Did Jesus Exist?

Did Jesus Exist?
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Evidence for Jesus
(1) Paul
Galatians 1:19 is perhaps the strongest evidence for Jesus’ existence but one should not neglect the rest of the evidence from Paul which confirms that he construed of Jesus as having lived a human life on earth before his resurrection to heaven. It would be a misreading of Paul to consider that he only thought of Jesus as ὁ ἐπουράνιος ἄνθρωπος “heavenly man” (as in 1 Corinthians 15:47-48) and that the drama of his life and death took place solely in the heavenly realm, as a mythicist reading may entail. The whole of 1 Corinthians 15 is built on an opposition between the earthly and the heavenly, with the resurrection transforming into heavenly what had been earthly, natural, and perishable (see especially v. 42-44). Paul says that Jesus was the firstfruits of all who would be raised and so was a man like all who would be raised after him (v. 20-22), who thus would have had a similar corruptible body when he died. He elsewhere says that if the earthly body is destroyed one has a heavenly body in the resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:1), where we find the same opposition in play. Now keeping in mind the idea that Jesus was the firstfruits of the resurrection, consider how Paul described the resurrection of those who come after Jesus. He describes those who had died in Christ as first waking at the trumpet call of God and then they would ascend into the clouds to “meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). With respect to Jesus’ own death, after he died on a cross God exalted him to the highest place (Philippians 2:8-9), which as we read elsewhere is in heaven at God’s right hand (Romans 8:34; cf. Colossians 3:1). There is also a contrast in Romans 10:6-7 between descending to the depths and ascending into heaven with respect to bringing Christ up from the dead. So all this shows that Paul conceived of Jesus as currently dwelling in the heavenly sphere (1 Corinthians 15:48, Philippians 3:20) but that he died on earth just like all those who would follow him in the resurrection. And indeed there is no precedent in Judaism for death (or for that matter capital punishment) occurring in heaven where the beings of heaven were usually described as immortal and undying (cf. 1 Enoch 15:3, 6-7), much less a death by crucifixion which was practiced by the Romans specifically (1 Corinthians 1:23, Galatians 3:1, Philippians 2:8).
So despite his use of spiritual language, Paul does seem to construe of Jesus as having lived and died on earth. This is confirmed by his references to Jesus’ birth. The phrase ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα in Romans 1:3, on account of OT parallels, would be imo referring to Jesus’ ancestry from David. Paul elsewhere uses κατὰ σάρκα in terms of kinship and procreation. In Romans 9:3 he referred to kinsmen according to the flesh (συγγενῶν κατὰ σάρκα), i.e. those of his race. Two verses later he referred to Jesus’ fleshly descent or ancestry from the patriarchs (οἱ πατέρες ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα). In 1 Corinthians 10:18 he used Ἰσραὴλ κατὰ σάρκα to refer to the people of Israel. Most interesting is the contrast Paul makes in Galatians 4. In the allegory of Hagar and Sarah, he contrasted the son of the slave born according to the flesh (κατὰ σάρκα γεγέννηται) with the son of the free woman through a promise (δι’ ἐπαγγελίας), and later he contrasted the person born according to the flesh (κατὰ σάρκα γεννηθεὶς) with the one born according to the Spirit (4:18, 29). The promise referred to here is divine sonship via adoption (υἱοθεσίαν) mentioned in v. 5, so being born κατὰ σάρκα is here implicitly placed in opposition to being adopted as sons (= born of Sarah, i.e. heavenly Jerusalem). So it seems much more natural to read ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα as referring to Jesus’ ancestry from David in the ordinary biological sense. Indeed in Galatians 4:4, Paul says that Jesus is the Son of God sent forth (ἐξαπέστειλεν) by God to be born by a woman (γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός) and born under the Law (γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον). Paul emphasizes here Jesus’ mother because it sets up the contrast he would elaborate in the Hagar and Sarah allegory. When Paul says that Jesus was born “under the Law”, he means that like other Jews Jesus was born a slave (see δοῦλος in v.7 and ἐδουλεύσατε in v. 8-9). Hagar is referred to as a slave woman (παιδίσκης) in v. 22-23 and those who are born of her are born in slavery to the Law. Saying that Jesus was born by a woman under the Law thus conveys that he was born like all other Jews from the slave woman Hagar. So not only did Jesus die on earth from a form of capital punishment practiced by the Romans, but he was born as a Jew like all others under the Law.
