Earl Doherty

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Earl J. Doherty (born 1941[1]), currently living in Canada, is the author of The Jesus Puzzle. Doherty argues for a version of the Christ myth theory, the view that an historical Jesus never actually lived.

Doherty has a degree in Ancient History and Classical Languages, and he was introduced to the idea of a mythical origin of Jesus by, among other things, the work of G. A. Wells, who has authored a number of books arguing a more moderate form of the "Christ myth" theory. Doherty has used his language skills to study the original-language versions of the New Testament, and has come to his views through a critical analysis of these texts.[2]

Contents

[edit] The Jesus Puzzle

Doherty has used the title "The Jesus Puzzle" for four different works. In 1997, the Journal of Higher Criticism published his article, "The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of Christian Origins."[3] In 1999, his book The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? was published by Canadian Humanist Publications.[4] He uses the title for a website where he publishes additional commentary and responses to reviews and criticisms of his work.[5] He also used the title for a novel which he provides for download on his website.[6]

In all four of these works, Doherty presents views on the origins of Christianity, specifically promoting the view that Jesus is a mythical figure rather than an historical person. Doherty argues that Paul and other writers of the earliest existing proto-Christian Gnostic documents did not believe in Jesus as a person who incarnated on Earth in an historical setting. Rather, they believed in Jesus as a mythical hero who suffered his sacrificial death in the lower spheres of heaven in the hands of the demon spirits, and was subsequently resurrected by God. This Christ myth was not based on a tradition reaching back to a historical Jesus, but on the Old Testament exegesis in the context of Jewish-Hellenistic religious syncretism heavily influenced by Platonism, and what the authors believed to be mystical visions of a risen Jesus.

According to Doherty, the Jesus myth was given a historical setting only by the second generation of Christians, somewhere between the first and second century. Doherty claims that even the author of the Gospel of Mark probably did not consider his gospel to be a literal work of history, but an allegorical midrashic composition based on the Old Testament prophecies. In the widely supported two-source hypothesis, the story of Mark was later fused with a separate tradition of anonymous sayings embodied in the Q document into the other gospels; according to Doherty these became interpreted as the literal history of the life of Jesus. Doherty denies any historical value of the Acts of the Apostles, dismissing it as a late work based on legend.

In 2009 Doherty published a revised edition of his book, with a new title of Jesus: Neither God nor Man.[7]

[edit] Reception

Although Doherty's treatment of the issue has made no impact on scholarly debate, his views have received considerable attention on the internet. Among authors sympathetic to the view that Jesus never existed, Doherty's work has received mixed reactions. He has received favorable reviews of the book by skeptics Robert M. Price and Richard Carrier.[8]Frank R. Zindler, editor of American Atheist, described The Jesus Puzzle in a review as "the most compelling argument against the historical Jesus published in my life-time".[9] However, George Albert Wells, who has also argued against the existence of a historical Jesus, rejects Doherty's view that the earliest Christians did not believe Jesus was a historical man who had lived on Earth.[10] R. Joseph Hoffmann considers that there are "reasons for scholars to hold" the view that Jesus never existed, but considers Doherty's book "qualitatively and academically far inferior to anything so far written on the subject".[11]

[edit] Bibliography

  • Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications. 2009. ISBN 0968925928. 
  • The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?. Ottawa: Age of Reason Publications. 2005 [1999]. ISBN 0-9689259-1-X. 
  • Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ". Ottawa: Age of Reason Publications. 2001. ISBN 0-9689259-0-1. 

[edit] References

  1. ^ Date information sourced from Library of Congress Authorities data, via corresponding WorldCat Identities linked authority file (LAF) .
  2. ^ Doherty, Earl. "The Jesus Puzzle: Main Articles - Preamble". http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/preamble.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-05. 
  3. ^ Doherty, Earl (Fall 1997). "The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of Christian Origins". Journal of Higher Criticism 4 (2). http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/jhcjp.htm. 
  4. ^ Doherty, Earl (2005) [1999]. The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?. Ottawa: Age of Reason Publications. ISBN 0-9689259-1-X. 
  5. ^ Doherty, Earl. "The Jesus Puzzle: Was There No Historical Jesus?". http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/. Retrieved 2009-07-02. 
  6. ^ Doherty, Earl (1999). The Jesus Puzzle: A Novel About the Greatest Question of Our Time. http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/novel.htm. 
  7. ^ Doherty, Earl. "Jesus: Neither God nor Man". http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/newadvert.htm. 
  8. ^ Carrier, Richard (2002). "Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity". The Secular Web. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.shtml. Retrieved 2009-06-23. 
  9. ^ Zindler, Frank R. (2000–2001). "The Christ Myth Revisited". American Atheist 39 (1). Archived from the original on Jan 08, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080108150021/http://www.americanatheist.org/win00-01/T2/zindler.html. Retrieved 2009-06-23. 
  10. ^ Wells, G. A. (September 1999). "Earliest Christianity". New Humanist 114 (3): 13–18. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/g_a_wells/earliest.html. Retrieved 2009-06-23. 
  11. ^ Hoffmann, R. Joseph (2006). "Maurice Goguel and the 'Myth Theory' of Christian Origins". Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?. translated by Frederick Stephens, with a new introduction by R. Joseph Hoffmann. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. pp. 15, 39 n. 31. ISBN 1-59102-370-X. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Doherty"