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

A 3rd century fragment of the Paul's letter to the Romans

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

a sketch of a bust of Constantin-François Chassebœuf
French historian Constantin-François Volney, one of the earliest myth theorists

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

portrait
German Prof. David 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

portrait
German Prof. Bruno 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]

portrait
German Prof. Arthur Drews.

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

American historian 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

Robert Price at a microphone
American New Testament scholar 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]

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

British academic John M. Allegro

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]

Canadian author Tom Harpur (photo by Hugh Wesley)

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

Main article: Historicity of Jesus

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:

Documentaries

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

See also

References

  1. ↑ Maurice Casey, Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?, Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014.
  2. ↑ Lataster, Raphael (2015). "Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories — A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources". The Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies. 6:1.
  3. ↑ Mitchell, Logan (1842). The Christian mythology unveiled, lectures. Cousins. p. 151. Jesus Christ in the New Testament, has no reference whatever to any event that ever did in reality take place upon this globe; or to any personages that ever in truth existed: and that the whole is an astronomical allegory, or parable, having invariably a primary and sacred allusion to the sun, and his passage through the signs of the zodiac; or a verbal representation of the phenomena of the solar year and seasons. (Image of Title page & p. 151 at Google Books)
  4. ↑ Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? Harper Collins, 2012, p. 12, ""In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist . Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity." further quoting as authoritative the fuller definition provided by Earl Doherty in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man. Age of Reason, 2009, pp. vii-viii: it 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, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition."
  5. ↑ Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield Phoenix Press Limited. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-909697-49-2. [T]he basic thesis of every competent mythologist, then and now, has always been that Jesus was originally a god just like any other god (properly speaking, a demigod in pagan terms; an archangel in Jewish terms; in either sense, a deity), who was later historicized.
  6. ↑ Theissen & Merz 1998, pp. 93-118.
  7. ↑ Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. Bauer’s views of Christian origins ...gained no lasting following or influence on subsequent scholarship, especially in the mainstream.
  8. ↑ Evans, Craig A. (26 September 2008). Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. InterVarsity Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-8308-3355-9. [R. M.] Price thinks the evidence is so weak for the historical Jesus that we cannot know anything certain or meaningful about him. He is even willing to entertain the possibility that there never was a historical Jesus.
  9. ↑ Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 69 n. 120. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. Those who, over the last two hundred years, have doubted the existence of Jesus have argued that the lack of contemporary corroboration of Jesus by classical authors is a main indication that he did not exist. (See, e.g., The Existence of Christ Disproved (London: Heatherington, 1841) 214. More recently, see Michael Martin, The Evidence against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1991))
  10. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. [Paul and Jesus among the Skeptics - Paul’s Lack of Historical Information] While New Testament scholars agree that Paul has relatively little to say about the life and ministry of Jesus, most grant that Paul viewed Jesus as a recent contemporary. The most extreme legendary-Jesus theorists, however— particularly the Christ myth theorists—deny this. They argue that nothing in Paul’s letters indicates that he believed Jesus was a contemporary of his. Rather, they contend, the Jesus of Paul’s theology is a savior figure patterned after similar figures within ancient mystery religions. According to the theory, Paul believed that Christ entered the world at some point in the distant past—or that he existed only in a transcendent mythical realm—and died to defeat evil powers and redeem humanity. Only later was Jesus remythologized as a Jewish contemporary.
  11. ↑ Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. [Bruno Bauer] denied the value of the New Testament, especially the Gospels and Paul’s letters, in establishing the existence of Jesus.
  12. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 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.
  13. ↑ Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. [Bruno Bauer] argued that the lack of mention of Jesus in non-Christian writings of the first century shows that Jesus did not exist. Neither do the few mentions of Jesus by Roman writers in the early second century establish his existence.
  14. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. [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.
  15. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 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.
