Christ myth theory

For discussion of Jesus in a comparative mythological and religious context, see Jesus in comparative mythology, and for the body of myths associated with Christianity, see Christian mythology. For the scholarly study of the life of Jesus, see Historical Jesus, for analysis of information supporting the historical existence of Jesus, see Historicity of Jesus and Sources for the historicity of Jesus, and for the debate over the validity of stories in the New Testament, see Historical reliability of the Gospels.

Christ myth theory
The Resurrection of Christ by Noel Coypel (1700)—some mythicists see this as a case of a dying-and-rising god.
Description	Jesus of Nazareth never existed; or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels.
Early proponents	Charles François Dupuis (1742–1809) Constantin-François Volney (1757–1820) Richard Carlile (1790-1843) Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) Edwin Johnson (1842-1901) Dutch Radical School (1880-1950) Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906) W. B. Smith (1850–1934) J. M. Robertson (1856–1933) Thomas Whittaker (1856-1935) Arthur Drews (1865–1935) Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879-1959) Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963)
Modern proponents	G. A. Wells, Tom Harpur, Michael Martin, Thomas L. Thompson, Thomas L. Brodie, Robert M. Price, Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty
Subjects	Historical Jesus, Early Christianity, Ancient history

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, mythicism,^[1] or Jesus ahistoricity theory^[2]) is the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels.^[3][4][5] The Christ myth theory contradicts the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the biography of a historical figure.^[6]

Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), is credited as the first scholar to deny the existence of Jesus. However, his work had negligible influence on mainstream scholarship.^[7] Today, most Christ Mythicists agree that the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus Christ is weak at best.^[8] No eyewitness accounts survive, in spite of the fact that many authors were writing at that time.^[9] The Pauline epistles are dismissed because, aside from a few passages which may have been interpolations, they contain no references to an earthly Jesus who lived in the flesh. There is a complete absence of any detailed biographical information such as might be expected if Jesus had been a contemporary of Paul.^[10] The canonical Gospels and other apocryphal materials cannot be verified as independent sources, and may have all stemmed from a single original fictional account.^[11][12] Other early second-century Roman accounts contain very little evidence,^[13][14] and cannot be guaranteed to be independent from Christian sources.^[15][16][17] While some mythicists feel that the lack of evidence alone is sufficient to justify skepticism,^[18][19] others go further, and adduce various arguments to show that Christianity has syncretistic or mythical roots. As such, the historical Jesus should not be regarded as the founder of the religion, even if he did exist.^{[20][21][22][23]}

In modern scholarship, the Christ Myth Theory is a fringe theory, but is accepted by a small number of academics, some of whom—in terms given by Robert M. Price—hold the "Jesus agnosticism" viewpoint, while others go further and hold the "Jesus atheism" viewpoint.^{[24][25][26][27]} Some scholars have made the case that there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, but that there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus.^[28][29][30] Others have said that Jesus may have lived far earlier, in a dimly remembered remote past.^[31][32]

Despite this there remains a strong consensus in historical-critical biblical scholarship that a historical Jesus did live in 1st-century Roman Palestine.^{[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]} Scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus.^[40] There are two events whose historicity receives "almost universal assent": that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified under the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.^[41][42][43]

Analysis

Lack of clear biographical information in the Pauline epistles

The seven undisputed Pauline epistles considered by scholarly consensus to be genuine epistles are generally dated to 50–60 AD (i.e. approximately twenty to thirty years after the generally accepted time period for the death of Jesus, around 30–36 AD), and are the earliest surviving Christian texts that may include information about Jesus.^[44]

Christ myth theorists generally reject the usefulness of these letters.^[45][46] Willem Christiaan van Manen of the Dutch school of Radical criticism noted various anachronisms in the Pauline Epistles. He claimed that they could not have been written in their final form earlier than the 2nd century. He noted that the Marcionite school was the first to publish the epistles, and that Marcion used them as justification for his gnostic and docetic views that Jesus' incarnation was not in a physical body. Van Manen also studied Marcion's version of Galatians in contrast to the canonical version, and argued that the canonical version was a later revision which de-emphasized the Gnostic aspects.^[47]

Robert M. Price wrote that "the historical Jesus problem replicates itself in the case of Paul" and that the epistles have the same limitations as the Gospels as historical evidence. He sees the epistles as a compilation of fragments, possibly with a Gnostic core.^[48] And he contends that Marcion (c.85–c.160) was responsible for much of the Pauline corpus or even wrote the letters himself, while criticizing the circumstantial ad hominem fallacy of fellow Christ Myth theorists holding the mid-first-century dating of the epistles (e.g. Galatians is conventionally dated ca. 53 AD^[49]) for their own apologetical reasons.^[50][51] Price argues that passages such as Galatians 1:18-20, Galatians 4:4, and 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 are late Catholic interpolations, and that 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 was unlikely to have been written by a Jewish person.^[52]

