Christ myth theory: Difference between revisions
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==== Dating and authorship ==== |
==== Dating and authorship ==== |
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The general consensus of modern scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be written and dates from no earlier than {{circa|AD 65}}, while Matthew and Luke, which use it as a source, were written between AD 80 and 85.{{sfn|Reddish|2011|pp=73–74, 144}} The composition history of John is complex, but most scholars see it taking place in stages beginning as early as before AD 70 and extending as late as the end of the century.{{sfn|Reddish|2011|pp=73–74, 144}} None of the authors were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, |
The general consensus of modern scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be written and dates from no earlier than {{circa|AD 65}}, while Matthew and Luke, which use it as a source, were written between AD 80 and 85.{{sfn|Reddish|2011|pp=73–74, 144}} The composition history of John is complex, but most scholars see it taking place in stages beginning as early as before AD 70 and extending as late as the end of the century.{{sfn|Reddish|2011|pp=73–74, 144}} None of the authors were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus,{{sfn|Baggett|2008|p=7}} though they may have received their information directly from eyewitnesses.{{sfn|Bauckham|2017}} According to mythicist Richard Carrier, "The Gospels cannot really be dated, nor are the real authors known. Their names were assigned early, but not early enough for us to be confident they were accurately known. It is based on speculation that Mark was the first, written between AD 60 and 70, Matthew second, between AD 70 and 80, Luke (and Acts) third, between AD 80 and 90, and John last, between AD 90 and 100".<ref>{{cite web|author1=Richard Carrier|authorlink1=Richard Carrier|title=The Formation of the New Testament Canon|url=https://www.academia.edu/276996/The_Formation_of_the_New_Testament_Canon|website=www.academia.edu|accessdate=24 September 2016}}</ref> |
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* Bader, Christopher, et al. ''American Piety in the 21st Century''. Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, 2006. |
* Bader, Christopher, et al. ''American Piety in the 21st Century''. Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, 2006. |
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* Baggett, John. ''Seeing Through the Eyes of Jesus: His Revolutionary View of Reality and His Transcedent Signigicance for Faith''. Eerdmans, 2008. |
* Baggett, John. ''Seeing Through the Eyes of Jesus: His Revolutionary View of Reality and His Transcedent Signigicance for Faith''. Eerdmans, 2008. |
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* {{Citation | last =Baggett | first =John | year =2008 | title =Seeing through the eyes of Jesus: his revolutionary view of reality and his transcendent significance for faith | publisher =William B. Eerdmans Pub.| location=Grand Rapids, Mich. | isbn =080286340X | url =https://books.google.com/?id=rwgvyW8AOeIC | accessdate =24 January 2018}} |
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* {{Citation | last =Bauckham | first =Richard | year =2017 | title =Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony | publisher =Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing}} |
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* [[Dan Barker|Barker, Dan]]. ''Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists''. Ulysses, 2008. |
* [[Dan Barker|Barker, Dan]]. ''Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists''. Ulysses, 2008. |
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* [[Paul Barnett (bishop)|Barnett, Paul]]. ''Jesus and the Logic of History''. InterVarsity, 2001. |
* [[Paul Barnett (bishop)|Barnett, Paul]]. ''Jesus and the Logic of History''. InterVarsity, 2001. |
Revision as of 04:18, 29 March 2018
Christ myth theory | |
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![]() The Resurrection of Christ by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1875)—some mythicists 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 | Thomas Paine (1737–1809) 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, Thomas L. Thompson, Thomas L. Brodie, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, Raphael Lataster |
Subjects | Historical Jesus, early Christianity, ancient history |
Part of a series on |
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The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, mythicism,[1] or Jesus ahistoricity theory)[2] is the proposition that Christianity started with the belief in a new deity, named Jesus,[quote 1] "who was later historicized"[quote 2] in the Gospels, which are "essentially allegory and fiction".[3] Alternatively in "simpler terms"—given by Bart Ehrman per his criticism of mythicism[4]—"the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity".[5]
The Christ myth theory is a fringe theory supported by few tenured or emeritus specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines;[note 1] it deviates from the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many legendary elements these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine, and was baptized and crucified.[6][7][note 2][note 3]
Jesus and the origins of Christianity
The origins and rapid rise of Christianity, as well as the historical Jesus and the historicity of Jesus, are a matter of longstanding debates in theological and historical research. Within a few years after the death of Jesus in c. AD 33, already before Paul started preaching, a number of proto-Christian communities seem to have been in existence.[8][quote 3][9] A central question is how these communities developed and what their original convictions were, as a wide range of beliefs and ideas can be found in early Christianity, including adoptionism, docetism and gnosticism, which were deemed heretical by proto-orthodox Christianity.[note 4][10][11]
While orthodox Christian theology and dogmas view Jesus as the incarnation of God/Christ on earth, mainstream scholarship views Jesus as a real person who was subsequently deified.[quote 4] Mythicists take yet another approach, presuming a widespread set of Jewish ideas on personified aspects of God, which were subsequently historicised when proto-Christianity spread among non-Jewish converts.
Mainstream view
The mainstream historical view is that while the gospels include mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine.[12][13] While scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus,[14] the baptism and the crucifixion are two events in the life of Jesus which are subject to "almost universal assent".[note 3] According to Alanna Nobbs,
While historical and theological debates remain about the actions and significance of this figure, his fame as a teacher, and his crucifixion under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, may be described as historically certain.[15]
Bart D. Ehrman states that Jesus "certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees."[16][17] The existence of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by a "very few sources,"[18] most notably Josephus and Tacitus.[18][17][19]
Criteria being used to determine whether Biblical passages can be attributed to Jesus include multiple attestation, dissimilarity, embarrassment, historical plausibility, rejection and execution, congruence. While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the existence of Jesus as a historical figure, the portraits of Jesus have often differed from each other and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts,[20][21][22][23] and it has been argued that "the only thing New Testament scholars seem to agree on is Jesus' historical existence".[24]
Christ myth theory
According to modern proponents of the Christ myth theory, Christianity started with the belief in a new deity called Jesus,[quote 1][quote 2] "a spiritual, mythical figure",[25] who was derived from Jewish writings,[26][27] which shows Greek influences and similarities with Pagan saviour deities. Elements of the Christ myth and its cultus can be found in the Pauline epistles,[28][29][30] see the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:6–11.[31] This new deity was fleshed out in the Gospels—which added a narrative framework and Cynic-like teachings—and eventually came to be perceived as a historical biography.[quote 2] According to George Albert Wells et al., these sayings may come from a real person, of whom close to nothing can be known.[32][33][quote 5][34] However, for such a person to be considered "the historical Jesus in any pertinent sense", Carrier contends such a person must comply with his definition of a minimal historical Jesus.[35]
Mythicists are often critical of the methodology and presuppositions of historicity proponents.[36][37][38][39] Price notes that "consensus is no criterion" for the historicity of Jesus.[40] Carrier asserts that "the consensus is not reliable in the study of the historical Jesus".[41] Carrier also claims that historical methodologies often use fallacious reasoning[42] and that they must be drastically revised.[43][42] Thompson contends that the present state of New Testament scholarship viz. Bart Ehrman "is such that an established scholar should present his Life of Jesus, without considering whether this figure, in fact, lived as a historical person" and that such assumptions "reflect a serious problem regarding the historical quality of scholarship in biblical studies".[27]
While proponents like Carrier, Doherty, Price et al. are concerned with the origins of Christianity, the perception of and debate about the Christ myth theory has increasingly turned to the simpler question whether Jesus existed or not[44][45][46] and consequently with some scholars proposing a more moderate position.[47][quote 6]
Arguments
The main arguments from the mythicists are the lack of biographical information on Jesus from early Christian and non-Christian sources, the so-called argument from silence;[48] and the mythical and allegorical nature of the Christ of Paul and the Jesus of the Gospels.[48] They further argue that the Gospels are a composite of various strands of thought,[49][50][51] and note the similarities of early Christianity and the Christ figure with contemporary mystery religions.[48]
Overview
The main arguments from the mythicists are the lack of biographical information on Jesus from early Christian and other sources,[quote 7] the so-called argument from silence;[52][53][54][note 5] and the mythical and allegorical nature of the Christ of Paul[55][note 6] and the Jesus of the Gospels.[56] Most Christ mythicists argue that the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus Christ is weak at best,[57] pointing at a series of perceived peculiarities in the sources which they regard as untrustworthy for a historical account and noting the reliance on Jewish writings[58] and the similarities of early Christianity and the Christ figure with the mystery religions of the Greco-Roman world.[53][59]
- The Pauline epistles[note 7] are dismissed because—aside from a few passages which may have been interpolations—they make no reference to a historical Jesus who lived in the flesh on Earth.[60] There is a complete absence of any detailed biographical information such as might be expected if Jesus had been a contemporary of Paul,[61][62] therefore he is probably writing about either a mythical entity,[63] a celestial deity,[64] or "a savior figure patterned after similar figures within ancient mystery religions"[62][65]—named Jesus.[66][31][67]
- The Gospels are not historical records, but theological writings,[68][69] which are based on a variety of sources and influences, including Old Testament writings,[26][27] Greek stoic philosophy and the exegetical methods of Philo.[70][note 8] The genre of the Gospels are myth or legendary fiction[71][72][note 9] which have imposed "a fictitious historical narrative" on a "mythical cosmic savior figure"[73][74][65] by weaving together various pseudo-historical Jesus traditions,[49][50][note 10] most notably the "supernatural personage" of Paul's epistles[49][50] and "ideas very important in the Jewish Wisdom literature".[49][50]
- Christianity arose in the Greco-Roman world of the first and second century AD, synthesizing Greek and Jewish philosophy of the Second Temple period.[74][75] Per religious syncretism early Christianity shared common philosophical and religious ideas with other religions of the time,[74][75][48] including the ideas of personified aspects of God[note 11] and of the salvation figures—featured in mystery religions—who were often (but not always) a dying-and-rising god.[quote 8][76][65][note 12]
- No independent eyewitness accounts survive, in spite of the fact that many authors were writing at that time.[77][78] Early second-century Roman accounts contain very little evidence[79][80] and may depend on Christian sources.[81][82]
- Christianity originated from a Jewish sect[83] in a milieu where some Jews practised a form of proto-gnosticism—seeking salvation by revealed gnosis—via a mediator between God and humans, i.e. an intermediary variously known as "one like a son of man", "the divine Logos", etc. and that from the cultus of Paul, a divergent form of this salvation theology was later promoted for non-Jews.[84][85][86][87]
Some mythicists hold—in terms given by Robert M. Price—the Jesus agnosticism viewpoint,[88][quote 9] while others go further and hold the Jesus atheism viewpoint.[89][quote 10][90] Some scholars have made the case that there are a number of plausible Jesuses that could have existed, but that there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus.[91][92][93] Others have said that Jesus may have lived far earlier, in a dimly remembered remote past.[94] A number of writers adduce various arguments to show that Christianity has syncretistic or mythical roots. As such, the historical Jesus should not be regarded as the founder of the religion, even if he did exist.[74][95][96]
Pauline epistles
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Uncial_0220_Rom-4.23-5.3.jpg/180px-Uncial_0220_Rom-4.23-5.3.jpg)
The seven undisputed Pauline epistles considered by scholarly consensus to be genuine epistles[note 7] are generally dated to AD 50–60 (i.e. approximately twenty to thirty years after the generally accepted time period for the death of Jesus around AD 30–36) and are the earliest surviving Christian texts that may include information about Jesus.[97]
Mythicists' view
Christ myth theorists generally reject the usefulness of these letters.[98][99] Willem Christiaan van Manen of the Dutch school of radical criticism noted various anachronisms in the Pauline Epistles: Van Manen claimed that they could not have been written in their final form earlier than the 2nd century and he also noted that the Marcionite school was the first to publish the epistles and that Marcion used them as justification for his gnostic and docetic views that Jesus' incarnation was not in a physical body. Van Manen also studied Marcion's version of Galatians in contrast to the canonical version and argued that the canonical version was a later revision which de-emphasized the Gnostic aspects.[100]
Wells criticized the infrequency of the reference to Jesus in the Pauline letters and has said there is no information in them about Jesus' parents, place of birth, teachings, trial nor crucifixion.[99] 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 and that—for Paul—Jesus may have existed many decades, if not centuries, before.[99][101] According to Wells, 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".[102] 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.[103]
Price wrote that "the historical Jesus problem replicates itself in the case of Paul" and that the epistles have the same limitations as the Gospels as historical evidence. Price sees the epistles as a compilation of fragments (possibly with a Gnostic core)[104] and contends that Marcion (c. 85 – c. 160) was responsible for much of the Pauline corpus or even wrote the letters himself, while criticizing the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy of fellow Christ myth theorists holding the mid-first-century dating of the epistles (e.g. Galatians is conventionally dated c. AD 53)[105] for their own apologetical reasons.[106][107] Price argues that passages such as Galatians 1:18–20, Galatians 4:4 and 1 Corinthians 15:3–11 are late Catholic interpolations and that 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 was unlikely to have been written by a Jewish person.[108]
Carrier argues that Paul is actually writing about a celestial deity named Jesus: Carrier notes that there is little if any concrete information about Christ's earthly life in the Pauline epistles, even though Jesus is mentioned over three hundred times.[109] According to Carrier, the genuine Pauline epistles show that the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul believed in a visionary or dream Jesus, based on a pesher of Septuagint verses Zechariah 6 and 3, Daniel 9 and Isaiah 52–53.[110] Carrier further argues that according to Paul (Philippians 2.7), Christ "came 'in the likeness of men' (homoiomati anthropon) and was found 'in a form like a man' (schemati euretheis hos anthropos) and (in Rom. 8.3) that he was only sent 'in the likeness of sinful flesh' (en homoiomati sarkos hamartias). This is a doctrine of a preexistent being assuming a human body, but not being fully transformed into a man, just looking like one".[111]
Mainstream view
Modern biblical scholarship also notes that Paul has relatively little to say on the biographical information of Jesus.[112][113] Nevertheless, most scholars view the Pauline letters as essential elements in the study of the historical Jesus.[97][114][115][116][117][excessive citations] Bishop and historian Paul Barnett explains that
Paul's relative lack of detailed reference to the historical Christ is usually explained in one of two ways: either Paul knew only that there was such a man but knew (or cared to know) little more (Bultmann), or he knew quite a lot but didn't need to elaborate this in his letters beyond what his readers already knew."[118][119]: 184
The Pauline letters at times refer to creeds, or confessions of faith, that predate their writings.[120][121][122] For instance, 1 Corinthians 15:11 refers to others before Paul who preached the creed.[122] These pre-Pauline creeds date to within a few years of Jesus' death and developed within the Christian community in Jerusalem.[123] Scholars generally view these as indications that the existence and death of Jesus was part of Christian tradition a few years after his death and over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles.[121][123] James Dunn states that 1 Corinthians 15:3 indicates that in the 30s Paul was taught about the death of Jesus a few years earlier.[124]
