Many atheists and agnostics today insistently argue that it is altogether possible for non-believers in God to be morally upright. They resent the implication that the denial of God will lead inevitably to complete ethical relativism or nihilism. And they are quick to point out examples of non-religious people who are models of kindness, compassion, justice, etc. In point of fact, a recent article has proposed that non-believers are actually, on average, more morally praiseworthy than religious people. In this context, I recall Christopher Hitchens remark that, all things considered, he would be more frightened of a group of people coming from a religious meeting than a group coming from a rock concert or home from a night on the town. God knows (pun intended) that during the last twenty years we’ve seen plenty of evidence from around the world of the godly behaving very badly indeed.

Though I could quarrel with a number of elements within this construal of things, I would actually gladly concede the major point that it is altogether possible for atheists and agnostics to be morally good. The classical Greek and Roman formulators of the theory of the virtues were certainly not believers in the Biblical God, and many of their neo-pagan successors today do indeed exhibit fine moral qualities. What I should like to do, however, is to use this controversy as a springboard to make a larger point, namely that Christianity is not primarily about ethics, about “being a nice person” or, to use Flannery O’Connor’s wry formula, “having a heart of gold.” The moment Christians grant that Christianity’s ultimate purpose is to make us ethically better people, they cannot convincingly defend against the insinuation that, if some other system makes human beings just as good or better, Christianity has lost its raison d’etre.

Much of the confusion on this score can be traced to the influence of Immanuel Kant, especially his seminal text Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. Like so many of his Enlightenment era confreres, Kant was impatient with the claims of the revealed religions. He saw them as unverifiable and finally irrational assertions that could be defended, not through reason, but only through violence. Do you see how much of the “New Atheism” of the post-September 11^th era is conditioned by a similar suspicion? Accordingly, he argued that, at its best, religion is not about dogma or doctrine or liturgy but about ethics. In the measure that the Scriptures, prayer, and belief make one morally good, they are admissible, but in the measure that they lead to moral corruption, they should be dispensed with. As religious people mature, Kant felt, they would naturally let those relatively extrinsic practices and convictions fall to the side and would embrace the ethical core of their belief systems. Kant’s army of disciples today include such figures as John Shelby Spong, John Dominic Crossan, James Carroll, Bart Ehrman, and the late Marcus Borg, all of whom think that Christianity ought to be de-supernaturalized and re-presented as essentially a program of inclusion and social justice.

The problem with this Kantianism both old and new is that it runs dramatically counter to the witness of the first Christians, who were concerned, above all, not with an ethical program but with the explosive emergence of a new world. The letters of St. Paul, which are the earliest Christian texts we have, are particularly instructive on this score. One can find “ethics” in the writings of Paul, but one would be hard pressed indeed to say that the principal theme of Romans, Galatians, Philippians, or first and second Corinthians is the laying out of a moral vision. The central motif of all of those letters is in fact Jesus Christ risen from the dead. For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus is the sign that the world as we know it—a world marked by death and the fear of death—is evanescing and that a new order of things is emerging. This is why he tells the Corinthians “the time is running out” and “the world in its present form is passing away;” this is why he tells the Philippians that everything he once held to be of central importance he now considers as so much rubbish; this is why he tells the Romans that they are not justified by their own moral achievements but through the grace of Jesus Christ; and this is why he tells the Galatians that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the “new creation.” The new creation is shorthand for the overturning of the old world and the emergence of a new order through the resurrection of Jesus, the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

The inaugural speech of Jesus, as reported in the Gospel of Mark, commences with the announcement of the kingdom of God and then the exhortation to “repent and believe the good news.” We tend automatically to interpret repentance as a summons to moral conversion, but the Greek word that Mark employs is metanoiete, which means literally, “go beyond the mind you have.” On Mark’s telling, Jesus is urging his listeners to change their way of thinking so as to see the new world that is coming into existence.

