The Historicity of Jesus

As a Christian, raised in Christian family, my faith was inherited. Only later on as I began to seriously questioning my faith, I finally come to a state of owned faith. Most of us, would easily take for granted the fact of the historicity of Jesus. If I believe in Jesus, I assume that he must exists or otherwise what am I believing now? But this is the whole point. The reverse could happened, and devastating to our concern. If Jesus was never existed in history, there is no Christianity, and our faith are based on lies. The strongest opposing which ever come into the arena of Jesus historicity was always been known through this unavoidable name, Barth Ertman, a former Christian turn agnostic. He questioning the historicity of Jesus up to its core as in his book, Did Jesus Exists? conclude that Christ of faith is only myth, the invention of the gospels writers. The movement like Jesus Seminar and also the Quest of Historical Jesus also rigorously argue for that kind of conclusion. 

Richard Dawkins, a prominent scientist also make a similar move in his more popular book outgrowing God aimed for the younger reader wrote and raise his doubt, "But how much do we really know about Jesus? can we be sure he even existed? Most, through not all, modern scholars think he probably did. What evidence do we have?" Giving the air of today situation, Robert Voorst show the landscape of intellectual debate on historical Jesus today as he says many books and essay (by his count over one hundred) in the past two thousand years have fervently denied the existence of Jesus. These number are terribly no joke. N.T Wright claimed in The challenges of Jesus writes, "If Christianity is not rooted in things that actually happened in first century Palestine, we might well be Buddhists, Marxist, or almost anything else." This is not a simple matter, as a Christian we should ready to give a credible answer. 

In today writing, I do not claim to write a comprehensive answer toward each and every critiques nor arguments, posted by skeptical historian or historical Jesus scholars. What I try to give are several keys thoughts on the issue, which probably can help us understand on how we later dealing on with a more deep, specific and sophisticated respond toward the people who propose for the non-historical/a-historical view of Jesus. First, ancient historians were not written history objectively in modern sense of the term. Optimistic enlightenment ethos cannot be applied to recover the history of the ancient. Having say that the the ancient people has no agenda of making an objective history in the first place, it does not mean they are making up all the stories all the time. Surely, the evidences from the gospels and many other sources about Jesus cannot be used to reconstruct the full and comprehensive account of Jesus's life and history. That's not the main purpose of the documents at that time. The purpose of the gospel was to introduce the person of Jesus through the lens of transformative community. The community that has ben touched by Christ, His teaching and spirit. Moreover, although we have lost the direct link toward the live-actual evidences to confirm the history but yet, we can still use physical evidence of "passed memory" in writing form of any sort to gain some insights that raise the scale of its actuality. There were impressions, emotions, sensations which fused in the memory of people through the means of recorded evidences that make the history both objective and subjective.

Nonetheless, this very fact of mixed objective-subjective does not make the evidences useless and fail to describe every single bit of Jesus's history. Hence, we cannot say that this evidences and accounts about Jesus were mere fantasy. The geography, location and the name of people besides Jesus were real. Moreover, from the evidences itself we can conclude how unlikely Jesus are being made by evangelists. Take for instance the story of Jesus baptized by John. This event was consider an embarrassing story for it made Jesus seemingly lower than John. There was also a story of Jesus rebuking Peter in Mathew 16:23, "get away from me Satan". Also, the account of the disciples of Jesus whom betrayed him so badly up to Christ crucifixion also very puzzling if they intend to make a celestial fantasy of Jesus as Lord. If the follower of Jesus made a fake story about Jesus as their Messiah, it is difficult to understand why those kind of shameful stories included for the stories downplay Jesus and also evangelists. Furthermore, the existence of the evidences and the rise of Christianity can only best explained, only if Jesus himself was ever existed in actual history. Therefore, the burden of proof is for sceptics to prove not the community of faith. The testimonies of Gospel and myriad copy of it need to be treated as fact unless it was proven otherwise.  

Second, the testimony of external sources heighten the credibility of every historical construction. Historian might doubt the credibility of the inner tradition for there was a possibility of a certain agenda ascribed. Yet, if there is an account from outside of the tradition that confirms the history, this is more likely to be happening than the reverse. Regarding the case of Jesus existence, there are several external ancient evidences that we can found circulated. In Classical Writing we have Thallos, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, Lucian of Samasota, Celcus, Mara bar Serapion. In Jewish writings we have the evidences of Jesus existence from the writing of Josephus and Toledot of Yeshu. These were the external sources which we believe have no agenda or advantage to include Jesus in their source if Jesus only a mere fiction. Dawkins in his book doubting  the existence of Jesus through this example whereby he explain how the assassination's of President Kennedy in 1963, although witnessed by hundreds of people, has brought us myriads of myth, legends, and conspiracy afterwards. So, how can we be so sure that the evidences regarding Jesus is not a fake account since it appear many years after? 

Indeed, we cannot 100% certain for some detailed event in every history. Every history is interpretation and representation but at least, although there were many variation of stories that raise regarding the assassination's of Kennedy as Dawkins had said, no one will conclude that the event of assassination's was never happened, nor people will deny the existence of Kennedy as president! Suppose the testimony of classical and Jewish circle on Jesus has some serious added on or make up elements. But the same logic apply, those evidences does not in a way discredits easily the real existence of the person of Christ all together. Richard Swinburne  give a strong case of believing the external sources , it is rational to believe what others tell us is probably true unless there is a "reason" to believe in otherwise (Principle of Testimony). It is difficult to understand that Jesus disciples and Christians were willing to be killed as they hold firm to the very truth of Jesus life and teaching. If it were only all lies whilst hey had a threat of death for defending that lie, why continue? From Jesus's time up to today, many people were dying to protect the truth of Jesus than dying to reject the "truth" (lie?) that disciples and apostle preach. The evidence of acceptance are far more visible in the course of history than the otherwise. Even greater we can argue, no benefit we can think of for any ancient historians that were coming outside of faith community to mentioned Jesus, if Jesus was never existed in the first place. 

Third, the transcendental factor redefine the notion and the trajectory of history. This last point is the point that will be rejected instantly by secular historian. However, I believe this is worth to consider and also rational. After considering point one and two, the third point will give me a greater and deeper thought on the issues. If God exists, and if there is a God in traditional sense which intervene in the course of history and brought Jesus alive in the event of resurrections as it says in the Scripture, we can at least with confidence that history is under the control of God, and hence we will have a credible account of Jesus. God will guard his followers from delusion particularly of the recorded event. The resurrections are the climax and the confirmation of this hope of preservation. Maybe this point sound a bit circular. However, it is not circular but foundational. The only thing that make the story in the gospels meaningful in the first place is the basic presuppositions that God as a transcendental being, was the one who works behind all these story and can guarantee the result and output in history. The Gospels are theological discourses, so it is not odd if one approach of reading need also to be theological. Historian need to approach history also from the point of view of faith, a theological history, in order grasp the full sense this kind of history. Nonetheless, we can argue that the third point need to be understood and worth considering, best, after we have explore the point number one and two in our attempt to weighting the probability of the existence of Jesus. To conclude our discussion, Philip Schaff has wisely put this way, "A character of Jesus so original...can neither be fraud nor a fiction...it would take more than a Jesus to invent a Jesus." At the end, pertaining the historicity of Jesus, I think the pressing issue is not about his historical "existence" but his  historical "identity".