Eddy and Boyd present a summary of information about Jesus' earthly life presented in the Pauline epistles. For example, in Galatians 1:19, Paul says he met with James, the "Lord's brother";[125] another that 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 refers to those who had interacted with Jesus as Paul's contemporaries; and in 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 Paul refers to the Jews "who both killed the Lord Jesus" and "drove out us" as the same people, indicating that the death of Jesus was within the same time frame as the persecution of Paul.[126] Gregory A. Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy doubt that Paul viewed Jesus similar to the savior deities found in ancient mystery religions.[127]
Additional elements in the Pauline letters that pertain to the existence of Jesus and his being a Jew include Galatians 4:4 which states that he was "born of a woman" and Romans 1:3 that he was "born under the law".[128][114][115][116][129][130][excessive citations]
The Gospels
Dating and authorship
The general consensus of modern scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be written and dates from no earlier than c. AD 65, while Matthew and Luke, which use it as a source, were written between AD 80 and 85.[131] The composition history of John is complex, but most scholars see it taking place in stages beginning as early as before AD 70 and extending as late as the end of the century.[131] None of the authors were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus,[132] though they may have received their information directly from eyewitnesses.[133] According to mythicist Richard Carrier, "The Gospels cannot really be dated, nor are the real authors known. Their names were assigned early, but not early enough for us to be confident they were accurately known. It is based on speculation that Mark was the first, written between AD 60 and 70, Matthew second, between AD 70 and 80, Luke (and Acts) third, between AD 80 and 90, and John last, between AD 90 and 100".[134]
Genre
Any study of the Gospels must first determine the genre under which they fall, in order to interpret them correctly, since genre "is a key convention guiding both the composition and the interpretation of writings".[135] The gospels authors may have intended to write novels, myths, histories, or biographies, which are different genres and have a tremendous impact on how they ought to be interpreted. Among contemporary scholars, there is consensus that the gospels are a type of ancient biography,[136][137][138][139][140] though Rudolf Bultmann notes that the gospel authors had no interest in history or in a historical Jesus[141][142] and Robert Price notes that Robert M. Fowler, Frank Kermode and Randel Helms demonstrate that the gospels are a fictional composition,[143] while Michael Vines notes that the gospel of Mark may have aspects similar to a Jewish novel.[144] Some myth proponents suggest that some parts of the New Testament were meant to appeal to Gentiles as familiar allegories rather than history.[145]
Jewish sources
Some myth proponents note that some stories in the New Testament seem to try to reinforce Old Testament prophecies[145] and repeat stories about figures like Elijah, Elisha,[146] Moses and Joshua in order to appeal to Jewish converts.[147] Price notes that almost all the Gospel-stories have parallels in Old Testamentical and other traditions, concluding that the Gospels are no independent sources for a historical Jesus, but "legend and myth, fiction and redaction".[148]
Arguments drawing comparisons between the New and Old Testaments have traditionally been made by Christian theologians in defense of their teachings, but without doubting a historical Jesus.[149]
Greek influences
In Christ and the Caesars (1877), Bruno Bauer suggested that Christianity was a synthesis of the Stoicism of Seneca the Younger, Greek Neoplatonism, and the Jewish theology of Philo as developed by pro-Roman Jews such as Josephus. This new religion was in need of a founder and created its Christ.[150][74] In a review of Bauer's work, Robert Price notes that Bauer's basic stance regarding the Stoic tone and the fictional nature of the Gospels are still repeated in contemporary scholarship.[143]
Fusion of characters
The Gospels may be regarded as myth or legendary fiction which have imposed "a fictitious historical narrative" on a "mythical cosmic savior figure".[151][73] According to Wells, a minimally historical Jesus existed, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document.[152] According to Wells, the Gospels weave together two Jesus narratives, namely Paul's mythical Jesus and the Galilean preacher of the Q document.[152] Doherty disagrees with Wells regarding this teacher of the Q-document, arguing that he was an allegoral character who personified Wisdom and came to be regarded as the founder of the Q-community.[50][153] According to Doherty, Q's Jesus and Paul's Christ were combined in the Gospel of Mark by a predominantly Gentile community.[50]
According to Doherty, the Jesus of Paul was a divine Son of God, existing in a spiritual realm[48] where he was crucified and resurrected.[154] This mythological Jesus was based on exegesis of the Old Testament and mystical visions of a risen Jesus.[154] Price argues that the Gospels are a type of legendary fiction[71] and that the story of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels fits the mythic hero archetype.[72]
Judeo-Greco-Roman background and similarities
Judeo-Greco-Roman background
With the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Greek culture and language spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, influencing the already existing cultures there.[75] The conquest of Rome of this area added to the cultural diversity, but also to a sense of alienation and pessimism.[75] A rich diversity of religious and philosophical ideas was available and Judaism was held in high regard by non-Jews for its monotheistic ideas and its high moral standards.[75] Yet monotheism was also offered by Greek philosophy, especially Platonism, with its high God and the intermediary Logos.[75] According to Doherty, "Out of this rich soil of ideas arose Christianity, a product of both Jewish and Greek philosophy",[75] echoing Bruno Bauer, who argued that Christianity was a synthesis of Stoicism, Greek Neoplatonism and Jewish thought.[74]
Early Christian diversity
Early Christianity was wildly diverse, with proto-orthodoxy and "heretical" views like gnosticism alongside each other. According to Doherty, the rapid growth of early Christian communities and the great variety of ideas cannot be explained by a single missionary effort, but points to parallel developments, which arose at various places and competed for support. Paul's arguments against rival apostles also point to this diversity.[75] Doherty further notes that Yeshua (Jesus) is a generic name, meaning "Yahweh saves" and refers to the concept of divine salvation, which could apply to any kind of saving entity or Wisdom.[75]
Similarities to Jewish celestial Jesus
According to Carrier, originally "Jesus was the name of a celestial being, subordinate to God".[155] According to Carrier, "This 'Jesus' would most likely have been the same archangel identified by Philo of Alexandria as already extant in Jewish theology".[156] Philo knew this figure by all of the attributes Paul already knew Jesus by: the firstborn son of God (Epistle to the Romans 8:29), the celestial image of God (Second Epistle to the Corinthians 4:4) and God’s agent of creation (First Epistle to the Corinthians 8:6). He was also God’s celestial high priest (Hebrews 2:17, 4:14, etc.) and God’s Logos. Philo says this being was identified as the figure named Jesus in the Book of Zechariah.[67]
Other scholars have also noted the extent and significance of Jewish belief in a chief angel acting as a heavenly mediator during the Second Temple period,[157][158][159] as well as the similarities between Jesus and this chief celestial angel.[160]
Similarities to Logos and Wisdom
A somewhat similar idea to the Greek Logos was found in Judaism, where Wisdom, a personified part of God, brought knowledge of God and the Law.[75] Similar ideas were also developed in other cultures and religions.[75] According to Wells, the historical Jesus was derived from this Wisdom traditions, the personification of an eternal aspect of God, who came to visit human beings.[161] Doherty notes that the concept of a spiritual Christ was the result of common philosophical and religious ideas of the first and second century AD, in which the idea of an intermediary force between God and the world were common.[48] Doherty further notes that divine inspiration was a common concept.[48]
Separately from mythicism, scholar of ancient religious studies Peter Schäfer contends that Philo's Logos was likely derived from his understanding of the "postbiblical Wisdom literature, in particular the Wisdom of Solomon".[162] Professor of New Testament at Loyola University Urban C. von Wahlde notes that the Wisdom literature and the philosophical writings of Philo may furnish "the background to the Logos of the Johannine Prologue".[163]
Similarities with mystery religions
The Christ of Paul shares similarities with the Greco-Roman mystery cults.[48] Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy explicitly argue that Jesus was a deity, akin to the mystery cults,[164] while Dorothy Murdock argues that the Christ myth draws heavily on the Egyptian story of Osiris and Horus.[165] According to Robert Price, the story of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels is akin to the mythic hero archetype.[72] The mythic hero archetype is 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.[166]
However, Christian theologians have also cited the mythic hero archetype as a defense of Christian teaching while completely affirming a historical Jesus.[167][168][note 13] 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".[169] 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.[170][note 14]
No independent eyewitness accounts
Lack of surviving historic records
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,[175][176][177] adding that Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence.[178] 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 AD.[179]
Mainstream biblical scholars point out that much of the writings of antiquity have been lost[180] and that there was little written about any Jew or Christian in this period.[181][182] Ehrman points out that we do not have archaeological or textual evidence for the existence of most people in the ancient world, even famous people like Pontius Pilate, whom the myth theorists agree to have existed.[183] Robert Hutchinson notes that this is also true of Josephus, despite the fact that he was"a personal favorite of the Roman Emperor Vespasian".[184] Hutchinson quotes Ehrman, who notes that Josephus is never mentioned in 1st century Greek and Roman sources, despite being "a personal friend of the emperor".[184] According to Classical historian and popular author Michael Grant, if the same criterium is applied to others: "We can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned".[185]
Josephus and Tacitus
There are three non-Christian sources which are typically used to study and establish the historicity of Jesus—two mentions in Josephus and one mention in the Roman source Tacitus.[186][187][188][189] According to John Dominic Crossan:
That [Jesus] 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]
Josephus
Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around 93–94 AD, includes two references to the biblical Jesus in Books 18 and 20. The general scholarly view is that while the longer passage in book 18, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon that it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian interpolation or forgery.[190][191][192] Myth proponents also argue that the Testimonium Flavianum may have been a partial interpolation or forgery by Christian apologist Eusebius in the 4th century or by others.[193][194][note 15]
The other mention in Josephus is as follows:
...the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James
According to Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman, "few have doubted the genuineness" of Josephus' reference to Jesus in Antiquities 20, 9, 1 and it is only disputed by a small number of scholars.[200][201][202][203]
Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, who are critical of Christ myth theorists, note that Josephus "mentions twenty-one other people with the name Jesus,"[note 16] and argue that when Josephus called James the "brother" of Jesus "called Christ" in the Antiquities, he did so to distinguish him "from the other persons named 'Jesus' he had already mentioned."[204][note 17] Richard Carrier disagrees, proposing that the original text referred to a brother of the high priest Jesus son of Damneus, named James, who is mentioned in the same narrative, in which James (the brother of Jesus) is executed by Ananus.[205][note 18] Carrier further argues that the words "the one called Christ" likely resulted from the accidental insertion of a marginal note added by some unknown reader.[205]
Others speculate that he was referring to a mythic Christ that had already been historicized, or to fraternal brotherhood rather than a literal sibling.[206] This is dismissed by some in mainstream academia on the grounds that there is no evidence of a supposed "Jerusalem brotherhood".[207]
Tacitus
Roman historian Tacitus referred to "Christus" and his execution by Pontius Pilate in his Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44:[208]
...a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.[209]
The very negative tone of Tacitus' comments on Christians make most experts believe that the passage is extremely unlikely to have been forged by a Christian scribe.[210] The Tacitus reference is now widely accepted as an independent confirmation of Christ's crucifixion,[211] although some scholars question the historical value of the passage on various grounds.[210][212][213][214][215][216][217][218]
Christ myth theory supporters such as G. A. Wells and Carrier contend that sources such as Tacitus and others, which were written decades after the supposed events, include no independent traditions that relate to Jesus, and hence can provide no confirmation of historical facts about him.[81][82]
Jewish and Jewish-Christian sources
Some myth proponents assert that the writings of Epiphanius of Salamis makes reference to a group of Jewish Christians who held that Jesus lived during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus—"placing Jesus about 100 BCE"—and that this was also the view presented in the Jewish writings about Jesus in the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu.[219][220]
According to the Panarion by Epiphanius, the Jewish-Christian sect known as the Nazarenes (Ναζωραιοι) began as Jewish converts of the Apostles.[221][222] Richard Carrier contends that "Epiphanius, in Panarion 29, says there was a sect of still-Torah-observant Christians who taught that Jesus lived and died in the time of Jannaeus, and all the Jewish sources on Christianity that we have (from the Talmud to the Toledot Yeshu) report no other view than that Jesus lived during the time of Jannaeus".[223][224]
18th- and 19th-century proponents
Volney and Dupuis
![a sketch of a bust of Constantin-François Chassebœuf](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Constantin_Fran%C3%A7ois_Volney.jpg/130px-Constantin_Fran%C3%A7ois_Volney.jpg)
The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of Jesus can be traced to late 18th-century France with the works of Constantin François Chassebœuf de Volney and Charles-François Dupuis.[225][226] Volney and Dupuis argued that Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a totally mythical character.[225][227]
Dupuis argued that ancient rituals in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and India had influenced the Christian story which was allegorized as the histories of solar deities, such as Sol Invictus.[228] Dupuis also said that the resurrection of Jesus was an allegory for the growth of the sun's strength in the sign of Aries at the spring equinox.[228]
Volney argued that Abraham and Sarah were derived from Brahma and his wife Saraswati, whereas Christ was related to Krishna.[229] Volney made use of a draft version of Dupuis' work and at times differed from him, e.g. in arguing that the gospel stories were not intentionally created, but were compiled organically.[228][230]
Volney's perspective became associated with the ideas of the French Revolution, which hindered the acceptance of these views in England.[231] Despite this, his work gathered significant following among British and American radical thinkers during the 19th century.[231]
Strauss
![portrait](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/1908_David-Friedrich-Strauss.jpg/130px-1908_David-Friedrich-Strauss.jpg)
In 1835, German theologian David Friedrich Strauss 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.[232][233][234] 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, as Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury called it "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell"[235] 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.[236]
Bauer
![portrait](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Bruno_Bauer.jpg/130px-Bruno_Bauer.jpg)
German Bruno Bauer, who taught at the University of Bonn, took Strauss' arguments further and became the first author to systematically argue that Jesus did not exist.[237][238]
Beginning in 1841 with his Criticism of the Gospel History of the Synoptics, Bauer argued that Jesus was primarily a literary figure, but left open the question of whether a historical Jesus existed at all. Then in his Criticism of the Pauline Epistles (1850–1852) and in A Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin (1850–1851), Bauer argued that Jesus had not existed.[239] Bauer's work was heavily criticized at the time, as 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.[237][240]
Higgins and Graves
In his two-volume, 867-page book Anacalypsis (1836), English gentleman Godfrey Higgins said that "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"[241] and that Christian editors “either from roguery or folly, corrupted them all”.[242] In his 1875 book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, American Kersey Graves said that many demigods from different countries shared similar stories, traits or quotes as Jesus and he used Higgins as the main source for his arguments. 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.[243]
