Salon.com recently published an article by former Evangelical-turned-freethinker Valerie Tarico titled "9 things you think you know about Jesus that are probably wrong".

There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking contained in her arguments, but they’ve been making the rounds in social media, and therefore worthy of a response. Below I respond to each of her major points.

1. Jesus was married, not single.

This tired old claim has seemingly been refuted more times than the earth has revolved around the sun, but Tarico backs it up with a rather recent discovery:

"When an ancient papyrus scrap was found in 2014 referring to the wife of Jesus, some Catholics and Evangelicals were scandalized. But unlike the Catholic Church, Jews have no tradition of celibacy among religious leaders."

The papyrus she refers to is known as The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. Catholics and Evangelicals might have been scandalized by this if it was authentic, but it’s not. Owen Jarus of Livescience explains that “a growing number of scholars have denounced the business card-sized papyrus as a fake.”

Furthermore, the fact that ancient Jews had no tradition of celibacy among their religious leaders is irrelevant. Jesus was often at odds with the religious leaders of his time, and it is precisely because of him that the Catholic Church has a tradition of clerical celibacy. In Matthew 19, the disciples proclaim to Jesus that it is better not to marry, to which he responds, “He who is able to accept it, let him accept it” (Mt. 19:10-12).

2. Jesus had cropped hair, not long.

Tarico claims the traditional imagery of a long-haired Jesus is most certainly wrong. As backup, she refers to 1 Corinthians 11:14 where Paul writes, “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?”

How long is long? To understand Paul’s words here, we need to evaluate them in their cultural context.

When I was in high school, I remember seeing old pictures of the Beatles on their album covers from my mom’s collection. She told me that the length of their hair was considered long at that time. In those days, I laughed and thought, “That’s not long!” It was the late 1980’s and my hair was down to the middle of my back. What is considered long depends entirely on cultural context.

As further evidence for this claim, Tarico points to an ancient Roman depiction of Jewish men with short hair. If you look closely at the picture, two of the men have shoulder-length hair. What’s even more telling is that not a single one of them has a beard, but we know Jewish men of that time wore beards. It is more likely that the men are depicted this way because that was the cultural norm among first-century Romans, and not because it was necessarily representative of Jewish practice in the area where Jesus lived.

3. Jesus was hung on a pole, not a cross.

Tarico points out that the Greek work “stauros,” which is translated into English as “cross,” can also refer to a number of other shapes. Fair enough. But she also claims that the early Christians may have adopted the shape of the cross because it echoed shapes used by pagan religions of the time.

I’m skeptical of any argument claiming early Christians borrowed this or that custom from a contemporary pagan religion. In my own research I have found these supposed connections to be tenuous or even outright bogus. We know that some people in first-century Rome were crucified the same way Jesus has traditionally been depicted (cf. Seneca the Younger, “To Marcia on Consolation", in Moral Essays, 6.20), so there is no good reason to believe that Christians adopted this motif. It’s more likely that the traditional account is the correct one.

Tarico’s argument is also popular among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Fellow Strange Notions contributor Trent Horn has written a more detailed piece on this which you can read here.

4. Jesus was short, not tall.

Tarico points out that the typical Jewish male in the Roman Empire was just over five feet tall. Jesus is often depicted in traditional art being taller than the people around him.

This doesn’t mean he was a giant like Kim Jong Il’s super soldier. It just may have been that he was somewhat taller than the average Jew of his day. Either way, there is no evidence to support Tarico’s claim that Jesus must have been a short man.

5. Jesus was born in a house, not a stable.

Tarico writes:

"The miraculous birth story of Jesus is a late, maybe second-century addition to the Bible, and it contains many fascinating mythic elements and peculiarities. But the idea that Jesus was born in a stable was added to the Christmas story even later. In the original narrative, Joseph and Mary probably would have stayed with relatives, and the phrase 'no room for them in the inn (gr: kataluma)' is better translated 'no room for them in the upper room.'"

She is correct that “kataluma” is properly translated as “upper room.” It may not have been a stable in the sense that it was a separate structure used for housing animals only, but it was an area where animals were kept and cared for. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI explains:

"Mary laid her newborn child in a manger (cf. Lk 2:7). From this detail it has been correctly deduced that Jesus was born in a stable, in an inhospitable—one might even say unworthy—place." (Jesus of Nazareth, The Infancy Narratives, p. 67).

Tarico is wrong, however, when she claims to know that the birth narrative is a late second-century addition to Luke’s Gospel. Luke 2:7 (the verse in question) can be found in Payrus 4, which dates from the early to middle second century. It’s safe to assume that this fragment was copied from an earlier manuscript, and there is no compelling evidence that the narrative was not part of the original.

