Jesus must have been God because of the simple process of elimination: none of teh alternative explanations even makes sense! [1] Billions of people claim that the Bible is
true when it claims that Jesus was God, the creator of the universe, who took
the form of a simple man. But are they wrong? Let’s look at the alternatives:
Option 1: Jesus
never existed; he was completely invented in the first century. [2] The problem with this option is that much of the
documentary evidence we have, both Biblical and Roman, dates between the mid-first
century and early second. For instance, Tacitus, the greatest of all Roman historians,
wrote disparagingly about Jesus in the very early second century. [3] There was
not enough time for such an elaborate myth to develop, particularly when first-
and second-hand witnesses were still living. [4] There is no way a Jesus myth could
have been invented in the first or early second centuries.
Option 2: Jesus
never existed; he was completely invented much later. As noted above, there are multiple documents from the first
and early second century describing Jesus, and dozens of manuscript fragments from
the second century. [5] There is no way a Jesus myth could have been invented
later than 150 CE.As well, if there really was an original
form of Christianity that didn't believe Jesus was a man, then it makes no
sense that there is no trace of it
Option 3: Jesus
was a simple itinerant rabbi whose story was completely distorted and
embellished. In fact, Jesus of Nazareth was only one of many itinerant
rabbis in that era, [6] who happened to gather an enormous following which
continued to grow after his execution. Could the miracles be later additions? Is
it possible Jesus didn’t claim to be God? As with option 1, the problem with
this theory is timing. The three synoptic gospels were written between 60 and
90 CE, likely based on an earlier written version [7] and oral histories. At
this time, there were dozens or hundreds of surviving eyewitnesses to the
events. The distortions and embellishments could not have happened earlier, or they
would have been denounced. They could not have happened in 60-120 CE, because Tacitus
writes in 116 CE that Nero blamed the Christians for a fire that burned Rome in
64 CE. [3] And they could not have happened after that because we have a very
clear continuity of manuscript integrity from the mid-second century onwards.
[5]
Option 4: Jesus
was a Roman agent whose mission was to quell Zionist unrest. In particular, the Romans faked his death and removed his
still-living body from the tomb. This option has a number of failings:
1. First, if it was a plot, it certainly failed horribly. There
was a catastrophic Zionist uprising in the 60s ending with the destruction of the
Temple and expulsion of the Jews in 70 CE. From an Imperial point of view, this
is very bad for business.
2.
Second, if the objective was to change Jewish
opinion, why did the earliest groups adopt a communal life, separate from
mainstream society? [8] Why did the Romans allow the Pharisees to persecute the
Christians from the very beginning? [9] Why did the apostles insist on Jesus’
divinity, a heresy that isn’t core to Roman interests, rather than focusing on
Jesus’ message of love, peace and subservience to secular Rome? [10]
3.
Third, were the apostles in on the plot? If yes,
why would they willingly be martyred after it had failed, rather than deny it?
And if not, how were so many people – the apostles and hundreds of more
skeptical bystanders – convinced of the dozens of miracles? How do you fake
healing a paralytic, a leper and an epileptic?
4. Finally, when the
Christian hoax had gone awry and become a problem rather than a solution, a
mere 40 years after it was invented, surely someone in Rome would have recalled
the conspiracy and trotted it out to show the early Christians were dupes. Indeed, all memory of the conspiracy had disappeared by the
time Tacitus wrote. As a senator Tacitus would have had access to any records
or witnesses, and as a rigorous historian he would have investigated this.
The conspiracy theory has no evidence and several
gaping logical holes. It doesn’t make any sense.
Option 5: Jesus
was a lunatic who convinced his followers he was God. After all, we have seen modern people start
cults of self-aggrandizement, such as Jim Jones or David Koresh. But the one thing
these people all have in common is secrecy. They keep their truths private,
they perform miracles in secret, and they amass a hidden fortune. But Jesus was
not at all like that. In Matthew 5 he preached to thousands of people at once
in the open country-side. In Matthew 9 he openly debated theological points
with the church authorities. In Matthew 14 he miraculously fed thousands of
people, in public. In Matthew 27 he died penniless and was buried in a borrowed
tomb. Jesus does not match the universal pattern of a lunatic cult
leader.
Option 6: Jesus
was an evil spirit who deceived us all. This
option is very rare, being rejected by every Christian and every person who denies that demons exist. The convincing argument
against it is the actual message preached by Jesus: love your neighbour,
forgive your enemies, forgive each other’s’ sins, be generous, worship God, and
so on. Why would a demon work so fervently to support his enemy’s cause?
Option 7: Other
non-divine explanations. In keeping with the
Holmesian fallacy, [1] this option claims that Jesus was not divine but we have
not yet found an explanation for the phenomenon of Christian belief that he
was. This is grasping at straws, a tenacious dogma that “Jesus wasn’t God because
God doesn’t even exist,” which is motivated by an emotional refusal to accept
even the possibility that it could be true. This is bad history; this is bad
science; and this is bad logic. It is irrational.
Option 8: Jesus
was God, as he claimed. To me, incredible as
it may seem, this is the last remaining explanation.
__________________________________
[1] This is an informal fallacy known as the Holmesian fallacy, which points out the flaw in
Holmes’ saying: it assumes we know all of the possible explanations. While this
is strictly speaking true of Jesus – there could be another explanation we
haven’t thought up yet – it is also true of every
claim of science. In fact, it is the core weakness of inductive logic, as
opposed to deductive logic. But as Rene Descartes found, you can’t get very far
with deduction alone. The only way we know anything
about reality is by induction, and every so-called fact we know about reality
is also susceptible to this criticism.
[2] Invented, in the sense of complete fiction,
or an amalgam of other people, or an amalgam of existing myths, or some
combination.
[3] See Tacitus - Wikipedia and Tacitus on Christ -
Wikipedia.
[4] Non-Biblical ancient manuscripts indicate
that for a myth to develop takes at least several centuries. See How
long does it take for a fact to become a legend?
[5] There is a short overview of second century
scripture fragments at Bible
archaeology report: The earliest New Testament manuscripts.
[6] The Jewish tradition of itinerant rabbis is
described in Maggid - Wikipedia.
[7] It is reliably thought that Matthew and Luke
based parts of their gospels on the so-called Q Source - Wikipedia, a
previous written collection of Jesus’ sayings.
[8] Acts 2:42-47 and Acts 4:32-37
[9] Acts 4:1-22 and Acts 5:17-42
[10] Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:20-22 (“render
unto Caesar…”) certainly seem to serve Roman interests, but are not reported at
all as being repeated by the apostles in Acts. Quite the opposite, in Act
4:10-12, Peter insists that Jesus is the Messiah, which would serve only to
alienate the Jewish leaders!
