Jesus: A Short Life

by John Dickson

Looking at the historical and biblical context of Jesus, Dickson puts the founder of Christianity into sharp focus for the twenty-first century.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Biography, Theology

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

John focuses on the big ideas that have shaped our world.

His journey is an eclectic one. Starting out as a singer-songwriter, he now works as a writer, speaker, historian of religion (focusing on early Christianity and Judaism), media presenter, Anglican minister, and director of a multi-media think tank.

With an honours degree in theology from Moore Theological College Sydney, and a PhD in history from Macquarie University, John is also an Honorary Fellow of the Department of Ancient History (Macquarie), and teaches a course on the Historical Jesus at the University of Sydney (Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies) .

John is a founding director of the Centre for Public Christianity(CPX), an independent research and media company promoting informed discussion about social, ethical and religious issues in modern life.

His book “The Christ Files: How Historians Know what they Know about Jesus” was made into a four-part documentary which aired nationally on Channel 7 in 2008. Now a best-selling DVD, it also won the 2008 Pilgrim Media award (see www.thechristfiles.com.au). His more recent Life of Jesus also aired on Channel 7 in 2009 (see www.lifeofjesus.tv).

Reviews

[Ron W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This can be considered a 'sequel' to Dickson's The Christ Files. John explains how historians know what they know about Jesus and examines his short life as we know it from the gospels. A respected historian of the ancient world from Australia, John Dickson is well worth reading if you wish to delve into a concise common sense view of God's own Son.

[Samuel Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A helpful dive into the historicity of Jesus Christ, learning what can and cannot be gained from viewing Jesus historically. A balanced view that I believe any person seeking to know more about Christianity would find compelling.

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a short, punchy, summary of what a large number of New Testament scholars and historians agree on regarding the historical Jesus. Although Dr. Dickson is a believing Christian and a pastor himself, he focuses the book on what we can know about Jesus from a purely historical perspective. Turns out we can establish quite a lot. Dickson's main sparring partner in this project is Bishop John Shelby Spong, who is quite radical in rejecting large swaths of the New Testament as mythical. Spong is simply one among many of the never-ending stream of modern pundits and shock-scholars who try to re-invent Jesus every few years. Dickson counters with an array of scholarly opinions from various perspectives (not all are believers, and some are quite agnostic) to lay a foundation of historical bedrock for the life, mission, and aims of Jesus and his followers. The book is artfully bound and illustrated with paintings from many different historical eras, as well as pictures of archaeological sites and artifacts. Although now a decade old, this is still a valuable resource for anyone interested in the once-obscure Jew from Galilee who began a movement which has impacted the entire world.

[Bill Forgeard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an historical biography of Jesus rather than a purely biblical one. It's accessible and short -- classic John Dickson. Because of the historical methodology, it has a refreshingly different feel to biblical/theological accounts of Jesus, and yet the essential (& radical) gospel of Jesus is clearly visible in the sources.

[VEL – The Contemporary Heretic · Rating 1 out of 5]

My edition of the book is titled “Jesus: A short Life -The Historical Evidence”, but the first edition omitted the part of the title referring to “The Historical Evidence”. This is fitting, as Dickson himself omits to include much historical evidence supporting his claims.

Instead, he relies heavily on the argumentum ab auctoritate fallacy—with a bit of the argumentum ad populum fallacy thrown in too for good measure.

Thus, he repeatedly insists that ‘all scholars agree’ on a given fact, but rarely explains why all scholars agree on this fact.

For example, he observes that the claim that Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist is “doubted by no one doing historical Jesus research” (p49).

But only in an endnote does he explain why all scholars agree—namely, this episode satisfies the criterion of embarrassment (p137-8). Because it casts Jesus in a role subordinate to John, it is hardly something Christians would have invented.

Yet Jesus is portrayed as humble throughout the gospels and often adopts a subordinate role (e.g. washing the feet of his disciples: John 13:1–17).

Indeed, since Jesus’s teaching represents what Nietzsche called ‘slave morality’ and ‘the transvaluation of values’, whereby what was formerly seen as shameful and embarrassing is elevated into a positive virtue, the entire concept of the ‘criterion of embarrassment’ seems to be of dubious value in historical Jesus research and something of embarrassment in itself.

