There are no historical facts about Jesus. None of the Gospel stories are evidenced by historians. Instead...they very clearly relate to the myths of Zoroaster, Mithra, Krishna, and others... This question is actually not quite as obviously answered as you indicate. Competent scholars have other opinions, as indicated in part below.
CS Lewis, while an avowed atheist and before investigating the gospel stories himself, agreed with you, and had always considered them simply another of the myths you refer to. Quoting from The Question of God, page 83, "However, an event happened that had a 'shattering impact,' on Lewis. One of the most militant atheists among the Oxford faculty, T.D. Weldon, sat in Lewis's room one evening and remarked that the historical authenticity of the Gospels was surprisingly sound. This deeply disturbed Lewis. He immediately understood the implications. If this 'hardest boiled of all the atheists I ever knew' thought the gospels were true, where did this leave him? He had considered the NT stories to be myth, without historical authenticity." After reading them, CS Lewis had this to say regarding equating the gospel stories with mythological stories, (quoted in The Question of God, Nicoli, p. 86) "I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste." He observes that they were different from anything else in literature. Message 19769786 |
