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Jerry Coyne on Jesus – historical or mythical?

Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D (of whom I have previously written here) wrote the following regarding the issue of whether Jesus is a historical personage or a mythical character:

I have to say that I’m coming down on the “mythicist” side, simply because I don’t see any convincing historical records for a Jesus person. Everything written about him was decades after his death, and, as far as I can see, there is no contemporaneous record of a Jesus-person’s existence (what “records” exist have been debunked as forgeries). Yet there should have been some evidence, especially if Jesus had done what the Bible said. But even if he was simply an apocalyptic preacher, as [scholar Bart] Ehrman insists, there should have been at least a few contemporaneous records. Based on their complete absence, I am for the time being simply a Jesus agnostic. But I don’t pretend to be a scholar in this area, or even to have read a lot of the relevant literature.

Firstly, it is interesting to hear (or, read) an evolutionist demanding evidence before he will come down firmly on a position.

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No, if he does not “see” historical records for a Jesus person then he needs to keep looking. After all he admits that he has not “read a lot of the relevant literature” and I am going to take the wild guess that what he has read was all Jesus mythicism propaganda. In fact, his statement was specifically related to Michael Paulkovich’s utterly discredited claims, see here.
Yet, his qualifying term is “convincing” which is utterly subjective and yet allows him to deny and reject the very many historical records we have. For example, see my list of “Two Centuries Worth of Citations” to the historical Jesus.

Stating that “Everything written about him was decades after his death…there is no contemporaneous record of a Jesus-person’s existence” is that which C.S. Lewis would term “chronological snobbery” as it is anachronistic. In other words, he is applying today’s tweet the very second that something happens to a culture that was highly oral in its communication. Thus, they would have seen no need to write things down until and unless it seems actually necessary to do so such as when Luke write, “many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us…It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order.” Also, others wrote guidance letters to churches, apologetics replies to controversy, etc.

The statement that “what ‘records’ exist have been debunked as forgeries” is not only generic but an extremist view and utterly false.

Subsequently, Jerry Coyne also wrote:

What’s more galling is that the BBC is taking what “many scholars believe” as the gospel truth—pardon the pun—despite the fact that close scrutiny gives virtually no extra-Biblical evidence for a historical Jesus. I’m still convinced that the judgement of scholars that “Jesus was a real man” comes not from evidence, but from their conviction that the Bible simply couldn’t be untruthful about that issue. But of course we know of cases where myths grew up that weren’t at bottom derived from a historical individual.

Well, as an example, my list consists of 205 references of which 178 are extra-Biblical.

Now, of course, it is true that there have been “cases where myths grew up that weren’t at bottom derived from a historical individual” or scientific evidence such as the theory of evolution. Yet, I would love for Coyne to specify such as case because making generically vague assertions is one thing but delving into specific circumstances is quite another.
The fact is that the history of such instances reveals a pattern of who such myths arise and they do not do so, for example, centuries if not millennia after the supposed character existed and Jerry Coyne himself admits that in the case of Jesus it was mere “decades after his death.”

At least at the time of his first statement Jerry Coyne was agnostic regarding the historical or mythical Jesus issue. However, he leaned heavily enough to towards mythicism so as to tip over. Also, he was agnostic as in ultimately unsure and agnostic in that he has not read a lot of the relevant literature and so is literally agnostic: lacking knowledge.

In conclusion, we know of cases where myths grew up around fiction and in the case of Jesus mythicism (or any such permutation which denies the historical Jesus) we have no one within a decade of Jesus’ supposed lifetime who denied He ever existed or was a myth. We have no one claiming as much within the first century. No, not within the first millennia.
Indeed, it is not until circa a full two millennia after the time of Jesus that someone decided to invent the Jesus myth myth and have personages such as Coyne who claim to be interested in historical nearness to even consider accepting it.

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