Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth

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Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 286 ratings · 78 reviews

For years Bart Ehrman has been routinely bombarded with one question: Did Jesus Exist? As a leading Bible expert, fans and critics alike have sent letters, emails, posted blogs, and questioned Ehrman during interviews wanting his opinion about this nagging question that has become a conspiracy theorist cottage industry the world over. The idea that the character of Jesus w...more

ebook, 304 pages

Published March 20th 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers

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May 07, 2013 Todd rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: relgion-christology-judiaca

Did Jesus exist? As noted New Testament scholar and admitted agnostic with atheist leanings, Bart D. Ehrman writes in his excitingly readable book, Did Jesus Exist? – The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, the answer is a strong yes. Ehrman is quick to point out that despite what debunkers of the historical Jesus would have you believe, the overwhelming majority of scholars believe such a person did in fact exist. And these scholars include a fair number of agnostics, atheists and skepti...more Did Jesus exist? As noted New Testament scholar and admitted agnostic with atheist leanings, Bart D. Ehrman writes in his excitingly readable book, Did Jesus Exist? – The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, the answer is a strong yes. Ehrman is quick to point out that despite what debunkers of the historical Jesus would have you believe, the overwhelming majority of scholars believe such a person did in fact exist. And these scholars include a fair number of agnostics, atheists and skeptics. The author is not just presenting the case of a myopic fundamentalist theological position. This is the work of a noted historian respected in his field.

Bart D. Ehrman’s book is not apologetics. He takes the reader with great lucidity through the methodologies used by New Testament scholars and historians (sometimes dubbed the historical method) that allow them to reach the conclusion that Jesus existed. Whether or not the miracles or resurrection took place is another matter, and as Ehrman points out, before you can discuss these things you need to establish that such a person did exist in the first place. Again this work is not theology and it’s not apologetics. It’s a discussion of the historical method applied to the question of Jesus of Nazareth

I’m an atheist and something of a mythicist when it comes to Christianity and the story of Jesus the Christ. However, unlike many debunkers of Christianity, I find it completely reasonable and plausible that there was an historical person on whose shoulders the traditions of the majority of the extant Christianities is based on, however loosely that may actually be. It’s the mythical claim that said historical person rose from the dead after being dead for 3 days and the attendant theology that has emerged from that highly implausible assertion is where I part company with Jesus and his followers.

Ehrman is honest about the limits of the historical evidence. He understands that we are missing the clichéd smoking gun that archeology and other disciplines have not been able to provide. He also understands the problems and limitations of what we do have. This discussion is no “ignore the man behind the curtain” chicanery of much of what passes for scholarship in conservative circles.

I’ve always found the allegation that the early church fabricated the historical Jesus to be rather strange. Given what we know of the economic, political and religious realities of First Century Palestine simply dismissing Jesus as a fictional character takes the special brand of temerity usually exhibited by the conspiracy theorist and paranoiac. Most of the mythicist's work available to the general reader is written by non-professionals in the fields of scholarship necessary to weigh in on the subject. In fact many of the authors are not scholars at all and the wild conclusions they often draw make this apparent.

These are points that Ehrman employs to his advantage. However, he is a little too quick to dismiss the mythicist’s viewpoint even though he does offer begrudging respect for Robert Price ( the one scholar he allows that actually possesses the credentials required to make his opinions worth considering) and Richard Carrier ( a personal favorite of mine), who is credentialed at least in parallel disciplines. Nonetheless, not all mythicist material is pure conspiracy nincompoopery. However, what Ehrman does do is offer some cogent counterarguments to a few of the more common arguments presented against the historicity of Jesus.

Finally, even though scholars have not conclusively proven that Jesus of Nazareth is a man of history, Did Jesus Exist?, demonstrates that it is not only reasonable to believe he was real, history is not nearly as silent on the matter as is often supposed. This is a great book for the skeptic and the atheist. Most Christians should be able to read it as well. It’s the fundamentalist and the mythicists who will have the most trouble putting their biases aside to consider the contributions this book makes to the general public on the subject of Jesus’ existence.

