Hello and welcome back to another article from TrinityApologetics. It's KidFuryLFC and today I will try to refute the idea of Jesus Mythicism.
Jesus Mythicism is the idea that Jesus never existed and is just a mythical figure - like Zeus - made up by the Gospel writers. I think this is historically unfounded, because first century historians like Josephus said:
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." (Source: The Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities 18.3.3))
Jesus Mythicists will point out that this passage was interpolated; although this might be agreed upon by scholars, Jewish scholar Geza Vermes analyzed the Testimonium Flavianum and reconstructed it to sound more historically plausible. His reconstructed version says:
“At about this time lived Jesus, a wise man. He performed astonishing feats and was a teacher of such people as are eager for novelties. He attracted many Jews and many of the Greeks. Upon an indictment brought by leading members of our society, Pilate sentenced him to the cross, but those who had loved him from the very first did not cease to be attached to him. The brotherhood of the Christians, named after him, is still in existence.”
Tacitus, the second century Roman historian, mentioned Jesus in Annals 15.44 which says:
"Nero fastened the guilt [for the fire] and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome..."
Evidence like this convinced the vast majority of contemporary scholars/historians that Jesus existed.
Here are some more notable scholars/historians affirming Jesus' existence:
Bart D. Ehrman (An Atheist New Testament Historian)
“I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian... who gives any credence at all to any of this.”
— Interview in Fortean Times, 2007
Bart D. Ehrman also says
“He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees.”
— 2011 review of modern scholarship
Maurice Casey (A Non-Christian British Scholar)
“This view [that Jesus never existed] is demonstrably false. It is fuelled by a regrettable form of atheist prejudice... Most of its proponents are also extraordinarily incompetent.”
— Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching
Geza Vermes (A Jewish Scholar)
“I would say it is much more likely that he did [exist] than he didn’t. To believe that he had been imagined or invented is a much harder task than to rely on the available evidence, which is obviously not as clear-cut as one would like, but is sufficiently good to say that somebody by the name of Jesus existed around the time when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea in the first century AD.”
— Interview with Geza Vermes, "A new church is born", History Extra, 2012
Paula Fredriksen (A Jewish Historian and Scholar)
“The single most solid fact about Jesus’ life is his death: he was executed by the prefect Pontius Pilate.”
— Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews
Hyam Maccoby (A British Jewish Scholar)
“Jesus was a Jewish teacher who attracted a following of Jews.”
— The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity
Jesus Mythicists will make a rebuttal saying "“There are no contemporary accounts or mentions of Jesus. There should be, so clearly no Jesus existed.”.
But if you are consistent with this logic, you would deny the existence of people like Hannibal Barca, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Gautama Buddha, and Pythagoras because there are no contemporary accounts or mentions of them, much of the stuff mentioning them came either decades later, or we have second hand evidence (Since Socrates wrote nothing, and much of the stuff we get is from Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes). But nobody, neither Historians or regular people deny their existence.
I hoped to have convinced you the reader that Jesus was in fact a historical figure.
Have a Good Day ❤️
