Did Jesus Exist? - The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth

by Bart D. Ehrman

  Jesus too is recorded as predicting the destruction of the Temple. Most famously, this is found in an important collection of his sayings in our earliest Gospel: “And as [Jesus] was coming out of the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Teacher: see what great stones and what great buildings are here.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another that will not be destroyed’” (Mark 13:2).

  In later traditions Jesus himself is said to have threatened to destroy the place. For example, at his trial false witnesses reputedly claimed, “We have heard him saying, ‘I will destroy this Temple that is made with hands and after three days build another made without hands’” (Mark 14:58), and on the cross he was allegedly mocked: “Look at the one who would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days!” (Mark 15:29) Something similar is independently stated in John, where Jesus tells his Jewish opponents, “Destroy this Temple and I will raise it up in three days” (John 2:19). And from an unrelated source, a speech found in the book of Acts, at the martyrdom of Stephen, false witnesses again arise to say that they heard Stephen claim that “this Jesus the Nazarene will destroy this place and revamp the customs that Moses gave to us.” Even the Gospel of Thomas chimes in with a similar saying, as Jesus there says, “I will destroy this house and no one will be able to rebuild it” (Gospel of Thomas 71).

  Thus the tradition that Jesus spoke about the destruction of the Temple is widespread. The idea that he would personally destroy the Temple does not, of course, pass the criterion of dissimilarity: Christians who considered him the all-powerful Lord may well have given the sayings that twist in order to show that after his death, he “got even” with Jews by destroying their Temple. Neither does it do well by the criterion of contextual credibility: it is hard to imagine Jesus as a one-man wrecking crew able to demolish entire buildings. Similarly problematic is the notion, found only in John, that when Jesus talked about the Temple being destroyed and raised in three days, he was actually speaking of his body (John 2:21).

  Did Jesus then speak at all about the coming destruction of the Temple? One might be tempted to push the criterion of dissimilarity a bit further and claim that since the Temple was in fact destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, none of the predictions of Jesus can be safely trusted as actually going back to him—that is, that later Christians put predictions of its destruction on his lips to show his prophetic powers. Most scholars, though, consider this an extreme view since the predictions of the destruction on one level or another pass all of our criteria: (a) they are multiply attested (Mark, John, Acts, and Thomas); (b) in one respect at least, the earliest form of these sayings appears to pass the criterion of dissimilarity since Jesus’s claim in Mark that not one stone will be left upon another did not in fact come true, as you can see yourself by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem today; if anyone actually knew the details of the destruction, they wouldn’t have invented this verse; and (c) just as important, the sayings are contextually credible. For we know of other prophetic figures throughout the history of Israel who maintained that the Jewish people had so strayed from God that he would enter into judgment against them by destroying their central place of worship. Jesus too may well have predicted some such destruction when the Son of Man arrived in judgment on those who stood opposed to God.

  That, of course, is a radical teaching, that the Temple of God and the sacrifices taking place in it, sacrifices prescribed by the Law of Moses itself, are in fact opposed to God. It is no wonder that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem took offense and saw Jesus as a potential troublemaker.

  The offense may have been sparked by one of the best attested incidents in Jesus’s life. In the synoptic Gospels, Jesus spends his entire preaching ministry in Galilee, and then during the last week of his life he makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover feast. This is completely plausible, historically. The trip can be understood in light of Jesus’s apocalyptic mission. He appears to have thought that the end was coming soon and that Jews needed to repent of their sins in preparation for the coming of the Son of Man. After taking his message around the countryside of his homeland, Galilee, he came to Jerusalem, also to proclaim his message, as our Gospels agree in saying he did, once he arrived in the city. Why Jerusalem? It was the heart of Judaism. Why at Passover? That was the one time of year when there were the biggest crowds in the city, as the place swelled in size with pilgrims arriving from around the world to celebrate the feast. This was the best venue for Jesus to make his apocalyptic message known.

  When Jesus arrived in town, according to our early reports, he entered the Temple precincts and caused a disturbance. Our earliest Gospel, Mark, indicates that it was a massive disturbance, that Jesus single-handedly shut down the Temple operations (see Mark 11:15–16). That is completely implausible; the Temple complex was immense, encompassing an area roughly 500 yards by 325 yards, large enough to accommodate twenty-five American football fields, including the end zones. There would have been hundreds of priests doing their work and many hundreds of Jews participating. That one man could bring the entire operation to a grinding halt by turning over a few tables and uttering harsh words defies the imagination.

  But Jesus may well have caused a small disturbance there, as is multiply attested (Mark and John) since this tradition coincides so well with his proclamations about the corruption of the Temple and its coming destruction. And it explains especially well why the local authorities, the Sadducees and the chief priests in charge of the place, decided to have him rounded up as a troublemaker.

