Conservative Scholars Respond to the Christ Myth Theory

It is often hard to find conservative Christian scholars who will respond to the mythological Jesus arguments with anything other than derision so I was pleased to find a recent book titled The Historical Jesus: Five Views in which scholars of various viewpoints give their take on the current state of the quest for the historical Jesus. What I really like about the book is that each of the scholars writes a brief response to the other essays so we get to see how conservative scholars James D.G. Dunn, Luke Timothy Johnson, and Darrell L. Bock as well as Jesus Seminar member John Dominic Crossan respond to Robert Price’s defense of the argument that there never was a historical Jesus.

Price’s argument is titled Jesus at the Vanishing Point and it focuses heavily on the question that I find most intriguing: Why don’t Paul’s epistles contain any details of Jesus’ life prior to the crucifixion?

Setting aside the very late 1 Timothy, which presupposes the Gospel of John (the only Gospel in which Jesus “made a good confession before Pontius Pilate”),19 we should never guess from the Epistles that Jesus died in any particular historical or political context, only that the fallen angels (Col 2:15), the archons of this age, did him in, little realizing they were sealing their own doom (1 Cor 2:6-8). It is hard to imagine that the authors of Romans 13:3 and 1 Peter 2:13-14 (where we read that Roman governors punish only the wicked, not the righteous) believed that Jesus died at the order of Pontius Pilate. We should never even suspect he performed a single miracle, since none are mentioned. Did Paul think his Jesus had been a teacher? We just don’t know, since his cherished “commands of the Lord” (1 Cor 7:10, cf. 25; 9:14), while they might represent quotations from something like the Q source, may as well be midrashically derived inferences from Old Testament commands of Adonai in the Torah, or even prophetic mandates from the Risen One.

I don’t suppose that anyone will be shocked to learn that I didn’t find the conservative Christian responses to Price terribly convincing. I thought that they were much too blithe in asserting that a historical Jesus could be found throughout the New Testament and not just in the Gospels. When it came to citing actual points at which the historical Jesus could be found in Paul’s epistles, I thought their examples were pretty weak.

Timothy Luke Johnson got first crack at Price and he appealed to what he calls “two interrelated historical facts” that require explanation:

The Christian movement did not exist before Jesus, and when it appeared across the Mediterranean world of the first century, the “Lord” who was believed to be present in the cult worship was not an Egyptian or Persian deity, but a failed Jewish Messiah who was executed under Roman authority in the time of Tiberius. . . .

The second historical fact is the composition of at least twenty-seven distinct compositions within a fifty year period by members of this religious movement, all of which, despite their diversity of literary genre, social setting and theological perspective, have the same Jesus as their point of focus, and the same generative matrix, namely the death and resurrection of the human person Jesus.

The problem is that I do not think that either of these counts as a historical fact. The earliest record we have of the appearance of the Christian movement is the letters of Paul and he doesn’t say anything about when or where Jesus was executed and very little about why. Of “the twenty-seven distinct compositions,” only five of them contain details about what a human person said or did and the time and place when he lived. The point of focus of the other twenty-two is a theological figure whose significance rests entirely on his death and resurrection. The writers of these twenty-two books don’t demonstrate any knowledge of the contents of the other five and write nothing to indicate that the contents of them would be relevant to anything they have to say about the theological figure.

Johnston goes on to point out where he thinks the historical Jesus can be found outside the gospels:

Price’s effort to remove evidence of Jesus from Paul’s letters amounts to an unconvincing tour de force. I mention only three examples. (1) He leaves aside the evidence in Paul’s letters that Jesus was Jewish (Gal 4:4)—indeed, descended from David (Rom 1:3)—and was regarded as Messiah (Rom 9:4). (2) He does not acknowledge that Paul’s reference to a command of the Lord concerning divorce in 1 Corinthians 7:10 provides multiple attestation for Jesus’ prohibition of divorce in the Synoptic Gospels (Mk 10:2-8; Mt 5:31-32; 19:3-9; Lk 16:18) and shows how the criterion of dissimilarity—for all its problems—actually yields positive evidence concerning Jesus’ teaching, for the very struggles found in Matthew and Paul to provide some exceptions to the command testify to its being a received tradition, and one contrary both to Greco-Roman and Jewish practice.

