Whether fact or fiction, Jesus Christ remains quite a compelling figure

Fact or fiction, Jesus of Nazareth is a compelling figure, and the pervasive nature of his name and person makes him a worthwhile subject of consideration — if not veneration.

What you need to know:

  • Fact or fiction, Jesus of Nazareth is a compelling figure, and the pervasive nature of his name and person makes him a worthwhile subject of consideration — if not veneration.
  • Some find his miracles a marvellous work of fiction, and David Hume (1711-1776) famously defined a miracle as “a violation of the laws of nature”.
  • A survey conducted by the online religious website, beliefnet.com, showed that 19 per cent of those interviewed believed that the biblical Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife, and Dan Brown’s bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, does not make the matter any simpler.

Millions of people all over the world will not report to work Friday morning. Most of them will be joining their families at home for the long Easter weekend, while many others will simply be at home because it is a public holiday.

Somewhere in America, a child will wake up early excited about an eventful day whose highlight will be rummaging through the house looking for multi-coloured eggs. On finding the treasure, the child will thank an invisible rabbit and carry on with a normal day.

In Kenya, many churches will turn into movie theatres, and a screening of The Passion of Christ, or a different movie with the same theme, will be the highlight of this unusual weekday church service.

The movie will be one of those rare stories in which the good guy dies, like Ned Stark in Game of Thrones.

But unlike the TV series, the good guy in this story refuses to stay dead and rises from the tomb to float into the clouds. Jesus is his name, and Christians all over the world will be observing Easter as a memorial of his death and resurrection.

But who is this man, and why has he — unlike Napoleon, Alexander the Great, the Egyptian Pharaohs or Caesar — refused to fade into the recesses of history? Why does he continue to intrude upon our car bumper stickers and T-shirts and curse-words?

Is Jesus a true historical figure or a legend? And if historical, are all the things said about him true or are some simply splendid fabrications?

Fact or fiction, Jesus of Nazareth is a compelling figure, and the pervasive nature of his name and person makes him a worthwhile subject of consideration — if not veneration. Here is why:

The story: More than 2,000 years ago, a Jewish carpenter-turned-preacher was brutally murdered at the prime age of 33, and the world has not stopped talking about him since.

The story goes that a virgin got pregnant mysteriously and gave birth to a special child. The child would grow up to be a carpenter (his step-father’s trade) until the age of 30.

He then became a self-appointed itinerant preacher, moving about from village to village, over mountains and across valleys, preaching the message of repentance.

He called on people to turn from their sins and towards God. When he was not preaching, he was healing the sick, feeding thousands with a boy’s lunch, walking on water, casting out demons or raising a four-day-old corpse.

The people praised him, lepers worshipped him, and children adored him. After an encounter with him, corrupt government officials would come clean while prostitutes would reform.

This went on for three years, then people got tired of his magic tricks. Religious leaders started seeing him as a threat and the government was no longer amused by his witty moralising fables.

They arrested him and gave him a public trial followed by a public thrashing which ended in a public crucifixion.

That should have been the end of the story, but it was not. The man still had one last trick up his sleeve.

After staying in the tomb for two days, he came back to life and stepped out of the grave.

Forty days later, he floated into the sky and those who were with him are still gazing upwards because, as the story goes, they had not seen the last of him. He is coming back again.

The controversy: One cannot help but wonder how such a seemingly tall tale has survived all those centuries.

It sounds unbelievable, and many have not believed it. There are few points of agreement by different scholars over which parts of the story of Jesus of Nazareth are true.

Almost all reasonable scholars agree that there was a man by the name Jesus who came from Nazareth and was a preacher. But no sooner is this point of agreement examined than the divergence of opinion begins.

Some find his miracles a marvellous work of fiction, and David Hume (1711-1776) famously defined a miracle as “a violation of the laws of nature”.

The Bible, on the other hand, says Jesus performed miracles, and Richard Dawkins does not buy it. Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and militant atheist, says in his book, The God Delusion, that the biblical gospel stories were authored by unknown evangelists years after Jesus died and that these authors “almost certainly never met the man”.

In the light of this, and despite all the controversy, one thing remains clear: The records of miracles are not just fabrications because they must be quite impressive to have made such a lasting impact over the centuries.