  16. ↑ Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. [Per Jesus] Wells argues, we need independent corroboration from other, “objective” sources to affirm his existence. He [Wells] minutely examines these proposed other sources, from Tacitus to Talmud, and finds that they contain no independent traditions about Jesus. Therefore, they are not admissible [evidence].
  17. ↑ Lataster, Raphael (2015). "Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories — A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources". The Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies. 6:1: 68. Richard Carrier also raises the possibility (and perhaps the need to be cautious) that all sources dated after the Gospel of Mark could have been tainted by it, and that this simply cannot be ruled out.
  18. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 365 n. 3. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. 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.)
  19. ↑ Lataster, Raphael (2015). "Questioning the Plausibility of Jesus Ahistoricity Theories — A Brief Pseudo-Bayesian Metacritique of the Sources". The Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies. 6:1: 91. Price speculates that the sources should point historical Jesus scholars in the direction of “complete agnosticism”
  20. ↑ Voorst, Robert Van (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5.
  21. ↑ Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1995). "Jesus Christ". The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 2. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 1034. ISBN 978-0-8028-3782-0.
  22. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. Robert Price argues that the ancient Mediterranean world “was hip-deep in religions centering on the death and resurrection of a savior god.” He then catalogs a wide variety of examples to explain the rise of the Christ cult through Paul—including the gods Baal, Tammuz/Dumuzi, Osiris, Attis, Dionysus, Mithras, and even the Corn King. From these he concludes that the Christ cult formed by Paul was “a Mystery cult” pure and simple.
  23. ↑ Lataster, Raphael (December 2014). "Richard Carrier: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014; pp. xiv + 696.". Journal of Religious History. 38 (4): 614–616. doi:10.1111/1467-9809.12219. [Richard Carrier's hypothesis of ‘minimal mythicism’], highly influenced by the work of Earl Doherty, states that Jesus was initially believed to be a celestial figure, who came to be historicised over time.
  24. ↑ "Hector Avalos: Who was the historical Jesus?". Ames Tribune. GateHouse Media. Mar 2, 2013. Retrieved 28 August 2016. [ Hector Avalos, professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University] My own opinion, as an academic biblical scholar, is that there is not enough evidence to settle the question one way or the other. I am an agnostic about the existence of the historical Jesus. A main problem continues to be the lack of documentation from the time of Jesus to establish his existence definitively. Jesus is supposed to have lived around the year 30. But there is no mention of him anywhere in any actual document from his own time or from the entire first century.
  25. ↑ Price, Robert M. Deconstructing Jesus. Prometheus Books, Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-61592-120-1. Generations of Rationalists and freethinkers have held that Jesus Christ corresponds to no historical character: There never was a Jesus of Nazareth. We might call this categorical denial “Jesus atheism.” What I am describing is something different, a “Jesus agnosticism.” There may have been a Jesus on earth in the past, but the state of the evidence is so ambiguous that we can never be sure what this figure was like or, indeed, whether there was such a person.
  26. ↑ Dr. Richard Carrier. "Questioning the Historicity of Jesus". Strange Notions. Brandon Vogt. Retrieved 6 April 2016. The hypothesis that Jesus never really existed has started to gain more credibility in the expert community. Some now agree historicity agnosticism is warranted, including Arthur Droge (professor of early Christianity at UCSD), Kurt Noll (associate professor of religion at Brandon University), and Thomas Thompson (renowned professor of theology, emeritus, at the University of Copenhagen). Others are even more certain historicity is doubtful, including Thomas Brodie (director emeritus of the Dominican Biblical Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland), Robert Price (who has two Ph.D.’s from Drew University, in theology and New Testament studies), and myself (I have a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University and have several peer reviewed articles on the subject). Still others, like Philip Davies (professor of biblical studies, emeritus, at the University of Sheffield), disagree with the hypothesis but admit it is respectable enough to deserve consideration.
  27. ↑ Lataster, Raphael (29 March 2016). "IT'S OFFICIAL: WE CAN NOW DOUBT JESUS' HISTORICAL EXISTENCE". Think. 15 (43): 65–79. doi:10.1017/s1477175616000117. Think, Volume 15, Issue 43, Summer 2016, Published online by Cambridge University Press
  28. ↑ Robertson, Archibald (1946). Jesus: Myth or History?. Thinker's Library, No. 110. London: Watts & Co. pp. 99–100. The myth theory as stated by J. M. Robertson does not exclude the possibility of an historical Jesus. “A teacher or teachers named Jesus” may have uttered some of the Gospel sayings “at various periods.” The Jesus ben-Pandera of the Talmud may have led a movement round which the survivals of an ancient solar or other cult gradually clustered.
  29. ↑ Price, Robert M. (December 31, 1999). "Of Myth and Men: A Closer Look at the Originators of the Major Religions - What Did They Really Say and Do?". Free Inquiry magazine. 20 (1).
  30. ↑ Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus, Ed. By Thomas L. Thompson and Thomas S. Verenna, 2012