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May 06, 2013 ***Dave Hill rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: text, non-fiction, favorites

I don't read (vs listen to) a lot of non-fiction, but Ehrman's Bible history books are always engaging, entertaining, and educational -- and this one is no exception.

Ehrman is a religious studies professor, and usually makes waves in certain evangelical / fundamentalist Christian circles by applying a critical literary and historical view to the Bible and its creation. That he is an agnostic / atheist simply adds to the hue and cry that he is out to attack Christianity by disagreeing with the in...more I don't read (vs listen to) a lot of non-fiction, but Ehrman's Bible history books are always engaging, entertaining, and educational -- and this one is no exception.

Ehrman is a religious studies professor, and usually makes waves in certain evangelical / fundamentalist Christian circles by applying a critical literary and historical view to the Bible and its creation. That he is an agnostic / atheist simply adds to the hue and cry that he is out to attack Christianity by disagreeing with the inerrancy, inspiration, and literal truth of the Bible. By noting how Scripture came about and evolved and changed over time, these folks consider Ehrman to be questioning their faith.

This time, Ehrman is (though pursuing the truth in the same fashion) on the other side of the "debate," examining the question as an historian and literary scholar whether Jesus of Nazareth existed. He tackles head-on those who question the historic presence of Jesus, to the dismay of some fervent atheists and to (one presumes) the glee of those evangelical Christians (though the picture Ehrman ends up drawing of what we can historically assert about Jesus' reality is quite different from what they preach at First Baptist on Sunday mornings).

In the course of the book, Ehrman gives a good primer as to how historians work from the written record -- what makes for a good source vs a dubious source, how later insertions can be detected (or concluded not to be such), and how something that seems so sketchy as the historical reality of an early 1st Century Jewish preacher in Palestine named Jesus (after all, one might argue, all we have is a bunch of religious texts written decades or more after his presumed death) actually can be very confidently assumed to be true, even if certain details of his career (including the supernatural elements) cannot be proven or presumed to have happen. While Ehrman's arguments aren't new, they have rarely been put forward so neatly and approachably for lay people.

Ehrman occasionally over-hammers his points home, whether from exasperation or a surfeit of thoroughness. In other cases, he does seem to dismiss arguments a little too categorically or quickly, which has led to some heated online debates. Occasionally his arguments as presented seem a bit circular, though a re-read dispels most of those. And he occasionally goes overboard in weighting credentials -- while it's useful to know who's actually spent years-to-decades researching this material and who hasn't, the repetition this case comes across as a bit defensive, though not (quite) academic snobbery.

But aside from those flaws (which knock things from 5 to 4 stars for me), the book is quite approachable and educational, and as someone who is both a Christian and an amateur historian, I found it fascinating how a series of fine threads, each individually fragile -- the collection of fragments, passing references, and hardly-primary-material books of the New Testament -- can, with enough entanglement, create a strong fabric for the basic historical existence of Jesus ... even if they don't tell us nearly as much as we'd like about him. (Ehrman does tell us some things we can fairly confidently know about Jesus -- but a lot of that is a covered in one of the myriad other books he's written, so all we get is a very high-level summary.)

I strongly recommend this book, not as a tool to build faith in Jesus as Savior (it is not), but as a tool to build faith in the historic process and learning how we can know what we know.(less)

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Feb 17, 2013 Nathan Dehoff rated it 5 of 5 stars

I’ve read several other books by Ehrman, a New Testament scholar who usually writes for a general audience, and always enjoyed them. In this book, Ehrman addresses the issue of whether Jesus existed at all, and comes to the conclusion that he does. Indeed, the argument that he didn’t is quite new and the position of a definite minority, regardless of religion. Ehrman outlines the sources we have that put Jesus into a historical context, and explains how we can use the Gospels, biased as they are...more

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Jan 29, 2013 George Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperOne, 2012). $26.99, 361 pages.

A small but prolific group of agnostics and atheists argues that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist. Many of them are cranks and conspiracy theorists. A few of them are scholars, though generally not with expertise in the relevant fields of New Testament studies. They refer to themselves as “mythicists,” i.e. people who believe that Jesus was a myth.

In Did Jesus Exist?, Bart...more Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperOne, 2012). $26.99, 361 pages.

