Essay:Critics of the historicity of Jesus

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See the main article on this topic: Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ

“”Modern Christianity must always reckon with the possibility of having to abandon the historical figure of Jesus … he should never be considered its foundation.

—Albert Schweitzer

“”Among those so convinced … are Bauer, B(ö)htlingk, Bolland, Bossi, E. Carpenter, Couchoud, D(u)puis, Drews, Dujardin, Fran(c)k(e), Hannay, Heulhard, Jensen, Kalthoff, Kulischer, Loman, Lublinski, Matthas, Mead, Naber, Pierson, Robertson, Rylands, G. Smith, W. B. Smith, Stahl, Van Eysinga, Virolleaud, Volney and Whittaker.

—Vardis Fisher

This list in general (but not specifically) presents scholars and commentators who assert (or are at least sympathetic to the viewpoint) that Christianity and the New Testament writings can be explained without any reference to a historical Jesus. For example Philip R. Davies, who holds that the historicity of Jesus is more probable but writes, "the rise and growth of Christianity can be examined and explained without the need to reconstruct a particular historical Jesus."

A

• John M. Allegro (1923–1988) – English archaeologist.

B

• Harry Elmer Barnes (1889–1968) – American historian

Among the more eminent scholars and critics who have contended that Jesus was not an actual historical figure we mention Bruno Bauer, Kalthoff, Drews, Ste(u)del, Felde(n), Deÿe, Jensen, Lublinski, Bolland, Van de(n) Berg(h), Virolleaud, Couchoud, Massey, Bossi, Niemojewski, Brandes, Robertson, Mead, Whittaker, Carpenter and W. B. Smith. While the writer does not concur in the extremely critical position taken by this group of writers, the very fact that so large a group of eminent scholars can earnestly maintain their thesis [is significant]...

• Dan Barker (born 1949) – American atheist activist.
• Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) – German philosopher and historian.
• Albert Bayet (1880–1961) – French sociologist.
• Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga (1874–1957) – Dutch theologian.
• Gerard Bolland (1854–1922) – Dutch philosopher and scholar.
• Emilio Bossi (1870–1920) – Swiss journalist and lawyer.
• Georg Brandes (1842–1927) – Danish literary critic.
• Thomas L. Brodie (born 1943) – Irish Roman Catholic priest.
• Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) – German theologian and professor of the New Testament.

[W]e can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary; and other sources about Jesus do not exist.

C

• Richard Carlile (1790–1843) – English journalist, radical and secularist.
• Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) – English socialist poet, philosopher and anthologist.
• Richard Carrier (born 1969) – American atheist activist.
• Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879–1959) – French philosopher.
• Herbert Cutner (1881–1969) – English artist, etcher and freethought writer.

D

• Philip R. Davies – British biblical scholar.
• Earl Doherty (born 1941) – Canadian writer.
• Arthur Drews (1865–1935) – German historian and philosopher.
• Édouard Dujardin (1861–1949) – French novelist and writer.
• Charles-François Dupuis (1742–1809) – French scientist.

E

• Alvar Ellegård (1919–2008) – Swedish linguist.

F

• David Fitzgerald (born 1964) – American atheist activist and writer.
• Brian Flemming (born 1966) – American film director.

G

• Peter Gandy – British writer.
• Marshall Gauvin (1881–1978) – Canadian atheist and freethought writer.
• Gilbert T. Sadler (1871–1939) – British Congregational minister.
• Kersey Graves (1813–1883) – American freethought writer.
• Edward Greenly (1861–1951) – English geologist.
• Neil Godfrey

Certain Christ Myth proponents (Couchoud, Doherty, Carrier) have proposed the celestial origin of the Christ (Jesus?) figure but that leaves unaddressed the question of growth of the new belief system. Can anyone imagine Christianity getting a hold without the gospel narratives or something akin to those narratives? The point of the celestial origin perspective, from what I recall, is that it adapted into a set of narratives (allegorical at first, perhaps, but not necessarily) that involved that celestial figure descending to earth, to his people, in some form of fleshly aspect.

