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== Perspectives of Historicity ==
Many Christians believe that God plays an active role in history through ] and ]; and some take as a basis for their faith a ] for the ], and the divinity of Jesus. Some Christians believe in God but question the divinity of Jesus and the Bible, and rely more heavily on the work of scientists and historians.

Since ]s for the existence of God became more prevelant in ] teachings, the issue of the historicity of Jesus gained greater significance, and arguments about ] started to be used in significant ways in this context. Most Christian scholars, and many non-Christian scholars, do not dispute that a person named Jesus once lived, connected in some way to the biblical accounts, thinking that evidence for Jesus' existence is by historical standards fairly strong.

Many historians do not dispute the existence of a person who was named Jesus, but there is much less acceptance of the narrative of his ] and death, and far less for any ] claims. Many scholars think that interpretations of Jesus' sayings are secondhand and literary extrapolations from his actions and mythologized invented detail which have been applied to an historical figure.

However, a number of critics have proposed that there was no historical Jesus, adducing as support for this position the paucity of non-Christian historical ] corroborating Christian writings. Perhaps most prolific of those Biblical scholars who discount the historical existence of Jesus is a professor of German, ], who argues that Jesus was originally a ] ].

== Jesus and Syncretism ==
''Main article'':]

The ]s tied ] and ] to mystical meaning, and often encoded deeper meaning within geometric or numerical representations, themselves encoded as ''outer mysteries'' in the form of stories. Some scholars think that some of these stories and their deeper meaning was incorporated into the story of Jesus, rather than them being a reflection on historic events. For example, ''12 apostles'' is thought to be a reference to the ] itself derived from geometry of spheres, ''72 disciples'' is thought to be a reference to the precession of the Zodiac.

Other stories are thought to have more cryptic meaning, one of the best examples being the story of the ''153 fish'', which is thought to encode via ] (a greek version of ]) a mystical diagram known to ], the 153 being a repeated number in the diagram, and having religious significance connected to the ]. Many scholars have thought, throughout the centuries, that the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 has a cryptic meaning, early ideas tying the numbers to Jews, Gentiles, the Torah, and Apostles, wheras more recent ideas suggest there is an encrypted mystic diagram. Other instances of isopsephia are thought to occur, such as 666 which is quite literally the number of ''the great beast''.

]
The pre-Christian egyptian god ], itself a syncretism of many local deities, is thought to have many similarities with Jesus. According to some scholars, Horus shares elements of the nativity with Jesus, such as a virgin mother Mary married to Joseph, preceeded by annunciation, announced by stars, occuring in Bethlehem, though the similarities supposedly only reveal themselves when transliterating between ] and ]. Another story alleged to have been copied from Horus is that of the raising of ] at ], thought to be indentifiable with the raising of ] at the underworld, Annu, again only revealed by transliteration of the names.

Titles are also shared such as ''The way, the truth, the life'', ''the anointed one'', ''Light of the World'', as are depictions, such as that of Mary and the baby Jesus, and the depiction of Mary in revelations. In addition, some allege that ] is the prototype for ], the story of the battle in the wilderness with temptation being shared between the stories. Since the Horus stories are thought to have astronomical meanings, some scholars suggest that this explains otherwise confusing ideas in the New Testament.

]
During the first and second centuries BC, Hellenic philosophy merged with minor deities to produce ], in which a ] was used as allegory to encode wisdom. Such religion quickly replaced many local religions as the dominant form throughout the Mediterranian, with the resulting variations of the central god-man figure becoming known as ]. Some scholars think that Jesus was one of the forms of ].

The religions share with christianity many things, such as a form of baptism, religious meals of bread and wine (sharing the same meaning as Christianity, disturbing ]), the birthday of the central figure, pregnancy duration, nativity story, riding into town on a donkey, crucifixion at easter, and last judgement, although it varied as to which features were held in common.

Early christians (such as ] and ]) tended to provide unprovable supernatural explanations for the similarities with Mystery Religions, favouring statements that the ] was responsible for the similarites, producing them to trick people into the wrong religion before Christianity came into existance a centuries later. Modern approaches are more reasoned, suggesting that all surviving evidence of the beliefs in the mystery religions postdates Jesus, and that the myths did not feature crucifixion in their early forms. The counter argument to such ] is that crucifixion is the likely consequence of the religions becoming mystery religions rather than their more literal original form, and that no surviving evidence of Christianity pre-dates Jesus either.

One of the forms of ], ], became the dominant form in the Roman army, spreading throughout the empire. Amongst the stories of the earlier forms of Mithras, is a story of a moon god ], later referred to as ], whom some scholars think is the basis for ] his relationship to Jesus mirroring that of the moon to the sun. Also travelling with the early form is the case of priests known as ], whom some allege were inserted into the nativity story to give Jesus more importance.

