Changes

Most mythicists employ similar main arguments: they argue that non-biblical sources do not state that Jesus existed; that the Pauline epistles, which preceded the Gosples, do not establish that Jesus existed; and Jesus was not perceived by the earliest Christians as a recent person but as a being or person from a long mythical past (similar to Hercules or Achilles)<ref name="rp">.Robert Price. 2009. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" essay. The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 9780830838684.</ref>

Most mythicists employ similar main arguments: they argue that non-biblical sources do not state that Jesus existed; that the Pauline epistles, which preceded the Gosples, do not establish that Jesus existed; and Jesus was not perceived by the earliest Christians as a recent person but as a being or person from a long mythical past (similar to Hercules or Achilles)<ref name="rp">.Robert Price. 2009. "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" essay. The Historical Jesus: Five Views. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 9780830838684.</ref>

Mythicist theories tend to be fringe or conspiracy theories: Jesus was some sort of extraterrestrial from outer space, perhaps an archangel (Richard Carrier),<ref>Richard Carrier. 2020. Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ. Pitchstone Publishing. ISBN 9781634311946."The most accurate description of earliest Christian thought is that Jesus was an angelic extraterrestrial, who descended from outer space to become a man, teach the gospel, suffer an atoning death, and rise again to return to his throne among the stars, even more powerful than before." (page 8-9) and "If Jesus was never really a historical person, then what the original Christians were teaching was that this ancient archangel descended from the superior heavens, not to Earth, but into the sky, below the top ring of outer space, then known as a vast and terrifying region between the earth and moon, the realm of all flesh, where death and decay, and Satan and his demons, were known to hold sway. And there is where Jesus was originally believed to have died, crucified not by the Romans on Earth, or by the Jews, but by Satan or his agents, far above the clouds. And there is where Jesus’s mortal bodysuit was buried, perhaps in some garden among the demonic sky castles. And three days later he rose from the dead and revealed his glory to all the heavenly creatures, Satan among them.” (p.32-33)</ref> Jesus and early Christians were Buddhists (Michael Lockwood);<ref name="vom">John Loftus and Robert Price (editors). 2022. Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist?. Hypatia Press. ISBN-10 1839191589</ref> Jesus was invented by the Flavians, the family of Caesars who conquered Judea (Joseph Atwill),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus was mushroom hallucinogenic manifestation (John Allego),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus is based on astrology and zodiac signs from which Mark wrote his gospel (Bill Darlison),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus is the main character of Mark whose gospel is really a play (Danila Oder),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus is invented from a mish-mash of dying and rising gods or heroes or Old Testament parallels (Robert Price),<ref name="rp" /> Jesus was invented on the basis of earlier deities, astrological entities and fertility myths of dying and rising gods (Acahrya S).<ref>James McGrath. November 2011. [https://web.archive.org/web/20220818220304/https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-10/fringe-view Fringe view: The world of Jesus mythicism]. The Christian Century.</ref>  

Mythicist theories tend to be fringe or conspiracy theories: Jesus was some sort of extraterrestrial from outer space, perhaps an archangel (Richard Carrier),<ref>Richard Carrier. 2020. Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ. Pitchstone Publishing. ISBN 9781634311946."The most accurate description of earliest Christian thought is that Jesus was an angelic extraterrestrial, who descended from outer space to become a man, teach the gospel, suffer an atoning death, and rise again to return to his throne among the stars, even more powerful than before." (page 8-9) and "If Jesus was never really a historical person, then what the original Christians were teaching was that this ancient archangel descended from the superior heavens, not to Earth, but into the sky, below the top ring of outer space, then known as a vast and terrifying region between the earth and moon, the realm of all flesh, where death and decay, and Satan and his demons, were known to hold sway. And there is where Jesus was originally believed to have died, crucified not by the Romans on Earth, or by the Jews, but by Satan or his agents, far above the clouds. And there is where Jesus’s mortal bodysuit was buried, perhaps in some garden among the demonic sky castles. And three days later he rose from the dead and revealed his glory to all the heavenly creatures, Satan among them.” (p.32-33)</ref> Jesus and early Christians were Buddhists (Michael Lockwood);<ref name="vom">John Loftus and Robert Price (editors). 2022. Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist?. Hypatia Press. ISBN-10 1839191589</ref> Jesus was invented by the Flavians, the family of Caesars who conquered Judea (Joseph Atwill),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus was mushroom hallucinogenic manifestation (John Allego),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus is based on astrology and zodiac signs from which Mark wrote his gospel (Bill Darlison),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus is the main character of Mark whose gospel is really a play (Danila Oder),<ref name="vom" /> Jesus is invented from a mish-mash of dying and rising gods or heroes or Old Testament parallels (Robert Price),<ref name="rp" /> Jesus was invented on the basis of earlier deities, astrological entities and fertility myths of dying and rising gods (Acahrya S).<ref>James McGrath. November 2011. [https://web.archive.org/web/20220818220304/https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-10/fringe-view Fringe view: The world of Jesus mythicism]. The Christian Century.</ref>