G. A. Wells criticized the infrequency of the reference to Jesus in the Pauline letters. He says there is no information in them about Jesus's parents, place of birth, teachings, trial, nor crucifixion.^[46] 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. For Paul, Jesus may have existed many decades, if not centuries, before.^[46][53] For Wells, the Jesus of the early Christians was a pure myth, derived from mystical speculations stemming from the Jewish Wisdom tradition, while the Gospels were subsequent works of historical fiction. 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".^[54] 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.^[55]

Richard Carrier argues that Paul is actually writing about a celestial deity named Jesus. He notes that there is little if any concrete information about Christ's earthly life in the Pauline epistles, even though Jesus is mentioned over three hundred times.^[56] Carrier points out that according to Paul (Phil. 2. 7), Christ "came 'in the likeness of men' (homoiomati anthropon) and was found 'in a form like a man' (schemati euretheis hos anthropos) and (in Rom. 8.3) that he was only sent 'in the likeness of sinful flesh' (en homoiomati sarkos hamartias). This is a doctrine of a preexistent being assuming a human body, but not being fully transformed into a man, just looking like one..."^[57]

Modern biblical scholarship notes that Paul has relatively little to say on the biographical information of Jesus.^[58] However, most scholars view the Pauline letters as essential elements in the study of the historical Jesus.^{[44][59][60][61][62]} The Pauline letters at times refer to creeds, or confessions of faith, that predate their writings.^[63][64][65] For instance, 1 Corinthians 15:11 refers to others before Paul who preached the creed.^[65] These Pre-Pauline creeds date to within a few years of Jesus' death, and developed within the Christian community in Jerusalem.^[66] Scholars generally view these as indications that the existence and death of Jesus was part of Christian tradition a few years after his death and over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles.^[64][66] James Dunn states that 1 Corinthians 15:3 indicates that in the 30s Paul was taught about the death of Jesus a few years earlier.^[67]

Eddy and Boyd present a summary of information about Jesus' earthly life presented in the Pauline epistles. For example in Galatians 1:19, Paul refers to the "Lord's brother" who was alive at the time of Paul; another that 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 refers to those who had interacted with Jesus as Paul's contemporaries; and in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 Paul refers to the Jews "who both killed the Lord Jesus" and "drove out us" as the same people, indicating that the death of Jesus was within the same time frame as the persecution of Paul.^[68]

Two more elements in the Pauline letters that pertain to the existence of Jesus and his being a Jew include Galatians 4:4 which states that he was "born of a woman" and Romans 1:3 that he was "born under the law".^{[59][60][61][69][70]}

Questionable genre and authorship of the Gospels

Any study of the gospels must first determine the genre under which they fall. Genre "is a key convention guiding both the composition and the interpretation of writings".^[71] Whether the gospel authors set out to write novels, myths, histories, or biographies has a tremendous impact on how they ought to be interpreted. If, for example, Rudolf Bultmann was correct, and the gospel authors had no interest in history or in a historical Jesus,^[72] then the gospels must be read and interpreted in this light. Furthermore, Michael Vines has said that the gospel of Mark may have aspects similar to a Jewish novel.^[73] Robert M. Price argues that the Gospels are a type of legendary fiction,^[74] and that the story of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels fits the mythic hero archetype.^[75] However, the position that the gospels are a type of ancient biography is the consensus among scholars today.^{[76][77][78][79][80]}

Richard Carrier writes, "The Gospels cannot really be dated, nor are the real authors known. Their names were assigned early, but not early enough for us to be confident they were accurately known. It is based on speculation that Mark was the first, written between AD 60 and 70, Matthew second, between AD 70 and 80, Luke (and Acts ) third, between AD 80 and 90, and John last, between AD 90 and 100."^[81]

Modern biblical scholarship also places the dates for most of the gospels decades after the death of Jesus c. 30 AD, but within the latter half of the first century.^[82] Dr. Charles E. Hill, a Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary, agrees with myth proponents that the canonical gospels were not written by Jesus's disciples, but believes they were written by immediate or near immediate successors and quickly accepted by the majority of the Church.^[83]

Lack of historical evidence about Jesus from first century

Myth proponents claim there is significance in the lack of surviving historic records about Jesus of Nazareth from any non-Jewish author until the second century,^[84][85][86] adding that Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence.^[87] Using the argument from silence, they note that Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria did not mention Jesus when he wrote about the cruelty of Pontius Pilate around 40 CE.^[88] However, mainstream biblical scholars point out that much of the writings of antiquity have been lost^[89] and that there was little written about any Jew or Christian in this period.^[90][91]

Ehrman points out that we don't have archaeological or textual evidence for the existence of most people in the ancient world; even famous people like Pontius Pilate, whom the Myth Theorists agree to have existed.^[92] Classical historian and popular author Michael Grant has written that:

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.^[93]

