What are the arguments against historicity of Jesus?

Answer 1

Another answer from our community:One of the commonly used arguments against the historicity of Jesus is that details of His life and teachings and death etc were not mentioned in some of the original Christian writings in terms of the dates when they were written.

Yet Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians, dated in around 56 or 57 AD records an early Christian creed, which dates from the earliest days of the Christian faith. This creed records a number of simple and central historical details which were allegedly unknown until the Gospels began to be written later. This simple creed demonstrates that the idea that these key historical events were unknown is inaccurate. It also shown that both the key events, as well as the key witnesses were important, and also that the factual and historical nature of the resurrection was central to early Christian confession.

Answer 2

Some of the evidence against the historicity of Jesus is circumstantial. For example, no first century epistle, even when discussing Christian baptism, ever mentioned the baptism of Jesus, or even John the Baptist. Moreover, neither Paul nor any other first century Christian author expressed any desire to see the birthplace of Jesus, visit Nazareth, or Calvary where Jesus was supposed to have died to save humanity, or to see the tomb where he was buried and rose from the dead. It was as if they knew only a spiritual Jesus, not a historical Jesus. Until Mark's Gospel, written decades later, there is a silence that suggests that mid-first century Christians did not know of the momentous events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

What we do find, is evidence that the earliest Christian writers saw Jesus as spiritual, not as a real person who had lived on earth in the recent past:

• Speaking of Jesus, Hebrews 8:4 says, "For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest ...", virtually saying that he had never been on earth.
• 1 Corinthians 2:7-8, "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." In this, Paul can not have been calling the Jewish priests "princes of this world" or saying that they did not know the wisdom of God. But the term "princes of this world" is a term that was widely used to refer to the demonic forces which were believed to inhabit the lower heavens. Here, Paul seems to be saying that Jesus was crucified in the spiritual world - evidence that Paul did not know of Jesus as a historical person. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, seems to see no difference between the appearances of the risen Jesus to Cephas and the others, and his visionary appearance to Paul himself. In other words, all these appearances were purely spiritual, with no human dimension.

So, those who argue against the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth say that he was a literary invention of the author of Mark's Gospel.