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For discussion of Jesus in a comparative mythological and religious context, see Jesus Christ in comparative mythology, and for the body of myths associated with Christianity, see Christian mythology. For the scholarly study of the life of Jesus, see Historical Jesus, for analysis of information supporting the historical existence of Jesus, see Historicity of Jesus, and for the debate over the validity of stories in the New Testament, see Historical reliability of the Gospels.

Christ Myth Theory
The Resurrection of Christ by Noel Coypel (1700)—Some myth theorists see this as a case of a dying-and-rising god.
Description	Jesus of Nazareth never existed; or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels.
Early proponents	Charles François Dupuis (1742–1809) Constantin-François Volney (1757–1820) Richard Carlile (1790-1843) Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) Edwin Johnson (1842-1901) Dutch Radical School (1880-1950) Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906) W. B. Smith (1850–1934) J. M. Robertson (1856–1933) Thomas Whittaker (1856-1935) Arthur Drews (1865–1935) Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879-1959) Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963)
Modern proponents	G. A. Wells, Tom Harpur, Michael Martin, Alvar Ellegård, Thomas L. Thompson, Thomas L. Brodie, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, D.M. Murdock,
Subjects	Historical Jesus, Early Christianity, Ancient history

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism or simply mythicism) is the hypothesis that Jesus of Nazareth never existed; or if he did, that he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels. The Christ myth theory thus goes beyond the mainstream view in Historical Jesus research, which accepts that many of the events described in the gospels are not historical but which still assumes that the gospels are founded on a basic historical core.

Different proponents espouse slightly different versions of the Christ Myth Theory, but many proponents of the theory use a three-fold argument first developed in the 19th century: that the New Testament has no historical value, that there are no non-Christian references to Jesus Christ dating back to the first century, and that Christianity had pagan and/or mythical roots. There have been a number of books and documentaries on this subject up to the present day, but the core tenets of the Christ myth theory trace their history back through the Enlightenment to the conflicts in the first Christian centuries.

Despite arguments put forward by authors who have questioned the existence of a historical Jesus, there remains a strong consensus in historical-critical biblical scholarship that a historical Jesus did live in that area and in that time period. However, scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus, and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Some scholars have made the case that there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, that there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus, and that more research is needed on this topic.

Key arguments

German historian Bruno Bauer developed a three-fold argument for the Christ myth theory in the 1800s, which set the basis for most subsequent adherents. The following summaries of major arguments and their counter-arguments are meant as a brief overview. For further details or other arguments, consult the descriptions of the various authors and the Criticism section below.

Questionable accuracy and authorship of the New Testament

Myth proponents argue the gospels were written many decades or even a century after Jesus' estimated year of death, by individuals who likely never met him and then were edited or forged over the centuries by unknown scribes with their own agendas. They often argue the four canonical gospels were chosen by early church leaders from among dozens of others, frequently contradict each other and contain many details which are historically inaccurate, specifically the Nativity of Jesus. Hill states that "in doctrine, tone and spirit" the rejected gospels "made any discrepancies between the four look pale and insignificant by comparison". Modern scholarship places the dates for most of the gospels within the latter half of the first century (not even a century after) and Hill states that the canonical gospels (though obviously not written by Jesus's disciples) were written by immediate or near immediate successors and quickly accepted by the majority of the Church. According to some myth proponents, the letters from St. Paul or Pauline epistles were written before the gospels and generally refer to a spiritual Christ with no references to his life, parables or miracles. Mainstream academia dismisses the claims of a purely spiritual Christ as nothing more than special pleading, arguing that Paul's writings refer to a physical and historical Jesus. Ultimately, mainstream biblical scholars say there are historically verifiable events such as the baptism and crucifixion of Jesus, and that even though the Bible is not wholly accurate, it does not mean that Jesus never lived.

Lack of historical evidence about Jesus from first century

Myth proponents claim there is significance in the lack of surviving historic records about Jesus of Nazareth from any non-Jewish author until the second century, adding that Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence. Using the argument from silence, they note that Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria did not mention Jesus when he wrote about the cruelty of Pontius Pilate around 40 CE. However, mainstream biblical scholars point out that much of the writings of antiquity have been lost and that there was little written about any Jew or Christian in this period. Myth proponents argue that the Testimonium Flavianum by Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37–c. 100), a passage that states that Jesus the Messiah was a wise teacher who was crucified by Pilate, may have been a partial interpolation or forgery by Christian apologist Eusebius in the fourth century or by others. Some myth proponents also speculate that when Josephus called James the "brother" of Jesus of Nazareth in the Antiquities, he was referring to another Jesus, to a mythic Christ that had already have been historicized, or to fraternal brotherhood rather than a literal sibling. This is dismissed by some in mainstream academia on the grounds that there is no evidence of a supposed "Jerusalem brotherhood". Roman historians Tacitus (AD 56– c.117), Pliny the Younger (AD 61– c.112) and Suetonius (AD 69–c.112) all make brief mentions of Christians, Christ or Chrestus, but myth proponents suggest they may have been forgeries or that these authors were merely reporting hearsay and do not mention the name "Jesus". Mainstream academia counters that the sources written "shortly" after Jesus's lifetime (particularly by Tacitus and Josephus) mostly appear genuine and are sufficient evidence that Jesus existed despite possible later tampering.

Pagan and mythological roots of Christianity

Myth proponents argue that certain gospel stories are similar to those of dying-and-rising gods, demigods (sons of gods), solar deities, saviors or other divine men such as Horus, Mithra/Mithras, Prometheus, Dionysus, Osiris, Buddha, and Krishna, as well as Christ-like historical figures like Apollonius of Tyana. However, many mainstream biblical scholars respond that most of these parallels are either coincidences or without historical basis and/or that these parallels do not prove that a Jesus figure did not live. In particular, the transformations faced by deities have distinct differences from the resurrection of Jesus. Osiris regains consciousness as king of the underworld, rather than being "transformed into an eschatological new creation" as Craig S. Keener writes. While Jesus was born from a human woman (traditionally a virgin) and accompanied by shepherds, Mitra is born (unaccompanied by shepherds) from the goddess Aditi (to whom the word "virgin" is only rarely, loosely, and indirectly applied in a highly poetic sense), while Mithras (granted, accompanied by shepherds later) emerges full-grown from a rock. The rebirth of many of these deities was a clear metaphor for the renewal of spring that repeated the death every year, rather than a historic event meant to proclaim the god's cancellation of death. Some of these parallels appear after Christianity (e.g. the earliest references to Adonis rising from the dead is in the second century CE, Attis a century later), and are often only known through later Christian sources. Most other and later parallels were made in the now discredited works of James George Frazer, or are otherwise found guilty of parallelomania and even misrepresentation of religious (both Christian and non-Christian) and linguistic sources (for example, ignoring the false cognate relationship between Christ and Krishna).

