Peter J. King

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism or simply mythicism) is the hypothesis that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. It does appear that most scholars of antiquity agree that there was an individual named Jesus of the period. What also becomes apparent is that much of the philosophy, dogma and supernatural teachings of Christianity can be traced to much earlier religions and that the Jews of the time adopted these pre-christian cultural and religious myths as their own. They subsequently evolved into legend as often happens. The Christ myth theory takes a very adversarial approach and contradicts the mainstream view in historical Jesus research, which accepts that there are events described in the gospels that are not historical but which still assumes that the gospels are founded on a basic historical core. Many proponents of the theory use a three-fold argument first developed in the 19th century: that the New Testament has no historical value that there are no non-Christian references to Jesus Christ dating back to the first century that Christianity had pagan or mythical roots. Despite this there remains a strong consensus in historical-critical biblical scholarship that a historical Jesus did live in that area and in that time period. However, scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus, and the only two events subject to "almost universal agreement" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Some scholars have made the case that there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, that there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus. Christ's given name, commonly Romanized as Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Jesus' death. Many of the allegories, events and proclaimed miracles attributed to Jesus were ever-present throughout history and not at all unique to Jesus of Nazareth. Some of the arguments attributed to many scholars are that: 1.The gospels were written many decades or even a century after Jesus' estimated year of death, by individuals who likely never met Jesus, and then were edited or forged over the centuries by unknown scribes with their own agendas. 2.There are no surviving historic records about Jesus of Nazareth from any non-Jewish author until the second century and Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence. 3.Certain gospel stories are similar to those of dying-and-rising gods, demigods (sons of gods), solar deities, saviors or other divine men such as Horus, Mithra/Mithras, Prometheus, Dionysus, Osiris, Buddha and Krishna, as well as Christ-like historical figures like Apollonius of Tyana and numerous others. In the days where people kill for their beliefs, it should be a high priority to better understand our humanity and commonality rather than accept religions which divide and take the stand that 'my belief is the one and only true belief'."

The Controversy and Criticism on the Historicity of Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth

Marcus Weeks

Will Buckingham

John Marenbon

Sam Atkinson

Emel Lakşe

Clive Hill

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Peter J. King

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