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PART 2: THE LACK OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS
The usual Christian response to those who question the historicity of Jesus is to palm off various documents as "historical evidence" for the existence of Jesus. They usually start with the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The usual claim is that these are "eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus made by his disciples." The reply to this argument can be summed up in one word--pseudepigraphic. This term refers to works of writing whose authors conceal their true identities behind the names of legendary characters from the past. Pseudepigraphic writing was particularly popular among the Jews during Hashmonean and Roman periods and this style of writing was adopted by the early Christians.
The canonical gospels are not the only gospels. For example, there are also gospels of Mary, Peter, Thomas and Philip. These four gospels are recognized as being pseudepigraphic by both Christian and non-Christian scholars. They provide no legitimate historical information since they were based on rumors and belief. The existence of these obviously pseudepigraphic gospels makes it quite reasonable to suspect that the canonical gospels might also be pseudepigraphic. The very fact that early Christians wrote pseudepigraphic gospels suggests that this was in fact the norm. It is thus the missionaries' claim that the canonical gospels are not pseudepigraphic which requires proof.
The Gospel of Mark is written in the name of Mark, the disciple of the mythical Peter. (Peter is largely based on the pagan god Petra, who was door-keeper of heaven and the afterlife in Egyptian religion.) Even in Christian mythology, Mark was not a disciple of Jesus, but a friend of Paul and Luke. Mark was written before Matthew and Luke (c. 100 C.E.) but after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., which it mentions. Most Christians believe it was written in c. 75 C.E. This date is not based on history but on the belief that an historical Mark wrote the gospel in his old age. This is not possible since the style of language used in Mark shows that it was written (probably in Rome) by a Roman convert to Christianity whose first language was Latin and not Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic. Indeed, since all the other gospels are written in the name of legendary characters from the past, Mark was probably written long after any historical Mark (if there was one) had died. The content of Mark is a collection of myths and legends put together to form a continuous narrative. There is no evidence that it was based on any reliable historical sources. Mark was altered and edited many times and the modern version probably dates to about 150 C.E. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 C.E. - c. 215 C.E.) complained about the alternative versions of this gospel which were still circulating in his lifetime. (The Carpocratians, an early Christian sect, considered pederasty to be a virtue and Clement complained about their versions of Mark which told of Jesus's homosexual exploits with young boys!)
The Gospel of Matthew was certainly not written by the apostle Matthew. The character of Matthew is based on the historical person named Mattai who was a disciple of Yeishu ben Pandeira. (Yeishu, who lived in Hashmonean times, was one of several historical people upon whom the character Jesus is based.) The Gospel of Matthew was originally anonymous and was only assigned the name Matthew some time during the first half of the second century C.E. The earliest form was probably written at more or less the same time as the Gospel of Luke (c. 100 C.E.), since neither seems to know of the other. It was altered and edited until about 150 C.E. The first two chapters, dealing with the virgin birth, were not in the original version and the Christians in Israel of Jewish descent preferred this earlier version. For its sources it used Mark and a collection of teachings referred to as the Second Source (or the Q Document). The Second Source has not survived as a separate document, but its full contents are found in Matthew and Luke. All the teachings contained in it can be found in Judaism. The more reasonable teachings can be found in mainstream Judaism, while the less reasonable ones can be found in sectarian Judaism. There is nothing in it which would require us to suppose the existence of a real historical Jesus. Although Matthew and Luke attribute the teachings in it to Jesus, the Epistle of James attributes them to James. Thus Matthew provides no historical evidence for Jesus.
The Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts (which were two parts of a single work) were written in the name of the Christian mythological character Luke the healer (who was probably not an historical person but a Christian adaptation of the Greek healer god Lykos). Even in Christian mythology, Luke was not a disciple of Jesus but a friend of Paul. Luke and Acts use Josephus's Jewish Antiquities as a reference, and so they could not have been written before 93 C.E. At this time, any friend of Paul would be either dead or well into senility. Indeed, both Christian and non-Christian scholars agree that the earliest versions of the two books were written by an anonymous Christian in c. 100 C.E and were altered and edited until c. 150 - 175 C.E. Besides Josephus's book, Luke and Acts also use the Gospel of Mark and the Second Source as references. Although Josephus is considered to be more or less reliable, the anonymous author often misread and misunderstood Josephus and moreover, none of the information about Jesus in Luke and Acts comes from Josephus. Thus Luke and Acts are of no historical value.
