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Christ myth theory

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Jesus myth theory
The Resurrection of Christ by Noel Coypel (1700).
Jesus myth theorists see this as one of a number of stories about dying and rising gods.
DescriptionJesus of Nazareth is largely or entirely a mythological character created by the early Christian community.
Early proponentsCharles François Dupuis (1742–1809)
Constantin-François Volney (1757–1820)
Bruno Bauer (1809–1882)
Arthur Drews (1865–1935)
Modern proponentsG.A. Wells, Alvar Ellegård, Robert M. Price
SubjectAncient history

The Jesus myth theory (also known as the Christ myth theory and the nonexistence hypothesis) is the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was not an historical person, but is a fictional or mythological character created by the early Christian community.[1] Some proponents argue that events or sayings associated with the figure of Jesus in the New Testament may have been drawn from one or more individuals who actually existed, but that none of them was in any sense the founder of Christianity.[2] Most scholars involved with historical Jesus research believe his existence can be established using documentary and other evidence, although they agree that material about him in the New Testament should not be taken at face value.[3]

The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis in the 1790s. Notable proponents include Bruno Bauer; Arthur Drews in the 20th century; and more recently G.A. Wells, Alvar Ellegård, and Robert M. Price. The idea has come to modern public attention through the work of writers such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and the French philosopher Michel Onfray.[4]

Arguments used to support the theory emphasize the absence of extant reference to Jesus during his lifetime and the scarcity of non-Christian reference to him in the 1st century. Some proponents contend that Christianity emerged organically from Hellenistic Judaism, and draw on perceived parallels between the biography of Jesus and those of Greek, Egyptian, and other gods, especially those figuring in myths about dying and rising deities.

Context

Jesus

"Cristo crucificado" by Diego Velázquez (c. 1632). Tradition dates the crucifixion of Jesus to around 30 CE.
Further information: Chronology of Jesus, Jesus and history, and Origins of Christianity

Biblical scholar L. Michael White, not himself a Jesus-myth theorist, writes that the usual date given for Jesus's birth is between 7 and 4 BCE. This is based on the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which say he was born a Jew during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in March 4 BCE.[5] According to White, his death is typically placed around 30 CE, during the reign of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea from 26 to 36 CE.[6] White writes that, so far as we know, Jesus did not write anything, nor did anyone who had personal knowledge of him. There is no archeological evidence of his existence. There are no contemporaneous accounts of his life or death: no eyewitness accounts, or any other kind of first-hand record. All the accounts of Jesus come from decades or centuries later; the gospels themselves all come from later times, though they may contain earlier sources or oral traditions. The earliest writings that survive are the letters of Paul of Tarsus, written 20–30 years after the dates given for Jesus's death. Paul was not a companion of Jesus, White writes, nor does he ever claim to have seen Jesus before his death.[7]

Definitions of the theory

Further information: Jesus Christ in comparative mythology

Philosopher George Walsh argues that Christianity can be seen as originating in a myth dressed up as history, or with a historical being mythologized into a supernatural one: he calls the former the Christ myth theory, and the latter the historical Jesus theory. Walsh also states "My present opinion is that, in the case of Jesus, we simply do no not know for certain anything about his biography, not even that he existed." [1]

Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall writes that there are "two views of the historical Jesus which stand at the opposite ends of a spectrum of opinion about him." At one extreme is the view that Jesus never existed, and that the gospels describe an essentially fictional person. At the other extreme is the view that the gospels portray events exactly as they happened, and each event depicted in the New Testament is the literal truth.[8] Marshall also explains that the term "historical Jesus" itself has two meanings: that Jesus existed rather than being a totally fictional creation like King Lear or Dr. Who or the Gospels accounts give a reasonable account of historical events rather than being unverifiable legends such as those surrounding King Arthur. Because of this slipperiness in the meaning of "historical Jesus" Marshall states "We shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the historical Jesus if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what we are talking about."[9]

  • John Dominic Crossan, a religious scholar and former Catholic priest, prefers to call the Jesus myth theory the "Jesus-parable", because the argument is that we have a purely parabolic Jesus, not an historical one.[10] Biblical scholars Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd break the spectrum of opinion into four positions; they call the first three the "legendary-Jesus thesis," namely that the picture of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke is mostly or entirely historically inaccurate.[11]
The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton (1891). Robert Price writes that a central plank of the Jesus myth theory is that Jesus is one of a number of dying-and-rising gods.
  1. The Jesus myth theory: the gospels describe a virtually, and perhaps entirely, fictitious person. There are no grounds for supposing that any aspect of the Jesus narrative is rooted in history. This view is represented to varying degrees by Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, G.A. Wells, and Robert Price.[11]
  2. There is enough evidence to conclude that Jesus existed, but the reports are so unreliable that very little can be said about him with confidence. This view is represented by Rudolf Bultmann and Burton Mack.[11]
  3. Historical research can reveal a core of historical facts about Jesus, but he is very different from the Jesus of the New Testament. His sayings and miracles are myths. Robert Funk and Crossan represent this view, one that Eddy and Boyd write is increasingly common among New Testament scholars.[11]
  4. The gospels are reliable historical sources, and critical historiography should not rule out the possibility of supernatural occurrence, a view represented by John P. Meier and N.T. Wright.[11]

Three pillars of the theory

New Testament scholar Robert Price, who argues it is quite likely there never was an historical Jesus, writes that the Jesus myth theory is based on three pillars:

  • There is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources.
  • The Pauline epistles, earlier than the gospels, do not provide evidence of a recent historical Jesus.
  • The story of Jesus shows strong parallels to Middle Eastern religions about dying and rising gods, symbolizing the rebirth of the individual as a rite of passage. He writes that Christian apologists have tried to minimize these parallels.[12]

Development of the theory

18th and 19th centuries

Volney and Dupuis

a sketch of a bust of Constantin-François Chassebœuf
French philosopher Constantin-François Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney, argued that Jesus was based on an obscure historical figure and solar mythology.