Massey
Starting in the 1870s, English poet and author Gerald Massey became interested in Egyptology and reportedly taught himself Egyptian hieroglyphics at the British Museum.[244] In 1883, Massey 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 and Tom Harpur.[245] Despite criticisms from Stanley Porter and Ward Gasque, Massey's theories regarding Egyptian etymologies for certain scriptures are supported by noted contemporary Egyptologists.[246]
Radical Dutch school and others
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.[247] Abraham Dirk Loman argued in 1881 that all New Testament writings belonged to the 2nd century and doubted that Jesus was a historical figure, but later said the core of the gospels was genuine.[248]
Additional early Christ myth proponents included Swiss skeptic Rudolf Steck,[249] English historian Edwin Johnson,[250] English radical Reverend Robert Taylor and his associate Richard Carlile.[251][252]
Early-20th-century proponents
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.[248] 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 Judaism.[253] 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".[254]
The work of social anthropologist Sir James George Frazer has had an influence on various myth theorists, although Frazer himself believed that Jesus existed.[255] In 1890, Frazer published the first edition of The Golden Boughs 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 he expressly stated that his theory assumed a historical Jesus.[256]
In 1900, Scottish Member of Parliament John Mackinnon Robertson argued that Jesus never existed, but was an invention by a first-century messianic cult.[257][258] In Robertson's view, religious groups invent new gods to fit the needs of the society of the time.[257] Robertson argued that a solar deity symbolized by the lamb and the ram had long been worshiped by an Israelite cult of Joshua and that this cult had then invented a new messianic figure, Jesus of Nazareth.[257][259][260] Robertson argued that a possible source for the Christian myth may have been the Talmudic story of the executed Jesus Pandera which dates to 100 BC.[257][261] Robertson considered the letters of Paul the earliest surviving Christian writings, but viewed them as primarily concerned with theology and morality, rather than historical details. Robertson viewed references to the twelve apostles and the institution of the Eucharist as stories that must have developed later among gentile believers who were converted by Jewish evangelists like Paul.[257][262][263]
The English school master George Robert Stowe Mead argued in 1903 that Jesus had existed, but that he had lived in 100 BC.[264][265] Mead based his argument on the Talmud, which pointed to Jesus being crucified c. 100 BC. In Mead's view, this would mean that the Christian gospels are mythical.[266] Tom Harpur has compared Mead's impact on myth theory to that of Bruno Bauer and Arthur Drews.[267]
In 1909, school teacher John Eleazer Remsburg published The Christ, which made a distinction between a possible historical Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth) and the Jesus of the Gospels (Jesus of Bethlehem). Remsburg thought that there was good reason to believe that the historical Jesus existed, but that the "Christ of Christianity" was a mythological creation.[268] Remsburg compiled 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 if the Gospels account was reasonably accurate, but who did not.[269][270][271]
![portrait](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Arthur_Drews.jpg/130px-Arthur_Drews.jpg)
Also in 1909, German philosophy Professor Christian Heinrich Arthur Drews wrote The Christ Myth to argue that Christianity had been a Jewish Gnostic cult that spread by appropriating aspects of Greek philosophy and life-death-rebirth deities.[272] In his later books The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (1912) and The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present (1926), Drews reviewed the biblical scholarship of his time as well as the work of other myth theorists, attempting to show that everything reported about the historical Jesus had a mythical character.[273] Drews met with criticism from Nikolai Berdyaev who claimed that Drews was an anti-Semite who argued against the historical existence of Jesus for the sake of Aryanism.[274] Drews took part in a series of public debates with theologians and historians who opposed his arguments.[275][276]
Drews' work found fertile soil in the Soviet Union, where Marxist–Leninist atheism was the official doctrine of the state. Soviet leader Lenin argued that it was imperative in the struggle against religious obscurantists to form a union with people like Drews.[277] Several editions of Drews' The Christ Myth were published in the Soviet Union from the early 1920s onwards and his arguments were included in school and university textbooks.[278] Public meetings asking "Did Christ live?" were organized, during which party operatives debated with clergymen.[279]
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 further develop the idea.[280]
Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was convinced that Jesus never existed, stating that Christianity evolved from the "R6 Implant": "The man on the cross. There was no Christ! The Roman Catholic Church, through watching the dramatizations of people picked up some little fragments of R6".[281]
Modern proponents
Paul-Louis Couchoud
The French philosopher Paul-Louis Couchoud,[282] published in the 1920s and 1930s, but was a predecessor for contemporary mythicists.[283] According to Couchoud, Christianity started not with a biography of Jesus but "a collective mystical experience, sustaining a divine history mystically revealed."[quote 1] Couchaud's Jesus is not a "myth", but a "religious conception".[284]
Robert Price mentions Couchoud's comment on the Christ Hymn, one of the relics of the Christ cults to which Paul converted. Couchoud noted that in this hymn the name Jesus was given to the Christ after his torturous death, implying that there cannot have been a ministry by a teacher called Jesus.[31]
George Albert Wells
George Albert Wells (1926–2017), a professor of German, advanced the most sophisticated version of the Christ myth theory.[285]
In his early work,[286] including Did Jesus Exist? (1975), Wells argued that because the Gospels were written decades after Jesus's death by Christians who were theologically motivated but had no personal knowledge of him, a rational person should believe the gospels only if they are independently confirmed.[287] Atheist philosopher and scholar Michael Martin supported his thesis, claiming: "Jesus is not placed in a historical context and the biographical details of his life are left unsuspecte [...] a strong prima facie case challenging the historicity of Jesus can be constructed".[288] Martin adds in his book The Case Against Christianity that "Well's argument against the historicity [of Jesus] is sound".[289]
Later, Wells concluded that a historical Jesus figure did exist and was a Galilean preacher, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical common source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.[290][291] However, he continued to insist that Biblical Jesus did not exist and argued that stories such as the virgin birth, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate and the resurrection should be regarded as legendary.[292][293][294]
Biblical scholar Robert E. Van Voorst said that with this argument Wells had performed an about-face.[32] However, other scholars continue to note Wells as a mythicist.[295][33]
In his 2009 book Cutting Jesus Down to Size,[296] Wells clarified that he believes the Gospels represent the fusion of two originally independent streams: a Galilean preaching tradition and the supernatural personage of Paul's early epistles, but he says that both figures owe much of their substance to ideas from the Jewish wisdom literature.[49]
Earl Doherty
Canadian writer Earl Doherty (born 1941) was introduced to the Christ myth theme by a lecture by Wells in the 1970s.[48][note 19] Doherty follows the lead of Wells, but disagrees on the historicity of Jesus, arguing that "everything in Paul points to a belief in an entirely divine Son who "lived" and acted in the spiritual realm, in the same mythical setting in which all the other savior deities of the day were seen to operate".[48] According to Doherty, Paul's Christ originated as a myth derived from middle Platonism with some influence from Jewish mysticism and belief in a historical Jesus emerged only among Christian communities in the 2nd century.[297] Paul and other writers of the earliest existing proto-Christian documents did not believe in Jesus as a person who was incarnated on Earth in a historical setting, rather they believed in Jesus as a heavenly being who suffered his sacrificial death in the lower spheres of heaven, where he was crucified by demons and then was subsequently resurrected by God. This mythological Jesus was not based on a historical Jesus, but rather on an exegesis of the Old Testament in the context of Jewish-Hellenistic religious syncretism and what the early authors believed to be mystical visions of a risen Jesus.[154]
According to Doherty, the nucleus of the historical Jesus of the Gospels can be found in the Jesus-movement which wrote the Q source.[50] According to Doherty, the Q-authors may have regarded themselves as "spokespersons for the Wisdom of God", with Jesus being the embodiment of this Wisdom,[50][153] who was added in the latest phase of the development of Q.[50] Q then started to take the form of a "foundation document", in response to a concurring sect who saw John the Baptist as its founder.[50] Eventually, Q's Jesus and Paul's Christ were combined in the Gospel of Mark by a predominantly gentile community.[50] In time, the gospel-narrative of this embodiment of Wisdom became interpreted as the literal history of the life of Jesus.[153]
Robert M. Price
![Robert Price at a microphone](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Robert_M._Price_1.jpg/170px-Robert_M._Price_1.jpg)
American New Testament scholar and former Baptist pastor Robert M. Price (born 1954) was a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of writers and scholars who study the historicity of Jesus and who argue that the Christian image of Christ is a theological construct into which traces of Jesus of Nazareth have been woven.[298] He was also a member of the Jesus Project.
Price believes that Christianity is a historicized synthesis of mainly Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek mythologies.[299] Price maintains that there are three key points for the traditional Christ myth theory:[300]
- 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 and all that can be taken from the epistles, Price argues, is that a Jesus Christ, son of God, lived in a heavenly realm, 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.[98][301]
Price questioned 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), in which he acknowledges that he stands against the majority view of scholars, but cautions against attempting to settle the issue by appeal to the majority.[302]
In Deconstructing Jesus, Price points out that "the Jesus Christ of the New Testament is a composite figure", out of which a broad variety of historical Jesuses can be reconstructed, any one of which may have been the real Jesus, but not all of them together.[303] According to Price, various Jesus images flowed together at the origin of Christianity, some of them possibly based on myth, some of them possibly based on "a historical Jesus the Nazorean".[304] Price admits uncertainty in this regard, writing in conclusion: "There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure".[305]
Citing accounts that have Jesus being crucified under Alexander Jannaeus (83 BC) or in his 50s by Herod Agrippa I under the rule of Claudius Caesar (AD 41–54). Price argues that these "varying dates are the residue of various attempts to anchor an originally mythic or legendary Jesus in more or less recent history".[306]
Thomas L. Thompson
Thomas L. Thompson (born 1939), Professor emeritus of theology at the University of Copenhagen, is a leading biblical minimalist of the Old Testament.[307] In his 2007 book The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David,[308] Thompson argues that the biblical accounts of both King David and Jesus of Nazareth are mythical in nature and based on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek and Roman literature. For example, he argues that the resurrection of Jesus is taken directly from the story of the dying and rising god, Dionysus.[309][310] However, Thompson does not draw a final conclusion on the historicity or ahistoricity of Jesus, but argued that any historical person would be very different from the Christ (or Messiah) identified in the Gospel of Mark.[69]
Thompson coedited the contributions from a diverse range of scholars in the 2012 book Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus.[93][311] Writing in the introduction, "The essays collected in this volume have a modest purpose. Neither establishing the historicity of a historical Jesus nor possessing an adequate warrant for dismissing it, our purpose is to clarify our engagement with critical historical and exegetical methods."[312]
In a 2012 online article, Thompson defended his qualifications to address New Testament issues and he rejected the label of "mythicist" and reiterated his position that the issue of Jesus' existence cannot be determined one way or the other.[27]
Thomas L. Brodie
In 2012, the Irish Dominican priest and theologian Thomas L. Brodie (born 1943), holding a PhD from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a co-founder and former director of the Dominican Biblical Institute in Limerick, published Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. In this book, Brodie, who previously had published academic works on the Hebrew prophets, 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. This view lead Brodie to the conclusion that Jesus is mythical.[313] Brodie's argument builds on his previous work, in which he stated that rather than being separate and fragmented, the stories of Elijah and Elisha are united and that 1 Kings 16:29–2 Kings 13:25 is a natural extension of 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 8 which have a coherence not generally observed by other biblical scholars.[314] Brodie then views the Elijah–Elisha story as the underlying model for the gospel narratives.[314]
In response to Brodie's publication of his view that Jesus was mythical, the Dominican order banned him from writing and lecturing, although he was allowed to stay on as a brother of the Irish Province, which continued to care for him.[315] "There is an unjustifiable jump between methodology and conclusion" in Brodie's book—according to Gerard Norton—and "are not soundly based on scholarship". According to Norton, they are "a memoir of a series of significant moments or events" in Brodie's life that reinforced "his core conviction" that neither Jesus nor Paul of Tarsus were historical.[316]
Richard Carrier
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/RichardCarrierSM.jpg/130px-RichardCarrierSM.jpg)
Atheist activist Richard Carrier (born 1969) reviewed Doherty's work on the origination of Jesus[317] and eventually concluded that the evidence actually favored the core Doherty thesis.[96] According to Carrier, many studies by mainstream scholars have shown that the current consensus of a historical Jesus is based on invalid methods.[318][note 20]
Carrier argues in his book On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt that there is insufficient Bayesian probability, that is evidence, to believe in the existence of Jesus. Furthermore, Carrier argues that the Jesus figure was probably originally known only through private revelations and hidden messages in scripture which were then crafted into a historical figure to communicate the claims of the gospels allegorically. These allegories then started to be believed as fact during the struggle for control of the Christian churches of the first century. He argues that the probability of Jesus' existence is somewhere in the range from 1/3 to 1/12000 depending on the estimates used for the computation.[319]
His methodology was reviewed by Aviezer Tucker, a prior advocate of using Bayesian techniques in history. Tucker expressed some sympathy for Carrier's view of the Gospels, stating: "The problem with the Synoptic Gospels as evidence for a historical Jesus from a Bayesian perspective is that the evidence that coheres does not seem to be independent, whereas the evidence that is independent does not seem to cohere". However, Tucker argued that historians have been able to use theories about the transmission and preservation of information to identify reliable parts of the Gospels. He said that "Carrier is too dismissive of such methods because he is focused on hypotheses about the historical Jesus rather than on the best explanations of the evidence".[320]
Other modern proponents
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/John_Marco_Allegro.jpg/130px-John_Marco_Allegro.jpg)
In his books The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979), the British archaeologist and philologist John M. Allegro advanced the theory that stories of early Christianity originated in a shamanistic Essene clandestine cult centered around the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms.[321][322][323][324] He also argued that the story of Jesus was based on the crucifixion of the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls.[325][326] Allegro's theory was criticised sharply by Welsh historian Philip Jenkins, who wrote that Allegro relied on texts that did not exist in quite the form he was citing them.[327] Based on this and many other negative reactions to the book, Allegro's publisher later apologized for issuing the book and Allegro was forced to resign his academic post.[323][328]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Photo_of_Tom_Harpur_by_Hugh_Wesley.jpg/130px-Photo_of_Tom_Harpur_by_Hugh_Wesley.jpg)
