Myth Versus History:

Playing hide-and-seek with Jesus.

Robert Conner

Given the ubiquitous superstition of his era and the festering resentment of
the Jewish populace in Roman occupied Palestine, there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the message or career of a certain Joshua of Nazareth,
better known as Jesus of NazarethJesus is the Latinized form of Ihsouj
(Isous), the Greek rendering of cwvwhy (Yehoshua), Joshua, meaning Yahweh
delivers. Joshua son of Nun, or Jesus son of Nau (Ihsouj o Nauh),1 the eponymous hero of the book of Joshua, represented the mythic triumph of Jewish
theocracy over gentile paganism. The name, which embodied the very hope

1

Josephus, Jewish War IV, 459.

of salvation, of freedom, of rescue from the gentile Roman overlords, was

understandably popular in 1st century Palestine.
It would appear that more than one Jesus imagined himself to be the instrument of Yahwehs deliveranceJosephus records a military confrontation between Vespasians troops and a certain Jesus by name (Ihsouj tij onoma), son
of Saphat2 and recounts the story of another Jesus as well, Jesus, son of
Gamala (Gamala...uioj Ihsouj), also known as Joshua ben Gamla, one of the
most eminent members of the priestly caste.3 Both Anan, the high priest, and
Jesus ben Gamla were murdered in Jerusalem by the Zealot faction during
the first Jewish-Roman War (66-73 CE) and their naked bodies thrown out
to be eaten by the dogs.4 We are also informed of a certain son of Thebouthi, Jesus by name (tij Qebouqei Ihsouj onoma) who bought off the
Romans during the final siege of Jerusalem and whose life was spared.5 Despite the relative profusion of figures bearing the common name Joshua (Jesus) in the 1st century, surviving records reveal very few details of their personal biographies.
Aside from being mentioned in texts, texts preserved by repeated copying,
texts for which no originals have existed for many centuries, there is no physical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus son of Saphat, or Jesus ben
Gamla, or any of the other hundreds of Jesuses who probably lived in Palestine during the 1st century. Apart from his copied and recopied writings,
there is no direct physical evidence for the existence of Josephus who wrote of
Jesus ben Gamla, no tomb and no bones, to say nothing of original works in
Josephus hand, originals that disappeared a millennium agothe oldest surviving manuscripts of Josephus writings date to the 9th century, some 800
years after his death. In point of fact, Josephus, whose history is our principle
source of information about the dynasty of Herod as well as the First JewishRoman war, is himself unmentioned by Roman historians of the era!
By modern standards there is sparse physical evidence for even some of the
most notable actors of ancient history. The burial place of Alexander the
Great, one of historys most famous figures, is unknown. The only physical
evidence for the historicity of Pontius Pilate are coins and a partial inscription on a block of limestone discovered in 1961, a block that had been repurposed as building material sometime in the 4th century, proof of Pilates
existence as well as confirmation that the ancient world continuously cannibalized the material evidence of its own pastmost of the ancient buildings
in Jerusalem are built at least in part from the spolia of earlier structures.

2

Ibid, II, 599, III, 450, IV, 450-451.

Ibid, IV, 8, 161, 238.
4
Ibid, IV, 324.
5
Ibid, VI, 387.
3

Three lines of evidence, lines that very seldom converge, might conclusively
prove the existence of any given person from the remote past: forensic evidence, archaeological evidence, and textual evidence. The only cases of individuals from the ancient Middle East whose identities might be definitively
established by such a concurrence of evidence are pharaonic mummies recovered from intact, unmolested tombs, but to the best of my knowledge no
similar case of preservation has ever been recorded from Palestine.

PART ONE: SOFT MYTHICISM.

It bears saying right from the start that when it concerns particular individuals, historians of antiquity deal with archaeological evidence and texts, and
almost never with forensic evidence. Portraits, statues and inscriptions document the existence of the most eminent, then as now a tiny fraction of one
percent of the population, and texts, copied, recopied, and copied yet again,
survive from the ancient world, but what would count as definitive evidence
today is lacking and if discovered could only very tentatively be assigned to a
particular person. It is almost certainly safe to say that no forensic evidence
bones, teeth, hair, or other sources of DNAcould be adduced as positive
identification of any figure of the Greco-Roman era, evidence that would
stand up in a present-day court of law. In short, evidence of personal existence in antiquity is almost always a matter of probability rather than fact.
That the thousands of workers who built the pyramids or Stonehenge really
lived may be safely assumed, but aside from the massive monuments on
which they labored, every trace of them as particular living individuals has
long since vanished and this is true of nearly everyone who lived in the ancient world, famous or not. In short, even the best documented figures of the
antiquity inhabit a misty realm in which myth and historicity fade into each
other and the reconstruction of their biographies is often a matter of conjecture.
The existence of Josephus, for whom no forensic evidence exists and who,
despite his importance to us as a key historical source, passes unmentioned by
contemporary historians, is widely regarded as so probable that it is unquestioned, but can his existence be proven? To the best of my knowledge, no one
has ever seriously proposed that his extensive histories are forgeries, but is it
not at least theoretically possible that they are misattributed or that some
clever individual concocted them and passed them off as genuine? To put the
issue another way, Josephus is accepted as the author of the histories attribut-

ed to him because there is no plausible evidence to the contrary, but his

authorship is not, strictly speaking, a fact but a supposition supported by the
preponderance of the evidence.
The reconstruction of events in the ancient world therefore falls back upon
probability and even though the improbable doubtless occurred in the past as
it does in the present, reported events as well as proposed explanations for
events must first pass the test of probability. Raising a decaying body from the
dead or being born of a virgin is exceedingly improbable now and, ceteris
paribus, was presumably so in the past. Claims of resurrection and virgin
birth may therefore be accepted as miracles, one-off events utterly outside
normal experience and by their very nature not subject to verification, or rejected as so improbable as to be mere fable. The overwhelming majority of
mainstream New Testament scholars, basing their conclusions on what is
probable, reject the notion that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin or that
he rose from the dead and regard these accounts as fables, part and parcel of a
mythologizing process that can easily be traced through the documents of the
New Testament itself. The majority of New Testament specialists working
outside the mental fortress of evangelical literalism are therefore what I will
call soft mythologists, rejecting the implausible elements of the gospels as
mythic accretions, while accepting as probable a historic core that fits the
circumstances of the era. More on this point in a bit.
As I have mentioned, there is no forensic evidence for Jesus of Nazareth; the
evidence for Jesus existence, like the evidence for Jesus ben Saphat and Jesus
ben Gamla, is documentary. However as documents the gospels have several
obvious flaws, two of which are pointed out by New Testament scholar Bart
Ehrman: ...none of the Gospel writers ever identifies himself by name or
narrates any of his stories about Jesus in the first person...The Gospels are all
written anonymously...we do not have any eyewitness report of any kind
about Jesus, written in his own day.6 The presumed oral sources for the gospels are unknown and unknowable and whatever written sources may have
formed the basis for the gospels are likewise lost. The church historian Eusebius says of Mark, the putative author of the earliest gospel, he had not
heard the Lord, nor had he followed him.7 On the best evidence, the gospels
were not even composed in Palestine where the events of Jesus life took
place. It is conjectured that Mark was written in Rome, Matthew in Syria,
and John perhaps in Asia Minor. To make matter worse, the First JewishRoman War burst out in Galilee in 67 CE, culminated in the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70, and smoldered in the hills to the south for several more years
before finally ending with the fall of the last Jewish garrison at Masada in 73
CE. Given the vast devastation of the war, any surviving eyewitnesses of

6
7

Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 47, 49.

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III, 39, 15.

Jesus brief career were likely killed or scattered.