Similarly, in responses to Dawkins’s claim that “it is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all” (The God Delusion), Dickson insists, “no one who is actually doing history thinks so” (p21).

Yet some historians have defended the so-called ‘mythicist thesis’, including Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty and Robert Price.

Perhaps Dickson regards these authors’ work as so worthless that they cannot be said to be “doing history” at all. If so, this is an obvious example of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Dickson asserts:

“Not only is Jesus' non-existence never discussed in academic literature...but most experts agree that there are... ‘no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life’” (p10-11).

The actual evidence he cites is minimal.

Beside the Gospels, one of the few sources he cites is a letter by one Mara bar Serapion referring to the Jews killing their “wise king”. Dickson claims (note the ‘appeal to authority’ again):

“There is a consensus among scholars that Mara bar Serapion's ‘wise king’ was none other than Jesus. It simply strains belief to imagine that there could have been two figures in first century Palestine fitting the description of Jew, law-giver, king and martyr by his own people” (p19).

Unfortunately, Jesus himself doesn’t fit the bill very well either.

He wasn’t a “king” in the normal sense. Neither was he killed by Jews, but rather by Romans. (Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution.)

Indeed, Dickson himself admits, “Jesus of Nazareth was not the most revered religious figure of the period”, even in Palestine (p109). Why then not one of these other figures?

Also, Mara bar Serapion never said anything about this wise king having lived “in first century Palestine”. This is an invention of Dickson’s own.

Who Mara bar Serapion was referring to seems, at best, a mystery and hardly definitive proof of Jesus’s historicity.

Should we Trust the ‘Experts’?
The appeal to authority is a method of reasoning that likely appeals to Christians. They usually appeal to the ostensible authority, not of ‘experts’ or ‘reputable scholars’, but of God or the Bible.

Appealing to the consensus among experts is sometimes reasonable, if we do not have the time or inclination to research a topic for ourselves.

But, in a book subtitled “The Historical Evidence”, one is entitled to expect more.

Moreover, the subject in which the experts are said to be expert must itself be reputable. If all homeopaths or astrologers agree on an aspect of homeopathic or astrological theory, astrology and homeopathy is still nonsense.

I submit that there is reason to distrust the experts in historical Jesus research—as those who have devoted their lives to the study of Jesus have typically done so because they are devout Christians.

Given then that their whole philosophy of life is predicated on the existence of a Jesus resembling the one described in the gospels, it is hardly surprising that they have concluded that such a figure existed.

Most researchers investigating the historical Jesus come from backgrounds, not in history, but rather in theology, seminaries and New Testament studies. Few seem to have researched other areas of history.

Thus, the tools used by researchers into the historical Jesus (e.g. the criterion of embarrassment, of multiple/independent attestation, of dissimilarity) do not seem to be widely used in other areas of history when assessing the trustworthiness of sources—or, at least, the same terms are not used.

One finds them only in the index on books on the historical Jesus—not in books on methods of historical research, nor in historical works dealing with other times and places.

Analogous principles are employed, but the standards of proof seem to be higher.

I would have preferred it if Dickson had announced at the onset that he was a Christian, in the same way that politicians are expected to ‘declare an interest’ in a matter before a vote or debate.

Yet Dickson is open about his faith, but he insists that he approaches the facts of Jesus’s life as an historian rather than as a Christian.

“The presupposition that the Bible is God’s word and therefore entirely trustworthy is perfectly arguable at the philosophical level. But…I intend to approach the New Testament as an entirely human document” (p13).

To play Dickson at his own game of appealing to expert opinion in lieu of argument, I am not sure many philosophers would agree his claim that Biblical inerrancy is “perfectly arguable at the philosophical level”.

Yet we surely have reason to doubt whether a Christian can ever perform the sort of mental gymnastics necessary to approach a topic such as the life of Jesus with the disinterest and objectivity required of an historian.

The Bible as Historical Source
At the heart of Dickson’s account of the life of Jesus is his claim that the Gospels are legitimate historical sources in themselves.

They are, he argues, more trustworthy than the apocrypha because the latter generally date from a later period (p25). This is one reason the latter were rejected as non-canonical.

True, Dickson concedes, the gospel writers were Christians, and sought to convince readers of the divinity of Jesus—but all ancient sources, he insists, have some sort of agenda.

This is true.

