Christ Myth Theory

"[Per a review of The Christ Myth (1910)] The main result at which the author [Arthur Drews] arrives is that the Jesus of the canonical Gospels is a largely humanised form of a pre-Christian cult-god of that name ...[and it is also] possible that there was a great teacher and healer bearing the same name [Jesus], who was confounded with that supposed deity."

"[Jesus as Presented by Paul] A divine Being, in humility without parallel, assumes the human condition. He is crucified by supernatural agents, the Princes of this Age, who are, in Paul's language, Satan and his acolytes. ...The crucifixion, as presented by Paul, is that of a super natural being executed by beings who are also supernatural."

"Bart Ehrman thinks there was a historical (though not a divine) Jesus, and I’ve read his “evidence,” but haven’t found it very convincing."

"Although you lied you were not able to conceal plausibly your fictitious tale."

"[Per mythicism] Our only sources come decades later by biased individuals who believed in Jesus, and that they’re not trustworthy sources. [...] Their positive argument is: they claim that there were other divine beings from the time of Jesus who were thought to have existed—gods who were thought to have died and risen again."

"[Per G. A. Wells] His main books stressed pre-Christian origins less than [J. M.] Robertson, and talked more of Paul’s complete ignorance of, and lack of interest in, the details of Jesus’ life."

"Moses called Oshea [the son of Nun, by the theological title] Joshua [per Numb. xiii. 17, Septuagint xiii. 16, A.V.], which means Jahweh saves. Jahweh [the deity] means when he says of Oshea “My Name is upon him” that one of the names of God is Jahweh saves. ...Joshua in Hebrew, Iesous in Greek, Jesus in Latin, is the personal name of the Son of Man, of the Christ, our Lord. It is the name “which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth” (Phil. ii. 9–10)."

"When they say that Christian beliefs about Jesus are derived from pagan mythology, I think you should laugh. Then look at them wide-eyed and with a big grin, and exclaim, 'Do you really believe that?' Act as though you've just met a flat earther or Roswell conspirator."

"If I understand what Earl Doherty is arguing, Neil, it is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as an historical person, or, at least that historians, like myself, presume that he did and act on that fatally flawed presumption. I am not sure, as I said earlier, that one can persuade people that Jesus did exist as long as they are ready to explain the entire phenomenon of historical Jesus and earliest Christianity either as an evil trick or a holy parable. I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold-war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying."

"Such Christ-myth theories are not now advanced by serious opponents of Christianity—they have long been exploded ...""

"The defectiveness of [the Christ myth theory's] treatment of the traditional evidence is perhaps not so patent in the case of the gospels as it is in the case of the Pauline epistles. Yet fundamentally it is the same. There is the same easy dismissal of all external testimony, the same disdain for the saner conclusions of modern criticism, the same inclination to attach most value to extremes of criticism, the same neglect of all the personal and natural features of the narrative, the same disposition to put skepticism forward in the garb of valid demonstration, and the same ever present predisposition against recognizing any evidence for Jesus' actual existence... The New Testament data are perfectly clear in their testimony to the reality of Jesus' earthly career and they come from a time when the possibility that the early framers of tradition should have been deceived upon this point is out of the question."

"When all the evidence brought against Jesus' historicity is surveyed it is not found to contain any elements of strength."

"Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed—the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel."

"Richard [Carrier] takes the extremist position that Jesus of Nazareth never even existed, that there was no such person in history. This is a position that is so extreme that to call it marginal would be an understatement; it doesn’t even appear on the map of contemporary New Testament scholarship."

"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."

"No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and his basic teachings."

"The data we have are certainly adequate to confute the view that Jesus never lived, a view that no one holds in any case"

"According to [Richard] Carrier, a solution that requires no special pleading. His take on Christianity’s origins begins in the religiously roiling Israel of the 30s, when the restive population was starting to rebel against the Temple elite. [...] Through visions, apocalyptic math and study of the Scriptures, one group ...came up with a celestial being made human flesh, killed by the forces of evil in a sacrifice that combined and eclipsed both Yom Kippur and Passover, who rose from the dead and will very soon come again to save the faithful."

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

"[Burton] Mack argues that a Greek "myth of martyrdom" and the "noble death" tradition are ultimately responsible for influencing the hellenized Jews of the Christ cults to develop a divinized Jesus."