  The early accounts indicate that Jesus drove out those who were selling sacrificial animals and overturned the tables of those exchanging money, quoting the words of Jeremiah that I alluded to earlier: “Is it not written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it into a den of thieves” (Mark 11:17). These sellers and money changers have had a bad reputation among Christian readers of these accounts over the years, but their importance to the Temple cult should be obvious. If Jews were coming to the Passover from around the world, they could not very well bring sacrificial animals with them on their long journeys. The Temple staff had to make animals available on-site. But it would not make sense for Jews to purchase these animals with Roman currency. Roman coins had an image of the Caesar on them, and images were not allowed, especially in the Temple. And so of course there needed to be a currency exchange. This allowed the sacrificial animals to be purchased with Temple coinage.

  Jesus apparently took umbrage at the operation and reacted violently to it. We do not know why. Possibly he simply saw it as corrupt, much as the Essenes did, who refused to participate in the worship in the Temple. Or maybe he could not stand the idea of someone making a profit out of the worship of God. Or possibly (these are not mutually exclusive options) Jesus’s actions were meant to be a symbolic gesture.5 If, as seems likely, Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple in the coming judgment, he may have overturned the tables and caused a ruckus as a kind of enacted parable of his apocalyptic message, where his actions were meant to be a metaphor for what would soon happen to the place, a symbolic illustration of his proclamation of the destruction that would affect not only such enemies of God as the Romans but even the religious institutions and leaders of his own people.

  This was a radical message indeed, and the leaders themselves appear to have gotten the point. According to our early traditions, they kept their eye on Jesus over the course of the following week, and as he started to amass crowds of Jews listening to his message, they arranged to have him arrested and taken from the public view, possibly to prevent any uprisings during the incendiary times of the Jewish Passover feast.

  The Death of Jesus

  THE LAST DAYS AND hours of Jesus receive far more attention in our early sources than any other period of his life. Our first Gospel, Mark, devotes ten chapters to Jesus’s ministry in Galilee (we’re not told how long it lasts), and t
he final six to just his last week. Our last canonical account, John, gives eleven chapters over to a three-year ministry and fully ten to the last week. Unfortunately, a good deal of the material in these chapters does not readily pass our criteria. What we can say is that Jesus was probably betrayed to the Jewish authorities by one of his own followers; these authorities delivered him over to the Roman governor, Pilate, who was in town to keep the peace during the festival; after what was almost certainly a rather brief trial, Pilate ordered him crucified. All of these data make sense when seen in light of Jesus’s apocalyptic proclamation.

  The early accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that Jesus came to Jerusalem a week before the Passover itself. This makes sense, as it was customary: one needed to go through certain rituals of purification before celebrating the festival, and that required attendance in the Temple a week in advance. Jesus reportedly spent most of the week making his apocalyptic proclamation to the gathering crowds, and it is during these days that he is said to have delivered a particularly straightforward message of the coming apocalypse (for example, Mark 13). According to these accounts—unlike John, as we have seen—Jesus celebrated the Passover feast with his disciples, and it is then that he is alleged to have instituted the Lord’s Supper (Mark 14). Even though the event is narrated as well by Paul, it is difficult to see how it can pass our criterion of dissimilarity for Jesus predicts in graphic detail how his body will be broken and his blood shed for the sake of others—a decidedly Christian theme. It is not implausible, however, to think that Jesus suspected that his time was up. It does not take a revelation from God to realize what happens when one speaks out violently against the ruling authorities in this kind of inflammatory context, and there was a long history of Jewish prophets having met their demise for crossing the lines of civil discourse.

  There are solid reasons for thinking that Jesus really was betrayed by one of his own followers, Judas Iscariot. It is, of course, recorded in multiple independent traditions: Mark, M, John, and the book of Acts (thus Mark 14:10–11; 43–50; Matthew 27:3–10; John 18:1–11; Acts 1:15–20). Moreover, the tradition seems to pass the criterion of dissimilarity, as it does not seem to be the sort of thing that a later Christian would make up. Jesus had no more authority over his closest followers than that?

  We are completely handicapped in knowing why Judas would have done such a thing, even though there have been a plethora of suggestions over the years.6 Maybe he did it for the money. Maybe he had a mean streak (inspired by the Devil, to use the theological language of the New Testament). Maybe he was disenchanted with Jesus’s refusal to assume the public role of the messiah. Maybe he thought he could force Jesus’s hand to compel him to call out for public support. No one really knows.

  A more interesting question, in some ways, is, What did Judas actually betray? In the Gospels, of course, he simply betrays Jesus’s whereabouts so that the authorities can arrest him when no one is around. That may be the simplest answer, but it does make one wonder: Why couldn’t the authorities simply have Jesus followed?

