ExposingReligion Blog - Kenneth Humphreys: Jesus Never Existed – A crackpot idea? The Real Martyrs and some Great Quotes from a Philosopher, Scholar, Historian, Theologian, and Professor.

July 20, 2014

Kenneth Humphreys: Jesus Never Existed – A crackpot idea? The Real Martyrs and some Great Quotes from a Philosopher, Scholar, Historian, Theologian, and Professor.

This article is reformatted from Kenneth Humphreys of http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

It is called:

A History of ‘Jesus Denial’ - The End is Nigh (for the godman!)

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html

In a culture based upon Christianity the denial of Jesus’ existence may appear at first glance absurd or even stupid. After all, goes the argument, “mainstream scholarship” accepts that there was a historical Jesus, even if there is no agreement as to actually who he was, precisely when he was, what he did or what he said.

Fact and Fancy

Today, New Testament scholars steer a course between two worlds, one in which a theological Jesus (“divine son of God”) holds centre stage – but this Jesus, of course, is acknowledged to be a matter of faith; and the other, “the world of a historical Jesus”.

Detailed, often meticulous, investigation of the history, culture and politics of Palestine in the second temple period creates a historically authoritative background. Against this background, a wafer thin construct of “Jesus” makes his spectral appearance.

But it is the historical context itself which allows this phantom saviour to “live”, “die” and “resurrect” and thereby cast its false shadow back upon history.

“We’re certain that Jerusalem existed, Herod, Pharisees and Romans, why not a Jesus?” Cue the Discovery Channel documentary:

“These are the type of sandals Jesus would have worn.This is the type of tree he would have rested under.”

Inertia of the Soft Option

Professional historians are not necessarily engaged by any particular interest in the issue of Jesus – and are all too aware of its controversial nature. A scholar who announces that he thinks there was no historical Jesus is likely to face scorn, even ridicule, and will gain little for his candour.

Thus most scholars, raised and educated in a Christian culture are content either to assume Jesus lived (and defer to the opinions of biblical specialists who are often men of faith) or, given the paucity of evidence for a great many historical personages, preface their uncertainty with a “probably”. It is much safer for them to aver the “probability of a man behind the legend” even while arguing that layers of encrusted myth obscure knowing anything about him.

This “safe” and gutless option maintains simultaneously the “obscurity” of a carpenter in an ancient provincial backwater (“absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”) and an academic detachment from “faith issues” which raised that supposed obscure guru to an iconic status.

A Flawed Scenario

Yet would, could a world-faith have arisen from a nonentity who failed in his own lifetime to have been noticed by anyone? How creditable is it that a wandering rabbi, who wrote nothing himself, an also-ran in a world full of fakirs, soothsayers and exorcists, could have cast such a spell as to have reverberated through the ages?

A “minimalist” Jesus is actually less satisfactory than no Jesus at all because it still requires a search elsewhere for the roots of the new religion. And if the roots are to be found elsewhere what need is there for the obscure personage anyway?

“It is very doubtful whether the Christian faith could have been built upon the foundations of a historic Jesus … who was little more than a teacher of practical philosophy.”

– J. Macquarrie (An Existential Theology, p23)

If we agree that a peripatetic, rabbinic radical called Jesus, unnoticed in the historical record, is not implausible then by the same token, nor would several such Jesuses be implausible.

Which of them would we elect to be the basis for the Christian faith as God’s “only begotten son”? If it could have been any of them then it was none of them.

Either JC was a divinity who chose to dazzle multitudes but leave no trace, who contrived to influence – not the Jewish people – but a mere handful of shadowy devotees whose successors rapidly split into numerous warring factions; or JC is the fabrication of human minds, a construct betrayed at every turn by contradiction and omission.

Salvation by Reason

Ironically, it was the work of a number of liberal theologians, rather than freethinkers, who first fractured that glorious fabrication Jesus, Son of God, Saviour of the World.

The “received wisdom” of the Church was first challenged during the European Reformation, which gave legitimacy to criticism of the papal system. Having opened the flood gates, all religious authorities and scripture itself were called into question and Protestantism emerged in myriad disparate sects. But after a thousand years of Church-enforced ignorance “school men” had but a small stock of real knowledge. As sinecured churchmen, these scholars struggled to use the rediscovered tools of logic to defend the dogmas of Christianity, whether of the Roman Catholic or new “pure” reformed variety.

But after two centuries, as the Enlightenment unfolded, brave theologians began to draw attention to the obvious errors and incongruities in accepted scripture. Why, they asked, was the New Testament silent about most of Jesus’ life? Why did Paul say almost nothing about the life of Jesus?

During the American and French Revolutions freethinkers went much further, questioning the veracity of the entire Bible and denouncing Christianity as a bogus superstition and an instrument of oppression. A new minimalist faith was born, “deism”, in which a creator god played no direct role in human affairs.

Higher Criticism

In the century that followed a radical minority – notably, scholars of the Tübingen School in mid-19th century Germany and Dutch Radical critics of the late-19th/early 20th centuries – continued to press the case that the Christian Lord and Savior was a pious fabrication, his whole “life”, trial and crucifixion a pastiche of verses from Jewish scripture.

To those who looked beyond the blinkered vision of Christianity it was very apparent that much of the Jesus tale had parallels in much older fables, which had identical principal and supporting characters, identical story lines, and identical moral purpose. Christianity, it was clear, had not fallen from heaven but was a man-made production.

During the 20th century, rationalism, archaeology, and new techniques of scientific investigation forced a retrenchment upon defenders of the faith, despite the periodic upsurges in religious fervour. To accommodate the accumulating and undeniable evidence of biblical error, variegated “lives” of Jesus proliferated like algae on a sun-soaked pond.

“Mainstream” New Testament scholars, many of them committed Christians, had found a new home. A shadowy “Jesus of history” was now held to have existed beneath the admitted accumulated layers of faith-based fabrication.

Fearful to acknowledge that both their faith and careers were built on a monumental misconception they speculated on any number of fanciful ideas – a radical rabbi Jesus, a Mediterranean peasant Jesus, a Jesus with wife and family, a Jesus who travelled to England, India or Japan, a Stoic or Cynic philosopher Jesus – a Jesus for all seasons and all tastes. A hundred or more possible “biographies” for the godman contended, each contriving to avoid the obvious truth that no genuine reality underpinned the sacred fable.

End of Days

In the 21st century we face the paradox that though the unmasking of biblical fraud has gone further than ever before, global geopolitics finances and encourages a vociferous restatement of biblical fundamentalism and inerrancy, a torrent of misinformation, the sheer quantity of which can be overwhelming.

Most people have neither time nor inclination to delve deeply into the mass of evidence and argument. Christian apologists are ever-ready to denounce a “Christ-myther” as an isolated crank on the fringes of sanity, unworthy of serious consideration.

But their strident hostility hides the fear that the downfall of their superhero may not be far off. And what they can no longer deny or suppress is the fact that the exposure of “Jesus Christ” for the fabrication that it is, far from being the manic pursuit of odd-balls, has been embraced and endorsed by a continuous stream of talented scholars in all countries.

Demolishing the historicity of Jesus – A History

For more than 200 years a minority of courageous scholars have dared to question the story of Jesus. Despite the risks of physical assault, professional ruin and social opprobrium, they have seriously doubted the veracity of the gospel saga, have peeled away the layers of fraud and deceit and eventually have challenged the very existence of the godman.

See the massive timeline list:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html

History bears grim witness to the fate of brave thinkers who dared to question the dogmas of the Church.