Influenced by Massey and Higgins, Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963) argued an Egyptian etymology to the Bible that the gospels were symbolic rather than historic and that church leaders started to misinterpret the New Testament in the third century.[329] Author and ordained priest Tom Harpur dedicated his 2004 book The Pagan Christ to Kuhn, suggesting that Kuhn has not received the attention he deserves since many of his works were self-published.[330] Building on Kuhn's work, Harpur listed similarities among the stories of Jesus, Horus, Mithras, Buddha and others. According to Harpur, in the second or third centuries the early church created the fictional impression of a literal and historic Jesus and then used forgery and violence to cover up the evidence.[331] Harpur's book received a great deal of criticism, including a response book, Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea.[332] Fellow mythicist Robert M. Price also wrote a negative review, saying that he did not agree that the Egyptian parallels were as forceful as Harpur thought.[333] In 2007, Harpur published a sequel, Water Into Wine.[334]
In his 2017 book Décadence, French writer and philosopher Michel Onfray argued for the Christ myth theory and based his hypothesis on the fact that—other than in the New Testament—Jesus is barely mentioned in accounts of the period.[335]
The Christ myth theory enjoyed brief popularity in the Soviet Union, where it was supported by Sergey Kovalev, Alexander Kazhdan, Abram Ranovich, Nikolai Rumyantsev and Robert Vipper.[336] However, several scholars, including Kazhdan, later retracted their views about mythical Jesus and by the end of the 1980s Iosif Kryvelev remained as virtually the only proponent of Christ myth theory in Soviet academia.[337]
Scholarly reception
In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars.[338][339][340]
Lack of support for mythicism
According to New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, 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.[341]
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", "demonstrably false" and "professional scholars generally regard it as having been settled in serious scholarship long ago".[342]
In his 1977 book Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, classical historian and popular author Michael Grant concluded that "modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory".[343] In support of this, Grant quoted Roderic Dunkerley's 1957 opinion that the Christ myth theory has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars".[344] 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".[345] In the same book, he also wrote:
If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.[185]
Graeme Clarke, Emeritus Professor of Classical Ancient History and Archaeology at Australian National University[346] has stated: "Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ—the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming".[347]
R. Joseph Hoffmann, who had created the Jesus Project, which included both mythicists and historicists to investigate the historicity of Jesus, wrote that an adherent to the Christ myth theory asked to set up a separate section of the project for those committed to the theory. Hoffmann felt that to be committed to mythicism signaled a lack of necessary skepticism and he noted that most members of the project did not reach the mythicist conclusion.[348]
Questioning the competence of proponents
Critics of the Christ myth theory question the competence of its supporters.[307] According to Ehrman:
Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine.[349]
In a response, Thompson questioned the polemical nature of this qualification, pointing at his own academic standing and expertise.[27] According to Thompson, Ehrman "has attributed to my book arguments and principles which I had never presented, certainly not that Jesus had never existed".[27] Thompson questions Ehrman's qualifications in regard to Old Testamentical writings and research, as well as his competence to recognize the problems involved in "reiterated narrative" and "the historicity of a literary figure", stating that Ehrman had "thoroughly [...] misunderstood [...] the very issue of the historicity of the New Testament figure of Jesus".[27]
Maurice Casey has criticized the mythicists, pointing out their complete ignorance of how modern critical scholarship actually works.[350] He also criticizes mythicists for their frequent assumption that all modern scholars of religion are Protestant fundamentalists of the American variety, insisting that this assumption is not only totally inaccurate,[350] but also exemplary of the mythicists' misconceptions about the ideas and attitudes of mainstream scholars.[350]
Questioning the mainstream view appears to have consequences for one's job perspectives.[note 21] According to Casey, Thompson's early work, which "successfully refuted the attempts of Albright and others to defend the historicity of the most ancient parts of biblical literature history", has "negatively affected his future job prospects".[307] Ehrman also notes that mythicist 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.[349]
Popular reception
According to Derek Murphy, the documentaries The God Who Wasn't There (2005) and Zeitgeist (2007) raised interest for the Christ myth theory with a larger audience and gave the topic a large coverage on the Internet.[351] A 2015 survey by the Church of England suggests that 22 percent of people in England do not believe Jesus was a real person.[352] According to Ehrman, mythicism has a growing appeal "because these deniers of Jesus are at the same time denouncers of religion".[353][354] Daniel Gullotta notes the relationship between the organization "Atheists United" and Carrier's work related to Mythicism, which has increased "the attention of the public".[355] Within a few years of the inception of the World Wide Web (c. 1990), mythicists such as Earl Doherty began to present their argument to a larger public via the internet.[356] Doherty created the website The Jesus Puzzle in 1996,[357] while the organization Internet Infidels has featured the works of mythicists on their website[358] and mythicism has been mentioned on several popular news sites.[359] Ehrman notes that "the mythicists have become loud, and thanks to the Internet they've attracted more attention".[360]
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
- Christian
- Bible conspiracy theory
- Christian mythology
- Christology
- Criticism of the Bible
- Criticism of Christianity
- Criticism of Jesus
- Gnosticism
- Historical background of the New Testament
- Historical reliability of the Gospels
- Historicity of the Bible
- Josephus on Jesus
- List of Christ myth theory proponents
- List of messiah claimants
- Origins of Christianity
- Quest for the historical Jesus
- Sources for the historicity of Jesus
- Tacitus on Christ
- Non-Christian
- Flower Sermon
- Myth of Er (Plato)
- Zen Narratives
Notes
The named notes after this sentence contain named references; to prevent errors, they are stored here before the notes-reflist. [note 1] [note 12] [note 3] [note 10] [note 5] [note 8] [note 22]
- ^ a b Per biblical studies, the major subdisciplines include translation, textual criticism, historical criticism, literary criticism, biblical theology, and biblical archaeology.[361]
Per biblical criticism, studies of the Old and New Testaments are often independent of each other, largely due to the difficulty of any single scholar having a sufficient grasp of the many languages required or of the cultural background for the different periods in which texts had their origins.
Cognate disciplines include (but are not limited to) archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, Oral Tradition studies, and historical and religious studies.
- ^ Per the time period AD 26 to 36, Jerusalem was part of Roman Provincia Iudaea or "Greater Judea", which incorporated Samaria and Idumea into an expanded territory. Traditionally spelled Iudaea to distinguish it from the smaller region —Judea proper. Galilee and Perea were not part of Provincia Iudaea at this time, but part of a Herodian Tetrarchy. The traditional usage of the term Palestine originated c. 311 with History of the Martyrs in Palestine by Eusebius, which then was used by subsequent writers.
- ^ a b c Accounts of Jesus:
- James D. G. Dunn (2003): "[these] two facts [of baptism and crucifixion] in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent."[364]
- John Dominic Crossan: "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."[365]
- According to Herzog, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, preached about the coming Kingdom of God, attracted numerous followers including the twelve disciples, and was subsequently crucified by the order of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, which eventually lead to his immediate followers continuing his movement which soon became known as Christianity.[366]
- E. P. Sanders, in "Jesus and Judaism" (1985), says there are eight facts that can be discerned about the historical Jesus: his Baptism, that he was a Galilean itinerant preacher who was reputed to do healings and other 'miracles', he called disciples and spoke of there being 12, that he confined his activity to Israel, that he engaged in controversy over the Temple, that he was crucified outside of Jerusalem by the Romans, that those disciples continued as a movement after his death. In his 1993 work, "The Historical figure of Jesus" he added six more: that Jesus was likely born in 4-6 BC under Herod the Great (the Gregorian calendar is wrong), Jesus grew up in Nazareth, Jesus taught in small villages and towns and seemed to avoid cities, Jesus ate a final meal with his disciples, he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities apparently at the instigation of the high priest, his disciples abandoned him at his death, later believed they saw him and thereafter believed Jesus would return.
- ^ Heresy has been a concern in Christian communities at least since the writing of the Second Epistle of Peter: "[E]ven as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them" (2 Peter 2:1–AV). Traditionally, orthodoxy is deemed as the authentic lineage of tradition, while other forms of Christianity were viewed as deviant streams of thought and therefore "heterodox" or heretical.
- ^ a b A modern positive argument vis-à-vis the negative argument from silence, is the argument to the best explanation. As per the argument of Doherty and Carrier, derived from a sceptical analysis of the Pauline epistles, which reveals peculiarities that they claim are better understood in context with the supreme angel of Philo, already extant in Jewish angelology (Confusion of Tongues 62f, 146f; On Dreams 1.215; etc.), whose theological attributes correspond to the attributes of the Celestial Jesus of Paul (Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 4:4; 1 Cor 8:6; Heb 2:17, 4:14, etc.) thus being the same angel of Philo. And that furthermore, in early Christian belief this same angel deviates from Philo's account, per Phil 2:5–11; 1 Cor 15 with an incarnation, death, burial and resurrection taking place just below the moon (cf. the same, per the death and resurrection of Osiris), which identifies Christianity as distinct from Judaism.[369]
Carrier (2014b): "Osiris descends and becomes incarnate and is slain not on earth, but in the lower heavens, and then rises from the dead and reascends to power in the upper heavens [...] Adam was in some accounts buried in the heavens (as in chapter 40 of the Greek text of the Life of Adam and Eve), so possibly was Jesus imagined to have been. The incarnation, in a body of Davidic flesh, still would have been imagined as necessary to fulfill scripture. But as depicted in the Ascension of Isaiah, this would have happened in “the sky.”"[363] - ^ The central Christology of Paul conveys the notion of Christ's pre-existence and the identification of Christ as Kyrios. The Pauline epistles use Kyrios to identify Jesus almost 230 times, and express the theme that the true mark of a Christian is the confession of Jesus as the true Lord. Paul viewed the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other divine manifestations as a consequence of the fact that Christ is the Son of God. The Pauline epistles also advanced the "cosmic Christology" later developed in the fourth gospel, elaborating the cosmic implications of Jesus' existence as the Son of God (see Christology §Apostolic Christology). Some scholars see Paul's writings as an amplification and explanation of the teachings of Jesus. Other scholars perceive that some teachings of Jesus in Paul's writings are different from the teachings found in the canonical gospels (see Pauline Christianity). In a similar fashion, per Paul’s usage of the term Khristós, some scholars see this as an example of Messiah language in ancient Judaism (Novenson, 2012), while others contend that Paul’s usage of the term Khristós is idiosyncratic (see Messiah in Judaism).
- ^ a b Per the authorship of the fourteen books in the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, seven are generally undisputed as authentic (see Authorship of the Pauline epistles):
- ^ a b Philo selected some of the philosophical tenets of the Greco-Roman world to fuse and harmonize with his exegesis of the Septuagint. Especially the Stoic doctrine of God as the only "efficient cause" (see Philo's view of God) as well as the general ethics and use of allegories found in Stoicism. His exegesis of the Septuagint is based upon the assumption that it contains a literal meaning for the un-initiated and an allegorical truth i.e. the "real" meaning that only the initiated could comprehend.[370]
- ^ The concept of the "Mythic Hero" as an archetype was first developed by Lord Raglan in 1936. It is a set of 22 common traits that he said were shared by many heroes in various cultures, myths and religions throughout history and around the world. Raglan argued that the higher the score, the more likely the figure's biography is mythical. Raglan did not categorically deny the historicity of the Heroes he looked at, rather it was their common biographies he considered as nonhistorical (see Rank-Raglan mythotype).
- ^ a b Per Bart Ehrman, in regards to the historical reality of Christian tradition, most critical scholars assert that "there are forty to sixty-five years separating Jesus’s death and our earliest accounts of his life."[367] In this 40 to 65 year time period, Jesus traditions (i.e. the practices, beliefs, and biographical details of Jesus) were transmitted via word of mouth (see Oral gospel traditions) or hypothetical written sources (see Q source) —by early Christian tradents (see Sacred tradition).[368]
- ^ Per Anthropomorphism, Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts e.g. the personification of wisdom and Greek personified concepts such as: Arete—virtue, excellence, goodness, and valour; Techne—art and skill; etc.
- ^ a b Many mythologies of the Greco-Roman era and region feature myths of a god who dies and returns to life (see Dying-and-rising god). Richard Carrier gives the following as germane examples that were extant prior to the origin of Christianity: Osiris, Adonis, Romulus, Zalmoxis, Inanna. And notes that Mithras is not a dying-and-rising god, but like those gods, Mithras is associated with a suffering or struggle that results in a triumphant victory over death.[362]
Carrier (2014b): "Jesus belongs to a fraternity of worshipped demigods peculiar to the Greco-Roman era and region. All were “savior gods” (literally so called). They were all the “son” of God (occasionally his “daughter”). They all undergo a “passion” (literally the same word in the Greek, patheôn), which was some suffering or struggle (sometimes even resulting in death), through which they all obtain victory over death, which they share in some fashion with their followers. They all had stories about them set in human history on earth. Yet none of them ever actually existed."[363] - ^ Some have even identified the historical and archetypal Jesuses[168] or citing Carl Jung's statement "this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus."[167]
- ^ 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.[171] 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.[172] 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 AD, Attis a century later), and are often only known through later Christian sources. Most other and later parallels were made in the works of James George Frazer,[171] or may be guilty of parallelomania[173] and even misrepresentation of religious (both Christian and non-Christian) and linguistic sources[171][174] (for example, ignoring the false cognate relationship between Christ and Krishna).[174]
- ^ One reason why Christ mythicists suspect forgery is because the passage previous to the Testimonium Flavianum concerns Pontius Pilate setting his soldiers loose to massacre a large crowd of Jews in Jerusalem and—without the Testimonium Flavianum—the following paragraph starts by saying: "About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder". They deem this suspicious as Josephus supposedly just wrote about Jesus being "the Christ" and the rise of "the tribe of Christians", seeing this as not fitting in the context.
Other reasons include the passage not being something a devout Jew such as Josephus would write (especially, "if it be lawful to call him a man" and "doer of incredible deeds"), as his writing was usually sophisticated and would have explained anything out of the ordinary to his Gentile audience, such as explaining what the word "Christ" means, why Jesus was called that and further explanations such as how he won over many Jews and Greeks, as he did for every other group (see book 18, chapter 1), or why he would mention Jesus "appearing" in the "third day"—a Christian creed—without explaining it[195] and how no one seemed to notice this passage until the 4th century, not even Origen who quotes Josephus extensively in his works,[196] thus leading mythicists to think that the Testimonium Flavianum is a forgery of the 4th century, perhaps written by Eusebius[197] in order to provide an outside Jewish authority for the life of Jesus.[198][199] - ^ Josephus mentions several people named Jesus (Jesus son of Ananias, Jesus son of Damneus, Jesus son of Onias and Jesus the brother of John) as well as various prophets, being avidly against calling any of them Messiahs, even describing them as "having evil or dishonorable intentions" and sometimes calling them "charlatans" (the Egyptian, the Samaritan, Theudas and an unnamed "impostor"), but providing for each more information and explanations than the Jesus passage.
- ^ More specifically, from Jesus son of Damneus, who is mentioned at the end of book 20, chapter 9:1).[204]
- ^ The Jews get angry at this, therefore complaints and demands are made, the king removes Ananus from being high priest and Jesus is then made high priest.[205]
- ^ His subsequential study of the topic was published as The Jesus Puzzle in a series of articles in the Humanist (1995–1996)[48] and as a book (1999), and republished as Jesus: Neither God nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus (2009).