A small but prolific group of agnostics and atheists argues that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist. Many of them are cranks and conspiracy theorists. A few of them are scholars, though generally not with expertise in the relevant fields of New Testament studies. They refer to themselves as “mythicists,” i.e. people who believe that Jesus was a myth.

In Did Jesus Exist?, Bart D. Ehrman refutes the core thesis of mythicism by providing a careful historical argument for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Like the mythicists, Ehrman is not a Christian. He describes himself as “an agnostic with atheist leanings.” Unlike the vast majority of mythicists, however, Ehrman has relevant expertise in New Testament studies and the history of early Christianity.

Ehrman divides his argument into three parts: First, he outlines the evidence for the existence of Jesus from a variety of sources, both outside and within the New Testament (chapters 2–5). Second, he responds to specific mythicist claims, showing that they are “weak and irrelevant” (chapter 6), or, if relevant, nevertheless “not persuasive” (chapter 7). Third, he identifies criteria for establishing “historically accurate” traditions about Jesus (chapter 8): “contextual credibility,” “multiple attestation,” and “dissimilarity.” On the basis of those criteria, he concludes that the historical Jesus was an “apocalyptic prophet” (chapter 9).

As an evangelical Christian, my response to Did Jesus Exist? is ambivalent. On the one hand, I agree with Ehrman’s argument that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and I find his refutation of mythicism persuasive. On the other hand, I disagree with his conclusions about what we can reasonably infer about the historical Jesus based on available evidence. Or rather, I believe that we can reasonably infer more about the historical Jesus than he does. But that is an argument for another day. For today, it is sufficient to thank Ehrman for his yeoman work in refuting “the Jesus myth.”

P.S. If you found this review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page.(less)

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Dec 08, 2012 Harold Cameron rated it 3 of 5 stars

“The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth”

“In Did Jesus Exist? historian and Bible expert Bart Ehrman confronts the question, "Did Jesus exist at all?" Ehrman vigorously defends the historical Jesus, identifies the most historically reliable sources for best understanding Jesus’ mission and message, and offers a compelling portrait of the person at the heart of the Christian tradition.

Known as a master explainer with deep knowledge of the field, Bart Ehrman methodically demolishes both the...more

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Jun 23, 2012 B.K. Marcus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Whether or not you know the mythicists and their claims to the nonexistence of even a nonsupernatural, historical Jesus in 1st-century Roman Palestine, this book is a perfect introduction to the logic of the critical-historical method of biblical, scriptural, and documentary studies. Yes, says the author (and the vast majority of the scholars in his field), there was a man named Jesus in the 1st century: he was a Jewish apocalyptic teacher from Nazareth. Whether or not he said what the Gospels s...more

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May 27, 2012 Mankey rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a decent primer into the reasons the majority of New Testament scholars believe in the historical personage of Jesus. It's a very basic book, but accomplishes it's goal of debunking the various claims put forth by "mythicists" who see Jesus as just a myth, and not ever a flesh and blood man. This book does not prove (or even argue) that Jesus was the "Son of God," it simply argues that he was an apocalyptic prophet.

I've enjoyed Ehrman's books for the better part of ten years, but wow, hi...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Timothy Campbell rated it 4 of 5 stars

DID JESUS EXIST?
THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT FOR JESUS OF NAZARETH
By Bart D. Ehrman

Review by Tim Campbell

One thing about Bart Ehrman: he is not afraid to depart from what may be expected of him by others! In this latest book, Dr. Ehrman tweaks both the segment of the atheist/agnostic community that denies the historical existence of Jesus AND the fundamentalist/evangelical community that insists that the historicity of Jesus proves the inerrancy of their doctrines.

