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Perspectives of Historicity

Many Christians believe that God plays an active role in history through miracles and divine revelation; and some take as a basis for their faith a divine authority for the Bible, 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 Christological arguments for the existence of God became more prevelant in evangelical teachings, the issue of the historicity of Jesus gained greater significance, and arguments about historiography 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 life and death, and far less for any miraculous 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 sources corroborating Christian writings. Perhaps most prolific of those Biblical scholars who discount the historical existence of Jesus is a professor of German, George Albert Wells, who argues that Jesus was originally a Gnostic myth.

Jesus and Syncretism

Main article:Jesus, pre-4th century Christianity, and syncretism

The Pythagoreans tied astronomy and geometry 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 Zodiac 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 Isopsephia (a greek version of Gematria) a mystical diagram known to Plato, the 153 being a repeated number in the diagram, and having religious significance connected to the Vesica Piscis. 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 Horus, 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 Demotic and Hebrew. Another story alleged to have been copied from Horus is that of the raising of Lazarus at Bethany, thought to be indentifiable with the raising of Osiris 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 Set is the prototype for Satan, 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 Mystery Religions, in which a Life-death-rebirth deity 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 Osiris-Dionysus. Some scholars think that Jesus was one of the forms of Osiris-Dionysus.

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 Tertullian), 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 Justin Martyr and Tertullian) tended to provide unprovable supernatural explanations for the similarities with Mystery Religions, favouring statements that the Devil 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 apologetics 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 Osiris-Dionysus, Mithras, 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 Ea, later referred to as Oannes, whom some scholars think is the basis for John the Baptist 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 Magi, whom some allege were inserted into the nativity story to give Jesus more importance.

Mithraism 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. Constantine I, 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 Saturnalia).

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 Celsus. 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 394 (by Theodosius, completely banning non-Christian religion. After the ban, mithraeum (the Mithras temples) were converted into churches, and according to certain scholars specifically Mithraic beliefs transferred to the archangel Michael, since the previous adherents of Mithraism still continued to worship in the same location, just claiming to be Christian.

Sources

Main article:Jesus and textual evidence

Although there is much evidence of Jesus attested by the Bible and the New Testament apocrypha (those works which the Council of Laodicea 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, Suetonius, Philo, Lucian, and Tacitus. Lucian wrote a satire demonstrating the existence of Christians but condemning them as easily lead fools, wheras Pliny the Younger wrote the same opinion in prose.

Many Christians use a passage from Josephus (found only in quotations apparantly from it by Eusebius) 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 Origen (who lived centuries before Eusebius 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 Talmud, 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 Yeshu. 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.

The Pauline Epistles

• introduction

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Historiography of the Epistles

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The following pauline epistles are the only ones considered genuine by most scholars

• 1 Thessalonians
• Phillipians
• 1 Corinthians
• 2 Corinthians
• Philemon
• Romans
• Galatians

The following pauline epistles are fakes to adjust the genuine ones to appear to support the church's view

• 2 Thessalonians
• 1 Timothy
• 1 Timothy
• Titus

The following pauline epistles are possibly faked (there is more dispute), and copies of each other.

• Ephesians
• Collossians

The following has been doubted by the official church since early christianity, and is though to have been by a supporter of Paul instead (the church thought it was possibly by Barnabus)

• Hebrews

The pastoral epistles (1&2 Timothy & Titus) are much later fakes than 2 Thessalonians.

Paul and hellenic influence

Although Paul claims to have been a Jew, Paul writes in Greek, and only refers to the Greek version of the old Testament (which has some variations to the hebrew version, thus allowing this to be noticed), a usage that shows a more hellenic influence on his life. Paul even goes to the extent of cutting his hair at Cenchreae, waiting for a ship to Ephesus, despite the Jewish prohibition on doing so outside of Jerusalem. At Cenchreae was a temple of Isis where traditionally Greek sailors cut their hair to dedicate to the goddess for safe crossing; Paul stated his hair cutting was due to having made a vow.

Paul himself grew up in Tarsus, which was a centre (and possibly the origin, as suggested by Plutarch) of the Mithras version of Mystery Religions. Tarsus was also, at the time of Paul, the dominant centre for hellenic philosophy, Strabo commenting that Tarsus had surpassed Athens and Alexandria in this extent. Paul expresses in his writing many ideas of hellenic thought used by philosophers such as Plato, referring, for example, to the solar cycle known as the great year, as well as to the idea that one is wise became one knows one knows nothing, and the idea that we only observe the world through a glass, darkly.

Paul's ministry takes him to cities dominated by Mystery Religion, such as Antioch (a centre for the Adonis version), Ephesus (a centre for the Attis version), and Corinth (a centre for the Dionysus version). It would have been far more difficult to win converts in such circumstances to a literal vision of Jesus than to have converted people from one version of a Mystery Religion into another.

