Christ myth theory: Difference between revisions

Christ myth theory
Christ myth theory
	The Resurrection of Christ by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1875)—some mythicists see this as a case of a Dying-and-rising deity
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); William Benjamin Smith (1850–1934); John Mackinnon Robertson (1856–1933); Thomas Whittaker (1856–1935); Arthur Drews (1865–1935); Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879–1959); Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963)
Modern proponents	George Albert Wells, Tom Harpur, Michael Martin, Thomas L. Thompson, Thomas L. Brodie, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, Michel Onfray
Subjects	Historical Jesus, Historical reliability of the Gospels, Historicity of Jesus, History of early Christianity

Browse history interactively

← Previous edit Next edit →

Content deleted Content added

VisualWikitext

Inline

Revision as of 19:11, 14 January 2019

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or Jesus ahistoricity theory)^[1] is "the view that the person known as Jesus of Nazareth had no historical existence."^[2] Alternatively, in terms given by Bart Ehrman as per his criticism of mythicism,^[3] "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."^{[q 1]}

According to mythicists, the accounts of Jesus are mostly, or completely, of a mythical nature; and if there was a historical Jesus, close to nothing can be known about him. Most Christ mythicists follow a threefold argument: they question the reliability of the Pauline epistles and the Gospels regarding the historicity of Jesus; they note the lack of information on Jesus in non-Christian sources from the first and early second century; and they argue that early Christianity was syncretistic and mythological from the beginning, as reflected in both the Pauline epistles and the gospels. Therefore, Christianity was not founded on the shared memories of a man, but rather a shared mytheme.

The Christ myth theory is a fringe theory, supported by few tenured or emeritus specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines.^[4]^[5]^[6]^{[q 2]} 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 was crucified in the 1st-century Roman province of Judea.^[7]^[8]

Jesus and the origins of Christianity

The origins and rapid rise of Christianity are a matter of longstanding debate in theological and historical research. While Christianity may have started with an early nucleus of followers of Jesus,^{[q 3]} within a few years after the presumed death of Jesus in c. AD 33, at the time Paul started preaching, a number of "Jesus-movements" seem to have been in existence, which propagated divergent interpretations of Jesus' teachings.^[9]^[10] A central question is how these communities developed and what their original convictions were,^[9]^[11] as a wide range of beliefs and ideas can be found in early Christianity, including adoptionism and docetism,^{[q 4]} and also Gnostic traditions which used Christian imagery,^{[q 5]} which were all deemed heretical by proto-orthodox Christianity.^[12]^{[q 6]}

Mainstream scholarship views Jesus as a real person who was subsequently deified,^[7]^[8] whereas traditional Christian theology and dogmas view Jesus as the incarnation of God/Christ on earth. 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 historical view

Jesus is being studied by a number of scholarly disciplines,^[i] using a variety of textual critical methods.^[ii] These critical methods, and the quest for the historical Jesus, have led to a demythologization of Jesus, and the mainstream historical view is that while the gospels include mythical or legendary elements, these are religious interpretations of the life and death of a historical Jesus who did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine.^[7]^[13]^[8]^[iii] 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".^[iv] According to historian 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]

New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman states that Jesus "certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees,"^[16]^[17] and also states that the existence of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by a wide range of sources including Josephus and Tacitus.^[16]

Traditional and modern Christian views

Traditional Christian theology and dogmas view Jesus as the incarnation of God/Christ on earth and as the Messiah, whose death was a sacrifice that procured atonement for all who believe Jesus to be the Christ. According to Christian traditions, the Gospels and the Pauline epistles are inspired writings,^[18] which tell us in a reliable way about the birth and the life of Jesus, his ministry and sayings, and his crucifixion and resurrection, according to God's plan.^[v]

Christ myth theorists

Most mythicists, like mainstream scholarship, note that Christianity developed within Hellenistic Judaism, which was influenced by Hellenism. Early Christianity, and the accounts of Jesus are to be understood in this context. Departing from mainstream scholarship, mythicists argue that the accounts of Jesus are mostly, or completely, of a mythical nature, questioning the mainstream paradigm of a historical Jesus in the beginning of the 1st century who was deified.

Richard Carrier and other mythicists are critical of the conclusions and presuppositions of historicity proponents, questioning the value of consensus as a criterion for the historicity of Jesus.^{[q 7]}^{[q 8]}^{[q 9]}

Some moderate authors, most notably Wells, have argued that there may have been a historical Jesus, but that this historical Jesus was fused with another Jesus-tradition, namely the mythological Christ of Paul.^[19]^[20]^{[q 10]} Others, most notably the early Wells and Alvar Ellegård, have argued that Paul's Jesus may have lived far earlier, in a dimly remembered remote past.^{[q 11]}

The most radical mythicists hold, in terms given by Price, the "Jesus atheism" viewpoint, that is, there never was a historical Jesus, only a mythological character, and the mytheme of his incarnation, death, and exaltation. This character developed out of a syncretistic fusion of Jewish, Hellenistic and Middle Eastern religious thought; was put forward by Paul; and historicised in the Gospels, which are also syncretistic. Notable "atheists" are Paul-Louis Couchoud, Earl Doherty, Thomas L. Brodie, and Richard Carrier.^{[q 12]}

Some other authors argue for the Jesus agnosticism viewpoint. That is, we cannot conclude if there was a historical Jesus. And if there was a historical Jesus, close to nothing can be known about him. Notable "agnosticists" are Robert Price and Thomas L. Thompson.^{[q 13]}^{[q 14]}

While proponents like Earl Doherty, Price, and Carrier, are concerned with the origins of Christianity and the genesis of the Christ-figure, the perception of and debate about the Christ myth theory has increasingly turned to the simpler question whether Jesus existed or not^{[q 15]} and consequently with some scholars proposing a more moderate position.^{[q 16]}

Arguments

Overview of main arguments

Most Christ mythicists argue that the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus Christ is insufficient,^{[q 17]} pointing at a series of perceived peculiarities in the sources which they regard as untrustworthy for a historical account.^{[q 18]} They claim that early Christian and other sources lack biographical information on Jesus,^{[q 19]} the so-called argument from silence.^[21]^{[q 20]} Instead, the Christ of Paul^[21]^{[q 21]}^[vi] and the Jesus of the Gospels are of a mythical and allegorical nature.^[21]^{[q 22]}^[vii] They further argue that the Gospels are a composite of various strands of thought,^[22]^[23] relying on Jewish writings,^{[q 18]} and note the similarities of early Christianity and the Christ figure with the mystery religions of the Greco-Roman world.^{[q 23]}

Paul's Jesus is a celestial being, not a historical person, or may have lived in a dim past – Mythicists argue that the Pauline epistles are older than the gospels but, aside from a few passages which may have been interpolations, make no reference to a historical Jesus who lived in the flesh on Earth,^{[q 24]} nor do they cite any sayings from Jesus. There is a complete absence of any detailed biographical information such as might be expected if Jesus had been a contemporary of Paul;^{[q 25]}^{[q 26]} instead, Paul refers to Jesus as an exalted being. Therefore, Paul is probably writing about either a mythical entity,^{[q 27]} a celestial deity,^{[q 28]} "a savior figure patterned after similar figures within ancient mystery religions"^{[q 26]}^{[q 29]} named Jesus;^{[q 30]}^[24]^{[q 31]} or a historical person who may have lived in a dim past, long before the beginnings of the Common Era.
The Gospels are not historical records – mythicists argue that although the Gospels seem to present an historical framework, they are not historical records, but theological writings,^{[q 32]}^{[q 33]} which are based on a variety of sources and influences, including Old Testament writings,^[25]^[26] Greek Stoic philosophy and the exegetical methods of Philo.^{[q 34]}^[viii] The genre of the Gospels are myth or legendary fiction^{[q 35]}^{[q 36]}^[ix] which have imposed "a fictitious historical narrative" on a "mythical cosmic savior figure"^{[q 37]}^{[q 38]} by weaving together various pseudo-historical Jesus traditions,^{[q 39]}^[22]^[x] most notably the "supernatural personage" of Paul's epistles^[22] and "ideas very important in the Jewish Wisdom literature".^[22]^{[q 39]}
No independent eyewitness accounts – No independent eyewitness accounts survive, in spite of the fact that many authors were writing at that time.^{[q 40]}^{[q 41]} Mythicists also emphasize that there are no contemporary records of Jesus.Early second-century Roman accounts contain very little evidence^{[q 42]}^{[q 43]} and may depend on Christian sources.^{[q 44]}^{[q 45]}
Diversity in early Christianity, and parallels with other religions – early Christianity was widely diverse and syncretistic, sharing common philosophical and religious ideas with other religions of the time.^[27] Its origins cannot be traced to a single founding group, but must have been rooted in a wider religious movement. It arose in the Greco-Roman world of the first and second century AD, synthesizing Greek and Jewish philosophy of the Second Temple period.^{[q 38]}^[27] Parallels with other religions include the ideas of personified aspects of God,^[xi] proto-Gnostic ideas, and salvation figures featured in mystery religions, which were often (but not always) a dying-and-rising god.^{[q 46]}

Pauline epistles

Dating

Mainstream view

The seven undisputed Pauline epistles considered by scholarly consensus to be genuine epistles are generally dated to AD 50–60 and are the earliest surviving Christian texts that include information about Jesus.^[28]^{[q 47]}^{[q 48]}

Mythicist view

Some mythicists have questioned the early dating of the epistles, raising the possibility that they represent a later, more developed strand of early Christian thought.

Theologian 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. He also noted that the Marcionite school was the first to publish the epistles, and that Marcion (c. 85 – c. 160) 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.^[29]

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),^[30] and contends that Marcion 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)^[xii] for their own apologetical reasons.^[31]^[32] 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.^[33]

Lack of biographical information

According to Eddy and Boyd, modern biblical scholarship notes that "Paul has relatively little to say on the biographical information of Jesus," viewing Jesus as "a recent contemporary."^[34] Yet, Christopher Tuckett summarizes the view of mainstream historians regarding what Paul records regarding the historical Jesus;

Even if we had no other sources, we could still infer some things about Jesus from Paul’s letters. Paul clearly implies that Jesus existed as a human being (‘born of a woman’ Gal 4.4), was born a Jew (‘born under the Law’ Gal 4.4; cf. Rom 1.3) and had brothers (1 Cor 9.5; Gal 1.19). Paul also claims possible character traits for Jesus (cf. ‘meekness and gentleness’ 2 Cor 10.1; Jesus ‘did not please himself’ Rom 15.3) and he refers to the tradition of the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper (1 Cor 11.23–25), taking place ‘at night’ (1 Cor 11.23). Above all, he refers very frequently to the fact that Jesus was crucified (1 Cor 1.23; 2.2; Gal 3.1 etc.), and at one point ascribes prime responsibility for Jesus’ death to (some) Jews (1 Thess 2.15). He also occasionally explicitly refers to Jesus’ teaching, e.g. on divorce (1 Cor 7.10–11) and on Christian preachers or missionaries claiming support (1 Cor 9.14).^[35]

Brother of the Lord

1 Corinthians 9:5 and Galatians 1:18-19 make reference to "the brothers of the Lord" and "James, the brother of the Lord" respectively. Mainstream scholarship holds that it attests that Paul met with James, brother of Jesus.^{[q 49]} Mythicists argue that 1 Corinthians 9:5 and Galatians 1:19 are references to a fraternal brotherhood, or that "Brother of the Lord" connotes a meaning other than a male sibling of Jesus.^{[q 50]}

Jesus’ birth

Galatians 4:4 and Romans 1:3 make reference to Jesus’ birth, being: "born of a woman" and "born of the seed of David" respectively. Mainstream scholarship holds that Galatians 4:4 attests that Paul knew Jesus was born of a human mother and that per Romans 1:3, Paul says that Jesus was born a descendant of David—a historical ancestor in Paul's view.^{[q 51]}^[28]^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39]

Doherty and Carrier hold that Paul's unique usage of the term "made" in the context of these references is consistent with a "Celestial Jesus" who was born/incarnated when a human body was made for him.^[40] Wells contends that Paul's reference to Davidic descent "is surely to state an article of faith" and not an assertion of historical fact.^[41]

Eucharist

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 make reference to "the night" Jesus handled bread and wine, teaching Christians the theological ritual of the Lord's supper. Mainstream scholarship holds that it recalls the earthly life of Jesus "in the context of cultic rites that assumed his divinity."^{[q 52]} Mythicists argue that Paul's vision of Jesus inaugurating the Eucharist ritual is an etiological myth.^[42]

Celestial being

Mainstream view

Most scholars view the Pauline letters as essential elements in the study of the historical Jesus,^[28]^[36]^[37]^[43] and the development of early Christianity.^[9] New Testament scholar James Dunn states that in 1 Corinthians 15:3 Paul "recites the foundational belief," namely "that Christ died." According to Dunn, "Paul was told about a Jesus who had died two years earlier or so."^[44] 1 Corinthians 15:11 also refers to others before Paul who preached the creed.^[45]

The Pauline letters incorporate creeds, or confessions of faith, that predate Paul, and give essential information on the faith of the early Jerusalem community around James, 'the brother of Jesus'.^[46]^[47]^[45]^[9] The Pauline epistles contain elements of a Christ myth and its cultus, such as the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:6–11, which portray Jesus as an incarnated and subsequently exalted heavenly being.^[48]^[xiii]^{[q 53]}^{[q 54]}^{[q 55]} These pre-Pauline creeds date to within a few years of Jesus' death and developed within the Christian community in Jerusalem.^[49] Scholars view these as indications that the incarnation and exaltation of Jesus was part of Christian tradition a few years after his death and over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles.^[13]^[50]

Yet, the development of the early Christian views on Jesus' divinity is a matter of debate within contemporary scholarship. According to a longstanding consensus, the oldest Christology was an "exaltation Christology," according to which Jesus was subsequently "raised to divine status."^[51] This "exaltation Christology" may have developed over time,^[9]^[12]^[52] as witnessed in the Gospels,^[13] with the earliest Christians believing that Jesus became divine when he was resurrected.^[52]^[53] Later beliefs shifted the exaltation to his baptism, birth, and subsequently to the idea of his eternal existence, as witnessed in the Gospel of John.^[52] This "High Christology" is "the view that Jesus was a pre-existent divine being who became a human, did the Father’s will on earth, and then was taken back up into heaven whence he had originally come."^[51]^[13] Yet, as Ehrman notes, this subsequent "incarnation Christology" was also preached by Paul, and even predates him.^[13] According to the "Early High Christology Club," this "incarnation Christology" or "high Christology" did not evolve over a longer time, but was a "big bang" which arose in the first few decades of the church, as witnessed in the writings of Paul.^[50]^[13]^[xiv]

Scholars have also argued that Paul was a "mythmaker,"^[54] who gave his own divergent interpretation of the meaning of Jesus,^[9] building a bridge between the Jewish and Hellenistic world,^[9] thereby creating the faith that became Christianity.^[54]

Mythicist views

Christ myth theorists generally reject the idea that Paul's epistles refer to a real person.^[55]^[56]

According to Doherty, the Jesus of Paul was a divine Son of God, existing in a spiritual realm^[21] where he was crucified and resurrected.^[57] This mythological Jesus was based on exegesis of the Old Testament and mystical visions of a risen Jesus.^[57]^{[q 58]}

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.^[58] 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.^[59] 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".^[40]</ref>

The non-Pauline Epistle to the Hebrews is also relevant per Hebrews 5:7, "in the days of his flesh" Jesus cried and prayed to God to save him. Mythicists generally contend that this verse is anomalous with supposed traditions underlying the synoptic gospels, however Doherty and Carrier additionally hold that the phrase "in the days of his flesh" is consistent with a celestial Jesus.^{[q 59]}^[40]

Jesus lived in a dim past

Many mythicists have argued that Paul's Jesus may have lived far earlier, in a dimly remembered remote past.^{[q 11]} Wells 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.^[56]^[60] 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".^[61]

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".^{[q 60]}^{[q 61]} 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".^[62]

Theologian Gregory A. Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy, Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Bethel University,^[63] criticise the idea that "Paul viewed Jesus as a cosmic savior who lived in the past," referring to various passages in the Pauline epistles which seem to contradict this idea. In Galatians 1:19, Paul says he met with James, the "Lord's brother";^{[q 49]} 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 refers to people to whom Jesus' had appeared, and who were 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.^[64] Boyd and Eddy doubt that Paul viewed Jesus similar to the savior deities found in ancient mystery religions.^[65]

Historicity of the Gospels

Richard Carrier claims that "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".^[66] 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.^[67] 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.^[67] None of the authors were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus,^[68] "(t)he common wisdom in the academy is that stories and sayings of Jesus circulated for decades, undergoing countless retellings and embellishments before being finally set down in writing."^[69]

According to Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, mythicists argue that in the gospels "a fictitious historical narrative" was imposed on the "mythical cosmic savior figure" created by Paul.^{[q 37]} Among contemporary scholars, there is consensus that the gospels are a type of ancient biography,^[70]^[71]^[72]^[73]^[74]

Some myth proponents note that some stories in the New Testament seem to try to reinforce Old Testament prophecies^[75] and repeat stories about figures like Elijah, Elisha,^[76] Moses and Joshua in order to appeal to Jewish converts.^[77] 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".^[78]

In Christ and the Caesars (1877), philosopher 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.^[79]^{[q 38]} 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.^{[q 62]}

No independent eyewitness accounts

Lack of surviving historic records

Mainstream biblical scholars point out that much of the writings of antiquity have been lost^[80] and that there was little written about any Jew or Christian in this period.^[81]^[82] 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.^{[q 63]} Robert Hutchinson notes that this is also true of Josephus, despite the fact that he was "a personal favorite of the Roman Emperor Vespasian".^[83] 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".^[83] According to Classical historian and popular author Michael Grant, if the same criterion is applied to others: "We can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned".^[84]

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,^[85]^[86]^{[q 64]} adding that Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence.^[87] 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.^[88]

Josephus and Tacitus

Josephus

Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around 93–94 AD, includes two references to the biblical Jesus in Books 18 and 20. 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 ben Ananus.^[89]^[xv] 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.^[89]

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.^[90]^[91]^{[q 65]} 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.^[92]^[93]^[xvi]

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.^[99]^[100]^[101]^[102] Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, who are critical of Christ myth theorists, note that Josephus "mentions twenty-one other people with the name Jesus,"^[xvii] 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."^[103]^[xviii]

Tacitus

Roman historian Tacitus referred to "Christus" and his execution by Pontius Pilate in his Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44:^[104]

...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.^[105]

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.^{[q 44]}^{[q 45]}

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.^[106] The Tacitus reference is now widely accepted as an independent confirmation of Christ's crucifixion,^[107] although some scholars question the historical value of the passage on various grounds.^[106]^[108]^[109]^[110]^[111]^[112]^[113]^[114]

Other sources

In Jesus Outside the New Testament (2000), mainstream scholar Van Voorst considers references to Jesus in classical writings, Jewish writings, hypothetical sources of the canonical Gospels, and extant Christian writings outside the New Testament. Van Voorst concludes that non-Christian sources provide "a small but certain corroboration of certain New Testament historical traditions on the family background, time of life, ministry, and death of Jesus", as well as "evidence of the content of Christian preaching that is independent of the New Testament", while extra-biblical Christian sources give access to "some important information about the earliest traditions on Jesus". However, New Testament sources remain central for "both the main lines and the details about Jesus' life and teaching".^[115]

Diversity and parallels

Early Christianity was wildly diverse, with proto-orthodoxy and "heretical" views like gnosticism alongside each other.^[116]^[12]

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.^[27] 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.^[27] Doherty further argues that Christianity originated as a product of Jewish and Greek philosophy^[27], which rose as a result of Alexander the Great's conquests and the spread of Greek culture and language throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, influencing the already existing cultures there.^[27]

Some mythicists also argue Christianity originated from a Jewish sect^{[q 66]} in a milieu where some Jews practised a form of proto-gnosticism, and from the cultus of Paul, a divergent form of this salvation theology was later promoted for non-Jews.^{[q 67]}^{[q 68]}^{[q 69]} According to Wells, the historical Jesus was derived from Wisdom traditions, the personification of an eternal aspect of God, who came to visit human beings.^[117] 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.^[21]

According to Doherty, the Christ of Paul shares similarities with the Greco-Roman mystery cults.^[21] Authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy explicitly argue that Jesus was a deity, akin to the mystery cults,^[118] while Dorothy Murdock argues that the Christ myth draws heavily on the Egyptian story of Osiris and Horus.^[119] According to Robert Price, the story of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels is akin to the mythic hero archetype.^{[q 36]} 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.^[120] According to Carrier, early Christianity was but one of several mystery cults which developed out of Hellenistic influences on local cults and religions.^[121]

Mainstream scholarship disagrees with these interpretations. 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.^[122]^[xix] Christian theologians have cited the mythic hero archetype as a defense of Christian teaching while completely affirming a historical Jesus.^[127]^[128]^[xx] 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".^[129]

18th- and 19th-century proponents

According to Van Voorst, "The argument that Jesus never existed, but was invented by the Christian movement around the year 100, goes back to Enlightenment times, when the historical-critical study of the past was born," and may have originated with Lord Bolingbroke, an English deist.^[130]

According to Weaver and Schneider, 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.^[131]^[132] Volney and Dupuis argued that Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a totally mythical character.^[131]^[133] 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.^[134] 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.^[134] Volney argued that Abraham and Sarah were derived from Brahma and his wife Saraswati, whereas Christ was related to Krishna.^[135]^[136] 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.^[134] Volney's perspective became associated with the ideas of the French Revolution, which hindered the acceptance of these views in England.^[137] Despite this, his work gathered significant following among British and American radical thinkers during the 19th century.^[137]

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.^[138]^[139] 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.^[140] 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.^[138]^[141]

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"^[142] and that Christian editors “either from roguery or folly, corrupted them all”.^[143] 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.^[144]

Starting in the 1870s, English poet and author Gerald Massey became interested in Egyptology and reportedly taught himself Egyptian hieroglyphics at the British Museum.^[145] 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.^[146]

Additional early Christ myth proponents included Swiss skeptic Rudolf Steck,^[147] English historian Edwin Johnson,^[148] English radical Reverend Robert Taylor and his associate Richard Carlile.^[149]^[150]

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.^[151] 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.^[152] 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".^[153]

The work of social anthropologist Sir James George Frazer has had an influence on various myth theorists, although Frazer himself believed that Jesus existed.^[154] In 1890, Frazer published the first edition of The Golden Bough which attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief. This work became the basis of many later authors who argued that the story of Jesus was a fiction created by Christians. After a number of people claimed that he was a myth theorist, in the 1913 expanded edition of The Golden Bough he expressly stated that his theory assumed a historical Jesus.^[155]

In 1900, Scottish Member of Parliament John Mackinnon Robertson argued that Jesus never existed, but was an invention by a first-century messianic cult.^[156]^[157] The English school master George Robert Stowe Mead argued in 1903 that Jesus had existed, but that he had lived in 100 BC.^[158]^[159] 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.^[160]

German philosophy Professor Christian Heinrich Arthur Drews wrote books like The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (1912) and The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present (1926), and Drews reviewed the biblical scholarship of his time, attempting to show that the elements of Jesus in the Bible were mythical.^[161]

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.^[162] 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.^[163] Public meetings asking "Did Christ live?" were organized, during which party operatives debated with clergymen.^[164]

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.^[165]

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".^[166]

Modern proponents

Paul-Louis Couchoud

The French philosopher Paul-Louis Couchoud,^[167] published in the 1920s and 1930s, but was a predecessor for contemporary mythicists. According to Couchoud, Christianity started not with a biography of Jesus but "a collective mystical experience, sustaining a divine history mystically revealed."^{[q 70]} Couchaud's Jesus is not a "myth", but a "religious conception".^[168]

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.

