The Narrow Path Ministries

ANY Theory that Proposes "Another Jesus" MUST Satisfactorily Explain the Following:

1) Jesus’ willing baptism by, and association with, John the Baptist, a man who believed himself to be the eschatological prophet heralding the coming of the Messiah and the immanent last judgment by God. This association argues that Jesus shared John’s belief in the coming judgment and Messiah.

2) Jesus’ independent approach to the Law handed down by God Himself, and Jesus’ unequaled audacity to amend it on his own authority. This fact argues that Jesus saw himself as far more than a traditional Jewish rabbi, sage, prophet, or judge.

3) Jesus’ proclamation of the "Kingdom of God" mediated exclusively by Him, made present in his miracles, and in his table-fellowship with sinners and outcasts prefiguring the regathering of the lost sheep of Israel and the redemption and sanctification of the penitent at the Messianic Banquet. This is best understood as a claim to be the promised shepherd king, the high priest, and the Messiah.

4) Jesus’ calling and appointing twelve apostles to be the judges/rulers of the regathered Israel. This can only be understood as a claim to be the King-Messiah who was expected to regather and rule all the tribes of Israel.

5) How Jesus consistently and deliberately raised Messianic expectations in his followers, and Messianic fears in his enemies. If he did not intend to foster such ideas, why did he not try to put a stop to them?

6) Jesus’ unique way of addressing God in what was, at that time, a blasphemously familiar and intimate way; i.e., addressing God as "Abba" ("Dad").

7) His use of the Apocalyptic term "The Son of Man" to refer to himself. This was the name of the eternal Divine being described in Daniel and 1Enoch. The Son of Man possessed the power, glory, and majesty of God, and would judge the world at the general resurrection.

8) His execution by Pilate on the charge of "King of the Jews". If Jesus made no claims to Messiahship, what was the meaning of the charge?

9) How it is that the earliest Christian hymn, the earliest Christian sermon, the oldest Christian account of a martyr, the oldest pagan report of the Church, the oldest liturgical prayer, the earliest Christian Creed, the oldest Christian inscription, and the oldest work of anti-Christian graffiti, all refer to Christ as Lord and God (or at least one who claimed to be and/or is worshipped as such), and how the earliest epistle, the earliest Gospel, and the earliest Jewish source present Jesus as one who claimed to be the Divine Messiah.

10) How it is that within twenty years of the Crucifixion a full-blown high Christology existed, proclaiming Jesus as God incarnate. (See the works of Martin Hengel of Tubingen and C.F.D. Moule of Cambridge.)

11) Why a group of first century, monotheistic Jews would have attributed such claims to a crucified (and thus cursed and abominable) felon from Galilee if Jesus had never made such claims himself. There were other contemporary sages, moralists, wonder-workers, charismatics, and popular heroes who would have been far more believable as the Messiah - they had not been crucified! The candidates include: Gamaliel, Hilel, Theudas, Honi the circle-drawer, "the Egyptian", and John the Baptist, to name but a few.

12) Why Jesus’ followers dedicated their lives to spreading the Good News of the New Covenant in his Blood across three empires and beyond, and that they even went to their deaths rather than deny Jesus as Lord, Savior, and God.

13) How 2-3 million Jews in the Hellenistic Diaspora, and almost as many in the Parthian and Indian Diaspora, embraced Jesus as the Messiah (Lord, Savior, and God) during the 100 years following the Crucifixion.

14) Why there is no evidence for any tradition that presents Jesus as only a sage, prophet, mystic, or holy man. Given the heated polemics and apologetics by pagans, Jews, and heretics, someone would have said something to the effect that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah and/or Divine Savior. No one does. Effective suppression was impossible; even all the fourth and fifth century attempts by Byzantium to suppress "unorthodox" teachers and groups in the Eastern Empire alone proved to be ultimately ineffective, and groups in the West, Parthia, India, Ethiopia, Dacia, Scythia, and the Gothic territories were completely beyond Constantinople’s control. Moreover, though the Church took action to counter - and occasionally suppress - heretics and anti-Christian apologists, the Church did not suppress the evidence of the existence of these people and their arguments, but rather added to the evidence for these by producing works that argued against them. Consequently, the lack of any evidence for a non-Messianic Jesus who was only a purely human holy-man argues that no such view existed.

15) Why the Rabbinic Council of Jamnia in AD 85 excommunicated all followers of Christ from the synagogues: either Jesus was held to be a blaspheming heretic and thus were all his followers, or, if Jesus was not a blasphemer, all those who claimed to be his followers without exception were blasphemers, necessitating that there was no non-blasphemous sect issuing from Jesus.

16) Why the earliest Hellenistic heretics saw Jesus as a pure god/spirit/angel and not any kind of a man at all.

17) Why the earliest Jewish/Judaizing heretics at the very least proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah-Lord, and confessed his Resurrection and Second Coming.

18) How, by the 130s, all followers of Jesus in Palestine, Nabataea, and Syria proclaimed him to be the Messiah. We know this because Simon Bar Kochba, who claimed to be the Messiah, persecuted ALL Christians in these territories, be they Jews or gentiles, because they insisted Jesus was the Messiah and not Bar Kochba. One would think that, that close to home, a non-Messianic "Jesus movement" would still have some adherents, if it in fact ever existed.

19) Why all the pagan and Jewish sources from the first three centuries vilify Jesus as a sorcerer, lunatic, blasphemer, snake-oil salesman, and/or a demon/evil-spirit. Jewish sources characterize Jesus as a blasphemer who attempted to lead Israel astray, "teaching them to worship another god." Tacitus, Lucian, Celsus, and the interlocutors of Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, and Justin all state or imply that Jesus was "the founder of the sect" and "their leader in sedition". The Delphic Oracle described Jesus as that "dead god...who was justly crucified by right-minded judges."