- ^ For example:
* Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne (eds.), Jesus, History and the Demise of Authenticity (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2012)
* Dale Allison, 'The Historians' Jesus and the Church', in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage (ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Richard Hays; Grand Rapids, Ml: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 79–95
* Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst. NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), pp. 185–217
* Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Louisville. KY: John Knox Press, 2002)
* Stanley Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000 - ^ See Thomas Verenna, Goodbye for now?
- ^ Stark:[371]
- While others fled cities, Christians stayed in urban areas during plague, ministering and caring for the sick.
- Christian populations grew faster because of the prohibition of abortion, birth control and infanticide. Since infanticide tended to affect female newborn more frequently, early Christians had a more even sex ratio and therefore a higher percentage of childbearing women than pagans.
- To the same effect, women were valued higher and allowed to participate in worship leading to a high rate of female converts.
- In a time of two epidemics (165 and 251) which killed up to a third of the whole population of the Roman Empire each time, the Christian message of redemption through sacrifice offered a more satisfactory explanation of why bad things happen to innocent people. Further, the tighter social cohesion and mutual help made them able to better cope with the disasters, leaving them with less casualties than the general population. This would also be attractive to outsiders, who would want to convert. Lastly, the epidemics left many non-Christians with a reduced number of interpersonal bonds, making the forming of new one both necessary and easier.
- Christians did not fight against their persecutors by open violence or guerrilla warfare, but willingly went to their martyrdom while praying for their captors, which added credibility to their evangelism.
Quotes
The named quotes after this sentence contain named references; to prevent errors, they are stored here before the quotes-reflist. [quote 10]
- ^ a b c Couchoud, Paul-Louis ap. Goguel (1926), p. 23, §. Nonhistorical TheoriesTemplate:Strloc insert [First published: Couchoud (1924), p. 339.]
- ^ a b c Carrier (2014a), p. 52Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Bokenkotter, A Concise History of the Catholic Church (2004), p. 18, quote: "The story of how this tiny community of believers spread to many cities of the Roman Empire within less than a century is indeed a remarkable chapter in the history of humanity."
- ^ Arnal, William E. (2015). The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity. Routledge. pp. 75ff. ISBN 978-1-317-32440-9.
Whether Jesus himself existed as a historical figure or not, the gospels that tell of him are unquestionably mythic texts. ...Investigations into the historical Jesus require, by contrast, that the gospels be used as historical sources, and in fact the main difference between "conservative" and "liberal" scholarship revolves around how much legendary accretion is stripped away in order to arrive at the "historical core,"...
- ^ Ehrman (2012), pp. 19, 348, n. 10 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "Other writers who are often placed in the mythicist camp present a slightly different view, namely, that there was indeed a historical Jesus but that he was not the founder of Christianity, a religion rooted in the mythical Christ-figure invented by its original adherents. This view was represented in midcentury by Archibald Robinson, who thought that even though there was a Jesus, “we know next to nothing about this Jesus.” (A. Robertson, Jesus: Myth or History?, 107.) [Robertson, Archibald. Jesus: Myth or History? London: Watts & Co., 1946.]"
- Smith, p. 87 : "The writing of biographies of Jesus is of doubtful critical value. Legend has coloured the historic data too much, and outside corroborative testimony is too slender..."
- Robertson (1946), p. 107 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRobertson1946 (help): "We know next to nothing about this Jesus. He is not the founder of anything that we can recognize as Christianity. He is a mere postulate of historical criticism—a dead leader of a lost cause, to whom sayings could be credited and round whom a legend could be written."}}
- McCabe (1948): "Many (including the present writer) are content to infer broadly, from the scanty reliable evidence and the religious developments of the first century, that probably some Jew named Jesus adopted the Persian belief [see Avesta] in the end of the world and, thinking that it was near, left his Essenian monastery [see Essenes] to warn his fellows, and was put to death. They feel that the question of historicity has little importance [...] the very scanty biographical details even as given in the Gospels [see Mark] do not justify the claim of a "unique personality,"...}}}}
- ^ Hector Avalos, (June 7, 2014), A Historical or Mythical Jesus? An Agnostic Viewpoint. Lecture given at the University of Arizona. "There are three possible positions when it comes to Jesus. You can be a ‘historicist,’ you can be a ‘mythicist,’ or you can be an ‘agnostic’. . . An agnostic says: “Well, the data are insufficient to settle the question one way or the other.” That’s where I am."
- ^ Bethune, Brian (March 23, 2016). "Did Jesus really exist?". Macleans.ca. No. Macleans March 28, 2016. Rogers Media.
[Richard Carrier notes that per corroborating the New Testament account of Jesus] for a century there are no other Christian witnesses; perhaps more inexplicably, no pagan witnesses (whose references to Jesus would have been mentioned by later Christians, either to celebrate or [to] refute).
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- ^ Bromiley (1982), p. 1034Template:Strloc insert
- Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 30 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 42Template:Strloc insert
- Ehrman (2012), p. 349, n. 20 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)Template:Strloc insert}}
- ^ Avalos, Hector (March 2, 2013). "Who was the historical Jesus?". Ames Tribune. GateHouse Media. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
[Hector Avalos, professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University] My own opinion, as an academic biblical scholar, is that there is not enough evidence to settle the question one way or the other. I am an agnostic about the existence of the historical Jesus. A main problem continues to be the lack of documentation from the time of Jesus to establish his existence definitively. Jesus is supposed to have lived around the year 30. But there is no mention of him anywhere in any actual document from his own time or from the entire first century.
- ^ a b Carrier: "The hypothesis that Jesus never really existed has started to gain more credibility in the expert community. Some now agree historicity agnosticism is warranted, including Arthur Droge (professor of early Christianity at UCSD), Kurt Noll (associate professor of religion at Brandon University), and Thomas Thompson (renowned professor of theology, emeritus, at the University of Copenhagen). Others are even more certain historicity is doubtful, including Thomas Brodie (director emeritus of the Dominican Biblical Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland), Robert Price (who has two Ph.D.’s from Drew University, in theology and New Testament studies), and myself (I have a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University and have several peer reviewed articles on the subject). Still others, like Philip Davies (professor of biblical studies, emeritus, at the University of Sheffield), disagree with the hypothesis but admit it is respectable enough to deserve consideration."[372]
References
- ^ Casey (2014) sfnp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)
- ^ Lataster (2015a)
- ^ Doherty (2009), pp. vii–viiiTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Lataster (2016) sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLataster2016 (help)
- ^ Ehrman (2012), pp. 12, 347, n. 1 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Stanton (2002), pp. 143ff.
- ^ Ehrman (2012) sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)
- ^ Dunn, James D. G. (July 29, 2003). "Jesus the Founder of Christianity". Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 174ff. ISBN 978-0-8028-3931-2.
If the starting assumption of a fair degree of continuity between Jesus and his native religion has a priori persuasiveness, then it can hardly make less sense to assume a fair degree of continuity between Jesus and what followed. ...the first followers of Jesus were known as 'Nazarenes' (Acts 24.5), which can be explained only by the fact that they saw themselves and were seen as followers of 'Jesus the Nazarene'; and then as 'Christians' (Acts 11.26), which again must be because they were known to be followers of the one they called the 'Christ'. Moreover, Jesus is explicitly referred to once or twice in the early tradition as the 'foundation' (themelion), which Paul laid (including Jesus tradition?), and on which the Corinthians were to build their discipleship (1 Cor. 3.10–14); or as the 'corner stone' (akrogōniaios) which began the building and established its orientation (Eph. 2.20; 1 Pet. 2.6).
- ^ Miller, Robert J. (January 26, 2017). Helping Jesus Fulfill Prophecy. Lutterworth Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-7188-4477-6.
Paul, whose letters are the earliest available writings about Jesus, wrote that Christ died for sins "according to the scriptures," and was raised on the third day "according to the scriptures." In expressing these beliefs Paul insisted that he was merely repeating what he had been told by those who were believers before him (1 Cor 15:3–4).
Carrier, Richard (August 11, 2016). "Dating the Corinthian Creed". Richard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved May 2, 2017.[The Corinthian creed prologue (1 Cor 15:3–4) etc.] distinguishes Christianity from any other sect of Judaism. So it's the only thing Peter (Cephas) and the other pillars (James and John) could have been preaching before Paul joined the religion. And Paul joined it within years of its founding (internal evidence in Paul's letters places his conversion before 37 AD, and he attests in Galatians 1 that he was preaching the Corinthian creed immediately thereupon: OHJ, pp. 139, 516, 536, 558).
- ^ Pagels, Elaine H. (1975). The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters. Fortress Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-8006-0403-5.
Whoever knows contemporary New Testament scholarship knows Paul as the opponent of gnostic heresy. [...] Yet if this view of Paul is accurate, the Pauline exegesis of second-century gnostics is nothing less than astonishing. Gnostic writers not only fail to grasp the whole point of Paul's writings, but they dare to claim his letters as a primary source of gnostic theology.
Pagels, Elaine H. (1979). "Conclusion". The Gnostic Gospels. Random House. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-394-50278-6.If we go back to the earliest known sources of Christian tradition—the sayings of Jesus (although scholars disagree on the question of which sayings are genuinely authentic), we can see how both gnostic and orthodox forms of Christianity could emerge as variant interpretations of the teaching and significance of Christ.
- Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. pp. 125, 225. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1.
[Most Gnostics claimed] that Christ was a divine emissary from above, totally spirit, and that he entered the man Jesus temporarily [...] Gnostics were saying that Jesus literally died "apart from God," in that the divine element within him had left him.
- Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. pp. 125, 225. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1.
- ^ Ehrman, Bart (September 28, 2015). "Early Christian Docetism". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
From the surviving documents of the period, there appear to have been five major competing Christologies (= understandings of who Christ was) throughout the Christian church [...] [Docetism] understood Christ to be a fully divine being and therefore not human; Adoptionism understood him to be a fully human being and not actually divine; Separationism understood him to be two distinct beings, one human (the man Jesus) and the other divine (the divine Christ); Modalism understood him to be God the Father become flesh. The fifth view is the one the "won out," the Proto-orthodox view...
- ^ Ehrman, Bart (2012). Did Jesus Exist?:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8.
- ^ The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, 1989 ISBN 0192132415 Oxford University Press, p. 145
- ^ Powell 1998, p. 168.
- ^ Dickson, John. "Best of 2012: The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus". Abc.net.au. Retrieved June 17, 2014.
- ^ Ehrman 1999, p. 248.
- ^ a b Ehrman 2011, p. 285.
- ^ a b Ehrman 1999, p. 210.
- ^ a b Crossan 1995, p. 145.
- ^ B. Ehrman, Forged : writing in the name of God, Harper 2011 ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. p. 285
- ^ Michael Grant (a classicist) states 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." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200
- ^ The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria by Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, Westminster John Knox Press 2002 ISBN 0664225373 page 5
- ^ "Historical Jesus, Quest of the." Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. p. 775
- ^ Lataster, Raphael (December 18, 2014). "Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn't add up". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
- ^ Doherty (2009), pp. vii–viiiTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Price (2003), pp. 31, 41ff, n. 14, §. Sources – Spotlight on the EvangelistsPrice (2005), p. 534, §. Introduction
- ^ a b c d e f g Thompson (2012a)
- ^ Mack, Burton L. (1988). "The Congregations of the Christ". A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins. Fortress Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-8006-2549-8.
Paul was converted to a Hellenized form of some Jesus movement that had already developed into a Christ cult. [...] Thus his letters serve as documentation for the Christ cult as well.
- ^ Price (2000), pp. 88, 92, 94, n. 17, §. The Christ CultsTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 93 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insertEddy & Boyd (2007), p. 136 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b c Price (2003), pp. 351–355, §. Conclusion: The Name of the Lord – The Name Above All Names
- ^ a b Van Voorst (2003), p. 660Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Wells (2009), p. 327fTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Price, Robert M. "The Quest of the Mythical Jesus". Jesus Project. Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. Archived from the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
There may once have been an historical Jesus, but for us there is one no longer. If he existed, he is forever lost behind the stained glass curtain of holy myth. At least that's the current state of the evidence as I see it. [The Quest of the Mythical Jesus first appeared on the Robert M. Price Myspace page.]
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suggested) (help) - ^ Carrier (2014a), p. 34. Carrier posits three criteria for his minimal historical Jesus:
- "An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death."
- "This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities."
- "This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping as a living god (or demigod)."
- ^ Ellegård, Alvar (2008). "Theologians as historians". Scandia: Tidskrift för historisk forskning (59): 170–171.
It is fair to say that most present-day theologians also accept that large parts of the Gospel stories are, if not fictional, at least not to be taken at face value as historical accounts. On the other hand, no theologian seems to be able to bring himself to admit that the question of the historicity of Jesus must be judged to be an open one. It appears to me that the theologians are not living up to their responsibility as scholars when they refuse to discuss the possibility that even the existence of the Jesus of the Gospels can be legitimately called into question.
- ^ Pfoh (2012), pp. 80fTemplate:Strloc insert
- Casey (2014), p. 23, §. Pfoh, Emanuel harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Thompson (2005), p. 8, §. Historicizing the Figure of Jesus, the MessiahTemplate:Strloc insert
- Lataster (2014), pp. 26ff, §. Conclusion harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLataster2014 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Carrier (2012), p. 11 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2012 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Price (2009), p. 61, §. Methodological Presuppositions harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Carrier (2012), p. 21 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2012 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Carrier, Richard (October 7, 2016). "History as a Science". Richard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
[Per the 1970 David Hackett Fischer] survey of the alarming frequency with which all fields of history engage in fallacious reasoning. [...] Historians need to develop, apply, advocate, and enforce an explicit methodology that conforms to proper canons of logic. [...] even attempts to articulate a method are rare in history as a whole. Usually one isn't even stated. And BTW [by the way], when, as phenomenally rare as it is, historians actually do try to articulate a method by legitimate logic, they tend to be ignored, and their methodological arguments are certainly never taught to historians in graduate schools.
- ^ Joseph, Simon J. (March 12, 2015). "The Mythical Jesus – An SBL Regional Report". Simon J. Joseph: History, Religion, and Biblical Studies. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
[Richard Carrier calls] for a fundamental paradigm shift in Jesus Research and historical methodology...
- ^ Ehrman (2012), p. 4 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Thompson (2012a), §. Comment #4Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Dykstra, Tom (2015). "Ehrman and Brodie on Whether Jesus Existed: A Cautionary Tale about the State of Biblical Scholarship". The Journal of the Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical Studies (JOCABS). 8:1: 29.