Some argue that stories of Jesus are reminiscent of the "mythic hero archetype" present in many cultures who often have miraculous conceptions or virgin births heralded by wise men and marked by a star, are tempted by or fight evil forces, die on a hill, appear after death, and then ascend to heaven. However, Christian theologians have also cited the mythic hero archetype as a defense of Christian teaching while completely affirming a historical Jesus, some even identifying the historical and archetypal Jesuses or citing Carl Jung's statement "this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus." Secular academics have also pointed out that the teachings of Jesus marked "a radical departure from all the conventions by which heroes had been defined."

Some myth proponents suggest that some parts of the New Testament were meant to appeal to Gentiles as familiar allegories rather than history, some theorists also note that other stories seem to try to reinforce Old Testament prophecies and repeat stories about figures like Elijah, Elisha, Moses and Joshua in order to appeal to Jewish converts. Arguments drawing comparisons between the New and Old Testaments have traditionally been made by Christian theologians in defense of their teachings without doubting a historical Jesus, however.

Notable proponents

18–19th centuries

Volney and Dupuis

The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of Jesus can be traced to late 18th century France, and the works of Constantin François Chassebœuf de Volney (1757–1820) and Charles-François Dupuis (1742–1809). Volney and Dupuis argued that Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a totally mythical character.

Dupuis argued that ancient rituals in Syria, Egypt and Persia had influenced the Christian story which was allegorized as the histories of solar deities, such as Sol Invictus. He argued also that Jewish and Christian scriptures could be interpreted according to the solar pattern, e.g. the Fall of Man in Genesis being an allegory of the hardship caused by winter, and the resurrection of Jesus an allegory for the growth of the sun's strength in the sign of Aries at the spring equinox.

Volney argued that Abraham and Sarah were derived from Brahma and his wife Saraswati, and that Christ was related to Krishna. Volney published before Dupuis but made use of a draft version of Dupuis' work, and followed much of his argument, but at times differed from him, e.g. in arguing that the gospel stories were not intentionally created as an extended allegory grounded in solar myths, but were compiled organically when simple allegorical statements were misunderstood as history.

Volney's perspective was not purely religious, but had a sociopolitical component that in the short term acted against it, in that the association with the ideas of the French Revolution and Volney's influence on Napoleon hindered the acceptance of these views in England. Despite its short term setbacks, the work of Volney gathered significant following among British and American radical thinkers during the 19th century.

Strauss and Bauer

In 1835, German theologian David Friedrich Strauß (1808–1874) published his extremely controversial The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (Das Leben Jesu). While not denying that Jesus existed, he did argue that the miracles in the New Testament were mythical retellings of normal events as supernatural happenings. According to Strauss, the early church developed these miracle stories to present Jesus as a fulfillment of Jewish prophecies of what the Messiah would be like. This rationalist perspective was in direct opposition to the supernaturalist view that the bible was accurate both historically and spiritually.

The book caused an uproar across Europe. The Earl of Shaftesbury called the 1846 translation by Marian Evans "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell," and Strauss' appointment as chair of theology at the University of Zürich caused such controversy that the authorities offered him a pension before he had a chance to start his duties.

German Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), who taught at the University of Bonn, took Strauss' arguments further and became the first author to systematically argue that Jesus did not exist. Bauer's writings presented the first use of the threefold argument used in much of myth theory in later years (but often rediscovered independently), namely the denial of the historical value of the New Testament accounts, pointing to the scarcity of references to Jesus in first century non-Christian sources and accusing Christianity of relying on syncretism from its earliest days.

Bauer initially left open the question of whether an historical Jesus existed at all. Later, in A Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin, (1850–1851) Bauer argued that Jesus had not existed, and in 1877 in Christ and the Caesars he suggested that Christianity was a synthesis of the Stoicism of Seneca the Younger and of the Jewish theology of Philo as developed by pro-Roman Jews such as Josephus. Bauer's work was heavily criticized at the time; in 1839 he was removed from his position at the University of Bonn, and his work did not have much impact on future myth theorists.

Higgins, Graves and Massey

Yorkshire gentleman Godfrey Higgins (1772–1833) studied Greek, Latin and law at Cambridge before becoming a soldier, archaeologist and author. His two-volume, 867-page book Anacalypsis: An Enquiry into the Origins of Languages, Nations, and Religions, was published posthumously in 1836. In his treatise, Higgins claims, "the mythos of the Hindus, the mythos of the Jews and the mythos of the Greeks are all at bottom the same; and ... are contrivances under the appearance of histories to perpetuate doctrines," and that Christian editors “either from roguery or folly, corrupted them all.” It should be noted, however, the book also includes unorthodox theories such as that the Celtic Druids came from India.

American Kersey Graves (1813–1883) was a school teacher and author who wrote the 1875 bookThe World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors. Using Higgins as his main source, Graves claims that Jesus did not exist, and instead was based on demigods from different countries who were either crucified or who ascended into heaven. He also claimed that many of these figures shared similar stories, traits or quotes as Jesus. The validity of the claims in the book have been greatly criticized by Christ myth proponents like Richard Carrier and largely dismissed by biblical scholars.

Starting in the 1870s, English poet and author Gerald Massey (1828–1907) became interested in Egyptology and reportedly taught himself Egyptian hieroglyphics at the British Museum. In 1883, he published The Natural Genesis where he asserted parallels between Jesus and the Egyptian god Horus. His other major work, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, was published shortly before his death in 1907. His assertions have influenced various later writers such as Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Tom Harpur and D.M. Murdock. Harpur argues that Massey has been largely ignored by scholars, and despite criticisms from Stanley Porter and Ward Gasque, Massey's theories regarding Egyptian etymologies for certain scriptures are supported by noted contemporary Egyptologists.

Radical Dutch school

In the 1870s and 1880s, a group of scholars associated with the University of Amsterdam, known in German scholarship as the Radical Dutch school, rejected the authenticity of the Pauline epistles, and took a generally negative view of the Bible's historical value. Within this group, the existence of Jesus was rejected by Allard Pierson, the leader of the movement, Sytze Hoekstra, and Samuel Adrian Naber. Abraham Dirk Loman argued in 1881 that all New Testament writings belonged to the 2nd century, and doubted that Jesus was an historical figure, but later said the core of the gospels was genuine. The group wrote in Dutch and focused mostly on the Old Testament. They had some notable followers, but by the early part of the 20th century they had faded out.

In addition to the authors listed on this page, early Christ myth proponents included Swiss skeptic Rudolf Steck., English historian Edwin Johnson, English radical Rev. Robert Taylor and his associate Richard Carlile.

20th century

During the early 20th century, several writers published arguments against Jesus' historicity, often drawing on the work of liberal theologians, who tended to deny any value to sources for Jesus outside the New Testament, and limited their attention to Mark and the hypothetical Q source. They also made use of the growing field of religious history which found sources for Christian ideas in Greek and Oriental mystery cults, rather than Palestinian Judaism. Joseph Klausner wrote that biblical scholars "tried their hardest to find in the historic Jesus something which is not Judaism; but in his actual history they have found nothing of this whatever, since this history is reduced almost to zero. It is therefore no wonder that at the beginning of this century there has been a revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth century view that Jesus never existed."