However, modern scholars of religion hold that tropes like "dying and rising gods" are outdated and based on dubious reconstructions from later sources, not early indigenous sources, since the earliest extant sources of examples mythicists often use (e.g. Adonis, Attis, Marduk, Tammuz/Dumuzi, Osiris, Inanna, etc) never make such claims, and there is no clear instance of a dying and rising deity narrative in the history of religions.<ref>Jonathan Z. Smith. "Dying and Rising Gods". Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd edition). Macmillan Reference. 2005. pp. 2535-2539. ISBN 978-0028659978. "There is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions of a dying and rising deity."</ref>  

Modern scholars of religion hold that tropes like "dying and rising gods" are outdated and based on dubious reconstructions from later sources, not early indigenous sources, since the earliest extant sources of examples mythicists often use (e.g. Adonis, Attis, Marduk, Tammuz/Dumuzi, Osiris, Inanna, etc) never make such claims, and there is no clear instance of a dying and rising deity narrative in the history of religions.<ref>Jonathan Z. Smith. "Dying and Rising Gods". Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd edition). Macmillan Reference. 2005. pp. 2535-2539. ISBN 978-0028659978. "There is no unambiguous instance in the history of religions of a dying and rising deity."</ref>  

A few academics, notably not including historians or biblical scholars, have asserted that Jesus never existed and that he is simply a mythological imagination.  These include G. A. Wells (a professor of German, who has subsequently abandoned this position after reading the works of the renowned J.D.G. Dunn), Earl Doherty (who only holds a bachelor's degree and once wrote a self-published booklet on the subject), Robert M. Price (a systematic theologian), Michael Martin (a philosopher), Richard Carrier (who, although he has a doctoral degree, failed to find an academic position in an institution of higher learning and is therefore currently a blogger), Timothy Freke (who holds no postgraduate degree), and Peter Gandy (who holds no doctoral degree). By such parenthetical comments this article does not intend to be uncharitable to the academics or others who hold to this position, but it is no disparagement to observe what it true: that these scholars are not historians or biblical scholars.  Neither is it unfair to observe how this has, at times, impeded the quality of work produced.  For example, in their work ''The Jesus Mysteries'', Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy used as cover art an image of an amulet of “[[Orphic mysteries|Orpheus]] crucified” (their position being that Jesus was a mythological figure patterned after Osiris-Dionysus) which has been proven to be a forgery.<ref>"In his review of this book in ''Gnomon'', 1935, 476, Kern recants and expressed himself convinced by the expert opinion of Josef Keil and R. Zahn (''AGGELOS, Arch. f. neutest. Zeitgesch. und Kulturkunde'', 1926, 62 ff.) that the Orpheoc Bakkikos gem is a forgery." W. C. K. Guthrie, ''Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement'', 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1952), p. 278, n. to p. 265. This problem was identified by James Hannam; see his comments on his [http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2004/07/some-news-and-thoughts-on-crucified.html Blog]</ref>  

A few academics, notably not including historians or biblical scholars, have asserted that Jesus never existed and that he is simply a mythological imagination.  These include G. A. Wells (a professor of German, who has subsequently abandoned this position after reading the works of the renowned J.D.G. Dunn), Earl Doherty (who only holds a bachelor's degree and once wrote a self-published booklet on the subject), Robert M. Price (a systematic theologian), Michael Martin (a philosopher), Richard Carrier (who, although he has a doctoral degree, failed to find an academic position in an institution of higher learning and is therefore currently a blogger), Timothy Freke (who holds no postgraduate degree), and Peter Gandy (who holds no doctoral degree). By such parenthetical comments this article does not intend to be uncharitable to the academics or others who hold to this position, but it is no disparagement to observe what it true: that these scholars are not historians or biblical scholars.  Neither is it unfair to observe how this has, at times, impeded the quality of work produced.  For example, in their work ''The Jesus Mysteries'', Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy used as cover art an image of an amulet of “[[Orphic mysteries|Orpheus]] crucified” (their position being that Jesus was a mythological figure patterned after Osiris-Dionysus) which has been proven to be a forgery.<ref>"In his review of this book in ''Gnomon'', 1935, 476, Kern recants and expressed himself convinced by the expert opinion of Josef Keil and R. Zahn (''AGGELOS, Arch. f. neutest. Zeitgesch. und Kulturkunde'', 1926, 62 ff.) that the Orpheoc Bakkikos gem is a forgery." W. C. K. Guthrie, ''Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement'', 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1952), p. 278, n. to p. 265. This problem was identified by James Hannam; see his comments on his [http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2004/07/some-news-and-thoughts-on-crucified.html Blog]</ref>  

Perhaps the scholarly opinion of the position is best summed by Robert E. Van Voorst:

Perhaps the scholarly opinion of the position is best summed by Robert E. Van Voorst:

:''The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. ... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted.''<ref>Robert E. Van Voorst, ''Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence'' (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 16.</ref>

:''The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. ... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted.''<ref>Robert E. Van Voorst, ''Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence'' (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 16.</ref>

== Atheists and the denial that Jesus existed ==

== Atheists and the denial that Jesus existed ==