No sane person with even a passing acquaintance with the documents of the
New Testament could fail to notice the emergence of a Jesus myth within
them, a progressive accretion of the divine and corresponding fading of the
human. Many examples of this process might be cited, but for the sake of
illustration lets consider only a few of the more obvious.
According to Marks gospel, the villagers of Nazareth ask, Isnt this the laborer, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and
Simon, and arent his sisters here among us?8 The Greek tektn (tektwn),
usually translated carpenter, basically means laborer, someone who works
with his hands, generally with wood or stone. The gospel of Matthew, a revision and expansion of Mark, rephrases the question to avoid making Jesus
out to be a mere laborer: Isnt this the son of the laborer...?9 The apologist
Origen, writing in the early 3rd century, chided the pagan critic Celsus for
calling Jesus a laborer, claiming that Celsus was unaware that in none of the
gospels proclaimed in the churches has carpenter (tektwn) been used to describe Jesus himself.10 Clearly Jesus lowly origins were an embarrassment to
the church, which from a very early period set about polishing, i.e., falsifying, his rsum.
The editing of details such as this can be multiplied: the gospel of Mark contains thirteen healing narratives and the largest single category is that of
exorcisms.11 In the reworked narratives of Matthew12 and Luke,13 however,
the lurid physical effects in MarkShrieking and convulsing him horribly,
[the spirit] came out and left [the boy] like a corpse14have dropped out.
Matthew and Luke also edit out the Aramaic healing formulas15 recorded by
Markhe cast out the spirits with a word16but the word is never specified. Matthew and Luke also omit the story of the blind man cured with
spit,17 a story immediately identifiable as an application of folk magic, almost
certainly due to charges of sorcery. Jesus opponents accused him of black
magic, an accusation which stands as one of the most firmly established facts

8

Mark 6:3.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Greek sources are my own.
9
Matthew 13:55.
10
Origen, Contra Celsum VI, 36.
11
Dunn & Twelftree, Churchman 94 (1980), 211.
12
Matthew 17:18.
13
Luke 9:42.
14
Mark 9:26.
15
Mark 5:41, 7:34.
16
Matthew 8:16.
17
Mark 8: 22-26.

of the Gospel Tradition.18

Aune has proposed a motive for Marks retention of the Aramaic: In view of
the importance attributed to preserving adjurations and incantations in their
original languages, these formulas were probably preserved for the purpose of
guiding Christian thaumaturges in exorcistic and healing activities,19 but as
Hull observed in his landmark work, Matthew has a suspicion of exorcism...This is because exorcism was one of the main functions of the magician. The magic consisted in the method; Matthew retains the fact without
the method, trying in this way to purify the subject.20 Matthews editing of
potentially embarrassing details is widely acknowledged: Matthew excised
not only the more blatant thaumaturgical traits but even whole incidents,
such as the stories of the healing of the deaf mute (Mark 7:31-37) and of the
blind man near Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26), both of which might lend themselves to magical interpretation...Luke seems to have made an intentional effort to distance Jesus and church leaders from magical notions.21 The revisions of the later synoptics were almost certainly done in response to Jewish
and later pagan claims that Jesus was a sorcerer, a charge documented in
Mark, the earliest gospel:
The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, He has
Beelzeboul! He casts out demons by the ruler of the demons!22
The pagan polemicist Celsus, writing about 180 CE, knew that Jesus had
been accused of sorcery: After being brought up in obscurity, he hired himself out in Egypt and having become experienced in certain magical arts, he
made his way back and on account of those powers proclaimed himself a
god.23 Celsus concluded that Jesus was merely a worthless sorcerer, hated
by God.24
Fritz Graf: ...those who accused Jesus of being a magician (they were not few
among the pagans) argued that he, after all, had spent part of his youth in the
homeland of magic, after the escape from Palestine.25 It is likely that Matthews infancy story, which connects Jesus both with magicians and Egypt,26
reflects past and current accusations that Jesus practiced magic and sought to
disarm by explaining Jesus association with Egypt as circumstantial and not

18

Plumer, Biblica 78 (1997), 357.

Aune, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rmischen Welt, II.23.2, 1535.
20
Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, 73.
21
Kee, Religion, Science, and Magic, 143.
22
Mark 3:22.
23
Origen, Contra Celsum I, 38.
24
Ibid, I, 71.
25
Graf, Envisioning Magic, 94-95.
26
Matthew 2:1-2, 13, 19.
19

the true source of his amazing powers...the story of the flight to Egypt
(Matt. 2:13-15), which [Matthew] strains to relate to an Old Testament prophecy...is perhaps a response to the Talmudic charge that Jesus had learned
magic and sorcery in Egypt.27
Although the reason may ultimately remain a matter of speculation, exorcism is remarkable for its absence in the gospel of John. Plumer has suggested
that charges of sorcery resulted in the omission of this key form of miracle,28
and while questioning that conclusion, Piper admits that control over spirits
...leaves Jesus himself sometimes open to suspicion and accusation and concedes that persons who had the capacity to perform exorcisms or control
spirits in other ways were quite liable to be suspected of sorcery.29
Perhaps Celsus had the answer all along. The charge of sorcery spurred Origen into a frenzy of writing, pouring out page after page in his attempt to
disprove it. It seems likely that the accusation of sorcery, which originated
during Jesus own career, motivated the gospel writers to substantially alter
the primitive tradition. Leaving aside the facticity of miracles generally, it is
abundantly clear that the people of the New Testament believed demons were
real, that magic was real, and that exorcists were casting out real entities. The
controversy over Jesus powers, as well as the defensive posture assumed by
the later gospel writers in the face of accusations that Jesus practiced magic,
cohere perfectly with what we know of the era from multiple sources. While
all this does not and cannot prove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, it is
completely consistent with what we know about similar figures from antiquity such as Apollonius of Tyana, widely conceded to have been a real person.
That Jesus is the Son of God is an essential Christian claim: Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you might have life in his name.30
Surprisingly, if asked when and how Jesus became the Son of God, the New
Testament provides no less than four different answers!
At the beginning of his epistle to the Romans, written around 55-56 CE,
Paul appears to quote a pre-existing creed: Through his prophets in the holy
scriptures, [the gospel] promised beforehand about his Son, born from the
seed of David according to the flesh, declared the Son of God in power by his
resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord.31 According to the wording of this early confession, formulated mere decades after Jesus death, at
least some of the first believers appear to have decided the resurrection was the

27

Hoffman, Jesus Outside the Gospels, 40.

Plumer, Biblica 78 (1997), 350-368.
29
Piper, Christology, Controversy and Community, 259.
30
John 20:31.
31
Romans 1:2-4.
28

momentous event by which God designated Jesus as his Son. The second
PsalmYou are my son; today I have become your father.32is interpreted by Paul as applying to Jesus resurrection according to Acts.33
The early Christians, searching for validation of Jesus in the Hebrew scriptures, appropriated the language of the psalm, He said to me, You are my
son; today I have become your father. Ask me and I will make the nations
your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.34 The second psalm
is taken as foretelling the exaltation and triumph of Jesus in both Hebrews35
and Revelation.36
Soon, however, the declaration of Jesus unique status moved back from the
end of his career to its very beginning. According to Marks gospel, written
around the year 70, Jesus sonship is affirmed at the moment of his baptism:
It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee
and was baptized in the Jordan by John and immediately as he came
up out of the water he saw the heavens ripped open and the spirit
descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from the heavens,
You are my Son the beloved in whom I was pleased.37
The gospel of Luke, however, written toward the end of the 1st century, associates Jesus status as the Son of God with his very conception:
And look! You will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you
will name him Jesus. He will be great and be called Son of the Most
High and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father
...holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you. Therefore what is conceived will be called holy,
the Son of God.38
In the gospel of John, written at the end of the 1st century or early 2nd century, Jesus has become the pre-existent Word, the Son of God since the beginning of creation:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the
Word was God.39 In the beginning this One was with God. Every
32

Psalm 2:7 (NIV).

