It’s been a few days now that the challenge to offer proof that Jesus actually existed has been going on. So far, no one has offered any actual proof.
There have been a many off-topic comments, and claims made without evidence. There have also been some angry reactions by people questioning why it’s so important to have proof that Jesus really existed anyway.
So, why is it important to discuss whether there is any evidence at all that Jesus ever really lived? The answer is that many people believe that Jesus existed as a real person, and make decisions based upon that belief. Furthermore, a group of people who have this belief are trying to make decisions about other people’s lives, based on the claim of the literal reality of the life of Jesus as told in the stories of the Bible.
You know who these people are. They’re the ones who declare that people can get married only if its the sort of marriage that their religion approves of. They’re the ones who insist that students in public schools only learn the information that does not contradict their religion. They’re the ones who work to censor television, radio, and even books in public libraries, when those things do not comply with the requirements of their particular religion. They’re the ones who want to shut science down when science fails to bring findings that fit with their beliefs.
Their religion is founded upon the idea that Jesus was real, and that he really floated right up into the skies almost two thousand years ago, where he is still alive today. These are the people who reject out of hand the documentary of James Cameron which claims that the bones of Jesus have been found.
These people want to do drastic things to our lives. I think it’s important to ask them for proof that what they claim is true is in fact true. I want these people to tell me where the evidence is that anyone ought to listen to their shrill demands.
Some people say it doesn’t matter if Jesus was real. Well, to some religious people, it doesn’t matter. However, to the sort of Christians who are working to force everyone to comply with extremist religious laws, the reality of Jesus matters a great deal. They don’t believe at all that Jesus is just a metaphor, or a symbol for deeper ideas about human life. They aren’t at all willing to suspend judgment about the literal reality of what is written in their holy book. They’re too interested in judgment to suspend it.
When people ask me to do an extraordinary thing, like ignore the findings of over 100 years of scientific research, as they do with biology, I think some proof is called for.
There are consequences when people ask us to do extreme things without proving that those extreme things really need to be done. There are consequences like the Iraq War.
The American people demanded proof that war with Iraq was really necessary. The Bush Administration said that such proof was top secret, and no one could see it. So, the American people decided to accept it on faith that George W. Bush was telling the truth.
We’ve been paying the price ever since.
I’m not willing to pay the price of accepting what religious zealots claim to be true without proof. So, I say to these zealots, these Christian Taliban, give me proof.
Being happily atheist, I find that I fall on the side of Jesus actually existing, though I can’t find any proof of it either.
I wrote a story on the Bible as literature awhile back and I was speaking to a Jewish Bible scholar about this very issue. This is his exact quote on the matter:
“Jesus lived around the time from the turn from BC to AD and then 150 years later you already have substantial texts about him, you are talking about only a few generations and it’s a little bit easier for us to believe as scholars that even if the story isn’t entirely accurate, that there was a historical person.”
In other words, the short span of time that the stories about him were written and the fact it is closer to history than, say, the times of Moses, which are far murkier, it seems very likely that Jesus existed. The New Testament does function as a source and details in it are corroborated by other sources – Jesus, however, is not one of those facts.
So, really, it’s just one of those things that you have to decide based on the evidence presented and there seems to be no right answer in this case, at least to me.
Which is to say, you are entirely correct in everything you have written on the matter.
Of course, many details in the New Testament are not only not corroborated, but are directly contradicted by historical evidence.
The answer to Peregrin’s question, from a very common insider Christian perspective, goes something like this:
In addition to the Bible, which I take as inerrant, there is some tenuous historical evidence that a person called Jesus actually existed. My absolute certainty that he lived and lives is not based on those shreds of inconclusive evidence, but on faith. When I gave my heart over to Jesus in complete sincerity, I became certain that not only did Jesus live, but that he is the still-living son of God. This certainty is very real, and it is a definite proof of Jesus, but it is an iron-clad proof that will only come to you when you have given your heart to Jesus.
Now, I don’t happen to believe that myself. But it is curious to me that nobody decided to just give a faith-based testimony along those lines, acknowledge that there is no absolute certainty in Jesus outside of faith, and leave it at that. Why not?
Because, although so many Christians claim that they’re comfortable with a belief in Jesus based on faith, in fact, the power of the majority of churches in the Christian religion falls apart if Jesus never really existed, and is just a metaphor.