According to the new testament bible, who actually claimed to have met a historical jesus?

March 21, 2012

It is frequently claimed that christians have multiple eye-witnesses who claimed to have met Jesus.

This is probably why believers respond with cries of :

“why would they die for a lie?"
"how could it all be a hoax?"
"that’s just a conspiracy theory"

Believers are convinced that we have numerous reliable claims from identifiable people who met Jesus; thus if Jesus did not exist, then all those eye-witness claims must have been a "hoax”. If Jesus was not historical, then the claims to have met him must have been a “lie”. If Jesus never lived then all those multiple claimed eye-witnesses must have been involved in a “conspiracy”.

~So, let’s examine the evidence from the new testament bible -

How many :

identifiable people
claimed to have met Jesus
in authentic writing.

Paul

-Paul never met a historical Jesus, and never claimed to.
-He did claim to have had revelations “thru Christ” etc.
-He did claim to have had a vision of Christ.
-And others (Acts) claim Paul had a vision of Christ.

It is worth noting that Paul does not place Iesous Christos in history :

No places - Paul never mentions Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Calvary, etc.
No dates - Paul never places Iesous Christos in time.
No names - Paul never mentions Mary, Joseph, Pilate, Judas, Nicodemus, Lazarus etc.
No miracles - Paul never mentions the miracles/healings of Jesus
No trial/tomb - Paul never mentions the trial or the empty tomb etc.

Paul’s Christos is a heavenly being, not a historical person.

Facts about Paul’s new testament contributions:

Thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, and 31.57 percent of the text is attributed to Paul.

Those numbers do not include the book of Hebrews, which is heavily debated.

While many books of the Bible are attributed to Paul, some of them are disputed as being actual works of Paul.

These include:

Colossians

Ephesians

Timothy

Titus

2 Thessalonians

The 500

Paul claims 500 others had a vision of Christ. The Gospels do not mention that, no other writer mentions that, and we have no names or evidence for any of the 500. Even IF it happened - they had a VISION like Paul - nothing historical.

The Gospel According To Mark

The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus. According to traditon, Mark was a secretary of Peter and never met Jesus. This Gospel, like all of them, started out as an un-named book.

The Gospel According To Matthew

The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus.

According to tradition it was written by an apostle - but it never says so, and it mentions Matthew without the slightest hint that HE was writing it.

The Gospel According To Luke

The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus.

According to tradition it was written by a follower of Paul.

“The four Gospels that eventually made it into the New Testament, for example, are all anonymous, written in the third person about Jesus and his companions. None of them contains a first-person narrative (“One day, when Jesus and I went into Capernaum…”), or claims to be written by an eyewitness or companion of an eyewitness. Why then do we call them Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Because sometime in the second century, when proto-orthodox Christians recognized the need for apostolic authorities, they attributed these books to apostles (Matthew and John) and close companions of apostles (Mark, the secretary of Peter; and Luke, the travelling companion of Paul). Most scholars today have abandoned these identifications, and recognize that the books were written by otherwise unknown but relatively well-educated Greek-speaking (and writing) Christians during the second half of the first century.” ~“Lost Christianities” by Bart Ehrman (2003)

The Gospel According To John

According to tradition this Gospel was attributed to the apostle John, and the last 2 verses of the last chapter says :

John 21:24-25 (King James Bible)

24This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.

25And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

This is part of a chapter that was a much later addition to the Gospel and it is clearly someone else making a claim for the book. It most certainly does not even come close to specific claim that anyone personally met Jesus.

Take the Gospel of John for example:

“The name John was common […]. Even though the Gospel and Epistles of John do not claim to be written by someone of that name, the book of Revelations does (see Rev. 1:9). But the author does not claim to be John the son of Zebedee, one of Jesus’ apostles. In fact, in one scene “John” has a vision of the throne of God surrounded by twenty-four elders who worship him forever (Rev. 4:4, 9-10). These twenty-four elders are usually taken to refer to the twelve patriarchs of Israel and the twelve apostles. But the author gives no indication that he is seeing himself. Probably, then, this was not the apostle. And so, the book is anonymous, later accepted by Christians as canonical because they believed the author was, in fact, Jesus’ earthly disciple.” ~“Lost Christianities” by Bart Ehrman (2003)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08438a.htm

“But the sole conclusion that can be deduced from this is that the twenty-first chapter was afterwards added and is therefore to be regarded as an appendix to the Gospel. Evidence has yet to be produced to show that it was not the Evangelist, but another, who wrote this appendix. The opinion is at present fairly general, even among critics, that the vocabulary, style, and the mode of presentation as a whole, together with the subject-matter of the passage reveal the common authorship of this chapter and the preceding portions of the Fourth Gospel.”

http://www.thesacredpage.com/2011/12/john-21-later-addition-or-epilogue.html

John 21: Later Addition or Epilogue?

