Jesus myth theory



If I stop at not seeing any reason to doubt and take such details as fundamental foundations then I have become a fundamentalist who never allows critical inquiry to delve into the foundations of his belief system. The Jesus myth theory (also known as the Christ myth theory, Jesus mythicism and the nonexistence hypothesis, as well as Jesus ahistoricity) refers to several hypotheses that regard the New Testament accounts of the life of Jesus as so filled with myth and legend (as well as containing internal contradictions and historical irregularities) that at best one can extract no meaningful historical verification regarding Jesus of Nazareth (including his very existence) from them.

Some academics have accepted the Jesus myth theory, although most scholars in the field do not. As Archibald Robertson stated in his 1946 book, Jesus: Myth Or History, at least as far as John M. Robertson was concerned, the myth theory was not concerned with denying the possibility of a flesh-and-blood Jesus being involved in the Gospel account, but rather: "What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded". This definition is echoed by Ehrman (himself not a mythicist) in his 2012 book Did Jesus Exist?, when he summarizes the views of Earl Doherty: "In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity". In contrast, people who accept that Jesus was a flesh-and-blood man have been called Christ mythers. The most infamous of these was Sir James George Frazer ("My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth"), who along with John M. Robertson was grouped with those "who contested the historical existence of Jesus" by no less than.

Leading scholars on the question of the "historicity of Jesus"
I have long searched for good cases for the Historical Jesus. I sought fairly recent, peer-reviewed academic books or articles, solely/primarily focussed on arguing for Jesus’ historicity, written by secular scholars in relevant fields. Not one source met these criteria. I would have loved the opportunity to critique books focused on this topic written by a James Crossley or an Aaron W. Hughes, and published with Oxford University Press, but such books – perhaps like Jesus – do not exist; so I have settled for two popular books written by Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey. Per scholarship on the question of the "historicity of Jesus", Raphael Lataster identifies three positions held by scholars being, historicity as the mainstream position, while agnosticism and mythicism are non-mainstream positions.

The leading historicity scholars are and Bart Ehrman, whose individual works on the question of the "historicity of Jesus"—as a sustained argument that Jesus lived—are not comparable to any other work by a contemporary scholar who also holds the historicity position. Casey and Ehrman are the only contemporary "secular" scholars to comprehensively address this issue, as Ehrman writes, "Odd as it may seem, no scholar of the New Testament has ever thought to put together a sustained argument that Jesus must have lived." (Possibly this is because traditionally, Christians have simply assumed his existence.) Ehrman also notes that his book Did Jesus Exist? was written for a popular audience and that in regards to the question of the historicity of Jesus, "I was not arguing the case for scholars, because scholars already know the answer to that question." (Never mind that scholars don't know any such thing, hence the reason for this article.)

One of the contemporary mythicism scholars is Richard Carrier, who—as asserted by Lataster—"seems to be the first to examine the issue of Jesus’ historicity by incorporating a direct and probabilistic (and also logically exhaustive) comparative analysis of the plausible hypotheses." Which is the basis for Carrier's sustained argument for Jesus’ ahistoricity, which is not comparable to any other work by a contemporary scholar who also holds the mythicism position. Other leading mythicism scholars include, , etc..

Leading mythicism scholars do not not assert that the historicity of Jesus is a black or white scenario, R. M. Price writes, “I don’t think you can ‘prove’ either that a historical Jesus existed or that he didn’t. What you can do. . . is to construe the same old evidence in a new way that makes more natural, less contrived, sense”; and Carrier gives at best a 1 in 3 (~33%) chance that Jesus existed. Carrier writes, "I am not engaging in “tactics.” I am simply stating what is true. If I had found the odds of historicity to be 50/50, that’s what I would have reported my findings to be. I reported what I found." (Like Ehrman, Carrier may be letting his own biases creep in here, as his 1 in 3 chances relies heavily on personal judgement and, potentially, bias.)

Agnosticism scholars
For all the evidence anyone has ever adduced from the Epistles (once we exclude those known to be forged): it is ambiguous as to whether an earthly or celestial Jesus is being referred to. The Gospels I found wholly symbolically fictional and not even interested in actual history. And the Jesus in them I found to be so very like other mythical persons of the period. And then I found that no other evidence can be shown to be independent of the Gospels. At the very least, putting all of that together should make agnosticism about the historicity of Jesus a credible conclusion.

The leading agnosticism scholar is Raphael Lataster, who argues that flaws in the work of Casey and Ehrman justify a de-facto position of agnosticism. Lataster writes, "Ehrman should recognise that the middle ground is usually where the most rational views reside, and would also do well to recognise that the Historical Jesus agnostics should actually be paid far more attention than the sometimes ‘extreme’ mythicists" and further "Ehrman appears to set up a false dichotomy, a black or white scenario, as many Christian believers do in arguing over God's existence and other Christian claims, with no reasonable middle ground".

Agnosticism scholars often hold that the historicity of Jesus is not relevant to understanding early Christianity. Tom Dykstra writes, "As for the question of whether Jesus existed, the best answer is that any attempt to find a historical Jesus is a waste of time. It can’t be done, it explains nothing, and it proves nothing." While Emanuel Pfoh warns, "The main reason for holding to the historicity of the [gospel] figure of Jesus . . . resides not primarily in historical evidence but derives instead from a modern theological necessity." writes that, "most present-day theologians also accept that large parts of the Gospel stories are, if not fictional, at least not to be taken at face value as historical accounts. On the other hand, no theologian seems to be able to . . . admit that the question of the historicity of Jesus must be judged to be an open one."

writes:

writes: And writes:

Funk, Davies, and Hoffmann admit to the plausibility of mythicism, but not to its probability; they all believe the historicity of Jesus is more probable. "But even that" Carrier opines, "would be progress, if it became the consensus position [i.e. that mythicism is at least plausibile] (as Davies among them did explicitly argue for)."

Agnosticism scholars are often mischaracterized as "Mythicism scholars" by those who fail to understand that while agnosticism scholars may find some points of mythicism plausible, that does not imply that said scholars are asserting that these points of mythicism are the most probable or that the argument has been resolved in favor of mythicism. Neil Godfrey writes:

Philosophy scholars
Where testimony/documents weave together a narrative that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims, and there is good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims, then there is good reason to be sceptical about the mundane claims, at least until we possess good independent evidence of their truth.

Stephen Law holds that for Jesus—in the context of the contamination principle—we have no good independent evidence for the mundane claim that Jesus existed. Therefore the Gospels' inordinate amount of myth and fabulation about Jesus actually leave us in doubt whether he existed. Concurring with Law, Carrier writes, "The more fabulous the only tales we have of someone are, the more likely we doubt their historicity, unless we have some good mundane corroboration for them. Hence we doubt the existence of Hercules, Dionysus, Romulus, and so on" and "Jesus is one of the most mythified persons in human history."

Law's position is challenged by Robert G. Cavin and Carlos A. Colombetti who in collaboration, present four items of evidence (see Cavin & Colombetti's evidence). They also invoke a Bayesian 0.99 prior probability for mundane claims about a historical Jesus. Lataster notes the "incredible assumption" made by Cavin and Colombetti, such that "their 'bracketing' of the material in the sources makes the incredible assumption that the obviously mythical material should not at all make us sceptical about the rest" and further "Cavin and Colombetti would be happy to proclaim the 0.00001% of a story's mundane claims as being almost certainly true, even if 99.99999% of the story consisted of supernatural fiction."

Rejecting Cavin & Colombetti's "resort to illogical Christian apologetics", Carrier writes, "Stripped down to its purest generalization, Law’s principle essentially argues that when instead we have evidence for a source’s unreliability, the probability of any mundane detail in the story being true doesn’t increase. It stays at 50/50 . . . . Until we get good independent evidence for it. Cavin & Colombetti present no logically valid or factually sound objection to this conclusion." Lataster writes:

Scholars on Pre-Christian myth
spent a lifetime trying to get us beyond the taboo of suggesting Christians may have borrowed some customs and beliefs from contemporaneous pagan religions. Smith said we should look for analogies and comparisons and we should shun the apologetic, untenable idea of uniqueness. Stop worrying about who borrowed from whom, and start looking for shared ideas and cross-fertilization. However, the camp seems to have won decisively. For any facet of Christianity, if a modern scholar finds any possible link to Judaism, that must be where it came from. If it sounds remotely close to something in the OT or any Jewish writing, you can stop looking. There are never any Christian precursors in the pagan traditions, and anyone who says differently must be laughed out of the room.

Smith held that the famous “dying and rising god” mytheme was a modern myth—not an ancient one. However Carrier asserts that per the Dying-and-Rising God Mytheme, Smith “didn’t even address 99% of the evidence for it, but flat out ignored almost all of it”.

While Smith clearly retreated from the “dying and rising god” mytheme, Widowfield observes that, "Smith doubted the usefulness of the dying-and-rising-god motif because it was too Christian-centric and carried too much historical baggage — with scholars who worried about who adopted what from whom instead of what it all meant to adherents."

One of the leading scholars on pre-Christian myth, John Granger Cook, asserts—contra Smith—that the continued use of the category of dying and rising gods is justified, writing:

Other scholars such as and Paola Corrente have also concluded that the mytheme was extant prior to Christianity. Corrente notes that "three gods from Mesopotamia, Ugarit and Greece – or say from Mesopotamia, from Near East and from Greece – which are, like, the most certain examples of a god who dies and comes back, are ignored usually."

R. M. Price holds that per mythicism the dying and rising god issue is a moot point and does not significantly reflect on the mythicism v. historicism debate. Price states:

Carrier argues that the "Dying-and-Rising God Mytheme" is a sub-mytheme of the "Savior-God Mytheme", both of which were culturally prevalent during the period and region in question, and that a recognition of this historical fact is critical to understanding how Christianity arose. Carrier writes:

Scholars on Mark allegorizing the teachings of Paul
One of the particularly ironic aspects of the Markan story is that those closest to Jesus, both his relatives and his handpicked associates [the disciples ], misunderstand and even oppose him. Not just once, but repeatedly, constantly, throughout the story from beginning to end. His family thinks he’s gone mad.

It is commonly maintained that the Gospel of Mark was originally written in Greek and is the (composed c. 70 CE, after the destruction of the Second Temple). The with Old Testament (OT) scripture has been recognized by scholars such as ,  ,  , and R. G. Price. Brodie writes, "Since around 1970 an alternative explanation of the New Testament and related texts has been emerging. Researchers are recognizing precise ways in which New Testament texts are explained as depending not on oral tradition but on older literature, especially older scripture." While regards the Markan story as midrashic fiction in virtually every detail, other scholars see this reliance on OT scripture as a function of Mark allegorizing the teachings of Paul. Carrier writes, "Mark’s whole Gospel feels like it has been inspired by Paul’s teachings. Its narrative is inordinately concerned with Gentiles and the criticism of Jewish legalism." Some paradigmatic examples are: "The Pauline Chiasmus", "Jesus on Taxation", and "The Last Supper". Dykstra writes:

In the Markan story, Jesus is written about as an allegorical type of person on earth conversing with humans and spirits. Jesus also does many inexplicable things and speaks in ways that his hearers do not understand. In the end, Mark’s Jesus is abandoned and rejected by all the Jews. A recognition of the original ending of the Markan story is significant to this conclusion i.e. the women did not understand and told no one: "The End" (see Gospel of Mark §. Alternate endings).

In the case of the disciples in the Markan story, Samuel Sandmel writes, "I allege that Mark regards them as villains.” R. M. Price opines that the author's treatment of the disciples in the Markan text as "buffoons and dullards" is consistent with Marcion's viewpoint. Therefore a possible conclusion is that the Markan text may be related to Marcion's work in some way, such as both authors being from the same "haireseis" school/faction. This possibility is given greater weight in light of Marcion being the initial collector and redactor of the Pauline material.

