This post is in response to Barry O’Grady’s recent
posts in which he has claimed that "Christianity is bullshit".
Barry raises issues about Christianity borrowing mythology and
festivals from other religions, which I do not dispute. He also
claims that Christianity is harmful, which I definitely do dispute.
The underlying issue seems to be that Christianity has no basis
in historical fact, so it is that I will address in this post.
Barry and I have agreed to debate these issues publicly on the
newsgroup, but of course public or private comments are welcome.

From a historical standpoint, the existence and crucifixion
of Jesus are amongst the most strongly attested events in the
ancient world. In the New testament we have what claim to be eyewitness
accounts of Jesus’ life and death written no more than 60 years
(and some say as few as 20 years) after the events they describe.
We also have the letters of Paul, written within the two decades
after Jesus’ death. The fact that those documents were written
by people with a Christian religious agenda does not make them
historically unreliable – unless you want to say that the authors
of the New testament were all deliberate liars who set about deceiving
others and laying the foundations for what they knew was a false
religion. If you want to make that claim, you must explain why
they would do such a thing, especially given that many of them
ultimately lost their lives rather than deny their beliefs.

There are ancient sources outside the New testament
which also mention Jesus, or people who were Christians. The roman
historian Tacitus (60-120 CE), in his *Annales*, wrote of one
Pomponia Graecina who was put on trial for a ‘foreign superstition’
which may have been Christianity. Tacitus also refers to Christians,
the followers of "Chrestus, from whom their name is derived,
[who] was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate
in the reign of Tiberias". Another Roman historian, Suetonius,
in his *vita Claudii* refers to quarrels between Christian and
Jewish teachers causing a disturbance in Rome, and Christians
being amongst the Jews expelled from Rome in about the year 52.
Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bythinia, wrote to Caesar
in about the year 112 to ask whether he ought to persecute Christians
just for being Christians, or whether he ought rather to wait
until they had committed some actual offence first. The emperor
Trajan replied that Pliny was not to seek out Christians just
to persecute him, but that if they came to his attention for other
reasons he should be merciless with them.

The New Testament, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny and
Trajan all contain information about Jesus and his followers written
within a century of his life. There are also Christian inscriptions
on walls in the ruins of Pompeii, and as far north as England,
which can be securely dated to the first century.

Except for some emperors and generals, this evidence
for the existence of Jesus is stronger than what we have for just
about anyone in the ancient world. Most of this information is
available in any encyclopedia or history of world religion. Not
only does it show that Jesus existed, it indicates that within
a century of his lifetime, there were people who believed so strongly
in Christianity that they would rather lose their lives than deny
it.

What I have written above is historical evidence,
not opinion or faith. To prove that Jesus did not exist, you would
have to show cause why those who claimed to be eyewitnesses would
have lied, and what they had to gain from it. You would also have
to show how, and why, this deception spread so rapidly and successfully
throughout the Roman Empire in the next three centuries.

If we can agree that Jesus existed, we can move on
from there to the content of Christian ‘mythology’ and faith,
and its impact on the world.

Cheers

N+

Nigel B. Mitchell

Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.