The Gospel of John was written in the name of the apostle John the brother of James, son of Zebedee. The author of Luke used as many sources as he could get hold of but he was unaware of John. Thus John more than likely could not have been written before Luke (c. 100 C.E.) Consequently John could not have been written by the semi-mythical character John the Apostle who was supposed to have been killed by Herod Agrippa shortly before his own death in 44 C.E. (John the Apostle is apparently based on an historical disciple of the false Messiah Theudas who was crucified by the Romans in 44 C.E. and whose disciples were murdered.) The real author of the Gospel of John was in fact an anonymous Christian from Ephesus in Asia Minor. The oldest surviving fragment of John dates to c. 125 C.E. and so we can date the gospel to c. 100 - 125 C.E. Based on stylistic considerations many scholars narrow down the date to c. 110 - 120 C.E. The earliest version of John did not contain the last chapter which deals with Jesus appearing to his disciples. Like the other gospels, John probably only attained its present form around 150 - 175 C.E. The author of John used Mark sparingly and so one suspects that he did not trust it. He either had not read Matthew and Luke or he did not trust them since he does not use any information from them which was not found in Mark. Most of John consists of legends with obvious underlying allegorical interpretations and one suspects that the author never intended them to be history. John does not contain any information from reliable historical sources.
Christians will claim that the Gospel of John itself states that it is an historical document written by John. This claim is based on the verses John 19.34-35 and John 21.20 - 24. John 19.34-35 does not claim that the gospel was written by John. It claims that the events described in the immediately preceding verses were accurately reported by a witness. The passage is ambiguous and it is not clear whether the witness is supposed to be the same person as the author. Many scholars are of the opinion that the ambiguity is deliberate and that the author of John is trying to tease his readers in this passage as well as in the passages which tell miraculous stories with allegorical interpretations. John 21.20-24 also does not claim that the author is John. It claims that the disciple mentioned in the passage is the one who witnessed the events described. It is again notably ambiguous as regards the question of whether the disciple is the same person as the author. It should be noted that this passage is in the last chapter of John which was not part of the original gospel but was added on as an epilogue by an anonymous redactor. One should beware the fact that many "easy to understand" translations of the New Testament distort the passages mentioned so as to remove the ambiguity found in the original Greek. (Ideally one needs to be familiar with the original Greek text of the New Testament in order to avoid biased and distorted translations used by fundamentalist Christians and missionaries.)
In order to back up their claims that the gospels of Mark and Matthew were written by the "real" apostles Mark and Matthew and that Jesus is an historical person, missionaries often point to the so-called "testimony of Papias." Papias was the bishop of Hierapolis (near Ephesus) during the middle of the second century C.E. None of his writings have survived but the Christian historian Eusebius (c. 260 - 339 C.E.) in his book, Ecclesiastical History (written c. 311 - 324 C.E.) paraphrased certain passages from Papias's book Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord (written c. 140 - 160 C.E.). In these passages, Papias claimed that he had known the daughters of the apostle Philip and also reported several stories which he claimed came from people named Aristion and John the Elder, who had still been alive during his own lifetime. Eusebius appears to have thought that Aristion and John the Elder were disciples of Jesus. Papias claimed that John the Elder had said that Mark had been Peter's interpreter and had written down accurately everything that Peter had to tell about Jesus. Papias also claimed that Matthew had compiled all the "oracles" in Hebrew and everyone had interpreted them as best they could. None of this, however, provides any legitimate historical evidence of Jesus nor does it back up the belief that Mark and Matthew were really written by apostles bearing those names. Papias was a name-dropper and it is by no means certain that he was honest when he claimed that he had met Philip's daughters. Even if he had, this would at most prove that the apostle Philip in Christian mythology was based on an historical person. Papias never explicitly claimed that he had met Aristion and John the Elder. Moreover, just because Eusebius in the 4th century believed that they were disciples of Jesus does not mean that they were. Nothing at all is known about who on earth Aristion actually was. He is certainly not one of the disciples in the usual Christian tradition. I have seen books in which certain fundamentalist Christians claim that John the Elder was the apostle John the son of Zebedee and that he was still alive when Papias was young. They also claim that Papias lived in c. 60 - 130 C.E. and that he wrote his book in c. 120 C.E. These dates are not based on any legitimate evidence and are complete nonsense: Papias was bishop of Hierapolis in c. 150 C.E and as already mentioned his book was written sometime in the period c. 140 - 160 C.E. Pushing the date for Papias back to 60 C.E. still does not place him during the lifetime of the apostle John who according to standard Christian legends was killed in 44 C.E. Besides, it is unlikely that John the Elder had anything to do with John the Apostle. According to Epiphanius (c. 320 - 403 C.E.), an early Christian named John the Elder had died in 117 C.E. We will have more to say about him when we discuss the three epistles named after John. Whatever the case, the stories which Papias collected were being told at least a decade after the gospels and Acts had been written and reflect unfounded rumors and superstition about the origins of these books. In particular, the story about Mark obtained from John the Elder is nothing more than a slight elaboration of the legend about Mark found in Acts and so it tells us nothing about the true origins of the Gospel of Mark. The story about Matthew writing the "oracles" is simply a rumor, and besides, it does not have anything to do with the Gospel of Matthew. The term "oracles" can only be understood as a reference to the collection of writings known as the Oracles of the Lord which is referred to in the title of Papias's book and which in all likelyhood is the same thing as the Second Source, not the Gospel of Matthew.
