From Christ to Jesus
A Study on the Origin of Christianity
"The actions of Jesus present themselves to the verification of historians. Nobody today can seriously pretend, in the name of History, that Jesus never existed."
Catechism for adults of the French bishops. This widespread idea can even be found in textbooks.
Jesus was a common name 2,000 years ago in Galilee, and some people named Jesus must have been crucified among all the Jews killed by the Romans. This study is not trying to discredit this eventuality, but to investigate the birth of Christianity. Particularly, it is challenging the mainstream view that:
"Christianity is based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth" Wikipedia Christianity
Something experts are certain of:
"virtually all historians and scholars have concluded Jesus did exist as a historical figure."
B. Ehrman Did Jesus Exist?
However, if one goes a little bit deeper, he will rapidly discover a deception in the form of "6 Dogmatic Assumptions". Indeed, apart from 2 or 3 exotic minds, all these theologians have assumed (not concluded) that the movement started with a man from Galilee, probably a Jewish illiterate peasant, who would have been crucified in Jerusalem around 30 CE. For the rest, there are almost as many theories on Jesus as there are books about him!
"Why is Jesus, alone of all historical figures, so covered by a cloud of unknowing and a cloak of protective invisibility?
Why is Jesus more unknowable or less reconstructable than any other ancient person about whom data has survived?"
J.D. Crossan The Birth of Christianity
Undeniably, for more than a hundred years, theologians have failed to extract the HJ (Historical Jesus) behind the Myth.
"There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus. The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and died to give his work its final consecration, never had any existence. This image has not been destroyed from without, it has fallen to pieces, cleft and disintegrated by the concrete historical problems which came to the surface one after another."
Well known conclusion of The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer in 1906, still valid today.
At a high level, the MJ (Mythical Jesus) theory is the opposite of any other theory saying that it was Jesus' life & death that triggered this colossal response among his followers, as we can see in 'Preaching Jesus Was' of chapter 3. Jesus in the Epistles. But in the details, the MJ theory has a lot in common with modern critical scholarship as they both agree that most of what is attributed to Jesus in the Gospels is fake. These HJ minimal theories are skeptical of so much that their refusal to tackle the last step, that Christianity began with a mythical Christ, seems genuinely motivated by a political & ideological Agenda. Their few attempts to support Jesus' existence have also been notable failures, as attested by the Did Jesus Exist? by B. Ehrman (2013).
"Whether Christ did, or did not live, has nothing at all to do with what the churches teach, or with what we believe. It is wholly a matter of evidence and a question of science.
The question is -- what does history say?
And that question must be settled in the court of historical criticism. If the thinking world is to hold to the position that Christ was a real character, there must be sufficient evidence to warrant that belief."
Marshall J. Gauvin
What is at stake?
If the theory supported by this website is correct, it will be, by far, our most important case of Historical revisionism.
It might also shake the faith of 2.3 billion believers...
"The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it."
Oscar Wilde
7 Theories on Jesus
What kind of Man was Jesus?
Both cryptic theories are split in many different versions:
  • Hellenistic Hero
  • Revolutionary
  • Wisdom Sage
  • Man of the Spirit
  • Prophet of Social Change
  • Apocalyptic Prophet...
See Historical Jesus Theories by Peter Kirby
What kind of Myth was Jesus?
The two Jesus Myth theories say that Christianity began with the belief in a Mythical Christ, with no connections whatsoever with a recent man who would have lived in Galilee or elsewhere. They place his act of salvation (crucifixion) in
  • Time: the mythical past
  • Location: the supernatural world (including one of the lower spheres of heaven) or somewhere unknown on earth.
Other Theories about Jesus
Other paradigms about Jesus that are not in the table above can often be integrated in one of these categories. For examples:
  • Part of the Cryptic Myth theory:
    The Jesus that the Epistles authors had in mind was someone who really lived, but in a distant past. For example, Alvar Ellegård, has identified the Jesus of the early Christians as an actual historical figure known to us from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Teacher of Righteousness of the Qumran Essenes.
  • Part of the Cryptic theory:
    Jesus did exist and Christianity was founded by his life and death but the myth has entirely recovered the character so there is no way to say anything about him. See Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), Charles Guignebert (1867-1939), Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976).
"...almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics."
Raymond Brown
New Discoveries
Many texts have been discovered since the end of the XIXth century and they all shed light on the context when it all started. Particularly, they tell us that early Christianity was much more diverse than expected. Countless Jewish-Christian-Pagan sects were competing against one another, with more or less things in common. We will review them in chapter 5: Jesus outside the Bible.
Discov. New Texts Manuscript Pub.
1873 Didache Codex Hierosolymitanus
11 CE
1883
1896 Gospel of Mary, Sophia of Jesus Christ,
Apocryphon of John, Act of Peter...
Berlin Codex
5 CE
1955
1909
1912
Odes of Solomon Cod. Syr. 9, 15 CE
Codex Nitriensis, 10 CE
1912
1970
1945 Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Philip...
Codex of Nag Hammadi
4 CE
1956
1947-
2021
Community Rule, War Scroll,
Pesher on Habakkuk,
The Rule of the Blessing.
Dead Sea Scroll
3 BCE to 1 CE
2000
1970 Gospel of Judas Codex Tchacos
3 CE
2006
"Christianity is a historical religion which claims that the God who made the universe actually became a man — a real human being who lived in a particular time and in a particular place. As a result, the idea of searching for the historical truth about Jesus made sense to me."