However Jesus is compared to Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45, and though Adam as the first human was certainly conceived as earthly, he was also mythical and not a historical figure. Fictional figures can have a this-worldly life story, such as Enoch who was a figure from the distant past who inspired a massive body of literature in Second Temple Judaism, depicted as preaching warnings to the sinners, writing an epistle (The Epistle of Enoch), and he was taken to be a very influential figure in Enochic and Essene Judaism, with for example the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs depicting the sons of Jacob as urging their offspring to heed the words of Enoch. He even had an otherworldly life, taken up to heaven, even glorified as the eschatological Son of Man (Book of Parables), Metatron (2 Enoch), or even a lesser YHWH (3 Enoch). Does Paul conceive of Jesus as being a legendary figure from the distant past like Enoch, or Moses, or Elijah? No, he portrays Jesus as a contemporary whose death occurred in Paul’s lifetime. He said that the first to have an appearance of the risen Christ after the crucifixion was Cephas, whom he elsewhere described as a contemporary who he had knew rather well personally (1 Corinthians 15:4-5, Galatians 1:18, 2:9, 11). Paul also gives no hint of a significant delay between Jesus’ death and Cephas’ experience and he indicates that he had his own experience only after Cephas, James, and the other apostles had their experiences. This means that he thought of Jesus as a contemporary of Cephas and James, and thus, a contemporary of himself as well. Also Paul suggests in Galatians 1-2 and 2 Corinthians 11:32-33 that he had his first experience of Jesus in the 30s CE, probably sometime in the first half of the decade. This occurred after his efforts persecuting the Jesus movement; Paul said he was laying waste (πορθέω) to the church (Galatians 1:13, 23), and while this may be hyperbole it is suggestive of the Jesus movement being so small that the efforts of one man could so ravage it. All of this evidence suggests that the Jesus movement started in the relative recent past, in the lifetimes of Cephas, Paul, and James, with the execution of Jesus occurring close in time to the appearances, with the early 30s being the most likely time in light of the chronological indications that Paul gives for his own experience. This period corresponds to the period when Pilate governed Judea as prefect. A time when a Roman form of execution makes sense. And Paul makes reference to James, a man he knew personally very well, as Jesus’ brother (Galatians 1:19), so if James is taken to be historical by the witness of Paul, so should his brother as well.
Mythicists may respond by saying that (a) Paul thinks Jesus was an angel in Galatians 4.14 which is something Ehrman agrees, (b) Paul thinks Jesus existed before he took on a human form (Philippians 2.6-11). Again, this is also something Ehrman thinks, not just mythicists. Paul thinks Jesus was murdered by demons. (1 Corinthians 2.6-8). And because the epistles are the oldest source of information we have about Christianity, that means the earliest belief in Jesus that we know of, is a belief in a pre-existent angel who was crucified by demons. (c) It seems Jesus was only named Jesus when he died. (Phillipians 2.9-10), (d) Paul only knows Jesus died because he read that in scripture. (1 Corinthians 15.4), (e) The way Paul talks about Jesus doesn’t fit the gospel narratives that well. He talks about the Lord’s supper, not the last supper (1 Corinthians 11.17-34 ). He talks about the coming of the Lord, not the return of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4.15). The idea that Jesus walked around on earth just a few years/decades earlier doesn’t seem to occur to him. He talks about apostles only, there are no disciples in the epistles. And Cephas/Peter is not part of the ‘Twelve’ in 1 Corinthians 15:5, so those twelve can’t be the disciples from the gospels.