Besides the canonical gospels and Acts, missionaries also try to use the various Christian epistles as proof of the Jesus story. They claim that the epistles are letters written by Jesus's disciples and followers. However, epistles (from the Greek epistol q e, meaning message or order) are books, written in the form of letters (usually from legendary characters from the past), which expound religious doctrines and instructions. This form of religious writing was used by the Jews in Greco-Roman times. (The most famous Jewish epistle is the Epistle of Jeremiah, which is a lengthy condemnation of idolatry written during the Hellenistic period in the form of a letter from the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Jerusalem just before they were exiled to Babylon.) As in the case of the gospels, there are Christian epistles not contained in the New Testament which both Christian and non-Christian scholars agree are pseudepigraphic and of no historical value since they expound beliefs and not history. The existence of pseudepigraphic epistles and indeed the whole concept of an epistle, suggests that epistles were normally pseudepigraphic. Thus again it is the claims by missionaries and Christian fundamentalists, that the canonical epistles are genuine letters, which requires proof.
The Epistle of Jude is written in the name of Jude (Judas) the brother of James. According to Mark and Matthew, Jesus had brothers named Judas and James. Comparison with other writings shows that the Epistle of Jude was written in c. 130 C.E. and so it is obviously pseudepigraphic. There is no evidence however that its author used any legitimate historical sources as regards Jesus.
Two of the canonical epistles are written in the name of Peter. Since Peter is a mythical Christian adaptation of the Egyptian pagan deity Petra, these epistles were certainly not written by him. The style and character of the First Epistle of Peter alone shows that it could not have been written earlier than c. 80 C.E. Even according to Christian legend, Peter was supposed to have died following the persecutions instigated by Nero in c. 64 C.E. and so he could not have written the epistle. The author of Luke and Acts used all written sources he could get hold of and tended to use them indiscriminately, however he did not mention any epistles by Peter. This shows that the First Epistle of Peter was probably written after Luke and Acts (c. 100 C.E.). No references to Jesus in the First Epistle of Peter are taken from historical sources but instead reflect beliefs and superstition. The Second Epistle of Peter speaks out against the Marcionists and so it must have been written c. 150 C.E. It is thus clearly pseudepigraphic. The Second Epistle of Peter uses as sources: the story of Jesus's transfiguration found in Mark, Matthew and Luke, the Apocalypse of Peter and the Epistle of Jude. The non-canonical Apocalypse of Peter (written some time in the first quarter of the second century C.E.) is recognized as being non-historical even by fundamentalist Christians. Thus the Second Epistle of Peter also does not use any legitimate historical sources.
We now turn to the epistles supposedly written by Paul. The First Epistle of Paul to Timothy warns against the Marcionist work known as the Antithesis. Marcion was expelled from the Church of Rome in c. 144 C.E. and the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy was written shortly afterwards. Thus we again have a clear case of pseudepigraphy. The Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy and the Epistle of Paul to Titus were written by the same author and date to about the same period. These three epistles are known as the "pastoral epistles." The ten remaining "non-pastoral" epistles written in the name of Paul were known to Marcion by c. 140 C.E. Some of them were not written in Paul's name alone but are in the form of letters written by Paul in collaboration with various friends such as Sosthenes, Timothy, and Silas. The author of Luke and Acts, went out of his way to obtain all sources available and tended to use them indiscriminately, but he used nothing from the Pauline epistles. We can thus conclude that the non-pastoral epistles were written after Luke and Acts in the period c. 100 - 140 C.E. The non-canonical First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (written c. 125 C.E.) uses the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians as a source and so we can narrow down the date for that epistle to c. 100 - 125 C.E. However, we are left with the conclusion that that all the Pauline epistles are pseudepigraphic. (The semi-mythical Paul was supposed to have died during the persecutions instigated by Nero in c. 64 C.E.) Some of the Pauline epistles appear to be have been altered and edited numerous times before reaching their modern forms. As sources they use each other, Acts, the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke and the First Epistle of Peter. We may thus conclude that they provide no historical evidence of Jesus.