Brant Pitre The Case for Jesus
150 Years of Quest
As of 2023, there have been three quests on the HJ (Historical Jesus), period with more interest and books among scholars. They seek to find the man behind the many traditions surrounding Jesus.
It is a peculiarly modern quest, unlike the ancient or medieval worlds, our age wants the facts. Ancient, medieval, early Christians never had such a thing. Who would have questioned at that time the legitimacy of Christian faith in Jesus Christ?
1 - The First Quest 1750-1930
  • Hermann Samuel Reimarus
  • David Friedrich Strauss
  • Ernest Renan
  • Albert Schweitzer Son of a pastor
Schweitzer ended the quest by noting how each scholar's version of Jesus seemed little more than an idealized autobiography of the scholar himself- a criticism that still haunts Jesus research to this day.
The No Quest
  • Rudolf Bultmann Son of a minister
  • Martin Dibelius Son of a pastor
Scholars asserted the Quest for the HJ was impossible because of insufficient evidence, and considered it both historically impossible and theologically illegitimate to write a biography of Jesus. Yet, they tended to present Jesus as an Existentialist Philosopher.
2 - The Second Quest (1953-1970)
  • Gunther Bornkamm Pastor
  • Ernst Kasemann Pastor
  • James M. Robinson Minister
  • John A. T. Robinson Bishop
  • Edward Schillebeeckx Priest
Theologians emphasized how the redaction of the New Testament resulted from a process over time, so that it included early textual layers, around which later and later layers crystalized. The goal would be the detection of such early text.
3 - The Third Quest 1980-2003
Here, there has been at least one more split on how they view Jesus:
Wandering Cynic Wisdom Teacher
  • Marcus Borg Christian, wife priest
  • John Dominic Crossan Former priest
  • Robert Funk Christian Theological Seminary
  • Burton Mack Prof. at Claremont School of Theology
  • Robert M. Price Former Baptist Minister
  • John Shelby Spong Bishop
  • Leif Vaage Evangelical Lutheran Pastor
  • John S. Kloppenborg Ph.D. in Theology
  • Members of the Jesus Seminar
Apocalyptic Prophet of the Kingdom of Heaven
  • E.P. Sanders Protestant
  • Raymond E. Brown Catholic priest
  • John P. Meier Catholic priest. Papal gold medal Bib. Inst.
  • Geza Vermes Former Catholic priest - Jewish
  • N. T. Wright Dean of Lichfield cathedral
  • Ben Witherington Conservative Methodist
  • Hyam Maccoby Jewish
  • Gerd Theissen Protestant, wrote to support Biblical Faith
  • Bart Ehrman Seminarian of the Moody Bible Institute
Wikipedia Quest for the historical Jesus
So I suggest a fourth quest:
4 - The Jesus Exist Quest 2024-
...
Everyone noticed that almost all Historians on Jesus are in reality Theologians. Most of them are (or were) also priests/pastors/ministers or had a spouse or father who was.
"As a historian I do not know for certain that Jesus really existed, that he is anything more than the figment of some overactive imaginations.... In my view, there is nothing about Jesus of Nazareth that we can know beyond any possible doubt.
In the mortal life we have there are only probabilities. And the Jesus that scholars have isolated in the ancient gospels, gospels that are bloated with the will to believe, may turn out to be only another image that merely reflects our deepest longings."
Robert W. Funk, Jesus Seminar Founder and Co-Chair
Religious Affiliation in the United States
Christianity went down in the U.S. from 83% in 2003 to 72% in 2017, mainly due to new generations of non-believers. But it is still very present in western culture with a large influence on education, neighborhood communities, laws and politics. For example, every morning, students across the country recite the pledge of allegiance that includes the words “one nation under God," and for the vast majority, it is the Christian God, Jesus.
Politics: The Congress is more religious than the General Public, especially more Christians (88% vs 71%) and Jewish (6.2% vs 2%). See religious composition of the 118th Congress and In God we trust: why Americans won’t vote in an atheist president.
Views of Presidential Traits
When questioned about comments and actions deemed by many to be homophobic, the new Republican US House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News: "well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it – that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe and so I make no apologies for it." We could multiply these kinds of examples almost indefinitely.
Laws: As of July 2023, the Supreme Court of Justice composition is heavily Christian conservative with six Catholics and one of each Anglican, Protestant and Jewish. In 2005, four of their judges argued that displaying the Ten Commandments on government land is a legitimate tribute to the nation’s religious and legal history.
In 2024, Louisiana will require the 10 Commandments displayed in every public school classroom, the latest move from a GOP-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor. This is bad for two reasons:
Universities: Most of the universities in the U.S. have a major workforce of teachers and researchers devoted to something-or-other relating to the bible.
In 2020 there were about
  • 315,000 theologians in the workforce (0.2% of the total workforce)
  • 27,000 degrees awarded for the year
Faith Communities: According to the National Congregational Study Survey, there are an estimated 380,000 churches in the U.S. Many scholars who write about Jesus are among their members.
A Budget of $1200 billions a year
There is a whole economic ecosystem based on the Bible for which so many people depend on, including most of our experts. It exists almost everywhere in the world and particularly in the United States.
A study done in 2016 shows that the Faith economy is worth $1.2tn a year (mid-range estimate) – more than the combined revenues of the 10 biggest tech firms in America... money for which the church doesn't pay a penny of tax.