It is widely acknowledged that John 20 stands as an appropriate ending to the book.

Beasely-Murray thus concludes: “Had he planned to record the appearance(s) to Peter and his colleagues narrated in chap. 21 he would have composed chap. 20 differently” [George R. Beasely-Murray, John (2nd ed.; WBC 36; Columbia: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 395].

Looking at chapter 21, many scholars argue that it was written by another hand. One of the reasons for this is that it seems as though chapter 21 does not follow neatly from chapter 20. In addition to the fact that John 20:30-31 seems to tie up the Gospel narrative in such a way as to conclude the Gospel, some have argued that John 21 also seems detached from what has come before it.

~John Breck lays out the most common reasons given in support of this line of thought:

The epilogue in chapter 20:30-31 serves as an apparent conclusion, as mentioned above.

Chapter 21 does not show us the disciples setting out on the mission given to them by Jesus in chapter 20–rather than going out to evangelize, the apostles go fishing.

Whereas chapter 20 called for believing without seeing, chapter 21 seems to emphasize the importance of seeing and believing.

There is a reference to “we” in John 21:24, which most see as an indication of later redactional work.

Chapter 21 seems to focus on concerns of the Church, addressing issues of the later Christian community.

Some of the themes developed in chapter 21 are only found in places in the Gospel where scholars believe later interpolations have been introduced.

Chapter 21 contains language and stylistic elements not found elsewhere in the Gospel.

[These arguments are laid out by John Breck, “John 21: Appendix, Epilogue or Conclusion?, in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 36 (1992): 27-49].

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com

"These are written, that ye might believe.”

The gospel of John seems to come to an end with verses 20:30-31, with the next chapter tacked on as a later addition. This is, in fact, what most scholars believe today. 20:30-31

http://www.answering-christianity.com/sake.htm

“Much of the discoveries of Dr. Tischendorf regarding the continuous and unrelenting tampering with the text of the Bible over the ages has been verified by twentieth century science. For example, a study of the Codex Sinaiticus under ultraviolet light has revealed that the "Gospel of John” originally ended at verse 21:24 and was followed by a small tail piece and then the words “The Gospel according to John.” However, some time later, a completely different “inspired” individual took pen in hand, erased the text following verse 24, and then added in the “inspired” text of John 21:25 which we find in our Bibles today.“

~The following is written by: Dave Fitzgerald (author of the book "NAILED: ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All”)

John claims to be the writer of John (John 21:24).

This is doubly wrong. First of all, the author of this Gospel never claims to be anyone named “John;” the apostle John never even appears in this gospel, let alone seems to be dictating it. (Besides, scholars have long recognized that John originally ended a chapter earlier, at John 20:31, so everything in chapter 21 is a later addition to begin with). The author claims the text is the work of the mysterious unnamed “disciple who Jesus loved.” No other Gospel even makes any mention of this unnamed disciple or his special bond with the savior, and even in this Gospel he only starts appearing towards the end of the story (13:23, 19:25-27), and usually one-upping Peter (see John 20:1-8, 21:7, 20-22)

You are right in that the Gospel ends by finally claiming the Beloved (though apparently not very modest) Disciple is its author – but the same line inadvertently hints that this was in reality written long after his time, by others: ”This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.” (John 21: 24) So who was the Beloved Disciple really supposed to be? Several different candidates have been proposed, including Lazarus, who is said to be loved by Jesus (John 11:3, 5), and various other unnamed disciples who appear in John (1:35-40;18:15-16). No one really knows.

