The Jesus debate: Man vs. myth

(CNN)– Timothy Freke was flipping through an old academic book when he came across a religious image that some would call obscene.
It was a drawing of a third-century amulet depicting a naked man nailed to a cross. The man was born of a virgin, preached about being “born again” and had risen from the dead after crucifixion, Freke says.
But the name on the amulet wasn’t Jesus. It was a pseudonym for Osiris-Dionysus, a pagan god in ancient Mediterranean culture.  Freke says the amulet was evidence of something that sounds like sacrilege – and some would say it is: that Jesus never existed. He was a myth created by first-century Jews who modeled him after other dying and resurrected pagan gods, says Freke, author of  "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the ‘Original Jesus’ a Pagan God?"
“If I said to you that there was no real Good Samaritan, I don’t think anyone would be outraged,” says Freke, one of a group of mythicists who say Jesus never existed. “It’s a teaching story. What we’re saying is that the Jesus story is an allegory. It’s a parable of the spiritual journey.”
On this Easter Sunday, millions of Christians worldwide will mark the resurrection of Jesus. Though Christians clash over many issues, almost all agree that he existed.
But there is another view of Jesus that’s been emerging, one that strikes at the heart of the Easter story. A number of authors and scholars say Jesus never existed. Such assertions could have been ignored in an earlier age.  But in the age of the Internet and self-publishing, these arguments have gained enough traction that some of the world’s leading New Testament scholars feel compelled to publicly take them on.
Most Jesus deniers are Internet kooks, says Bart D. Ehrman, a New Testament scholar who recently released a book devoted to the question called “Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.”
He says Freke and others who deny Jesus’ existence are conspiracy theorists trying to sell books.
“There are people out there who don’t think the Holocaust happened, there wasn’t a lone JFK assassin and Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.,” Ehrman says. “Among them are people who don’t think Jesus existed.”
Does it matter if Jesus existed?
Some Jesus mythicists say many New Testament scholars are intellectual snobs.
“I don’t think I’m some Internet kook or Holocaust denier,” says Robert Price, a former Baptist pastor who argues in “Deconstructing Jesus” that a historical Jesus probably didn’t exist.
“They say I’m a bitter ex-fundamentalist. It’s pathetic to see this character assassination. That’s what people resort to when they don’t have solid arguments.”

 The debate over Jesus’ existence has led to a curious role reversal. Two of the New Testament scholars who are leading the way arguing for Jesus’ existence have a reputation for attacking, not defending, traditional Christianity.

