Herein I will conclude considering Tim O’Neill’s “An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus,” part 1 and part 2. In part 1 I reviewed where he went right and will now consider where he went wrong.
Tim O’Neill notes that “Early Christianity and the critics of early Christianity agree on virtually nothing about Jesus, except for one thing – that he existed as a historical person in the early first century…Justin Martyr, Origen, and Minucius Felix…confront and answer the arguments their critics make about Jesus – that he was a fool, a magician, a bastard son of a Roman soldier, a fraud etc – but none of these apologetic works so much as hint that anyone ever claimed he never existed.”
Well, Tim O’Neill does not deny that a human being named Jesus (Yehoshua aka Yeshua) existed but, of course, he denies that Jesus is God in the flesh, etc. His reasons for the denial appear to be twofold with the two reasons folding into each other: 1) he claims to discern historical problems within the Bible, attempts to make Jesus fit the prophecies about the messiah, tell the same story in different ways so as to fill in problematic gaps, etc., etc., etc. and 2) he exercises eisegesis by reading his Atheist presuppositions into the text—which is how he ends up with position 1).
For example, he simply dismisses anything with the Bible that relates something “fantastical” and/or miraculous because his Atheist worldview philosophy restricts his thinking in that regard.
It also seems that he has not studied the methods which cultures with a heavy reliance on passing on information orally developed. Thus, he jokes about how Moses could possibly have written the Ten Commandments as God spoke them because, after all, Moses had to chisel them into stone. Why not assume that God would have spoken them to him word by word in a slow cadence? Why not note that Moses spent over a month, 40 days, on Sinai (and that was only a portion of the time he spent there)?
He points out that when ancient emperors gave speeches which were recorded in writing no one was telling them to slow down, repeat this or that since they were having to take notation. Why not point out ancient systems of memory development or otherwise that oral cultures were used to carrying around vast amounts of info within their craniums? Why not point out that there were methods of telling and retelling stories/info/data whereby multiple people hearing the same thing would fact check each other, etc.?
He asserts that no historians hold the gospels to be history to which I would add: except for the historians who do hold the gospels to be history. He states that one reason to know that they are nor history is that they were written decades, don’t-cha-know, after Jesus’ time. Yet, this is a styled anachronistic manner of argument. Firstly, merely a few decades ago historians and scholars of all sorts knew that the gospels were written centuries after Jesus’ time. Yet, continued research proves otherwise. Thus, a few decades ago he would have complained that they were written centuries after the fact but today he complains that they were written decades after the fact.
Also, we are used to instant well, everything. A local news talk radio station has a tagline which states, “Read it tomorrow, watch it tonight—hear it now!” Indeed, we are used to getting tweets the very moment that something is occurring. Well, in Jesus’ time decades later was tantamount to an instant tweet.
O’Neill notes that “the Jesus story actually shows many signs of being shoehorned into such” messianic “expectations and not exactly fitting very well.” As an example, he notes that in the Gospel of Mark Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, goes into the wilderness and it is only at this “point where Jesus becomes the Messiah” as He had had “his sins washed away by John, since prior to his point he was man like any other.” I will pause to note that this going much too far in reading into Mark and yet, indeed John came to baptize for repentance due to washing away sins. The Gospel of Matthew is said to have “a very different Christology” with Jesus as “ordained Messiah since his miraculous conception” and so Matthew add that “John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’” I will note that their discussion is not about sin but about preeminence.
Lastly, the Gospel of John deals with this issue by “removing the baptism altogether.”
I simply take this as chronological authorship logic. Mark is tantamount to bullet-point notes from that which Peter preached and is thus, nothing but the most basic of descriptions. Matthew writes later and seems to discern that details are lacking so he includes the discussion. Note that Peter tells us (1 Peter 3:21) that “baptism doth also now save us” but that baptism is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh” but rather “the answer of a good conscience toward God” which is that which Jesus was displaying.
John then knows that Mark wrote succinctly and that Matthew added details and so he bypasses the actual baptism and yet, he does note the occasion when “John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
O’Neill also notes that Luke and Matthew “go to great lengths to tell stories which ‘explain’ how Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem despite being from Nazareth…Both gospels, however, tell completely different, totally contradictory and mutually exclusive stories (one is even set ten years after the other) which all but the most conservative Christian scholars acknowledge to be non-historical.”
Well, this is not the case. Luke 2 notes that Caesar Augustus decreed that taxing was to be reckoned based on every one returning to their city of origin and so “Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:).” This is that which Tim O’Neill notes is “non-historical” which is somewhat of an arguments form silence in either direction. It is not that it is known that this did not happen but that we do not have extra-biblical records which records that it did. On this issue, see J.P. Holding’s Miller vs Carrier on the Lukan Census.
In the case of Matthew 2, the version set “ten years after” is not even a version but a different issue altogether as the text affirms upfront that “when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea” then “in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.” This leads to Herod murdering children ages two and under. Thus, this is about Joseph, Mary and Jesus absconding to Egypt.
In any case, O’Neill’s point is to ponder “why did they go to this effort?” of allegedly making real life match prophecies, etc. and concludes that “If Jesus existed and was from Nazareth, this makes sense” since “If Jesus was a purely mythic figure and the stories of his life evolved out of expectations about the Messiah then he would be from Bethlehem, as was expected as a Messiah.”
Very well, yet perhaps the gospels tell of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem because He was born in Bethlehem.
So, overall Tim O’Neill makes some good points contra Jesus mythicists and some bad points contra the gospels being history.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page. You can also use the “Share / Save” button below this post.