As an atheist (and a big fan of Dawkins) I often mocked my Christian friends and family for needing to have faith to overcome the clear lack of EVIDENCE for the existence of Jesus. I used to agree wholeheartedly with the words of one of our more sceptical readers: “If you want to believe, then you NEED faith, because you don’t have facts.”
I used to basically say to them: You Christians are pathetic! All you have is a “blind faith”. I mean, when did you commit “intellectual suicide”?
… all you have is blind faith!
And I wasn’t wrong, for the most part. As Millar Burrows of Yale – the American expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls – puts it:
“There is a type of Christian faith . . . [that is] not dependent on reason or evidence. Those who hold this position will not admit that historical investigation can have anything to say about the uniqueness of Christ. They are often sceptical as to the possibility of knowing anything about the historical Jesus, and seem content to dispense with such knowledge.”
But - and here is the kicker ...
... although for many “Christians” this is true, it is simply not the truth about the REAL evidence and THE FACTS regarding the existence of Jesus.
Because in reality – as Richard Dawkins was forced by plain ol’ logic to concede – the facts in evidence absolutely support that the Jesus of the Bible was real.
When it comes to real academic historians, there is an absolute consensus that the facts support the existence of Jesus. In fact, NOT A SINGLE ACADEMIC SCHOLAR today with a Ph.D. in a relevant field of study claims that Jesus did not exist.
And yet, even as the evidence for a REAL Jesus grows, it has become an internet fad and online trend to assert that Jesus is a product of some kind of political, social, or economic agenda of the Roman Empire, and that it is all a part of a big conspiracy, including theories such as:
- Jesus was a knock-off of other “dying and rising” pagan gods,
- there is nothing new about the story of Jesus when looking at mythology,
- the whole story of his life was invented by religious authorities,
- etc. etc.
This idea is so popular that it has become a commonplace suggestion. “There is no evidence that Jesus existed” is a catchphrase used by angry atheists and New Agers all the time (check out the comments on our posts for Evidence).
So, don’t the academics know about the online articles debunking Jesus?
Or the documentaries like “Religulous” or “Zeitgeist” that debunk Jesus of Nazareth?
Are they all unenlightened about how Jesus was a knock-off of the Egyptian god Horus, or other ancient gods?
Well, there is a remaining group of about three semi-scholarly people who still hang on to this “Christ-myth theory” that Jesus never existed.
Richard Carrier is the most popular, and quite frankly he is the only one who is even remotely listened to by real academics (albeit still only remotely).
Carrier has a Ph.D. in Ancient Studies from Columbia University with a specialty in Roman history, though at time of writing he is unemployed, having never held an academic position at any university. His claim is this: that the existence of Jesus is sufficiently improbable and his historicity cannot be considered certain, and therefore we are not justified in claiming he existed.
Being the most outspoken and well-known advocate of the Christ-myth theory, it’s important to take a look at what actual scholars in the field have to say about his position. Here is what an actual Bible historian, R. Joseph Hoffman, (who is also an atheist himself) had to say about Richard Carrier specifically, and the Christ-myth theory in general:
“Only in the age of instant misinformation and net-attack is this kind of idiocy possible. Only in the atheist universe, where the major premise – “religion is a lie so the study of religion is the study of lying” – infects everything, is this kind of lunacy possible.”
He goes on for some time, and it’s not pretty – you can read his full response to the Jesus Myth theorists HERE.
Remember, Hoffman is an atheist himself, but he holds graduate degrees in theology from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD in Christian Origins from the University of Oxford. He is also a former Chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion.
Even our Richard Dawkins in the video keeps well away from Richard Carrier and his devotees.
Well, ok then, but what about all these other leading historians we keep talking about?
It’s too long a list to include in this article, but if you’re interested you can find out what the leading atheist historians have to say about it, where the actual consensus from the experts in the field is very clear.
Again, even Dawkins knows it, even though he clearly hates to admit it.
That all being said however, the one truth emerging from this debate that is even clearer is this:
The human mind is the prisoner of the human heart, and the human heart wants what it wants.
I can attest to the fact that, even when faced with the overwhelming evidence that Jesus was and is real, I did not WANT to believe it.
In the words of the great Princeton scholar Benjamin Warfield:
“We believe in Christ because it is RATIONAL to believe in him … we are arguing that our faith is, in all its exercises alike, a form of conviction, and is, therefore, NECESSARILY GROUNDED IN EVIDENCE”.
However, something else he said is also true:
“Only the Spirit of Life can communicate life to a dead soul, or can convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement.”
Jesus himself made this fact clear when he said:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3)
And as his apostle Paul also stressed:
“… and that not of yourself – it is a gift of God”.
Ephesians 2:8
The reality of this finally came to me while I was re-reading a small part of the Bible. As an atheist I was working on an argument about Christians being “sheep”:
how their faith was blind and how they don’t know how to use logic or how to think for themselves. The quote is this:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”
John 10:27.
I found out that this is literally true, and that until the Life of God has come into the dead soul, the Gospel is as a rainbow is to a mouse in its hole, or Mozart is to a doorknob.
Jesus said it:
“For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”
And, coming back to the original point, he also said:
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with ALL YOUR MIND and with all your strength” Mark 12:30
In other words, real believing faith is the very opposite of blind faith, and is indeed “necessarily grounded in evidence” and the exercise of our minds.
However, by the grace of God, and along with the blind man cured by Jesus, I am able to say: “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” John 9:25
Check it out at www.bible.com/bible.
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