  31. ↑ Price, Robert M. (4 February 2010). "Jesus at the Vanishing Point". In James K. Beilby. The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Paul Rhodes Eddy. InterVarsity Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-8308-7853-6. Some mythicists (the early G. A. Wells and Alvar Ellegard) thought that the first Christians had in mind Jesus who had lived as a historical figure, just not of the recent past, much as the average Greek believed Hercules and Achilles really lived somewhere back there in the past.
  32. ↑ Price, Robert M. (2011). The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems. American Atheist Press. pp. 33, 387f. ISBN 978-1-57884-017-5.
  33. ↑ James D. G. Dunn "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus" in Sacrifice and Redemption edited by S. W. Sykes (Dec 3, 2007) Cambridge University Press ISBN 052104460X pages 35-36
  34. ↑ Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (Apr 1, 2004) ISBN 0802809774 page 34
  35. ↑ Jesus by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200
  36. ↑ The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, 1989 ISBN 0192132415 Oxford University Press, page 145
  37. ↑ Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 16
  38. ↑ Did Jesus Exist?:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins, USA. 2012. ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8.
  39. ↑ B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN 978-0-06-207863-6. page 285
  40. 1 2 Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee by Mark Allan Powell 1998 ISBN 0-664-25703-8 page 181
  41. 1 2 Jesus Remembered by James D. G. Dunn 2003 ISBN 0-8028-3931-2 page 339 states of baptism and crucifixion that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent".
  42. 1 2 Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus by William R. Herzog (4 Jul 2005) ISBN 0664225284 pages 1-6
  43. 1 2 Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 0-06-061662-8. That he 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.
  44. 1 2 Edward Adams in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001 ISBN 0521796784 pages 94-96
  45. 1 2 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.
  46. 1 2 3 Can We Trust the New Testament? by George Albert Wells 2003 ISBN 0812695674 pages 49-50
  47. ↑ Detering, Hermann (1996). "The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles". Journal of Higher Criticism. 3 (2): 163–193. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  48. ↑ Price, Richard M. (2012). The Amazing Colossal Apostle. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. p. viii. ISBN 978-1-56085-216-2.
  49. ↑ Ludemann, Gerd (2002). Paul: The Founder of Christianity. Prometheus Books, Publishers. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-61592-367-0. A reconstruction of the chronology of Paul must begin with an analysis of Gal. 1:6-2:10. the central pillar of every chronology of Paul.
  50. ↑ Price, Robert M. (2012). "Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?". In Thomas L. Thompson, Thomas S. Verenna. "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Equinox. p. 95ff. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3.
  51. ↑ Price, Robert M. (2011). "Does the Christ Myth Theory Require an Early Date for the Pauline Epistles?". The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems. American Atheist Press. pp. 353ff. ISBN 978-1-57884-017-5.
  52. ↑ Price, Richard M. (2012). The Amazing Colossal Apostle. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. pp. 360–61,415,426,491. ISBN 978-1-56085-216-2.
  53. ↑ Martin, Michael. The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press, 1993, p. 38.
  54. ↑ Wells, GA (September 1999). "Earliest Christianity". New Humanist. 114 (3): 13–18. Retrieved 2007-01-11.
  55. ↑ Wells, G. A. The Jesus Myth. Open Court, 1999.
  56. ↑ Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus (Kindle ed.). Sheffield Phoenix Press. p. location 34725. ISBN 978-1-909697-70-6.
  57. ↑ Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, p. 570.
  58. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. New Testament scholars agree that Paul has relatively little to say about the life and ministry of Jesus, most grant that Paul viewed Jesus as a recent contemporary.
  59. 1 2 Christopher M. Tuckett In The Cambridge Companion to Jesus edited by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001 ISBN 0521796784 pages 122-126
  60. 1 2 Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making by James D. G. Dunn (Jul 29, 2003) ISBN 0802839312 page 143
  61. 1 2 Jesus Christ in History and Scripture by Edgar V. McKnight 1999 ISBN 0865546770 page 38
  62. ↑ Victor Furnish in Paul and Jesus edited by Alexander J. M. Wedderburn 2004 (Academic Paperback) ISBN 0567083969 pages 43-44
  63. ↑ Paul's Letter to the Romans by Colin G. Kruse (Jul 1, 2012) ISBN 0802837433 pages 41-42
  64. 1 2 The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament edited by David E. Aune 2010 ISBN 1405108258 page 424
  65. 1 2 Worship in the Early Church by Ralph P. Martin 1975 ISBN 0802816134 pages 57-58
  66. 1 2 Creeds of the Churches, Third Edition by John H. Leith (Jan 1, 1982) ISBN 0804205264 page 12
  67. ↑ Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Volume 1 by James D. G. Dunn (Jul 29, 2003) ISBN 0802839312 pages 142-143
  68. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
  69. ↑ Jesus according to Paul by Victor Paul Furnish 1994 ISBN 0521458242 pages 19-20
  70. ↑ Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times by Paul Barnett 2002 ISBN 0830826998 pages 95-96
  71. ↑ Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 433
  72. ↑ Bultmann, R. (1921). Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.
  73. ↑ e.g. Vines, M. E. (2002). The Problem of the Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. pp. 161-162.
  74. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. pp. 314–315 n. 23. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