It is indeed the case that Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and agnostics can all be “good people.” In terms of what we privilege today, they can all be tolerant, inclusive, and just. But only Christians witness to an earthquake that has shaken the foundations of the world and turned every expectation upside down.
 
 
(Image credit: Deviant Art)

Biblical skeptics often surmise that the earliest New Testament books tell a very different story than the later books: that the story of Jesus grew with time, becoming more and more incredible, and less and less historical. In other words, the New Testament evolved from history to religious mythology.

Recently, I've seen this argument raised about both the Resurrection and the divinity of Christ. First, retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong (who denies the Resurrection) attacked the historicity of the Gospels, and in particular, the Resurrection account. He makes extensive recourse to the evolving-Bible:

"If we line up the gospels in the time sequence in which they were written - that is, with Mark first, followed by Matthew, then by Luke and ending with John - we can see exactly how the story expanded between the years 70 and 100.[...] In the first gospel, Mark, the risen Christ appears physically to no one, but by the time we come to the last gospel, John, Thomas is invited to feel the nail prints in Christ’s hands and feet and the spear wound in his side."

Second, a commenter on my own blog recently said in response to C.S. Lewis' “Lord, liar, lunatic” trilemma,

"That was clearly on the assumption that the gospel of John represents actual history because only in John does he claim to be God. Based simply on the Synoptic gospels, we can say that if Jesus is not God he can still be considered a good man or a moral teacher. C.S. Lewis' false-dilemma require absolute faith in John to work."

Yet we know John doesn't belong with the other gospels, or at least that it isn't as historical as they are. Aside from John alone making Jesus claim to be God, we see how it disagrees on how, when, and where Jesus called his disciples. Is there any merit to either of these evolving Bible claims? Let's look at each one in turn.

The Resurrection

 
Bishop Spong, in his CNN article, stacks the deck in two different ways. First, he focuses just on the Gospels, rather than the New Testament as a whole. Second, he claims that in Mark's Gospel, “the risen Christ appears physically to no one.”

The reality is that the earliest New Testament documents describe Christ as (a) physically Resurrected, and (b) appearing to innumerable people. In St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he writes (1 Cor. 15:3-20),

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
 
Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
 
Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.
 
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep."

So St. Paul tells us that Christ physically rose from the dead. He banks everything on the reality of the Resurrection: if it's not true, the Apostles are liars, Christians are pathetic, and the Gospel is proclaimed in vain. To validate this claim that Christ physically rose from the dead, Paul appeals to numerous post-Resurrection appearances, apparently well known to his Corinthian audience: Jesus appeared to Peter (Cephas), to the Twelve, to a group of five hundred brethren, and then to St. Paul himself.

In other words, Paul's not just saying, “the Tomb is empty, Jesus must have risen!” but that he had actually seen the Resurrected Christ, as had numerous others, many of whom were still alive and could vouch for this testimony.

Why does this matter? Well, Spong himself dates this passage from First Corinthians to the mid-50s, decades before when he thinks any of the Gospels were written. You can see this on page 201 of his book The Sins of Scripture. This completely destroys his claim that the earliest Resurrection accounts didn't have any post-Resurrection appearances, and that these were added “between the years 70 and 100.” What does Spong do in response? He simply ignores Paul's writings, and focuses on the Gospels alone.

Here, we get to the second way that he stacks the deck. He claims that in Mark's Gospel, “the risen Christ appears physically to no one.” The truth is that there's controversy over whether or not Mark 16:9-20 are part of Mark's original Gospel, because some of the earliest manuscripts don't include this passage. There are three theories:

1. Mark 16:9-20 was written by Mark, but the section was lost in an early manuscript (and any manuscripts copied from that one).
2. Mark originally had a different ending, which was lost; Mark 16:9-20 was appended to replace it.
3. Mark originally ended his Gospel at Mark 16:8; Mark 16:9-20 is a later addition.

Spong assumes theory #3 is true, without actually telling his readers he's doing this, or justifying this choice.

