In our examination of Dr. Richard Carrier's presentation regarding a mythical Jesus we've looked his claims of Christianity evolving from polytheism (PART 1), similarities between Christianity and other pagan beliefs (PART 2), and we began investigating his claims that Jesus was originally thought to be only a cosmic figure, space man of sorts (PART 3).
Finally, we turn to Dr. Carrier’s assertion that Paul believed Jesus died and was resurrected in outer space and the tales of Jesus on earth come some time after Paul. Let’s examine this claim using the passages Dr. Carrier cites as evidence for his position. He concedes that Paul actually wrote, at minimum, Galatians and First Corinthians, hence he uses these two letters as the sources for his claims. He cites three main passages, along with the emphasized words, on which he builds his case (here quoted from the HCSB):
- Gal. 1:11-12, “Now I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel preached by me is not based on human thought. For I did not receive it from a human source and I was not taught it, but it came by a revelation from Jesus Christ.”
- 1 Cor. 15:1-8, “Now brothers, I want to clarify for you the gospel I proclaimed to you…For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, [etc.]…Last of all, as to one abnormally born, He also appeared to me.”
- 1 Cor. 11:23, “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread,…”
From this, Dr. Carrier concludes:
“Scripture and Revelation are the only sources of information Paul ever mentions anyone having.”
“The Jesus he knows and refers to and speaks to is always in outer space.”
“Paul never clearly places Jesus on earth or connects him to human history.”1
What are we to make of this? First, let me say that there are very good reasons to believe the Gospels and all the letters of the New Testament were written prior to 70 A.D. and provide early eyewitness accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Also, even critical scholars grant that Paul wrote in the mid first century at least six or seven of the letters attributed to him, including Galatians and First Corinthians as we’ve said. Thus, an examination of these other works would show there is ample evidence to conclude that Jesus was a real person who walked the actual earth. But, let us examine what we can conclude regarding Dr. Carrier’s assertions about Paul’s beliefs about an earthly Jesus just based on Galatians and First Corinthians, since these are the two letters Dr. Carrier directly cites.
Claim 1: “Scripture and Revelation are the only sources of information Paul ever mentions anyone having.”
This is clearly false. Paul certainly tells us that he personally received the Gospel message, and apparently the teaching on the Lord’s Supper (among other things), as a direct revelation from Jesus. And Paul certainly says that Jesus’ death and resurrection were in fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. But nowhere does he say that the only reason anyone knows about Jesus at all is because of the Old Testament and divine revelation.
Clearly, Paul mentions direct eyewitness accounts of the resurrected Jesus in the 1 Cor. 15:1-8 passage cited above. He mentions direct appearances to “the Twelve” (i.e. the original apostles), James, 500 brethren, and last of all himself. He specifically differentiates his encounter with Jesus calling himself an “abnormally born” apostle, meaning the other apostles saw the physically risen Jesus whereas Paul had his Damascus road experience. No doubt Dr. Carrier would dismiss all of these encounters as mere hallucinations, but that simply begs the question in favor of his position and stretches credulity by maintaining that people would experience the same mass hallucination. I refer you to HERE for more info regarding the hallucination theory.
Moreover, Paul mentions several of the other apostles as sources for his information. He says in Gal. 1:18-19, “Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas [Peter], and I stayed with him 15 days. But I didn’t see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.” Notice that he refers to James as “the Lord’s brother.” We’ll say more about that in a moment. The question for now is, why would Paul feel the need to “get to know Cephas” or any other apostles if they simply believed in, and received the same revelation about, a cosmic Jesus and had not actually spent time with an earthly Jesus? Paul answers this question in the next chapter of Galatians. He says in Gal. 2:1-2, 6-9,
Then after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. I went up according to a revelation and presented to them the gospel I preach among the Gentiles—but privately to those recognized as leaders—so that I might not be running, or have run the race, in vain.…Now from those recognized as important (what they really were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism)—they added nothing to me. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter was for the circumcised, since the One at work in Peter for an apostleship to the circumcised was also at work in me for the Gentiles. When James, Cephas, and John, recognized as pillars, acknowledged the grace that had been given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to me and Barnabas, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
While we are not specifically told in this passage where Peter, James, and John received their information about the Gospel (though we have excellent reasons to believe, as Paul says elsewhere, that they were eyewitnesses of Jesus), we can at least see that Paul viewed them as authorities and tested the Gospel he received against the Gospel they proclaimed in order to make sure what he was teaching was correct.
So we have both eyewitnesses and authoritative teachers (apostles) listed as other sources of information besides Scripture and revelation.
Claim 2: “The Jesus he knows and refers to and speaks to is always in outer space.”
First, this assertion is a straw man. In other words, it’s a caricature of a position intended to make it easier to knock down. Paul never refers to Jesus as being in outer space. Given that Paul believed in Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven he certainly believed Jesus was no longer on earth. To claim that Paul believed Jesus resided in outer space is simply nonsense.