The work of social anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941) has had an influence on various myth theorists, although Frazer himself believed that Jesus existed. In 1890 he published the first edition of The Golden Bough which attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief. This work became the basis of many later authors who argued that the story of Jesus was a fiction created by Christians. After a number of people claimed that he was a myth theorist, in the 1913 expanded edition of The Golden Bough Frazer expressly stated that his theory assumed a historical Jesus.

In 1909, John Remsburg put out a book titled The Christ, in which he provided a list of 42 names of "writers who lived and wrote during the time, or within a century after the time" who Remsburg felt should have written about Jesus but did not. This list has been cited or re-used by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Asher Norman, D. M. Murdock and Robert M. Price, Frank Zindler,, and Tim C. Leedom; eventually being expanded in a Free Inquiry article in August 2014

In 1927, British philosopher Bertrand Russell stated in his lecture Why I Am Not a Christian that "historically it is quite doubtful that Jesus existed, and if he did we do not know anything about him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one", though Russell did nothing to develop the idea.

In addition to the authors listed on this page, American historian Harry Elmer Barnes listed the following 20th century authors and critics who believed as he did that Jesus was not historical in 1931: Charles Virolleaud, Georg Brandes, Gustaaf van den Bergh, Thomas Whittaker, Albert Kalthoff, Edward Carpenter, Emilio Bossi, Samuel Lublinski, J. C. Stendel, and Emil Felden. Other proponents in the last century included Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, Salomon Reinach, Édouard Dujardin, John G. Jackson, Hannen Swaffer, Archibald Robertson, Prosper Alfaric, Albert Bayet, Georges Las Vergnas, Georges Ory, J. M. Robertson,, and Gerardus Johannes Petrus Josephus Bolland.

W.B. Smith, Arthur Drews, and Paul-Louis Couchoud

William Benjamin Smith (1850–1934) was a mathematics professor at Tulane University who argued that a human Jesus was implausible, and was created by a pre-Christian solar deity cult that transformed the Hindu god Agni into the Latin Agnus (the lamb). Smith argued for a symbolic interpretation of the stories about Jesus, claiming that Christianity was a monotheistic Israelite cult that opposed polytheism, had to mask itself, and so could only speak in symbols. From this, he claimed that references to Jesus can only be seen in abstract terms, e.g. in the parable of the Jesus and the rich young man there never was a young man, and the young man symbolizes the nation of Israel. The ideas of Smith found sympathetic ears in Germany, with Arthur Drews and Albert Kalthoff soon following along the same path early in the 20th century.

Christian Heinrich Arthur Drews (pronounced “drefs”) (1865–1935) was a professor of philosophy at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, Germany. In his 1909 book The Christ Myth he argued that Christianity had been a Jewish Gnostic cult that spread by appropriating aspects of Greek philosophy and life-death-rebirth deities.

In The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (1912) and later in The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present (1926) Drews reviewed biblical scholarship as well as the work of other myth theorists of his time, and wrote that his purpose was to show that everything about the historical Jesus had a mythical character. Nikolai Berdyaev stated that Drews as an anti-Semite argued against the historical existence of Jesus for the sake of Aryanism. Drews took part in a series of public debates with theologians and historians who opposed his arguments.

Drew's work—which had popularized the ideas of Bruno Bauer, the tutor and Ph.D. advisor of Karl Marx—found fertile soil in the Soviet Union, where Marxist–Leninist atheism was the official doctrine of the state. Lenin (1870–1924), the Soviet leader from 1917 until his death, argued that it was imperative in the struggle against religious obscurantists to form a union with people like Drews. Several editions of Drews's The Christ Myth were published in the Soviet Union from the early 1920s onwards, and his arguments were included in school and university textbooks. Public meetings asking "Did Christ live?" were organized, during which party operatives debated with clergymen.

Physician and philosopher Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879–1959) was influenced by the work of Arthur Drews and argued that Jesus never existed but was invented by the Apostle Paul and that Christianity was a schismatic branch of the followers of John the Baptist. Couchoud rejected non-Christian sources such as Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, and Suetonius and argued that the name Jesus was invented through the transformation of Old Testament references such as Exodus 23:20. Couchoud argued that Paul's affirmation of the divinity of Jesus alongside Yahweh (God) suggested that Jesus was not a historical man, as no Jew could have accepted that relationship.

G.R.S. Mead

George Robert Stowe Mead (1863–1933) was a school master who advanced the position that Jesus existed but that he had lived in 100 B.C.E. In his book Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? (1903) Mead argued that the Talmud points to Jesus being crucified c. 100 BCE, and hence the Christian gospels are mythical. Tom Harpur has compared Mead's impact on myth theory to that of Bruno Bauer and Arthur Drews. Robert M. Price cites Mead as one of several examples of alternative traditions that place Jesus in a different time period than the Gospel accounts.

J. M. Allegro

Archaeologist, philologist, author, academic and broadcaster John Marco Allegro (1923–1988) argued in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979) that Christianity began as a shamanic cult centering around the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, and that the New Testament was a coded record of a clandestine cult. Allegro argued that the authors of the Christian gospels did not understand Essene thought, and had confused the meaning of the scrolls and built the Christian tradition based on the misunderstanding of the scrolls. He also argued that the story of Jesus was based on the crucifixion of the Teacher of Righteousness in the scrolls.

Mark Hall writes that Allegro suggested the Dead Sea Scrolls all but proved that a historical Jesus never existed. Philip Jenkins writes that Allegro was an eccentric scholar who relied on texts that did not exist in quite the form he was citing them, and calls the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross "possibly the single most ludicrous book on Jesus scholarship by a qualified academic". Based on the reaction to the book, Allegro's publisher apologized for issuing the book and Allegro was forced to resign his academic post. A 2006 article discussing Allegro's work called for his theories to be re-evaluated by the mainstream. In November 2009 The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross was reprinted in a 40th anniversary edition with a 30-page addendum by Carl Ruck of Boston University.

Allegro's work influenced Alvar Ellegård, author of Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ, in which he suggests that Paul's Jesus may have been based on the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but he states that this was not the Jesus of the gospels.

G. A. Wells

Graham Stanton wrote in 2002 that the most thoroughgoing and sophisticated of the proponents' arguments were set out by George Albert Wells (born 1926), emeritus professor of German at Birkbeck College, London, and author of The Jesus of the Early Christians (1971), Did Jesus Exist? (1975), The Historical Evidence for Jesus (1982), The Jesus Legend (1996), The Jesus Myth (1999), Can We Trust the New Testament? (2004), and Cutting Jesus Down to Size (2009). British theologian Kenneth Grayston advised Christians to acknowledge the difficulties raised by Wells, but Alvar Ellegård writes that his views remain largely undiscussed by theologians.

