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view · edit Frequently asked questions Historical existence vs historical portraits Q 1a How is this article different from Historical Jesus? A: This article discusses the very basic issue of "existence of Jesus as a historical figure", not what he did and taught. On the other hand, the Historical Jesus article discusses the various aspects of what can be gathered about the activities of Jesus. In basic terms this article answers the question: "Did Jesus walk the streets of Jerusalem?" without addressing any details about what he said, did or taught as he walked the streets. The other article addresses broader questions such as "Was Jesus seen as an apocalyptic prophet by the people of his time?" which are beyond the scope of this article. Q 1b Why are there two articles? A: The two separate aspects of historicity vs historical portraits require different lines of reasoning. Historicity is largely a yes/no question: "Did he exist and walk?" while historical portraits are far more involved and are based on "historically probable events" with different scholars having different levels of confidence in various aspects of what can be known about Jesus. Moreover WP:Length has specific length limits (as in WP:SIZERULE) and there is enough distinct material in each article that combining them would create too large an article that would be too hard to read and follow. And in any case the articles have different academic focuses and while there is widespread agreement on existence (discussed in this article), that does not extend to the portraits constructed in the other article and these issues are logically distinct. Q 2 Is "virtually all scholars" a term that can be used in Misplaced Pages? A: Yes: Based on this Misplaced Pages search the term is widely used in Misplaced Pages. The definition of the term is shown by the Merriam-Webster dictionary in clear terms. The term is directly used by the source in the article, and is used per the WP:RS/AC guideline to reflect the academic consensus. Q 3 What about books that claim Jesus never existed? A: The internet includes some such lists, and they have been discussed on the talk page, the list in the box below is copied from the talk page discussion: List of books on non-historicity of Jesus This is a list of books typically presented on the internet as an overview of the authors who argue against the existence of Jesus, historicity of accounts, etc. Based on the analysis below, we can see how many "academics and scholars" there are here: Harold Leidner, 2000, The Fabrication of the Christ Myth. Leidner was a patent attorney (NY University Law school 1939) and amateur scholar. He was an attorney, not a scholar and wrote as an amateur outside the field of law. Robert M. Price: Deconstructing Jesus. 2003. Price is a biblical scholar, has training in the field and denies the existence of Jesus. However, he acknowledges (The Historical Jesus: Five Views ISBN 028106329X page 61) that hardly any scholars agree with his perspective on this issue. Hal Childs, 2000, The Myth of the Historical Jesus and the Evolution of Consciousness Childs is a psychotherapist (not a scholar in the field) but does not deny the existence of Jesus. His perspective is shared by a number of scholars who support the existence of Jesus, e.g. John Dominic Crossan who also said: "those who write biographies of Jesus often do autobiography, but think they are doing biography". Child's perspective is unrelated to the existence question. Dennis MacDonald, 2000, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. MacDonald is a scholar, but does not deny the existence of Jesus as a person, he just argues that the Gospel of Mark was influenced by Homeric elements. He also thinks the Book of Acts includes Homeric trends, but that is unrelated to the existence question. Burton L. Mack The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy. Social formation of myth making. Mack is a scholar who specifically supports the theory that Jesus existed as a traveling sage. Mack was a member of the Jesus seminar, believes that Jesus existed, but holds that his death was accidental and not due to his challenge to Jewish authority. Luigi Cascioli, 2001, The Fable of Christ. Indicting the Papacy for profiteering from a fraud! Cascioli was a "land surveyor" who worked for the Italian army. His book was self-published. His claim to fame was that in 2002 he sued the Church for inventing Jesus, but in 2005 his case was rejected. He was no scholar. Israel Finkelstein, Neil Silberman, 2002, The Bible Unearthed Finkelstein and a Silberman are archaeologists, but they do not deny the existence of Jesus. Their work is centered on archaeological themes and mostly addresses the Old Testament. Hardly anyone lists these two people as Jesus myth theorists. Frank Zindler, 2003, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew. Zindler (who seems to have been a biologist at some point) does not seem to have had any scholarly training or taught at any university on this topic. What he writes on the topic is all self-taught, not scholarly. Daniel Unterbrink, 2004, Judas the Galilean. Unterbrink is an accountant, and his book is self-published by iUniverse. Tom Harpur, 2005, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Harpur (who is a follower of Gerald Massey) argues that Egyptian myths influenced Judaism and Christianity, but he does not deny the existence of Jesus. Harpur's theory is that Jesus of Nazareth existed but mythical stories from Egypt were later added to the gospel narratives about him. Francesco Carotta 2005, Jesus Was Caesar. Carotta does not deny the existence of Jesus, on the other hand he thinks Jesus existed but was Julius Caesar: a very unusual theory, but it does not deny the existence of Jesus. Joseph Atwill, 2005, Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus It is not clear who Joseph Atwill is. He seems to have written one paper on the Dead Sea Scrolls with Eisenman, but he does not seem to have any scholarly background, apart from having studied Greek and Latin as a youth in Japan, according to a review website. No trace of his having been a scholar of any kind. Michel Onfray Traité d'athéologie (2007 In Defence of Atheism): Onfray, has a PhD in philosophy and was a high school teacher. He is critical of all religions including Judaism and Islam and thinks Christian doctrine was invented by Paul. Rather than focusing on the existence of Jesus his work deals with how religious doctrines were created and how they impact western philosophy. Kenneth Humphreys, 2005, Jesus Never Existed. I can find no evidence anywhere that Humphreys is a scholar of any type, and where he was educated. He just seems to run his own website, and his book is published by Historical Review Press, which is Anthony Hancock (publisher), whose specialty is Holocaust denial books. A really WP:Fringe item. Jay Raskin, 2006, The Evolution of Christs and Christianities Raskin has a PhD in philosophy, and has taught some philosophy and film making courses at various colleges. His book is self-published by Xlibris - "nonselective" in accepting manuscripts according to their Misplaced Pages page. Raskin is better known as a film-maker than a historian or philosopher and his movies have titles such as I married a Vampire. He is no scholar. Thomas L. Thompson, 2006, The Messiah Myth. Thompson is a scholar and a denier of the existence of Jesus. He is one of the very few scholars who still deny existence. Jan Irvin, Andrew Rutajit, 2006, Astrotheology and Shamanism From what I can find neither of these people are scholars and they seem to have a theory that religions are based on the use of narcotics: a pure WP:Fringe idea that seems to have been advocated by John Allegro as well. This is not scholarship, and these are not scholars. Roger Viklund, 2008. Den Jesus som aldrig funnits (The Jesus who never existed). Viklund is an amateur who self-published his book in Swedish and just has his own website. Not a scholar at all. Richard Carrier Not the Impossible Faith and Sense and Goodness without God. He has a PhD in history, but has no academic position and his books are self published by LuLu and Authorhouse. He runs his own website and may seen as a scholar or not, depending on perspective. Not clear what he does for a living. D. M. Murdock (Acharya S) The Gospel According to Acharya S is a self-published author and her web site says she has a B.A. degree. There is no claim or record of her ever having had an academic position and she is not a scholar by any measure. Earl Doherty Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus is a self-published author. He has a B.A. but no advanced degrees and is not a scholar. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy The Jesus Mysteries . Freke has a B.A. degree and Gandy an M.A. Neither has a PhD or had an academic position. Freke teaches experiential seminars. Neither is a scholar. So really there is one solid academic scholar here namely Thompson and then Price who can be called a non-academic scholar - given that he only teaches online courses on the subject (around $50 per course) at an online website with no campus. Note that G. A. Wells has softened his position of non-existence and now accepts the likely existence of a preacher mentioned in the Q source, although holding that the gospel narratives of his life/miracles are fiction. But just Thompson and Price do not make a long list. There are probably 1 or 2 more people with PhDs who deny existence (say Carrier, but who has no academic post) yet it is quite clear from this list that most of those mentioned are either amateurs or are scholars such as Mack who actually support existence. Most of these people are attorney/accountant/etc./etc. types and not scholars. The funniest one however was suggesting Raskin as a scholar. But anyway, the results speak for themselves. As a side note, just for your clarification, given that you seem to think the existence debate is still raging in academia I did another search. It again confirmed that the debate is really over within academia and only the non-scholarly types are still discussing it. The funniest part was this challenge a year ago. I did another search and it seems that based on this ABC news item in Australia as of now no one has found an opposing professor of ancient history or classics. And there are plenty of professors out there; many of them non-Christian. The exact challenge seems to be to find "a full professor of Classics, Ancient History or New Testament in any accredited university in the world who thinks Jesus never lived". And no one seems to have found such a professor. So it is intuitively pretty clear that the debate is over within academia, just as the references indicate. What I just wrote does not affect the article, but from an intuitive point of view should tell you that the debate is over within academia. Else we can all call John Dickson and get him to eat a page after all. There is yet one more scholar, namely Thomas L. Brodie, who in a recent 2012 book ("Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus" ISBN 978-1907534584) has argued that the coherence of 1 Kings 16:29 - 2 Kings 13:25 indicates that the Elijah and Elisha stories are a model for the gospels, and a mythical Jesus. Brodie is a scholar in the field, so now there is Price, Thompson and Brodie. His arguments are very different from the others, but this does not dramatically change the balance of scholarship yet, unless several other scholars follow him in the next few years, so only time will tell. As for Dickson eating a page, he does not have to yet, for just as the book came out Brodie either resigned or was fired from his position at the Dominican Biblical Institute, depending on which story in the press you believe. The list came from a non-WP:RS website and once it was analyzed it became clear that: Most of the authors on the list were not scholars in the field, and included an attorney, an accountant, a land surveyor, a film-maker, as well as a number of amateurs whose actual profession was less than clear, whose books were self-published and failed the WP:RS requirements. Some of the books on the list did not even deny the existence of Jesus, e.g. Burton Mack (who is a scholar) holds that Jesus existed but his death was not due to his challenge to Jewish authority, etc. Finkelstein and Silberman's work is about the Old Testament and not really related to Jesus. The analysis of the list thus shed light on the scarcity of scholars who deny the existence of Jesus. Q 4 What about contemporary sources and archaeological remnants? A: The article Christ myth theory discusses that issue in much more detail because it is more relevant to the denial existence issues. As stated there, and briefly in this article: In a global cultural context the existence and general life stories of historical figures such as Plato or Socrates are established by the analysis of references to them in later documents rather than by specific relics and remnants attributed to them. Although the followers of Jesus made an impact on their societies a few centuries after his death, the impact of Jesus on the society of his time was "practically nil" and hence no major relics can be expected given that there is no such evidence of nearly anyone who lived in the first century. There was a very low level of interest in and awareness of Christians within the general population of the Roman Empire at the turn of the first century and there is the lack of any discernible mention of them by Roman authors such as Martial and Juvenal, although Christians had been present in Rome since the reign of Claudius (41–54 AD) and both authors referred to Judaism. Specific issues regarding this topic are discussed at more length in that article. Q 5 But aren't these scholars who study Jesus all Christians anyway? A: This has been discussed on the talk page of this article, as well as a number of other talk article pages. There are 2 aspects to this: To begin with not all scholars involved in the historical Jesus research are Christians, and the article lede quotes Ehrman who is an agnostic and Price who is an atheist. Moreover note that G. A. Wells who was widely accepted as the leader of the non-existence movement in the 20th century, abandoned that position and now accepts that the Q source refers to "a preacher" on whom parts of the gospels were based - although he believes that the supernatural claims were just stories that were then attributed to that preacher. That is reflected in his 2004 book "Can we Trust the New Testament", pages 49-50. Some of the most respected late 20th century scholars involved in the study of the historical Jesus, e.g. Amy-Jill Levine, Geza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, etc. are Jewish. This trend is discussed in the 2012 book "Soundings in the Religion of Jesus: Perspectives and Methods in Jewish and Christian Scholarship by Bruce Chilton Anthony Le Donne and Jacob Neusner (ISBN 0800698010 page 132). While much of the older research in the 1950-1970 time frame may have involved Christian scholars (mostly in Europe) the 1980s saw an international effect and since then Jewish scholars have brought their knowledge of the field and made significant contributions. And one should note that the book is coauthored by the likes of Chilton and Neusner with quite different backgrounds. Similarly one of the main books in the field "The Historical Jesus in Context by Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr., John Dominic Crossan 2006 ISBN 0691009929" is jointly edited by scholars with quite different backgrounds. In the late 20th and the 21st century Jewish, Christian and secular agnostic scholars have widely cooperated in research. They continue to debate the historicity of specific gospel narratives, but the agreement on the existence of Jesus is global. Moreover, Misplaced Pages policies do not prohibit Jewish scholars as sources on the history of Judaism, Buddhist scholars as sources on Buddhism, or Muslim scholars as sources on the history of Islam provided they are respected scholars whose works meet the general WP:RS requirements in terms of publisher reputation, etc. Q 6 How can we say most scholars without doing a formal survey ourselves? A: In fact the formal Misplaced Pages guidelines require us not to do our own survey. The Misplaced Pages guideline WP:RS/AC specifically states: "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." Given that the guideline then states: "statement in Misplaced Pages that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors." we should not rely on our own surveys but quote a scholar who states what the "academic consensus" may be. Moreover, in this case, after much discussion, no reliable source has yet been presented that presents a differing statement of the academic consensus, and opposing scholars such as Robert Price acknowledge that their views are not the mainstream. Q 7 Why are other historical facts less certain than existence? A: The difference is "historically certain" versus "historically probable" and "historically plausible". There are a number of subtle issues and this is a somewhat complicated topic, although it may seem simple at first: Hardly any scholars dispute the existence of Jesus or his crucifixion. A large majority of scholars agree that he debated the authorities and had "followers" - some scholars say there was a hierarchy among the followers, a few think it was a flat organization. More scholars think he performed some healings (given that Rabbinic sources criticize him for that etc., among other reasons) than those who say he never did, but less agreement on than the debates with authorities, etc. As the article states Amy-Jill Levine summarized the situation by stating: "Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John, debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God's will, engaged in healings and exorcisms, taught in parables, gathered male and female followers in Galilee, went to Jerusalem, and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius Pilate." In that statement Levine chose her words very carefully. If she had said "disciples" instead of followers there would have been serious objections from other scholars, if she had said "called" instead of "gathered", there would have also been objections in that some scholars hold that Jesus preached equally to all, never imposed a hierarchy among his followers, etc. Scholars have very specific positions and the strength of the consensus among them can vary by changing just one word, e.g. follower to disciple or apostle, etc. Quotes Quotes on the historicity of Jesus Christ myth theorists he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected. G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988) p. 218 It is customary today to dismiss with amused contempt the suggestion that Jesus never existed. G. A. Wells, "The Historicity of Jesus," in Jesus and History and Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffman (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986) p. 27 "New Testament criticism treated the Christ Myth Theory with universal disdain" Robert M. Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-Four Formative Texts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2006) p. 1179 "Van Voorst is quite right in saying that 'mainstream scholarship today finds it unimportant' . Most of their comment (such as those quoted by Michael Grant) are limited to expressions of contempt." Earl Doherty, "Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case: Alleged Scholarly Refutations of Jesus Mythicism, Part Three", The Jesus Puzzle: Was There No Historical Jesus? Jesus existed Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher. Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (2nd ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. xxiii It is certain, however, that Jesus was arrested while in Jerusalem for the Passover, probably in the year 30, and that he was executed...it cannot be doubted that Peter was a personal disciple of Jesus... Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 2 (2nd ed.) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000) pp. 80 & 166 Even the most critical historian can confidently assert that a Jew named Jesus worked as a teacher and wonder-worker in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius, was executed by crucifixion under the prefect Pontius Pilate, and continued to have followers after his death. Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1996) p. 121 here is substantial evidence that a person by the name of Jesus once existed. Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millenium (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) p. 33 There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life: when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity. E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Allen Lane, 1993) p. 10 Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ - the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming. Graeme Clarke, quoted by John Dickson in "Facts and friction of Easter", The Sydney Morning Herald, March 21, 2008 In the academic mind, there can be no more doubt whatsoever that Jesus existed than did Augustus and Tiberius, the emperors of his lifetime. Even if we assume for a moment that the accounts of non-biblical authors who mention him - Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger and others - had not survived, the outstanding quality of the Gospels, Paul's letters and other New Testament writings is more than good enough for the historian. Carsten Peter Thiede, Jesus, Man or Myth? (Oxford: Lion, 2005) p. 23 Rejection of CMT - early 20th century (first wave of CMT) The defectiveness of treatment of the traditional evidence is perhaps not so patent in the case of the gospels as it is in the case of the Pauline epistles. Yet fundamentally it is the same. There is the same easy dismissal of all external testimony, the same disdain for the saner conclusions of modern criticism, the same inclination to attach most value to extremes of criticism, the same neglect of all the personal and natural features of the narrative, the same disposition to put skepticism forward in the garb of valid demonstration, and the same ever present predisposition against recognizing any evidence for Jesus' actual existence... The New Testament data are perfectly clear in their testimony to the reality of Jesus' earthly career and they come from a time when the possibility that the early framers of tradition should have been deceived upon this point is out of the question. Shirley Jackson Case, The Historicity Of Jesus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1912) pp. 76-77 & 269 I feel that I ought almost to apologize to my readers for investigating at such length the hypothesis of a pre-Christian Jesus, son of a mythical Mary, and for exhibiting over so many pages its fantastic, baseless, and absurd character... We must perforce suppose that the Gospels were a covert tribute to the worth and value of Pagan mythology and religious dramas, to pagan art and statuary. If we adopt the mythico-symbolical method, they can have been nothing else. Its sponsors might surely condescend to explain the alchemy by which the ascertained rites and beliefs of early Christians were distilled from these antecedents. The effect and the cause are so entirely disparate, so devoid of any organic connection, that we would fain see the evolution worked out a little more clearly. At one end of it we have a hurly-burly of pagan myths, at the other an army of Christian apologists inveighing against everything pagan and martyred for doing so, all within a space of sixty or seventy years. I only hope the orthodox will be gratified to learn that their Scriptures are a thousandfold more wonderful and unique than they appeared to be when they were merely inspired by the Holy Spirit. For verbal inspiration is not, as regards its miraculous quality, in the same field with mythico-symbolism. Verily we have discovered a new literary genus, unexampled in the history of mankind, you rake together a thousand irrelevant thrums of mythology, picked up at random from every age, race, and clime; you get a "Christist" to throw them into a sack and shake them up; you open it, and out come the Gospels. In all the annals of the Bacon-Shakespeareans we have seen nothing like it. Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare,The Historical Christ, or an Investigation of the Views of J. M. Robertson, A. Drews and W. B. Smith (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, 2009/1914) pp. 42 & 95 The historical reality both of Buddha and of Christ has sometimes been doubted or denied. It would be just as reasonable to question the historical existence of Alexander the Great and Charlemagne on account of the legends which have gathered round them... The attempt to explain history without the influence of great men may flatter the vanity of the vulgar, but it will find no favour with the philosophic historian. James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 7 (3rd ed.) (London: Macmillan, 1919) p. 311 There is, lastly, a group of writers who endeavor to prove that Jesus never lived--that the story of his life is made up by mingling myths of heathen gods, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, etc. No real scholar regards the work of these men seriously. They lack the most elementary knowledge of historical research. Some of them are eminent scholars in other subjects, such as Assyriology and mathematics, but their writings about the life of Jesus have no more claim to be regarded as historical than Alice in Wonderland or the Adventures of Baron Munchausen. George Aaron Barton, Jesus of Nazareth: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1922) p. x In the last analysis, the whole Christ-myth theorizing is a glaring example of obscurantism, if the sin of obscurantism consists in the acceptance of bare possibilities in place of actual probabilities, and of pure surmise in defiance of existing evidence. Those who have not entered far into the laborious inquiry may pretend that the historicity of Jesus is an open question. For me to adopt such a pretence would be sheer intellectual dishonesty. I know I must, as an honest man, reckon with Jesus as a factor in history... This dialectic process whereby the Christ-myth theory discredits itself rests on the simple fact that you cannot attempt to prove the theory without mishandling the evidence. Herbert George Wood, Christianity and the Nature of History (London: Cambridge University Press, 1934) pp. xxxiii & 54 I.e. if we leave out of account the Christ-myth theories, which are hardly to be reckoned as within the range of serious criticism. Alexander Roper Vidler, The Modernist Movement in the Roman Church (London: Cambridge University Press, 1934) p. 253 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 oldest Palestinian community. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (New York: Scribner, 1958) p. introduction Such Christ-myth theories are not now advanced by serious opponents of Christianity—they have long been exploded ... Gilbert Cope, Symbolism in the Bible and the Church (London: SCM, 1959) p. 14 By no means are we at the mercy of those who doubt or deny that Jesus ever lived. Rudolf Bultmann, "The Study of the Synoptic Gospels", Form Criticism: Two Essays on New Testament Research, Rudolf Bultmann & Karl Kundsin; translated by Frederick C. Grant (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962) p. 62 In the 1910's a few scholars did argue that Jesus never existed and was simply the figment of speculative imagination. This denial of the historicity of Jesus does not commend itself to scholars, moderates or extremists, any more. ... The "Christ-myth" theories are not accepted or even discussed by scholars today. Samuel Sandmel, A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament‎ (New York: Ktav, 1974) p. 196 In the early years of this century, various theses were propounded which all assert that Jesus never lived, and that the story of Jesus is a myth or legend. These claims have long since been exposed as historical nonsense. There can be no reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth lived in Palestine in the first three decades of our era, probably from 6-7 BC to 30 AD. That is a fact. Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1976) p. 65 Rejection of CMT - late 20th and early 21st century (revival of CMT) If one were able to survey the members of the major learned societies dealing with antiquity, it would be difficult to find more than a handful who believe that Jesus of Nazareth did not walk the dusty roads of Palestine in the first three decades of the Common Era. Evidence for Jesus as a historical personage is incontrovertible. W. Ward Gasque, "The Leading Religion Writer in Canada... Does He Know What He's Talking About?", George Mason University's History News Network, 2004 render highly implausible any farfetched theories that even Jesus' very existence was a Christian invention. The fact that Jesus existed, that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate (for whatever reason) and that he had a band of followers who continued to support his cause, seems to be the part of the bedrock of historical tradition. If nothing else, the non-Christian evidence can provide us with certainty on that score. Christopher M. Tuckett, "Sources and Methods" in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (London: Cambridge University Press, 2001) p. 124 n attempt to show that Jesus never existed has been made in recent years by G. A. Wells, a Professor of German who has ventured into New Testament study and presents a case that the origins of Christianity can be explained without assuming that Jesus really lived. Earlier presentations of similar views at the turn of the century failed to make any impression on scholarly opinion, and it is certain that this latest presentation of the case will not fare any better. For of course the evidence is not confined to Tacitus; there are the New Testament documents themselves, nearly all of which must be dated in the first century, and behind which there lies a period of transmission of the story of Jesus which can be traced backwards to a date not far from that when Jesus is supposed to have lived. To explain the rise of this tradition without the hypothesis of Jesus is impossible. I. Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus (rev. ed.) (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2004) pp. 15–16 A phone call from the BBC’s flagship Today programme: would I go on air on Good Friday morning to debate with the authors of a new book, The Jesus Mysteries? The book claims (or so they told me) that everything in the Gospels reflects, because it was in fact borrowed from, much older pagan myths; that Jesus never existed; that the early church knew it was propagating a new version of an old myth, and that the developed church covered this up in the interests of its own power and control. The producer was friendly, and took my point when I said that this was like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese. N. T. Wright, "Jesus' Self Understanding", in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, Gerald O’Collins, The Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) p. 48 A school of thought popular with cranks on the Internet holds that Jesus didn’t actually exist. Tom Breen, The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus: Dispatches from the Intersection of Christianity and Pop Culture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008) p. 138 Today only an eccentric would claim that Jesus never existed. Leander Keck, Who Is Jesus?: History in Perfect Tense (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000) p. 13 While The Christ Myth alarmed many who were innocent of learning, it evoked only Olympian scorn from the historical establishment, who were confident that Jesus had existed... The Christ-myth theory, then, won little support from the historical specialists. In their judgement, it sought to demonstrate a perverse thesis, and it preceded by drawing the most far-fetched, even bizarre connection between mythologies of very diverse origin. The importance of the theory lay, not in its persuasiveness to the historians (since it had none), but in the fact that it invited theologians to renewed reflection on the questions of faith and history. Brian A. Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004) pp. 231 & 233 We do not need to take seriously those writers who occasionally claim that Jesus never existed at all, for we have clear evidence to the contrary from a number of Jewish, Latin, and Islamic sources. John Drane, "Introduction", in John Drane, The Great Sayings of Jesus: Proverbs, Parables and Prayers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999) p. 23 It is the nature of historical work that we are always involved in probability judgments. Granted, some judgments are so probable as to be certain; for example, Jesus really existed and really was crucified, just as Julius Caesar really existed and was assassinated. Marcus Borg, "A Vision of the Christian Life", The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, Marcus Borg & N. T. Wright (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007) p. 236 To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. 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. Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (New York: Scribner, 1995) p. 200 I think that there are hardly any historians today, in fact I don't know of any historians today, who doubt the existence of Jesus... So I think that question can be put to rest. N. T. Wright, "The Self-Revelation of God in Human History: A Dialogue on Jesus with N. T. Wright", in Antony Flew & Roy Abraham Vargese, There is a God (New York: HarperOne, 2007) p. 188 We can be certain that Jesus really existed (despite a few highly motivated skeptics who refuse to be convinced), that he was a Jewish teacher in Galilee, and that he was crucified by the Roman government around 30 CE. Robert J. Miller, The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 1999) p. 38 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 lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. Will Durant, Christ and Caesar, The Story of Civilization, 3 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972) p. 557 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. Richard A. Burridge, Jesus Now and Then (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) p. 34 Although Wells has been probably the most able advocate of the nonhistoricity theory, he has not been persuasive and is now almost a lone voice for it. The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question... The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted. Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) pp. 14 & 16 No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and his basic teachings. James H. Charlesworth, "Preface", in James H. Charlesworth, Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) pp. xxi–xxv Price thinks the evidence is so weak for the historical Jesus that we cannot know anything certain or meaningful about him. He is even willing to entertain the possibility that there never was a historical Jesus. Is the evidence of Jesus really that thin? Virtually no scholar trained in history will agree with Price's negative conclusions... In my view Price's work in the gospels is overpowered by a philosophical mindset that is at odds with historical research—of any kind... What we see in Price is what we have seen before: a flight from fundamentalism. Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008) p. 25 The scholarly mainstream, in contrast to Bauer and company, never doubted the existence of Jesus or his relevance for the founding of the Church. Craig A. Evans, "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology", Theological Studies 54, 1993, p. 8 There's no serious question for historians that Jesus actually lived. There’s real issues about whether he is really the way the Bible described him. There’s real issues about particular incidents in his life. But no serious ancient historian doubts that Jesus was a real person, really living in Galilee in the first century. Chris Forbes, interview with John Dickson, "Zeitgeist: Time to Discard the Christian Story?", Center for Public Christianity, 2009 I don't think there's any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus. There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money who say Jesus didn't exist. But I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus. Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008 What about those writers like Acharya S (The Christ Conspiracy) and Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries), who say that Jesus never existed, and that Christianity was an invented religion, the Jewish equivalent of the Greek mystery religions? This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this. I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this. Bart Ehrman, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007 Richard takes the extremist position that Jesus of Nazareth never even existed, that there was no such person in history. This is a position that is so extreme that to call it marginal would be an understatement; it doesn’t even appear on the map of contemporary New Testament scholarship. William Lane Craig, "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?", debate with Richard Carrier, 2009 The alternative thesis... that within thirty years there had evolved such a coherent and consistent complex of traditions about a non-existent figure such as we have in the sources of the Gospels is just too implausible. It involves too many complex and speculative hypotheses, in contrast to the much simpler explanation that there was a Jesus who said and did more or less what the first three Gospels attribute to him. James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985) p. 29 This is always the fatal flaw of the 'Jesus myth' thesis: the improbability of the total invention of a figure who had purportedly lived within the generation of the inventors, or the imposition of such an elaborate myth on some minor figure from Galilee. Price is content with the explanation that it all began 'with a more or less vague savior myth.' Sad, really. James D. G. Dunn, "Response to Robert M. Price", in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, The Historical Jesus: Five Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009) p. 98 Since the Enlightenment, the Gospel stories about the life of Jesus have been in doubt. Intellectuals then as now asked: 'What makes the stories of the New Testament any more historically probable than Aesop's fables or Grimm's fairy tales?' The critics can be answered satisfactorily...For all the rigor of the standard it sets, the criterion demonstrates that Jesus existed. Alan F. Segal, "Believe Only the Embarrassing", Slate, 2005 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. F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (6th ed.) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) p. 123 Jesus is in no danger of suffering Catherine 's fate as an unhistorical myth... Dale Allison, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009) p. 37 An examination of the claims for and against the historicity of Jesus thus reveals that the difficulties faced by those undertaking to prove that he is not historical, in the fields both of the history of religion and the history of doctrine, and not least in the interpretation of the earliest tradition are far more numerous and profound than those which face their opponents. Seen in their totality, they must be considered as having no possible solution. Added to this, all hypotheses which have so far been put forward to the effect that Jesus never lived are in the strangest opposition to each other, both in their method of working and their interpretation of the Gospel reports, and thus merely cancel each other out. Hence we must conclude that the supposition that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely. This does not mean that the latter will not be proposed again from time to time, just as the romantic view of the life of Jesus is also destined for immortality. It is even able to dress itself up with certain scholarly technique, and with a little skillful manipulation can have much influence on the mass of people. But as soon as it does more than engage in noisy polemics with 'theology' and hazards an attempt to produce real evidence, it immediately reveals itself to be an implausible hypothesis. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, translated by John Bowden et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) pp. 435–436 In fact, there is more evidence that Jesus of Nazareth certainly lived than for most famous figures of the ancient past. This evidence is of two kinds: internal and external, or, if you will, sacred and secular. In both cases, the total evidence is so overpowering, so absolute that only the shallowest of intellects would dare to deny Jesus' existence. And yet this pathetic denial is still parroted by 'the village atheist,' bloggers on the internet, or such organizations as the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Paul L. Maier, "Did Jesus Really Exist?", 4Truth.net, 2007 If I understand what Earl Doherty is arguing, Neil, it is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as an historical person, or, at least that historians, like myself, presume that he did and act on that fatally flawed presumption. I am not sure, as I said earlier, that one can persuade people that Jesus did exist as long as they are ready to explain the entire phenomenon of historical Jesus and earliest Christianity either as an evil trick or a holy parable. I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold-war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying. John Dominic Crossan, "Historical Jesus: Materials and Methodology", XTalk, 2000 When they say that Christian beliefs about Jesus are derived from pagan mythology, I think you should laugh. Then look at them wide-eyed and with a big grin, and exclaim, 'Do you really believe that?' Act as though you've just met a flat earther or Roswell conspirator. William Lane Craig, "Question 90: Jesus and Pagan Mythology", Reasonable Faith, 2009 An extreme instance of pseudo-history of this kind is the “explanation” of the whole story of Jesus as a myth. Emil Brunner, The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2002) p. 164 An extreme view along these lines is one which denies even the historical existence of Jesus Christ—a view which, one must admit, has not managed to establish itself among the educated, outside a little circle of amateurs and cranks, or to rise above the dignity of the Baconian theory of Shakespeare. Edwyn Robert Bevan, Hellenism And Christianity (2nd ed.) (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1930) p. 256 When all the evidence brought against Jesus' historicity is surveyed it is not found to contain any elements of strength. Shirley Jackson Case, "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument", The American Journal of Theology, 1911, 15 (1) It would be easy to show how much there enters of the conjectural, of superficial resemblances, of debatable interpretation into the systems of the Drews, the Robertsons, the W. B. Smiths, the Couchouds, or the Stahls... The historical reality of the personality of Jesus alone enables us to understand the birth and development of Christianity, which otherwise would remain an enigma, and in the proper sense of the word, a miracle. Maurice Goguel, Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History? (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1926) pp. 30 & 244 Anyone who talks about "reasonable faith" must say what he thinks about Jesus. And that would still be so even if, with one or two cranks, he believed that He never existed. John W. C. Wand, The Old Faith and the New Age‎ (London: Skeffington & Son, 1933) p. 31 That both in the case of the Christians, and in the case of those who worshipped Zagreus or Osiris or Attis, the Divine Being was believed to have died and returned to life, would be a depreciation of Christianity only if it could be shown that the Christian belief was derived from the pagan one. But that can be supposed only by cranks for whom historical evidence is nothing. Edwyn R. Bevan, in Thomas Samuel Kepler, Contemporary Thinking about Paul: An Anthology (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1950) p. 44 The pseudoscholarship of the early twentieth century calling in question the historical reality of Jesus was an ingenuous attempt to argue a preconceived position. Gerard Stephen Sloyan, The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) p. 9 Whatever else Jesus may or may not have done, he unquestionably* started the process that became Christianity… UNQUESTIONABLY: The proposition has been questioned, but the alternative explanations proposed—the theories of the “Christ myth school,” etc.—have been thoroughly discredited. Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (New York: Harper & Row, 1978) pp. 5 & 166 One category of mythicists, like young-earth creationists, have no hesitation about offering their own explanation of who made up Christianity... Other mythicists, perhaps because they are aware that such a scenario makes little historical sense and yet have nothing better to offer in its place, resemble proponents of Intelligent Design who will say "the evidence points to this organism having been designed by an intelligence" and then insist that it would be inappropriate to discuss further who the designer might be or anything else other than the mere "fact" of design itself. They claim that the story of Jesus was invented, but do not ask the obvious historical questions of "when, where, and by whom" even though the stories are set in the authors' recent past and not in time immemorial, in which cases such questions obviously become meaningless... Thus far, I've only encountered two sorts of mythicism. James F. McGrath, "Intelligently-Designed Narratives: Mythicism as History-Stopper", Exploring Our Matrix, 2010 To describe Jesus' non-existence as "not widely supported" is an understatement. It would be akin to me saying, "It is possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, scientific case that the 1969 lunar landing never happened." There are fringe conspiracy theorists who believe such things - but no expert does. Likewise with the Jesus question: his non-existence is not regarded even as a possibility in historical scholarship. Dismissing him from the ancient record would amount to a wholesale abandonment of the historical method. John Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life (Oxford: Lion, 2008) 22-23. When Professor Wells advances such an explanation of the gospel stories he presents us with a piece of private mythology that I find incredible beyond anything in the gospels. Morton Smith, in R. Joseph Hoffman, Jesus in History and Myth (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1986) p. 48 Of course, there can be no toleration whatever of the idea that Jesus never existed and is only a concoction from these pagan stories about a god who was slain and rose again. Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Menorah, 1943) p. 107 Virtually all biblical scholars acknowledge that there is enough information from ancient non-Christian sources to give the lie to the myth (still, however, widely believed in popular circles and by some scholars in other fields--see esp. G. A. Wells) which claims that Jesus never existed. Craig L. Blomberg, "Gospels (Historical Reliability)", in Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight & I. Howard Marshall, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992) p. 292 Dr. Wells was there and he presened his radical thesis that maybe Jesus never existed. Virtually nobody holds this position today. It was reported that Dr. Morton Smith of Columbia University, even though he is a skeptic himself, responded that Dr. Wells's view was "absurd". Gary Habermas, in Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The Resurrection Debate (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989) p. 45 The data we have are certainly adequate to confute the view that Jesus never lived, a view that no one holds in any case Charles E. Carlston, in Bruce Chilton & Craig A. Evans (eds.) Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (Leiden: Brill, 1998) p. 3 Although it is held by Marxist propaganda writers that Jesus never lived and that the Gospels are pure creations of the imagination, this is not the view of even the most radical Gospel critics. Bernard L. Ramm, An Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1999) p. 159 Comparison with Holocaust-deniers The very logic that tells us there was no Jesus is the same logic that pleads that there was no Holocaust. On such logic, history is no longer possible. It is no surprise then that there is no New Testament scholar drawing pay from a post who doubts the existence of Jesus. I know not one. His birth, life, and death in first-century Palestine have never been subject to serious question and, in all likelihood, never will be among those who are experts in the field. The existence of Jesus is a given. Nicholas Perrin, Lost in Transmission?: What We Can Know About the Words of Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007) p. 32 While we do not have the fullness of biographical detail and the wealth of firsthand accounts that are available for recent public figures, such as Winston Churchill or Mother Teresa, we nonetheless have much more data on Jesus than we do for such ancient figures as Alexander the Great... Along with the scholarly and popular works, there is a good deal of pseudoscholarship on Jesus that finds its way into print. During the last two centuries more than a hundred books and articles have denied the historical existence of Jesus. Today innumerable websites carry the same message... Most scholars regard the arguments for Jesus' non-existence as unworthy of any response—on a par with claims that the Jewish Holocaust never occurred or that the Apollo moon landing took place in a Hollywood studio. Michael James McClymond, Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) pp. 8 & 23–24 You know that you can try to minimize your biases, but you can't eliminate them. That's why you have to put certain checks and balances in place… Under this approach, we only consider facts that meet two criteria. First, there must be very strong historical evidence supporting them. And secondly, the evidence must be so strong that the vast majority of today's scholars on the subject—including skeptical ones—accept these as historical facts. You're never going to get everyone to agree. There are always people who deny the Holocaust or question whether Jesus ever existed, but they're on the fringe. Michael R. Licona, in Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007) p. 112 A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical person Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today—in the academic world at least—gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat. Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998) p. 168 Finley: There are some people in the chat room disagreeing, of course, but they’re saying that there really isn’t any hardcore evidence, though, that… I mean… but there isn’t any… any evidence, really, that Jesus did exist except what people were saying about him. But… Ehrman: I think… I disagree with that. Finley: Really? Ehrman: I mean, what hardcore evidence is there that Julius Caesar existed? Finley: Well, this is… this is the same kind of argument that apologists use, by the way, for the existence of Jesus, by the way. They like to say the same thing you said just then about, well, what kind of evidence do you have for Jul… Ehrman: Well, I mean, it’s… but it’s just a typical… it’s just… It’s a historical point; I mean, how do you establish the historical existence of an individual from the past? Finley: I guess… I guess it depends on the claims… Right, it depends on the claims that people have made during that particular time about a particular person and their influence on society... Ehrman: It’s not just the claims. There are… One has to look at historical evidence. And if you… If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust? Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008 The denial that Christ was crucified is like the denial of the Holocaust. For some it's simply too horrific to affirm. For others it's an elaborate conspiracy to coerce religious sympathy. But the deniers live in a historical dreamworld. John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006) pp. 14-15 I just finished reading, The Historical Jesus: Five Views. The first view was given by Robert Price, a leading Jesus myth proponent… The title of Price’s chapter is 'Jesus at the Vanishing Point.' I am convinced that if Price's total skepticism were applied fairly and consistently to other figures in ancient history (Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Cleopatra, Nero, etc.), they would all be reduced to 'the vanishing point.' Price's chapter is a perfect example of how someone can always, always find excuses to not believe something they don't want to believe, whether that be the existence of Jesus or the existence of the holocaust. Dennis Ingolfsland, "Five views of the historical Jesus", The Recliner Commentaries, 2009 The Jesus mythers will continue to advance their thesis and complain of being kept outside of the arena of serious academic discussion. They carry their signs, 'Jesus Never Existed!' 'They won’t listen to me!' and label those inside the arena as 'Anti-Intellectuals,' 'Fundamentalists,' 'Misguided Liberals,' and 'Flat-Earthers.' Doherty & Associates are baffled that all but a few naïve onlookers pass them by quickly, wagging their heads and rolling their eyes. They never see that they have a fellow picketer less than a hundred yards away, a distinguished looking man from Iran. He too is frustrated and carries a sign that says 'The Holocaust Never Happened!' Michael R. Licona, "Licona Replies to Doherty's Rebuttal", Answering Infidels, 2005