These don’t seem terribly impressive to me. That Paul thought the Jewish Messiah was Jewish doesn’t seem to require a known historical person. Neither does the fact that the Jewish Messiah comes from the line of David. The prohibition against divorce is more interesting, but it does not seem nearly as definitive as Johnson would like to believe. The passage in Corinthians deals with what changes believers should make in their lives given the imminent Second Coming. Paul advises slaves to remain slaves and he advises married people to remain married citing the Lord as his source for the latter admonition. That context seems much different than Jesus’ teachings on divorce in the synoptic gospels. They could be related, but I think there is plenty of room for doubt.

I suppose I should say what I think the epistles might contain if Paul did have well-known recently deceased teacher in mind. First I would expect Paul to support his arguments when possible by citing things that Jesus had said. Second, I think Paul would be forced to discuss the significance of things Jesus said and did when others referred to them. For example, Paul argues against other believers who insisted that pagan converts should be circumcised and observe the Jewish dietary laws. His opponents would naturally have pointed to Jesus’ statement that “not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished,” (Matthew 5:18) had they heard it from Jesus’ own mouth. The fact that the letters of the earliest Christians don’t reflect any disputed interpretations of the things Jesus said or did during his life leads me to believe that none of them had any knowledge of them.

James D.G. Dunn decided to go with derision in his response to Price:

Gosh! So there are still serious scholars who put forward the view that the whole account of Jesus’ doings and teachings are a later myth foisted on an unknown, obscure historical figure. . . .

This is always the fatal flaw with the ‘Jesus myth’ thesis: the improbability of the total invention of a figure who had purportedly lived within the generation of the inventers, or the imposition of such an elaborate myth on some minor figure from Galilee. Price is content with the explanation that it all began "with a more or less vague savior myth." Sad, really.

Personally I find this kind of sarcasm rather sad.

Dunn does even worse then Johnson when he tries to find evidence of a historical Jesus in Paul’s epistles:

Where I begin to become irritated by Price’s thesis, as with those of his predecessors, is his ignoring what everyone else in the business regards as primary data and his readiness to offer less plausible hypotheses to explain other data that inconveniences his thesis. Why no mention of 1 Corinthians 15:3—generally reckoned to be an account of the faith that Paul received when he was converted, that is, within two or three years of the putative events—“that Christ died….” Why no reference to Paul’s preaching of Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23), his preaching as openly portraying Christ as crucified (Gal 3:1)? How can Price actually assert that “we should never guess from the Epistles that Jesus died in any particular historical or political context,” when it is well enough known that crucifixion was a Roman political method of execution characteristically for rebels and slaves? I could go on at some length—“seed of David” (Rom 1:3), “born under the law” (Gal 4:4), “Christ did not please himself” (Rom 15:3). Yet Price is able to assert that “the Epistles…do not evidence a recent historical Jesus,” a ludicrous claim that simply diminishes the credibility of the arguments used in support.

Dunn’s argument boils down to little more than “we should read all these passages as referring to a historical person because everybody knows that Jesus was a historical figure. The reason that Price doesn’t mention the passages in Corinthians is because Paul says nothing to indicate where or when the crucifixion took place. While the fact that Christ was crucified may bring to mind the Romans, the Carthaginians, Persians, and Greeks had practiced crucifixion in the five centuries since it had been invented so it really doesn’t narrow potential times, places, or responsible parties very much. I have no doubt that Dunn could go on at length but if he decides to lead off with “seed of David,” “born under the law,” and “did not please himself,” I doubt that he is going to get very far towards establishing that Paul believed in a recent historical Christ.

