An Open Letter To Michael Paulkovich And Free Inquiry

[PS, 31. December 2014: I'm a mythicist: I'm not at all sure whether or not Jesus existed. I mentioned that at the end of this post. I'm saying it again here because people don't always read other people's blog posts all the way to the end, and because it's the reason I wrote this: I wrote it because I'd like to see quality research being done on the question of Jesus' existence. It's not being done, because the experts, the academics, aren't doing it.]



It seems that your article in Free Inquiry is open to subscribers only. [PS, 31. December 2014: It's been moved to the public part of Free Inquiry's website. ] But I can see the header on the Free Inquiry website:

If the story of Jesus were true, ancient writers should have commented on it—yet 126 (and counting) who might have done so, did not.

And I would just love to see a list of those 126 (or more) writers. You see, I've been studying ancient history and literature for a long, long time, and had been under the impression that the number was more like 0. You obviously have a huge brain and know many things which I do not. I've found some of the 126 on a website which quotes you as having said "in a recent interview,"

"Emperor Titus, Cassius Dio, Maximus, Moeragenes, Lucian, Soterichus Oasites, Euphrates, Marcus Aurelius, or Damis of Hierapolis. It seems none of these writers from first to third century ever heard of Jesus, global miracles and alleged worldwide fame be damned"

Great, I finally found the names of some of the 126 (or more) writers whose failure to mention Jesus is downright strange. Okay then, let's take a look at those 9:

Titus. Okay, good: Titus was actually in Judea, he led Roman troops against the Jewish uprising, which he successfully crushed in AD 70. Is it strange that we kind find no mention of Jesus in his writings? Well, no. Because, you see, none of Titus' writings are known to us. Which means that what's strange here -- in my humble opinion -- is that you're talking about examining his writings. Very strange. The primary sources of information about Titus are Josephus (who mentions Jesus), Tacitus (who mentions Christians), Suetonius (ditto), and the 2nd name someone claims you listed off in an interview,

Cassius Dio. Actually, I've more often heard him referred to as Dio Cassius, but why rag on that and imply that you got all this off the back of some cereal box? Let's just call him Dio for the sake of brevity. (And so that people who are familiar with his work, if any such are reading along, will know what we're talking about.) Dio writes a couple of lines about Titus and the Jewish War, in which he makes no mentions of any Jews alive at that time, let alone decades before during the supposed time of Jesus, or Pontius Pilate either. In fact the only near-contemporary mentions of Pilate known before the 20th century, when an inscription was found which seems to have been made by him, are in the New Testament, and the Jewish authors Josephus (mentions Jesus) and Philo, and Tacitus (mentions Christians). But yeah, it's strange that Dio doesn't mention this one particular Jewish preacher who had 12 whole followers.

Maximus. There's a 2nd-century Athenian philosopher named Maximus. Show me he had ever heard of Judea or Galilee, and then we can talk about why it would be strange for him not to have written about Jesus. The other people I've heard about named Maximus are even more ridiculous in this discussion. (Do you mean the general and gladiator Maximus, who killed Commodus? You know that Maximus is entirely fictional, right?)

Moeragenes. Never heard of him.

Lucian. Now here we have an ancient author from whom an unusually-large volume of work has survived. The closest any of his works come to Jerusalem or Nazareth is that Adversus Indoctum mocks a Syrian book-collector. What the fuck, Michael? (What the fuck, Free Inquiry? You don't have any fact-checkers?)

Soterichus Oasites. A Soterichus who lived around AD 300 wrote poems about Alexander the Great and Dionysus. Hm, yeah, very strange that he didn't toss any mention of Jesus into those.

Euphrates. That's a river, not a writer.

Marcus Aurelius. He was relatively friendly toward Jews. This may be the strongest straw you have to grasp at. (Why should the religious be the only ones who can grasp at straws and take rhetorical short-cuts?)

Damis of Hierapolis. A Damis was a pupil of Apollonius of Tyana. None of this Damis' work has survived, and none of this Apollonius' either, but Apollonius has sometimes been compared to Jesus so I can see how you got confused.

