Forbidden History - The Historical Jesus

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Jesus Christ, the son of God, is the key figure in the New Testament - the stories of his healings, miracles, arrest and crucifixion are legendary. In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we investigate if there’s any historical evidence for the existence of Jesus and the events relating to him depicted in the Bible. Cast List: Jamie Theakston: Investigative reporter Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine  Dr. Matt Green: Author & Historian Tony McMahon: Former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian  Lynn Picknett: Historian and researcher specialising in exposing historical conspiracies. She is also the co-author of several notable works Dominic Selwood: Historian, barrister, bestselling author, novelist and frequent contributor to national newspapers including The Independent, The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph Dr Eyal Miron: Guide & Historian Marty Friedlander: Guide & Historian Raphael Lataster: Academic & Author Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Jesus Christ is the key figure in the New Testament, the Son of God. The stories of his healings, miracles, and even arrest and crucifixion are legendary. But who was he? Was he really Yeshua-Benz Joseph?

And was he the king of the Jews? or just a humble carpenter? Did he have a relationship with Mary Magdalene? And what eventually happened to Jesus? Was he crucified in Jerusalem? Or as some claim, was he smuggled out of the city alive? And above all,

what historical evidence is there that any of this actually happened? The historical Jesus is a complete enigma. It's almost as if he didn't exist. What we have is a character that was created hundreds of years later. He was a religious leader. He was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.

He was the Son of God who came to become the central figure in Christianity. There are two things to realize about Jesus. One, he really existed, and two, he was not remotely like the Jesus of the Gospels. Any traditions about the historical Jesus were purely oral, something Christians might have talked about. The Gospel writers also borrowed stuff from other religions. The Jesus of the Bible is well known. His healings, his miracles, his trial, and his crucifixion.

You would presume that all of those events would be part of the historical record. But the problem is, they aren't. The historical Jesus is something of a mystery. Jesus was a Jewish religious leader from 2,000 years ago. The conventional story is that kings anticipated his birth. His mother didn't have sex. It was an immaculate conception. He starts his mission at 30.

He's quite a rebel. The Romans get a bit worried about him. He's crucified, died, and is resurrected three days later. Well, personally, I wouldn't say that the Jesus, as written and evoked in the Bible, did exist in that way because he did all sorts of miracles and he kind of floated up to heaven and back down again. I don't think any of that happened. But I think we can say that the historical Jesus, as in someone for whom there's empirical

evidence that he actually existed is true. What we think we know from the Gospels is he was an apocalyptic preacher from a particularly rough end of the Roman Empire, Galilee, got himself into trouble with the priests in Jerusalem, crucified by the Romans and died. And that's all we know for certain about the historical Jesus. So what references to Jesus are there in the writings of the time? What are the facts that a whole religion has been based on? There is little hard evidence.

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian from the time of Jesus, only makes two references to him, and one of these is debatable. Josephus' writings cover a number of figures familiar to Bible readers. He discussed John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, Pontius Pilate, the high priests, and the Pharisees. But Jesus, the Son of God, is at best only only the Lord. at best only mentioned twice. He writes about everything, every little detail about life in Judea at this time, except Jesus. Actually, he does mention the word Messiah, but even that

mention of the word Messiah tell scholars, that's not what a Jewish man would call the Christos. He doesn't call it Christianity. So it's an indication that it's a fraud, it was added later. The Jewish Messiah was supposed to be pure and simple, a great military leader who would kick the Romans out. And obviously Jesus failed on that count, totally. But the whole idea of being the Son of God was grafted on by himself and or the early Christians. In the epistles of St. Paul, written 25 years after Jesus's death,

its claim that Jesus was executed by Pilate. We know for a fact that Pontius Pilate did exist, and the Roman writer Tacitus wrote about a Christos. But it would appear that all mentions of Christ or Jesus were actually second-hand retellings of other accounts. Nothing at all was direct. The Roman historian Tacitus is interesting because he uses the right phrase, the Christos,

but the earliest copy we have of what he wrote is the 11th century. The first reference of his word, is the 15th century. So it just adds to the belief that this is, in hindsight, someone adding some elements to his writing, talking about Christianity that they had learned and heard about much after the event. It's extraordinary because religion demands certainty, and the one thing we don't have about Jesus is certainty. The story that we now have was manufactured decades and hundreds of years later,