So a response would be: none of these points really contest the central contention that Paul conceived of Jesus as having a real earthly life which ended in death on a cross, as he indicated in a variety of ways. As you note, Paul had a concept of Jesus’ heavenly preexistence, such that Jesus’ birth is conceptualized as the Father sending his Son, who must divest himself of his divine glory to live as a man (Galatians 4:4, Romans 8:3, Philippians 2:9-10). The prior heavenly existence of the Son (whether as an angel or some other divine being) does not entail that Paul thought Jesus’ life solely occurred in a heavenly, spiritual realm. Rather Paul was applying to Jesus an existing three-part incarnation theme that later appears in the gospel of John (existed as heavenly divine Logos with the Father -> became flesh and lived and died in first century CE Judea -> returned to the Father in heaven). A pre-Christian example of this schema can be found in the Book of Parables: “Wisdom did not find a place where she might dwell, so her dwelling was in the heavens. Wisdom went forth to dwell among the sons of men, but she did not find a dwelling. Wisdom returned to her place and sat down in the midst of the angels” (1 Enoch 42:1-2). Here we find the same descent -> life among men -> ascent theme. Paul used similar mythical language to describe Jesus’ divine preexistence, but his use of this language did not mean he thought that Jesus did not live as a human being; he said exactly the opposite. Another example of this incarnation schema can be found in the Prayer of Joseph (first century CE). The patriarch Jacob, the ancestor of the Jewish people, is the firstborn of every living thing (πρωτόγονος παντὸς ζῴου), an archangel and chief captain among the sons of God, who says he “descended to earth and … tabernacled among men, called by the name of Jacob”. The father of the nation is given a divine prehistory but he still lived among men, not in the heavens only. Paul and Christians like him took this incarnation schema and applied it to a particular person in recent memory, giving him a divine backstory. The idea that some people were actually gods in human form was a common one in the Hellenistic period (see for instance Josephus, Antiquitates 18.65-80, Suetonius, Caligula 22, Acts 14:11-13; cf. the emperor Nero as a son of Zeus and Hera in Sibylline Oracles 5.138-142 and as an incarnation of Beliar in Ascension of Isaiah 4:1-4), so it is not too surprising to see Paul ascribe to Jesus a divine origin that was commonly believed to apply to emperors and other important men, though he was probably more influenced by Jewish ideas (such as Philo of Alexandria’s concept of the divine Logos) than pagan ones.
With respect to 1 Corinthians 2:6-8, οἱ ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου (the rulers of this age) probably includes both human and supernatural powers. In Romans 13:1-3 ἄρχοντες refers to the human authorities (ἐξουσίαις) instituted by God and in 1 Corinthians 15:24, Christ would bring to an end (καταργήσῃ) all dominion and authority (ἀρχὴν καὶ ἐξουσίαν) when he hands the kingdom over to God. The verb καταργέω is also used of the “rulers of this age” in 1 Corinthians 2:8, so Paul is probably thinking of all powers of the world order — both earthly and spiritual. Note that the “rulers of this age” in v. 6 have “the wisdom of the age” (σοφίαν τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου) which directly follows the mention of human wisdom (σοφίᾳ ἀνθρώπων) in the preceding verse. It is this human wisdom that misleads them into crucifying the Lord of glory in v. 8. Since Paul had already just said that Jews and Gentiles both misunderstand the meaning of crucifixion on account of their human wisdom (1:22-25), the resumption of this theme in 2:8 probably has in view those humans who performed the crucifixion. At the same time, cosmic powers are also probably in view, who also lack the wisdom that God has concealed. Indeed οἱ ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου is similar to ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου in 2 Corinthians 4:4 which shares with the other text the theme of God’s wisdom being hidden, and here the reference is clearly to Satan. It is also similar to ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου in John 12:31-33, 14:30-31, 16:7-11 which also pertains to Satan. Paul conceived of the world as enslaved to the demonic powers (Galatians 4:3, 9; cf. Colossians 2:8-20), and 2 Corinthians 4:4 describes Satan as blinding the minds of unbelievers, so even if Paul was only thinking of supernatural powers in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8, it does not mean that they were the ones crucifying Jesus as opposed to those under their control. It bears pointing out that both 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 and 2 Corinthians 4:4 mention the powers in relation to “this age” (αἰῶνος τούτου), which Paul earlier used in 1 Corinthians 1:20 in reference to the world (and again in 3:18-19); implicitly the crucifixion is something that occurred in the earthly domain, in this world (compare also ὁ αἰών τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος τούτου πονηροῦ “the current evil age” in Galatians 1:4).
