Seriously though, since a thoughtful commenter engaged me in conversation about the historicity of Judeo-Christian religions, I thought I’d take a few paragraphs to explain where I’m coming from on the subject. I don’t pretend to be an expert and neither am I some kind of obsessive nut case, it’s just that I was a victim of a series of accidents (as are we all) and became interested in New Testament Studies.
I don’t remember the exact sequence of events. It was during a blessed time of unemployment back in the good old days when I lived in the beautiful Sonoran desert. I went to the library a lot and for some reason or other started reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls.
I love the Dead Sea Scrolls for the same reason I love some of the writing I showcase here on this blog. Long stretches are very well-written and poignant. They are, in short, Literature. In the case of the scrolls, the authors’ pain and longing for a just universe resonates with a strength, no more than that, with a deep, rending pain that you can still feel across the centuries.
Then one day I was browsing the shelves and picked up two books about Jesus. The first was “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” by Jose Saramago. I don’t know why I picked it up. I wasn’t interested in Jesus and had never heard of Saramago, but I must have been taken in by the back cover blurb. The second was a book by “The Jesus Legend” by George Albert Wells. I guess I figured I was in for a dime, might as well be in for a dollar.
I think most of us, at least those who went to Sunday school, figure out that religion is bunk sometime between sixth and eighth grade. Children at that age are very keen at spotting contradictions in the things they are told by adults and religion is certainly the stuff of contradictions. And even though I, unlike most, did not forget or forswear those childhood revelations, it had never occurred to me that the historical foundations of Christianity might be mere legends, nothing more than myths. There was an advertisement that ran in the Harper’s classifieds for years claiming Jesus never existed, but I just figured the guy was a crackpot.
Wells, on the other hand, is not a crackpot. He is a high-end scholar with a scientific mind whose work is meticulously documented and he lays out a very compelling case that the Jesus we know -- the miracle worker who lived and died during the times of Herod and Pontius Pilate in Palestine -- never existed. And even if a Rabbi named Jesus did exist in that period, next to nothing is known about him and none of the stories in the Bible have any historical validity whatsoever.
I won’t go into detail, but the gist of his argument consists of reading the books of the Bible in chronological order. Although there is quite a bit of scholarly debate on just exactly what that order is, you can easily see that the story grows. The earliest references to Jesus are to an every-man who lived and died, albeit by crucifixion, in anonymity. The early writers apparently had no knowledge whatsoever about the stories that are told in the Gospels. Detail is added as time goes by, which Wells meticulously demonstrates is a common feature of all legends.
Anyway, once you start wading into Well’s, you have to read the source materials and some other writers if you want to know for sure what the hell he is talking about. This brought me back to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the work of Robert Eiseman. Eiseman specializes in connecting the dots between the community that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls and the early Christians.
It genuinely surprised me to learn that there is no incontrovertible evidence that Jesus existed. No references to him, not a single one that does not appear to have been added later, exist. James, the brother of Jesus is, however, a well-known historical character and there is a lot of documentation regarding his existence. Eiseman documents, in excruciating detail, all that is known about James. And although he explicitly says that he believes in the historical Jesus, I came away from his book thinking it odd that there was a strong Christian community before there was a Christ.
But I’ve gone on too long. These were books I read years ago and although I find it all fascinating, I have exhausted my interest in the subject and moved on to other things. I also meandered a short ways down the path of Old Testament studies and found that incredibly interesting as well, and the legendary aspects far more obvious. I strongly recommend “The Bible Unearthed” to anyone the least bit interested in the history of the early books of the Old Testament. It’s a fascinating tale.
And fascinated by all this is what I am, for the most part. I truly don’t need any of that to debunk religion, but I wallow in the depth of it all as a human tale. So much of our history, so many of our beliefs, so much of the crap afflicting us in this world, springs from a source that has been thoroughly debunked. But on another level, it’s a great story, a fantastic piece of literature, and I can appreciate it as such. And it’s a great detective story as well. The struggles of those who delved into it and exposed the truth are compelling and the shit they put up with was, and still is, extraordinary, yet they were able to overcome. No serious person in academia believes in the historicity of either the Pentateuch or the Gospels. Why this knowledge is not more widespread is another story.
But as is not uncommon, a few paragraphs in a great work of fiction can convey more truth than a library full of scholarly articles. So I’ll end this with a long quotation from the aforementioned Nobel laureate Jose Saramago. The following scene is an account of when the Jesus character first met God. The Pastor character, you can safely consider to be the devil.
"To hear you Lord is to Obey, but I have one more question. Stop asking Me questions. Please, Lord, I must. Very well then, speak. Can I save my sheep. So that's what's bothering you. Yes, that's all, may I. No. Why not. Because you must offer it in sacrifice to Me to seal our covenant. You mean this sheep. Yes. Let me choose another from the flock, I'll be right back. You heard Me, I want this one. But Lord, can't you see, its ear has been clipped. You are mistaken, take a good look, the ear is perfect. It isn't possible. I am the Lord, and with the Lord all things are possible. But this is my sheep. Again you are mistaken, the lamb was Mine and you took it from Me, now you will recompense Me with the sheep. Your will be done, for You rule the universe, and I am Your servant. Then offer this sheep in sacrifice, or there will be no covenant. Take pity on me, Lord, I stand here naked and have neither cleaver nor knife, said Jesus, hoping he might still be able to save the sheep's life, but God said, I would not be God if I were unable to solve this problem, here. No sooner had he finished speaking than a brand-new cleaver lay at Jesus' feet. Now quickly, said God, for I have work to do and cannot stay here chatting all day long. Grasping the cleaver by the handle, Jesus went to the sheep. It raised its head and hardly recognized him, never having seen him naked before, and as everyone knows, these animals do not have a strong sense of smell. Do you weep, God asked. The cleaver went up, took aim, and came down as swiftly as an executioner's ax or the guillotine, which has not yet been invented. The sheep did not even whimper. All one could hear was, Ah, as God gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. Jesus asked Him, May I go now. You may, and don't forget, from now on you are tied to Me in flesh and blood. How should I take my leave of You. It doesn't matter, for Me there is no front or back, but it's customary to back away from me, bowing as you go. Tell me, Lord. What a tiresome fellow you are, what's bothering you now. The shepherd who owns the flock, What shepherd, My master, What about him, Is he an angel or a demon, He's someone I know. But tell me, is he an angel or a demon. I've already told you, for God there is no front or back, good-bye for now. The column of smoke was gone, and the sheep too, all that remained were drops of blood, and they were trying to hide in the soil.
When Jesus returned, Pastor stared at him and asked, Where's the sheep, and he explained, I met God. I didn't ask you if you met God, I asked you if you found the sheep. I offered it in sacrifice. Whatever for. Because God was there and I had no choice. With the tip of his crook, Pastor drew a line on the ground, a furrow deep as a pit, insurmountable as a wall of fire, then told him, You've learned nothing, begone with you."
That, my friends, is every bit as historically accurate as the Gospels you find in the Bible, and at least we know who wrote it.
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