  75. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. pp. 137–138. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4. Robert Price goes so far as to argue that every aspect of the Jesus story found in the Gospels fits the “mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” With such a strong correspondence between Jesus and universally acknowledged mythic figures, the suggestion that the Jesus story is rooted in history while the other hero stories are not seems highly implausible to some.
  76. ↑ Stanton, G. H. (2004). Jesus and Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 192.
  77. ↑ Burridge, R. A. (2006). Gospels. In J. W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 437
  78. ↑ Talbert, C. H. (1977). What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
  79. ↑ Wills, L. M. (1997). The Quest of the Historical Gospel: Mark, John and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. London: Routledge. p. 10.
  80. ↑ Burridge, R. A. (2004). What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography. rev. updated edn. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans.
  81. ↑ Richard Carrier. "The Formation of the New Testament Canon". www.academia.edu. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  82. 1 2 The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, by Gary R. Habermas, College Press, 1996. p.31-35
  83. ↑ C.E. Hill, p.170
  84. ↑ Bart D. Ehrman. Did Jesus Exist?:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, HarperCollins, USA, 2012, p.47 ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8
  85. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
  86. ↑ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1. [P]agan witnesses indicate that there is no reliable evidence that supports the historicity of Jesus. This is surely surprising given the fact that Jesus was supposed to be a well-known person in the area of the world ruled by Rome. One would surely have supposed that there would have been some surviving records of Jesus if he did exist. Their absence, combined with the absence of Jewish records, suggests that NEP [Negative Evidence Principle] applies and that we are justified in disbelieving that Jesus existed.
  87. ↑ Gerald O'Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. 2009, pp. 1-3 ISBN 0-19-955787-X
  88. ↑ Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria.1997, p. 14ISBN 9004103880
  89. ↑ Allan, William (2014). Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0199665457.
  90. ↑ Ehrman, 2012, p.44
  91. ↑ Timothy Barnes Pagan Perceptions of Christianity" in Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to Ad 600. 1991, p. 232 ISBN 0687114446
  92. 1 2 Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did Jesus Exist?. New York: HarperOne. p. 44.
  93. 1 2 Michael Grant (1977), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels
  94. 1 2 The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart D. Ehrman 1999 ISBN 0-19-512639-4-page 248
  95. 1 2 Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-061662-8 page 145
  96. ↑ The Cambridge Companion to Jesus by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001 ISBN 0521796784 pp. 121–125
  97. ↑ Bruce David Chilton; Craig Alan Evans (1998). Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research. BRILL. pp. 460–470. ISBN 90-04-11142-5.
  98. 1 2 Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey by Craig L. Blomberg 2009 ISBN 0-8054-4482-3 pp. 431–436
  99. ↑ Van Voorst (2000) pp. 39–53
  100. ↑ Vermes, Geza (2010). The Real Jesus: Then and Now. Augsburg Fortress, Publishers. pp. 54–55. ISBN 978-1-4514-0882-9. 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, with the help of the works of Flavius Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls and early rabbinic literature. Against this background, what kind of picture of Jesus emerges from the Gospels? That of a rural holy man, initially a follower of the movement of repentance launched by another holy man, John the Baptist. In the hamlets and villages of Lower Galilee and the lakeside, Jesus set out to preach the coming of the Kingdom of God within the lifetime of his generation and outlined the religious duties his simple listeners were to perform to prepare themselves for the great event. [...] The reliability of Josephus’s notice about Jesus was rejected by many in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it has been judged partly genuine and partly falsified by the majority of more recent critics. The Jesus portrait of Josephus, drawn by an uninvolved witness, stands halfway between the fully sympathetic picture of early Christianity and the wholly antipathetic image of the magician of Talmudic and post-Talmudic Jewish literature.
  101. ↑ Schreckenberg, Heinz; Kurt Schubert (1992). Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature. ISBN 90-232-2653-4.
  102. ↑ Kostenberger, Andreas J.; L. Scott Kellum; Charles L. Quarles (2009). The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament. ISBN 0-8054-4365-7.
  103. ↑ The new complete works of Josephus by Flavius Josephus, William Whiston, Paul L. Maier ISBN 0-8254-2924-2 pp. 662–663
  104. ↑ Josephus XX by Louis H. Feldman 1965, ISBN 0674995023 p. 496
  105. ↑ Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence ISBN 0-8028-4368-9. p. 83
  106. ↑ Flavius Josephus; Maier, Paul L. (December 1995). Josephus, the essential works: a condensation of Jewish antiquities and The Jewish war ISBN 978-0-8254-3260-6 pp. 284–285
  107. ↑ Kennneth A. Olson, Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (2): 305, 1999
  108. ↑ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (1 August 2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic. p. 197 n. 103). ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
  109. ↑ Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. P. 129 ISBN 0-8010-3114-1
  110. ↑ Robert M. Price. The Christ Myth Theory and it's Problems, Atheist Press, 2011, p.132, ISBN 9781578840175
  111. ↑ P.E. Easterling, E. J. Kenney (general editors), The Cambridge History of Latin Literature, p. 892 (Cambridge University Press, 1982, reprinted 1996). ISBN 0-521-21043-7
  112. 1 2 Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000. p 39- 53