But even if theory #3 is true, that doesn't mean that Mark denied post-Resurrection appearances. It would just mean that he stopped his Gospel quite abruptly at the empty Tomb on Easter morning. More likely, such an abrupt ending would be a way to begin an in-person dialogue: that readers would ask whoever gave them a copy of the Gospel what had happened at the Empty Tomb.

So Spong's suggestion that Mark was unaware of any post-Resurrection appearances doesn't follow at all. At most (and this is assuming theory # 3 is true), we can say simply that the post-Resurrection appearances postdated the events he's describing in his Gospel. Likewise, it's not unusual that the Gospels don't record details about Pentecost or the life of the early Church, or that Churchill biographies don't record details about the life of Thatcher. These things are simply outside of the scope of the work. Again, this is true only if Mark really did end his Gospel abruptly in verse 8, which is by no means certain.

So it's not clear that Mark's Gospel originally ended at verse 8, and there's no reason to believe in any case that he was unaware of post-Resurrection appearances. On the contrary, the earliest New Testament evidence is quite clear about the post-Resurrection appearances. Paul, who predates Mark, writes quite clearly about specific post-Resurrection appearances, as do Matthew (Mt. 28:9-10, Mt. 28:16-20), Luke (Lk. 24:13-53; Acts 1:1-11), and John (Jn. 20:10-11:25).

Of these, the one who lists the most post-Resurrection appearances is actually St. Paul. So this bears none of the marks of a big fish story that gets progressively larger over time. Everyone writing after Paul simply fleshes out specific accounts that he mentions in passing.

Jesus' Divinity

 
What about the claim that only John's Gospel depicts Christ as claiming to be Divine? Fr. Robert Barron debunks this claim pretty exhaustively, noting that when Christ claims to be greater than the Temple (Mt. 12:6), and to have the ability to forgive sins (Mark 2:5; Mk. 2:10), He's making claims that a Jewish audience would recognize as claims to Divinity (as they do: Mark 2:7). Likewise when He declares, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5; Mk. 2:28).

But I want to take this in a slightly different direction, instead. Let's look at just the Gospel of Matthew, for now. In Matthew 2, the Magi come to worship the Christ Child (see Mt. 2:2, Mt. 2:11). Various other people worship Christ throughout this Gospel as well: a leper (Mt. 8:2), “a certain ruler” (Mt. 9:18), a Canaanite woman (Mt. 15:25), the mother of James and John (Mt. 20:20), the disciples who witnessed Jesus walking on water (Mt. 14:33), the women who see the Resurrected Christ (Mt. 28:9), and many members of the crowd to which He appears in Mt. 28:9. In exactly none of these cases does Jesus “correct” the acts, which, if mistaken about His Divinity, would be blasphemous.

So even if Jesus is being ambiguous in what He's claiming about Himself, we see innumerable people taking this as a declaration that He's Divine, and responding by worshiping Him. When people mistakenly begin to worship two of the Apostles (Acts 10:25-26) or an angel (Rev. 19:10), the recipients of this misplaced worship immediately stop them. Not so with Christ. It's no mistake that He's proclaimed by His followers to be God, because that's exactly what He claimed, and the sort of worship He accepted, during His lifetime.

There's plenty more where that came from, too. For example, “the Son of Man” is a Divine title, which is made transparent by the interaction in Mt. 26:62-65, in which the high priest condemns it as blasphemous. The fact that Jesus uses it repeatedly, throughout all four Gospels (see, e.g., Mt. 11:19; Mk. 2:28; Lk. 22:48; Jn. 3:13) only supports the notion that Christ claimed to be Divine.

But again, that's just Matthew. We could also look to the writings of St. Paul, where he describes Christ as being equal with God, and having the very nature of God (Phil. 2:6), a passage which Paul concludes (in Phil. 2:10-11) by applying the words of Isaiah 45:22-23 to Christ. Read Isaiah 45:22-23, and you'll see why that's important. Likewise in the Letter to the Hebrews, the angels are commanded to worship Christ (Heb. 1:6).

