subject: Jesus' History—What Do We Really Know? [print this page] Jesus' HistoryWhat Do We Really Know? Jesus' HistoryWhat Do We Really Know?
What is history? Is it an accurate and reliable record of past events? Or is it a collection of misinformation, personal bias and propaganda? If you said both, you're correct. History is a mixture of both fact and fabrication. The difficulty lies in figuring out what is fact and what is fiction.
For Centuries Christians have believed the New Testament gospels were an accurate, eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life.Bible scholars now know that Jesus' earliest followers couldn't read or write. They spread stories about Jesus by word-of mouth for 30-65 years before the stories were written down by people who didn't know him. By that time, the stories had been altered and embellished to encourage belief in the new religion.
By the 2nd century, hundreds of accounts of Jesus' life and history circulated among early Christians. Very few of these accounts told the same story. The accounts were not meant to be accurate histories; they were produced to promote the beliefs of the people who wrote them. Since there are no eyewitness accounts, there is no way to prove which writings are more accurate.
The lost gospel of Q describes Jesus as a human prophet and wisdom teacher. Mark, the oldest Bible gospel, agrees. Matthew says Jesus was an exceptional human who was adopted by God. Luke claims that Jesus was a half man and half God. John goes farther and says that Jesus was God. Even the New Testament gospels disagree with one another.
Three hundred years after Jesus' death, a Roman Emperor declared that Jesus was part of a triune Godhead.Christians were forced to accept the "trinity" or be punished as a heretic. Roman Christians used the power of the state to destroy any dissenters. Gnostic Christians, and their writings, were wiped off the face of the earth. Why? Gnostic Christians believed that Jesus was a human who set an example that each of us could follow.
If we can't rely on the Bible for historical information, what about the secular record? Forty-two historians were active during Jesus' lifetime and the 1st century after his death. None of them mention Jesus. Detailed Roman legal records from Pontius Pilate's reign survive. They don't mention Jesus. The only information scholars have found was inserted into manuscripts by Christians who were angry that historians hadn't mentioned Jesus.
Pagans complained that early Christians had stolen their myths. For centuries pagans had built their religions around a mythological "dying and resurrecting godman." This godman went by various names such as Osiris, Dionysus, Bacchus, Mithras and Adonis. Suddenly Christians were telling the same stories as the pagans, but they called their godman Jesus.
Does the lack of historical evidence prove that Jesus didn't exist? Although history argues against Jesus' existence, we have other reasons to believe that he did exist. Many of the teachings attributed to Jesus clearly show evidence of a spiritual master with deep understanding. We may be unclear about the person of Jesus, but the message is still available.