Professor of Religious Studies Bart D. Ehrman and biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan criticise the claim put forth by Robert M. Price that there is no mention of Jesus in secular sources, and state that the existence of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by secular sources.^[94][95] There are three Non-Christian sources which are typically used to study and establish the historicity of Jesus - two mentions in Josephus, and one mention in the Roman source Tacitus.^{[96][97][98][98][99]}

Per the works of Josephus, Géza Vermes asserts;

The historical Jesus can be retrieved only within the context of first-century Galilean Judaism. The Gospel image must therefore be inserted into the historical canvas of Palestine in the first century CE [AD], with the help of the works of Flavius Josephus.^[100]

Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around 93–94 AD, includes two references to the biblical Jesus in Books 18 and 20. The general scholarly view is that while the longer passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon that it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian interpolation or forgery.^[101][102] Of the other mention in Josephus, Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman has stated that "few have doubted the genuineness" of Josephus' reference to Jesus in Antiquities 20, 9, 1 and it is only disputed by a small number of scholars.^{[103][104][105][106]}

Myth proponents argue that the Testimonium Flavianum may have been a partial interpolation or forgery by Christian apologist Eusebius in the fourth century or by others.^[107][108] Some myth proponents also speculate that when Josephus called James the "brother" of Jesus of Nazareth in the Antiquities, he was referring to another Jesus,^[109] to a mythic Christ that had already been historicized, or to fraternal brotherhood rather than a literal sibling.^[110] This is dismissed by some in mainstream academia on the grounds that there is no evidence of a supposed "Jerusalem brotherhood".^[82]

Roman historian Tacitus referred to 'Christus' and his execution by Pontius Pilate in his Annals (written ca. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44.^[111] The very negative tone of Tacitus' comments on Christians make most experts believe that the passage is extremely unlikely to have been forged by a Christian scribe.^[112] The Tacitus reference is now widely accepted as an independent confirmation of Christ's crucifixion,^[113] although some scholars question the authenticity of the passage on various grounds.^{[112][114][115][116][117][118][119][120]}

Christ Myth theory supporters such as G. A. Wells contend that sources such as Tacitus and others were written decades after the supposed events, include no independent traditions that relate to Jesus and hence can provide no confirmation of historical facts about him.^[121]

Syncretistic and mythological roots of Christianity

In Christ and the Caesars (1877), Bruno Bauer suggested that Christianity was a synthesis of the Stoicism of Seneca the Younger and of the Jewish theology of Philo as developed by pro-Roman Jews such as Josephus.^[122][123] In a review of Bauer's work, Robert M. Price wrote:

Reading the prescient Bruno Bauer one has the eerie feeling that a century of New Testament scholarship may find itself ending up where it began. For instance, the work of Burton Mack, Vernon Robbins, and others makes a powerful case for understanding the gospels as Cynic-Stoic in tone.... Robert M. Fowler, Frank Kermode, and Randel Helms have demonstrated how thoroughly the gospels smack of fictional composition. Thus, from many directions, New Testament researchers seem to be converging uncannily on the theses that Bruno Bauer set forth over a century ago.^[124]

Some Christ mythicists argue that stories of Jesus are reminiscent of the "mythic hero archetype" present in many cultures who often have miraculous conceptions or virgin births heralded by wise men and marked by a star, are tempted by or fight evil forces, die on a hill, appear after death, and then ascend to heaven.^[125] Dorothy Murdock (Acharya S) is especially noted for her view that the Christ myth draws heavily on the Egyptian story of Osiris and Horus.^[126] However, Christian theologians have also cited the mythic hero archetype as a defense of Christian teaching while completely affirming a historical Jesus,^[127][128] some even identifying the historical and archetypal Jesuses^[128] or citing Carl Jung's statement "this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus."^[127] Secular academics have also pointed out that the teachings of Jesus marked "a radical departure from all the conventions by which heroes had been defined."^[129] Many mainstream biblical scholars respond that most of these parallels are either coincidences or without historical basis and/or that these parallels do not prove that a Jesus figure did not live.^[130] In particular, the transformations faced by deities have distinct differences from the resurrection of Jesus. Osiris regains consciousness as king of the underworld, rather than being "transformed into an eschatological new creation" as Craig S. Keener writes.^[131] While Jesus was born from a human woman (traditionally a virgin) and accompanied by shepherds, Mitra is born (unaccompanied by shepherds) from the goddess Aditi (to whom the word "virgin" is only rarely, loosely, and indirectly applied in a highly poetic sense), while Mithras (granted, accompanied by shepherds later) emerges full-grown from a rock.^[132] The rebirth of many of these deities was a clear metaphor for the renewal of spring that repeated the death every year, rather than a historic event meant to proclaim the god's cancellation of death. Some of these parallels appear after Christianity (e.g. the earliest references to Adonis rising from the dead is in the second century CE, Attis a century later), and are often only known through later Christian sources. Most other and later parallels were made in the works of James George Frazer,^[131] or may be guilty of parallelomania^[133] and even misrepresentation of religious (both Christian and non-Christian) and linguistic sources^[131][134] (for example, ignoring the false cognate relationship between Christ and Krishna).^[134]