6. He was named Joshua, not Jesus.

Tarico points out that Joshua and Jesus are the same name translated differently in English to distinguish between the Joshua of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament. But both names are Anglicizations of Yeshua. So he wasn’t technically named Joshua or Jesus.

Wikipedia has an explanation of the etymology of the name "Jesus" which you can read here.

7. The number of apostles (12) comes from astrology, not history.

Tarico claims that the number of apostles was probably chosen due to pagan influence:

"Astrotheology or star worship preceded the Hebrew religion, and shaped both the Bible and world religions more broadly. One might point to the 12 Olympian gods or 12 sons of Odin, or 12 days of Christmas or 12 'legitimate' successors to the prophet Mohammed."

The only evidence we have to indicate why Jesus chose twelve men to be the first apostles is related to the Twelve Tribes of Israel without reference to astrology (cf. Mt. 19:28). Furthermore, the number twelve is significant in many cultures, but that doesn’t mean that any one borrowed it from another. For example, the Twelve Nidānas in Buddhism identify the origins of suffering and ignorance, yet most scholars would not point to any causal relationship between early Buddhism and the pagan religions of the Romans (cf. Ronald H. Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks, p. 168).

8. The prophecies about Jesus were recalled, not foretold.

Tarico’s claim here is that the Gospel writers would have been intimately familiar with the prophecies in the Old Testament, and so they could have shaped their stories around earlier predictions. I don’t believe the authors shaped their stories around the Old Testament prophecies, but I do believe many of the prophecies were recalled by the authors to demonstrate how they had been fulfilled.

There are other prophecies of Jesus that did come to pass which did not appear in the Old Testament. For example, Jesus foretold the destruction of the Jewish temple. In 70 AD it came to pass. Some may argue this was also recalled by the Gospel writers, but this comes from a purely skeptical point of view that casts doubt on everything Jesus said. This brings us to Tarico’s final argument:

9. Some quotes are not from Jesus; others are uncertain.

Tarico takes a very skeptical approach to the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels. She explains, “no technology existed with which to record his teachings in real time, unless he wrote them down himself, which he didn’t.” It’s true that Jesus didn’t write anything down, but this should not be surprising given he lived in a primarily oral culture.

One passage she points to is the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). It’s true that many scholars believe this passage was likely added to the text at a later time. Most modern Bibles place the passage in brackets and include a footnote explaining that it does not appear in the earliest manuscripts. But as Professor Dr. Michael Barber explains, “It should be mentioned, however, that even many scholars who see the story as a secondary addition to the Gospel still believe that it relates a historical memory of Jesus.”

Regardless, this is not by itself a reason to doubt all (or even most) of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels.

Conclusion

In fairness, Tarico admits that these points are trivial—and they are. But her larger point is that she believes most of what we know about Jesus is probably wrong. As I've illustrated here, there are reasonable responses to every point she brings up.
 
 
(Image credit: Salon)

An article titled "5 Reasons to Suspect that Jesus Never Existed" was posted last week at Salon.com and was featured in the Yahoo news feed. The article itself does not contain anything groundbreaking to anyone who follows this debate, but it presents the most common objections.

Below are five reasons author Valerie Tarico gives, and how to answer them.

1. No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef.

 
Tarico uses only an extensive quote from skeptical Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman in which he explains that there are no first century non-Jewish, non-Christian sources that mention Jesus. If this is proof that a historical Jesus never existed, then someone needs to tell this to Professor Ehrman.

In his book, Did Jesus Exist?, Ehrman argues that a historical Jesus did exist. He explains:

"[N]o Greek or Roman author from the first century mentions Jesus. It would be convenient if they did, but alas, they do not. At the same time, the fact is again a bit irrelevant since these same sources do not mention many millions of people who actually did live. Jesus stands here with the vast majority of living, breathing human beings of earlier ages." (pg. 43)

The fact that there are no non-Christian or Jewish accounts of Jesus seems somewhat irrelevant to me. As a former mythicist, I never found this argument to hold as much weight as some do. It implies that the first century documents contained in the New Testament are unreliable simply because they were written by Christians. But as Ehrman also points out, this would be a bit like “dismissing early American accounts of the Revolutionary War simply because they were written by Americans” (pg.74)

2. The earliest New Testament writers seem ignorant of the details of Jesus’ life, which become more crystalized in later texts.

 
To make this point, Tarico picks on the fact that St. Paul never mentions certain details about Jesus’ life including his Virgin Birth, the wise men, or a star in the East. She goes on to explain:

"He virtually refuses to disclose any other biographical detail, and the few cryptic hints he offers aren’t just vague, but contradict the gospels. The leaders of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem like Peter and James are supposedly Jesus’ own followers and family; but Paul dismisses them as nobodies and repeatedly opposes them for not being true Christians!"