Acts 13:33.
34
Psalms 2:7-8. (NIV).
35
Hebrews 1:5.
36
Revelation 2:26-27.
37
Mark 1:9-11.
38
Luke 1:31-32, 35.
39
...the Word was God (qeoj hn o logoj). The anarthrous construction of qeoj im33

thing came to exist through him and apart from him not even one
thing exists that came to exist...And the Word became flesh and
dwelled in our midst and we beheld his glory, a glory such as an onlybegotten from a father, full of grace and truth...for God did not send
the Son into the world to judge the world, but to save the world
through him...Truly, truly, I tell you, before Abraham was born, I
am.40
According to John, the Word was the Son before being sent into the world,
and by making Jesus say, before Abraham was born, I am (egw eimi) the
author is deliberately recalling Exodus 3:14 in the Greek Septuagint: And
God (o qeoj) said to Moses, I am the One Who Is (egw eimi O Wn)...this is
my name forever.41 As is well known, the process of Jesus deification finally
reaches its reductio ad absurdum in the early 4th century at the Council of
Nicaea.
The process Ive briefly described, the tweaking of Jesus thin rsum, the
exorcism of the magical details of his career, and the extension of his sonship
ever backward in time from his resurrection to the very beginning of creation,
are examples of myth making familiar to anyone conversant with the New
Testament documents. However none of these features of the New Testament has convinced the vast majority of New Testament specialists that the
existence of Jesus is likewise a myth and it is worth taking some time to
understand why that is the case.
Based on evidence from the history of Josephus and what is known about
religious ideas current in 1st century Palestine, I propose that the existence of
Jesus fits the classic argument to the best explanation based on consilience,
the convergence of evidence from multiple sources. The hypothesis that Jesus
was a real person has greater plausibility and explanatory power than any
alternative and is supported by a variety of data that fit the social and religious circumstances of the era. Based on the gospels, and possibly more importantly other writings of the time, I propose Jesus of Nazareth was a person of scant importance from a village of no importance, a man of humble
beginnings who achieved a brief regional reputation as an apocalyptic preacher
who established his bona fides by wonder working. He became a disciple of John
the Baptist, and like John he drew excited crowds as well as the surveillance
of the Jewish authorities.42 At Passover he went to Jerusalem, raised a ruckus
in a religiously explosive atmosphere, and being marked as a troublemaker,

plies that the Word was not identical to God (o qeoj) but was more than merely
divine (qeioj), a grammatical subtlety impossible to capture in English.
40
John 1:1-3, 14, 3:17, 8:58.
41
Exodus 3:14-15.
42
Compare Mark 3:22, 7:1.

got himself arrested, handed over to the Romans and executed. Basically that
simple.
To clarify my position I believe it is sufficientat least within the limits of
an essayto establish how Jesus garnered a following and to identify the gist
of his message, both rather easily accomplished using the New Testament and
early Christian writings as sources.

Jesus the miracle worker.

The powerful works by which Jesus secured his reputation are well documentedthe gospel of Mark rapidly establishes Jesus regional fame as a
master manipulator of spirits. Jesus teaches as one who has authority (wj
exousian ecwn) and not like the scribes43 and lest any doubt remain about
what Jesus authority encompassed, Mark has Jesus Jewish contemporaries
answer:
What is this? A new teaching based on authority (kat exousian)he
gives orders to the unclean spirits and they obey him! And instantly the
report about him spread out in every direction into the whole region
of Galilee.44
It is clear that Jesus quickly established a regional reputation as an exorcist
and healerhe went through all of Galilee, preaching in their synagogues
and casting out devils.45 After the initial report from Capernaum,46 news that
Jesus has returned home causes a dense crowd to gather47 and when Jesus
leaves, a mob of Galileans follows, joined in turn by the curious from Judea,
Jerusalem, Idumea, from villages across the Jordan, and from Tyre and
Sidon.48 By now Jesus renown is such that he can no longer openly enter a
town,49 and at this point Jesus chooses twelve disciples and sends them out
to preach and to have authority to cast out demons.50 Jesus fame as an exorcist continues to spread; soon other exorcists begin to invoke the power of his
namefor his name became known.51 Jesus name is not merely his reputation, it is literally a name to conjure with:

43

Mark 1:22.
Mark 1:27b-28.
45
Mark 1:39.
46
Mark 1:21.
47
Mark 2:1-2.
48
Mark 3:7-8.
49
Mark 1:45.
50
Mark 3:14-15.
51
Mark 6:14.
44

10

Teacher, said John, we saw someone driving out demons in your

name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.52
The use of Jesus name by other exorcists is clearly an example of professional magical use,53 a practice that appears to have continued even after Jesus
death.54
Regarding the unknown exorcist of Mark 9:38, Schfer observes, using the
powerful name of Jesus had nothing to do with believing in Jesus...the magical use of the name of Jesus worked automatically, no matter whether or not
the magician believed in Jesus.55 Origen expresses just this understanding,
common throughout the Mediterranean world; demons are spellbound,
constrained by the magical arts and therefore forced to obey magicians.56
Christian exorcists prevail by the name of Jesus: demons and other unseen
powers...fear the name of Jesus as superior and the demons fly away at the
recitation of his name. 57 Origens superstition coincides exactly with the
nonsense derided by Lucian: the fever or the swelling is in fear of a divine
name or barbarous invocation and because of this flees from the inflamed
gland.58 The Christian confessions of faith that Celsus regards as vulgar
words are for Origen just like spells that have been filled with power.59
This understanding behind the efficacy of Jesus name will eventually flow
seamlessly into what Weltin described as Augustines pseudo-magical theological speculations on the ex-opere-operato virtue of the sacraments.60
Josephus reports several rabble-rousing, wonder working, Kingdom-of-God
types who authenticated their message by dramatic charismatic performance
given the long history of conflict between the Jewish masses and the Romans, it comes as no surprise that such prophets were Jewish nationalists
whose influence was feared and who were carefully watched. Theudas, for
example, is described as a gohj (gos), a sorcerer or impostor, as well as a profhthj (prophts), a prophet whose followers expected the Jordan to part so
they could cross on dry land.61 Theudas was killed and his head brought back
to Jerusalem to be put on display pour encourager les autres.

52

Mark 9:38. (NIV.)

Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, 72.
54
Acts 19:13.
55
Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 60.
56
Origen, Contra Celsum II, 51.
57
Ibid, III, 36.
58
Lucian, The Lover of Lies, 9.
59
Origen, Contra Celsum III, 68.
60
Weltin, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 3 (1960), 78.
61
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities XX, 97.
Theudas and his fate are mentioned in Acts 5:36.
53

11

Josephus also informs us about a mob deceived by another man, a magician

(gohj), who proclaimed salvation and an end to their troubles.62 This man
and his followers were also promptly dispatched. Another character, the
Egyptian, a man, a magician who established a reputation as a prophet (anqrwpoj gohj kai profhtou...) led a throng of 30,000 in an attack on Jerusalem but was repulsed and escaped.63 The gospel of Luke may contain an
oblique reference to the suppression of yet another local independence movement: Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.64 Since the
Temple was the only place where Jews offered sacrifices, the report indicates
that the rebellious elements had been slain within the Temple compound itself. It is probably not coincidental that around the same time the infamous
Barabbas had been imprisoned along with the insurrectionists who had
committed murder in the uprising.65
Origen acknowledged the existence of charismatic figures who Celsus compared to Jesusdeceivers of Jesus type (opoioj hn o Ihsouj)among them
Theudas, a certain Judas of Galilee who the Romans executed, Dositheus, a
Samaritan who was supposedly the one prophesied by Moses, and the infamous Simon the Samaritan magician [who] beguiled some by magic.66 It
is clear both that Celsus recognized Jesus as belonging to a familiar category,
and that Origen regarded signs and wonders as the calling card of a prophet,
even of a false prophet: If there arise among you a prophet or one who receives revelations in dreams, and he gives you a sign or wonders...67 Regarding the terms planoj (planos), deceiver, magoj (magos), magician, and yeudoprofhthj (pseudoprophts), false prophet, Stanton notes that the most widely
attested ancient criticism of Jesus: he was a magician and false prophet who
deceived Gods people...accusations of magic and false prophecy are very
closely related to one another.68
None of Christianitys ancient critics denied the existence of Jesus, an obvious
polemic tactic, likely because the ancient Middle East pullulated exorcists,
prophets and magicians, characters that came along with the predictability of
sunrise, and Jesus was simply another one among a multitude. Many
sources, especially the N[ew] T[estament] and Josephus, recount Jewish and
Samaritan miracle workers at the time of Jesus. It is not even difficult to

62

Ibid, XX, 188.