“the faith sector is undoubtedly a significant component of the overall American economy, impacting and involving the lives of the majority of the US population”.
The Guardian: Religion in US 'worth more than Google and Apple combined'
Today, we acknowledge the importance of Christianity in our world, with inevitably, as we will see below, some consequences when studying its origin. But yesterday, it was considerably worse. Christian dominance across thousands of years has created a very Unique Context on the Quest for Jesus.
A Hidden Agenda
"Most men who write on Christian origins are trained theologians, committed to certain conclusions before they begin."
G.A. Wells
As we have seen in A Quest of 150 Years, the professionals of the New Testament are theologians and most of them are or have been priests, pastors, ministers... The Christian Church is everywhere in their education and life. They have many ties with it and the accepted theological wisdom on Jesus has always been that the Gospels and Acts provide the groundwork for any historical study of Jesus, in spite of admissions that they have grave weaknesses as historical sources.
A Theological Agenda
A lot of Christian Universities openly admit having no interest in pursuing non-biased study.
"Everything we do at Moody falls under the authority of the Bible, which declares timeless truth that is relevant today and throughout every generation. We believe that understanding and sharing God's Word is a lifelong journey. And we're committed to providing encouragement for you in your walk with Christ."
B. Ehrman and many other scholars are their products.
And scholars recognize it:
"I am concerned, not with an unattainable objectivity, but with an attainable honesty."
"the historical Jesus research is becoming something of a scholarly bad joke. it is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography."
J.D. Crossan The Historical Jesus
A Conservative Agenda
These institutions are perfect examples of sclerose and resistance to change.
"The Servite major seminary was near Chicago but we students lived in complete isolation from the outside world. Monastic life meant celibacy and liturgy, work and recreation, silence and study. The curriculum was designed for safety rather than originality; obedience was the supreme virtue; discussion and debate were hardly encouraged."
J.D. Crossan
Well, we can agree that if something new and controversial must be discovered in the field, there is little chance it will come from there.
A Self-Preservation Agenda
Hector Avalos (1958-2021) -Harvard Phd of Philosophy and former Pentecostal preacher- argues that biblical studies, as we know it, should end, because it is just religious apologetics, not an academic discipline or a branch of scholarship. In this radical critique of his own academic specialty, he outlines two main arguments:
  • First, academic biblical scholarship has clearly succeeded in showing that the ancient civilization that produced the Bible held beliefs about the origin, nature, and purpose of the world and humanity that are fundamentally opposed to the views of modern society. The Bible is thus largely irrelevant to the needs and concerns of contemporary human beings.
  • Second, Avalos criticizes his colleagues for applying a variety of flawed and specious techniques aimed at maintaining the illusion that the Bible is still relevant in today's world. In effect, he accuses his profession of being more concerned about its self-preservation than about giving an honest account of its own findings to the general public and faith communities.
...He laments that the publishing industry and academia have such a vested interest in keeping our "bibliolatry" worship alive...
He shows that biblical scholarship, far from being a neutral and objective enterprise, is motivated even today by theological presuppositions."
Adapted from some online reviews and Infidels: The End of Biblical Studies
An Unknown Paradigm
Knowing all the facts above, it is not a surprise to learn that the Myth hypothesis is, besides very rare exceptions, largely ignored by the profession! Almost none of the hundred of books every year on Jesus mention it! B. Ehrman confessed himself in Did Jesus Exist? that in thirty years of study of the New Testament, he had no idea that a complete literature of mythicism even existed.
G.A. Wells's views are never discussed in the theological literature on the historical Jesus. He is not even mentioned in the lists of recent introductions to the New Testament designed for the use of students of theology in the universities (Koester 1982, 1990, Kümmel 1964, 1984). Burton Mack says after briefly explaining Wells's position, "scholars with theological interests have scarcely taken note of this literature" (Mack 1990 p. 24, note 2). A scholarly paradigm shift is naturally hardest to accept for the already established generation of scholars. But the almost complete absence of serious discussion is disturbing: it appears like a conspiracy of silence on the part of the theologians, who are, after all, the scholarly specialists as regards the history of Christianity. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the main reason for the stand taken by the theologians is that they feel their religion is threatened.
The ultimate emergence of the Christian religion represents a human invention–in terms of its historical and cultural significance, arguably the greatest invention in the history of Western civilization.
B. Ehrman Jesus Interrupted
Six Dogmatic Assumptions
"I have taken it for granted that Jesus of Nazareth existed."
N. T. Wright Jesus and the Victory of God
"I am not even interested in trying [to prove that Jesus existed]"
J.D. Crossan
"The doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation.
No sane person can doubt..."
R. Bultmann Jesus and the Word
B. Ehrman himself asserted that the present state of New Testament scholarship is such that an established scholar should present his Life of Jesus, without considering whether this figure, in fact, lived as a historical person.
The assumptions implied reflect a serious problem regarding the historical quality of scholarship in biblical studies—not least that which presents itself as self-evidently historical-critical.
Six undisputable historical facts
  • Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Epistles
  • He was a Galilean who preached and worked miracles. Epistles
  • He limited his activity to Israel. Epistles
  • He called up those who would become his disciples. Epistles
  • He raised controversy over the role of the temple. Epistles
  • He was crucified outside Jerusalem by the Roman authorities. Epistles
However
"none of this is told of Jesus in the extant Christian Epistles (Pauline and others)
which are either earlier than the gospels or early enough to have been written independently of them."