Of course, the historicity of Jesu...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Lee Harmon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not too long ago, I was asked in a religious forum whether I believe Jesus really existed. I said yes, I'm 99% sure. I meant precisely that: I'm a numbers guy, and I estimate the odds that Jesus never existed to be somewhere around one chance in a hundred. After presenting a parallel (a Bible historian who is forced to make sense of his research in light of a nonexistent Jesus would be a bit like a research biologist who shows up to work one day and is told that evolution is a lie) I gave an exa...more Not too long ago, I was asked in a religious forum whether I believe Jesus really existed. I said yes, I'm 99% sure. I meant precisely that: I'm a numbers guy, and I estimate the odds that Jesus never existed to be somewhere around one chance in a hundred. After presenting a parallel (a Bible historian who is forced to make sense of his research in light of a nonexistent Jesus would be a bit like a research biologist who shows up to work one day and is told that evolution is a lie) I gave an example of the type of argument that I find most convincing. If Jesus were a made-up figure, wouldn't the made-up stories be a bit more self-serving? Instead, for example, the Gospels tell about Jesus submitting to baptism for his sins by a competitor, a man we know from historical reports DID exist: John the Baptist. How did this whole embarrassing episode get written into the story, if it weren't literally true?

The truth is, I didn't know what to say in the forum. I would have to write a book to detail all the reasons Bible scholars believe Jesus existed.

Thankfully, the book has been written, and by precisely the right person: Bart Ehrman, the controversial Bible-belt professor who has no qualms about speaking his mind regarding the myths which DO exist in the Bible.

It's not that Ehrman has no vested interest in the topic. He does. He's been teaching about the Historical Jesus for a couple decades, and he'd have to eat some serious crow if it turns out no such person existed. It's that Ehrman doesn't find it necessary to play by the rules of an apologist, defending conservative Christianity. He can play dirty. For example, in arguing that the Jesus story is more than a myth similar to other legends of a dying and rising god, Ehrman is free to point out the obvious: The guys who first wrote about Jesus never in their wildest dreams thought Jesus was God. That theology came later.

I do feel Ehrman overstates his case a bit. Well, he under appreciates the opposing case, I should say, and cops a bit of an attitude as he does. When the mythicists point out that something smells fishy with all the midrash in the New Testament, I found Ehrman's that-don't-prove-nuthin stance a little lame. But when he gets around to presenting the arguments for Jesus' existence, the book is superb.

Four stars for an important counter-balance in a debate that has become more heated than I would have thought. And I'm still right where I was before: 99% sure.(less)

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Mar 27, 2012 Patty rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interesting question, eh? Now don't get your pants in a bunch. While I don't espouse to any particular religion I do believe that a man named Jesus walked the earth. This book looks to categorically prove that. Most of the religions built around Jesus accept that on faith and in fact according to Professor Ehrman the idea that Jesus did NOT exist didn't even enter into the conversation until the 1800s. Prior to that everyone thought he was a real person.

Who knew?

The book starts with a rather wel...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Ilya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Imagine that 2000 years from now most records from the 20th century CE will have disappeared, and the most important piece of evidence about World War II will be a DVD with propaganda cartoons, mostly American (Warner Brothers' "Russian Rhapsody", "Herr Meets Hare" and "Tokio Jokio", Disney's "Der Fuehrer's Face") but also a few Soviet ones (such as "What Hitler Wants and What He Will Get"), ripped from YouTube 65 years after the war had ended. Imagine also that scholars will have built the nece...more Imagine that 2000 years from now most records from the 20th century CE will have disappeared, and the most important piece of evidence about World War II will be a DVD with propaganda cartoons, mostly American (Warner Brothers' "Russian Rhapsody", "Herr Meets Hare" and "Tokio Jokio", Disney's "Der Fuehrer's Face") but also a few Soviet ones (such as "What Hitler Wants and What He Will Get"), ripped from YouTube 65 years after the war had ended. Imagine also that scholars will have built the necessary electronic equipment, played the animations, and will be trying to reconstruct the historical events that gave rise to these cultural artifacts. Judging by the cartoons, Adolf Hitler was the most important historical figure of the period, since he is featured in more cartoons by far than anyone else. Who was he, and what did he do? In an American cartoon, Hitler sings, "We bring the world to order." What is it a reference to? In another American cartoon, he flies in a bomber plane over Russia. In a Soviet cartoon, Hitler wants to give land to the landlords and factories to the capitalists. Which of these things were actually true? Did Hitler even exist? In different American cartoons, he appears alongside an anthropomorphic duck, gremlins, and is impersonated by an anthropomorphic hare. In a Soviet cartoon, Hitler has horns, like the Devil of Christianity (but didn't the Soviets suppress Christianity, as other ancient documents claim?). In another Soviet cartoon, Hitler is training anthropomorphic dogs Mussolini (who appears in an American cartoon as a human), Horthy and Antonescu (who don't appear in American cartoons). What does this mean? As Ehrman also tells in his other books, this fanciful situation is essentially what New Testament scholars find themselves in.

