Christ myth theory

"Jesus myth" links here. For a comparison between Jesus Christ and pagan mythology see Jesus Christ and comparative mythology.

The Jesus myth hypothesis, also referred to as the Jesus myth theory, the Jesus myth refers to the proposition that the narrative of Jesus in the gospels mythologically parallels the mystery religions of the Roman Empire such as Mithraism and the myths of rebirth deities, indicating that the figure of Jesus is an ahistorical construct of various forms of ancient mythology, and that there was no historical Jesus. The hypothesis was first proposed by historian and theologian Bruno Bauer in the 19th century and was influential in biblical studies during the early 20th century. It has recently been popularized by a number of authors including Earl Doherty and Robert M. Price. However, modern scholarly discussion and support is very limited.. A variant of the Jesus as myth idea is that Jesus is a composite character as presented in Hayyim ben Yehoshua's Refuting Missionaries part 1 and Refuting Missionaries part 2.

History of the hypothesis

The term Jesus 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 existed. Current theories arose from nineteenth century scholarship resulting from the quest for the historical Jesus, particularly the work of Bruno Bauer, which drew in part from the burgeoning field of mythography in the work of writers such as Max Müller. Mythography continued to influence 20th century philosophy and anthropology, for example, in Arthur Drews, and Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Müller argued that religions originated in mythic stories of the birth, death, and rebirth of the sun. James 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 not doubt the historicity of Jesus, however, stating, "my theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth... The doubts which have been cast upon the historical reality of Jesus are ... unworthy of serious attention." The earlier 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 that Jesus's existence is legendary is itself as old as the New Testament, pointing to 2 John 1:7, though scholars of the period believe that this passage refers to docetism, the belief that Jesus lacked a genuinely physical body, rather than a belief that Jesus was a completely fabricated figure.

Early proponents

The first suggestion of an alternative explanation for the story of Jesus Christ may have been offered by Charles Francois Dupuis, an enlightenment era Frenchman who advocated the unity of the astronomical and religious myths. The first scholarly proponent 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 and Gnostic mysticism. Other versions of the theory developed under 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 fictions written 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 God.

By the early twentieth century a number of writers had published arguments in favour of the Jesus-myth hypothesis, 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. Others, like Joseph Wheless in his 1930 Forgery In Christianity, went even further and claimed there was an active effort to forge documents to make the myth seem historical beginning as early as the 2nd century.

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, the Pauline epistles, and the Acts of the Apostles contained some reliable information about the events they describe.

Recent proponents

In recent years, the Jesus myth hypothesis has had very few scholarly proponents in the fields of biblical scholarship or historical studies. It had been advanced by George Albert Wells, Emeritus Professor of German, in The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth. In his latest works, Wells has somewhat moderated his views, allowing for the possibility that certain elements of the Gospel traditions might be based on an historical figure from the first-century Palestine.

The hypothesis has also been advocated by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, who are both popular writers on mysticism, in their books The Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess. Another proponent is Earl Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle), who has a degree in Ancient History and Classical Languages and who had an earlier version of his work ("The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of Christian Origins") published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Higher Criticism (Fall 1997)

There are many different views regarding the nature of the early texts. Doherty suggests that Jesus is a historicised mythic figure created out of the Old Testament, whom the early Christians experienced in visions. 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. In Atwill's view the historical person behind Jesus 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 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, New Testament scholars and historians consider the question as resolved in favour of Jesus' historicity, that is, that the weight of historical evidence suggests that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual person rather than a composite of more than one person or a completely made-up myth.. An exception is Robert M. Price, a biblical scholar, who feels the burden of proof seems to belong to those who hold to Jesus' historicity.

Specific arguments of the hypothesis

Early non-Christian references to Jesus

Further information: Historicity of Jesus § Greco-Roman sources

Three early writers are typically cited in support of the actual existence of Jesus: Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius. Proponents of the view of Jesus as myth typically dispute the accuracy of one or more of these sources. Many proponents of the Jesus-myth hypothesis highlight the lack of documents, other than Christian documents, that make reference to Jesus until the end of the first century and note the survival of writings by a number of Roman and Jewish commentators and historians who wrote in the first century but which lack mention of events described in the Gospels, taking this as evidence that Jesus was invented later. Opponents of the hypothesis argue that arguments from silence are unreliable and point to the existing historical sources, both Christian and non-Christian alike; furthermore, they point to the trend in many writings of the era to omit contemporary details to make the work more "timeless".

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. The text comprising the first reference, the Testimonium Flavianum, states that Jesus was the founder of a sect, but the authenticity of the passage is disputed. Grammatical analysis indicates significant differences with the passages that come before and after it, while some phrases would be inconsistent with a non-Christian author like Josephus. This 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 62 CE, the newly appointed high priest "convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought them a man called James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned. The fact Josephus describes John the Baptist in clear, unsensational terms, in a passage that is not usually disputed, but, arguably, does not make clear mention of Jesus, is also seen by some people as evidence he was not aware of Jesus, at least as a figure of any striking importance.
• Tacitus in the context of the Great Fire of Rome refers to "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." Critics point out that Tacitus uses the title procurator to refer to Pontius Pilate when he was in fact a prefect and that until Sulpicius Severus write a nearly identical passage no Christan writer makes reference to this passage even when talking about Nero's treatment of Christans.
• Suetonius, who wrote in the second century, made reference to unrest among the Jews of Rome under Claudius caused by "Chrestus". This has been commonly identified with Jesus Christ, though in this case it must refer to indirect posthumous effects and gives no biographical information. Critics point out that "Chrestus" was in fact very common Greek name and may have been a person of that name living under Claudius rather than a misspelling of Christ.
• There are references to Christians in the letters of Pliny the Younger, but they give no specific biographical information about Jesus. However critics point out that all the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan demonstrates is 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 the authorities considered it a "perverse religious cult, carried to extremes.".
• The Babylonian Talmud contains several references that have been traditionally identified with Jesus of Nazareth. However, whether these Talmudic verses actually refer to Jesus of Nazareth or to various other persons that were only later identified with Jesus and with each other remains controversial. If the identification is accepted, Jesus is described as a heretic ("min") but nowhere in the Rabbinic literature is it suggested that he was not a historical figure.

Apparent omissions in early records

Justus of Tiberias wrote at the end of the first century a history of Jewish kings, with whom the gospels state Jesus had interacted. 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 Jewish historian Philo, who lived in the first half of the 1st century also fails to mention Jesus, as do dozens of other major contemporary writers who might have been expected to refer to someone who is meant to have attracted such devotion and performed such extraordinary acts.

The New Testament epistles

It is often held that the authentic letters of Paul of Tarsus are the earliest surviving Christian writings. The epistles ascribed to Paul do not discuss Jesus's life and ministry in level of detail used by the Gospels, though they do make several claims that he was human, specifically the "Seed of Abraham" and "of the Tribe of Judah". There are a variety of explanations for this among those who believe in a historical Jesus, while proponents of the Jesus-myth theory regard it as evidence to support their position.

G. A. Wells suggests that the level of discussion of the historical Jesus in the Pauline epistles, except for the Pastorals, as well as in Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, the Johannine epistles and Revelation supports his position. In these works, Wells argues, Jesus 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 from a lost collection of Jesus' sayings known as the Q document. In the small amount of additional material unique to Matthew, Jesus is presented with strong parallels to Old Testament figures, most noticeably Moses.

It is widely accepted that the Gospel accounts were influenced by 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. Some advocates argue that there is no reason to assume that the sayings attributed to Q originated with Jesus. Doherty has argued 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 believing that the gospels may contain some creativity and midrash, opponents of the Jesus-myth theory argue that the gospels are more akin to ancient Greco-Roman biographies. Such works attempted to impart historical information about historical figures but were not comprehensive and could include legendary developments.

However, opponents of the Jesus-myth theory have argued that the closest parallels to potential Moses-based embellishment do not apply to that of the Jesus narrative. 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 Christianity 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 with those of Osiris.

Worship of Isis, Horus' mother, was a prominent cult, and there is a proposal that this is the basis of veneration of Mary, and more particularly Marian Iconography.

Mithraism was a mystery religion widespread in parts of the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries. Mithraic sanctuaries ("Mithraea") feature images of the tauroctony, the killing by Mithras of a bull. These appear to include astrological elements, possibly associating Mithras with the Sun. Initiates progressed through seven grades associated with planets, and may have conceived their souls as ascending away from Earth and the material world. An inscription from the Mithraeum at Santa Prisca has an uncertain text but may refer to the shedding of the bull's blood as having "saved us".

Mithraic practices have been compared to those of Christians, including baptism, confirmation and communion. However, Mithraists may not have sanctified Sunday as the day of the Sun. Images in Mithraea show Mithras being born from a rock, and it has been conjectured that his worshippers celebrated his birth on December 25, since this is known to have been regarded as the "birthday" of Sol Invictus. The Christian apologist Justin Martyr referred to the use of bread and water in Mithraic ritual, which he regarded as a demonic imitation of the Christian Eucharist. Grape-imagery in Mithraea has been taken to show that wine was also consumed by Mithraists. Mithraea included bathing pools or basins, and Tertullian, discussing non-Christian rituals comparable to Christian baptism, referred to Mithraic initiation "by means of a bath". Papyrus fragments preserve what may be a kind of Mithraic "catechism", "in which an officiant questions an initiate, who must give the required answers".

In 1962, scholar of Judaism Samuel Sandmel cautioned against what he described as "Parallelomania": "We might for our purposes define parallelomania as that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying a literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction."

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. More recently in the book Reinventing Jesus, the authors put forth the position that "Only after 100 A.D. did the mysteries begin to look very much like Christianity, precisely because their existence was threatened by this new religion. They had to compete to survive."

However, some prominent early Christians, e.g. Irenaeus and Justin Martyr actually argued for the existence of some of these parallels; Justin specifically used several to attempt to prove that Christianity was not a new cult, but that it was rooted in ancient prophecy which had been "diabolically imitated".

Historiography and methodology

Earl Doherty argues that 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.

A similar tack (seen in works like The God Who Wasn't There) works from the fact that the dates in both canonal and non-canonal sources do not match up. For example it is stated in the Talmud that Jesus was killed under Alexander Jannaeus, and Luke and Matthew have different birth dates that are nearly a decade apart.

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.

Scholarly response

The idea of Jesus as a myth is rejected by the majority of biblical scholars and historians. In 2004, Richard Burridge and Graham Gould stated that they did not know of any "respectable" scholars that held the view today. The classical historian Michael Grant writes:

To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' 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.

Van Voorst, a Christian Scholar and trained pastor, has stated that Biblical Scholars and historians regard the thesis as "effectively refuted". Jesus-myth proponent Earl Doherty has written, in response to these comments, that:

Van Voorst is quite right in saying that “mainstream scholarship today finds it unimportant” [p.6, n.9]. Most of their comment (such as those quoted by Michael Grant) are limited to expressions of contempt.

However, he disagrees with the mainstream scholars on the strength of the case against the theory, and comments that the widespread "contempt" in which the theory is held "is not to be mistaken for refutation." He states that "interests, both religious and secular, have traditionally mounted a campaign against it", and states that mainstream scholarship is guilty of a "notable lack of proper understanding of the mythicist case", leading to "the non-professional scholar" and "well-informed amateur on the internet" becoming those who he regards as "quite educated (meaning largely self-educated) in biblical research".

Specific Criticisms

The points below highlight some criticisms of various arguments for an ahistorical Jesus.

• Michael Grant does not see the similarities between Christianity and pagan religions to be significant. 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."
• R.T. France states that 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. He argues that there is evidence in Pliny, Josephus and other sources of the Roman and Jewish approaches at the time, and none of them involved this suggestion.
• In response to Jesus-myth proponents who argue the lack of early non-Christian sources, or question their authenticity, R. T. France counters 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.
• R.T France disagrees with the notion that the Apostle Paul did not speak of Jesus as a physical being. He argues that arguments from silence are unreliable and that there are several references to historical facts about Jesus's life in Paul's letters, such as that Jesus "who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David" (Romans 1:3, TNIV).

See also

• Jesus Christ and comparative mythology
• The God Who Wasn't There - 2005 documentary by Brian Flemming
• John of Gamala
• Jus Asaf
• Criticism of Jesus
• Acharya S
• Jordan Maxwell

Further reading

Supporting a Jesus-Myth theory

• 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.
• 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)
• 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.
• Seznec, Jean. 1972, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691017832
• 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.

Supporting a historical Jesus

• Bauckham, Richard (2006). Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Wm B Eerdmans Pub Co. ISBN 978-0802831620.
• Bovon, François (2006). The Last Days of Jesus. trans. Kristin Hennessy; Louisville: Westminster. John Knox. ISBN 0664230075.
• Burridge, Richard A. (2006). Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading (2nd edn. ed.). Grand Rapids:Eerdmans. ISBN 0802829805. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Charlesworth, James H. (ed.) (2006). Jesus and Archaeology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 080284880X. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• Dunn, James D.G. (2003). Christianity in the Making Vol 1: Jesus Remembered. Wm B Eerdmans Pub Co. ISBN 978-0802839312.

1. A New Perspective On Jesus: What The Quest For The Historical Jesus Missed (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology). Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic. 2005. ISBN 0-8010-2710-1.

• Grant, Michael (1999) [1977]. Jesus. London: Phoenix. ISBN 0-75380-899-4.
• Komoszewski, J. Ed (2006). Reinventing Jesus. Kregel Publications. ISBN 082542982X. {{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.
• Sanders, E. P. (1993). The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9059-7.
  1. The Historical Figure of Jesus. Penguin Books Ltd. 1993. {{cite book}}: Text "id ISBN 0-14-014499-4" ignored (help)
• 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)
• Wright, NT (1996). The New Testament and the People of God. Augsburg Fortress Publishers. ISBN 0800626818.

External links

Supporting a Jesus-Myth theory

• "Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity" by Richard Carrier
• Debunking the Historical Jesus by Dan Barker, Freedom from Religion Foundation
• "The Jesus Mysteries" by Freke/Gandy
• Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ by R. G. Price, rationalrevolution.net
• The "Historical" Jesus? by Acharya S
• The Jesus Myth: Where Faith and Logic Collide (thejesusmyth.com)
• Jesus Never Existed home page
• Zeitgeist Movie - Part 1 presents arguments supporting myth hypothesis.

Supporting a historical 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
• "On Criticism". Constantin Brunner's critique of the Jesus-as-myth theory from his book, "Our Christ".
• Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources
• The Evidence For Jesus by Dr. William Lane Craig
• The Historical Jesus - Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ by Gary R. Habermas