The very first references we have in the Gospels don't come until 60 years after his death, and the texts go through many, many evolutions. So the process of making Jesus into Christ the God is a long one happening all over the Roman Empire for centuries. If the Jesus Christ in the Bible was actually based on real people and real places, then the so-called garden tomb in Jerusalem is a good place to visit. investigative reporter Jamie Thiexton is trying to find the truth about the existence of the historical Jesus. Dr. A. Al-Miron is a leading Jewish scholar and has agreed to show him this historical site.

What they have here is a tomb supposedly from the second temple period, which was probably the tomb where Jesus was buried in. Right. So the tomb itself predates Jesus? Now, in actuality, the tomb itself belongs to the first temple period, which is much, much earlier than the time of Jesus. I'd say about 800 years before the time of Jesus. Right. But it has been altered since then.

It looks rather grand. Is that how a man of Jesus' stature would have been buried? Well, actually, it is quite small. During the burial period, that would be a rock scarf, and it would be a nice little hole here. opening into a very small and cozy chamber for burial. People like Jesus, even though he was tried as a rebel, and even though he was crucified,

they would be turned over to the families to be buried properly according to Jewish custom. We do know that because we have such an example in archaeology, in Jerusalem in the 1970s. The skeleton of a Jew called Yochanan, the son of Hagakol, was discovered in the north side of Jerusalem. and an 11-centimeter nail was actually pierced into his heel bone. So this is the only archaeological evidence of crucifixion that we have in the entire world.

And he was buried properly in a typical Jewish burial place. I'd expect that the same happened with Jesus. The garden tomb is definitely part of the Jesus Tourism, the theme park that is Jerusalem. But it has certain elements going for it. I mean, we just don't know whether. it was Jesus' tomb or not. I mean, it could have been. It certainly dates from before his time. It could have been. One major point, though, with all of these places, even if they're not genuine, they are hallowed by belief, by generations of believers who pour their faith and their emotion into it.

The Garden Tomb is a fascinating alternative for a true site, potentially. of where Jesus was buried. And you go there today, and it just feels right. And it's just very understated. The people who sort of take you around there aren't pushing it down your throat, that this is the site where he was buried. But it's the kind of place

that looks like where it would have happened, and burials here go back to the fifth century or further BC. So it really ticks a lot of boxes. If the evidence in the New Testament Testament does in fact rule out the garden tomb as Jesus' burial place, perhaps the next location that Jamie investigates will prove more promising. Many Christians believe that the actual site of the crucifixion and the burial of Christ

can be found in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, right in the heart of Jerusalem. Could Jesus' body really have been crucified and entombed all at the same location? Some people believe that at the time of Jesus, this site would have been outside the much smaller walled city of Jerusalem. If true, then the location is supported by the biblical claim that Jesus' tomb was indeed somewhere outside of the city. Well, basically, Jamie, the unction stone. According to the Gospel of John, once the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross,

it was laid down, and his disciples prepared it for burial. according to the local tradition, this is the actual place where that took place. And these pilgrims coming in, touching the stone, robbing it with all sorts of souvenirs that they would take back home as blessed souvenirs. And people travel all around the world to touch the stone? Absolutely. It's the peak of the experience here in Jerusalem, the entire Holy Sepulchurch, and of course touching the place where the body of Christ once lived. And what would it mean to touch the stone or to rub your souvenirs on the stone,

that it becomes blessed? It becomes blessed, yes. And it is indeed one of the only places where you can actually touch holiness. You have to remember that the Romans raised Jerusalem. Josefa says that anyone who went would never have known even a city had been there. So whatever archaeological vestiges there were of Jesus' time

were gone. The Romans wiped them off the face of the earth. When we're thinking about sites now that are the holy sites of Jerusalem, one has to bear that in mind and realize these were recognized later. So the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for example, is a Byzantine creation by the Empress Helena. This comes along in the 300th. That's three centuries after Jesus.