Ehrman, for example, is an agnostic who has written books that argue that virtually half  of the New Testament is forged. Another defender of Jesus’ existence is John Dominic Crossan, a New Testament scholar who has been called a heretic because his books challenge some traditional Christian teachings.
But as to the existence of Jesus, Crossan says, he’s “certain.”
He says some Jesus deniers may be people who have a problem with Christianity.
“It’s a way of responding to something you don’t like,” Crossan says. “We can’t say that Obama doesn’t exist, but we can say that he’s not an American.  If we’re talking about Obama in the future, there are people who might not only say he wasn’t American, but he didn’t even exist.”
Does it even matter if Jesus existed? Can’t people derive inspiration from his teachings whether he actually walked the Earth?
Crossan says Jesus’ existence matters in the same way that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s existence mattered.
If King never existed, people would say his ideas are lovely, but they could never work in the real world, Crossan says.
It’s the same with an historical Jesus, Crossan writes in his latest book, “The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus.”
“The power of Jesus’ historical life challenges his followers by proving at least one human being could cooperate fully with God. And if one, why not others? If some, why not all?”
The evidence against Jesus’ existence
Those who argue against Jesus’ existence make some of these points:
-The uncanny parallels between pagan stories in the ancient world and the stories of Jesus.
-No credible sources outside the Bible say Jesus existed.
-The Apostle Paul never referred to a historical Jesus.
Price, author of “Deconstructing Jesus,” says the first-century Western world was full of stories of a martyred hero who is called a son of God.
“There are ancient novels from that period where the hero is condemned to the cross and even crucified, but he escapes and survives it,” Price says. “That looks like Jesus.”
Those who argue for the existence of Jesus often cite two external biblical sources: the Jewish historian Josephus who wrote about Jesus at the end of the first century and the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote about Jesus at the start of the second century.
But some scholars say Josephus’ passage was tampered with by later Christian authors. And Price says the two historians are not credible on Jesus.
“Josephus and Tacitus – they both thought Hercules was a true figure,” Price says. “Both of them spoke of Hercules as a figure that existed.”
Price concedes that there were plenty of mythical stories that were draped around historical figures like Caesar. But there’s plenty of secular documentation to show Caesar existed.
“Everything we read about Jesus in the gospels conforms to the mythic hero,” Price says. “There’s nothing left over that indicates that he was a real historical figure.”
Those who argue for the existence of Jesus cite another source: the testimony of the Apostle Paul and Jesus’ early disciples. Paul even writes in one New Testament passage about meeting James, the brother of Jesus.
These early disciples not only believed Jesus was real but were willing to die for him. People don’t die for myths, some biblical scholars say.
They will if the experience is powerful enough, says Richard Carrier, author of “Proving History.”
Carrier says it’s probable that Jesus never really existed and that early Christians experienced a mythic Jesus who came to them through visions and revelations.
Two of the most famous stories in the New Testament – the conversion of Paul and the stoning death of Stephen, one of the first Christian martyrs - show that people seized by religious visions are willing to die, Carrier says.
In both the Paul and Stephen stories, the writers say that they didn’t see an actual Jesus but a heavenly vision of Jesus, Carrier says.
People “can have powerful religious experiences that don’t correspond to reality,” Carrier says.