  113. ↑ Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition Baker Academic, ISBN 0-8010-3114-1 p. 127
  114. ↑ F.F. Bruce,Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) p. 23
  115. ↑ Theissen, Gerd; Merz, Annette (1998). The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-8006-3122-2.
  116. ↑ Martin, Michael. The Case Against Christianity. pp. 50–51.
  117. ↑ The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century: 1900–1950, By Walter P. Weaver, pg 53, pg 57, at https://books.google.com/books?id=1CZbuFBdAMUC&pg=PA45&dq=historicity+of+jesus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o-_8U5-yEtTH7AbBpoCoAg&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=tacitus&f=false
  118. ↑ Secret of Regeneration, By Hilton Hotema, pg 100, at https://books.google.com/books?id=jCaopp3R5B0C&pg=PA100&dq=interpolations+in+tacitus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CRf-U9-VGZCe7AbxrIDQCA&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATge#v=onepage&q=interpolations%20in%20tacitus&f=false
  119. ↑ Jesus, University Books, New York, 1956, p.13
  120. ↑ France, RT (1986). Evidence for Jesus (Jesus Library). Trafalgar Square Publishing. pp. 19–20. ISBN 0-340-38172-8.
  121. ↑ Van Voorst, Robert E (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 13
  122. ↑ Moggach, Douglas. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 184. *Also see Engels, Frederick. "Bruno Bauer and Early Christianity", Der Sozialdemokrat, May 1882.
  123. ↑ Voorst, Robert Van (13 April 2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5. Christianity and its Christ, Bauer argued, were born in Rome and Alexandria when adherents of Roman Stoicism, Greek Neo-Platonism and Judaism combined to form a new religion that needed a founder.
  124. ↑ Price, Robert (2009). "Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars, reviewed by Robert M. Price". Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  125. ↑ Price, 2011, p.425
  126. ↑ Price, Robert M. (2009). "DM Murdock, Christ in Egypt, reviewed by Robert M. Price". Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  127. 1 2 What Is Christianity?: An Introduction to the Christian Religion, by Gail Ramshaw, Fortress Press, 1 Jul 2013. pp. 52-54
  128. 1 2 God and Caesar: Troeltsch's Social Teaching as Legitimation, by Constance L. Benson, Transaction Publishers. p.55
  129. ↑ The Heroic Ideal: Western Archetypes from the Greeks to the Present, by M. Gregory Kendrick, McFarland, 25 May 2010. p.43
  130. ↑ Ehrman, 2012, p. 208
  131. 1 2 3 The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, by Craig S. Keener, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012. p.336
  132. ↑ Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?, by Maurice Casey, A&C Black, 16 Jan 2014. p. 155
  133. ↑ Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies, by Craig A. Evans, BRILL, 1 Jul 2001. p.48
  134. 1 2 Casey, 2014, p.206
  135. ↑ Dawkins, 2006, p. 97
  136. ↑ Thomas L. Brodie. Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012 ISBN 978-1907534584
  137. ↑ Price, 2011, p. 381
  138. ↑
    • Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method, by Sidney Greidanus, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999.
    • The Old Testament and the Significance of Jesus: Embracing Change--maintaining Christian Identity : the Emerging Center in Biblical Scholarship, by Fredrick Carlson Holmgren, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1 Jan 1999.
    • The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament, by Edmund P. Clowney, Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1 Jul 1991.
    • Four Portraits of Jesus: Studies in the Gospels and Their Old Testament Background, by Elizabeth E. Platt, Paulist Press, 2004
    • The Great Argument, Or, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament; by William H. Thomson, Harper and Brothers, 1884.
    -- all en passim.
  139. 1 2 Weaver 1999, p. 45-50.
  140. ↑ Schweitzer 2001, p. 355ff.
  141. ↑ Voorst 2000, p. 8.
  142. 1 2 3 Wells 1969.
  143. ↑ British Romantic Writers and the East by Nigel Leask (Jun 24, 2004) ISBN 0521604443 Cambridge Univ Press pages 104 -105
  144. ↑ By Tristram Stuart, "The Bloodless Revolution", p. 591.
  145. 1 2 Stephen Prickett in the Companion Encyclopedia of Theology edited by Peter Byrne, Leslie Houlden (Dec 4, 1995) ISBN 0415064473 page 154-155
  146. ↑ The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by David Friedrich Strauss 2010 ISBN 1-61640-309-8 pages 39–43 and 87–91
  147. ↑ The Making of the New Spirituality by James A. Herrick 2003 ISBN 0-8308-2398-0 pages 58–65
  148. ↑ Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth by Michael J. McClymond (Mar 22, 2004) ISBN 0802826806 page 82
  149. ↑ The historical Jesus question by Gregory W. Dawes 2001 ISBN 0-664-22458-X pages 77–79
  150. ↑ See Douglas R McGaughey, "On D.F. Strauß and the 1839 Revolution in Zurich"
  151. 1 2 Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 pages 7-11
  152. ↑ 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.
  153. ↑ Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, pp. 124–128, 139–141.
  154. ↑ In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images by Clinton Bennett (Dec 1, 2001) ISBN 0826449166 Continuum page 204
  155. ↑ Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 30
  156. ↑ Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 59
  157. ↑ Kersey Graves and The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Richard Carrier (2003)
  158. ↑ Tom Harpur, 2004, The Pagan Christ
  159. ↑ Tom Harpur, 2004, p. 200
  160. ↑ Harpur's response to Porter and Gasque
  161. ↑ Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 10
  162. 1 2 Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress, 2001; first published 1913, pp. 356–361, 527 n. 4.
  163. ↑ Arthur Drew, 1926, The Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in Past and Present
  164. ↑ Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 116–117.