Wells presented his key arguments in his initial trilogy (1971, 1975, 1982), based on the views of New Testament scholars who acknowledge that the gospels are sources written decades after Jesus's death by people who had no personal knowledge of him. In addition, Wells writes, the texts are exclusively Christian and theologically motivated, and therefore a rational person should believe the gospels only if they are independently confirmed. Wells also argues that Paul and the other epistle writers—the earliest Christian writers—do not provide any support for the idea that Jesus lived early in the 1st century. There is no information in them about Jesus's parents, place of birth, teachings, trial, nor crucifixion. For Wells, the Jesus of the early Christians was a pure myth, derived from mystical speculations stemming from the Jewish Wisdom tradition, while the Gospels were subsequent works of historical fiction. According to this view, the earliest strata of the New Testament literature presented Jesus as "a basically supernatural personage only obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period in the past".

In The Jesus Myth, Wells argues that two Jesus narratives fused into one: Paul's mythical Jesus and a minimally historical Jesus whose teachings were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical common source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Biblical scholar Robert Van Voorst said that with this argument Wells had performed an about-face while Doherty presented it as another example of the view that the Gospel Jesus did not exist; Carrier classified it (along with Wells' later Can We Trust the New Testament?) as a book defending ahistoricity in his May 30, 2006 Stanford University presentation, and Eddy-Boyd presented it as an example of a Christ myth theory book.

Wells writes that he belongs in the category of those who argue that Jesus did exist, but that reports about him are so unreliable that we can know little or nothing about him. He argues, for example, that the story of the execution of Jesus under Pilate is not an historical account. He wrote in 2000: " objected that, in my work as then published, I had, implausibly, to assume that, within 30 years from Paul, there had evolved 'such a ... complex of traditions about a non-existent figure as we have in the sources of the gospels' (The Evidence for Jesus, p. 29). My present standpoint is: this complex is not all post-Pauline (Q in its earliest form may well be as early as ca. AD. 40), and it is not all mythical. The essential point, as I see it, is that what is authentic in this material refers to a personage who is not to be identified with the dying and rising Christ of the early epistles."

Alvin Boyd Kuhn

After teaching school for 25 years, Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963) obtained his PhD from Columbia University in 1931. Over the next 30 years, he opened his own publishing house, wrote more than 150 books and essays on religious history, and reportedly gave nearly 2,000 public lectures in the U.S. and Canada.

Influenced by Massey and Higgins, Kuhn argued an Egyptian etymology to the Bible, that the gospels were symbolic rather historic, and that church leaders started to misinterpret the New Testament in the third century. He wrote his best-known work, A Rebirth for Christianity, shortly before his death in 1963.

Author Tom Harpur dedicated his 2004 book The Pagan Christ to Kuhn, calling him "a man of immense learning and even greater courage" and “one of the single greatest geniuses of the twentieth century.” Harpur suggests Kuhn has not received the attention he deserves since many of his works were self-published.

21st Century

In addition to the authors listed below, Christ myth critic Bart D. Ehrman considers the following individuals as responsible for the "best-known and most influential mythicist literature" in recent years: Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, Harold Leidner, and Frank Zindler. Other contemporary authors who support the theory include Joseph Atwill, Nigel Barber, Tony Bushby, Nicholas Carter, Ian Curtis, Laurence E. Dalton, Shirley Strutton Dalton, David Fitzgerald, Milton L. Forbes, Alejandro Roque Glez, Ralph E. Harris, Kenneth Humphries, Dov Ivry, Malik H. Jabbar, Raphael Lataster, Derek Murphy, James Lynn Page, Pier Tulip, and Barbara G. Walker.

Former Anglican priest, Canadian New Testament professor and journalist Tom Harpur (born 1929) wrote the controversial The Pagan Christ in 2004, in which he builds on the research of Alvin Boyd Kuhn and argues that the gospels are a re-working of ancient pagan myths, including those of Horus, Mithras, Buddha, and others. According to Harpur, the early church created the fictional impression of a literal and historic Jesus and then used forgery and violence to cover up the evidence. Harpur concludes that seeing the scriptures as symbolic allegory of a cosmic truth instead of a history has brought him a greater internal connection with the spirit of Christ. The book received a great deal of criticism, including a response book, Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea, and even a negative review from fellow mythicist Robert M. Price.

Canadian writer Earl Doherty (B.A. in Ancient History and Classical Languages) defined the Christ Myth Theory is "the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition." In his The Jesus Puzzle (2005) and Jesus: Neither God nor Man-The Case for a Mythical Jesus (2009), he argues that Christianity originated as a combination of Middle Platonism and Jewish mysticism that worshiped the monotheistic Jewish God and what he calls a "logos-type Son," with no major apologist before 180 (except for Justin Martyr and Aristides of Athens) claiming a historical Jesus or even using the name Jesus.

In 2012, theologian and Jesus Project fellow (2008-2009) Thomas L. Thompson (who rejects the "mythicist" label applied to him by Ehrman) and Rutgers student Thomas S. Verenna edited a collection of essays entitled Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus (book's introduction available at bibleinterp.com). Contributors include Jim West, Roland Boer, Lester L. Grabbe, Niels Peter Lemche, Emanuel Pfoh, Mogens Müller, James G. Crossley, Ingrid Hjelm, Joshua Sabih, Kurt Noll, and Robert M. Price. Some argue for the historicity of Jesus (e.g., Grabbe and Müller), others argue for the non-historicity of Jesus (e.g., Noll and Price), and some do not try to make an argument one way or the other (e.g., Thompson and Verenna). Thomas Bolin of St. Norbert College comments that the volume is "an important milestone in the debate concerning mythicism in New Testament scholarship." Philip R. Davies, Professor emeritus of biblical studies at the University of Sheffield, applauded the effort.

In September 2014, the magazine The American Rationalist published an article enumerating almost 100 Christ mythicists.

Dorothy Murdock, under the pen name "Acharya S", adapted the 19th century theories of Godfrey Higgins and Robert Taylor. Her views have been challenged by both mythicists (including Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price), and mainstream academics for generally overreaching and relying on outdated scholarship.

Thomas Brodie

Irish Dominican priest and theologian Thomas L. Brodie (born 1943) earned his PhD at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome in 1988. He taught Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament in the United States, South Africa and Ireland, and is a co-founder and former director of the Dominican Biblical Institute in Limerick. His bibliography includes scholarly works on subjects such as the Gospel of John, Genesis and the Elijah and Elisha narratives, and his publishers have included Oxford University Press and Sheffield Phoenix Press.

In 2012, Brodie published Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery, in which he argued that the gospels are essentially a rewriting of the stories of Elijah and Elisha when viewed as a unified account in the Books of Kings (building on his previous work), leading to the conclusion that Jesus is mythical. Brodie draws his conclusions from two branches of literary studies: "First, researchers were recognizing that many biblical texts are rewritings or transformations of older texts that still exist, thus giving a clearer sense of where the biblical texts came from; and second, studies in the ancient art of composition clarified the biblical texts' unity and purpose, that is to say, where biblical texts were headed."

In early 2013, it was reported that Brodie had been forced to resign his teaching job and banned from writing and lecturing while under investigation for disputed teaching. Soon after, the Dominican order denied the story and insisted Brodie had already performed three terms as director at the institute and was not intending to serve a fourth, but that the book would be reviewed by a committee of scholars within the Irish Dominicans. The institute's website indicates the investigation is ongoing.