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The contents of Talk:Historicity of Jesus/Merged content 2005 were merged into Historicity of Jesus in 2005. The page is now a redirect to here. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history.

Proposal to make this article more objective.

Strong claims and unclear reasoning

The article at current seems flawed to me in that it makes very strong claims, i.e. that the argument over Jesus historicity has been "settled", but then proceeds to motivate the "settling" of the argument by refering solely to the Criterion of Embarrassment. There is however no consensus within the historical community that the Criterion of Embarrassment is a strong enough tool to prove historical facts about events thousands of years ago, by itself. As such, while the claim that historicity has been settled is sourced with claims from a few scholars who seem to think so, or at least claim so, the article fails to persuasively cover why they think so, referring only to one, quite weak, argument. If the strong claims are to be kept they ought to be complemented with high-quality coverage of the strong and persuasive arguments in favor of the "settled" conclusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GaryFBonds (talk • contribs) 11:36, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. A big part of the problem is that most of the publications of "historical Jesus" scholars suffer from the very same defects: much overstated certainty and hardly any persuasive arguments. Quest for the historical Jesus#Criticism gives some idea about the field's general bias, (hidden) agendas, unhealthy dependence on consensus, and lack of sound methodolgy. To quote historian Donald Akenson more directly: "from the viewpoint of a professional historian, there is a good deal in the methods and assumptions of most present-day biblical scholars that makes one not just a touch uneasy, but downright queasy."

To once again quote from historian Dykstra's artice in which he criticizes scholars like Ehrman (our article's favourited populariser of biblical scholarship) for overstating their ideas: "To a degree greater than that in many other academic fields, you have to take pronouncements of fact by biblical scholars with a grain of salt."

Or from a more recent (2021) evaluation by James Crossley (editor of "Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus"): “The criteria of authenticity have all but been demolished, (...) and the faux “subversiveness” of unsubversive scholarly reconstructions shown to be duplicitous. (...) Currently, historical Jesus studies is far behind developments in the humanities.” Joortje1 (talk) 09:10, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

"There is however no consensus within the historical community that the Criterion of Embarrassment is a strong enough tool"

I think it's even safe to claim that since the early 2010s there's a general consensus within the "historical Jesus" community that all of the "criteria of authenticity" are at least problematic, if not entirely bankrupt (while they are virtually unknown outside the field, and heavily criticised by the few historians who have commented on them). Joortje1 (talk) 09:21, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes this article is helping spread misinformation. It has informed the answer that AI gives people who ask, rather than AI giving a sceptical fair answer IZane8000 (talk) 10:17, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Flawed Language

This article, along with other related articles on the topic, possesses flaws with respect to the strong language used. Having read some of the sources, I am of the belief that the majority of scholars on the topic believe it more likely that Jesus existed than that he did not, based on the available, but limited, primary sources. But the language used in this article make it seem like this is an overwhelming fact, which it quite clearly isn't. If I say, have a bag of pebbles where 70 percent of the pebbles are brown, and 30 percent are white, the fact that I'm more likely to draw a brown pebble doesn't make it a certainty. More efforts should be made including discussions about the relevant primary evidence.

Also, if he existed historically, the claims of him being baptised and crucified have far less evidence: at this point you're more or less restricted to the bible (maybe a few other sources, but fewer). Even if this were the best hypothesis to make, the level of certainty should be clarified.

I'm afraid to say, with the current language, the article seems unscientific. I'm not denying that Jesus possibly existed, but the burden of proof lies on proving that he did, which requires more critical analysis of the evidence. 2A02:3031:17:25E9:1:1:F038:BD16 (talk) 15:49, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Look at the sources in Note 1 and Note 2. Experts describe the situation as such in their own words. Even irreligious one like Ehrman, Grant, Casey, etc. Misplaced Pages goes by what sources say, not random editor POV on the matter. Also see FAQ "Quotes" section for dozens of sources on this and "Q3" on books claiming the opposite in this talk page for your concerns. Actually read the whole FAQ since this has been answered so many times in the talk. Even mythicists like Robert Price, formerly G.A Wells, Michael Martin, etc acknowledge the consensus. Ramos1990 (talk) 16:27, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Ad infinitum. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:29, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Also, another thing that stands out is the various appeals to authority and character attacks used in the sources. Quotes such as "No serious scholar thinks he didn't exist". It fails to qualify the uncertainty in the evidence and comes across as unscientific. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 14:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

My point of view is not to reject the consensus, rather use softer, more scientifically accurate language. I think this point has not been refuted. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 11:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Whether that consensus is accurate is another matter. I'm trying to reach a compromise here. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 11:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Also, an FAQ created by editors that have a clear, strong opinion on the topic, and are unwilling to compromise, isn't a way to resolve the issue. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 11:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Your recent edits diff are unwarranted and suggestive. You changed "agree" in "believe"; it's not a matter of "belief," but of conclusions based on painstakingly textual analysis. You also expanded 'CMT fringe theory' with "among scholars active in the area." This is misplaced; it suggests that there are scholars, or areas of scholarship, where the CMT is taken serious. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 12:45, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The contrary perspective is not the Christ myth theory. It's whether Jesus existed in a manner consistent with the claims written in the article.

Going on evidence from thousands of years ago definitely requires some level of belief. Questions on this matter, given the religious bias, cannot be treated with the same level of certainty, as, say, the existence of climate change.

An often used argument by you two is that "wikipedia goes by the sources". The problem is, the overwhelming body of sources used in this article are secondary sources that cite each other, rather than direct primary sources. The cherrypicking concern is not one to be readily swept away by fallacious appeals to authority. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 13:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

It is also such strong langauge to call the CMT a fringe theory. Again, compare with climate science denial. It doesn't matter whether the technical usage of the term may be regarded as correct, more the interpretation by the lay reader. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 13:52, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages prefers secondary sources. See the policy WP:SECONDARY. Also there is no CMT scholarship anywhere in academia. A recent extensive scholarly survey of CMT literature by Maurice Casey "the whole idea that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical figure is verifiably false. Moreover, it has not been produced by anyone or anything with any reasonable relationship to critical scholarship...They did not believe in critical scholarship then, and they do not do so now. I cannot find any evidence that any of them have adequate professional qualifications." Indeed, they do not even pop up as an entry in Oxford Reference which covers all the humanities including all historical fields. It is not a view in any fields of scholarship. Here is another scholar who did a survey of the literature . Ehrman says the same thing since he surveyed the literature too in his book on the topic! Van Voorst did too see Note 2. Even mythicists like Price and Martin admit that. Ramos1990 (talk) 14:01, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Again, appeal to authority. The secondary sources used seem unbiased: wikipedia prefers secondary sources, but those that analyse primary sources. It would be better if the quotes reflect actual scholarly efforts rather than "everybody thinks so...". The latter, in my experience, is a giant red flag in an argument. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 14:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

See WP:Fringe for how wikipedia works in representing views according to their actual prominence in scholarship. Fringe views do not get equal time with consensus views in wikipedia. Ramos1990 (talk) 14:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

In my opinion its not a matter of whether or not the label is correct, more the interpretation of the lay reader. Compare with climate science denial, which is more or less the canonical fringe theory. I think using this label here is a misrepresentation of the facts. I'm happy with softer language. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 14:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Most facts in Ancient history are based upon scant evidence. There is more reason to doubt that Julius Caesar was killed by Brutus than there is to doubt that Jesus of Nazareth really existed. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree that ancient history is a softer science. But with regards to biographical details of Caesar, there are a lot more sources, which are also more objective (coming from historians of the time period). With regards to Jesus, however, the evidence is far less, especially given the obvious bias with regards to biblical literature.

I am not saying he didn't exist, in fact, his existence may be more likely than not. But the strong language used in this article makes very bold claims, which don't match the evidence. Fallacious appeals to authority, and character arguments also make this article look unprofessional and unscientific. Which, for the lay reader, is a cause for concern. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

As a reference, the Historicity of Mohammed article uses much better language. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 16:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

"Fallacious appeals to authority"—you might want to read WP:VERECUNDIAM, and then a handbook of logic: appeal to authority is not always a fallacy, especially when we never perform "rational argumentation" but we merely WP:CITE the views of experts.

We don't have a problem with atheists. We don't have a problem with Christians. We do have a problem with epistemically irresponsible people. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:11, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the fact that an appeal to authority is not necessarily a fallacy, the problem is the way the argumentation for the historicity in this article has been carried out. The quotes included from the experts are using appeals to authority. Far better would be quotes that reflect a critical analysis of the evidence. My point isn't to make a dramatic change to this article, more use softer, more scientifically appropriate language. I don't think the logic behind my edit has been refuted. Also, please refrain from character attacks (another fallacy I might add). 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 17:16, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Okay, then gain WP:CONSENSUS for your edit. Till now, nobody else agrees with you. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I would refer to numerous similar comments above in the talk history. You haven't engaged with my reasoning either. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 17:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

If we're second-guessing mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP: perhaps Julius Caesar died by falling upon his own sword, and Brutus was scapegoated. It is unlikely, but is far more likely than Jesus not existing. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Again, the latter has far more evidence, without religious bias, and thus not an appropriate comparison. There must be a way of using a softer, more scientific tone in this article. The article on the historicity of Mohammed, for example, discusses the primary sources first, and the ones which are flawed, before stating the conclusion.

Again, I'm just trying to make the article reflect the uncertainties associated with the available evidence. Let alone the big claim that he was "baptized". I might add that the fact that the FAQ page exists at all reflects the fact that the main editors of this article do not truly reflect the consensus. I believe some compromises need to be made.

I'm not denying the sources. But let's please try to remove the tone from the article that makes his existence seem like an irrefutable fact. Especially considering the page is "historicity of Jesus" and not the biographical page. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 17:33, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

We're not second-guessing mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP. You can doubt every fact of Ancient history through paying lip service to rationality. It does not work like that around here. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Again, you're misunderstanding my point. I'm not denying it, more saying we should reach a compromise to use softer language. Compare with related historicity articles. 2A02:3031:16:F290:1:1:F55E:4EBB (talk) 17:41, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

It's like the Shakespeare authorship question—such question does not really exist among experts in that field.

You can adduce no WP:RS that what you're advocating is even remotely a mainstream academic view. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:45, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

There are clearly scolars who subscribe to CMT, e.g. Richard Carrier, and this list of his, iterating 44 different scolars in relevant fields

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/21420

Not questioning that the majority - or consensus, even - view amounts to that Jesus was a historical person. Just highlighting that declaring the question "settled" and then not bothering to properly account for the totality of arguments offered by the consensus majority - only the very weak argument of Criterion of Embarrassment - makes for a poor quality article that makes very strong, firm claims without bothering to properly summarize the substantiating evidence. GaryFBonds (talk) 12:05, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

For people reading this, I agree with the user who suggests the tone of the article needs to change. Maybe my comment will help with the "needed consensus" Tgeorgescu asked for to make changes. Luckyvonstreetz (talk) 18:28, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Same. It's one of the more tonally jarring and tiring to read articles I've come across on here tbh.

