Christ myth theory.

(Jody Gray) This is just one of my Blog Posts related to Religion, Origins: where did what exists now, come from? And, why am I your enemy? See, Blog Post: Religion, Cross Reference. . http://indextoblogposts.*

Christ myth theory [https://en.wikipedia.] aka Jesus myth theory. Jesus mythicism, or Jesus a historicity theory, is the proposition that Christianity started with the belief in a new deity, named Jesus, “who was later historicized” in the Gospels, which are “essentially allegory and fiction.” (one of the early proponents, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) No independent eyewitness accounts -Lack of surviving historic records. Myth proponents claim there is significance in the lack of surviving historic records about Jesus of Nazareth from any non-Jewish author until the 2nd century, adding that Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence. 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.

  Mainstream biblical scholars point out that much of the writings of antiquity have been lost and that there was little written about any Jew or Christian in this period…

Josephus and Tacitus… Roman historian Tacitus referred to ‘Christus’ and his execution by Pontius Pilate in his Annals (written ca. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44. Christ Myth theory supporters such as G. A. Wells and Carrier 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.

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 Francois Chasseboeuf de Volney and Charles-François Dupuis. (They) argued that Christianity was an amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that Jesus was a totally mythical character. 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. 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…

Higgins and Graves. 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.” and that Christian editors “either from roguery or folly, corrupted them all.” …(1875) American Kersey Graves said that many demigods from different countries shared similar stories, traits or quotes as Jesus…

Early 20th century proponents. ...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… 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. 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 18th and 19th century view that Jesus never existed.”

  In 1900, Scottish MP John Mackinnon Robertson argued that Jesus never existed but was an invention by a 1st-century messianic cult. In Robertson’s view, religious groups invent new gods to fit the needs of the society of the time. 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. Robertson argued that a possible source for the Christian myth may have been the Talmudic story of the executed Jesus Panera which dates to 100 BCE. 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.

  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… Drews reviewed the biblical scholarship of his time was well as the work of other myth theorists, attempting to show that everything reported about the historical Jesus had a mythical character…

  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”...

George Albert Wells. ...In his early work, 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. Atheist philosopher and scholar Michael Martin supported his thesis, claiming: “Jesus is not placed in a historical context and the biographical details of his life are left unsuspected… a strong prima facie case challenging the historicity of Jesus can be constructed”...

  Later, Wells concluded that a historical Jesus figure did exist. His Jesus was a Galilean preacher, whose teaching were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical common source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. 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.

Earl Doherty. ...follows the lead of Wells, but disagrees on the historicity of Jesus, arguing that “everything in Paul points to a belief in an entirely divine Son who “lived” and acted in the spiritual realm, in the same mythical setting in which all other savior deities of the day were seen to operate.” According to Doherty Paul’s Christ originated as a myth derived from Middle Platonism with some influence from Jewish mysticism, and belief in a historical Jesus emerged only among Christian communities in the 2nd century. 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 a 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.

  ...In time, the gospel-narrative of this embodiment of Wisdom became interpreted as the literal history of the life of Jesus.

Robert M. Price. American New Testament scholar and former Baptist pastor, 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. He was also a member of the Jesus Project. Price believes that Christianity is a historicized synthesis of mainly Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek mythologies. Price maintains that there are three key points for the traditional Christ myth theory: (1) There is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources. (2) 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. (3) 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. …”There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure.”

Thomas L. Brodie. ...who previously had published academic works on the Hebrew prophets, argued that the gospels were essentially a rewriting of the stories of Elijah and Elisha when viewed as a unified account in the Book of Kings. This view lead Brodie to the conclusion that Jesus is mythical…

Richard Carrier. Atheist activist… 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 allegations then started to be believed as fact during the struggle for control of the Christian churches of the 1st century…

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. He also argued that the story of Jesus was based on the crucifixion of the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Allegro was later forced to resign his academic post)

  Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963) argued an Egyptian etymology to the Bible, that the gospels were symbolic rather historic, and that church leaders started to misinterpret the New Testament in the 3rd century. Author and ordained priest Tom Harpur dedicated his 2004 book The Pagan Christ to Kuhn, suggesting that Kuhn had not received the attention he deserves… Building on Kuhn’s work, Harpur listed similarities among the stories of Jesus, Horus, Mithras, Buddha and others. According to Harpur, in the 2nd and 3rd 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.

Documentaries.

(See also) including, List of messiah claimants.

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