For 1700 years, no one doubted that Jesus existed (which tells nothing, for during this period also almost no one doubted that Moses wrote the Pentateuch). The first people to claim that Jesus didn't exist were two French revolutionary politicians in the 1790s. Scholars have claimed the same in the 19th and the early 20th century; Vladimir Lenin read and praised the work of one of them, which brought this point of view favor in the early Soviet Union. Nowadays, there are books by ignorant conspiracy theorists arguing that Jesus didn't exist. However, almost no reputable scholar takes this point of view seriously. Why?

First, says Ehrman, we have the testimony of several independent sources: the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (Matthew and Luke have borrowed from Mark, but the material they haven't borrowed also talks about the life of Jesus); the noncanonical gospels of Thomas and Peter, a papyrus fragment with an unknown gospel. There are also the speeches of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, which of course aren't transcripts of actual speeches, yet, Ehrman argues, reflect a very early tradition. And there are the letters of Paul. The Gospels are written in very good Greek, but a few times they report Jesus' words in Aramaic, and a few places read like translations from the Aramaic, which pushes the traditions closer to Jesus' Aramaic-speaking milieu. Did all these people invent Jesus independent of each other? Also, everybody says that Jesus was crucified, a death penalty allotted to the vilest criminals in ancient Rome. The Jewish messiah wasn't supposed to suffer and be executed! Imagine that 2000 years from now scholars find a document by neo-Nazis that mentions in passing that Hitler shot himself while holed up in a bunker at a time when Germany was being overrun by the armies of the countries he either invaded or declared war on without invading. Why would neo-Nazis invent this story, which does nothing to advance their cause? It must be true. In addition, several early Christian sources, both in the New Testament and outside it, mention that Jesus had brothers, and so does Josephus. Paul says that he met one of them in Jerusalem. If Jesus didn't exist, how could this have happened?

The second part of the book is a point-by-point rebuttal of the critics of historicity of Jesus. The third part consists of Ehrman's own views on the life and death of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet of the new millennium; it has nothing that Ehrman's earlier books don't also have.(less)

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Apr 29, 2012 Jc rated it 4 of 5 stars

An honest look from an agnostic/atheist academic viewpoint at whether a man existed in ancient Israel on whom the Jesus legends are based. Sometimes Ehrman's arguments seem a bit defensive (e.g. over use of the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy – Ehrman knows better based on his earlier works). But, I find this to be the most problematic aspect of this book. I think he just needed to have someone else do a final edit -- as he appears to have somewhat written this in frustration over the writ...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Vegantrav rated it 3 of 5 stars

Apparently, there is something of a revival among atheists and agnostics of the Jesus myth theory: the theory that Jesus of Nazareth never actually existed.

The Jesus myth theory is absurd and without any merit. Anyone who has studied the New Testament in an academic setting will, after examining the historical evidence, have no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth did, in fact, exist. There is no real doubt among any scholars of repute that Jesus did exist.

In Did Jesus Exist?, Bart Ehrman definitively d...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've given this book an extra star for the pure academic nature of his argument. He outlines the logic of his argument so well that it is a model for anyone with "beliefs" that are counter to truth. As an atheist I am as outraged by illogical myths posed by atheists as I am by those of evangelicals. Zealots on both sides need to learn from Dr. Ehrman how to argue their points and when to give up beliefs that cannot be substantiated. I might have given the book 4 stars just because it became tedi...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Brandon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm a fan of Professor Ehrman's, and I have learned a lot from his books on the New Testament, early Christianity, and Jesus. He is one of those rare scholars that writes popular books without sacrificing his commitment to rigourous scholarship, and this reader certainly appreciates that.