Richard Carrier

Richard Carrier (born 1969) is a New Atheism activist and proponent of the Jesus myth theory. He obtained a PhD in ancient history from Columbia University (2008) and has authored several books including Sense and Goodness without God (2005), Why I Am Not a Christian (2011) and Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (2012). His bibliography also includes chapters and articles in other published books and magazines dating back to 1999.

Carrier rose to prominence when he was featured in the documentary The God Who Wasn't There. He was a member of the short-lived Jesus Project from 2008 to 2009. For several years, he served as editor-in-chief for Internet Infidels (Secular Web), and he currently blogs for websites such as The God Contention and FreethoughtBlogs. Carrier's scathing review of Bart D. Ehrman's book Did Jesus Exist in 2012 resulted in lengthy responses and counter-responses on the Internet.

In 2014, Carrier released a book, On the Historicity of Jesus, where he attempted to compute a probabilistic estimate that Jesus was a historical figure given the available historical evidence. Carrier assessed this probability as being no greater than 1/3 and concluded that it is more likely that the earliest Christians were not inspired by a real person named Jesus but instead considered Jesus to be a celestial being known only through revelations.

Robert M. Price

American New Testament scholar Robert McNair Price (born 1954) questions the historicity of Jesus in a series of books, including Deconstructing Jesus (2000), The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003), Jesus Is Dead (2007), and The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems (2012), as well as in contributions to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009). Born in Mississippi, he holds a Master in Theological Studies (1978), a PhD in Systematic Theology (1981) and a PhD in New Testament. Having taught religious studies in North Carolina and New Jersey and acted as editor of The Journal of Higher Criticism, he is currently the Professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. Price was also a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of writers and scholars who study the historicity of Jesus, arguing that the Christian image of Christ is a theological construct into which traces of Jesus of Nazareth have been woven, until it ended in 2006, as well as the short-lived Jesus Project from 2008 to 2009.

Price believes that Christianity is a historicized synthesis of mainly Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek mythologies. He writes that everyone who espouses the Christ myth theory bases their arguments on three key points:

• There is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources.
• The epistles, written earlier than the gospels, provide no evidence of a recent historical Jesus; all that can be taken from the epistles, he argues, is that a Jesus Christ, son of God, lived in a heavenly realm (much as other ancient gods, e.g. Horus), there died as a sacrifice for human sin, was raised by God and enthroned in heaven.
• The Jesus narrative is paralleled in Middle Eastern myths about dying and rising gods; Price names Baal, Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dumuzi/Tammuz as examples, all of which, he writes, survived into the Hellenistic and Roman periods and thereby influenced early Christianity. Price alleges that Christian apologists have tried to minimize these parallels. He concludes that consistent critical methodology leaves one in complete agnosticism regarding Jesus's historicity: "There might have been a historical Jesus, but unless someone discovers his diary or his skeleton, we'll never know."

Price argues that "the varying dates are the residue of various attempts to anchor an originally mythic or legendary Jesus in more or less recent history" citing accounts that have Jesus being crucified under Alexander Jannaeus (83 BCE) or in his 50s by Herod Agrippa I under the rule of Claudius Caesar (41–54 CE).

Price argues that "Jesus simply wears too many hats in the Gospels—exorcist, healer, king, prophet, sage, rabbi, demigod, and so on," and that all of these roles could not have belonged to a single individual. In a discussion on euhemerism, Price cautiously asserts that "a genuine historical figure" may ultimately lie at the root of the Christian religion, but that he detects no surviving mundane, secular information about him, and admits uncertainty toward. He concludes his 2000 book Deconstructing Jesus with "There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure." Price also wrote in Deconstructing Jesus that he did not claim "a single origin of the Christian savior Jesus Christ," mythical or historical, but that mythology and images of Jesus (one of which may or may not have been a historical one) combined into the Christian Jesus.

Price acknowledges that he stands against the majority view of scholars, but cautions against attempting to settle the issue by appeal to the majority.

Criticism

Historicity refers to the question of whether alleged past persons and events are genuinely historical, or merely mythical. The study of whether the Jesus mentioned in the Christian New Testament was a real person is covered in the article Historicity of Jesus.

In general, modern scholars who work in the field largely agree that Jesus himself did exist historically, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus, and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.

Nevertheless, Christ Myth theories find virtually no support from scholars. According to Bart D. Ehrman (a former Evangelical Christian turned agnostic who has written extensively about the questionable accuracy and authorship of the gospels), most people who study the historical period of Jesus believe that he did exist, and do not write in support of the Christ myth theory.

Ehrman also notes that these views would prevent one from getting employment in a religious studies department:

These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.

Maurice Casey, theologian and scholar of New Testament and early Christianity, stated that the belief among professors that Jesus existed is generally completely certain. According to Casey, the view that Jesus did not exist is "the view of extremists" and "demonstrably false", and that "professional scholars generally regard it as having been settled in serious scholarship long ago".

Writing in 1977, classical historian and popular author Michael Grant quoted Roderic Dunkerley's 1957 opinion that the Christ-myth theory has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. At the same time he also quoted Otto Betz's 1968 opinion that in recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' — or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.'

Books

The following Misplaced Pages articles relate to books which support aspects of the Christ myth theory:

• Anacalypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis or an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions by Godfrey Higgins, 1836
• The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (or Christianity Before Christ) by Kersey Graves, 1875
• The Christ Myth ( or Die Christusmythe) by Arthur Drews, 1909
• The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present ( or Die Leugnung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart) by Arthur Drews, 1927
• Did Jesus Exist? by George Albert Wells, 1975
• The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, 1999
• The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light (or The Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity?) by Tom Harpur, 2004
• The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty, 2005
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, 2006
• God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (or god Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion) by Christopher Hitchens, 2007

Documentaries

Since 2005, several English-language documentaries have focused, at least in part, on the Christ myth theory:

• The God Who Wasn't There directed by Brian Flemming and featuring Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price (2005)
• The Pagan Christ produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and featuring Tom Harpur (2007)
• Zeitgeist: The Movie directed by Peter Joseph (2007)
• The Hidden Story of Jesus produced by Channel 4 and featuring Robert Beckford (2007)
• Religulous directed by Larry Charles and featuring Bill Maher (2008)
• Caesar's Messiah by Joseph Atwill (2013)

See also

• Apostasy in Christianity
• Apostolic Age
• Atheism
• Bible conspiracy theory
• Biblical inerrancy
• Biblical literalism
• Christian mythology
• Christianity and other religions
• Christianity and Paganism
• Christology
• Criticism of the Bible
• Criticism of Christianity
• Criticism of Jesus
• Chronology of Jesus
• Historical background of the New Testament
• Historical reliability of the Gospels
• Historical revisionism
• History of Christianity
• History of early Christianity
• Historicity of the Bible
• Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
• Jesus in Christianity
• Jesus Project
• Jesus Seminar
• Josephus on Jesus
• Life of Jesus in the New Testament
• List of deities
• List of demigods
• List of people who have been considered deities
• List of messiah claimants
• Origins of Christianity
• Quest for the historical Jesus
• Panbabylonism
• Rejection of Jesus
• Sources for the historicity of Jesus
• Tacitus on Christ
• Timeline of Christianity

