“But I feel Jesus in my heart” is evidence for what you’re feeling
In my most recent articles here I explained why we no longer need to pay much attention to the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments. Most devout churchgoers seem unaware of the many problems presented by these Bible texts. But there’s an even more gigantic problem that is outside the horizon of awareness of those who persist in their devotion to Jesus. There has been turmoil in Jesus-studies for quite some time now, because historians are having a tough time locating reliable, verifiable, objective evidence that Jesus really did exist. The laity would not be able to grasp the problem, because—well, because… “Aren’t the gospels all the proof we need?”
There is little awareness of the major problems presented by the gospels. How thoroughly do devout folks actually study the gospels? The clergy, from their pulpits, share Jesus-script that gives a boost to his reputation, but are careful not to mention the chilling, horrible Jesus-script that is also in the gospels. Real study of the gospels means reading them each carefully, pondering the many troubling aspects of them, comparing these four different versions of Jesus. The next level of study would be reading books written by scholars about the gospels—both devout and secular scholars. Here the laity would be entering that world of turmoil in Jesus-studies I mentioned above.
The gospel authors borrowed miracle and magical folklore—major departures from reality—in creating their stories about Jesus. Ancient superstitions abound in these documents, and historians face major obstacles in their effort to identify authentic events, and verifiable Jesus-script. The authors don’t name their sources, so it’s not a stretch to suspect that their imaginations played major roles as they wrote. Devout scholars indulge in wishful thinking by supposing that reliable oral tradition about Jesus ended up the gospels. Really? These documents were written decades after the events depicted. What are the chances that reliable oral tradition played any role at all?
The faithful need to be very careful with the claim that they feel Jesus in their hearts. They have been coached, indoctrinated, since early childhood to accept this as fact—by clergy, parents, and other authority figures. This is on a par with folks claiming that Harry Potter must be real because of the beloved books in which he plays the outstanding hero. Facing the mythological character of the gospels is not easy to do, especially since the huge ecclesiastical bureaucracy is anchored to the idea of a real Jesus.
In fact, devout scholars have been stressed over the nature of the gospels for a long time. Just what in them can be trusted? Richard Carrier noted, in his 2014 book, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt,
‘In fact, there is no identifiable consensus about who or what Jesus was, or when or why he acquired the moniker of Christ. And while all these scholars debate (or even ignore) one another in all this, for over a hundred years now some scholars (and not just cranks) have argued there was no Jesus Christ in any real sense at all. They maintain the Christian religion began with the idea of a mythical man, not a historical one.” (p. 4)
“…in practice there is no consensus even among historicists as to what is historical about Jesus and what not, and what is instead legendary or mythical or merely erroneous. Indeed, these unresolved disagreements extend to almost every significant question about Jesus.” (p. 4)
“For over a hundred years now…”
The writing of authentic history depends very much on having access to contemporaneous documentation, that is, letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and other archival materials written at the time of the events depicted. This has become standard practice for historians over the last hundred years, at least. But contemporaneous documentation is exactly what we don’t have for Jesus. So skepticism about his reality has deepened. Earl Doherty’s 2000 book, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? gave a big boost to the argument that Jesus was not real. At the urging of many people, Richard Carrier read Doherty’s book, and decided to take up the challenge of determining just how real or mythical Jesus was. His book, On the Historicity of Jesus was the result. At 696 pages, it may seem like an insurmountable challenge, but Carrier’s writing style is easily accessible, and his observations, evaluations, are indispensable.
One of the most valuable sections of this book is his description of 48 elements (pages 56-234) that are crucial for understanding the origins of Christianity. Most devout churchgoers assume that Jesus was born, preached his message, was crucified and resurrected—and voila! —they have the religion they know to be true. But it turns out to have been far, far more complicated than that. Carrier also explains the reality of the gospels in his Chapter 10, in which he discusses the mythologies of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.
In 2020, Carrier published a sequel to Historicity, titled Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ. At 230 pages, it is more accessible, and summarizes the realities he described in Historicity.
And the erosion of the case for a real historical Jesus continues. It was just last month—November 2025—that Carrier’s new book was published: The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus (439 pages). Four very important chapters are:
· Updates, Developments, Trendline
“… the traditional dogma of the field regarding the supposed existence of an ‘oral lore’ concerning a historical Jesus, preserved under layers of literary and legendary embellishments in the Gospels, has come under more concerted attack as not only unevidenced but even implausible.” (p. 26)
“… the New Testament resembles a plethora of contemporary and subsequent fabricated literature serving the aims of propaganda, not of researched histories or faithfully collected testimony.” (p.27)
· The Inadequacy of Critical Responses So Far
“The overall picture is of a field that is avoiding the question, and rather than engaging with our arguments or results, is merely pretending to.” (p. 76)
“…the only formal academic responses to our studies have been apologetical or even dishonest.” (p. 88)
“As a rule, refutable propositions get refuted; but ten years of evasion across an entire field of study can only mean one thing: there is no refutation. This is now the strongest evidence that the historicity of Jesus is no longer genuinely credible.” (p. 89)
Carrier examines in detail the flawed claims of five critics who do not adequately address his arguments against historicity.
· An Inordinate Fondness for Suspiciously Bad Arguments
“… the formal critical response to our studies and findings has not gone well. Without exception it has functionally ignored rather than responded to the challenges issued against the dogma of historicity.” (p. 112)
“When tasked to come up with a reason—any reason—to continue trusting in the assumption that there was a historical Jesus…the arguments scholars have come up with are either illogical or factually dubious—sometimes both.” (p. 112)
“What all these arguments lack is a straightforward connection between evidence and conclusion, leaving room for a lot of handwaving in between to get a predetermined result.” (p. 114)
“For Jesus, the complete lack of the kinds of arguments we have for real people has spawned an entire industry for inventing convoluted ways to rescue him from the more obvious consequence of that fact.” (p. 115)
· Why Historians Simply Must Learn Math
“… not understanding how math works is identical to not understanding how probability works. And not understanding how probability works is identical to not knowing how to do history at all…And yet historians can rarely explain what logic justifies any of their assertions about probability. They just ‘feel it in their gut’ or something. And this is a scandal.” (p. 146)
There is considerable irony in the fact that devout scholars resort to comments made by the apostle Paul to demonstrate that Jesus was a real person. These scholars know that the gospel stories cannot be verified, so they hope that Paul’s statements can get the job done. But there is so very little in Paul’s letters about Jesus as a real person, and he even brags about his special knowledge: “For I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin, for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:11-12)
Carrier has major chapters on Romans 1:3 and Galatians 4:4, which appear to verify that Jesus was born of a woman and became flesh from the seed of David. He demonstrates that these texts do not, in fact—weighing probabilities—prove historicity.
The turmoil in Jesus studies actually represents a step backward for devout believers who are so invested emotionally in Jesus having been a real person. Compelling evidence just isn’t there. In his concluding chapter, Carrier makes this statement:
“… we have also been looking at the Gospels in the wrong way, implausibly attempting the impossible task of extracting history from mythology, when all along we should have been looking at what their authors were trying to say by their deliberate choices in constructing every single one of their scenes… the magical hero we know as Jesus of Nazareth was a contrivance of myth-making, in the same vein as many another mythological founder hero (from Moses to Dionysus, or from Ned Ludd to John Frum).” (p. 376)
A lot of study is required to snap out of the Christian certitudes—actually assumptions—about Jesus.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
· Guessing About God (2023),
· Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
· Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
No comments:
Post a Comment