Serious doubt about the historical existence of Jesus emerged when critical study of the gospels developed during the Enlightenment in the 18th century. The primary forerunners of the Jesus myth theory are identified as two French philosophers, Charles François Dupuis (1742–1809) and Constantin-François Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney (1757–1820).[13]

Napoleon Bonaparte may have echoed Volney when he privately questioned the existence of Jesus.[13]

Dupuis rejected the historicity of Jesus entirely, explaining a reference to Jesus by the Roman historian Tacitus (56–117)—in around 116, Tacitus mentioned one Chrestus, who had been convicted by Pontius Pilate, as nothing but an echo of the inaccurate beliefs of Christians at the time. In Origine de tous les cultes (1795), he identified pre-Christian rituals in Greater Syria, Ancient Egypt and Persia that he believed represented the birth of a god to a virgin mother at the winter solstice, and argued that these rituals were based upon the winter rising of the constellation Virgo. He believed that these and other annual occurrences were allegorized as the histories of solar deities, such as Sol Invictus. He argued that Jewish and Christian scriptures could be interpreted according to the solar pattern: the Fall of Man in Genesis was an allegory of the hardship caused by winter, and the resurrection of Jesus represented the growth of the sun's strength in the sign of Aries at the spring equinox.[14]

Volney, who published before Dupuis but made use of a draft version of Dupuis' work, followed much of his argument. In his Les Ruines, Volney differed in thinking that the gospel story was not intentionally created as an extended allegory grounded in solar myths, but was compiled organically when simple allegorical statements like "the virgin has brought forth" were misunderstood as history. Volney further parted company from Dupuis by allowing that confused memories of an obscure historical figure may have contributed to Christianity when they were integrated with the solar mythology.[14] The works of Volney and Dupuis moved rapidly through numerous editions, allowing the thesis to circulate widely.[15] Napoleon, who knew Volney personally, was probably basing his opinion on Volney's work when he stated privately in October 1808 that the existence of Jesus was an open question.[13] Later critics argued that Volney and Dupuis had based their views on limited historical data.[16]

David Strauss

portrait
David Strauss argued that only a small core of bare facts could be known about Jesus, and that the rest was myth.[17]

German theologian David Strauss (1808–1874) caused a scandal in Europe with the publication of his Das Leben Jesu (1835)—published in English as The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1860)—in which he argued that some stories about Jesus appeared to be mythical, concluding that early Christian communities had fabricated material based on Old Testament stories and concepts. Theologian Thomas L. Thompson writes that Strauss saw the development of the myth not as fraudulent invention, but as the product of a community's imagination, ideas represented as stories.[18] Thompson writes that Strauss's influence on biblical studies was far-reaching.[18] James Beilby and Paul Eddy write that Strauss did not argue that Jesus was entirely invented, but that historically there was only a small core of facts that could be asserted about him.[17]

Bruno Bauer

portrait
Bruno Bauer's views were sufficiently unorthodox that in 1842 they cost him his lectureship at the University of Bonn.

The German historian Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) took Strauss's arguments and carried them to their furthest point, arguing that Jesus had been entirely fabricated. He thereby became a leading proponent of the Jesus myth theory.[17]

Writing while he was teaching at the University of Bonn from 1839 to 1842, Bauer argued that the Gospel of John was not an historical narrative, but an adaptation of the traditional Jewish religious and political idea of the Messiah to Philo's philosophical concept of the logos. Turning to the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Bauer followed earlier critics in regarding them as dependent on Mark's narrative, while rejecting the view that they also drew upon a common tradition apart from Mark that scholars argue is lost—a hypothetical source called the Q document. For Bauer, this latter possibility was ruled out by the incompatible stories of Jesus' nativity found in Matthew and Luke, as well as the manner in which the non-Markan material found in these documents still appeared to develop Markan ideas. Bauer concluded that Matthew depended on Luke for the content found only in those two gospels. Thus, since in his view the entire gospel tradition could be traced to a single author (Mark), Bauer felt that the hypothesis of outright invention became possible. He further believed there was no expectation of a Messiah among Jews in the time of Tiberius, and that Mark's portrayal of Jesus as the Messiah must therefore be a retrojection of later Christian beliefs and practices—an interpretation Bauer extended to many of the specific stories recounted in the gospels. While Bauer initially left open the question of whether an historical Jesus existed at all, his published views were sufficiently unorthodox that in 1842 they cost him his lectureship at Bonn.[19]

In A Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin, published in 1850–1851, Bauer argued that Jesus had not, in fact, existed. Bauer's own explanation of Christian origins appeared in 1877 in Christ and the Caesars. He proposed that the religion was a synthesis of the Stoicism of Seneca the Younger, and the Jewish theology of Philo as developed by pro-Roman Jews such as Josephus.[20] While subsequent arguments against an historical Jesus were not directly dependent on Bauer's work, they usually echoed it on several points: that New Testament references to Jesus lacked historical value; that both the absence of reference to Jesus within his lifetime, and the lack of non-Christian references to him in the 1st century, provided evidence against his existence; and that Christianity originated through syncretism.[21]

Radical Dutch school

Main articles: Radical Criticism and Authorship of the Pauline epistles

In the 1870s and 1880s, a group of scholars associated with the University of Amsterdam, known in German scholarship as the radical Dutch school, followed Bauer by rejecting the authenticity of the Pauline epistles, and took a generally negative view of the Bible's historical value. Within this group, the existence of Jesus was rejected by Allard Pierson, the leader of the movement, S. Hoekstra, and Samuel Adrian Naber. A. D. Loman argued in 1881 that all New Testament writings belonged to the 2nd century, and doubted that Jesus was an historical figure, but later said the core of the gospels was genuine.[22]

20th century

During the early 20th century, several writers published arguments against Jesus' historicity, ranging from the scholarly to the fanciful. Proponents of the theory drew on the work of liberal theologians, who tended to deny any value to sources for Jesus outside the New Testament, and to limit their attention to Mark and the hypothetical Q document.[22] They also made use of the growing field of Religionsgeschichte—the history of religion—which found sources for Christian ideas in Greek and Oriental mystery cults, rather than in the life of Jesus and Palestinian Judaism.[23] 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."[24]

J. M. Robertson

J. M. Robertson (1856–1933), a Scottish journalist who became a Liberal MP, argued in 1900 that belief in a slain Messiah arose before the New Testament period within sects later known as Ebionites or Nazarenes, and that these groups would have expected a Messiah named Jesus, a hope based on a divinity of that name in the biblical Joshua. In his view, an additional but less significant basis for early Christian belief may have been the executed Jesus Pandira, placed by the Talmud in about 100 BC.[25]

Robertson wrote that while the letters of Paul of Tarsus are the earliest surviving Christian writings, they were primarily concerned with theology and morality, largely glossing over the life of Jesus. Once references to the twelve apostles and Jesus's institution of the Eucharist are rejected as interpolations, Robertson argued that the Jesus of the Pauline epistles is reduced to a crucified savior who "counts for absolutely nothing as a teacher or even as a wonder-worker."[26] As a result, he concluded that those elements of the gospels that attribute such characteristics to Jesus must have developed later, probably among gentile believers who were converted by Jewish evangelists like Paul.[27] This gentile party may have represented Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection in mystery plays in which, wishing to disassociate the cult from Judaism, they attributed his execution to the Jewish authorities and his betrayal to a Jew (Ioudaios, misunderstood as Judas). According to Robertson, such plays would have evolved over time into the gospels. Christianity would have sought to further enhance its appeal to gentiles by adopting myths from pagan cults with some Judaic input— e.g., Jesus' healings came from Asclepius, feeding of multitudes from Dionysus, the Eucharist from the worship of Dionysus and Mithras, and walking on water from Poseidon, but his descent from David and his raising of a widow's son from the dead were in deference to Jewish messianic expectations. And while John's portrayal of Jesus as the logos was ostensibly Jewish, Robertson argued that the underlying concept derived from the function of Mithras, Thoth, and Hermes as representatives of a supreme god.[28]