In this book Ehrman takes on a recent fad among atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, etc.; namely, that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical person and was basically made up, for one reason o...more I'm a fan of Professor Ehrman's, and I have learned a lot from his books on the New Testament, early Christianity, and Jesus. He is one of those rare scholars that writes popular books without sacrificing his commitment to rigourous scholarship, and this reader certainly appreciates that.

In this book Ehrman takes on a recent fad among atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, etc.; namely, that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical person and was basically made up, for one reason or another, by early Christians. Ehrman is himself an agnostic ("with atheist tendencies", as he says), yet as a scholar of religion and a historian finds this view perplexing, because for him there just isn't a question--that Jesus existed is quite probable, and the best explanation we have for the various kinds of evidence out there.

The book's title was probably chosen to incite interest (as well as to mimic a work of the same name by one of the "mythicists" that Ehrman critiques), but the book itself leaves no doubt that the answer is a resounding "Yes".

The evidence that Ehrman mounts is persuasive to anyone who is committed to a properly empirical study of history, and should leave most rational people without much doubt that Jesus of Nazareth did exist, and was the foundation of the Christian religion that has come down to us. Ehrman elegantly and interestingly puts forward this evidence, and then critiques the various arguments of the mythicists, showing them to be very wanting. Indeed, some of the most initially persuasive mythicist arguments come off looking downright silly once Ehrman points out their flaws.

The last two chapters of the book outline what Ehrman takes to be the most likely account of who Jesus actually was, what he was like, and what he preached. This is territory that he covered in much greater detail in his "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium" (which is another excellent book), but he gives a summary of it here to cap off his explanation of the historical Jesus. In short, the Jesus of history is very different from the Jesus that most people believe in, so anchored was he in his own times (1st century Jewish Palestine) and so far removed from the concerns of our own time.

I've no need to go into detail here, but it is fascinating to compare what we can discern the historical Jesus was probably like, with how his image and teachings have been shaped over the years by the various Christian communities and the evolution of the Church and the faith in general. On this score I think there is a lot to be said--about the relationship between the Jesus of history and the legend of Jesus--that even my fellow non-believers would find interesting.

But, my fellow non-believers ought also to heed Ehrman's arguments, for the make the case quite convincingly that Jesus did indeed exist as a historical person and was the inspiration for Christianity. To think otherwise is to reject the scepticism and empiricsm that most non-religious groups claim to espouse.(less)

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Jul 12, 2012 Laura Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion-christianity-and-biblical

For a book that should be totally unnecessary this is actually quite interesting. The quest for what can be known about the historical Jesus and what can be known about the people who wrote the Bible is an endlessly fascinating mystery. Serious students of theology will probably not find much they did not know here, but that is not a flaw with the book as it is intended for a general audience.

I tend to find Ehrman a bit overly sensitive to criticism by Evangelicals. He spends more time than I t...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Shawn Thrasher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth is a a polemic against a group of scholars (although Ehrman deftly picks apart their claims to even call themselves that) called mythicists who insist that Jesus never actually existed. It would probably have helped if I'd been familiar with their arguments from their points of view, although Erhman does explain in detail what they actually believe and why, before annihilating their theories one by one. What's interesting about Erhm...more

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May 09, 2012 Shelley rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wasn't really looking to be persuaded about this book's titular question, hadn't ever really doubted it before, just wanted to learn some stuff. Not only did I learn very little, but this guy tipped me toward skepticism about the existence of the historical Jesus when before reading it I'd assumed it as fact. That's how slipshod his methodology is, how circular his reasoning, how thin and flimsy his sourcing. I mean really -- Q, M, & L prove such-and-such a point, when Q, M, & L are hy...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Helaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was disappointed when Ehrman announced in one of his books that he had become an agnostic in spite of (or because of) all his Biblical study. I always felt his books carried more weight as a believer--a life long believer, but searching for and finding certain truths. I know others think that being a proclaimed agnostic gives more credibility to his critical studies, but I feel the opposite(and I do mean "feel" because this is emotional, not rational, on my part).