References

1. Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? Harper Collins, 2012, p. 12, ""In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist . Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity." further quoting as authoritative the fuller definition provided by Earl Doherty in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man. Age of Reason, 2009, pp. vii-viii: it is "the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition."
2. "Jesus Outside the New Testament" Robert E. Van Voorst, 2000, p=8-9
3. Richard Dawkins. The God Delusion. p. 122. ISBN 1-4303-1230-0.
4. God is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens, 2007, Chapter 8
5. "The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David" Thomas L. Thompson Basic Book Perseus Books' 2005
6. http://www.truthbeknown.com/washington-jefferson-mythicists.html
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La6mKH4boe8
8. James D. G. Dunn "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus" in Sacrifice and Redemption edited by S. W. Sykes (Dec 3, 2007) Cambridge University Press ISBN 052104460X pages 35-36
9. Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (Apr 1, 2004) ISBN 0802809774 page 34
10. Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200
11. The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, 1989 ISBN 0192132415 Oxford University Press, page 145
12. Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 16
13. Did Jesus Exist?:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins, USA. 2012. ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8.
14. B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. page 285
15. ^ Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee by Mark Allan Powell 1998 ISBN 0-664-25703-8 page 181
16. ^ Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 page 339 states of baptism and crucifixion that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent".
17. ^ Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus by William R. Herzog (4 Jul 2005) ISBN 0664225284 pages 1-6
18. ^ Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 0-06-061662-8. That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.
19. Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus, Ed. By Thomas L. Thompson and Thomas S. Verenna, 2012
20. ^ Davies' article Does Jesus Exist? at bibleinterp.com
21. Van Voorst, 2000, p=8-9
22. Dawkins, 2006, p. 96
23. Dawkins, 2006, p. 99
24. Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy, by C. E. Hill, Oxford UP, 30 Sep 2010. pp. 164-165
25. ^ The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, by Gary R. Habermas, College Press, 1996. p.31-35
26. C.E. Hill, p.170
27. Harpur, 2006, p. 174
28. Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus by William R. Herzog (4 Jul 2005) ISBN 0664225284 pages 1-6
29. Ehrman, 2009
30. Bart D. Ehrman. Did Jesus Exist?:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, HarperCollins, USA, 2012, p.47 ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8
31. Gerald O'Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. 2009, pp. 1-3 ISBN 0-19-955787-X
32. Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria.1997, p. 14ISBN 9004103880
33. Allan, William (2014). Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0199665457.
34. Ehrman, 2012, p.44
35. Timothy Barnes Pagan Perceptions of Christianity" in Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to Ad 600. 1991, p. 232 ISBN 0687114446
36. Kennneth A. Olson, Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (2): 305, 1999
37. Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. P. 129 ISBN 0-8010-3114-1
38. Robert M. Price. The Christ Myth Theory and it's Problems, Atheist Press, 2011, p.132, ISBN 9781578840175
39. Harry Elmer Barnes. The Twilight of Christianity. New York: Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1931. ISBN 0877000379
40. Guignebert, Charles (1956). Jesus. New York: University Books. p. 13.
41. Lester L. Grabbe, "Jesus Who is Called Christ": References to Jesus Outside Christian Sources", Chapter 3 in Thompson and Verenna, Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus
42. Erik Hornung. The Secret Lore of Egypt and its Impact on the West, Cornell University Press, 2001, p.73 ISBN 0801438470
43. John M. Robertson. Christianity and Mythology, Watts & Co., London, 2001, p.73 ISBN 0766187683
44. Martin Hengel. Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross John Bowden, Fortress Press, 1977, p. 11 ISBN 080061268X
45. Arthur Drews. The Christ Myth, 1909
46. Robert M. Price.The Christ Myth Theory and it's Problems 2011, p.132, ISBN 9781578840175
47. Zacharias P. Thundy. Buddha and Christ: Nativity Stories and Indian Traditions, Brill Academic Pub, 1993, pp.80-81 ISBN 9004097414
48. Nigel Leask. British Romantic Writers and the East Cambridge Univ Press, 2004' pp.104-105 ISBN 0521604443
49. ^ Ehrman, 2013, p. 208
50. ^ The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, by Craig S. Keener, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012. p.336
51. Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?, by Maurice Casey, A&C Black, 16 Jan 2014. p. 155
52. Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies, by Craig A. Evans, BRILL, 1 Jul 2001. p.48
53. ^ Casey, 150
54. Price, 2011, p.425
55. ^ What Is Christianity?: An Introduction to the Christian Religion, by Gail Ramshaw, Fortress Press, 1 Jul 2013. pp. 52-54
56. ^ God and Caesar: Troeltsch's Social Teaching as Legitimation, by Constance L. Benson, Transaction Publishers. p.55
57. The Heroic Ideal: Western Archetypes from the Greeks to the Present, by M. Gregory Kendrick, McFarland, 25 May 2010. p.43
58. Dawkins, 2006, p. 97
59. Thomas L. Brodie. Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012 ISBN 978-1907534584
60. Price, 2011, p. 381
61. *Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method, by Sidney Greidanus, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999.
    • The Old Testament and the Significance of Jesus: Embracing Change--maintaining Christian Identity : the Emerging Center in Biblical Scholarship, by Fredrick Carlson Holmgren, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1 Jan 1999.
    • The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament, by Edmund P. Clowney, Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1 Jul 1991.
    • Four Portraits of Jesus: Studies in the Gospels and Their Old Testament Background, by Elizabeth E. Platt, Paulist Press, 2004
    • The Great Argument, Or, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament; by William H. Thomson, Harper and Brothers, 1884.
    -- all en passim.
62. ^ Weaver 1999, p. 45-50.
63. Schweitzer 2001, p. 355ff. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSchweitzer2001 (help)
64. Voorst 2000, p. 8.
65. ^ Wells 1969.
66. British Romantic Writers and the East by Nigel Leask (Jun 24, 2004) ISBN 0521604443 Cambridge Univ Press pages 104 -105
67. By Tristram Stuart, "The Bloodless Revolution", p. 591.
68. ^ Stephen Prickett in the Companion Encyclopedia of Theology edited by Peter Byrne, Leslie Houlden (Dec 4, 1995) ISBN 0415064473 page 154-155
69. The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by David Friedrich Strauss 2010 ISBN 1-61640-309-8 pages 39–43 and 87–91
70. The Making of the New Spirituality by James A. Herrick 2003 ISBN 0-8308-2398-0 pages 58–65
71. Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth by Michael J. McClymond (Mar 22, 2004) ISBN 0802826806 page 82
72. The historical Jesus question by Gregory W. Dawes 2001 ISBN 0-664-22458-X pages 77–79
73. See Douglas R McGaughey, "On D.F. Strauß and the 1839 Revolution in Zurich"
74. ^ Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 pages 7-11
75. Beilby, James K. and Eddy, Paul Rhodes. "The Quest for the Historical Jesus", in James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.). The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Intervarsity, 2009, p. 16.
    • See Strauss, David. "The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, Calvin Blanchard, 1860.
76. Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, pp. 124–128, 139–141.
77. Moggach, Douglas. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 184. *Also see Engels, Frederick. "Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity", Der Sozialdemokrat, May 1882.
78. In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images by Clinton Bennett (Dec 1, 2001) ISBN 0826449166 Continuum page 204
79. Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 30
80. Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 59
81. ^ Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 200
82. Kersey Graves and The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Richard Carrier (2003)
83. Tom Harpur, 2004, The Pagan Christ
84. Harpur's response to Porter and Gasque
85. ^ Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 10
86. ^ Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, pp. 356–361, 527 n. 4.
87. Arthur Drew, 1926, The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present
88. Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 116–117.
89. Klausner, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth. Bloch, 1989; first published 1925, pp. 105–106.
90. In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images by Clinton Bennett (Dec 1, 2001) ISBN 0826449166 Continuum page 205
91. Deconstructing Jesus by Robert M. Price (2000) ISBN 1573927589 page 207
92. The Christ Myth by John Remsburg 1909, Chapter 2: "Silence of Contemporary Writers"
93. O'Hair, Madalyn Murray (1969). What on earth is an atheist!. Austin, Texas: American Atheist Press. p. 246. ISBN 1-57884-918-7.
94. Norman, Asher; Tellis, Ashley (2007). Twenty-six reasons why Jews don't believe in Jesus. Black White and Read Publishing. p. 182. ISBN 0-9771937-0-5.
95. Murdock, D. M. and Price, Robert M. (2011). Who Was Jesus? Fingerprints of The Christ. Seattle: Stellar House. p. 296. ISBN 978-0979963100.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
96. Zindler, Frank (2003). The Jesus the Jews Never Knew. Cranford: American Atheist Press. p. 524. ISBN 1-57884-916-0.
97. Leedom, Tim (2007). The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read. New York: Cambridge House Press. p. 446. ISBN 0939040158.
98. Paulkovich, Michael (2014). "The Fable of the Christ". Free Inquiry. 34 (5): 56.
99. Russell, Bertrand. "Why I am not a Christian", lecture to the National Secular Society, Battersea Town Hall, March 6, 1927, Retrieved 2010-08-02.
100. Harpur, 2004, p. 163
101. A Timeline of Jesus Mythicism
102. Van Voorst, Robert E (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 pages 11-12
103. J.M. Robertson, 1856-1933 by G.A. Wells (1 Jan 1987) ISBN 0301870020 pages 162-163
104. Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers by Stuart Brown, Diane Collinson and Robert Wilkinson (Oct 13, 2002) entry for "Gerardus Bolland" ISBN 0415286050 Routledge
105. ^ Voorst 2000, p. 11.
106. ^ The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950 by Walter P. Weaver, 1999 ISBN Continuum Publishing Group, 1999, pages 54-56
107. Smith, William Benjamin. Der vorchristliche Jesu. Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2010; first published 1906.
     • Also see Smith, William Benjamin. Ecce Deus: Die urchristliche Lehre des reingöttlichen Jesu. Diederichs, 1911; first published 1894.
     • Smith, William Benjamin. The Birth of the Gospel, 1911.
108. Case, Shirley Jackson. "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument", The American Journal of Theology, volume 15, issue 1, 1911.
109. Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, p. 375ff.
110. The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950 by Walter P. Weaver 1999 ISBN 1-56338-280-6 page 49–51
111. Drews' book was reviewed by A. Kampmeier in The Monist, volume 21, Number 3 (July 1911), pages 412–432.
112. Weaver, Walter P. The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, pp. 50 and 300.
     • Also see Wood, Herbert George. Christianity and the Nature of History. Cambridge University Press, 1934, p. xxxii.
     • Drews, Arthur. Die Christusmythe. Eugen Diederichs, 1910, published in English as The Christ Myth, Prometheus, 1910, p. 410.
113. Berdyaev, Nikolai, "The Scientific Discipline of Religion and Christian Apologetics", Put' / Путь vol. 6, 1927
114. Gerrish, Brian A. Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch's Stand in the 'Christ-Myth' Debate", The Journal of Religion, volume 55, issue 1, 1975, pp 3–4.
115. "Jesus never lived, asserts Prof. Drews", The New York Times, February 6, 1910.
116. Thrower, James. Marxist-Leninist "Scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism. Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p. 426.
     • Also see Haber, Edyth C. "The Mythic Bulgakov: 'The Master and Margarita' and Arthur Drews's 'The Christ Myth'", Slavic & East European Journal, volume 43, issue 2, 1999, p. 347.
117. Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity" in Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 749.
118. Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens. Cornell University Press, 1998, p. 178.
119. However Drews was a believer, and a religious activist who wanted to replace obsolete Christianity with a truer, modern form of religion based on his monistic Idealism. The acceptance of his ideas in Moscow and the Soviet Union did not save Drews, a believer, from Lenin's attacks, for being a "reactionary, openly helping the exploiters to replace old and rotten prejudices with new, still more disgusting and base prejudices". In Edyth C. Haber, "The Mythic Bulgakov: 'The Master and Margarita' and Arthur Drews's 'The Christ Myth'", Slavic & East European Journal, volume 43, issue 2, 1999, p. 347.
120. ^ The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950 by Walter P. Weaver, 1999 ISBN Continuum Publishing Group, 1999, pages 300-303
121. G. R. S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest by Clare Goodrick-Clarke (Aug 10, 2005) ISBN 155643572X pages 1-3
122. Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G. R. S. Mead (1903) ISBN 1596053763 (Cosimo Classics 2005) pages 10-12
123. Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity? by Tom Harpur (2006) ISBN 0802777414 p 163
124. Price, Robert. "Jesus as the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, pp. 80–81.
125. John Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross 1970 ISBN 978-0-9825562-7-6
126. John Allegro The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth 1979 ISBN 978-0-879-75757-1
127. ^ The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Peter Flint and James VanderKam (Jul 10, 2005) ISBN 056708468X T&T Clark pages 323-325
128. The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea by Joan E. Taylor (Dec 14, 2012) ISBN 019955448X Oxford University Press p. 305
129. Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 77
130. Hall, Mark. "Foreword," in Allegro, John M. The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Christian Myth. Prometheus 1992, first published 1979, p. ix.
131. Jenkins, Philip. Hidden Gospels. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 180.
132. A History of the Middle East by Saul S. Friedman (Mar 15, 2006) ISBN 0786423560 page 82
133. Hoffman, Michael., ed. by Dr. Robert Price., "Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as Amanita" in Journal of Higher Criticism, 2006.
134. The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, 40th anniversary edition by John M. Allegro, Gnostic Media, 2009. ISBN 978-0-9825562-7-6
135. ^ Ellegård, Alvar. "Theologians as historians", Scandia, 2008, p. 171–172, 175ff.
136. Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegård 1999 ISBN 0879517204 pages 108-111
137. Stanton, Graham. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press, 2002; first published 1989, p. 143.
138. Martin, Michael. The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press, 1993, p. 38.
139. Wells, GA (September 1999). "Earliest Christianity". New Humanist. 114 (3): 13–18. Retrieved January 11, 2007.
140. Wells, G. A. The Jesus Myth. Open Court, 1999.
141. Van Voorst, Robert E. "Nonexistence Hypothesis", in James Leslie Holden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 660.
142. Doherty, Earl (1999). "Book and Article Reviews, The Case of the Jesus Myth: Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard". Retrieved October 7, 2011.
143. Carrier, Richard (2006). Did Jesus Even Exist? Stanford University presentation. May 30, 2006.
144. Eddy and Boyd (2007), The Jesus Legend, p. 24.
145. For a statement of his position, Wells refers readers to his article, "Jesus, Historicity of" in Tom Flynn's The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (2007). See Wells, G. A. Cutting Jesus Down to Size. Open Court, 2009, pp. 327–328.
146. Wells, G.A. in Tom Flynn. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books, 2007, p. 446ff.
147. Wells, G. A. "A Reply to J. P. Holding's 'Shattering' of My Views on Jesus and an Examination of the Early Pagan and Jewish References to Jesus". The Secular Web. 2000. Retrieved 2010-08-03.
148. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Ph.D. A Biographical Sketch of his life and work, by Richard Alvin Sattelberg, B.A., M.S.., 2005
149. "The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light" by Tom Harpur, Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto, 2004, ISBN 0-88762-145-7
150. Ehrman, 2013, Bibliography
151. Barber, Nigel (2014). "If Jesus Never Existed, Religion May Be Fiction". Huffington Post (December 19). Retrieved December 19, 2014.
152. Raphael Lataster academic staff profile at the University of Sydney
153. Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up.
154. Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ (Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers, 2004)
155. Price's review of 'The Pagan Christ'
156. Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? Harper Collins, 2012, p. 12,
157. Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, by Earl Doherty, pp. vii-viii),
158. Doherty, Earl. "The Jesus Puzzle", Journal of Higher Criticism, volume 4, issue 2, 1997.
159. Thompson's response to Bart Ehrman on bibleinterp.com
160. "Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus". amazon.com. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
161. Paulkovich, Michael (2014). = "The Fable of the Christ". 'The American Rationalist (September/October): 6. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help)
162. Casey, p.168
163. ^ The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah–Elisha Narrative As an Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings by Thomas L. Brodie Sheffield Phoenix Press (Jan 1, 2000) ISBN 081465942X pages 1-3
164. Thomas L. Brodie "Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery" Sheffield Phoenix Press (September 6, 2012) ISBN 978-1907534584
165. "Richard Carrier Recommends: Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery: Product Description". Amazon.com, Inc. Retrieved December 25, 2013.
166. The Limerick Reader. "Priest was not ‘forced to quit’ teaching job over controversial book on Christ" by Mike Dwayne, January 25, 2013
167. Dominican Biblical Institute website accessed March 15, 2014
168. http://www.sheffieldphoenix.com/showbook.asp?bkid=264
169. ^ Price, Robert M. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. Prometheus, 2003, p. 351.
     • Also see Jacoby, Douglas A. Compelling Evidence For God and the Bible: Finding Truth in an Age of Doubt. Harvest House Publishers, 2010, p. 97.
     • Price writes: "Is it ... possible that beneath and behind the stained-glass curtain of Christian legend stands the dim figure of a historical founder of Christianity? Yes, it is possible, perhaps just a tad more likely than that there was a historical Moses, about as likely as there having been a historical Apollonius of Tyana. But it becomes almost arbitrary to think so."
170. Van Biema, David; Ostling, Richard N.; and Towle, Lisa H. "The Gospel Truth?". Time magazine. April 8, 1996.
171. Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 55ff.
     • Also see Price, Robert M. Book review of "Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection". 2009. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
172. Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009. See p. 55 for his argument that it is quite likely Jesus did not exist. See pp. 62–64, 75 for the three pillars.
173. Irenaeus (c. 180 CE). Demonstration (74).
174. See Robert M. Price. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point", in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, pp. 80–81.
175. Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus, pp. 15–16.
176. Price, Robert. Deconstructing Jesus. Prometheus Books. p. 250. ISBN 1-57392-758-9.
177. Price, Robert. Deconstructing Jesus. Prometheus Books. p. 261. ISBN 1-57392-758-9.
178. Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus, p. 86.
179. Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 61ff.
180. Ehrman 2012, p. 2.
181. "Did Jesus Exist?". Huffington Post.
182. Casey, Maurice, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching (T&T Clark, 2010), pp.33, 104 & 499.
183. Michael Grant (1977), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 200.
184. Dunkerley, Roderic, Beyond the Gospels (Penguin Books, 1957) p. 12.
185. Betz, Otto, What Do We Know About Jesus? (SCM-Canterbury Press, 1968) p. 9.

