The Jesus Mythicist Position: Revised 2008

By Rook Hawkins

(1) A Brief Introduction to the Revised Article

About a year and a half ago, I started a campaign to educate people about Jesus mythicism.  When I had first started working on the campaign I was not as well prepared as I am now.  I have to chalk that up to inexperience.  When somebody says “a lot can happen in a year”, I will consider what they have to say, because they aren’t kidding.  A lot has happened in a year and a half that I felt a revision of this article was a necessity. 

Among the new avenues I have taken is a complete refocusing of my book, a project that has been a very huge learning experience, and I owe a large debt of gratitude to my mentor, colleague and friend, Thomas L. Thompson, who has been in no small way an influence on me personally and my research.  Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price have also stepped in to give me some really important advice and critiques that have also shaped how I see the past.  My debts also include Joseph B. Tyson, who has offered some criticisms as well as kindness and friendship, and to minimalists everywhere who have said in a loud voice, “We will not submit to assumption and speculation.”  It is their mighty tombs and impressively large shadows that I walk behind.  Without their unending sacrifice to keep scholarship in check, the world would still be shrouded in an age of darkness and death that ended with the success of the redaction schools of Germany and the glorious Enlightenment that help shaped western culture.

Additionally, over the past year, I have written a number of articles that supersede many of my older ones.  Many of my older positions imitated Dennis McKinsey, who is still a friend and colleague I admire greatly, yet where he was the one to show me the contradictions of the Bible, I was never able to explain to him the reasons why they existed.  For a long period of my atheism, I have argued with the intent to expose these contradictions.  There are many.  But this has become dull and boring to me.  Sure, it is very easy to show somebody a contradiction, but it is so much more fascinating to explain why they exist.  In other words, the what isn’t as important as the why.  My interest has shifted, and so have some of my positions.

To make this perfectly clear, it is not dishonorable to revise an outdated position.  Revising older material is exactly the intent of science.  As a historian, it is my job to review old data (especially my own!), compare it to new evidence, and adjust accordingly.  It has been a great deal of fun, as well as effort, to bring you this updated article.  I have been longing to write it for a few months, but I knew there were other things that had to come first.  I had to write up several articles that would supplement this one before I could even start conceptualizing an outline.  There were many loose ends that I needed to tie up and I feel I have done a good job of doing just that.

I have decided to write this article as if it were an FAQ.  I have divided this into questions, and to the questions I will provide very basic answers.  This article is intended as a general outline of my position, which I have come to understand as the most honest among other mythicists.  I will link to additional articles I’ve written if somebody wants further reading.  I am open to criticisms and comments, provided that before you comment you read the additional material to see if your positions have already been answered.  I am not a fan of repeating myself, especially not when I spent hours writing so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself.  If I feel your question has been answered elsewhere, I will simply link you to the thread where the answer is located.  I will not do your homework for you (Although, one could say that I have already done quite a bit of it for you already)!

I sincerely hope that you join me in this campaign, and together we can make it a success.  With enough support, we can educate a great deal of people.  And really, isn’t that what being a Rational Responder is all about?       

(2) What is the Mythicist Position?

To be brief, the mythicist position holds that Jesus, the historical and supernatural, never existed. 

For more reading: Does it Matter if Jesus Existed?  A Response to Rick Hillegas

(Off site) For more reading: Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument for Ahistoricity (Richard Carrier: 2002)

(Off site) For more reading: Jesus: Fact or Fiction (Robert M. Price: 1997)

(Off site) For more reading: Christ a Fiction (Robert M. Price: 1997)

(Off site) For more reading: Creating Biblical Figures (Thomas L. Thompson: 2005)

(3) What about the Historical Jesus Quests?

The historical Jesus quests (there have actually been three!) have all failed to provide a historical Jesus.  What they have shown is how easy it is for scholars to look down the well of history and see their own reflections staring back at them—and then assuming that reflection is Jesus.  Each quest set out with the goal of demythologizing the Gospels; that is, they intended to remove all the supernatural, legendary, theological, and political embellishments added by the authors of the four Gospels. (Later quests attempted to remove them from deuterocanonical books as well!)  What was discovered is that it is impossible to do so without infecting your search with your own personal goals as a scholar. 

