30,000 to 1 - A Book Review

Of JFK, Napoleon, King Arthur, Jesus, Pythagoras, Thor, Betty Crocker, Hercules, Harry Potter and Socrates, which of these figures existed as a historical figure and which did not?  Two of them, Betty Crocker and Harry Potter we know are made up, that is to say, we are 99% certain they are made up.  Yet a national survey in 1945 found Betty Crocker was the second most admired woman in America [1].  King Arthur is a myth (we think).  Pythagoras is most likely a myth; let us give a figure of 80% confidence.  History left us a much better foundation for Socrates, Napoleon, and JFK - in that order.   Most of us would be 99% confident to express the notion JFK was a real person, outside a few conspiracy thinkers that is.  However, what did history leave us in defense of the three demigods in this list?  Jesus, Thor, and Hercules.

The two billion followers of the Christian religion alive, today, would tell us Jesus was a real person while Thor and Hercules are a myth.  Outside of faith, what did history give us to distinguish Jesus from Thor and Hercules?   History left us the Scandinavian religion in the Prose Edda as an account for Thor. The Greek religion accounts for Hercules in Apollodorus, Apollonius, Ovid and many other writings.  And the Christian religion historicized Jesus in the four canonical gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.  To restate the question, why do Christians view the books of their religion as history, but make clear the books of Greek and Scandinavian religion are myth?

“On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt” by Richard Carrier (2014),  is an eye-opening read for any history buff of first and second-century middle east religions and demigods.   Many modern Christians may find the historical content surrounding the creation of what is today's largest religion engaging.   Nearly 40% of Americans attend a church service weekly, and study the words of their gospels. However, a much smaller percentage understand the historicity of the gospels they study. If you consider yourself Christian, can you name what year the book of Mark was written?  Just as important, can you name the author(s) of the narratives that were attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John? 

It is commonly agreed by biblical scholars the Gospels of the New Testament were written in the late first century and early second century, by anonymous authors [2].  The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were attributed to the Apostles and the Evangelists named.  However, the authors did not identify themselves when the texts were written ~50+ years after the Apostle Paul wrote his accounts of Christianity.  When the New Testament was canonized, it was not ordered by the authored date; rather the books were placed in the order of the times each book spoke to.  Why is this important?  It is important because ~1/3 of the world's population follow the teachings in these books, but few followers understand the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses.  

It is worthy of thought to consider no books from the contemporary time of Jesus’s life survived which mention Jesus or Christianity.  None.  Since the beginning of the Christian faith, the lack of extrabiblical evidence for a historical Jesus has been reason for doubt in many followers, and used as criticism from non-believers.  However, for much of past two millennium the church has had the power to suppress this knowledge and the arguments surrounding it.  In the dark ages, most European literature was controlled and filtered by the church.  The surviving books from the first century we have, are what the Roman Catholic Church allowed to survive.  We only know what dark age priests wanted us to know with respect to first century Israel.  Moreover, even outside of Israel Christian missionaries, for example, destroyed most of the ancient Vedic texts in India [3].  With a highlighted example of Pope Theophilus burning the Library of Alexandria in 391CE; [4] Removing much of the knowledge and culture of the ancient world forever.  Why was so much history destroyed in the name of religion?  Unfortunately, we may never know, possibly 50% of the relevant first-century literature was destroyed by the church, and there was not much of a rebound in secular literature until 12th century Europe [5].  Table 1 [5].

In the past one hundred years, many books and articles have been written which discuss the missing history, from both Christian apologists and historians.  However, none of them explain the details as Richard Carrier (Ph.D. ancient history Columbia University) does in his 2014 writing of “On the Historicity of Jesus”. This book is small print of over 600 pages.  It is not a book to finish on an hour flight, but it is a publication that contains more research than any other book I have seen on the subject.  It is also the first peer-reviewed scholarly publication from a Ph.D. in ancient history on the topic.  Given ~30% of the world’s population is Christian, it is important to understand, as best we can, as to why there is no historical data for Jesus earlier than the Gospel stories themselves.  Consider the Jesus birth story, written in the 2nd century; if the authors were adult witnesses at the birth event, the authors would have had to keep the story to themselves and waited until they were ~120 years old to publish it.  The probability of the story must come into question, not only for the skeptical thinker, but for Christians too.  It is also noteworthy that Jesus never wrote anything himself.  If you turn on the news and watch long enough, chances are you will hear someone pronounce “Jesus said . . .”.  We must remember Jesus did not write a single word.  Instead history left us only the stories written a century later making claims of what Jesus said.   Dr. Carrier explores this time in history.