Josephus, Jewish War II, 259.
64
Luke 13:1 (NIV).
65
Mark 15:7 (NIV).
66
Origen, Contra Celsum I, 57, II, 8.
67
Ibid II, 53.
The reference is to Deuteronomy 13:1.
68
Stanton, Jesus of Nazareth Lord and Christ, 166-167.
63

12

name more than ten of them.69 From a skeptical Roman point of view, the
miracle working Jewish exorcist from Nazareth was basically a walking, talking banality, a Middle Eastern clich. Jesus preached that the kingdom of
God was at hand, and he was executed by the Romans as a royal pretender.
Prima facie, he invites comparison with the various prophets and messianic
pretenders, such as Theudas and the Egyptian, described by Josephus.70
The writer Lucian describes the career of two notorious religious hucksters,
Peregrinus, the wonderworker or conjurer (qaumatopoioj)71 who suckered credulous Christians during part of his career, and the false prophet Alexander of
Abonoteichus, inventor of Glykon, the talking snake oracle.72 Lucians brilliant story, The Lover of Lies, may very well contain an oblique reference to
the fame of Jesus as welleveryone knows of the Syrian from Palestine, the
master beyond compare,73 how many moonstruck he takes in hand, their eyes
rolling, mouths overrun with foam...he asks, From whence have you come
into his body? The sick man himself says nothing, but the demon answers,74
in Greek or some barbarian tongue...uttering oaths,75 and if it does not obey,
by threats,76 he drives the demon out.77 It is quite possible that Lucian based
his account on Christian exorcists driving out demons in the name of Jesus78
or on the stories from the gospels,79 and when the symposiasts veer to a discussion of restless ghosts, it may be more than coincidence that someone
who hanged himself80 or was beheaded,81 or crucified82 are singled out as
exemplary.
How did Jesus and early Christians gain followers? The documents of the

69

Koskenniemi, Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998), 465.

Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 256.
71
Lucian, The Passing of Peregrinus, 17.
72
Lucian, Alexander the False Prophet, addressed to a certain Celsus, perhaps the very
Celsus who wrote a polemic against the Christians.
73
the master beyond compare (ton epi toutw sofisthn). Elsewhere Lucian uses the
term sofisthj (sophists), master or adept, or cheat, fraud, of Jesus, that crucified
sophist himself (aneskolopismenon ekeinon sofisthn auton), The Passing of Peregrinus, 13.
74
Compare Mark 5:9: What is your name? My name is Legion, he replied.
(NIV)
75
Compare Mark 5:8: Come out of this man, you impure spirit! (NIV)
76
Compare Mark 5:7: In Gods name dont torture me! (NIV)
77
Lucian, The Lover of Lies, 16.
78
That Christian exorcists still operated as late as the 3rd or 4th century is supported
by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History VI, 43, 14; VIII, 6, 9.)
79
Compare Matthew 8:29, 12:43.
80
Matthew 27:5.
81
Matthew 14:10.
82
Matthew 27:35.
70

13

New Testament, starting with the letters of Paul, Christianitys most effective
missionary by far, provide a clear answer: by works of power, wonders or,
if one prefers, by magic. As Jesus himself observed, Unless you people see
signs and wonders, you will never believe83 and our sources completely support that claim that links miracles with belief.
...Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has been affirmed for you by God by
powerful works and wonders and signs that God performed through
him in your midst, as you yourselves know.84
Many signs and wonders were performed through the hands of the
apostles...so that a multitude of men and women began joining those
who believed in the Lord with the result that the sick were carried into the streets on litters and cots so that as Peter passed by at least his
shadow might fall on some of them. Crowds from the towns around
Jerusalem congregated, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and all were healed.85
I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what
I have said and doneby the power of signs and wonders, through
the power of the Spirit of God.86
When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom...My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirits power, so that
your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on Gods power87...I
persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle,
including signs, wonders and miracles.88
Eusebius corroborates the evidence from Pauls letters: The divine nature of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, proclaimed among all men by his wonderworking power (paradoxopoiou dunamewj), attracted countless numbers... 89
by the power of Christ through the teaching of those who follow him together with amazing deeds (paradoxopoiiaj)...90 [the apostles] were unskilled
in speech (de glwttan idiwteuontej)...but bold in the divine and wonder-working power (paradoxopoiw dunamei) that had been given them...they set their

83

John 4:48. (NIV.)

Acts 2:22.
85
Acts 5:12-16.
86
Romans 15:18-19. (NIV.)
87
1 Corinthians 2:1,4. (NIV.)
88
2 Corinthians 12:12. (NIV.)
89
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History I, 13, 1.
90
Ibid, II, 3, 2.
84

14

hand only to a display of the divine spirit...and the wonder-working power of

Christ...(qaumatourgw tou Cristou dunamei) 91 Narcissus of Jerusalem was
alleged to have turned water into oil for lamps92the spread of Christianity
came to depend largely on widely disseminated reports of miracles that were
performed either by Jesus himself or in Jesus name.93
The form of early Christianity associated with Paul can be characterized as a
spirit-possession cult. Paul establishes communities of those possessed by the
spirit of Jesus.94 Paul assures the Corinthians, because you are zealous devotees of spirits (umeij epei zhlwtai este pneumatwn), on that account I reveal
to you that no one speaking by a spirit of God says, Anathema Jesus! and no
one is able to say Lord Jesus! except by a holy spirit.95 The worshippers
and the attending spirits form a double assembly.96 The first Christians believed in a plurality of spirits: ...do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits
to see whether they are from God.97 It is important to remember that at rock
bottom ancient Christians and pagans shared an essential belief: spirits pulling the wires behind the scenes control the visible world.
In the New Testament the holy spirit is conflated with the spirit of Jesus
Paul and his fellow missionaries are prevented by the holy spirit from
speaking the word in Asia...the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.98 But you
are not in flesh, but in spirit if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. But if
anyone does not have the spirit of Christ...99 The author of 1 Peter attributes
the predictions of the Old Testament prophets to the spirit of Christ in
them,100 but receiving the spirit was somehow contingent upon Jesus resurrection: For as yet there was no spirit because Jesus had not yet been glorified.101
Pauls discourse on the signs and wonders of the spirit is directed to people
who had once worshipped the pagan deities102 and were familiar with manifestations of spirit possession such as ecstatic oracular speech.

91

Ibid, III, 24, 3.

Ibid, VI, 9, 3.
93
Garland, The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, 89.
94
Mount, Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005), 316.
95
1 Corinthians 12:3.
96
Thee, Julius Africanus and the Early Christian View of Magic, 382.
97
1 John 4:1.
98
Acts 16:6-7.
99
Romans 8:9.
Compare Galatians 4:6, Philippians 1:19.
100
1 Peter 1:11.
101
John 7:39.
102
1 Corinthians 12:2.
92

15

...tongues are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers, and prophecy, not for unbelievers, but for those who believe. In the same
way, if the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and
strangers or unbelievers enter, will they not say you are possessed?103
Glossolalia is a sign for unbelievers because ecstatic speech, already familiar to
pagans, is proof that Christians have a spiritthat religious trances and ecstasy were the manifestations of possession by a god was one of wide currency
in Greek and Near Eastern religions.104 It was no wonder and it requires no
miracle to explain Christianitys rapid incursion into the fabric of the GrecoRoman world, its explosive growth among the unlettered working class or its
appeal to the despised and disenfranchised masses: the raving Christians of
Pauls churches imagined themselves talking to God, vouchsafed sacred mysteries by the spirit.105 Christianity inverted the social normsfoolishness
became the new wisdom,106 the kingdom belonged to the poor,107 the ragtag
Christian rabble, derided by Lucian as, half-baked philosophers drawn from
cobblers and carpenters,108 are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.109 I do
not know, Origen huffed, in what rank to place [a Christian believer] who
has need of arguments written in books110burning books is one of the
oldest documented Christian activities.111 Christians were constantly amazed
to find themselves cast as enemies of the Roman order, but in retrospect we
must admit that it was the Romans who had the more realistic insight...To
Roman eyes, the obstinate and incomprehensible intolerance of Christians
made them appear not only foolish but treasonable.112
According to Eusebius, who may have exaggerated their numbers, Christian
zealots rushed headlong to martyrdom, their fanaticism astounding Roman
judges.

Jesus the apocalyptic prophet.

