Orthodoxy, Heresy & Jesus, V
Why Jesus probably did Exist
By James M. West. Copyright © January 18, 2010. All Rights Reserved.
E-mail:
ogdood@yahoo.com
In preceding articles of this series I showed
that both the “orthodox” and “heterodox” traditions of Jesus are beset by
problems [1]. Both traditions are based on contradictory sources which cannot
be connected with historical witnesses. None of this evidence bodes well for
those people out there who want to insist that all the “gospels” are literally
true and that Jesus really existed. Skeptics today have every right to express
their doubts.
For Gnostic readers these credibility
gaps are not a problem because Gnostics are in search of wisdom, not facts.
They want the Wisdom of Jesus and not the bloody man hanging on a cross. Nor
are they looking for Jesus to come blasting out of the sky at the end of this “generation.”
The Gnostic understands that “Jesus” and his “Name” are but symbols of a higher
Savior and a higher Name: i.e. the ineffable Name of the ineffable God. This is
the Spiritual Truth behind the Gospels; and of the four Gospels the Gospel
of John contains the most coherent account [2].
But then again, one cannot simply say
that the case is closed and that Jesus never existed. We cannot say that the
records in question prove that Jesus never existed. To the contrary, I
believe there is nagging evidence that this man did exist, and that this
evidence cannot be ignored. That evidence is preserved in the New Testament, in
the “synoptic” Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. I believe these gospels do
preserve sayings that were uttered by an historical figure. And early Christians
clung to these sayings for more than one hundred years, thereby leading to an
awkward situation (e.g. 2 Peter 3).
The basic problem here is that Jesus is
reported to have uttered prophecies which never came to pass. The synoptic
Gospels can be shown to contradict each other on many things. But the one issue
on which they agree (and John disagrees) is that Jesus predicted that the “Son
of Man” would arrive before the end of his “generation.” Let’s look at the
evidence:
In Matthew 10 Jesus tells his disciples
to preach the gospel to the lost sheep of the “house of
“For
truly I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of
And again in Matthew
“Truly
I say unto you, There be some standing here which shall not taste death, till
they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
And in Mark 9:1,
“Truly I say unto you, There be some standing
here which shall not taste death, till they see the
Our next example follows near the end of
Jesus’s ‘end time’ prophecy speech in Matthew 24. Here Jesus speaks of the
unparalleled tribulations that will occur before the end of the age (Mt.
24:21f.). And then he promises his followers in Matthew 24:34f.:
“Truly
I say unto you, This generation (genea) shall not pass, till all these
things be fulfilled. Heaven and Earth shall pass away; but my words shall not
pass away.” (Mk. 13:30–31, Lk. 21:32–33)
And again Jesus
makes a similar statement to the
“It
is as you said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of
man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”
(Mk. 14:62, Lk. 22:69)
Clearly there is
a record of Jesus promising and proclaiming in the Gospels (except John) that
the Son of man will arrive before the end of the “generation” and that even the
high-priest will witness the coming of the Son of man. It is also clear that
these prophecies never came to pass.
I can’t help but
arrive at the conclusion that these failed prophecies originate from a real
person. The reason is that if Jesus was simply a figment of someone’s
imagination, or a product of someone’s sublime mythology, they would not
attribute failed prophecies to him. And this is one of the details that cannot
be found in Gnostic texts. Nowhere in Gnostic literature is Jesus portrayed as
an apocalyptic, end time prophet (John also contains no such prophecies).
I think the
reason that these prophecies are still preserved is because someone named
“Jesus” (Yahshuah) actually spoke these words, and many people believed him.
Even after Jesus’s generation passed away, believers continued to hang on. But
eventually a time came when people realized that these prophecies were
worthless. But at the same time, these words were held among Christians all
over the ancient world. No one could simply deny that Jesus spoke these words.
On the other hand, new Gospels were written in which Jesus’s message was
re-worked, or re-interpreted, and the mistakes were edited out. The Gospel
of John was among the first of these new Gospels, along with the Gospel
of Thomas and the Gnostic Gospels. In these Gospels Jesus’s message is more
consistent, and there are no prophetic blunders. Jesus doesn’t repeat any of
his past mistakes and the new message is mystical in nature.
The historic
crisis that was created by Jesus’s prophecies, and the need for a reformation,
is reflected in the Epistle of 2 Peter, chapter 3. Here the writer—posing as
the Apostle Peter—warns about certain trouble-makers who began to disbelieve
the prophecies, saying:
“Where
is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep all things
continue as they were…”
This passage refers to the Apostles (“fathers”)
who died without witnessing the coming of the Son of man as Jesus promised in
Matthew 16:28,
“Truly
I say unto you, There be some standing here which shall not taste death, till
they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
The author of 2
Peter proposes a solution to this problem (and in doing so shows that he is not
Peter, for if Peter was alive then there would be no reason to dis-believe).
This ‘solution’ appears in 2 Peter 3:8,
“But
beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise…”
Our writer implies
that Jesus was somehow misunderstood, and that one day to Jesus is a thousand
years. However, this is not what Jesus promised to Peter in Matthew 16:28 or
Clearly Jesus
issued prophecies that never came to pass. And 2 Peter 3 shows how this became
a problem and how the end time prophecies were re-interpreted. Instead of “this
generation” the time-span for fulfillment is measured in thousands of years.
And then in the Gospel of John the end time prophecies are deleted altogether,
and Jesus proclaims instead that the “kingdom” is spiritual like the blowing
wind (John 3:5–8).
Again, I think
that the failed prophecies and corresponding revisions of the Gospel message
show that the original earliest Christian message was uttered by a fallible
historical figure—a certain man named Jesus.