For more reading: Which Jesus: A Legend with a Multiple Personality Disorder?

(4) What about Paul?  Didn’t he believe in a Historical Jesus?

Paul did not believe in a historical Jesus, but instead believed in a spiritual Jesus which he considered to be both a mediator between God and man as well as a revealer of knowledge and the mysteries of God.  Paul is the only link between the time period that is generally thought of to be the lifetime of Christ (c. 5-3 BCE – 30-33 CE), yet Paul seems to know nothing at all about this historical man, Jesus, who would have only died a few decades earlier.  Paul even says that he has talked to some of the apostles, but not only does he still remain ignorant, he flat out disagrees with Peter on doctrine and the message of Christianity!  You would think that, as somebody converting into a religion like Christianity, Paul would grant authority to the people who supposedly knew Jesus.  But he doesn’t.  Paul was interpreting scripture, and his savior came from scripture—not from a historical person. 

For more reading: On Paul and Identity

(5) What are the Gospels?  Aren’t they biographies of Jesus’ life?

The Gospels tell us nothing of a historical Jesus.  They are not biographies at all, unless you redefine biography to mean “a fictional representation of a legend”.  (Or something very close to that)  The Gospels are exactly what their authors intended them to be.  Mark intended his Gospel to be read as edifying fiction, as scripture reinterpretation, much like that of the author of Job and the author of Tobit did.  Matthew, writing later and copying Mark, added new plot lines to his narrative, like a birth story and a short snippet of Jesus as a youth – both of which come from scripture.  But even Matthew was probably writing allegory and fiction.  Luke was writing a polemical Gospel against Marcion, probably around the beginning or middle of the second century.  Luke changed Matthews birth narrative, and added more extravagance to Jesus’ resurrection story, including a scene which imitates the story of Romulus from Roman fiction.  John, most definitely a Gnostic, wrote his Gospel after Luke or around Luke, and expanded dramatically on Mark’s original composition.  None of these stories are accounts of an actual person.  They are Jewish fiction writing, a genre that was very popular during the Hellenistic period and the period known as the Second Sophistic.   The Gospels are a product of their times, they are not—as is commonly thought—separate from them.

For more reading: What is a Gospel?

For more reading: Biblical Languages and Dating

For more reading: An Example of Jewish Fiction Writing in Antiquity

For more reading: Jewish Assimilation into Greek Culture

(Off site) For more reading: Review of “The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark” (Richard Carrier: 2000)

(Off site) For more reading: Creating Biblical Figures (Thomas L. Thompson: 2005)

(6) What about Josephus?

Josephus’ testimony, commonly called the Testimonium Flavianum, is most certainly a later Christian forgery.  Many scholars argue for a partial interpolation, but this is probably out of the knowledge that without Josephus there is no evidence for a historical Jesus within the first century—a fact that would damage the credibility of the historical Jesus more than it already is.  They do so based on the assumption that an Arabic version reflects a more reasonable understanding of Jesus, without all the supernatural and obvious Christian elements.  But they ignore the fact that the copy is late and written by Arabs who did not view Jesus as the messiah.  They also ignore, or perhaps are unaware, of the Slavic copies of Josephus with even more interpolations added by Christians, many appearing in Josephus’ Jewish Wars.  This is not only evidence of Christian tampering with manuscripts, and the desire to incorporate whole accounts of Jesus’ life into Josephus, but it also severely damages the credibility of the Testimonium as even a partial interpolation.  Even worse, it exposes how easily scholars can be influenced by personal emotion and agendas, which cloud their research and affect their conclusions.

For more reading: Josephus and the Testimonium: Is it Evidence of Jesus?

(Off site) For more reading: Josephus Unbound: Reopening the Josephus Question (Earl Doherty: 1998)

(7) Do you believe that Jesus was a composite of Pagan Gods?

