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‘More Ingenious than Learned’? Examining the Quest for the Non-Historical Jesus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2019

Justin J. Meggitt
Justin J. Meggitt*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9BS, UK. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper seeks to scrutinise the debate about the historicity of Jesus and identify aspects that merit critical reflection by New Testament scholars. Although the question is regularly dismissed, it is a salient one that was formative in the development of the discipline, and has become increasingly visible since the turn of the century. However, the terminology employed by the protagonists is problematic, and the conventional historiography of the debate misleading. The characteristic tropes evident in the contributions are also indicative of substantive issues within the discipline of New Testament studies itself.

Keywords

historical Jesushistoricity of JesusmythicismChrist-myth
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 65 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 443 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 It is not the case that none does, as is often claimed or implied. See, for example, Carlston, C. E., ‘Prologue’, Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (ed. Chilton, B. and Evans, C. A.; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 1–8, at 3Google Scholar; Byrskog, S., ‘The Historicity of Jesus: How Do We Know That Jesus Existed?’, Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (ed. Holmén, T. and Porter, S. E.; 4 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2010) iii.2183–2212, at 2183Google Scholar.

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14 Porter and Bedard, Unmasking the Pagan Christ.

15 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 5, see also 71, 333; Casey, Jesus: Evidence and Argument, 3, see also 36–41, 203.

16 E.g. Albert Schweitzer's complaint that the scholarship of Albert Kalthoff, a leading mythicist of the early twentieth century, produced controversy that was ‘wearisome and unproductive’. Schweitzer, A., The Quest of the Historical Jesus: First Complete Edition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2001) 283Google Scholar.

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22 As Maurice Goguel rightly noted, ‘the question discussed by the Docetists was not whether there had lived a man in the time of Pilate named Jesus, who acted, suffered and died, but the problem was to determine the nature of His manifestation’ (Goguel, M., Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History? (London: T. F. Unwin, 1926) 90Google Scholar). The literature on docetism is extensive but see Verheyden, J. et al. , eds., Docetism in the Early Church: The Quest for an Elusive Phenomenon (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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33 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 30.

34 E.g. Wells, ‘The Historicity of Jesus’, 27.

35 Some have also changed their thinking. There are, for example, considerable differences between subsequent editions of Drews, A., Die Christusmythe (Jena: E. Diederichs, 1909)Google Scholar. See also Wells, Cutting Jesus, 329.

36 What follows is indebted to the useful summary found in Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 30–4.

37 The key non-Christian witnesses to Jesus’ historicity that are the subject of debate are: Josephus, Ant. 18.63–4, 20.200–1; Suetonius, Claud. 25.4; Tacitus, Ann. 15.44.2–4; Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96; Lucian, Peregr. 11, 13. See R. E. Van Voorst, ‘Jesus Tradition in Classical and Jewish Writings’, Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, ed. Holmén and Porter, iii.2149–80.

38 Although this may not be strictly necessary. See Noll, K. L., ‘Investigating Earliest Christianity Without Jesus’, ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus (ed. Thompson, T. L. and Verenna, T. S.; London: Equinox, 2012) 233–66Google Scholar.

39 Harpur, The Pagan Christ; Freke, T. and Gandy, P., The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus A Pagan God? (London: Thorsons, 2000 2)Google Scholar; Acharya S, The Christ Conspiracy.

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41 E.g. Atwill, J., Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus (Berkeley: Ulysses, 2005)Google Scholar.

42 E.g. Brodie, Beyond the Quest, 185.

43 Edwin Johnson was a professor of Classical Literature at New College, London. His initial, relatively sober, critique of early Christianity, Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins (London: Trübner, 1887)Google Scholar, advocated the non-existence of Jesus, but was followed by other, more adventurous works, including The Pauline Epistles: Re-Studied and Explained (London: Watts & Co., 1896)Google Scholar, a book that dated the Pauline epistles and the gospels to the 1500s.

44 Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, 52–3.

45 It is important to note that this label is not one that is necessarily accepted by proponents of this position. Price, for example, has argued that he would prefer the position to be called ‘New Testament Minimalism’, stressing, as he sees it, the continuity with an approach found in the Hebrew Bible scholarship of Thomas L. Thompson, Philip L. Davies and others. See Price, R. M., ‘Introduction: Surprised by Myth’, Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth (ed. Zindler, F. R. and Price, R. M.; Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2013) xvii–xxxv, at xviiGoogle Scholar.