20) Why pagan magicians used the name, Jesus Christ, in their spells alongside Yahweh and the names of pagan gods.

One cannot even make a case that Jesus was a non-entity, and some individual or small group just made up the story about him. In order to make that fly, one must explain why said individual or group would make up such an elaborate and blasphemous story, and then meet the even greater challenge of explaining how he/they could have been so successful in such a short time as to convince everyone, friend and foe alike, of the historicity of the basic facts, in spite of the fact that there were many people still alive who were in Galilee and Jerusalem at the very times Jesus was supposedly doing all those incredible and news-worthy things. We do, after all, live in a world in which human beings live for a number of decades, and are endowed with this faculty called "memory".

Given that I have presented in this volume the complete and exhaustive list and summary of all the earliest documents dealing with Jesus of Nazareth and his teaching and claims, and as all these support that he did indeed claim to be the Divine-Messiah of Jewish hope, and that he did indeed teach that faith in him and the New Covenant in his blood was the soul grounds for salvation, I must ask, no, demand, of anyone who argues for "another Jesus" and "another Gospel", where is your evidence?

By Jason Engwer

You say -- One cannot even make a case that Jesus was a non-entity, and some individual or small group just made up the story about him.

Nonsense. Many have done so.

You say -- In order to make that fly, one must explain why said individual or group would make up such an elaborate and blasphemous story, and then meet the even greater challenge of explaining how he/they could have been so successful in such a short time as to convince everyone, friend and foe alike, of the historicity of the basic facts, in spite of the fact that there were many people still alive who were in Galilee and Jerusalem at the very times Jesus was supposedly doing all those incredible and news-worthy things. We do, after all, live in a world in which human beings live for a number of decades, and are endowed with this faculty called "memory".

For that argument to have much weight or merit, It must have been likely that some residents of Jerusalem or Galilee in around the year 30 may have both witnessed the events in the gospels as well as actually being exposed to those gospels.

For that to have happened, first one would have to have been in Jerusalem or Galilee and witnessed some of the alleged events of Jesus. Though the gospels give the impression that those events were "news-worthy" of the time, the actual historical records don't support that. There is scant mention of Jesus in one controversial paragraph of Josephus, and no mention of any church that grew up around his teachings. Yet, a number of historians have described many Jewish sects of the time. The monastic, reclusive Essenes were described at length by Josephus, Philo of Alexandria and Pliny the Elder. Philo called the Essenes, "athletes of virtue" and Josephus referred to them as "saintly". Yet, no mention is made of the followers of Jesus and the 12 apostles. One must assume that they "flew under the radar." So, unless someone was actually present and at the same time where and when Jesus supposdly was present, that resident would have little reason to doubt the story, since he was not there.

Thus, a Jerusalem or Judaean resident, to dispute the gospels, would have had to likely personally been able to witness one of the events of the gospel, such as being at the temple at the time before Passover during Jesus's alleged scene with the money changers, or along the road or at golgatha when he was crucified, and even then, would have had to inquire the name of that person.

He would also then have had to been exposed to the gospel story about Jesus. Now, if there were in fact no Jesus, then the earliest known stories of what Jesus allegedly did in Galilee and Jerusalem didn't appear until Mark's gospel, which was written most likly in Rome. From Paul's letters and the other NT epistles, there is no hint that they claimed or believed Jesus had just walked the earth, that he did anything related in the gospels, or that he was crucified under Pilate.

Thus, for this argument to fly, a person would have had to both personally been at the temple, or at golgatha, or somewhere else Jesus allegedly was, then would have to been exposed to Mark's gospel. Now, tradition holds that Mark's gospel was written in Rome, sometime after Peter's death, putting it around 68 AD. This means that someone who was at the temple or at golgatha, and saw nothing out the ordinary happen that particular day, would have to remember that ordinary day for 40 years. He would have had to then have survived the Jewish War. In that war, Jerusalem was seiged and then sacked, and its residents either slaughtered or scattered. Estimates of the deaths in Jerusalem were between 2/3 and 1-1/2 million. Outside of Jerusalem, there was extreme carnage as well. The Jewish residents of 9 of the 10 cities of the Decapolis were slaughtered -- only in Gesera were they allowed to flee. Josephus relates an account of a major battle between soldiers of the Roman X legion and rebels in Capernaum, Peter's hometown, in which the number of Jews killed was estimated at 6,300. There were a number of battles in Samaria, again with large losses of life among the Jews.

So, the few who may have been in some certain spots around the year 30, would have to remember for 40 years that it was an ordinary day, and then survive the Jewish War. If they were of the lucky ones who did, they then would somehow made their way to Rome (when they were at least in their late 50's). There, they would have to somehow become involved in or exposed to a little-known Jewish sect called christians, and been exposed to their gospel.

Even then, they would have had to write to somebody about it. This in itself is problematic, since most people of the time were illiterate, and papyrus was relatively expensive. And who would he write to? Even if that person did remember what little happened that passover 40 or so years earlier, the folks back in Judaea had much bigger problems to worry about than some claims about some obscure messiah character worshipped from 40 years earlier in some sect in Rome. But even if he did write about it, that letter then would have survived 2000 years, or at least made its way to some rabbi in the diaspora to comment upon, and then that rabbi's account to have survived until today.

Thus, if Jesus didn't exist, there is little surprise that no letter or account of a Jewish resident of Judaea disputed the gospels. Someone would have had to been at one of the biblical scenes, and then remember for 40 years that nothing out of the ordinary happened that day, then survived the carnage of the Jewish War, then found their way to Rome, been exposed to an obscure sect, been exposed to their gospel, have written to someone about it, and that letter to have survived, directly or indirectly, up to today.