Bock is much more civil than Dunn, but he also assumes the points that upon which Price seeks evidence:

Price’s claim actually ignores many features we can consider historically, such as a figure’s impact on his contemporaries or their testimonies that this impact is not a matter of myth. First-century Christian documents clearly claim this distinction, which means they are aware of the difference and reject a tie to myth for Jesus. This puts Jesus and his historical reality on the table.

Price's point is that Jesus’ teachings and miracles do not seem to have made any impact whatsoever on the writers of twenty-two out of the twenty-seven first century Christian documents. It may be clear that the gospel writers claim the distinction between a mythological and historical Jesus, but it is not clear that anyone else does.

After reading three leading conservative scholars’ comments on the mythological Jesus argument, I still don’t see a more satisfactory explanation for the dearth of evidence for the historical Jesus in the epistles that that the writers of those epistles did not have a historical figure in mind.

Did Mark Think Jesus Was God?

It often happens that when a Christian apologist cites some scholarly tome and I track down the book to read it, I find that it undermines the apologist’s position as much as it supports it. I was recently debating the question of whether the Gospel of Mark presents a different and lesser view of Christ’s divinity than the Gospel of John with Nick Norelli on his blog Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth. Nick cited Darrell Bock’s, Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism: The Charge Against Jesus in Mark 14:53-65 as support for his position and urged me to read it. I normally view reading recommendations to be attempts to weasel out of an argument that isn’t going well. (I do this because when I have done the reading, I have found the person who did the recommending unprepared to discuss it.) However, I have always found Nick to be a pretty straight shooter so I requested Bock’s book through inter-library loan.

After looking through Bock's book, I think it provides support for the argument that the author of Mark did not think that Jesus was God. Bock shows that first century Jews believed that God, in his infinite wisdom, had in the past and would in the future exalt certain unique human beings thereby granting them authority to execute certain divine functions on His behalf and allowing them to sit in his presence. These individuals nonetheless remained human beings subordinate to and distinct from God. Mark's Jesus makes sense as an exalted human whose relationship with God was one of agency rather than equality. There seems to be no reason to read between the lines to find some divine Jesus when a human Jesus fits Mark's cultural context.

As the title indicates, Bock’s book is focused on thirteen verses from the Gospel of Mark:

They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, elders and teachers of the law came together. Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. There he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire. The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree. Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.' "Yet even then their testimony did not agree. Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.

Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked. "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" They all condemned him as worthy of death. Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, "Prophesy!" And the guards took him and beat him.

Mark 14:53-65. ¹ Bock examines how Jesus’ claim fit into first century Jewish understanding and why the priests considered it blasphemous.

It should be noted that Bock’s book does not seek to compare Mark’s Christology to John’s or Paul’s or anyone else’s. It would not surprise me if he does it elsewhere, but Blasphemy and Exaltation is directed towards responding to arguments from more liberal scholars that the passage in Mark is ahistorical. Bock does this by thoroughly examining the first century Jewish literature concerning blasphemy and exaltation and showing that the priests’ conclusion that Jesus had committed blasphemy was consistent with the understanding that prevailed at that time. In his discussion with me, Nick used Bock’s work to argue that the Gospel of Mark expresses Christ’s deity just as clearly as the Gospel of John does, but it is not an argument that Bock addresses in the book.

Although Bock’s writing is geared towards other biblical scholars and hence often over my head sometimes (particularly when he quotes German scholars in German), he does provide an accessible summary of his argument at the end of the book:

Jesus’ blasphemy operated at two levels. 1) There was a claim to possess comprehensive authority from the side of God. Though Judaism might contemplate such a position for a few, the teacher from Galilee was not among the luminaries for whom such a role might be considered. As a result, his remark would have been seen as a self-claim that was an affront to God’s presence. 2) He also attacked the leadership, by implicitly claiming to be their future judge (or by claiming a vindication by him). This would be seen as a violation of Exod. 22:27, where God’s leaders are not to be cursed. A claim that their authority was non-existent and that they would be accounted among the wicked is a total rejection of their authority. To the leadership, this was an affront to God as they were in their own view, God’s established chosen leadership.