The entire community (or almost) of scholars are assuming at least these six 'facts' before they start any study. Yet, these 'facts' exist solely in the Gospels ... which are the own target of their investigation!
From there it is mainly circular reasoning. B. Mack puts it as a 'catch-22':
"The myth embodied in this later product (the New Testament) created and verified the conventional picture of Christian origins, and this conventional picture provided the explanation for how the New Testament came to be written and by whom: a "circular, interlocking pattern of authentication" for the official view of how the new religion began."
They also assume that the first apostles like Paul:
  • lost all interest in everything Jesus is supposed to have said or done,
  • and suddenly turned this unknown man they have never seen, into the Son of God, Sustainer of the Universe and World's Sin Redeemer.
When will NT scholars start to think
outside their "seminary boxes"?
A Biased Methodology
Apologists are pleading for a Jesus' exception:
"the criteria reasonably used by historians writing about important political figures such as Julius Caesar need modification in dealing with the historicity of Jesus"
M. Casey Jesus: Evidence and Argument Or Mythicist Myths 2014
On Jesus existence: No Method
As we have seen in the previous Tab "6 Dogmatic Assumptions", scholarship almost never addresses the existence of Jesus. The few times they try, their criteria are fallacious.
The Gospels proving the Gospels
In his book Did Jesus Exist? B. Ehrman argues that the synoptic gospels are based on earlier written traditions that are themselves based on earlier oral traditions that go back close to the "traditional date of the death of Jesus" (p93). Therefore Jesus existed. This is special pleading and circular reasoning on a heroic scale.
Another example is the treason of Judas

Embarrassment: Jesus exists because he has been crucified
Supposedly, the crucifixion of Jesus is an example of an event that meets the criterion of embarrassment. This method of execution was considered one of the most shameful and degrading in the Roman world, so it is the least likely to have been invented by the followers of Jesus. See Wikipedia Criterion of embarrassment.
With "James Brother of the Lord" in Galatians 1:19, it is the main argument 'key data' of B. Ehrman in his book Did Jesus Exist? The idea is so crazy that they could have not invented it. They needed a real character and event.
These first century Jews got their crucified Messiah from Scriptures. They contained all the necessary ingredients for that Isaiah 53, Hosea 6:2, Psalm 119:120, Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 12:10...
Plus the idea must not have been so crazy for them since at the end...they got it!
Furthermore, how does it compare with other savior figures or superheroes?
- Attis vs. Jesus
Other mythical characters have also been
  • raped/abducted like Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter
  • dismembered in 42 pieces like Osiris
  • or saw in two like in the Martyrdom of Isaiah...
- Spiderman vs. Jesus
- Obelix vs. Jesus
Why would you create a hero obese, simpleton, susceptible and who only thinks to eat and hits Romans?
By the Criterion of Embarrassment we must declare that Obelix was a real historical person.
I don't think it is necessary to continue the list.
On what Jesus said and did: 5 controversial criteria
After you assume Jesus existed, the criteria used to separate the wheat from the chaff, although arguably weak as we will see below, might be in reality, the best we can find.
Here are the ones of the Jesus Seminar:
  • Multiple Attestation
    if many people say it... See Wikipedia
    For example, the chief argument of J. Meier (a Roman Catholic priest) for the historicity of Jesus' miracles rests principally on the criterion of multiple attestation:
    "To sum up: the historical fact that Jesus performed extraordinary deeds deemed by himself and others to be miracles is supported most impressively by the criterion of multiple attestation of sources and forms and the criterion of coherence. The miracle traditions about Jesus' public ministry are already so widely attested in various sources and literary forms by the end of the first Christian generation that total fabrication by the early church is, practically speaking, impossible."
    So widely attested?  These miracles cannot be found in any document of the first century besides the Gospels. They are notably missing from all the Epistles, the Didache, Thomas, 1 Clement and even from the hypothetical Q, except in its latest layer.
    The use of 'home made' criteria in historical Jesus research, like multiple attestation, gives the enterprise an appearance of scientific objectivity that may be deceptive. Logically, there is little reason why multiple attestation alone should indicate historical reliability, and there are certainly not as many useful independent sources for Jesus' miracles as Meier supposes.
    Example of a fake story satisfying multiple attestation:
    The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War by Arthur Machen
    Adapted from Eric Eve Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus
    In reality, all the extant records about the HJ have a dependency on a single source: the Gospel of Mark -with possibly the exception of a hypothetical document called Q that is examined in the The Gospels page, and three or four references that are debating in chapter 6.
  • Matching the Environment
    if it fits a Palestinian Jewish environment in 30 CE...
    Unfortunately, scholars realized it was equally possible that evangelists could have simply put on Jesus' lips common Jewish opinion. We are well aware of the tendency to ascribe one's favorite sayings to one's favorite sage:
    • Some sayings are ascribed to several different names in the Mishnah
    • The words of king Solomon are reported in many documents: Book of Proverbs, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Odes of Solomon, the Psalms of Solomon, the Song of Solomon, the Testament of Solomon or the Key of Solomon!
  • Dissimilarity/Distinctiveness
    if it doesn't fit a Palestinian Jewish environment in 30 CE... See Wikipedia
    "Because no one would attribute anything really odd or eccentric to him, and therefore it is so. Its very oddity and eccentricity are testimony to its truth or to its historical veracity."
