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Seldom do we have concrete proof of the existence of anyone in the ancient past. Largely, we have to work on probability. What is the most probable situation based on the available evidence. As a whole, the general consensus among scholars and historians is that the probability of Jesus existing is virtually a certainty.
We can start a little backwards here. One of the more scholarly works that argue that their is reason to doubt the historicity of Jesus, “On the Historicity of Jesus,” by Richard Carrier, acknowledges that his position is in the minority. While he states that the consensus among scholars and historians is that Jesus existed, he argues that we should reevaluate that consensus.
Carrier’s position really hasn’t taken off though. Part of the reason is that he also has to battle other mythicists, which is something he touches on in his book as well. Another part of the reason is that the evidence for existence is generally seen as more compelling. I mention Carrier though because one, even though he is a mythicist, he acknowledges that his position is in the minority, and two, among mythicists, he has the most scholarly approach to the subject.
Currently, there has been no large rebuttal directly aimed at Carrier’s work, but Bart Ehrman, in Did Jesus Exist (which is more of a popular book), does address Carrier. Sadly, its not as in depth as it could be, but Ehrman’s conclusion is that yes, Jesus did exist.
So getting to the actual evidence. One point that we can begin with is Josephus. In the writings of Josephus, particularly Jewish Antiquities (or Antiquities of the Jews), there are two mentions of Jesus. The first is what is now called the Tesitmonium Flavium. There are some issues with that passage in its current form. The second passage is much shorter, and mentions Jesus (who is called Messiah) as the brother of James.
Dealing with this second passage first, Louis H Feldman, in Vol. 10, no. 456, of the Loeb Library edition, in an entry called Josephus and Modern Scholarship, argues that the vast majority of scholars agree that this passage is authentic. Steve Mason, in Josephus and the New Testament, supports this view that the passage is authentic. I mention Feldman and Mason as they are two of the premier scholars on Josephus and don’t appear to have a real dog in the fight.
The first passage, the Testimonium Flavium is more of a problem. The consensus is that a portion of the text is authentic, but that there are also interpolations added to the text. Going back to Feldman, in Flavius Josephus Revisited, states flatly that “the great majority of modern scholars have regarded it (the Testimonium Flavium) as partly interpolated, and this is my conclusion as well.”
A classic on the subject now, A Marginal Jew, Volume II, by John P. Meier, reconstructs the passage and presents what he believes is the authentic (or more authentic) text, which removes the Christian interpolations, which many scholars have since taken up. Meier also lays out the standard defense for the passage.
The passage, actually both of them, appear in the main Greek manuscript tradition of “The Antiquities.” It also appears in the Latin, Arabic, and Syriac traditions. So it is well attested to.
The vocabulary and grammar of the passage (once we remove the obvious Christian material) also flows well with what we know of Josephus’s style. The passage doesn’t flow well with Christian writings though from that time. Some of it even stands at odds with Christian writings.
By breaking down the passage, we only have three instances of Christian writing. Delete that, and what we have is something that would be conceivable of any Jew to say. Not so much for a Christian though. For instance, Josephus is silent as to why Jesus was put to death. Christian literature was not. The passage does not reflect a Christian way of treating Jesus’s death. In addition, the treatment of the Jewish authority in the passage don’t work with the picture in the Gospels. Not a word is said about the Jewish authorities passing any sort of sentencing, and that is given to Pilate. The Gospels, Pilate is largely innocent. So it contradicts with Christian ideology.
The passage also seems to show a surprise that Christians even still exist. In the concluding remarks, Josephus speaks of how that tribe has not died out. It would have been a surprising idea to a Jew such as Josephus, as he writes of many other messiah claimants, and as soon as the leader dies, the movement does to. So the tone is more Josephus.
The evidence points to Josephus having written the core of the text, and a later individual seeing it as disgraceful, and added Christian thought to it, as Meier argues.
The reason I spend so much time on Josephus is that from a historical perspective, Josephus is generally enough evidence to conclude historicity. There are problems with Josephus, as there are with any ancient historian, but he is generally our best source for that time and place.
The other evidence we have to Jesus is the Gospels and Paul. Paul is by far our earliest source for Jesus, but he doesn’t say much. Donald Harman Akenson, in “Saint Paul, A skeleton key to the Historical Jesus,” lays out Paul’s view of Jesus, and what we can gather from Paul on Jesus, possibly the best. What we gather, at a base, is that Jesus was a Jew, born a Jew, that he was descended from David, that he had a brother named James, as well as other sibling. This is largely taken from Galatians 1:19, Galatians 4:4 and Romans 1:3.
Akenson also argues that we have some teachings from Paul that probably stretch back to Jesus. The major one is the teaching on divorce, where Paul explicitly states that it comes from Jesus.
The final source is the Gospels. John Dominic Crossan, in the Birth of Christianity, presents a great breakdown. First, he argues that the Gospels writers were never writing history as we know of it today. They were very clear on what they were writing, Gospels (the good news). So we can’t treat them as we would a modern history book. Instead, we need to treat them as the historical genre that they are. He argues that we do such with other figures in history, and thus shouldn’t treat Jesus any differently.
Second, he places the Gospels in context, which is an oral society. A society that passed on information not in a written form, but orally. A society that most people were illiterate. He argues that in a society like this, what we get isn’t exact stories, or exact recollections, but the gist of an idea. To demonstrate this, he cites Milman Parry who did work in Yugoslavia, recording songs and talks. Sadly, before Parry could finish his work, he was killed by a gunshot, but Albert Bates Lord, who had worked with Parry, expanded the work, titled The Singer of Tales. What they showed was that through the performance of such work (specifically Homeric tales), while the words may change a bit, the general gist of the story remains the same.
So what Crossan argues is that portions of the Gospels are theological. That’s what we should expect in such writings. But he also argues that other portions of the works, which are based on an oral tradition, can be said to be over all correct and represent a clear historical idea.
So to sum up, we have three pieces of evidence for Jesus. Josephus, Paul, and the Gospels. There are issues with all of them, but as a whole, the vast majority of scholars argue that they display that a historical Jesus certainly existed. The evidence then is all of a literary nature. While historians would love to find something more physical, for most ancient figures, that simply isn’t possible.