“The perfect model is Paul himself,” Carrier says. “He never met Jesus. Paul only had an encounter with this heavenly Jesus. Paul is completely converted by this religious experience, but no historical Jesus is needed for that to happen.”
As for the passage where Paul says he met James, Jesus’ brother, Carrier says:
“The problem with that is that all baptized Christians were considered brothers of the Lord.”
The evidence for Jesus’ existence
Some scholars who argue for the existence of Jesus says the New Testament mentions actual people and events that are substantiated by historical documents and archaeological discoveries.
Ehrman, author of “Did Jesus Exist?” scoffed at the notion that the ancient world was full of pagan stories about dying deities that rose again.  Where’s the proof? he asks.
Ehrman devoted an entire section of his book to critiquing Freke, the mythicist and author of “The Jesus Mysteries: Was the ‘Original Jesus’ a Pagan God?” who says there was an ancient Osiris-Dionysus figure who shares uncanny parallels to Jesus.
He says Freke can’t offer any proof that an ancient Osiris figure was born on December 25, was crucified and rose again. He says Freke is citing 20^th- and 19^th-century writers who tossed out the same theories.
Ehrman says that when you read ancient stories about mythological figures like Hercules and Osiris, “there’s nothing about them dying and rising again.”
“He doesn’t know much about ancient history,” Ehrman says of Freke. “He’s not a scholar. All he knows is what he’s read in other conspiracy books.”
Craig A. Evans, the author of “Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence,” says the notion that Paul gave his life for a mythical Jesus is absurd.
He says the New Testament clearly shows that Paul was an early enemy of the Christian church who sought to stamp out the burgeoning Jesus movement.
“Don’t you think if you were in Paul’s shoes, you would have quickly discovered that there was no Jesus?” Evans asks.  “If there was no Jesus, then how did the movement start?”
Evans also dismissed the notion that early Christians blended or adopted pagan myths to create their own mythical Jesus. He says the first Christians were Jews who despised everything about pagan culture.
“For a lot of Jewish people, the pagan world was disgusting,” Evans says. “I can’t imagine [the Gospel writer] Matthew making up a story where he is drawing parallels between Jesus’ birth and pagan stories about Zeus having sex with some fair maiden.”
The words of Jesus also offer proof that he actually existed, Evans says.  A vivid personality practically bursts from the pages of the New Testament: He speaks in riddles, talks about camels squeezing through the eye of a needle, weeps openly and even loses his temper.
Evans says he is a man who is undeniably Jewish, a genius who understands his culture but also transcends his tradition with gem-like parables.
“Who but Jesus could tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan?” Evans says. “Where does this bolt of lightning come from? You don’t get this out of an Egyptian myth.”
Those who argue against the existence of Jesus say they aren’t trying to destroy people’s faith.
“I don’t have any desire to upset people,” says Freke. “I do have a passion for the truth. … I don’t think rational people in the 20^th century can go down a road just on blind faith.”
Yet Easter was never just about rationale.
The Easter stories about the resurrection are strange: Disciples don’t recognize Jesus as they meet him on the road; he tells someone not to touch him; he  eats fish in another.
In the Gospel of Matthew, a resurrected Jesus suddenly appears to a group of disciples and gives them this cryptic message:
“Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
And what did they see: a person, a pagan myth or a savior?
Albert Schweitzer, a 20^th-century theologian and missionary, suggested that there will never be one answer to that question.  He said that looking for Jesus in history is like looking down a well: You see only your own reflection.
The “real” Jesus, Schweitzer says, will remain “a stranger and an enigma,” someone who is always ahead of us.