Short answer: Yes and no.  Longer answer:  Jesus is a composite of many different elements, and it honestly depends on which Jesus you’re talking about in order to really make this distinction.  If we are looking at Paul’s Jesus, then his savior is a combination of Orphic, Essenic and Rabbincal traditions, reflecting some themes from each.  If we read Mark’s Gospel alone, Jesus is a composite of five elements: (1) Moses (2) Joshua (3) Homer’s epics (specifically Odysseus) (4) the Hebrew scriptures (mainly the prophets) (5) and Orpheus.  Matthew’s Jesus is decidedly more Jewish, although Orphic themes show through because Matthew, like Mark, is interpreting Paul’s letters which contain these themes.  Luke’s Jesus is both anti-Marcionite but pro-Pauline.  John’s Gospel is a specific type of Gnosticism, which has its roots in Jewish and Greek mystery cults.  They mostly reflect Orphic and Dionysian traditions, and thus reflect Orpheus and Dionysus. 

The claim that Jesus is a compilation of other Egyptian and Eastern demi-Gods is not founded in any fact.  Jesus reflects Egyptian culture because of the Diasporic influence of Egyptian culture on exiled Jews living in Egypt.  The Hebrew Scriptures, more than Jesus, reflect more Egyptian influence than anything else.  And because the Gospel authors are interpreting scripture, the influence comes through.  But there is no direct influence from Horus or Osirius, and there is certainly no evidence at all of eastern traditions like Krishna or Buddha having an influence on the authors of the Gospels—or even Jews in general.  This is outdated scholarship that lacks serious evidence required to make such assumptions.  I do not support it.  The only pagan God that has any direct effect on Christianity is Orpheus, and in some cases Dionysus.  And the evidence for this is overwhelming.

For more reading: Problems with Acharya S: A Brief Review

For more reading: Jewish Assimilation into Greek Culture

(Off site) For more reading: Kersey Graves and “The Worlds Sixteen Crucified Saviors” (Richard Carrier: 2003)

(Off site) For more reading: Osiris and Pagan Resurrection Myths: Assessing the Till-McFall Exchange (Richard Carrier: 2002)

(8 ) If Jesus was not a real person, why were Christians willing to die for him?

This assumes that early Christians thought of him as a historical person.  The Roman Legions died for the gods of their emperor, and they never thought of the gods as historical.  Their gods were supernatural, spiritual beings.  Perhaps later Christians died believing Jesus was a historical person, but that doesn’t mean he was.  Nobody would argue that Dionysus was a historical person on the account that Greeks believed he was.

(Off site) For more reading: Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? Chapter 8: Who Would Want to be Persecuted? (Richard Carrier: 2006)

(9) Don’t Christians, Muslims and Jews all accept Jesus as Historical?  Doesn’t that mean he lived?

No.  It means people are willing to accept things as fact with little or no evidence.

For more reading: A Look at Ancient Ghost Stories and Hauntings

(Off site) For more reading: Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into a World of the Gospels (Richard Carrier: 1997)

(10) If Jesus didn’t exist, why are there so many television shows on the History Channel about his life?

There are shows on Jesus because the story of Jesus, and the controversies of many of the apocryphal books on Jesus, make for great television drama and boost ratings.  

(11) What Motive would the early Christians have to lie about Jesus?

Who claimed they lied?  This is an ad hoc argument.  The early Christians believed differently about Jesus than did their later Orthodox brethren.  The early Christian believed in a spiritual revealer Jesus, not a historical man that was crucified by other men.  They believed this with all their will, and the Gospel author Mark probably did as well.  Mark was not writing fiction to deceive, as other Christians read his fictional account and understood it to be fiction, just as Jews read Tobit and understood it to be fiction.  And, just as you go out to a book store today and pick up a copy of The Catcher in the Rye and read it as fiction.  Jesus Christ is no more real than Holden Caulfield.  The early Christians understood this and appreciated the narrative as a tool of wisdom and inventiveness. 

For more reading: What is a Gospel?

For more reading: Biblical Languages and Dating

For more reading: An Example of Jewish Fiction Writing in Antiquity

(Off site) For more reading: Creating Biblical Figures (Thomas L. Thompson: 2005)

(12) What about all the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi, don’t they validate the historical Jesus?

No, they do not.  Just as the synoptic Gospels show a gradual legendary embellishment, the Gnostic Gospels also do this.  The authors of the various apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Apocalypses are copying and editing earlier works, applying their own politics and theology to them as they write.  This is indicative more of legend than of history.

