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This video was presumably posted in response to my claim that Hitchens had never debated an actual biblical scholar on the matter of the Bible. Your link actually exacerbates my point, since Marvin Olasky is neither a biblical scholar, nor is he even regarded as a representative of mainstream scholarship even among his own academic peers. His utter dearth of anything more than a passing familiarity with ancient history and biblical issues is painfully evident in that debate. It is little short of embarrassing.
I repeat: Had Hitchens ever engaged an actual biblical scholar about the Bible, he would have been obliterated on the arguments.
The Case for the Existence of Jesus of Nazareth
In the following few posts, I will outline as simply as I can manage the argument for the life of the man Jesus, who lived and died in Palestine in the early first cent. CE, and upon whom the Christian religion was based. Like all historical investigations, the topic of the historical Jesus is one that depends upon
historical probabilities. So, the case I will be mounting is a positive argument that does not purport any certainty about the existence of Jesus, but rather is summarised as follows:
It is historically more plausible that the man Jesus existed than it is that he was invented and mythologized.
The reason for this is quite simple:
In the historical and cultural context of first cent. Palestine, it is practically impossible that the claims made by the Church about Jesus would have been invented, and virtually certain that they would have gained no traction. On the contrary, it is much more reasonable to expect that:
· there was an actual man from Nazareth named Jesus.
· he was a religious zealot who led an apocalyptic religious movement in the Judaean hill country.
· he caused a religious disturbance in Jerusalem that led to his arrest, trial and Roman execution.
· something happened following his execution to lead his followers to assert his resurrection, and which laid the groundwork for the enormously popular early Christian movement.
First and foremost, Jesus was Jewish, and all of his first followers were Jewish. My specialty is early Judaism and in particular, apocalyptic movements, "scripture" interpretation, and the transition between "temple religion" and "book religion". I know something about Jewish thought, Jewish worldviews, and more pertinently, Jewish messianic expectations that were percolating in the politically volatile and highly charged religious climate in first cent. Palestine. Most Jews had known nothing but foreign occupation for the better part of the past half millennium, with a lone possible exception of the independent Hasmonaean state that existed for about 100 years before the invasion of Pompey in the 60's BCE. Most Jews were weary of Roman taxation, and disillusioned by the failures of their own nationalistic ambitions, and the corruption that was rampant in their own religious establishment. Huge numbers of Jews were suspicious of foreign influence, and as a result were extremely dubious about the pervasive influences of Hellenistic culture that had been intruding on their own cultural and religious ideals. It is important to note that for centuries the Jews had understood themselves to be a divinely favoured ethnic group, and "religiously separate" and distinct from every other people group on the planet: this is a somewhat simplified and rudimentary definition of "holiness". Because of their past history, and in line with their own self perception, it had become common for many—perhaps most Jews to believe that their fortunes would be reversed by way of a movement by God. They expected that God would intervene, and that he would empower (or "anoint") a national leader to wage a holy war against the Romans, which would result in Jewish global supremacy, and the establishment of an eternal divine rule that was centred in Jerusalem. This, in very basic terms was what they understood to be the "kingdom of God".
So, this was the world into which Jesus was born, and in which he lived. It is practically certain that Jesus was an apocalyptic revolutionary. He embraced the idea of divine intervention, and he actively campaigned for the imminent intervention of God. He may or may not have believed that he was the "messiah", that is, the anointed one of God to restore the kingdom of Israel, to defeat the Romans, and to inaugurate the kingdom of God. He attracted a good deal of attention for his ideas, and amassed a following among his local, bucolic contemporaries.
This basic storyline is what is revealed by a close read, and a historically and critically sensitive understanding of the Gospels. They are not eyewitness accounts, but they do contain numerous kernals of information that are regarded by any historical measure to be accurate reflections of a real movement led by a real man named Jesus.
Now, let's consider the contrary: that this particular Jewish messiah (Jesus was NOT the only one to make messianic claims in the first century!) was fabricated to fulfill popular Jewish expectations. That they invented a miracle-working peasant preacher to fulfil the scriptural prophecies about the divinely anointed national hero who would vanquish the enemies and oppressors of Judaea. In all honesty, why would any Jew in the first place have invented such a figure, and in the second place, why would any other Jew choose to believe in him? Apart from the purported miracles, Jesus was socially unexceptional, and were someone to invent a messiah, he most certainly would have appeared much more closely aligned to the following example:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by 11QMelchizedek
"For this is the time decreed for “the year of Melchiz[edek]’s favor” (Isaiah 61:2, modified) and for [his] hos[ts, together] with the holy ones of God, for a kingdom of judgment, just as it is written concerning him in the Songs of David, “A godlike being has taken his place in the coun[cil of God;] in the midst of the divine beings he holds judgment” (Psalm 82:1). Scripture also s[ays] about him, “Over [it] take your seat in the highest heaven;A divine being will judge the peoples” (Psalm 7:7–8).
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Without even getting to the enormous problem of Jesus's death for Jews and the common messianic narrative, the case against the historical Jesus is already on very shaky ground. In short, the construct that Richard Carrier, Robert Price and the other mythicists want us to believe is neither historically nor culturally possible. It is much more probable that Jesus actually existed.