I'm not a Christian, I'm not picking on you for theological reasons. I'm an atheist, and I'm far from certain that Jesus existed, and I think it's shameful the way that the vast majority of mainstream Biblical scholars avoid any suggestion that there could ever be any reasonable doubt that Jesus existed, and I'm picking on you because I take history seriously, and I've read some ancient literature untranslated, and I don't go around talking out of my ass like you do, and it's embarrassing that some people think of me in the same breath as clowns like you, because of my doubts about whether Jesus existed and the way the academics treat the subject and therefore frame the discussion.

PS, 29. September, 3:50 PM: I found the list! Of all 126, or is it more by now? 3/4 of the way to the bottom of the linked page: The Silent Historians, he calls them. Stayed tuned, readers. This is gonna be fun.

Maybe the Last Post About Jesus For a Little While

I'm concerned that I may have been boring the Hell out of regular readers lately, hammering away at one particular topic. So one more remark for the time being, with the hope that it doesn't seem I'm merely repeating what I've already said repeatedly lately:

It seems to me that Biblical scholars usually assume that Jesus existed, and then interpret everything they study in that light. As opposed to considering whether or not Jesus existed in the light of everything they study. And no, I don't have a PhD in New Testament studies or in anything else. But I'd like to think that even if I were the chairperson of a prestigious faculty of Biblical studies, I would still avoid the pitfall of arguing from authority -- or credentialism, a cool word I learned today. People insisting that it's certain that Jesus existed keep referring to their own or other people's credentials, instead of discussing the question. (And then the experts wonder why so many people aren't inclined to listen to them.) An opinion makes the same amount of sense no matter how many or how few people hold it, or how many or how few credentials those people hold. 300 years ago the scholarly consensus in Western civilization was that anyone who professed atheism should be put to death for it. A consensus, in and of itself, is no reason to agree with the consensus. I'm sure all of you can think of many examples where great majorities of this group or that all agreed and all were horribly wrong.

What is particularly disturbing in this case is that the professors who seem so closed-minded to me on this one question seem so reasonable and intellectually curious in general. It's not as if it were just more of the same from some demagogues who spew nonsense nonstop. No, these are very bright and highly-educated, highly-civilized people. Worse, they're people who are experts in some areas of study which particularly fascinate me. People I could talk to at great length about old manuscripts and debate textual variants. People who are fascinated by things I love, too, although they would put 99.99% of you swiftly to sleep. Lately I've felt like Dustin Hoffman near the end of Lenny pleading with a judge to listen to the points he's trying to make, pleading to be heard and not treated like a random raving fool. Wondering whether anyone in the room even cares about what he's struggling so mightily to express as clearly as he can.

Well, that's a little over-dramatic on my part: I'm not that isolated and helpless, I'm not being hauled off to jail for the umpteenth time for saying what I feel is important.

(It would be nice, though, if some highly-respected professor or fourteen would join this chorus. All we're asking for is the beginning of a discussion.)

"Ve Haff Vays of Sreatening Your Tenure!"

John Dominic Crossanhas joined Bart Ehrmanin reminding us great unwashed types that the debate about Jesus' historical existence is over, and that the skeptics lost. In his latest screed for Huffington Post, Crossan refers in the first sentence to "the historical fact -- yes, fact -- that Pilate executed Jesus at Passover."

Are Ehrman and Crossan only talking to people like me who don't have PhD's, or are their pronouncements that this debate, which I can't find when it started within academia, although of course several prominent academics have been fired for trying to start it there -- Ah say Ah say are Ehrman and Crossan & Co only talking to us, or are their flat assertions that the debate is over thinly-veiled threats to their colleagues with PhD's and tenure or hopes of tenure, that trying to open the debate within mainstream academia will still, anno domini two thousand and frickin twelve, land the would-be opener quickly outside the mainstream where he or she will be ridiculed and compared to climate-change deniers? Richard Carrier thinks so. Carrier has a PhD, but he also has a big pair of brass balls, and if he cares about the tenure he's not going to get soon in a mainstream faculty, he hides it admirably well.