The Epistle to the Hebrews is a particularly interesting epistle since it is not pseudepigraphic but completely anonymous. Its author neither reveals his own name nor does he write in the name of a Christian mythological character. Fundamentalist Christians claim that it is another epistle by Paul and in fact call it the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. This idea, apparently dating to the late fourth century C.E., is not accepted by all Christians however. As a source for its information on Jesus it uses material common to Mark, Matthew and Luke, but no legitimate sources. The author of the First Epistle of Clement used it as a source and so it must have been written before that epistle (c. 125 C.E.) but after at least the Gospel of Mark (c. 75 – 100 C.E.).
The Epistle of James is written in the name of a servant of Jesus called James (or Jacobus). However, in Christian mythology there were two apostles named James and Jesus also had a brother named James. It is not clear which James is intended and there is no agreement among Christians themselves. It quotes sayings from the Second Source but unlike Matthew and Luke it does not attribute these sayings to Jesus but presents them as sayings of James. It contains an important argument against the doctrine of "salvation through faith" expounded in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. We can thus conclude that it was written during the first half of the second century C.E., after Romans but before the time that Matthew and Luke were accepted by all Christians. Thus regardless of which James is intended, the Epistle of James is pseudepigraphic. It says almost nothing about Jesus and there is no evidence that the author had any historical sources for him.
There are three epistles named after the apostle John. None of them are in fact written in the name of John and were probably only ascribed to him some time after they had been written. The First Epistle of John, like the Epistle to the Hebrews, is completely anonymous. The idea that it was written by John arises from the fact that it used the Gospel of John as a source. The other two epistles named after John are written by a single author who, instead of writing in the name of an apostle, chose simply to call himself "the Elder." The idea that these two epistles were written by John arose from the beliefs that "the Elder" referred to John the Elder and that he was the same person as the apostle John. In the case of the Second Epistle of John this belief was reinforced by the fact that that epistle also uses the Gospel of John as a source. We can thus conclude that the first two epistles ascribed to John were written after the Gospel of John (c. 110 – 120 C.E.). Consequently none of the three epistles could have been written by the apostle John. It should be pointed out that it is quite possible that the pseudonym "the Elder" does refer to the person named John the Elder, but if this is so, he is certainly not the apostle John. The first two John epistles use only the Gospel of John as a source for Jesus; they do not use any legitimate sources. The Third Epistle of John barely mentions "Christ" and there is no evidence that it used any historical sources for him.
Besides the epistles named after John, the New Testament also contains a book known as the Revelation to John. This book combines two forms of religious writing, that of the epistle and that of the apocalypse. (Apocalypses are religious works which are written in the form of revelations about the future made by a famous character from the past. These revelations usually describe unfortunate events occurring at the time of writing and also offer some hope to the reader that things will improve.) It is not certain how much editing the Revelation to John underwent and so it is difficult to date it precisely. Since it mentions the persecutions instigated by Nero we can say with certainty that it was not written earlier than 64 C.E, thus it cannot have been written by the "real" John. The first few verses form an introduction which is clearly not intended to be by John and which provides a vague admission that the book is pseudepigraphic even though the author feels that his message is inspired by God. The style of writing and the references to the practice of kriobolium (baptism in sheep’s blood) suggests that the author was one of those people of Jewish descent who mixed Judaism with pagan practices. There were many such "pagan Jews" during Roman times and it was these people who become the first converts to Christianity, established the first churches, and who were probably also responsible for introducing pagan myths into the story of Jesus. (They are also remembered for their ridiculous belief that "Adonai Tzevaot" was the same as the pagan god "Sebazios.") The references to Jesus in the book are few and there is no evidence that they are based on anything but belief.
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