“What,” Dykstra asks, “could have prompted someone to undertake the composition of Mark at the specific time it was written so long after the history it recounts? One hypothesis that makes sense of the known facts is that the same groups involved in creating the epistles simply added a new tactic—that of narrative—to their literary repertoire. The change in tactics may have been occasioned by the death of Paul and the realization that the effectiveness of his personal authority in the ongoing [gospel message] battle was diminishing"; and R. G. Price asserts that the Markan Jesus was a literary device patterned on the apostle Paul, which was used by the author of Mark’s gospel in writing an allegorical lesson—never meant to be taken literally—about the . R. G. Price writes:

Carrier writes:

Scholars on Paul's second god

 * ''See Second-god (Christ) §. Paul for more details.

All [the evidence historicists cite] from the Epistles [is] hopelessly vague and theological, not plain references to an earthly life of Jesus at all. Which is already by itself extremely strange. Why is this all we have, and not numerous debates and discussions and questions about Jesus’ ministry and trial and death or his miracles or parables or how he chose or affected or instructed the people who knew him? How has Paul never heard of the word “disciple” or that anyone was Jesus’ hand-picked representative in life? Why is he always weirdly vague; for instance, ascribing the death of Jesus to “archons of this eon” (1 Corinthians 2:6–10), which he characterizes as spiritual rather than terrestrial forces (as he there says they would understand esoteric details of God’s planned magical formulae), rather than to “Pontius Pilate” or “the Romans” or “the Jews”? Why does he never say Jesus’ death occurred “in Jerusalem”? How can Paul avoid in some 20,000 words ever making any clear reference to Jesus being on Earth? How can every question, argument, or opposition he ever faced have avoided referencing things Jesus said or did in life? He never referenced them. He never had them cited against him. He is never asked about them. That’s weird. And weird is just another word for improbable. Unless the only Jesus any Christians yet knew, was a revealed being, not an earthly minister.

Carrier asserts that certain aspects of Paul's Jesus (being "a preexistent superbeing, who eventually had a body of flesh manufactured for him so he could die") are confirmed by Philo and by the author of Hebrews. Carrier writes:

Philo, a (see Word of God §. Hellenistic Judaism and logos), wrote that the archangel (second-god) he worshiped had many names, but the only specific name Philo ever mentions this angel having is Anatole (Rising One). However Philo does attribute to this second-god elements that Paul also attributes to his second-god, such as: And from other of the earliest Christian documents: Furthermore Philo also interprets the Jesus in Zechariah 6 as this angel. Therefore Philo must also have believed this second-god was not just named Anatole but also named Jesus. Carrier writes:
 * Firstborn son of God ← Romans 8:29.
 * Celestial image of God ← 2 Corinthians 4:4.
 * God's Agent of Creation ← 1 Corinthians 8:6.
 * God's celestial high priest ← Hebrews 2:17 4:14, etc.

The Christology of Paul establishes the celestial pre-existence of Jesus and identifies him as (Lord). The Pauline epistles use Kyrios to identify Jesus almost 230 times, and express the theme that the true mark of a Christian is the confession of Jesus as the true Lord, rather than perhaps the "Daemon Lord Sarapis" or else some similar "False Lord". Frances Young writes:

Reading Paul’s words in the context they were in ("which is of a strongly affirmed honor/shame society, as analyzed by the likes of et al." ) then it is highly probable that Paul promoted the viewpoint that Christians should not dishonor the true god lord (i.e. second-god) and its father (i.e. first-god) by giving titles of honor—such as kyrios (lord) and theos (god)—to evil beings. However as Carrier notes, "Just because Jews [including Paul] tried to avoid the specific Greek word theos when speaking of any other deity . . . simply for reasons of honor and to avoid offense, does not mean they did not regard other beings as gods." Thus Paul held a position of Christian monolatrism derived from the honor-based monolatry of Judaism. Carrier writes:

One of the most relevant questions is: Did a group of Jews prior to Paul worship/revere a celestial second-god with similar attributes as those Paul attributed to his celestial Jesus, his Christ lord, his second-god? Lataster writes:

Many Jewish sects were extant during the period in question that may have influenced or even competed with the Jewish sect that Paul joined—now termed as the original "Christian" sect—which may have originally been named "The Brothers of the Lord". Carrier writes:

Christian peshers
PesherHebrew for ‘commentary’ and particularly used for commentaries on the OT in the Dead Sea scrolls, which looked for hidden meanings in the text which were seen to apply to and to justify the community's way of life. The NT use of OT texts has some similarity with this method…

Peter as the putative founder of Christianity may have created a pesher that he used to recruit followers to his cult. This hypothetical pesher would have revealed God's plan for Jesus to bring about salvation.

The Markan text was written at least forty years after the Christian religion began (then an average human lifetime), and thus was responding to recent events (the destruction of Jerusalem). We can not explain the origins of Christianity by appealing to the Markan text or to the author's motives; The Markan text is a latecomer that was responding to profound changes in the religion and its circumstances. The religion itself began long before it was known that the Romans would actually destroy Jerusalem (early Christian thinking was then more in line with Daniel, which never mentions this, but only the temple’s “desecration,” after which God and his angels would destroy everything).

The name Jesus as an alias
The first Christians believed Jesus was an eternal being who descended from what they understood to be outer space. Darrell Hannah asserts that the name Jesus was an alias for the Archangel Michael, an alias that means God’s Messianic Savior, suggesting that the name is fabricated: Christ means Anointed ergo Messiah/Messianic; and Jesus, i.e. Joshua, i.e. Yeshua, means God’s Savior.

Paul Davidson notes that the belief in an Archangel with a "multifaceted, cosmic identity wasn’t introduced by an itinerant Galilean preacher, nor did it originate with the teachings of the early apostles, for the notion of a divine saviour described in these terms was already widespread in Judaism before Christianity was born." Writing:

Scholars on Mark allegorizing the teachings of Paul
One of the particularly ironic aspects of the Markan story is that those closest to Jesus, both his relatives and his handpicked associates [the disciples ], misunderstand and even oppose him. Not just once, but repeatedly, constantly, throughout the story from beginning to end. His family thinks he’s gone mad.

It is commonly maintained that the Gospel of Mark was originally written in Greek and is the (composed c. 70 CE, after the destruction of the Second Temple). The with Old Testament (OT) scripture has been recognized by scholars such as ,  ,  , and R. G. Price. Brodie writes, "Since around 1970 an alternative explanation of the New Testament and related texts has been emerging. Researchers are recognizing precise ways in which New Testament texts are explained as depending not on oral tradition but on older literature, especially older scripture." While regards the Markan story as midrashic fiction in virtually every detail, other scholars see this reliance on OT scripture as a function of Mark allegorizing the teachings of Paul. Carrier writes, "Mark’s whole Gospel feels like it has been inspired by Paul’s teachings. Its narrative is inordinately concerned with Gentiles and the criticism of Jewish legalism." Some paradigmatic examples are: "The Pauline Chiasmus", "Jesus on Taxation", and "The Last Supper". Dykstra writes:

In the Markan story, Jesus is written about as an allegorical type of person on earth conversing with humans and spirits. Jesus also does many inexplicable things and speaks in ways that his hearers do not understand. In the end, Mark’s Jesus is abandoned and rejected by all the Jews. A recognition of the original ending of the Markan story is significant to this conclusion i.e. the women did not understand and told no one: "The End" (see Gospel of Mark §. Alternate endings).

In the case of the disciples in the Markan story, Samuel Sandmel writes, "I allege that Mark regards them as villains.” R. M. Price opines that the author's treatment of the disciples in the Markan text as "buffoons and dullards" is consistent with Marcion's viewpoint. Therefore a possible conclusion is that the Markan text may be related to Marcion's work in some way, such as both authors being from the same "haireseis" school/faction. This possibility is given greater weight in light of Marcion being the initial collector and redactor of the Pauline material.

“What,” Dykstra asks, “could have prompted someone to undertake the composition of Mark at the specific time it was written so long after the history it recounts? One hypothesis that makes sense of the known facts is that the same groups involved in creating the epistles simply added a new tactic—that of narrative—to their literary repertoire. The change in tactics may have been occasioned by the death of Paul and the realization that the effectiveness of his personal authority in the ongoing [gospel message] battle was diminishing"; and R. G. Price asserts that the Markan Jesus was a literary device patterned on the apostle Paul, which was used by the author of Mark’s gospel in writing an allegorical lesson—never meant to be taken literally—about the . R. G. Price writes:

Carrier writes:

Mark's bizarre geography
[The LXX Books of Isaiah and Ezekiel] depict Galilee of the Gentiles as specially appointed to receive salvation in the messianic age, and, further, as a land which will be one of the first to experience God’s deliverance. The writer of Isa. viii. 23–ix. 6 proclaims that the light of the messianic day will disperse the shadow of death lying over “Galilee of the Gentiles”; and the LXX text of ch. viii. 23 begins with a notable addition. . . that God will pour forth this light of His salvation first upon Galilee. . . according to Ezek. xlvii. 1–12, the prophet beholds a river issuing from under the threshold of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. . . . and it was flowing towards Galilee (verse 8)!

The Book of Isaiah anticipates that emissaries will preach the word of God to the Gentiles and that a savior figure will restore the Jews that were disenfranchised by the and who still continue to live among the Gentiles in regions like Galilee. The Intertextuality of the Markan text and Isaiah has been recognized by many scholars. The Markan text can be divided by geographical designation as Mk 1.14-6.13 being the "Galilean ministry" and Mk 6.14-8.26 being the "Ministry beyond Galilee". Jesus conducts much of his ministry in, which was then known at the time as a region that contained a mixed Jewish and Gentile population. Whereas Jerusalem, located in the preeminent region of Jewish identity, is the place where the Jews reject Jesus.

Many scholars have concluded that the author of Mark was not familiar with the geography presented in the text, thus the author must have lived and written someplace else, e.g. Alexandria. However some scholars assert that the bizarre geography in the Markan text is understandable as intertextual OT geography. C. C. McCown writes:

It is inexplicable that the author of Mark uses the toponym "Sea of Galilee" given that no other writer before had ever referred to this lake as a sea with the western side being a Jewish region and the eastern side being a Gentile region. Some scholars hold that in the Markan text the "Sea of Galilee" is symbolic of the Mediterranean Sea as an allusion to the greater Pauline mission throughout the Roman Empire. Jennifer Wilkinson writes, "The [Markan] evangelist shows a great awareness and interest in the Graeco-Roman city territories surrounding Galilee: Gerasa (Mk 5.1); Tyre and Sidon (7.24-31); Caesarea Philippi (8.27) and the Decapolis (5.20; 7.31), and has Jesus himself travelling into these areas."

The author of Mark refers to Jesus from Nazareth (ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲτ) once, and to Jesus the Nazarene (Ναζαρηνοῦ) four times. Even in the unlikely event that the Markan text's single reference to "Jesus from Nazareth" is original, there is no specific information presented within the text that unambiguously identifies Jesus as a resident of Nazareth rather than just passing through Nazareth en route to the Jordan river. Also if original, "Jesus from Nazareth" is most likely an intertextual allusion to OT geography or a sect—divergent from the Essenes. Carrier writes:

René Salm is the author of two Nazareth books which are currently largely ignored by mainstream scholarship (as is also the case with the field of Jesus Mythicism in general). Salm has been successful in casting some doubt on the traditional view that Nazareth—Jesus’ putative hometown—was a viable settlement at the turn of the era (which was also located on the brow of a hill and sufficiently large to have a crowd and a synagogue as depicted e.g. in the Gospel of Luke 4:16–30). Furthermore, Salm alleges that archaeologists at the archaeological site now called Nazareth (as well as at other venues of religious significance) have engaged in a lengthy history of misrepresenting and misdating evidence for both confessional and commercial reasons. In NazarethGate, Salm alleges that a key witness to the existence of Nazareth in Roman times, the so-called “Caesarea Inscription”, is a modern forgery (see Nazareth §. Archaeology).

Mark's reliance on Jesus ben Ananias/Hananiah
[The Markan] sequence of the Passover narrative appears to be based on the tale of another Jesus: Jesus ben Ananias, the ‘Jesus of Jerusalem’, an insane prophet active in the 60s CE who is then killed in the siege of Jerusalem (roughly in the year 70).