The “few cryptic hints he offers” are major points about the life of Jesus. He really existed (Gal. 4:4), was the “Son of God” (Rom. 1:4), was crucified under Pontius Pilate (1 Tim. 6:13), and that he rose from the dead (Rom 1:4).

It’s true that Paul does not give us more specific details about the life of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean he was unaware of them. Claiming that he "virtually refuses" to disclose further details is speculative. He had no reason to rehash the Gospel narrative in any of his letters.

Paul was writing to specific churches as praise for right conduct and adherence to sound doctrine, or as correction to those who had strayed from the Faith. Since his audience was already Christian, he may have assumed they were aware of the details about Jesus and saw no reason to elaborate.

This is true in modern Church documents. When a pope or other clergy member writes a letter to another church, it’s not likely they would feel the need to explain the life of Jesus in every detail to an audience already familiar with the story. They might reference specific details to make a point as Paul did, but letters of praise or correction from one Christian to another are not going to contain a complete retelling of the Gospel narrative. And it would be absurd to expect them to.

3. Even the New Testament stories don’t claim to be first-hand accounts.

 
With this objection, Tarico claims that none of the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, and that the attribution of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not designated until one hundred years or more after Christianity began.

If it was actually the case that author attributions were not chosen until many years after the time of Christ, then it is a curious thing that they did not choose more prominent disciples like Peter or James.

The authors of the Gnostic gospels chose the names of prominent disciples to lend credibility to their writings, but we know these couldn’t have been written by the people they are attributed to because they don’t appear until two or three hundred years later. The overwhelming majority of Biblical scholars, on the other hand, place the authorship of at least three of the Gospels within a generation of Jesus, and all four of them definitely within the first century (Did Jesus Exist?, pg. 75).

My colleague Jimmy Akin argues that Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses of the ministry of Christ, and that a strong case can be made that Mark and Luke both received their information from eyewitnesses. You can read more on that here.

4. The gospels, our only accounts of a historical Jesus, contradict each other.

 
Oceans of ink have been spilled on the subject of contradictions in the Bible from both sides of the Christian/non-Christian debate. But the question remains: Do these contradictions indicate that there may not have been a historical Jesus upon which the core of the Gospels are based? I would argue that these contradictions—valid or not—have no bearing on the existence of a historical Jesus.

Tarico points to discrepancies in the Resurrection accounts as an example. Even if we are to concede that these accounts contain details that are impossible to reconcile, it still does nothing to prove that there was no Jesus. At best, it would only prove that one or all of the authors of the Gospels got their facts wrong about the Resurrection, in particular.

The core facts of the Gospels (that Jesus existed, preached and won disciples, and was crucified by Roman authorities) is attested to in the writings of Paul, the early Church Fathers, the Jewish historian Josephus, and several other non-Christian authors. Even the enemies of Christianity never denied the existence of its founder.

5. Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.

 
This is probably the weakest of Tarico’s points. If we asked ten people to tell us about the life of a person they knew, and all of their descriptions deviated from one another in very important details, this would not in any way mean the person in question did not exist. Tarico continues her point:

"Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews, complete with pagan rituals like a Lord’s Supper, Gnostic terms in his letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors’ longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions."

There is a lot to unpack here. Many skeptics have claimed that there are parallels with the pagan religions of the time in the details about the life of Jesus and Christian rituals. In my own research, I have not found these parallels to be compelling (you can read my articles on these kinds of claims here).

What I do find compelling is that the Christian movement managed to spread so quickly. The Jewish historian Josephus confirms that the movement began in Judea, while Tacitus, Seutonius, and Pliny the Younger tell us that it spread all the way to Rome and Bithnya. According to the writings of the early Christians, these new communities were started by apostles who had been sent by the movement’s founder, Jesus. (You can read more on this here.)

Conclusion

 
Certainly there are more sophisticated arguments against the existence of Jesus than what is presented by Tarico. Most of her points are based on arguments made by mythicist author David Fitzgerald in his book Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All.

One of the points that I have heard Fitzgerald make in both his writing and in recorded interviews is that most scholars believe Jesus existed because most of them have been Christian (or formerly Christian). One could argue that all mythicists are atheists, but neither point really addresses the issue.

The Christ myth theory has circulated for nearly 200 years, going in and out of style. I have been criticized by some for paying any attention to it at all, but from my perspective there is a growing number of people who believe Jesus never existed, and thus it is something worth taking seriously.
 
 
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