Philippians 2:9-10 does not in fact say that the name that Jesus was given upon his exaltation was “Jesus”. It is typically understood that the name is κύριος as the name of God in the OT, as indicated by the allusion to Isaiah 45:23 LXX. See for instance Bert-Jan Peerbolte’s article “The Name Above All Names” in The Revelation of the Name YHWH to Moses (Brill, 2006), who notes: “There can be no doubt that this ‘Name above all names’ is not the name ‘Jesus’ (l. 15), but ultimately refers to the divine name YHWH….The phrase refers to the title ‘Lord’, which is used in the LXX as an equivalent for the divine Hebrew name YHWH. The reworking of LXX Isa 45:23 in the Christ hymn points out that the bestowal of the ‘Name above all names’ effects in a high status for Jesus Christ: God has made Christ equal to himself. Thus, the terminology of the ‘Name’ of God was used in the early Christ movement in an interpretation of Jesus’ death as that of a righteous martyr who was vindicated by God to a state of heavenly glory immediately after his death” (pp. 201, 206).
Paul does not say that he only knew that Jesus died because he had read it in scripture. He says that he had received (παρέλαβον) the gospel which he passed onto the Corinthians and that the content of this gospel is that Jesus died and was resurrected in accordance with what the Scriptures say (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Earlier Paul wrote that he received his gospel from God via divine revelation (Galatians 1:11-12, 16). But Paul also says that he was the last (ἔσχατον) to encounter the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:8), and that Cephas and James had preceded him, and he mentioned that the church was already in existence before he received his revelation (Galatians 1:13). Since he was zealous about persecuting the church, he probably already knew something about what they teach that he found offensive. 1 Corinthians 1:23 says that we preach Christ crucified (ἡμεῖς δὲ κηρύσσομεν χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον) which is a stumbling block (σκάνδαλον) for Jews, and Paul was likely speaking from personal experience here, having found the Christian claim that the Lord had been crucified scandalous and offensive. So he probably already knew something of the claims prior to his conversion. But the revelation showed him that the claims were true and that they had been prophesied. According to Hunter,
- Paul also knew something of Christ’s teaching. Four times in the epistles he alludes to ‘Words of the Lord’ (I Cor. 7.10, 9.14, 11.23-5; I Thess. 4.15-17). These four passages do not exhaust his know- ledge of what Jesus had said. Other sayings ofJesus are sometimes inserted tacitly in the hortatory sections of his epistles. Suffice it now to say that I Thess. 5 and Rom. 12 warrant the conclusion that Paul had not only yielded to the inspiration ofJesus, but had given careful study to the tradition of his teaching and based his own ethic on a profound understanding of it.’ (Paul and his Predecessors, pg
(2) Scholarly consensus and other papers Mythicism (i.e. the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was not a historical figure) has next-to-zero support in the scholarly community. According to Bart Ehrman (one of the most prominent New Testament scholars alive today), “the view that Jesus existed is held by virtually every expert on the planet” (2012, p. 4). The late Maurice Casey was somewhat more blunt, putting the matter thusly:
- [The] whole idea that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical figure is verifiably false. […] It belongs in the fantasy lives of people who used to be fundamentalist Christians. They did not believe in critical scholarship then, and they do not do so now. (2014, p. 243)
Papers that refute mythicists such as Richard Carrier:

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(3) Fantastical claims made about Jesus in the gospels
There are alot of fantasy-like claims of Jesus in the gospels, such as walking on water, etc. If you look at characters who appear in ancient Greco-Roman, as well as Jewish literature and who have similar claims made about them, you’ll see they fall into two categories:
- characters depicted as living in a very distant past (e.g. in case of the Greeks, before or around the Trojan war).