William Benjamin Smith

At around the same time William Benjamin Smith (1850–1934), a professor of mathematics at Tulane University in New Orleans, argued in a series of books that the earliest Christian sources, particularly the Pauline epistles, stress Christ's divinity at the expense of any human personality, and that this would have been implausible if there had been a human Jesus.[29] Smith believed that Christianity's origins lay in a pre-Christian Jesus cult—that is, in a Jewish sect that had worshipped a divine being named Jesus in the centuries before the human Jesus was supposedly born.[30] Smith argued that evidence for this cult was found in Hippolytus's mention of the Naassenes and Epiphanius's report of a Nazaraean or Nazorean sect that existed before Jesus. On this view, the seemingly historical details in the New Testament were built by the early Christian community around narratives of the pre-Christian Jesus.[31] Smith also argued against the historical value of non-Christian writers regarding Jesus, particularly Josephus and Tacitus.[32]

Arthur Drews

portrait
Arthur Drews's public debates were regarded by The New York Times as one of the most remarkable theological discussions since the days of Martin Luther.

The Christ Myth (Die Christusmythe), first published in 1909 by Arthur Drews (1865–1935), professor of philosophy at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, Germany, brought together the scholarship of the day in defense of the idea that Christianity had been a Jewish Gnostic cult that spread by appropriating aspects of Greek philosophy and life-death-rebirth deities. Drews wrote that his purpose was to show that everything about the historical Jesus had a mythical character, and there was no reason to suppose that such a figure had existed.[33]

photograph
Lenin accepted Drews's arguments.

His work proved popular enough that prominent theologians and historians addressed his arguments in several leading journals of religion.[34] In response, Drews took part in a series of public debates, the best known of which took place in 1910 on January 31 and February 1 at the Berlin Zoological Garden against Hermann von Soden of the Berlin University, where he appeared on behalf of the League of Monists. Attended by 2,000 people, including the country's most eminent theologians, the meetings went on until three in the morning.[35] The New York Times called it one of the most remarkable theological discussions since the days of Martin Luther, reporting that Drews caused a sensation by plastering the town's billboards with posters asking, "Did Jesus Christ ever live?" According to the newspaper his arguments were so graphic that several women had to be carried from the hall screaming hysterically, while one woman stood on a chair and invited God to strike him down.[35]

Drew's work found fertile soil in the Soviet Union. Lenin (1870–1924) Soviet leader from 1917 until his death, argued that it was imperative in the struggle against religious obscurantists to form a union with people like Drews.[36] Several editions of Drews's The Christ Myth were published in the Soviet Union from the early 1920s onwards, and his arguments were included in school and university textbooks.[37] Public meetings asking "Did Christ live?" were organized, during which party operatives debated with clergymen.[38]

Paul-Louis Couchoud

Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879–1959) was a French doctor of medicine turned man of letters and poet.[39] He developed his idea of Jesus as myth in a series of essays and books, including Enigma of Jesus (1924), followed by The Mystery of Jesus (1925), Jesus the God Made Man (1937), The Creation of Christ (1939), Story of Jesus (1944), and The God Jesus (1951).[40] Theologian Walter P. Weaver writes that Couchoud dismissed material from Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, and Suetonius as evidence. Turning to the New Testament, he argued that Paul had had nothing to do with Jesus, and that Mark was the source for Luke and John. He argued that Mark was not an historical text but a commentary on early Christian stories and memories. He further argued that Paul's affirmation of the divinity of Jesus alongside Yahweh (God), suggested that Jesus was not real, because no Jew would have done that. For Couchoud, Jesus was a figment of Paul's imagination, the result of a new interpretation of ancient texts and a representation of the highest aspiration of the human soul.[39]

Other 20th-century writers

photograph
Bertrand Russell doubted that Jesus existed.

G. J. P. J. Bolland (1854–1922) argued in 1907 that Christianity evolved from Gnosticism, and that Jesus was simply a symbolic figure representing Gnostic ideas about God.[41]

G. R. S. Mead (1863–1933), a member of the Theosophical Society, wrote in Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? (1903) that Jesus was an historical figure but that the Talmud points to him being crucified c100 BCE, meaning that the Gospel version was a mythical construct.[42] Harry Elmer Barnes in his 1929 The Twilight of Christianity and Tom Harpur in his 2006 "Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity?" have said Mead along with Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, and John M. Robertson as being among the "eminent scholars and critics who have contended that Jesus was not historical"[43][44] Robert Price cites Mead as one of several examples of alternative traditions that place Jesus in a different time period than the Gospel account, and wrote that the "varying dates are the residue of various attempts to anchor an original mythic or legendary Jesus in more or less recent history."[45]

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) famously announced in his 1927 lecture, "Why I Am Not a Christian"—delivered to the National Secular Society in Battersea Town Hall, London—that historically it is quite doubtful that Jesus existed, and if he did we know nothing about him, though Russell did nothing to develop the idea.[46]

Dead Sea Scrolls scholar John M. Allegro (1923–1988) argued in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979) that Christianity began as a shamanic cult centering around the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, and that the New Testament was a coded record of a clandestine cult. Mark Hall writes that Allegro suggested the scrolls all but proved that an historical Jesus never existed.[47] Philip Jenkins writes that Allegro was an eccentric scholar who relied on texts that did not exist in quite the form he was citing them, and calls the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross "possibly the single most ludicrous book on Jesus scholarship by a qualified academic."[48] Allegro was forced to resign his academic post.[49]

21st century

G. A. Wells

Graham Stanton wrote in 2002 that the most thoroughgoing and sophisticated of the proponents' arguments were set out by G. A. Wells, emeritus professor of German at Birkbeck College, London, and author of Did Jesus Exist? (1975), The Jesus Legend (1996), The Jesus Myth (1999), Can We Trust the New Testament? (2004), and Cutting Jesus Down to Size (2009).[50] British theologian Kenneth Grayston advised Christians to acknowledge the difficulties raised by Wells, but Alvar Ellegård writes that his views remain largely undiscussed by theologians.[51]

