The idea that Jesus did not exist is absurd. Non-Christian historians of the first few centuries talked about him, and the records of His life are far better than nearly any other ancient figure. Even skeptical scholar Bart Ehrman has said, “Of the thousands of early Christianity scholars who do teach at such schools, none of them, to my knowledge, has any doubts that Jesus existed.” 

It wasn’t long ago that, every Easter and Christmas, an onslaught of articles and TV specials would appear in places like Time, National Geographic, The New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, and others, doubting the reliability of the Bible, the historicity of Christ, and the development of Christianity. Among the claims made were that Jesus never existed, that the Gospels are later fabrications, and that the Resurrection accounts are knock-offs from pagan mythology. Thankfully, the sheer volume of such pieces declined much like the New Atheists. 

However, a recent article in the New Yorker resurrected such claims. In “We’re Still Not Done with Jesus,” Adam Gopnik reviewed a new book by Elaine Pagels about the life of Christ. The well-written piece covers much of the scholarship and literature surrounding the accounts of Jesus of Nazareth. On one hand, if one were unfamiliar with the academic terrain, it’s a nice survey. On the other hand, though Pagel’s ideas are presented as the latest in critical scholarship, they’re the same tired claims that have been trotted out since the nineteenth century, if not earlier. Even worse, the author fails to mention that the arguments against biblical accuracy and the historicity of Jesus have been repudiated time and again, by multiple generations of Biblical scholars, investigative journalists, and even Lutheran pastors on YouTube. 

One factor behind the recurring skepticism, according to Colson Center Senior Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine, is that conservative Biblical scholars and theologians study what liberal academics produce, but liberal scholars are shockingly unfamiliar with anything that conservatives write. In the New Yorker piece, it’s assumed that the Gospels were written long after the fact, that whoever did write them were not eyewitnesses, and that Jesus and the disciples did not speak Greek.

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