Remember that Paul's writings are generally held to be the earliest New Testament documents, yet the letter to the Philippians is really clear that Jesus is God. So again, there's no evidence (at all) that this is an idea that only slowly emerged within Christianity. Like the Resurrection, this is at the core of the Faith from the very beginning.
 
 
(Image credit: Jeff Clarke)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Today we continue our four-part series concerning the historical evidence for Jesus. Popular atheist writer Richard Carrier, probably the world's best known Mythicist, began yesterday with his article "Questioning the Historicity of Jesus". Today, Catholic writer Jimmy Akin responds. Tomorrow, Richard will offer his take on “Four Reasons I Think Jesus Really Existed" by Trent Horn. Finally, on Thursday, Trent will wrap up the series with a rejoinder.

 
I would like to provide responses to the arguments and evidence that Richard Carrier offers to rebut my argument that Jesus existed. This task is complicated because, in his response to my original piece, Carrier says a surprisingly small amount that engages my argument and a large amount that does not.

Approximately half of his piece is devoted to other matters:

• running through the names of people who agree with him in varying degrees
• recommending books
• expressing hope for the fortunes of his thesis in future decades
• plugging his forthcoming book
• acknowledging the mistakes of fact and argument made by others who hold that Jesus never existed
• discussing the goal of his own research.

Stating Your Position is Not an Argument

 
In the part of his post that does respond to the original piece, Carrier does not interact very directly with its argument. Instead, he makes a series of alternative assertions that state his own view.

His view does disagree with mine, but stating your own view is not the same thing as providing evidence in favor of it. Much less is it the same thing as providing evidence against the view you are responding to.

Carrier’s goal in the post does not seem to be so much responding to the original argument as “giv[ing] you an idea of where this new approach to Christian origins is coming from”—that is, sketching an outline of his own view.

What are Carrier’s Arguments?

 
Arguments for his view are apparently to be found in other people’s books, behind a paywall, or “in my forthcoming book,” where “I treat all the best objections and suggestions and debates surrounding all the evidence.”

I’m glad to hear that his forthcoming book will be so comprehensive, but the absence of arguments here makes it difficult to respond.

I could take any of the specific claims he makes in his post and critique it, but without knowing what evidence he plans to cite for it, he can simply say, “You’re attacking a straw man. Just wait until my book comes out.”

He does make occasional gestures in the direction of an argument—e.g., claiming that “There actually were Christian sects that said Jesus lived a hundred years earlier” or stating that Jesus probably was not from Nazareth—but he doesn’t put these together into a coherent argument.

I could try to form one out of the pieces he gives us and then critique it, but he could always say, “You’re attacking a straw man. That’s not what I would have said.”

So let’s set these aside and to the best we can with what Carrier has given us.

The Central Argument

 
The central argument I posed was based on evidence showing that Christianity was a movement that emerged in Judaea in the first century and then spread widely across the Roman world within a few decades, indicating that it had a substantial degree of organization and a founder who really existed. Carrier concedes these points.

The argument then held that it is most natural to look at the movement’s own account of its founding for information about who the founder was. Carrier’s attitude toward this is unclear.

My article then pointed out that the earliest records we have say that Christianity was founded by Jesus of Nazareth. Carrier takes exception here and states:
 

"[B]ut that’s not true. The earliest accounts (in the letters of Paul) know nothing of Nazareth and never mention Jesus recruiting or training anyone. When Paul mentions Jesus communicating with and sending apostles, it is always in the context of revelations."

 
Carrier appears to misunderstand the reference to “the earliest accounts” to mean “the early Christian documents we have.”

The subject at hand was who the “founding leader” of Christianity may have been. The relevant accounts, therefore, are those that dealt with this question.

The earliest specific accounts that we have of that question must include the gospels and Acts, which clearly point to a historical Jesus as the founder of the movement. These documents are nowhere near so late as Carrier seems to think, but even setting that aside, what can we learn from Paul?