Wells bases his arguments on the views of New Testament scholars who acknowledge that the gospels are sources written decades after Jesus's death by people who had no personal knowledge of him. In addition, Wells writes, the texts are exclusively Christian and theologically motivated, and therefore a rational person should believe the gospels only if they are independently confirmed. Wells also argues that Paul and the other epistle writers—the earliest Christian writers—do not provide any support for the idea that Jesus lived early in the 1st century. There is no information in them about Jesus's parents, place of birth, teachings, trial, or crucifixion.[52] For Wells, the Jesus of earliest Christianity was a pure myth, derived from mystical speculations stemming from the Jewish Wisdom tradition. According to this view, 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".[53]

In The Jesus Myth, Wells argues that two Jesus narratives fused into one: Paul's mythical Jesus and a minimally historical Jesus whose teachings were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical common source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.[54] Biblical scholar Robert Van Voorst said that with this argument Wells had performed an about-face.[55] Wells writes that he belongs in the category of those who argue that Jesus did exist, but that reports about him are so unreliable that we can know little or nothing about him.[56] He argues, for example, that the story of the execution of Jesus under Pilate is not an historical account.[57] He wrote in 2000: "[J. D. G. Dunn] objected [in 1985] that, in my work as then published, I had, implausibly, to assume that, within 30 years from Paul, there had evolved "such a ... complex of traditions about a non-existent figure as we have in the sources of the gospels" (The Evidence for Jesus, p. 29). My present standpoint is: this complex is not all post-Pauline (Q in its earliest form may well be as early as ca. AD. 40), and it is not all mythical. The essential point, as I see it, is that what is authentic in this material refers to a personage who is not to be identified with the dying and rising Christ of the early epistles."[53]

Alvar Ellegård

Alvar Ellegård (1919–2008), a professor of English at the University of Gothenburg, developed the ideas of Wells and Couchoud in his Myten om Jesus (1992), arguing that Jesus is essentially a myth and the gospels largely fiction, created to give substance to the ecstatic visions of Paul and the apostles, in which Jesus appeared as the |messiah. He argues that the point of Paul's letters to the Jewish diaspora was to show that the Day of Judgment was imminent, messianiac views that were common among Jews at the time. When it became clear decades later that the Day of Judgment was not upon them, Paul's audience wanted to know more about Jesus, and because there was little to guide them, the gospels emerged to complete a picture, using passages from the Old Testament that messianic Jews had long interpreted as heralding the messiah.[51]

Ellegård writes that his position differs from that of Drews and Couchoud. Like G.A. Wells, he believes that Paul's letters show Paul and his audience believed Paul's visions had been about a real person. Ellegård develops arguments proposed by André Dupont-Sommer and John Allegro, and identifies Paul's Jesus as the "Essene Teacher of Righteousness" revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but he argues that this was not Jesus of the gospels. For Ellegård, the figure Paul had in mind was the founder of the Essene, or para-Essene, congregations Paul was addressing, someone who had probably lived in the 2nd or early 1st century BCE, though Ellegard acknowledges there is no evidence of a Jesus who would fit this description, or evidence that the Teacher of Righteousness was crucified. He accuses modern theologians of failing to live up to their responsibilities as scholars. He argues that their position is dogmatic, often concealed "under a cover of mystifying language,"[58] that they often have ties to Christian churches, and that there has been a failure of communication between them and scholars in other fields, leading to an insulation of theological research from scholarly debate elsewhere. He dismisses as an ad hominem argument the criticism of himself and Wells as non-specialists.[51]

Robert M. Price

Robert Price at a microphone
New Testament scholar Robert Price argues we will never know whether Jesus existed, unless someone discovers his diary or skeleton.[59]

American New Testament scholar Robert M. Price questions the historicity of Jesus in a series of books, including Deconstructing Jesus (2000), The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003), and Jesus is Dead (2007), as well as in contributions to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009). Price is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of writers and scholars who study the historicity of Jesus, arguing that the Christian image of Christ is a theological construct into which traces of Jesus of Nazareth have been woven.[60] A former Baptist pastor, Price writes that he was originally an apologist on the historical-Jesus question but became disillusioned with the arguments. As the years went on, he found it increasingly difficult to poke holes in the position that questioned Jesus's existence entirely. Despite this, he still takes part in the Eucharist every week, seeing the Christ of faith as all the more important because, he argues, there was probably never any other.[61]

Price believes that Christianity is a historicized synthesis of mainly Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek mythology.[62] He writes that everyone who espouses the Jesus myth theory bases their arguments on three key points. First, they ask why there is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources. Secondly, they argue that the epistles, written earlier than the gospels, provide no evidence of a recent historical Jesus—all that can be taken from the epistles, he argues, is that a Jesus Christ, son of God, came into the world to die as a sacrifice for human sin and was raised by God and enthroned in heaven. The third pillar is that the Jesus narrative is paralleled in Middle Eastern myths about dying and rising gods. He names Baal, Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dumuzi/ Tammuz as examples, all of which, he writes, survived into the Hellenistic and Roman periods and thereby influenced early Christianity. He writes that Christian apologists have tried to minimize these parallels.[12] He argues that if critical methodology is applied with ruthless consistency, one is left in complete agnosticism regarding Jesus's historicity.[59] He acknowledges that he stands against the majority view of scholars, but cautions against attempting to settle the issue by appeal to the majority.[63]

Other 21st-century writers

Thomas L. Thompson, retired professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen, argues in The Messiah Myth (2005) that the Jesus of the gospels did not exist, and that stories about him are a combination of Near Eastern myths and stories about kingship and divinity. He argues that the contemporaneous audience of the gospels would have understood this, that the stories were not intended as history.[64]

Richard Dawkins writes that a serious case can be made that Jesus never existed.[65]

Canadian writer Earl Doherty argues in The Jesus Puzzle (2005) and Jesus: Neither God Nor Man—The Case for a Mythical Jesus (2009) argues that Jesus originated as a myth derived from Middle Platonism with some influence from Jewish mysticism, and that belief in a historical Jesus emerged only among Christian communities in the 2nd century. He writes that none of the major apologists before the year 180, except for Justin and Aristides of Athens, included an account of a historical Jesus in their defences of Christianity. Instead the early Christian writers describe a Christian movement grounded in Platonic philosophy and Hellenistic Judaism, preaching the worship of a monotheistic Jewish god and what he calls a "logos-type Son." Doherty argues that Theophilus of Antioch (c. 163–182), Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133–190), Tatian the Assyrian (c. 120–180), and Marcus Minucius Felix (writing around 150–270) offer no indication that they believed in a historical figure crucified and resurrected, and that the name Jesus does not appear in any of them.[66]

