DAWKINS: The evidence [Jesus] existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It’s almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren’t that interested in whether Jesus was real.
PLAYBOY: You’ve read the Bible.
DAWKINS: I haven’t read it all, but my knowledge of the Bible is a lot better than most fundamentalist Christians’.
Where to begin? Perhaps we should start with Dawkins' first claim: that the evidence for Jesus' existence is "surprisingly shaky." Since Professor Dawkins appears to have doubts about the historical reliability
of the Bible, let us look first at the extra-biblical evidence for Jesus' existence. While the number of contemporary non-Christian sources for the existence of Jesus is not perhaps huge, such sources do exist. According to carm.org (citing information from Gary Habermas' and Michael Licona's The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus), there are just as many non-Christian textual sources (9) for the existence of Jesus within 150 years of his lifetime as there are for the Roman emperor Tiberius, who lived at about the same time, within the same timeframe (see here). In other words, the non-biblical textual evidence for the existence of Jesus is at least as strong as that for the existence of a Roman emperor, a man whose existence has never been doubted. Among these non-Christian textual sources is the Roman historian Tacitus, who, writing in the early second century (less than a centuy after Jesus' death), tells us how the Roman emperor Nero tried to shift blame for a devestating fire in Rome from himself to the Christians:
Hence to suppress the rumor [that he had started the fire], he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.
Another one of these non-Christian textual sources for the existence of Jesus is Pliny the Younger, the governor of the Roman province of Bithynia, who wrote the following in a letter to the emperor Trajan, also in the early second century, about the Christians he had arrested:
They affirmed...that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.
Given that both of these sources date from less than a century after the death of Jesus, it seems unlikely they are referring to a mythical figure, since it arguably would have taken much longer than a few decades for a myth to have emerged. Indeed, Tacitus' account takes for granted that Jesus was a real person.
Moreover, what about the textual evidence provided by the New Testament? It is interesting that Dawkins aserts that the Epistles are older than the Gospels. As I understand it, most biblical scholars would agree with this assertion. However, this actually weakens his argument. The Apostle Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (First Corinthians) is generally believed by scholars to have been written in the mid 50s AD. This means that it was written within twenty years or so of Jesus' death, an event that it clearly refers to as a fact (see I Corinthians 15). In addition, the first three Gospels (often referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because of their similarities)--Matthew, Mark, and Luke--are generally believed to have been written between the 50s and 70s (the Gospel of John tends to be dated later). Thus, given these relatively early dates of composition, it seems unlikely that even the Gospels, let alone the Epistles, are referring to a mythical figure when speaking of Jesus.
As for Professor Dawkins' second claim--that the Apostle Paul and the other writers of the Epistles weren't very interested in the question of whether Jesus was real or not--this is flat-out untrue, as I shall show, following Anderson's lead. Here is the Apostle Paul writing in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, … , And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. (verses 3-4, 17-18).
Clearly, for Paul, Jesus was a real person and His death and resurrection were real events (in part of the chapter not quoted, Paul lists those who saw the resurrected Jesus, including some 500 people at one time--a rather audacious claim if not true!). Furthermore, it was important for Paul that Jesus really existed, died, and rose again--otherwise, the Corinthian Christians' faith, he says, would be "futile" and there would be no hope of resurrection for believers.
Here is the Apostle John, writing in the first chapter of the first epistle that bears his name:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us – that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. (verses 1-4)
In this passage, John is quite explicitly claiming that he and the other disciples heard, saw, and even touched Jesus--no mythical figure here!
Finally, here is the Apostle Peter writng in the first chapter of the second epistle bearing his name:
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. (verses 12-18)
In this passage, Peter rejects the notion that he has been dealing in "cleverly devised myths" about Jesus. Instead, he claims to have been an eyewitness to Jesus and even to have heard God speaking to Jesus. For Peter, then, the reality of Jesus' existence was important and not up for question.
To sum up, Dawkins' claim that the evidence for Jesus' existence is "surprisingly shaky" is highly debatable and his assertion that the writers of the Epistles in the New Testament weren't very concerned about whether Jesus really existed or not are demonstrably false. How someone so obviously intelligent could make such claims, which are rather easily refuted, is difficult to understand. I suppose this is a classic example of what happens when someone who is knowledgeable about one subject (biology) opines on a subject about which he knows only a little (biblical scholarship). That his interviewer didn't question him on his claims is also telling, but I suppose the sort of person who writes for Playboy is not too likely to be a student of the Bible! As for Dawkins' third claim--that he knows more about the Bible than most "fundamentalist Christians"--sad to say, he might not be so far from the truth and if so, this should call for some reflection on the part of some believers.