Terminology by Paul having a Gnostic significance

When considering the question of whether Paul uses Gnostic terminology, or supports Gnostic ideas, it is important to refer to the original greek form of the text. Translations often choose to translate words which are the names of things or concepts, rather than replacing them with the name for the equivalent concept, sometimes doing so to supress information or support a certain point of view, and in other instances simply because the translator is unaware of any special significance of the term. For example, Lilitu (mentioned in Isaiah) is usually translated screech owl, which has very little significance in a wider picture, rather than Lilith, a reference to a child snatching demon, that some ancient Jewish legends held to have been Adam's first wife.

In not translating words which have meaning as concepts, it appears that Paul states to Christians (in Romans) I long to see you, so that I may share with you a certain pneumatic charisma.Charisma is derived (etymologically) from makarismos, which means the manner in which those who had witnessed the mysteries of mystery religions were considered blessed, and pneumatic is the gnostic term for the class of people who were governed by their spiritual side and thus saved.

The fact that, although Paul does long to share the knowledge with those he writes to in Romans he does not write the knowledge into the letter, was explained by gnostics as Paul's respecting the principle common to mystery religions of having secret teachings, which must not be shared openly (for example, if the letter was intercepted). Elsewhere, Paul makes use of a phrase which is also the vow of secrecy common to many gnostic groups, such use by gnostics being attested by Hippolytus in his criticism of the gnostic Justinus, as well as in the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, and by Clement of Rome, for example, in 1 Corinthians Paul states

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him

Paul also can be construed as referring to the initiation system of the mystery religions. In 2 Corinthians, Paul refers to those who are novices in the religion as having veils over their face as their mind was blinded, a principle that mystery religions considered true and as such some made their novices wear veils and referred to them as mystae (i.e. having closed eyes).

The terms paul uses for perfected Christianity, such as (in the standard translation) Mature and to the level of maturity and the perfect man, actually use the greek word Teleioi, which means initiated, a principle also used in the hellenic mystery religions. In particular, in 1 Corinthians, we speak wisdom amongst the perfected also translates we speak of Sophia amongst the initiated (Sophia being a spiritual entity to the gnostics), something which the gnostic Valentinians quoted as proof that Paul initiated Christians into the gnostic ideas of Sophia.

As for himself, in 1 Corinthians, Paul considers he is a Steward of the mysteries of God, which was also the techical term for a priest in the Egyptian version of the mystery religions where the central figure is the god Serapis. Paul also claims to have ascended as far as the third heaven, a principle which in mystery religions represented the degree of initiation achieved (for example, in the Mithras version there were 7 heavens, one for each of the 5 known planets, the sun, and the moon).

Paul can also be construed as referring to the gnostic cosmos, at one point, stating the wisdom...which none of the rulers of this world knoweth, which also translates as the wisdom...which none of the Archons of this Aion knoweth, Archons being the gnostic concept of mignons of the evil Demiurge. Elsewhere Paul refers to a god of this passing age, which non-gnostics interpret as referring to the devil, but gnostics considered (particularly since it clearly states god rather than some lesser creature) this to be a reference to the demiurge.

In the letter to the Galatians, Paul states that the Law is the product of a mediator, and that the mediator is not one, God is one. The gnostics treated this as a reference to the standard gnostic teaching that the law should not apply since it was the product of the evil demiurge. Gnostics also referred to the demiurge as the mediator between God (whom they considered the only being to be singular and whole, and thus also referred to as Monad) and creation (which they considered intrinsically evil, rather than evil as the consequence of some human error).

Gnostic interpretations of Paul's teachings

The followers of Valentinius systematically decoded the Epistles, claiming that most Christians made the mistake of reading the Epistles literally. Valentians understood the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Romans to be a coded reference to the differences between Psychics (people who are partly spiritual but have not yet achieved seperation from carnality) and Pneumatics (totally spiritual people).

The Valentians argued that such codes were intrinsic in gnosticism, the secrecy being important to ensuring proper progression to true inner understanding. In 2 Corinthians, Paul states he had heard ineffable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter, a postition that gnostic initiates supported with respect to the higher gnostic teachings. However, Paul does also suggest Gnosis puffeth up, which appears to diminish support for gnosticism, but Clement of Alexandria offered the explanation that this meant to entertain great and true sentiments and was a reference to the magnitude of the effect of receiving it.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul goes on to state I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able, which Gnostics interpret as the suggestion that the Corinthians were still Hyclic (i.e. had not passed even the first level of understanding). Paul later states But the Psycic receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know , because they are Pneumatic (Psycic is usually translated natural man, and pneumatic is usually translated spiritually discerned), offering an explanation which coincides with the gnostic teaching of levels of comprehension.

Gnostics viewed scripture as allegory, only serving a literal meaning to Hyclic (i.e. uninitiate) people, partly for the purpose of advertising. Gnostics thus interpreted Paul's statements, that the Old Testament acts as our examples and that the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life, as supporting this view, with understanding more important than rigid adherance. Gnostics also took the phrase though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more as indicative of Paul's progress from Hyclic to a more gnostic interpretation, rather than the understanding of Christ's time being in the past.