In the 2000s, a number of books and films associated with the New Atheism movement questioned whether Jesus existed. The books included The God Delusion (2006) by Richard Dawkins, the former professor for the public understanding of science at Oxford University; God:The Failed Hypothesis (2007) by the American physicist Victor Stenger; and God Is Not Great (2007) by British writer Christopher Hitchens. Dawkins, citing G.A. Wells, sees the gospels as rehashed versions of the Hebrew Bible, and writes that it is probable Jesus existed, but that a serious argument can be mounted against it, though not a widely supported one.[65] Stenger's position is that the gospel writers borrowed from several Middle Eastern cults.[67] Hitchens argues that there is little or no evidence for the life of Jesus, unlike for the prophet Muhammad.[68] Films that referred to the issue were The God Who Wasn't There (2005), Zeitgeist (2007), and Religulous (2008).[69]

The Jesus Project

Further information: Jesus Seminar

The Jesus Project was announced at a conference in the University of California Davis in December 2007 by the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), part of the Center for Inquiry. Its aim was that a group of 20 scholars from relevant disciplines—historians, archeologists, philosophers—should meet every nine months for five years, with no preconceived ideas, to examine the evidence for Jesus's existence.[70] Joseph Hoffman of CSER was the project's director. The project was temporarily halted in June 2009 when its funding was suspended, and shortly thereafter Hoffmann resigned, which effectively brought it to an end. He wrote that he no longer believed it was possible to answer the historicity question, because of the extent to which history, myth, and religious belief are intertwined. He argues that the New Testament documents were written at a time when the line between natural and supernatural was not clearly drawn. He concludes: "No quantum of material discovered since the 1940's, in the absence of canonical material, would support the existence of an historical founder. No material regarded as canonical and no church doctrine built upon it in the history of the church would cause us to deny it. Whether the New Testament runs from Christ to Jesus or Jesus to Christ is not a question we can answer."[71]

Hoffmann said there were problems with the media and blogs sensationalizing stories about the project, with the only possible newsworthy outcome being the conclusion that Jesus had not existed, a conclusion he writes the majority of participants would not have reached. When one Jesus myth supporter asked that the project set up a section devoted to members committed to the non-existence thesis—with Hoffmann describing the "mythers" as people out to prove through consensus what they cannot establish through evidence—he interpreted it as a sign of trouble ahead, a lack of the kind of skepticism he argues the Jesus myth theory itself invites.[71]

Contemporary public response

A 2005 study conducted by Baylor University, a private Christian university, found that one percent of Americans in general, and 13.7 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans, believe that Jesus is a fictional character.[72] Comparable figures for Britain in 2008 say 13 percent of the general population, and 40 percent of atheists, do not believe that Jesus existed.[73] A 2009 study found that 11 percent of Australians doubt that Jesus was a historical figure.[74] In Italy in 2006, Luigi Cascioli, the atheist author of The Fable of Christ and a former trainee priest, sued Father Enrico Righi for having written in a church newsletter that Jesus was born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph and that he lived in Nazareth. Cascioli said the statement was an "abuse of popular belief," and brought the lawsuit against Righi under an Italian anti-fraud law. The case was thrown out.[75]

Counter-arguments

The Jesus myth theory has never achieved acceptance among biblical scholars or historians.[76] Some of the earliest arguments against the theory included satirical treatments by Richard Whately and Jean-Baptiste Pérès—entitled "Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte" (1819) and "Grand Erratum" (1827)—who argued against the existence of Napoleon, even during the emperor's lifetime.[77]

In 1914, Fred C. Conybeare published The Historical Christ, in which he argued against J.M. Robertson, Arthur Drews, and William Benjamin Smith.[78] He was followed by the French biblical scholar Maurice Goguel, who published Jesus of Nazareth: Myth or History? in 1926. Goguel argued that prima facie evidence for a historical Jesus came from the agreement on his existence between ancient orthodox Christians, Docetists, and opponents of Christianity. Goguel proceeded to examine the theology of the Pauline epistles, the other New Testament epistles, the gospels, and the Book of Revelation, as well as belief in Jesus' resurrection and divinity, arguing in each case that early Christian views were best explained by a tradition stemming from a recent historical Jesus.[79]

Later editions of Albert Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus contained a lengthy section on the Jesus myth theory, concluding "that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely."[80] Further refutations were produced throughout the 20th century, including R. T. France's The Evidence for Jesus (1986), Robert Van Voorst's Jesus Outside the New Testament (2000), and The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (2007), coauthored by Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd. Professor of Divinity James Dunn describes the mythical Jesus theory as a "thoroughly dead thesis."[81] Classicist Michael Grant wrote in 1977 that standard historical criteria prevent the rejection of an historical Jesus:

…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… 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.[82]

Multiple attestation

In contrast to Bruno Bauer's view, modern scholars believe that Mark is not the only source behind the synoptic gospels. The current predominant view within the field, the Two-Source hypothesis, postulates that the Synoptic gospels are based on at least two independent sources (Mark and "Q"), and potentially as many as four (Mark, "Q", "M", and "L").[83]

Pauline epistles

a damaged portrait of the Apostle Paul
Paul, 1410s (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

The composition of the letters of Paul of Tarsus is generally dated between 49 and 64 CE,[84] some two to three decades after the conventional date given for Jesus's death. Paul did not know the historical Jesus. He only claims he had known him, 'as of one born out of due time', i.e., as the 'risen' Jesus.[85]

Many biblical scholars turn to Paul's letters (epistles) to support their arguments for a historical Jesus.[86] Theologian James D.G. Dunn argues that Robert Price ignores what everyone else in the field regards as primary data.[87] Biblical scholar F. F. Bruce (1910–1990) writes that, according to Paul's letters, Jesus was an Israelite, descended from Abraham (Gal 3:16) and David (Rom. 1:3); who lived under Jewish law (Gal. 4:4); who was betrayed, and on the night of his betrayal instituted a memorial meal of bread and wine (I Cor. 11:23ff); who endured the Roman penalty of crucifixion (I Cor. 1:23; Gal. 3:1, 13, 6:14, etc.), although Jewish authorities were somehow involved in his death (I Thess. 2:15); who was buried, rose the third day and was thereafter seen alive, including on one occasion by over 500, of whom the majority were alive 25 years later (I Cor. 15:4ff).[88] The letters say that Paul knew of and had met important figures in Jesus's ministry, including the apostles Peter and John, as well as James the brother of Jesus, who is also mentioned in Josephus. In the letters, Paul on occasion alludes to and quotes the teachings of Jesus, and in 1 Corinthians 11 recounts the Last Supper.[88]

