Liar, lunatic, lord, or other L-words

I was mulling over on my drive to work the other day, the C S Lewis trilemma about Jesus’ divinity. Yes, that’s the kind of thing I think about while in transit, when the classic rock station isn’t holding my interest. It struck me that when people offer a limited set of options as though they are the only options, they almost always exclude options that are devastating to their general argument, and this was probably the case here as well. This is a “false dilemma” or “excluded middle” fallacy. Lewis offers exactly three options as though they are the only ones — that Jesus either intentionally lied about being God, was a lunatic and thought he was God but wasn’t, or was actually God.

Lewis’ argument runs that anyone claiming to be Lord either is, is mad, or is lying; and that since these latter two options are logically incompatible with the idea that Jesus was a great moral teacher, and that it is generally accepted that he was, then Jesus must have been Lord. The thought emerged fully formed in my mind: what if Jesus didn’t exist at all, and was pure legend? Or if he existed, much like Jason of the Argonauts, but his stories had accumulated millenia of apocryphal cruft? The option had an L-word right in the name — “legend” — so I was naturally quite pleased with myself and my big pulsing brain.

When I got to work, I decided to check Google to see if anyone else had come across this line of thought — C S Lewis’ arguments had been around for a very long time, and I figured someone else may have thought of it first. Despite bracing myself, though, I couldn’t help but deflate when I discovered that Biblical scholar par excellence Bart Ehrman had gotten there first. I realized that no matter how eloquent the subsequent blog post I would write, its argumentation would pale in comparison with a man who’d begun studying the Bible as an Evangelical Christian in 1978, and has studied it extensively in all its historical languages and textual criticisms. The man who had already picked up my idea and ran with it, did so when I was barely out of diapers, and had presented extensive evidence for the legend status of the central figure of the New Testament.

So I deflated somewhat. But I decided to keep chewing on the idea, because not everyone will have read his books or will have heard the common rebuttal to the 3-L argument. I have, in my own recent memory, encountered the 3-L argument twice in online debates, and I don’t recall the alternative of “legend” having been offered as another possibility in those instances. So, hopefully, I can enlighten those of you who have heard the 3-L and thought it waterproof.

The “legend” argument involves showing that either some historical Jesus existed, though his properties were inflated with the tellings and retellings between his supposed existence and the first written records of him; or that he did not exist at all, and was pure fabrication by the early Christian adherents. Either of these possibilities are borne out by the facts that concurrent records of Jesus (or Yeshua) simply did not exist. The earliest historical records are from Josephus, a Greek historian born 37 CE (at least four years after Jesus’ supposed death), and even those records are highly contentious — historicians of both Biblical and secular history have good evidence that Testimonium Flavianum, Josephus’ history that references Jesus, may have been altered by Christian copycats. And even if they weren’t altered after the fact, they make no explicit claims of Jesus outside of him being a wise man and teacher, nor do they reference any of the common Christian dogmas. One of the only references to the dogmas is that he died on a cross and returned to life shortly thereafter, and that he was called the Christ, the “blessed messiah”, a title handed to the person people threw in with at that time; this does not document anything more than which preacher won the people’s hearts, even if true.

Some strong evidence against Jesus’ inclusion in this history is the fact that Justin Martyr, a Christian apologist intimately familiar with Josephus’ work, made absolutely no mention of the potentially knockout argument that Josephus had documented Jesus’ historicity in Justin’s famous Dialogue with Trypho, a Jewish Rabbi. This could be an oversight, but given how high of esteem Justin held Josephus’ work, it seems rather damning of the inclusion of Jesus in that work at all that no contemporary apologists ever referenced it.

The New Testament is often held up as the best historical record of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. However, one must note, it was undeniably compiled by the Council of Nicaea from historical documents some 350 years after Jesus’ supposed death. The stories that were included in the New Testament had been considered, to that point, apocrypha. And some stories that were taught as canon, were thrown out as apocrypha in that same fell swoop. Honest textual analysis shows that much of the New Testament was cribbed from earlier works, mishmashed and interleaved with one another in an attempt to form a common narrative. Many of the more fanciful events of the New Testament, including the Virgin Birth, Noah’s Ark, the blood sacrifice of Jesus, and his resurrection, are slight modifications of pre-existing myths that stretch as far back as the Babylonian mythologies. Coupled with the extensive evidence we have for the true authors of the Bible, we can easily trace the origins of particular myths to the prior art that came before it.

Another L-word that comes to mind is “legerdemain”, though this is a mere extension of the Legend category. The fact that there’s a distinct possibility Josephus’ work was adulterated after the fact by Christian apologists suggests to me that many other pieces of historical evidence may have altered in such a way. This means there was probably some initial adherent to the cult of Jesus in early Greek days, who synthesized their mythos from pre-existing mythologies outside the scope of the accepted dogmas of the day, and who were willing to lie on behalf of their non-existent deity to convince other, newer adherents of his existence. Once a few generations had passed, any knowledge that the initial seed was wrought with lies would be lost to the ages. One cannot, however, point to legerdemain as the source for historical execution records which were generally meticulously kept during the Roman empire — because there are none. Well, none, that is, save the already-specious Shroud of Turin, generally understood to be a 12th century forgery except those whose faith is bigger than facts. In 2009 the shroud was analyzed by a “Vatican scholar” who purported to find invisible markings certifying Jesus’ death. Yeah, I’m still waiting for replication of results by someone without a dog in the fight, personally.

And another possibility that I have been chewing on, is the thought that Jesus was merely lucky. The scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where there was a busy city street with innumerable apocalypse preachers of all different stripes, is probably pretty close to reality. Ehrman wrote a book on this, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium. Haven’t yet read it myself, but I have no doubts in my mind that, given the stories Jesus supposedly told and their striking similarities to your average loony “end is nigh” street preacher today, that Jesus was, if not a historical figure, based on one of these first-century street preachers benefited with a modicum of charisma and some followers capable of marketing. He “got lucky” in the marketplace of ideas by getting in when said marketplace was impoverished by virtue of a total lack of science.

Despite some laughable counterarguments to the legend postulate, Jesus as a historical figure is far from settled, much less his divinity. The burden of proof is, as always, on the person making the claim, not the person who doubts someone’s purported divinity. So if you think your deity is undeniably “lord”, don’t duff on the follow-up by offering a weak trilemma that could be applied to any claimant, from Hercules to David Koresh. Especially when a simpleton like myself can proffer some other, more plausible explanations with actual scientific and circumstantial evidence to back them up (thanks mostly to other more capable minds preceding me), rather than mere logical sleight-of-hand.

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Liar, lunatic, lord, or other L-words
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6 thoughts on “Liar, lunatic, lord, or other L-words

  1. 1

    The real answer is that you have to move on past the L’s, and the M’s fit in quite nicely. If you buy the triple L logic, then surely you’re a Muslim or a Mormon, right?

  2. 4

    Many of the more fanciful events of the New Testament, including the Virgin Birth, Noah’s Ark,
    I’m slowly re-reading my copy of the bible, but even though I haven’t gotten that far yet I’m pretty sure Noah’s Ark is in the OT. Still is an elaboration/corruption of various older myths though sure.

    I saw the “Legend” response back on an old episode of The Atheist Experience a while back, haven’t seen it yet in Ehrman’s stuff, but I’ve only read a little by him(hoping to get more of his books for Christmas)

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