Like, why does the article handwave the historicity of his miracles and resurrection twice after bringing them up? As far as I'm aware, that's often people's main point when disputing the historicity of Jesus: not necessarily that there was never any real historical figure that he corresponds to, but rather that the traditionally-believed traits of Jesus as a divine and resurrected miracle-performer are not historically (or, precluding that, scientifically) supported. I mean, one of those handwaves has a note after it with multiple lengthy, jargony, quotes that maybe kinda almost support said handwaving, but... yeah.

Also, the "criterion of embarrassment" especially seems like a funny thing to use to support historical claims, considering how often one can observe celebrities and politicians confidently telling (what should be) humiliating lies in present day lol but I digress.

Overall the article almost comes off as if it's purpose is for the reader to see one of the 100 times the article says "Virtually all scholars agree that Jesus existed," (or something synonymous), stop reading it, and stop thinking about this topic. And it's fine if they come away thinking that if it's true, but my point is that the article spends so much time restating this and also handwaving important/interesting details (or explaining them with aforementioned jargony, unwieldy notes) that it almost seems like it's trying to convince the reader (and it's own author) via sheer repetition. Basically it just needs to be more concise and comprehensible, and it could probably be written in a less overly-factionalizing way. TheWorldWeKnew (talk) 02:48, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

There most certainly is not "more reason" to doubt Brutus' hand in the murder of Julius Caesar; there is an equal amount of reason to disbelieve both, though if anything there is actually less reason to doubt Brutus' involvement than that of Jesus' existence, insofar as primary sources regarding Caesar's assassination come from mere decades after the fact, while the vast, vast majority of records of Jesus as a real person come from centuries after. What's more is that these records come from contemporary historians, officials in the Roman governing and educational body, etc., whereas basically all "evidence" of Jesus' existence come from religious figures that have a clear bias in recounting his existence at all. The closest one can come to the evidence of Julius Caesar's assassination, in terms of actual records from professional and at least somewhat contemporary sources, is the records of Tacitus. Even there, Tacitus was born a quarter century after Jesus' supposed execution, and he writes from a secular standpoint, more as a prelude to expanding upon Nero's persecution of Christians than anything--something this very article fails to mention, despite mentioning Tacitus as a reliable source. Kyuubi no Bakamaru (talk) 06:36, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Name five reasons for Brutus being one of the killers of Cesar to be more doubtful than the existence of Jesus, who only appears in the bible. I can name at least six reasons to claim that Jesus is a fictional character. If you push me, I'll go to ten. Here's one: Jesus is sold to the reader as the "messiah" guy. The "messiah" is the one that will fulfil the "prophecy" when he appears.

Jesus did not fulfil any prophecy when he turned up. He had failed and got crucified for that.And while I am at this, the second reason is his promise that he will "return soon" and then he will fulfil the "prophecy". Pretending that he was real for a moment, he never returned. He ran away and disappeared. 2000 years later, and the "faithful" are still killing each other while waiting for the guy who lied to them twice - in actual fact a few more times - to return. 220.158.190.71 (talk) 08:34, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

"And while I am at this, the second reason is his promise that he will "return soon" and then he will fulfil the "prophecy"." Big deal, yet another false prophet making false promises. That is not much of a reason to doubt his historicity. The List of messiah claimants is full of false prophets. Dimadick (talk) 09:17, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Can you site a single source that says Jesus absolutely existed, or that the idea he might not have is “verifiably false” that is not made by a devout Christian? There are many religious scholars who are not Christian. Certainly if such a thing is verifiably false then someone without a vested (religious even) interest would say the same. Food for thought. It’s basically like saying that some guy Carl ate a churro at the San Diego zoo the other day, and any other claim is verifiably false because these five guys who believe in Carl are always talking about it and they all say that they found written accounts of Carl eating a churro. How that seems valid to you is wild to me. Like do you know you’re biased here and you just really want Misplaced Pages to say your religion is right, or have you deluded yourself to believe that it is in fact historical fact that just happen to match mythos 2600:1007:B0AF:CE83:D9F7:706C:7D6F:B276 (talk) 02:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems disingenuous to list Richard Carrier in Note 1, when the quote ascribed to him is a description of his former view, before he had investigated the topic himself. Regardless of how Carrier's views should be treated by this article, it seems wrong to quote him in favor of a view which he himself does not hold. 71.117.171.70 (talk) 04:52, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Typical that the link for Historicity of Muhammad is incorrect. And if we are to compare articles, take a look at Quest for the historical Jesus - actually, read it. The sole reason that the Historicity of Jesus-article exists is because people keep arguing that there was no historical Jesus, and that that all scholarship on this topic is wrong and biased - augh... Don't bother about scholarship when you believe something, right? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 19:20, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Its feel that you haven't understood my point at all. My point of view is to not enter an edit war, but to try and reach a consensus with regards to the language used in this article, which is a poor reflection of the actual certainty with which claims can be made. Again, I'm not arguing that he did not exist, more the fact that, if the burden of proof lies with establishing that he did, one needs to examine the evidence critically. The quotes from the scholarly consensus should reflect the critical analysis they have done, rather than them using appeals to authority. Another main reason for this is that this is a historiographical article, not a biographical one.

There was a typo in the link I have provided, but I think it's unambiguous enough to find the article I intended. Again, character attacks are a fallacy, I feel that you would do better to use a nicer tone with other editors. 2A02:3032:308:78AA:317B:8347:5C26:FA97 (talk) 12:36, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe it's more typical that Joshua Jonathan points out a mistake that simply concerns choosing the transliteration "Mohammed" that is preferred in several other languages instead of the English one?

Thanks for reminding me to have another look at Quest for the historical Jesus. The large section on Criticism has plenty of useful info like "The historical analysis techniques used by Biblical scholars have been questioned" and "A number of scholars have criticized historical Jesus research for religious bias and lack of methodological soundness" (all with reliable sources of course). Your remark "Don't bother about scholarship when you believe something, right?" seems spot on to me, but probably not in the way you meant it. Joortje1 (talk) 21:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

You should take a better look at that article; what the Criticism-section says is that any "reconstruction" of a historical Jesus is hardly possible. That's why this article says there's 'almost universal consent' about only three facts: he existed, he was baptized, and he was crucified. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I concur. None from that section refer to historicity, so none of it applies here. But also noting that checks and balances are mentioned there too. Just a side note, there are no universal historical methods among historians and their views on objectivity have declined. They recognize this, which is why historical research diversified in the twentieth century across the board (Georg Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge). And why we have various histories on race, gender, politics, and national narratives. But there are basic agreed upon facts in each field, however. Ramos1990 (talk) 08:27, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

So we state "Standard historical criteria are used", don't describe the currently used methodologies beyond "research on the historical Jesus focuses on what is historically probable, or plausible", and thus merely suggest that the criteria are standard fare in some unspecified scholarly discipline(s) that discern(s) historical facts from myth?

Oh wait, we also mention one specific criterion as an argument for 2 'facts' (as far as I could find between all the claims about consensus versus fringe, because why would be bother explaining more about methodologies as long as there is a virtually absolute scholarly consensus?

Certainly it's more important to ignore the immense criticism on these criteria (mainly from within the academic discipline itself) because the general scholarly methodologies simply don't apply to historicity, right? And this contributes to the objectivity of the article, right? Joortje1 (talk) 11:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think so because no matter what methods they employ or what conclusions they come up with on a particular portrait of Jesus, they at least agree that Jesus existed. That is the point. Each discipline has criteria, but it is usually is very broad like use sources. Obviously using sources is pretty standard stuff. Sometimes they use stuff from memory studies too or methods from archeology too. But that does not alter such basics like existence. Ramos1990 (talk) 12:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

This article doesn't just claim existence, but also that he was baptised and crucified. I was only proposing modifying the language to make it softer, given the burden of proof is on proving these claims. I'm not denying scholarship or doing research. Also, one should be careful when one cites secondary sources not to cherrypick, which may be a concern with this article. 2A02:3032:300:D1F9:90B7:1DB4:9827:C24C (talk) 18:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

To add a more practical thought: anybody can help make this artcile more objective by editing it, even in very simple ways, and hopefully without as much push-back as we receive when we put a proposal for change or a question on the talk page (unfortunately some active editors seem extremely strict on "we go by what the sources say" and don't appreciate any wp:commonsense editorial judgement, so we'll just have to try what sticks).

There are plenty of small adjustments that can put some of the cited claims into perspective, or just make some statements slightly more factual (for instance the profession of the claimants, whether a book is a popular one or a peer-reviewed academic publication for a reputable mainstream publisher, or the date for some sources that are more than just a few decades old, or even a change from present to past tense for at least the deceased authors).

Some claims leave out a bit of relevant context, which may therefore stick out to critical readers, so we can check the sources for additional thoughts that may put things back into perspective. Joortje1 (talk) 14:00, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Misplaced Pages does not allow WP:OR or WP:SYN. It is the policy that we stick to what the sources say. Also multiple editors have already addressed this to you including you imposing your personal views of scholarship on the article in previous sections here in the talk. Ramos1990 (talk) 14:22, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Arbitrary header #2

Yes, of course, why do you think we wouldn't keep the guidelines in mind?
I basically gave the advice to check the verifiability and to WP:MINE the cited sources.
WP:RS: “Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process”. And of course there's WP:5P5, especially WP:COMMONSENSE and also WP:CSIOR.
Could you maybe consider when your ad infinitum standard replies may go over the fine line between and WP:LAWYERING or WP:HEAR, or maybe a bit of WP:OWN?
You know I backed up my "personal" views with some RS that may actually deserve some place on the page. But you personally brought up these mainstream peer-reviewed volumes that seem to be even more reputable and much more critical of biblical scholarship:
-On the Historicity of Jesus by historian Richard Carrier (2014 Sheffield Phoenix Press)
-Questioning the Historicity of Jesus by religion scholar Raphael Lataster (2019 Brill Publishers, available to active wikipedians via WikipediaLibrary) (note that wikipedia explicitly calls the academic discipline that Lataster worked in "Objective study of religion", although it has nonetheless been criticised for imposing a theological Christian agenda.
Sorry for being slow with reading and processing all that information (between other tasks and distractions), but is there any reason why you still haven't used these sources for the article (despite that Carrier-quote in this thread)? Joortje1 (talk) 17:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I've tried doing so. Even a very small edit like "a large consensus of historians believe it is likely that Jesus existed" has been met with stubborn pushback. I can't understand what the issue is, surely there's no certainty in the matter. The common response is often a dubious comparison to some other historical figure. 2A02:3032:300:D1F9:90B7:1DB4:9827:C24C (talk) 18:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Regarding is there any reason why you still haven't used these sources for the article - yes, because it is a fringe-view, rejected by 'virtually all acholars of the topic'. Carrier and Lataster are treated at the CMT-page, to which this page links; Bart Ehrman, among a few others, has been so kind to spend his valuable time at explaining why this is a fringe-view; most scholars won't even bother to do so. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 19:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you quantify how many scholars there are working on the topic, and what "virtually all scholars" means? I believe this should also be critically examined. 2A02:3032:308:857F:8685:98A4:E83E:4254 (talk) 10:36, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

See:

• Christina Petterson, review of OtHoJ for a scholarly review of Carrier: "parallel universe," "the fundamentalist drive of the book."
• Marko Marina, Historical Jesus and Mythicism: A Critical Evaluation of Richard Carrier’s Theory:

Carrier was guided by his ideological agenda, not by serious historical work, which is most evident in his readings of Paul’s epistles. In addition, Carrier’s underlying assumption about the development of Jesus’ tradition in the 1st century is completely wrong. His theses are utterly misplaced without any positive evidence in primary sources. Hence, it is no surprise that Carrier hasn’t won any supporters among critical scholars.

Regarding Lataster's book, I can't even find it on Google Scholar. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 20:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Correct. Multiple editors besides me such as User:Mathglot, User:Jeppiz, User:desmay have already mentioned to Joortje1 that fringe scholars like Carrier and Lataster are WP:UNDUE per the WP:Fringe guidelines multiple times. It is obvious that the publisher DOES NOT make anyone mainstream. Any more than if David Irving were to get a peer reviewed publication for Holocaust denial, somehow would make his denialist fringe views mainstream or even accepted by the mainstream. Creationists get peer reviewed papers all the time, but are not featured in the Evolution article for example. Nor are holocaust deniers featured in the holocaust article. Mythicist Robert Price describes how scholars view CMT - "as a discredited piece of lunatic fringe thought alongside Holocaust Denial and skepticism about the Apollo moon landings." Thanks for those sources too. Marko's source clearly says "Although such theories have long been rejected by scholars regardless of their worldview (Christians, Jews, atheists, and agnostics)" too. Carrier of course has been extensively criticized by historians like Daniel Gullotta who document a high level of criticisms from mainstream scholars of every stripe and finds his arguments as unconvincing due to "lack of evidence, strained readings, and troublesome assumptions" and even reaffirms fringe status of mythicism "Given the fringe status of these theories, the vast majority have remained unnoticed and unaddressed within scholarly circles." He rightly observes "Scholars, however, may rightly question whether Carrier’s work and those who evangelize it exhibit the necessary level of academic detachment...Whereas mythicists will accuse scholars of the historical Jesus of being apologists for the theology of historic Christianity, mythicists may in turn be accused of being apologists for a kind of dogmatic atheism." Lataster's book was actually originally a self published book co-written with Richard Carrier as Lataster notes in Questioning the Historicity of Jesus in page 24 - further linking him directly with fringe scholars like Carrier. His own views are fringe as he pretty much regurgitates Carrier throughout the book. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Seven references for Lataster; a blockbuster... Review link by Christopher M. Hansen:

...one may be sorely disappointed by the lack of interaction with secondary literature in this book. Most of James D. G. Dunn’s work on Paul goes unreferenced why write a book if you are unable to interact with the current scholarship and research? the shortcomings that would be spotted by nearly any academic familiar with the issues that he engages I cannot recommend this book for much other than rebuttal its lack of interaction with leading scholarship on the issues it covers means that all of its evaluations and conclusions are wholly lacking, as they simply do not account for other prominent arguments and positions. If one is interested, I could only recommend borrowing it from a university library because the volume is certainly not worth the expense of $210.

Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:28, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Was exactly my main problem with this article, and your wording that its clearly a false comparison to equate the contrary view on the matter with creationism or climate denial. The latter theories go against a large body of evidence, whereas here we are relying on a few sources (even fewer unbiased) and a large body of secondary sources that _interpret_ the same sources. There is a clear lack of data and independent analysis, hence the language used is inaccurate, misleading, and portrays a false certainty on the matter.

Again, this article needs more critical scholarship, and literature that reflects the analysis of the primary sources that allow one to deduce the claims, rather than appeals to a majority or authority. 2A02:3032:308:857F:8685:98A4:E83E:4254 (talk) 10:30, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Up to you to provide those sources. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 11:59, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, Ramos1990 is the one who offered the reliable sources you have been criticising above. This was in reply to my quest for some works on the subject by proper historians instead of the publications cited on the page (dominated by popular stuff by biblical scholars and theologians). They indeed seem more reliable when I look at the WP:RS guideline. Joortje1 (talk) 08:08, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for using academic sources, besides your appreciation of how Ehrman has spent his valuable time (I'm sure he has been sufficiently rewarded; the perpetuation of his views on his blog alone has apparently raised over a million $, he has clearly gained a lot of fans and followers, he clearly did influence the popular opinion on mythicism (which seems to have been his primary motive), and probably the book sales made even more $ than his blog).

Especially Petterson's review is intriguing. She objects to Carrier's methodology, but mainly because she does't understand anything about 'Bayle’s Theorem". Yet in her conclusion, she says that she doesn't disagree with Carrier's views on HoJ per se. She even regards it as pretty basic undergraduate material. If most other theologians and biblical scholars maintain that such stuff is entirely fringe in the academic world, why does she think it's so basic?

I personally doubt whether Carrier's application of Bayesian probability/uncertainty math is very sound, but I haven't looked into it. At least it's an attempt to go beyond assumptions (it seems a more scholarly and definitively a more scientific approach than believing that facts can be based on ancient hearsay documented in late copies of a religious narrative dominated by supernatural aspects, let alone ignoring any counter argument and ridiculing anybody who dares to questions the "clear and certain evidence"). But hey, I'm no expert on Bayesian calculation, why don't we go by what the sources say?

Lataster clearly motivated why he mostly ignored the religious views of theologians like Dunn. I personally don't agree with keeping Christians out of the debate, as long as everybody produces reasonable arguments (not just from faith or from atheistic norms). But I must admit I also have much trouble trying to find convincing arguments in books that mainly discuss divinity, resurrection and the Kingdom of God.

Lataster's survey of some literature on the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" methodologies from outside the field of Biblical studies/theology is a useful secondary source, in addition to all the "demise of authenticity" stuff from within the field. His chapter on Ehrman's popular book is just one of many useful academic secondary sources, pointing out where Ehrman does make sense and where he doesn't. Joortje1 (talk) 08:39, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

One comment, I can almost guarantee any attempt of using Bayesian statistics here seems way out of place... it's a giant red flag. Almost like when you see arguments for free will that use the Godel incompleteness theorem... Is this another form of an appeal to authority fallacy? Or, in this case, a misuse of jargon fallacy? It seems like there's a lot of red flags in the source material on both sides... 2A02:3032:303:F63B:574E:C9E5:584A:641E (talk) 01:39, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Yep, the irony wasn't lost on me (hence my "I'm no expert, why don't we go by what the sources say" remark). I'm truly not capable of judging the math involved, although perhaps a bit better than Petterson (see review cited above). I proposed to ignore Carrier's work, but somebody else rightfully pointed out that it is a recent "mainstream" peer-reviewed publication (yet she clearly doesn't intend to use her knowledge of this work for the article).

Unfortunately most sources on this topic indeed contain huge red flags (hence my talk page Topic question for material by more reliable "scholars of antiquity"). A handful of monographs on HoJ/Mythicism have been published in the last decade or so that are supposedly "academic", apparently kicked off by Ehrman's popular book breaking biblical scholarship's strict taboo/ignorance/silence on addressing the question whether J existed or not.

The only more or less objective publication I have found is historian Tom Dykstra’s 2015 survey of the literature in Ehrman and Brodie on Whether Jesus Existed: A Cautionary Tale about the State of Biblical Scholarship. Part of his conclusion: "To a degree greater than that in many other academic fields, you have to take pronouncements of fact by biblical scholars with a grain of salt. And those who express the most confidence in historical reconstructions or the sharpest disdain toward contrary opinions are precisely the ones to be most wary about." Note that this was published in the Journal of the Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical Studies and that Dykstra is quite explicit about the "waste of time" in "the drive to answer the unanswerable" that is part of the "character of scholarly writing in the field of biblical studies". Joortje1 (talk) 12:30, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I really found the article by Dykstra very interesting, and perhaps the sources there indicate that the true state of the scholarly consensus is more complicated. Also, interesting to see similar themes with regards to the scholarship play out on this discussion forum... For example, it seems that one major contributor to the idea that it's ridiculous to think otherwise that Jesus existed (along with comparisons to Holocaust denial) is Bart Ehrmann.

Is there any way we can integrate this review paper (and sources therein) into the article? 2A02:3032:303:F63B:574E:C9E5:584A:641E (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok seeing the discussion above, this seems like an uphill battle... 2A02:3032:303:F63B:574E:C9E5:584A:641E (talk) 13:53, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Tom Dykstra

Dykstra: "I question the value of both the “quest for the historical Jesus” and the opposing quest to prove that Jesus never existed." The question of the historicity of Jesus is another question than the attempts to reconstruct this historical Jesus. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:55, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Yep. He focuses on reconstructions with his comment when he says "those who express the most confidence in historical reconstructions or the sharpest disdain", not historicity. On historicity he says "I do not myself take a stand firmly on either side of the question." and also "The whole debate seems a lost cause for both sides". Ramos1990 (talk) 01:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ramos1990 It's also the case that one of the central pieces of supporting evidence is the existence of many independent sources feeding into the New Testament. But the existence of such is hypothetical (with no way to prove that these sources actually exist), and also doesn't prove his existence. They would prove the existence of an early Christian community, organised around a legendary figure. My personal opinion is that it was inspired by a real figure; but the real evidence is much more tenuous than Ehrman (and others) makes it out to be. 2A02:3032:307:88A5:605F:A196:12C1:604D (talk) 02:49, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I think you're taking specific quotes from that paper out of context, much of it deals rather directly with evidence related to the historicity of Jesus. He deals with issues related to deducing historical facts from the bible, and inconsistencies on both sides of the debate, and other flaws (such as, often used, character attacks).

He doesn't take a stand either way with regards to the question, because, due to the uncertainty in the evidence, historical agnosticism with respect to the matter is, to him, a more logical position. I'd definitely suggest that this is a relevant piece to this article. 2A02:3032:307:88A5:605F:A196:12C1:604D (talk) 02:35, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe it's ridiculous to make comparisons between the non existence of Jesus and Creationism. 2A02:3032:307:88A5:605F:A196:12C1:604D (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

It is clear he is not endorsing either side but acknowledges consensus too and the paper is about tolerance and respect for opposing views in the quest for the historical jesus. He says even in the end that it is a waste of time for such questions and that it proves nothing either way. He clearly is against certainty claims on both sides at the end - shoots at both - and merely says that everything is debatable and seems to suggest abandoning historical attempts on historicity. Not a prominent view on the matter in mainstream scholarship or even fringe scholarship either way. Like he observes, both use "certainty" language. Ramos1990 (talk) 03:41, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Who is Tom Dykstra? As far as I can see, he's a historian specializing in Russian church history? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 05:39, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

On academia his listed specialties are: "Origins of Christianity, Russian History, and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament" https://independent.academia.edu/TomDykstra/CurriculumVitae

Somehow, to me personally, his 2004 PhD in History (Dissertation: “‘Josephism’ Reconsidered) alone already makes his article a relatively reliable and reputable source for a historical question about the origin of Christianity.

I'd imagine a judge who would have to decide whether Ehrman's cited statements hold true would probably rather call on Dykstra as an objective expert, than on any theologian who concentrates on Kingdom of God (Christianity) as a mission for the "historical Jesus", or a certain long deceased classicist who "read classics" at Trinity College in the 1930s (specialising in numismatics) and defended HoJ in 1977 in a popular book as a "historian", or a certain deceased popular historian/journalist who was educated at a Jesuit college and explicitly wrote his biography of J as a "believer". (note: I'm not saying we should delete the currently cited voices)

If you look at the mission of the publisher of the article, I do think the criterion of embarassment might convince people who prefer the methodologies of biblical scholars over the more mainstream historical method. Joortje1 (talk) 09:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Seeing that it's hard to find publications on HoJ by historians (who actually studied History), I suspect that Dykstra's voice may resemble that of a silent majority. But of course it seems even harder to find sources for that idea. Joortje1 (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Cherry-picked and misrepresented Meggitt source

Justin Meggitt’s More Ingenious than Learned? (2019) is cited on our page. Its main point quite clearly is that doubting/denying HoJ “should not be dismissed with problematic appeals to expertise and authority and nor should it be viewed as unwelcome” but that it is “at the very least, a pressing, prior question for those wishing to say anything about the historical Jesus.”

The way this source is abused on our page seems a pretty good example of the wp:cherrypicking approach that may very well have been applied to most of the cited sources. Please read the following argument from Meggitt's article carefully:

“Indeed, the lack of conventional historical training on the part of biblical scholars may well be evident in the failure of any scholar involved in discussing the Christ-myth debate to mention long-established historiographical approaches associated with the study of the poor in the past, such as History from Below, Microhistory or Subaltern Studies, approaches that might help us determine what kind of questions can be asked and what kind of answers can reasonably be expected to be given when we scrutinise someone who is depicted as coming from such a non-elite context.

For example, given that most human beings in antiquity left no sign of their existence, and the poor as individuals are virtually invisible, all we can hope to do is try to establish, in a general sense, the lives that they lived. Why would we expect any non-Christian evidence for the specific existence of someone of the socio-economic status of a figure such as Jesus at all? To deny his existence based on the absence of such evidence, even if that were the case, has problematic implications; you may as well deny the existence of pretty much everyone in the ancient world.”

What our page takes away from Meggitt’s article: “Historiographical approaches associated with the study of the poor in the past, such as microhistory, can help assess what type of sources can be reasonably expected in the historical record for individuals like Jesus. For instance, Justin Meggitt argues that since most people in antiquity left no sign of their existence, especially the poor, it is unreasonable to expect non-Christian sources to corroborate the specific existence of someone with Jesus's socio-economic status.”

We are thus misleading our readers with the suggestion that proper methodologies like microhistory have actually been applied by Meggitt and other biblical scholars/theologians. As purported conclusion we offer the rather common “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” argument. The notion may be valid because some mythicists indeed all too easily use an argument from silence. However, in Meggit's statement it is merely a simplistic example and not a properly researched acadamic argument (it all too easily overlooks how historians really should be sceptical and actually do express serious suspicions when ancient figures lack evidence, as for instance with Homer, or Romulus). Meggitt’s main point of the section was clearly that HoJ defenders have failed to use accepted historical methodologies if they wanted to counter HoJ denial; he was continuing his call for them to really make some effort in “raising the standard of debate”.