Apocalypticism is the bedrock of the earliest form of Christianity. Jesus predicts the imminent arrival of the kingdom: some who are standing here will

103

1 Corinthians 14:22-23.
Esler, The First Christians in their Social Worlds, 46.
105
1 Corinthians 14:2.
106
1 Corinthians 3:19.
107
Matthew 5:3.
108
Lucian, The Double Indictment, 6.
109
1 Peter 2:9.
110
Origen, Contra Celsum I, 4.
111
Acts 19:19.
112
Gager, Kingdom and Community, 27-28, 124.
104

16

not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with
power 113 and by no means will this generation disappear until all these
things happen.114 The High Priest will see the Son of Man seated at the
right hand of power.115 These predictions announce [the kingdoms] arrival
prior to the end of the generation to whom Jesus was speaking...the community which produced the Gospel of Mark [was] an apocalyptic millenarian
community living in the imminent expectation of the end of the age.116
The kingdom in question has nothing to do with heaven; it is the earthly
kingdom of David: The Lord God will give him the throne of his father
David.117 Jesus disciples will receive houses and fields a hundred-fold
in the present age118 and those that have followed him will sit on twelve
thrones and judge the tribes of Israel.119 At some point in Jesus career it is
quite likely the disciples asked, Lord, are you at this time going to restore
the kingdom to Israel?120
The conviction that the present religious and political order is soon to come
to a violent end is reflected in the primitive tradition: the ax is ready to strike
at the root of the tree,121 family members will turn on one another, becoming
bitter enemies,122 the disciples must hate their families, their wives, children
and parents,123 and the disciples must not pause to say farewell to those left
behind.124 The nearness of the end abrogates even the most basic filial responsibilities: Follow me and let the dead bury their dead.125 There is no time to
gather possessions or even to pick up ones cloak.126
Nothing must distract the disciples from the imminent End. They must become like children127 and disregard their standing in the community of the
lostI swear to you that the tax men and the whores are going ahead of you
into the kingdom of God!128 Ethics is reduced to a stark polarity of black

113

Mark 9:1.
Mark 13:30.
115
Mark 14:62.
116
Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 172, 194.
117
Luke 1:32. (NIV)
118
Mark 10:30.
119
Matthew 19:28.
120
Acts 1:6. (NIV)
121
Matthew 3:10.
122
Matthew 10:34-37.
123
Luke 14:26.
124
Luke 9:61-62.
125
Matthew 8:22.
126
Matthew 24:17-18.
127
Matthew 18:3.
128
Matthew 21:31.
114

17

and white, anger is equivalent to murder,129 desire to adultery.130 This intensification of ethical norms...is a phenomenon typical within communities
committed to the belief that time is rapidly drawing to a close...This impracticality in turn allows us to glimpse the intensity of expectation that
motivated Jesus mission and the community that formed around him: the
Kingdom was at hand.131
So intense was the expectation of Jesus quick return that his followers sold
off their property and lived communally.132 Writing to the newly converted,
Paul advised slaves to remain slaves and the unmarried to remain single for
the time allotted has become short.133 The sexual hysteria provoked by the
impending End resulted in a household of brothers and sisters rather than
husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.134 Pauls letters exhibit numerous
and sometimes astonishing parallels to apocalyptic texts, primarily to IV Ezra
and Syrian Baruch...Paul is linked to the Qumran writings by his basic eschatological-dualistic attitude, his sense of an imminent end to this aeon and
of the presence of salvation, concealed from non-believers...the eschatological
gift of the Spirit, which among other things makes it possible to interpret
scripture congenially in terms of the eschatological present...135
Obviously the generation that heard Jesus preach, this generation, did not
witness the return of the Son of Man despite Jesus promise, Truly I tell
you, by no means will you finish going through all the towns of Israel before
the Son of Man arrives!136 As Pauls generation began to die awaiting the
Coming of the Son of Man, anxiety reached a peak. His letter to the Thessalonians, generally regarded as the oldest surviving Christian document, offers
these words of false assurance:
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall
asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We
believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will
bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to
the Lords own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are
left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who
have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven
with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the

129

Matthew 5:22
Matthew 5:28.
131
Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ, 100.
132
Acts 4:34-35.
133
1 Corinthians 7:21-31.
134
Martin, Sex and the Single Savior, 108.
135
Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul, 49-50.
136
Matthew 10:23.
130

18

trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that,
we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be
with the Lord forever. Therefore comfort each other with these
words.137
Those who heard the reading of Pauls letter were led to believe that some of
their number would be physically, corporeally, alive to witness Jesus return
we who are still alive and are left. ...the Second Coming of Jesus will
occur in the immediate future...the hope that the vast majority of Christians
would be living witnesses to Christs return from heaven points to the likelihood of composition in the first decade of the Christian movement.138 By
the end of the 1st century, however, hope was fading. The promise, We will
not all sleep but we will all be changed,139 is met with skepticism: Where is
this coming he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on
as it has since the beginning of creation.140
Like Christian apologists of the present, the Christian apologists of the past
were great fans of context. As the Second Coming threatened to become
the grandest non-event of all time, the gospel writers recontextualized it.
For Mark, writing a generation after Paul, the Roman invasion of Palestine
was the latest sign of the timeswhen you see these things happening,
know that he is near, right at the door.141 The Temples recent destruction
clearly marks the beginning of that period that will terminate with the Second Coming of the Son of Man. In fact, the Lord has already shortened the
days before the consummation for the sake of his elect (13:14): the Parousia
could occur at any time, certainly within the lifetime of Marks community.142 Whether written just before or after the Roman invasion, the prophesied destruction of the Temple is a vaticinium ex eventu, an attempt to
rescue Jesus failed prediction by continuously reframing it. ...the precision
of the prophecy in [Mark] 13:1-2 indicates that it has been written after the
event.143
For Luke the destruction of Jerusalem was a sign of fulfilled prophecyJerusalem surrounded by armies is the fulfillment of all that has been written144
just as the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 was a sign for present day

137

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
Ldemann, Paul, 14,49.
139
1 Corinthians 15:51.
140
2 Peter 3:4.
141
Mark 13:29.
142
Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ, 50-51.
143
Marcus, Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992), 460.
144
Luke 21:20-22.
138

19

Armageddonists. Later Christians seem to have advanced a variety of inconsistent rationales for the delay [of the Second Coming]...We must see all
these rationales, strictly speaking, as the defensive posture of a community
challenged to provide evidence of its beliefs.145 By the end of the 1st century
no one knows the day or the hour, not even the angels, or the Son146 has
been even further recontextualized: to the Lord a thousand years is like a
day.147 By that math, an hour of Jesus time would be about 42 years. Conveniently for the emerging Church, not to mention the religious Christ peddlers of the present, no one knows the day or the hour really means no one
can guess which century or even which millennium the Son of Man might
arrive, despite the clear meaning of Jesus promise: You will not finish going
through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.148
It is consistent with surviving sources to understand the career of Jesus and
the emergence of the Christian movement as a logical outgrowth of Jewish
apocalyptic expectations, a conviction fed by the continued Roman occupation of the Promised Land, and disgust with the connivance of the Jewish
elite, cooperation that could easily be understood by some as treasonous
collaboration. The appearance of apocalyptic preachers of impending judgment such as John and Jesus would not only be a logical religious response on
the part of the downtrodden, it would be expected. As Collins remarks, there
was also a popular eschatology, manifested in the activities of the prophets
and messiahs described by Josephus...the eschatological hopes of the Gospels
are couched in forms and language that reflect their origin in a popular
movement in Galilee...the restoration of Israel is set in a context of cosmic
upheaval, which typically includes the judgment of the dead.149 Given the
brutality with which the Roman authorities crushed aspiring prophets and
messiahs, it beggars the imagination to suppose the appearance of such figures was unexpected, much less unhistorical. Eusebius verifies this conclusion: [Herod] therefore considered it much better, before a revolt should
spring from John [the Baptist], to put him to death in anticipation, rather
than be involved in difficulties through the actual revolution and then regret
it.150

145

Hoffman, Celsus On the True Doctrine, 9-11.

Mark 13:32.
147
2 Peter 3:8.
148
Matthew 10:23.
149
Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 260-261.
150
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History I, 6, 6. (I have retained Lakes translation.)
146

20

PART TWO: HARD MYTHICISM

It bears reiterating that history in general and ancient history in particular is
not what happened. Ancient history is what a literate person chose to record
based on what heits invariably a hethought important at the time.
That partial record, composed in response to a particular ambition, to advance a particular faith, or to achieve a particular objective, would necessarily
have be considered of sufficient value to the next generation and the generations that followed to warrant the time and expense of repeated copying in
order that the record be preserved. Supposing that enough copies were produced to survive wars, fires, vandalism, purges and the ravages of time, the
work might by happy chance fall into the hands of some modern historian
and its contents be studied and evaluated.
It is difficult to exaggerate how little we actually know about the ancient
world, but as an example I would offer the fortuitous discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism, an analog computer and orrery that calculated up to
forty-two different celestial events, found by accident in the Aegean Sea in
1900 by Greek sponge divers. The complex device defied analysis for nearly
seventy-five years and its mysteries are still being unraveled. Its hard to
overestimate the uniqueness of the find. Before the Antikythera mechanism,
not one single gearwheel had ever been found from antiquity, nor indeed any
example of an accurate pointer or scale. Apart from the Antikythera mechanism, they still havent.151
Since the evidence for Jesus existence is documentary, one might well ask
what percentage of the documents created in antiquity have survived? If we
omit such categories as personal correspondence and business records and
limit ourselves to works for public consumption such as plays, histories and
gospels, the percentage that survives in any form is very smallI have seen
estimates that come out to less than one percent. The writer of Luke-Acts,
who claimed to base his account on what had been handed down to his
generation by eyewitnesses, remarked that many before him had made a
similar attempt.152 Besides the infancy gospels that are entirely spurious and
gospels from the 3rd century on, I believe we can confidently say that there
were at least twenty gospels, most now lost, in circulation by the mid-2nd
century. How much of potential interest to historians they preserved is anyones guess.