"As Robert Price puts it, “A heavy burden of proof rests on anyone who would vindicate the [canonical Gospels’] material as genuine.” (...this sort of radical methodological skepticism has led Price to a “Jesus agnosticism”—he is uncertain whether there ever was a historical Jesus.)"

"Scholars such as Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, and G. A. Wells have argued that the Jesus tradition is virtually—perhaps entirely—fictional in nature ...this view holds that we have no good grounds for thinking any aspect of the Jesus narrative is rooted in history, including the very existence of an actual historical person named Jesus. Some scholars we could include in this category, such as Robert Price, would back off this thesis slightly and argue that we simply lack sufficient information to decide whether a historical Jesus existed. Here, a sort of “Jesus agnosticism” emerges."

"According to legendary-Jesus theorists, these early oral Jesus traditions were only loosely (or, in the case of Christ myth advocates, not at all) rooted in actual remembrances of Jesus and were very susceptible to legendary accretion."

"[Per] the legendary-Jesus thesis we are engaging in this book. ...it will prove helpful to break down the wide variety of views regarding the Jesus of history found in New Testament scholarship today into four broad (and admittedly overly simplistic) categories. [...] A fourth and final group of scholars argue that [the scholarly] positions [of categories] 1-3 are overly skeptical toward the Gospel material. ...these [category 4] scholars maintain that historical research can indeed disclose a good deal of reliable information about the historical Jesus."

"Christian scholars have long noted that while references to Jesus in non-Christian sources may be meager ...all contain some references to Jesus and/or the early Christian movement. [...] Against this, however, the more radical legendary-Jesus theorists [inclusive of Christ myth theorists] argue that each of these references is historically suspect. Some of the passages can be shown to be Christian interpolations, and those that are not interpolations are merely passing on hearsay—what Christians at the time were claiming about Jesus."

"Christian scholars have long noted that a number of ancient non-Christian literary sources make mention of Jesus... Against this, various legendary-Jesus theorists [inclusive of Christ myth theorists] argue that each of these sources is historically suspect. The passages that seem to speak of Jesus are either passing on hearsay of what Christians claimed to be true, or they can be shown to be later interpolations introduced into the text by Christians."

"Scholars who fall within the legendary-Jesus spectrum—especially the Christ myth theorists—typically argue that there is little-to-no independent information regarding a historical Jesus to be found in early non-Christian sources."

"Christ myth theorists [claim] that Eusebius could be responsible for the Testimonium [Flavianum forgery]."

"Pagan witnesses indicate that there is no reliable evidence that supports the historicity of Jesus. [...] Their absence, combined with the absence of Jewish records, suggests that [the negative evidence principle] applies and that we are justified in disbelieving that Jesus existed. (M. Martin, The Case Against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 52.)"

"Adherents of the Christ myth theory argue that the only Jesus Paul knew of was “a divine presence in Christian communities, bestowing revelation and guidance, a channel to God and to knowledge of spiritual truths.” [Doherty (1999), 30.] In other words, these considerations suggest that the Jesus of Paul and the earliest Christians was little different from the various deities worshipped and experienced within other ancient pagan mystery religions. [E. Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? (Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Publications, 1999), 30.]"

"[Paul’s] letters have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin birth. They never refer to a place of birth. . . . They give no indication of the time or place of his earthly existence. They do not refer to his trial before a Roman official, nor to Jerusalem as the place of execution. They mention neither John the Baptist, nor Judas, nor Peter’s denial of his master. . . . These letters also fail to mention any miracles Jesus is supposed to have worked, a particularly striking omission, since, according to the gospels he worked so many."

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

"Christ myth theorists argue that Paul views Jesus as a cosmic savior figure, along the lines of a mystery-religion deity, not a historical person in the recent past. They argue that it was only later, when the Gospels were written, that a fictitious historical narrative was imposed on this mythical cosmic savior figure."

"[Per G. A. Wells and Earl Doherty] the Gospels later created a historical narrative around Paul’s mythological savior figure and thereby transformed him into a historical person. (G. A. Wells, The Jesus myth (Chicago:Open Court, 1999), esp. 95-111; E. Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? (Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Pub., 1999).)"

"Unlike the cult of Jesus, the origins of which are not reliably attested, we can see the whole course of events laid out before our eyes (and even here, as we shall see, some details are now lost). It is fascinating to guess that the cult of Christianity almost certainly began in very much the same way, and spread initially at the same high speed. [...] John Frum, if he existed at all, did so within living memory. Yet, even for so recent a possibility, it is not certain whether he lived at all."

