Contending For The Faith---Part 31

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

Is Jesus History?

Once again there are rants by so-called "Internet infidels" and other secularists that question Jesus Christ. To be certain, they are not questioning His Divinity. There are atheist scholars who do so, claiming Jesus of Nazareth was a mere Human and myths grew about His Life; it was "mythologized history." Rather, these pseudo-scholars claim that there was no such Person as Jesus of Nazareth; it was "historical myth." 

These historical skeptics speak out of ignorance. My attention was brought to that of one Dr. Steven Novella (b. 1964), a clinical neurologist and associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Novella blogs on all things using "science and reason." Of course, he is a self-admitted atheist. Novella has a post (from 2017 and being regurgitated today) where he cites two articles; one in favor of the historicity of Christ, and one opposed. (See https://theness.com/neurologicablog/the-evidence-for-the-history-of-jesus/). Novella finds the skeptic's article more convincing (surprise, surprise), and ends with this conclusion:

In the end we are left with, I think, two main conclusions. The first is that we simply do not know if Jesus was an actual person who existed. The evidence for a historical Jesus is thin, but there is no specific evidence refuting his existence.

The second conclusion, however, is that it doesn’t really matter. Even if a prophet named Jesus lived at that time and some of Christian mythology is based on his life, the core of Christian mythology is not. As Tarico argues, any actual history is muddled by mythology.

So there you have it. We don't know if Jesus Christ existed, and if He did, it was all "muddled mythology" anyway. Why would someone bring this to my attention? Well, Novella is highly educated and intelligent. Although absolutely true, he is an ultracrepidarian, i.e., one who speaks outside the realm of his expertise. In today's world, anyone with an Instagram account can be an "expert." Lest anyone ask how a lawyer blogs about theology, the answer is I wouldn't if the Great Apostasy hadn't happened. We would have the pope and his bishops to guide us. I'm not a theologian, but a simple layman doing the best he can to make his Catholic way through these spiritually dark times. I credit Fr. DePauw, a real canonist, for helping me. In the absence of Magisterial authority, I can defend Church teachings, and see how they can be applied to today's situation.

For Novella, why is he injecting himself into a subject of which he has no expertise? His position gives credibility to what he believes, and he uses this to his advantage. It is telling that he cites very little from Dr. Simon J. Gathercole, Professor at the University of Cambridge and a scholar on the topics of the New Testament and early Christianity. Dr. Gathercole wrote in favor of the historicity of Christ. Instead, Novella cites approvingly and several times from  the authors of the article opposing the historicity of Christ: Valerie Tarico and David Fitzgerald. Who are they, you ask?

• Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and former Protestant turned atheist. She has written books against religion. She is a feminist and advocates for abortion.

• Davis Fitzgerald is described as "an atheist author, public speaker and historical researcher who has been actively investigating the Historical Jesus question for over twenty years, and was an associate member of CSER (the former Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion). " He has written a book called Jesus: Mything in Action.

I hope I'm not the only one who sees the problem here. A woman with a doctorate in psychology and wanting to have the "right" to murder innocent unborn babies, assisted by a man whose education is unknown and does his own non-peer reviewed "research" are no more qualified to write on this issue than the man from Roto-Rooter is qualified to give someone a colonoscopy. They are, nevertheless, endorsed by a clinical neurologist ("ooh! Ahh! He must know everything!"). 

I will be the first to admit that even if someone is qualified to speak on a subject, it doesn't necessarily make them correct in what they state, but it's the place from where you must start.  You (hopefully) wouldn't want an attorney to perform surgery, no matter his intelligence. Nor should you give credence to a neurologist when it comes to matters of theological importance. 

To show how bereft of understanding these sciolists really are, read the following from Tarico/Fitzgerald's article:

Either way, as New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman points out, the Testimonium Flavanium merely repeats common Christian beliefs of the late first century, and even if it was 100% genuine would provide no evidence about where those beliefs came from. This same applies to other secular references to Jesus–they definitely attest to the existence of Christians and recount Christian beliefs at the time, but offer no independent record of a historical Jesus.