151
152

Marchant, Decoding the Heavens, 40.

Luke 1:1.

21

The hard mythicist perspective, the denial that Jesus was a real person, was
comparatively slow to emerge. The claim that early Christianity was a brew
concocted from various ancient Eastern mythologies, a polemic first advanced
in France in the 18th century, is the product of a nave armchair anthropology
that may be safely dismissed out of hand. There is no evidence that the illiterate villagers of Galilee, the Judean Pharisees, or anyone else in 1st century
Palestine knew or cared anything about Persian or Indian theologies, much
less that they confected a Jesus narrative from them.
The first mythicists with training in New Testament studies were the German theologians David Friedrich Strauss and Bruno Bauer. In Das Leben
Jesu, Strauss argued for a soft mythicism that denied supernaturalism as an
explanation of the miracles and took a rationalist approach to the Christian
ex eventu appropriation of Old Testament prophetic material. Bauer eventually took the position that Jesus was entirely mythical. The decades that
followed witnessed a steady production of books that argued for the mythicist
position, most written by cranks and dabblers making very imperfect use of
the tools of the emerging disciplines of anthropology, philology and comparative religion. Like Frazers The Golden Bough, those works have proven to
be very much a product of their times. Aside from their flawed methodology,
a number of the mythicists appear to have been motivated by unsavory
agendas that further vitiate their historical claims.
My work, which has focused on the role of magic in the career of Jesus and
early Christianity,153 has not escaped summary dismissal by one of the more
ardent of the current mythicistsWe also have Jesus the Folk Wizard
(championed most famously by Morton Smith in Jesus the Magician, and
most recently by Robert Conner in Magic in the New Testament.)154 However unwelcome Smiths investigation was in 1978, I doubt many of his conclusions would raise an eyebrow in mainstream New Testament studies
today. In point of fact, Samain had published on the accusation of magic
directed against Jesus as far back as 1932155 and Carl Kraeling, writing in
1940, proposed that Jesus had been accused of necromancy.156 Four years before Jesus the Magician appeared, Hull published his classic, Hellenistic Magic
and the Synoptic Tradition.157 Today the bibliography on magic in primitive

153

Conner, Jesus the Sorcerer (2006), Magic in the New Testament (2010) Magic in
Christianity (2014).
154
Carrier, Proving History: Bayes Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus, 13.
155
Samain, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 15 (1932), 449-490.
156
Kraeling, Journal of Biblical Literature 59 (1940), 147-157.
See https://www.scribd.com/doc/316377158/Was-Jesus-Accused-of-Necromancy
for a defense of Kraelings conclusions.
157
Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition.

22

Christianity is extensive and growing nearly by the day and the role of magic
in the spread of Christianity widely acknowledged.158
More disturbing, from an evidentiary point of view, is Dr. Carriers implication that ancient history can be proved by a theorem. To the extent that they
contain information of potential historical interest, it must be recognized that
the gospels in particular, like memoirs, are similarly selective accounts, always highly edited versions of the life being recorded, almost always highly
teleological in structure.159 The gospels and other documents are written to
explain what happenedas well as what didnt happen in the case of the
much-delayed Parousiafrom a later apologetic point of view. From my perspective, rather than endlessly debate the authenticity of the dubious Testimonium Flavianum,160 et cetera, it is more revealing to note what near contemporary sources say about the religious climate of Roman Palestine.
Eusebius recounts the appearance of a certain Jesus by name (Ihsouj...tij
onoma), a commoner from the countryside (twn idiwtwn agroikoj), who,
four years prior to the outbreak of the Jewish-Roman War, began incessantly
preaching imminent judgment on Jerusalem. Regarded by the religious leaders as demon-possessed, Jesus son of Ananias was hauled before the Roman
governor Albinus and flogged to the bone with whips.161 According to some
manuscripts of Josephus Jewish War, on which Eusebius account was based,
Albinus finally pronounced the wretched man insane and released him.162
Jesus son of Ananias bears more than a passing similarity to Jesus of Nazareth, another rustic from the hinterlands,163 who likewise prophesied a series
of woes on Jerusalem,164 and was considered either insane or demon-possessed:
When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of
him, for they said, He is out of his mind.

158

For example, Kannadays discussion in Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition, 119-129.
159
Howell & Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods,
21.
160
See particularly Goldbergs The Coincidences of the Emmaus Narrative of Luke
and the Testimonium of Josephus, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13
(1995), 59-77.
161
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III, 8, 7.
162
Josephus, Jewish War VI, 305-306.
163
Compare John 7:52: No prophet comes from Galilee!
164
Mark 13:1-37.

23

And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said,
He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving
out demons.165
Jesus of Nazareth was also delivered up by the Jewish authorities to a Roman
governor, also flogged, but was crucified rather than released. I would suggest
that the several similarities between the two men are anything but coincidentalJerusalem was the eschatological centre of the world, the destination of the homecoming Diaspora and of the pilgrimages of the nations, the
place of the coming of the messiah...the place of judgment in Gehinnom and
the metropolis of his coming kingdom and as Hengel also noted, Jerusalem
was also the focus of eschatologically motivated attempts at rebellion.166 It
would appear that being a persistent and obnoxious religious pest constituted
rebellion in the case of Jesus son of Ananias, but in the case of Jesus of
Nazareth, who drew excited crowds,167 the situation might have been more
serious.
As all Sunday schooled children are aware, Jesus was crucified between two
thieves. Except that the two men crucified on either side of Jesus werent
thievesklepthj (klepts), the usual word for thief, is not the term Mark
uses: And with him they crucify two lstas, one on the right and one on his
left...Let the Anointed (o cristoj), the King of Israel (o basileuj Israhl) come
down now from the cross so we may see and believe!168 Mark informs his
readers that the men crucified on either side of Jesus, framing him as it
were,169 were lstai and that the derision of the Jewish authorities was directed
particularly at Jesus. Luke also hints that Jesus was considered a lsts: Did
you come out with swords and clubs as against a lsts (wj epi lhsthn)?170
To provide some plausible historical context for this term we must look outside the gospels, to near contemporary sources. Josephus used the word lhsthj (lsts) nearly eighty times, particularly to describe the members of the
Jewish revolutionary bands171 in the First Jewish-Roman War that broke out
in the generation following Jesus death. Although lsts is translated as brigand, bandit, or highwayman in older works, insurrectionist, guerilla fighter, or
terrorist comes much closer to capturing their militancy and wanton violence

165

Mark 3:21-22. (NIV)

Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul, 54-55.
167
Matthew 4:25, 8:18, for example.
168
Mark 15:27, 32. (I have retained Marks tenses and syntax.)
169
Made somewhat more explicit by the Gospel of Peter: kai estaurwsan ana meson
autwn ton kurion, and they crucified the Lord between them.
170
Luke 22:52.
171
Marcus, Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992), 449.
166

