Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity and first-century Judean figure, has been the subject of criticism from both religious scholars and secular thinkers. Jesus has faced a variety of criticism on the basis of his actions, teachings, and legitimacy across history and in modern times. A person who makes counter-arguments to refute these criticisms is called an Apologetic.
Jesus was criticized in the first century AD by the Pharisees and scribes for disobeying certain halakhic interpretations of the Mosaic Law, for example by healing on Sabbath. He was decried in Judaism as a failed Jewish messiah claimant and a false prophet by most Jewish denominations. Judaism also considers the worship of any person a form of idolatry, The real Messiah (pdf) and rejects the claim that Jesus was divine. Some psychiatrists, religious scholars and writers explain that Jesus' family, followers (John 7:20) and contemporaries seriously regarded him as delusional, possessed by demons, or insane.
Early critics of Christianity and Jesus included Celsus in the second century and Porphyry in the third. In the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche was highly critical of Jesus as described in the New Testament, whose teachings he considered to be "anti-nature" in their treatment of topics such as sexuality. More contemporary notable critics of Jesus include Ayn Rand, Hector Avalos, Sita Ram Goel, Christopher Hitchens, Bertrand Russell, and Dayananda Saraswati.
Criticism by Jesus' contemporaries
Disobedience of Mosaic law
The Pharisees and scribes criticized Jesus and his disciples for not observing Mosaic Law. They criticized his disciples for not washing their hands before eating. (The religious leaders engaged in ceremonial cleansing like washing up to the elbow and baptizing the cups and plates before eating food in them—Mark 7:1–23, Matthew 15:1–20.) Jesus is also criticized for eating with the publicans (Mark 2:15). The Pharisees also criticized Jesus' disciples for gathering grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23–3:6).
There was some disagreement in the early church about the inclusion of Gentiles, including the status of the Mosaic covenant (called the Old Covenant by Christians) and whether Christians are still bound by it. Paul the Apostle believed that the New Covenant had superseded the old, and that Christians were no longer bound by all parts of the latter. His views, called Pauline Christianity, would become dominant in the following centuries, with most Christian denominations today believing that Jesus released his followers from the obligation to follow Mosaic Law in its entirety.
Claim to divine authority
Throughout the four canonical gospels, Jesus is characterised by his claim to divine authority as Messiah, variously either entrusting his disciples to keep this status a secret (as in Mark) or openly proclaiming (as in John) his status and his mission. Only in the Gospel of John does Jesus emphatically claim divinity, and not just divine authority, through the seven statements of "I am". In the gospel, it is this claim which leads to some of the Jews attempting to stone him, and their eventual handing Jesus over to Pilate for crucifixion on charges of blasphemy:
Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus makes multiple claims of divine authority, ability to cast out demons, authority to forgive sins, and that spiritual peace and salvation were to be found in the acceptance of his leadership. The claims caused controversy among the local Jewish community, as anyone making claims like these are false prophets per several verses in Deuteronomy.Jacobs, Joseph et al. "Jesus of Nazareth", Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906Schechter, Mendelsohn "False Prophet", Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906
Accusations of possession and madness
Jesus' family and contemporaries regarded him as delusional, possessed by demons, or insane.
The accusation contained in the Gospel of John is more literal:
Miracles and exorcisms performed by magic
In the latter half of the first century and into the second century, Jewish and pagan opponents of Christianity argued that the miracles and exorcisms of Jesus and his followers were the result of magic, which was associated with demons and the occult.
Later criticism
Criticism of Jesus' mental health
A number of writers, including David Strauss, Lemuel K. Washburn, Oskar Panizza, Lucian, and Friedrich Nietzsche,Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Antichrist, § 31, 32. have questioned Jesus' sanity by claiming he was insane for believing he was God and/or the messiah. Psychologists and psychiatrists Georg Lomer, Charles Binet-Sanglé, William Hirsch, Georges Berguer, Y. V. Mints, Władysław Witwicki, William Sargant, Raj Persaud, and Anthony Storr, have said Jesus suffered from religious delusions and paranoia.
Criticism of Jesus' teachings
Slavery
Avery Robert Dulles held the opinion that "Jesus, though he repeatedly denounced sin as a kind of moral slavery, said not a word against slavery as a social institution", and believes that the writers of the New Testament did not oppose slavery either. In his paper published in Evangelical Quarterly, Kevin Giles notes that Jesus often encountered slavery, "but not one word of criticism did the Lord utter against slavery." Despite being a proponent of Christianity himself, Giles suggests that the lack of strong stance against slavery in the gospels could be viewed as implying that Jesus approved or was indifferent to slavery.Giles, Kevin. "The Biblical Argument for Slavery: Can the Bible Mislead? A Case Study in Hermeneutics." Evangelical Quarterly 66 (1994): p. 10 https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/1994-1_003.pdf The lack of explicit teachings against the institution of slavery in the bible has been exploited by slave owners throughout history, and passages such as Leviticus 25:44, Joshua 9:23, and Ephesians 6:5 were interpreted as slavery being a part of God's plan for society.