In sum, while well-established historic figures like Alexander the Great are supported by multiple lines of evidence, in the case of Jesus we have only one line of evidence: the writings of believers involved in spreading the fledgling religion. (See rawstory.com/2017/04/evidence-for-jesus-is-weaker-than-you-might-think; Emphasis mine). 

Bart Ehrman (b. 1955) is indeed a New Testament scholar, whose historical-critical methodology led to his becoming an avowed atheist. Tarico/Fitzgerald cite him in support of their position that the historical Christ never existed. Is that really the case? Do we only have a single line of evidence for Jesus Christ---the writings of believers in early Christianity?

As an attorney, one of the best things that can happen is having a hostile witness testify that something you presented to the court is true. Both judge and jury will accord such great evidentiary weight because the witness does not want your case to prevail. Therefore, anything to which they admit which helps your case is seen as having no confirmation bias, i.e., the witness would not want anything that helps your case to be true. 

The rest of this post will present, in their own words, what atheist Bible scholars have said about the historicity of Christ. Remember, it would be a great benefit to them if they could declare the Person Christianity reveres as God to be a mythical figure and non-historical. 

What Atheist Biblical Scholars Really Teach

Bart Ehrman is one of the most respected New Testament scholars of our day.  He is currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, and received his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Ehrman says that the proponents of the Christ-myth theory do not define what they mean by “myth” and maintains they are really motivated by a desire to denounce religion rather than examine historical evidence.  He discusses leading contemporary mythicists by name in his book Did Jesus Exist?, and dismisses their arguments as “amateurish”, “wrong-headed”, and “outlandish”.  The whole book outlines all of the historical evidence for Jesus, which tearing down the unscholarly view that Jesus is a myth.

Ehrman in his own words:

There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds — thousands? — of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study. But even taking these into account, there is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world.

And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology. Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed.. (See huffpost.com/entry/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544; Emphasis mine).

In The Historical Jesus: Lecture Transcript and Course Guidebook, (2000), he says:

One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. (pg. 162; Emphasis mine).

In addition to Ehrman, here are others who have no love of Christianity; they deny that Jesus is the Son of God, they don’t think Jesus was divine in any way, and they deny that Jesus rose from the dead.  They are just atheistic or agnostic scholars of the ancient world who hold academic positions in fields of study relevant to the history of Jesus of Nazareth.

Gerd Ludemann (d. 2021) – A German New Testament Historian. Professor at the University of Gottinggen as a member of the Chair of History and Literature of Early Christianity.  He believes Jesus existed but denies His divinity and the resurrection:

Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable. In The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry, (2004), pg 50; Emphasis mine. 

John Dominic Crossan (b. 1934)– An Irish New Testament professor and historian. He was an apostate Catholic priest, ordained in 1957.  He teaches Jesus existed but wasn’t God:

That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus…agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact. – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.  pg. 145; Emphasis mine. 

Michael Grant (d. 2004) – A Classicist, 3 history degrees, former vice-chancellor at Queen’s University of Belfast and former president of the University of Kartoum:

In recent years, ‘no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus’ or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary. Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (2004) pg. 200.

If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. Ibid, pgs. 199-200; All emphasis mine. 

Ed Parish Sanders (d. 2022) – A New Testament scholar. Former Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion at Duke University, North Carolina. Two doctorates in theology. One of the most respected New Testament historians.

The Historical Figure of Jesus, pgs. 10-11:

I shall first offer a list of statements about Jesus that meet two standards: they are almost beyond dispute; and they belong to the framework of his life, and especially of his public career. (A list of everything that we know about Jesus would be appreciably longer.) Jesus was born c 4 BCE near the time of the death of Herod the Great; he spent his childhood and early adult years in Nazareth, a Galilean village; he was baptized by John the Baptist; he called disciples; he taught in the towns, villages and countryside of Galilee (apparently not the cities); he preached ‘the kingdom of God’; about the year 30 he went to Jerusalem for Passover; he created a disturbance in the Temple area; he had a final meal with the disciples; he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the high priest; he was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.