His story is told by Josephus in the Jewish War, and unless Josephus invented him, his narrative must have been famous, famous enough for Josephus to know of it, and thus famous enough for Mark to know of it, too, and make use of it to model the tale of his own Jesus.

Or if Josephus invented the tale then Mark evidently used Josephus as a source. Because the parallels are too numerous to be at all probable as a coincidence. [citation no. 86.]

[...]

86. Theodore Weeden, ‘Two Jesuses, Jesus of Jerusalem and Jesus of Nazareth: Provocative Parallels and Imaginative Imitation’, Forum N.S. 6.2 (Fall 2003), pp. 137- 341; Craig Evans, ‘Jesus in Non-Christian Sources’, in Studying the Historical Jesus (ed. Chilton and Evans), pp. 443-78 (475-77).

Carrier clarifies his citation of Weeden and Evans in OHJ, writing:

Weeden asserts that the Markan text is reliant on Josephus' report of in part due to many obvious parallels between them. Weeden also holds that Jesus-Ananias was not a real historical person active in the 60s ce, but was an invention of Josephus. Thus the Markan text could not have been written before the early 80s CE.

Mark's inadvertent reliance on Hyrcanus II
In the same way [as demonstrated with other unrelated but likewise dislocated accounts], Josephus’s John the Baptist story reads as a doublet or different version of Hyrcanus II chronologically dislocated to the time of the wrong Herod. In this case Josephus did not place the two versions of the death of Hyrcanus II close together in the same time setting as in some of the other cases of doublets. If Josephus had done that, the doublet in this case would have been recognized before now. Instead, Josephus mistakenly attached one of the traditions of the death of Hyrcanus II to the wrong Herod, just as he separately mistakenly attached documents to the wrong Hyrcanus. [...] If this analysis is correct—that Josephus misplaced this story to the wrong Herod in Antiquities—then there is no attestation external to the New Testament of the Gospels’ figure of John the Baptist of the 30s CE. The implication would seem to be this: either or These issues are beyond the scope of this paper.
 * the Gospels’ John the Baptist has been generated in the story world of the Gospels,
 * he derives from a different [unevidenced] figure than Josephus’s John the Baptist, [and then was] secondarily conflated with Josephus’s John the Baptist.

It is commonly maintained that the composition of the John story found in Antiquities postdates and is derivative from the John the Baptist story found in the Gospel of Mark. However Gregory Doudna argues that this premise needs to be questioned, Doudna writes, "There needs to be consideration given to an inversion of that premise, in which literary influence operated in the reverse direction from what has been assumed", Doudna furthur states:

Per Doudna, "Where my proposal differs from prevailing conceptions is in understanding the Antiquities passage as coming from a Jewish source telling a story of an undated John killed by an undated Herod, a tradition of the death of Hyrcanus II at the hands of Herod the Great, mistakenly dated by Josephus to the wrong Herod–and the Antiquities story generates the stories of the Gospel of Mark re John the Baptist rather than vice versa."

Brad McAdon notes the similarities between the Markan text and Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus:

Pseudo-scholars
While some works by mythicists could be said to be characterised by a particular explanatory or rhetorical style common to conspiracy literature and contain conspiracies. . . most do not.

Leading mythicist scholars are often ignored by critics who prefer bashing low-hanging fruit like the movie Zeitgeist which credits the pseudoscholarly work of Acharya S (who in turn credits the pseudoscholarly work of ). An example of this is Maurice Casey's  Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? and his virtual non-engagement with the Doherty–Carrier celestial Jesus argument. Justin Meggitt writes:

Historical method
New Testament scholars should concede that the kind of history that is deemed acceptable in their field is, at best, somewhat eccentric. Most biblical scholars would be a little unsettled if, for example, they read an article about Apollonius of Tyana in a journal of ancient history that began by arguing for the historicity of supernatural events before defending the veracity of the miracles ascribed to him yet would not be unsurprised to see an article making the same arguments in a journal dedicated to the study of the historical Jesus.

A protest often heard from biblical scholars is that historians cannot apply the same rigorous standards to ancient sources as they do to modern ones or they would not be able to say very much about ancient times. Those who believe “standards must be lowered” for ancient sources fail to realize that—given the limitations of ancient sources—the types of questions historians can ask of them must be more limited. Lataster writes:

Criteria of authenticity
The idea of formulating certain “criteria” for an evaluation of historical sources is a peculiar phenomenon in historical-critical Jesus research. It was established in the course of the twentieth century. . . and it does not, to my knowledge, appear in other strands of historical research.

Historical Jesus scholars have often used "Criteria of Authenticity" in order to assess what sayings or deeds of Jesus are most likely historical. Of course, such criteria are built on the assumption that there was a historical Jesus whose sayings and actions could be tested for historicity. Critics of mythicism have attempted to use some of these criteria to rebut the view that Jesus did not exist.

Crucifixion, for example, was a shameful death so no follower of Jesus would have made that up. However scholars like Lataster point to the obvious: Jewish and Christian martyrs found great honor—according even to their scriptures—in being shamefully treated and persecuted by the unjust.

Another dubious claim is that vivid details in the gospel narratives are indicators of eyewitness sources. Lataster cites a range of scholars, including biblical ones, who raise doubts about such a claim; and he also notes many examples of vividly told fiction. Carrier asserts that: "Verisimilitude is . . . just as likely to be found in fiction as history; it is what mythographers aimed to create. 'Verisimilitude' therefore cannot be evidence warranting our putting the same trust in the private, uncorroborated details of a tall tale that we can put in the public, corroborated incidentals that [said] tale is colored with. To behave otherwise is simply to codify gullibility."

Rejecting the "Criteria of Authenticity", Carrier writes:

Daniel Gullotta notes that per the criteria of authenticity, "Many of Carrier’s concerns and criticisms have been longed noted and echoed by other historical Jesus scholars." In support of this claim, Gullotta presents an extensive list of citations that were also given in Carrier's 2012 Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (pp. 11, 293f, n. 2-7). Gullotta additionally presents the following citations that were not given by Carrier in his 2012 work:

Since the "entire field of Jesus studies has thus been left without any valid method", then how is the historicity of Jesus defended by contemporary scholars? Carrier writes:

Faith and inconsistency
[Hector Avalos takes issue with] Biblical scholars who simply accept (at least in part, as supernatural claims may be omitted) what the gospels say about Jesus, and also takes issue with scholars “privileging” the texts. . . . Avalos claims that Biblical scholarship is primarily a religionist enterprise and also criticises the use of the Bible as a reliable source of history.

Scholars such as and  make the same sorts of criticism of the methods of their peers, as those leveled by Lataster against said peers—being scholars who really do seem to be operating within a bubble of logical and methodological flaws. Lataster further cites examples of these scholars appealing to “hermeneutics of charity” in which they insist that scholars should assume “traditions” found in the gospels should be accepted as authentic until someone points out clear reasons not to.

Another problem is the supernatural in the gospel narratives. It is not sufficient to remove the supernatural and then suspect the mundane remnant of having some probable historicity (see §.Philosophy scholars). Very often it is the supernatural that is the very point of the story; remove the supernatural and one has removed anything of interest. The supernatural is not the embellishment; it is the core of and the reason for the story.

The most problematic issue of historical Jesus scholarship is the extent to which Christian scholars—and many atheists—tend to assume that the gospels contain some historical core material or are derived from reports of historical events (see Gospels as history). Lataster writes, "Using the Gospels to argue for Jesus’ existence may be circular reasoning. Arguing from external sources would generally result in a much more convincing case."

A common objection is that “ahistoricists” or “mythicists” do not have an alternative explanation for Christian origins. However given Paul’s testimony that he hallucinated a Jesus constructed from the Jewish Scriptures, it only need be shown—as Narve Strand asserts—"that the historicist doesn’t have real evidence that would make his purely human Jesus existing more probable than not." Lataster writes:

Academic consensus
[U]nlike ‘guilds’ in professions such as law or medicine, it is not apparent what members of the ‘guild’ of biblical scholars have in common, other than a shared object of study and competence in a few requisite languages, and therefore what value an alleged consensus among them really has, especially on what is a historical rather than a linguistic matter.

The increasingly common view of Jesus among New Testament scholars as of 2007 is that "historical research can indeed disclose a core of historical facts about Jesus", but "the Jesus we find at this historical core is significantly different from the legendary view presented in the New Testament".

A small minority, past and present, believe there is insufficient justification to assume any individual human seed for the stories, representing an extreme in the other end of belief (see ).

It should be noted that at least one anthropology paper states in both its abstract and main text "there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived".

Carrier asserts that the the modern consensus is not reliable, writing:

Carrier's work on historical method, Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus promotes the use of to analyze highly uncertain problems in history, as Carrier notes, "All historians use it, unknowingly, to generate every claim they make about history."

In June 2014, Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 1-909697-49-2 became "the first comprehensive pro-Jesus myth book ever published by a respected academic press and under formal peer review". It should be noted, however, that the extent of the peer review was two reviews solicited from friends of Carrier.

Given that Carrier asserts that Philo interprets the Jesus in Zechariah 6 as the archangel (second-god) Philo worshiped (see §.Scholars on Paul's second god), and that  disputes this assertion, Carrier demonstrates with the following imaginary thought exercise how a scholar of history should respond when a disagreement arises with another scholar of history's assertions that challenge the current consensus:

Historicity is the consensus only by assumption
[There has] been no peer reviewed monograph in defense of the assumption of historicity for over a hundred years—not since Shirley Jackson Case published a now-deeply-outdated treatment for the University of Chicago in 1912 (a second edition released in 1928 isn’t substantially different). [...] Which is why it’s fair to say historicity is only the consensus now by assumption, not argument; because no new defense of it has appeared. Instead, excuses are thrown together here and there for believing that assumption valid, which are all ad hoc, contradictory, contrafactual, or fallacious, and altogether ignore competing theories rather than properly ruling them out.

The consensus among many historians is that the historicity of Jesus is true, and that therefore the ahistoricity of Jesus is false. However, very few historians have actually studied this question in depth or published peer-reviewed scholarship on the question; rather they are just themselves the consensus that they have been taught (see ).

Additionally there is a significant difference between a scientific consensus and “Academic Consensus”, and they are often wrongly conflated. A scientific consensus is a product of the scientific process—arrived at through the collection of data and by conducting experiments—however in contrast, “Academic Consensus” as R. G. Price notes "is much broader and is not necessarily based on scientific rigor." Benjamin Cain writes:

Bart Ehrman writes, "I would say that most biblical scholars in fact are not historians. But some are.  It depends on what their interests and expertise are." Which then raises the question: Is Bart Ehrman a Historian? Ehrman claims to be a Historian, but then he also claims that the existence of Jesus is entirely certain. To which Philip Davies responds, "[Per Jesus] a recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability." Carrier writes:

The Jesus ahistoricity theory is the of the Jesus historicity theory. However a thesis/antithesis definition is problematic because while the consensus among many historians is that the historicity of Jesus is true, what they mean by the term "Jesus"—other than an entirely Earth based Homo sapient specimen (non-extant)—is anybody's guess. PZ Myers opines that the meaning of “historical Jesus” is problematic, writing:

Raphael Lataster writes:

asserts that "the 'historical Jesus' is properly speaking a nineteenth- and twentieth-century [re]construction using the data provided by the Synoptic tradition, not Jesus back then and not a figure in history whom we can realistically use to critique the portrayal of Jesus in the Synoptic tradition." Numerous NT scholars have nominated their preferred reconstruction of "Jesus" as a candidate for "the" real historical Jesus. With no indication for which reconstruction (if any) is correct.

