Why Believe in the Historical Jesus?

"Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us [in Jesus]. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught." -Luke 1:1-4

In 2006 a famous British scientist and critic of religion published a book against belief in God, calling out religious belief as a "delusion". Although the book embarrassed many in the atheist community at the time with its poor reasoning, inaccurate information, and angry tone, it proved (and still proves) to be an instant classic among the masses. The author's series of one-sided and badly understood attempts to journey beyond his genetics expertise into the fields of cosmology, philosophy, history, statistical analysis, and law, reached a particularly bad point when he decided to also speak for non-religious scholars in the field of Biblical Criticism,[1] telling his readers that "reputable scholars" do not regard the Bible as a reliable record of what happened in history and questioning whether Jesus even existed. A few years later one of the author's main sources on Biblical Criticism, an atheist as well as a critic of Christianity who must have been regarded as "reputable", had enough of the nonsense and wrote Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. It turns out that belief in the historical Jesus and the usefulness of the Bible for history is commonly held even among non-Christian Bible scholars, although that doesn't extend to belief in Jesus as God or His performing of miracles. (If they believed these then they wouldn't be atheist Bible scholars, just Christian ones. There are plenty of those too.)

WHAT NEARLY ALL BIBLICAL SCHOLARS RECOGNIZE ABOUT JESUS
Darrell Bock, a Christian Biblical scholar who has made the Historical Jesus his main area of study, has pointed out that a University course on the life of Jesus would look a lot different today than it would have 30 years ago. Detailed historical study over many decades has shifted the field and led even non-Christian Bible scholarship to affirm details of Jesus's life that only conservative fundamentalists would have agreed with back in the 70's or 80's. Among the details which Biblical scholars from all religious backgrounds affirm today are:

• Jesus was a Galilean Jewish man
• He grew up in Nazareth
• His native tongue was Aramaic
• He was baptized in the Jordan River by John
• He had a traveling ministry through Galilee and surrounding regions
• He was followed by a group of disciples, both men and women
• He taught about the Kingdom of God
• He often spoke in parables
• He had a reputation as a wonder worker who cast out demons and healed
• He showed/preached compassion to those regarded as unclean or wicked
• He engaged in debate over matters related to the Jewish law
• He went to Jerusalem at Passover the week of His death
• He caused a disturbance in the temple a few days before His arrest
• He had a final meal with his inner circle of disciples
• He was arrested at the request of the high priest in Jerusalem
• He was crucified under Pontius Pilate in 30 or 33 AD
• His disciples, and Paul, believed He appeared to them after His crucifixion

With just a few more details added, that list could practically be a statement of faith! At least, these affirmations cover most of the details in Jesus's life that we would read in the Gospels.

BIBLICAL SOURCES FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS

The main source of information about Jesus is the Bible. We're used to thinking of the Bible as one big book, and as a matter of faith that's true. But when we are looking at the Bible historically it's more valuable to see it as a collection of historical biographies and records (and the oral and written material from which they were made) as well as letters, and as windows into the authors and communities that they came from. That's how the letters of Paul, and the material in them, can still be used by even skeptical atheist scholars like Bart Ehrman to reconstruct the life of Jesus and the beliefs of his earliest followers within less than five or six years after the crucifixion (for more on that, see this post on some things I learned about the value of Paul's letters for understanding the historical Jesus after reading Ehrman's book Did Jesus Exist?). Then there are the four Gospels, which can now all be dated to about 70-90 AD at the latest, within a few decades after the crucifixion. The Gospels are actually each collections of even earlier material about Jesus, and by comparing them with each other we're able to tease out even more clearly what their sources were and how early they might have been as witnesses to Jesus's life, death, and even resurrection. So our historical sources from the Bible include:

• Paul's letters over the 40-60's
• Even earlier material that Paul references
• The Gospels, written over the 70-90's (at the latest - or as early as 50's)
• Earlier material used by the Gospels

NON-BIBLICAL SOURCES FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS

The two main first-century sources (before the year 100) for Jesus's life that aren't from the writings of Christians are The Antiquities of the Jews by Titus Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, and The Annals by Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian and politician. I've already put together a post on Josephus' words about Jesus entirely using excerpts from Bart Ehrman, so if you want more you can look there. What's important is what one skeptical Bible scholar writes about Josephus and Tacitus: "there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the pagan Tacitus or the Jewish Josephus acquired their information about Jesus by reading the Gospels. They heard information about him. That means the information the gave predated their writings. Indirectly, then, Tacitus and (possibly) Josephus provide independent attestation to Jesus's existence from outside the Gospels". This gives us:

• Josephus, c. 37-100 AD
• Tacitus, c. c. 65-120 AD
• The traditions and material that they used

FROM THE HISTORICAL JESUS TO THE CHRIST OF FAITH

When we talk about the historical Jesus we're talking about the smallest possible picture that we can have of who Jesus is. This is only what's been proven with enough certainty that scholars are forced to acknowledge it. It's what a secular Biblical scholar can still affirm without becoming a Christian. But we should be encouraged that the picture of Jesus they have been forced to come up with looks a lot like what we've come to believe about Him from reading the Bible, except for the resurrection and miracles. And often those doubts about Jesus in the mind of skeptics just comes from a belief that miracles can't exist. I would encourage you to make as much of Jesus as you can, and to have confidence that your belief in who Jesus is has enough evidence behind it that even the most reputable skeptical scholars also find much of that same picture compelling. So now--live for Jesus! Follow His example. I hope this has encouraged you in your faith.