I never thought there wasn't a...more

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Jun 15, 2012 Susan Paxton rated it 3 of 5 stars

Exceptionally interesting, as Biblical scholar Ehrman, an agnostic, takes on the rabid atheists who claim that Jesus is obviously a fiction created by Paul, or someone, for purposes of...well, I'm not sure, you'll have to ask them. Ehrman takes on this trope, and some of the authors who have peddled it, ably. Questions of divinity aside, Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person who lived in the early years of the 1st century and suffered crucifiction under Pontius Pilate. The evidence for Jesus...more

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May 16, 2013 Jim Johnson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-ebook

I' split on this one. Although I'm not convinced that a Palestinian first century rabbi named Jesus did exist and rile up the religious later to ultimately be crucified, he has a valid point. If Jesus lived, he most certainly wasn't God and didn't do all the miraculous things credited to him in the gospels. Also, such a person would not be able to transcend time and culture. Or more specifically, Jesus would have little resemblance to the Americanized version that we see many Christians "worship...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion

Several years ago, I read Tim Harpur's The Pagan Christ which hypothesizes that Jesus was not a historical figure or that, at the very least, most of the stories about him did not occur. Instead, Harpur argued that most of the stories can be traced back to ancient Egyptian mythology. Although I appreciated the theory, I found the book unconvincing - it struck me more as a sermon than anything else.

Fast forward several years and Dr. Ehrman has decided to respond to Harpur and all the other "myth...more

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May 31, 2012 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you read the current literature out there there seems to be a disconnect into whether Jesus existed or whether he was a literary connection. Bart Ehrman does a fantastic job laying out the case that Jesus existed.

This book however does provide an interesting twist in that Ehrman though an agnostic is often cited by the atheist and railed against by the evangelicals have the tables switched with this book. The tables will return back to normal because the purpose of this book is to lay the gro...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ehrman refutes the claim of the mythicists who claim there is no real evidence for a historical Jesus. On page 336 Ehrman states, "In my view Humanists, agnostics, atheists, mythicists, and anyone else who does not advocate beleif in Jesus would be better served to stress that the Jesus of history is not the Jesus of modern Christianity than to insist-wrongly and counterproductively- that Jesus never existed. Jesus did exist. He simply was not the person that most modern believers today think he...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Jennie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, non-fiction, religion, to-review, read-in-2012, read-in-march

I was introduced to the author a few years ago via The Great Courses DVDs. Brett, my parents and I went to a Religions of the World course about 4 years ago where we watched a few of these courses and I became fascinated with the author. Since then Brett has read a few of his books and my parents have seen him speak in person. When I saw this book on the TLC Tour list I had to sign up.

With such a sensitive and heavy topic as this book carries, one might expect the text to be overpowering in scho...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Larry Cunningham rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the fifth or sixth book I've read by the author (though the first I've reviewed on Goodreads). I've always enjoyed his ability to communicate difficult topics regarding early Christianity to a lay audience, and, in general, I tend to agree with his interpretations (not that that counts for much). This book was no exception. Though, typically, Dr. Ehrman can be a bit repetitive when discussing some points (he reminds me of some of my own college instructors), overall I would recommend thi...more

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May 16, 2013 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed-books

Bart Ehrman is a well-known writer of books on biblical history for the layman (and also, according to him, for the six other academics in the world who care...), and he does the job well. This particular book looks at the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus, and then, having concluded that Jesus did exist, what sort of a man, and what sort of preacher, he was. The Jesus of history turns out to be a very different man to the Jesus described in most modern church services.

Ehrman expl...more

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Dec 24, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't often read books to which I already know the ending, but in this case the journey is what makes the book worth it. If you have read Ehrman or listen to him debate before you probably already know that he is going to come down on the side of Jesus existing and he says as much in the first few pages. But the reward is in his grappling with the "mythicist" position that Jesus never existed.

Ehrman lays out many of the claims of this group and then systematically shows why they are just wron...more I don't often read books to which I already know the ending, but in this case the journey is what makes the book worth it. If you have read Ehrman or listen to him debate before you probably already know that he is going to come down on the side of Jesus existing and he says as much in the first few pages. But the reward is in his grappling with the "mythicist" position that Jesus never existed.

