The Enlightened Christian: Rational Doubts about the Case for Jesus

By Jonathan L. Widger

The Enlightened Christian lays the axe of reason at the root of Christendom’s theological tree. It connects the dots between scholarship and the question of belief in the divine Jesus of orthodoxy. It leads the reader through the wilderness of Christian apologetics right up to the promised land of free thought.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483535876

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Notes

Chapter One

Introduction

After you’ve heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, it makes you wonder about history.

—Anonymous

Thesis

If the story of Jesus only included his humble origins in Nazareth of Galilee and that he was the Jewish son of a carpenter named Joseph and a young woman named Mary, if he was only another John the Baptist preaching the kingdom of God in 1st century CE Palestine, if his story simply ended with his tragic death by Roman crucifixion, then he might be nothing but a passing paragraph in the history of the Jews, if not totally forgotten. Of course, for Jesus, Christendom claims much more.

Jesus supposedly qualifies as being the Messiah (Heb.) or Christ (Gk.) by being a descendant of King David through the patriarchal line. Purportedly, his conception was via the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit on the Virgin Mary. He allegedly resurrected from death and ascended into heaven. Finally, he will come again, so they say, and establish the full blown kingdom of God on earth. There is no good reason, based on logical conclusions from evidence, for believing any of this.

Christ’s Alleged Davidic and Divine Origin

Romans 1:3 specifically designates Jesus to be a genetic and not merely an adoptive descendant of King David. However, genealogies in Matthew and Luke given to show this ancestry are hopelessly contradictory. Far from proving Jesus descends from David, they show, rather, that the Gospel authors did not have access to authentic records and resorted to dishonest fabrication. There is also a contradiction between having Jesus descend from David and also having him conceived of the Virgin Mary via the Holy Spirit. He cannot descend from King David through the patriarchal line and also be Holy-Spirit conceived, and arguments in defense of these claims do not hold up to reasonable scrutiny. Where there are contradictions, there are clear indications of falsehood.

Christ’s Alleged Resurrection

Although the New Testament provides evidence of the origin of belief in the resurrection of Jesus, strictly speaking, it does not provide direct evidence for the resurrection itself, only accounts of post-crucifixion appearances of someone presumed to be Jesus. However, disciples repeatedly have trouble and doubts identifying the post-crucifixion Jesus (Mt 28:17; Mk 16:12; Lk 24:16, 30-31, 35-43; Jn 20:14, 16, 20; 21:4, 6-7).

Furthermore, accounts of these appearances are incoherent. On the morning of the resurrection, Jesus sends word through the women telling the disciples to go to a mountain in Galilee to see him. They then go and see him there (Mt 28:10, 16). However, on the evening of the resurrection, the post-crucifixion Jesus contradicts his morning instruction to go to Galilee and tells them to stay here in the city [of Jerusalem] until you have been clothed with power from on high (Lk 24:49).⁴

In fact, the post-crucifixion accounts defy harmonization. No harmonization has ever succeeded without having to do damage to details in the Gospel texts. Many of these contradictions are not just minor details but important facts bearing on the overall textual veracity, such as whether post-crucifixion appearances were only in Jerusalem as told in Luke and Acts or whether Jesus appeared only in Galilee as described in Matthew.

Post-crucifixion accounts suffer from lack of eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. Saint Paul, the earliest writer, never met Jesus, and the Gospels are from secondhand sources, as openly acknowledged in Luke 1:1-4. However, even if Christendom had eyewitness materials in the New Testament, evidence from psychology seriously damages the evidential value of eyewitness testimony.

