did jesus exist?

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A Response to the Jesus Myth DID JESUS EXIST?

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Did Jesus exist?. A Response to the Jesus Myth. Origins of the Christ Myth. Bruno Bauer (1809-1882) earliest writer to definitely claim that Jesus never existed a German theologian s tory of Jesus invented by Mark, convinced everyone else of his Gospel’s authenticity - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Did Jesus exist?

A Response to the Jesus Myth

DID JESUS EXIST?

Page 2: Did Jesus exist?

Origins of the Christ Myth

Bruno Bauer (1809-1882)- earliest writer to definitely claim that Jesus never existed- a German theologian- story of Jesus invented by Mark, convinced everyone else of his Gospel’s authenticity- had little impact on mainstream scholarship

Arthur Drews (1865-1935)- professor of philosophy, The Christ Myth (1911)- based his work on “history of religions school” represented by James Frazer’s The Golden Bough

Page 3: Did Jesus exist?

Origins of the Christ Myth (cont’d)

John M. Robertson (1856-1933)- Britain’s most important early mythicist- self-taught journalist- The Jesus Problem (1917), Jesus a development of

some sort of pre-Christian myth

William B. Smith (1850-1934)- American mathematician- The Birth of the Gospel (1957), Christianity was a product of the Jewish Diaspora

Page 4: Did Jesus exist?

Origins of the Christ Myth (cont’d)

Early generation of Christ Mythologists died out in the 1920s, basing their work on the “history of religions school” that had abandoned its thesis.

The Christ Myth reaches rock bottom in 1968 with the publication of The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John Allegro

Publication of this work destroyed Allegro’s academic reputation overnight

Page 5: Did Jesus exist?

Origins of the Christ Myth (cont’d)

G. A. Wells

Brought the Christ Myth thesis back to life in 1971.

Page 6: Did Jesus exist?

Origins of the Christ Myth (cont’d)

G. A. Wells

- Emeritus Professor of German at University of London- used German to read works of Drew, Bauer, others- result was a restatement of early 20th century

arguments of Christ Mythers

1975 19861982

Page 7: Did Jesus exist?

Origins of the Christ Myth (cont’d)

The Evolving Wells

1971 – Jesus developed from pagan parallels

1975 – adaptation of most radical points of scholars

1982 – dumped parallels in favor of Jewish myth

1986 – Jesus actually lived in 100 BC

1990s – dropped the Christ myth altogether

2000s – accepts that Paul knew Jesus was crucified by Romans

Page 8: Did Jesus exist?

Contemporary Mythicists

Earl Doherty- Notable mythicist- The Jesus Puzzle (1999)

Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy- The Jesus Mysteries (1999)- Pagan parallels

- PhD in theology and PhD in New Testament studies

- Deconstructing Jesus (2000)

Robert M. Price

Page 9: Did Jesus exist?

Thesis: Jesus Christ never existed as a historical figure, but is a myth created by the early Christian community.

Two Major Claims of Mythicists:

1. No early sources documenting the life of Christ

2. Early Christians borrowed from pagan mystery religions to invent the Christ figure

Page 10: Did Jesus exist?

Chester Beatty Papyri-contains most of the NT -dates to AD 250.

EXTANT manuscripts

Page 11: Did Jesus exist?

Bodmer Papyri-contains most of John-dates to AD 200.

EXTANT manuscripts

Page 12: Did Jesus exist?

EXTANT manuscripts

•Contains a fragment of John 18:31-33, 37-38

•Dates between AD 117-138

John Rylands fragment

•Found in Egypt

Page 13: Did Jesus exist?

-Papias (70-163) - all four gospels -Justin Martyr (100-165) – four gospels,

11 NT texts-Polycarp (c. 110) - four gospels, most

Paul’s-Ignatius (c. 107) – 24 books of NT-Clement (c. 95) – 11 books of the NT

•Church fathers of early second century are familiar with the Apostles writings and quoting them pushing the NT books into the first century:

Early Church Fathers

Page 14: Did Jesus exist?

FOCUS OF LUKE/ACTS: JERUSALEM

The focus of Luke’s writing is the city of Jerusalem (Acts 1.8)

Jerusalem is obviously the center point of Luke’s writing

Destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD)

Page 15: Did Jesus exist?

Matthew and Luke

70 ADFall of

Jerusalem and

Temple

Mark Acts

Some of

Paul’s writin

gs

“DATE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT”

WHY THE NEW TESTAMENT CAN BE DATED IN THE 1ST CENTURY

Page 16: Did Jesus exist?

-Besides the 27 New Testament sources all written in the first century (the century Christ lived) that verify that Jesus existed, how many non-Christian sources are there that mention Jesus?-Ten. There are ten known non-Christian writers who mention Jesus within 150 years of his life.