Some myth proponents suggest that some parts of the New Testament were meant to appeal to Gentiles as familiar allegories rather than history; some theorists also note that other stories seem to try to reinforce Old Testament prophecies^[135] and repeat stories about figures like Elijah, Elisha,^[136] Moses and Joshua in order to appeal to Jewish converts.^[137] Arguments drawing comparisons between the New and Old Testaments have traditionally been made by Christian theologians in defense of their teachings without doubting a historical Jesus, however.^[138]

18–19th centuries proponents

Volney and Dupuis

The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of Jesus can be traced to late 18th-century France, and the works of Constantin François Chassebœuf de Volney and Charles-François Dupuis.^[139][140] Volney and Dupuis argued that Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a totally mythical character.^[139][141]

Dupuis argued that ancient rituals in Syria, Egypt and Persia had influenced the Christian story which was allegorized as the histories of solar deities, such as Sol Invictus.^[142] He said that the resurrection of Jesus was an allegory for the growth of the sun's strength in the sign of Aries at the spring equinox.^[142]

Volney argued that Abraham and Sarah were derived from Brahma and his wife Saraswati, and that Christ was related to Krishna.^[143] Volney made use of a draft version of Dupuis' work, but at times differed from him, e.g. in arguing that the gospel stories were not intentionally created, but were compiled organically.^[142][144]

Volney's perspective became associated with the ideas of the French Revolution, which hindered the acceptance of these views in England.^[145] Despite this, his work gathered significant following among British and American radical thinkers during the 19th century.^[145]

Strauss

In 1835, German theologian David Friedrich Strauss published his extremely controversial The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (Das Leben Jesu). While not denying that Jesus existed, he did argue that the miracles in the New Testament were mythical retellings of normal events as supernatural happenings.^{[146][147][148]} According to Strauss, the early church developed these miracle stories to present Jesus as a fulfillment of Jewish prophecies of what the Messiah would be like. This rationalist perspective was in direct opposition to the supernaturalist view that the bible was accurate both historically and spiritually.

The book caused an uproar across Europe. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury called it "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell,"^[149] and Strauss' appointment as chair of theology at the University of Zürich caused such controversy that the authorities offered him a pension before he had a chance to start his duties.^[150]

Bauer

German Bruno Bauer, who taught at the University of Bonn, took Strauss' arguments further and became the first author to systematically argue that Jesus did not exist.^[151][152]

Beginning in 1841, in his Criticism of the Gospel History of the Synoptics, Bauer argued that Jesus was primarily a literary figure. However, he left open the question of whether a historical Jesus existed at all. Finally, in his Criticism of the Pauline Epistles (1850-1852) and in A Critique of the Gospels and a History of their Origin (1850–1851), Bauer argued that Jesus had not existed.^[153] Bauer's work was heavily criticized at the time; in 1839 he was removed from his position at the University of Bonn, and his work did not have much impact on future myth theorists.^[151][154]

Higgins and Graves

In his two-volume, 867-page book Anacalypsis(1836), English gentleman Godfrey Higgins said that "the mythos of the Hindus, the mythos of the Jews and the mythos of the Greeks are all at bottom the same; and ... are contrivances under the appearance of histories to perpetuate doctrines,"^[155] and that Christian editors “either from roguery or folly, corrupted them all.”^[156] In his 1875 book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, American Kersey Graves said that many demigods from different countries shared similar stories, traits or quotes as Jesus. Graves used Higgins as the main source for his arguments. The validity of the claims in the book have been greatly criticized by Christ myth proponents like Richard Carrier and largely dismissed by biblical scholars.^[157]

Massey

Starting in the 1870s, English poet and author Gerald Massey became interested in Egyptology and reportedly taught himself Egyptian hieroglyphics at the British Museum.^[158] In 1883, he published The Natural Genesis where he asserted parallels between Jesus and the Egyptian god Horus. His other major work, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, was published shortly before his death in 1907. His assertions have influenced various later writers such as Alvin Boyd Kuhn and Tom Harpur.^[159] Despite criticisms from Stanley Porter and Ward Gasque, Massey's theories regarding Egyptian etymologies for certain scriptures are supported by noted contemporary Egyptologists.^[160]

Radical Dutch school

In the 1870s and 1880s, a group of scholars associated with the University of Amsterdam, known in German scholarship as the Radical Dutch school, rejected the authenticity of the Pauline epistles, and took a generally negative view of the Bible's historical value.^[161] Abraham Dirk Loman argued in 1881 that all New Testament writings belonged to the 2nd century, and doubted that Jesus was a historical figure, but later said the core of the gospels was genuine.^[162]

In addition to the authors listed on this page, early Christ myth proponents included Swiss skeptic Rudolf Steck.,^[163] English historian Edwin Johnson, English radical Rev. Robert Taylor and his associate Richard Carlile.