Believers in the paranormal have been shown to be more unreliable as witnesses than skeptics, and the underlying group dynamic to unusual experiences is well known in psychology studies.⁵ Believers tend to overlook clues to the true causes of seemingly paranormal experiences and misinterpret events in accord with their paranormal beliefs. The disciples’ background beliefs included a god who miraculously intervenes in human affairs and is going to come and establish a kingdom on earth sweeping away human governments. They also already believed in the resurrection doctrine prior to claiming the resurrection of Jesus. These beliefs would certainly be conducive to the disciples interpreting their experiences as having miraculous, divine causes after the crucifixion of their beloved Jesus. A well established paranormal belief within any given culture produces stories to validate that belief, whether true or not.

People envisioning loved ones during bereavement and interpreting those visions as a resurrection in a resurrection-believing culture is not especially amazing. In a culture believing that God intervenes in history and will raise the dead, it would not be especially amazing to find people believing in the resurrection of Jesus based on nothing more than seeing another preacher like Jesus shortly after his crucifixion. People believed Jesus was John the Baptist resurrected from death even though they were contemporaries of each other (Mt 14:1-2; 16:13-20; Mk 6:14-16; 8:27-30; Lk 9:7-9; 9:18-21). Could they not see that Jesus did not look the same as John the Baptist? At a time long before mass media made it possible for a person’s face to become well known, confusions of this kind prove how unreliable eyewitnesses were in identifying even relatively famous people.

Perhaps Simon Peter was first to claim seeing Jesus after the crucifixion, for the disciples exclaim, The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon! (Lk 24:34). Because of the psychology of groups sharing similar beliefs, one vision of Jesus could easily inspire others. Then, preaching to Jewish crowds having the same beliefs as they held, the disciples found their preaching of Christ’s resurrection popular and relatively lucrative (Ac 2:44-45; 4:34-35). Indeed, it is likely that the first murders within the new Christian cult were motivated by greed and then attributed to God (Ac 5:1-11).

Christendom has no tangible, authentic evidence for Christ’s resurrection. The allegation of Christ’s empty tomb is virtually groundless. The writings of Paul make no mention of it. The Gospels do not provide sufficient geographical information to locate it. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a fraud from the time of the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine the Great. Although the Romans had previously destroyed all of Jerusalem except the Wailing Wall, Emperor Constantine’s mother, Saint Helena, allegedly discovered the tomb three centuries after the time of Jesus. Mention of a tomb first appears in the Gospel of Mark. The likely source for the tomb is not history but the application to Jesus of a prophetic interpretation of Isaiah 53:9, which says, They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich.

The Shroud of Turin would provide something tangible to the case for Christ’s resurrection—if it were not a pious fraud. However, the historical record for it goes back no further than the mid 14th century. The Shroud has been carbon-14 dated to 1260-1390 CE by three independent laboratories. Evidence against the Shroud’s authenticity is so great that even the Pope relinquished it as being a forgery.⁶

Christ’s Alleged Second Coming

How belief in Jesus Christ’s virgin birth and resurrection got started without miracles is limited to rational speculation. However, the prophecy of his second coming is a question of truth that is as provable as anything can be in a historical text.

The time and place of the prophecy are known—1st century CE Palestine. What the prophecy says is also known. In Mark 9:1, Jesus says, Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power. Similarly, in the parallel version in Matthew 16:28, he says, Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

The kingdom of God in Mark is the Son of Man’s kingdom in Matthew. The authors of the New Testament identify the Son of Man with Jesus (Ac 7:55-56; Rv 1:13). The people, to whom Jesus spoke, were promised that some of them would live to see him come again and establish the full-blown kingdom of God on earth. After the crucifixion of Jesus, this coming kingdom was to be established at his second coming (Heb 9:26-28). Of course, that entire generation of people died without the kingdom of God being established on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10).

Late in the 1st century CE, Christian leaders excused the delay of the second coming by claiming that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years (2 P 3:3-10). However, this excuse does not address the fact that the second coming was promised to happen in the lifetime of some of the people to whom Jesus was speaking. That no such kingdom came during their lifetimes proves the falsehood of the second-coming prophecy.

