The existence of Jesus.(questioned )

SO DAVID H. LEWIS (Quadrant, May 2005) thinks Jesus never existed and that "2000 years of Western thought and culture has all been founded on a fallacy".

Lewis is right in mentioning G.A. Wells' arguments for the non-existence of Jesus but he fails to tell us that no scholar of note has ever taken those arguments seriously. On the world scene there are hundreds of eminent historians who write about Jesus as a true figure of history, a majority of whom are not Christian believers or church members; Oxford Professor Geza Vermes, for example, an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, is a Jew.

It is hard to know where to begin in correcting something that is outrageously wrong and is manifestly driven by a personal anti-religious agenda. One is reminded of the idea of the "big lie", something so preposterous that it easily bamboozles us.

In brief, then, let us consider some details.

Lewis fails to mention Tacitus' famous account of the fire of Rome in AD 64 and Nero's crucifixion of numerous "Christians". Tacitus' Annals digresses briefly to explain that these "Christians" took their name from a man named "Chrisms" who was executed in Judea under the governor Pontius Pilate and that the movement, surprisingly unchecked, then spread to Rome. This looks like pretty good evidence to me, the more so since it comes from one who was hostile to these "Christians" and their "founder".

Yes, it is regrettable that somebody added in some "Christian" bits to Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum. Take those out, however, and a likely authentic version would point to Jesus as a Jewish sage who met his end under Pilate at the behest of the Temple hierarchy, and whose "tribe" (the "Christians") were still around when Josephus wrote his Jewish Antiquities in the middle 90s. Few scholars dismiss outright Josephus' Jesus. Most, including Feldman, the Jewish translator of the prestigious Loeb edition, accept an emended version that reveals a genuine historical person.

Tacitus and Josephus are, respectively, our prime sources for Roman and Jewish history for the era of Jesus, whose appearance in these texts clinches the case for his historical existence. Significantly, neither is a believer. Tacitus is hostile and Josephus is sitting on the fence.