Secondly, Dr. Carrier and others try to make much of the fact that Paul fails to mention many details about Jesus’ life before the crucifixion. Of course, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Paul’s letters were written to Christian communities. Thus, his readers were already believers in Christ and he would have had little reason to rehash the life and times of Jesus the earthly historical person. In addition, Paul was writing to a high context culture, meaning the culture was “homogeneous enough for people not to have to repeat everything all the time, whereas American, European and many other scholars belong to a low context culture, which gives them quite unrealistic expectations of what the authors of the epistles ought to have written.”2 Given this high context culture, death by crucifixion and subsequent burial would be historically straight forward earthly events for his readers. In addition, it’s usually straight forward to assume that someone who is crucified, buried, and resurrected on earth also lived on earth prior to their crucifixion.
It’s interesting to note the tactical reversal that Dr. Carrier seems to be employing here and elsewhere. If the “fact” that Paul doesn’t mention the life and times of an earthly Jesus to the extent that Dr. Carrier thinks he should means that Paul must have believed in a cosmic Jesus, why doesn’t the fact that Paul NEVER actually says Jesus is, and has always been, in outer space mean that Paul believed in an earthly Jesus?3 Perhaps it’s because of Dr. Carrier’s third claim.
Claim 3: “Paul never clearly places Jesus on earth or connects him to human history.”
One must ask what Dr. Carrier means by “clearly” in this context. Paul never “clearly” places Jesus in outer space, nor does he do so even vaguely, yet that is what Dr. Carrier asserts. But as we shall see, Paul does clearly (by my definition at least) connect Jesus directly to human history.
As was noted above, Paul is writing to Christians living in a high context culture. Also recall that for our purposes we are merely examining the two Pauline letters specifically cited by Dr. Carrier, namely Galatians and First Corinthians. If we look at the other undisputed writings of Paul we would be able to gather more facts about the earthly/historical Jesus than we will mention below. Nevertheless, we will at least see from our examination that Paul does place Jesus on earth and not in outer space.
Let’s begin with Galatians. We mentioned this verse earlier, but it’s important to examine again. Paul says in Gal. 1:19, “But I didn’t see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.” Upon his first visit to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, Paul says he met the Lord’s brother James. He also mentions in 1 Cor. 15:7 that, after His resurrection, Jesus appeared to James. At face value, Paul appears to be saying that Jesus had a physical brother and his name was James. Some who hold similar views to Dr. Carrier have argued that Paul is referring to some inner group of believers known as “the brethren of the Lord.” To my knowledge, such a group is pure speculation resting on no actual evidence for its existence. Paul seems to leave little doubt that he is referring to an actual earthly Jesus. Just two chapters later, in Gal. 3:16 he calls Jesus the “seed” of Abraham (who is certainly an earthly person). And just in case there is still doubt, in the next chapter Paul says in Gal. 4:4-5, “When the time came to completion, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” So here we have the “seed” of an earthly person being born of a woman and being born under the law. He was so born in order to redeem those under the law. Those who are under the law are earthly humans. Thus, Paul is saying Jesus was born as an earthly human in order to redeem earthly humans. There is no elusion to space men whatsoever.
Moreover, we have even more reason to believe the above view about Paul’s teaching is correct. While Dr. Carrier would dismiss the Gospels as irrelevant, I say, “Not so fast.” The Gospel of Mark, which many consider to be the oldest Gospel and one of which we most likely have a first century fragment of (meaning it was originally written in the first century and not later), mentions Jesus having brothers and sisters, one specifically named James. Mark 3:31-32 says, “Then [Jesus’] mother and His brothers came, and standing outside, they sent word to Him and called Him. A crowd was sitting around Him and told Him, ‘Look, Your mother, Your brothers, and Your sisters are outside asking for You.’” Later we read in Mark 6:3 that the people in the synagogue where Jesus was teaching said, “Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t His sisters here with us?” Even if Dr. Carrier wants to discredit the Gospels as mere propaganda and fairytales (which goes back to the philosophical foundations from which he is conducting his investigation), the fact that a first century work lines up with what Paul wrote by referring to Jesus’ family, specifically James, seems to cast extreme doubt on his position that the stories of Jesus being an actual earthly figure were merely made up decades later.
Furthermore, we have extrabiblical evidence that Jesus had a brother named James. The first century Jewish historian Josephus, whom we mentioned in an earlier post, makes two references to Jesus in his famous works. In the account of the martyrdom of James, Josephus writes, “Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others…”4 Many will attempt to brush this aside by saying the text of Josephus is unreliable because Christians later manipulated copies of the text and added the bits about Jesus. There is scholarly consensus that some manipulation occurred, but there is also good reason to believe we can actually know what Josephus most likely said and that he did actually refer to Jesus and to James. For the details I refer you to HERE. The point of all this is simply that, regarding Galatians, we have good reason to think Paul believed in and referred to a Jesus who walked the earth and had a brother named James.