George Albert Wells

George Albert Wells (1926–2017), a professor of German, revived the interest in the Christ myth theory. In his early work,^[169] 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.^[170] Wells was featured in the controversial UK television programme series, Jesus: The Evidence (Channel 4: 1984), which caused a furore, being Channel 4's first major religious programme commission.^[171] Atheist philosopher and scholar Michael Martin supported his thesis, claiming:^[172] According to Graham Stanton, writing in 2002, Wells advanced the most sophisticated version of the Christ myth theory.^[8] According to Maurice Casey, Wells' work repeated the main points of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, which are deemed outdated by mainstream scholarship. His works were not discussed by New Testament scholars, because it was "not considered to be original, and all his main points were thought to have been refuted long time ago, for reasons which were very well known."^[173]

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. 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.{{sfnp|Wells|1999}

Earl Doherty

Canadian writer Earl Doherty (born 1941) was introduced to the Christ myth theme by a lecture by Wells in the 1970s.^[21] 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".^[21] 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.^[174] Doherty agrees with Bauckham that the earliest Christology was already a "high Christology," that is, Jesus was an incarnation of the pre-existent Christ, but deems it "hardly credible" that such a belief could develop in such a short time among Jews.^[175] Therefore, Doherty concludes that Christianity started with the myth of this incarnated Christ, who was subsequently historicised. According to Bart Ehrman, there is "no evidence to support Doherty's assertion of what Paul's view of Jesus was" and that there is "a host of reasons for calling Doherty's view into serious question."^{: 254, 258} In a book criticizing the Christ myth theory, New Testament scholar Maurice Casey describes Doherty as "perhaps the most influential of all the mythicists",^[176] but one who is unable to understand the ancient texts he uses in his arguments.^[177]

Robert M. Price

American New Testament scholar and former Baptist pastor Robert M. Price (born 1954) has 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 (2011), 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.^[178] Price notes that "consensus is no criterion" for the historicity of Jesus.^{[q 8]} In Deconstructing Jesus, Price claims 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.^[179] 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".^[23] 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".^[180] 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 (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".^[159]

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.^{[q 71]} According to Thompson, the accounts of Jesus are derived from Jewish writings.^[26] In his 2007 book The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David,^[181] 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.^{[q 72]}^{[q 73]} 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.^{[q 33]}

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.^[20]^[182] 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."^[183]

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. 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".^[26]

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.^[76] 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.^[184] Brodie then views the Elijah–Elisha story as the underlying model for the gospel narratives.^[184]

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.^[185] "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.^[186]

Richard Carrier

American scholar^[187] Richard Carrier (born 1969) reviewed Doherty's work on the origination of Jesus^[188] and eventually concluded that the evidence favored the core of Doherty's thesis.^{[q 12]} According to Carrier, following Couchoud^{[q 70]} and Doherty, Christianity started with the belief in a new deity called Jesus,^{[q 74]} "a spiritual, mythical figure."^{[q 75]} According to Carrier, 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.^{[q 74]} According to Carrier, for such a person to be considered "the historical Jesus in any pertinent sense", such a person must comply with his definition of a minimal historical Jesus.^{[q 76]} 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.^[189]

Other modern proponents

Alvar Ellegård, in The Myth of Jesus (1992), and Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ. A Study in Creative Mythology (1999), argued that Jesus lived 100 years before the accepted dates, and was a teacher of the Essenes. According to Ellegård, Paul was connected with the Essenes, and had a vision of this Jesus.

Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, in their 1999 publication The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? propose that Jesus did not literally exist as an historically identifiable individual, but was instead a syncretic re-interpretation of the fundamental pagan "godman" by the Gnostics, who were the original sect of Christianity. The book has been negatively received by scholars, and also by Christ mythicists.^[190]^[190]^[191]^[192]

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.^[193] 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.^[145] 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.^[145] 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.^[194] 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.^[195] In 2007, Harpur published a sequel, Water Into Wine.^[196]

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.^[197]

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.^[198] 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.^[199]

Reception

Popular reception

In a 2015 poll conducted by the Church of England, 40% of respondents indicated that they did not believe Jesus was a real person.^[200]

Ehrman notes that "the mythicists have become loud, and thanks to the Internet they've attracted more attention".^[201] 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.^{[q 77]} Doherty created the website The Jesus Puzzle in 1996,^[202] while the organization Internet Infidels has featured the works of mythicists on their website^[203] and mythicism has been mentioned on several popular news sites.^{[q 78]}

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.^[204] 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".^{[q 79]}

According to Ehrman, mythicism has a growing appeal "because these deniers of Jesus are at the same time denouncers of religion".^[205]^{[q 80]} According to Casey, mythicism has a growing appeal because of an aversion toward Christian fundamentalism among American atheists.^[173]

Scholarly reception

In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory and finds virtually no support from scholars.^[4]^[206]^[5]^[6]^{[q 81]}

Lack of support for mythicsm

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.^[207] 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".^[208] 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".^[209] 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".^[210] 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".^[211] 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.^[212]

Graeme Clarke, Emeritus Professor of Classical Ancient History and Archaeology at Australian National University^[213] 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".^[214] 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.^[215]

Questioning the competence of proponents

Critics of the Christ myth theory question the competence of its supporters.^{[q 71]} 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.^[205]

Maurice Casey has criticized the mythicists, pointing out their complete ignorance of how modern critical scholarship actually works. 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, but also exemplary of the mythicists' misconceptions about the ideas and attitudes of mainstream scholars.^[216]

Questioning the mainstream view appears to have consequences for one's job perspectives.^[xxi] 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".^{[q 71]} 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.^[205]

Opponents

Few scholars have bothered to criticise Christ myth theories. Robert Van Voorst has written "Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed (Christ myth) arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."^[217] Paul L. Maier, former Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University and current professor emeritus in the Department of History there has stated "Anyone who uses the argument that Jesus never existed is simply flaunting his ignorance."^[218] Among notable scholars who have directly addressed the Christ myth are Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey and Philip Jenkins.

In his book Did Jesus Exist?, Bart Ehrman surveys the arguments "mythicists" have made against the existence of Jesus since the idea was first mooted at the end of the 18th century. As for the lack of contemporaneous records for Jesus, Ehrman notes no comparable Jewish figure is mentioned in contemporary records either and there are mentions of Christ in several Roman works of history from only decades after the death of Jesus.^[219] The author states that the authentic letters of the apostle Paul in the New Testament were likely written within a few years of Jesus' death and that Paul likely personally knew James, the brother of Jesus. Although the gospel accounts of Jesus' life may be biased and unreliable in many respects, Ehrman writes, they and the sources behind them which scholars have discerned still contain some accurate historical information.^[219] So many independent attestations of Jesus' existence, Ehrman says, are actually "astounding for an ancient figure of any kind".^[205] Ehrman dismisses the idea that the story of Jesus is an invention based on pagan myths of dying-and-rising gods, maintaining that the early Christians were primarily influenced by Jewish ideas, not Greek or Roman ones,^[219]^[205] and repeatedly insisting that the idea that there was never such a person as Jesus is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all.^[219]

Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, has written "What you can’t do, though, without venturing into the far swamps of extreme crankery, is to argue that Jesus never existed. The “Christ-Myth Hypothesis” is not scholarship, and is not taken seriously in respectable academic debate. The grounds advanced for the “hypothesis” are worthless. The authors proposing such opinions might be competent, decent, honest individuals, but the views they present are demonstrably wrong....Jesus is better documented and recorded than pretty much any non-elite figure of antiquity."^[220]

Simon Gathercole at Cambridge has written regarding mythicist arguments relating to the claim that Paul believed in a heavenly, celestial Jesus who was never on Earth. Gathercole concludes that Carrier's arguments, and more broadly, the mythicist positions on different aspects of Paul's letters are contradicted by the historical data, and that Paul says a number of things regarding Jesus' life on Earth, his personality, family, etc.^[221]

Traditional and Evangelical Christianity

Alexander Lucie-Smith, Catholic priest and doctor of moral theology, states that "People who think Jesus didn’t exist are seriously confused," but also notes that "the Church needs to reflect on its failure. If 40 per cent believe in the Jesus myth, this is a sign that the Church has failed to communicate with the general public."^[222]

Stanley E. Porter, president and dean of McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, and Stephen J. Bedard, a Baptist minister and graduate of McMaster Divinity, respond to Harpur's ideas from an evangelical standpoint in Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea, challenging the key ideas lying at the foundation of Harpur's thesis. Porter and Bedard conclude that there is sufficient evidence for the historicity of Jesus and assert that Harpur is motivated to promote "universalistic spirituality".^[223]^[xxii]

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)

Notes

Notes with nested refs.

The named notes after this sentence contain named references; to prevent errors, they are stored here before the notes-reflist. ^[i] ^[v] ^[xxiii] ^[xxiv] ^[iv] ^[x] ^[vii] ^[vi] ^[viii] ^[xxv]

^ ^a ^b Per biblical studies, the major subdisciplines include translation, textual criticism, historical criticism, literary criticism, biblical theology, and biblical archaeology.^[224]

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.
^ Criteria being used to determine whether Biblical passages can be attributed to Jesus include multiple attestation, dissimilarity, embarrassment, historical plausibility, rejection and execution, and congruence.
^ 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
The basic facts of Jesus' life according to scholars:
- James D. G. Dunn (2003): "[these] two facts [of baptism and crucifixion] in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent."^[228]
- 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."^[229]
- 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.^[230]
- 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.
^ ^a ^b Protestant Christian fundamentalists regard biblical inerrancy as fundamental of the Christian faith.^[225] In keeping with traditional Christian doctrines concerning biblical interpretation, the role Jesus plays in the Bible, and the role of the church in society, fundamentalists usually believe in a core of Christian beliefs that include the historical accuracy of the Bible and all its events as well as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.^[226]
^ ^a ^b The central Christology of Paul conveys the notion of Christ's pre-existence and the identification of Christ as Kyrios. The Pauline epistles^{[q 47]} 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).^[234] 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, while others contend that Paul’s usage of the term Khristós is idiosyncratic (see Messiah in Judaism).^[235]
^ ^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.^[233]
- 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.”"
- Carrier (2002), §. The Argument to the Best Explanation: "[Per a critical review of The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty] when he argues that the sayings and deeds of Jesus are missing from the epistles (pp. 26–30) it is not the AfS [Argument from Silence] aspect of this argument that is most effective (though it is pretty good: he shows several examples of where we certainly should expect a detail to be mentioned yet it is not). Rather, it is the ABE [Argument to the Best Explanation] element..."
- Carrier (2005), p. 238, §. The Argument to the Best Explanation: "The argument to the best explanation works something like this: any statement about the past that we are justified in believing true to any degree must be tested against five criteria, and if no other competing statement about the same event comes close in meeting the same criteria, then we are more than justified in believing it. ...In general, the more one explanation exceeds all others on each criterion, the more confident we can be it’s true."
^ ^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.

Niehoff (2011), p. 144: "[Per exegesis] Philo's approach thus relies on a delicate balance between the literal [body] and the allegorical meanings [spirit] of Scripture."
^ 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."^[231] 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).^[232]
^ 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.
^ See also Ludemann (2002), p. 28: "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."
^ See Philippians#2:6–11 for full text:
5 Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;
8 and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient [even] unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name;
10 that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven and [things] on earth and [things] under the earth,
11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
^ The "Early High Christology Club" includes Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado,^{[q 56]} and Richard Bauckham.^[50]^{[q 57]}
^ 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.^[89]
^ 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^[94] and how no one seemed to notice this passage until the 4th century, not even Origen who quotes Josephus extensively in his works,^[95] thus leading mythicists to think that the Testimonium Flavianum is a forgery of the 4th century, perhaps written by Eusebius^[96] in order to provide an outside Jewish authority for the life of Jesus.^[97]^[98]
^ 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).^[103]
^ 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.^[123] 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.^[124] 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,^[123] or may be guilty of parallelomania^[125] and even misrepresentation of religious (both Christian and non-Christian) and linguistic sources^[123]^[126] (for example, ignoring the false cognate relationship between Christ and Krishna).^[126]
^ Some have even identified the historical and archetypal Jesuses^[128] or citing Carl Jung's statement "this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus."^[127]
^ See Thomas Verenna, Goodbye for now?
^ See also Stephen J. Bedard, Jesus Myth Theory, for an overview of blogs by Bedard on the Jesus Myth Theory.
^ See Rudolf Bultmann, who was a strong proponent of this demythologization.

Arnal (2015), pp. 75–76: "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”"
^ 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.^[227]

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."
^
Stark (1997):
- 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.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Comparisons" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Quotes

