DID JESUS REALLY EXIST?

So we’ve established that there is extremely good evidence that the New Testament documents have not changed over the time since they were written.

Now to the second question I posed, then: 

2. Can we sensibly trust that what these people wrote down is true?

As I have already mentioned, I think the best way that you can decide on the answer to this question is to read the New Testament for yourself and then make up your own mind. 

To repeat, if reading this blog simply sends you to the New Testament to draw your own conclusions, that’s fine by me. Why not examine the evidence for yourself, if you never have? Remember what’s at stake here. 

…

If you’re still with me, I’m now in the next run of posts going to present you with the case that Jesus did rise from the dead and that we can sensibly believe this based on the historical evidence of the New Testament. 

Again, not everyone will be convinced by this, and that’s to be expected—everyone has to make their own decision about their interpretation of the evidence. But at least look at the evidence, please!

And, first of all, let’s just get one thing straight and out of the way: Jesus existed. 

From time to time a controversial book will pop up which provocatively claims that Jesus never existed in order to grab some media attention and make some money, but this is nonsense. Do not listen to them. No respectable historical critical Biblical scholar worth their salt, even the atheist and agnostic ones, deny that Jesus actually existed. 

For a start, the New Testament alone is enough evidence even for an atheist historian to establish that there actually was a person called “Jesus” whom Christianity built up around. But even outside of the New Testament, there are non-Christian ancient historians who mention Jesus and verify his existence and the fact that he was put to death by the Romans. 

For example, the Roman historian Tacitus in his Annals mentions the “Chrestus” that Christians followed who was crucified, and the Jewish historian Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews mentions Jesus as a religious leader (even though his text has probably been edited to make Jesus look good, the original version almost definitely still included a mention of Jesus).

Yes, of course it’s still possible that Jesus didn’t exist, just like it’s possible that Tacitus, or Josephus, or Julius Caesar, or you didn’t exist (from the point of view of human beings in the future). 

But on that, I refer you to discussion earlier in this blog about the kind of case I am building here. We are not in the world of airtight, mathematical proof, which is a relatively small world, but rather in the world of gambles, most reasonable guesses and likelihoods, which is where most people live. 

And in this world, Jesus definitely existed. You’d have to be an attention-grabbing moneymaker or a nut not to think so.

Unfortunately (you might think) historical sources outside of the New Testament do not mention is Jesus’ resurrection. For this one needs to look to the New Testament itself. See next post.