David M. Litwa writes:

Albert Schweitzer writes:

"What" Philip Davies asks, "does it mean to affirm that ‘Jesus existed’, anyway, when so many different Jesuses are displayed for us by the ancient sources and modern NT scholars? Logically, some of these Jesuses cannot have existed. So in asserting historicity, it is necessary to define which ones (rabbi, prophet, sage, shaman, revolutionary leader, etc.) are being affirmed—and thus which ones deemed unhistorical. In fact, as things stand, what is being affirmed as the Jesus of history is a cipher, not a rounded personality . . . Does this matter very much? After all, the rise and growth of Christianity can be examined and explained without the need to reconstruct a particular historical Jesus." Carrier reports that a similar viewpoint (i.e. "Jesus Studies" suffer from an " per the historical Jesus) was also presented by R. Joseph Hoffmann at the 2008 Amherst, New York conference:

Ironically, based on some of the definitions provided,       these could be said to qualify as Jesus myth theory positions. As Ehrman notes: "Other writers who are often placed in the mythicist camp present a slightly different view, namely, that there was indeed a historical Jesus but that he was not the founder of Christianity, a religion rooted in the mythical Christ-figure invented by its original adherents." Carrier gives the following definition:

R. G. Price opines that: "The 'minimal Jesus' is a very odd thing that, for some reason, many people are drawn to, but in fact it makes no sense and isn’t really supported by any data. It’s more like just a sort of personal bargaining chip that people throw out so that they can both agree that the Gospels are exaggerations that don’t tell us anything meaningful and also that mythicism is bunk."

Some secular scholars do secretly hold a Jesus ahistoricity viewpoint or agnosticism viewpoint and have stated their positions, in confidence, to Carrier. These scholars wish to remain apart from the public debate because of the negative response that going public would entail. Carrier writes:

Bias, bias, everywhere and no logic anywhere
[T]he majority of biblical historians in academia are employed by religiously affiliated institutions. This fact alone explains much of the resistance to Jesus Myth theory even among scholars who personally identify as secular. Furthermore, of those schools, we can quantify that at least 41% (if not 100%) require their instructors and staff to publicly reject Jesus Myth or they will not have a career at that institute of higher learning. So the question shouldn’t be: “How many historians reject mythicism?” but “How many historians are contractually obliged to publicly reject mythicism?”

Carrier has documented systemic dishonesty in the ranks of "Defenders of the Historicity of Jesus", writing:

A simple to weed out potentially biased non-secular scholars is to ask the following: Do these scholars have an on-the-record position, in clear and unambiguous language, without equivocation for the  and the ?

Additionally the following questions should be presented to any secular or non-secular "Defender of the Historicity of Jesus":
 * What is the "minimal theory of historicity" that they hold? (And then compare it with Carrier's rigorous and robust "minimal theory of historicity")?
 * Do they denounce the scholars and the enablers that are party to the systemic censorship of found within religiously affiliated institutions?

Many critics of leading mythicist scholarship assume that the motivation behind the arguments is a hostility towards religion in general and Christianity in particular. However that will not fly (so to speak), since the worst way for anyone to attempt to undermine a person’s faith is to deny the very existence of the figure at the center of their faith. Carrier opines that one should "Dump the strategy of arguing that Christianity (or the New Testament, or this or that teaching, or anything whatever) is false 'because Jesus didn’t exist.'" Lataster writes, "Christian believers should generally not become involved in this debate, nor should non-believers thrust it upon them. . . . I have no desire to upset Christians." James Crossley writes:

Reversal of the consensus on “minimalism”
Biblical minimalism grows out of the failure of biblical archaeology’s efforts to provide a critical history of Israel. . . . our [Lemche, Davies, Thompson, et al.] history (of Palestine) is evidence-based in archaeology and contemporary inscriptions rather than biblical narrative, as in biblical archaeology.

[...]

In 1991 and 1992, however, the publication of new works by Lemche, Davies and me, concluding in a rejection of the historicity of the biblical narratives about the United Monarchy and the Book of Kings [sparked a wave of protests]. . . . a return to civility in Europe and elsewhere (apart from in Israeli and American scholarship) since then, has reflected a marked acceptance of the scholarship and principles fostered by minimalism’s separation between an expansive understanding of the Bible as primarily a literary work and the understanding of Palestine’s history. . . in paleography and archaeology.

What has been branded “minimalism” by its critics is actually a methodology, an approach to the evidence: primary, secondary, archaeological, biblical. Minimalism is in fact the conclusion derived from following that methodology. In short, this methodology is the study of a region or era by applying normative methods to the primary archaeological evidence and only then interpreting biblical literature in the light of that primary evidence. The alternative “maximalism”, in short, reverses this process and starts with the assumption of the historicity of the biblical narrative (post demythologization), and then interprets the archaeological evidence through that narrative.

The “minimalism”/“maximalism” viewpoints is an example of a complete reversal of the consensus over a twenty-year-plus time period. Many of the attacks made against “minimalism” then are similarly made now against "mythicism". Tom Dykstra writes:

Background and origins
The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally paid to the sun. Proponents of Jesus-myths point to early beliefs in a non-corporeal Jesus (docetism, as condemned in, which would help explain the lack of historical evidence for a human seed), and to close correspondence of the Jesus story with many other myths current at the time (a correspondence first noted by the 2nd-century apologist and saint Justin Martyr). The Jesus-myth theory in its broadest definition can be traced as far back as the concept of Docetism and (around 180 CE) and there is a possible hint of it in Justin Martyr's "Dialogue with Trypho". The modern revival of the myth goes back to the 1790s with the ideas of and of.

However, Volney and Dupuis did not agree on a definition of the Christ myth. Dupuis held that there was no human being involved in the New Testament account, which he saw as an intentional extended allegory of solar myths. Volney, on the other hand, allowed for confused memories of an obscure historical figure to be integrated in a mythology that compiled organically. So from nearly the get-go the modern Christ Myth theory had two parallel lines of thought:
 * 1) There was no human being behind the person portrayed in the New Testament.
 * 2) Confused memories of an obscure historical figure became woven into the mythology.

For the most part, the no human being behind the New Testament version is presented as the Christ myth theory, ignoring Volney's confused memories of an obscure historical figure version.

In fact, as the John Frum cargo cult shows, even in as short a time as some 11 years after a message starts being noticed by unbelievers, the question of the founder being an actual person or a renamed existing deity is already unclear and in a few more years the oral tradition has forgotten the possible human founder (illiterate native named Manehivi who caused trouble using that name from 1940 to 1941 and was exiled from his island as a result) and replaced him with a version (literate white US serviceman who appeared to the village elders in a vision on February 15, late 1930s) better suited to the cult.

Problems with definitions
One of the biggest problems is thanks to Volney and Dupuis having different views regarding the Christ myth the term (be it "Jesus myth theory", "Christ myth theory", or "Ahistorical Jesus") includes ideas that accept Jesus existed as a human being. The terms of "myth", "historical" and "fiction" are no help either as what exactly they mean varies from author to author. In fact the very term "historical Jesus" has a huge spectrum of hypothesis. Touched on by Remsberg in 1909, by Rudolf Bultmann in 1941 (and used by Richard Carrier in 2014), and reiterated by Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall in 2004, the two ends of this range (the italicized clarifiers are from Marshall) are:
 * 1) Reductive theory (Remsburg's Jesus of Nazareth): "Jesus was an ordinary but obscure individual who inspired a religious movement and copious legends about him" rather than being a totally fictitious creation like King Lear or Doctor Who
 * 2) Triumphalist theory (Remsburg's Jesus of Bethlehem): "The Gospels are totally or almost totally true" rather than being works of imagination like those of King Arthur.

Marshall warns "We shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the historical Jesus if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what we are talking about."

However, as Carrier notes, "Either side of the historicity debate will at time engage in a fallacy here, citing evidence supporting the reductive theory in defense of the triumphalist theory (as if that was valid), or citing the absurdity of the triumphalist theory as if this refuted the reductive theory (as if that were valid)".

Too many times when apologists talk about a historical Jesus they are actually talking about the Jesus of Bethlehem and too many times Christ mythers are trying to disprove the Jesus of Bethlehem rather than a possible Jesus of Nazareth.

Perspectives on the existence of Jesus
[W]e shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the historical Jesus if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what we are talking about. Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall writes that there are "two views of the historical Jesus which stand at the opposite ends of a spectrum of opinion about him." At one extreme is the view that Jesus existed as a person but the gospels describe an essentially fictional person. At the other extreme is the view that the gospels portray events exactly as they happened, and each event depicted in the New Testament is the literal truth.

As with any spectrum there are "colors" (or categories) and over the course of a century at least three people (Remsburg, Barker, and Eddy-Boyd) have taken a stab as what those colors are. However, as Eddy-Boyd points out these categories are "admittedly over simplistic", "ideal-typical", and a "useful heuristic" and therefore should not be taken as absolute definitions.

In fact, if you look at the definitions provided by these three authors as well as some others you will notice that the four categories don't always match up, which in turn means the boundaries between the definitions are not sharp and clear...even to scholars and experts. This is why one needs to nail down just what what one means when talking about the "Jesus myth theory" or the "historical Jesus."

The four "colors" of the historical Jesus spectrum (and their current status with the academic community) are the following.

Christ (philosophical) myth theory (fringe)
"Jesus Christ is a pure myth—that he never had an existence, except as a Messianic idea, or an imaginary solar deity."

Jesus began as a myth with historical trappings possibly including "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" being added later.

"Jesus never existed at all and that the myth came into being through a literary process."

All trace of a historical person, if there was ever one was to begin with, has been lost. (Jesus agnosticism)

The Legendary Jesus thesis - "The term 'legend' has various meanings in different contexts. In some academic circles, i.e., certain sectors of folkloristics, the term has come to refer to a transmitted story set in the relatively recent, or at least the historical, past that, though believed to be true by the teller, may or may not be rooted in actual history. On the multiple uses and definitional complexities of the term ‘legend'—including its relationship to 'history'—see [reference list omitted]."

Christ (historical) myth theory (the narrative is essentially false), ahistorical, or reductive (less fringe)
"Many radical Freethinkers believe that Christ is a myth, of which Jesus of Nazareth is the basis, but that these narratives are so legendary and contradictory as to be almost, if not wholly, unworthy of credit."

"Other skeptics deny that the Jesus character portrayed in the New Testament existed, but that there could have been a first century personality after whom the exaggerated myth was pattered."

There is just enough to show there was a first century teacher called Jesus and little else. (The lower end of Marshall's historical Jesus spectrum.)

Triumphalist theory or extreme historical (fringe)
"Christ is a historical character, supernatural and divine; and that the New Testament narratives, which purport to give a record of his life and teachings, contain nothing but infallible truth."

"The New Testament is basically true in all of its accounts except that there are natural explanations for the miracle stories."

Moderate historical, Christ (Historical) Myth (the narrative is essentially true)
"Jesus of Nazareth is a historical character and that these narratives, eliminating the supernatural elements, which they regard as myths, give a fairly authentic account of his life."

"Jesus did exist, and that some parts of the New Testament are accurate, although the miracles and the claim to deity are due to later editing of the original story."

A historical Jesus did exist but was very different from the gospel Jesus. (This is very close to the ahistorical category above)

Arguing the wrong Jesus and the Jesus myth
As is shown above the more moderate "Jesus (as a Historical) Myth" theory has gone mainstream but the more extreme "Jesus (as a Philosophical) Myth" is still very much fringe. Compounding matters is the fact the Jesus story has picked up many oral traditions that are not in the Bible at all and there are clues that the versions of the Gospels we have are not what were originally written. A good amount of bad Christ Myth theory can be seen in Kersey Graves' 1875 book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors and many armchair Christ Mythers unknowingly reference material in that work. Of course bad Christ Myth is helped by bad historical Jesus positions which try to use the very same points in support of a historical Jesus.

Born on December 25
The December 25 date was set by Imperial decree to compete with the popular Sol Invictus worship and first appears on a Roman calendar in 334 CE. Luke tells us that shepherds were tending their sheep in the fields when Jesus was born, something that shepherds did from June until November.

In fact, before the decree there was much debate regarding when Jesus was born. Tertullian (c 160–220 CE) and Hippolytus (c 170-235 CE) said March 25; Clement (c 150-215 CE) gave 25th day of Pachon (May 20) and the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi (April 19 or 20), while others were saying January 6 (the birthday of Osiris), and still others pointed to the Essenes whose couples had sex in December so their child would be born in September (the holy month of Atonement).