24

that included murdering and plundering the civilian population,172 murder of

prisoners,173 and arson.174 As is often the case with modern terrorists, their
number included career criminals,175 and like the warlords of modern conflicts, figures such as Judas the Galilean gathered followers who fell to fighting with rivals such as Eleazar176 and the Galilean, John of Gischala.177 Having briefly sketched the meaning of lsts, we can ask what features of Jesus
career might have caused the Roman authority to regard him as an insurrectionist, a danger to public order.
It is often overlooked that one of the most common reactions to Jesus was
fear, a reaction shared by his disciples,178 outsiders,179 and the Jewish authorities.180 Hailed by this mob that knows nothing of the law181 as the prophet
from Nazareth,182 the Temple authorities feared both the reaction of the
crowd,183 and that the tumult incited by Jesus reputation for wonder working would provoke a Roman interventionHere is this man performing
many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and
then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation. 184 According to the muddled account of his trial, even Pilate was
afraid of the reaction of the crowd.185 Herod, who feared John the Baptist,186
also wanted to kill Jesus.187
Significantly, Jesus arrest was thought to require a well-armed force. According to the gospel of John, Judas knew where Jesus and his immediate entourage could be found because Jesus often went there with his disciples.
Accordingly, Judas came there at the head of a cohort (speiran) and some of
the subordinates of the high priests and Pharisees, bearing lanterns and
torches and weapons.188 The term speira (speira), the Greek equivalent of
the Latin cohors, the tenth part of a legion or about five hundred men, clearly

172

Jewish War II, 232-235, 275, IV, 132-134, 198-199,

Ibid, IV, 145.
174
Ibid, II, 57.
175
Ibid, II, 228-229, 587, IV, 138-142.
176
Ibid, II, 433.
177
Ibid, IV, 84-86.
178
Mark 4:41, 6:49-50, 9:6
179
Mark 5:16-17.
180
Mark 11:18, 32, 12:12.
181
John 7:49.
182
Matthew 21:11.
183
Luke 22:2.
184
John 11: 47-48 (NIV).
185
John 19:8.
186
Mark 6:20.
187
Luke 13:31.
188
John 18:2-3.
173

25

suggests that the party sent out by night to arrest Jesus and his closest
disciples expected to meet serious resistancethe synoptic gospels all agree
that Jesus disciples were armed with swords.189
This account coincides with another circumstance to produce a narrative supported by external sources, Jesus appearance in Jerusalem at Passover. Thanks
to Josephus we understand that the annual festivals were tightly connected to
outbreaks of rebellionfor it is on these festive occasions that sedition is
most apt to break out.190 At Pentecost Jerusalem swarmed with people from
the country...the majority bearing arms. 191 According to Josephus it was
during Passover, the festival of unleavened bread, when the dreaded sicarii
emerged from Masada to make a fatal raid on Engedi.192
Following the death of Herod, Archelaus, faced with revolt over the excesses
of his father, attempted to appease the anger of the crowds but his officials
were met with a volley of rocks. As Passover approached, an endless mass of
people from the country entered Jerusalem and Archelaus ordered in a
tribune with a cohort (meta speiraj ciliarcon) commanded subdue the leaders of the revolt by force.193 Josephus recounts yet another episode of rebellion when a mass of peopleincluding many from Galileesurrounded the
terrified Roman garrison in the Temple during the festival of Pentecost.194
Put in the context of a restive population of immiserated rural subjects, an
urban ruling class very much on edge, and the nationalistic essence of Passover that celebrated the deliverance of Jewish slaves from the oppression of
their Egyptian masters following manifold signs and wonders,195 it is small
wonder that a prophet up from Galilee who announced a coming kingdom,
created a disturbance in the Temple and excited the crowds with reports of
his own signs and wonders would be met with a decisive response.
Additionally, we must consider the details of Jesus execution. Whatever he
knew or didnt know about Jesus biography, Paul was spot on about the
manner of Jesus execution: his crucifixion, like crucifixion generally, was a
public notice, a prografh (prograph),196 an exhibition meant to send a message.197 Indeed, public execution had the makings of an art form that involved a certain degree of macabre creativity as well as more than a little symbol
189

Mark 14:47, Matthew 26:51, Luke 22:49.

Josephus, Jewish War I, 88. (Thackerays translation.)
191
Ibid, I, 253.
192
Josephus, Jewish War IV, 402.
193
Ibid, II, 10-11.
194
Ibid, II, 42-44.
195
Exodus 11:10, Deuteronomy 34:11.
196
Compare Galatians 3:1.
197
Josephus, Jewish War V, 289.
190

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ismTitus troops took to crucifying a multitude of prisoners of war in a

variety of humiliating postures as a joke.198 In addition to mass slaughter of
combatants by the sworda thousand at Gerasa199a rebel might be first
tortured and then burned alive in the case of Jonathan, a weaver by trade
who led his indigent followers into the desert, promising to produce signs
and portents.200 Herod burned alive the rioters who cut down the Roman
eagle mounted over the gate of the Temple.201
At times the sheer numbers of the publicly crucified verged on parody; Demetrius III removed eight hundred captives taken at Bemeselis to Jerusalem
and crucified them in the midst of the city, their women and children
slaughtered before their eyes.202 The ill-omened Varus, who would die at the
hands of German insurgents in the Teutoburg forest, crucified two thousand
Jewish rebels and burned Emmaus to the ground.203 When appointed procurator of Judea, Felix crucified an incalculable number of insurgents as
well as their supporters.204
The evidence we can glean from the accounts in the Jewish War suggests that
the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth was not only a historical event, it represented a common event. Jerusalem, the seat of the Davidic kings, became the
focus of the worlds first recorded religious war during the Maccabean revolt
and has remained a trigger of religious conflict ever since. The national festivals generally and Passover in particular were evidently occasions for popular
uprisings, and provocations from would-be prophets and messianic pretenders could expect a decisive response. Other evidence speaks to the religious
background of these disturbances.
The Psalms of Solomon are of particular interest, having been composed in
Palestine, originally in Hebrew, nearly a century before Jesus; Pompeys conquest of Palestine (63 BCE) as well as his death (48 BCE) were already past.
Behold, O Lord, and raise up their king for them, a son of David, at
the time which you appoint (eij ton kairon205 on eilou), O God, that he
may rule over your servant, Israel...the sinners arrogance he will
crush like a clay vessel, he will shatter their very confidence with a

198

Ibid, V, 451.
Ibid, IV, 488.
200
Ibid, VII, 438, 450.
201
Ibid, I, 655.
202
Ibid, I, 97.
203
Ibid, II, 75.
204
Ibid, II, 253.
205
one of the chief eschatological terms. o kairoj the time of crisis, the last times,
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 396.
199

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staff of iron...and he [is] a righteous king over them, instructed by

God, and there is no unrighteousness in them in his days because all
are holy and their king [is] the Anointed (cristoj) of the Lord...Another psalm of Solomon about the anointed of the Lord (tou cristou
kuriou)...your love is toward the seed of Abraham, the sons of Israel...
your discipline is upon us as a firstborn son, only-begotten...cleanse
Israel, O God, for the day of mercy, of blessing, for the day of
election, when he will raise up his anointed (anaxei cristou autou).206
The expectation [of Psalms of Solomon 17] is one of the imminent reversal of
fortune...The rule of the expected Son of David will be realized in Jerusalem
and in Palestine, the promised land...the decisive turn which will be brought
about by God, cannot be far off.207 Early Christians clearly shared in these
apocalyptic expectationstoday a savior was born for you in Davids city,
who is Christ the Lord (cristoj kurioj),208Israels history was written as a
warning for us on whom the end of the ages has arrived.209 [The coming of
the son of David] looks for its fulfillment in a new perfect age, but in one
that is firmly rooted in the land, specifically in Jerusalem.210 It is perfectly
consistent with such expectations that Jesus of Nazareth, like so many before
and since, would set his face toward Jerusalem, perhaps as an act of self-immolation.211

Was Jesus of Nazareth insane?