  165. ↑ Klausner, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth. Bloch, 1989; first published 1925, pp. 105–106.
  166. ↑ In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images by Clinton Bennett (Dec 1, 2001) ISBN 0826449166 Continuum page 205
  167. ↑ Deconstructing Jesus by Robert M. Price (2000) ISBN 1573927589 page 207
  168. 1 2 3 4 5 Van Voorst, Robert E (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 pages 11-12
  169. ↑ J.M. Robertson, 1856-1933 by G.A. Wells (1 Jan 1987) ISBN 0301870020 pages 162-163
  170. ↑ Christianity And Mythology by John M. Robertson London: Watts 1900 ISBN 0766187683 (reprinted by Kessinger 2004) page 34
  171. ↑ A Short History of Christianity by John M. Robertson 1902 London: Watts ISBN 0766189090 (reprinted by Kessinger 2004) page 72
  172. ↑ Robertson, J. M. A Short History of Christianity. Watts, 1902, pp. 6–12, 14–15.
  173. ↑ A Short History of Christianity by John M. Robertson 1902 London: Watts ISBN 0766189090 (reprinted by Kessinger 2004) page 18
  174. ↑ J.M. Robertson, 1856-1933 by G.A. Wells (1 Jan 1987) ISBN 0301870020 page 149
  175. ↑ G. R. S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest by Clare Goodrick-Clarke (Aug 10, 2005) ISBN 155643572X pages 1-3
  176. ↑ 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.
  177. ↑ Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G. R. S. Mead (1903) ISBN 1596053763 (Cosimo Classics 2005) pages 10-12
  178. ↑ Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity? by Tom Harpur (2006) ISBN 0802777414 p 163
  179. ↑ The Christ by John Remsburg 1909, Chapter 1: "Christ's Real Existence Impossible"
  180. ↑ The Christ Myth by John Remsburg 1909, Chapter 2: "Silence of Contemporary Writers"
  181. ↑ Paulkovich, Michael (2014). "The Fable of the Christ". Free Inquiry. 34 (5): 56.
  182. ↑ Paulkovich, Michael (2012), No Meek Messiah, Spillix Publishing, pp. 330–355, ISBN 0988216116
  183. ↑ Drews' book was reviewed by A. Kampmeier in The Monist, volume 21, Number 3 (July 1911), pages 412–432.
  184. ↑ Weaver, Walter P. The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, pp. 50 and 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.
  185. ↑ Berdyaev, Nikolai, "The Scientific Discipline of Religion and Christian Apologetics", Put' / Путь vol. 6, 1927
  186. ↑ 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.
  187. ↑ "Jesus never lived, asserts Prof. Drews", The New York Times, February 6, 1910.
  188. ↑ Thrower, James. Marxist-Leninist "Scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism. Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p. 426.
  189. ↑ Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity" in Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 749.
  190. ↑ Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens. Cornell University Press, 1998, p. 178.
  191. ↑ The historical Jesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950 by Walter P. Weaver, 1999 ISBN Continuum Publishing Group, 1999, pages 300-303
  192. ↑ Russell, Bertrand. "Why I am not a Christian", lecture to the National Secular Society, Battersea Town Hall, March 6, 1927, Retrieved 2010-08-02.
  193. ↑ Corydon, Bent; Brian Ambry (1992). L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?. Barricade Books. p. 353. ISBN 0-942637-57-7.
  194. ↑ Stanton, Graham. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford University Press, 2002; first published 1989, p. 143.
  195. ↑ Ellegård, Alvar (2008). "Theologians as historians". Scandia: Tidskrift för historisk forskning (59): 2. [S]everal reviewers of Wells concede that the questions he has raised are indeed pertinent. For instance, Professor Kenneth Grayston (Methodist Recorder, 16th Nov., 1971) writes: “instructed Christians … /should/ admit the difficulties collected by Professor Wells, and construct a better solution.” Grayston repeats this judgment in reviewing Wells’s second book.
  196. ↑ Wells 1971, Wells 1975, Wells 1982
  197. ↑ Martin, Michael (March 1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1.
  198. ↑ Wells, George Albert (2004). Can We Trust the New Testament?: Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony. Open Court Publishing. pp. 49–50. ISBN 978-0-8126-9567-0. The weakness of my earlier position was pressed upon me by J.D.G. Dunn [...] including the Q source in the revised argument obviates the criticism of Dunn.
  199. ↑ Wells, George Albert (1999). The Jesus myth. Open Court. ISBN 0812693922.
  200. ↑ Wells, George (1 December 2013). Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and Where It Leaves Christianity. Open Court Publishing Company. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-8126-9867-1. I regarded (and still do regard) [that the following stories;] the virgin birth, much in the Galilean ministry, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate, and the resurrection—as legendary.
  201. ↑ For a more brief statement of his position, Wells refers readers to his article, "Jesus, Historicity of" in Tom Flynn's The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books, 2007, p. 446ff. - Per Wells, G. A. Cutting Jesus Down to Size. Open Court, 2009, pp. 327–328.
  202. ↑ Van Voorst, Robert E. "Nonexistence Hypothesis", in James Leslie Holden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 660.
  203. ↑ Doherty, Earl (1999). "Book and Article Reviews, The Case of the Jesus Myth: Jesus — One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard". Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  204. ↑ Carrier, Richard (2006). Did Jesus Even Exist? Stanford University presentation. May 30, 2006.
  205. ↑ Eddy and Boyd (2007), The Jesus Legend, p. 24.