- characters depicted living in a more recent history, including characters depicted as living in 1st century.
And interestingly enough, only people in the first category are all fictional while people in the second category who have these fantastical stories told about them are virtually all historical. People in antiquity were just not in a habit of inventing completely new gods and depicting them as living in recent history and interacting with known historical figures. But they absolutely were in a habit of making these claims about historical people.
Example: This article by Miller (https://www.jstor.org/stable/25765965) about how an empty tomb was a perfectly common Greco-Roman literary trope to indicate that a person disappeared to heaven to live among the gods. He lists several dozens relevant parallels to Jesus. Write all of them down, then for each one, write when they are depicted as living and then whether they are historical people or ficitonal characters. And you’ll see a nearly perfect patter – distant past = mythical, recent history = historical.

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(4) Criterion of embarassment Nobody would make up the idea of the crucified Messiah. That’s extremely embarrassing because Jews did not view the Davidic Messiah to die, they viewed him to a militant who would restore Israel back to justice. Ex: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nt-pod-54-the-horror-of-crucifixion/id319974061?i=1000093203583

Good debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzjYmpwbHEA (Bart Ehrman makes the same point)

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(5) Other arguments by scholars (edited)
Daniel Gullotta:
- While kinship language is used in the Pauline literature, as well as the rest of the New Testament, there is solid evidence to affirm James was the biological brother of Jesus. By examining the introductions and conclusions of Paul’s various letters, we find no one else, besides James, being singled out as ‘the brother of the Lord [τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Kυρίου]’. Names that do appear across multiple letters, such as Cephas [Peter], Barnabas, Titus, or anyone else, are more typically singled out as a ‘fellow worker in Christ’ or ‘worker in the Lord’ or as other apostles. Furthermore, in the examples that we do have of Christians being labeled as brothers, namely, Timothy (2 Cor 1.1; Phil 1.1; Col 1:1), Sosthenes (1 Cor 1.1.), Apollos (1 Col 16.12), and Quartus (Rom 16.23), they are never given a title so pronounced as ‘the brother of the Lord’. It is also important to note James’ significance within Paul’s letters. In Galatians, the James with whom Paul met in Jerusalem carries enough influence to be recognized as a ‘pillar’ (Gal. 2:9) and commands enough respect to have men ‘belong’ to him in Antioch (Gal 2.12). Clearly, this evokes a significant authoritative distinction between James and the rest of the Christian brotherhood, a difference easily explained if ‘brother of the Lord’ signaled his familial ties to Jesus. More problematic for Carrier’s reading is James’ ongoing influence within the early church and the legacy of James’ authority within the developing early Christian tradition. After all, if James was not the brother of Jesus, why does Paul highlight his encounter with him in Gal 1.19? Moreover, if James was just another common Christian brother, why would Paul give James a special distinction when listing those who have had a Christophany, when Jesus was reported to appear to ‘five hundred brothers’? Given James’ apparent lack of apostolic status and the fact that he received his Christophany later than other supposed brothers, how does he have the authority or influence to have men represent him in Antioch?87 Likewise, if Cephas was the first to receive a Christophany, why would James’ name appear before his in Paul’s account of the Jerusalem Council?