Paul on the Founding of Christianity

 
As Carrier acknowledges, Paul speaks of “Jesus communicating with and sending apostles,” pointing to Jesus as the founder of Christianity. But does he indicate, as Carrier says, that this was “always in the context of revelations”?

Not in the slightest.

It’s true that Paul acknowledged that his own contact with Jesus was through revelation (Gal. 1:12), but Paul acknowledges that his relationship was different than that of the other apostles, that he related to Jesus as “one untimely born” (1 Cor. 15:8)—that is, out of the normal sequence that governed how the others related to Jesus.

So how does Paul indicate that Jesus related to the others?

Brothers of an Unreal Man?

 
Paul indicates that some of them were his brothers. Later in Galatians 1 (which Carrier cites as an authentic text), Paul writes that once when he went to Jerusalem, “I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother” (Gal. 1:19).

Paul acknowledges that James, together with Peter (Cephas) and John, was one of the “pillars” of the Jerusalem church (Gal. 2:9).

And this is not Paul’s only reference to the “brothers” of Jesus. He also asked: “Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas [Peter]?” (1 Cor. 9:5). So Jesus had “brothers” who were distinct from the apostles and other major Christian leaders such as Cephas/Peter.

An examination of early Christian sources reveals that James was the foremost of these “brothers” of Jesus. We can discuss precisely what their relationship was to Jesus (whether they were cousins, step-brothers through Joseph, etc.), but the early sources indicate that they were familial relations of Jesus, despite strained mythicist attempts to avoid this.

Paul also tells us that Jesus was “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3) and “born of woman, born under the Law [of Moses]” (Gal. 4:4). This clearly indicates Jesus’ birth as a Jew who belonged to the lineage of David (and who, as well, had both flesh and a woman as his mother).

All this indicates that Jesus was a real, historical individual.

Other Indications

 
In 1 Thessalonians, commonly regarded as one of the earliest New Testament documents, Paul writes that the Jews “killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out” (1 Thess. 2:14-15).

He also states “that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed” instituted the Eucharist and told his followers to perform it (1 Cor. 11:23-25) and afterward was “buried” (1 Cor. 15:4).

And, in 1 Timothy he writes that Jesus “made the good confession...in his testimony before Pontius Pilate” (1 Tim. 6:13).

Some would challenge the last document as post-Pauline, though not the former two, and the former two provide further indications that Jesus was a historical individual who gave instructions to his followers on a specific night, on which he was then betrayed; who was killed through the agency of earthly individuals, who also killed the prophets and drove Paul and others out of Judea (cf. 1 Thess. 2:14); and who was then “buried.”

This is all consistent with the idea that Jesus was a historical individual who lived, died, and was buried on earth, and there is no indication of this taking place in “the lower heavens.”

The Islam Analogy

 
Carrier acknowledges that the same logic used to support the existence of a historical Jesus also points to the existence of a historical Muhammad as the founder of Islam. He writes:
 

"Akin’s analogy to Islam is on point, and I would add Mormonism as equally apt: their founders, Mohammed and Joseph Smith, respectively, were “sent by” and “communicated the teachings of” non-existent celestial beings, the angels Gabriel and Moroni, respectively. In the most credible mythicist thesis, Jesus corresponds to Gabriel and Moroni."

 
I’m glad to see that Carrier recognizes the validity of the argument to this extent, but his own addition to it is problematic.

It’s true that Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism each had a founder who organized a movement that spread rapidly, but in each case the movement’s early writings point to that founder being a historical individual: Jesus, Muhammad, and Joseph Smith.

Their writings do not point to that founder being, on Carrier’s thesis, a spiritual being (i.e., a purely spiritual Jesus, Gabriel, and Moroni).

Carrier can’t have it both ways. He can’t say that the founding of Christianity, Islam, or Mormonism point to the existence of their claimed historical founders in two cases but not the third.