20th century proponents

During the early 20th century, several writers published arguments against Jesus' historicity, often drawing on the work of liberal theologians, who tended to deny any value to sources for Jesus outside the New Testament, and limited their attention to Mark and the hypothetical Q source.^[162] They also made use of the growing field of religious history which found sources for Christian ideas in Greek and Oriental mystery cults, rather than Judaism.^[164] 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."^[165]

The work of social anthropologist Sir James George Frazer has had an influence on various myth theorists, although Frazer himself believed that Jesus existed.^[166] In 1890 he published the first edition of The Golden Bough which attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief. This work became the basis of many later authors who argued that the story of Jesus was a fiction created by Christians. After a number of people claimed that he was a myth theorist, in the 1913 expanded edition of The Golden Bough Frazer expressly stated that his theory assumed a historical Jesus.^[167]

In 1900, Scottish MP John Mackinnon Robertson argued that Jesus never existed but was an invention by a first-century messianic cult.^[168][169] In Robertson's view, religious groups invent new gods to fit the needs of the society of the time.^[168] Robertson argued that a solar deity symbolized by the lamb and the ram had long been worshiped by an Israelite cult of Joshua and that this cult had then invented a new messianic figure, Jesus of Nazareth.^{[168][170][171]} Robertson argued that a possible source for the Christian myth may have been the Talmudic story of the executed Jesus Pandera which dates to 100 BCE.^[168][172] Robertson considered the letters of Paul the earliest surviving Christian writings, but viewed them as primarily concerned with theology and morality, rather than historical details. He viewed references to the twelve apostles and the institution of the Eucharist as stories that must have developed later among gentile believers who were converted by Jewish evangelists like Paul.^{[168][173][174]}

The English school master George Robert Stowe Mead argued in 1903 that Jesus had existed, but that he had lived in 100 BCE.^[175][176] Mead based his argument on the Talmud, which pointed to Jesus being crucified c. 100 BCE. In Mead's view, this would mean that the Christian gospels are mythical.^[177] Tom Harpur has compared Mead's impact on myth theory to that of Bruno Bauer and Arthur Drews.^[178]

In 1909, school teacher John Eleazer Remsburg published The Christ, which made a distinction between a possible historical Jesus ("Jesus of Nazareth") and the Jesus of the Gospels ("Jesus of Bethlehem"). Remsburg's thought that there was good reason to believe that the historical Jesus existed, but that the "Christ of Christianity" was a mythological creation.^[179] Remsburg compiled a list of 42 names of "writers who lived and wrote during the time, or within a century after the time" who Remsburg felt should have written about Jesus if the Gospels account was reasonably accurate but who did not.^{[180][181][182]}

Also in 1909, German philosophy professor Christian Heinrich Arthur Drews wrote The Christ Myth to argue that Christianity had been a Jewish Gnostic cult that spread by appropriating aspects of Greek philosophy and life-death-rebirth deities.^[183] In later books (The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus (1912) and The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present (1926)) Drews reviewed the biblical scholarship of his time as well as the work of other myth theorists, attempting to show that everything about the historical Jesus had a mythical character.^[184] Drews met with criticism from Nikolai Berdyaev who claimed that Drews was an anti-Semite who argued against the historical existence of Jesus for the sake of Aryanism.^[185] Drews took part in a series of public debates with theologians and historians who opposed his arguments.^[186][187]

Drew's work found fertile soil in the Soviet Union, where Marxist–Leninist atheism was the official doctrine of the state. Soviet leader Lenin argued that it was imperative in the struggle against religious obscurantists to form a union with people like Drews.^[188] 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.^[189] Public meetings asking "Did Christ live?" were organized, during which party operatives debated with clergymen.^[190] Drews also influenced French philosopher Paul-Louis Couchoud.^[191]

In 1927, British philosopher Bertrand Russell stated in his lecture Why I Am Not a Christian that "historically it is quite doubtful that Jesus existed, and if he did we do not know anything about him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one", though Russell did nothing to further develop the idea.^[192]

Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was convinced that Jesus never existed, stating that Christianity evolved from the "R6 Implant": "The man on the cross. There was no Christ! The Roman Catholic Church, through watching the dramatizations of people picked up some little fragments of R6."^[193]

Modern proponents

George Albert Wells

English professor of German George Albert Wells had a profound impact on the Christ myth theory, according to New Testament scholar Graham Stanton.^[194] British theologian Kenneth Grayston advised Christians to acknowledge the difficulties raised by Wells.^[195]

In his early work,^[196] including Did Jesus Exist? (1975), Wells argued that the Gospels were written decades after Jesus's death by Christians who were theologically motivated, but had no personal knowledge of him. Therefore, he concluded that a rational person should believe the gospels only if they are independently confirmed.^[197]

Later, Wells admitted that a historical Jesus figure did exist. His Jesus was a Galilean preacher, whose teachings were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical common source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.^[198] However, he continued to insist that Biblical Jesus did not exist. He argued that stories such as the virgin birth, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate, and the resurrection, should be regarded as legendary.^{[199][200][201]}

Biblical scholar Robert Van Voorst said that with this argument Wells had performed an about-face.^[202] However, scholars such as Earl Doherty,^[203] Richard Carrier,^[204] Paul Eddy, and Gregory Boyd^[205] continue to regard Wells as a Christ myth theorist.

