Assessing the Christ Myth Theory
The question of Jesus’s historicity, addressed in good secular faith
Jesus mythicism, the theory that there was no historical Jesus and that Christianity is therefore based on a colossal fraud or gross misunderstanding has thrived on the intellectual dark web. Certainly, this view of Christianity is dark enough to be at home on the outskirts of polite society. But the intellectual merits of the Christ myth theory are often lost in the canards, red herrings, and strawmen that divert mythicists and traditional Christians alike.
Here I’ll clarify, therefore, what seems to me the most intellectually-responsible way of answering this question.
A Very Brief Summary of the Mythicist’s Case
First, I’ll summarize some Christ mythicist arguments to give you an idea of the debate, if you’re not familiar with it.
The problems for traditional Christianity begin with the available sources. Paul’s epistles are strangely silent about a historical Jesus, since they focus instead on a theology of achieving personal salvation by identifying with a suffering but triumphant intermediary deity. That theology could have been taken wholesale from Mithraism, Orphism, and the other ancient Mystery cults. I’ll go into more detail about the…