Taking a Chance on Love, and Algorithms

THE invitation from Yoke.me, a new online dating start-up, seemed innocuous enough. It suggested that I meet some of the single pals of one of my friends.
Yoke.me pulled in data from Facebook — my city, for example, and what movies I prefer — then generated matches with people from my extended social circle, based on common interests, like a shared love of Rihanna’s music or “Game of Thrones.”
It is ingenious, in a way. How many single people have trolled through a friend’s photo album on Facebook, spotted someone cute and then asked for intel about his or her availability? Poring through a trove of friends of friends can seem better than gauging whether the creep factor of a random person is low enough to warrant an in-person meeting.
Yet the idea was still troubling. My friends and I started a long e-mail thread about it, riffing that despite its elegant design, it seemed awkward and presumptuous. Not all Facebook “friends” are actually friends, and it’s not entirely clear that the bands and shows we’ve “liked” on Facebook can really be used to say anything meaningful about us.
“I’ve found my newest nightmare,” one friend said. “One match was a girl because we share a birthday,” said another. “One match was a guy because we both like Gilt,” a shopping site. “Is this for finding friends, dates or enemies?”
To be fair, the problem doesn’t seem to be confined to Yoke.me. It may be part of online dating itself. Sites and apps like OKCupid, eHarmony, Skout, Plenty of Fish and Match.com have attracted loyal followings. But in a world where we can pay someone for lunch by tapping two phones together and stream live television over a tablet computer, the de facto model of browsing through static profiles on a Web site or in a mobile app can feel comically outdated.
It may not be a problem that software can solve on its own, said Eli Finkel, a professor of social psychology at Northwestern University. “Technology is not the way to figure out who is compatible and will never be,” he said. “At the end of the day, the human algorithm — neural tissue in our cranium called a brain — has evolved over a long period of time to size up people efficiently. On a blind date, a person arrives and in that instant I can say I’m glad I did this or regret it.”
Professor Finkel, along with several other researchers, published a study this year raising doubts about the idea that a personality test or algorithm of the kind popularized on eHarmony, can help you meet a potential mate.
Sites that say algorithms can help you find your soul mate “are probably spitting in the wind,” said Harry Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and a co-author of the algorithm paper, who has written upwards of 120 papers on online dating.
EHarmony counters that the algorithms it uses do work, citing research it conducted investigating the satisfaction of couples who met through the site, and their divorce rate.
The system that eHarmony has built is “based on years of empirical and clinical research on married couples,” said Becky Teraoka, an eHarmony spokeswoman. They include “aspects of personality, values and interest, and how pairs match on them, that are most predictive of relationship satisfaction.”
While Professors Finkel and Reis question the value of algorithms, they do say that online dating is useful because it can broaden the pool of people you come across on a regular basis.
“In everyday life you don’t encounter people with signs on their head that say, ‘I’m single and looking,’ ” Professor Reis said. On sites you can find “dozens of people that you might want to meet.”
The trick is to weed out the weirdos and arrange a face-to-face meeting as quickly as possible — which, in a sense, is what Yoke.me is trying to do, as are similar services like theComplete.me and Coffee Meets Bagel.
Other sites are trying to move past the algorithm. A start-up called myMatchmaker uses in-the-flesh people as intermediaries. Some, like Nerve.com, and How About We, aim to streamline the process and encourage interactions around more than a profile.
But Kevin Slavin, a game developer who studies algorithms, says those sites are already starting from a flawed base.
The digital personas we cultivate on Facebook are often not very indicative of who we are, he said. “A first date is the most tangible instance of you being the best possible version of yourself, the version you think will be the most attractive to someone else,” he said. “It is impossible for that to be the same person on Facebook.”
Rob Fishman, who helmed the development of Yoke.me, says he views the service as an icebreaker, not as a crystal ball capable of divining whether or not someone is your one true love. “We aren’t saying you will want to spend your life together; you don’t even know each other yet,” he said. “You like the same band, talk amongst yourselves.”
Eventually, Mr. Fishman said, the service will be sophisticated enough to incorporate real-time data funneled through Facebook about songs people are listening to and articles they are reading and to make matches based on that — perhaps a more realistic way to connect two people through a social network.
ALL of this may simply mean that online dating is at an early stage. In other realms, we’re already moving toward a future when the most dazzling and successful technologies are not visible and work almost by magic.
Consider Kinect from Microsoft. You can play a dance game by moving your whole body, without the need to hold a physical controller. Or try Square’s latest mobile application, Pay With Square. The app’s software will show a cashier a photo of a customer to verify payment information. Shoppers never even have to remove their phones from their pockets — only say their names and show their faces.
Then there is the Paper drawing app for the iPad. Its “rewind” feature lets users twist two fingers in a counterclockwise motion to erase their last few brushstrokes.
And, of course, there is Siri, the iPhone service that can understand spoken commands, perform Web searches and write and send text messages. Although Siri isn’t perfect, it feels like a taste of the future.
That shift is leaving online dating in the dust. It feels clunkier than it should — like a poorly designed tablet or a Web service that keeps crashing.
It’s a technology quandary fit for modern times, and one that doesn’t have a clear solution in sight — yet. No one wants to see Cupid interfering with his or her love life; we just want the arrow to hit squarely on its mark. And, maybe someday, it will.

“Unacceptable” that children of Madonna and Angelina Jolie go to New York’s French school

The children of Madonna, Angela Jolie and millionaire Donald Trump should leave the prestigious French lycée in New York and let French children have their places, according to Julien Balkany, candidate in the upcoming legislative elections in France.

Balkany is standing in the “North America” constituency, where French citizens living in the United States or Canada can vote.

Speaking at a meeting in Montreal, Balkany said the children of French citizens should have priority for places in French schools abroad.

“In the Lycée Français in New York this year, there are 12 places available for the first year in nursery school and there are more than 250 requests for places”, he declared. “They have taken Donald Trump’s son, Madonna’s daughter and the children of Angelina Jolie. I find that unacceptable.”

“If I am elected, they can find themselves another school” he went on to say, “because they will not be put before “Pierre, Paul or John”.

However, Balkany might find that he is on sticky ground. Both Madonna and Angelina Jolie are descended from French Canadians, and it is possible that their children have French citizenship.

Julien Balkany is the brother of Patrick Balkany, whose wife is godmother to Jean, the son of president Nicolas Sarkozy.