^ Ehrman (2012), pp. 12, 347, n. 1 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[Per] Jesus mythicism, Earl Doherty, defines the view as follows: it is “the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition.” [Jesus: Neither God nor Man: The Case for a mythical Jesus (Ottawa, ON: Age of Reason Publications, 2009), vii–viii.] In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."
^ Gullotta (2017), p. 312: "[Per Jesus mythicism] Given the fringe status of these theories, the vast majority have remained unnoticed and unaddressed within scholarly circles."
^ 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)."
^ Ehrman, Bart D. (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 that "won out," the Proto-orthodox view...
^
Gnosticism:
- Pagels (1975), p. 1: "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 (1979), p. 196: "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 (2003), pp. 125, 225: "[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."
^ Green (2008), p. 239, §. The Rise and Judgment of the False Teachers among You (2 Peter 2:1–3): "[Per 2 Peter 2:1–3] The heretics Peter seeks to arrest will bring with them “heresies” (αἱρέσεις, haireseis), a noun that originally had to do with a choice made (1 Macc. 8:30) or an inclination. From there it could mean a group, school, or sect differentiated from others (Acts 5:17; 15:5; 24:5; 26:5; 28:22). By extension, it could speak of a faction (1 Cor. 11:19; Gal. 5:20) or the distinct doctrine of a factional group (Philo, Planting 34 §151). In other words, “It thus comes to be the αἵρεσις [hairesis] (teaching) of a particular αἵρεσις [hairesis] (school)” (H. Schlier, TDNT 1:181). Doctrinal and social aspects were tightly bound. But in 2 Pet. 2:1 the author uses it in a pejorative sense: it points to the heretics’ heterodox doctrine (Herm. Sim. 9.23.5; Ign. Eph. 6.2; Ign. Trall. 6.1; H. Schlier, TDNT 1:180–84; MM 13–14; BDAG 27–28). The presence of heresy, therefore, is a contradiction both to apostolic teaching and Christian community. In other words, “ἐκκλησία [ekklēsia, church] and αἵρεσις [hairesis, faction/heresy] are material opposites. The latter cannot accept the former; the former excludes the latter” (H. Schlier, TDNT 1:181)."
^ Cite error: The named reference conclusions_presuppositions was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Price (2009), p. 61, §. Methodological Presuppositions harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "[W]e must keep in mind that consensus is no criterion. The truth may not rest in the middle. The truth may not rest with the majority. Every theory and individual argument must be evaluated on its own. If we appeal instead to “received opinion” or “the consensus of scholars,” we are merely abdicating our own responsibility, as well as committing the fallacy of appeal to the majority."
^ Cite error: The named reference Carrier.2012.21 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Robertson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b
Other mythicists state that Jesus lived in a dim past:
- Price (2009), p. 65, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "Some mythicists (the early G. A. Wells and Alvar Ellegard) thought that the first Christians had in mind Jesus who had lived as a historical figure, just not of the recent past, much as the average Greek believed Hercules and Achilles really lived somewhere back there in the past."
- Price (2011), pp. 387–388, §. The “Pre-Christian Jesus” Revisited harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help): "[I]f we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus."
- Doherty (2012), §. Bart Ehrman on G. A. Wells: "[G. A.] Wells interprets Paul as concluding that Christ had been born, lived and died on earth at an unknown time in the past, though he opts for Paul locating this during the reign of Alexander Janneus (103–76 BCE), known to have crucified hundreds of his rabbinic opponents."
^ ^a ^b Lataster (2014b): "[Richard Carrier's hypothesis of ‘minimal mythicism’], highly influenced by the work of Earl Doherty, states that Jesus was initially believed to be a celestial figure, who came to be historicised over time."
^ Cite error: The named reference mix.agnosticism.atheism was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Eddy.Boyd.2007.137 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference existence.simplification was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Davies.2012.evidence was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ 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.
^ ^a ^b
- Price (2011), pp. 36, 56, n. 38, §. Jesus at the Vanishing Point – Son of Scripture harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help): "[T]he more apparent it becomes that most Gospel narratives can be adequately accounted for by reference to scriptural prototypes, Doherty suggests [Jesus Puzzle (1999) 79–82, 225–230.], the more natural it is to picture early Christians beginning with a more or less vague savior myth and seeking to lend it color and detail by anchoring it in a particular historical period and clothing it in scriptural garb." [First published: Price (2009), p. 68 harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help).]
- Doherty (1999a), §. Was There No Historical Jesus?: "[M]odern analysis of the Gospels has placed them in the category of "midrash", a traditional Jewish scribal and teaching device in which elements drawn from the scriptures are combined and reworked to create new prescriptions for moral behavior and new interpretations of divine truths. Traditional midrash often did this through entirely fictional creations, whose story elements served symbolic purposes, like morality tales."
- Doherty (1997), §. Piece No. 8: The Gospels Not History harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoherty1997 (help): "John Shelby Spong (in his Liberating the Gospels) regards the Synoptic Gospels as midrashic fiction in virtually every detail, though he believes it was based on an historical man."
^ 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). {{cite news}}: External link in |issue= (help)
^
Argument from silence:
- Ehrman (2012), p. 34 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[The basic mythicist position is] the negative argument, that we have no reliable witness that even mentions a historical Jesus, and the positive one, that his story appears to have been modeled on the accounts told of other divinities..."
- Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 165: "[Some Christ myth theorists] make much of the claim that there is little or no credible information about the historical Jesus to be found in first—and second—century non-Christian sources or in Paul, the earliest Christian source. Surely if a miracle-working prophet like the Jesus of the Gospels actually existed, it is argued, Paul and pagan contemporaries would have mentioned his feats and his teachings. Instead, they argue, we find a virtual silence."
^
Paul's epistles:
- Lataster (2015a), p. 70, §. Critiquing the Epistles: "Paul’s knowledge of Jesus comes from the Scriptures and his direct channel to the divine rather than first-hand eyewitness accounts, he can almost certainly be written off as a reliable and primary source of evidence for the historical Jesus. New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann (University of Göttingen) agrees: “In short, Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus.” (Gerd Lüdemann, “Paul as a Witness to the Historical Jesus,” in Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffmann (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010), p. 212.)"
- Price (2009), p. 63, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "[W]e should never guess from the Epistles that Jesus died in any particular historical or political context, only that the fallen angels (Col 2:15), the archons of this age, did him in, little realizing they were sealing their own doom (1 Cor 2:6–8)."
^ Price (2006), pp. 66–67 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2006 (help): "Why are the gospels filled with rewritten stories of Jonah, David, Moses, Elijah, and Elisha rather than reports of the historical Jesus? Quite likely because the earliest Christians, perhaps Jewish, Samaritan, and Galilean sectarians like the Nasoreans or Essenes, did not understand their savior to have been a figure of mundane history at all, any more than the devotees of the cults of Attis, Hercules, Mithras, and Osiris did. Their gods, too, had died and risen in antiquity."
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 33: "Scholars such as [G. A.] Wells, [Earl] Doherty, and [R. M.] Price argue that Paul’s view of Jesus was not anything like the recent, contemporary Galilean figure we find in the Gospels. ...Indeed, the Pauline Christ was actually quite close to the sorts of divinities we find in ancient mystery religions."
^ Lataster (2016), p. 191: "[S]ceptical analyses reveal that Paul says nothing about Jesus that unambiguously situates him on Earth in recent history."
^ Cite error: The named reference Wells.1982.22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 202: "While 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. The most extreme legendary-Jesus theorists, however—particularly the Christ myth theorists—deny this. They argue that nothing in Paul’s letters indicates that he believed Jesus was a contemporary of his. Rather, they contend, the Jesus of Paul’s theology is a savior figure patterned after similar figures within ancient mystery religions. According to the theory, Paul believed that Christ entered the world at some point in the distant past—or that he existed only in a transcendent mythical realm—and died to defeat evil powers and redeem humanity. Only later was Jesus remythologized [i.e. historicized] as a Jewish contemporary."
^
Wells (1999), pp. 94–111, §. Conclusion: The Origins and Development of Christology harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWells1999 (help)
- Wells (1999b)Template:Strloc insert
- Wells (2009), p. 328 Template:Strloc insert
^ Carrier (2014), p. 53 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help): "At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other. [...] Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm [not on Earth]."
^ Price (2003), p. 350: "This astonishingly complete absence of reliable gospel material begins to coincide, along its own authentic trajectory ...with another minimalist approach to the historical Jesus, namely, that there never was one. Most of the Dutch Radical scholars, following Bruno Bauer, argued that all of the gospel tradition was fabricated to historicize an originally bare datum of a savior, perhaps derived from the Mystery Religions or Gnosticism or even further afield. The basic argument offered for this position, it seems to me, is that of analogy, the resemblances between Jesus and Gnostic and Mystery Religion saviors being just too numerous and close to dismiss."
^ Cite error: The named reference mix.Couchoud.1939.33.Price.2009.64 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Carrier (2014b)Template:Strloc insert
^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 13 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)Template:Strloc insert
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference Thompson.2009.p3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Lataster.2014.19 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^
Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 314–315, n. 23: "[Per Scholars who classify the Gospels as “fiction”] There is no consensus among scholars within this camp as to what exact kind of fiction the Gospels are intended to be. Candidates include . . . “legend,” (R. M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003), 21.)"
- Price (2003), p. 21: "If some New Testament miracle stories find no parallel in contemporary experience, they do have parallels, often striking ones, in other ancient writings that no one takes to be anything other than mythical or legendary."
^ ^a ^b
Price:
- Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 137–138: "Robert Price goes so far as to argue that every aspect of the Jesus story found in the Gospels fits the “mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” With such a strong correspondence between Jesus and universally acknowledged mythic figures, the suggestion that the Jesus story is rooted in history while the other hero stories are not seems highly implausible to some."
- Price (2000), p. 259: "Alan Dundes has shown, the gospel life of Jesus corresponds in most particulars with the worldwide paradigm of the Mythic Hero Archetype as delineated by Lord Raglan, Otto Rank, and others."
- Price (2003), p. 21: "The Gospels come under serious suspicion because there is practically nothing in them that does not conform to this “Mythic Hero Archetype”."
^ ^a ^b Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163: "Christ myth theorists argue that Paul views Jesus as a cosmic savior figure, along the lines of a mystery-religion deity, not a historical person in the recent past. They argue that it was only later, when the Gospels were written, that a fictitious historical narrative was imposed on this mythical cosmic savior figure."
^ ^a ^b ^c Van Voorst (2000), p. 9 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help): "[Per Bruno Bauer, Christianity and its Christ] were born in Rome and Alexandria when adherents of Roman Stoicism, Greek Neo-Platonism and Judaism combined to form a new religion that needed a founder."
^ ^a ^b Wells (2009), p. 15: "What we have in the gospels is surely a fusion of two originally quite independent streams of tradition [...] The Galilean preacher of the early first century who had met with rejection, and the supernatural personage of the early epistles, [the Jesus of Paul] who sojourned briefly on Earth and then, rejected, returned to heaven—have been condensed into one. The [human] preacher has been given a [mythical] salvific death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the early epistles) but in a historical context consonant with the Galilean preaching. The fusion of the two figures will have been facilitated by the fact that both owe quite a lot of their substance in the documents—to ideas very important in the Jewish Wisdom literature."
^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 69, n. 120 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help): "Those who, over the last two hundred years, have doubted the existence of Jesus have argued that the lack of contemporary corroboration of Jesus by classical authors is a main indication that he did not exist. (See, e.g., The Existence of Christ Disproved (London: Heatherington, 1841) 214. More recently, see Michael Martin, The Evidence against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1991).)"
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163: "Scholars who fall within the legendary-Jesus spectrum—especially the Christ myth theorists—typically argue that there is little-to-no independent information regarding a historical Jesus to be found in early non-Christian sources."
^ Cite error: The named reference Voorst.2000.9.documentation was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Eddy.Boyd.2007.32 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b
Wells:
- Van Voorst (2000), p. 13 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help): "[Per Jesus] Wells argues, we need independent corroboration from other, “objective” sources to affirm his existence. He [Wells] minutely examines these proposed other sources, from Tacitus to Talmud, and finds that they contain no independent traditions about Jesus. Therefore, they are not admissible [evidence]."
- 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 Gospels: "Richard Carrier also raises the possibility (and perhaps the need to be cautious) that all sources dated after the Gospel of Mark could have been tainted by it, and that this simply cannot be ruled out."
- Carrier (2015), p. 418: "[T]here is no independent evidence of Jesus’s existence outside the New Testament. All external evidence for his existence, even if it were fully authentic (though much of it isn’t), cannot be shown to be independent of the Gospels, or Christian informants relying on the Gospels. None of it can be shown to independently corroborate the Gospels as to the historicity of Jesus. Not one single item of evidence. Regardless of why no independent evidence survives (it does not matter the reason), no such evidence survives."
^
Myth of the dying-and-rising-God:
- Bromiley (1982), p. 1034: "[S]ome skeptics have sought to explain the NT [New Testament] witness to Jesus and the rise of Christianity in terms of the Christ-myth theory. [...] His death and resurrection suggest to some minds a variant of the myth of the dying-and-rising god, so popular in the world of ancient pagan religion and represented in the cults of Attis, Adonis, Osiris, and Mithras."
- Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 30: "Robert Price argues that the ancient Mediterranean world “was hip-deep in religions centering on the death and resurrection of a savior god.” He goes on to catalog a variety of examples to show that the “Christ cult” that arose was just another example of these ancient death-and-resurrection religions."
- Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 42: "[Per Earl Doherty] the only Jesus Paul knew of was “a divine presence in Christian communities, bestowing revelation and guidance, a channel to God and to knowledge of spiritual truths.” [Jesus Puzzle (1999) 30.] In other words, these considerations suggest that the Jesus of Paul and the earliest Christians was little different from the various deities worshipped and experienced within other ancient pagan mystery religions."
- Ehrman (2012), p. 349, n. 20 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[G. A.] Wells differs from most other mythicists: rather than tracing the invention of the historical Jesus back to the myths about the pagan gods, Wells thinks that it derived from Jewish wisdom traditions, in which God’s wisdom was thought to have been a personalized being who was with him at the creation and then came to visit humans (see, for example, Proverbs 8)."
^ ^a ^b Johnson (2010), p. 241, §. Pauls Ministry and Letters: "Nearly all critical scholars accept seven letters as written by Paul: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. There is almost equal unanimity in rejecting 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Serious debate can occasionally be found concerning 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians, but the clear and growing scholarly consensus considers them to be non-Pauline."
^
Paul seems to have followed the earliest Christian community, traces of which can be found in the Pauline epistles:
- 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).
^ ^a ^b Gullotta (2017), p. 336, §. James, the Brother of the Lord: "[E]arly and widely circulated Christian tradition maintained that Jesus had siblings, one of whom was named James. (See Painter, Just James; James D.G. Dunn, Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity (Christianity in the Making, vol. 3; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015), pp. 512–523; Bart D. Ehrman, Peter, Paul, & Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 168–169; Robert E. Van Voorst, The Ascents of James: History and Theology of a Jewish-Christian Community (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989).)"
^ Cite error: The named reference mix.Price.2009.2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Gullotta.2017.330 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Young.2006.14 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference mix.Mack.1988.98.Price.2000.75 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Price.2000.88.92.94 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Eddy.Boyd.2007.93.136 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Hurtado.2005.p101 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Loke.2017.5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference vridar_Couchoud was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Wells (1982), pp. 60, 245, r. 168: "The context in Hebrews [5:7] shows that the author interprets Jesus’ prayer not as a plea to be spared death, but to be delivered from the grave, and that this was granted (when God resurrected him). Roloff is able to say (168, p 146) that recent studies of this passage have shown conclusively enough that the material was not taken from traditions underlying the synoptic gospels, let alone direct from them." [ Cf. Roloff (1975), p. 146 ]
^ 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.
^ 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.
^ Ehrman (2012), p. 44 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "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."
^ 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.
^ 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.
^
Price:
- Price (2010), p. 103, n. 5: "Bolland, De Evangelische Jozua; Rylands, The Evolution of Christianity; Rylands, The Beginnings of Gnostic Christianity; Zindler, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew, 340, and others similarly held that Christianity began variously among Hellenized Jewish settlements throughout the Diaspora, with allegorized Jewish elements being made almost unrecognizable by their intermingling with gnostic mythemes."
- Price (2002), §. Suitors and Seducers: "The temptations and challenges of the Diaspora only served to increase the diversity of ancient Judaism, a diversity directly reflected in emerging Christianity, which demonstrably partakes of Jewish Gnosticism [Schmithals, 1975; Scholem, 1965], Zoroastrianism [Welburn, 1991], the Mystery Cults, etc.
  [Walter Schmithals, The Apocalyptic Movement: Introduction and Interpretation. Trans. John E. Steely (NY: Abingdon Press, 1975; Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. NY: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2nd ed., 1965), esp. chapter IX, "The Relationship between Gnostic and Jewish Sources," pp. 65–74.] [Andrew Welburn, The Beginnings of Christianity: Essene Mystery, Gnostic Revelation and the Christian Vision (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1991), pp. 44–51. The identification of the Nag Hammadi Apocalypse of Adam as Zoroastrian in substance has enormous implications.]"
^
Criticism of Ehrman:
- Lataster (2016), pp. 182, 184, §. Ehrman on Angelic/Angelomorphic Christology: "[Paul refers to] divine revelations from a Celestial Jesus (who seems eerily similar to pre-Christian Jewish—and non-existent—figures like the Son of Man and the Logos) [...] Historicists and mythicists both posit a different form of Jesus that preceded the Gospel’s version of Jesus. Unfortunately for the historicist, there is not a single piece of evidence, pre-New Testament, for the mundane Historical Jesus. This is not the case with the Celestial Messiah, who some pre-Christian Jews did honour, as even [Bart] Ehrman now acknowledges."
- 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).
^
Doherty:
- Doherty (2009), pp. 16, 717, n. 18: "[Some of Paul's rivals] proclaimed a Christ who was a Revealer Son, an imparter of wisdom and knowledge about God, a different means to salvation. [...] [Per 1 Cor. 1:18–24, Paul defends] his position against those who do not subscribe to his 'theology of the cross' [Christ having been crucified] [...] [This] is a response to the challenge in Corinth from Apollos’ preaching..."
- Doherty (1996), §. Apollos of Alexandria: "Apollos was probably a teacher of revealed knowledge which in itself claimed to confer salvation (Koester calls it a "life-giving wisdom"). And it may be that his preaching represented an evolution beyond earlier ideas in seeing a spiritual Christ as a concrete divine figure who was responsible for this revelation, a Christ who had grown out of Alexandrian traditions of personified Wisdom (Sophia) wedded with the Greek Logos."
- Doherty (2012), §. The Sound of Transition: from Paul to Orthodoxy: "[Per 1 Cor. 1; 2 Cor. 11] Paul is promoting his own version of the Son as a “Christ crucified,” with the strong implication that he is dealing with rivals and other circles of faith which do not believe in a crucified or sacrificed figure, but simply in a spiritual Revealer Son who saves by bestowing knowledge of God (just as survives in the Gospel of John from before the grafting on of the Synoptics’ human Jesus and his crucifixion). This [is a] stream of thought, which probably arose out of the whole intermediary Son/Logos philosophy of thinkers like Philo..."
^
Philo:
- Wells (1999), p. 97, §. Conclusion: The Origins and Development of Christology harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWells1999 (help): "[Per Philo] Talbert has shown, he [Philo] was allegorizing a myth, already current in Alexandrian Judaism, in which a heavenly redeemer figure, described as Logos or Wisdom among other terms, certainly did figure as a person. From Talbert’s evidence (1976, pp. 421ff), there can be no doubt that a myth of such a “figure who descended and ascended in the course of his/her saving work existed in pre-Christian Judaism alongside first—and second—century Christianity” (p. 430). [Talbert, C.H. 1976. The Myth of a Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity. NTS 22, 418–440.] The influence of Jewish Wisdom literature on Paul is undeniable: statements made about Wisdom [personified] in this literature are made of Jesus in the Pauline letters."
- Doherty (2012), §. Bart Ehrman on G. A. Wells: "[Per] the Wisdom of Solomon in the Jewish apocrypha, which is usually dated some time early in the first century, during the lifetime of both Philo and Paul [...] Here we have a dramatic presentation of an intermediary entity standing proud beside God in heaven, a dangerously close compromise to strict monotheism. It is cut from the same cloth as Philo’s picture of the Logos. And it bears an undeniable resemblance to similar presentations of the Son throughout the New Testament epistles."
^ ^a ^b Couchoud, Paul-Louis ap. Goguel (1926), p. 23, §. Nonhistorical Theories: "At the origin of Christianity there is, if I am right, not a personal biography, but a collective mystical experience, sustaining a divine history mystically revealed." [First published: Couchoud (1924), p. 339.]
^ ^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.
^ Cite error: The named reference Thompson.Messiah.Myth was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Cite error: The named reference Ehrman.2012.p11_15 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Carrier (2014), p. 52 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help): "[T]he basic thesis of every competent mythologist, then and now, has always been that Jesus was originally a god just like any other god (properly speaking, a demigod in pagan terms; an archangel in Jewish terms; in either sense, a deity), who was later historicized."
^ Doherty (2009), pp. vii–viii: "[The Mythical Jesus viewpoint holds] that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure..."
^
Carrier (2014), p. 34 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help). 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)."
^ 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}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^ Gullotta (2017), pp. 311–312, n. 34: Richard Carrier’s name and work has been mentioned on several popular news sites, with mythicism being the headline of the article.
^ 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."
^ Ehrman (2012), pp. 337–338, §. Conclusion – The Mythicist Agenda harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[Some] mythicists are avidly antireligious. To debunk religion, then, one needs to undermine specifically the Christian form of religion. [...] the mythicists who are so intent on showing that the historical Jesus never existed are not being driven by a historical concern. Their agenda is religious, and they are complicit in a religious ideology. They are not doing history; they are doing theology."
^ 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

References

^ Lataster (2015a)
^ Gullotta (2017), p. 310.
^ Lataster (2016)
^ ^a ^b Van Voorst (2003), pp. 658, 660.
^ ^a ^b Burridge & Gould (2004), p. 34.
^ ^a ^b Ehrman, Bart D. (April 25, 2012). "Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c Ehrman (2012) sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Stanton (2002), pp. 143ff.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Mack (1995)
^ King (2008), p. 70; Behr (2013), pp. 5–6.
^ King (2011)
^ ^a ^b ^c Ehrman (2003)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Ehrman (2014)
^ Powell (2013), p. 168.
^ Alanna Nobbs and Edwin Judge ap. Dickson, John (December 24, 2012). "Best of 2012: The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus". ABC Religion and Ethics. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
^ ^a ^b Ehrman (1999), p. 248.
^ Ehrman (2011), p. 285.
^ Stout (2011)
^ Price (1999)
^ ^a ^b Thompson & Verenna (2012) sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFThompsonVerenna2012 (help)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Doherty (1995a)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Doherty (1995d)
^ ^a ^b Price (2000), p. 86.
^ Price, p. 351-355.
^ Price (2003), pp. 31, 41–42, n. 14, §. Sources – Spotlight on the Evangelists; Price (2005), p. 534, §. Introduction
^ ^a ^b ^c Thompson (2012).
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Doherty (1995c)
^ ^a ^b ^c Tuckett (2001)
^ Detering, Hermann (1996). "The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles". Journal of Higher Criticism. 3 (2): 163–193. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
^ Price, Richard M. (2012). The Amazing Colossal Apostle. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. p. viii. ISBN 978-1-56085-216-2.
^ Price, Robert M. (2012). "Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?". In Thomas L. Thompson; Thomas S. Verenna (eds.). "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.
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 202.
^ Tucket, Christopher. "Sources and Methods," in Bockmuehl, Markus, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Jesus. Cambridge University Press, 2001, 121-137, esp. 125.
^ ^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
^ 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 ^c Carrier (2014), p. 570. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)
^ Wells (1982), p. 175.
^ Carrier (2014), pp. 557ff. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)
^ Victor Furnish in Paul and Jesus edited by Alexander J. M. Wedderburn 2004 (Academic Paperback) ISBN 0567083969 pp. 43–44
^ Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Volume 1 by James D. G. Dunn (2003) ISBN 0802839312 pp. 142–143.
^ ^a ^b Worship in the Early Church by Ralph P. Martin 1975 ISBN 0802816134 pp. 57–58
^ Paul's Letter to the Romans by Colin G. Kruse (2012) ISBN 0802837433 pp. 41–42.
^ The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament edited by David E. Aune 2010 ISBN 1405108258 p. 424.
^ Cite error: The named reference Price.2003.Name was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Creeds of the Churches, Third Edition by John H. Leith (1982) ISBN 0804205264 p. 12.
^ ^a ^b ^c Bouma, Jeremy (March 27, 2014). "The Early High Christology Club and Bart Ehrman — An Excerpt from "How God Became Jesus"". Zondervan Academic Blog. HarperCollins Christian Publishing. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
^ ^a ^b Ehrman, Bart D. (February 14, 2013). "Incarnation Christology, Angels, and Paul". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c Bart Ehrman, How Jesus became God, Course Guide
^ Geza Vermez (2008), The Resurrection, p.138-139
^ ^a ^b Maccoby (1986).
^ Cite error: The named reference Price62 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Can We Trust the New Testament? by George Albert Wells 2003 ISBN 0812695674 pp. 49–50
^ ^a ^b Doherty (2009).
^ Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus (Kindle ed.). Sheffield Phoenix Press. p. location 34725. ISBN 978-1-909697-70-6.
^ Carrier (2014), Chapter 4 and Chapter 11. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)
^ 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.
^ Carrier (2014), pp. 284ff. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)
^ "Paul Eddy". Bethel University. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
^ Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 46–47.
^ Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 45–47.
^ Carrier, Richard. "The Formation of the New Testament Canon". Sunrise-Publications.com. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
^ ^a ^b Reddish (2011), pp. 73–74, 144.
^ Baggett (2008), p. 7.
^ Review of Bauckham (2006), p. 225.
^ 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.
^ Dawkins (2006), p. 97.
^ ^a ^b Brodie, Thomas L. (2012). Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1-9075-3458-4.
^ Price (2011), p. 381. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)
^ Price (2003), p. 347.
^ 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.
^ Allan, William (2014). Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0199665457.
^ Ehrman (2012), p. 44. sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)
^ Timothy Barnes Pagan Perceptions of Christianity" in Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to AD 600. 1991, p. 232 ISBN 0687114446
^ ^a ^b Hutchinson, Robert (2015). Searching for Jesus. Nashville: Nelson Books. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7180-1830-6.
^ Grant (1995).
^ Bart D. Ehrman. Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 47 ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 165.
^ 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
^ ^a ^b ^c Carrier (2012). sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2012 (help)
^ Schreckenberg, Heinz; Kurt Schubert (1992). Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature. ISBN 978-90-232-2653-6.
^ Kostenberger, Andreas J.; L. Scott Kellum; Charles L. Quarles (2009). The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament. ISBN 978-0-8054-4365-3.
^ Kenneth A. Olson, Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (2): 305, 1999
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 197 n. 103.
^ 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 (2000), p. 83. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)
^ 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 & Boyd (2007), p. 189.
^ 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 Van Voorst (2000), pp. 39–53. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), 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). The Case Against Christianity. pp. 50–51. ISBN 9781566390811.
^ Weaver (1999), pp. 53, 57.
^ Secret of Regeneration, by Hilton Hotema, p. 100
^ Jesus, University Books, New York, 1956, p. 13
^ France, R. T. (1986). Evidence for Jesus (Jesus Library). Trafalgar Square Publishing. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-0-340-38172-4.
^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 217. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)
^ Pagels (1979).
^ Ehrman (2012), p. 349, n. 20. sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)
^ Freke & Gandy (1999).
^ Price, Robert M. (2009). "Book review of D.M. Murdock (Acharya S.), Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection. Stellar House Publishing". r m p Reviews. Retrieved August 4, 2010.
^ Price (2011), p. 425. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)
^ Carrier, Richard (2012). "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.
^ Ehrman (2012), p. 208. sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)
^ ^a ^b ^c The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, by Craig S. Keener, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012. p. 336
^ Casey (2014), p. 155. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)
^ Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies, by Craig A. Evans, Brill, 2001. p. 48
^ ^a ^b Casey (2014), p. 206. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (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
^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 568. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)
^ ^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
^ Stuart, Tristram (2007). The Bloodless Revolution. W. W. Norton. p. 591. ISBN 978-0-3930-5220-6. Retrieved September 20, 2018.
^ ^a ^b Stephen Prickett (1995). Peter Byrne; James Leslie Houlden (eds.). Companion Encyclopedia of Theology. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-0415064477. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ ^a ^b Van Voorst (2000), pp. 7–11. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)
^
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.
^ Bennett (2001), p. 204.
^ Harpur (2004), p. 30.
^ Harpur (2004), p. 59.
^ Kersey Graves and The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Richard Carrier (2003)
^ ^a ^b ^c Harpur (2004).
^ Harpur (2004), p. 200.
^ 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 (April 19, 2016). 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 (2013). Visionary Religion and Radicalism in Early Industrial England: From Southcott to Socialism. OUP Oxford. p. 168. ISBN 9780199663873.
^ Schweitzer (2001), pp. 356–361, 527 n. 4.
^ 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.
^ Bennett (2001), p. 205.
^ Price (2000), p. 207.
^ Van Voorst (2000), pp. 11–12. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)
^ Wells (1987), pp. 162–163.
^ G. R. S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest by Clare Goodrick-Clarke (2005) ISBN 155643572X pp. 1–3
^ ^a ^b Price (2009), pp. 80–81. sfnp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)
^ Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G. R. S. Mead (1903) ISBN 1596053763 (Cosimo Classics 2005) pp. 10–12
^ Weaver (1999), pp. 50, 300.
^
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 James 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 August 2, 2010.
^ Corydon, Bent; Brian Ambry (1992). L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?. Barricade Books. p. 353. ISBN 978-0-942637-57-1.
^ Weaver (1999), pp. 300–303.
^ Hibbert Journal Volume 37 (1938–39), pp. 193–214
^ Wells (1971), Wells (1975), Wells (1982)
^ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1.
^ Wallis, Richard (January 27, 2016). "Channel 4 and the declining influence of organized religion on UK television. The case of Jesus: The Evidence" (PDF). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 36 (4): 668–688. doi:10.1080/01439685.2015.1132821. ISSN 0143-9685.
^ Habermas, Gary R (1996). The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. College Pr Pub Co; Subsequent edition. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-0-8990-0732-8.
^ ^a ^b Casey (2014). sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)
^ Doherty (2009), p. vii–viii.
^ Doherty (2009). Jesus: Neither God Nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Ottawa: Age of Reason Publications. p. 716, n. 12. ISBN 978-0-9689259-2-8
^ Casey (2014), p. 2. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)
^ Casey (2014), p. 16. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)
^ Price (2009), pp. 61ff. sfnp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)
^ Price (2000), pp. 15–16.
^ Price (2000), p. 261.
^ "The Messiah Myth". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
^ "Is This Not the Carpenter? (Contents)". Cambridge Core. Cambridge University Press. 2012/07. Retrieved May 4, 2017. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Thompson & Verenna (2012), Introduction. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFThompsonVerenna2012 (help)
^ ^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. 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}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^ Gullotta (2017).
^ Carrier (2002).
^ Carrier (2014). sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)
^ ^a ^b "The Jesus Mysteries – a critique". Archived from the original on September 21, 2007. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^ Bart Ehrman, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on January 17, 2016. Retrieved October 23, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Ph.D. A Biographical Sketch of his life and work, by Richard Alvin Sattelberg, B.A., M.S.., 2005
^ Porter, Stanley E.; Bedard, Stephen J. (2006). Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea. Clements Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-8946-6771-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
^ 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.
^ Waugh, Rob (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.
^ "Jesus 'not a real person' many believe". BBC. October 31, 2015. Retrieved April 18, 2018. {{cite news}}: More than one of |work= and |website= specified (help)
^ Ehrman, Bart D. (June 26, 2015). "Kickstarting a Debate". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
^ 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.
^ Murphy (2011), p. 65.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Ehrman, Bart D. (March 20, 2012) [Updated: May 20, 2012]. "Did Jesus Exist?". Huffington Post. Retrieved April 8, 2014.
^ Fox (2005), p. 48.
^ Ehrman (2012), p. 2. sfnp 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.
^ Grant19 (1995).
^ "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= ignored (|url-status= 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.
^ Casey (2014), pp. 1–41. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)
^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 6. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)
^ Grace, John Patrick (July 21, 2015). "Questioning Jesus' existence is sheer madness". The Herald-Dispatch. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Ehrman, Bart D (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0062206442.
^ Jenkins, Phillip (April 18, 2016). "The Myth of the Mythical Jesus". patheos.com. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
^ Gathercole, Simon. "The Historical and Human Existence of Jesus in Paul’s Letters." Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 16.2-3 (2018): 183-212.
^ Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, People who think Jesus didn’t exist are seriously confused, Catholic Herald
^ Porter & Bedard (2006), p. 69.
^ Avalos, Hector (2007). The End of Biblical Studies. Prometheus Books, Publishers. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-61592-034-1.
^ Sandeen (1970), p. 6.
^ "Log in". Britannica Academic. Retrieved December 9, 2016.
^ Carrier (2014), pp. 168–173, 222–234. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)
^ 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 978-0-06-061662-5.
^ 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 (2014), pp. 200–205. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)
^ Smith (2013), p. 30.
^ Novenson (2012), pp. 1–3.