This means any argument that Jesus was a myth or historical based on the December 25 date is doomed from the start because that part of the story isn't even in the Bible and didn't appear until well into the 4th century.

Virgin birth
While it is true that our versions of Matthew and Luke have virgin birth stories there are hints that these are latecomers to the Jesus story.

Paul in Romans 1:1-3 states that Jesus came "from the seed of David, according to the flesh" (the belief at the time was that women were the earth into which men planted their seed so here Paul expressly states that Jesus's link to David is through the male line: i.e. through Joseph) and in Galatians 4:4 stated "God sent his Son, born of a woman" using the word gune (woman) rather than parthenos (virgin). Admittedly if one looks at the original Greek Romans 1:1-3 is simply bizarre as Paul normally uses gennaô for birth while here he uses the same work for God’s manufacture of Adam’s body from clay, and God’s manufacture of our future resurrection bodies in heaven (ginomai) but these two points would seem to point to the idea that Paul not only did not know of a virgin birth, but expressly denied it.

When Marcion of Sinope put together the first Christian bible ca. 140 CE, his Luke (Evangelikon) had no birth story. While his critics claimed he removed this portion it is more likely that the Luke as we know it today was written in response to Marcion's Luke.

This means that the virgin birth was added sometime between Paul's letters and whenever Matthew was written (some time before ca. 180 CE).

Moreover Irenaeus' Against Heresies (c 180 CE) documents the existence of a sect of Christianity led by Cerinthus who "represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men."

In fact, it has been suggested that being born of a virgin was the ancient equivalent of being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth and signified the "extraordinary personal qualities exhibited by an individual" as well as being an "attempt to explain an individual's superiority to other mortals. Generally Mediterranean peoples looked at one's birth or parentage to explain one's character and behavior" and "veneration of a benefactor." Caesar Augustus, Alexander the Great, Plato were all stated as being born of virgins and we know they were actual historical people—so the term 'born of a virgin' was never meant to be taken literally.

The "star" of Bethlehem
On occasion the "star" of Bethlehem is presented as a reference for a possible date, but there are several problems here. Only Matthew mentions this "star" and there is much debate over just what (if anything) this star was. Hypotheses range from a comet (Halley's Comet of 12 BCE is popular), a nova recorded by c. 5 BCE Chinese and Korean stargazers, a series of planetary conjunctions from 3 to 2 BCE, or a pious fiction. As this rough sampling above shows, the dates, nature of the "star", and even its very existence are guesswork and so are totally useless at forming a date. Never mind that it is trying to prove the Gospel Jesus of Matthew existed rather than a hypothetical ordinary flesh-and-blood Jesus.

The correct Jesus to argue about and the gray area between historical and mythical (the ahistorical realm)
Because of the huge variance of what constitutes a historical Jesus (and by extension a Jesus Myth) Carrier set three criteria for the minimal historical Jesus:
 * 1) An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death
 * 2) This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities
 * 3) This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshipping him as a living god (or demigod)

"If any one of these premises is false, it can fairly be said there was no historical Jesus in any pertinent sense, And at least one of them must be false for any Jesus Myth theory to be true."

"But notice that now we don't even require that is considered essential in many church creeds. For instance, it is not necessary that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Maybe he was, But even if we proved he wasn't that still does not vindicate mysticism.  Because the 'real' Jesus may have been executed by Herod Antipas (as the Gospel of Peter in fact claims) or by Roman authorities in an earlier or later decade then Pilate (as some early Christians really did think)  Some scholars even argue for an earlier century (and have some real evidence to cite)  ... My point at present is that even if we proved proved the founder of Christianity was executed by Herod the Great (not even by Romans, much less Pilate, and a whole forty years before the Gospels claim), as long as his name or nickname (whether assigned before or after his death) really was Jesus and his execution is the very thing spoken of as leading him to the status of the divine Christ venerated in the Epistles, I think it would be fair to say the mythicists are then simply wrong. I would say this even if Jesus was never really executed but only believed to have been Because even then it's still the same historical man being spoken of and worshiped."

Carrier gave a lot of leeway with his criteria and also put forth five criteria for a minimal mythical Jesus:
 * 1) At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other.
 * 2) Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus 'communicated' with his subjects only through dreams, visions and other forms of divine inspi­ration (such as prophecy, past and present).
 * 3) Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm.
 * 4) As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth, in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.
 * 5) Subsequent communities of worshipers believed (or at least taught) that this invented sacred story was real (and either not allegorical or only 'additionally' allegorical).

"That all five propositions are true shall be my minimal Jesus myth theory."

However, there are are a lot of ways that one can fall between these two criteria and have a hypothetical Jesus who is neither historical nor mythical by Carrier's standard but who can be both by other people's criteria:
 * John Robertson's 1900 idea that the Gospel Jesus was a composite character or that a person inspired by Paul's writings took up the name Jesus, tried to preach his own version of Paul's teachings, and possibly got killed for his troubles fails both criteria.
 * The idea expressed by Remsberg that there was a Jesus but his following wasn't an identifiable movement until Paul and later the writers of the Gospels got ahold of it also fails Carrier's two sets of criteria: "Jesus, if he existed, was a Jew, and his religion, with a few innovations, was Judaism. With his death, probably, his apotheosis began. During the first century the transformation was slow; but during the succeeding centuries rapid. 'The Judaic elements of his religion were, in time, nearly all eliminated, and the Pagan elements, one by one, were incorporated into the new faith."
 * G. A. Wells' Jesus Legend (1996) with its mythical Paul Jesus + 1st century teacher who was not executed fails the "same Jesus" criteria and so is not a "historical Jesus in any pertinent sense". Carrier classified this position as "ahistoricitical".
 * Dan Barker's "Other skeptics deny that the Jesus character portrayed in the New Testament existed, but that there could have been a first century personality after whom the exaggerated myth was pattered" would also fail Carrier's criteria as Baker's first century personality need not be named "Jesus" or if he did his movement was not identifiable until much later.

Jesus Frum a.k.a. John Christ
The real world examples of Melanesian cargo cults (and other examples, such as Ned Ludd) show that it is not an inherently crazy that a major movement's "leader" is originally entirely mythical but is then quickly (in a matter of decades) placed into a historical framework. Richard Carrier goes into detail on why such things happen in his peer reviewed On the Historicity of Jesus as Element 29 of his examples.

Thanks to the wealth of material available one can use the particular example of the John Frum cargo cult on how the Jesus myth theory has validity because everything the Christian apologists claim couldn't have happened in the development of Christianity appears to have happened with the John Frum cargo cult: It evolved from pre-existing beliefs without a clear and definitive founder and one variant even said the mythical John Frum was related to a real living person (Prince Philip is the brother of John Frum in this variant even though Prince Philip had no brothers)

Carrier states regarding the plugging of a mythical person into history "the same thing happened in Melanesian Cargo Cults, which still revere completely mythical heroes who were nevertheless quite rapidly placed in history and believed to be real (most famously 'Tom Navy' and 'John Frum'), again within decades of their supposed appearance."

"Further supporting the previous element is the fact that what are now called 'Cargo Cults' are the modern movement most culturally and socially similar to earliest Christianity, so much so that Christianity is best understood in light of them."

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

However, if you examine the John Frum cargo cult in detail one can see possibly of one or more inspired believers deciding to become Jesus even if Jesus originally started out as nothing more than a celestial being. So it is well within reason as John Robertson implied in 1900 that one or more people inspired by Paul's writings took up the name Jesus, preached their own view of Paul's message, and possibly got killed for it. It is one way to read Paul's 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 warning of minds being "corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" by "another Jesus, whom we have not preached," "another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted".

Guiart's 1952 Oceania paper also shows the complexity involved regarding determining if Jesus was a man or a celestial being.

We are told that "A man named Manehevi had posed as a supernatural being by means of ingenious stage management." But later we are also told "From elsewhere rail the rumour that, in spite of the Administration statement, Manehevi was not John Frum, and that the latter was still at liberty."

Here we are told John Frum was a "supernatural being" while the believers are saying he is an actual man who "was still at liberty"

If that isn't enough we are also told "John Frum, alias Karaperamun, is always the god of Mount Tukosmoru, which will shelter the planes, then the soldiers."

Here we are told that John Frum is Karaperamun (who is a long existing volcano god) but we were also told that Manehevi was (or pretended to be) John Frum and that John Frum was another person who was still at liberty.

As you can see from Guiart's 1952 article, a mere 11 years after the John Frum movement become noticeable by nonbelievers it is not clear if John Frum is simply another name for Karaperamun (the High god of the region), a name that various actual people use as leader of the religious cult, or the name of some other person who inspired the cult perhaps as much as 30 years previously. If to confuse things further it has been suggested that Tom Navy, a companion to John Frum, is based on a real person: Tom Beatty of Mississippi, who served in the New Hebrides both as a missionary, and as a Navy Seabee during the war. and the splinter Prince Philip movement which has Prince Philip as John Frum's brother...even though Prince Philip only had sisters.

Arguments against a "historical" Jesus
Some (but not all) of these points also appear in regards with moderate "Christ mythers" in the "Jesus likely existed but the Gospels tell us nothing (or next to nothing) about the actual man or his real teachings" vein.

Paul

 * ''See the Paul of Tarsus article on this topic.

The main issue is that of all the "evidence" for a historical Jesus only the writings of Paul (Romans, 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1st Thessalonians and Philemon) can be said to be of a true possible contemporary to a Jesus who supposedly lived c 6 BCE to 36 CE. Paul seems only ever to know of Jesus communicating with his apostles by revelation (and hidden messages in scripture). Paul never once shows any awareness of any other way anyone knew or met Jesus, or any other way in which Jesus communicated with his apostles and is emphatic that all his knowledge of Jesus is coming from visions and revelation not from human sources. However it is possible that Paul is making a false claim, which then makes any evidence sussed from Paul to be unreliable. Carrier writes,

Some versions of the Christ myth theory (such as Kenneth Humphreys' ) suggest that Paul was a fictional person. To put it bluntly, this is one of the places where parts of the Christ myth goes off the rails and enters tin foil hat land.

Saying Paul was fictional would make sense if he provided a "smoking gun" to the pro-historical Jesus debate but the fact is he brings nothing to the table; his Jesus is a being only seen via visions. Paul supposedly talks with people who based on the Gospels should have known the living Jesus and yet Paul doesn't give one actual detail regarding Jesus's activities on Earth. Also, someone wrote the authentic/early Pauline epistles and calling that author Ed, Bill or RamaLamaDingDong doesn't change the fact that these letters were an important influence on Christianity. You don't have to accept the clearly embroidered version in Acts to find the Pauline authorship of these early epistles historically plausible. Contrast Jesus, from whom we have no letters or other writings and who is portrayed through and through in the supernatural light seen in other myths and legends, with Paul, who in his own letters doesn't claim any supernatural powers, except for his opinion that he has some sort of mental hotline to God and Jesus.

From an Occam's Razor standpoint a fictional Paul doesn't make any sense; it just adds an unneeded level of complexity to the Christ Myth Theory. Moreover, what actual purpose does such an idea even serve? If anything, claiming Paul is a fictional creation smacks of the kind of Illuminati level conspiracy theory nonsense seen in Joseph Wheless' 1930 Forgery In Christianity that only convinces most people that the Christ myth theory does belong in the same land of crazy as those who deny the Holocaust or Moon landings.

Gospels

 * ''See Gospels as history for more details.

The real original sources underlying the Gospels are the letters of Paul and the LXX + the imagination of the writers. This is provable and demonstrable, whereas Q and oral traditions are not. The Gospels are anonymous documents with dates that are "arbitrary ballpark figures with don't really have much basis in facts." The only thing that can be said with certainty is the Gospels have a range that ends in the mid to late 140s. Even if the usually accepted dates of c. 70 CE for Mark, c. 80 CE for Matthew, c. 90 for Luke-Acts, and c. 100 for John are correct it can be shown there is a strong correlation between the Jesus of Mark regarding the Passover and the actions of a would-be messiah named Jesus ben Ananias (66-70 CE) written about in Josephus's Jewish Wars (c. 75) meaning that Mark (and therefore Matthew, Luke, and John) could be in reality a Robin Hood like series of stories with Jesus ben Ananias being one of the elements used to flesh out Paul's earlier writings of a visionary Jesus.