[...]

by the time Christianity is making some noticeable gains in society it has most certainly moved on from any supposed celestial origin. It is from the time Jesus is believed to have been “a man” visiting his people etc that the faith takes off in a more popular way.

The question of celestial origins of the Christ belief is about getting to — well — “the origins”. But those arguments, at least the ones I am familiar with, also contain a part 2: that that celestial figure was “given flesh” by gospel-like narratives that present him as a human figure. I think the Gospel of Mark is an especially strong piece of evidence that those narratives originated as some sort of intertextual/midrashic type creativity.

Mythicists make a mistake if they merely argue for a celestial origin of Christ and leave it at that.

H

• Tom Harpur (1929–2017) – Canadian theologian and writer.
• Arthur Heulhard (1849–1920) – French journalist.

J

• Peter Jensen (1861–1936) – German orientalist.
• Edward Johnson (1842–1901) – English historian.

K

• Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906) – German Protestant theologian.
• Shūsui Kōtoku (1871–1911) – Japanese socialist and anarchist.
• Sergey Kovalev (1886–1960) – Russian scholar of classical antiquity.
• Iosif Kryvelev (1906–1991) – Russian historian of Judaism and Christianity.
• Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963) – American Theosophist.
• Abner Kneeland (1774–1844) – American theologian and the last man in the United States jailed for blasphemy.

Paul [is], admitting, after having preached a considerable number of years, that he knows nothing true of Jesus Christ, but that which Jesus Christ had revealed to himself; and expressly declaring that this had been a mystery kept secret since the world began, and was only then first preached by himself.

This declaration were there nothing else, would be sufficient to destroy all idea of the four gospels being authentic.

L

• Harold Leidner (1916–2008) – American patent attorney.
• Logan Mitchell (1802–1881) – British freethinker.
• Abraham Dirk Loman (1823–1897) – Dutch theologian.
• Samuel Lublinski (1868–1910) – Literary historian, critic, and philosopher of religion.

M

• M. M. Mangasarian (1859–1943) – American rationalist and secularist.
• Michael Martin (1932–2015) – American philosopher.
• Gerald Massey (1828–1907) – English poet and spiritualist.
• Dennis McKinsey (1940–2009) – American atheist writer.
• Myles McSweeney (1814–1881) – Irish Chartist, mythologist and secularist writer.

N

• Andrzej Niemojewski (1864–1921) – Polish social and political activist.

O

• Michel Onfray (born 1959) – French philosopher.

P

• Minas Papageorgiou (born 1983) - Greek journalist and author.
• Allard Pierson (1831–1896) – Dutch theologian and historian.
• Robert M. Price (born 1954) – American theologian and writer.

R

• Abram Ranovich (1885–1948) – Russian scholar of classical antiquity and religion.
• Salomon Reinach (1858–1932) – French archaeologist.
• Samuel Maximilian Rieser (1893–1981) – American lawyer and philosopher.
• J. M. Robertson (1856–1933) – Scottish journalist, politician and writer.

[Even] though it is not recorded that any reports of Jesuine sayings existed in any form in Paul's time we are asked to believe that a multitude of Jesuine discourses delivered about the year 30 were accurately reproduced, without additions, forty or more years later; and that documents to which during a century anybody might add, in an age of habitual forgery, are valid evidence. Clearly this is the merest fanaticism. All that can rationally be claimed is that a teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named teachers called Messiahs, may have Messianically uttered some of these teachings at various periods, presumably after the writing of the Pauline epistles.

• Rudolf Steck (1842–1924) – Swiss reformed theologian.
• Nikolai Rumyantsev (1892–1956) – Russian historian.
• L. Gordon Rylands (1862-1942) – British criminologist and writer.

S

• Acharya S (1961–2015) – American writer.
• Sarah Elizabeth Titcomb (1841–1895) – American genealogist and writer.
• William Benjamin Smith (1850–1934) – American professor of mathematics.
• Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) – German critical scholar who wrote a history of the research on the "Life of Jesus" [Leben-Jesu-Forschung].