Sources

Allegro, John M. The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Hodder & Stoughton, 1970.
Allegro, John M. The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Christian Myth. Prometheus 1992, first published 1979.
Avalos, Hector. The End of Biblical Studies. Prometheus, 2007.
Arnal, William E. (2015). The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-32440-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Bader, Christopher, et al. American Piety in the 21st Century. Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, 2006.
Baggett, John. Seeing Through the Eyes of Jesus: His Revolutionary View of Reality and His Transcedent Signigicance for Faith. Eerdmans, 2008.
Baggett, John (2008). Seeing through the eyes of Jesus: his revolutionary view of reality and his transcendent significance for faith. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. ISBN 978-0802863409. Retrieved January 24, 2018. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Barker, Dan. Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists. Ulysses, 2008.
Barnett, Paul. Jesus and the Logic of History. InterVarsity, 2001.
Barnett, Paul. Messiah Jesus – the evidence of history. InterVarsity, 2009.
Barrett, David V. "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times issue 221, 2007.
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Eerdmans, 2006.
Bauckham reviewed. Scott W. Hahn; Dave Scott, eds. (2007). "Reviews & Notices: Richard Bauckham (2006), Jesus and the Eyewitnesses". Letter and Spirit: The Hermeneutic of Continuity: Christ, Kingdom, and Creation. Vol. 3. Emmaus Road Publishing. pp. 225ff. ISBN 978-1-931018-46-3. ISSN 1555-4147.
Bauckham, Richard (2017). Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Behr, John (2013). Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-166781-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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.
Bennett, Clinton (2001). In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-4916-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Berdyaev, Nikolai. "The Scientific Discipline of Religion and Christian Apologetics," Put, volume 6, 1927.
Bevan, Edwyn R. The History of Christianity in the Light of Modern Knowledge. Blackie & Son, 1929.
Bevan, Edwyn R. Hellenism And Christianity. G. Allen & Unwin, 1930.
Blomberg, Craig L. "Gospels (Historical Reliability)" in Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, & I. Howard Marshall (eds.) Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. InterVarsity, 1992.
Bolland, G. J. P. J. De Evangelische Jozua, 1907.
Bornkamm, Günther. Jesus of Nazareth. Fortress, 1995, first published 1959.
Boyd, Gregory A.; Eddy, Paul R. (2007). Lord Or Legend?: Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma. Baker Books. ISBN 978-0-8010-6505-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Brandon, S. G. F. "The Ritual Perpetuation of the Past", Numen, volume 6, issue 1, 1959.
Breen, Tom. The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus. Baylor University Press, 2008.
Bromiley, Geoffrey W., ed. (1982). "Jesus Christ". International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE): fully revised, illustrated, in four volumes. Vol. 2, E–J. Associate editors: Everett F. Harrison, Roland K. Harrison, William Sanford LaSor. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 1034–1049. ISBN 978-0-8028-3785-1. OCLC 500471471. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Bruce, F. F. Paul and Jesus SPCK, 1977.
Brunner, Emil. The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith. Lutterworth, 2002, first published 1934.
Burkert, Walter. Ancient Mystery Cults. Harvard University Press, 1989.
Burridge, Richard A.; Gould, Graham (2004). Jesus Now and Then. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-8028-0977-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Bushby, Tony, The Bible Fraud, The Pacific Group, 2001.
Cadbury, Henry J. The Eclipse of the Historical Jesus. Pendle Hill, 1964.
Carrier, Richard (2002). "Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity". Secular Web. Internet Infidels. Retrieved April 25, 2017. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carrier, Richard (2005). Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4520-5926-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carrier, Richard (2012). Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61614-560-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carrier, Richard (2013). "Questioning the Historicity of Jesus". Strange Notions. Brandon Vogt. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1-909697-35-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carrier, Richard (2014b). "Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jesus?". The Bible and Interpretation. Retrieved October 6, 2017. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Carrier, Richard (2015). "§. Forward §. Afterward". In Lataster, Raphael (ed.). Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists. CreateSpace. pp. iii–xii, 417–422. ISBN 978-1-5148-1442-0. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Case, Shirley Jackson. "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument", The American Journal of Theology, volume 15, issue 1, 1911.
Casey, Maurice (2014). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?. Bloomsbury T & T Clark. ISBN 978-0-5672-9458-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Centre for Public Christianity. "New survey finds over half of Australians think Jesus rose from the dead", 2009, Retrieved 2010-08-04.
Charlesworth, James H. Jesus and Archaeology. Erdmans, 2006.
Communication Research. Theos: Easter Survey, February 2008, Retrieved August 3, 2010.
Conybeare, Frederick Cornwallis. "The Historical Christ, or, An investigation of the views of Mr. J.M. Robertson, Dr. A. Drews, and Prof. W.B. Smith", Watts & Co, 1914.
Costa, Tony. "Review of Jesus is Dead", Review of Biblical Literature, 2009.
Couchoud, Paul-Louis (1924). "Le Mystère de Jésus". Mercure de France (in French). Vol. 170, no. 617. pp. 335–358. {{cite magazine}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Couchoud, Paul Louis (1939). The Creation of Christ: An Outline of the Beginnings of Christianity ; Tr. by C. Bradlaugh Bonner. Vol. 1 (original French edition: Jésus, Le Dieu fait Homme, 1937 ed.). London: Watts & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Cross, Frank L.; Livingstone, Elizabeth A., eds. (2005). "Historical Jesus, Quest of the". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 779–780. ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-061662-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Cutner, Herbert Jesus – God, Man or Myth: An Examination of the Evidence. Book Tree, 2000, first published 1950.
Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Dickson, John. Jesus: A Short Life. Lion Hudson, 2008.
Dickson, John. "Facts and friction of Easter", The Sydney Morning Herald, March 21, 2008.
Doherty, Earl (1995a). "The Jesus Puzzle. Main Articles: Preamble".
Doherty, Earl (1995c). "The Jesus Puzzle. Main Articles: Part Two: Who was Christ Jesus?".
Doherty, Earl (1995d). "The Jesus Puzzle. Main Articles: Part Three: The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth".
Doherty, Earl (1996). "Supplementary Article No. 1: Apollos of Alexandria and the Early Christian Apostolate". The Jesus Puzzle. Archived from the original on November 27, 1999. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Doherty, Earl (1997). "The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of Christian Origins". Journal of Higher Criticism. 4 (2): 68–102. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Doherty, Earl (1999a). "Was There No Historical Jesus?". The Monthly Newsletter of the Internet Infidels. 4 (4). Feature. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Doherty, Earl (1999b). The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? – Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus. Canadian Humanist Publications. ISBN 978-0-9686014-0-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Doherty, Earl (2000). "The Higher Critical Review: Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus". Journal of Higher Criticism. 7 (1): 126–140. Retrieved October 5, 2017. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Doherty, Earl (2009). Jesus: Neither God Nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus (New edition, Revised and Expanded, Originally published under the title: The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? – Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus ed.). Ottawa: Age of Reason Publications. ISBN 978-0-9689259-2-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Doherty, Earl (2012). The End of an Illusion: How Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" Has Laid the Case for an Historical Jesus to Rest (1st ed.). Age of Reason Publications. ASIN B00A2XN7EQ, Online, Kindle. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link) "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.
Drews, Arthur. Die Christusmythe. Eugen Diederichs, 1910, published in English as The Christ Myth, Prometheus, 1910.
Dunn, James D. G. "Myth" in Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, & I. Howard Marshall (ed.) Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. InterVarsity, 1992.
Dunn, James D. G. The Christ and the Spirit. Eerdmans, 1998.
Dunn, James D. G. Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003.
Dunn, James D. G. "Response to Robert M. Price" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy. The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009.
Dupuis, Charles François. The Origin of All Religious Worship. Kessinger, 2007, first published 1794.
Durant, Will. Christ and Caesar. Simon & Schuster, 1972.
Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart D. (1999). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. ISBN 978-0-19-512639-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart D. (2003). Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-972712-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart D. (2005) [2003]. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart D. (2007). Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart D. (2010). Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart D. (2011). Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart D (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperOne. ISBN 9780062206442. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ehrman, Bart (2014). How Jesus became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. Harper Collins. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ellegård, Alvar (1993). "Theologians as historians". Scandia: Tidskrift för Historisk Forskning (59): 169–204. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Engels, Friedrich. "Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity", Der Sozialdemokrat, May 1882.
Evans, Craig A. "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology", Theological Studies, volume 54, 1993.
Evans, Craig A. Fabricating Jesus. InterVarsity, 2008, p. 220–221.
Evans, Henry Ridgely. The Napoleon Myth. Open Court, 1995.
Feldman, Louis H. "Josephus" in David Noel Freedman (ed.) Anchor Bible Dictionary. Doubleday, 1992.
Fiensy, David A. New Testament Introduction. College Press, 1995.
Forbes, Chris. "Zeitgeist: Time to Discard the Christian Story?", Center for Public Christianity, 2009, Retrieved 2010-08-04.
Forsyth, P. T. The Person and Place of Jesus Christ Wipf & Stock, 1996.
Frazer, James. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Macmillan, 1919.
France, R. T. The Evidence for Jesus. InterVarsity, 1986.
Fredriksen, Paula. From Jesus to Christ. Yale University Press, 2000.
Freke, Timothy; Gandy, Peter (1999). The Jesus Mysteries. Thorsons. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Fox, Robin Lane (2005). The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02496-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Gerrish, Brian A. "Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch's Stand in the 'Christ-Myth' Debate", The Journal of Religion, volume 55, issue 1, 1975.
Goguel, Maurice (1926). Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History? Translated by Frederick Stephens. New York: D. Appleton & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Originally published as Jésus de Nazareth: Mythe ou Histoire (in French). Paris: Payot. 1925.)
Goguel, Maurice. "Recent French Discussion of the Historical Existence of Jesus Christ," Harvard Theological Review, volume 19, issue 2, 1926, pp. 115–142.
Graham, Lloyd M., Deceptions and Myths of the Bible, Citadel Press, 1975.
Grant, Michael (1977). Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-14889-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Grant, Michael (2004) [1977]. Jesus. Orion. ISBN 978-1-898799-88-7. Reprint of Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (1977) {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Green, Gene L. (2008). Jude and 2 Peter. Baker Academic. ISBN 978-0-8010-2672-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Gullotta, Daniel N. (2017). "On Richard Carrier's Doubts: A Response to Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt". Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. 15 (2–3): 310–346. doi:10.1163/17455197-01502009. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Haber, Edyth C. "The Mythic Bulgakov: 'The Master and Margarita' and Arthur Drews's 'The Christ Myth'", Slavic & East European Journal, volume 43, issue 2, 1999.
Habermas, Gary; Licona, Michael (2004). The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Kregel Publications. ISBN 9780825494109. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Harpur, Tom (2004). The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers. ISBN 978-0-88762-145-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. W. W. Norton, 2005.
Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation: A Challenge to Faith. Bantam, 2007.
Henry, Carl F.H. God, Revelation, and Authority. Crossway, 1999.
Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great. Twelve Books, 2007.
Hoffmann, R. Joseph. "Maurice Goguel and the 'Myth Theory' of Christian Origins" in Maurice Goguel. Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History? Prometheus, 2006.
Horbury, William. "The New Testament" in Ernest Nicholson (ed.) A century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain. Oxford University Press, 2003.
Jacoby, Douglas A. Compelling Evidence For God and the Bible. Harvest House Publishers, 2010.
Johnson, Edwin. The Antiqua mater: A Study of Christian Origins. Trübner, 1887.
Johnson, Luke Timothy (2010). The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation (3 ed.). Fortress Press. ISBN 978-1-4514-1327-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
King, Karen L. (2008). "Which Early Christianity?". In Harvey, Susan Ashbrook; Hunter, David G. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. OUP Oxford. pp. 66–80. ISBN 978-0-19-927156-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
King, Karen L. (2011). "Factions, Variety, Diversity, Multiplicity: Representing Early Christian Differences for the 21st Century" (PDF). Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. 23 (3–4): 216–237. doi:10.1163/157006811X608368. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Klausner, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth. Bloch, 1989; first published 1925.
Köstenberger, Andreas J. Encountering John. Baker Academic, 1999.
Kratz, Peter. The Whole Rosenberg Story Again? Berliner Institut für Faschismus-Forschung und Antifaschistische Aktion, 1999.
Lataster, Raphael (2014). "The Fourth Quest: A Critical Analysis of the Recent Literature on Jesus' (a)Historicity". Literature & Aesthetics. 24 (1): 1–28. ISSN 2200-0437. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Lataster, Raphael (2014b). "Richard Carrier: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014; pp. xiv + 696". Journal of Religious History. 38 (4): 614–616. doi:10.1111/1467-9809.12219. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Lataster, Raphael (2015a). "Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories – A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources". Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies. 6 (1): 63–96. ISSN 2155-1723. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Lataster, Raphael (2015b). Jesus Did Not Exist: A Debate Among Atheists. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1-5148-1442-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Lataster, Raphael (2016). "Review Essay: Bart Ehrman and the Elusive Historical Jesus". Literature & Aesthetics. 26 (1): 181–192. ISSN 2200-0437. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Lataster, Raphael (2016a). "It's Official: We Can Now Doubt Jesus' Historical Existence". Think. 15 (43): 65–79. doi:10.1017/s1477175616000117. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Langenbach, Christian G. (October 5, 2007). "Freireligiöse und Nationalsozialismus". Schattenblick (in German).
Le Beau, Bryan F. The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair. New York University Press, 2005.
Ludemann, Gerd (2002). Paul: The Founder of Christianity. Prometheus Books, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-61592-367-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Maccoby, Hyam (1986). The Mythmaker. Paul and the Invention of Christianity. Barnes & Noble. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Machen, John Gresham. "History and Faith", The Princeton Theological Review, volume 13, issue 3, 1915.
Mack, Burton L. (1988). "The Congregations of the Christ". A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-2549-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Mack, Burton L. (1995). Who wrote the New Testament? The making of the Christian myth. HarperSan Francisco. ISBN 978-0-06-065517-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Mack, Burton L. (1997) [1995]. Wie schreven het Nieuwe Testament werkelijk? Feiten, mythen en motieven (in Dutch). Uitgeverij Ankh-Hermes. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Macquarrie, John. The Scope of Demythologizing: Bultmann and His Critics. SCM, 1960.
Mangasarian, Mangasar Magurditch The Truth About Jesus – Is He a Myth? Chicago: Independent Religious Society, 1909.
Mangasarian, Mangasar Magurditch The Bible Unveiled. Chicago: Independent Religious Society [Rationalist], 1911.
Marshall, Ian Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus. Regent College Publishing, 2004.
Martin, Michael. The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press, 1993.
McCabe, Joseph (1948). "Jesus". A Rationalist Encyclopædia: A Book of Reference on Religion, Philosophy, Ethics and Science. Watts. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
McClymond, Michael James. Familiar Stranger. Eerdmans, 2004.
Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. The Riddle of Resurrection. Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001.
Metzger, Bruce M. "Book review of Rim i rannee Khristianstvo by R. Yu. Vipper". Journal of Biblical Literature, volume 75, issue 3, 1956.
Metzger, Bruce M. Historical and Literary Studies, Pagan, Jewish, and Christian. Brill 1968.
Meynell, Hugo A. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan. University of Toronto Press, 1991.
Miller, Lisa and Scelfo, Julie. "Who Was Jesus? Pope Benedict's Answer", Newsweek, May 21, 2007.
Moggach, Douglas. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Murphy, Derek (2011), Jesus Potter Harry Christ (PDF), holyblasphemy press
Niehoff, Maren R. (2011). Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-50101-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity" in James Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003.
Norman, Asher, Twenty Six Reasons Why Jews Don't Believe in Jesus, Black, White, and Read Publishing, 2007.
Novenson, Matthew V. (2012). Christ Among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-984458-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
O'Dwyer, Davin. "Zeitgeist: The Nonsense", The Irish Times, August 25, 2007.
O'Neil, Tom. "Expect 'Religulous' and Bill Maher to Raise Oscars Hell", The Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2008.
Pagels, Elaine H. (1975). The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-0403-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Pagels, Elaine H. (1979). The Gnostic Gospels. Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-50278-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Pérès, Jean-Baptiste. "Grand Erratum: The Non-Existence of Napoleon Proved" in Henry Ridgely Evans. The Napoleon Myth. Open Court, 1827.
Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens. Cornell University Press, 1998.
Perrin, Nicholas. Lost in Transmission?. Thomas Nelson, 2007.
Pfleiderer, Otto. The Development of Theology in Germany Since Kant and Its Progress in Great Britain Since 1825. Swan Soennenschein, 1893.
Pfoh, Emanuel (2012). "Jesus and the Mythic Mind: An Epistemological Problem". In Thompson, Thomas L.; Verenna, Thomas S. (eds.). "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Equinox Publishing. pp. 79–92. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Porter, Stanley E. and Bedard, Stephen J. Unmasking the Pagan Christ. Clements, 2006.
Powell, Mark Allan (2013) [1998]. Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (2 ed.). Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-23447-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (1999). "Of Myth and Men: A Closer Look at the Originators of the Major Religions – What Did They Really Say and Do?". Free Inquiry. Vol. 20, no. 1. pp. 24–36. {{cite magazine}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. and Craig, William Lane. "The Craig-Price Debate: Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?", at Ohio State University, The Veritas Forum, 1999.
Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-5739-2758-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (2002). "Christianity, Diaspora Judaism, and Roman Crisis". Review of Rabbinic Judaism. 5 (3): 316–331. doi:10.1163/15700700260430988. ISSN 1568-4857. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (2003). The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?. Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781591021216. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (2005). "New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash". In Neusner, Jacob; Avery-Peck, Alan J. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Midrash: Biblical Interpretation in Formative Judaism. Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill. pp. 534–573. ISBN 9789004141667. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (2006). The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts. Signature Books. ISBN 978-1-56085-194-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (2009). "Jesus at the Vanishing Point". In Beilby, James K.; Eddy, Paul R. (eds.). The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity Press. pp. 55–83. ISBN 978-0-8308-3868-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (2010). Secret Scrolls: Revelations from the Lost Gospel Novels. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-6109-7075-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Price, Robert M. (2011). The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems. American Atheist Press. ISBN 978-1-5788-4017-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Puskas, Charles B. and Crump, David. An Introduction to the Gospels and Acts. Eerdmans, 2008.
Reddish, Mitchell (2011). An Introduction to The Gospels. Abingdon Press. ISBN 9781426750083. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Richards, George W. Beyond Fundamentalism and Modernism. Scribner, 1934.
Robertson, John M. (1900). Christianity And Mythology. London: Watts & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Reprinted (2004) Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing ISBN 0766187683)
Robertson, John M. (1902). A Short History of Christianity. London: Watts & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (Reprinted (2004) Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing ISBN 0766189090)
Robertson, John M. Pagan Christs. Watts, 1903.
Robertson, Archibald (1946). Jesus: Myth or History?. Thinker's Library, No. 110. London: Watts & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Roloff, Jürgen [in German] (1975). "Der mitleidende Hohepriester. Zur Frage nach der Bedeutung des irdischen Jesus für die Christologie des Hebräerbriefes". In Strecker, Georg (ed.). Jesus Christus in Historie und Theologie: Neutestamentl. Festschrift für Hans Conzelmann zum 60. Geburtstag (in German). Tübingen. pp. 143–166. ISBN 978-3-16-137872-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. Touchstone, 1967.
Sandeen, Ernest R. (1970). The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism 1800–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Schweitzer, Albert (2001) [1913]. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Segal, Alan F. "Jesus and the Gospel—What Really Happened?", Slate, December 21, 2005.
Sloyan, Gerard Stephen. The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith. Fortress, 1995.
Smith, A. D. Howell (1943), "In Search of the Real Bible", Nature, Thinker's Library, No. 98, 152 (3862): 522, Bibcode:1943Natur.152..522H, doi:10.1038/152522a0
Smith, Mark S. The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Brill, 1994.
Smith, Murray J. (2013). "Paul in the Twenty-First Century". In Harding, Mark; Nobbs, Alanna (eds.). All Things to All Cultures: Paul Among Jews, Greeks, and Romans. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 1–33. ISBN 978-0-8028-6643-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Solmsen, Friedrich. "George A. Wells on Christmas in Early New Testament Criticism", Journal of the History of Ideas, volume 31, issue 2, 1970.
Soukup, Elise "Imaginary Friend?", Newsweek, June 26, 2005.
Stanton, Graham (1989). The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192132413. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Stanton, Graham (2002) [1989]. The Gospels and Jesus (2 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199246168. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Stark, Rodney. Discovering God. HarperOne, 2007.
Stark, Rodney (1997). The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries. Princeton University Press & Harper. ISBN 978-0060677015. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Stark, Rodney. What Americans Really Believe. Baylor University Press, 2008.
Stenger, Victor J. God: The Failed Hypothesis. Prometheus, 2007.
Stout, Stephen O. (2011). The Man Christ Jesus: The Humanity of Jesus in the Teaching of the Apostle Paul. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock. ISBN 978-1-61097-287-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Taylor, Robert Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion. Richard Carlile, 1828.
Taylor, Robert The Diegesis; Being a Discovery of the Origin, Evidences, and Early History of Christianity. Richard Carlile, 1829.
The New York Times. "Abolition of History", May 14, 1904.
The New York Times. "Jesus Never Lived, Asserts Prof. Drews", February 6, 1910.
Theissen, Gerd; Merz, Annette (1998). The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-3122-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Theissen, Gerd; Winter, Dagmar (2002). The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22537-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Thompson, Thomas L. (2005). The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465085774. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Thompson, Thomas L. (July 2012). "Is This Not the Carpenter's Son?: A Response to Bart Ehrman". The Bible and Interpretation. Retrieved March 27, 2017. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Thrower, James. Marxist-Leninist "Scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism. Walter de Gruyter, 1983.
Tuckett, Christopher (2001). "Sources and methods". In Bockmuehl, Markus (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Jesus. Cambridge University Press. pp. 121–137. ISBN 978-0-521-79678-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries. Oxford University Press, 1991.
Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Van Voorst, Robert E. (2003). "Nonexistence Hypothesis". In James Leslie Houlden (ed.). Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 2: K–Z. ABC-CLIO. pp. 658–660. ISBN 978-1-57607-856-3. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Volney, Constantin-François. The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature, Davis, 1796.[
Waite, Charles B., History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two Hundred. Kessinger, 2003.
Walsh, George. The Role of Religion in History. Transaction, 1998.
Warfield, Benjamin B. "Book review of The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus by Arthur Drews"], The Princeton Theological Review, volume 11, issue 2, 1913.
Weaver, Walter P. (1999). The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century, 1900–1950. Trinity Press International. ISBN 9781563382802. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1969). "Stages of New Testament Criticism". Journal of the History of Ideas. 30 (2): 147–160. JSTOR 2708429. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1971). The Jesus of the Early Christians. Pemberton. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1975). Did Jesus Exist?. Prometheus. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1982). The Historical Evidence for Jesus. Prometheus. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1986) [1975]. Did Jesus Exist? (2nd revised, corrected and expanded ed.). Pemberton. ISBN 9780301860015. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1987). J.M. Robertson (1856-1933): liberal, rationalist, and scholar. Pemberton. ISBN 978-0-30187-002-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1989). Who Was Jesus? A Critique of the New Testament Record. Open Court Publishing. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1996). The Jesus Legend. Open Court Publishing. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1999). The Jesus Myth. Open Court Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8126-9392-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (1999b). "Earliest Christianity". Secular Web. Internet Infidels. Retrieved October 7, 2017. This article was originally published in The New Humanist Vol. 114, No. 3. Sept 1999, pp. 13–18. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (2000). "A Reply to J. P. Holding's 'Shattering' of My Views on Jesus and an Examination of the Early Pagan and Jewish References to Jesus". The Secular Web. Internet Infidels. Retrieved August 3, 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (2004). Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony. Open Court Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8126-9567-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (2007). "Jesus, Historicity of". In T. Flynn (ed.). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, G. A. (2009). Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and where it Leaves Christianity. Open Court Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8126-9656-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (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.
Young, Frances M. (2006). "Prelude: Jesus Christ, foundation of Christianity". In Mitchell, Margaret M.; Young, Frances M (eds.). Origins to Constantine. Vol. Cambridge History of Christianity: 1. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–34. ISBN 978-0-521-81239-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Zwartz, Barney. "Australians not so sceptical about Jesus, survey finds", The Age, April 7, 2009.