It is difficult to read Josephus account of the events of the first RomanJewish war without wondering if many of the characters he described were
not, in fact, simply sociopaths and madmen, clinically insane. Indeed it
would appear that a very similar notion might have crossed Josephus mind as
he recorded his history.
Deceivers (planoi)212 and fraudsters, under the pretense of divine inspiration, instigated revolutionary changes and persuaded the multitude to act like madmen and led them out into the desert under the
belief that God would there display signs of their deliverance.213

206

Psalms of Solomon 17:21, 23-24,32, 18:0, 3-4.

de Jonge, Neotestamentica 23 (1989), 98-99, 101.
208
Luke 1:11.
209
1 Corinthians 10:11.
210
Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 342.
211
Compare Mark 9:30-33.
212
Compare Matthew 27:63: that deceiver (ekeinoj o planoj) said...
213
Josephus, Jewish War II, 259-260. (Thackerays translation retained with some
changes.)
207

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The Roman soldier who flung a piece of burning timber into the Temple,
sealing its fate, was moved by a daemonic impulse214 and the city magistrates concluded that the aforementioned Jesus, son of Ananias, was impelled by some utterly supernatural motivation (daimoniwteron to kinhma).215
After a fire broke out in Antioch, Antiochus inflamed the citizenry against
the Jews by accusing them of setting the blaze. The excited populace began
to imagine that they had all but seen with their own eyes the Jews setting
fire to the town responded like maniacs, in a wild frenzy.216 Josephus also
described, the insanity of the Sicarii (h twn sikariwn aponoia) that spread
like a disease.217 Palestine, then as now, was a steaming platter of crazy with
a heaping side order of crazy.
Tellingly, the question of Jesus sanity and that of his followers is raised within the founding documents of Christianity. Jesus family said, Hes out of his
mind! and the religious authorities claimed he was possessed. 218 In his
hometown, where the people knew him best, he could perform no miracles.219 Jesus preachingor at the very least the words attributed to him
often sound like the ravings of a lunatic: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh
and drinks my blood has eternal life.220 Not surprisingly at this point many
of his disciples abandoned him221 and his own brothers did not believe in
him.222
When Paul appeared before Festus, the Roman procurator of Judea, and described his conversion, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, youre raving!
Too much learning (ta polla...grammata) is driving you out of your
mind!223 The implication, elided by Luke, was that Pauls obsession with
scriptureta iera grammata, the sacred writings224had unbalanced him
mentally. Christianity reflected a crucial difference between Greco-Roman
and Jewish religion: in the Greco-Roman world, as is the case today, thinking
about religion often made people less religious, but among the Jews the more

214

Ibid, VI, 252.

Ibid, VI, 303.
216
Ibid VII, 57-58. (Thackerays translation.)
217
Ibid, VII, 437.
218
Mark 3:21-22.
219
Mark 6:1-5.
Compare John 6:42.
220
John 6:53-54.
221
John 6:66.
222
John 7:5.
223
Acts 26:24.
224
As at 2 Timothy 3:15.
215

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one thought about religion, the more religious one became. The major reason for this difference was the Jews possession of scripture.225 In addition to
its bibliolatry, the early Christian community had a fascination with gifts of
the spirit which lead Paul to caution the house church in Corinth, So if the
whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers
or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?226
Often overlooked is the role of Jerusalem itself, well summarized by Montefiore:
All three Abrahamic religions believe in the Apocalypse, but the details vary by faith and sect. Secularists may regard all this as antique
gobbledygook, but, on the contrary, such ideas are all too current. In
this age of Jewish, Christian and Muslim fundamentalism, the Apocalypse is a dynamic force in the worlds febrile politics...The darkness of this city of the dead stems not just from a sort of necrophilia,
but also from necromancy: the dead here are almost alive, even as
they await resurrection. The unending struggle for Jerusalemmassacres, mayhem, wars, terrorism, sieges and catastropheshave made
this place into a battlefield, in Aldous Huxleys words the slaughterhouse of the religions....Jerusalem defies sense, practical politics and
strategy, existing in the realm of ravenous passions and invincible
emotions, impermeable to reason.227

Recently the recognition of a distinct Jerusalem Syndrome has emerged, a

constellation of obsessive-compulsive beliefs described after 1200 tourists
with severe, Jerusalem-generated mental problems228 required medical intervention in a psychiatric clinic over a period of thirteen years due to the severity of their symptoms. In some cases the delusional self-identified with biblical charactersasked who the Son of Man might be, Jesus disciples replied, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or
one of the prophets.229 Evidence of Jerusalem Syndrome, the behavioral
phenomena observed in eccentric and psychotic tourists with religious delusions has since been located in accounts dating back to the 19th century.230
In one case a subject made multiple attempts at self mutilation after his arrival in the cityTwo years before his arrival in Israel, he had experienced a

225

Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version, 116.

1 Corinthians 14:23 (NIV)
227
Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography, xxiii, xxv.
228
Bar-El, et al., British Journal of Psychiatry 176 (2000), 86.
229
Matthew 16:14.
230
Witztum & Kalian, The Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences 36 (1999),
260.
226

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religious revelation after watching an evangelical TV program...he became intent upon castrating himself, basing himself on literal interpretation [sic] of
verses in the New Testament.231
Before dismissing out of hand the possibility that Jesus was simply of unsound mind, we might compare the findings in subjects with Jerusalem syndrome with Jesus reported behavior. One subject felt it imperative to bring
[his] message to the people of Jerusalem and during a visit to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre succumbed to an attack of psychomotor agitation and
started shouting at the priests...the confrontation developed into a violent
struggle.232 Immediately after his baptism, according to Mark, the spirit
drives [Jesus] out into the desert (ekballei eij thn erhmon)233ekballw (ekball) is next used of driving out demons234and soon Jesus proclaims,
The appointed time has come to an end and the kingdom of God has arrived!235 Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem,236 convinced that everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.237 As his entourage approached the city, the people thought that the
kingdom of God was going to appear at once238 and after reaching Jerusalem
at Passover, Jesus precipitated a violent confrontation, causing the Temple
authorities to fear his effect on the crowds and look for a way to kill him.239
Were Jesus to appear next Easter in Jerusalem accompanied by an ecstatic
band of evangelical End Timers, a series of the events like those recorded in
the gospels would barely merit inclusion in the psychiatric literature.
Perhaps no one has expressed this issue better than Sam Harris:
Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourseconstraints like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility, and candor...We have names
for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them religious; otherwise, they are likely to be called mad, psychotic, or
delusional....It takes a certain kind of person to believe what no one
else believes. To be ruled by ideas for which you have no evidence
(and which therefore cannot be justified in conversation with other

231

Zislin, et al., Transcultural Psychiatry 39 (2002), 258.

Bar-El, British Journal of Psychiatry 176 (2000), 88.
233
Mark 1:12.
234
Mark 1:39.
235
Mark 1:15.
236
Luke 9:51.
237
Luke 18:31 (NIV).
238
Luke 19:11 (NIV).
239
Mark 11:15-18.
232

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human beings) is generally a sign that something is seriously wrong

with your mind. Clearly, there is sanity in numbers.240

So, historical or not? There is nothing about Jesus slender biography that can
be plausibly gleaned from the gospels, his lowly Galilean origins, his regional
reputation as an exorcist and healer, his apocalyptic fixation, his appeal to the
poor and downtrodden, his disciples of dubious loyalty, or his conviction
that the Davidic kingdom would somehow be restored in Jerusalem, that
cannot be replicated in the careers of other would-be saviors. None of his
detractors seems to have been impressed with his credentials or amazed that
such a figure had appearedmessiahs, prophets, magicians and soothsayers,
like the demons they expelled, were legion. Every Passover, or so it would
seem, brought with it more sons of David, yet another batch of selfappointed Elijahs and Jeremiahs, imposters and frauds the beleaguered
Romans nailed up like shingles.
Pace the hard mythicists, the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth does precisely
nothing for Christian apologists who labor under the delusion that eyewitness testimony indubitably proves anything. Real historians, like defense
attorneys, are well aware that eyewitness testimony is often defective
scholars must not imagine that a firsthand report is true or that later interpreters might not have understood the event better than firsthand observers
...the physical, social, and cultural environment of a person determines what
he knows and how he knows.241 As Ehrman points out in an extended
discussion of the memory of Jesus early followers, individual memory of the
past is partially subsumed by and shaped by collective memory according to
the needs of the communitys present.242 There is little doubt that process of
recontextualizing the events of Jesus life began within days of Jesus crucifixionWere not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on
the road and opened the Scriptures to us?243
If, by some technological miracle, a team of archaeologists were to produce
the real burial shroud of Jesus, locate both his tomb and the manger in which
he lay, and confirm every physical detail of his life down to each place he sat
or shat, the display would do exactly nothing to confirm the religious claims
of Christianity. Such a marvelous series of relics would not reverse the failure
of Christianitys central prophecy or the failure of innumerable predictions
Christians have made since, nor would it resolve the multiple contradictions
and inconcinnities of the gospels, or address Christianitys many centuries of

240

Harris, The End of Faith, 65, 72.

Howell & Prevenier, From Reliable Sources, 65, 68.
242
Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels, 232.
243
Luke 24:32 (NIV).
241

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moral failures. History cannot save Christianity.

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