  Another possibility presents itself, however. I have discussed this issue at length elsewhere and can simply summarize it here.7 What is very strange about the Gospel stories of Jesus’s death is that Pilate condemns him to crucifixion for calling himself the king of the Jews. This is multiply attested in all the traditions, and it passes the criterion of dissimilarity because this is not a title that, so far as we can tell, the early Christians ever used of Jesus. His followers called him the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Lord, the messiah, and lots of other things but not, in the New Testament at least, the king of the Jews. And so they would not have made that up as the charge against him, which means that it appears really to have been the crime.

  But the problem is that during his public ministry Jesus is never portrayed as calling himself the king of the Jews. So why was he executed for calling himself something that he never called himself? The solution may be the one that I broached earlier, when speaking about Jesus’s anticipation that the twelve disciples (including Judas) would sit on thrones as rulers in the future kingdom of God. There I suggested that just as Jesus was the master of the twelve now, in this age, so too he would be their master then, in the age to come. That is to say, that he would be the future king of the coming kingdom. This is not something that he openly proclaimed, so far as we can tell. But it does appear to be what he taught his disciples.

  What then did Judas betray that allowed the authorities to arrest Jesus? Possibly this insider information. Jesus was calling himself the future king. Jesus was not executed for calling himself the Son of God or the Son of Man or the Lord or even God. He was executed for calling himself the messiah, the anointed one of God, the king of the Jews. And Judas may well have been the one who let the authorities know.

  It makes sense that Jesus would have been arrested by the Jewish authorities, as they had control over all local civic affairs. Accounts of Jesus’s trial before the Sanhedrin appear in the Gospels, but little there can be trusted as historically reliable. The only ones present were the Jewish leaders and Jesus, none of his followers and no one taking notes. It seems unlikely that the leaders themselves would tell later Christians what happened at the time (if they remembered). And Jesus himself could not have told, since he was jailed and then executed the next morning. What is clear is that the Jewish authorities did not try Jesus according to Jewish law but instead handed him over to Pilate.

  We also do not know exactly what happened at the trial with Pilate. Again, there are no reliable sources. What we do know, as I indicated, is that Jesus was charged with calling himself the king of the Jews. That was a political charge, and of course Pilate was interested only in the political issues. He could not have cared less about disputes among the Jews about their own religious traditions. Since this is the charge that led to Jesus’s execution, it is not difficult to imagine what may have happened at the trial. Pilate had been informed that Jesus considered himself a king. This was a treasonous offense. Only the Romans could appoint a king, and Jesus was certainly not chosen to rule over Israel. He was claiming an office that was not his to claim, and for him to assume the role of king he would first need to overthrow the Romans themselves.

  Jesus, of course, did not understand his kingship in this way. He was an apocalypticist who believed that God would soon intervene in the course of human affairs to destroy the Romans, and everyone else opposed to him, before setting up his kingdom on earth. And then Jesus would be the one awarded the throne. Still, it may simply be that Pilate interrogated him briefly, asking him what he had to say to the charge. Jesus could hardly deny that he was the king of the Jews. He thought he was. So he either refused to answer the charge or answered it in the affirmative.

  In either case, that was all Pilate needed. He had other things on his hands and other demands on his time. As governor, he had the power of life and death—no need to appeal to Roman federal law, which for the most part did not exist. If there were troublemakers, the easiest thing to do was simply to dispose of them. And so he did. He ordered Jesus to be crucified. The whole trial may have lasted no more than a couple of minutes. And the order was carried out immediately. The soldiers reportedly flogged Jesus and led him off to be executed, presumably outside the city walls. Before anyone knew it, the apocalyptic preacher was on a cross. According to our earliest account, he was dead within six hours.

  CONCLUSION

  Jesus and the Mythicists

  THIS PAST APRIL I was honored at the national meeting of the American Humanist Association, where I received the Religious Liberty Award. I was only vaguely aware of the association before attending this meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Four or five hundred humanists meet every year to discuss matters of mutual interest, attending sessions and workshops on issues related to the need to promote humanist objectives and ideals throughout society. The group uses the term humanist as a positive moniker. They celebrate what is good about being human. Bu
t a negative implication runs beneath the surface of the self-description and is very much on the surface in the sessions of the meeting and in almost every conversation happening there. This is a celebration of being human without God. Humanist is understood to stand over against theist. This is a gathering of nonbelievers who believe in the power of humanity to make society and individual lives happy, fulfilling, successful, and meaningful. And the group is made up almost exclusively of agnostics and atheists.

  Even though I had earlier been in the dark about the group and its goals, I completely agree with its ideals. I am an agnostic myself, and I certainly believe that it is both desirable and possible to have a happy, fulfilling, meaningful life without Christian faith or any other kind of faith. I suppose I am a living testament to that possibility. My life is absolutely fantastic, and I could not wish for anything better, other than possibly more of the same.