  206. ↑ Wells, George (1 December 2013). Cutting Jesus Down to Size: What Higher Criticism Has Achieved and Where It Leaves Christianity. Open Court Publishing Company. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-8126-9867-1. What we have in the gospels is surely a fusion of two originally quite independent streams of tradition, ...the Galilean preacher of the early first century who had met with rejection, and the supernatural personage of the early epistles, [the Jesus of Paul] who sojourned briefly on Earth and then, rejected, returned to heaven—have been condensed into one. The [human] preacher has been given a [mythical] salvific death and resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as in the early epistles) but in a historical context consonant with the Galilean preaching. The fusion of the two figures will have been facilitated by the fact that both owe quite a lot of their substance in the documents—to ideas very important in the Jewish Wisdom literature.
  207. ↑ Brodie, Thomas L. (2012). Beyond the quest for the historical Jesus: memoir of a discovery. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1907534584.
  208. 1 2 Brodie, Thomas L. (2000). The crucial bridge: the Elijah-Elisha narrative as an interpretive synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a literary model of the Gospels. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. pp. 1–3. ISBN 9780814659427.
  209. ↑ "Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus - Official Dominican Response to a Controversial Book". Doctrine and Life. Dominican Publications. May–June 2014.
  210. ↑ Barry, Cathal (2014-04-10). "Cleric faces dismissal over claim that Jesus Christ 'did not exist' ". irishcatholic.ie. Dublin: Irish Catholic. Archived from the original on 2016-04-12. Retrieved 2016-04-12.
  211. ↑ Doherty, Earl (September 2009). Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus. Age of Reason Publications. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 978-0-9689259-2-8.
  212. ↑ Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistoricity
  213. ↑ Lataster, Raphael (December 2014). "Richard Carrier: On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014; pp. xiv + 696.". Journal of Religious History. 38 (4): 614–616. doi:10.1111/1467-9809.12219. [Richard Carrier's hypothesis of ‘minimal mythicism’], highly influenced by the work of Earl Doherty, states that Jesus was initially believed to be a celestial figure, who came to be historicised over time.
  214. ↑ Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, by Earl Doherty
  215. ↑ Carrier, Richard (2014). On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. Sheffield Phoenix Press Limited. ISBN 978-1-909697-49-2.
  216. ↑ Tucker, Aviezer (February 2016). "The Reverend Bayes vs Jesus Christ". History and Theory. 55:1: 129–140. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  217. ↑ Van Biema, David; Ostling, Richard N.; and Towle, Lisa H. "The Gospel Truth?". Time magazine. April 8, 1996.
  218. ↑ 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.
  219. ↑ 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.
  220. ↑ Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus, pp. 15–16.
  221. ↑ Price, Robert M. (2000). Deconstructing Jesus, p. 86.
  222. ↑ Price, Robert. Deconstructing Jesus. Prometheus Books. p. 261. ISBN 1-57392-758-9.
  223. ↑ See Robert M. Price. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point", in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009, pp. 80–81.
  224. ↑ See Robert M. Price. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point", in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds.) The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity, 2009.
    1. There is no mention of a miracle working Jesus in secular sources. (p. 62)
    2. The epistles, which were written before the gospels, do not evidence a recent historical Jesus. (p. 63)
    3. The Jesus story shows strong parallels to other Mediterranean religions that were also based on gods that died and rose again. (p. 75)
  225. ↑ Darrell L. Bock (4 February 2010). "Response to Robert M. Price". In James K. Beilby. The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Paul Rhodes Eddy. InterVarsity Press. pp. 99–103. ISBN 978-0-8308-7853-6.
  226. ↑ Maurice Casey (16 January 2014). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths?. A&C Black. pp. 10, 24. ISBN 978-0-567-59224-8. [Per Scholars] I introduce here the most influential mythicists who claim to be ‘scholars’, though I would question their competence and qualifications. [...] Thomas L. Thompson was an American Catholic born in 1939 in Detroit. He was awarded a B.A. at Duquesne University, a Catholic university in Pittsburgh, USA, in 1962, and a Ph.D. at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1976. After several appointments, mostly in the USA, including the post of associate professor at Marquette University, a Jesuit, Roman Catholic university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1989-93), he was Professor of Theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993-2009. His early work, which is thought to have successfully refuted the attempts of Albright and others to defend the historicity of the most ancient parts of biblical literature history, is said to have negatively affected his future job prospects.
  227. ↑ http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/thomas-l-thompson/the-messiah-myth-the-near-eastern-roots-of-jesus-and-david-9780712668439.aspx
  228. ↑ Thompson, Thomas L. (20 April 2009). "Historicizing the Figure of Jesus, the Messiah". The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. Basic Books. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-7867-3911-0. The assumptions that (1) the gospels are about a Jesus of history and (2) expectations that have a role within a story’s plot were also expectations of a historical Jesus and early Judaism, as we will see, are not justified.
