The Evidence for Jesus

by R.T. France

Was Jesus a magical cult leader? Was he a revolutionary that failed?Or did the apostle Paul invent him out of a mystical experience?And even if he was a historical figure, how much can we really know about someone who lived two thousand years ago in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire?R. T. France explores these issues by examining in detail the whole range of historical data-from archaeological evidence to other non-Christian sources to Christian writings both inside and outside of the New Testament.With candor and rigor he analyzes modern New Testament scholarship that challenges the biblical record, and sets out a clear and solid case for what the New Testament says about Jesus. This book is valuable resource for those who question or seek to defend the reliability of the Gospels."It is difficult to praise this work too highly . . . It achieves its purpose of presenting the evidence for Jesus with complete success."Christian ArenaR. T. FRANCE has taught at London Bible College and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, from 1989-1995. His many books include The Living God, Jesus the Radical and Jesus and the Old Testament. He is also the author of Matthew in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series.

Genres: Christianity

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1986

About the author

Richard Thomas France was a New Testament scholar and Anglican cleric, and Research Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Wales, Bangor.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A DISCUSSION OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS

Author R.T. France wrote in the Preface to this 1986 book, “When Michael Green originally asked me to write this book for the ‘Jesus Library,’ I was reluctant… Then, just as I was trying to reconcile myself to the task, Channel Four screened a series, ‘Jesus---the Evidence’…. The widespread interest and concern which those programmes aroused showed me, as no arguments by the series editor could do, that there was a real need for such a book.” (Pg. 9)

He says in the Introduction, “A primary aim of this book will be… not merely to list the various types of evidence for Jesus available to the historian, but also to bear in mind the relative value to be attached to the various types… A good part of the book must necessarily be devoted, therefore, to assessing the value of the gospels as historical evidence. If they are accepted as substantially reliable, all other evidence must necessarily find its place in the context of the framework which they provide.” (Pg. 14-15)

He continues, “This book is not designed to respond to that series, which will probably have been generally forgotten long before this book is published. But the controversy it aroused well illustrates both the importance and the sensitivity of our subject---and at the same time warns us that a claim to be following ‘the evidence’ needs careful evaluation… This book, then… will go further back to discuss the nature of the evidence on which such a reconstruction must be based. It aims to describe, and to evaluate, the different sources with which a historian must reckon, and to assess the different types of evidence they offer.” (Pg. 16)

He notes, “Early pagan references to the life or death of Jesus then add up to only the most meagre amount of evidence, and that apparently derived from Christian tradition rather than from independent records.” (Pg. 24)

Of the reference to ‘Chrestus’ in Suetonius, he says, “The simplest explanation is surely that he was a person otherwise unknown to history, who had somehow achieved a position of influence in the Jewish community at Rome… Chrestus… was apparently a common enough name, especially of slaves. But two facts have been taken to suggest a different explanation. First, Chrestus is a GREEK name. Of course many Jews did have Greek names… but Chrestus is not otherwise known as a Jewish name… And secondly Chrestus would sound very like Christus… Is this, then, a mistake by Suetonius who, having heard that a certain ‘Christus’ was responsible for the riots… firstly wrongly assumed that ‘Christus’ was there at the time and secondly substituted the more familiar name Chrestus? Perhaps… but it can never be more than a guess, and the fact that Suetonius can elsewhere speak of ‘Christians’ as members of a new cult… surely makes it rather unlikely that he could make such a mistake… In that case, we simply do not know who ‘Chrestus’ was.” (Pg. 41-42)

He goes on, “So what are these new discoveries which have purportedly so changed our understanding of Jesus? They fall mainly into two categories. Firstly, there are some relatively new discoveries … in that area of Christian or semi-Christian (especially Gnostic) writings of the period after the New Testament… But secondly, the most exciting and fruitful area of any knowledge with relation to Jesus consists not of any reference, direct or indirect, to Jesus himself in non-Christian sources, but of what we might call circumstantial evidence… Some of our increasing knowledge of Jesus’ environment derives from brand-new discoveries, of which by far the most celebrated and important are the Dead Sea Scrolls… At this point we shall look briefly at the nature of this ‘background evidence.’” (Pg. 45-46)

He acknowledges, “It is certainly true that not many specific references to the life of Jesus and not many direct quotations of his teaching occur in Paul’s letters… Is it true, however, that Paul is ‘completely silent’ about the life and teaching of Jesus?... [1 Cor 15:3] introduces a sequence of historical statements about Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, complete with a list of eyewitnesses of the risen Lord… Another tradition explicitly quoted …is the account of Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper… it is clear that [Paul] is grounding his understanding of the Lord’s Supper on the tradition of its historical origin, a tradition of its historical origin, a tradition corroborated in its broad outline by the synoptic gospels. In other passages there is no specific mention of the source of Paul’s information, but he simply refers to facts about Jesus as well known.” (Pg. 89-90)