. . . . it will help to grasp the analogy of Socrates.  He is comparable to Jesus in being a famous sage whose influence was profound and everlasting (he is the father of what we now mean by Philosophy, in essentially the same way Jesus is of Christianity) without having written anything himself, his influence being entirely through his disciples, who each developed communities that then fragmented and modified his teachings into many competing sects.  . . . very much unlike Jesus, we know the names of over a dozen eyewitnesses who wrote books about Socrates

Remember the first accounts we have of Jesus are the Gospels ~ a century after his birth.  Paul claimed to know of Jesus in the spiritual realm, not as a physical person living ~20 years before his time.  Dr. Carrier continues:

. . . Even more unlike Jesus, we also have an eyewitness account of Socrates from a relatively unfriendly source as well:  The Clouds of Aristophanes is a comic play specifically written to poke fun of Socrates and his teachings and disciples, written by an eyewitness contemporary to both; . . . what we knew of Jesus would be vastly more credible and quantifiable if we had anything even remotely like this for him.    Yet we have none of the above; we have no eyewitness records at all, much less from neutral or hostile parties; we don’t even know of any written eyewitness accounts ever having existed (much less dozens upon dozens of them), and we certainly don’t have anything like identifiable quotations from them or their titles or authors. 

. . . it is not as if the first century was underrepresented by writers . .  

. . . There are really only two options available to the historicist that have any plausibility: (1) that Jesus was not at all famous but in fact so insignificant and uninfluential that he inspired almost no following whatever and was completely unnoticed by any literate person of the age (until- and except – Paul, though even he didn’t know Jesus, and showed next to no interest in his actual teachings and story); or (2) massive quantities of documents were deliberately destroyed or allowed to rot away. Unnoticed and unread (somehow no Christian of the second century having any access to them or showing any interest in them).  Neither is a particularly attractive hypothesis. . . . . a person of such actual insignificance as not to resemble in the least the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels.  An unsavory concluding indeed.  Yet, what else can we suppose?

It is also conspicuous to consider the further in time away from the Jesus' life, the more elaborate the stories grew.  Paul being the nearest to Jesus's time wrote few details of Jesus.  The Gospel of Mark, the first of the four Gospels was the main source for Matthew and Luke, and the basis of the historical Jesus.  From there the story became more decorated with each proceeding Gospel such as Luke during the second century; when no one from the time of the stories was alive to verify the historicity of any assertion made by the author(s).  On the other hand, we must remember the author(s) didn't cite any references or include a forward.  Thus, we cannot know if they meant for the stories to be taken as historical. All we can say for certain is the New Testament Gospels were written by late first-century and second-century Messianic Jews who were dominated by the Romans and the local elite orthodox Jews.  It is improbable the author(s) could have imagined the consequences their writings would have on generations to follow.  They certainly could not have predicted their future followers would destroy much of the recorded world history that existed in their time.  If Jesus was the miracle performer the Messianic Jews claimed him to be, if Jesus' resurrection was for all to see, why was this small group of second century Messianic Jews the only people who took notice?  Why didn't Jesus make the news in the early first century?

We would expect this lack of contemporary documentation if Jesus were thought of as Thor, or Hercules, or any other demigod of the time.  How do billions of people today reconcile known history (the history we have availability to) with their faith?  All history is known to us as some percentage of probability.  What is the historical probability that the Jesus written about in the Gospels was a historical figure?

Carrier, in “On the Historicity of Jesus”, details dozens of authors of the first century whose writings of from ~6CE to ~30CE were removed by the church.  What did these accounts contain which the church did not want us to know?  Carrier also lists scores of other first century authors, including Roman and Jewish government records.  None of them mention Christ or Christianity.   The fact that one or two of them have no mention of Christ or Christianity has some number in probability.  However, Carrier calculates the odds that none of them mentions Christ or Christianity is 30,000 to 1.  The odds of being struck by lightning in a lifetime are 12,000 to 1.

What did history give us in defense of the three demigods in this list?  Jesus, Thor, and Hercules.  Outside of a few books, nothing.   

[1] Susan Marks, Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America’s First Lay of Food (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).

[2] Duling, Dennis C. (2010). "The Gospel of Matthew." In Aune, David E. The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-0825-6.

[3] Stephen Knapp.  (2009) “Crimes Against India: And the Need to Protect Its Ancient Vedic Tradition: 1000 Years of Attacks Against Hinduism and What to do About it”.

[4] Fred Lerner (2001), The Story of Libraries, Continuum, p. 30,ISBN 9780826411143, 0826411142

[5] Buringh, Eltjo; van Zanden, Jan Luiten: "Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 69, No. 2 (2009), pp. 409–445 (416, table 1)

http://www.amazon.com/On-Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason/dp/1909697494