Josephus

Further information: Josephus on Jesus

Louis Feldman argues that the writings of the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus (37 – c.100) contain two references to the Jesus character. One of them, Josephus' allusion in The Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94) to the death of James, describes James as "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ", provides alleged attestation independent of the early Christian community.[89] Josephus' fuller reference to Jesus, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, while considered by many specialists to contain later interpolations, is nevertheless believed by some scholars to preserve an original comment regarding Jesus as well.[90]

Principle of embarrassment

American philosopher Will Durant has applied the criterion of embarrassment to the question of Jesus' existence. He argues that if the gospels were entirely imaginary, certain issues might not have been included, such as the competition of the apostles for high places in the kingdom of God, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Jesus to work miracles in Galilee, the references to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, and his despairing cry on the cross. Durant argues that an invented narrative might have presented Jesus in strict conformity with messianic expectations.[91]

Rejection of mythological parallels

Some biblical scholars argue against the idea that early material related to Jesus can be explained with reference to pagan mythological parallels.[92] Paula Fredriksen, for example, writes that no serious work places Jesus outside the backdrop of 1st century Palestinian Judaism.[93] Biblical scholarship also generally rejects the concept of homogenous dying and rising gods, the validity of which is often presupposed by advocates of the Jesus myth theory, such as New Testament scholar Robert Price. Tryggve Mettinger, former professor of Hebrew bible at Lund University, is one of the academics who supports the "dying and rising gods" construct, but he argues that Jesus does not fit the wider pattern.[94]

Edwin Yamauchi argues that past attempts to equate elements of Jesus' biography with those of mythological figures have not sufficiently taken into account the dates and provenance of their sources.[95] Edwyn R. Bevan and Chris Forbes argue that proponents of the theory have even invented elements of pagan myths to support their assertion of parallelism between the life of Jesus and the lives of pagan mythological characters.[96] For example, David Ulansey argues that the purported equivalence of Jesus' virgin birth with Mithras' origin fails because Mithras emerged fully grown, partially clothed, and armed from a rock,[97] possibly after it had been inseminated.[98] S. G. F. Brandon and others argue that the very idea that early Christians would consciously incorporate pagan myths into their religion is "intrinsically most improbable,"[99] as evidenced by the strenuous opposition that Paul encountered from other Christians for even his minor concessions to Gentile believers.[100] However Marvin Meyer, Professor of Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University, identifies a number of similarities, and says that the resemblance between Christianity and Mithraism is close enough to make Christian apologists scramble to invent creative theological explanations to account for the similarities.[101]

Further information

Although virtually all biblical scholars agree that Jesus did exist, Joseph Hoffman has stated that the issue of historicity of Jesus has been long ignored due to theological interests.[102] The New Testament scholar Nicholas Perrin has argued that since most biblical scholars are Christians, a certain bias is inevitable, but he does not see this as a major problem.[103] Donald Akenson, Professor of Irish Studies in the department of history at Queen's University has argued that, with very few exceptions, the historians of Yeshua have not followed sound historical practices. He has stated that there is an unhealthy reliance on consensus, for propositions, which should otherwise be based on primary sources, or rigorous interpretation. He also holds that some of the criteria being used are faulty. He says that, the overwhelming majority of biblical scholars are employed in institutions whose roots are in religious beliefs. Because of this, more than any other group in present day academia, biblical historians are under immense pressure to theologize their historical work. It is only through considerable individual heroism, that many biblical historians have managed to maintain the scholarly integrity of their work.[104] John Meier, Professor of theology at University of Notre Dame, has said "...people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they’re doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed..."[105] Dale Allison, Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, too says, "...We wield our criteria to get what we want...We all see what we expect to see and what we want to see...."[106] Biblical scholarship is also seen as so low standard that even apologetics passes for scholarship.[107] However, the Old Testament scholar Bertil Albrektson has stated that a great many biblical scholars do not accept any creed as the foundation of their work and they do in fact honestly try to investigate scientifically the basic documents of Christianity in the same way as other texts from antiquity.[108]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Walsh, George. The Role of Religion in History. Transaction 1998, p. 58.
  2. ^ Price, Robert M. "Of Myth and Men", Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 20, Number 1, accessed August 2, 2010.
  3. ^ Stanton, Graham. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 145 (first published 1989).
    • Wells, G. A. "Jesus, Historicity of" Tom Flynn (ed.) The New Encyclopedia of Disbelief. Prometheus, 2007, p. 446.
    • For a summary of the mainstream position, see Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic, 2007, pp. 24–27.
    • Also see Dickson, March 21, 2008.
  4. ^ Dickson, John. "Facts and friction of Easter", The Sydney Morning Herald, March 21, 2008.
  5. ^ White, L. Michael. From Jesus to Christianity. HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 12–13.
  6. ^ White 2004, pp. 4, 104.
  7. ^ White 2004, pp. 3–4.
  8. ^ Marshall, Ian Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus. Regent College Publishing, 2004, p. 24.
  9. ^ Marshall, Ian Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus. Regent College Publishing, 2004, p. 27-29.
  10. ^ See Crossan, John Dominic. "Response to Robert M. Price," in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 85.
  11. ^ a b c d e Eddy and Boyd 2007, pp. 24–27. They call the Jesus myth theory the "mythic-Jesus thesis. They say Robert Price is closer to "Jesus agnosticism."
  12. ^ a b Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009. See p. 55 for his argument that it is quite likely Jesus did not exist. See pp. 62–64, 75 for the three pillars.
  13. ^ a b c Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, p. 355ff.
  14. ^ a b Wells, G. A. "Stages of New Testament Criticism," Journal of the History of Ideas, volume 30, issue 2, 1969.
  15. ^ Goguel, Maurice. Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?. T. Fisher Unwin, 1926, p. 117.
  16. ^ Solmsen, Friedrich. "George A. Wells on Christmas in Early New Testament Criticism", Journal of the History of Ideas, volume 31, issue 2, 1970, pp. 277–279.
  17. ^ a b c 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.
  18. ^ a b Thompson, Thomas L. "The Messiah myth: the Near Eastern roots of Jesus and David", Basic Books, 2005, p. 4.
  19. ^ Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, pp. 124–128, 139–141.
  20. ^ Moggach, Douglas. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 184.
  21. ^ Van Voorst, Robert E. "Nonexistence Hypothesis," in James Leslie Holden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 658.
  22. ^ a b Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, pp. 356–361, 527 n. 4.
  23. ^ Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 116–117.
  24. ^ Klausner, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth. Bloch, 1989; first published 1925, pp. 105–106.
  25. ^ Robertson, J. M. A Short History of Christianity. Watts, 1902, pp. 6–12, 14–15.
  26. ^ A Short History of Christianity, pp. 2–3.
  27. ^ Robertson, John M. Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology. Watts, 1903.
  28. ^ A Short History of Christianity, pp. 21–25, 32–33, 87–89.
  29. ^ Smith, William Benjamin. Der vorchristliche Jesu. Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2010; first published 1906.
    • Also see Smith, William Benjamin. Ecce Deus: Die urchristliche Lehre des reingöttlichen Jesu. Diederichs, 1911; first published 1894.
    • Smith, William Benjamin. The Birth of the Gospel, 1911.
  30. ^ Case, Shirley Jackson. "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument"], The American Journal of Theology, volume 15, issue 1, 1911.
  31. ^ Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, p. 375ff.
  32. ^ Van Voorst, Robert E. Jesus Outside the New Testament. Eerdmans, 2000, p. 12.
  33. ^ Weaver, Walter P. The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900-1950. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, p. 300.
    • Also see Wood, Herbert George. Christianity and the Nature of History. Cambridge University Press, 1934, p. xxxii.
    • Drews, Arthur. Die Christusmythe. Eugen Diederichs, 1910, published in English as The Christ Myth, Prometheus, 1910, p. 410.
  34. ^ Gerrish, Brian A. Jesus, Myth, and History: Troeltsch's Stand in the 'Christ-Myth' Debate", The Journal of Religion, volume 55, issue 1, 1975, pp 3–4.
  35. ^ a b "Jesus never lived, asserts Prof. Drews", The New York Times, February 6, 1910.
  36. ^ Thrower, James. Marxist-Leninist "Scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism. Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p. 426.
  37. ^ Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity" in Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 749.
  38. ^ Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens. Cornell University Press, 1998, p. 178.
  39. ^ a b Weaver, Walter P. The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900-1950. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, p. 300ff.
  40. ^ See, for example, Couchoud, Paul Louis. Enigma of Jesus, translated by Winifred Stephens Whale, Watts & co., 1924.
  41. ^ Bolland, G. J. P. J. De Evangelische Jozua", 1907.
  42. ^ Mead, G. R. S. The Talmum 100 Years B.C. Story of Jesus", "Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?", 1903.
  43. ^ (Harry Elmer Barnes, The Twilight of Christianity (1929) pg 390-391)" (Jackson, John G. (1985) Christianity Before Christ pg 185)
  44. ^ Harpur, Tom (2006) "Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity?" pg 163)
  45. ^ Price, Robert. "Jesus as the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, pp. 80–81.
  46. ^ Russell, Bertrand. "Why I am not a Christian", lecture to the National Secular Society, Battersea Town Hall, March 6, 1927, accessed August 2, 2010.
  47. ^ Hall, Mark. "Foreword," in Allegro, John M. The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Christian Myth. Prometheus 1992, first published 1979, p. ix.
  48. ^ Jenkins, Philip. "Hidden Gospels. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 180.
  49. ^ Vander, James C. and Flint, Peter. Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005, p. 325.
  50. ^ Stanton, Graham. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press, 2002; first published 1989, p. 143.
  51. ^ a b c Ellegård, Alvar. "Theologians as historians", Scandia, 2008, p. 171–172, 175ff.
  52. ^ Martin, Michael. The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press, 1993, p. 38.
  53. ^ a b Wells, G. A. "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, 2000, accessed August 3, 2010.
  54. ^ Wells, G. A. The Jesus Myth. Open Court, 1999.
  55. ^ Van Voorst, Robert E. "Nonexistence Hypothesis," in James Leslie Holden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 660.
  56. ^ For a statement of his position, Wells refers readers to his article, "Jesus, Historicity of" in Tom Flynn's The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (2007). See Wells, G. A. Cutting Jesus Down to Size. Open Court, 2009, pp. 327–328.
  57. ^ Wells, G.A. in Tom Flynn. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books, 2007, p. 446ff.
  58. ^ Burton Mack cites a passage from a New Testament scholar, Helmut Koester, as an example of such language: "The resurrection and the appearances of Jesus are best explained as a catalyst which prompted reactions that resulted in the missionary activity and founding of the churches, but also in the crystallization of the tradition about Jesus and his ministry. But most of all, the resurrection changed sorrow and grief ... into joy, creativity and faith. Though the resurrection revealed nothing new, it nonetheless made everything new for the first Christian believers." Mack writes in response that this kind of language is inaccessible, and that if historians hardly know what to make of it, its purpose has been achieved. See Ellegård, p. 171.