He goes on to say:

Historical reconstruction is never absolutely certain, and in the case of Jesus it is sometimes highly uncertain. Despite this, we have a good idea of the main lines of his ministry and his message. We know who he was, what he did, what he taught, and why he died. ….. the dominant view [among scholars] today seems to be that we can know pretty well what Jesus was out to accomplish, that we can know a lot about what he said, and that those two things make sense within the world of first-century Judaism. Ibid.; All emphasis mine

Geza Vermes (d. 2013) – Ph.D. in theology. Professor of New Testament Studies at Western Theological Seminary, in Holland, Michigan.  Former professor of Jewish studies at the University of Oxford:

Who was Jesus? Did he exist? Was he God? Is he still relevant? To start with, the existence of Jesus is no longer debatable. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea between AD26 and 36, and was most probably born shortly before the death of Herod the Great in 4BC. Quasi-certainty stops here. (See ebionite.tripod.com/GV.htm; Emphasis mine). 

George Albert Wells (d. 2017)– Atheist and Emeritus professor of German at the University of London. Once believed Jesus was a myth, and one of the best known advocates of the so-called “Christ myth” theory. Wells changed his position to accept the existence of a historical Jesus. In 2003 Wells stated that he now disagrees on the information about Jesus being “all mythical:"

“Nearly all commentators who mention the matter at all, [set] aside doubts about Jesus’ historicity as ridiculous.” He adds, “the view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity … is today almost universally rejected.”  “Serious students of the New Testament today regard the existence of Jesus as an unassailable fact” – Did Jesus Exist?, Revised edition (1986), pg. 213. and The Historical Evidence for Jesus (1988), pg. 218; Emphasis mine.

Marcus Borg (d. 2015) – Ph.D. Former Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University. He was a Bible scholar and an agnostic who believed Jesus was a Jewish prophet and teacher.

In an interview, Borg is asked “So we have the proposition: “Jesus once walked this earth.” True or false?”. Borg responds: “True.  The reasons for thinking that Jesus was invented by the early Christians are so weak. We have no reason to think that they did...Now if someone wants to say, “Can you prove absolutely beyond any shadow of a doubt that Jesus existed?” one would have to say, “No.” Can one prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that Julius Caesar existed, one would have to say, “No.” But again, we’re talking about probability judgments, so that the inability to prove something absolutely, does not mean that its opposite is therefore likely to be true." 

(See blog.homileticsonline.com/interviews/being-christian-in-the-21st-century-interview-with-marcus-borg; Emphasis mine).

Conclusion

It is a fact that not a single academic scholar today with a  doctorate in a relevant field of study claims that Jesus did not exist. However, we live in a world where an "Internet influencer" is revered as an ersatz "expert." Is it therefore any wonder that if an atheist psychologist, aided by an atheist "researcher" with no advanced education at all, writes an article that claims Jesus didn't exist, people will be taken in by it? Making it "more impressive" is its endorsement by a neurologist who knows little to nothing of historical research methodology. 

The same reasoning applies in all areas of our lives. You wouldn't take a medication that sat around so long that a professional pharmacist told you it may be poisonous now. You wouldn't let a lawyer perform open heart surgery on you, and you wouldn't want a surgeon defending you in a criminal trail. How much more must people not listen to people like Fred and Bobby Dimond, two men who have no formal ecclesiastical education or training and no secular education beyond high school, yet they will tell you where St. Alphonsus Liguori "made mistakes." Thousands of people follow them into Feeneyite heresy. Likewise, don't be fooled by pseudo-experts in irrelevant fields who try and tell you there was no historical Jesus Christ. "Do not fear those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell. " (St. Matthew 10:28).