Sexuality and humility
Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th-century philosopher, has many criticisms of the teachings of Jesus as presented in the New Testament, even going so far as to style himself as The Antichrist. In Human, All Too Human, and Twilight of the Idols for example, Nietzsche accuses the Church's and Jesus' teachings as being anti-natural in their treatment of passions, in particular sexuality: "There [In the Sermon on the Mount] it is said, for example, with particular reference to sexuality: 'If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out.' Fortunately, no Christian acts in accordance with this precept...Friedrich Nietzsche, 1895, Twilight of the Idols, Morality as Anti-nature, 1. the Christian who follows that advice and believes he has killed his sensuality is deceiving himself: it lives on in an uncanny vampire form and torments in repulsive disguises."Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878, Human all too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, The Wanderer and His Shado, aphorism 83.
However, Nietzsche did make a distinction between the Biblical Jesus and the historical Jesus, which he called the "only one true Christian": he was convinced the authors of the Gospels had misrepresented his message and attributed to him teachings which were not his own. He presented a Christ whose own inner life consisted of "blessedness in peace, in gentleness, in the inability for enmity". There is much criticism by Nietzsche of the organized institution of Christianity and its class of priests. Christ's evangelism consisted of the good news that the kingdom of God is within you.The Antichrist, § 34 "What are the 'glad tidings'? True life, eternal life is found—it is not promised, it is here, it is within you: as life lived in love.... 'Sin', every kind of distancing relationship between God and man, is abolished - precisely this is the 'glad tidings'. The 'glad tidings' are precisely that there are no more opposites...."
Ignorance and anger
Dayananda Saraswati, a 19th-century philosopher and the founder of Arya Samaj, in his book Satyarth Prakash, criticized Christianity and described Jesus as a "great thing in a country of uneducated savages": All Christian missionaries say that Jesus was a very calm and peace-loving person. But in reality he was a hot-tempered person destitute of knowledge and who behaved like a wild savage. This shows that Jesus was neither the son of God, nor had he any miraculous powers. He did not possess the power to forgive sins. The righteous people do not stand in need of any mediator like Jesus. Jesus came to spread discord which is going on everywhere in the world. Therefore, it is evident that the hoax of Christ's being the Son of God, the knower of the past and the future, the forgiver of sin, has been set up falsely by his disciples. In reality, he was a very ordinary ignorant man, neither learned nor a yogi."Hindu Nationalists of Modern India" by Jose Kuruvachira, p. 20
Saraswati asserted that Jesus was not an enlightened man either, and that if Jesus was a son of God, God would have saved him at the time of his death, and he would not have suffered from severe mental and physical pain at last moments.
Some authors argue that God had good reasons not to save Jesus:
If he had saved himself, he could not have saved others; the only way he could save others was precisely by not saving himself.
Second coming
Craig A. Evans writes that Jesus in Matthew appears to promise for his followers the return of the son of man was to happen before the generation he is preaching to vanishes. Some scholars see these predictions as mistaken, while many others view it from the perspective of the conditional nature of judgement prophecy.Christopher Hays. When the Son of Man Didn't Come. Fortress Press 2017.
In his 1927 essay Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell believed that Jesus' predictions were incorrect. He thus characterized Jesus as being "not so wise as some other people have been, and he was certainly not superlatively wise".Russel, Bertrand (1927). Why I am not a Christian in "Why I am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects," 2004, Routledge Classics, p.13. Russell also expressed doubts over the historicity of Jesus, and saw the organized Christian religion as being against moral progress.
Proscribing virtue and prohibiting vice
Novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand denounced the altruist recipe that Jesus passed down to his pupils, and with it the idea of vicarious redemption. She thought that even Christians, who think of Jesus in the highest possible terms, should feel outraged by the notion of sacrificing virtue to vice. Not surprisingly, her understanding of love as a consequence of the rational mind looking after embodied values considers the ideas Jesus is most famous for as immoral. Consider the following excerpt from a 1959 interview conducted by Mike Wallace: Wallace: Christ, every important moral leader in man's history, has taught us that we should love one another. Why then is this kind of love in your mind immoral? Rand: It is immoral if it is a love placed above oneself. It is more than immoral, it's impossible. Because when you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately. That is to love people without any standard. To love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.
Notwithstanding disagreements over the value of faith and the existence of an afterlife, Rand saw Jesus' insistence on procuring the eternal happiness of individuals as confirmation of the moral confusion and inconsistency in which much of religious ethics operates, including Christian altruism.