R. G. Price asserts that the Gospel of Mark is the first story of Jesus’ life that was written. And that all other accounts of Jesus’ life are derived from Mark (in agreement with thesis). Per Price, the author of Mark knew that Jesus was not a real person and knew that the story he was putting forward was “fictional” (now diverging from Goulder’s thesis, who believed that Mark was the only “true” historical account of the canonical gospels).

Josephus

 * ''See Josephus for more details.

Josephus's work, Antiquities of the Jews, mentions Jesus twice. The first is in Jewish Antiquities XVIII.3.4 (also known as the Testimonium Flavium, or TF), and the second one is in Jewish Antiquities XX.9.1.

It can be shown that the Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus has been tampered with and is not fully authentic, though most historians say that some part of it is genuine. However, as Carrier's examples of John Frum and Ned Ludd show, the more than 50 years between 36 CE and when Antiquities was written (c. 90 CE) is more than enough time for a possible founder's origin to be entirely replaced or a narrative to be built around a founder who may have never existed in the first place. Even in the form we have the passage is insanely short when compared to Athronges: a "mere shepherd, not known by anybody" who with his brothers gets some five paragraphs and Josephus gives details on Athronges' actions.

As for Jewish Antiquities XX.9.1, mythicists such as Richard Carrier believe that this reference is an interpolation and actually references a figure named Jesus ben Damneus who is identified at the end of the passage as becoming high priest. Moreover "Christos" was used in the Old Testament to refer to high priests so even though the majority of contemporary scholars believe the phrase is authentic  it need not refer to the Jesus of the Gospels.

In fact, for a long time tradition held that James brother of the Lord died c. 69 CE but the James in Josephus died 62 CE. Furthermore, it was stated that James brother of the Lord was informed of Peter's death (64 CE or 67 CE) via letter, long after the James in Josephus was dead and gone.

Never mind, as seen with John Frum's brother Prince Philip, a supposed founder can be said to be related to real people, even when those relations are not supported by fact.

Origen
Origen's comments regarding the passage of James in Josephus he is referencing shows that it also had Josephus directly connected the death of James with the "fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple" raises doubt about the reliability of the "brother of Jesus, him called Christ, whose name was James" passage.

Tacitus
Often cited as evidence of a historical Jesus, Roman historian Tacitus' Annals have problems.

First, it is known the passage was tampered with. The "Chrestian" in the passage was changed to "Christian" after the fact.

Second, the word rendered as "Christus" or "Chrestus" (seemingly based on if the transcriber/translator wants to connect it to Suetonius) is in reality "Chrstus".

Third, the part of the Annals covering the period 29-31 (i.e. the part most likely to discuss Jesus in detail) are missing.

Fourth, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents by the time Tacitus wrote his Annuals so he could have simply gone to the Chrestians themselves or written to his good friends Plinius the Younger and Suetonius for more on this group.

Finally, the account is at odds with the Christian accounts in the apocryphal "Acts of Paul" (c. 160 CE) and "The Acts of Peter" (150-200 CE) where the first has Nero reacting to claims of sedition by the group and the other saying that thanks to a vision he left them alone. In fact, the Christians themselves didn't start claiming Nero blamed them for the fire until 400 CE.

Suetonius
Given neither Josephus or Pliny the Elder mention Christians in Rome during the time of Nero there are serious questions about Suetonius' account. Carrier suggests that like Tacitus, Suetonius was actually writing about Chrestians and "corrected" by a later Christian scribe. Even if the passage Suetonius is genuine it only shows the existence of the Christian movement and that their punishment was part of a general housecleaning of Rome by Nero. As John Frum cargo cult shows a movement need not have an actual founder.

Conclusion
Although there are some early accounts of Jesus (none being contemporary), a number of them are not helpful for affirming the historicity of Jesus. Scholars have been convinced by our sources, whereas mythicists are more skeptical regarding their validity -- although, it must be admitted, some are simply too skeptical and try to find holes where there are none. Because of some of the more fringe views of mythicism, the atheistic historian Maurice Casey says that many proponents of the mythicist position are "extraordinarily incompetent".

The other timelines and their problems
Paul of Tarsus gives no details or temporal references to exactly when the Jesus he talks of walked the Earth. In fact all that can be pulled from his writings is that his conversion must have happened before 37 CE. The problem is that if the relationship between Aretas and Damascus Paul relates is accurate then the vision is pushed that back to no later then 33 CE and possibly as early as 28 CE. John the Baptist's death is also known with it being put as late 36 CE, giving Jesus only months (certainly not the three years suggested by John) to have his ministry.

While the conflict between the birthdates (10 years apart) presented in Matthew and Luke is generally well known, what is less known is that there were other accounts that placed Jesus's life in other times which have been provided by Robert M. Price. In one piece Price points out that the Talmud has Jesus crucified under Alexander Jannaeus c. 83 BCE and that Irenaeus had him crucified under Claudius Caesar (41-54 CE). Theologian Robert M. Grant cross references Irenaeus' Demonstration and Against Heresies which together firmly puts Jesus's crucifixion just before the age of 50 somewhere between 41 and 54 CE.

Carrier clarifies that this the 83 BCE is the Babylonian Talmud (compiled in the 3rd to 5th centuries) and that the writers knew only of a Jesus killed under Jannaeus, not of one killed during the time of Pontius Pilate. Furthermore Epiphanius confirmed that some denominations of Christianity preached that Jesus lived in the time of Jannaeus. If correct then this of course invalidates the canonical Gospel account.

The same is true if as Lena Einhorn, PhD suggests the "Egyptian Prophet" (between 52 and 58 CE based on the descriptions in Jewish War 2.259-263 and Jewish Antiquities 20.169-171) was the basis for the Gospel Jesus.

Carrier's suggestion that Jesus ben Ananias [Ananus] of 66-70 CE was used as a kind of raw template for the Passover section of "Mark" would also mean the canonical Gospel accounts are not history.

Moreover in Book III, Chapter 21 Paragraph 3 of Against Heresies Irenaeus stated "for our Lord was born about the forty-first year of the reign of Augustus" (i.e. 14 CE) which would place Jesus's crucifixion at a minimum of 44 CE...long after Paul's vision (which is no later than 37 CE). Now some apologists point to Tertullian's account which states “in the forty-first year of the empire of Augustus, when he has been reigning for 10 and 8 years after the death of Cleopatra (30 BCE), the Christ is born.” as evidence that the count wasn't from 27 BCE but rather 44 BCE. The problem here is that Herod the Great died in 4 BCE or two years before Jesus was born by this calculation. This argument also ignores the fact that Irenaeus, in Book II, Chapter 22 of Against Heresies, goes into a long argument of how Jesus had to be in his 40s if not in his 50s when he was crucified and that in Demonstration 74 Irenaeus expressly states Jesus was crucified in the reign of Claudius Caesar and Herod "King of the Jews". Tertullian himself also suggests that the destruction of the Jewish temple (70 CE) happened 22.5 years after Christ's crucifixion but this results in 47 CE. Tertullian gets around this by playing fast and loose with the reigns of Claudius, Tiberius, Gaius and Nero to where "he is able to squeeze the 72½ years from 2 BCE (the birth of Jesus) to the burning of the temple, into 52½ years (7½ hebdomads)." The key here is both Irenaeus and Tertullian put Jesus's crucifixion 22.5 years before the destruction of the Temple or around 47 CE which conflicts with the Gospel account.

So, at best the Gospel Jesus is either a time-shifted preacher of c. 83 BCE, 40s CE, or 50s CE, or a composite person made up of several would-be messiahs. This would totally invalidate the idea that the canonical Gospels are even remotely accurate history.

Raglan's hero pattern
Every so often Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern is presented as "evidence" that Jesus is a philosophical myth. The flaw here is it can be shown that known historical people can score high on Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern and known fictional characters come in on par with known historical figures of antiquity. For example, Tsar Nicholas II comes in at 14 or higher than the Jesus described in Mark (11) or John (13) or even Apollo (11). Similarly, Anakin Skywalker gets a 10.5 or roughly on par with Augustus Caesar (10). For reference, King Arthur and Robin Hood, whose historical existence is debated, scored 19 and 13 respectively.

So the Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern is poor evidence for a character being a philosophical myth.

Common objections
There are several objections to questioning a historical Jesus.

"Most scholars think Jesus existed"
Arguments regarding Jesus as a historical person tend to improperly mix reductive and triumphalist theories. So instead of debating the existence of an ordinary man one gets a lot of nonsense about miracles, earthquake, and darkness (any argument involving Thallos) with the historical method, for the most part, being out to lunch. That said the whole "most scholars think Jesus existed" is an argument from authority fallacy.

A related problem as also demonstrated above is just what is meant by the "Jesus Myth" varies and includes positions that could fall in the "Jesus existed as a human being" (i.e. he was "historical") category. It's worth asking the question "What are their qualifications?" followed by "Who is this scholar and what do they mean when they say 'Jesus existed'?" and "Are there any widely accepted views in the field that could push a scholar to a certain conclusion?"

It is important to note that few theologians are historians (and those who are aren't very good at it) and fewer are historical anthropologists, the two fields critical to the "Did Jesus exist?" question.

Scholars such as Avalos, Carrier and Price are trying to bring the tools of historical anthropology and its new layer of writer/cultural dynamics to the historical method to the issue but those tools are either not understood or are outright ignored by most "historical" Jesus supporters.

Hector Avalos details the differences between the seminary and secular streams of Bible-related study in his 2007 book The End of Biblical Studies, which had some impact on the field. It should be noted that some apologists for a historical Jesus are fundamentalists, such as Lee Strobel, who are rarely taken seriously in mainstream academia. Others are liberal Christians such as Marcus Borg, or flat-out agnostics, such as Bart Ehrman and Robert, are more respected in mainstream academic circles (there are also quite a few Jewish New Testament scholars such as Amy Jill-Levine or Geza Vermes). Even taking scholars like Ehrman into account, mythicists such as Richard Carrier believe that the methodology of Jesus-related historical studies is of a much lower standard than the historical method used for comparable periods.

Historians who are skeptical of the historicity of Jesus are often painted by theologians and apologists as fringe lunatics even when that skepticism is regarding how Jesus is depicted in the NT rather than him existing as a human being. However, these arguments rarely go beyond ad hominem attacks. with any points ignored. To be fair, there is as much or even more nonsense on the Christ Myth side of things, but trying to say people like Robert M Price and Richard Carrier are in the same class as Acharya S. or Joseph Wheless is at best an insult.

As Richard Carrier correctly points out, there is a large variety of material on both sides of the historicity argument ranging from the absurd to the somewhat reasonable. The problem on the mythicist side is that most of the theories involve a great amount of elaborations making the theory more complicated than it needs to be. The problem on the historical side of things is "arguing there are flaws (mostly flaws of exaggeration) in the scholarship of the mythicists, yet without demonstrating that any of these flaws are actually relevant."

"There is more evidence for Jesus than for X"
When discussing the evidence for Jesus' existence, a common claim made by apologists is that there is "more evidence for Jesus than X".

Regarding this position Richard Carrier states:

While it is is impossible to cover all the ancient figures and events Jesus has been compared to there are a few popular ones that show just how shaky the position really is (It should be noted that this sometimes mixed with the more accurate than Homer argument).


