The Time Problem With A Mythical Jesus

We have a fragment of the gospel of John (John Rylands Fragment, p52) that has been dated to circa 125 AD. Unless we assume that we found the original manuscript, the gospel of John was written before 125 AD. Most biblical scholars place it around 90 AD. Biblical scholars also say that the gospel of John was the last gospel to be written and that the epistles where written earlier than the gospels, thus pushing the body of the New Testament extremely close to actual events around 30 AD.These claims aside lets assume the first NT book written was the gospel of John and it was written sometime after the death of the last apostle, say 100 AD. This would give us a starting time of 70 years after the death of Christ for the second generation Christians to begin preaching a mythical Jesus.This is simply not enough time for a mythical Jesus to emerge. No one could make these claims to so many people without them being refuted by the many religious groups in opposition to Christianity at that time, unless the claims were grounded in fact.My grandfather told me that he had an uncle named Harry. Uncle Harry died in 1932 (about 70 years ago) at the age of 28. He was never married and had no children. To my knowledge there are no pictures of uncle Harry and I know of no one still alive who knew him, but there may be. I know of no official documents on him, ie birth or death certificate and I don’t even no where he is buried.Now let’s say I want to start a new religion called the cult of uncle Harry. I’ll start my ministry by going into all the major cities and preach to the masses that my great uncle Harry was God who took the form of a man in 1904. I’ll claim that he performed many miracles, including healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, turning water into wine, and raising dead men from the grave.I’ll even claim that he was murdered by his own town folk because of his claims but that three days later he was raised from the dead and was seen by many people before being taken up to heaven. As proof of all this I’ll write it all down in a book and claim that is was written by my grandfather and others who knew Uncle Harry.How easy would it be to falsify my claims? We are only talking about the 1930’s here. There are probably people still alive that knew my great Uncle Harry. You could talk to them and prove that he wasn’t who I said he was. You could read old news paper clips of the time to see if anything I claimed can be substantiated. You could research the lives of my grandfather and the others I claim wrote these things down, and verify that claim.For the ultimate proof, you could find Uncle Harry’s grave and show everyone his body. Or you could save yourself a lot of time by simply putting a gun to my head and telling me unless I take back my outrageous claims, you will kill me. Knowing my own lies, I will most likely take back my claims, not willing to die for a lie.It is my assertion that even a liberal date of 70 years after the death of Christ for the first NT book to be written is simply not a sufficient amount of time for a legend like the mythical Jesus to even evolve, let alone spread.

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Jason B

Hello RAZD. This does not mean that facts and history could not be checked. We often view people in the past as gullible and ignorant but the people of this era were prolific record keepers and writers. Also 70 years would allow for living witnesses to check stories against.Legends do form given enough time. But I’m arguing that 70 years is simply not enough time for the Mythical Jesus legend to form and catch hold. First off Jesus was also preached in Jerusalem, where the events took place. I don’t see how they could be fooled about recent history.Many Jews stop practicing Jewish customs, eating pork, worshiping on Saturday, and followed Jesus. Jews had been following these customs for over a thousand years, yet a large number were compelled to give them up. I didn’t see them being moved this way unless thy believed the stories about Jesus. If the stories were mere legend, why did the take hold?Also there were Jewish synagogues in many of the towns Jesus was being preached in. These people had a vested interest in debunking the Jesus claims. If Jesus was simply a myth they certainly could have stamped out this movement rather quickly.

Hello IFEN, We can certainly debate the dating of p52, but please lets start a new thread for that, the crux of this thread is that 70 years is not enough time for a Jesus myth to start. I don’t understand. What Elvis myth? Do you mean the people who says he faked his death?I don’t think Elvis faking his death compares to the claims made about Jesus.

Hello PaulK. But they wouldn’t have to check the facts for themselves. Any one of the many religions in opposition to Christianity could have simply checked the facts out and presented the masses with the counter proof. Many of these converts suffered death rather than deny Christ. It would have been so simple for the Jewish religious leaders to disproof these claims, or at least presented doubt in the converts mind. They were outrageous claims, which usually are not immediately taken at face value, especially when there are groups teaching something else. Jesus supposable taught to thousands. Certainly there were survivors after only 70 years. And 70 years is a liberal dating. Conservative biblical scholars place the epistles of Paul to around 40 or 50 AD. All it would take is one piece of evidence that Jesus never existed or that he was simply a man and that would be the end of the Christian movement. Certainly Jews and others wanted to put an end to it. But yet Christianity survived and flourished. The spread of Christianity did not take place in a vacuum. These were real cities with real people and real forces opposing it. Yet it survived. But not impossible. And people would have tried. Especially since following Jesus would have meant giving up there own religion, possibly even there families, or in the case of the Jewish leaders giving up converts and admitting they had killed the Messiah.

Hello Chiroptera. Can you please state which UFO story you are referring to so we can sufficiently compare it to the mythical Jesus claim.Thanks.

