After more than 30 years spent studying religion in general and Christianity in particular, it has become evident that religions are nothing more than intricate, adult-oriented forms of the fairytales of childhood. They function as an escape from reality, in much the same way as excessive use of alcohol or drugs. Even the “imaginary friend” syndrome of childhood has been co-opted and refined into a rapturously metaphysical “relationship” that, for Christians anyway, elevates their so-called truth above the mere religions of other cultures. As a psychological safety valve such escapism is not only tolerable, but indeed necessary. It provides a coping mechanism for the pressures of everyday life, but rational adults will confine it to that role rather than allowing it to become the validation of their entire existence.
An analysis of the available evidence indicates that Christianity is founded on folklore and superstition, and maintained by wishful thinking (or faith) rather than reason and logic. Reason and logic are the tools of maturity; wishful thinking is the refuge of children. This puts those who believe in Jesus Christ in the same boat as those who believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Since no reasonable person maintains belief in Santa Claus past childhood, why does the equally implausible belief in Jesus often persist for entire lifetimes?
When confronted with this question, many Christians will insist that the Bible is evidence, or that there are many outside historical references to the life and works of Jesus. Unfortunately for them, even a casual examination of what they characterize as evidence reveals it is sorely lacking.
For any information to be considered evidentiary it must meet two criteria; it must be unbiased and it must be contemporary. Unbiased means, most essentially, “neutral”. None of the books of the New Testament can be described as "neutral" because they were specifically chosen, or canonized, because they support the Nicene Creed. (The Nicene Creed is the fundamental doctrine agreed on by early church leaders about 300 years after the alleged time of Jesus).
Contemporary means “at the same time”. None of the accepted biographies of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) can be shown to have been written until well after the alleged time of Jesus. Interestingly, none of the 42 writers that lived and worked during this time mentions Jesus, which is puzzling given the large crowds and wondrous deeds that supposedly marked his existence. (John E. Remsburg gives a list of those writers in his book "The Christ"). A consequence of this deficiency of contemporary accounts is to invalidate the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” response used by some Christians. For instance, if I were to claim that there was a parade down Main Street yesterday but none of the 42 newspapers in town corroborated my claim, it would be reasonable and prudent to conclude that there was no parade. Absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence.
It is not enough, however, to simply dismiss the gospels en mass and expect to wean people away from such deeply entrenched conditioning. They can, and should, expect to be convinced that the beliefs they have taken for granted for so long lack substance. We will examine each of the four gospels.
Matthew:
Matthew was written about 100 A.D., nearly 70 years after the alleged death of Jesus, and so is not contemporary. Given the short life spans of the time, It is unlikely that the author was a witness to the events he describes.
The book of Matthew contradicts other gospels. It states that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod, while Luke says it was during the time that Cyrenius (Quirinius) ruled Syria. Since Herod died 10 years before Cyrenius came to power, either Luke or Matthew must be false. And if one must be false, then it is possible that both are false.
Another indication that Matthew is more fiction than fact is the following account of events:
Matthew 27 :50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. :51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; :52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, :53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Zombies roamed the streets of Jerusalem and this is the only record of it?
Mark:
Mark, the oldest of the gospels and the apparent basis of Luke and Matthew, could have been written no earlier than 70 A.D. since it mentions the destruction of the Jewish temple that occurred in that year. Given that that Clement of Alexandria (c150 A.D. to c215 A.D.) complained about the various competing versions of Mark that were circulating in his day, it’s safe to assume that the modern form of Mark wasn't achieved until at least 150 years after the alleged death of Jesus. Thus it is not contemporary.
Examining Mark closely, it becomes apparent that the author was unfamiliar with Jewish life, and has no knowledge of the geography of the area. One clue that Mark was neither Jewish nor a resident of Palestine is Mark 10:12, in which a hypothetical woman divorces her husband. At the time, Jewish women could not divorce their husbands (only men could obtain divorces) so obviously the writer had no knowledge of the people or their customs. Additionally, the earliest manuscripts of Mark place the “casting out of devils into swine which ran into the sea” story in Gerasa (not Gergasa as “corrected” by the King James translators), a place more than 30 miles from the sea.