    Shaye J.D. Cohen (an ordained rabbi)
    A silly criterion in my opinion.
    - Spaghetti Monster vs. Jesus
    The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
    Looks very eccentric to me ;-)
    - Nephi vs. Jesus
    The Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith describes the life and events of a band of prophets: Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Ether, Moroni... About 2,000 years before Christopher Columbus, the first one, Nephi crossed the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean to start two civilizations, the Nephite and Lamanite who is, for the last one, the ancestor of American indians!
    In any case, it appears that, except little details like Jesus said "Amen" at the beginning of a saying instead of the end as it was the custom, there is nothing new or original in the NT that cannot be found in the OT or elsewhere.
  • Embarrassment
    if it doesn't fit later orthodoxy...
    For example, the claim that Jesus:
    • "moved with anger" Mark 1:41.
    • was "mad" according to his opponents (Mark 3:21).
    • ignored the time when the end would come (Mark 13:32).
    There is no real contradiction with the Catholic church in these examples. Plus there was, at the origin of Christianity, a multitude of opposite sects and doctrines. The few sayings that offended later orthodoxy could have been simply amenable to some rival faction or at some earlier, less sophisticated stage.
  • Coherence
    if Jesus was 'like this', his sayings must conform to 'this'. See Vridar
    Under this criterion J. Meier argues that... the sayings fit the stories!
    Sure, in theory, we could certainly have stories about exorcisms while all the sayings referred to healing the deaf and blind!
    The image of Jesus among the Jesus Seminar was the one of a cynic wise teacher, so they have assured that the authentic sayings had this connotation, or at least were not openly in contradiction with this idea.
    Notice that any traditional Christian theory doesn't meet this last criterion, since it advocates each time multiple opposite sayings coming from the same unique source!
Extracts from a post of Ted Hoffman on the Internet Infidels Discussion Board and R. Price owns Criteria in The Incredible Shrinking Son of a Man.
At any rate, these kinds of criteria have no values in the debate 'Myth vs History' since they all suppose Jesus existed.
A Hated Subject
The right to study the Historical Jesus
For Catholics
As usual, Catholics lag behind. For a long time, HJ studies were forbidden by the Catholic Church. See Vatican
It is only in 1943 that, reversing the previous approach, Pope Pius XII expressed approval of historical-critical methods in his encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu. Although it was still stating that Scripture teaches "solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation", R. Brown points out the ambiguity of this statement, which opened the way for a new interpretation of inerrancy by shifting from a literal interpretation of the text towards a focus on "the extent to which it conforms to the salvific purpose of God."
Still, Catholic scholars like R. Brown often had more success with protestants than with his own house. For example, pertaining to the defined dogma of the Virgin Birth of Jesus, Pope John Paul II, writing after Brown and the others set forth their arguments, officially rejected their position in July, 1996 when he stated:
In another case in 2012, in response to T. Brodie's publication of his view that Jesus was mythical, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus, the Dominican order banned him from writing and lecturing.
So, we understand why there aren't more Catholic priests studying the HJ or why they usually divorce from the Church when they do (like Crossan).
See Wikipedia R. Brown and Traditional Catholic Scholars Long Opposed Fr. Brown's Theories
For Protestants
The first major book of E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, was published in 1977, while it was written 2 years earlier but had difficulty to be published due to its controversial nature.
There are in the United States a plethora of Christian fundamentalists sects that still claim the inerrancy of the Scriptures: Independent Baptist, Lambeth Quadrilateral, Traditionalist Catholicism, Conservative Holiness Movement, Mormon fundamentalism, Reformed fundamentalism like the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and many evangelical Nondenominationalism...
"It is ironic that Roman Catholic scholars are emerging from the dark ages of theological tyranny just as many Protestant scholars are reentering it as a consequence of the dictatorial tactics of the Southern Baptist Convention and other fundamentalisms."
R. Funk and R. Hoover The Five Gospels
The right to argue Jesus is a Myth
In Scholarship
This website already displays many quotes from scholars resorting on the Argument of Authority, even provocation and insults. Their book reviews are also frankly dishonest, see for example the one on Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth that N. Godfrey criticizes.
"It is fair to say 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 bring himself to admit that the question of the historicity of Jesus must be judged to be an open one.
It appears to me that the theologians are not living up to their responsibility as scholars when they refuse to discuss the possibility that even the existence of the Jesus of the Gospels can be legitimately called into question. Instead, they tend to dismiss as cranks those who doubt that the Jesus of the Gospels ever existed.
It is natural that different historians come to different conclusions on questions for which our sources are late, scanty or biased. Thus most historians, though skeptical about king Arthur, avoid being dogmatic about him, whatever the stand they are taking. But dogmatism is characteristic of the theologians' view of matters which are held to guarantee the historicity of Jesus."
In Online Discussion Forum
There, it is even more toxic. No need to spend much time on it, a couple of examples below on IMDb will be enough.
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
Mark Twain
"In Jewish and pagan antiquity, in matters of religious persuasion, fabricating stories was the norm, not the exception... We therefore must approach all ancient religious literature from an assumption of doubt, and must work to confirm any given story or account as true, not the other way around."
R. Carrier On the Historicity of Jesus
See the quantity of books we have at Early Jewish Writings by Peter Kirby.