[9:24 PM]And later,
- Additionally, Carrier’s argument fails to justify why early and widely circulated Christian tradition maintained that Jesus had siblings, one of whom was named James.When the evidence for James is considered all together— Paul’s reference to James as ‘the brother of the Lord’, the level of authority he commanded within the Jerusalem church, his distinction from the twelve, the apostles, and the other brethren to whom Christ appeared, as well as the wellestablished tradition that James was Jesus’ brother—it renders Carrier’s interpretation inadequate. Given the sources, the most logical explanation is that James was the brother of Jesus and that this familial connection permitted him great status and influence within the early church. (Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus December, 2017)
Further, as Esler writes,
- As far as oral exchanges are concerned, it is useful to note the results of research by J.Pitt-Rivers. A person commits his honour to what he says, for example by way of a statement of past events or a promise as to the future, only if his words represent his sincere intentions, ‘If his true will was not behind the promise or the assertion, then he is not dishonoured if he fails to fulfil the promise or turns out to have lied’ (Pitt-Rivers 1965:32–33). This means that a man can lie and deceive without forfeiting his honour and this is very often seen in the way members of one group treat another. In John’s Gospel, for example, Jesus apparently lies to his brothers (7.1–10). When they suggest he should go up to Jerusalem for the feast of Tents (7.3–4) he says he is not going to (7.6–8) and then goes up secretly (7.10). No dishonour can be attributed to Jesus, however, because although they were his natural kin they did not have faith in him (7.5). Accordingly, they were not members of his group and he had no duty to tell them the truth. None of this means that you cannot call a man a liar in public, but you can only do so if you can demonstrate that he previously committed his honour to the accuracy of the statement or promise; otherwise, you run the risk of making a fool of yourself by having been deceived. One way to try to get round this problem and to tie a person to the truth of his statements is to obtain an oath from him: By invoking that which is sacred to him—his god, the bones of saints, his loyalty to his sovereign, the health of his mother or simply his honour—he activates a curse against himself in the eventuality of his failure to implement his oath or, at least, he ensures that public opinion is entided (sic) to judge him as dishonoured. (Pitt-Rivers 1965:34) (Philip Esler, Galatians (1998)New Testament Readings Edited by John Court University of Kent at Canterbury, pg 129)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/abs/more-ingenious-than-learned-examining-the-quest-for-the-nonhistorical-jesus/B1A4799BE91AB5300671D4013194DD4C

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Evidence for Mythicism
(1) Mythicists on James and the Brothers
Mythicists will frequently argue that whenever Paul references “brothers of Jesus” they mean “brother” in a strictly spiritual sense. A sort of title of sorts that all Christians hold. Ehrman addresses this in the chapter Two Key Data for the Historicity of Jesus in his aforementioned book:
“I need to say something further about the brothers of Jesus. I pointed out in an earlier chapter that Paul knows that “the brothers of the Lord” were engaged in Christian missionary activities (1 Corinthians 9:5), and we saw there that Paul could not be using the term brothers in some kind of loose, spiritual sense (we’re all brothers and sisters, or all believers are “brothers” in Christ). Paul does frequently use the term brothers in this metaphorical way when addressing the members of his congregations. But when he speaks of “the brothers of the Lord” in 1 Corinthians 9:5, he is differentiating them both from himself and from Cephas. That would make no sense if he meant the term loosely to mean “believers in Jesus” since he and Cephas too would be in that broader category. And so he means something specific, not something general, about these missionaries. They are Jesus’s actual brothers, who along with Cephas and Paul were engaged in missionary activities. The same logic applies to what Paul has to say in Galatians 1:18-19. When he says that along with Cephas, the only apostle he saw was “James, the brother of the Lord,” he could not mean the term brother in a loose generic sense to mean “believer.” Cephas was also a believer, and so were the other apostles. And so he must mean it in the specific sense. This is Jesus’s actual brother.” “The main problem with this view is that when the New Testament talks about Jesus’s brothers, it uses the Greek word that literally refers to a male sibling. There is a different Greek word for cousin. This other word is not used of James and the others. A plain and straightforward reading of the texts in the Gospels and in Paul leads to an unambiguous result: these “brothers” of Jesus were his actual siblings. Since neither Mark (which first mentions Jesus having four brothers and several sisters; 6:3) nor Paul gives any indication at all of knowing anything about Jesus being born of a virgin, the most natural assumption is that they both thought that Jesus’s parents were his real parents. They had sexual relations, and Jesus was born. And then (later?) came other children to the happy couple. And so Jesus’s brothers were his actual brothers. Paul knows one of these brothers personally. It is hard to get much closer to the historical Jesus than that. If Jesus never lived, you would think that his brother would know about it.”