I'm not against countering unacademic use of the argument of silence, but I suggest that we use another source for that (I believe Ehrman 2012 says more about it, possibly even with citations of proper academic research, at least it would be in line with the main gist of the book). Let's use Meggitt's relatively nuanced and objectively voiced Cambridge University Press article to incorporate its main points at a due place on our page. Joortje1 (talk) 14:44, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, if proper historical methodologies like microhistory have actually been applied to the origins of Christianity, conclusions haven’t exactly been favouring the traditional assumptions of “critical” scholarship that the Gospels would reflect oral gospel traditions from poor Galilean Jews (and/or later apostles). Instead, relatively recent reputable peer-reviewed research indicates an origin with a cultural elite firmly rooted within literary Greco-Roman traditions (see Robyn Walsh ‘’The Origins of Early Christian Literature” 2021). This actually contests many of the arguments that have been expressed by defenders of HoJ like Ehrman and Casey (in rather unacademic pop-market publications). It seems like Walsh's work has been received pretty well and that her conclusions are getting a lot of traction. Joortje1 (talk) 14:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Uhm, no; Walsh' work has received attention, but not much support; but that's been discussed before. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan And where can we find that previous discussion about Walsh's study? I found nothing in the archives (no relevant search results for author nor book title). Joortje1 (talk) 20:04, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Gospel#Robyn_Faith_Walsh. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 20:55, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

The main point of Meggit "To deny his existence based on the absence of such evidence, even if that were the case, has problematic implications; you may as well deny the existence of pretty much everyone in the ancient world." And criticizes mythicists after that by continuing "Indeed, the attempt by mythicists to dismiss the Christian sources could be construed, however unintentionally, as exemplifying what E. P. Thompson called ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’ in action, functionally seeking to erase a collection of data, extremely rare in the Roman Empire, that depicts the lives and interactions of non-elite actors and seems to have originated from them too." Clearly he is not a mythicicst and starts off the paper with "Virtually no scholar working in the field of New Testament studies or early Christian history doubts the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth". He is just saying that the question has a place, not that there is a shift in scholarship. Walsh is not a mythicist either. Mythicists do not use historical methods in general they use literary methods or philosophy for their arguments. Often anit-historical methods too like Meggit says "functionally seeking to erase a collection of data, extremely rare in the Roman Empire, that depicts the lives and interactions of non-elite actors and seems to have originated from them too." Ramos1990 (talk) 18:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

“Clearly he is not a mythicicst” (sic) “Walsh is not a mythicist either.” Did anybody suggest they were? What’s the use of trying to label them in that black-or-white manner? Joortje1 (talk) 06:45, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ramos1990 Yep, JM is nuanced and objective enough to include criticism for both sides of the debate, so you can of course cherrypick what fits your POV; for instance the familiar "Virtually no scholar" dogma that he used in the intro. As is rather standard practice in mainstream academic essays, Meggitt here seems to identify the problematic stance for which would like to see a “shift in scholarship”.

Usually we can find the most important points in a section called “Conclusion”, in this case for instance: “ should not be dismissed with problematic appeals to expertise and authority and nor should it be viewed as unwelcome.” See how that contrasts the common view that he described in the intro.

I also quoted a part of the definitive/final point of the essay: “taking this question seriously may, at the very least, prove beneficial in raising the standard of debate and the wider understanding – in fact, even self-understanding – of what New Testament scholars do and how they do it.”

What you identify as “main point” and your other quotes are in a segment that starts with the words “For example”. What do you think that means? Can you please explain how you arrive at the conclusions in your answer? Or are you just wp:gaming? Joortje1 (talk) 10:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Meggitt in the conclusion and in the intro affirms that the debate does not really exist among researchers. Most just ignore it because of the long history of failure of mythicism. He reflects in the conclusion that a limited number of specialists have even engaged in it in recent years and that it is not taken seriously. He thinks it should be taken seriously, but clearly he admits it is not. He does note on mythicists that the "consensus of experts is a very serious matter and weighs heavily against the plausibility of their position" either way. Indeed. Ramos1990 (talk) 16:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, let's play that game and go into the "Authority" segment where you got that last quote from:

JM first describes the common stance of his colleagues that he finds "perfectly understandable", but doesn't seem to like: biblical scholars' argument from authority and invocation of consensus. Then indeed: "Although some mythicists are adamant that ‘truth is not a democracy’ or complain about the ‘fallacy of consensus’, others, such as Carrier, are aware that this consensus of experts is a very serious matter and weighs heavily against the plausibility of their position."

However, Meggitt's concluding thought on that consensus: "it is not apparent what members of the ‘guild’ of biblical scholars have in common, other than a shared object of study and competence in a few requisite languages, and therefore what value an alleged consensus among them really has, especially on what is a historical rather than a linguistic matter." (emphasis mine)

In the end he also points out that many "carry out their scholarship in confessional contexts" and therefore don't even have the freedom to express their personal ideas.

This all sounds like much of the criticism we regularly see here on the talk pages, doesn't it? Joortje1 (talk) 20:02, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Most scholars do not argue from authority, they merely describe the status in their fields of research. And since mythicists have been debunked for more then 2 centuries, I don't blame them. Most researchers do not dispute or debate basics that are established. Meggitt is very different than what you are saying because for one he acknowledges a universal consensus exists by experts and specialists from all sorts of backgrounds and that mythicism has no real chance to succeed vs so many experts. He even makes an argument from microhistory for historicity, is clearly not a mythicist, and does heavily criticize mythicists (attempting to erase history, outlandish/conspiracy nature of much of their writings, how they rarely establish a cause for their theories, etc). He favors open dialogue on a dead question for sure, but most scholars are beyond that at this point. And when you read the mythicist literature it is easy to see why they are continually dismissed. They always fail to explain the origin of Christianity. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:03, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Ramos1990, thank you for your well-informed and balanced rrsponses. Reading through this thread again, I notice a few points:

• The rhetorical and aggressive choice of words by Joortje01: cherrypicking, misleading, wp:gaming;
• The outrage over a perceived misrepresentation of Meggitt, where the summary is actually quite accurate;
• The cherrypicking and misunderstanding of bits and pieces of one source.

All in all, it's a meritless continuation of the personal crusade against the conclusions of textual critical research with regard to the historicity of Jesus. And WP:GAMING is a gross suggestion without merit, close to warranting a warning. Interestingly, WP:GAMING says:

Gaming the system may include: Filibustering the consensus-building process by sticking to a viewpoint that the community has clearly rejected.

WP:BOOMERANG and WP:TENDENTIOUS seems to be more relevant here. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:39, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I somehow thought wp:gaming also covered what I perceive as Ramos1990 raising new issues rather than addressing the main point (and thus getting us in long strings of discussions that hardly ever get resolved), but that label indeed seems misplaced.

Additional apologies if I do get a bit one-sided in my sceptical approach towards the cited sources, but I think there’s good editorial reasons for the criticism that I and plenty others have expressed here. The page just seems a bit too uncritical of the arguments of biblical scholars and theologians found in trade books, features too little peer-reviewed material, and is too dismissive of any doubt about HoJ (including the few considerations of the question by qualified historians and the few peer-reviewed volumes on the subject). I think I offered plenty of wp:rs to justify such skepticism, with a relatively high standard of wp:scholarship.

You may disagree with me, Meggitt and the dozens of PhD scholars who express doubts about HoJ (usually with serious consideration of available sources and without denying the possibility), but I think it is rather hard to deny that Meggit’s essay is mainly a call for Historical Jesus scholars to regard the question of HoJ as vital to their studies and to come up with better arguments, preferably from “conventional historical” research. Like Meggitt and many others, I’d love to see more and better academic argumentation for HoJ (the reason for me to visit our page the first time was an expectation to find good evidence). I haven’t checked all our page’s citations yet, but many of them disappoint me. This one seemed very promising and actually is rather helpful, but it doesn’t provide the historical research that I expected from what you apparently think of as a rather accurate summary. Am I being too sensitive, too harsh, too tendentious even, if I then see this as a misleading and cherrypicked representation of Meggitt's essay? Joortje1 (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

"I’d love to see more and better academic argumentation for HoJ" But is there actual academic research on the topic? Whether one itinerant preacher and charlatan was active in Judea, among the many charlatans of his kind, does not seem to be a vital topic for Roman history. Dimadick (talk) 09:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@Dimadick: I think you're right (except I'd avoid needlessly offending people by calling him a "charlatan", also from a historian's viewpoint it's probably better to consider him one of many Judaic messiah figures, imagined or not)

In general, few historians seem to have interest in religion and many consider religion as problematic, as antithetical to rational thought (see: Kathryn Lofton Why Religion Is Hard For Historians (and How It Can Be Easier)) (I'm not defending a prejudice here, just read the essay)

Historian Miles Pattenden: “professional historians of Christianity — including most of us working within the secular academy — tend to treat the question of whether Jesus existed or not as neither knowable nor particularly interesting. Rather, we focus without prejudice on other lines of investigation, such as how and when the range of characteristics and ideas attributed to him arose.” He confuses the matter a bit by writing that few scholars would deny “some kernel of historicity in Jesus’s figure” (and by going into the ontological question). Without researching the question it certainly remains undenied or just an assumption, and “kernel” + “figure” may not mean much more than: there were 1st century messiah-figure preachers/rabbi/sect leaders, plenty were named Yeshua.

Historian Tom Dykstra: “any attempt to find a historical Jesus is a waste of time. It can’t be done, it explains nothing, and it proves nothing.” He cites biblical scholar Philip R. Davies also stating that the question is unanswerable. There are plenty others from that field saying the same (for instance R. Joseph Hoffmann, after his attempt to find answers with many scholars in the failed Jesus Project, see end of that last page) Joortje1 (talk) 07:26, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

What we do have that probably should be considered academic research since it's peer-reviewed:

-The Historicity of Jesus: A Criticism of the Contention that Jesus Never Lived Shirley Jackson Case, (University of Chicago Press 1912; 2nd ed. 1923) (WP:AGE MATTERS, but who knows)

-On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (2014 Sheffield Phoenix Press) by historian Richard Carrier

-Questioning the Historicity of Jesus by religion scholar Raphael Lataster (2019 Brill Publishers)

You can hardly mention Carrier without some Christians or (devotee of) biblical scholars screaming "fringe!". Lataster seems to mostly get ignored, deemed insignificant, or just labelled "fringe" or "religiophobic". Yet when I check the wp:fringe guidelines and wp:scholarship, these seem to say that peer-reviewed monographs with reputable academic publishers are the ones we should be looking at, rather than trade/pop-market publications.

As far as I've read it, Lataster hardly looks into the historical aspects, but focuses on the problems with Historical Jesus scholarship (and ends up favouring Carrier’s thesis).

Of course Carrier and Lataster are not without bias, but both seem to account for it in their work (I believe that's the solution that Kathryn Lofton suggested in the essay linked in my previous comment, but I may have to read it again). Joortje1 (talk) 08:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

A purely mythical figure

Users Joefromrandb and Joshua Jonathan: I'm not even entirely getting what this disagreement in the WP:LEADSENTENCE is about. Is it about whether to link ] (or just part of it, as in ]ical) or is it about what the terms myth (or mythical) mean, or some combination, or something else? Can you please lay it out here, so others can weigh in? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:23, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Joefromrandb seems to think that myth(ical) here refers to fictional, not-true, false, which is obviously not the case here. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:30, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Well, Joe I'm sure will weigh in and say what he thinks it means; but what do you believe it means? Mathglot (talk) 08:34, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

The line does need work. When so many editors continually misunderstand its meaning, I can only imagine the confusion our readers experience. Marcus Markup (talk) 09:21, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

This "disagreement" is part of a decades-long effort to word this article so as to make it look like scholars generally agree that a supernatural divine Jesus indeed walked the earth, raising the dead etc. If the many affected Jesus articles would clearly state that scholars believe a human non-divine Jesus lived around that time, there would be no issue anymore. Despite years of efforts, the line "A distinction is made by scholars between 'the Jesus of history' and 'the Christ of faith'" is still buried as best they can manage. Certain editors have spent years scratching up sources which allow them to include sentences such as "outside the reach of the historical methods" so as to allow the impression that Jesus was indeed a god on earth. This confusion would be easy to fix, if only we could get past the POV-pushing. Wdford (talk) 10:27, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

The editors who contributed most to these articles are not trying "to make it look like scholars generally agree that a supernatural divine Jesus indeed walked the earth, raising the dead etc." I don't know what this perception is based on, but it's a completely incorrect assessment.

Regarding mythical: I've changed the phrase to "mythological." Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 12:14, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Our article's line "the historicity of supernatural elements like his purported miracles and the resurrection are deemed to be outside the reach of the historical methods" and much in note 3 can all too easily be interpreted as supporting a belief in miracles (some of it explicitly supports it or acknowledges that this is not uncommon in the field). This is not entirely wp:npov nor encyclopedically voiced (no matter if it can be found in some scholars' writings; many of our article's citations lead to unresearched/unacademic opinions and assumptions, mostly in trade/pop-market publications).

Several of our article's arguments are sourced from the works of theologians and Christian scholars, including evangelicals, who tend to firmly believe in divinity and miracles (without any indication that they have been able to leave their religious bias out of their work).