As for the question of whether Jesus existed, the best answer is that any attempt to find a historical Jesus is a waste of time. It can't be done, it explains nothing, and it proves nothing.
- ^ Davies, Philip (August 2012). "Did Jesus Exist?". www.bibleinterp.com. The Bible and Interpretation. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
The rather fragile historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth should be tested to see what weight it can bear [...] I don't think, however, that in another 20 years there will be a consensus that Jesus did not exist [the "Jesus atheism" viewpoint], or even possibly didn't exist [the "Jesus agnosticism" viewpoint], but a recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Doherty 1995a.
- ^ a b c d e Wells (2009), p. 15Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Doherty 1995d.
- ^ Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus, p. 86
- ^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 165 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Ehrman (2012), p. 34 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Carrier (2002), §. The Argument to the Best ExplanationTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Lataster (2015a), p. 70, §. Critiquing the EpistlesTemplate:Strloc insert
- Price (2009), p. 63, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Price (2006), pp. 66f harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2006 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Evans, Craig A. (2008). Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. InterVarsity Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-8308-3355-9.
[R. M.] Price thinks the evidence is so weak for the historical Jesus that we cannot know anything certain or meaningful about him. He is even willing to entertain the possibility that there never was a historical Jesus.
- ^ Price (2011), pp. 36, 56, n. 38, §. Jesus at the Vanishing Point – Son of Scripture harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)Template:Strloc insertDoherty (1999a), §. Was There No Historical Jesus?Template:Strloc insert
- Doherty (1997), §. Piece No. 8: The Gospels Not History harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoherty1997 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 33 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Lataster (2016), p. 191 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLataster2016 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ G. A. Wells ap. Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 203, §. Paul’s Lack of Historical Information harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 202 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Wells (1999a), pp. 94–111, §. Conclusion: The Origins and Development of Christology
- ^ Carrier (2014a), p. 53Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b c Price (2003), p. 350Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Couchoud (1939), p. 33, §. Elements of ChristianityTemplate:Strloc insert
- Price (2009), p. 64, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Carrier (2014b)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 13Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Thompson (2005), p. 3, §. Historicizing the Figure of Jesus, the MessiahTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Lataster (2014), p. 19, §. Raphael Lataster’s Jesus Agnosticism harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLataster2014 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 314ff, n. 23 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b c Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 137f harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b c d e f Van Voorst (2000), p. 9Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Doherty 1995c.
- ^ Price (2000), pp. 86, 88, 91, §. The Christ Cults – The Kyrios Christos CultTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 69, n. 120Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 9Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 32 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Van Voorst (2000), p. 13Template:Strloc insert
- Wells, George A. (August 12, 2011). "Is There Independent Confirmation of What the Gospels Say of Jesus?". Free Inquiry. Vol. 31, no. 5.
- Wells, George A. (May 24, 2012). "Ehrman on the Historicity of Jesus and Early Christian Thinking". Free Inquiry. Vol. 32, no. 4.
Ehrman acknowledges that pagan and Jewish testimony is too late to establish that Jesus lived [...] [But per Tacitus and Josephus] Ehrman seems a little reluctant to surrender these two witnesses altogether, for he reverts to them (97), saying that 'Tacitus and (possibly) Josephus... indirectly provide independent attestation to Jesus's existence from outside the gospels,' for they 'heard information' about him from informants who 'themselves had heard stories about him' from Christians who may in turn 'have simply heard stories about him.' Of course there were umpteen stories about him current by the late first and early second centuries; but what they attest to is not Jesus's existence but rather to belief in his existence.
- ^ a b Lataster (2015a), p. 75, §. Critiquing the Canonical GospelsTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Price (2010), p. 103, n. 5Template:Strloc insertPrice (2002), §. Suitors and SeducersTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Lataster (2016), pp. 182, 184, §. Ehrman on Angelic/Angelomorphic Christology harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLataster2016 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- Carrier, Richard (February 13, 2016). "Can Paul's Human Jesus Not Be a Celestial Jesus?". Richard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
[Per the Logos] Philo in fact says this "heavenly man" is the first created being and viceroy of God, the "image" of God, God's "firstborn son," high priest of God's celestial temple, the supreme archangel, whom God tasked with the rest of creation, and who governs the universe on God's behalf. Philo says this Being is the Logos. [...] Bart Ehrman "also now agrees that Philo attests a Jewish theology in which the Logos is the firstborn Son of God and the eternal Image of God, the same being Jesus was identified with" in Paul (cf. How Jesus Became God, p. 75).
- Carrier, Richard (February 13, 2016). "Can Paul's Human Jesus Not Be a Celestial Jesus?". Richard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
- ^ Doherty (2009), pp. 16, 717, n. 18Template:Strloc insertDoherty (1996), §. Apollos of AlexandriaTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Price (2000), pp. 79ff, 83, §. The Christ Cults – The Gnostic Christ CultTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Wells (1999a), p. 97, §. Conclusion: The Origins and Development of ChristologyTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 365, n. 3 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- Lataster (2015a), p. 91, §. ConclusionTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Price (2000), p. 17Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Lataster, Raphael (March 29, 2016). "It's Official: We Can Now Doubt Jesus' Historical Existence". Think. 15 (43): 65–79. doi:10.1017/s1477175616000117.
Think, Volume 15, Issue 43, Summer 2016, Published online by Cambridge University Press
- ^ Robertson, Archibald (1946). Jesus: Myth or History?. Thinker's Library, No. 110. London: Watts & Co. pp. 99ff.
The myth theory as stated by J. M. Robertson does not exclude the possibility of an historical Jesus. "A teacher or teachers named Jesus" may have uttered some of the Gospel sayings "at various periods." (J. M. Robertson [1910], Christianity and Mythology, revised edition, p. 125.) The Jesus ben-Pandera of the Talmud may have led a movement round which the survivals of an ancient solar or other cult gradually clustered. [Robertson (1910) 284ff.] It is even "not very unlikely that there were several Jesuses who claimed to be Messiahs." [Robertson (1910) 287.]
- Robertson, John MacKinnon (1910). Christianity and Mythology. Watts & Co. p. 125.
All that can rationally be claimed is that a teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs, may have Messianically uttered some of these teachings at various periods, presumably after the writing of the Pauline epistles.
- Robertson, John MacKinnon (1910). Christianity and Mythology. Watts & Co. p. 125.
- ^ Price (1999)
- ^ a b Thompson & Verenna (2012) sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFThompsonVerenna2012 (help)
- ^ Price (2009), p. 65, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)Template:Strloc insertPrice (2011), pp. 387f, §. The “Pre-Christian Jesus” Revisited harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 137 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEddyBoyd2007 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Lataster (2014b)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ a b Edward Adams in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001 ISBN 0521796784 pp. 94–96.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b c Can We Trust the New Testament? by George Albert Wells 2003 ISBN 0812695674 pp. 49–50
- ^ Detering, Hermann (1996). "The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles". Journal of Higher Criticism. 3 (2): 163–193. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
- ^ Martin, Michael. The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press, 1993, p. 38.
- ^ Wells, GA (September 1999). "Earliest Christianity". New Humanist. 114 (3): 13–18. Retrieved January 11, 2007.
- ^ Wells, G. A. The Jesus Myth. Open Court, 1999.
- ^ Price, Richard M. (2012). The Amazing Colossal Apostle. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. p. viii. ISBN 978-1-56085-216-2.
- ^ Ludemann, Gerd (2002). Paul: The Founder of Christianity. Prometheus Books, Publishers. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-61592-367-0.
A reconstruction of the chronology of Paul must begin with an analysis of Gal. 1:6–2:10. the central pillar of every chronology of Paul.
- ^ Price, Robert M. (2012). "Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?". In Thomas L. Thompson, Thomas S. Verenna (ed.). "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Equinox. pp. 95ff. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3.
- ^ Price, Robert M. (2011). "Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?". The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems. American Atheist Press. pp. 353ff. ISBN 978-1-57884-017-5.
- ^ Price, Richard M. (2012). The Amazing Colossal Apostle. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. pp. 360–361, 415, 426, 491. ISBN 978-1-56085-216-2.
- ^ Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus (Kindle ed.). Sheffield Phoenix Press. p. location 34725. ISBN 978-1-909697-70-6.
- ^ Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus. Sheffield Phoenix Press. Chapter 4 and Chapter 11.
- ^ Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, p. 570.
- ^ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
New Testament scholars agree that Paul has relatively little to say about the life and ministry of Jesus, most grant that Paul viewed Jesus as a recent contemporary.
- ^ Stout 2011, p. 64.
- ^ a b Christopher M. Tuckett In The Cambridge Companion to Jesus edited by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001 ISBN 0521796784 pp. 122–126
- ^ a b Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making by James D. G. Dunn (2003) ISBN 0802839312 p. 143
- ^ a b Jesus Christ in History and Scripture by Edgar V. McKnight 1999 ISBN 0865546770 p. 38
- ^ Victor Furnish in Paul and Jesus edited by Alexander J. M. Wedderburn 2004 (Academic Paperback) ISBN 0567083969 pp. 43–44
- ^ Hengel, Martin. The four Gospels and the one Gospel of Jesus Christ: an investigation of the collection and origin of the Canonical Gospels. ISBN 978-1-5633-8300-7.
- ^ Barnett, Paul (2009). Finding the Historical Christ (After Jesus). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-4890-1.
- ^ Paul's Letter to the Romans by Colin G. Kruse (2012) ISBN 0802837433 pp. 41–42.
- ^ a b The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament edited by David E. Aune 2010 ISBN 1405108258 p. 424.
- ^ a b Worship in the Early Church by Ralph P. Martin 1975 ISBN 0802816134 pp. 57–58
- ^ a b Creeds of the Churches, Third Edition by John H. Leith (1982) ISBN 0804205264 p. 12.
- ^ Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Volume 1 by James D. G. Dunn (2003) ISBN 0802839312 pp. 142–143.
- ^ Gullotta (2017), p. 338, §. James, the Brother of the LordTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
- ^ Gregory A. Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy Lord or Legend? Grand Rapids: Baker Books 2007 pp. 45–47.
- ^ Gullotta (2017), pp. 330–331, §. Paul on Jesus’ Birth and HumanityTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ Jesus according to Paul by Victor Paul Furnish 1994 ISBN 0521458242 pp. 19–20
- ^ Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times by Paul Barnett 2002 ISBN 0830826998 pp. 95–96
- ^ a b Reddish 2011, pp. 73–74, 144.
- ^ Baggett 2008, p. 7.
- ^ Bauckham 2017.
- ^ Richard Carrier. "The Formation of the New Testament Canon". www.academia.edu. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
- ^ Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 433
- ^ Stanton, G. H. (2004). Jesus and Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 192.
- ^ Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 437
- ^ Talbert, C. H. (1977). What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
- ^ Wills, L. M. (1997). The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. London: Routledge. p. 10.
- ^ Burridge, R. A. (2004). What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography. rev. updated edn. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans.
- ^ Bultmann, R. (1921). Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.
- ^ Bultmann, Rudolf (1926). Jesus. Die Unsterblichen: Die geistigen Heroen der Menschheit in ihrem Leben und Wirken [The Immortals: The Spiritual Heroes of Humankind in Their Lives and Actions] (in German). Vol. 1. Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek. p. 10.
[W]ir vom Leben und von der Persönlichkeit Jesu so gut wie nichts mehr wissen können, da die christlichen Quellen sich dafür nicht interessiert haben, außerdem sehr fragmentarisch und von der Legende überwuchert sind, und da andere Quellen über Jesus nicht existieren.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)Bultmann, Rudolf (1934). Jesus and the Word. trans. Jesus (1926) by Louise Pettibone Smith and Erminie Huntress Lantero. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 8.[W]e can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary; and other sources about Jesus do not exist.
- ^ a b Price, Robert (2009). "Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars, reviewed by Robert M. Price". Retrieved November 19, 2016.
Reading the prescient Bruno Bauer one has the eerie feeling that a century of New Testament scholarship may find itself ending up where it began. For instance, the work of Burton Mack, Vernon Robbins, and others makes a powerful case for understanding the gospels as Cynic–Stoic in tone.... Robert M. Fowler, Frank Kermode, and Randel Helms have demonstrated how thoroughly the gospels smack of fictional composition. Thus, from many directions, New Testament researchers seem to be converging uncannily on the theses that Bruno Bauer set forth over a century ago.
- ^ e.g. Vines, M. E. (2002). The Problem of the Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. pp. 161–162.
- ^ a b Dawkins, 2006, p. 97
- ^ Thomas L. Brodie. Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012 ISBN 978-1907534584
- ^ Price 2011, p. 381. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)
- ^ Price 2003, p. 347.
- ^ *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, 1999.
- The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament, by Edmund P. Clowney, Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5.
[Bruno Bauer] denied the value of the New Testament, especially the Gospels and Paul's letters, in establishing the existence of Jesus.
- ^ a b Wells 1999. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWells1999 (help)
- ^ a b c Doherty 1997. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoherty1997 (help)
- ^ a b c Doherty 2009.
- ^ Carrier, Richard. "So...if Jesus Didn't Exist, Where Did He Come from Then?" (PDF). www.richardcarrier.info. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
The Official Website of Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
- ^ Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, pp. 200–205.
- Jesus being a preexisting archangel: Phil. 2:5–11
- Jesus was as an angel: Gal. 4:14
- Jesus knew Moses: 1 Cor. 10:4
- ^ Garrett, Susan R. (2008). No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus. Yale University Press. p. 238. ISBN 978-0-300-14095-8.
By the late Second Temple era, the various traditions about angels and about personified divine attributes had coalesced for some Jews into the figure of a chief heavenly mediator. This figure is depicted by the author of Daniel as "one like a son of man," by the author Philo as "the divine logos," and by other writers in still other ways.
- ^ Gieschen, Charles A. (1998). Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence. Brillisbn=90-04-10840-8. p. 316, n. 6.
Although Paul does not overtly label Christ as "the Angel of the Lord" in any of his letters, Paul does identify Christ as "the Power", "Wisdom", "the Heavenly Man", and especially as "the Glory", all of which have angelomorphic roots closely linked with the Angel of the Lord; see Quispel, "Ezekiel 1.28 in Jewish Mysticism", 7–13. Segal, Paul the Convert, 35–71. and Newman, Paul's Glory-Christology, 241–247.
- ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (June 7, 2014). "Christ as an Angel in Paul". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
I did indeed find [C. A.] Gieschen's argument that Paul understood Jesus as an angel prior to becoming human extremely provocative and convincing. His arguments are supported and advanced in a very interesting discussion of Susan R. Garrett in her book. No Ordinary Angel.
- ^ Barker, Margaret (1992). The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God. pp. 190–233. ISBN 0-664-25395-4.