-By contrast, over the same 150 years, there are only nine non-Christian sources who mention Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus.

-Jesus is actually mentioned in non-Christian sources more than a Roman emperor. If you include the Christian sources, authors mentioning Jesus outnumber those mentioning Tiberius 43 to 10

Page 17: Did Jesus exist?

Life of Christ Borrowed from Pagan ReligionsMany Jesus Mythicists claim that Christianity’s beliefs

about Jesus were copied from pagan religions:Brain Flemming’s documentary The God Who Wasn’t There, Robert Price’s Deconstructing Jesus, T. Freke and P. Gandy’s The Jesus Mysteries, Tom Harpur The Pagan Christ, and the internet documentary Zeitgeist

Page 18: Did Jesus exist?

Life of Christ Borrowed from Pagan Religions“Background”

-In the academic world, these comparisons of Jesus to pagan religious figures were promoted by a group of scholars called the Religionsgeschichtliche schule or the so-called “History of Religions School.”-The “History of Religions School” flourished at the end of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century.-It included scholars such as Richard Reitzenstein, Sir James Frazer, and Albert Schweitzer.-The “History of Religions School” claimed that primitive Christianity had been influenced by Platonism, Stoicism, the pagan mystery religions, and other Greco-Roman movements.-By the mid-20th century this school of thought had been abandoned by the academic community.

Page 19: Did Jesus exist?

-Why did the “History of Religions School” abandon the claim that Christianity borrowed from pagan religions?

TIMING-For example, Mithras was a Persian god who was attested as early as the fourteenth century BC.-The problem is there is no evidence of Mithraism in the sense of a mystery religion in the West until very late. The vast majority of texts about Mithra date after AD 140, to late to influence Christianity.-Manfred Clauss, professor of ancient history atFree Univ. of Berlin claimed in The Roman Cult ofMithras that it doesn’t make sense to interpret theMithraic mysteries “as a fore-runner of Christianity.”

-L. Patterson, in his book Mithraism and Christianity (Cambridge Univ. Press) concludes there is“no direct connection between the two religions either in origin or development.”

Life of Christ Borrowed from Pagan Religions

Page 20: Did Jesus exist?

“Its All About Timing”The chronology is all wrong. While some of the mystery religions pre-dated Christianity, there is near universal agreement that there are no stories of dying and rising gods until after ChristianitySince the supposed parallels between Christianity and

the pagan religions arose only after the origin of the church, the pagan religions could not have influenced Christian beliefs.T. N. D. Mettinger – a senior Swedish scholar, professor

at Lund University, and a member of the Royal Academy of Letters, History, & Antiquities of Stockholm – wrote one of the most recent academic treatments of dying and rising gods in antiquity: The Riddle of the Resurrection“There is, as far as I am aware, no prima

facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct, drawing on the myths and rites of the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world.”

(Mettinger, 221)

Life of Christ Borrowed from Pagan Religions

Page 21: Did Jesus exist?

Life of Christ Borrowed from Pagan Religions-Ronald Nash in The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan Thought? summarizes the eight weaknesses in the critics’ claim that Christianity was derived from the pagan religions:

1) Similarity does not prove dependence2) The alleged similarities are greatly exaggerated or invented3) The chronology is all wrong: Christianity existed in 1st century, while the full development of pagan mystery religions did not appear until the second century4) Paul wouldn’t borrow from pagan religions being a devout Jew5) As a monotheistic religion, Christianity could hardly borrow from a polytheistic religion6) First century Christianity was an exclusivistic faith, not a syncretistic on, which it would have become if it was borrowing7) Christianity is demonstrably grounded in actual events of history8) If borrowing did occur, it was the other way around

Page 22: Did Jesus exist?

“Moreover, aspects of the Jesus story simply would not have been invented by anyone wanting to make up a new Savior. The earliest followers of Jesus declared that he was a crucified messiah. But prior to Christianity, there were no Jews at all, of any kind whatsoever, who thought that there would be a future crucified messiah. The messiah was to be a figure of grandeur and power who overthrew the enemy. Anyone who wanted to make up a messiah would make him like that. Why did the Christians not do so? Because they believed specifically that Jesus was the Messiah. And they knew full well that he was crucified. The Christians did not invent Jesus.”

Bart Ehrman

Page 23: Did Jesus exist?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRx0N4GF0AY&feature=relmfu

Bart Ehrman vs.

The Infidel Guy

VS

Page 24: Did Jesus exist?

BART D. EHRMAN is the author of more than twenty books, including the New York Times bestselling Misquoting Jesus. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill