Christ myth theory

"Jesus as myth" refers to the idea that the narrative of Jesus in the gospels may be considered as part of Christian mythology, and shows parallels to mystery religions of the Roman Empire such as Mithraism, and the myth of rebirth deities. Study of such elements is often, but not exclusively, associated with a skeptical position about the historicity of Jesus.

The theory was first proposed by historian Bruno Bauer in the 19th century, but is now supported by a small minority of scholars, often outside the historical discipline. Biblical scholars and historians of classical antiquity reject the thesis. However, there has been some renewed interest in mythicist ideas in the last decade, largely on a popular level.

History of the theories

The term Jesus as myth covers a broad range of ideas, but most share the common premise that the narrative of the Gospels portrays a figure who never actually lived. Current theories arose from nineteenth century scholarship on the formation of myth, in the work of writers such as Max Müller and James Frazer. Müller argued that religions originated in mythic stories of the birth, death and rebirth of the sun. Frazer further attempted to explain the origins of humanity's mythic beliefs in the idea of a "sacrificial king", associated with the sun as a dying and reviving god and its connection to the regeneration of the earth in springtime. Frazer did state, however, that "as my views on this subject appear to have been strangely misunderstood, I desire to point out explicitly that my theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth.... The doubts which have been cast upon the historical reality of Jesus are, in my judgment, unworthy of serious attention."The later works by George Albert Wells drew on the Pauline Epistles and the lack of early non-Christian documents to argue that the Jesus figure of the Gospels was symbolic not historical. Earl Doherty proposed that Jewish mysticism influenced the development of a Christ myth, while John M. Allegro proposed that Christianity began as shamanic religion based on the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Most recently Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy have popularized the Jesus-Myth concept in their book The Jesus Mysteries.

Some, including Freke and Gandy, have suggested that the idea itself is as old as the New Testament. They point out that the John 2 warns of "many deceivers [who] are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."

Proponents argue that, had Jesus been a true historical figure, there would not have been such a large number of prominent people who denied his existence, or an even larger number who defended him. Such controversies never developed over other contemporary religious figures (e.g., John the Baptist, Paul, James the Just, Hillel, Honi the Circledrawer). Scholars of the period, however, believe that these early quotes refer to docetism, the belief that Jesus mystically appeared to people but lacked a genuinely physical body, rather than a belief that Jesus was a completely fabricated figure.

Early proponents

The first scholarly proponent of this theory was probably nineteenth century historian Bruno Bauer, a Hegelian thinker who argued that the true founder of Christianity was an Alexandrian Jew, Philo, who had adapted Judaic ideas to Hellenic philosophy. Bauer's arguments made little impact at the time. Other authors included Edwin Johnson, who argued that Christianity emerged from a combination of liberal trends in Judaism with Gnostic mysticism. Less speculative versions of the theory developed under Dutch Bible scholars such as A. D. Loman and G. I. P. Bolland. Loman argued that episodes in Jesus's life, such as the Sermon on the Mount, were in reality fictions to justify compilations of pre-existing liberal Jewish sayings. Bolland developed the theory that Christianity evolved from Gnosticism and that "Jesus" was a symbolic figure representing Gnostic ideas about godhead.

By the early twentieth century a number of writers had published arguments in favour of the Jesus Myth theory, ranging from the highly speculative to the more scholarly. These treatments were sufficiently influential to merit several book-length responses by traditional historians and New Testament scholars. The most influential of the books arguing for a mythic Jesus was Arthur Drews's The Christ-Myth (1909) which brought together the scholarship of the day in defence of the idea that Christianity had been a Jewish Gnostic cult that spread by appropriating aspects of Greek philosophy and Frazerian death-rebirth deities. This combination of arguments became the standard form of the mythic Christ theory. In Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), Bertrand Russell stated that even if Jesus existed, which he doubted, the public does not "know anything" about him.

While aspects of the theory were influential, most mainstream scholars at the time rejected the notion that "Jesus" was little more than a fiction, arguing that the Gospels, Pauline epistles and Acts of the Apostles contained some reliable information about the events they describe. Since Frazerian theories about myth have been largely debunked, and the priority of Gnosticism seriously questioned, the Jesus Myth theory has dwindled in importance.

Recent scholarship

In recent years, the Jesus Myth has had few proponents in academia but has been advanced by William B. Smith and George Albert Wells (The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth), as well as by Timothy Freke, and Peter Gandy (co-authors of The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess), and by Earl Doherty (author of The Jesus Puzzle).

There are many different views regarding the nature of the early texts. Earl Doherty suggests that Jesus is a historicized mythic figure created out of the Old Testament, whom the early Christians experienced in visions, as Paul says he did. Joseph Atwill, on the other hand, argues that Jesus is the deliberate and malefic creation of powerful Romans of the family of Vespasian, who sought to divide and destroy Judaism. Hence in Atwill's version, there really is a historical Jesus, but he is Vespasian's son Titus, and the gospels are a complex allegory of his conquest of Judea.

Advocates of the Jesus Myth theory do not agree on the dating and meaning of the early Christian texts, with recent advocates like Doherty holding to traditional scholarly dating that puts the gospels toward the end of the first century, and others, like Hermann Detering (The Fabricated Paul), arguing that the early Christian texts are largely forgeries and products of the middle to late second century.

Presently, most New Testament scholars and historians consider the question as resolved in favour of Jesus' historicity. Nevertheless, Earl Doherty has infused the Jesus Myth theory with fresh vigour with his website and publication of his book, The Jesus Puzzle. Doherty's treatment of the issue has received much attention on the internet from both sides of the debate, including a favourable review by historian and skeptic Richard Carrier.

Specific arguments of the theory

Early non-Christian references to Jesus

Further information: Historicity of Jesus § Greco-Roman sources

Central to many of the mythical theories is the fact that there are no known documents, other than Christian documents, that make reference to Jesus until the end of the first century, when Josephus wrote the Antiquities of the Jews, and the authenticity of that account is subject to controversy. Proponents of these theories note the survival of writings by a number of Roman and Jewish commentators and historians who wrote in the first century and the lack of mention of events described in the Gospels. The lack of evidence is, to these proponents, an argument from silence: the silence is evidence that Jesus was a later invention. However RT France points out that "even the great histories of Tacitus have survived in only two manuscripts, which together contain scarcely half of what he is believed to have written, the rest is lost" and that the life of Jesus, from a Roman point of view, was not a major event

Earliest recorded references

The earliest references to Jesus are by Christian writers (in the New Testament and its Apocrypha). Of the few references outside of Christian documents:

• The Antiquities of Josephus (37 CE - c. 100 CE), written in 93 CE contain two references to Jesus. One of these states that he was the founder of a sect. The authenticity of the text comprising the first reference, the Testimonium Flavianum, is disputed. Grammatical analysis indicates significant differences with the passages that come before and after it, which leads most scholars to believe the Jesus reference was either altered, or added, by persons other than Josephus. However, several scholars have proposed that the core witness to a Jesus as a leader of a sect is reliable. The second reference states that in the year AD 62 the newly appointed high priest "convened the court of the Sanhedrin and brought before them the brother of Jesus the so-called Messiah, who was called James, and some other men, whom he accused of having broken the law, and handed them over to be stoned".
• The Babylonian Talmud records "It is taught: On Passover Eve they hanged Yeshu ... because he practiced magic and led Israel astray.". There are other references to Jesus which talk about his disciples being put to death, of him being "repulsed with both hands", and of people healing and teaching in his name. Jesus is described as a heretic ("min") but nowhere in the Rabinnic literature is it suggested that he was not a historical figure.
• Tacitus mentions that Nero punished "some people, known as Christians, whose disgraceful activities were notorious. The originator of that name, Christus, had been executed when Tiberius was emperor by the order of Pontius Pilate. But this deadly cult, though checked for a time, was now breaking out again"
• There are references to Christians in Suetonius and the letters of Pliny the Younger, but they give no specific biographical information about Jesus. However the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan demonstrates that by about 110 CE there were significant numbers of people who would not recant their faith in Christ even under torture or the threat of death, that this was a significant problem for the Imperial authorities, and that neither Pliny nor Trajan suggest that Jesus was not a real historical figure, even though they were keen to stop this "perverse religious cult, carried to extremes"

Apparent omissions in early records

Justus

Justus of Tiberias wrote, at the end of the first century, a history of Jewish kings (with whom the gospels state Jesus had interactions). Justus' history does not survive, but Photius, who read it in the 9th century, stated that it did not mention "the coming of Christ, the events of His life, or the miracles performed by Him".

The New Testament epistles

It is widely held that the authentic letters of Paul of Tarsus are the earliest surviving Christian writings. However the epistles ascribed to Paul do not discuss Jesus' actual life and ministry in much detail, unlike the Gospels. There are a variety of explanations for this among those who believe in a historical Jesus, while proponents of the Jesus as Myth theory regard it as evidence to support their position.

G. A. Wells suggests that the level of discussion of the "historical" Jesus in all the Pauline epistles except for the Pastorals, as well as in Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, the Johannine epistles and Revelation supports his position, and that in those references to Jesus that do occur within these works, he is presented as "a basically supernatural personage only obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period in the past". Wells considers this to be the original Christian view of Jesus, based not on the life of a historical figure but on the personified figure of Wisdom as portrayed in Jewish wisdom literature.

A more radical position is taken by Earl Doherty, who holds that these early authors did not believe that Jesus had been on Earth at all. He argues that the earliest Christians accepted a Platonic cosmology that distinguished a "higher" spiritual world from the Earthly world of matter, and that they viewed Jesus as having descended only into the "lower reaches of the spiritual world". Doherty also suggests that this view was accepted by the authors of the Pastoral epistles, 2 Peter and various second-century Christian writings outside the New Testament. Doherty contends that apparent references in these writings to events on earth, and a physical historic Jesus, should in fact be regarded as allegorical metaphors. Opponents regard such interpretations as forced and erroneous.

The influence of the Old Testament

A majority of scholars explain the similarities between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke using the two-source hypothesis, according to which Matthew and Luke derived most of their content from Mark and a lost collection of Jesus' sayings known as the Q document. In the small amount of additional material unique to Matthew, amongst the three, Jesus is presented in a way that has strong parallels with significant Old Testament figures, most noticeably Moses, whose birth narrative, and sojourn in the wilderness, Matthew appears to have used as the basis of that of Jesus.

It is widely accepted that the Gospel accounts were influenced by the Old Testament. In particular, many sayings of Jesus assigned by scholars to the Q document have parallels in several places of the Old Testament. Advocates of the Jesus Myth believe that the gospels are not history but a type of midrash: creative narratives based on the stories, prophecies, and quotes in the Hebrew Bible. In particular, there is no reason to assume that the sayings attributed to Q, a document theoretically devoid of narrative, originated with Jesus, rather than just being a collection of wisdom from several independent sources, such as the Old Testament. As such, advocates of the Jesus Myth theory claim that when the midrashic elements are removed, little to no content remains that could be used to demonstrate the existence of an historical Jesus.

Though conceding that the gospels may contain some creativity and midrash, opponents of the Jesus Myth theory argue that the gospels are more akin to ancient Graeco-Roman biographies. Although scholars do not agree on the exact nature of this genre, associated works attempted to impart historical information about historical figures, but were not comprehensive and could include legendary developments. Nevertheless, as ancient biographies, proponents of Jesus' existence believe they contain sufficient historical information to establish his historicity.

Although there are many types of midrash, the Toledot Yeshu jumps out as being the most similar to the proposal that characters and situations were invented wholesale according to religious dogma and Old Testament prophecy. However, opponents of the Jesus Myth theory have argued that the closest parallels to potential Moses-based embellishment of the Jesus narrative, are inapplicable. Moreover, there are many examples of ancient Jewish and Christian literature that shaped their stories and accounts according to Old Testament influence, but nevertheless provided some historical accounts; for example, in 1 Maccabees, Judas and his battles are described in terms which parallel those of Saul's and David's battles against the Philistines in 1 and 2 Samuel, but nevertheless 1 Maccabees has a degree of respect amongst historians as having a reasonable degree of historical reliability.

Parallels with Mediterranean mystery religions

Some advocates of the Jesus Myth theory have argued that many aspects of the Gospel stories of Jesus have remarkable parallels with life-death-rebirth gods in the widespread mystery religions prevalent in the hellenic culture amongst which Christianty was born. The central figure of one of the most widespread, Osiris-Dionysus, was consistently localised and deliberately merged with local deities in each area, since it was the mysteries which were imparted that were regarded as important, not the method by which they were taught. In the view of some advocates of the Jesus Myth theory, most prominently Freke and Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries, Jewish mystics adapted their form of Osiris-Dionysus to match prior Jewish heroes like Moses and Joshua, hence creating Jesus.

Several parallels are frequently cited by these advocates, and often appear, mixed with other parallels, on internet sites. The most prominently cited parallels are with Horus and Mithras. Horus was one of the life-death-rebirth deities, and was connected and involved in the resurrection of Osiris, whose Egyptian name (Asar) is very similar to the root of Lazarus.

In Egyptian myth, Horus gained his authority by being anointed by Anubis, who had his own cult, and was regarded as the main anointer; the anointing made Horus into Horus karast (a religious epithet written in Egyptian documents as HR KRST) - embalmed/anointed Horus - in parallel to Jesus becoming Christ by being baptised by John, who had his own followers, and was especially regarded as a baptiser. Worship of Isis, Horus' mother, was a prominent cult, and the proposal that this is the basis of veneration of Mary, and more particularly Marian Iconography, has some merit.

The suggestion of parallels with such myths, however, has frequently gained little traction in the academic community. Advocates of the Jesus Myth theory citing the parallels are frequently discovered to be citing dubious sources, and are accused of presenting implausible parallels, advocating particular theologies to replace Christianity, and using non standard terms (e.g. anup the baptiser rather than Anubis the anointer/embalmer) which others fail to recognise.

Opponents of the Jesus Myth theory regularly accuse those who advocate the existence of such parallels of confusing the issue of who was borrowing from whom, a charge which was also made in ancient times by prominent early Christians. However, it is notable that, unlike modern opponents, several prominent early Christians, like Irenaeus, actually acknowledged the existence of many parallels, complaining that the earlier religions had copied Christian religion and practices, before Jesus was even born, as some form of diabolically inspired pre-cognitive mockery. For their part, the historic opponents of early Christians wrote that Christians had the same religion and practice as they, but were too stupid to understand it.

The worship of Mithras was widespread in much of the Roman Empire from the mid-2nd century CE, and mainstream historians regard it as possible that many Christian practices derived originally from Mithraism through a process known as christianization, including 25th December being Jesus' birth-date, and Sunday being the dedicated day of worship. Mithras was a solar deity, and so was seen as being born just after the winter solstice, and the day each week officially dedicated to him by the Roman empire was later renamed the day of the invincible sun, in turn being renamed Sunday. Parallels between Mithras and the birth-narrative of Luke are also proposed by some advocates of the Jesus myth, since Mithras, as a sun god, was born under the zodiac sign that at that time was known as the stable of Augeas, though these latter parallels are not so supported in the academic community. It is however, agreed that according to inscriprions at the Seleucid temple at Kangavar in western Iran which is dated around 200 b.c.e, contains passage that state it's dedication to ""Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras". There are many other examples of virgin births in ancient myths.

Supporters of Jesus' historicity point out that even Christian sources acknowledge that the public celebration of Jesus' birth was adopted from the date of the festival of Sol Invictus, and that this has no bearing on the reliability of the Gospels, since they make no claims about the date. In fact, references in Luke and Matthew point to Jesus being more likely to have been born in April or September. Neither do any Christian churches claim that the date for the celebration is anything other than symbolic.

Historiography and methodology

Earl Doherty argues that the the gospels are inconsistent concerning "such things as the baptism and nativity stories, the finding of the empty tomb and Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances" and contain numerous "contradictions and disagreements in the accounts of Jesus' words and deeds". He concludes that the evangelists freely altered their sources and invented material, and therefore could not have been concerned to preserve historical information.

Although seldom remarked on by New Testament scholars, some advocates of the Jesus Myth theory argue that historians lack any reliable and widely accepted methodology for determining what is historical and what is not. As J. D. Crossan, a well respected scholar of early Christianity, comments, "I do not think, after two hundred years of experimentation, that there is any way acceptable in public discourse or scholarly debate, by which you can go directly into the great mound of the Jesus tradition and separate out the historical Jesus layer from all later strata". While this is not an argument that Jesus did not exist any more than it is an argument that the Paul described in Acts, or even Napoleon, did not exist, advocates of the Jesus Myth theory believe it does call into question the results of historical inquiry into Jesus of Nazareth.

Opponents of the theory, including skeptical commentators such as the Jesus Seminar, argue that some reliable information can be extracted from the Gospels if consistent critical methodology is used.

Mainstream scholarly reception

The idea of Jesus as a myth has received strong criticism from a number of biblical scholars and historians. The points below highlight some of these criticisms.

• Some scholars, like Michael Grant, do not see significant similarity between the pagan myths and Christianity. Grant states that "Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths, of mythical gods seemed so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit."
• Christianity was actively opposed by both the Roman Empire and the Jewish authorities, and would have been utterly discredited if Jesus had been shown as a non-historical figure. There is good early evidence in Pliny, Josephus and other sources of the Roman and Jewish approaches at the time, and none of them involved this suggestion.
• Parallels between Christianity and Mystery Religions are not considered compelling evidence by some scholars. A Christian apologist, Michael Licona, has summed up this viewpoint:

Many scholars have abandoned the religionsgeschichtliche or what was known as the “history of religions” school that regarded parallels as conclusive signs that Christianity was cut from the same cloth as ancient myth. Further research has revealed that many of the parallels to which they refer postdate the Gospels.

• Through cultural diffusion it would have been natural for Jesus and/or his followers within a Hellenized Judea to incorporate the philosophy and sentiment of Epicureanism, Stoicism, neo-Platonism/proto-Gnosticism , and mystery cults. The ideas that these belief systems brought concerning the afterlife, presence of the divine, and wisdom were incorporated into Judaism for several centuries before Jesus and can be found in the Old Testament and Apocrypha.
• Those who do not hold to the Jesus-Myth disagree with the notion that the Apostle Paul did not speak of Jesus as a physical being. They argue that arguments from silence are unreliable and that there are several references in Paul's letters to historical facts about Jesus's life. He claims that Jesus "descended from David according to the flesh." Paul also states that "God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law" and that "the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being." Paul clearly states that in "taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, And being found in human form, he [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross." Furthermore, he invokes the "command," "charge," or "word" of Jesus four times in the Epistles.
• The Epistle to the Hebrews is debatably an early source, which some, but not all, scholars put before 70 CE. Their reasoning is that the Epistle makes mention of animal sacrifice, which was a practice that fell out of favor in Judaism after the destruction of the temple. In Hebrews, Jesus is mentioned several times in physical form and even speaks.

Overall, the unhistoricity theory is regarded as effectively refuted by almost all Biblical scholars and historians.

The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. ... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted.

However, Doherty's interpretation of this fact is that:

New Testament scholarship has not kept pace with today’s mythicism... Someone in the mainstream, a respected, open-minded critical scholar, unencumbered by confessional interests and peer pressure, needs to take a fresh look, to consider and address every aspect of the mythicst case in an in-depth fashion...

Jesus in non-Christian sources

Main article: Historicity of Jesus § Greco-Roman sources

Extant non-Christian sources which make mention of Jesus, including those opposed to Christianity, regard him as a historical figure. Two passages in the Jewish historian Josephus refer to Jesus, although scholars generally hold that the longer is at least partly interpolated. Celsus, a second century critic of Christianity, accused Jesus of being a bastard child and a sorcerer. He never questions Jesus' historicity even though he hated Christianity and Jesus. He is quoted as saying that Jesus was a "mere man." Furthermore, there is debate whether Suetonius, who wrote in the second century, made reference to Christianity existing in 41 CE, though the majority of scholars believe that the reference cannot be interpreted in this fashion. Lastly, there are passages of debatable significance from the historian Tacitus and satirist Lucian of Samosata, which credit "Christ" as the founder of Christianity.

As I understand it, this is not a forum by which we expect to prove or disprove the historicity of Jesus. The consensus mainstream view is that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person. There may be some merit to exposing the philosopy of "Jesus Myth". There may be some merit to revealing that some small number of historians are skeptical about the existance of Jesus. But, any attempt to prove or disprove anything in this forum is a waste of time and energy and constitutes what can probably be labeled original research. That's just my tiny opinion anyway. ElderStatesman 13:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