Not only do I not have a PhD, it's been at least fifteen years since I could remember what it had felt like to care about tenure, so Crossan and Ehrman aren't scaring me. I can very grudgingly understand that other people are cowardly pussies who always want to cover their asses. Hey, it's no secret. People are the way they are. But even cowards can gradually become embarrassed, and this shit is embarrassing. The claim that anybody who doesn't join in the chorus of "it's a fact, yes a fact that Jesus existed, there's no doubt among the educated and non-crazy" is like a climate-change denier is so desperately tired that people ought to be really embarrassed for not speaking up about it. Cowardliness vs this intense embarrassment. Eventually, surely, a few of the cowards will cease to be so cowardly. They'll trade job security for sleeping the sound sleep of the ballsy.

When meterologists and geologists are confronted by climate-change deniers, they don't refuse to discuss climate change, and they don't ask to see the deniers' credentials. They by Vishnu discuss climate change. They refer to data. Surely, by this year of two thousand and for crying out loud twelve, people like Ehrman and Crossan are beginning to make themselves irrelevant in intellectual debate, are beginning to more closely resemble televangelists in the public perception, by continuing to pretend that the question of Jesus' historical existence has been properly debated. Come out, all you people who know better! Trust me: having guts feels good. Point out that the emperors aren't wearing clothes.

I Accuse You, You Cowardly Closeted Academic Mythicists!

After writing a post yesterday in this blog responding to Bart Ehrman's emphatic expression of his lack of any doubt that Jesus existed, delivered with a healthy portion of disdain for all who do entertain such doubts, stating that their number currently includes not a single legitimate professor in a relevant field in the Western world, I was made aware that Richard Carrier had also responded to Ehrman's article. Carrier's response to Ehrman is much longer, more authoritative and detailed than mine, but we share a dislike of the way Ehrman attempts to declare the question closed of whether or not Jesus existed, and to discourage, and disparage, any further discussion of it. We both call Ehrman out for closed-mindedness.

Near the beginning of his blog post, Carrier makes the following remarkable statement:

I personally know a few professors who [...] feel this way: they do not touch this topic with a ten foot pole, precisely because they fear the kind of thing Ehrman is doing and threatening. They do not want to lose their jobs or career prospects and opportunities. They do not want to be ridiculed or marginalized.

So, Ehrman and Carrier are asserting two very different things: Ehrman says that no credible scholar believes that doubts of Jesus' existence are serious enough to be worth discussing, while Carrier maintains that such a discussion would be serious, but is squelched by professors' fears that they would hurt their careers by opening it.

They fear to be honest, because it might hurt their careers. If this is true, then in my opinion it ought to make very many people very angry. Generally speaking, in academia free and open discussion is supposedly prized. If a meteorologist or a geologist deliberately falsified their findings, or deliberately hindered open debate in their fields, or twisted their interpretation of data to give the appearance that they believed things which they did not believe, one thinks, it would much more likely be cause of damage to their careers than advancement. (Unless, of course, they were to leave academia altogether and work as shills for the petrochemical industry.) If what Carrier is saying is accurate, that in the faculties of New Testament studies and Christian theology one of the central questions, perhaps the most central question, is being systematically repressed, and that people's careers often depend on their consciously-dishonest complicity in that repression, yes, I think that ought to make people very angry indeed. What struck me most about Carrier's statement about professors willingly engaging in duplicity to cover their asses is how similar it is to statements made by Rudolf Augstein, founder and publisher of Der Spiegel for over half a century and its editor for almost that long, in his book Jesus Menschensohn and in interviews about that book: theologians and Biblical scholars, quite prominent ones, had told Augstein privately, so he said, that the party line of there being no doubt that Jesus was a real historical figure, as real as Julius Caesar or Otto von Bismarck, did not convince them. That they had doubts. Private doubts. But they kept their doubts private, and so the party line thrived, and dissenters continued to be relegated to outsider status and routinely mocked by the mainstream.

Well, it's Anno Domini MMXII. It's high time to end such medieval, Inquisition-style crap. It's time for these cowards to be outed. We trust them with the education of our young men and women. They're supposed to be role models. They're supposed to have more integrity than shills for the petrochemical industry. Biblical studies and theology continue to claim that they are fully modern academic disciplines and not medieval warrens of deceit. Richard Carrier, will you out these worms? Augstein died a decade ago, he can't do it, not unless something is found among his papers...

