“Oh, how naïve”, I can hear the sceptics yawn, “to assume that you can extract scientific or clinical evidence from the Bible!” Surely, the Gospels are all a much later construct, drawing upon ancient tales of prophecy in the Old Testament, and dropping odd names of otherwise known individuals, such as Pontius Pilate or the Herodian kings, to make them look a bit more credible? Indeed, a combination of historical novel and fantasy fiction, with some spooky bits thrown in to make your hair stand on end!
But let us begin by looking objectively at the written sources for the crucifixion and resurrection. Put on whatever construction you like, you cannot escape the fact that both events are described, in differing amounts of detail, in all four Gospels, and are alluded to as pivotal events in the Acts of the Apostles and in several of St Paul’s letters. More independent single references, I suspect, than you would find to any other brief incident in secular ancient history. And they continued to be referred to and discussed time and again by all the early Christian writers from the first century onwards.
And although some, quite rightly, would point out that the Gospel writers regularly make reference to Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled, and to signs and wonders, and had different objectives from a chronicler of “normal” events, one must at least give some credence to a statement by St John. Almost cutting off in advance the line that the crucifixion was only a resonance of a prophecy of piercing the hands and feet of the victim in the prophet Zechariah, John states in his Gospel, chapter 19:35, “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true”; and in 21:24, “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things; and we know his testimony is true.” Indeed, to my historian’s nose this smells rather like a record from an eyewitness, either passed down orally or written.
But permit me to make another observation about the Gospels and Acts, which lends them a sense of historical veracity in my reckoning: the fact that they often contradict each other on incidental details, yet are in stunning agreement regarding the big picture. If a historian has five independent versions of a given set of events, such as those found in the Gospels and Acts, all written perhaps several years or decades after the events described, and they all recount exactly the same incidents, in pretty well the same sequence, then the historian smells a rat – it smells like a coordinated put-up job! But if the accounts vary in points of incidental detail, are clearly intended to address different audiences, and yet come together on the key events and their significance, then they look much more authentic. Matthew, for example, was probably writing to convince a Jewish readership; John was wrestling with philosophical theology; and Luke – if the “beloved physician” referred to by St Paul – was a non-Jew, or Gentile, who corresponded with one Theophilus, probably another Greek Gentile. (And Luke, along with Paul, was probably the best educated of Jesus’ early followers.)
Let me suggest a parallel. If, in 2,000 years’ time, historians were researching the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953, they might encounter all sorts of contradictory narratives. Was the witness standing in the Mall, in the rain, waiting to see a golden coach go past? Or did they see the event on a flickering black and white TV set in Manchester? Or hear a verbal account from a stranger on a train? Or were they in Westminster Abbey? All accounts would differ in circumstantial detail, yet all would come together on the key event: namely, that a British queen had been crowned.
I believe that the early Christian narratives can be read in a similar way.
Which comes back to the title of this chapter: why exactly do so many highly intelligent people these days feel obliged to rail against the Nazareth Joiner, and to heap ridicule on his present-day followers, 2,000 years later? Why don’t they just yawn, roll their eyes in superior exasperation, and draw a line once and for all beneath the intractable folly of those superstitious primitives called Christians? And then they can turn their minds to higher things: such as theorizing about the atheist potential of chimpanzees, programming their super-computers, or contemplating the meaning of oblivion.
So what made, and continues to make, Jesus so special? What still makes the Galilean carpenter and his message a focus of meaning and devotion to billions of people worldwide, and an object of contempt and anger to others?
Could it really be that the world is brimming over with intractable superstitious fools who just won’t see reason, even when highly gifted atheists try to show them the way?
Or could it be that the “Jesus myth” contains something not mentioned in the above bare narrative? Something bigger, perhaps? Indeed, something very much bigger!