Not unless he has compelling evidence to the contrary.

Carrier’s Future Book?

 
Might he provide this evidence in his forthcoming book? We’ll have to wait and see, but the way that he handles evidence in this post does not provide much confidence. For example, at one point he claims that:
 

"Paul says no Jews could ever have heard the gospel except from the apostles (Romans 10:12-18)."

 
This is simply false. Paul says nothing of the sort. What he does do is stress the importance of preachers to spread the Christian message. But he merely indicates that people need “a preacher” (Greek, kerussontos) to tell them about Jesus, not “an apostle” (Greek, apostolos). (Romans 10:14; see here for Romans 10:12-18, the range of verses Carrier cites.)

Perhaps Carrier has some further, also-not-provided-here argument for why Paul actually meant what Carrier thinks he meant, but the fact is: It’s not what he said. It’s not even close.

What Carrier has provided does not give the appearance of a solid case against the existence of Jesus. It gives the appearance of a castle built of shaky inferences that strain to get us away from the plain meaning of the texts.

Including the Pauline texts.
 
(Image credit: GCSC)

Who really founded Christianity? Was it Jesus, as most Christians believe? Or did St. Paul invent an elaborate mythology—a shameless, self-serving ruse, some would say—that has distorted or destroyed the authentic teachings of Jesus?

If the idea seems crazy, be assured there are some rather crazy proponents of this basic perspective. For example, a Web site titled "Just Give Me the Truth" has a page declaring—screaming, really—that "Paul was Satan in the flesh," "Paul was never recognized as an apostle by the disciples or Jesus," and "Paul worked to destroy and undo everything Jesus and his disciples did and were doing."

A Brief History

 
If that were the extent of it, it wouldn’t be worth spending much time and energy on it. But this theory has developed a notable scholarly pedigree in modern times. It has been taken up by well-educated and influential men, some of them Scripture scholars. The basic roots can be traced back to the mid-18th century and the influential Tübingen School of historical criticism. Although David Strauss (1808-1874), the author of the famous Life of Jesus (1835) is better known today, it was the work of the Hegelian Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) that began driving a wedge between Jesus and Paul. Baur used Hegel’s theory of dialectic to argue that early Christianity was marked by two opposing theses, represented by "Pauline Christianity" and "Petrine Christianity," and that a synthesis of the two was established in the second century.

In the preface to his 1845 book, Paul: His Life and Works, Baur wrote:
 

I advanced the assertion which I have since maintained and furnished with additional evidence, that the harmonious relation which is commonly assumed to have been between the apostle Paul and the Jewish Christians with the older apostles at their head, is unhistorical, and that the conflict of the two parties whom we have to recognize upon this field entered more deeply into the life of the early Church than has been hitherto supposed.

 
More theologians (mostly German and Protestant) pushed through the crack in the door opened by Baur, and soon it was wide open. The work of two men is worth mentioning here: philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Lutheran theologian Georg Friedrich Eduard William Wrede (1859-1906). Although Nietzsche in The Antichrist (1895) mocked Jesus as an "idiot," he reserved special hatred for "the Christianity of Paul," which he argued was radically different from the teachings of Jesus. Paul, he wrote:
 

represents the genius for hatred, the vision of hatred, the relentless logic of hatred. What, indeed, has not this dysangelist sacrificed to hatred! Above all, the Savior: he nailed him to his own cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death of Christ, the meaning and the law of the whole gospels—nothing was left of all this after that counterfeiter in hatred had reduced it to his uses. Surely not reality; surely not historical truth! . . . Christianity is the formula for exceeding and summing up the subterranean cults of all varieties, that of Osiris, that of the Great Mother, that of Mithras, for instance: In his discernment of this fact the genius of Paul showed itself.

 
Paul, in other words, was a master synthesizer of wildly divergent beliefs, the better to gain him a wide following.

