearly, the dishonesty of the church's founders has been matched by their descendents who continue to cite Josephus' passage as if no one has ever refuted it.
Tacitus is another historian often cited by Christians to "prove" their Messiah's historicity. Unfortunately for them, the passage they refer to is also spurious. Since it was written some 85 years after the supposed crucifixion, we encounter the same problem that we encountered with Josephus: even if Tacitus did write the passage in question, he would have been working from second hand sources at best, and the legend had been building up for almost a century by his time. The passage sheds no light on Jesus; it merely reflects what his followers believed about him at the time. We can dismiss this passage altogether when we recognize that Tacitus is referring to Chrestus (which means good) rather than Christus (meaning the anointed one).
Another writer, Philo, was born some time before Jesus was alleged to have been miraculously conceived; he lived for many years after the alleged crucifixion. Philo lived in the same area and at the same time when Jesus was supposed to have performed his miracles. Many of his works have survived. If anybody were in a position to know and write of Jesus of Nazareth, it is Philo. Yet, the name of Jesus doesn't appear once in any of his voluminous surviving works. Dozens of other writers whose works have survived (including Pliny, Seutonius, Arrian, Juvenal and others) are likewise silent about Jesus. In fact, the first works that do refer to Jesus date from centuries later, and are written by devout Christians, not objective historians.
In summary, Jesus Christ seems to be just as mythological and non-historic as Zeus, Osiris and Odin. That self-serving priests wish to perpetrate this myth is hardly surprising; after all, their livelihood is at stake. One wonders, though, if they have any doubts on this issue at all. Christianity, which places so much emphasis on morality and personal behavior, is founded and sustained by a lie. And if Christians are so willing to perpetuate this lie, why should they be believed on anything else? |