Paul states that Christ came in the homoioma of human flesh. Homoioma means image or representation (the text is usually translated in the likeness of human flesh). Some gnostic groups treated this as admittence of Docetism, with the Christ being the divine wisdom which revealed gnosis, which would help humanity escape the evil creation (the world) of the demiurge, and having no physical existance.

In Galatians, Paul states of his conversion that God revealed his Son in me, rather than to me, which Gnostics interpret as a reference to Christ being the divine gnosis sent to save humanity, rather than a physical creature or person. In the same letter, Paul also states that I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, which gnostics took as further evidence of Paul supporting their stance.

The gnostics took an esoteric view of death, and therefore of resurrection. When Paul states in Romans that he that is dead is freed from sin, and that we are buried with him by baptism into death, the gnostics assumed it was a reference to the teaching that the body is the work of the evil demiurge, and that death would release the divine part of a person from the demiurge's power.

Gnostics also took death to be symbolic for the death of the part of a person tied to the demiurge, and the consequential resurrection as a new entirely spiritual being, understanding resurrection as an awakening of spiritual enlightenment. In Phillipians, Paul refers to himself as partaking in the same death as Christ, and thence partaking in the resurrection of the dead, which suited gnostic interpretations. Paul's references to reaping and sowing of crops, in 1 Corinthians, was also a common image from the mystery religions symbolising the esoteric death and resurrection of initiates.

In 1 Corinthians, however, during chapter 15, Paul appears to give credence to a more literal idea of the physical resurrection of the dead. However, as noted by many gnostics Paul also states flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God , to the disdain of Irenaeus, who complained that all heretics always introduce this passage. It is widely thought by scholars that the presence of the issue proved such a problem that someone felt the need to forge a third letter to the Corinthians, which explicitely states the dead are resurrected physically. Despite this 3 Corinthians was rejected from biblical canon, and thus became part of the New Testament apocrypha.

One feature that was contested amongst the gnostics was that of ethics. Gnostics believed that since the world was intrinsically evil, so was anything the human body did. Some gnostics concluded that this meant that one could engage in gross immorality since it demonstrated the knowledge that the body was a prison for the soul. Most gnostics, however, considered that instead one should supress the urges of the body as much as possible and live a highly ascetic life. One consequence of this view was a lack of care to social status (exhibited noticably in Mithraism), or for that matter not caring about being/not-being a slave, a criticism also levied at Paul for his lack of raising the issue in Philemon.

Paul also exhibits a strong distate for sexuality of any kind, supporting the principle of celibacy, which gnostics interpreted as due to the idea of the world as evil, though non-gnostics took it to be merely a rigid and strict adherence to the old testament. Paul himself elsewhere states that he teaches righteousness without the Law, which gnostics used as a counter argument to the claim he adhered to the old testament, and also supported the idea that laws were ultimately the product of the demiurge as a trap.

Paul and the early church

Clement of Rome, who lived at the end of the first century, and is considered by the early Christian church a saint, vigourously attacked Paul's teachings, going so far as to state that the vision Paul is alleged to have had, on the way to Damascus, originated from a demon. Clement was the 3rd/4th pope, and was strongly anti-gnostic, in his homilies even asserting his opinion that Paul is a dangerous heretic who should be expelled from the church. Other early christians, such as Justin Martyr, chose not to mention Paul at all.

Some scholars, such as Elaine Pagels, take this as evidence that Paul, and consequently early Christianity, was originally gnostic, rather than literalist. Clement himself demonstrates such a view of Paul, corroborating the claim by Valentinus, a gnostic, that Paul had initiated his teacher, Theudas into the Deeper Mysteries of Christianity, which revealed a secret gnostic doctrine of God.

The continual growth of Gnostic followings, throughout the second century, troubled the non-Gnostics to the extent that Irenaeus went so far as to write a vast 5-volume book (On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis commonly referred to as Against Heresies) to refute it. The significance of the influence of Paul was enough for Irenaeus to consider it important to proclaim that Paul was never gnostic, and never supported gnostic teachings, using the evidence of the Pastoral epistles (which are not known of before Irenaeus' references to them) to show it.

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Paul and Judaism

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

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

General Epistles

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

non-Canonical texts

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

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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.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

See also

• Alleged relics of Jesus Christ
• Jesus and textual evidence
• Yeshu

External links

• discussion of potential syncretisms with other religions
• Beautifully illustrated site discussing syncretisms both of stories and of religious practices
• Christian site on Josephus evidence
• Argument from Christian point of view
• Pro Jesus' existence
• Argues Jesus was originally a relatively minor figure
• PBS' From Jesus to Christ
• The Jesus Puzzle
• The Quest of the Historical Jesus By Albert Schweitzer Full online text
• Highly critical view of archaeology at Nazareth from www.jesusneverexisted.com
• Radical Criticism
• Journal of Higher Criticism
• List of isopsephia values

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.

• Ancient Roman Christianity
• Jesus