I’ve noticed a sad fact. People often reject Christianity--not because they’ve studied the New Testament, investigated its claims, and found them wanting--but because of something they once heard. And the tragedy is this: the arguments offered by these sloppy skeptics are usually just regurgitated myths--bad ideas that were debunked decades ago and are no longer in use even by unbelieving scholars. So, with that in mind, here are three such myths you may have heard about Jesus. 

Myth Number One: Jesus never actually existed. There are various versions of this one. Many of them take the ‘Jesus Myth’ approach—the idea that the Christian story as we know it is actually a sort of shoddily constructed hodge-podge of various ancient pagan myths. There were myths about virgin birth, about wise teachers with twelve followers, about dying and rising gods and so the architects of Christianity took a bit from here and a bit from there and fabricated the whole story. 

I remember encountering this as a freshman in college. A buddy of mine had seen the then-brand-new Zeitgeist movie (which served up a version of this view) and he’d found it utterly convincing. What my friend didn’t know is this: By the time this idea made it onto YouTube in 2007, it had already been rejected by scholars of ancient history for around 100 years. In the late 19th century there had been a school of thought within German higher criticism called the History of Religions School (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule). They were the ones who constructed this view. 

Approaching the New Testament with the assumption that it couldn’t be true, they speculated that the key tenets of Christianity were actually well-known pagan ideas that had been recycled and repackaged under a new name. It was a radical proposal. The trouble was, the evidence wasn’t there. When scholars actually read these ancient primary sources and compared them to the New Testament documents, the supposed parallels were laughable. What’s more, many of these pagan myths were demonstrably post-Christian. So that if there was any influence here, it was pagans who were adopting some of the ideas of Christianity, and in so doing inadvertently attesting to the growth and spread of the Christian gospel. 

So, within just a few years of its inception—and as a result of scholars simply taking the time to read the relevant literature—this view collapsed under its own weight. 

The fact is, Jesus is one of the most well-attested historical figures to have ever lived. From the New Testament documents—all of which date to the first century, to the Jewish sources from the same period, to Roman historians who reference Jesus and all the activity generated by those who directly observed Him, it’s not even up for debate. 

NT scholar, Bart Ehrman, puts it like this: “I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leanings, and my life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed. My beliefs would vary little. But as a historian I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist. —Bart Ehrman

Myth Number 2: Yes, Jesus existed. But all the supernatural stuff was invented later. Jesus was just a man. A good man, but a normal man who lived and died like the rest of us. It was only after years and years of embellishment that the legend grew. The parts of the story that Christians now regard as central, are in fact the things that were invented by overzealous followers generations later. 

This view rests on the contention that the New Testament documents are not first century documents, written during the lifetime of those who could falsify their claims but were in fact written much later, likely a century or more after the events they claim to record. And for this view, we once again have German higher criticism to thank. 

In the first half of the 19th century, F. C Baur founded what would come to be known as the Tubingen School. Baur took the Hegelian Dialectic and used it as the interpretive lens through which to assess the first few centuries of Christianity. And this is what he concluded:

The Christian Gospel, as we now understand it, was not the original message. In fact, it’s the result of a fusion between two competing Christian factions. There was Petrine Christianity (the disciples of Peter) and they believed certain things about Jesus and there was Pauline Christianity (the disciples of Paul) and they believed other things about Jesus. And it was only after a hundred years of conflict between these two groups that a synthesis was developed. They worked out a compromise and created a new kind of Christianity that could move forward in unity. 

It was this later synthesis, then, that gave us the Jesus we recognize today. And the NT documents, far from being reliable sources of the events they claim to record, are actually propaganda documents written over a century later by people fraudulently claiming eyewitness authority in an attempt to establish the dominance of their newly-created movement. It’s a creative hypothesis, you have to admit. But it suffers from the same defects as myth number one. Namely, that all the evidence is running in the other direction. 

In response to Baur’s now defunct school, consider the following three facts. 

Firstly, consider that the writings of the early church leaders “known as the Apostolic Fathers” (writing between 90 and 160 AD) are chockfull of New Testament quotations. Baur and his ideological descendants would have us believe that the NT documents are mid-second century forgeries. But a survey of the early primary source literature reveals that throughout the fifty-year period prior to the supposed fabrication of these writings, Christians across the Mediterranean world were already conversant in these books and citing them to each other as authoritative. This requires a first-century date for these books. Which means that if they were full of fanciful embellishments, these claims were being circulated during the lifetime of people who easily could have falsified them. 

Secondly, consider that the corollaries of Baur’s hypothesis were falsifiable. If the NT documents are late forgeries and not eyewitness documentation, further study should have revealed this. We would expect to find anachronisms and other factual errors. But we don’t. In fact, Sir William Mitchell Ramsay gives us a wonderful case study on this point.

Ramsay, himself educated in the Tubingen school, approached the New Testament with skepticism. With these critical presuppositions in place, he took the book of Acts and set out on an investigative journey through Asia Minor. What he discovered changed his mind. 