Wrede was an ardent practitioner of historical criticism who argued, in The Messianic Secret (1901), that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. The Gospel of Mark, Wrede believed, made Jesus out to be a secret Messiah who was simply a teacher and miracle worker. In his book Paulus (1907) Wrede wrote there was "an enormous gulf between this man and the Pauline Son of God," and that Paul’s belief in "a celestial being" and "a divine christ" prior to his belief in Jesus resulted in Paul becoming "the second founder of Christianity." He further argued that Paul, although a Jew, constructed a theology that was mostly Hellenistic in character.

Newer Variations on the Theme

 
These same basic lines of argument have been explored further in recent decades by authors intent on demonstrating that if Paul was the "founder" or "creator" of Christianity, then Jesus was not the Incarnate Son of God. A good example on the popular level is Paul: The Mind of the Apostle (1997), by biographer A.N. Wilson, which portrays Paul as a complex and enigmatic mythologizer. "The genius of Paul and the collective genius of the ‘early church,’" Wilson states, "which wrote the twenty-seven surviving books we call the New Testament, was to mythologize Jesus." Because Paul was well-educated and traveled, he "had a richer language-store, a richer myth-experience, than some of the other New Testament writers, whose mythologies were limited to Jewish liturgy or folk-tale."

"One does not need to revive the old History of Religions School," Wilson insists,
 

to see how obvious all of this is. One is not saying that Paul crudely invented a new religion, but that he was able to draw out the mythological implications of an old religion, and the death of a particular practitioner of that religion, and to construct therefrom a myth with reverberations much wider than the confines of Palestinian Judaism. (72)

 
For Paul, historical fact and detail are of little interest: "The historicity of Jesus became unimportant from the moment Paul had his apocalypse" (73). Wilson, in other words, is more nuanced and sophisticated than Dan Brown, but shares his same basic assumptions.

A similar approach can be found in The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (Harper and Row, 1986) by Hyam Maccoby, a Jewish author. Maccoby’s central thesis is that "Paul was never a Pharisee rabbi, but was an adventurer of undistinguished background" and that "Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion." Paul, Maccoby insists, "not Jesus, was the founder of Christianity" who relied on "pagan myths of dying and resurrected gods and Gnostic myths of heaven-descended redeemers." A more scholarly work that comes to the same basic conclusions is Paul: the Founder of Christianity (Prometheus Books, 2002), by Gerd Lüdemann, a German theologian who has admitted that he is no longer a Christian.

Where Are the References?

 
Most of those who claim Paul created Christianity based on a mythical Christ figure with little, if any, basis in historical reality point to the small number of references in his writings to the teachings and life of Jesus.

While Paul often mentions the death and resurrection of Jesus—an obviously central theme for him—almost nothing is said about Jesus’ family, birth, baptism, miracles, discourses, and parables. Paul does state in several places that he is passing on information or instruction he had received "from the Lord" (1 Cor 7:10-11; 9:14; 11:23-25; 14:37; 2 Cor 12:9; 1 Thes 4:15-17), but he does not quote Jesus directly. Critics argue he was simply using claims of personal revelations as a basis for his supposed apostolic authority. In addition, they ask why Paul doesn’t quote Jesus in places where it would be to his benefit to do so. For instance, when Paul states, "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for any one who thinks it unclean" (Rom 14:14), why does he not refer to Jesus’ teaching about food and defilement (Mk 7:17-23)?

Paul’s Writing and Work

 
Several substantive points can be made in response. The first is that the letters of Paul are largely occasional in nature; that is, they were written to address ongoing issues and questions in churches that were already established. They were meant to be primarily works of exhortation, not argumentation. None of them, after all, were addressed to non-believers; they were not evangelistic in nature, but aimed at exhorting, encouraging, correcting, and pastoring. Because of this, many scholars believe that Paul did not need to quote from Jesus’ teaching, writes David Wenham in Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?, "because he and his readers have been taught it and know it well. In his letters his task is to discuss what is disputed and unclear, not to repeat what is already very familiar" (5). While this argument from silence is unconvincing to many critics, it intersects very well with the second point, which is made by N.T. Wright in What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? , which is that Jesus and Paul had quite different roles in the "eschatological drama" of salvation history.