But, given their plainly ahistorical content and preposterous elements (i.e. miracles, the Resurrection), the gospels are surely an unreliable source.

Moreover, call me naïve, but, from a book subtitled “the Historical Evidence”, I expected something more than another repetition of the gospel stories so many of us were so cruelly subjected to in Sunday School from earliest infancy—albeit this time supplemented with occasional references to Josephus and ‘the unanimous opinion of all reputable scholars’.

Dickson concludes:

“History... demonstrates that the story at the heart of the Gospels is neither a myth nor fraud, but a broadly credible account of a short first century life” (p129).

Yet the primary (indeed virtually the only) source he has used to construct this history is the gospels themselves. No other sources (e.g. Josephus) provide anything beyond a bare outline.

To establish that “the story at the heart of the gospels” is “a broadly credible account” surely requires an independent source external to the gospels themselves.

To claim that we can be certain of the gospels’ historical veracity because they are consistent with all the available historical sources simply won't do when the only contemporary historical sources available are the gospels themselves.

This is simply to state the self-evident tautological truism that the gospels are consistent with themselves!

Nativity
Yet, actually, the gospels are not consistent with themselves, or with one another.

Take the matter of Jesus’s birthplace. Against the arguments of skeptics like Dawkins, Dickson argues Jesus was indeed born in Bethlehem.

Dismissing the claim that Luke and Matthew only relocated the nativity to Bethlehem to accord with Old Testament prophecy, Dickson demands:

“What is the evidence that Matthew and Luke put him there out of some necessity to make him look messianic? None. The argument dissolves” (p37).

“Just as important as the fact that Bethlehem is not mentioned in Mark or John is the fact that it is mentioned in Luke and Matthew. Surely the silence of two of the gospels cannot be louder than the affirmation of the other two” (p37).

Yet Dickson omits that the gospels relocate Jesus to Bethlehem by different and contradictory means—one has the family based in Bethlehem then leaving to escape the wrath of Herod; the other visiting Bethlehem to register for a census.

Both stories are historically doubtful. Whereas there is simply no evidence for the ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ outside of the Gospel of Matthew, the story in Luke is actually contradicted by the historical record.

The first census did not occur until AD6, after the death of King Herod—but Dickson claims:

“The Gospels of Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was born while Herod the Great… was still alive… All this leads to a broad consensus among scholars that Jesus was born around 5 BC” (p35).

It also goes without saying that Mary and Joseph cannot have arrived in Bethlehem for a census, and then fled the wrath of Herod when the first census did not occur until after Herod’s death—unless among the baby Jesus’s many miracles was the invention of time travel.

Also, the census applied only to Roman citizens, not Jews in Galilee, a client state not under direct Roman rule, and even Roman citizens were not required to return to the homes of remote ancestors, a ludicrously disruptive requirement (see The Unauthorized Version: p27-32).

Finally, given that Dickson acknowledges Jesus was born into obscurity and only attained what little prominence he did achieve within his own lifetime as an adult, anything about his birth is likely legendary.

Miracles
Dickson claims:

“The best sources and methods employed by the leading scholars in the field produce the unexpected – and, for some, embarrassing – conclusion that the paradoca erga [i.e. miracles] are, as Professor James Dunn admits ‘one of the most widely attested and firmly established of the historical facts with which we have to deal’” (p77).

Dickson does not mention for whom this fact is “embarrassing”, but it ought to be embarrassing to biblical scholars themselves, since, if indeed “the best sources and methods employed by the leading scholars in the field” suggest that miracles such as healing the blind and turning water into wine are “firmly established... historical facts”, this suggests that there is something fundamentally wrong with the “sources and methods employed by leading scholars in the field”.

Resorting again to the argumentum ab auctoritate, Dickson lists various scholars who have investigated the historicity of the resurrection, all of whom:

“Agree that there is an irreducible core to the Jesus story that cannot be explained away as pious legend and wholesale deceit… [because] from the very beginning, numbers of men and women claimed to have seen Jesus alive after death…[which is] a fact of history” (p110-2).

Of course, large numbers of men and women also claim to have been abducted by aliens. However, most of us do not regard this as evidence for alien abductions.

Conclusions
Disclaimer: I am an atheist.

Unlike Christian readers or researchers, it does not challenge my fundamental beliefs whether Jesus existed, didn’t exist, lived a life similar to that described in the gospels or one very different.