 * Sun Tzu (Sun Wu) (544–496 BCE?): his very existence is debated in scholarly circles despite reference in the Records of the Grand Historian and Spring and Autumn Annals which used earlier official records that haven't survived.
 * Confucius (Kong Qiu) (551–479 BCE): the Records of the Grand Historian used archives and imperial records as source material (which themselves have not survived). Its author Sima Qian noted the problems with incomplete, fragmentary, and contradictory sources stating in the 18th volume of the 180-volume work "I have set down only what is certain, and in doubtful cases left a blank." Moreover, Kong Qiu was the governor of a town in Lu and ultimately held the positions of Minister of Public Works and then Minister of Crime for the whole Lu state, not exactly minor positions one could create a fictitious person to fill.
 * Leukippos (shadowy nearly legendary figure of early 5th century BCE): very existence doubted by Epicurus (341 – 270 BCE).
 * Socrates (c469 – 399 BCE): written about by contemporaries Plato, Xenophon (430 – 354 BCE) and Aristophanes (c446 – 386 BCE).
 * Plato (428 – 347 BCE): written about by contemporaries Aristotle (384 – 322 BC), Xenophon, and Aristophanes.
 * Alexander the Great (July 20, 356 – June 11, 323 BCE): official historian Callisthenes of Olynthus, generals Ptolemy, Nearchus, and Aristobulus and helmsman Onesicritus were all contemporaries who wrote about Alexander. While their works were eventually lost, later works that used them as source material were not.  Additionally there are known contemporary accounts that survive: Isocrates, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Hyperides, Dinarchus, Theocritus, Theophrastus, and Menander. And on top of all that there are the contemporary inscriptions and coins.
 * Hannibal (247 – 182 BCE): Written about by Silenus, a paid Greek historian who Hannibal brought with him on his journeys to write an account of what took place, and Sosylus of Lacedaemon who wrote seven volumes on the war itself. Never mind the contemporary Carthaginian coins and engraved bronze tablets.
 * Julius Caesar (July 100 – 15 March 44 BCE): Not only do we have the writing of contemporaries Cato the Younger and Cicero but Julius Caesar's own writings as well (Commentarii de Bello Gallico a.k.a. The Gallic Wars and Commentarii de Bello Civili a.k.a. The Civil War). Then you have the contemporary coins, statues and monuments.
 * Pontius Pilate (unknown – c 37 CE): Some apologists try to imply that people at one time thought this person didn't exist. In reality, no evidence of anyone having ever stated that Pontius Pilate didn't exist could be found.  In fact, known contemporary Philo does mention Pontius Pilate in what survives of  Embassy to Gaius  (c.40 CE) and near contemporary Josephus describes in detail several conflicts that Pilate had with his Jewish subjects.
 * Apollonius of Tyana (c15 CE – c100 CE): Often referred to as the "Pagan Christ". Fragments of Apollonius' own writings are part of the Harvard University Press edition of The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (1912) ISBN-13: 978-0674990180 as documented in Carrier's Kook article. Interestingly some people are suggesting that the Gospels are actually based on Apollonius' exploits though there are some obvious problems with this idea (key of which is Paul was writing about a dead and resurrected Jesus about 40 years before Apollonius died.
 * Boadicea (d. 60 CE): Tacitus himself would have been a 5-year old boy when she poisoned herself c. 60 CE, making him contemporary to her. Furthermore, his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola served under Gaius Suetonius Paulinus during the revolt. So Tacitus was not only an actual contemporary, but he had access to Gaius Suetonius Paulinus' records and an actual eyewitness.
 * Muhammad (570 – c. June 8, 632 CE): Contrary to the picture some apologists like to paint, there are non-Muslim references by people who would have been contemporary with Muhammad. The earliest is the personal notes of an unnamed monk c. 636 CE mixed in with his copying of the gospels which mentions that "many villages were ruined with killing by [the Arabs of] Mụhammad and a great number of people were killed and captives" and in 661 CE Sebeos writes about Mụhammad and is believed to be an eyewitness to many of the events he recorded. As if that wasn't enough, the Quran and other writings about Muhammad can be traced to identifiable people who actually were with him during his lifetime (as in the case of Alexander the Great).

Now compare those to Jesus:
 * 1) The only known possible contemporary is Paul (Romans, 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1st Thessalonians and Philemon) who not only writes some 20 years after the events but seems more intent on the Jesus in his own head than any Jesus who actually preached in Galilee.  In fact, even though in his own account Paul meets "James, brother of the Lord" we get no details of Jesus' life, not even references to the famous sermons or miracles.  And in any case, Paul never met or even saw Jesus in person.
 * 2) The Gospels are anonymous documents written sometime between 70 CE to 140 CE and there are no references to any of them until the early 2nd century.

"A viable theory of historicity for Jesus must therefore instead resemble a theory of historicity for Apollonius of Tyana or Musonin Rufus or Judas the Galilean (to list a few very famous men who escaped the expected record more or less the same degree Jesus did.)"

In his article "So What About Caligula? How Do You Know HE Existed!?" Richard Carrier demonstrated the total non sequitur of these arguments with N.T. Wright's comparison of the material regarding Jesus being on par with Caligula. Saying the evidence for these two people is not even in the same ballpark is generous; more realistically they aren't even in the same solar system in terms of evidence. Carrier concludes this blog with "All that this shows is how incompetent and irrational defenders of historicity are. Incompetent, because a real historian would know these claims weren’t true, or know they’d better check first (and thus would discover they aren’t true, before saying they are). And irrational, because they have no grasp of how evidence works or that they should check, yet feel the desperate need to hyperbolically assert total confidence in completely ridiculous things."

Holocaust comparison
Comparing the quality of Jesus to that of any major person after the invention of the printing press in the west (1436) is bad enough but when people compare denying Jesus as a historical person to Holocaust denial     they are either ignorant of just how much material evidence there is for the Holocaust or are making a strawman...and simultaneously flirting with Godwin's Law.

For the record there were 3,000 tons of truly contemporary (i.e. between 1938-1945) records presented at the 1945-1946 Nuremberg Trials. The 1958 finding aids (eventually the index to the Holocaust evidence) was 62 volumes--just 4 books shy of the number of books (66) traditionally in the entire Bible! Then between 1958 and 2000 they added another 30 volumes, bringing the total to 92.

It is an emotional argument and a totally unfair one as Jesus to the best of our knowledge never had the quantity or quality of evidence that shows the Holocaust happened.

"Jesus was an unnotable minor figure"
The other argument presented is that Jesus was in reality an obscure person who was largely ignored during his lifetime. There are some figures whose existence is historically questionable. However, they tend to be more minor figures who most people haven't heard of (a non-biblical exception would be Aesop).

American historian Richard Carrier writes on the problems with this view:

In one of his blogs Carrier spelled out the problem:

So this line of reasoning creates the issue of how did such a supposedly minor person get elevated to the status of the character in the Gospels and if Acts 7-9 is to be believed had supposedly inspired followers in three provinces (Galilee, Samaria, and Judea) by 37 CE? Similarly, if the Gospels and Acts are wild propaganda then how can anything they stated about Jesus or his following be regarded as history?

However, there are examples of people who were thrust into prominence that, when you look at the evidence, is greatly inflated. Ephraim McDowell (November 11, 1771 – June 25, 1830) is one such example. When you really look at his work it is not that important in the grander picture. Because his operations depended on a mixture of ridiculous luck, patients with stamina to withstand being cut open without anathesia, a passion for being meticulously clean when doing his operations (the merits of which would not be fully understood for decades) and crediting his success to divine providence (he tended to do his operations on Christian holy days), his contribution to the field of medicine in his own day was effectively nil. Without the printing press just how good would our knowledge of McDowell's achievements be?

A even more relevant example to this can be said of John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891), the founder of the obscure Oahspe cult; even with the power of the printing press, our knowledge of it is relatively minor. Relegated to just another leader of just another Third Great Awakening movement that went nowhere, he has been elevated to prominence unknown in his own time based largely on him being one of the first people to use the term "star-ship". Jesus could have been like McDowell or Newbrough.

"Most people Jesus preached to were illiterate"
One hypothesis that comes up with regards to the nonexistence of truly contemporary evidence for Jesus is that he preached to people who were illiterate.

The problem with this idea is it is basically ad hoc (i.e. untestable). There is no agreement on the literacy level of the Roman Empire in general (ranging from 5% to 30%) or Palestine in particular. In fact, there is an argument that the Roman Empire in general and Palestine in particular was far more literate than once supposed.

Even if Palestine was more literate, there is still the issue of any contemporary writing of Jesus' actions and deeds either surviving the elements and two revolts that followed 36 CE or being copied by someone else.

Christianity proves Christ
It is sometimes argued that Christianity's mere existence necessitates a Christ.

Early Christianity
For example, it is claimed that the handful of early Christian churches "prove" "a man named Jesus existed as the leader of a religious movement" based on the theory that people do not usually make up leaders for all that they aggrandize, and mythologize them. That theory can be easily shown to be nonsense with such counterexamples as Ned Ludd and various Malaysian Cargo cults where this very thing happened. Similarly, the 1982 and 1995 editions of the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J use this "story of" definition for Christ myth and make no comment regarding whether Jesus the man is regarded as mythical.

For comparison, other stories of semi-mythical figures such as King Arthur or Robin Hood appear to have no original author, instead being legends that accreted &mdash; possibly from a basis of one original person, possibly from several, or possibly from pure invention. For example, is a claimed cargo cult founder that many anthropologists have written about since 1952, well within living memory of his supposed late 1930s appearance to the village elders, but even for him we don't have enough evidence to establish whether or not he was a real person - we just don't know whether the stories started from any actual person or just accreted spuriously.

Modern Christianity
Further, the existence of modern Christianity proves only that Paul of Tarsus — the man who revolutionized Christianity by pitching it to non-Jews — existed, and that Paul spoke of Jesus the Christ, based on oral stories going round and his own vision. The existence of a founding figure who can reasonably be tagged Paul is quite good as these things go, with textual analysis showing that several of the Biblical texts attributed to Paul do indeed seem to have been written by the same single hand. This is comparable to the evidence we have for the existence of figures such as Socrates and ; as with Paul, their existence is secondary to their body of work.

"Myth, madman, or Messiah"
Alternately, the "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord" argument and a specific case of a false dichotomy.

All too often, the "historical existence of Jesus" debate turns into the Myth, Madman, or Messiah argument: the concept that Jesus has to be either a myth (both types), madman, or essentially what the Gospels describe. The key issue is that this really argues for the Jesus of the gospels rather than the gospel story being inspired by an actual person. It also relies on the (false) a priori assumption that the Gospels are essentially providing us with an unvarnished historical record of Jesus' life.

The argumentum ad martyrdom of "Would the Disciples die for a lie?" falls into this category and ignores that there are many examples of people dying for beliefs which turned out to be false, deceptive, or poorly understood (Hong Xiuquan's Taiping Rebellion followers, Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidians, etc.)

The "skeptics just don't want to be accountable for their sins" and "skeptics have blind faith in the words of man" are essentially two sides of the same argument that also falls into this category. Here again this is arguing that the Gospel Jesus is a historical person, not arguing that the stories were inspired by a quite normal man.

How did the myth of Jesus start?
There are several natural explanations, some more valid than others.