Of course this would never do for a Gospel’s author, and in the 2nd century, the Church finally solved the problem by declaring the author was the Apostle John, son of Zebedee. How did they know? Guesswork, actually. Clearly it had to be one of the three who was closest to Jesus in the other Gospels, so they narrowed it down to Peter, James, or his brother John. Since it wasn’t Peter, and James was supposed to have been killed early (Acts12:2), it could only be John. Christian tradition has generally attributed the fourth Gospel to him ever since. But since this gospel was written well in the second century (among other reasons), it couldn’t really be written by anyone from the alleged time of Jesus.

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/ab0_nt.htm

The John gospel purports to be an eyewitness account, although most scholars agree that it was the latest of the four canonical gospels, having been written, in koine, between AD 90 and AD 100, several generations after Jesus lived. The author is not identified and there is no reason to believe that he was the apostle John, or even that his name was John at all. The traditional ascriptions seem to have been based on ambiguous passages such as John 19:35 and 21:24 (part of a late addition ).

For centuries there was controversy as to whether this gospel should be admitted to the list of canonical books. The Church Father Irenaeus of Lyons stated that the book had been written to refute the arguments of Cerinthus, a well-known Gnostic who had lived a few years earlier. On the other hand the gospel was itself used by Gnostics — one reason why “orthodox” Christians wanted to reject it from the canon. Most biblical scholars accept it represents an interpretation of Jesus that developed late in the first century AD, probably in Ephesus. Its opening verses express ancient Middle Eastern views, personifying the Word (logos), but they are adapted to a new emerging theology.

The gospel’s target audience appears to be educated, middle-class and Hellenic. The author, like the author of the Mark gospel, takes trouble to explain Jewish words, names and attitudes (e.g. 1:41-2 and 4:9). As in other late documents, the gospel is consistently anti-Semitic (the Jewishness of Jesus and his followers is underplayed, even implicitly denied* — while his enemies are referred to about sixty times as “the Jews”).

Of the four canonical gospels John stresses Jesus" divinity most strongly and also plays down his human weaknesses most strongly. The miracles are consistently more impressive, and may have been taken from a source in which they served simply as demonstrations of Jesus" power*. This gospel has been described as a meditation in dramatic form.

Jude

This letter contains no claim to have met Jesus.

Johanines

1 John contains this passage :

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make our[a] joy complete.

Some believers assert this is a claim to have met Jesus.

What did he see and hear? He certainly never says it was Jesus. He just had a spiritual experience and wants to tell everyone about it - “God is light”. Nothing here about any historical Jesus at all.

James

There is no claim to have met Jesus in this letter - supposedly from Jesus’ BROTHER ! Yet it contains NOTHING anywhere about a historical Jesus, even where we would expect it. It is clear this writer had never even HEARD of a historical Jesus.

Revelation

No claim to have met Jesus.

Clement

Never claimed to have met Jesus or anyone who did.

Papias

Does not claim to have met Jesus or anyone who had.

He did claim to have met Presbyters who told him what some disciples had said. Discusses two books of Matthew and Mark , not called Gospels, not quite like modern Gospels.

Polycarp

Never claimed to have met Jesus or anyone who did.

Irenaeus claimed Polycarp met discples who met Jesus.

Ignatius

Never claimed to have met Jesus or anyone who did.

Justin

Never claimed to have met anyone who met Jesus.

Discusses UN-NAMED Gospels not quite like ours.

First & Second Peter (The Petrines)

2 Peter has this passage :

2 Peter 1:16-18 (King James Version)

16For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 18And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

Here we see Peter directly claim to have witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration.

The ONE and ONLY such direct personal claim in the entire NT.

But - 2 Peter is the very latest and most suspect book in the whole NT.

Almost all bible scholars agree it is a forgery, as do most Christians (ancient and modern). A late and deliberate forgery that claims NOT to be based on “cunningly devised fables” - probably in direct response to critics claims.

2 Peter is the one single book that contains a claim to have met Jesus.

So, the entire NT contains only ONE specific claim to have met a historical jesus - from the most suspect forgery in the whole book.

~Evidence against 2 Peter from christian sources:

The following quotes are from christian promoting pages:

http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/2nd_Peter_Authorship.html

It is common, in apologetic circles, to cite Second Peter 1:16 for an eyewitness account of the events that unfolded at the transfiguration in an attempt to demonstrate that it was historical and not mythological

But what might we expect from knowledgeable skeptics when we do this?