Now Richard Carrier, possibly the most well known mythicist scholar, has responded to this by attempting to say a “brother of the Lord” was specifically a baptized Christian that was also not an apostle. But of course, Ehrman responded to this response (here) saying that 1. There is absolutely no evidence for this definition of “brother” (specifically excluding apostles) among early Christians. Carrier simply made that up because otherwise it undercuts his theory. And 2. I’ll let Ehrman take it away:
- “But there is even a stronger argument that this unusual definition cannot be right. It involves what Paul actually says in Galatians 1:18-19. I’m afraid this is a killer from Carrier’s argument. Recall Paul’s exact words […] Whom did Paul visit and see? Cephas. And no other apostle EXCEPT James the Lord’s brother. In other words, James is the only other apostle Paul saw, except Cephas. He is telling us that James is an apostle. But he is also the Lord’s brother. And so Carrier’s definition (brother = baptized person not an apostle) simply doesn’t work. What differentiates James from Cephas is not that he, unlike Cephas, is a non-apostle. What differentiates him from Cephas is the fact that he, unlike Cephas, is actually Jesus’ brother.”
(2) Paul uses Jesus’ death to refer to a spiritual crucifixion
- “Doherty proposes that archontes, the Greek word conventionally translated rulers’ above is ‘a technical term for the spirit forces, the “powers and authorities” who rule the lowest level of the heavenly world. He offers no evidence for it being a ‘technical term’, and I know of none. Moreover, he did manage to notice that ‘In both pagan and Jewish parlance, the word archontes could be used to refer to earthly rulers and those in authority (as in Romans 13:3). There is massive evidence for this, and this evidence shows clearly that it is not a ‘technical term’ for powers and authorities who ‘rule the lowest level of the heavenly world’. Doherty might have noted particularly ‘the rulers (archontes) of the Gentiles’ (Mt. 20.25); Pilate gathering together the chief priests and the rulers (archontas) and the people’ (Lk. 23.13); the rulers (archontes) mocking Jesus when he was being crucified (Lk. 23.35); Cleopas and an unnamed follower of Jesus telling him, as yet unrecognized after his Resurrection, that ‘the chief priests and our rulers (archontes) handed him over to the death sentence and crucified him’ (Lk. 24.20); Peter addressing the people and referring to them putting Jesus to death, saying, ‘I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers (archontas)’ (Acts 3.17); when ‘their rulers (archontas) and elders and scribes were gathered in Jerusalem’, including Caiaphas, Peter addressed them ‘rulers (archontes) of the people and elders’ (Acts 4.5, 6, 8); Peter and others applying to Jesus’ death part of Ps. 2, including the kings of the earth appeared, and the rulers (archontes) gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed’, which they decoded as ‘there really were gathered together in this city against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed Herod and Pontius Pilate’ (Acts 4. 26-7); and Paul preaching that ‘those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers (archontes)’, not realizing who he was and being ignorant of the scriptural prophecies of his death, ‘asked Pilate to have him done away with’ (Acts 13.27-8).” (p.190-191).
(3) Ascension of Isaiah
- The best source that Doherty and Carrier make frequent use of would be the Ascension of Isaiah. However, even that dates no earlier than the second century CE, despite the claims of Doherty and Carrier.
- “It should be obvious from this that the date of anything resembling the text of what we can now read is difficult to determine. Knibb makes the entirely reasonable suggestion that the Vision of Isaiah ‘comes from the second century CE’, and gives correct reasons for disputing attempts to date it any earlier. Schürer-Vermes-Millar, in a section primarily the responsibility of Vermes, likewise suggest that the Vision of Isaiah belongs probably to the second century A.D.’, while Charlesworth puts it ‘around the end of the second century A.D.’ This document too is therefore too late in date to form evidence of the cultural environment in which Paul wrote to his converts. Doherty, however, simply announces that a community wrote this ‘vision’ ‘probably towards the end of the 1s century CE’. There is no excuse for dating it so early, and it would still be too late for Paul,” (p.196).
Summary
He existed. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRoGs7mW/

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