Expert: J.M.J. West - 9/13/2008

Question
can you comment on the novel " the jesus mysteries" or the jesus myth hypothesis in general?

thank you

Answer
Brett,

Thank you for your question.  I am not familiar with Freke's Book in particular, but the "Jesus Myth Hypothesis" I do have some experience with.

The simple logical and historical record bears out that what happened 2000 years ago in the midst of the Roman Empire was not simply a myth.  Hoax maybe, but not a myth.  Anthony Flew, one of the greatest champions of Atheism in the last century (though recently turned Deist) said that the resurrection of Christ is the best-attested fact that we have (though he denies it on the basis of the impossibility of miracles, he concedes that were miracles possible, he'd believe in Christ).  He thinks that they were all either tricked or hallucinated about the resurrection of Christ.  Nobody suffers painful martyrdom for a known hoax, and martyrdom was the life-blood of the Church.

But of course, it's very hard to say that "miracles cannot happen" as an empiricist, except by denying that the word "miracle" means anything, as Flew Does.

There are some similarities between Christianity and other Pagan religions (Virgin Births, Messiahs, Atoning Deaths, etc), but there are a variety of ways to account for this and leave Christianity as the gleaming truth.

In the first place, if you assume that Christianity is true, and that all humanity had a common origin and a common destination, then it would make sense that some form of "truth echo" would ripple down through time in to the various cultures, however removed from God they might be.

In the second place, if you assume that Christianity is true, and that all humanity has a common enemy, then placing counterfeits of the truth in history allows one to make an attempted forgery of the truth.

But thirdly, while these other pagan faiths speak of their commonalities truly as myths (they happened at an un-disclosed time many eras ago, often with rather anthropomorphic and petty gods, in an often undisclosed place, and with no eye-witnesses), Christ's actuality occurred in the midst of the largest empire the world has know: Rome.  One can certainly speculate as to why this is the case (large spread common language, or some such reason) but the fact is this happened 2000 years ago in Jerusalem with many eye-witnesses.

I think that the only reason the "Jesus Myth" folks have had any success peddling their wares is because in our post-post-modern world, nobody cares about truth but want "interesting" and gnostic stories that debunk everything which would oblige them to do anything that they don't already desire to do.  We have more evidence for the resurrection of Christ than the crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar, but nobody doubts the latter because the latter is just a tame fact of history, while the former - if true - would seem to oblige us to certain beliefs.  The New Testament writings are the best attested manuscripts from antiquity (over 5,000 copies, all agreeing in 99.5% of all textual phrasing), the next best being Homer's Iliad (600 copies, 80% pure), and yet while people will say that the scriptures were tampered with and are un-reliable, yet nobody will say "Homer was tampered with and shouldn't be read!"

That's my take on it.  I hope that this helped.  If you have follow up questions or more specific questions, feel free to ask.

More here:
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0605fea2.asp
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1996/9609fea3.asp

Peace of Christ,

-J.M.J. West