See also

• The God Who Wasn't There
• John of Gamala
• Jus Asaf
• Criticism of Jesus

References

• Allegro, John M. (1970). The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East. London: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-12875-5.
• Arendzen, J. P. (1909). "Docetae". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. Volume V. New York: Robert Appleton. Retrieved 2007-01-07. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
• Bartlett, John R. (1973). The First and Second Books of the Maccabees. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521086582.
• Beard, Mary (1998). Religions of Rome Volume 1: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. pp. 266, 301. ISBN 0-521-30401-6. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Beck, Roger L. (2003). "Mithras". In Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (ed.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (revised 3rd edition ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 991–992. ISBN 0-19-860641-9. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Borchert, G. L. "Docetism". Elwell Evangelical Dictionary.
• Carrier, Richard (2002). "Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity". The Secular Web. Retrieved 2007-03-05.
• Doherty, Earl (1997). "The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of Christian Origins". Journal of Higher Criticism. 4 (2). Retrieved 2007-03-04. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Doherty, Earl. "Christ as "Man": Does Paul Speak of Jesus as an Historical Person?". The Jesus Puzzle: Was There No Historical Jesus?. Retrieved 2007-03-07.
• Duling, Dennis C. (1993). The New Testament: Proclamation and Parenesis, Myth and History. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• France, R. T. (1986). The Evidence for Jesus. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-38172-8.
• Grant, Michael (1999) [1977]. Jesus. London: Phoenix. ISBN 0-75380-899-4.
• Kelly, J. N. D. (1985). Early Christian Doctrines (5th ed., rev. ed.). London: A. & C. Black. ISBN 0713627239.
• Martin, William C. (1966). These Were God's People: A Bible History. Nashville, Tennessee: The Southwestern Company.
• Price, Christopher (May 20 2005). "Earl Doherty use of the phrase "According to the Flesh" (sic)". Bede's Library. Retrieved 2007-03-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Smith, Morton (1978). Jesus the Magician. London: Gollancz. ISBN 0575024844.
• Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9.
• Wells, G. A. (1999). "Earliest Christianity". New Humanist. 114 (3): 13–18. Retrieved 2007-03-07. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Further reading

• Allegro, John M. (1992). The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (2nd rev. ed. ed.). Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-757-4. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Atwill, Joseph (2003). The Roman Origins of Christianity. J. Atwill. ISBN 0-9740928-0-0.
• Atwill, Joseph (2005). Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus. Berkeley, Calif.: Ulysses. ISBN 1-56975-457-8.
• Brodie, Thomas L. (2000). The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah-Elisha Narrative as an Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a Literary Model for the Gospels. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press. ISBN 0-8146-5942-X.
• Doherty, Earl (2000). The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin With a Mythical Christ? (rev. ed. ed.). Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Publications. ISBN 0-9686014-0-5. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Ellegård, Alvar (1999). Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ: A Study in Creative Mythology. London: Century. ISBN 0-7126-7956-1.
• Freke, Timothy (1999). The Jesus Mysteries: Was the 'Original Jesus' a Pagan God?. London: Thorsons. ISBN 0-7225-3676-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (3 vols. ed.). New York: Doubleday.
  1. The Roots of the Problem and the Person. 1991. ISBN 0-385-26425-9.
  2. Mentor, Message, and Miracles. 1994. ISBN 0-385-46992-6.
  3. Companions and Competitors. 2001. ISBN 0-385-46993-4.
• Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-758-9.
• Price, Robert M. (2003). The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-59102-121-9.
• Price, Robert M. (2005). "New Testament narrative as Old Testament midrash". In Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Midrash: Biblical Interpretation in Formative Judaism. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-14166-9.
• Sanders, E. P. (1993). The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9059-7.
• Seznec, Jean. 1972, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691017832
• Theissen, Gerd (1998). The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. trans. John Bowden. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-3123-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Thompson, Thomas L. (2005). The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-08577-6.
• Wells, G. A. (1982). The Historical Evidence for Jesus. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-180-0.
• Wells, G. A. (1999). The Jesus Myth. Chicago: Open Court. ISBN 0-8126-9392-2.

External links

Supporting a Jesus-Myth theory

• "Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity" by Richard Carrier
• Debunking the Historical Jesus
• "The Jesus Mysteries" by Freke/Gandy
• Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ

Supporting a historical Jesus

• Bones of Jesus of Nazareth found — recent (26 February 2007) re-announcement of discovery allegedly relevant to the historical existence of Jesus.
• "A History of Scholarly Refutations of the Jesus Myth" by Christopher Price
• "Did Jesus Exist" a page devoted to the issues raised by the Jesus Myth