Despite the wp:scholarship guidelines, the rigorously researched academic arguments from the few peer-reviewed monographs on the subject are willingly ignored, as are the widely acknowledged problems with bias and lack of methodology in Historical Jesus research.

It really shouldn't be hard to figure out why people suspect the dominant editors of POV-pushing, which is a recurrent point of criticism that many wikipedians have expressed on this talk page. Joortje1 (talk) 16:26, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Even if I don't see that much wording in the article attempting to promote the historicity of divinity and miracles, I do also suspect that one or more editors have indeed been working from that perspective and made it show a bit (probably all in good faith - pun unintended). I suppose Wdford just sees it bubbling up from under the surface (or lurking just below it) a bit more than I do (see my reply to Joshua Jonathan for where I did recognised it). Joortje1 (talk) 16:30, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

"Outside the reach of the historical methods" - I read that as a not so covert comment that miracles belong to the realm of belief, and have no existence in the empirical, rational world; ergo, that while people may have believed (or still believe) that he performed miracles, that that belief is precisely that: belief. The Jesus left after stripping-off the mythological layers is a person of flesh and blood, of whom we know close to nothing. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 17:03, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

"to make it look like scholars generally agree that a supernatural divine Jesus indeed walked the earth, raising the dead etc" That type of "scholars" is not worth much, their opinions do not matter. Apologists are only good for preaching nonsense to their choir. Dimadick (talk) 17:31, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

So, what to do about the defence of supernatural beliefs in our article?

Our note 3, providing citations for a statement in the lead section (!), quotes "Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture" Markus Bockmuehl claiming that neglecting and downplaying the question of the resurrection "ranks alongside dogmatic denial and naive credulity in guaranteeing the avoidance of historical truth".

Ehrman's "historians do not have to deny the possibility of miracles" could be forgiven if only it were true that he and other defenders of HoJ were indeed capable of "taking the position of the historian" rather than "taking the position of the believer". He may identify as atheistic or agnostic, but it shows in his 2012 popular book why his training as a biblical scholar left him so "uneducated" and why he thinks he is "self-taught in almost all the areas that I’m really interested in". Whatever he taught himself, he was happy to draw his conclusions from the "criteria of authenticity" that have basically been declared bankrupt, even within the dubious field that spawned them and is heavily dominated by protestant Christians.

The quote of Beilby & Eddy also demonstrates that it is not uncommon in the field to defend the "historicity of miracles".

Can Wdford point out more problematic lines?

I do think it's relevant to make clear within our article that this is really what plenty of scholars in the field believe, but it is voiced here as if our encyclopedia takes this position serious. Joortje1 (talk) 19:04, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I wonder how you can read in Ehrman's blog that he's declared the criteria "bankrupt"? Wishfull thinking? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 20:06, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I clearly didn't claim that Ehrman himself declared the criteria bankrupt, just after I stated that he was happy to apply them. Nonetheless, he was fully aware that "the criteria are problematic and coming under attack". The demise of authenticity crisis was undeniable at this point.

This biblical studies populariser obviously didn't call his own field "dubious" either (so I should just have ended the bluelink earlier), but I'll back that idea up with a quote from Maurice Casey:

“the overall result of such bias is to make the description of New Testament Studies as an academic field a dubious one” The quote follows quite soon after "This field of study, however, is largely inhabited and controlled by Protestant Christians” (so that covers the other part of my statement) and he even gives a figure of 90%. Note that the remaining 10% would have to include Catholics and probably a bunch of other people who tend to believe in the divinity of Christ. Joortje1 (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I re-ordered the existing paragraphs of the lede slightly, to make is less POV. Let's see how long that lasts? Wdford (talk) 22:22, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

With your and JJ’s changes I think the lead looks rather good now; at least, I’m no longer confused. And the lead narrative does seem to flow better and provide a good summary of the body. Mathglot (talk) 22:52, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Recent edit - already discussed in these talk pages extensively

Fringe

The recent edits by Joortje1 have been discussed extensively in this talk page. They are irrelevant to the historicity of Jesus, or misquoted, or rebutted by other scholars and articles. Carrier is fringe, no debate on historicity in modern scholarship exists, general discussion of how any field of scholarship functions is not related to historicity (WP:COATRACK) - no source makes the claim that bias or worldview or whatever is the reason why scholars from many academic fields or worldviews (atheist, agnostic, Jewish, etc) see Jesus as existing. There are many scientists that write articles about flaws in science, but that does not mean they find science to be questionable to the extent of denial of basic information. Ramos1990 (talk) 18:51, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

For "fringe": see new topic below

and also: Carrier merely compiled the cited list. There are good sources for most of those 44 scholars' opinions, basically demonstrating that not "Virtually all scholars dismiss theories of Jesus's non-existence" (it might be hard to find more scholars who have made a consensus claim like this since 2014) and that CMT is not fringe.

"no source makes the claim that bias or worldview or whatever is the reason"

I believe Lataster does actually make a point of it (which previously prompted you to state that he is "anti-religious") and there must be other explicit wp:rs on this, but it's merely one aspect of the problems that make HJ scholarship basically a pseudo-scientific discipline. More important is the ignorance if not explicit rejection of sound historical methodologies (read for instance Casey 2014 on the subject), but it should be considered within this wider context.

"general discussion of how any field of scholarship functions is not related to historicity"

see the prefiously discussed Justin Meggitt and Lataster sources for discussions of the functioning of scholarship in relation to HoJ (and some other of the citations you deleted along with my recent contributions to the page). I think Carrier's "Proving History" is another detailed study of the problem.

"already discussed"

yep, but no consensus, and the same criticism about the overstated language and selective choice of sources have been expressed for years on end, apparently merely resulting in you and a few others continuing to delete anything unfavourable of the unacademic opinions that have mostly been found in the trade-market books of some biblical scholars and theologians. Joortje1 (talk) 21:13, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Could you quit your pov-pushing? You've been dragging this on for months; your latest attempts are the addition of a cite-bomb with the implicit suggestion that the widely accepted historicity of Jesus is based on faulty methodology, and the addition of the neutrality-tag. Take note of Help:Maintenance template removal#When to remove point 7:

If the maintenance template is of a type that requires support but is not fully supported. For example, neutrality-related templates such as {{COI}} (associated with the conflict of interest guideline) or {{POV}} (associated with the neutral point of view policy) strongly recommend that the tagging editor initiate a discussion (generally on the article's talk page) to support the placement of the tag. If the tagging editor failed to do so, or the discussion is dormant, and there is no other support for the template, it can be removed.

It's absolutely clear that there is no support for your pov fringe-pushing; see also WP:DONTGETIT. I am considering to propose a topic-ban for you. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 21:16, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I would support a topic ban. Also user Jeppiz already mentions topic ban but have listed access right now. Will link ping him later. All of the points have been addressed in the talk. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:53, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot:, you warned Joortje1 before on his fringe POV pushing before and mentioned a topic ban . Considering that Joortje1 keeps on filibustering using fringe sources and fringe authors and apparently still does not understand fringe policy on Misplaced Pages (see section below where he still thinks mythicism is not fringe - after so many discussions here on Talk and mainstream and mythicist sources both confirming fringe status), what do you think of this discussion, considering his persistent behavior to push fringe POV and waste so much time on talk as a forum (disruptive editing)? Ramos1990 (talk) 07:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

To address the 'arguments' in Joortje1's revert diff, knowing that it will be useless:

"clearly not fringe: plenty of sources,
many similar statements on main article Quest for the historical Jesus#Criticism,
no consensus on tak pages (for years on end)"

ad 1: only a few authors argue for the ahistoricity of Jesus, and most of them are not taken serious;

ad 2: the criticism of the Historical Jesus regards the reconstruction of his person and life , not the historicity; see Donald Akenson's comment, as given at Quest for the historical Jesus#Lack of methodological soundness (emphasis mine):

"Donald Akenson, Professor of Irish Studies in the department of history at Queen's University has argued that, with very few exceptions, the historians attempting to reconstruct a biography of the man Jesus of Nazareth apart from the mere facts of his existence and crucifixion have not followed sound historical practices."

ad 3: there's a clear consensus, throughout the years, that CmT is fringe.

Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 22:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Analysis

I can't help myself (compulsive behavior?), but noticing Joortje1 added three segments, here's a further analysis:

• Segment 1:

It has been widely acknowledged within its own academic community that “Historical Jesus” scholarship has suffered from (unrecognised) biases, (hidden) ideological agendas, and lack of sound methodologies. Especially since the 2010s, the often applied “criteria of authenticity” have been widely discredited and declared bankrupt. Some biblical scholars, including Bart Ehrman, have nonetheless defended the criteria as the best methodologies available to the discipline, without anything to replace them.

As already noted, this segments omits the topic of criticism: reconstructions of the historical Jesus are questionable - but his existence and crucifixion are beyond doubt;

• Segment 2:

Historian Richard Carrier maintains a growing list now (august 2024) containing 44 "scholars with actual and relevant PhDs" (alive as of 2014) who take the "Christ Myth Theory" seriously, with 17 of them doubting the historicity of Jesus or having expressed an agnostic view (as of 2024).

For me, acceptable as a note, without "historican"; CmT-author is a better predicate;

• Segment 3:

In general, few historians are interested in religion and many consider it a space where reason is suspended. Professional historians of Christianity “tend to treat the question of whether Jesus existed or not as neither knowable nor particularly interesting”, even if they assume some kernel of historicity in the figure of Jesus.

References

1. Lofton, Kathryn (March 2020). "Why Religion Is Hard For Historians (and How It Can Be Easier)". Modern American History. 3 (1): 69–86. doi:10.1017/mah.2019.26. ISSN 2515-0456.
2. "Historians and the historicity of Jesus". ABC Religion & Ethics. 2022-01-19. Retrieved 2024-08-17.

• "In general, few historians are interested in religion and many consider it a space where reason is suspended," Lofton, Kathryn (March 2020). "Why Religion Is Hard For Historians (and How It Can Be Easier)". Modern American History. 3 (1): 69–86. doi:10.1017/mah.2019.26. ISSN 2515-0456., full quote (emphasis mine):

History is a word for a certain kind of reasoning: reasoning about time, about human agency, and about material records that can provide information about humans as marked by time. For many scholars—not to mention many of those outside the academy—such reasoning is antithetical to the word religion. No matter how many books prove incontrovertibly that the authors of the Talmud engaged rigorously with Greek philosophy, or that Islamic philosophers contributed to the formation of modern scientific practice, or that evangelical readers engaged significantly with Biblical criticism, scholars of religion have not (and perhaps finally cannot) upend the common perception that religion is not a site of reasoned thought, but rather a space where reason is suspended.

Augh... Lofton does not argue that "few historians are interested in religion," on the contary; she notes that historians are interested in religion, but criticises the anti-religious attitude of many. And she does not state that "many consider it a space where reason is suspended," she states that "the common perception that religion is not a site of reasoned thought, but rather a space where reason is suspended." Such a lack of skill in comprehending texts is breathtaking... No wonder that this 'discussion' is endless.

• "Professional historians of Christianity “tend to treat the question of whether Jesus existed or not as neither knowable nor particularly interesting”, even if they assume some kernel of historicity in the figure of Jesus," "Historians and the historicity of Jesus". ABC Religion & Ethics. 2022-01-19. Retrieved 2024-08-17.

• ABC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
• Author Miles Pattenden, historian, solid author.

Here's the full quote from Pattenden:

"few scholars would deny that there must be some kernel of historicity in Jesus’s figure. It is just that they might well also say that it is a stretch to claim this historical person as unequivocally equivalent to the biblical Jesus.

Ultimately, the question here is ontological: what makes “Jesus” Jesus? Is it enough that a man called Jesus (or Joshua), who became a charismatic teacher, was born around the turn of the millennium in Palestine? What additional characteristics do we need to ascribe to the historical figure to make him on balance identifiable with the scriptural one? A baptism in the river Jordan? A sermon on the Mount? Death at the hands of Pontius Pilate? What else?

Partly because there is no way to satisfy these queries, professional historians of Christianity — including most of us working within the secular academy — tend to treat the question of whether Jesus existed or not as neither knowable nor particularly interesting.Rather, we focus without prejudice on other lines of investigation, such as how and when the range of characteristics and ideas attributed to him arose.

In this sense Jesus is not an outlier among similar historical figures. Other groups of historians engage in inquiries similar to those that New Testament scholars pursue, but concerning other key figures in the development of ancient religion and philosophy in Antiquity: Moses, Socrates, Zoroaster, and so on.

To repeat myself: reconstructions of the historical Jesus are questionable, but that there was a Jesus is, for most scholars, including historians, beyond doubt. Misplaced Pages does not argue anything else beyond that. The question how the belief in a mythologized Jesus arose is indeed much more interesting, but some people prefer to stick to issues which are not of interest to mainstream scholarship, Biblical nor historical scholars. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)