  59. ^ a b Price, Robert M. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. Prometheus, 2003, p. 351.
    • Also see Jacoby, Douglas A. Compelling Evidence For God and the Bible: Finding Truth in an Age of Doubt. Harvest House Publishers, 2010, p. 97.
    • Price writes: "Is it ... possible that beneath and behind the stained-glass curtain of Christian legend stands the dim figure of a historical founder of Christianity? Yes, it is possible, perhaps just a tad more likely than that there was a historical Moses, about as likely as there having been a historical Apollonius of Tyana. But it becomes almost arbitrary to think so."
  60. ^ Van Biema, David; Ostling, Richard N.; and Towle, Lisa H. "The Gospel Truth?", Time magazine, April 8, 1996.
  61. ^ Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, pp. 55–56.
  62. ^ Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 55ff.
  63. ^ Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 61ff.
  64. ^ Thompson, Thomas L. "The Messiah myth: the Near Eastern roots of Jesus and David"], Basic Books, 2005, back cover.
  65. ^ a b Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin, 2006, p. 122.
  66. ^ Doherty, Earl. "The Jesus Puzzle", Journal of Higher Criticism, volume 4, issue 2, 1997.
  67. ^ See Stenger, Victor J. God: The Failed Hypothesis. Prometheus, 2007, p. 190.
  68. ^ Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great. Twelve Books, 2007, p. 127.
  69. ^ O'Dwyer, Davin. "Zeitgeist: The Nonsense", The Irish Times, August 25, 2007.
  70. ^ Csillag, Ron. "For scholars, a combustible question: Was Christ real?", The Toronto Star, December 27, 2008. See the project's website at The Jesus Project, Center for Inquiry, accessed August 6, 2010.
  71. ^ a b Hoffmann, R. Joseph. "Threnody: Rethinking the Thinking behind The Jesus Project", bibleinterp.com, October 2009, accessed August 6, 2010.
  72. ^ Stark, Rodney. What Americans Really Believe. Baylor University Press, 2008, p. 63; Bader, Christopher, et al. American Piety in the 21st Century. Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, 2006, p. 14.
  73. ^ Communicate Research. Theos: Easter Survey, February 2008, accessed August 3, 2010.
  74. ^ Zwartz, Barney. "Australians not so sceptical about Jesus, survey finds", The Age, April 7, 2009.
  75. ^ Lyman, Eric. "Italian atheist sues priest over Jesus' existence", USA Today, January 30, 2006; "Italy judge throws out Jesus case", BBC News, February 10, 2006.
  76. ^ For example, van Voorst, Robert. Jesus Outside the New Testament, 2000, pp. 6, 14, 16.
    • Stanton, Graham. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. xxiii.
  77. ^ Whately, Richard. Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, Warren F. Draper, 1874; first published 1819.
  78. ^ Conybeare, Frederick Cornwallis. The Historical Christ, or an Investigation of the Views of J. M. Robertson, A. Drews and W. B. Smith. Publisher unknown, 1914.
  79. ^ Goguel, Maurice. Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?. T. Fisher Unwin, 1926.
  80. ^ Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, pp. 435–436.
  81. ^ Dunn, Death of Jesus (PDF), Biblical Studies UK
    • Dunn, JGD (1998), The Christ and the Spirit, vol. I: Christology, Eerdmans, T & T Clark, p. 191.
  82. ^ Grant, Michael (1977), Jesus: An Historian’s Review, pp. 199–200
  83. ^ Puskas, Charles B. and Crump, David. An Introduction to the Gospels and Acts. Eerdmans, 2008, pp. 53–54.
  84. ^ Akenson, Donald (1998). Surpassing wonder: the invention of the Bible and the Talmuds. University of Chicago Press. p. 555. Retrieved 2011--Feb--11. ...Moreover, the chronology of Paul's letters, dated by cross-references between the various epistles, when combined with the calendar of Roman governorships, indicates that the outside dates of the letters are 49 to 64 c e .... {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); line feed character in |quote= at position 38 (help)
  85. ^ Weiss, Johannes. Earliest Christianity: A History of the Period AD 30–150. tr.Frederick C. Grant (1937) Harper Torchbooks, 1967, vol.2, p. 456.
    • Barnett, Paul. Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times. InterVarsity Press, 2002, pp.183–184.
  86. ^ For example, Barnett, Paul. Jesus and the Logic of History. InterVarsity, 2001, pp=57–58.
  87. ^ Dunn, James D. G. "Response to Robert M. Price" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy. The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 96.
  88. ^ a b Bruce, F. F. Paul and Jesus SPCK, 1977, pp.19–20.
  89. ^ Feldman, Louis H. "Josephus" in David Noel Freedman (ed.) Anchor Bible Dictionary. Doubleday, 1992, pp. 990–991.
  90. ^ Quoted in Habermas, Gary R. and Licona, Michael R. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Kregel, 2004, pp. 268–269.
  91. ^ Durant, Will. Christ and Caesar. Simon & Schuster, 1972, p. 557.
  92. ^ Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (ed.) "Jesus Christ," The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Eerdmans, 1982, p. 1034;
    • Also see Dunn, James D. G. "Myth" in Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, & I. Howard Marshall (ed.) Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. InterVarsity, 1992, p. 566.
  93. ^ Fredriksen, Paula. From Jesus to Christ. Yale University Press, 2000, p. xxvi.
  94. ^ Smith, Mark S. The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Brill, 1994, p. 70; and Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. The Riddle of Resurrection. Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001, pp. 7, 221.
    • For the argument that the Jesus myth theory rests in part on this idea, see Price, Robert M. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, p. 75.
  95. ^ Yamauchi, Edwin M. "Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?", Christianity Today, March 15 and 29, 1974.
  96. ^ Forbes, Chris. "Zeitgeist: Time to Discard the Christian Story?", Center for Public Christianity, 2009, 2:47 mins, accessed August 4, 2010.
  97. ^ Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries. Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 35.
  98. ^ Burkert, Walter. Ancient Mystery Cults. Harvard University Press, 1989, p 155 n. 40.
  99. ^ Brandon, S. G. F. "The Ritual Perpetuation of the Past", Numen, volume 6, issue 1, 1959, p. 128.
  100. ^ Metzger, Bruce M. Historical and Literary Studies, Pagan, Jewish, and Christian. Brill, 1968, p. 7.
  101. ^ Meyer, Marvin (2006). "The Mithras Liturgy". The historical Jesus in context. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 179. ISBN 0-691-00991-0. Retrieved 2011-01-20. ...As a Mithraic text, the Mithras Liturgy is of value for the study of early Christianity, which in general resembles Mithraism in a number of respects—enough to make Christian apologists scramble to invent creative theological explanations to account for the similarities... {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  102. ^ Hoffmann, Joseph. "Threnody: Rethinking the Thinking behind The Jesus Project". Retrieved 2011-01-05. ... And second, because I have often made the claim that it has been largely theological interests since Strauss's time that ruled the historicity question out of court. ...
  103. ^ "Jesus is His Own Ideology: An Interview with Nick Perrin"."My point in the book is to disabuse readers of the notion that Jesus scholars are scientists wearing white lab coats. Like everyone else, they want certain things to be true about Jesus and equally want certain others not to be true of him. I’m included in this (I really hope that I am right in believing that Jesus is both Messiah and Lord.) Will this shape my scholarship? Absolutely. How can it not? We should be okay with that."
  104. ^ Akenson, Donald (1998). Surpassing wonder: the invention of the Bible and the Talmuds. University of Chicago Press. pp. 539–555. Retrieved 2011-Jan-08. ...The point I shall argue below is that, the agreed evidentiary practices of the historians of Yeshua, despite their best efforts, have not been those of sound historical practice... {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  105. ^ Meier, John. "Finding the Historical Jesus: An Interview With John P. Meier". St. Anthony Messenger. Retrieved 2011-Jan-06. ...I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people claim they are doing a quest for the historical Jesus when de facto they're doing theology, albeit a theology that is indeed historically informed. Go all the way back to Reimarus, through Schleiermacher, all the way down the line through Bultmann, Kasemann, Bornkamm. These are basically people who are theologians, doing a more modern type of Christology [a faith-based study of Jesus Christ]... {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  106. ^ Allison, Dale. The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 59. Retrieved 2011-Jan-09. We wield our criteria to get what we want. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  107. ^ Hendel, Ronald (June 2010). "Knowledge and Power in Biblical Scholarship". Retrieved 2011-01-06. ...The problem at hand is how to preserve the critical study of the Bible in a professional society that has lowered its standards to the degree that apologetics passes as scholarship...
  108. ^ Albrektson, Bertil. "Theologians as historians". Retrieved 2011-Feb-8. it is not quite fair as a general description of biblical scholars in university faculties of theology. Many of these do not accept any creed as the foundation of their work; they do in fact honestly try to investigate scientifically the basic documents of Christianity in the same way as other texts from antiquity. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

References

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