Historicity of Jesus

From Textus Receptus

The miraculous catch of 153 fish by Duccio, 14th century, shows Jesus on the shore and the 7 fishing disciples (with Peter leaving the boat

The historicity of Jesus concerns how much of what is written about Jesus of Nazareth is considered historically reliable from the viewpoint of a secular scholar. The historicity of Jesus covers a spectrum of ideas that range from "the gospels are inerrant descriptions of the life of Jesus" to "the gospels provide no historical information about Jesus' life including his very existence".

The majority of secular scholars who study Early Christianity believe that the Gospels do contain some reliable information about Jesus, agreeing that Jesus was a Jew who was regarded as a teacher and healer, that he was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, on the charge of sedition against the Roman Empire. According to traditional Christian Church teaching, the Gospels of John and Matthew were written by eyewitnesses. However, a majority of modern critical biblical scholars have abandoned this orthodox view in place of a skeptical critical approach.

Material which refers to Jesus includes the books of the New Testament, statements from the early Church Fathers, hypothetical sources which biblical scholars argue lie behind the New Testament, brief references in histories produced decades or centuries later by pagan and Jewish sources such as Josephus, gnostic and other apocryphal documents, and early Christian creeds. The bible is the most accurate ancient historical document of antiquity, but not absolutely every detail contained in the gospels can be verified to be historically reliable by non biblical sources. Skeptics, critics, pseudo Christian scholars usually doubt the elements surrounding the historical authenticity of the two accounts of the nativity of Jesus, as well as the resurrection and certain details about the crucifixion.

Critics state that because the evidence for the existence of Jesus all comes from after his lifetime. as a result, Biblical scholars have created the historical Jesus in their own image. But because the New Testament is the most attested to ancient document in existence, if these same scholars apply this rationale to scripture, then they must by default, deny all other historical works. A small number of scholars believe the gospel accounts are so mythical in nature that nothing, not even the very existence of Jesus, can be determined from them.

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