Fictions posing as Facts
Old Testament Exodus, Job, Ruth, Daniel, Deutero-Isaiah, Deuteron-Zachariah...
Apocrypha Enochic literature, The book of Tobit, The Ascension of Isaiah, the Revelation of Moses (and countless other Revelation texts), Joseph and Asseneth, the Testimonies of the Twelve Patriarchs, the haggadic Midrashim like the Midrash Rabbah.
The 1st Century Biblical Antiquities (or Pseudo-Philo) contains 65 chapters! A whole second Bible!.
Philo of Alexandria All his biographies of biblical characters: Life of Moses, On Joseph...
Jewish, as well as pagan faith literature were based on fake stories passed off as fact.
Some Supernatural Events in the of OT
Aaron's rod changed Exodus 7:10-12
Waters made blood Exodus 7:20-25
Frogs produced Exodus 8:5-14
Lice Exodus 8:16-18
Flies Exodus 8:20-24
Boils Exodus 9:11
Thunder, etc. Exodus 9:23
Murrain Exodus 10:3-6
Locusts Exodus 10:12-19
Darkness Exodus 10:21-23
Death of the first-born Exodus 12:29, 30
Red Sea Exodus 14:21-31
Marah's waters sweetened Exodus 15:23-25
Manna sent Exodus 16:14-35
Water from the rock Rephidim Exodus 17:5-7
Nadab and Abihu consumed Leviticus 10:1, 2
The burning of Taberah Numbers 11:1-3
Earthquake and Fire Numbers 16:31-35
Aaron's rod budded Numbers 17:1, etc.
Water flowing from the Rock Numbers 20:7-11
Serpent healing the Israelites Numbers 21:8, 9
Balaam's ass speaking Numbers 22:21-35
The river Jordan divided Joshua 3:14-17
Walls of Jericho fall down Joshua 6:6-20
Sun and moon stand still Joshua 10:12-14
Water flowing from the rock Judges 15:19
Philistines slain before the ark 1 Samuel 5:1-12
Men of Beth Shemesh smitten 1 Samuel 6:19
Thunder destroys Philistines 1 Samuel 7:10-12
Thunder and rain in harvest 1 Samuel 12:18
Sound in the mulberry trees 2 Samuel 5:23-25
Uzzah struck dead 2 Samuel 6:7
Jeroboam's hand withered 1 Kings 13:4, 5
Widow of Zarephath's meal 1 Kings 17:14-16
Widow's son raised 1 Kings 17:17-24
Rain obtained 1 Kings 18:41-45
Sacrifice consumed 1 Kings 18:30-38
Ahaziah's captains consumed 2 Kings 1:10-12
River Jordan divided 2 Kings 2:7, 8, 14
Waters of Jericho healed 2 Kings 2:21, 22
Water for Jehoshaphat's army 2 Kings 3:16-20
The widow's oil multiplied 2 Kings 4:2-7
Shunammite's son raised 2 Kings 4:32-37
The deadly pottage cured 2 Kings 4:38-41
Hundred men fed with 20 loaves 2 Kings 4:42-44
Naaman cured of his leprosy 2 Kings 5:10-14
Leprosy inflicted Gehazi 2 Kings 5:20-27
Iron swims 2 Kings 6:5-7
King of Syria's army smitten 2 Kings 6:18-20
Elisha's bones revive the dead 2 Kings 13:21
Sennacherib's army destroyed 2 Kings 19:35
Sun goeth back 2 Kings 20:9-11
Uzziah struck with leprosy 2 Chronicles 26:16-21
Shadrach, Meshach... delivered Daniel 3:19-27
Daniel in the den of lions Daniel 6:16-23
Jonah in the whale's belly Jonah 2:1-10
Many miracles listed above got a second version in the New Testament, confirming the origin Midrashic of the latter. See in the chapter on the Gospels A Performer of Miracles and A new Moses/Elijah/Elisha.
Archaeology killed much of the Old Testament
In 1900, the situation was that archaeology had plenty of evidences for
  • Genesis: Abraham (Sodom and Gomorrah), Noah (the great deluge), Isaac, Jacob, Joseph in Egypt...
  • Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, the story of Moses, the conquest of Joshua...
  • The kingdom of David and Solomon that stretched from Egypt to Iraq.
After a century that has seen an unprecedented rise of science, research and biblical critics, what is left?
"The historical saga contained in the Bible -- from Abraham's encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage, to the rise and fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah --was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination. It was first conceived - as recent archaeological findings suggest- during the span of two or three generations, about twenty-six hundred years ago."
Israel Finkelstein The Bible Unearthed p.1
"Yet many of the archaeological props that once bolstered the historical basis of the David and Solomon narratives have recently been called into question. The actual extent of the Davidic 'empire' is hotly debated. Digging in Jerusalem has failed to produce evidence that it was a great city in David or Solomon's time. And the monuments ascribed to Solomon are now most plausibly connected with other kings.
Thus a reconsideration of the evidence has enormous implications.
For if there were no patriarchs, no Exodus, no conquest of Canaan - and no prosperous united monarchy under David and Solomon- can we say that early biblical Israel, as described in the five books of Moses and the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, ever existed?"