In his 2013 book Cutting Jesus Down to Size, Wells clarified that he believes the Gospels represent the fusion of two originally independent streams: a Galilean preaching tradition, and the supernatural personage of Paul's early epistles. However, he says that both figures owe much of their substance to ideas from the Jewish wisdom literature.^[206]

Thomas L. Brodie

In 2012, the Irish Dominican priest and theologian Thomas L. Brodie, holding a PhD from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a co-founder and former director of the Dominican Biblical Institute in Limerick, published Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. In this book, Brodie, who previously had published academic works on the Hebrew prophets, argued that the gospels are essentially a rewriting of the stories of Elijah and Elisha when viewed as a unified account in the Books of Kings. This view lead Brodie to the conclusion that Jesus is mythical.^[207] Brodie's argument builds on his previous work, in which he stated that rather than being separate and fragmented, the stories of Elijah and Elisha are united and that 1 Kings 16:29–2 Kings 13:25 is a natural extension of 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 8 which have a coherence not generally observed by other biblical scholars.^[208] Brodie then views the Elijah–Elisha story as the underlying model for the gospel narratives.^[208]

In response to Brodie's publication of his view that Jesus was mythical, the Dominican order banned him from writing and lecturing, although he was allowed to stay on as a brother of the Irish Province, which continued to care for him.^[209] "There is an unjustifiable jump between methodology and conclusion" in Brodie's book, according to Gerard Norton, and "are not soundly based on scholarship." They are, according to Norton, "a memoir of a series of significant moments or events" in Brodie's life that reinforced "his core conviction" that neither Jesus nor Paul of Tarsus were historical.^[210]

Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier

Canadian writer Earl Doherty argued in Jesus: Neither God nor Man—The Case for a Mythical Jesus (2009) 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.^[211]

Richard Carrier reviewed Earl Doherty's work on the origination of Jesus,^[212] and eventually concluded that the evidence actually favored the core Doherty thesis.^[213] That is, that Paul and other writers of the earliest existing proto-Christian documents did not believe in Jesus as a person who was incarnated on Earth in an historical setting, rather, they believed in Jesus as a heavenly being who suffered his sacrificial death in the lower spheres of heaven, where he was crucified by demons and then was subsequently resurrected by God. This mythological Jesus was not based on a historical Jesus, but rather on an exegesis of the Old Testament in the context of Jewish-Hellenistic religious syncretism, and what the early authors believed to be mystical visions of a risen Jesus.^[214]

Carrier argues in his book On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, that there is insufficient Bayesian probability, that is evidence, to believe in the existence of Jesus. Furthermore, he argues that the Jesus figure was probably originally known only through private revelations and hidden messages in scripture which were then crafted into a historical figure, to communicate the claims of the gospels allegorically. These allegories then started to be believed as fact during the struggle for control of the Christian churches of the first century. He argues that the probability of Jesus' existence is somewhere in the range from 1/3 to 1/12000 depending on the estimates used for the computation.^[215] His methodology was reviewed by Aviezer Tucker, a prior advocate of using Bayesian techniques in history. Tucker expressed some sympathy for Carrier's view of the Gospels, stating: "The problem with the Synoptic Gospels as evidence for a historical Jesus from a Bayesian perspective is that the evidence that coheres does not seem to be independent, whereas the evidence that is independent does not seem to cohere." However, Tucker argued that historians have been able to use theories about the transmission and preservation of information to identify reliable parts of the Gospels. He said that "Carrier is too dismissive of such methods because he is focused on hypotheses about the historical Jesus rather than on the best explanations of the evidence."^[216]

Robert M. Price

American New Testament scholar and former Baptist pastor Robert McNair Price was a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of writers and scholars who study the historicity of Jesus and who argue that the Christian image of Christ is a theological construct into which traces of Jesus of Nazareth have been woven.^[217] He was also a member of the Jesus Project. Price believes that Christianity is a historicized synthesis of mainly Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek mythologies.^[218]

Price questioned the historicity of Jesus in a series of books, including Deconstructing Jesus (2000), The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003), Jesus Is Dead (2007), and The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems (2012), as well as in contributions to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009), in which he acknowledges that he stands against the majority view of scholars, but cautions against attempting to settle the issue by appeal to the majority.^[219]