Of course, you cowardly little worms, this would all be so much more dignified if you would out yourselves. Think of Bruno Bauer. Think of Friedrich Nietzsche. Think of Karlheinz Deschner. Look at your own damned selves in your mirrors, if you can. Think of your children. Man and woman up. It's 2012, God damn it.

It's Settled! (Not!)

Bart Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has for a few years been very popular among atheists interested in the early history of Christianity, having written a few books for popular audiences on New Testament textual criticism, New Testament apocrypha and the rise of Christianity. He's been popular with the atheists in part because he's more open about his agnosticism than many other agnostic and atheist Biblical scholars and theologians, in part because of his talent for finding cameras making TV shows and documentaries and placing himself in front of them, and partly because he's generally an affable, likeable guy. But it appears that he just went and ticked off a large part of his audience, the part who didn't realize that he was firmly of the opinion that Jesus existed. The firmness of that opinion could be said to be the subject of Ehrman's newest book, Did Jesus Exist? I was never a big fan of Ehrman's, it always seemed to me that many atheists overestimated the distance between him and the theological-Biblical-historical mainstream and overlooked the sensationalism inherent in much of his work -- for example, the way he suggested to unwary lay readers in his book Lost Scriptures that New Testament apocrypha represented an entire alternate history of early Christianity, while greatly underplaying the dates of these apocryphal books from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and even 6th centuries. By the 6th century it's beginning to be a stretch to talk about "early" Christianity, whether established or alternative. Ehrman hyped this non-existent alternate universe much like History Channel likes to do.

Back to Ehrman's latest book, about the historical Jesus. Ehrman is firmly convinced that Jesus was a real man and not a fictional character. This is not a change for Ehrman, he's held that opinion all along, but it appears that many of his atheist fans who are not of the same opinion were not yet aware of this. Indications of shock and disappointment are widespread. But it's more than just Ehrman making his opinion on this matter book-length clear. What stings even more for those who so long ago were his adoring atheist fans is that Ehrman doesn't state it as an opinion but as a fact: "Jesus certainly existed."

I was surprised by this too. If Ehrman had merely said that he was firmly convinced, implying that reasonable people may hold different opinions on the matter but that it seemed clear to him, that would have been one thing. But in the manner of traditional Christian theology and New Testament scholarship, Ehrman states that there is no controversy, no uncertainty.

But it's not merely that Ehrman declares the discussion to be over: he states as well, on no firm basis whatsoever if you ask me, that no accredited professor in the Western World "who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics" disagrees with him. That already puts Ehrman into no-true-Scotsman territory. But he doesn't stop there. He compares those who disagree with him and the theological mainstream with Holocaust deniers and birthers.

Ehrman is quite simply wrong when he states that it's certain that Jesus existed. That's the part that hurts his admirers so. But in the larger context the more serious problem is that Ehrman is right when he states that the vast majority of his academic discipline agrees with him. He's wrong when he claims that this virtual unanimity extends to all academics with any competence in any fields related to ancient history. Flat wrong. But when it comes to Christian theology and New Testament studies, he's right that they're almost all on his side. And they almost all state their opinion not as an opinion but as a certainty. and many of them, perhaps not all, also verbally abuse anyone with the temerity to actually want to discuss the matter as if it were not settled.

170 years ago the Prussian government withdrew Bruno Bauer's permission to teach in their universities because he published works stating his opinion that Jesus may have been every bit as much a mythical construct as Abraham. In those 170 years much has changed for the better in freedom of expression. But Bart Ehrman has made it very clear how far theology and Biblical studies continue, not only to lag behind that progress, but to stifle it. Academics in those fields are not inclined to discuss the historicity of Jesus, and many of them are perfectly willing to behave with crude, medieval contempt toward anyone who does.

No History Here, Just Wild Speculation. Plus My Own Thoughts

Over and over again in the writings of modern and contemporary theologians and Biblical scholars, one reads the assertions that neither Jesus nor his disciples could read or write any Greek, that maybe some of them could read some Hebrew, but that most likely the only language they were really fluent in was Aramaic.