Blasphemy and Exaltation p. 236.

What I found most intriguing was Bock’s discussion of the exalted human figures that are found in early Jewish literature outside the Bible. For example, Enoch only makes a fleeting appearance in Genesis 5 as the father of Methuseleh, but there was apparently a large body of non-canonical literature on him. In it he is the angelic Metatron at one point and the Son of Man dispensing judgment from a heavenly throne at another. Other exalted humans include Adam, Abel, Moses, Elijah, and the future Messiah. According to Bock, there was “a wide variety of views about who gets into God’s presence." There also seem to be a variety of activities that these figures undertook while in a state of exaltation. Nevertheless, each individual was selected for exaltation by God, each one's power and authority was delegated by God, and each remained subordinate to God.

When apologists argue that Mark understood Jesus to be God, they typically point to Jesus doing "God-like" things like forgiving sins. However, Mark understood that God could and did delegate the performance of "God-like" functions to certain unique humans when it suited him to do so. When challenged for forgiving sins, Jesus specifically noted that he has the "authority" to do so. Mark 2:10. Isn't it more reasonable to think that Mark was telling a story with in the context of first century Judaism rather than rethinking its concept of monotheism?

Bock argues that the priests considered Jesus' claim blasphemous because it was a self-claim² and it does seem logical that the exaltation itself would be one prerogative that God would never delegate. However, the fact that the priests thought Jesus was usurping a divine prerogative doesn't mean that Mark thought so. The priests were mistaken on this point and Mark knew they were mistaken because Mark knew that God had revealed himself as the source of Jesus' status at both his baptism and his transfiguration.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says things about himself that go beyond what even an exalted human being might have been able to claim within the context of first century Judaism, e.g., "he who sees me sees the Father" and "I and the Father are one." His opponents understand that Jesus is claiming to be God. In Mark, on the other hand, Jesus claims the status and authority that God has been known to confer on exalted humans. According to Bock, this is how the Jewish priests understood his claims.

If you understand contemporary idioms, you don't think that someone who says "I am so hungry I could eat a horse" is actually communicating an intent to consume an entire equine. By the same token, if Bock is correct about first century Judaism, there doesn't seem to be any reason to attribute to Mark an understanding of Jesus as God incarnate rather than as an exalted human.





¹ The passage has parallels in Luke and Matthew, but apologists will almost always cite Mark in support of the claim that the Synoptic gospels reflect the same view of Christ’s divinity as the Gospel of John. This is because Mark reports that Jesus unambiguously answered “I am” when the priests asked him whether he was the Messiah. Depending on the translation you read, Jesus seems to be tap dancing around the question in Luke and John.

From the King James Version:

Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe: And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.

Luke 22:67-70.

But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Matthew 22:63-64.


² Bock also acknowledges the possibility that Jesus wasn’t talking about himself when he spoke of the priests seeing “the Son of Man coming on the clouds,” but was instead referring some future messenger from God who would judge the priests and vindicate Jesus. Blasphemy and Exaltation p. 225-28. Apparently, the phrase “son of man” was a circumlocution in Aramaic that meant something along the lines of “yours truly.” Although Jesus repeatedly refers to himself as “the son of man” in Mark, he may not have been claiming the title of the figure from Daniel’s prophecy in most of those cases. In other words, when Jesus said “the son of man has nowhere to rest his head,” all he meant was “yours truly has nowhere to rest his head.” Therefore, when he refers to Daniel’s “Son of Man” in the third person when responding to the priests, he may actually have been referring to some third person.

Bock considers this to be the less likely reading, however, if it is correct then the charge of blasphemy rested only on the insult to God’s priests rather than on the insult combined with Jesus’ claim about himself.