In Deconstructing Jesus Price points out, "(w)hat one Jesus reconstruction leaves aside, the next one takes up and makes its cornerstone. Jesus simply wears too many hats in the Gospels—exorcist, healer, king, prophet, sage, rabbi, demigod, and so on. The Jesus Christ of the New Testament is a composite figure (...) The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage. But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time."^[220] Price also states "I am not trying to say that there was a single origin of the Christian savior Jesus Christ, and that origin is pure myth; rather, I am saying that there may indeed have been such a myth, and that if so, it eventually flowed together with other Jesus images, some one of which may have been based on a historical Jesus the Nazorean."^[221] But Price admits uncertainty in this regard. He writes in conclusion, "There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure."^[222]

Citing accounts that have Jesus being crucified under Alexander Jannaeus (83 BCE) or in his 50s by Herod Agrippa I under the rule of Claudius Caesar (41–54 CE). Price argues that these "varying dates are the residue of various attempts to anchor an originally mythic or legendary Jesus in more or less recent history."^[223]

Price maintains that there are three key points for the traditional Christ myth theory:^[224]

• There is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources.
• The epistles, written earlier than the gospels, provide no evidence of a recent historical Jesus; all that can be taken from the epistles, Price argues, is that a Jesus Christ, son of God, lived in a heavenly realm, there died as a sacrifice for human sin, was raised by God and enthroned in heaven.
• The Jesus narrative is paralleled in Middle Eastern myths about dying and rising gods; Price names Baal, Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dumuzi/Tammuz as examples, all of which, he writes, survived into the Hellenistic and Roman periods and thereby influenced early Christianity. Price alleges that Christian apologists have tried to minimize these parallels.^[45][225]

Thomas L. Thompson

Thomas L. Thompson, Professor emeritus at the University of Copenhagen, is a leading biblical minimalist of the Old Testament.^[226] In his 2007 book The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David,^[227] Thompson argues that the biblical accounts of both King David and Jesus of Nazareth are mythical in nature and based on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek and Roman literature. For example, he argues that the resurrection of Jesus is taken directly from the story of the dying and rising god, Dionysus.^[228][229] Thompson however, does not draw a final conclusion on the historicity or ahistoricity of Jesus, but argued that any historical person would be very different from the Christ (or messiah) identified in the Gospel of Mark.^[230]

Thompson coedited the contributions from a diverse range of scholars^[231] in the 2012 book Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus.^[232] Writing in the introduction, "The essays collected in this volume have a modest purpose. Neither establishing the historicity of an historical Jesus nor possessing an adequate warrant for dismissing it, our purpose is to clarify our engagement with critical historical and exegetical methods."^[233]

In a 2012 online article, Thompson defended his qualifications to address New Testament issues. He rejected the label of "mythicist", and reiterated his position that the issue of Jesus' existence cannot be determined one way or the other.^[234]

Other Modern Proponents

In his books The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979), the British archaeologist and philologist John M. Allegro advanced the theory that stories of early Christianity originated in a shamanistic Essene clandestine cult centered around the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms.^{[235][236][237][238]} He also argued that the story of Jesus was based on the crucifixion of the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls.^[239][240]

Allegro's theory was criticised sharply by Welsh historian Philip Jenkins who wrote that Allegro relied on texts that did not exist in quite the form he was citing them.^[241] Based on this and many other negative reactions to the book, Allegro's publisher later apologized for issuing the book and Allegro was forced to resign his academic post.^[237][242]

Influenced by Massey and Higgins, Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963) argued an Egyptian etymology to the Bible, that the gospels were symbolic rather than historic, and that church leaders started to misinterpret the New Testament in the third century.^[243] Author Tom Harpur dedicated his 2004 book The Pagan Christ to Kuhn, suggesting that Kuhn has not received the attention he deserves since many of his works were self-published.^[244]

Building on Kuhn's work, Harpur listed similarities among the stories of Jesus, Horus, Mithras, Buddha and others. According to Harpur, in the second or third centuries, the early church created the fictional impression of a literal and historic Jesus and then used forgery and violence to cover up the evidence.^[245]

Harpur's book received a great deal of criticism, including a response book, Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea.^[246] Fellow mythicist Robert M. Price also wrote a negative review, saying that he did not agree that the Egyptian parallels were as forceful as Harpur thought.^[247] Harpur published a sequel,Water Into Wine in 2007.^[248]

The Christ myth theory enjoyed brief popularity in the Soviet Union, where it was supported by Sergey Kovalev, Alexander Kazhdan, Abram Ranovich, Nikolai Rumyantsev, and Robert Vipper.^[249] Later, however, several scholars, including Kazhdan, retracted their views about mythical Jesus and by the end of the 1980s Iosif Kryvelev remained as virtually the only proponent of Christ myth theory in Soviet academia.^[250]

Criticism

Historicity refers to the question of whether alleged past persons and events are genuinely historical, or merely mythical. The study of whether the Jesus mentioned in the Christian New Testament was a real person is covered in the article Historicity of Jesus.

