Abstract
Maurice Casey has written a book that critiques the idea that Jesus never existed. The book consists of eight chapters. The first chapter introduces readers to people who question Jesus’ historicity. Those who insist Jesus did not exist are called mythicists.
In the second chapter, Casey contends that mythicists do not correctly use historical method. Although Neil Godfrey is not a mythicist, he is skeptical of Jesus’ existence. Casey criticizes Godfrey’s criterion of archaeological evidence for establishing historicity. Since no surviving sources describe Jesus minting coins nor making inscriptions, Casey astutely concludes it is unreasonable to expect to find archaeological evidence for Jesus.
In the third chapter, Casey critiques mythicists’ arguments for dating the canonical Gospels to the second century C. E. He correctly highlights Dorothy Murdock’s erroneous use of outdated scholarship on New Testament manuscripts. Although Casey’s arguments that Mark was written around 40 C.E. and Matthew circa 50 C.E. are not persuasive, he makes a good case for dating Mark prior to 70 C.E. Casey also searches for Semitisms in stories in the synoptic Gospels that only fit in a first century Jewish context. Unfortunately, his approach does not exclude the possibility that first century Jewish Christians produced these stories.
In the fourth and fifth chapters, Casey responds to mythicists’ arguments from silence. Earl Doherty emphasizes that most of the details about Jesus in the Gospels are missing from Q and the epistles. Doherty infers that their absence implies Christians had not yet fabricated them. Casey insightfully notes that Q is a hypothetical source, and that it is consequently unwise to focus on what is missing from it. He additionally explains the epistles were not intended to be biographies, and asserts that the audiences already knew stories about Jesus. However, Casey cites no evidence that they knew such stories. Even Casey thinks they may not have known a story about an empty tomb. Casey also neglects to interact with most of Doherty’s arguments regarding Jesus in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In the remaining chapters, Casey analyzes mythicists’ misinterpretations of Paul’s writings. He also exposes their citations of spurious parallels between stories about Jesus and non-Christian myths. Overall, Casey’s analysis could have been more thorough, but he sufficiently identifies flaws in mythicists’ arguments.