Evidence · Case 01 · Historical Jesus
Maurice Casey
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Maurice Casey was an independent, non-religious scholar of the New Testament. He wrote a full length study rejecting the theory that Jesus never existed and defended the historical Jesus on ordinary historical grounds.
Sources
Objections & responses
- Casey’s book against mythicism was criticized even by non-mythicists for its harsh tone and for leaning on his own unusual early dating of Mark.
Both criticisms are fair. Casey’s tone was sharp, and his dating of Mark to the 40s is a minority view that nothing here depends on. What he is cited for is narrower: a secular specialist in Aramaic and the Gospels, with no stake in Christianity, examined the mythicist case in detail and found that it fails on ordinary historical grounds. Reviewers who disliked his manner did not conclude that mythicism was right. The tone of a book and the soundness of its central verdict are different things.