External links

Overview

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.

Proponents

Richard Carrier (2012), So...if Jesus Didn’t Exist, Where Did He Come from Then?

Evangelic critics

James Patrick Holding (2008), Shattering the Christ Myth. Did Jesus Not Exist?

[Biblical.studies-19] Per biblical studies, the major subdisciplines include translation, textual criticism, historical criticism, literary criticism, biblical theology, and biblical archaeology.^[224]

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.

[20] Criteria being used to determine whether Biblical passages can be attributed to Jesus include multiple attestation, dissimilarity, embarrassment, historical plausibility, rejection and execution, and congruence.

[Greater.Judea-22] 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.

[Jesus.Biography-24] The basic facts of Jesus' life according to scholars:
James D. G. Dunn (2003): "[these] two facts [of baptism and crucifixion] in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent."^[228]

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."^[229]

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.^[230]

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.

[5] James D. G. Dunn (2003): "[these] two facts [of baptism and crucifixion] in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent."^[228]

[6] 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."^[229]

[7] 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.^[230]

[8] 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.

[Christian_fundamentalists-29] Protestant Christian fundamentalists regard biblical inerrancy as fundamental of the Christian faith.^[225] In keeping with traditional Christian doctrines concerning biblical interpretation, the role Jesus plays in the Bible, and the role of the church in society, fundamentalists usually believe in a core of Christian beliefs that include the historical accuracy of the Bible and all its events as well as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.^[226]

[Paul.Christology-48] The central Christology of Paul conveys the notion of Christ's pre-existence and the identification of Christ as Kyrios. The Pauline epistles^{[q 47]} 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).^[234] 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, while others contend that Paul’s usage of the term Khristós is idiosyncratic (see Messiah in Judaism).^[235]

[Positive.argument-50] 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.^[233]
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.”"

Carrier (2002), §. The Argument to the Best Explanation: "[Per a critical review of The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty] when he argues that the sayings and deeds of Jesus are missing from the epistles (pp. 26–30) it is not the AfS [Argument from Silence] aspect of this argument that is most effective (though it is pretty good: he shows several examples of where we certainly should expect a detail to be mentioned yet it is not). Rather, it is the ABE [Argument to the Best Explanation] element..."

Carrier (2005), p. 238, §. The Argument to the Best Explanation: "The argument to the best explanation works something like this: any statement about the past that we are justified in believing true to any degree must be tested against five criteria, and if no other competing statement about the same event comes close in meeting the same criteria, then we are more than justified in believing it. ...In general, the more one explanation exceeds all others on each criterion, the more confident we can be it’s true."

[12] 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.”"

[13] Carrier (2002), §. The Argument to the Best Explanation: "[Per a critical review of The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty] when he argues that the sayings and deeds of Jesus are missing from the epistles (pp. 26–30) it is not the AfS [Argument from Silence] aspect of this argument that is most effective (though it is pretty good: he shows several examples of where we certainly should expect a detail to be mentioned yet it is not). Rather, it is the ABE [Argument to the Best Explanation] element..."

[14] Carrier (2005), p. 238, §. The Argument to the Best Explanation: "The argument to the best explanation works something like this: any statement about the past that we are justified in believing true to any degree must be tested against five criteria, and if no other competing statement about the same event comes close in meeting the same criteria, then we are more than justified in believing it. ...In general, the more one explanation exceeds all others on each criterion, the more confident we can be it’s true."

[Philo.exegesis-68] 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.

Niehoff (2011), p. 144: "[Per exegesis] Philo's approach thus relies on a delicate balance between the literal [body] and the allegorical meanings [spirit] of Scripture."

[Mythotype-71] 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).

[Jesus.traditions-75] 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."^[231] 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).^[232]

[Personification-83] 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.

[Ludemann-90] See also Ludemann (2002), p. 28: "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."

[Ph2:6-11-113] See Philippians#2:6–11 for full text:
5 Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;
8 and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient [even] unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name;
10 that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven and [things] on earth and [things] under the earth,
11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

[124] The "Early High Christology Club" includes Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado,^{[q 56]} and Richard Bauckham.^[50]^{[q 57]}

[168] 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.^[89]

[179] 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^[94] and how no one seemed to notice this passage until the 4th century, not even Origen who quotes Josephus extensively in his works,^[95] thus leading mythicists to think that the Testimonium Flavianum is a forgery of the 4th century, perhaps written by Eusebius^[96] in order to provide an outside Jewish authority for the life of Jesus.^[97]^[98]

[184] 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.

[186] More specifically, from Jesus son of Damneus, who is mentioned at the end of book 20, chapter 9:1).^[103]

[214] 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.^[123] 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.^[124] 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,^[123] or may be guilty of parallelomania^[125] and even misrepresentation of religious (both Christian and non-Christian) and linguistic sources^[123]^[126] (for example, ignoring the false cognate relationship between Christ and Krishna).^[126]

[217] Some have even identified the historical and archetypal Jesuses^[128] or citing Carl Jung's statement "this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus."^[127]

[318] See Thomas Verenna, Goodbye for now?

[326] See also Stephen J. Bedard, Jesus Myth Theory, for an overview of blogs by Bedard on the Jesus Myth Theory.

[Christian_Liberalism-330] See Rudolf Bultmann, who was a strong proponent of this demythologization.

Arnal (2015), pp. 75–76: "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”"

[Dying.god-332] 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.^[227]

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."

[advantages_of_Christianity-341] Stark (1997):
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.

[33] While others fled cities, Christians stayed in urban areas during plague, ministering and caring for the sick.

[34] 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.

[35] To the same effect, women were valued higher and allowed to participate in worship leading to a high rate of female converts.

[36] 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.

[37] 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.

[Ehrman_def-4] Ehrman (2012), pp. 12, 347, n. 1 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[Per] Jesus mythicism, Earl Doherty, defines the view as follows: it is “the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition.” [Jesus: Neither God nor Man: The Case for a mythical Jesus (Ottawa, ON: Age of Reason Publications, 2009), vii–viii.] In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."

[Gullotta.2017.fringe-8] Gullotta (2017), p. 312: "[Per Jesus mythicism] Given the fringe status of these theories, the vast majority have remained unnoticed and unaddressed within scholarly circles."

[Dunn.2003.174-11] 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)."

[Ehrman.2015-15] Ehrman, Bart D. (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 that "won out," the Proto-orthodox view...

[mix.Pagels.1975.1979.Ehrman.2005-16] Gnosticism:
Pagels (1975), p. 1: "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 (1979), p. 196: "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 (2003), pp. 125, 225: "[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."

[43] Pagels (1975), p. 1: "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."

[44] Pagels (1979), p. 196: "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."

[45] Ehrman (2003), pp. 125, 225: "[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."

[Green.2008.239-18] Green (2008), p. 239, §. The Rise and Judgment of the False Teachers among You (2 Peter 2:1–3): "[Per 2 Peter 2:1–3] The heretics Peter seeks to arrest will bring with them “heresies” (αἱρέσεις, haireseis), a noun that originally had to do with a choice made (1 Macc. 8:30) or an inclination. From there it could mean a group, school, or sect differentiated from others (Acts 5:17; 15:5; 24:5; 26:5; 28:22). By extension, it could speak of a faction (1 Cor. 11:19; Gal. 5:20) or the distinct doctrine of a factional group (Philo, Planting 34 §151). In other words, “It thus comes to be the αἵρεσις [hairesis] (teaching) of a particular αἵρεσις [hairesis] (school)” (H. Schlier, TDNT 1:181). Doctrinal and social aspects were tightly bound. But in 2 Pet. 2:1 the author uses it in a pejorative sense: it points to the heretics’ heterodox doctrine (Herm. Sim. 9.23.5; Ign. Eph. 6.2; Ign. Trall. 6.1; H. Schlier, TDNT 1:180–84; MM 13–14; BDAG 27–28). The presence of heresy, therefore, is a contradiction both to apostolic teaching and Christian community. In other words, “ἐκκλησία [ekklēsia, church] and αἵρεσις [hairesis, faction/heresy] are material opposites. The latter cannot accept the former; the former excludes the latter” (H. Schlier, TDNT 1:181)."

[conclusions_presuppositions-30] Cite error: The named reference conclusions_presuppositions was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Price.2009.61-31] Price (2009), p. 61, §. Methodological Presuppositions harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "[W]e must keep in mind that consensus is no criterion. The truth may not rest in the middle. The truth may not rest with the majority. Every theory and individual argument must be evaluated on its own. If we appeal instead to “received opinion” or “the consensus of scholars,” we are merely abdicating our own responsibility, as well as committing the fallacy of appeal to the majority."

[Carrier.2012.21-32] Cite error: The named reference Carrier.2012.21 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Robertson-35] Cite error: The named reference Robertson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[mix.Price.2009.2011.Doherty.2012-36] Other mythicists state that Jesus lived in a dim past:
Price (2009), p. 65, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "Some mythicists (the early G. A. Wells and Alvar Ellegard) thought that the first Christians had in mind Jesus who had lived as a historical figure, just not of the recent past, much as the average Greek believed Hercules and Achilles really lived somewhere back there in the past."

Price (2011), pp. 387–388, §. The “Pre-Christian Jesus” Revisited harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help): "[I]f we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus."

Doherty (2012), §. Bart Ehrman on G. A. Wells: "[G. A.] Wells interprets Paul as concluding that Christ had been born, lived and died on earth at an unknown time in the past, though he opts for Paul locating this during the reign of Alexander Janneus (103–76 BCE), known to have crucified hundreds of his rabbinic opponents."

[52] Price (2009), p. 65, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "Some mythicists (the early G. A. Wells and Alvar Ellegard) thought that the first Christians had in mind Jesus who had lived as a historical figure, just not of the recent past, much as the average Greek believed Hercules and Achilles really lived somewhere back there in the past."

[53] Price (2011), pp. 387–388, §. The “Pre-Christian Jesus” Revisited harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help): "[I]f we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus."

[54] Doherty (2012), §. Bart Ehrman on G. A. Wells: "[G. A.] Wells interprets Paul as concluding that Christ had been born, lived and died on earth at an unknown time in the past, though he opts for Paul locating this during the reign of Alexander Janneus (103–76 BCE), known to have crucified hundreds of his rabbinic opponents."

[Carrier_2014_p614–616-37] Lataster (2014b): "[Richard Carrier's hypothesis of ‘minimal mythicism’], highly influenced by the work of Earl Doherty, states that Jesus was initially believed to be a celestial figure, who came to be historicised over time."

[mix.agnosticism.atheism-38] Cite error: The named reference mix.agnosticism.atheism was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Eddy.Boyd.2007.137-39] Cite error: The named reference Eddy.Boyd.2007.137 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[existence.simplification-40] Cite error: The named reference existence.simplification was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Davies.2012.evidence-41] Cite error: The named reference Davies.2012.evidence was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Evans.2008.25-42] 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.

[mix.Price.2011.36.Doherty.1999.1997-43] 
Price (2011), pp. 36, 56, n. 38, §. Jesus at the Vanishing Point – Son of Scripture harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help): "[T]he more apparent it becomes that most Gospel narratives can be adequately accounted for by reference to scriptural prototypes, Doherty suggests [Jesus Puzzle (1999) 79–82, 225–230.], the more natural it is to picture early Christians beginning with a more or less vague savior myth and seeking to lend it color and detail by anchoring it in a particular historical period and clothing it in scriptural garb." [First published: Price (2009), p. 68 harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help).]

Doherty (1999a), §. Was There No Historical Jesus?: "[M]odern analysis of the Gospels has placed them in the category of "midrash", a traditional Jewish scribal and teaching device in which elements drawn from the scriptures are combined and reworked to create new prescriptions for moral behavior and new interpretations of divine truths. Traditional midrash often did this through entirely fictional creations, whose story elements served symbolic purposes, like morality tales."

Doherty (1997), §. Piece No. 8: The Gospels Not History harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoherty1997 (help): "John Shelby Spong (in his Liberating the Gospels) regards the Synoptic Gospels as midrashic fiction in virtually every detail, though he believes it was based on an historical man."

[62] Price (2011), pp. 36, 56, n. 38, §. Jesus at the Vanishing Point – Son of Scripture harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help): "[T]he more apparent it becomes that most Gospel narratives can be adequately accounted for by reference to scriptural prototypes, Doherty suggests [Jesus Puzzle (1999) 79–82, 225–230.], the more natural it is to picture early Christians beginning with a more or less vague savior myth and seeking to lend it color and detail by anchoring it in a particular historical period and clothing it in scriptural garb." [First published: Price (2009), p. 68 harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help).]

[63] Doherty (1999a), §. Was There No Historical Jesus?: "[M]odern analysis of the Gospels has placed them in the category of "midrash", a traditional Jewish scribal and teaching device in which elements drawn from the scriptures are combined and reworked to create new prescriptions for moral behavior and new interpretations of divine truths. Traditional midrash often did this through entirely fictional creations, whose story elements served symbolic purposes, like morality tales."

[64] Doherty (1997), §. Piece No. 8: The Gospels Not History harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoherty1997 (help): "John Shelby Spong (in his Liberating the Gospels) regards the Synoptic Gospels as midrashic fiction in virtually every detail, though he believes it was based on an historical man."

[Bethune.2016-44] 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). {{cite news}}: External link in |issue= (help)

[argument.from.silence-46] Argument from silence:
Ehrman (2012), p. 34 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[The basic mythicist position is] the negative argument, that we have no reliable witness that even mentions a historical Jesus, and the positive one, that his story appears to have been modeled on the accounts told of other divinities..."

Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 165: "[Some Christ myth theorists] make much of the claim that there is little or no credible information about the historical Jesus to be found in first—and second—century non-Christian sources or in Paul, the earliest Christian source. Surely if a miracle-working prophet like the Jesus of the Gospels actually existed, it is argued, Paul and pagan contemporaries would have mentioned his feats and his teachings. Instead, they argue, we find a virtual silence."

[67] Ehrman (2012), p. 34 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[The basic mythicist position is] the negative argument, that we have no reliable witness that even mentions a historical Jesus, and the positive one, that his story appears to have been modeled on the accounts told of other divinities..."

[68] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 165: "[Some Christ myth theorists] make much of the claim that there is little or no credible information about the historical Jesus to be found in first—and second—century non-Christian sources or in Paul, the earliest Christian source. Surely if a miracle-working prophet like the Jesus of the Gospels actually existed, it is argued, Paul and pagan contemporaries would have mentioned his feats and his teachings. Instead, they argue, we find a virtual silence."

[mix.Lataster.2015.Price.2009-47] Paul's epistles:
Lataster (2015a), p. 70, §. Critiquing the Epistles: "Paul’s knowledge of Jesus comes from the Scriptures and his direct channel to the divine rather than first-hand eyewitness accounts, he can almost certainly be written off as a reliable and primary source of evidence for the historical Jesus. New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann (University of Göttingen) agrees: “In short, Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus.” (Gerd Lüdemann, “Paul as a Witness to the Historical Jesus,” in Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffmann (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010), p. 212.)"

Price (2009), p. 63, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "[W]e should never guess from the Epistles that Jesus died in any particular historical or political context, only that the fallen angels (Col 2:15), the archons of this age, did him in, little realizing they were sealing their own doom (1 Cor 2:6–8)."