In general, modern scholars who work in the field largely agree that Jesus himself did exist historically, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus,^[40] and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate^[41][42][43] (although some argue that "the only thing New Testament scholars seem to agree on is Jesus’ historical existence"^[251]).

Gregory A. Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy doubt that Paul viewed Jesus similar to the savior deities found in ancient mystery religions.^[252]

Christ Myth theories find virtually no support from scholars. According to New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, most people who study the historical period of Jesus believe that he did exist, and do not write in support of the Christ myth theory.^[253] Ehrman states that the existence of Jesus and his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by a wide range of sources including Josephus and Tacitus.^[94]

Ehrman also notes that "mythicist" views would prevent one from getting employment in a religious studies department:

These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.^[254]

Additionally, Ehrman levies stronger criticism against the first "universally" agreed upon claim put forth by Price that there is no mention of a miracle working Jesus in secular sources. Ehrman points out that we don't have archaeological or textual evidence for the existence of most people in the ancient world; even famous people like Pontius Pilate, whom the Myth Theorists agree was involved. "And what records from that decade do we have from his reign," Ehrman asks, "what Roman records of his major accomplishments, his daily itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he put on trial, the death warrants he signed, his scandals, interviews, his judicial proceedings? We have none. Nothing at all."^[92]

"The same is true of the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus. Due to his treachery and betrayal of his own people, Josephus not only saved his skin during the Jewish War but also became a personal favorite of the Roman Emperor Vespasian,"^[255] says Robert Hutchinson, in his book Searching for Jesus. He continues, quoting Ehrman, "Yet despite being a personal friend of the emperor, how often is Josephus mentioned in Greek and Roman sources of his own day, the first century CE? Never."^[255]

Maurice Casey, theologian and scholar of New Testament and early Christianity, stated that the belief among professors that Jesus existed is generally completely certain. According to Casey, the view that Jesus did not exist is "the view of extremists" and "demonstrably false", and that "professional scholars generally regard it as having been settled in serious scholarship long ago".^[256]

In his 1977 book Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, classical historian and popular author Michael Grant concluded 'modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory.'^[257] In support of this, he quoted Roderic Dunkerley's 1957 opinion that the Christ-myth theory has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'.^[258] At the same time he also quoted Otto Betz's 1968 opinion that in recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' — or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.'^[259] In the same book, he also wrote:

If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.^[93]

Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan, highly skeptical with regard to the Gospel accounts of miracles, wrote in 1995

That (Jesus) was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.^[95]

Graeme Clarke, Emeritus Professor of Classical (Ancient) History and Archaeology at Australian National University^[260] has stated ""Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ - the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming."^[261]

Co-director of Ancient Cultures Research Centre at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Alanna Nobbs^[262] has stated ""While historical and theological debates remain about the actions and significance of this figure, his fame as a teacher, and his crucifixion under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, may be described as historically certain."^[263]

R. Joseph Hoffmann, who had created the Jesus Project, which included both mythicists and historicists to investigate the historicity of Jesus, wrote that an adherent to the Christ myth theory asked to set up a separate section of the project for those committed to the theory. Hoffmann felt that to be committed to mythicism signaled a lack of necessary skepticism. He noted that most members of the project did not reach the mythicist conclusion.^[264]

Reception

A survey by the Church of England suggests that forty percent of people in England do not believe Jesus was a real person, with "a quarter of 18 to 34 year olds believing he was a mythical or fictional character."^[265]

Books

The following books support aspects of the Christ myth theory:

• Anacalypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis or an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions by Godfrey Higgins, 1836
• The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (or Christianity Before Christ) by Kersey Graves, 1875
• The Christ Myth ( or Die Christusmythe) by Arthur Drews, 1909
• The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present ( or Die Leugnung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart) by Arthur Drews, 1927
• Did Jesus Exist? by George Albert Wells, 1975
• An Anthology of atheism and rationalism compiled, edited, and with introductions by Gordon Stein, 1980
• The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, 1999
• The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light (or The Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity?) by Tom Harpur, 2004
• The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty, 2005
• God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (or God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion) by Christopher Hitchens, 2007
• Nailed: 10 Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All by David Fitzgerald, 2010
• On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier, 2014

Documentaries

Since 2005, several English-language documentaries have focused, at least in part, on the Christ myth theory:

• The God Who Wasn't There directed by Brian Flemming and featuring Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price (2005)
• The Pagan Christ produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and featuring Tom Harpur (2007)
• Zeitgeist: The Movie directed by Peter Joseph (2007)
• The Hidden Story of Jesus produced by Channel 4 and featuring Robert Beckford (2007)
• Religulous directed by Larry Charles and featuring Bill Maher (2008)
• Caesar's Messiah by Joseph Atwill (2013)

See also

References

Sources

Further reading

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Portal:Christ myth theory

• Religious Tolerance General outline of range of views on Jesus from classical Christian to Jesus a mere man and Jesus entirely mythical