If Mark had been an eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus, he would not have made these errors.
Luke:
The Gospel of Luke was written at about the same time as Matthew (it references a work written by the historian Josephus in 93 AD/CE, and so could have been written no earlier) and is also seems to be largely based on Mark.
Luke, in common with Matthew, contradicts other gospels (for example, it provides a 56 generation genealogy for Jesus that contradicts the 41 generation genealogy given in Matthew). The earliest versions of Luke also put the “devils-swine-sea” story in Gerasa, showing that this author (like the author of Mark) had no knowledge of local geography.
Luke seems to be no more a reliable historical document than Matthew.
John:
The oldest form of John that exists was written in about 125 A.D., nearly a century after the alleged death of Jesus, so John fails the requirement that evidence-quality documentation be contemporary. Also, since John the Apostle was supposedly killed by Herod Agrippa in about 44 A.D., it would have been impossible for John to have written it. Given that the book itself claims that it was written by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20), it is obviously a sham.
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But are the Gospels absolute fiction, pure fairy tales created in the imagination of a few story tellers? Possibly. Equally possibly the story of Jesus may be based on an actual person or persons, as is the case with many other myths and legends. Even a relatively short amount of time spent researching the idea presents a few likely sources for the Jesus legend.
Stories exist for a Yeishu ha-Notzri who lived about 100 B.C. Yeishu is the actual Hebrew form of the name Jesus, not Yehoshua as many Christians have been taught. The word Notzri means “sprout” or “shoot” (as from a plant), an appellation used by many with religious beliefs that evolved out of Judaism. (For clarification, if Yeishu had been from Nazareth, his surname would have been ha-Natzrati). The story of this Yeishu indicate that he was stoned to death and his body hung up on the eve of Passover. Interestingly, he had five disciples, two whose names (Matthew and Thaddeus) are borrowed for the Jesus legend.
Another possible Jesus-source was named Yeishu ben Stada, a magician from Egypt who was stoned to death in Lod (Lydda) for treason.
Some other messiah-figures were crucified during the Roman occupation, namely Yehuda of Galilee (6 AD/CE), Theudas (44 AD/CE) and Benjamin the Egyptian (60 AD/CE) and are probably the source of the crucifixion aspect of the Jesus legend.
As we can see, the Bible in and of itself is very poor material upon which to base such a significant belief. The well-studied, die-hard Christian can be expected, at this point, to begin dropping the names of established historians whose works allegedly contain the kind of unbiased, contemporary references to which I have been alluding. Let’s deal with the most oft-quoted of these.
There is a passage in a history written by a Jewish scholar named Josephus that seems to establish the historicity of Jesus. However, the most casual study of this work shows that the passage pertaining to Jesus was inserted at a later date and was not part of the original work. Also, since Josephus wasn’t born until 37 A.D., he could not have been an eyewitness to the life of Jesus.
Another work pointed to by Christians is called “The Annals” written by Tacitus. Unfortunately, the Annals were written about 80 years after the alleged time of Jesus, and so are relatively useless as contemporary evidence.
Suetonius, in his Lives of the Caesars, is sometimes quoted by Christians, but since this work was also not written until many decades had passed, it cannot be relied upon either.
Even giving these works a Christian benefit of the doubt, none of them (with the exception of the obvious forgery in Josephus) reports the existence of Jesus, but merely the existence of Christians. This is kind of like saying that the existence of children who believe in Santa Claus is proof that Santa really exists.
Does any of this prove that Jesus definitely did not exist? Let’s go back to the example given earlier; if I claimed there was a parade down Main Street yesterday, yet none of the 42 newspapers in town corroborated my claim, would that prove there was no parade? The likelihood that a parade passed and none of the 42 newspapers reported it is so vanishingly small that it can be considered ridiculous.
Even more ridiculous, and perhaps pitiful, would be any attempts on my part to convince people that the parade really did happen by providing numerous spurious accounts of it written decades later by people who weren’t there.
By the same token, we can be assured that the Christian religion is likewise pitiful and ridiculous, unworthy of the esteem in which it is held by so many people. Eventually, Jesus will take his rightful place alongside Santa and the Easter Bunny as a nice story to tell children, but one that is properly left behind as they grow up.