Several writers of the first three Christian centuries show by their descriptions of the First and Second persons of the Trinity whence they derived these beliefs. El Elyon had become for them God the Father and Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, the Son, had been identified with Jesus.
- ^ Ehrman 2012, p. 349, n. 20. sfn error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)
- ^ Schäfer, Peter (2011). The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Princeton University Press. p. 159. ISBN 0-691-14215-7.
It is more than likely that Philo knew the postbiblical Wisdom literature, in particular the Wisdom of Solomon. and was influenced by it. The obvious identification of Logos and Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon is a case in point. Wisdom (Greek sophia) plays a prominent role in Philo as well and is yet another power among the divine powers that acts as an agent of creation. Whereas the Logos, as we have seen, is responsible for the intelligible world, Wisdom would seem to be responsible for the world perceived by the senses.
- ^ Wahlde, Urban C. von (2015). Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century: The Search for the Wider Context of the Johannine Literature and Why It Matters. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-567-65659-9.
[T]wo currents of Jewish thought—Wisdom literature and the philosophical writings of Philo—influenced by Hellenism, are now thought to be the prime contenders for furnishing the background to the Logos of the Johannine Prologue.
- ^ Freke & Gandy 1999.
- ^ Price, Robert M. (2009). "DM Murdock, Christ in Egypt, reviewed by Robert M. Price". Retrieved November 19, 2016.
- ^ Price 2011, p. 425. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)
- ^ a b What Is Christianity?: An Introduction to the Christian Religion, by Gail Ramshaw, Fortress Press, 2013. pp. 52–54
- ^ a b God and Caesar: Troeltsch's Social Teaching as Legitimation, by Constance L. Benson, Transaction Publishers. p. 55
- ^ The Heroic Ideal: Western Archetypes from the Greeks to the Present, by M. Gregory Kendrick, McFarland, 2010. p. 43
- ^ Ehrman, 2012, p. 208
- ^ a b c The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, by Craig S. Keener, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012. p. 336
- ^ Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?, by Maurice Casey, A&C Black, 2014. p. 155
- ^ Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies, by Craig A. Evans, Brill, 2001. p. 48
- ^ a b Casey, 2014, p. 206
- ^ Bart D. Ehrman. Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 47 ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8
- ^ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
- ^ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1.
[P]agan witnesses indicate that there is no reliable evidence that supports the historicity of Jesus. This is surely surprising given the fact that Jesus was supposed to be a well-known person in the area of the world ruled by Rome. One would surely have supposed that there would have been some surviving records of Jesus if he did exist. Their absence, combined with the absence of Jewish records, suggests that NEP [Negative Evidence Principle] applies and that we are justified in disbelieving that Jesus existed.
- ^ Gerald O'Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. 2009, pp. 1–3 ISBN 0-19-955787-X
- ^ Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria. 1997, p. 14 ISBN 9004103880
- ^ Allan, William (2014). Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0199665457.
- ^ Ehrman, 2012, p. 44
- ^ Timothy Barnes Pagan Perceptions of Christianity" in Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to AD 600. 1991, p. 232 ISBN 0687114446
- ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did Jesus Exist?. New York: HarperOne. p. 44.
And what records from that decade do we have from his reign, what Roman records of his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, his scandals, interviews, his judicial proceedings? We have none. Nothing at all.
- ^ a b Hutchinson, Robert (2015). Searching for Jesus. Nashville: Nelson Books. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7180-1830-6.
- ^ a b Michael Grant (1977), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels
- ^ The Cambridge Companion to Jesus by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001 ISBN 0521796784 pp. 121–125
- ^ Bruce David Chilton; Craig Alan Evans (1998). Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research. Brill. pp. 460–470. ISBN 90-04-11142-5.
- ^ Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey by Craig L. Blomberg 2009 ISBN 0-8054-4482-3 pp. 431–436
- ^ Van Voorst (2000) pp. 39–53
- ^ Schreckenberg, Heinz; Kurt Schubert (1992). Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature. ISBN 90-232-2653-4.
- ^ Kostenberger, Andreas J.; L. Scott Kellum; Charles L. Quarles (2009). The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament. ISBN 0-8054-4365-7.
- ^ Vermes, Geza (2010). The Real Jesus: Then and Now. Augsburg Fortress, Publishers. pp. 54–55. ISBN 978-1-4514-0882-9.
The historical Jesus can be retrieved only within the context of first-century Galilean Judaism. The Gospel image must therefore be inserted into the historical canvas of Palestine in the first century CE, with the help of the works of Flavius Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls and early rabbinic literature. Against this background, what kind of picture of Jesus emerges from the Gospels? That of a rural holy man, initially a follower of the movement of repentance launched by another holy man, John the Baptist. In the hamlets and villages of Lower Galilee and the lakeside, Jesus set out to preach the coming of the Kingdom of God within the lifetime of his generation and outlined the religious duties his simple listeners were to perform to prepare themselves for the great event. [...] The reliability of Josephus's notice about Jesus was rejected by many in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it has been judged partly genuine and partly falsified by the majority of more recent critics. The Jesus portrait of Josephus, drawn by an uninvolved witness, stands halfway between the fully sympathetic picture of early Christianity and the wholly antipathetic image of the magician of Talmudic and post-Talmudic Jewish literature.
- ^ Kenneth A. Olson, Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (2): 305, 1999
- ^ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 197 n. 103). ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
- ^ Maier 2007, pp. 336–337.
- ^ Louth 1990.
- ^ McGiffert 2007.
- ^ Olson 1999.
- ^ Wallace-Hadrill 2011.
- ^ The new complete works of Josephus by Flavius Josephus, William Whiston, Paul L. Maier ISBN 0-8254-2924-2 pp. 662–663
- ^ Josephus XX by Louis H. Feldman 1965, ISBN 0674995023 p. 496
- ^ Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence ISBN 0-8028-4368-9. p. 83
- ^ Flavius Josephus; Maier, Paul L. (December 1995). Josephus, the essential works: a condensation of Jewish antiquities and The Jewish war ISBN 978-0-8254-3260-6 pp. 284–285
- ^ a b Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. p. 189 ISBN 0-8010-3114-1
- ^ a b c Carrier 2012. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2012 (help)
- ^ Robert M. Price. The Christ-Myth Theory and its Problems, Atheist Press, 2011, p. 132, ISBN 9781578840175
- ^ The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, by Gary R. Habermas, College Press, 1996. pp. 31–35
- ^ P.E. Easterling, E. J. Kenney (general editors), The Cambridge History of Latin Literature, p. 892 (Cambridge University Press, 1982, reprinted 1996). ISBN 0-521-21043-7
- ^ Translation from Latin by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, 1876
- ^ a b Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000. pp. 39–53
- ^ Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition Baker Academic, ISBN 0-8010-3114-1 p. 127
- ^ F.F. Bruce,Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) p. 23
- ^ Theissen & Merz 1998, p. 83.
- ^ Martin, Michael (1993-03). The Case Against Christianity. pp. 50–51. ISBN 9781566390811.
{{cite book}}
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(help) - ^ The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century: 1900–1950, By Walter P. Weaver, pp. 53, 57, at https://books.google.com/books?id=1CZbuFBdAMUC&pg=PA45&dq=historicity+of+jesus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o-_8U5-yEtTH7AbBpoCoAg&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=tacitus&f=false
- ^ Secret of Regeneration, By Hilton Hotema, p. 100, at https://books.google.com/books?id=jCaopp3R5B0C&pg=PA100&dq=interpolations+in+tacitus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CRf-U9-VGZCe7AbxrIDQCA&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATge#v=onepage&q=interpolations%20in%20tacitus&f=false
- ^ Jesus, University Books, New York, 1956, p. 13
- ^ France, RT (1986). Evidence for Jesus (Jesus Library). Trafalgar Square Publishing. pp. 19–20. ISBN 0-340-38172-8.
- ^ Price, Robert M. (2006). The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts. Signature Books. p. 240. ISBN 978-1-56085-194-3.
[Per the Toledot Yeshu] One of the chief points of interest in this work is its chronology, placing Jesus about 100 BCE. [...] Epiphanius and the Talmud also attest to Jewish and Jewish-Christian belief in Jesus having lived a century or so before we usually imagine, implying that perhaps the Jesus figure was at first an ahistorical myth and various attempts were made to place him in a plausible historical context, just as Herodotus and others tried to figure out when Hercules "must have" lived.
- ^ Mead, G. R. S. (1903). Did Jesus Live One Hundred B. C. ?. London: Theosophical Publishing Society. pp. 137ff. ISBN 978-0-7873-0603-8.
[Per] a passage found not once but twice in the Babylonian Gemârâ. [...] This famous passage, if taken by itself, would of course fully confirm the hypothesis of the 100 years B.C. date of Jesus.
- ^ [Panarion 29.5.6] "For by hearing just the name of Jesus, and seeing the miracles the apostles performed, they came to faith in Jesus themselves. But they found that he had been conceived at Nazareth and brought up in Joseph's home, and for this reason is called “Jesus the Nazoraean” in the Gospel as the apostles say, “Jesus the Nazoraean, a man approved by signs and wonders,” and so on. Hence they adopted this name, so as to be called Nazoreans."
- ^ Carrier, Richard (2009). Not the Impossible Faith. Lulu. p. 293, n. 10. ISBN 978-0-557-04464-1.
Nasaraeans and Ossaeans: Epiphanius, Panarion 18–19 (the Nasaraeans should not be confused with the Nazoreans, which appears to have been the original name for the Christians (and thus the collective name for Torah-observant Christians): Epiphanius, Panarion 29; Jerome, Epistles 112.13; Acts 24:5.
- ^ Carrier, Richard (April 19, 2012). "Ehrman on Jesus: A Failure of Facts and Logic". Richard Carrier Blog. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
- ^ Carrier (2014a), pp. 284ff.
- ^ a b Weaver 1999, pp. 45–50.
- ^ Schweitzer 2001, pp. 355ff.
- ^ Voorst 2000, p. 8.
- ^ a b c Wells 1969.
- ^ British Romantic Writers and the East by Nigel Leask (2004) ISBN 0521604443 Cambridge Univ Press pp. 104–105
- ^ By Tristram Stuart, "The Bloodless Revolution", p. 591.
- ^ a b Stephen Prickett in the Companion Encyclopedia of Theology edited by Peter Byrne, Leslie Houlden (1995) ISBN 0415064473 pp. 154–155
- ^ The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by David Friedrich Strauss 2010 ISBN 1-61640-309-8 pp. 39–43, 87–91
- ^ The Making of the New Spirituality by James A. Herrick 2003 ISBN 0-8308-2398-0 pp. 58–65
- ^ Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth by Michael J. McClymond (2004) ISBN 0802826806 p. 82
- ^ The historical Jesus question by Gregory W. Dawes 2001 ISBN 0-664-22458-X pp. 77–79
- ^ See Douglas R McGaughey, "On D.F. Strauß and the 1839 Revolution in Zurich" Archived February 1, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 pp. 7–11
- ^ 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.
- ^ Schweitzer 2001, pp. 124–128, 139–141.
- ^ In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images by Clinton Bennett (2001) ISBN 0826449166 Continuum page 204
- ^ Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 30
- ^ Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 59
- ^ Kersey Graves and The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Richard Carrier (2003)
- ^ Tom Harpur, 2004, The Pagan Christ
- ^ Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 200
- ^ Harpur's response to Porter and Gasque
- ^ Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 p. 10
- ^ a b Schweitzer 2001, pp. 356–361, 527 n. 4.
- ^ Arthur Drew, 1926, The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present
- ^ Edwin Johnson (1887). Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins. Trübner.
- ^ Gray, Patrick. Paul as a Problem in History and Culture: The Apostle and His Critics through the Centuries (in German). Baker Academic. p. 85. ISBN 9781493403332.
- ^ Lockley, Philip. Visionary Religion and Radicalism in Early Industrial England: From Southcott to Socialism. OUP Oxford. p. 168. ISBN 9780199663873.
- ^ Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 116–117.
- ^ Klausner, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth. Bloch, 1989; first published 1925, pp. 105–106.
- ^ In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images by Clinton Bennett (Dec 1, 2001) ISBN 0826449166 Continuum p. 205
- ^ Deconstructing Jesus by Robert M. Price (2000) ISBN 1573927589 p. 207
- ^ a b c d e Van Voorst, Robert E (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 pp. 11–12
- ^ J.M. Robertson, 1856–1933 by G.A. Wells (1987) ISBN 0301870020 pp. 162–163
- ^ Christianity And Mythology by John M. Robertson London: Watts 1900 ISBN 0766187683 (reprinted by Kessinger 2004) p. 34
- ^ A Short History of Christianity by John M. Robertson 1902 London: Watts ISBN 0766189090 (reprinted by Kessinger 2004) p. 72
- ^ Robertson, J. M. A Short History of Christianity. Watts, 1902, pp. 6–12, 14–15.
- ^ A Short History of Christianity by John M. Robertson 1902 London: Watts ISBN 0766189090 (reprinted by Kessinger 2004) p. 18
- ^ J.M. Robertson, 1856–1933 by G.A. Wells (1 Jan 1987) ISBN 0301870020 p. 149
- ^ G. R. S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest by Clare Goodrick-Clarke (2005) ISBN 155643572X pp. 1–3
- ^ 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.
- ^ Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G. R. S. Mead (1903) ISBN 1596053763 (Cosimo Classics 2005) pp. 10–12
- ^ Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity? by Tom Harpur (2006) ISBN 0802777414 p. 163
- ^ The Christ by John Remsburg 1909, Chapter 1: "Christ's Real Existence Impossible"
- ^ The Christ Myth by John Remsburg 1909, Chapter 2: "Silence of Contemporary Writers"
- ^ Paulkovich, Michael (2014). "The Fable of the Christ". Free Inquiry. 34 (5): 56.
- ^ Paulkovich, Michael (2012), No Meek Messiah, Spillix Publishing, pp. 330–355, ISBN 0988216116
- ^ Drews' book was reviewed by A. Kampmeier in The Monist, volume 21, Number 3 (July 1911), pp. 412–432. [1]
- ^ Weaver, Walter P. The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, pp. 50, 300.
- Also see Wood, Herbert George: Christianity and the Nature of History. Cambridge University Press, 1934, p. xxxii.
- Arthur Drews: Die Christusmythe. Eugen Diederichs, 1910, published in English as The Christ Myth, Prometheus, 1910, p. 410.
- ^ Nikolai Berdyaev: "The Scientific Discipline of Religion and Christian Apologetics", Put' / Путь, vol. 6, 1927.
- ^ Brian A. Gerrish: "Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch's Stand in the 'Christ-Myth' Debate", The Journal of Religion, vol. 55, issue 1, 1975, pp. 3–4.
- ^ "Jesus never lived, asserts Prof. Drews", The New York Times, February 6, 1910.
- ^ James Thrower: Marxist-Leninist "Scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism. Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p. 426.
