Prominent Christian Scholar Admits: Christ Never Existed

[Valke2]

There’s a school of archeology called “minimalist” that seems to be thriving in Denmark. Essentially, it tends to downplay any evidence that things in the Bible actually happened and emphasize evidence it feels shows that things in the bible didn’t happen.

As a Jew, I’m more aware of this happening within the stories in the Torah and Prophets. It is a political tool that is being used to weaken any argument supporting Israel’s right to the land. ALthough the book mentioned here focuses on the Christian Bible, its coming from the same school of thought.

 

[CollegeKid]

There’s a school of archeology called “minimalist” that seems to be thriving in Denmark. Essentially, it tends to downplay any evidence that things in the Bible actually happened and emphasize evidence it feels shows that things in the bible didn’t happen.

As a Jew, I’m more aware of this happening within the stories in the Torah and Prophets. It is a political tool that is being used to weaken any argument supporting Israel’s right to the land. ALthough the book mentioned here focuses on the Christian Bible, its coming from the same school of thought.

Thank you. I appreciate learning this.

 

[Gamera]

Good point. Do you think Jesus believes in Thomas L. Thompson?

“Won’t you help me, Mister Jesus
Won’t you tell me if you can
When you see this world we live in
Do you still believe in man?”

– Black Sabbath, “The Thrill of It All”

 

[manualman]

Well, I see about a half dozen people responding. A couple in good humor (which is cool). Others talking about violence, mob actions and murder, simply in response to someone writing a book.

What’s most interesting is the fact that no one has read the book, and the group consensus seems to be that simply reading material which might question official doctrine is “bad” or “evil”. The author is implied to be stupid, mentally ill or deserving of physical harm – rather than mistaken or wrong on the facts.

This is a very cult like response. I honestly would never have guessed that Roman Catholics would display this reaction so prominently. It’s something I’d expect from Scientologists.

A more normal reaction would be for somebody to say, “I’ve read it, and in Chapter 2, the author says this, and if you look at that journal article you can see he’s not supported by his peers”.

Whether you guys know it or not, this is the way a normal discussion, with normal opponents progresses. It’s what I expected from Roman Catholics before I arrived here. Not what I got though.

Very, very interesting.

You rather badly misinterpret my post.

Let me try again another way. YOUR OP implied that since a titled university professor wrote a book denying the reality of Jesus and got it published, then we should all assume he is right until he is disproven. I, on the other hand, was merely pointing out that unlike the portions of the world NOT steeped in the morality of Christendom, our culture permits crackpots to speak their mind. That tolerance does not imply any extra validity to what said crackpot says.

You seem to imply that every malcontent deserves a scholarly response and attention. I disagree and deep inside, so do you. You’d not likely give the time of day to a whack job who published a book claiming the earth is flat, nor bother gracing him with a polite, scholarly response. A lone scholar defying the entire historic community on the reality of a historical Jesus deserves no more attention than the flat earth club.

 

[Contarini]

Anyone here read this book? What did you think?

eden.co.uk/shop/messiah-myth-1006740.html

**Since the eighteenth century, scholars and historians studying the texts of the Bible have attempted to distil historical facts and biography from the mythology and miracles described there. That trend continues into the present day, as scholars dissect the gospels and other early Christian writings to separate the ‘Jesus of history’ from the ‘Christ of faith’. But in The Messiah Myth Thomas L. Thompson argues that the quest for the historical Jesus is beside the point, since the Jesus of the gospels never existed.

Like King David before him, the Jesus of the Bible is an amalgamation of themes from Near Eastern mythology and traditions of kingship and divinity. The theme of a messiah – a divinely appointed king who restores the world to perfection – is typical of Egyptian and Babylonian royal ideology dating back to the Bronze Age. In Thompson’s view, the contemporary audience for whom the Old and New Testament were written would naturally have interpreted David and Jesus not as historical figures, but as metaphors embodying long-established messianic traditions. Challenging widely held assumptions about the sources of the Bible and the quest for the historical Jesus, The Messiah Myth is sure to spark controversy and heated debate.**

About the author:
Thomas L. Thompson (born Jan 7, 1939 in Detroit Michigan) is a biblical theologian who lives in Denmark and is now a Danish citizen.

Thompson obtained a B.A. from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1962, and his PhD at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1976. He has held positions at the University of Dayton (instructor), Detroit (assistant professor), Tuebingen (research associate), École Biblique (visiting professor), Lawrence University (visiting associate professor), and Marquette University (associate professor), and is presently professor at the University of Copenhagen (since 1993). He was named a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in 1988. He is general editor for the Equinox Press monograph series Copenhagen International Seminar and associate editor of the “Scandinavian Journal for the Old Testament,” and serves on the editorial boards of the journals “Holy Land Studies” and “Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift”.[1]

Interesting. This is the same guy who is credited with demolishing Albright’s arguments for the historicity of the patriarchal narratives. As a non-specialist in this field, I have not read Thompson’s book on that subject (though I’ve glanced at it) but have never found the arguments against Albright’s position to be compelling in summary (they seem to rest on the assumption that if we can possibly explain evidence pointing to historicity in any other way, then historicity can be dismissed).

And as a fairly conservative Christian with a strong bias (naturally) against what Thompson is arguing, I might hope that the extremism of this most recent position will cause OT scholars to go back and re-examine his earlier and now generally accepted arguments against the historicity of Genesis. But I’m not holding my breath!

At any rate, it can certainly be said that Thompson has based his life’s work on demolishing arguments for the historicity of the Bible. Apparently he lost his job at Marquette over this (so much for Catholic universities not taking action against scholars who question the faith!).