Reason offers a true prophecy. Natural disasters are bound to happen. Many other problems of this world—overpopulation, environmental pollution, and economic and social injustice—are caused by humanity. A virgin-born, resurrected Messiah coming down from heaven is not going to come and solve all the troubles on planet earth. Humans must face the natural and human-caused problems of this world or bury their heads in the sand of false theological hopes.

Chapter Two

The Evidence Concerning Jesus Christ

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

—Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (ch. XLIII)

What the Evidence Must Prove

Christendom’s evidence must prove at least these three areas concerning Jesus: (1) his virgin birth, (2) his resurrection, and (3) his second coming. The Apostles’ Creed, having roots going back to the third century CE baptismal creeds, testifies to the primacy of these three areas:

He [Jesus Christ] was [1] conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. [2] He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. […] On the third day he rose again. […] [3] He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Christian Apocrypha: Its Relevance and Irrelevance

Apocryphal Christian writings not included in the New Testament have no authority with many Christians. Their authorship after the time of the New Testament and their legendary character negate their trustworthiness.

Take, for example, the second century CE Protevangelium or Infancy Gospel of James. It supplies obviously legendary material not found in the New Testament Gospels. According to the Protevangelium, at the time Mary is to birth Jesus, time stands still. People in the midst of working are motionless. Even birds flying are motionless in midair. Joseph brings a midwife for Mary, explaining that Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. When they get to the cave, blinding light fills it and then diminishes, revealing the infant Jesus already suckling at Mary’s breast. With good reason, the midwife wishes to examine Mary for proof of her virginity, to which Mary consents. When the midwife makes her examination, however, she suddenly suffers an affliction in her hand, from which she is healed by picking up the infant Jesus.⁷

In addition to the Protevangelium of James, there are numerous legendary writings from the early centuries of Christianity.⁸ Another example is the second century CE Gospel of Peter.⁹ It describes the angels and the post-crucifixion Christ as being so tall that the heads of the two angels reach all the way to heaven and Christ’s head overpasses heaven. The cross is featured at the scene of the resurrection following Jesus and the angels. Then a voice from heaven asks if Christ has preached to them that sleep, and, ironically, the cross replies that he has.¹⁰ In the second century CE Acts of Peter, for another example, Peter engages in miraculous contests with Simon the magician.¹¹

Concerning the historical life of Jesus, the apocryphal Christian writings are all worthless. However, what is relevant about them is what they reveal about the widespread lack of truthfulness within the early Christian communities. Christian apologetics acknowledges the lack of trustworthiness in these apocryphal stories by rejecting their inclusion in the New Testament. They are damning evidence of the rapid mythologizing of Jesus that Christian apologists try to deny.

Christian apologists promote the belief that this mythmaking tendency—which was undeniably at work in the Christian apocrypha—is completely absent from the New Testament itself. In other words, the Christians who are supposed to have the mind of Christ (1 Co 2:16) and shun lying (Rv 21:8) nevertheless produced a plethora of pious frauds—except when they reported in the New Testament that Jesus was virginally conceived, performed miracles, and arose from death. The Christian apologists’ assumption that this mythmaking goes no further back than to the end of the writing of the New Testament is unreasonable.

They assert that the New Testament is too close to the time of Jesus for this kind of mythmaking to have occurred, but their own Christian apocrypha refutes them. The Christian apocrypha proves positively that ancient Christians were mythmakers concerning Jesus and the apostles.

We are from God, declares First John 4:6, Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

On the contrary, without good, independent, objective evidence that the New Testament is devoid of mythologizing, its claim to be asserting truth is hollow and authoritarian. Authority may help discover truth concerning a matter of fact, but authority alone cannot make some matter of fact true. Logical reasoning upon evidence establishes matter-of-fact truths, not merely authority. This is not to say that an authority on a subject may not be helpful, for an authority may be more familiar with the relevant evidence and have spent more time reasoning upon it. An authority may serve as a guide to truth but cannot establish truth merely by spouting off as an authority. Therefore, truth is not determined by simply quoting the Bible, and the myth-making processes revealed in the Christian apocrypha are strong evidence that myth-making contaminates the New Testament, too.