 * 1) One of the views, held by J. M. Robertson and others, is that the Jesus myth was patterned after a story found in the Jewish Talmudic literature about the illegitimate son of a woman named Miriam (Mary) and a Roman soldier named Pandera, sometimes called Joseph Pandera. In Christianity and Mythology, Robertson writes: “…we see cause to suspect that the movement really originated with the Talmudic Jesus Ben Pandera, who was stoned to death and hanged on a tree, for blasphemy or heresy, on the eve of a Passover in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 B.C.E.).” Dr. Low, an accomplished Hebraist, is satisfied that this Jesus was the founder of the Essene sect, whose resemblance to the legendary early Christian has so greatly exercised Christian speculation.
 * 2) Another view is that the Jesus myth grew out of a pre-Christian cult of Joshua. Some suggest that the New Testament story about swapping Jesus for Barabbas (meaning “son of the father”) arose from the tension between Joshua factions. Origen mentioned a “Jesus Barabbas.” The name “Jesus” is the Greek for Joshua (“Yeshua” in Hebrew). In Mark 9:38 the disciples of Jesus saw another man who was casting out devils in the name of Jesus (Joshua). The Sibyllene Oracles identify Jesus with Joshua, regarding the sun standing still.
 * 3) W. B. Smith thinks there was a pre-Christian Jesus cult of Gnosticism. There is an ancient papyrus that has these words: “I adjure thee by the God of the Hebrews, Jesus.” The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God? makes a compelling case that the original Christians were indeed Gnostics and that the story of Jesus was invented by Hellenistic Jews in Alexandria as a mystery play patterned after the Osiris/Dionysus mystery cults, and was not to be taken literally. The play depicted a god-man who died and came back to life. It was only after Constantine in the fourth century that the life of Jesus became suddenly “historical”.
 * 4) Randall Helms, in the article “Fiction in the Gospels” in Jesus in History and myth, presents another view. Helms notices that there are many literary parallels between Old Testament and New Testament stories. He calls this “self-reflexive fiction.” It is if there are some skeletal templates into which the Jews placed their stories. One example is the comparison between the raising of the son of the window of Nain in Luke 7:11-16 and the raising of the son of a widow of Zarephath in I kings 17. Not only is the content similar, but the structure of the tale is almost identical. Other examples are the storm series in Psalms and Jonah compared with the New Testament storm story in Mark 4:37-41, and the story of Elijah’s food multiplication with that of Jesus. The first-century Jews were simply rewriting old stories, like a movie remake. This view, in and of itself, does not completely account for the entire Jesus myth, but it does show how literary parallels can play a part in the elaboration of a fable.
 * 5) John Allegro suggested that the Jesus character was patterned after the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, who was crucified in 88 B.C.E. He wrote that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Essenes interpreted the Old Testament in a way to make it fit their own messiah. Allegro writes: “When Josephus speaks of the Essene’s reverence for their ‘Lawgiver’…we may assume reasonably that he speaks of their Teacher, the ‘Joshua/Jesus’ of the Last Days. By the first century, therefore, it seems that he was being accorded semi-divine status, and that his role of Messiah, or Christ, was fully appreciated.” (The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth)
 * 6) R.G. Price argues that Jesus was originally constructed as a spiritual concept by Hellenistic Jews, which later eventually turned Jesus into "historical" and was sure that Jesus was "of the flesh" for theological reasons. Christians had to construct Jesus to be made of the flesh for two reasons: 1) Suffering and a flesh-and-blood sacrifice were required to create a new covenant and 2) The resurrection of a flesh-and-blood Jesus proved that resurrection of the flesh was possible. To achieve the completion of the mythical Jesus, the following steps had to be taken:
 * 7) Development of apocalyptic and Messianic traditions in Judaism from the 6th century BCE to the 1st century CE
 * 8) Fusion of apocalyptic and Messianic Judaism with Hellenistic culture
 * 9) Emergence of "Jesus Christ" mystery religion among Hellenistic Jews
 * 10) Development of "flesh" based Christ theology within the mystery religion
 * 11) Writing of allegorical Christ narrative(s?)
 * 12) Writing of pseudo-historical Christ narratives
 * 13) Development and defense of historical Christ theology
 * 14) Development of post-canon dogma
 * 15) Elimination of remaining non-historical Christ theologies

Questions for all
Neil Godfrey presents the challenge to a historicity viewpoint and the challenge to an ahistoricity viewpoint. Godfrey writes:


 * Per Bart Ehrman:


 * Per Richard Carrier:

Question: Which is more likely: a) the first Christology was based on the idea of “exaltation"; or b) the first Christology was based on the idea of “incarnation”?

Neil Godfrey presents how the canonical gospels—when laid out chronologically—illustrate the progression towards historizing a bodily resurrection. Godfrey writes:


 * Per Richard Carrier:

Question: Do you concur that all ten points are indisputable facts?


 * Per R. G. Price:

Question: Which is more likely: a) the historicization of Jesus was a conscious effort; or b) the historicization of Jesus was the result of a mistaken interpretation of a fictional story?

Questions for Jesus historicists

 * Per R. G. Price:


 * Per :

Question: Do you concur, that when we find details in the life of Jesus evidently derived from from the Greek Old Testament, Homer, or Euripides, then we cannot but suspect that they are mythical rather than historical?

Corollary question: How many stories in the Gospels and Acts, do you find to be borrowed from the Greek Old Testament, Homer, or Euripides? Or more simply, which ones are not?


 * Per Tom Dykstra:

Question: If we do not have any ancient manuscripts of documents that narrate Jesus’s life or recount his sayings that are commonly seen as having been written earlier than the gospels, then how is it possible to establish that the seven narratives about Jesus—presented by Ehrman as independent—are not just embellished redactions of the earliest: Mark?


 * Per :

Question: Why have other historians—who do not specialize in the New Testament texts—not used these “advanced techniques”?


 * Per Raphael Lataster:

Question: When will an academic book—published by a respected biblical studies press—present a proper refutation of Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt and also make a peer reviewed case for historicity?

Corollary question: Do you concur that 'at least agnosticism' is very sensible?


 * August 2014: The Bible and Interpretation.
 * August 2019: The Bible and Interpretation.
 * December 2020: The Bible and Interpretation.

Surveys of early 20th century proponents of an ahistorical Jesus figure

 * Robertson, J. M. (1932). "VIII. The Making of Christianity". Courses of study (3 ed.). London: Watts & Co. pp. 77ff.
 * Dujardin, É. (1938). "L'évolution des théories mythiques sur l'origine du christianisme: à propos d'un livre récent" (in French). Revue De L'histoire Des Religions, 117 , 90-104.
 * Price, R. M. (2011). "The 'Pre-Christian Jesus' Revisited". The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems . American Atheist Press. pp. 387ff. ISBN 978-1-5788-4017-5.
 * Price, R. M. (2011). "The 'Pre-Christian Jesus' Revisited". The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems . American Atheist Press. pp. 387ff. ISBN 978-1-5788-4017-5.

Surveys of early 21st century proponents of an ahistorical Jesus figure

 * Hansen, Christopher M. (2020). [PRELIMINARY DRAFT] Quest of the Mythical Jesus: A History of Jesus Skepticism, ca. 1574 to the Present. Academia.edu.
 * Christiansen, Chris (2020) "&sect;.3.5 Twenty-First Century Mythicism", Was Jesus a Mythical Figure?.... M.S. Thesis: Trinity Western University.
 * Christiansen, Chris (2020) "&sect;.3.5 Twenty-First Century Mythicism", Was Jesus a Mythical Figure?.... M.S. Thesis: Trinity Western University.

Non English language books

 * Stéphane, Marc (1959) (in fr). La Passion de Jésus: fait d’histoire ou objet de croyance. Paris: Dervy-livres.
 * ISBN 978-2-07-071093-5.
 * ISBN 978-2-07-071093-5.

Online English language books

 * Greenly, Edward (1927). The Historical Reality of Jesus: A Concise Statement of the Problem.... Rationalist Association of Australia.
 * Couchoud, P. L. (1939) (in en) [1937 in fr]. Watts, 2 vol.

Radical criticism of the Pauline epistles authorship

 * Detering, Hermann (2003) [in German 1995]. The Fabricated Paul: Early Christianity in the Twilight. Translated by Darrell Doughty. Independently Published. ISBN 978-1-981040-81-0.
 * Price, Robert M. (2012). The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul. Signature Books. ISBN 978-1-56085-216-2.

Responses to Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?

 * "80+ mythicist responses to B. Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?", Mythicist Papers. A collection of links compiled by Dave Mack and René Salm.
 * "Debunking Bart Ehrman's belief in Jesus that he is attempting to call a fact, with his newest book", Exposing Religion Blog. A collection of links and quotes compiled by Peter Vidani.
 * "Ehrman on the Historicity of Jesus and Early Christian Thinking", Free Inquiry. Vol. 32 no. 4. Review of DJE by G. A. Wells.
 * "My Review of Did Jesus Exist? ", lost-history.com. Review of DJE by Jeff Querner.
 * Prof. “Errorman” and the non-Christian sources. Hermann Detering's engagement with Ehrman’s treatment of the non Christian sources. [PDF .]
 * The End of an Illusion: How Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" Has Laid the Case for an Historical Jesus to Rest. asin B00A2XN7EQ. Earl Doherty’s response to DJE.
 * "epilogue: Bart D. Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?", Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus. ISBN 978-1-907534-58-4. Review of DJE by Thomas Brodie.
 * Why Jesus Most Probably Never Existed: Ehrman’s Double Standards. Narve Strand’s engagement with Ehrman’s arguments.
 * Ehrman's Folly. Ben Goren responds to DJE.
 * "Is This Not the Carpenter's Son?", The Bible and Interpretation. A Response to Bart Ehrman by Thomas L. Thompson.
 * "Did Jesus Exist?", The Bible and Interpretation. A Response to Bart Ehrman by Philip Davies.
 * Richard Carrier:
 * "Ehrman on Jesus: A Failure of Facts and Logic", Richard Carrier Blogs. Review of DJE.
 * “How Not to Defend Historicity”, An Evaluation of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?. ISBN 9781578840199.
 * Raphael Lataster:
 * "Review Essay: Bart Ehrman and the Elusive Historical Jesus", Literature & Aesthetics 26 (1). Review of DJE [PDF .]
 * "Ehrman’s Dual Approach towards the Gospels", Questioning the Historicity of Jesus. ISBN 978-9004397934.
 * Tom Dykstra
 * Mandatory for Decent Human Life.
 * Thomas Verenna:
 * The Musings of Thomas Verenna.
 * The Bible and Interpretation.
 * Derreck Bennett:
 * Atheologica.
 * Atheologica.
 * Ophelia Benson:
 * Butterflies and Wheels.
 * Butterflies and Wheels.
 * Butterflies and Wheels.
 * Steven Carr
 * Steven Carr's Blog.
 * Steven Carr's Blog.
 * Steven Bollinger:
 * The Wrong Monkey.
 * The Wrong Monkey.
 * The Wrong Monkey.

Pre-Christian myth

 * GCRR
 * Richard Carrier Blogs.
 * Richard Carrier Blogs.

Pre-Christian Jewish Ideas of a Suffering and Dying Messiah

 * Vridar.

Logical arguments

 * Richard Carrier Blogs.
 * Richard Carrier Blogs.
 * Richard Carrier Blogs.
 * doi:10.5840/faithphil20112821. (Available Online)
 * doi:10.1017/S1477175618000362.

Miscellaneous

 * "Taking Up Ben Goren’s Jesus Challenge", Neil Godfrey completes a challenge to all by Ben Goren.

Websites

 * Atheomedy.
 * Medium.
 * Richard Carrier Blogs.
 * jesuspuzzle.com
 * Le Champ du Midrash.
 * rationalrevolution.net.
 * decipheringthegospels.com.

Ehrman—Carrier
• HuffPost. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs. • The Bart Ehrman Blog.

• ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs. • The Bart Ehrman Blog (reproduced:  Facebook). ‣ Camels With Hammers.

•  The New Oxonian. •  The Bart Ehrman Blog. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs.

•  The Bart Ehrman Blog. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs.

• The Bart Ehrman Blog. • Ehrman, Bart D. (3 May 2014) ap. YouTube. Scott Burdick. 13 August 2014. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (18 February 2016) ap. YouTube. Paul Gilmore. 20 April 2016. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (21 October 2016) ap. YouTube. Mythinformed. 21 March 2017. ‣ Carrier, Richard (25 October 2016) ap. YouTube. Mythinformed. 5 November 2016. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs. ‣ Carrier, Richard (6 October 2018) ap. YouTube. MythVision Podcast. 24 November 2018.

Price—Ehrman
‣

Gathercole—Carrier
• The Guardian ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs.

• ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs.

Cain—Pemberton
• Medium. ‣ Medium. ‣ Medium. • Medium. ‣ Medium. • Medium.

McGrath—Godfrey
•  Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath. ‣ Vridar. ‣ Vridar.

Jehovah's Witnesses—Carrier
• JW.ORG. • JW.ORG. • JW.ORG. ‣ Richard Carrier Blogs.

Lataster—Watson
• ‣ •

Carrier—McDonald
• Richard Carrier Blogs. ‣ ‣ • Richard Carrier Blogs. ‣ • Richard Carrier Blogs. ‣