The garden tomb is discovered in the 20th century. All of these areas have traditions that grew up around them. But fundamentally, they are all later, and they are added onto a city that had been thoroughly erased. So we just entered the Chapel of Adam, according to medieval traditions. On this rock, the rock of Golgothar, Jesus was crucified. According to legend, the skull of Adam was actually entombed right under the cross, and a drop of blood came down on the skull of Adam, and he momentarily resurrected.

Hang on, I thought that Jesus was crucified on Calvary. True. Calvary is actually the name of the site. He comes from the word meaning skull, but we actually talk about a rock scarf on which his cross was... It seems rather convenient and suspicious that it's such a compact sight. It's almost like a kind of Disney world for people that believe in Jesus Christ. You can go there, get your fill, get your little souvenirs, and then leave. And much of this dates back to the Crusades, but that in itself was a thousand years after the events depicted.

So I think even, you know, the most kind of well-believing Christian would be entitled to feel a little bit of doubt. Like how do we know what was this exact spot? spot. Identifying that the place of crucifixion is completely guesswork. It's taking scripture and then trying to basically cram real places into the Bible. And when you go to the Holy Sepul, you think, this doesn't look like where Jesus was crucified. It's not even on a hill. It's inside the city wall.

It doesn't make sense. But, you know, it was all about faith. A rational mind, respectfully, is going to question whether or not the historical site is what it says it is. Is it really the site of the crucifixion and a few feet away where he was laid down after the cross and then buried? It is uncertain when this all became a bit of a pilgrim site, but it appears to have been a symbolic representation for this story, which itself is allegorical, but it's a symbolic

representation of where it happened. Historians today would tell you, no, it doesn't make any sense. They all wouldn't have happened in the same place, and it would have been outside the city walls, not within. The problem with the historical Jesus is where is the evidence? Yes, the locations, the physical places that Jesus was said to have visited do exist. But what substantiation is there that he was actually there at the right time? Marty Friedlander is a local guide in Jerusalem, who has agreed to show Jamie some of the key sites that Jesus is said to have visited, according to the New Testament.

Is there any archaeological evidence of Jesus' existence? That's a tough one, and I would say the answer has got to be no. Have we scientific proof that, yes, this is the cross on which he was crucified? No. No. It boils down to, do you believe it? And if you want to believe it, then you'll make sure that you'll wrap your scientific mind around and say, yes, this is proof. Virtually everything was lost by the Romans, the great suppression after the rebellions.

But the one thing that remains probably accurate is the Via Dolorosa, which is where Jesus is supposed to have carried the cross from Pilot to the site of the crucifixion. And that must be accurate, for the simple reason, it's the only direct route from the two points. And the Romans used it. Was Jesus actually paraded down via De La Rosa? before being crucified and buried in Jerusalem? If so, where did he rise from the dead? If Jesus was indeed executed by the Romans,

what facts support the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ? And is the history supported by real people and places? Expert opinion is still divided. So is this the Via del Arosa? We're on now. Yeah, we're about to start officially, the Vio Del Arosa. Villarosa at the first station of the cross. Okay, and what does that mean?

When you talk about stations of the cross, what does that mean? These are stations along the way of the suffering of Jesus from station one would be when he's being sentenced to death, culminating station 13, 14, when he's already being placed in the tomb at the end of the line. It's really easy for us to forget that there were dozens and probably dozens of messiahs that came into Jerusalem, knowing that the Old Testament had prophesized that a Messiah would come and rescue the Jews. So time and time again, here comes a Messiah. He's got a cross. He's on a donkey. There's palm trees. He has a cult of followers. And the Jewish elders must have

been just rolling their eyes, not another one. Really? Jesus Christ? That's what your name is? Okay. Next. If he was the person the Bible says he was, then he was a political agitator. As a political agitator, he would have been crucified by the Romans and his body would have been either left to rot on the cross or thrown on the rubbish heaps for the dogs. If there were various Christians that wrote this story and it was a myth, do you not think they would have come up with a different method

of having their Messiah die? Because it's a pretty brutal, horrible way of dying. No. Because it has grounded in the fact. The Romans did in fact crucify people in public. There was an asiary, a little bone box found here in Jerusalem in a construction site that found a heel bone with a nail still stuck in it.