Classical Roman Sources

Classical Roman historians are likewise of little value in studying Jesus. The Roman historian Suetonius (69-122 CE) reports the expulsion from Rome of Jews causing disruptions at the instigation of Chrestus. This report is relevant to studying the history of Jews and Christians, but it is useless regarding the life of Jesus.¹²

Similarly, Roman historian Tacitus (56-120 CE) describes Emperor Nero’s (37-68 CE) persecution of Christians. While this account is valuable to the history of Christianity, it is irrelevant to the biography of Jesus.¹³ Since the Jewish revolt against Rome (66-70 CE) certainly destroyed any official records in Jerusalem and Galilee, Tacitus likely only repeats information about Jesus derived from Christians.¹⁴ By merely repeating what Christians had to say, he cannot serve as an independent source of information regarding Jesus. Moreover, he provides nothing not already found in the New Testament anyway.

The same applies to Pliny the Younger (c. 61-c. 113 CE). His letter written around 112 CE to Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 CE) concerning how to handle Christians brought to trial is valuable to the history of Christianity but not to the study of Jesus himself. Furthermore, the younger Pliny provides nothing about Jesus that is not already in the New Testament.

Jewish Sources

Jewish sources are likewise of little value regarding Jesus. New Testament scholars have noted that the Talmud contains nothing concerning Jesus that is independent of the New Testament.¹⁵ The vast ancient rabbinic literature is therefore useless.

The Jewish historian Josephus (37-100 CE) might have mentioned Jesus in the Antiquities of the Jews. However, since Josephus was not a Christian, it is unlikely that he would have referred to Jesus as the passage does—a wise, wonder-working, truth-teaching, prophecy-fulfilling, resurrected-from-death Messiah.¹⁶ The consensus of scholars—even conservative Christian apologists—is that Josephus’ reference to Jesus, the Testimonium Flavianum, as it is called, is either a Christian forgery or, at best, an authentic reference that was heavily rewritten by Christian scribes.¹⁷

One of the most important independent bits of historical evidence concerning Jesus turns out to be yet another example, along with the Christian apocrypha, denigrating the trustworthiness of the early Christian scribes. Nevertheless, whether dishonestly edited by Christian scribes or not, Josephus, as in the case of the Roman sources, provides nothing new to what is in the New Testament.

The Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy

Since the Bible is the primary source for the life of Jesus Christ, many apologists dogmatically assert it to be God’s inerrantly inspired word. The importance of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is obvious enough, as stated by apologist Charles Ryrie in his Basic Theology: beliefs about Jesus cannot be certainly true if the Bible contains errors.¹⁸ Furthermore, rational doubts about supernatural claims concerning Jesus necessarily tend to damage the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as well because the Bible is our source for those supernatural claims.

Apologist Geisler provides the logical form of the argument for biblical inerrancy as follows:

God cannot err.

The Bible is the Word of God.

Therefore, the Bible cannot err.¹⁹

However, an argument may be valid without being true. To be valid, the conclusion must logically follow from its two premises. Yet, a valid conclusion may be false if one of its premises is false. Since Christian apologists require inerrancy in a writing supposed to be God’s word, an error in the Bible would falsify the second premise, The Bible is the Word of God, and the conclusion based upon it. Logically, this is what follows:

God cannot err.

The Bible contains an error.

Therefore, the Bible is not the word of God.

The doctrine of Bible inerrancy invites trivial examples to disprove it, for only one counter example, no matter how trifling, is sufficient to refute a claim to perfection. Twice the Bible mistakenly refers to the hare or rabbit as being a creature that chews the cud (Lv 11:4-6; Dt 14:7). In his commentary on Leviticus 11:4-6, apologist James A. Borland simply says that rabbits have a motion which looks like a chewing of the cud, but is not.²⁰ Perhaps he hopes his readers will neglect to notice the Bible does not merely say rabbits look like they are chewing the cud but asserts that they actually do. The Bible listing the rabbit as a cud-chewing animal is an example of external biological evidence contradicting the Bible and proving it wrong, thus easily refuting the doctrine of Bible inerrancy.

