"Whether Jesus himself existed as a historical figure or not, the gospels that tell of him are unquestionably mythic texts. ...Investigations into the historical Jesus require, by contrast, that the gospels be used as historical sources, and in fact the main difference between “conservative” and “liberal” scholarship revolves around how much legendary accretion is stripped away in order to arrive at the “historical core,” not whether there is any historical core to be found at all. In seeking to find the real, historical person behind these narratives, we are using these texts as sources for a figure that they themselves show no interest in at all. Just as the myths and legends about Herakles are simply not about a historical person, so also the gospels are not about the historical Jesus."
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Christ myth theory
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