Ehrman lays out many of the claims of this group and then systematically shows why they are just wrong. What is impressive is that Ehrman attempts to give their arguments a fair shake but in the end is forced call a spade a spade. What surprised me most is how much of the evidence for the nonexistence of Jesus is simply made up. I was expecting misreading of data and bias run amok, but to learn they were making information up to bolster a theory that wouldn't stand on its own was just stunning.

While knocking down the mythicist postion Ehrman puts on display all the evidence for the historical Jesus almost all of which comes from the four gospels that have been pasted down to us. While Ehrman cannot be accused of supporting a Christian view of the historical Jesus, the depictions he offers is not too far from home for most Christians. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, proclaimed a Kingdom of God, was the self proclaimed king of this new kingdom, was betrayed and crucified. Does Ehrman think that Jesus was God? No. Does he think he rose from the dead? No. But he allows for that to be an option outside the realm of historical inquiry.

If what Ehrman writes in this book is the absolute bare minimum that can be said about the historical Jesus than I think that puts apologist in a pretty good position to defend the Christian faith.

While what Ehrman says can no way be described as orthodox, I am completely baffled by the response he is getting from Christians. Yes, he disagrees with a lot of what we hold dear. But when an agnostic leaning atheist comes along who disagrees with the position that many (I would say most) atheists proclaim, one would think we would throw a parade for that guy and not treat him with utter contempt.

Did Jesus Exist? Is a worth while read for anyone who maybe interested in the topic. Ehrman does not defend the Christian nor the Atheist view of Jesus, but present the historical consensus as fairly as one can. And I can appreciate that. (less)

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Mar 25, 2012 Andrea Wenger rated it 3 of 5 stars

If Ehrman's purpose was to refute the mythicist argument that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, then he does so cogently in this book. He should have stopped there. Unfortunately, he ends the book by presenting his own biased theory about the true nature of the teachings of Jesus. It may be a theory that he reached after years of scholarly study; but he offers no arguments against, and offers no other possible interpretations of the data. That's his prerogative, of course; this isn't a scholarly...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Chris Aldrich rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: archaeology, history, biography

Written by an atheist academic historian, I find this most interesting for it's historical arguments and analysis of the texts. I suppose from this perspective, Ehrman has books that may have been more useful than this particular one. Though it was vaguely interesting to hear the arguments and refutation of the so-called mythicists who argue that Jesus didn't exist from a historical perspective, I could have done without the quarter of the book which focused more on these aspects.

I was glad tha...more

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About Bart D. Ehrman

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Div...more Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

A graduate of Wheaton College (Illinois), Professor Ehrman received both his Masters of Divinity and PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. Since then he has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited 21 books, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews. Among his most recent books are a Greek-English edition of The Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press), an assessment of the newly discovered Gospel of Judas (Oxford University Press), and two New York Times bestsellers: God’s Problem (an assessment of the biblical views of suffering) and Misquoting Jesus (an overview of the changes found in the surviving copies of the New Testament and of the scribes who produced them).

Among his fields of scholarly expertise are the historical Jesus, the early Christian apocrypha, the apostolic fathers, and the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

Professor Ehrman has served as President of the Southeast Region of the Society of Biblical literature, chair of the New Testament textual criticism section of the Society, book review editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature, and editor of the monograph series The New Testament in the Greek Fathers (Scholars Press). He currently serves as coeditor of the series New Testament Tools, Studies, and Documents (E.J. Brill), coeditor in chief for the journal Vigiliae Christianae, and on several other editorial boards for journals and monographs in the field.

Winner of numerous university awards and grants, Professor Ehrman is the recipient of the 1993 UNC Undergraduate Student Teaching Award, the 1994 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement, and the Bowman and Gordon Gray Award for excellence in teaching.

Professor Ehrman has two children, a daughter, Kelly, and a son, Derek. He is married to Sarah Beckwith (PhD, King's College London), Marcello Lotti Professor of English at Duke University. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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More about Bart D. Ehrman...

Books by Bart D. Ehrman

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible {and Why We Don't Know About Them}

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer

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