  229. ↑ Bart D. Ehrman (20 March 2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. pp. 11, 15. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6. [Per "A Brief History of Mythicism"] ...some of the more influential contemporary representatives who have revitalized the [Mythicism] view in recent years. [...] A different sort of support for a mythicist position comes in the work of Thomas L. Thompson, The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. Thompson is trained in biblical studies, but he does not have degrees in New Testament or early Christianity. He is, instead, a Hebrew Bible scholar who teaches at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. In his own field of expertise he is convinced that figures from the Hebrew Bible such as Abraham, Moses, and David never existed. He transfers these views to the New Testament and argues that Jesus too did not exist but was invented by Christians who wanted to create a savior figure out of stories found in the Jewish scriptures.
  230. ↑ Thompson, Thomas L. (20 April 2009). The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. Basic Books. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-7867-3911-0. Whether the gospels in fact are biographies—narratives about the life of a historical person—is doubtful. Their pedagogical and legendary character reduces their value for historical reconstruction. New Testament scholars commonly hold the opinion that a historical person would be something very different from the Christ (or messiah), with whom, for example, the author of the Gospel of Mark identifies his Jesus (Hebrew: Joshua = savior), opening his book with the statement: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s son.”
  231. ↑ Table of Contents
  232. ↑ Thompson, Thomas L.; Verenna, Thomas S. (2012). "Is this Not the Carpenter?": The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus. Equinox. ISBN 978-1-84553-986-3.
  233. ↑ Thomas L. Thompson; Thomas S. Verenna. "'Is This Not the Carpenter?' — Introduction". The Bible and Interpretation. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  234. ↑ Thompson, Thomas L. (July 2012). "Is This Not the Carpenter's Son? A Response to Bart Ehrman". The Bible and Interpretation. Mark Elliott, Patricia Landy. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  235. ↑ John Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross 1970 ISBN 978-0-9825562-7-6
  236. ↑ John Allegro The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth 1979 ISBN 978-0-879-75757-1
  237. 1 2 The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Peter Flint and James VanderKam (Jul 10, 2005) ISBN 056708468X T&T Clark pages 323-325
  238. ↑ The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea by Joan E. Taylor (Dec 14, 2012) ISBN 019955448X Oxford University Press p. 305
  239. ↑ Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 77
  240. ↑ Hall, Mark. "Foreword," in Allegro, John M. The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Christian Myth. Prometheus 1992, first published 1979, p. ix.
  241. ↑ Jenkins, Philip. Hidden Gospels. Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 180.
  242. ↑ A History of the Middle East by Saul S. Friedman (Mar 15, 2006) ISBN 0786423560 page 82
  243. ↑ Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Ph.D. A Biographical Sketch of his life and work, by Richard Alvin Sattelberg, B.A., M.S.., 2005
  244. ↑ "The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light" by Tom Harpur, Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto, 2004, ISBN 0-88762-145-7
  245. ↑ Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ (Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers, 2004)
  246. ↑ Porter, Stanley E.; Bedard, Stephen J. (2006). Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea. Clements Publishing Group. ISBN 9781894667715.
  247. ↑ Robert M. Price (2009). "Review - Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light reviewed by Robert M. Price". www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  248. ↑ Harpur, Tom (2008-11-06). Water Into Wine: An Empowering Vision of the Gospels. Dundurn.com. ISBN 9780887628276.
  249. ↑ А. В. Андреев (2015). "Дискуссия об историчности Иисуса Христа в советском религиоведении" (PDF). Вестник ПСТГУ (in Russian). Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  250. ↑ Гололоб Г. "Богословие и национальный вопрос" (in Russian). Библиотека Гумер. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  251. ↑ Lataster, Raphael (2014-12-18). "Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn't add up.". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2015-07-23.
  252. ↑ Gregory A. Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy Lord or Legend? Grand Rapids: Baker Books 2007 pp.45-47
  253. ↑ Ehrman 2012, p. 2.
  254. ↑ "Did Jesus Exist?". Huffington Post.
  255. 1 2 Hutchinson, Robert (2015). Searching for Jesus. Nashville: Nelson Books. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7180-1830-6.
  256. ↑ Casey, Maurice, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching (T&T Clark, 2010), pp.33, 104 & 499.
  257. ↑ Michael Grant (1977), Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels. Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 200.
  258. ↑ Dunkerley, Roderic, Beyond the Gospels (Penguin Books, 1957) p. 12.
  259. ↑ Betz, Otto, What Do We Know About Jesus? (SCM-Canterbury Press, 1968) p. 9.
  260. ↑ "The Academy Fellows". Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  261. ↑ Dickson, John (March 21, 2008). "Facts and friction of Easter". Brisbane Times. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  262. ↑ "Professor Alana Nobbs". Mq.edu.au. Macquarie University. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  263. ↑ Dickson, John. "Best of 2012: The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  264. ↑ Hoffmann, R. Joseph. "Threnody: Rethinking the Thinking behind The Jesus Project", bibleinterp.com, October 2009, accessed August 6, 2010.
  265. ↑ "Jesus 'not a real person' many believe". BBC News. 31 October 2015.

Sources

Habermas, Gary; Licona, Michael (2004). The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Kregel Publications. ISBN 9780825494109. 
Wells, G. A. (1969). "Stages of New Testament Criticism". Journal of the History of Ideas. JSTOR. 30 (2). JSTOR 2708429. 

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