Against the historicity of the oldest Gospel tradition

Arthur Böhtlingk (Professor in Karlsruhe), Zur Aufbellung der Christus-Mythologie (Towards the Elucidation of the Christ Mythology), Frankfurt am Main 1911, 15 pp.

Peter Jensen, Hat der Jesus der Evangelien wirklich gelebt? Eine Antwort an Professor Jilicher (Did the Jesus of the Gospels Really Live? A Reply to Professor Jiilicher), Frankfurt am Main 1910, 32 pp.

Ernst Krieck (teacher in Mannheim), Die neueste Orthodoxie und das Christusproblem (The Most Recent Orthodoxy and the Christ Problem, directed particularly against Weinel), Jena 1910, 63 pp.

Friedrich Steudel (Preacher at St Remberti, Bremen, grandson of Friedrich Steudel, the chief opponent of David Friedrich Strauss), Im Kampf um die Christusmythe (The Battle over the Christ Myth, directed against P. W. Schmeidel and Johannes Weiss in particular), Jena 1910, 119 pp.

Wir Gelebrten vom Fach (We Scholars on the Subject. A Polemical Treatise against von Soden’s ‘Did Jesus live?’), Frankfurt am Main 1910, 95 pp.

Heinrich Zimmern, Zum Streit um die Christusmythe. Das babylonische Material (The Christ Myth Controversy. The Babylonian Material), Berlin 1910, 66 pp.

Varia: Hat Jesus gelebt? (Did Jesus live?). Talks given at the Berliner Religionsgesprach of the German Society of Monists on 31 January and 1 February 1910 in the Berlin Zoological Garden: A. Drews, von Soden, F. Steudel, G. Hollmann, Max Fischer, F. Lipsius, H. Francke, T. Kappstein, Max Maurenbrecher, Berlin and Leipzig 1910, 93 pp.

Diskussion (journal) No.1, Lebte Jesus?, F. Steudel, H. Francke, H. Lhotsky, M. Maurenbrecher, M. Ruland, H. Buber, Berlin 1910, 57 pp.

T

• Robert Taylor (1784–1844) – Freethinker and radical.
• Thomas L. Thompson (born 1939) – Danish Biblical scholar and theologian.
• Farrell Till (1933–2012) – American skeptic.

V

• Charles Virolleaud (1879–1968) – French archaeologist.
• Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney (1757–1820) – French historian and philosopher.

W

• Barbara G. Walker (born 1930) – American feminist writer.
• George Albert Wells (1926–2017) – English Professor of German and writer.
• Joseph Wheless (1868–1950) – American lawyer.
• Thomas Whittaker (1856–1935) – English metaphysician and critic.
• Robert Wipper (1859–1954) – Russian historian.

Z

• Frank Zindler (born 1939) – American atheist writer.

See also

• Jesus myth theory
• Christ myth theory

External links

• "A Mythicism Timeline".  Mythicist Papers.
• "WHO's WHO: Mythicists and Mythicist Agnostics".  Vridar.
• "1950s Scholarship on the Historicity of Jesus - Vardis Fisher's summary".  Vridar.
• "Demolishing the historicity of Jesus – A History".  Church and State.
• "Over 40 Pages of books/works by scholars, historians, academics, professors, philosophers, and intellectuals who have helped discover and document that Jesus was a fictional character and Christian claims about him are fraud".  The Jesus Birther Movement.

Bibliography

• Bultmann, Rudolf (1926) (in de). Jesus. Die Unsterblichen: Die geistigen Heroen der Menschheit in ihrem Leben und Wirken, Vol. 1. Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek. 
• Bultmann, Rudolf (1934) [1926 in German] (in en). Jesus and the Word [Jesus]. New York: Scribner. 
• Schweitzer, Albert (1913) [1906, 1st ed.] (in de). Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (2nd revised and expanded ed.). Mohr. 
• Schweitzer, Albert (2001) [1913 in German] (in en). The Quest of the Historical Jesus [Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung]. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-1-4514-0354-1.  translated by John Bowden et al.