Hey Iasion.You make many interesting claims about the dating of p52 and the other books of the New Testament. If you would like, please start a new thread and we can discuss this. But for this thread let focus on the time question, is 70 years enough time for a legend like the Mythical Jesus to evolve.But even I cant resist staying off topic for a moment. 1 Corinthians 15:3-6

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For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

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Please tell me how this does not tell of the empty tomb, He was buried .. He was raised. Clearly speaks of an empty tomb. Is 70 years enough time for this to happened? But you have a problem. The p52 fragment. The story had developed in only 70 years. (Granting that p52 dates to 125 AD and was written sometime before that, I choose 100 AD arbitrarily, I could choose a later date, but I could also choose a younger date)The rest of your argument assumes a late dating of the New Testament which I do not wish to debate in this thread.

Are you honestly saying that the claims that Elvis faked his death is the same as the claims about Jesus. I don’t know how to respond to that.I will say that the conspiracy about Elvis’ death is fading over time, not dispersing as did the story of Jesus.

Hey Jar. It is not really my argument that the Jesus Myth is unique. Perhaps you can start a thread on that. I would like to stay on the topic of weather or not 70 years is enough time for the mythical Jesus story to evolve.Thanks.

I don’t think 150 years is enough. Lets say I wanted to write a book about Fred Milken who died about 140 years ago. What lies could I get away with? What claims could I make that could with stand honest scrutiny? (By the way I made Fred up.) But you have to look at the claims that the writers of the New Testament made. These were verifiable claims. He was born in Bethlehem. He preached sermons to thousands. He healed people, gave sight to the blind. He was crucified. He was buried. That he was raised from the dead and seen by hundreds of other people.Even if some people didn’t want to know the truth, others would want them to, namely the Jewish leaders. And they could have proven these claims false if it had only been 70 years.

Thanks for responding. Galatians 1:11

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For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

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True. But his claims about Jesus were falsifiable. Was there such a man? Did he preach in Israel? Was he crucified? These things could have, and I believe would have been checked out. There have certainly been more outrageous claims made about other people. But to make claims about people in recent history when facts can be checked, and to have them be accepted by many people, when acceptance came with such a great sacrifice for many? This does not point to a mythical Jesus, but a historic one. The p52 fragment tells us that the claims about Jesus were already established by at least 125 AD. This puts these claims in the realm of current events. This tells us that the claims about Jesus were being preached to contemporaries of Jesus. And many believed the claims when the facts could have been checked.

Hello IFEN Mormonism is a different animal. Joe Smith made claims that could only be proven up to a point, and then you have to take his word for the rest because he was alone, except for the angle, when he found the ancient scrolls. Now we can argue about the text of the scrolls, which has been done in great detail, and which I believe disprove their authenticity, but I can’t prove or disprove his account of how he got them.The claims made about Jesus were much broader and involved many places and people and were claimed by several individuals.If I claim that I was visited by aliens last night in my bedroom, you really have no way to disproof my simplistic claims. But if I claim that the aliens took me and 500 other people to the Whitehouse in their ship, and we blew it up, killing the president, you could verify these claims. The claims made about Jesus were verifiable to the people they were first preached to.

Hello Chiroptera You have to look at what was claimed about Jesus. He healed the sick. Gave sight to the blind. Fed thousands with a few loafs of bread, was crucified by a roman leader. Was later seen alive by hundreds of people.I have never heard stories about UFO’s that entailed such detail, over a span of three years, involving so many people, all being claimed by several eye witnesses. They claimed more than just healing. The fledgling Christina religion had opposition. Nero for instance murdered thousands of Christians in the first century AD. These were all new converts, dying for what they were recently told. The various Jewish sects had reason to inform the Christian converts of the lies they were being told by the apostles, proof, any proof that debunked their claims would have killed the movement. Paul, who was a persecutor of the Church, who was a leader in the Jewish community, could have been persuaded that his visions where not real if he had been presented with evidence that what he saw, and what he was told by Peter and James when he met with them, never happened. The claims were verifiable. People would have checked them out.

First of all, in the case of the Jews it was being claimed that they killed the messiah. A messiah they were all waiting for and preaching others to be on the look out for. They did not like the accusations being made.Secondly, they were loosing converts.Thirdly, faith in their own dogma would compel them to debunk claims that falsified their own beliefs.And finally, loved ones were being ‘led astray’. Sons, daughters, wives, husband. Paul said in 1 COR 15 that Jesus appeared to 500 people after his death at one time, and some of them are still alive (at the time of his writing). Not well preserved today. Be we are talking only a few years. I don’t think it is nave to say that the claims that were being made in the 1st Century about Jesus could have been checked out by the people of that time. If I wrote a book about Teddy Roosevelt and made outlandish claims about him, they could most certainly be checked out.

You would not need to proof every claim, only disprove one, and you destroy the foundation. A person, who lives 33 years, touches many other lives. You would only have to find one person, who said, wait a minute that’s not the way it happened. Prove one event didn’t happened and the house of cards fall.Go back to my claim about my great Uncle Harry in my original post. How difficult would it be to stop my cult of Harry movement?

Hello IasionDebating the dates of the New Testament is a great idea. But I am only interested, in this thread, in the time frame for a mythical Jesus legend to emerge.Thanks