Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking With Atheists, I'm Still a Christian by Justin Brierley

Author:Justin Brierley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Christian Life, Apologetics, Philosophy, General, Religion, Inspirational, Religious, Christian Theology
ISBN: 9780281077991
Publisher: SPCK
Published: 2017-06-15T02:29:30.584768+00:00

ELIMINATING JESUS

And that’s where we come back to people like Joseph Atwill. The author’s sensational claims about the non-existence of Jesus are the very antithesis of historical responsibility. Yet, even though his theories are regarded as kooky even by his fellow mythicists, he and those like him are tapping into a general sense of distrust of the Bible that pervades our culture today.

Somehow, an assumption has developed in the public consciousness that the Gospels are a collection of legendary fables. A 2016 survey reported that 22 per cent of people in the UK think Jesus was a mythical figure, while 17 per cent are unsure whether he was real or not.7 If accurate, this means that nearly 40 per cent of people doubt the existence of Jesus, a staggering indication of how pervasive such scepticism has become.

Part of the blame must lie with the Internet. Despite the fact that no widely respected historian holds to the mythicist position, if you type ‘Did Jesus exist?’ into a search engine you’d be forgiven for thinking that the issue is a seriously contested one. Sceptical websites and articles abound, the vast majority of which are run by atheists. Jesus mythicism is a classic example of a movement that can only exist online. Yet, for mainstream academics, the view that Jesus never existed belongs in the same category as those who claim that the moon landings were a hoax.

One such academic is agnostic Bible scholar Bart Ehrman. In years gone by, he won favour among the sceptical community for casting doubt upon aspects of the reliability of the Gospels. But when he wrote a book titled Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, refuting the idea that Jesus did not exist (after he kept hearing it from atheists), many of his former fans turned against him.

I invited Ehrman into my radio studio to explain why the atheist community remains so keen to fly in the face of accepted scholarship. He suggested that an anti-religious bias is clouding their judgement: ‘My guess is that they are people who believe that organized religion is a major problem, so they choose to attack Christianity by claiming that it is rooted in a fairy tale. They can then claim that Christianity was something made up in order to oppress people.’8

That interview with Ehrman was one among many I’ve had with him, but remains a memorable one, partly because it felt so unusual. Let me explain why.

Ehrman’s own journey has involved moving from Evangelical Christianity to abandoning faith altogether after coming to doubt the truth of the Bible and the existence of God. I remember when I first came across his bestselling book Misquoting Jesus in which he managed to turn the dry subject of textual transmission into a gripping account of why we can’t necessarily trust the New Testament. Ehrman has mastered the art of making academic subjects accessible to a popular audience, and that particular book threw some serious doubts my way when I read it in preparation for interviewing him on my radio show.

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