] eventually syncretised with more explicit sun worship to become ''Mithras Sol Invictus'', a religion that became official Roman policy, and many scholars think was the main competitor to Christianity. ], who was the highest priest of this cult, for the sake of unity, is thought by some scholars to have tried to smooth out the differences between the two, including moving the sabbath to Sunday (the day of ''Mithras Sol Invictus'' (''Mithras, the unconquerable sun'')), as well as moving the date of Jesus' birth to december 25th (the same day as that of Mithras, and ]).

Such smoothing is thought to have allowed Christianity (which bore semblence to the more literal reading of the stories that Mithraism taught was allegory) to gain the upper hand, for reasons outlined earlier by ]. Writing in the 2nd century, Celsus wrote (rather offensively) that Christianity spread amongst the ignorant and the illiterate, since they are not intelligent enough to interpret the beliefs allegorically.

Christianity's dominance was finally enforced by a decreee in ] (by ], completely banning non-Christian religion. After the ban, ] (the Mithras temples) were converted into churches, and according to certain scholars specifically Mithraic beliefs transferred to the ], since the previous adherents of Mithraism still continued to worship in the same location, just claiming to be Christian.

== Sources ==
''Main article'':]

Although there is much evidence of Jesus attested by the ] and the ] (those works which the ] did not consider valid), those arguing against Jesus' historicity argue that since these are works written for religious reasons, their validity on this point is suspect. Of the secular commentators in existence within memory of Jesus, from the evidence of their surviving works (which still survive in significantly high number to fill hundreds of volumes of text) only 6 are claimed to have written anything relating to Jesus - Pliny the Younger, Josephus, ], ], Lucian, and ]. ] wrote a satire demonstrating the existence of ] but condemning them as easily lead fools, wheras ] wrote the same opinion in prose.

Many Christians use a passage from ] (found only in quotations apparantly from it by ]) as evidence that the Bible is not the only contemporary document proclaiming the truth of their faith (such as the Resurrection of Jesus as Christ, part-God, who was executed at the suggestion of Jewish leaders, and won many converts). However, critical scholars note that the passage uses terms Josephus nowhere else uses, the passage is a rather odd thing for a non-Christian Jew to write, the other text reads more continuously without the passage in question, and that the first person known to have claimed that Josephus did not mention Jesus was ] (who lived centuries before ] who is the first person known to have claimed (or quoted) that he did). The discovery of a more neutral 10th century version, bolstered Christian hopes of the validity of the passage, however, it fails to explain why the earlier 9th century manuscripts should have the flaws, and may itself be a forgery.

The only known text which claims to be a form of official governmental record and which also mentions Jesus is the collection known as the Letters of Herod and Pilate. They are found in some 6th century manuscript copies of the work of Justus of Tiberius (who was of the same time as Josephus). Virtually all scholars dispute the attribution of the texts to Herod or Pilate, and consider them pure (and obvious) propaganda. Early commentators stated that Justus had no mention of Jesus.

Jewish records, both oral and written, of the period, were compiled into the ], a work so large that it fills at least 32 volumes. Within its vastness, there is very little mention of anyone called Jesus, the closest match being a person or persons called '']''. However, the description of ''Yeshu'' does not match the biblical accounts of Jesus, the name itself is usually considered to be a derogatory acronym for anyone attempting to convert Jews from Judaism, and the term does not occur in the Jerusalem version of the text (which, compared to the Babylonian version, would be expected to mention Jesus more). Some Christians proclaim that the lack of references, and the difficulty in associating ''Yeshu'' with Jesus, is due to Christianity being negligable when the Talmud was predominantly created, in addition to the Talmud being more concerned with teachings, than recording history.



== Gnosticism ==

=== Epistles 1(need to specify which - the gnostic) of Paul ===

*does not mention Jesus as real or historic
*esoteric
*disdain for the flesh (which gnostics viewed as evil)
*opinions of paul

{{sectstub}}

=== Epistles 2(need to specify which - the realist, incl. Pastorals) of Paul ===

*witnesses Jesus as historic
*paul is more mundane
*anti-heretic
*thought to be forgeries - by Marcion amongst others

{{sectstub}}

=== The Synoptic Gospels ===

*mention of secrets, secret mark
*Thomas Didymous and the significance of a twin in gnosticism
*the mystery youth (including bits from secret mark)
*markan priority, additions such as the resurrection and non-markan information
*the nature of Q (and gospel-of-thomas) - general wisdom
*relationship to mystery religion

{{sectstub}}

=== The Gospel of John ===

*discrepency of authorship being john
*discrepency of the text to the synoptics
*nature of the text as anti-heresy, pro-Iranaeaus
*suspicion of fraud and inaccuracy

{{sectstub}}

=== Non Gnostic texts ===

*nonsense

{{sectstub}}

=== Gnostic texts ===

*dismissal by early christianity
*vast and blatant inconsistency amongst themselves (despite being kept together -e.g. Qumran)
*allegorical interpretation of Jesus

{{sectstub}}

=== The non-orthodoxy of gnosticism ===

*orthodoxy won by Iranaeus
*suppression - albigensian crusade
*ebionites and the jerusalem church of the apostles
*the gnostics were first, but literalism was lazier - it is less work to take it as the superficial than to try to find the inner meaning.