So we know crucifixions happen. That's a historical fact. We know that that's how they used to kill racism. Correct. The Romans believed in upholding the most stringent, rigorous form of discipline. They hated anyone that represented a threat to law and order. And Jesus created disturbances in the temple.

And he was seen to be generating a kind of an independent power base. Because people were loyal to him and him only, like above and beyond the Roman Empire. So they treated him as they treated such people who tended to challenge the status quo brutally. And that led to his arrest and eventually his... savage execution. I don't think that the Jewish assessment had such an issue with him. I think he was one of many agitators from the sticks or from the cities. But they certainly weren't going to say we must put this fellow to death.

That was not the Jewish character. What was certainly in character was for the Romans. The Roman Empire keeps itself in business by being incredibly violence and murderous and putting out any sort of spark of rebellion at the get-go. And that's what he represented to them. What people don't really get is that Jesus wasn't important in his own day. He was barely known. And to put him in context, in the year that he's commonly thought to have died, AD 33,

Pontius Pilate executed by crucifixion, 300 would be messiahs in Jerusalem. Jesus was just one of them. According to some, the crucifixion took place where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands today, which in the time of Jesus could have been on the edge of the old Jerusalem city limits.

But archaeologists argue that crucifixions always took place outside of the city walls, and some believe that they know the spot, near the Mount of Olives, a very remote place at the time. Dr. A. Al-Miron knows the site well and has agreed to show Jamie the possible location where Jesus was crucified.

The New Testament doesn't actually specify the location of the crucifixion. It just, the gospel says that he was done in a place called Golgothar, meaning the skull hill, or just the skull, actually. There are two caves here, looking like eyes, and then you have the mouth and maybe a nose over here. So it doesn't look like a skull. So he said, maybe this is the skull hill. And if he is right, then the crucifixion might have taken place right here.

So would you say Jesus' crime fits the punishment at the time? Most scholars would agree that he was considered to be a rebel. Because when Pilate asks him, are you the king of the Jews? He replies, you said it. he doesn't deny that. So if someone claims that he is the king of the Jews when there's an emperor in the Roman Empire, that means that he is a rebel.

And in that case, he will be crucified. I think many of the sites associated with Jesus Christ today, particularly the ones that draw in so many visitors, are of quite a spurious fabrication. And it has the sense of a sort of a site of pilgrimage. So people coming in and their coaches to see where Christ was crucified, where he was buried. I question how they could possibly know what precise spot all these apocal events took place on.

When you're at the site of the crucifixion, there's these benches, and you sit down on the benches and you think, okay, I'm going to feast my eyes on something profound and something really moving, perhaps a recreation of the three crosses, and perhaps, you know, a recreation of Mary Magdalene and all the Mary's and Joseph Arimathea. No, all you see is buses. It's the crudest, unsanctified thing you can imagine. The New Testament has a narrative of Jesus being in and around Jerusalem,

leading up to his crucifixion. In the Garden of Githsemini, in the Last Supper Room, and walking down the Via Dolorosa. But in recent years, a different side has interested scholars and experts. It's a place located in the suburbs of Jerusalem and is called the Talpia Tomb. Beneath this stone slab are ten ushiries, six inscribed with epigraphs, including one

which was interpreted as Jesus, son of Joseph. The inscription was only partially legible, and its translation and interpretation has been wildly disputed. But was this the true tomb of the man called Jesus? There are so many tourist sites in Jerusalem that when you approach this tomb, you expect it to be decorated like all the rest. But it's not. There's cats crawling at top of it. It's open to the elements. There's railings. There's nothing about it that says we value this. We think this is authentic. And not at all what you'd expect from somebody who is buried the Son of God here.

A controversial documentary film, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, was produced in 2007 by director James Cameron, an investigative archaeologist Simha Jakubovichi. It grabbed the world's attention. They claimed that this was the Jesus family tomb and that one of the aschewaries contained the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and that he hadn't risen from the dead. The controversy was huge, making headlines around the world. Had the tomb of Jesus been found at last? This could have been the greatest discovery of all time,

the tomb of Jesus Christ with James Cameron and all his credibility behind it, but no, it ends up being a fraud. You only have to Google Jesus to realize that he is one of the largest industries and businesses on the planet. And we live in an age when people require proof of things. So it's not surprising that people have come up with all sorts of bogus archaeology that proves Jesus. The whole Tapiat tomb phenomenon really shows how desperate people are to puncture the story of the Son of God, to literally bring him down to earth, because the idea Christians have, of course, is that Jesus was taken bodily into heaven.