I. Finkelstein The Bible Unearthed p.124

1988
I. Finkelstein
1991
J. Yakar
2002
I. Finkelstein &
N. Silberman
2006
I. Finkelstein &
N. Silberman
2007
I. Finkelstein
2015
P.R. Davies
YouTube Video:
The Bible Unearthed vol 1
(Patriarchs and Exodus)
The Bible Unearthed vol 2
(Kings and The Book)
NOVA
The Bible's Buried Secrets

The minimalist position is a consensus nowadays since most of its opponents like W. G. Dever became friends with it:
"Originally I wrote to frustrate the Biblical minimalists; then I became one of them, more or less."
Biblical Archaeology Review p.54 "Losing Faith" (March/April 2007)
At the beginning of Christianity, the process of inventing historical and religious stories was well established by the Jews for several centuries. The Gospels' stories about Jesus, not only fit the same mold as the ones in the OT, but they are most of the time literally based on them! To know that the original tales were fake is a strong argument against the reliability of the ones that came after.
Gospel Fiction
Over the last 150 years there has been a rise in skepticism with regard to the historical validity of the Gospels. Modern scholarship holds now non-traditional views of Jesus, primarily that he said and did only a small percentage of what the Gospels claim. There are many good reasons for that. These tales are full of supernatural deeds, historical aberrations and parallels in the imaginary Jewish & Hellenic world. Furthermore, the study of the ancient art of composition clarified their genre and purpose: they are allegories and metaphors. The stories, characters and decor are set up to serve symbolic meanings.
This study reuses many of their arguments when it looks at Jesus in the Gospels.
Nevertheless, proving the Gospels by the Gospels is a circular reasoning. Thousands of stories have no supernatural elements or technical implausibility, yet they are entirely fictitious. Whatever is written, there will always be a good possibility that it was simply invented by its author. Thus, at the end, the solution for the Gospels lies elsewhere. They need to be corroborated by external material.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of recent books by critical scholars very dubious about the Gospels:
1977
E.P. Sanders
1987
J. Kloppenborg
1989
R. Helms
1995
M. Borg
1996
Who Wrote the New Testament?
B. Mack
1997
R. Funk
1999
J.D. Crossan
1999
G. Lüdemann
2000
D. MacDonald
2006
E. Pagels
2009
B. Ehrman
2013
J.D. Crossan
This generation owes a lot to the previous ones as we can see in the first tab "150 Years of Quest".
Although Wikipedia is biased concerning the origin of Christianity (see for example The Testimonium Flavianum), it still contains a large amount of information Wikipedia: Historical reliability of the Gospels
It is worth noting in the 1990s, the results of an American group of around 50 critical biblical scholars (the Jesus Seminar) who voted on the sayings of Jesus:
  • 18% of probably true sayings. Even "love your neighbor" copied from Leviticus has been declared unlikely.
  • Just 9 Authentic Sayings (Q:5, Luke:2, Mark:1, Matthew:1, John:0)
  • Of the entire Lord's Prayer in Matthew, the only words that could conclusively be attributed to Jesus are "Our Father".
It is ironical to see that the same theologians who scoff at the Myth also admit:
"I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either and are, moreover, fragmentary and often legendary."
R. Bultmann
A religion of parallels
Solving the Puzzle
The New Testament records are rewritings or transformations of older texts and ideas that existed at that time, giving a clear sense of where they come from. Christianity was not special but a product of its time.
Christian Claims Jewish Parallels Hellenic-Pagan Parallels
Epistles*
The Son of God &
a Spirit
Jewish Personal Wisdom in OT The Logos: Heraclitus, Aristotle, Zeno of Citium, Isocrates, the Pyrrhonist, the Stoics...
A Heavenly Man with a Spiritual Body The Logos of Philo. Superior Archangel in OT & Enoch Zoroastrianism, The Apocryphon of John, Hypostasis of the Archons, Gospel of Philip
A Heavenly Judge & Apocalyptic Figure Apocalyptic literature:
Daniel 7, 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra
Zoroastrian (Ahura Mazda) and Norse, Hindu, Taoist, Islamic, Buddhist, Greco-Roman eschatology...
A Descending/
Ascending Redeemer
The Ascension of Isaiah the Naassene hymn, the Mandean, the Manichean, the Paraphrase of Shem, the Apocalypse of Adam...
A Dying & Rising Savior with Baptism & Eucharist For baptism: John the Baptist & the Essenes. The Ancient Mysteries: Demeter, Messenia, Dionysos & Orphism, Attis, Osiris, Mithras...
A Sacrificial Lamb
Many Sacrifices in the OT: Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, everywhere in Exodus and Leviticus... During the time of Jesus, at Passover, when himself would have been crucified, 20,000 sheep were slaughtered in a single day in the Temple.
From the Celts to the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Phoenicians to the Aztecs and Mayans, most religions had some kind of sacrifice, humans or animals.
Gospels*
A Hero Founder &
Role Model
Moses, Joseph Oedipus, Theseus, Dionysus, Romulus, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Pelops...
A Performer of Miracles Jonah, 1 & 2 Kings...
The Mishnah with Hanina ben Dosa
Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Asclepius, Asclepiades the Physician...
Establishing a new Covenant Moses & other patriarchs
Greek Cynic Principles Several in the Mishnah Epictetus, Seneca, Musonius, Stobaeus, Diogenes Laertius, Lucian, Demetrius...
Expectations of the Kingdom of God For an Apocalyptic End: John the Baptist and several Jewish sects For a softer inner Kingdom:
Cynicism & Stoicism.