Next I would like
to show another example of where the Gospel message has been revised, in order
to correct an original message which proved to be too limited for the needs of
a later following.
This can be seen
in the difference between Matthew chapters 10, 24 and 28.
In Matthew 10
Jesus first sends out his twelve disciples. He tells them to avoid the gentiles
and to preach the Gospel to the “lost sheep of the house of
But then in
Matthew 24:14 the message undergoes a change. It now says that
“This
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all
nations, then shall the end come.” (emphasis added)
This new form of
the message is repeated at the end of Matthew 28:19f., where the risen Jesus
commands his followers:
“Go
ye then and teach all nations… I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world.” (Mk. 16:15, Lk. 24:47)
Certainly these
latter statements are in contrast with what can be regarded as the earlier
stratum of Jesus’s message, which was directed to the “lost sheep of the house
of
There is also a
noticeable change in that, in the earlier stratum, Jesus prophesies about the imminent
coming of the “Son of man.” He need not be referring to himself, but to another
figure. But as the story evolves and is subject to changes in the message, the
Son of man and Jesus appear to be merged into the same figure; whereas the
original, historical Jesus may not have been referring to himself at all. Thus
the original Jesus was simply a Jewish teacher and prophet who spoke of another
figure he referred to as the “Son of man.” This is developed into a heavenly
redeemer figure who has a message for all nations. (There are also two distinct
theologies in Matthew which I document in part II of this series.)
If what I say is
true then how is it possible that a failed prophet can come to be worshipped as
a redeemer figure?
Jesus’s leap into
immortality and deity happened as the result of his crucifixion, after being
condemned by Jewish priests for sedition. I subscribe to the theory held by
some scholars that Jesus did not actually die on the cross, but “swooned” [3].
There are also some matters or speculation involved, and which I will not waste
much time on. It’s possible that Pilate and the Roman soldiers did not really
regard Jesus as a threat. Thus out of contempt for the Jewish priests they went
easy on the flogging, and let him down from the cross before he could die. It’s
even possible that these soldiers were bribed to do this by Jesus’s wealthy supporters,
such as Joseph of Arimathea. (At any rate we cannot rely on the four Gospels as
evidence that Jesus died, anymore than these records can prove that Jesus rose
from the dead.)
The result was
that Jesus turned up alive after the crucifixion; which led many of his
followers (many being simple folk) to believe that Jesus was divine. Jesus in
turn fled the Roman realm, but told his followers that he would return.
There are many
legends in the East, in Brahmin and Buddhist sources about a certain “Jesus” or
“Yuz Asaf” (Jesus the Gatherer) who traveled in
With Jesus gone,
his followers were free to let their imaginations run wild. Jesus went from
being a simple apocalyptic prophet, preaching about the Son of man, into
becoming a new redeemer, a manifestation of the Godhead. Jews, Catholics and
Gnostics have all placed their spin on who Jesus was and what he represented.
All of these elements can be found in the four Gospels, all of which were
written at a later time, and contain multiple, conflicting elements. In part II
of this series I showed where the Gospels show a Jewish Jesus who commands his
followers to obey the Law of Moses, while in other passages Jesus overturns the
Law on behalf of a God which cannot be connected with Moses (e.g. cf. Mt.
5:17–19, 38ff., 48; Lk. 4:8, 6:35) link.
Again I have to
express my doubt that failed prophecies can be consistent with a purely
mythical and divine figure. Failed prophecies are the tangible products of real
people. The Jesus we know from our religious traditions is the product of
imagination and/or inspiration. In this case Jesus has become the
figurehead of various sectarian movements. It will come as no surprise to my
readers that I believe that the Gnostic tradition of Jesus is the wealthiest of
all such traditions [5]. But we must remember that in Gnostic tradition Jesus
is a symbolic figure. In Gnostic texts profound wisdom is attributed to Jesus.
Whether or not someone named “Jesus” actually said those things is irrelevant.
The Gnostic “Jesus” is a symbol of the ineffable God and the ineffable Name. He
is a symbol of the God above god and a higher plan for salvation, which we
receive through gnosis. Let us not fall into the Catholic error of
confusing Jesus with a real person—because that real person has nothing to
offer us other than the botched prophecies of a Jewish prophet, as preserved in
Matthew 10. This is where the true “Jesus” can be found. —jw
Notes
1] In part I, I
showed that the four New Testament Gospels contradict each other in regard to
critical details of Jesus’s life and teaching link. In part II, I showed that the NT Gospels
contain contradictory theologies; thereby demonstrating that some texts are
composite link. In part III, I showed that the Gnostic
secret teachings of Jesus are inconsistent, and include some notable irreconcilable
differences link. Thus even Gnostics don’t agree on what
Jesus taught. In part IV, I explored the mystical aspect of the Gospel as
portrayed in Gnostic literature, and which I feel is lacking in the NT Gospels
(but is preserved in Paul) link. I do believe that the Gnostic texts
preserve a spiritual legacy that has been suppressed in both the “orthodox”
church and the New Testament. But here again I remain doubtful that these Gnostic
texts document historical facts regarding an historical Jesus.
2] See my article
Gnostic Enigmas in the Gospel of John link.
3] Wikipedia
provides an excellent summary of the “Swoon” theory as well as speculation
about the presence of Jesus in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swoon_hypothesis
4] Author Holger
Kersten manages to provide some documentation is his rambling book Jesus
Lived in India. The Ahmadiyya Muslim sect of
5] See my article
Orthodoxy, Heresy & Jesus, IV: The Fullness of the Gospel link.
By James M. West.
Copyright © January 18, 2010.
All Rights Reserved.
E-mail:
ogdood@yahoo.com