[70] Lataster (2015a), p. 70, §. Critiquing the Epistles: "Paul’s knowledge of Jesus comes from the Scriptures and his direct channel to the divine rather than first-hand eyewitness accounts, he can almost certainly be written off as a reliable and primary source of evidence for the historical Jesus. New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann (University of Göttingen) agrees: “In short, Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus.” (Gerd Lüdemann, “Paul as a Witness to the Historical Jesus,” in Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffmann (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010), p. 212.)"

[71] Price (2009), p. 63, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory harvp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help): "[W]e should never guess from the Epistles that Jesus died in any particular historical or political context, only that the fallen angels (Col 2:15), the archons of this age, did him in, little realizing they were sealing their own doom (1 Cor 2:6–8)."

[Price.2006.66-49] Price (2006), pp. 66–67 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2006 (help): "Why are the gospels filled with rewritten stories of Jonah, David, Moses, Elijah, and Elisha rather than reports of the historical Jesus? Quite likely because the earliest Christians, perhaps Jewish, Samaritan, and Galilean sectarians like the Nasoreans or Essenes, did not understand their savior to have been a figure of mundane history at all, any more than the devotees of the cults of Attis, Hercules, Mithras, and Osiris did. Their gods, too, had died and risen in antiquity."

[Eddy.Boyd.2007.34-53] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 33: "Scholars such as [G. A.] Wells, [Earl] Doherty, and [R. M.] Price argue that Paul’s view of Jesus was not anything like the recent, contemporary Galilean figure we find in the Gospels. ...Indeed, the Pauline Christ was actually quite close to the sorts of divinities we find in ancient mystery religions."

[Lataster.2016.191-54] Lataster (2016), p. 191: "[S]ceptical analyses reveal that Paul says nothing about Jesus that unambiguously situates him on Earth in recent history."

[Wells.1982.22-55] Cite error: The named reference Wells.1982.22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Eddy2007_p202-56] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 202: "While 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. The most extreme legendary-Jesus theorists, however—particularly the Christ myth theorists—deny this. They argue that nothing in Paul’s letters indicates that he believed Jesus was a contemporary of his. Rather, they contend, the Jesus of Paul’s theology is a savior figure patterned after similar figures within ancient mystery religions. According to the theory, Paul believed that Christ entered the world at some point in the distant past—or that he existed only in a transcendent mythical realm—and died to defeat evil powers and redeem humanity. Only later was Jesus remythologized [i.e. historicized] as a Jewish contemporary."

[mix.Wells.1999.1999.2009-57] Wells (1999), pp. 94–111, §. Conclusion: The Origins and Development of Christology harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWells1999 (help)
Wells (1999b)Template:Strloc insert
Wells (2009), p. 328 Template:Strloc insert

[78] Wells (1999b)Template:Strloc insert

[79] Wells (2009), p. 328 Template:Strloc insert

[Carrier.2014.53-58] Carrier (2014), p. 53 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help): "At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other. [...] Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm [not on Earth]."

[Price2003_p350-59] Price (2003), p. 350: "This astonishingly complete absence of reliable gospel material begins to coincide, along its own authentic trajectory ...with another minimalist approach to the historical Jesus, namely, that there never was one. Most of the Dutch Radical scholars, following Bruno Bauer, argued that all of the gospel tradition was fabricated to historicize an originally bare datum of a savior, perhaps derived from the Mystery Religions or Gnosticism or even further afield. The basic argument offered for this position, it seems to me, is that of analogy, the resemblances between Jesus and Gnostic and Mystery Religion saviors being just too numerous and close to dismiss."

[mix.Couchoud.1939.33.Price.2009.64-60] Cite error: The named reference mix.Couchoud.1939.33.Price.2009.64 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Carrier.Zechariah.6-62] Carrier (2014b)Template:Strloc insert

[Van.Voorst.2000.13-63] Van Voorst (2000), p. 13 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)Template:Strloc insert

[Thompson.2009.p3-64] Cite error: The named reference Thompson.2009.p3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Lataster.2014.19-67] Cite error: The named reference Lataster.2014.19 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Eddy_Boyd2007_p314-315-69] Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 314–315, n. 23: "[Per Scholars who classify the Gospels as “fiction”] There is no consensus among scholars within this camp as to what exact kind of fiction the Gospels are intended to be. Candidates include . . . “legend,” (R. M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003), 21.)"
Price (2003), p. 21: "If some New Testament miracle stories find no parallel in contemporary experience, they do have parallels, often striking ones, in other ancient writings that no one takes to be anything other than mythical or legendary."

[88] Price (2003), p. 21: "If some New Testament miracle stories find no parallel in contemporary experience, they do have parallels, often striking ones, in other ancient writings that no one takes to be anything other than mythical or legendary."

[Eddy_Boyd2007_p137-138-70] Price:
Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 137–138: "Robert Price goes so far as to argue that every aspect of the Jesus story found in the Gospels fits the “mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” With such a strong correspondence between Jesus and universally acknowledged mythic figures, the suggestion that the Jesus story is rooted in history while the other hero stories are not seems highly implausible to some."

Price (2000), p. 259: "Alan Dundes has shown, the gospel life of Jesus corresponds in most particulars with the worldwide paradigm of the Mythic Hero Archetype as delineated by Lord Raglan, Otto Rank, and others."

Price (2003), p. 21: "The Gospels come under serious suspicion because there is practically nothing in them that does not conform to this “Mythic Hero Archetype”."

[90] Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 137–138: "Robert Price goes so far as to argue that every aspect of the Jesus story found in the Gospels fits the “mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” With such a strong correspondence between Jesus and universally acknowledged mythic figures, the suggestion that the Jesus story is rooted in history while the other hero stories are not seems highly implausible to some."

[91] Price (2000), p. 259: "Alan Dundes has shown, the gospel life of Jesus corresponds in most particulars with the worldwide paradigm of the Mythic Hero Archetype as delineated by Lord Raglan, Otto Rank, and others."

[92] Price (2003), p. 21: "The Gospels come under serious suspicion because there is practically nothing in them that does not conform to this “Mythic Hero Archetype”."

[Eddy_Boyd_2007-72] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163: "Christ myth theorists argue that Paul views Jesus as a cosmic savior figure, along the lines of a mystery-religion deity, not a historical person in the recent past. They argue that it was only later, when the Gospels were written, that a fictitious historical narrative was imposed on this mythical cosmic savior figure."

[Voorst.2000.9.syncretism-73] Van Voorst (2000), p. 9 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help): "[Per Bruno Bauer, Christianity and its Christ] were born in Rome and Alexandria when adherents of Roman Stoicism, Greek Neo-Platonism and Judaism combined to form a new religion that needed a founder."

[Wells2013_p16-74] Wells (2009), p. 15: "What we have in the gospels is surely a fusion of two originally quite independent streams of tradition [...] The Galilean preacher of the early first century who had met with rejection, and the supernatural personage of the early epistles, [the Jesus of Paul] who sojourned briefly on Earth and then, rejected, returned to heaven—have been condensed into one. The [human] preacher has been given a [mythical] salvific death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the early epistles) but in a historical context consonant with the Galilean preaching. The fusion of the two figures will have been facilitated by the fact that both owe quite a lot of their substance in the documents—to ideas very important in the Jewish Wisdom literature."

[Van.Voorst.2000.69-76] Van Voorst (2000), p. 69, n. 120 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help): "Those who, over the last two hundred years, have doubted the existence of Jesus have argued that the lack of contemporary corroboration of Jesus by classical authors is a main indication that he did not exist. (See, e.g., The Existence of Christ Disproved (London: Heatherington, 1841) 214. More recently, see Michael Martin, The Evidence against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1991).)"

[Eddy.Boyd.2007.163-77] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163: "Scholars who fall within the legendary-Jesus spectrum—especially the Christ myth theorists—typically argue that there is little-to-no independent information regarding a historical Jesus to be found in early non-Christian sources."

[Voorst.2000.9.documentation-78] Cite error: The named reference Voorst.2000.9.documentation was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Eddy.Boyd.2007.32-79] Cite error: The named reference Eddy.Boyd.2007.32 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Voorst2000_p13-80] Wells:
Van Voorst (2000), p. 13 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help): "[Per Jesus] Wells argues, we need independent corroboration from other, “objective” sources to affirm his existence. He [Wells] minutely examines these proposed other sources, from Tacitus to Talmud, and finds that they contain no independent traditions about Jesus. Therefore, they are not admissible [evidence]."

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.

[101] Van Voorst (2000), p. 13 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help): "[Per Jesus] Wells argues, we need independent corroboration from other, “objective” sources to affirm his existence. He [Wells] minutely examines these proposed other sources, from Tacitus to Talmud, and finds that they contain no independent traditions about Jesus. Therefore, they are not admissible [evidence]."

[102] Wells, George A. (August 12, 2011). "Is There Independent Confirmation of What the Gospels Say of Jesus?". Free Inquiry. Vol. 31, no. 5.

[103] 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.

[Lataster2015_p68-81] 
Lataster (2015a), p. 75, §. Critiquing the Canonical Gospels: "Richard Carrier also raises the possibility (and perhaps the need to be cautious) that all sources dated after the Gospel of Mark could have been tainted by it, and that this simply cannot be ruled out."

Carrier (2015), p. 418: "[T]here is no independent evidence of Jesus’s existence outside the New Testament. All external evidence for his existence, even if it were fully authentic (though much of it isn’t), cannot be shown to be independent of the Gospels, or Christian informants relying on the Gospels. None of it can be shown to independently corroborate the Gospels as to the historicity of Jesus. Not one single item of evidence. Regardless of why no independent evidence survives (it does not matter the reason), no such evidence survives."

[105] Lataster (2015a), p. 75, §. Critiquing the Canonical Gospels: "Richard Carrier also raises the possibility (and perhaps the need to be cautious) that all sources dated after the Gospel of Mark could have been tainted by it, and that this simply cannot be ruled out."

[106] Carrier (2015), p. 418: "[T]here is no independent evidence of Jesus’s existence outside the New Testament. All external evidence for his existence, even if it were fully authentic (though much of it isn’t), cannot be shown to be independent of the Gospels, or Christian informants relying on the Gospels. None of it can be shown to independently corroborate the Gospels as to the historicity of Jesus. Not one single item of evidence. Regardless of why no independent evidence survives (it does not matter the reason), no such evidence survives."

[mix.Bromiley.1982-84] Myth of the dying-and-rising-God:
Bromiley (1982), p. 1034: "[S]ome skeptics have sought to explain the NT [New Testament] witness to Jesus and the rise of Christianity in terms of the Christ-myth theory. [...] His death and resurrection suggest to some minds a variant of the myth of the dying-and-rising god, so popular in the world of ancient pagan religion and represented in the cults of Attis, Adonis, Osiris, and Mithras."

Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 30: "Robert Price argues that the ancient Mediterranean world “was hip-deep in religions centering on the death and resurrection of a savior god.” He goes on to catalog a variety of examples to show that the “Christ cult” that arose was just another example of these ancient death-and-resurrection religions."

Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 42: "[Per Earl Doherty] the only Jesus Paul knew of was “a divine presence in Christian communities, bestowing revelation and guidance, a channel to God and to knowledge of spiritual truths.” [Jesus Puzzle (1999) 30.] In other words, these considerations suggest that the Jesus of Paul and the earliest Christians was little different from the various deities worshipped and experienced within other ancient pagan mystery religions."

Ehrman (2012), p. 349, n. 20 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[G. A.] Wells differs from most other mythicists: rather than tracing the invention of the historical Jesus back to the myths about the pagan gods, Wells thinks that it derived from Jewish wisdom traditions, in which God’s wisdom was thought to have been a personalized being who was with him at the creation and then came to visit humans (see, for example, Proverbs 8)."

[108] Bromiley (1982), p. 1034: "[S]ome skeptics have sought to explain the NT [New Testament] witness to Jesus and the rise of Christianity in terms of the Christ-myth theory. [...] His death and resurrection suggest to some minds a variant of the myth of the dying-and-rising god, so popular in the world of ancient pagan religion and represented in the cults of Attis, Adonis, Osiris, and Mithras."

[109] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 30: "Robert Price argues that the ancient Mediterranean world “was hip-deep in religions centering on the death and resurrection of a savior god.” He goes on to catalog a variety of examples to show that the “Christ cult” that arose was just another example of these ancient death-and-resurrection religions."

[110] Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 42: "[Per Earl Doherty] the only Jesus Paul knew of was “a divine presence in Christian communities, bestowing revelation and guidance, a channel to God and to knowledge of spiritual truths.” [Jesus Puzzle (1999) 30.] In other words, these considerations suggest that the Jesus of Paul and the earliest Christians was little different from the various deities worshipped and experienced within other ancient pagan mystery religions."

[111] Ehrman (2012), p. 349, n. 20 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[G. A.] Wells differs from most other mythicists: rather than tracing the invention of the historical Jesus back to the myths about the pagan gods, Wells thinks that it derived from Jewish wisdom traditions, in which God’s wisdom was thought to have been a personalized being who was with him at the creation and then came to visit humans (see, for example, Proverbs 8)."

[Johnson.2010.241-86] Johnson (2010), p. 241, §. Pauls Ministry and Letters: "Nearly all critical scholars accept seven letters as written by Paul: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. There is almost equal unanimity in rejecting 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Serious debate can occasionally be found concerning 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians, but the clear and growing scholarly consensus considers them to be non-Pauline."

[mix.Miller.2017.1.Carrier.2016-87] Paul seems to have followed the earliest Christian community, traces of which can be found in the Pauline epistles:
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).

[114] 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).

[115] 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).

[Gullotta.2017.336-96] Gullotta (2017), p. 336, §. James, the Brother of the Lord: "[E]arly and widely circulated Christian tradition maintained that Jesus had siblings, one of whom was named James. (See Painter, Just James; James D.G. Dunn, Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity (Christianity in the Making, vol. 3; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015), pp. 512–523; Bart D. Ehrman, Peter, Paul, & Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 168–169; Robert E. Van Voorst, The Ascents of James: History and Theology of a Jewish-Christian Community (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989).)"

[mix.Price.2009.2011-97] Cite error: The named reference mix.Price.2009.2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Gullotta.2017.330-98] Cite error: The named reference Gullotta.2017.330 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Young.2006.14-105] Cite error: The named reference Young.2006.14 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[mix.Mack.1988.98.Price.2000.75-114] Cite error: The named reference mix.Mack.1988.98.Price.2000.75 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Price.2000.88.92.94-115] Cite error: The named reference Price.2000.88.92.94 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Eddy.Boyd.2007.93.136-116] Cite error: The named reference Eddy.Boyd.2007.93.136 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Hurtado.2005.p101-122] Cite error: The named reference Hurtado.2005.p101 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Loke.2017.5-123] Cite error: The named reference Loke.2017.5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[vridar_Couchoud-129] Cite error: The named reference vridar_Couchoud was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Wells.1982.60-132] Wells (1982), pp. 60, 245, r. 168: "The context in Hebrews [5:7] shows that the author interprets Jesus’ prayer not as a plea to be spared death, but to be delivered from the grave, and that this was granted (when God resurrected him). Roloff is able to say (168, p 146) that recent studies of this passage have shown conclusively enough that the material was not taken from traditions underlying the synoptic gospels, let alone direct from them." [ Cf. Roloff (1975), p. 146 ]

[Price.2006.240-135] 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-136] 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.

[Price2009-155] 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.

[Ehrman_2012_44-159] Ehrman (2012), p. 44 harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "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."

[Pagan.witnesses-164] 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.

[Vermeer.2010.p54-55-171] 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.

[mix.Price.2010.103.Price.2002-200] Price:
Price (2010), p. 103, n. 5: "Bolland, De Evangelische Jozua; Rylands, The Evolution of Christianity; Rylands, The Beginnings of Gnostic Christianity; Zindler, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew, 340, and others similarly held that Christianity began variously among Hellenized Jewish settlements throughout the Diaspora, with allegorized Jewish elements being made almost unrecognizable by their intermingling with gnostic mythemes."

Price (2002), §. Suitors and Seducers: "The temptations and challenges of the Diaspora only served to increase the diversity of ancient Judaism, a diversity directly reflected in emerging Christianity, which demonstrably partakes of Jewish Gnosticism [Schmithals, 1975; Scholem, 1965], Zoroastrianism [Welburn, 1991], the Mystery Cults, etc.
[Walter Schmithals, The Apocalyptic Movement: Introduction and Interpretation. Trans. John E. Steely (NY: Abingdon Press, 1975; Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. NY: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2nd ed., 1965), esp. chapter IX, "The Relationship between Gnostic and Jewish Sources," pp. 65–74.] [Andrew Welburn, The Beginnings of Christianity: Essene Mystery, Gnostic Revelation and the Christian Vision (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1991), pp. 44–51. The identification of the Nag Hammadi Apocalypse of Adam as Zoroastrian in substance has enormous implications.]"

[134] Price (2010), p. 103, n. 5: "Bolland, De Evangelische Jozua; Rylands, The Evolution of Christianity; Rylands, The Beginnings of Gnostic Christianity; Zindler, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew, 340, and others similarly held that Christianity began variously among Hellenized Jewish settlements throughout the Diaspora, with allegorized Jewish elements being made almost unrecognizable by their intermingling with gnostic mythemes."

[135] Price (2002), §. Suitors and Seducers: "The temptations and challenges of the Diaspora only served to increase the diversity of ancient Judaism, a diversity directly reflected in emerging Christianity, which demonstrably partakes of Jewish Gnosticism [Schmithals, 1975; Scholem, 1965], Zoroastrianism [Welburn, 1991], the Mystery Cults, etc.
[Walter Schmithals, The Apocalyptic Movement: Introduction and Interpretation. Trans. John E. Steely (NY: Abingdon Press, 1975; Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. NY: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2nd ed., 1965), esp. chapter IX, "The Relationship between Gnostic and Jewish Sources," pp. 65–74.] [Andrew Welburn, The Beginnings of Christianity: Essene Mystery, Gnostic Revelation and the Christian Vision (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1991), pp. 44–51. The identification of the Nag Hammadi Apocalypse of Adam as Zoroastrian in substance has enormous implications.]"

[mix.Lataster.2016.Carrier.2016-201] Criticism of Ehrman:
Lataster (2016), pp. 182, 184, §. Ehrman on Angelic/Angelomorphic Christology: "[Paul refers to] divine revelations from a Celestial Jesus (who seems eerily similar to pre-Christian Jewish—and non-existent—figures like the Son of Man and the Logos) [...] Historicists and mythicists both posit a different form of Jesus that preceded the Gospel’s version of Jesus. Unfortunately for the historicist, there is not a single piece of evidence, pre-New Testament, for the mundane Historical Jesus. This is not the case with the Celestial Messiah, who some pre-Christian Jews did honour, as even [Bart] Ehrman now acknowledges."

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).

[137] Lataster (2016), pp. 182, 184, §. Ehrman on Angelic/Angelomorphic Christology: "[Paul refers to] divine revelations from a Celestial Jesus (who seems eerily similar to pre-Christian Jewish—and non-existent—figures like the Son of Man and the Logos) [...] Historicists and mythicists both posit a different form of Jesus that preceded the Gospel’s version of Jesus. Unfortunately for the historicist, there is not a single piece of evidence, pre-New Testament, for the mundane Historical Jesus. This is not the case with the Celestial Messiah, who some pre-Christian Jews did honour, as even [Bart] Ehrman now acknowledges."

[138] 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).

[mix.Doherty.2009.1996.2012-202] Doherty:
Doherty (2009), pp. 16, 717, n. 18: "[Some of Paul's rivals] proclaimed a Christ who was a Revealer Son, an imparter of wisdom and knowledge about God, a different means to salvation. [...] [Per 1 Cor. 1:18–24, Paul defends] his position against those who do not subscribe to his 'theology of the cross' [Christ having been crucified] [...] [This] is a response to the challenge in Corinth from Apollos’ preaching..."

Doherty (1996), §. Apollos of Alexandria: "Apollos was probably a teacher of revealed knowledge which in itself claimed to confer salvation (Koester calls it a "life-giving wisdom"). And it may be that his preaching represented an evolution beyond earlier ideas in seeing a spiritual Christ as a concrete divine figure who was responsible for this revelation, a Christ who had grown out of Alexandrian traditions of personified Wisdom (Sophia) wedded with the Greek Logos."

Doherty (2012), §. The Sound of Transition: from Paul to Orthodoxy: "[Per 1 Cor. 1; 2 Cor. 11] Paul is promoting his own version of the Son as a “Christ crucified,” with the strong implication that he is dealing with rivals and other circles of faith which do not believe in a crucified or sacrificed figure, but simply in a spiritual Revealer Son who saves by bestowing knowledge of God (just as survives in the Gospel of John from before the grafting on of the Synoptics’ human Jesus and his crucifixion). This [is a] stream of thought, which probably arose out of the whole intermediary Son/Logos philosophy of thinkers like Philo..."

[140] Doherty (2009), pp. 16, 717, n. 18: "[Some of Paul's rivals] proclaimed a Christ who was a Revealer Son, an imparter of wisdom and knowledge about God, a different means to salvation. [...] [Per 1 Cor. 1:18–24, Paul defends] his position against those who do not subscribe to his 'theology of the cross' [Christ having been crucified] [...] [This] is a response to the challenge in Corinth from Apollos’ preaching..."

[141] Doherty (1996), §. Apollos of Alexandria: "Apollos was probably a teacher of revealed knowledge which in itself claimed to confer salvation (Koester calls it a "life-giving wisdom"). And it may be that his preaching represented an evolution beyond earlier ideas in seeing a spiritual Christ as a concrete divine figure who was responsible for this revelation, a Christ who had grown out of Alexandrian traditions of personified Wisdom (Sophia) wedded with the Greek Logos."