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Further reading

Books and papers

• Brunner, Constantin. "Criticism", appendix to Our Christ: the revolt of the mystical genius, Retrieved 2010-08-05.
• Case, Shirley Jackson. "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument", The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 15, No. 1, January 1911, pp. 20–42.
• Case, Shirley Jackson. "Jesus' Historicity: A Statement of the Problem", The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 15, No. 2, April 1911, pp. 626–628.
• Case, Shirley Jackson. "Recent books on the question of Jesus' existence", The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 15, No. 4, October 1911, pp. 626–628.
• Clemen, Carl. Der geschichtliche Jesus: Eine allgemeinverständliche Untersuchung der Frage: Hat Jesus gelebt, und was wollte er?. Töpelmann, 1911.
• Evans, Elizabeth Edson Gibson. The Christ Myth: A Study, Book Tree 2000; first published 1900.
• Habermas, Gary R. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. College Press, 1996.
• Fau, Guy. La fable de Jésus-Christ. Éditions de l'Union rationaliste, 1964.
• Mangasarian, Managasar Mugwiditch. The truth about Jesus. Is he a myth?. Princeton Theological Seminary Library, 1909.
• Alfaric, Prosper. Jésus a-t-il existé?. Coda Publishing 2005; first published 1932.
• Prosper, Alfaric. Le problème de Jésus. Cercle Ernest-Renan, 1954.
• Robertson, John Mackinnon. The Jesus problem; a restatement of the myth theory, 1917.
• Rossington, Herbert J. Did Jesus really live? a reply to The Christ myth, 1911.
• Taylor, Robert. Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion. London 1828.
• Taylor, Robert. The Diegesis: Being a Discovery of the Origin, Evidences, and Early History of Christianity. A. Kneeland 1834; composed while Taylor was in Oakham Goal after being convicted of blasphemy, 1829.
• Telford, John and Barber, Benjamin Aquila. The London quarterly review, volume 4, 1912, p. 191.
• Troeltsch, Ernst. Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben. Mohr, 1911.
• Zindler, Frank R. The Jesus the Jews Never Knew. American Atheist Press, 2003.

External links

• Religious Tolerance General outline of range of views on Jesus from classical Christian to Jesus a mere man and Jesus entirely mythical
• Washington Post article Ex-Christian Bart Ehrman's defense of Jesus' existence in Washington Post

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