Jesus unfairly judged & crucified
As a Whole The suffering & vindication of the Innocent Righteous One
Genesis, Book of Esther, Tobit, Susanna & Daniel, 3 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon...
Homer Odyssey, Sophocles Oedipus...
and after Shakespeare's King Lear, Milton's Paradise Lost, Hugo's Les Misérables, Melville's Moby-Dick...
In the Details A pastiche of verses from the Psalms, Isaiah and other prophets
* For more details on all these parallels, see: The Epistles and The Gospels.
As such, Christianity is really a puzzle where pieces have either a Hellenic or Jewish origin. It was the great synthesizer of its time. E.P. Sanders described the attractiveness of these types of comparative studies:
"They are not all that easy, but they are an awful lot of fun."
and argued that more are needed.
Jesus ≠ God
Knowing that everything in Christianity can be found elsewhere, there is no reason to believe there is more God behind it than elsewhere. What is the point of coming to earth if it is to repeat what everybody says in your neighborhood? ;-)
"The Bible does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century."
Sam Harris Letter to a Christian Nation
We will revisit this argument in the Appendix Non Historical Arguments Nothing New.
Analogies and parallels with other pre Jesus-like characters were not denied by the church fathers, but were explained as counterfeits and imitations created by Satan from the scriptures in order to deceive.
"we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter."
Justin Martyr The First Apology 155-157 CE
A Gap of Knowledge
"Scholarship erodes faith."
L.T. Johnson (former Benedictine monk and priest)
The results of modern scholarship about the HJ have not yet reached the masses, far from that.
In Liberating the Gospels, J.S. Spong explains:
"So vivid are these details [Ed: the Passion of Jesus in Jerusalem], so clear are the pictures they paint, that there remains a general consensus in both church and society that these stories surely were literally created from vivid eyewitness recollections. The assumption is made, without much internal debate, that what we read here are literal and historic facts. Indeed, to think otherwise for most church people is almost inconceivable.
Yet that easy leap from familiar data to historic accuracy has been challenged increasingly in the last century, not by critics of the Christian faith who have abandoned organized religion in droves, but rather by the world of New Testament scholarship. Between the academy in which our clergy are trained and the pews in which our church members sit is a gap in knowledge of enormous proportions. Indeed, that gap might better be described as a void.
To listen to the sermons of many clergy, one would have to conclude either that they did not learn what is readily available in the centers of theological study or that they have decided not to share it. Perhaps a better explanation might be that this generation of clergy, unable themselves to process what they have learned or unable to correlate it with what they themselves believe, decided simply to ignore or suppress this biblical scholarship for as long as they could. If that is a more accurate explanation, then maybe what we are facing today is that the time limit on that process of ignoring or suppressing biblical scholarship has now finally run its course.
For many claims can be made about the passion story of the gospels, but claims of historical accuracy of literal facts are not among those that will stand."
Additionally to this gap of knowledge, it seems the majority of Christians have no particular interest in the HJ, weirdly.

The Westar Institute: An Advocate for Religious Literacy
At the end of the 1980s, an organization was founded by Robert Funk in order to change this state of things. Westar is not affiliated with any religious institution nor does it advocate a particular theological point of view.
"Westar's twofold mission is
  • to foster collaborative research in religious studies
  • to communicate the results of the scholarship of religion to a broad, non-specialist public.
Until a few years ago, essential knowledge about biblical and religious traditions was hidden in the windowless studies of universities and seminaries-away from the general public. Such research was considered too controversial or too complicated for lay persons to understand. Many scholars, fearing open conflict or even reprisal, talked only to one another. The churches often decided what information their constituents were ‘ready’ to hear."
"Through publications, educational programs, and research projects like the Jesus Seminar, Westar has opened up a new kind of conversation about religion."
www.westarinstitute.org
We got some progress in the media thanks to the Jesus Seminar, but nothing crazy. The results of all these studies are still unknown by the masses.
Da Vinci Code
Yet, a book like the Da Vinci Code (although mainly fiction) has been a huge commercial success and a massive international bestseller:
  • broke one-day sales records.
  • stayed 136 consecutive weeks as a New York Times hardcover fiction best seller.
  • was translated into 51 languages.
  • and sold more than 80 millions copies worldwide.
It shows that people can be interested in Jesus as a God, but also as a Man, something that looks very normal for any believer.
The Rise of the Jesus Myth
The Mythic Jesus viewpoint is not a new one, having been suggested for about 2 centuries. In the past, some of its arguments have been admittedly flawed while others are still valid today. It is the same story for the thousand of books arguing for a particular Historical Jesus (HJ): most of them are outdated and irrelevant today.
The rise of the Myth theory we are talking about here is not unfortunately in popularity but quality. The MJ has progressed a lot in the last 50 years, thanks to a group of excellent scholars like G.A. Wells, E. Doherty, R. Price, R. Carrier. The four horsemen of the MJ theory! It also relies a lot on what modern critical scholarship has found. Of course, this progression can only come at the expense of the HJ theory.
The lack of any valid response
On the other side, here are the most famous books for the HJ:
The handful of responses against the JM research and findings have been desperately bad. They have consistently ignored, misunderstood or misrepresented their arguments, see for examples:
They also rely excessively on the Argument from authority and the need for specific academic degrees that non-theologians cannot have.
"One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority.'
... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong.
Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else."
C. Sagan The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
 
Open Popup menu to navigate other pages