This argument rests on the priority and the validity of the Gospels, asserting that if Jesus really was the Messiah, did proclaim and establish the Kingdom of God, did die and rise from the dead, and did ascend into heaven, then he was completely unique. Therefore his teachings and life would have been the first things passed on by oral teaching and preaching, liturgy, and example (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 76-79). Paul understood himself to be a "servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God" (Rom 1:1); as such, Wright argues, he didn’t simply "repeat Jesus’ unique, one-off announcement of the kingdom to his fellow Jews. What we are looking for is not a parallel between two abstract messages. It is the appropriate continuity between two people living, and conscious of living, at different points in the eschatological timetable" (181).

Jesus believed that he had been sent by God to "bring Israel’s history to its climax" and Paul believed that Jesus had succeeded in this heavenly, covenantal mission. Paul was not interested in establishing a new religion or an ethical system or a syncretistic mixture of mystery religions. He was, Wright stressed, "deliberately and consciously implementing the achievement of Jesus" (181). Or, in his own words: "According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 3:10-11). And part of this work—this participation in what Jesus had achieved by his death and resurrection—was to apply and live out the reality of this salvation in many different cultural contexts, including Palestine, Greece, Asia Minor, and Rome.

In the words of New Testament scholar James Dunn, the "Jesus-tradition" was "a living tradition, a tradition that was evidently adaptable to different needs and diverse contexts" (qtd. in The Jesus Legend by Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, 229-30). That tradition was rooted in historical fact, but was lived out in the present, with the belief that Jesus was the resurrected, living Lord of Lords.

The authors of The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition also point out that Paul writes of the "meekness and gentleness of Christ" (2 Cor 10:1), as well as his profound humility (Phil 2:5-7), and that Paul "consistently held up Jesus’ life—and his own life as modeled on Jesus’ life—as examples to be emulated (1 Cor 11:1). In light of this, it cannot be regarded as a coincidence that Paul’s own thought, attitude and conduct paralleled closely what we find in the Jesus of the Gospels" (209).

This is especially notable because it shows that Paul understood Jesus as a real, historical person, not as a mythic savior figure with little or no connection to earthly life. For first-century Jews and Greeks alike, it was taken for granted that it was only possible for a community or group to imitate the character and behavior of someone who was real and whose life was known. This is part of the reason the Gospels were written: to preserve and present the words and actions of Jesus, so that, in the words of Paul, readers would "be conformed to the image of his Son" (Rom 8:29; cf. 1 Cor 11:1).

The Living Christ

 
Jean Cardinal Daniélou (1905-74), the great patristic scholar and theologian, wrote about Paul’s understanding of Jesus in Christ and Us (Sheed & Ward, 1961). He argued that "it was completely pointless to insist on the human details of the life of Jesus; first, because they were not questioned in Paul’s circle, and second, because they were not what mattered most."

Daniélou was not, of course, dismissing the importance of historical fact, but was emphasizing the importance of priority. "What did matter," he explained, "was the witness borne to the Sovereignty of Jesus. That is why, even when he mentions features of Jesus’ history, Paul always give them their theological meaning" (4-5). Daniélou noted the danger of Jesus simply being seen merely as a great historical figure of the past rather than who he is today. "Paul’s personal gospel," he wrote, "is to proclaim that Jesus lives."

But that is not the gospel of the critics who believe Paul was the founder and inventor of Christianity. To the extent that they might acknowledge some sort of gospel, it is a myth—perhaps inspiring, fascinating, and even admirable—but nonetheless a myth only. But for Paul and for all true Christians, Jesus is no myth, but is alive and real—"a stumbling block" to many, "but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:23-24).
 
 
Originally appeared in This Rock Magazine, volume 20, no. 6. Used with author's permission.
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