- Also see Edyth C. Haber: "The Mythic Bulgakov: 'The Master and Margarita' and Arthur Drews's 'The Christ Myth'", Slavic & East European Journal, vol. 43, issue 2, 1999, p. 347.
- ^ Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity", in Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 749.
- ^ Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens. Cornell University Press, 1998, p. 178.
- ^ Russell, Bertrand. "Why I am not a Christian", lecture to the National Secular Society, Battersea Town Hall, March 6, 1927, Retrieved 2010-08-02.
- ^ Corydon, Bent; Brian Ambry (1992). L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?. Barricade Books. p. 353. ISBN 0-942637-57-7.
- ^ The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950 by Walter P. Weaver, 1999 ISBN Continuum Publishing Group, 1999, pp. 300–303
- ^ vridar.org, Earl Doherty’s forerunner? Paul-Louis Couchoud and the birth of Christ. Doherty: "It wasn’t until the 1920s that Paul-Louis Couchoud in France offered a more coherent scenario, identifying Christ in the eyes of Paul as a spiritual being. (While not relying upon him, I would trace my type of thinking back to Couchoud, rather than the more recent G. A. Wells who, in my opinion, misread Paul’s understanding of Christ."
- ^ Hibbert Journal 37 (1938–9), pp. 193–214
- ^ Stanton, Graham. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press, 2002; first published 1989, p. 143.
- ^ Wells 1971, Wells 1975, Wells 1982
- ^ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1.
- ^ Habermas, Gary R (1996). The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. College Pr Pub Co; Subsequent edition. pp. 37–38. ISBN 0899007325.
- ^ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press. p. 67. ISBN 1566390818.
- ^ Wells (2004), pp. 49fTemplate:Strloc insert
- ^ George Albert Wells, G. A. (2000). "A Reply to J.P. Holding..." infidels.org. Retrieved April 24, 2017.
[Per the gospels, the historical Galilean preacher of Q is placed in a historical context consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching.] Now that I have allowed this in my two most recent relevant books [1996, 1999] ...it will not do to dub me a "mythicist" tout court. Moreover, my revised standpoint obviates the criticism ...which J. D. G Dunn levelled at me in 1985.
- ^ Wells, George Albert (1999). The Jesus myth. Open Court. ISBN 0812693922.
- ^ Wells (2009), p. 16Template:Strloc insert
- ^ For a more brief statement of his position, Wells refers readers to his article, "Jesus, Historicity of" in Tom Flynn's The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books, 2007, pp. 446ff. Per Wells, G. A. Cutting Jesus Down to Size. Open Court, 2009, pp. 327–328.
- ^ 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.
G. A. Wells, the current and longstanding doyen of modern Jesus mythicists. Wells' invaluable work has influenced an entire generation of those who research and write on this subject.
- Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6.
[Among New Testament scholars] The best-known mythicist of modem times ...is George A. Wells.
- Casey, Maurice (2014). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 10, 25. ISBN 978-0-567-01505-1.
I introduce here the most influential mythicists who claim to be 'scholars', though I would question their competence and qualifications. [...] [G. A. Wells] was convinced that there was no historical Jesus, and wrote more than one book to this effect. More recently, he modified his views, especially in the light of relatively recent work on what many scholars call 'Q'.
- Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6.
- ^ Wells 2009.
- ^ Doherty 2009, p. vii–viii.
- ^ Van Biema, David; Ostling, Richard N.; and Towle, Lisa H. "The Gospel Truth?". Time magazine. April 8, 1996.
- ^ Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, pp. 55ff.
- Also see Price, Robert M. Book review of "Christ in Egypt: The Horus–Jesus Connection". 2009. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
- ^ See Robert M. Price. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point", in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009.
- There is no mention of a miracle working Jesus in secular sources. (p. 62)
- The epistles, which were written before the gospels, do not evidence a recent historical Jesus. (p. 63)
- The Jesus story shows strong parallels to other Mediterranean religions that were also based on gods that died and rose again. (p. 75)
- ^ Darrell L. Bock (2010). "Response to Robert M. Price". In James K. Beilby (ed.). The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Paul Rhodes Eddy. InterVarsity Press. pp. 99–103. ISBN 978-0-8308-7853-6.
- ^ Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, pp. 61ff.
- ^ Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus, pp. 15–16.
- ^ Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus, p. 86.
- ^ Price, Robert. Deconstructing Jesus. Prometheus Books. p. 261. ISBN 1-57392-758-9.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b c Maurice Casey (2014). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?. A&C Black. pp. 10, 24. ISBN 978-0-567-59224-8.
I introduce here the most influential mythicists who claim to be 'scholars', though I would question their competence and qualifications. [...] [Thomas L. Thompson] was Professor of Theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993–2009. His early work, which is thought to have successfully refuted the attempts of Albright and others to defend the historicity of the most ancient parts of biblical literature history, is said to have negatively affected his future job prospects.
- ^ "The Messiah Myth". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
- ^ Thompson, Thomas L. (2009). "Historicizing the Figure of Jesus, the Messiah". The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. Basic Books. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-7867-3911-0.
The assumptions that (1) the gospels are about a Jesus of history and (2) expectations that have a role within a story's plot were also expectations of a historical Jesus and early Judaism, as we will see, are not justified.
- ^ Bart D. Ehrman (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. pp. 11, 15. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6.
[Per "A Brief History of Mythicism"] ...some of the more influential contemporary representatives who have revitalized the [Mythicism] view in recent years. [...] A different sort of support for a mythicist position comes in the work of Thomas L. Thompson, The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. Thompson is trained in biblical studies, but he does not have degrees in New Testament or early Christianity. He is, instead, a Hebrew Bible scholar who teaches at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. In his own field of expertise he is convinced that figures from the Hebrew Bible such as Abraham, Moses, and David never existed. He transfers these views to the New Testament and argues that Jesus too did not exist but was invented by Christians who wanted to create a savior figure out of stories found in the Jewish scriptures.
- ^ "Contents: Is This Not the Carpenter? edited by Thomas L. Thompson". Cambridge Core. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
- ^ Thompson & Verenna 2012, Introduction. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFThompsonVerenna2012 (help)
- ^ Brodie, Thomas L. (2012). Beyond the quest for the historical Jesus: memoir of a discovery. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1907534584.
- ^ a b Brodie, Thomas L. (2000). The crucial bridge: the Elijah-Elisha narrative as an interpretive synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a literary model of the Gospels. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. pp. 1–3. ISBN 9780814659427.
- ^ "Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus – Official Dominican Response to a Controversial Book". Doctrine and Life. Dominican Publications. May–June 2014.
- ^ Barry, Cathal (April 10, 2014). "Cleric faces dismissal over claim that Jesus Christ 'did not exist' ". irishcatholic.ie. Dublin: Irish Catholic. Archived from the original on April 12, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
{{cite news}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity
- ^ Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus. Sheffield Phoenix Press. Chapter 2.
- ^ Carrier (2014a)
- ^ Tucker, Aviezer (February 2016). "The Reverend Bayes vs Jesus Christ". History and Theory. 55:1: 129–140. doi:10.1111/hith.10791/full (inactive February 26, 2018). Retrieved October 1, 2016.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of February 2018 (link) - ^ John Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross 1970 ISBN 978-0-9825562-7-6
- ^ John Allegro The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth 1979 ISBN 978-0-879-75757-1
- ^ a b The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Peter Flint and James VanderKam (2005) ISBN 056708468X T&T Clark pages 323-325
- ^ The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea by Joan E. Taylor (2012) ISBN 019955448X Oxford University Press p. 305
- ^ Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 p. 77
- ^ Hall, Mark. "Foreword," in Allegro, John M. The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Christian Myth. Prometheus 1992, first published 1979, p. ix.
- ^ Jenkins, Philip. Hidden Gospels. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 180.
- ^ A History of the Middle East by Saul S. Friedman (2006) ISBN 0786423560 p. 82
- ^ Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Ph.D. A Biographical Sketch of his life and work, by Richard Alvin Sattelberg, B.A., M.S.., 2005
- ^ "The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light" by Tom Harpur, Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto, 2004, ISBN 0-88762-145-7
- ^ Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ (Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers, 2004)
- ^ Porter, Stanley E.; Bedard, Stephen J. (2006). Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea. Clements Publishing Group. ISBN 9781894667715.
- ^ Robert M. Price (2009). "Review – Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light reviewed by Robert M. Price". www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
- ^ Harpur, Tom (2008). Water Into Wine: An Empowering Vision of the Gospels. Dundurn.com. ISBN 9780887628276.
- ^ Metro.co.uk, Rob Waugh for (April 12, 2017). "'Jesus never actually existed at all,' controversial French author argues". Metro.
- ^ А. В. Андреев (2015). "Дискуссия об историчности Иисуса Христа в советском религиоведении" (PDF). Вестник ПСТГУ (in Russian). Retrieved June 12, 2015.
- ^ Гололоб Г. "Богословие и национальный вопрос" (in Russian). Библиотека Гумер. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
- ^ Fox, Robin Lane (2005). The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian. Basic Books. p. 48. ISBN 978-0465024971.
- ^ Richard A. Burridge; Graham Gould (2004). Jesus Now and Then. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-8028-0977-3.
- ^ Ehrman, Bart. "Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
- ^ Ehrman 2012, p. 2. sfn error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)
- ^ Casey, Maurice, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching (T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 33, 104, 499.
- ^ Michael Grant (1977), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 200.
- ^ Dunkerley, Roderic, Beyond the Gospels (Penguin Books, 1957) p. 12.
- ^ Betz, Otto, What Do We Know About Jesus? (SCM-Canterbury Press, 1968) p. 9.
- ^ "The Academy Fellows". Australian Academy of the Humanities. Archived from the original on May 27, 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ Dickson, John (March 21, 2008). "Facts and friction of Easter". Brisbane Times. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
- ^ Hoffmann, R. Joseph. "Threnody: Rethinking the Thinking behind The Jesus Project", bibleinterp.com, October 2009, accessed August 6, 2010.
- ^ a b "Did Jesus Exist?". Huffington Post.
- ^ a b c Casey, Maurice (2014). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths. London: Bloomsbury Academic Publishers. pp. 1–41. ISBN 978-0567294586.
- ^ Murphy 2011, p. 65.
- ^ "Executive Summary".
- ^ Bart Ehrman (2012) Did Jesus Exist?, Huffington Post
- ^ Ehrman (2012), p. 337f, §. Conclusion – The Mythicist Agenda harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Gullotta, Daniel N. (February 2, 2015). "Why You Should Read Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus". Archived from the original on February 14, 2015.
What is also significant about [Richard] Carrier's body of work related to Mythicism is that it represents the result of a $20,000 research grant from various supporters and donations overseen by Atheists United, which demonstrates the public's interest in the subject matter. [...] the academic community committed to the study of the New Testament and Christian origins needs to pay attention to Carrier and engage with his thesis (even if they end up rejecting his conclusions); and if for no other reason than that he has the attention of the public.
- ^ Doherty, Earl (Spring 1997). "A review of a book by Burton L. Mack on the making of the Christian myth". Humanist in Canada. 120: 12–13. Archived from the original on August 30, 2000.
Earl Doherty has published a much expanded version of this review at the following Web site, where he has also reproduced his series "The Jesus Puzzle," which appeared in recent issues of Humanist in Canada: http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus.html.
{{cite journal}}
: External link in
(help); Unknown parameter|quote=
|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ Godfrey, Neil (April 2, 2011). "Interview with Earl Doherty". Vridar. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
- ^ "Historicity of Jesus". The Secular Web. Internet Infidels. Retrieved October 14, 2017.
- ^ Gullotta (2017), pp. 311–312, n. 34Template:Strloc insert
- ^ Ehrman, Bart (June 26, 2015). "Kickstarting a Debate". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
- ^ Avalos, Hector (2007). The End of Biblical Studies. Prometheus Books, Publishers. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-61592-034-1.
- ^ Carrier (2014a), pp. 168–173, 222–234.
- ^ a b Carrier (2014b).
- ^ Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 p. 339
- ^ Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 0-06-061662-8.
- ^ Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus by William R. Herzog (2005) ISBN 0664225284 pp. 1–6.
- ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (March 1, 2016). Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior. HarperCollins. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-06-228520-1.
- ^ Price (2003), pp. 26–29, §. Sources – What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?Cf. Hoffmann, R. Joseph (2010). Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61614-189-9.
- ^ Carrier (2014a), pp. 200–205.
- ^ Niehoff, Maren R. (2011). Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria. Cambridge University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-139-50101-9.
[Per exegesis] Philo's approach thus relies on a delicate balance between the literal [body] and the allegorical meanings [spirit] of Scripture.
- ^ Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity. San Francisco: Princeton University Press & Harper. back cover. ISBN 978-0060677015.
- ^ Carrier 0000.
Sources
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(help) "New edition with minor revisions of a series hosted on the Vridar blog". March–August 2012.Originally titled: Earl Doherty's Response to Bart Ehrman's Case Against Mythicism.
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{{cite book}}
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(help) - Whately, Richard. Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, Warren F. Draper, 1874; first published 1819.
- Wheless, Joseph. Forgery In Christianity. Knopf, 1930.
- White, L. Michael. From Jesus to Christianity. HarperCollins, 2004.
- Wood, Herbert George. Christianity and the Nature of History. Cambridge University Press, 1934.
- Wright, N. T. "Jesus' Self Understanding," in Davies, Stephen T. et al. The Incarnation. Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Yamauchi, Edwin M. "Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?", Christianity Today, March 15 and 29, 1974.
- Zwartz, Barney. "Australians not so sceptical about Jesus, survey finds", The Age, April 7, 2009.
Further reading
Proponents
- George Albert Wells (1975), Did Jesus Exist?
- Earl Doherty (1999), The Jesus Puzzle; republished (2009) as Jesus: Neither God nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus; online versions
- Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (1999), The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?
- Robert M. Price (2003), The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
- Robert M. Price (2012), The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems
- David Fitzgerald (2010), Nailed: 10 Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All
- David Fitzgerald (2017) Jesus: Mything in Action, Vols. I–III
- Thompson, Thomas L.; Verenna, Thomas S., eds. (2012), "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus, Equinox, ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3
- Richard Carrier (2014), On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
Critics
- James Patrick Holding (2008), Shattering the Christ Myth. Did Jesus Not Exist?
- Ehrman, Bart (2012), Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8
- Maurice Casey (2014), Jesus: Evidence and Argument Or Mythicist Myths?
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
- Religious Tolerance General outline of range of views on Jesus from classical Christian to Jesus a mere man and Jesus entirely mythical
- Vridar, WHO’s WHO: Mythicists and Mythicist Agnostics
- Demolishing the historicity of Jesus – A History List of Contemporary and Early proponents of Christ Myth Theory.