What about First Corinthians. We’ve already discussed the 1 Cor. 15:1-8 passage and the fact that there was little reason for Paul to spell out the life and times of Jesus for his high context audience of believers. In addition, many scholars believe this passage is actually a creed of the early church that would have been memorized and recited. In other words, this appears to be an oral tradition that goes back to nearly the time of the cross itself. As Dr. Ben Witherington, III notes in his excellent CRITIQUE of these types of arguments, “Paul certainly does not suggest Jesus was crucified and rose in the spiritual realm. To the contrary, Paul recites the early Christian creed in 1 Cor. 15:1-5 that Jesus died and was buried like any other mortal, and then was seen alive on earth after his death.”5 THIS article also goes into some detail as well.
Later on in the same chapter, Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:20-22, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” Here we see Christ, having been raised, is the “firstfruits” of those who have died (i.e. “fallen asleep”). Paul is referring to earthly mortals having died, hence if Jesus’ resurrection makes him the firstfruits of those dead, his resurrection must be earthly/physical as well. This is clarified by Paul next saying that death came through a man (i.e. a physical Adam) and the resurrection will come through a man (i.e. a physical Jesus).
Also, there is a very interesting passage in the second chapter of First Corinthians that must be addressed by those claiming Paul never placed Jesus on earth. The passage in question is 1 Cor. 2:7-8,
On the contrary, we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery, a wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Again, a plain reading of the text seems to indicate that the earthly rulers of Jesus’ time physically crucified Him. But some argue that Paul is actually referring to spiritual rulers or demons crucifying Jesus in “outer space.”
Certainly Paul uses similar words and phrases in various places to refer to spiritual powers, but he almost always does so using clarifying words or different grammar not found in the passage here.6 Even without delving into the original languages, we can see who exactly Paul is referring to by simply looking at the context. Beginning in 1 Cor. 1:17 and reading through 1 Cor. 2:16, we see Paul ask things like, “Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish?” He refers to “human wisdom,” “human strength,” “a human perspective,” and things that are “foolish…weak…insignificant…despised in the world.” He says his speech was “not based on men’s wisdom,” and it was “not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age.” We then see the 1 Cor. 2:8 verse, “None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Immediately after this, Paul asks “who among men knows the thoughts of a man [much less the thoughts of God]?” Finally, he reiterates that what he is proclaiming is “not in words taught by human wisdom.”
As you can see, the context both before and after 1 Cor. 2:8 deals with human wisdom and the human thinkers and leaders “of this age.” There is no talk about demons or spiritual forces, because they didn’t understand His message, killing Jesus. Paul is clearly referring to human leaders, on earth, who killed Jesus, on earth.7 Much more could be said, and many more verses from Paul’s undisputed works could be examined. But we’ve seen enough from Galatians and First Corinthians alone to conclude that, contrary to Dr. Carrier’s claim, Paul does clearly place Jesus on earth and connect Him to human history. Based on our brief review, we have no good reason to believe Paul or the majority of Jews, believed in, or were looking for, a Messiah who was really a “space man.”
Summary
Recall that Dr. Carrier is investigating the evidence, and building his case, based on his naturalistic/materialistic worldview. According to his view, God doesn’t exist and hence miracles, or any other supernatural phenomena, are not possible. I’m convinced there are very good reasons to think Dr. Carrier is mistaken and one needn’t approach this topic from his standpoint. Perhaps we’ll investigate those things at a later date.
For now, however, we’ve examined Dr. Carrier’s claims about Jesus and discovered that there is good reason to believe monotheism preceded polytheism and that orthodox Jews would not have freely combined their beliefs with the surrounding paganism. We’ve seen that one should not be surprised to find general similarities between religions and that Christianity is significantly different from pagan beliefs in a number of fundamental ways such as “(1) its insistence on historical credibility, which the mysteries didn't even pretend to have, versus the ‘going nowhere’ view of the vegetation cycle; (2) Christian proclamation of the gospel as accessible to all people; (3) its insistence on right belief instead of emotional frenzy; and (4) the centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming resurrection of believers.8 As Bruce Metzger notes, many of the apparent parallels between Christianity and other pagan beliefs are “parallels made plausible by selective description.” Finally, we’ve found that there is no good reason to believe in a widespread Jewish belief of a space man Messiah nor that Paul believed in, and taught concerning, a Jesus who only existed in outer space and was not connected to human history. On the contrary, Paul clearly placed Jesus on earth and taught that his physical death and resurrection were actual historical events.
You may also find the debate at the top of this page between Dr. Carrier and Dr. Mark Goodacre interesting as well (Note: I'm not endorsing everything Dr. Goodacre says, though it's still an interesting exchange).
In our last segment, we’ll look at some of the additional evidence we have for concluding that Jesus was a real historical person. Until then...
End Notes
- Again, Dr. Carrier’s entire PowerPoint slide deck used in his UNCG presentation can be found here: http://www.richardcarrier.info/Historicity_of_Jesus.pdf
- http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-maurice-casey/?vm=r&s=1
- Ibid.
- Josephus, Flavius and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987. 20:200
- http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2008/03/earl-dohertys-jesus-puzzle-exercise-in.html
- http://www.tektonics.org/doherty/doherty4sq.html#philo
- Ibid.
- J. Ed Komoszewski;M. James Sawyer;Daniel Wallace. Reinventing Jesus (Kindle Locations 2281-2283). Kindle Edition.