[142] Doherty (2012), §. The Sound of Transition: from Paul to Orthodoxy: "[Per 1 Cor. 1; 2 Cor. 11] Paul is promoting his own version of the Son as a “Christ crucified,” with the strong implication that he is dealing with rivals and other circles of faith which do not believe in a crucified or sacrificed figure, but simply in a spiritual Revealer Son who saves by bestowing knowledge of God (just as survives in the Gospel of John from before the grafting on of the Synoptics’ human Jesus and his crucifixion). This [is a] stream of thought, which probably arose out of the whole intermediary Son/Logos philosophy of thinkers like Philo..."

[mix.Wells.1999.97.Doherty.2012-203] Philo:
Wells (1999), p. 97, §. Conclusion: The Origins and Development of Christology harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWells1999 (help): "[Per Philo] Talbert has shown, he [Philo] was allegorizing a myth, already current in Alexandrian Judaism, in which a heavenly redeemer figure, described as Logos or Wisdom among other terms, certainly did figure as a person. From Talbert’s evidence (1976, pp. 421ff), there can be no doubt that a myth of such a “figure who descended and ascended in the course of his/her saving work existed in pre-Christian Judaism alongside first—and second—century Christianity” (p. 430). [Talbert, C.H. 1976. The Myth of a Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity. NTS 22, 418–440.] The influence of Jewish Wisdom literature on Paul is undeniable: statements made about Wisdom [personified] in this literature are made of Jesus in the Pauline letters."

Doherty (2012), §. Bart Ehrman on G. A. Wells: "[Per] the Wisdom of Solomon in the Jewish apocrypha, which is usually dated some time early in the first century, during the lifetime of both Philo and Paul [...] Here we have a dramatic presentation of an intermediary entity standing proud beside God in heaven, a dangerously close compromise to strict monotheism. It is cut from the same cloth as Philo’s picture of the Logos. And it bears an undeniable resemblance to similar presentations of the Son throughout the New Testament epistles."

[144] Wells (1999), p. 97, §. Conclusion: The Origins and Development of Christology harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWells1999 (help): "[Per Philo] Talbert has shown, he [Philo] was allegorizing a myth, already current in Alexandrian Judaism, in which a heavenly redeemer figure, described as Logos or Wisdom among other terms, certainly did figure as a person. From Talbert’s evidence (1976, pp. 421ff), there can be no doubt that a myth of such a “figure who descended and ascended in the course of his/her saving work existed in pre-Christian Judaism alongside first—and second—century Christianity” (p. 430). [Talbert, C.H. 1976. The Myth of a Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity. NTS 22, 418–440.] The influence of Jewish Wisdom literature on Paul is undeniable: statements made about Wisdom [personified] in this literature are made of Jesus in the Pauline letters."

[145] Doherty (2012), §. Bart Ehrman on G. A. Wells: "[Per] the Wisdom of Solomon in the Jewish apocrypha, which is usually dated some time early in the first century, during the lifetime of both Philo and Paul [...] Here we have a dramatic presentation of an intermediary entity standing proud beside God in heaven, a dangerously close compromise to strict monotheism. It is cut from the same cloth as Philo’s picture of the Logos. And it bears an undeniable resemblance to similar presentations of the Son throughout the New Testament epistles."

[Couchoud1926_p23-257] Couchoud, Paul-Louis ap. Goguel (1926), p. 23, §. Nonhistorical Theories: "At the origin of Christianity there is, if I am right, not a personal biography, but a collective mystical experience, sustaining a divine history mystically revealed." [First published: Couchoud (1924), p. 339.]

[Casey2014-271] 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.

[Thompson.Messiah.Myth-273] Cite error: The named reference Thompson.Messiah.Myth was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Ehrman.2012.p11_15-274] Cite error: The named reference Ehrman.2012.p11_15 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Carrier.OHJ-282] Carrier (2014), p. 52 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help): "[T]he basic thesis of every competent mythologist, then and now, has always been that Jesus was originally a god just like any other god (properly speaking, a demigod in pagan terms; an archangel in Jewish terms; in either sense, a deity), who was later historicized."

[Doherty.2009.mythical.figure-283] Doherty (2009), pp. vii–viii: "[The Mythical Jesus viewpoint holds] that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure..."

[Carrier.2014.34-284] Carrier (2014), p. 34 harvp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help). 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)."

[153] "An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death."

[154] "This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities."

[155] "This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping as a living god (or demigod)."

[Doherty.1997.Mack-298] 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}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[Gullotta.2017.311-301] Gullotta (2017), pp. 311–312, n. 34: Richard Carrier’s name and work has been mentioned on several popular news sites, with mythicism being the headline of the article.

[Gullotta.2015-303] 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."

[Ehrman.2012.337-305] Ehrman (2012), pp. 337–338, §. Conclusion – The Mythicist Agenda harvp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help): "[Some] mythicists are avidly antireligious. To debunk religion, then, one needs to undermine specifically the Christian form of religion. [...] the mythicists who are so intent on showing that the historical Jesus never existed are not being driven by a historical concern. Their agenda is religious, and they are complicit in a religious ideology. They are not doing history; they are doing theology."

[Grantmajority-307] 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

[FOOTNOTELataster2015a-1] Lataster (2015a)

[FOOTNOTEGullotta2017310-2] Gullotta (2017), p. 310.

[FOOTNOTELataster2016-3] Lataster (2016)

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst2003658,_660-5] Van Voorst (2003), pp. 658, 660.

[FOOTNOTEBurridgeGould200434-6] Burridge & Gould (2004), p. 34.

[Ehrman_Blog-7] Ehrman, Bart D. (April 25, 2012). "Fuller Reply to Richard Carrier". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved May 2, 2018.

[FOOTNOTEEhrman2012-9] Ehrman (2012) sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)

[FOOTNOTEStanton2002143ff-10] Stanton (2002), pp. 143ff.

[FOOTNOTEMack1995-12] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Mack (1995)

[FOOTNOTEKing200870Behr20135–6-13] King (2008), p. 70; Behr (2013), pp. 5–6.

[FOOTNOTEKing2011-14] King (2011)

[FOOTNOTEEhrman2003-17] Ehrman (2003)

[FOOTNOTEEhrman2014-21] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Ehrman (2014)

[FOOTNOTEPowell2013168-23] Powell (2013), p. 168.

[25] Alanna Nobbs and Edwin Judge ap. Dickson, John (December 24, 2012). "Best of 2012: The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus". ABC Religion and Ethics. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved May 2, 2018.

[FOOTNOTEEhrman1999248-26] Ehrman (1999), p. 248.

[FOOTNOTEEhrman2011285-27] Ehrman (2011), p. 285.

[FOOTNOTEStout2011-28] Stout (2011)

[FOOTNOTEPrice1999-33] Price (1999)

[FOOTNOTEThompsonVerenna2012-34] Thompson & Verenna (2012) sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFThompsonVerenna2012 (help)

[FOOTNOTEDoherty1995a-45] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Doherty (1995a)

[FOOTNOTEDoherty1995d-51] Doherty (1995d)

[FOOTNOTEPrice200086-52] Price (2000), p. 86.

[FOOTNOTEPrice351-355-61] Price, p. 351-355.

[Price.scripture-65] Price (2003), pp. 31, 41–42, n. 14, §. Sources – Spotlight on the Evangelists; Price (2005), p. 534, §. Introduction

[FOOTNOTEThompson2012-66] Thompson (2012).

[FOOTNOTEDoherty1995c-82] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Doherty (1995c)

[FOOTNOTETuckett2001-85] Tuckett (2001)

[88] Detering, Hermann (1996). "The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles". Journal of Higher Criticism. 3 (2): 163–193. Retrieved September 2, 2016.

[89] Price, Richard M. (2012). The Amazing Colossal Apostle. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. p. viii. ISBN 978-1-56085-216-2.

[91] Price, Robert M. (2012). "Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?". In Thomas L. Thompson; Thomas S. Verenna (eds.). "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Equinox. pp. 95ff. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3.

[92] 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.

[93] 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.

[FOOTNOTEEddyBoyd2007202-94] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 202.

[95] Tucket, Christopher. "Sources and Methods," in Bockmuehl, Markus, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Jesus. Cambridge University Press, 2001, 121-137, esp. 125.

[JRDunn143-99] Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making by James D. G. Dunn (2003) ISBN 0802839312 p. 143

[McK38-100] Jesus Christ in History and Scripture by Edgar V. McKnight 1999 ISBN 0865546770 p. 38

[Furnish19-101] Jesus according to Paul by Victor Paul Furnish 1994 ISBN 0521458242 pp. 19–20

[Barn95-102] Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times by Paul Barnett 2002 ISBN 0830826998 pp. 95–96

[FOOTNOTECarrier2014570-103] Carrier (2014), p. 570. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)

[FOOTNOTEWells1982175-104] Wells (1982), p. 175.

[FOOTNOTECarrier2014557ff-106] Carrier (2014), pp. 557ff. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)

[Furnish43-107] Victor Furnish in Paul and Jesus edited by Alexander J. M. Wedderburn 2004 (Academic Paperback) ISBN 0567083969 pp. 43–44

[108] Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Volume 1 by James D. G. Dunn (2003) ISBN 0802839312 pp. 142–143.

[RMartin57-109] Worship in the Early Church by Ralph P. Martin 1975 ISBN 0802816134 pp. 57–58

[Kruse41-110] Paul's Letter to the Romans by Colin G. Kruse (2012) ISBN 0802837433 pp. 41–42.

[BAune-111] The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament edited by David E. Aune 2010 ISBN 1405108258 p. 424.

[Price.2003.Name-112] Cite error: The named reference Price.2003.Name was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Leith12-117] Creeds of the Churches, Third Edition by John H. Leith (1982) ISBN 0804205264 p. 12.

[Bouma.2014-118] Bouma, Jeremy (March 27, 2014). "The Early High Christology Club and Bart Ehrman — An Excerpt from "How God Became Jesus"". Zondervan Academic Blog. HarperCollins Christian Publishing. Retrieved May 2, 2018.

[BE_2013.02.14-119] Ehrman, Bart D. (February 14, 2013). "Incarnation Christology, Angels, and Paul". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved May 2, 2018.

[autogenerated1-120] Bart Ehrman, How Jesus became God, Course Guide

[121] Geza Vermez (2008), The Resurrection, p.138-139

[FOOTNOTEMaccoby1986-125] Maccoby (1986).

[Price62-126] Cite error: The named reference Price62 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[WellsT49-127] Can We Trust the New Testament? by George Albert Wells 2003 ISBN 0812695674 pp. 49–50

[FOOTNOTEDoherty2009-128] Doherty (2009).

[Carrier2014_location34725-130] Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus (Kindle ed.). Sheffield Phoenix Press. p. location 34725. ISBN 978-1-909697-70-6.

[FOOTNOTECarrier2014Chapter_4_and_Chapter_11-131] Carrier (2014), Chapter 4 and Chapter 11. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)

[133] Martin, Michael. The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press, 1993, p. 38.

[134] Wells, GA (September 1999). "Earliest Christianity". New Humanist. 114 (3): 13–18. Retrieved January 11, 2007.

[FOOTNOTECarrier2014284ff-137] Carrier (2014), pp. 284ff. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)

[138] "Paul Eddy". Bethel University. Retrieved June 12, 2018.

[FOOTNOTEBoydEddy200746–47-139] Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 46–47.

[FOOTNOTEBoydEddy200745–47-140] Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 45–47.

[141] Carrier, Richard. "The Formation of the New Testament Canon". Sunrise-Publications.com. Retrieved September 24, 2016.

[FOOTNOTEReddish201173–74,_144-142] Reddish (2011), pp. 73–74, 144.

[FOOTNOTEBaggett20087-143] Baggett (2008), p. 7.

[FOOTNOTEReview_of_Bauckham2006225-144] Review of Bauckham (2006), p. 225.

[145] Stanton, G. H. (2004). Jesus and Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 192.

[146] 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

[147] Talbert, C. H. (1977). What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

[148] Wills, L. M. (1997). The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. London: Routledge. p. 10.

[149] Burridge, R. A. (2004). What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography. rev. updated edn. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans.

[FOOTNOTEDawkins200697-150] Dawkins (2006), p. 97.

[brodie2012-151] Brodie, Thomas L. (2012). Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1-9075-3458-4.

[FOOTNOTEPrice2011381-152] Price (2011), p. 381. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)

[FOOTNOTEPrice2003347-153] Price (2003), p. 347.

[154] 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.

[156] Allan, William (2014). Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0199665457.

[FOOTNOTEEhrman201244-157] Ehrman (2012), p. 44. sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)

[158] Timothy Barnes Pagan Perceptions of Christianity" in Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to AD 600. 1991, p. 232 ISBN 0687114446

[Hutchinson2015_p9-160] Hutchinson, Robert (2015). Searching for Jesus. Nashville: Nelson Books. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7180-1830-6.

[FOOTNOTEGrant1995-161] Grant (1995).

[162] Bart D. Ehrman. Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 47 ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8

[FOOTNOTEEddyBoyd2007[httpsbooksgooglecombooksidWgROZMp4zDMCpgPA165_165]-163] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 165.

[165] Gerald O'Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. 2009, pp. 1–3 ISBN 0-19-955787-X

[166] Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria. 1997, p. 14 ISBN 9004103880

[FOOTNOTECarrier2012-167] Carrier (2012). sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2012 (help)

[169] Schreckenberg, Heinz; Kurt Schubert (1992). Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature. ISBN 978-90-232-2653-6.

[170] Kostenberger, Andreas J.; L. Scott Kellum; Charles L. Quarles (2009). The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament. ISBN 978-0-8054-4365-3.

[172] Kenneth A. Olson, Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (2): 305, 1999

[FOOTNOTEEddyBoyd2007[httpsbooksgooglecombooksidWgROZMp4zDMCpgPA197_197_n._103]-173] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 197 n. 103.

[FOOTNOTEMaier2007336–337-174] Maier (2007), pp. 336–337.

[FOOTNOTELouth1990-175] Louth (1990).

[FOOTNOTEMcGiffert2007-176] McGiffert (2007).

[FOOTNOTEOlson1999-177] Olson (1999).

[FOOTNOTEWallace-Hadrill2011-178] Wallace-Hadrill (2011).

[JospehusM662-180] The new complete works of Josephus by Flavius Josephus, William Whiston, Paul L. Maier ISBN 0-8254-2924-2 pp. 662–663

[181] Josephus XX by Louis H. Feldman 1965, ISBN 0674995023 p. 496

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst200083-182] Van Voorst (2000), p. 83. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)

[183] 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

[FOOTNOTEEddyBoyd2007189-185] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 189.

[P.E._Easterling,_E._J_p._892-187] 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

[188] Translation from Latin by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, 1876

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst200039–53-189] Van Voorst (2000), pp. 39–53. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)

[FOOTNOTEEddyBoyd2007127-190] Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 127.

[191] F.F. Bruce,Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) p. 23

[FOOTNOTETheissenMerz199883-192] Theissen & Merz (1998), p. 83.

[martin-193] Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. pp. 50–51. ISBN 9781566390811.

[FOOTNOTEWeaver1999[httpsbooksgooglecombooksid1CZbuFBdAMUCpgPA53vonepageffalse_53,_57]-194] Weaver (1999), pp. 53, 57.

[books.google.co.za-195] Secret of Regeneration, by Hilton Hotema, p. 100

[196] Jesus, University Books, New York, 1956, p. 13

[197] France, R. T. (1986). Evidence for Jesus (Jesus Library). Trafalgar Square Publishing. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-0-340-38172-4.

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst2000217-198] Van Voorst (2000), p. 217. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)

[FOOTNOTEPagels1979-199] Pagels (1979).

[FOOTNOTEEhrman2012349,_n._20-204] Ehrman (2012), p. 349, n. 20. sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)

[FOOTNOTEFrekeGandy1999-205] Freke & Gandy (1999).

[Christ_in_Egypt-206] Price, Robert M. (2009). "Book review of D.M. Murdock (Acharya S.), Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection. Stellar House Publishing". r m p Reviews. Retrieved August 4, 2010.

[FOOTNOTEPrice2011425-207] Price (2011), p. 425. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFPrice2011 (help)

[Carrier.2012.where.did.he.come.from-208] Carrier, Richard (2012). "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.

[FOOTNOTEEhrman2012208-209] Ehrman (2012), p. 208. sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)

[Keener-210] The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, by Craig S. Keener, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012. p. 336

[FOOTNOTECasey2014155-211] Casey (2014), p. 155. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)

[212] Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies, by Craig A. Evans, Brill, 2001. p. 48

[FOOTNOTECasey2014206-213] Casey (2014), p. 206. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)

[Ramshaw-215] What Is Christianity?: An Introduction to the Christian Religion, by Gail Ramshaw, Fortress Press, 2013. pp. 52–54

[Benson-216] God and Caesar: Troeltsch's Social Teaching as Legitimation, by Constance L. Benson, Transaction Publishers. p. 55

[218] The Heroic Ideal: Western Archetypes from the Greeks to the Present, by M. Gregory Kendrick, McFarland, 2010. p. 43

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst2000568-219] Van Voorst (2000), p. 568. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)

[FOOTNOTEWeaver1999[httpsbooksgooglecombooksid1CZbuFBdAMUCpgPA45vonepageffalse_45–50]-220] Weaver (1999), pp. 45–50.

[FOOTNOTESchweitzer2001355ff-221] Schweitzer (2001), pp. 355ff.

[FOOTNOTEVoorst20008-222] Voorst (2000), p. 8.

[FOOTNOTEWells1969-223] Wells (1969).

[Leask104-224] British Romantic Writers and the East by Nigel Leask (2004) ISBN 0521604443 Cambridge Univ Press pp. 104–105

[225] Stuart, Tristram (2007). The Bloodless Revolution. W. W. Norton. p. 591. ISBN 978-0-3930-5220-6. Retrieved September 20, 2018.

[Prickett-226] Stephen Prickett (1995). Peter Byrne; James Leslie Houlden (eds.). Companion Encyclopedia of Theology. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-0415064477. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst20007–11-227] Van Voorst (2000), pp. 7–11. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)

[BeilbyEddy2009-228] 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.

[300] See Strauss, David. "The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, Calvin Blanchard, 1860.

[FOOTNOTESchweitzer2001124–128,_139–141-229] Schweitzer (2001), pp. 124–128, 139–141.

[FOOTNOTEBennett2001204-230] Bennett (2001), p. 204.

[FOOTNOTEHarpur200430-231] Harpur (2004), p. 30.

[FOOTNOTEHarpur200459-232] Harpur (2004), p. 59.

[233] Kersey Graves and The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Richard Carrier (2003)

[FOOTNOTEHarpur2004-234] Harpur (2004).

[FOOTNOTEHarpur2004200-235] Harpur (2004), p. 200.

[236] Arthur Drew, 1926, The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present

[237] Edwin Johnson (1887). Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins. Trübner.

[238] Gray, Patrick (April 19, 2016). Paul as a Problem in History and Culture: The Apostle and His Critics through the Centuries (in German). Baker Academic. p. 85. ISBN 9781493403332.

[239] Lockley, Philip (2013). Visionary Religion and Radicalism in Early Industrial England: From Southcott to Socialism. OUP Oxford. p. 168. ISBN 9780199663873.

[FOOTNOTESchweitzer2001356–361,_527_n._4-240] Schweitzer (2001), pp. 356–361, 527 n. 4.

[241] Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 116–117.

[242] Klausner, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth. Bloch, 1989; first published 1925, pp. 105–106.

[FOOTNOTEBennett2001205-243] Bennett (2001), p. 205.

[FOOTNOTEPrice2000207-244] Price (2000), p. 207.

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst200011–12-245] Van Voorst (2000), pp. 11–12. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)

[FOOTNOTEWells1987162–163-246] Wells (1987), pp. 162–163.

[MeadQ-247] G. R. S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest by Clare Goodrick-Clarke (2005) ISBN 155643572X pp. 1–3

[FOOTNOTEPrice200980–81-248] Price (2009), pp. 80–81. sfnp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)

[249] Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G. R. S. Mead (1903) ISBN 1596053763 (Cosimo Classics 2005) pp. 10–12

[FOOTNOTEWeaver1999[httpsbooksgooglecombooksid1CZbuFBdAMUCpgPA50_50],_[httpsbooksgooglecombooksid1CZbuFBdAMUCpgPA300_300]-250] Weaver (1999), pp. 50, 300.

[251] 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.

[324] 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.

[252] Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity", in James Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 749.

[253] Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens. Cornell University Press, 1998, p. 178.

[254] Russell, Bertrand. "Why I am not a Christian", lecture to the National Secular Society, Battersea Town Hall, March 6, 1927, Retrieved August 2, 2010.

[255] Corydon, Bent; Brian Ambry (1992). L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?. Barricade Books. p. 353. ISBN 978-0-942637-57-1.

[FOOTNOTEWeaver1999[httpsbooksgooglecombooksid1CZbuFBdAMUCpgPA300_300–303]-256] Weaver (1999), pp. 300–303.

[Hibbert1939-258] Hibbert Journal Volume 37 (1938–39), pp. 193–214

[259] Wells (1971), Wells (1975), Wells (1982)

[Martin.1993.p38-260] Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1.

[261] Wallis, Richard (January 27, 2016). "Channel 4 and the declining influence of organized religion on UK television. The case of Jesus: The Evidence" (PDF). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 36 (4): 668–688. doi:10.1080/01439685.2015.1132821. ISSN 0143-9685.

[262] Habermas, Gary R (1996). The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. College Pr Pub Co; Subsequent edition. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-0-8990-0732-8.

[FOOTNOTECasey2014-263] Casey (2014). sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)

[FOOTNOTEDoherty2009vii–viii-264] Doherty (2009), p. vii–viii.

[265] Doherty (2009). Jesus: Neither God Nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Ottawa: Age of Reason Publications. p. 716, n. 12. ISBN 978-0-9689259-2-8

[FOOTNOTECasey20142-266] Casey (2014), p. 2. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)

[FOOTNOTECasey201416-267] Casey (2014), p. 16. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)

[FOOTNOTEPrice200961ff-268] Price (2009), pp. 61ff. sfnp error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFPrice2009 (help)

[FOOTNOTEPrice200015–16-269] Price (2000), pp. 15–16.