Therefore, there would be no body left, no, no, no, bones, nothing. And to find a tomb or an ossuary which has bits of bone in it belonging to Jesus, well, that shows you how wrong the church has been, doesn't it? The curious thing is that a number of academics from across the world can't find hard evidence for the existence of Jesus. Beyond faith, are there any facts that can help to uncover the mystery and corroborate the stories? Jamie got in touch with an Australian academic and author, Rafael LaTaster. So Raphael, do you think the man known as Jesus in the New Testament actually existed? I am actually a Jesus agnostic, but I do favour the ahistericity view.

I think that Jesus probably did not exist. Because the sources for Jesus, I think there's a lot of problems with them. And an alternative theory about Christian origins, I think is much more. I think is much more plausible. Because presumably someone had to start Christianity, right? Yes, and I think that someone is someone like Paul, not necessarily Paul the Apostle, but someone like Paul. Paul who gives us the earliest Christian sources,

he speaks of the Celestial Son of Man, who some Jews at the time already believed him. And this person, in my view, can evolve to become the Jesus, you know, and love. And I think someone just like Paul, basically started Christianity. They thought they had visions of the celestial son of man just like Polge. I think it would be fair to say that Yeshua Bon Joseph was a real living, breathing human being,

probably not a god, not the Son of God as far as we know. However, about 100 or 150 years later, when people came to compile this definitive versions of the Scriptures, of the New Testament, they had this urgent demand, this sort of urgent impulse to transform the man into a sort of divine superhero and craft a story, a series of stories that were completely unforgettable and would have such a transformative impact on people's lives. So it was the later writers mythologizing the real sort of human being from 150 years earlier. Some of the more miraculous events in the Gospels turning water into

wine. I think we can kind of discount those, but it seems to me feasible that a man existed and was causing problems for the Romans, and it doesn't seem that unlikely to me. Regarding miracles and claims about gods, yes, these things almost certainly didn't happen with our current naturalistic understandings of science and how the world works, but you're right, the idea of historical Jesus, it shouldn't seem that implausible. However, when you really look at the evidence and you see that there's a lot of problems in the writings of Paul, who's one of a, who actually is the earliest Christian author, and you see him not talking about historical Jesus, and you see the best sources that we have are the Gospels, and there's plenty of questions

about the reliability of those sources. You start thinking, okay, there's problems here. Jerusalem and its relationship with Jesus Christ is clearly fundamental to Christians. The masses flocked to see the biblical sites where their Messiah, once stood. Believing without a doubt he did preach here, did aggravate the Romans, and was indeed crucified somewhere in this city. Throughout history, we've had one Jesus. Fascinating, now we have two. People look at Jesus the religious figure and Jesus the historical figure, and that's now ingrained and accepted. Christians can't have it both ways. They say, I know in my heart that Jesus is the son of God and he loves me, etc. But look, if you look in the Bible, he went there and he did this

at this time and look who was emperor at the time and you can pin it down historically, can't you? But actually, most of the time you can't. And they're confusing their emotions with the facts. But the man who lived was just a man. It sounds a bit harsh to say we have been hoodwinked, but we have. There was a character. that they wanted to make out to be very, very special, that we could look up to a character that was a conduit to God. But that character never existed. In a court of law, no jury would say,

yes, the historical evidence proves it. On the contrary. And over time, the institutions kind of said, hmm, people believe this happened. You know, we can use that. People forgot it was allegory. It was sacred, but it wasn't historic. They are two of the great questions today.

Did Jesus Christ really exist and was his incredible story actually true? It's the basis of the New Testament and fundamental to Christianity. While the city of Jerusalem and all of its sights are there for everyone to see, there is little tangible physical evidence that a man known as Yeshua Ben Joseph was ever here. There are a few historical references to him, but most written reports start at least a century after his death. And as a result, the questions remain. Perhaps we should add a third question.

Does actually proving his existence, his life, and his deeds really matter, or is faith enough?