A Review of Who Was Jesus? by Acharya S
Who Was Jesus?: Fingerprints of the Christ, by D.M. Murdock (a.k.a Acharya S) is a provocative look into what we can know about Jesus. In this 181 page book Murdock provides a good overview of gospel criticism, considering the number of pages it contains. She begins by taking us through the four gospels and noting some of the discrepancies between them. Such things as chronological discrepancies and failed attempts to harmonize stories like the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the anointing of Jesus with oil in Simon’s house, and the sermon on the mount (Matthew) with the sermon on the plain (Luke) leads her to conclude that we are not dealing with “factual history,” and she is absolutely correct about this. She rightly argues that what we have are error filled copies of the New Testament documents, and attempts to harmonize the four accounts are implausible.
She argues against conventional wisdom by claiming the four gospels were written much later than is normally supposed. Mainline scholarship doesn’t think any of the four Gospels were written after 120 A.D. Conservative scholarship argues that the synoptic gospels were written before 70 A.D., while John’s Gospel was written around 95-100 A.D (a minority argue that John's Gospel was written before 70 A.D.). Murdock however, argues the four canonical gospels were all written between 170-180 A.D., with the Gospel of Luke written first, rather than the Gospel of Mark. Hardly any scholar thinks Luke was written first. Textual evidence leads the overwhelming number of scholars to think Mark was written first. Scholars have shown that there is a literary dependence of Matthew and Luke upon Mark’s gospel, and where they diverge from Mark they do so based upon other accounts of the life of Jesus, mainly a supposed document called “Q” (or Quelle, for source), containing the sayings of Jesus.
Murdock claims Luke was writing to a Theophilus, a bishop in Antioch who wrote an apology called Ad Autolychum (c. 176 A.D.), and that Luke used Josephus in writing his account, from which he derived such things as the census under Quirinius, the death of Herod, and so on. In my opinion these are all dubious claims unsupported by the evidence she offers. Nonetheless, since nothing is at stake for me, I can at least entertain such ideas without the knee jerk reaction that Christians have to these questions about Jesus. And she does provoke thought.
Murdock goes on to explain the sources from which the gospel writers wrote their stories. There is indeed a lot of typology in the New Testament, along with prophecy historicized, as Murdock explains, in the cases of Elijah and Elisha and Old Testament prophecies. After showing us several of these parallels and prophecies she writes:
“In scrutinizing all of the Old Testament ‘prophecies’ that purportedly relate to the coming messiah, it is evident that the gospels were deliberately designed to show that these scriptures had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. When these and other OT scriptures are studied and seriously considered, therefore, it is logical to ask if they constitute ‘prophecies’ and ‘prefiguring’ of the advent of a historical Jesus Christ - or if they were used as a blueprint in the creation of a fictional messiah." (p. 90).
Hers is a legitimate question, given several examples of how the gospel writers probably created their stories based upon typology and prophecy historicized, a question I am free to entertain. However, it appears to me that the conclusion Jesus as a person never existed goes beyond what evidence we have. With Jeffrey Jay Lowder I believe that there is a prima facie probability that a historical person named Jesus really existed, even if I don’t believe Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, Joshua, Judas or Joseph of Arimathea existed.
In what I consider the best chapter of her book, Murdock spends 41 pages dealing with the “Questions About the Gospel Story.” She deals with such questions as the implausibility of certain miracles in the gospel stories like the purported virgin birth of Jesus, failed prophecies, chronological discrepancies, erroneous interpretations, and historical errors like Quirinius’ census, "Abiathar or Ahimelech," Mosaic authorship, and so forth. Then in the next chapter she effectively deals with Christian apologetic attempts to deal with these problems.
Why were the Gospels written then? According to Murdock, it was propaganda, not history that motivated the writers. She writes,
“Indeed, an in-depth analysis as found here reveals indications that Christianity as a whole was created for political reasons: Firstly, in order to usurp the gods of other cultures with a Jewish messiah; and secondly, to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion combining Judaism and Paganism.” (p. 154).
Her conclusion from all of this is that
“At most, we could say that the NT represents an inaccurate portrayal based on the best or worst wishes of its composers. At the least, we would have to entertain the thought that the gospel story is fictional.” (p. 168). "The fact is that, when all the evidence is weighed, it would seem irresponsible and unscientific merely to assume the gospel tale as historical, either in part or as a whole. If we are to treat with disdain the myths of other cultures that possess a variety of similar themes and motifs as Christianity, are we not being hypocritical and arrogant, as well as culturally biased, to hold up the patent myths of the Judeo-Christian culture as "real" and "true?" (p. 171).
Apart from the dubious positions of hers I mentioned, I recommend this book. It is provocative and worthy or consideration.