[FOOTNOTEPrice2000261-270] Price (2000), p. 261.

[272] "The Messiah Myth". penguin.com.au. Penguin Books Australia. Retrieved May 4, 2017.

[275] "Is This Not the Carpenter? (Contents)". Cambridge Core. Cambridge University Press. 2012/07. Retrieved May 4, 2017. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

[FOOTNOTEThompsonVerenna2012Introduction-276] Thompson & Verenna (2012), Introduction. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFThompsonVerenna2012 (help)

[brodie2000-277] 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.

[278] "Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus – Official Dominican Response to a Controversial Book". Doctrine and Life. May–June 2014.

[279] 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}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[FOOTNOTEGullotta2017-280] Gullotta (2017).

[FOOTNOTECarrier2002-281] Carrier (2002).

[FOOTNOTECarrier2014-285] Carrier (2014). sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)

[auto-286] "The Jesus Mysteries – a critique". Archived from the original on September 21, 2007. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[287] Bart Ehrman, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007

[288] "Archived copy". Archived from the original on January 17, 2016. Retrieved October 23, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[289] Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Ph.D. A Biographical Sketch of his life and work, by Richard Alvin Sattelberg, B.A., M.S.., 2005

[290] Porter, Stanley E.; Bedard, Stephen J. (2006). Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea. Clements Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-8946-6771-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

[Price.Harpur-291] 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.

[292] Harpur, Tom (2008). Water Into Wine: An Empowering Vision of the Gospels. Dundurn.com. ISBN 9780887628276.

[293] Waugh, Rob (April 12, 2017). "'Jesus never actually existed at all,' controversial French author argues". Metro.

[Andreev-294] А. В. Андреев (2015). "Дискуссия об историчности Иисуса Христа в советском религиоведении" (PDF). Вестник ПСТГУ (in Russian). Retrieved June 12, 2015.

[295] Гололоб Г. "Богословие и национальный вопрос" (in Russian). Библиотека Гумер. Retrieved June 12, 2015.

[296] "Jesus 'not a real person' many believe". BBC. October 31, 2015. Retrieved April 18, 2018. {{cite news}}: More than one of |work= and |website= specified (help)

[Ehrman.2015.Debate-297] Ehrman, Bart D. (June 26, 2015). "Kickstarting a Debate". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved September 15, 2017.

[Doherty.2011.Godfrey-299] Godfrey, Neil (April 2, 2011). "Interview with Earl Doherty". Vridar. Retrieved September 15, 2017.

[Internet.Infidels.Historicity-300] "Historicity of Jesus". The Secular Web. Internet Infidels. Retrieved October 14, 2017.

[FOOTNOTEMurphy201165-302] Murphy (2011), p. 65.

[Ehrman_Huffington-304] Ehrman, Bart D. (March 20, 2012) [Updated: May 20, 2012]. "Did Jesus Exist?". Huffington Post. Retrieved April 8, 2014.

[FOOTNOTEFox200548-306] Fox (2005), p. 48.

[FOOTNOTEEhrman20122-308] Ehrman (2012), p. 2. sfnp error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFEhrman2012 (help)

[309] Casey, Maurice, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching (T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 33, 104, 499.

[Grant1977-310] Michael Grant (1977), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 200.

[311] Dunkerley, Roderic, Beyond the Gospels (Penguin Books, 1957) p. 12.

[312] Betz, Otto, What Do We Know About Jesus? (SCM-Canterbury Press, 1968) p. 9.

[FOOTNOTEGrant191995-313] Grant19 (1995).

[314] "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= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[315] Dickson, John (March 21, 2008). "Facts and friction of Easter". Brisbane Times. Retrieved June 11, 2015.

[Hoffmann-316] Hoffmann, R. Joseph. "Threnody: Rethinking the Thinking behind The Jesus Project", bibleinterp.com, October 2009, accessed August 6, 2010.

[FOOTNOTECasey20141–41-317] Casey (2014), pp. 1–41. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCasey2014 (help)

[FOOTNOTEVan_Voorst20006-319] Van Voorst (2000), p. 6. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFVan_Voorst2000 (help)

[320] Grace, John Patrick (July 21, 2015). "Questioning Jesus' existence is sheer madness". The Herald-Dispatch. Retrieved August 7, 2018.

[Ehrman-321] Ehrman, Bart D (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0062206442.

[322] Jenkins, Phillip (April 18, 2016). "The Myth of the Mythical Jesus". patheos.com. Retrieved April 9, 2018.

[323] Gathercole, Simon. "The Historical and Human Existence of Jesus in Paul’s Letters." Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 16.2-3 (2018): 183-212.

[Lucie-Smith-324] Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, People who think Jesus didn’t exist are seriously confused, Catholic Herald

[FOOTNOTEPorterBedard2006[httpsbooksgooglecombooksidNwPvu3r6ZzUCpgPA69vonepageqffalse_69]-325] Porter & Bedard (2006), p. 69.

[327] Avalos, Hector (2007). The End of Biblical Studies. Prometheus Books, Publishers. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-61592-034-1.

[FOOTNOTESandeen19706-328] Sandeen (1970), p. 6.

[329] "Log in". Britannica Academic. Retrieved December 9, 2016.

[FOOTNOTECarrier2014168–173,_222–234-331] Carrier (2014), pp. 168–173, 222–234. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)

[333] Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 p. 339

[334] Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-06-061662-5.

[335] Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus by William R. Herzog (2005) ISBN 0664225284 pp. 1–6.

[336] 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.

[337] 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.

[FOOTNOTECarrier2014200–205-338] Carrier (2014), pp. 200–205. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFCarrier2014 (help)

[FOOTNOTESmith201330-339] Smith (2013), p. 30.

[FOOTNOTENovenson20121–3-340] Novenson (2012), pp. 1–3.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[q 1]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[q 2]

[7]

[8]

[q 3]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[q 4]

[q 5]

[12]

[q 6]

[i]

[ii]

[13]

[iii]

[14]

[iv]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[v]

[q 7]

[q 8]

[q 9]

[19]

[20]

[q 10]

[q 11]

[q 12]

[q 13]

[q 14]

[q 15]

[q 16]

[q 17]

[q 18]

[q 19]

[21]

[q 20]

[q 21]

[vi]

[q 22]

[vii]

[22]

[23]

[q 23]

[q 24]

[q 25]

[q 26]

[q 27]

[q 28]

[q 29]

[q 30]

[24]

[q 31]

[q 32]

[q 33]

[25]

[26]

[q 34]

[viii]

[q 35]

[q 36]

[ix]

[q 37]

[q 38]

[q 39]

[x]

[q 40]

[q 41]

[q 42]

[q 43]

[q 44]

[q 45]

[27]

[xi]

[q 46]

[28]

[q 47]

[q 48]

[29]

[30]

[xii]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[q 49]

[q 50]

[q 51]

[36]

[37]

@@ Line 102: / Line 102: @@
 =====Mainstream view=====
+Most scholars view the Pauline letters as essential elements in the study of the historical Jesus,{{sfnp|Tuckett|2001|ps=none}}<ref name=JRDunn143/><ref name=McK38>''Jesus Christ in History and Scripture'' by Edgar V. McKnight 1999 {{ISBN|0865546770}} p. 38</ref><ref name=Furnish43>Victor Furnish in ''Paul and Jesus'' edited by Alexander J. M. Wedderburn 2004 (Academic Paperback) {{ISBN|0567083969}} pp. 43–44</ref> and the development of early Christianity.{{sfnp|Mack|1995|ps=none}} New Testament scholar [[James Dunn (theologian)|James Dunn]] states that in [[s:Bible (American Standard)/1 Corinthians#15:3|1 Corinthians 15:3]] Paul "recites the foundational belief," namely "that Christ died." According to Dunn, "Paul was told about a Jesus who had died two years earlier or so."<ref>''Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making'', Volume 1 by James D. G. Dunn (2003) {{ISBN|0802839312}} pp. 142–143.</ref> [[s:Bible (American Standard)/1 Corinthians#15:11|1 Corinthians 15:11]] also refers to others before Paul who preached the creed.<ref name=RMartin57/>
-The Pauline letters incorporate creeds, or confessions of faith, that predate Paul, and give essential information on the faith of the early Jerusalem community around James, 'the brother of Jesus'.<ref name=Kruse41 >''Paul's Letter to the Romans'' by Colin G. Kruse (2012) {{ISBN|0802837433}} pp. 41–42.</ref><ref name=BAune>''The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament'' edited by David E. Aune 2010 {{ISBN|1405108258}} p. 424.</ref><ref name=RMartin57 >''Worship in the Early Church'' by Ralph P. Martin 1975 {{ISBN|0802816134}} pp. 57–58</ref>{{sfnp|Mack|1995|ps=none}} The Pauline epistles contain elements of a Christ myth and its cultus, such as the Christ hymn of [[Philippians 2]]:6–11, which portray Jesus as an incarnated and subsequently exalted heavenly being.{{sfn|Price|2003|p=351-355}}{{efn-lr|name=Ph2:6-11}} These pre-Pauline creeds date to within a few years of Jesus' death and developed within the Christian community in Jerusalem.<ref name=Leith12 >''Creeds of the Churches, Third Edition'' by John H. Leith (1982) {{ISBN|0804205264}} p. 12.</ref> Scholars view these as indications that the incarnation and exaltation of Jesus was part of Christian tradition a few years after his death and over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles.{{sfnp|Ehrman|2014|ps=none}}
+The Pauline letters incorporate creeds, or confessions of faith, that predate Paul, and give essential information on the faith of the early Jerusalem community around James, 'the brother of Jesus'.<ref name=Kruse41 >''Paul's Letter to the Romans'' by Colin G. Kruse (2012) {{ISBN|0802837433}} pp. 41–42.</ref><ref name=BAune>''The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament'' edited by David E. Aune 2010 {{ISBN|1405108258}} p. 424.</ref><ref name=RMartin57 >''Worship in the Early Church'' by Ralph P. Martin 1975 {{ISBN|0802816134}} pp. 57–58</ref>{{sfnp|Mack|1995|ps=none}} The Pauline epistles contain elements of a Christ myth and its cultus, such as the Christ hymn of [[Philippians 2]]:6–11, which portray Jesus as an incarnated and subsequently exalted heavenly being.{{Refn|name="Price.2003.Name"}}{{efn-lr|name=Ph2:6-11}}{{refn|group=q|name="mix.Mack.1988.98.Price.2000.75"}}{{refn|group=q|name="Price.2000.88.92.94"}}{{refn|group=q|name="Eddy.Boyd.2007.93.136"}} These pre-Pauline creeds date to within a few years of Jesus' death and developed within the Christian community in Jerusalem.<ref name=Leith12 >''Creeds of the Churches, Third Edition'' by John H. Leith (1982) {{ISBN|0804205264}} p. 12.</ref> Scholars view these as indications that the incarnation and exaltation of Jesus was part of Christian tradition a few years after his death and over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles.{{sfnp|Ehrman|2014|ps=none}}<ref name="Bouma.2014"/>
-=====Mythicist view=====
-Christ myth theorists generally reject the idea that Paul's epistles refer to a real person. Carrier argues that Paul is actually writing about a celestial deity named Jesus with no information about his earthly life<ref name="Carrier2014_location34725">{{cite book|last1=Carrier|first1=Richard|title=On the Historicity of Jesus|date=2014|publisher=Sheffield Phoenix Press|isbn=978-1-909697-70-6|page=location 34725|edition=Kindle}}</ref> According to Carrier, the genuine Pauline epistles show that the [[Saint Peter|Apostle Peter]] and the Apostle Paul believed in a visionary or dream Jesus, based on a [[pesher]] of [[Septuagint]] verses [[Book of Zechariah|Zechariah]] 6 and 3, [[Book of Daniel|Daniel]] 9 and [[Book of Isaiah|Isaiah]] 52–53.{{sfnp|Carrier|2014|loc=Chapter 4 and Chapter 11}} 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).{{sfnp|Carrier|2014|p=570}} Mythicists also claim that the [[Epistle to the Hebrews]] is consistent with this position given its reference to Jesus's "days of his flesh" (Hebrews 5:7).<ref group=q name="Wells.1982.60" />{{sfnp|Carrier|2014|p=570}}
+Yet, the development of the early Christian views on Jesus' divinity is a matter of debate within contemporary scholarship. According to a longstanding consensus, the oldest Christology was an "exaltation Christology," according to which Jesus was subsequently "raised to divine status."<ref name=BE_2013.02.14>{{cite web|last1=Ehrman|first1=Bart D.|authorlink1=Bart D. Ehrman|title=Incarnation Christology, Angels, and Paul |url=https://ehrmanblog.org/incarnation-christology-angels-and-paul-for-members/|website=The Bart Ehrman Blog|accessdate=May 2, 2018|date=February 14, 2013}}</ref> This "exaltation Christology" may have developed over time,{{sfnp|Mack|1995|ps=none}}{{sfnp|Ehrman|2003|ps=none}}<ref name="autogenerated1">Bart Ehrman, ''How Jesus became God'', Course Guide</ref> as witnessed in the Gospels,{{sfnp|Ehrman|2014|ps=none}} with the earliest Christians believing that Jesus became divine when he was resurrected.<ref name="autogenerated1"/><ref>Geza Vermez (2008), ''The Resurrection'', p.138-139</ref> Later beliefs shifted the exaltation to his baptism, birth, and subsequently to the idea of his eternal existence, as witnessed in the Gospel of John.<ref name="autogenerated1"/>  This "High Christology" is "the view that Jesus was a pre-existent divine being who became a human, did the Father’s will on earth, and then was taken back up into heaven whence he had originally come."<ref name=BE_2013.02.14/>{{sfnp|Ehrman|2014|ps=none}} Yet, as Ehrman notes, this subsequent "incarnation Christology" was also preached by Paul, and even predates him.{{sfnp|Ehrman|2014|ps=none}} According to the "Early High Christology Club," this "incarnation Christology" or "high Christology" did not evolve over a longer time, but was a "big bang" which arose in the first few decades of the church, as witnessed in the writings of Paul.<ref name="Bouma.2014">{{cite web|last=Bouma|first=Jeremy|title=The Early High Christology Club and Bart Ehrman — An Excerpt from "How God Became Jesus"|url=https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/how-god-became-jesus-bart-ehrman-high-christology-excerpt/|website=Zondervan Academic Blog|publisher=[[HarperCollins]] Christian Publishing|accessdate=May 2, 2018|date=March 27, 2014}}</ref>{{sfnp|Ehrman|2014|ps=none}}{{efn-lr|The "Early High Christology Club" includes Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado,{{refn|group=q|name="Hurtado.2005.p101"}} and Richard Bauckham.<ref name="Bouma.2014"/>{{refn|group=q|name="Loke.2017.5"}}}}
+Scholars have also argued that Paul was a "mythmaker,"{{sfnp|Maccoby|1986}} who gave his own [[Council of Jerusalem|divergent interpretation]] of the meaning of Jesus,{{sfnp|Mack|1995|ps=none}} building a bridge between the Jewish and Hellenistic world,{{sfnp|Mack|1995|ps=none}} thereby creating the faith that became Christianity.{{sfnp|Maccoby|1986}}
+=====Mythicist views=====
+Christ myth theorists generally reject the idea that Paul's epistles refer to a real person.<ref name=Price62/><ref name=WellsT49/>
+According to Doherty, the Jesus of Paul was a divine Son of God, existing in a spiritual realm{{sfnp|Doherty|1995a|ps=none}} where he was crucified and resurrected.{{sfnp|Doherty|2009}} This mythological Jesus was based on exegesis of the Old Testament and [[Vision (spirituality)|mystical visions]] of a risen Jesus.{{sfnp|Doherty|2009}}{{refn|group=q|name="vridar_Couchoud"}}
+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.<ref name="Carrier2014_location34725">{{cite book|last1=Carrier|first1=Richard|title=On the Historicity of Jesus|date=2014|publisher=Sheffield Phoenix Press|isbn=978-1-909697-70-6|page=location 34725|edition=Kindle}}</ref> According to Carrier, the genuine Pauline epistles show that the [[Saint Peter|Apostle Peter]] and the Apostle Paul believed in a visionary or dream Jesus, based on a [[pesher]] of [[Septuagint]] verses [[Book of Zechariah|Zechariah]] 6 and 3, [[Book of Daniel|Daniel]] 9 and [[Book of Isaiah|Isaiah]] 52–53.{{sfnp|Carrier|2014|loc=Chapter 4 and Chapter 11}} 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".{{sfnp|Carrier|2014|p=570}}</ref>
+The non-Pauline [[Epistle to the Hebrews]] is also relevant per [http://biblehub.com/interlinear/hebrews/5-7.htm Hebrews 5:7], "in the days of his flesh" Jesus cried and prayed to God to save him. Mythicists generally contend that this verse is anomalous with supposed traditions underlying the synoptic gospels, however Doherty and Carrier additionally hold that the phrase "in the days of his flesh" is consistent with a celestial Jesus.<ref group=q name="Wells.1982.60" />{{sfnp|Carrier|2014|p=570}}
 ====Jesus lived in a dim past====

v t e Christ myth theory
Biblical minimalism Historicity of the Bible Textual criticism Criticism of the Bible People whose existence is disputed
Proponents	John M. Allegro Bruno Bauer Georg Brandes Thomas L. Brodie Richard Carlile Richard Carrier Paul-Louis Couchoud Herbert Cutner Earl Doherty Arthur Drews Charles François Dupuis Kersey Graves Tom Harpur Edwin Johnson Albert Kalthoff Alvin Boyd Kuhn Samuel Lublinski M. M. Mangasarian Michael Martin Michel Onfray Robert M. Price J. M. Robertson Acharya S Gilbert T. Sadler William Benjamin Smith Thomas L. Thompson Raoul Vaneigem G. A. Wells Thomas Whittaker Frank Zindler
Organizations	Mythicist Milwaukee
Documentaries	The God Who Wasn't There The Pagan Christ Zeitgeist: The Movie
Publications	Anacalypsis The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors The Christ Myth The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present Did Jesus Exist? (Wells) The Jesus Mysteries The Pagan Christ Caesar's Messiah The Jesus Puzzle The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross Journal of Higher Criticism
Critics	Greg Boyd Joseph Estlin Carpenter Shirley Jackson Case Maurice Casey F. C. Conybeare Bart Ehrman Maurice Goguel T. J. Thorburn H. G. Wood

v t e Jesus
Outline List of topics
Chronology of Jesus's life	Annunciation Nativity Virgin birth Date of birth Flight into Egypt Infancy (apocryphal) Unknown years Baptism Temptation Apostles Selecting Great Commission Ministry Disciples Sermon on the Mount/Plain Beatitudes Prayers Lord's Prayer Parables Miracles Transfiguration Homelessness Great Commandment Olivet Discourse Anointing Passion Entry into Jerusalem Last Supper Farewell Discourse Agony in the Garden Betrayal Arrest Trial Crucifixion Sayings on the cross Burial Tomb Resurrection Ascension
New Testament	Gospels Matthew Mark Luke John Five Discourses of Matthew Gospel harmony Oral gospel traditions Historical background of the New Testament New Testament places associated with Jesus Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament
Historicity	Historical Jesus Quest for the historical Jesus Sources Josephus Tacitus Mara bar Serapion Gospels Christ myth theory
Depictions	Bibliography Christ Child Life of Christ in art Life of Christ Museum Statues Transfiguration
Christianity	Christ Christianity 1st century Christology Incarnation Person of Christ Pre-existence Relics Second Coming Session of Christ Son of God Cosmic Christ
In other faiths	Jesuism In comparative mythology Judaism In the Talmud Islam Ahmadiyya Baháʼí Faith Manichaeism Jesus the Splendour Mandaeism Master Jesus
Family	Genealogies Mary (mother) Joseph (legal father) Holy Family Panthera (alleged father) Brothers of Jesus Holy Kinship Anne (traditional maternal grandmother) Joachim (traditional maternal grandfather) Heli (paternal grandfather per Luke) Jacob (paternal grandfather per Matthew) Descendants Clopas (traditional uncle)
Related	Language of Jesus Interactions with women Mary Magdalene Mary, sister of Martha Christmas Easter Rejection of Jesus Criticism Mental health Race and appearance Sexuality
Category

v t e The Bible and history
General studies	Biblical criticism Biblical studies History of ancient Israel and Judah Quest for the historical Jesus Jesus in comparative mythology
Historicity	Biblical archaeology Historicity of Jesus sources Historicity of the Bible Historical reliability of the Gospels List of artifacts in biblical archaeology List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources List of burial places of biblical figures List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts List of New Testament papyri List of New Testament uncials Historical Jesus
Criticism	Criticism of the Bible Christ myth theory
Bible Portal

Revision as of 19:11, 14 January 2019

Jesus and the origins of Christianity

Mainstream historical view

Traditional and modern Christian views

Christ myth theorists

Arguments

Overview of main arguments

Pauline epistles

Dating

Mainstream view

Mythicist view

Lack of biographical information

Brother of the Lord

Jesus’ birth

Eucharist

Celestial being

Mainstream view

Mythicist views

Jesus lived in a dim past

Historicity of the Gospels

No independent eyewitness accounts

Lack of surviving historic records

Josephus and Tacitus

Josephus

Tacitus

Other sources

Diversity and parallels

18th- and 19th-century proponents

Early-20th-century proponents

Modern proponents

Paul-Louis Couchoud

George Albert Wells

Earl Doherty

Robert M. Price

Thomas L. Thompson

Thomas L. Brodie

Richard Carrier

Other modern proponents

Reception

Popular reception

Scholarly reception

Lack of support for mythicsm

Questioning the competence of proponents

Opponents

Traditional and Evangelical Christianity

Documentaries

See also

Notes

Quotes

References

Sources

Further reading

External links