He says of the ‘criterion of dissimilarity’ used by critical scholars about the gospels, “It will be immediately obvious that this criterion necessarily excludes from the ‘guaranteed’ teaching of Jesus all that is uncontroversial, indeed all that his followers found acceptable! Only the eccentric and the uncomfortable is likely to survive such a test… The inevitable result is a Jesus who agrees neither with current Jewish piety nor with subsequent Christian faith, a Jesus whose teaching his followers at least failed to grasp or even actively disapproved of. But surely no one seriously believes that there was in fact such a total cleavage between Jesus and his followers[?]” (Pg. 104-105)

He admits, “On at least one point Luke’s attempt to tie in his story with contemporary history raises serious problems, in that he dates Jesus’ birth at the time of a census during Quirinius’ governorship in Syria, and yet apparently during the reign of Herod the Great… Since Quirinius’ known period of office in Syria began in AD 6, and Herod’s death is usually dated 4 BC, and since furthermore there is no other record of a Roman census under Herod, whereas there was a famous census in AD 6 when direct Roman rule was imposed for the first time, Luke’s chronology here looks shaky.” (Pg. 126-127)

He states, “All this, and much more, comes to us from the gospels as a compelling portrait of a real man in the real world of first-century Palestine, and yet one who so far transcended his environment that his followers soon learned to see him as more than a man. It is a portrait which we have, in strictly historical terms, no reason to doubt; it is the theological implications which cause many to question whether things can really have been as the gospels present them. But we have seen … sufficient reason to be confident that the gospels not only claim to be presenting fact rather than fiction, but also, where they can be checked, carry conviction as the work of responsible and well-informed writers. The basic divide among interpreters of the gospels is … between… those for whom no amount of historical testimony could be allowed to substantiate what is antecedently labelled as a ‘mythical’ account of events.” (Pg. 138)

He summarizes, “We have seen how the ordinary Jew might have identified Jesus during his Galilean ministry… more with a miracle-working ‘holy man’ like Hanina ben Dosa than with a more orthodox Rabbi… In the political ferment of Palestine under Roman rule again Jesus must have been a conspicuous figure. A man who presented himself… as the Messiah of Israel… Yet it is equally clear from the New Testament that Jesus not only refused the political role which his followers wanted to confer on him, and went out of his way to distance himself from ‘zealot’ ideals… he also preached a message not of liberation for the Jews and their capital, but rather of destruction… But perhaps his most offensive message was his sustained attack on the temple… his attack on the temple must inevitably have alienated him from all main sectors of Jewish society, and was one of the chief causes of this ultimate execution.” (Pg. 160-162)

He concludes, “in our search for the historical Jesus we need to avoid two equally irresponsible extremes. One extreme is the naïve assumption that all we have traditionally believed about Jesus corresponds to historical reality… But the other extreme is the over-enthusiastic iconoclasm which distrusts the evidence of the New Testament as well, not because it has access to any records closer to the events, but because it finds the Jesus of the New Testament unacceptable… The remedy for this second extreme is surely a historical realism which is prepared to give primary weight to the earliest and fullest evidence rather thanA DISCUSSION OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR JESUS

Author R.T. France wrote in the Preface to this 1986 book, “When Michael Green originally asked me to write this book for the ‘Jesus Library,’ I was reluctant… Then, just as I was trying to reconcile myself to the task, Channel Four screened a series, ‘Jesus---the Evidence’…. The widespread interest and concern which those programmes aroused showed me, as no arguments by the series editor could do, that there was a real need for such a book.” (Pg. 9)

He says in the Introduction, “A primary aim of this book will be… not merely to list the various types of evidence for Jesus available to the historian, but also to bear in mind the relative value to be attached to the various types… A good part of the book must necessarily be devoted, therefore, to assessing the value of the gospels as historical evidence. If they are accepted as substantially reliable, all other evidence must necessarily find its place in the context of the framework which they provide.” (Pg. 14-15)

He continues, “This book is not designed to respond to that series, which will probably have been generally forgotten long before this book is published. But the controversy it aroused well illustrates both the importance and the sensitivity of our subject---and at the same time warns us that a claim to be following ‘the evidence’ needs careful evaluation… This book, then… will go further back to discuss the nature of the evidence on which such a reconstruction must be based. It aims to describe, and to evaluate, the different sources with which a historian must reckon, and to assess the different types of evidence they offer.” (Pg. 16)

He notes, “Early pagan references to the life or death of Jesus then add up to only the most meagre amount of evidence, and that apparently derived from Christian tradition rather than from independent records.” (Pg. 24)

Of the reference to ‘Chrestus’ in Suetonius, he says, “The simplest explanation is surely that he was a person otherwise unknown to history, who had somehow achieved a position of influence in the Jewish community at Rome… Chrestus… was apparently a common enough name, especially of slaves. But two facts have been taken to suggest a different explanation. First, Chrestus is a GREEK name. Of course many Jews did have Greek names… but Chrestus is not otherwise known as a Jewish name… And secondly Chrestus would sound very like Christus… Is this, then, a mistake by Suetonius who, having heard that a certain ‘Christus’ was responsible for the riots… firstly wrongly assumed that ‘Christus’ was there at the time and secondly substituted the more familiar name Chrestus? Perhaps… but it can never be more than a guess, and the fact that Suetonius can elsewhere speak of ‘Christians’ as members of a new cult… surely makes it rather unlikely that he could make such a mistake… In that case, we simply do not know who ‘Chrestus’ was.” (Pg. 41-42)