Pastor and Christian apologist Tim Keller responds that science has to go against its own presuppositions to make any case against miracles, adding that scientists are the least qualified to make any arguments about phenomena that it already admits to be non-scientific:

“It is one thing to say that science is only equipped to test for natural causes and cannot speak to any others,” says Keller. “It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist.... There would be no experimental model for testing the statement: ‘No supernatural cause for any natural phenomenon is possible.’ It is, therefore, a philosophical presupposition and not a scientific finding.”

Therefore, since science cannot explain miracles, the scientist is forced to disbelieve them and disparage those who do believe.

Some say Jesus’ resurrection is nothing but a compelling metaphor, and religious philosopher Thomas Sheehan argues that “stories of a bodily resurrection did not appear until as much as half a century following the crucifixion”.

Therefore, the resurrection referred to by the early Christians such as apostles Paul and Peter could as well have been “metaphysical resurrections” and not actual ones.

Historian Richard Carrier adds: “Christianity probably began... with a different idea of the resurrection than is claimed today. The evidence suggests the first Christians, at least up to and including Paul, thought Christ’s soul was taken up to heaven and clothed in a new body after leaving his old body in the grave forever.”

The subsequent story that Jesus actually walked out of the grave with the same body that went into it, leaving an empty tomb to astonish all, was probably a legend that developed over the course of the first century, beginning with a metaphorical “empty tomb” in the Gospel of Mark, these unbelieving historians argue.

Since resurrection is also a miraculous claim, of course a different explanation must be sought by those who see science as king, argues Indian-born Canadian-American apologist Ravi Zacharias.

“It is no wonder that many who argue against the resurrection tend to be philosophers and not historians or natural scientists,” adds Ravi.

The arguments against miracles increasingly point to a need to maintain that miracles should not happen, rather than miracles did not happen.
Some see the Messiah’s celibacy as nothing but another Catholic priesthood ploy.

A survey conducted by the online religious website, beliefnet.com, showed that 19 per cent of those interviewed believed that the biblical Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife, and Dan Brown’s bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, does not make the matter any simpler.

The novel, which claims to be based on historical evidence and facts, claims that Jesus was, in fact, married to Mary Magdalene, had a child by her, and the church covered all this up in order to promote its agenda concerning the divinity of the man.

Da Vinci’s argument, however, is wholly based on a line from the Gospel of Philip that refers to Mary Magdalene as a “companion” of Jesus.

According to one of the characters in the novel, Aramaic scholars believed this term meant “wife.”

But James Robinson, a Professor Emeritus of Religion, finds this argument too weak as it is based on nuance that is not paralleled in any other text.

Therefore, the term “companion” was not necessarily sex-related and could just as readily have referred to “close friend”. But that would not have made for an interesting detail in a novel that thrives on controversy.

While this is only a snippet of the whole picture, a clear pattern emerges in the above — and many other — criticisms, especially by agnostic and atheistic scholars. There seems to be a consistent effort to strip the historical Jesus of any hint of divinity and rid his story of stuff that is better left to the realm of fairy tales.

After stripping him of his virgin birth, his celibacy, his magic tricks, and all other dogmatic regalia, the Jesus of Nazareth runs the risk of becoming “just a man”, and quite an unimpressive one for that matter.

The great “trilemma”: With such divided views about the person and the power and the historicity of Jesus, one would expect people’s confidence in the biblical claims about the man to dwindle. It is, indeed, true that the number of religious agnostics in the world is rising, but this is in no way indicative of people’s view of the historical Jesus.

Many people are turning away from religion because of the rigid rituals that offer little wiggle room for our individualistic mindsets.

A rejection of religion, and Christianity specifically, does not necessarily tell us about people’s attitude towards Jesus himself.

This is why there is a resurgence of young people claiming to follow Jesus while at the same time ridding themselves of the trappings of religious conformity.

Over the centuries, many have tried to strip Jesus of Nazareth of his divinity and fantastic claims, because they do not fit into the neat logical categories popularly called “sense”. Walking on water does not make scientific sense. Turning the other cheek does not make judicial sense, and letting a prostitute caress and kiss your feet does not make moral sense.

The great irony is that millions of people will this weekend gather in churches and homes and halls across the globe to commemorate the death of a Jewish peasant who lived two millenniums ago.

English novelist and academic Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) proposed a “trilemma” about the enigma that is Jesus of Nazareth in his book, Mere Christianity:

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg — or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

“You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.”

But then again, this “Liar-Lord-Lunatic” trilemma is only valid if Jesus actually said these things and they were not mere fabrications of those who crafted his story.

What do you think? Is the man behind Easter fact or fiction? Send your comments to [email protected]. Blog them at www.nation.co.ke