You get this even from the most supposedly enlightened people in these specialties. The ones who freely admit that the chronology of the Gospels is very suspect and that there was no census bringing Joseph and his pregnant bride Mary to Bethlehem, and no Slaughter of the Innocents, that the story of the Slaughter of the Innocents is clearly borrowed from the equally-fictitious story from the infancy of Moses, who himself may never existed. These scholars do not believe in any miracles, neither walking on water nor Resurrection nor healing by laying on of hands, and they will tell you that Jesus probably never said most of the things the New Testament says he said, and even that some of the 12 Apostles may be fictitious. But it's certain, they say, that Jesus existed, and also certain that he couldn't read or speak Greek.

Finally, finally, these days you can be a Christian theologian or a New Testament scholar and say publicly that you're actually not certain that Jesus existed and still keep your job. And so some people in those fields are saying it, more than the few who said it before and were fired, and then, as if that weren't bad enough, ridiculed in unison by their former colleagues. The ridicule is still par for the course. But listen closely to the average theologian or Biblical scholar scornfully dismissing a black sheep who says it's not certain that Jesus existed, and see if the reaction extends beyond dismissal to any actual explanation of why doubt is ridiculous on this point. All I ever see is the peremptory dismissal.

Even from the ones who cast doubt on almost everything the Gospels say, one encounters this certainty that Jesus' existence is well-established historical fact. Uh, excuse me, established how exactly? What sources do we have besides those accounts you just finished trashing when it comes to their historical reliability? That's right -- none. But they -- the current academic mainstream -- don't stop at being certain he existed, they're currently also certain that he was preaching political revolution and socialism, and that he like his father was more of a day laborer than an actual skilled carpenter, and that the whole family was veryvery poor, and that Jesus neither wrote nor spoke Greek, and maybe not even Hebrew either.

Where did they get all this? Mostly from our increasing knowledge of what a typical 1st-century Jewish peasant living in a small town near Jerusalem was like. They've decided to agree that Jesus was a typical peasant. There's no logical reason to make these positive assumptions. There are only contemporary theological reasons. In short: they pulled all of that right out of their butts.

I say: we don't know. We don't know whether Jesus existed, and if he did, we don't know how much of the information in the Gospels is true, much less things not mentioned in the Gospels such as whether or not he could read and speak Greek.

If Jesus existed, then, it seems to me, contemporary theology is wrong. If he existed, then most likely the last thing he was was typical.

There is the story of Jesus' family coming to Jerusalem when he was 12, and Jesus going to the Temple and amazing the elders with his learning. There is no mention in the Gospels of what Jesus did between the ages of 12 and 30. There are mentions of a wealthy friend of his, Joseph of Arimathea. Maybe Jesus could read Hebrew quite well by age 12, and could talk about the Bible like a scholar. That's the sort of thing which would have amazed elders at the Temple. Maybe a rich man, such as Joseph of Aremathea, took an interest in this bright young lad and offered to educate him. That's the sort of thing which has happened to a few lucky bright poor children since long before Jesus' time. Maybe Jesus spent 18 years at Joseph's house, happily burrowing through mountains of codices and scrolls, learning Greeka and Latin as well as Hebrew.

I've often wondered about that conversation between Jesus and Pilate. Did they communicate through an interpreter? Or did Pilate know some Hebrew or Aramaic? Or did Jesus know some Greek or Hebrew?

Only lately I've begun to wonder whether people such as Pilate or Herod would have condescended to speak to a typical peasant or day-laborer at all. It's embarrassing that it took me so long to wonder about that. But if Jesus was not just a typical peon, but a highly-educated young man who for the last few years had returned to the milieu of his early childhood, an articulate fellow who spoke good Greek, and possibly even good Latin, in addition to his native Aramaic -- well, that sort of person would be much more likely to pique the interest of the governor of the entire province, and cause him to take a few minutes out of his busy day of plotting against other politicians and playing in his harem, wouldn't he?

What's that? You say that I'm speculating very freely here, extrapolating from very, very little concrete evidence? Why thank you, that would put me on a par with the leading Jesus scholars of our day. Except that I freely acknowledge that the picture I've just spun is only one of many possible versions of the beginning of Christianity, including the distinct possibility that Jesus never existed at all.