He goes on, “So what are these new discoveries which have purportedly so changed our understanding of Jesus? They fall mainly into two categories. Firstly, there are some relatively new discoveries … in that area of Christian or semi-Christian (especially Gnostic) writings of the period after the New Testament… But secondly, the most exciting and fruitful area of any knowledge with relation to Jesus consists not of any reference, direct or indirect, to Jesus himself in non-Christian sources, but of what we might call circumstantial evidence… Some of our increasing knowledge of Jesus’ environment derives from brand-new discoveries, of which by far the most celebrated and important are the Dead Sea Scrolls… At this point we shall look briefly at the nature of this ‘background evidence.’” (Pg. 45-46)

He acknowledges, “It is certainly true that not many specific references to the life of Jesus and not many direct quotations of his teaching occur in Paul’s letters… Is it true, however, that Paul is ‘completely silent’ about the life and teaching of Jesus?... [1 Cor 15:3] introduces a sequence of historical statements about Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, complete with a list of eyewitnesses of the risen Lord… Another tradition explicitly quoted …is the account of Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper… it is clear that [Paul] is grounding his understanding of the Lord’s Supper on the tradition of its historical origin, a tradition of its historical origin, a tradition corroborated in its broad outline by the synoptic gospels. IN other passages there is no specific mention of the source of Paul’s information, but he simply refers to facts about Jesus as well known.” (Pg. 89-90)

He says of the ‘criterion of dissimilarity’ used by critical scholars about the gospels, “It will be immediately obvious that this criterion necessarily excludes from the ‘guaranteed’ teaching of Jesus all that is uncontroversial, indeed all that his followers found acceptable! Only the eccentric and the uncomfortable is likely to survive such a test… The inevitable result is a Jesus who agrees neither with current Jewish piety nor with subsequent Christian faith, a Jesus whose teaching his followers at least failed to grasp or even actively disapproved of. But surely no one seriously believes that there was in fact such a total cleavage between Jesus and his followers[?]” (Pg. 104-105)

He admits, “On at least one point Luke’s attempt to tie in his story with contemporary history raises serious problems, in that he dates Jesus’ birth at the time of a census during Quirinius’ governorship in Syria, and yet apparently during the reign of Herod the Great… Since Quirinius’ known period of office in Syria began in AD 6, and Herod’s death is usually dated 4 BC, and since furthermore there is no other record of a Roman census under Herod, whereas there was a famous census in AD 6 when direct Roman rule was imposed for the first time, Luke’s chronology here looks shaky.” (Pg. 126-127)

He states, “All this, and much more, comes to us from the gospels as a compelling portrait of a real man in the real world of first-century Palestine, and yet one who so far transcended his environment that his followers soon learned to see him as more than a man. It is a portrait which we have, in strictly historical terms, no reason to doubt; it is the theological implications which cause many to question whether things can really have been as the gospels present them. But we have seen … sufficient reason to be confident that the gospels not only claim to be presenting fact rather than fiction, but also, where they can be checked, carry conviction as the work of responsible and well-informed writers. The basic divide among interpreters of the gospels is … between… those for whom no amount of historical testimony could be allowed to substantiate what is antecedently labelled as a ‘mythical’ account of events.” (Pg. 138)

He summarizes, “We have seen how the ordinary Jew might have identified Jesus during his Galilean ministry… more with a miracle-working ‘holy man’ like Hanina ben Dosa than with a more orthodox Rabbi… In the political ferment of Palestine under Roman rule again Jesus must have been a conspicuous figure. A man who presented himself… as the Messiah of Israel… Yet it is equally clear from the New Testament that Jesus not only refused the political role which his followers wanted to confer on him, and went out of his way to distance himself from ‘zealot’ ideals… he also preached a message not of liberation for the Jews and their capital, but rather of destruction… But perhaps his most offensive message was his sustained attack on the temple… his attack on the temple must inevitably have alienated him from all main sectors of Jewish society, and was one of the chief causes of this ultimate execution.” (Pg. 160-162)

He concludes, “in our search for the historical Jesus we need to avoid two equally irresponsible extremes. One extreme is the naïve assumption that all we have traditionally believed about Jesus corresponds to historical reality… But the other extreme is the over-enthusiastic iconoclasm which distrusts the evidence of the New Testament as well, not because it has access to any records closer to the events, but because it finds the Jesus of the New Testament unacceptable… The remedy for this second extreme is surely a historical realism which is prepared to give primary weight to the earliest and fullest evidence rather than to imaginative reconstructions on the basis of later hints.” (Pg. 166-167)

This book will be of keen interest to those studying the “historical Jesus,” and Christian Apologetics.
to imaginative reconstructions on the basis of later hints.” (Pg. 166-167)

This book will be of keen interest to those studying the “historical Jesus,” and Christian Apologetics.

[Kris]

Recommended by William Lane Craig on his podcast.