A contradiction internal to the New Testament concerning the death of Judas Iscariot illuminates how Christian apologists dishonestly deal with problems in the Bible. Matthew 27:5-10 says Judas returns the money for betraying Jesus and then goes out and hangs himself. The priests then buy a field with the blood money as a place to bury foreigners, resulting in naming the field, Field of Blood. Acts 1:18-19, on the other hand, says Judas takes the money, not the priests, uses it to buy a field, and then falls, spilling out his guts, which is why Field of Blood gets its name.

The Bible has three contradictions resulting from these two versions of Judas Iscariot’s death: (1) who bought the field, (2) how Field of Blood acquires its name, and (3) how Judas dies.

One solution to these contradictions offered by Christian apologists is that Judas hangs himself (Mt 27:5) from a tree overhanging a cliff. The rope or branch breaks, the corpse of Judas falls, spilling his bowels (Ac 1:18).²¹ However, this solution creates three problems.

Firstly, this interpretation is not an honest reading of either version of Judas’ death. In an honest reading that does not conflate the two scenarios, Matthew describes the death of Judas as a suicide by hanging, and Acts describes it as a death by falling and bursting open.²² No one would suggest that Acts is describing a suicide by hanging without looking at Matthew, and no one would think Matthew is implying that Judas’ hanging corpse is going to fall or swell up and spill the guts without reading Acts.

Secondly, this proposed solution is purely speculative because it is devoid of evidential proof. Neither text presents this scenario. To believe that the two versions of Judas’ death do not contradict, Christian apologists must actually replace the very texts they are defending with their bastardized harmonization.

Thirdly, this proposed solution does not resolve who purchased the field and how Field of Blood acquired its name.

Even allowing Christian apologists, for the sake of argument, to combine Judas’ death details, other details must also submit to combining. Even though Acts says Judas spilling his guts gives the field its name, the money used by Judas in Acts is still blood money just as it is in Matthew. This harmonization, depends on the remote possibility that both the spilled guts of Judas and the blood money simultaneously served as reasons for naming the field. However, there is a catch: either Judas bought the field (Ac) or the priests bought the field (Mt). It cannot be both ways.

However, biblical contradictions virtually never stop Christian apologists from denial. The article on Judas Iscariot in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) evades this contradiction by simply contradicting what the New Testament says: But there does not seem to be any great difficulty in reconciling the two accounts. For the field, bought with the rejected price of his treachery, might well be described as indirectly bought or possessed by Judas, albeit he did not buy it himself.²³

Similarly, apologist Edward E. Hindson says in his commentary on the death of Judas in Matthew that in such cases the purchase was made in the name of the man to whom the money had been paid and to whom the money by a legal fiction was supposed all the time to belong. By law, therefore, the man himself purchased the field.²⁴ Three problems with this legal fiction are apparent, however.

Firstly, the late Catholic scholar, Father Raymond E. Brown, points out that this proposed harmonization distorts what the text in Acts actually says.²⁵ Indeed, Acts 1:18 says that this man [Judas Iscariot] acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness. Thus, Acts 1:18 denies that the priests bought it in his name.

Secondly, it is just plain odd to say the purchase of a field for a charitable purpose could occur in the name of—and dishonor of—a person without his consent while still living or without being in accordance with his will after death. True, the dead may be honored by having their name attached to some charitable project. However, that could hardly apply in this case since the Field of Blood dishonors the memory of Judas. Apologists must prove that there is historical evidence establishing that such strange and seemingly illegal transactions were actually customary.

Finally, this legal fiction does nothing to solve the problem of why Judas would