46 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 3. See, for example, Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, 4.

47 There are exceptions. Harpur, for example, does dedicate a chapter in The Pagan Christ to the term (15–26). However, his understanding of myth is indebted to that of Joseph Campbell, whose work is popular but problematic. See Segal, R. A., ‘Joseph Campbell's Theory of Myth: An Essay Review of his Oeuvre’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 46 (1978) 97–114Google Scholar.

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53 See Meggitt, J. J., ‘Popular Mythology in the Early Empire and the Multiplicity of Jesus traditions’, Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth (ed. Hoffmann, R. J.; Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010) 53–80Google Scholar.

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55 The use of the term by mythicists does have a long pedigree. See, for example, Smith, W. B., Ecce Deus: Studies of Primitive Christianity (Chicago: Open Court, 1913) 329–332Google Scholar.

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58 Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, 10. Studies of the ‘Radical Dutch School’ are lacking. However, see van den Bergh van Eysinga, G. A., Radical Views about the New Testament (Chicago: Open Court, 1912)Google Scholar; Detering, H., ‘The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles’, Journal of Higher Criticism 3 (1996) 163–93Google Scholar.

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60 Smith, W. B., Der vorchristliche Jesus (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1906)Google Scholar; idem, Ecce Deus.

61 Kalthoff, A., Das Christus-Problem: Grundlinien zu einer Sozialtheologie (Leipzig: Deiderichs, 1902)Google Scholar; idem, Was wissen wir von Jesus? (Schmargendorf-Berlin: Renaissance-Otto Lehrman, 1904)Google Scholar.

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63 A. Drews, Die Christusmythe.

64 Couchoud, P.-L., Le mystère de Jésus (Paris: Rieder et Cie, 1924)Google Scholar; idem, Jésus. Le Dieu fait homme (Paris: Rieder et Cie, 1937)Google Scholar.

65 Kuhn was a prolific author producing over 150 works. Those denying the historicity of Jesus include: Kuhn, A. B., Who Is This King of Glory? (Elizabeth, NJ: Academy, 1944)Google Scholar; idem, Shadow of the Third Century (Elizabeth, NJ: Academy, 1949)Google Scholar.

66 Volney, C.-F., Les ruines ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires (Paris: Desenne, 1791)Google Scholar; Dupuis, C. F., Origine de tous les cultes (Paris: H. Agasse, 1795)Google Scholar. Despite publishing earlier, Volney was heavily dependent upon a manuscript version of Dupuis. See Wells, G. A., ‘Stages of New Testament Criticism’, Journal of the History of Ideas 30 (1969) 147–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Massey published widely but his views on the historical Jesus can be seen in Massey, G., The Natural Genesis (2 vols.; London: Williams and Norgate, 1883) ii.378–503Google Scholar; idem, The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ (Glasgow: Hay Nisbet & Co., 1887)Google Scholar.

68 Notably Harpur, The Pagan Christ. For a critique of his use of Massey, see Porter and Bedard, Unmasking the Pagan Christ, 25–31.

69 There are some surprising omissions in most accounts. The work of Robert Taylor is usually ignored as is that of John Allegro, the Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. See Taylor, R., The Diegesis: Being a Discovery of the Origin, Evidences, and Early History of Christianity (London: R. Carlile and J. Brooks, 1829)Google Scholar; Allegro, J. M., The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1970)Google Scholar.

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75 Brodie, Beyond the Quest, 117.

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77 In my judgement, probably Herbert of Cherbury.

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79 Voltaire, Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. xxxiii (Paris: De l'Imprimerie de la Société Littéraire-Typographique, 1784) 273Google Scholar. Although Voltaire likewise believed that the New Testament was riddled with contradictions, and a ‘derivative compound’ of pre-Christian myths (Marshall, J., ‘Voltaire, Priestcraft and Imposture: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam’, Intellectual History Review 28 (2018) 167–84, at 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar), he rejected their position on two grounds: (i) the fact that people wrote for and against Jesus indicates he existed; (ii) none of the early opponents of Christianity ever doubted his existence.