(13) Are the Gospels eye-witness accounts?

No.  The Gospels show clear signs of being written by authors after the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Some even show signs of having never been to Palestine at all, and are relying on atlases or maps to formulate plotline.  Some purposefully change or create locations (such as gentile villages in Galilee in the first century) to supplement their fictional narratives.  Matthew and Luke copy (in many cases verbatim) from Mark’s Gospel extensively, and Luke we know for sure had copies of Josephus and wrote against Marcion in the second century.  John has a copy of Mark, but alters his Gospel quite a bit, adding to it extravagantly.  The Gospel authors are also anonymous, the names being given long after their original composition by later Christians vying for power over other Christians who they deemed heretical.  

For more reading: What is a Gospel?

For more reading: Biblical Languages and Dating

For more reading: An Example of Jewish Fiction Writing in Antiquity

(Off site) For more reading: The Evidence is Inadequate (Richard Carrier: 2006)

(Off site) For more reading: The Formation of the New Testament Canon (Richard Carrier: 2000)

(Off site) For more reading: Luke and Josephus (Richard Carrier: 2000)

(14) Don’t we have artifacts of Jesus’ life like the Spear of Destiny and the Shroud of Turin?

Both these objects have long since been considered hoaxes.  We have no archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus at all.

(15) Didn’t Jesus fulfill Prophecy?

No.  In fact the reason why Jesus is rejected by Jews today is because Jesus did not fit the prophecies of the Old Testament.  The reason why Jesus’ actions in the Gospels resemble things from the Old Testament is not because Jesus fulfilled scripture, but rather the author of the Gospels was reinterpreting that scripture to create plot lines.  Jesus did not ride a colt into Jerusalem.  The Author of Mark was reading the verse from Zechariah, and for the purpose of plot, had his character ride a colt into Jerusalem.

For more reading: What is a Gospel?

For more reading: Biblical Languages and Dating

For more reading: An Example of Jewish Fiction Writing in Antiquity

(Off site) For more reading: The Problem of the Virgin Birth Prophecy (Richard Carrier: 2003)

(16) What about the accounts of Jesus traveling to the far East to study the philosophy of Buddhism?

None of this has been verified by any archaeological evidence.  This is another attempt to market on the Jesus namesake.  There is no evidence of Jewish settlements in India or China, and certainly there is no evidence that Jews could understand and read, or even speak ancient Hindi or Chinese.  These positions are generally claimed by spiritualists and new age folk who want to make Jesus more like Buddha and Krishna.  No such link exists archaeologically or historically.  This claim rests purely on desire and nothing more.

For more reading: Problems with Acharya S: A Brief Review

For more reading: Jewish Assimilation into Greek Culture

(17) An Argument from Silence does not mean Jesus didn’t exist.

Correct.  However this assumes that an Argument from Silence is all that mythicists have.  Instead we have a strong Argument from Silence along with other evidence that goes against historicity, cumulatively makes a strong case for ahistoricity.  A review of all the articles linked to on this page will clearly show how strong the position is for ahistoricity.

For more reading: A Silence that Screams (Todangst: 2007) 

(Off site) For more reading: Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (Richard Carrier: 2006)

(Off site) For more reading: Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument for Ahistoricity (Richard Carrier: 2002)

(18) What about other attestations to Jesus like the Talmud?

These references are not only late, but they are conflicting, and are probably based on hearsay (in other words, they got their stories from Christians not historical data).  The Talmud contains some Toldoth Jesu, or Jewish polemics against Christians, which are fictional, and are all very degrading towards the character of Jesus.   

(Off site) For more reading: The Great Preposterous (Robert M. Price: 1997)

(19) Books by Mythicist Scholars

Thomas L. Thompson

(1)   The Mythic Past (2000)

(2)   Early History of the Israelite People (2000)

(3)   The Messiah Myth (2005)

Robert M. Price

(1)   Jesus is Dead (2006)

(2)   Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003)

(3)   Deconstructing Jesus (2000)

(4)   The Empty Tomb (2005)

Richard Carrier

(1)   Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism (2005)