Certainly, if the occurrence of miracles were proven, then this would indeed challenge my beliefs, since it would suggest that the laws of physics as they are currently understood are somehow mistaken, incomplete or capable of temporary suspension. However, this is obviously unthinkable some two millenia after the fact and hence not a problem.

However, I am in principle entirely open to the possibility that—miracles aside—the rest of the gospels is mostly accurate, but it just seems to me that the evidence isn’t really there.

It is possible that Jesus's life did take roughly the same path as that described in the gospels. Indeed, since the gospels are the earliest detailed accounts that we have his life, I am even willing to concede that this is perhaps the most likely scenario.

However, it also seems possible that the course of Jesus’s life was very different and that the Gospels themselves are largely later myths.

It seems likely that someone called Jesus on whose life the gospels are based lived at around the time he is alleged to have lived and was crucified. However, beyond that, i doubt much can be known about him.

Indeed, even the most extreme form of the ‘mythicist’ thesis, namely that the gospel stories are entirely mythical, hardly seems a preposterous crank theory, roughly on a par with holocaust denial, as it is portrayed by Dickson and other Christian apologists.

Indeed, it is rather ironic to hear Christian apologists like Dickson dismissing mythicists as discredited pseudoscholars trading in conspiracy theories, when they themselves have no problem believing in such things as the Resurrection, the parting of the Red Sea and the ten plagues of Egypt.

It just seems to me that there is so little historical evidence regarding the life of Jesus that even extreme positions remain tenable—or at least cannot be definitively disproven. This is why attempted reconstructions of the historical Jesus are so notoriously divergent.

Indeed, there seems to be a fundamental contradiction in Dickson’s thesis.

On the one hand, he contends, rightly, that Jesus was, in his own lifetime, only “a marginal Jew”, who achieved historical importance only after his death (p17). Yet, at the same time, he contends that there is abundant reliable evidence regarding the life of this ‘marginal Jew’.

Yet, if the Jew in question was so marginal, one would hardly expect to find abundant documentary evidence regarding his life.

In short, perhaps the reason so few serious secular historians have studied the life of Jesus and the field remains the preserve of ‘true believers’ like Dickson—plus an assortment of anti-Christian cranks and conspiracy theorists of whom Dickson is rightly dismissive—is precisely because there is so little to study in the first place.

Only those with an emotional commitment to belief (or disbelief) in Jesus, precisely those whose emotional commitment renders them unfit to undertake a disinterested and objective investigation, take it upon themselves to embark on the project in the first place.

Full (i.e. vastly overlong) review available here.

[Stefan Grieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Information about the 'Historical Jesus', including proof of records and related facts. It's presented in an accessible way, with not too much text and glossy pictures throughout.

It's mostly a recap of the main parts of Jesus' life. Even those without much theological knowledge would be aware of. Still, the surprising amount of info about historical records goes alongside it, along with other bits of surprising information revealed in biblical text. The writer, an academic and a Christian, chooses to focus on the historical side for the book. Easy to read, maybe a bit too easy, although I think alongside all the other factors the balance is right.

Like the life, I will keep it short.

[Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite of his I've read. This book made me realise I'd been thinking of Jesus as more of a concept and less of a person and did wonders to change that. It also provides a great apologetic while being careful not to take his argument further than the history allows, being open with and fighting his biases at every turn. One of the most honest and informative easy reads on the subject you'll ever find

[Loser]

A fascinating historical look at the life of Jesus Christ, showing all that has been factually proven about the mans short life while also discussing some of the symbolic imagery surrounding Jesus, as well as some discussion on his philosophies and the changes that he brought about to religion, such as removing the value many put in the human body as a means of spirituality, Jesus condemned this, claiming that the human rituals put us further away from god, diluting the spirituality.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book mentions the "historical evidence" for Jesus (spoiler alert - there isn't much) but Dickson establishes early on that the Gospels, as contemporaneous written texts, count as much as anything else, so mainly relies on those. What we have then is an easy to read account of the life of Jesus, with explanations of the different sources of the story, rather than a detailed historical analysis.

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical look at Jesus, from a scholar for non-scholars. Very informative.

[David Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely interesting book, whether you are religious or not, on the life of Jesus, based only on what is factually corroborated.