{{sectstub}}

==See also==
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== External links ==
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==Reference==
* Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, ''The Jesus Mysteries - was the original Jesus a pagan god?'' ISBN:0722536771
* Michael Grant, ''Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels''
* Edgar J. Goodspeed, ''Biblical Forgeries''
* Raymond E. Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, Roland Murphy, ''Jerome Biblical Commentary'', Prentice Hall, 1968
* Rudolf Bultmann, ''History of the Synoptic Tradition'',Harper & Row, 1963
* Edgar V. McKnight,''What is Form Criticism?'', 1997
* Norman Perrin,''What is Redaction Criticism?''
* Robin Jensen,''Understanding Early Christian Art'', Rutledge, 2000
* Stephen Patterson, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossman, Edited by Hershel Shanks,''The Search for Jesus: Modern Scholarship Looks at the Gospels'',Biblical Archaeology Society, 1994 Symposium at the Smithsonian Institution, 11 Sept 1993
* Earl Doherty, ''The Jesus Puzzle. Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?: Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus'', Publisher: Canadian Humanist Pubns; 1st edition (October 19, 1999)
* Phyllis Graham, ''The Jesus Hoax'', Publisher: Frewin; (1974)
* Charles Guignebert, ''Jesus'', Publisher: Albin Michel; (December 31, 1969)
* Gordon Stein, ''An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism'', Publisher: Prometheus Books; (December 1, 1989)
* George A.Wells, ''The Historical Evidence for Jesus'', Publisher: Prometheus Books; (January 1, 1988)
* Ian Wilson, ''Jesus: The Evidence'', Publisher: Regnery Publishing; 1 edition (October 1, 2000)
* Barker, Dan. ''Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist.'' Freedom From Religion Foundation, 1992.
* Bruce, F. F. ''The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?'' 5th ed. Intervarsity, 1960.
* Fox, Robin Lane. ''The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible.'' New York: Vintage, 1991.
* Keller, James A. ''Contemporary Doubts About the Resurrection.'' Faith and Philosophy 5 (1988): 40-60.
* Mackie, J.L ''The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
* Martin, Michael. ''The Case Against Christianity''. Temple University, 1991.
* McCabe, Joseph. ''The Myth of the Resurrection and Other Essays''. 1925. Prometheus, 1993.
* Miller, Glenn. ''Christian `bias' in the NT Writers: Does it render the NT unreliable or inadmissable as evidence?'' 23 Feb. 1995.
* O'Hair, Madalyn. ''Fundamentalism.'' Memphis State University. 22 Oct. 1986.
* O'Hair, Madalyn. ''Why I Am An Atheist.'' Second Revised Edition. American Atheist Press, 1991.
* Ranke-Heinemann, Ute. ''Putting Away Childish Things: the Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb, and Other Fairy Tales You Don't Need to Believe to Have a Living Faith.'' Translated by Peter Heinegg. 1992. Harper Collins, 1994.
* Russell, Bertrand. ''Why I Am Not a Christian''. Touchstone, 1957.
* Spong, John Shelby. ''Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture.'' Harper Collins, 1991.
* Stamos, David N. ''Why I Am Not a New Apostolic'' Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists. Edited by Ed Babinski. Prometheus, 1995.
* Stein, Gordon Ed. ''An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism.'' Prometheus, 1980.
* Stein, Gordon Ed. ''The Encyclopedia of Unbelief.'' Prometheus, 1985.
* Stein, Gordon Ed. ''Freethought in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.'' Greenwood Press, 1981.
* Stein, Gordon Ed. ''God Pro and Con: A Bibliography of Atheism.'' Garland, 1990.
* Robert Ingersoll ''A Checklist.'' Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1969.
* Stein, Gordon and Marshall Brown. ''Freethought in the United States: A Descriptive Bibliography.'' Greenwood Press, 1978.
* Swinburne, Richard. ''For the Possibility of Miracles - To Believe or Not to Believe: Readings in the Philosophy of Religion.'' Edited by E.D. Klemke. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
* Taylor, Larry. ''MessiahGate - A Tale of Murder and Deception.'' August 1987: 1-7.
* Till, Farrell. ''Did They Tarry in the City?'' The Skeptical Review. Volume 3, Number 2.
* Watts, Charles. ''The Claims of Christianity Examined from a Rationalist Standpoint.'' Watts & Co., 1895.
* Wheless, Joseph. ''Forgery in Christianity: A Documented Record of the Foundations of the Christian Religion.'' Psychiana, 1930.
* Wheless, Joseph. ''Is It God's Word?'' Kessinger, 1925.
* Zindler, Frank R. ''Biography. - Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists''. Ed. Ed Babinski. Prometheus, 1995.
* Zindler, Frank R. ''Dial an Atheist: Greatest Hits from Ohio'' American Atheist Press, 1991.

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