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86 Herrick, ‘Blasphemy in the Eighteenth Century’, 106. Later deists would be more blunt: Jesus ‘did not even exist as a man, he is merely an imaginary or allegorical character, as Apollo, Hercules, Jupiter and all the deities of antiquity were’ (Paine, T., Examination of the Passages in the New Testament (New York: Thomas Paine, 1807) 48Google Scholar).

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88 Wright, N. T., ‘Jesus’ Self-Understanding’, The Incarnation (ed. Davis, S. T., Kendall, D. and O'Collins, G.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 47–61, at 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bultmann, R., Jesus and the Word (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958 2) 13Google Scholar.

89 Powell, M. A., The Jesus Debate: Modern Historians Investigate the Life of Christ (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998) 180Google Scholar; idem, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2013 2) 251Google Scholar. See, for example, Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 5.

90 See, for example, Zindler, F. R. and Price, R. M., eds., Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth (Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

91 Zindler, F. R., Through Atheist Eyes: Scenes from a World That Won't Reason, vol. i: Religions & Scriptures (Cranford, NJ: American Atheist, 2011)Google Scholar.

92 It is important to note that not all are. Drews was, for example, a monist. See Williamson, G. S., ‘The Christ Myth Debate: Radical Theology and German Public Life, 1909–1913’, Church History 86 (2017) 728–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Brodie is a theist.

93 Indeed, some of the most significant contributions to the Christ-myth debate have, in the British context, been published by the Rationalist Press Association (through its publisher Watts & Co.), see e.g. n. 59. Interestingly, Conybeare's The Historical Christ, an attack on mythicism, was also published by that press. For Conybeare, an Oxford biblical scholar and rationalist, his work provided ‘a middle way between traditionalism on the one hand and absurdity on the other’ (ibid., vii). See Cooke, B., The Gathering of Infidels: A Hundred Years of the Rationalist Press Association (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004) 50–2Google Scholar.

94 See Byford, J., Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011) 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 E.g. Bernard, R. W., Apollonius of Tyana the Nazarene (Mokelumne Hill, CA: Health Research, 1964)Google Scholar; Acharya S, The Christ Conspiracy. A strain in contemporary white supremacism also believes the historical Jesus was the product of a conspiracy, e.g. Klassen, B., A Revolution of Values through Religion (Otto, NC: Creativity, 1991)Google Scholar.

96 E.g. Robertson, J. M., The Baconian Heresy: A Confutation (London: H. Jenkins, 1913)Google Scholar.

97 See Meggitt, J. J., ‘The Madness of King Jesus’, JSNT 29 (2007) 379–413Google Scholar.

98 E.g. Casey, Jesus: Evidence and Argument, 43–59.

99 Carrier, R. C., Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012)Google Scholar. See also Lataster, R., ‘Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories: A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources’, Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies 6 (2015) 63–96Google Scholar.

100 E.g. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 5–7, 338.

101 E.g. Lataster, R. and Carrier, R., Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate among Atheists (Scotts Valley, CA: Raphael C. Lataster, 2015)Google Scholar.

102 Goguel, Jesus the Nazarene, 45.

103 Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 6–7.

104 E.g. Licona, M. R., ‘Historians and Miracle Claims’, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 12 (2014) 106–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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107 Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz, 1963) 12Google Scholar.

108 See the remarks of Casey, Jesus: Evidence and Argument, 9 concerning Doherty, E., Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus (n.p.: Age of Reason Publications, 2009 2Google Scholar).

109 E.g. Byrskog, ‘The Historicity of Jesus', 2183 n. 1; Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History, 251.

110 Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, 21.

111 See Casey, Jesus: Evidence and Argument, 4–5.

112 Brodie's religious order has now prohibited him from writing anything further. See Treacy, B., ‘Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Official Dominican Response to a Controversial Book’, Doctrine and Life 64 (2014) 2–4Google Scholar.

113 Weaver, The Historical Jesus, 71.

114 Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at seminars in the universities of Cambridge, Durham and Stockholm, as well as at the British New Testament Conference. I would like to thank participants for their constructive feedback and encouragement.