Edwin

 

[manualman]

Edwin is too nice to call him a crackpot in so few words!

 

[Contarini]

It’s not just a matter of being “nice,” it’s a matter of professional respect. The man is a credentialed scholar in his field. I’m a credentialed scholar in a different field (church history). We are both part of the broader scholarly guild, and I am not an expert in his specific field. Therefore, I am not going to dismiss what he says without having read it, and I am certainly not going to pontificate about something in which I lack expertise.

I can say that I find the general line of argument as I understand it to be unconvincing. But I have no wish or qualification to call Prof. Thompson a crackpot.

You may find this approach elitist (since if a nonscholar made the same argument, I’d be much readier to call him a crackpot). I do not consider “elitism” to be always a bad thing, if it simply means that people who have credentials within a professional guild are worthy of a certain degree of respect and attention (but not of uncritical acceptance).

Edwin

 

[Cosmo23]

I think people earn respect through actions of charity and compassion, not just because they’ve earned some degree. And elitism always leads to opression by the elite to the “average person”. Elitism is never good!!

 

[mchale]

The basic reason I see little point in actually reading this work is that he (and as far as I can tell the other proponents of Jesus as Myth) approaches the question of Jesus as an historical figure from a fundamentally non-historical perspective. Instead the general trend in works like these is to show that the Gospel Narrative and the Pauline Epistles portray a Jesus that has much in common with mythological figures and therefore, Jesus cannot himself be real.

There are two problems with this approach:

1. It essentially requires that multiple sources of information must be viewed as fiction or forgery.
2. The technique, if applied more broadly, could be used to disregard other figures that are generally considered to be historical. Imagine for example, historians arguing that Julius Caesar could not be historical because his ability to win battles against overwhelming odds was similar to Alexander’s?

The other problem that disregarding Jesus as an historical figure creates is that it requires a new reason to explain the actions of Paul and the Apostles (whom I have never seen anyone argue were really myths). The apostles were Jewish from an area where Judaism predominated; Galilee and Judea simply were not areas that were fertile for the development of mystery religions. That one should develop and more so that its first proponents should mostly preach it until their own martyrdom suggests a powerful unifying experience. If Jesus did not exist as that experience, the skeptic must propose an alternate mechanism.

The vast majority of scholars, particularly historians, still believe that Jesus was an historical person. Until that fact changes, I see little reason to worry about it.

–
Bill

 

[Contarini]

I think people earn respect through actions of charity and compassion, not just because they’ve earned some degree.

Unfortunately, charity and compassion are separate qualities from intellectual depth. There are many wonderful, loving people who couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag. And there are many brilliant people who are–well, people one can’t describe accurately without getting banned from a decent forum like this one!

And elitism always leads to opression by the elite to the “average person”. Elitism is never good!!

Do you carry this through consistently? Would you listen to my views on medical matters as readily as to those of a qualified doctor? Would you trust my word on how to build a space shuttle as readily as those of a scientist who worked for NASA?

Even when experts are often wrong, we still listen to them. We don’t take their words uncritically, but we do take them seriously. For instance, we all make jokes about the unreliability of weather prediction. But most of us still check the weather forecast, and we would put more stock in what a qualified meteorologist said than in what some random guy said based on a hunch.

You can call that oppression if you like. I call it convenient!

Edwin

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

I never heard of Thomas L. Thompson, thus he is not even near to being “prominent”. Maybe, in line with, demons saying “Paul I know, but who in the heck are you?” In fact, Thomas L. Thompson does not even show up in worldcat, nor melcat.

 

[Contarini]

IIn fact, Thomas L. Thompson does not even show up in worldcat

Yes, he does.

“Prominent” is relative. He’s not a household name, but he’s a senior scholar in his field with one very influential book to his credit (and others–including I suspect this one–whose value is more contested).

The most questionable aspect of the OP is the combination of “Christian” and “admits.” I do not know what Thompson’s ecclesiastical affiliation is (the fact that he taught at Marquette does not mean that he is or ever was Catholic), but it does not appear that he is a Christian in any sense that would render his recent book an “admission.” It seems that most of his career has been dedicated to disproving the historicity of the Bible. It’s not an admission but an assertion.

Edwin

 

[Joe_Kelley]

. . with one very influential book to his credit (and others–including I suspect this one–whose value is more contested). . . .

Dan Brown also has several influential books to his credit, [or discredit].

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Interesting. This is the same guy who is credited with demolishing Albright’s arguments for the historicity of the patriarchal narratives. As a non-specialist in this field, I have not read Thompson’s book on that subject (though I’ve glanced at it) but have never found the arguments against Albright’s position to be compelling in summary (they seem to rest on the assumption that if we can possibly explain evidence pointing to historicity in any other way, then historicity can be dismissed).

And as a fairly conservative Christian with a strong bias (naturally) against what Thompson is arguing, I might hope that the extremism of this most recent position will cause OT scholars to go back and re-examine his earlier and now generally accepted arguments against the historicity of Genesis. But I’m not holding my breath!

At any rate, it can certainly be said that Thompson has based his life’s work on demolishing arguments for the historicity of the Bible. Apparently he lost his job at Marquette over this (so much for Catholic universities not taking action against scholars who question the faith!).

Edwin

**Since Albright’s own position has been described as “a broad liberal humanism”*, that account of Thompson’s disagreement with Albright should count for something - it’s precisely because his own position have co-incided with some conservative Biblical positions that Albright is something of a favourite among Christians with conservative views on the Bible. **​

---

***The **quotation is from James Barr’s discussion of the use made of Albright in Barr’s book “Fundamentalism” (which is a superb greatment of its subject)