"The rather fragile historical evidence for Jesus of Nazareth should be tested to see what weight it can bear [...] I don’t think, however, that in another 20 years there will be a consensus that Jesus did not exist [the "Jesus atheism" viewpoint], or even possibly didn’t exist [the "Jesus agnosticism" viewpoint], but a recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability."

"Mythicists have discovered problems in the supposed common-sense of historical Jesus theories that deserve to be taken seriously."

"As for the question of whether Jesus existed, the best answer is that any attempt to find a historical Jesus is a waste of time. It can’t be done, it explains nothing, and it proves nothing."

"[Thomas L.] Brodie’s book doesn’t have to convince everyone. What it does accomplish is help establish that a serious scholar can indeed take a mythicist position. It helps show that mythicism is an intellectually viable position even if not universally convincing."

"Dr. [H. G.] Wood ...selects for special study the Christ-myth theory, of which there are many variants, all of which go back in substance to the writings of the late J. M. Robertson. According to this theory the gospels are symbolic and arose out of a Palestinian mystery cult."

"[Noting that some mythicist positions accept the historical existence of a human being who called himself Jesus] ...a religion may be based upon, the teachings of a sage or holy man, without any especial reference to the events of his life [...] in the period to which the origins of Christianity are to be assigned, ...were groups which had relations with the Jewish religion, and some of these last came to identify their Saviour-god with the Jewish Messiah, and created for him a mythical embodiment in a figure bearing the cult-name 'Jesus', derived from a Hebrew word meaning 'salvation'. Or alternatively, they seized upon the report of an obscure Jewish holy-man bearing this name, and arbitrarily attached the 'cult-myth' to him."

"[Per] Richard Bauckham: "The earliest Christology was already the highest Christology." [] This is very true, and among Jews and with such speed it is hardly credible. Yet rather than appeal to the actual divinity and resurrection of a human Jesus as thereby proven, it is observations like these which should indicate that the christology was high at the beginning of the movement because the Christ of whom it spoke was nothing but a divinity."

"[The Mythical Jesus viewpoint is] the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction..."

"[Per writings earlier than Mark] the object of Christian faith [Jesus] is never spoken of as a human man who had recently lived, taught, performed miracles, suffered and died at the hands of human authorities, or rose from a tomb outside Jerusalem. There is no sign in the epistles of Mary or Joseph, Judas or John the Baptist, no birth story, teaching or appointment of apostles by Jesus, no mention of holy places or sites of Jesus’ career, not even the hill of Calvary or the empty tomb. This silence is so pervasive and so perplexing that attempted explanations for it have proven inadequate."

"[The Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 8, verse 4] contains a grammatically ambiguous statement in the Greek: it says either that “If Jesus were on earth [meaning now], he would not be a priest” or “If Jesus had been on earth, he would not have been a priest.” [...] What my analysis does is show that, within the context of the passage and through deductive reasoning, the present sense, allotting the statement to the present time, cannot be supported; in fact, it can be shown that the author can only be applying it to the past."

"[In the Gospels] many elements of the Jesus story [depend] on passages and motifs from the Jewish scriptures. [...] John Shelby Spong (in his Liberating the Gospels) regards the Synoptic Gospels as midrashic fiction in virtually every detail, though he believes it was based on an historical man."

"[Per Philo] The Logos was God’s mediator [...] Philo sees the Logos as “a continual supplicant to the immortal God on behalf of mortal man” (Divine Matters, 205)."

"[The Mythical Jesus viewpoint holds] that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure."

"[Per the descending Redeemer of gnostic-style myth] Price sees the Pauline Christ in this same category... Inherent in such a (proto-) gnostic type of outlook is the idea that Christ inhabits the believer, and the apostle who preaches him possesses a highly developed sense of the Christ/Redeemer within himself. Paul, with his "Christ in you" and "all are members of the body of Christ," falls into that line of thinking."

"In the formative period of the 1st century CE, when no historical Jesus had yet set foot on the scene, a rich panoply of Son/Christ/Savior belief was thriving across the eastern half of the Roman empire, expressions of the new intermediary Son philosophy, conceiving of different routes to salvation through him."