The informed skeptic is aware that out of all the epistles accepted into the cannon, none has received as much difficulty as Second Peter. Rejection of Peter as the author of Second Peter is the most common opinion today, and is supported by one of Christianity’s most authoritative conservative biblical scholars, Bruce Metzger, (a scholar that I personally have high regard for). Metzger writes:

“Although the author of this letter calls himself ‘Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ’ (1:1), and makes reference to his being present at the transfiguration of Jesus Christ (1:18), several features of its style and contents have led nearly all modern scholars to regard it as the work of an unknown author of the early second century who wrote in Peter’s name….In light of such internal and external evidence one must conclude that 2 Peter was drawn up sometime after A.D. 100 by an admirer of Peter who wrote under the name of the great apostle in order to give his letter greater authority” (The New Testament, its background, growth, and content, pg. 258).

In scholarly circles, Second Peter is classified as a pseudonymity, a term referring to, as Metzger mentions, an author assuming the name of another and writing supposedly on his behalf. Gary Ferngren, author of Internal Criticism as a Criterion for Authorship in the New Testament, states the situation as to Second Peter accurately:

“…a majority of informed scholars regard 2 Peter as pseudonymous, and this view is taken by many as a proven fact…A strong case can be made for Peter’s authorship of the second epistle attributed to him. Yet such arguments are for the most part ignored in modern discussions and one may be permitted to wonder how many minds are influenced less by the evidence against Petrine authorship than by the fact that the opinio communis of modern scholarship regards the evidence against it as decisive” (Bibliotheca Sacra Vol. 134 #536: 341).

What we have here is a general consensus that few are willing to abandon in spite of the “strong case [that] can be made for Peter’s authorship” (Ferngren, Vol. 134 #536:341). For some Christian apologists, the thrust of this consensus is rather unsettling, but let us work through the basic criticisms associated with this consensus watching for evidence of how we should or should not use 2Peter 1:16 as an apologetic.

“Though the writer of Second Peter appears to have access to information that would serve apologetic purposes, there are too many questions surrounding its authorship. Christians throughout the centuries have understood this book to be under a degree of authorial suspicion…”

The following quotes are from:

http://bible.org/article/2-peter-peter%E2%80%99s

“Of all the epistles accepted into the New Testament canon, the book of 2 Peter remains the most difficult. ”

“The rejection of Peter as the writer of 2 Peter is by far the most common opinion today. In fact, the view of the pseudonymity of the epistle is almost universal.1 The term pseudonymity refers to an author assuming the name of another, writing supposedly on his or her behalf—or in his or her name. The prefix pseudo means “false.” “Scarcely anyone nowadays doubts that 2 Peter is pseudonymous,”

“The history of the acceptance of 2 Peter into the New Testament canon has all the grace of a college hazing event. This epistle was examined, prayed over, considered, and debated more than any other New Testament book—including Revelation:

2 Peter was recognized as canonical by the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in the fourth century,”

The following quotes are from:

http://bible.org/article/authorship-second-peter

“There has been much debate over the authorship of 2 Peter. Most conservative evangelicals hold to the traditional view that Peter was the author, but historical and literary critics have almost unanimously concluded that to be impossible. For example: Ksemann states that 2 Peter is “perhaps the most dubious writing” in the New Testament.1 Harris says, “virtually none believe that 2 Peter was written by Jesus’ chief disciple.”2 And Brevard S. Childs, an excellent rhetorical critic, shows his assumption when he says, “even among scholars who recognize the non-Petrine authorship there remains the sharpest possible disagreement on a theological assessment.”3

The result of this debate is that 2 Peter is concluded by most critical scholars to be pseudepigraphal literature. But the evangelical world rejects the critics’ claims. Conservatives say this has serious ramifications for the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy. The critics, on the other hand, claim this was standard procedure and therefore not dishonest.4”

~CONCLUSION:

There is NOT ONE reliable claim by anyone to have ever met Jesus.

There is a vast body of CLAIMS by later Chrsitains - claims that are NOT supported by the earlier books, or by history.

So, If jesus wasn’t historical, there is NO LIE, NO HOAX and NO CONSPIRACY requird at all - because there are NO actual claims that anyone met Jesus, for this truth to be called a hoax, or a lie, or a conspiracy in the first place.

Just later claims in books, and claims about other book’s claims.

*Most of this research was done by Kapyong. The JBM added to it.