“I began with a mind unfavorable to it ... but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth. Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, ... this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians." 

He goes on…

“Further study ... showed that the [Acts] could bear the most minute scrutiny as an authority for the facts of the Aegean world, and that it was written with such judgment, skill, art and perception of truth as to be a model of historical statement' It is marvelously concise and yet marvelously lucid. ... You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian's and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment…" 

Over the course of his life, Ramsay held chairs at Oxford and Aberdeen and by his death was considered the foremost authority on the history of Asia Minor. And, remember, he didn’t approach the Scriptures with an a priori faith in their reliability. But when he moved from dismissive speculation to actual investigation, he found that the New Testament documents are first-century writings that reveal striking historical accuracy. 

Consider one final fact in response to this myth: All of the NT documents, together with all of our earliest historical references to Jesus, describe Jesus in exactly the same way. He is the divine Son of God, who came from heaven, become a man, lived among us, worked miracles to verify his identity, died in our place on the cross, and was raised from the dead three days later. That’s the message from the beginning. 

In the mid-50s AD, Paul wrote a letter to the church at Corinth. Even unbelieving scholars recognize this letter as authentically Pauline. In chapter 15 of this letter, Paul describes the care he exercised in carefully communicating the essential Christian message: “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present...” (I Corinthians 15:3-6)

That was the original message. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again on the third day—all in fulfillment of ancient prophecy. And he was seen alive by hundreds of eyewitnesses, many of whom would have still been alive for questioning. Paul writes all of this no more than 25 years after Jesus’ death. An in fact, many scholars recognize that the little formula that Paul cites here was actually a widely-known creed, which itself dates to within just a few years of Jesus’ death. 

So remember our second myth? ‘Yes, Jesus existed, but all the supernatural stuff was invented later.’ If that were the case, we would expect to find at least one early reference to the pre-embellished, historical Jesus. But we don’t. Instead we find hundreds of early references to Jesus, all unified in their descriptions of Him as the promised Savior.

NT scholar, F. F. Bruce, puts it this way: “[N]o matter how far back we may press our researches into the roots of the gospel story, no matter how we classify the gospel material, we never arrive at a nonsupernatural Jesus.”

Myth 3: Yes, Jesus existed. Yes He died on the cross. But that wasn’t the plan. There are various versions of this view as well. But what they all have in common is the idea that things got out of hand. Jesus spoke truth to power and in so doing, he upset the wrong people. So it wasn’t that Jesus came to be a Savior, he just lost control of the situation and wound up a hapless victim of local political corruption. 

This view is simply irreconcilable with Jesus’ own words as recorded in our best and earliest primary sources. Earlier, I recounted Sir William Mitchell Ramsay’s discovery that Luke was a “historian of the first rank.” In his gospel, Luke records Jesus’ own view of His coming: “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Many scholars believe the gospel of Mark was written first. And the apostolic Fathers report that Mark took down the apostle Peter’s own eyewitness testimony. Here Mark records Jesus’ clear explanation of how He intended to save the lost: “the Son of Man [came] to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

That was Jesus’ view of Himself. Not a radical hippy preacher but a Savior who came to die in our place. And why are we still talking about Him all these years later? Because the people who killed Him, couldn’t keep Him dead. After Jesus’ death, the apostles weren’t looking for a new way to keep the movement going. They were crushed, utterly demoralized and terrified, hiding in a locked room. What accounts for their transformation into fearless preachers, willing to endure anything for the sake of the spreading the good news about Jesus?

They saw Jesus alive. 

It was in the city of Jerusalem that the Christian church was founded—right where Jesus had been publicly executed weeks earlier! Why didn’t the authorities who murdered Jesus simply quash the movement by producing His lifeless body? 

They did not because they could not. 

I hope you can see that there’s an irony in all of this. Those who casually dismiss the claims of Christianity tend to assume that modern discoveries have debunked it all as a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo. But when we consider these assumptions in light of the evidence, we find that the Christian gospel sits atop a mountain of serious historical evidence. And it’s actually these dismissive rejections of Jesus that are silly, outdated, and untenable in light of current findings. 

Here’s what that means. If you’re still holding on to these myths or something like them, it’s not because you’re such an analytical person or because science has disproved God or anything of the kind. Your position is a kind of religious belief. You’re hoping these things are true, regardless of what the facts say. So, I’d like to conclude with a challenge. 

Try reading the New Testament. It’s astonishing how many people are so confident in their views of a book they’ve never read. What do you have to lose? World-renowned nano-chemist, James Tour, encourages people to read the New Testament twice. It’s been his experience that no one makes it through the second reading without becoming a Christian. It’s that convincing. It’s that real. It’s that clear that this really is the word of God, Jesus really did die for you, He really did rise from the dead, and He really is inviting you to trust Him and be saved.

Read the New Testament. You won’t regret it.