Dear Friends,

My search for resurrection books to read, on both sides of the debate, was very interesting. Today, I want to make some observations about my search, without even getting into the details of the first book I’m reading.

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Christ myth theory

One faction you may have heard of supports a fringe view called Christ Myth Theory. There are varieties of this theory, but the basic idea is that Jesus didn’t exist. When I call it “fringe”, you might think I’m speaking from my Christian perspective, but I’m not. I’m actually quoting wikipedia!

Views that “the historical Jesus did not exist” are rejected as fringe theories by virtually all scholars of antiquity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory

Isn’t that strange? Wikipedia is no bastion of Christian fundamentalism…so when it makes a claim that nicely dovetails with my Christian faith, my assumption is that the claim is based on good evidence. And if you look up the citations provided to support the quote above, you will indeed find various Christian AND non-Christian scholars backing it up…including at least one mythicist!

Is it just me or…?

I’ve written before on this blog about conspiracy-obsessivism, a mindset that was drilled into me from an early age, but that I eventually rejected. The conspiracies I was taught to obsess about were tied to very different topics than Jesus…and yet, the more I read about Christ myth theory, the more I felt like a similar mindset was involved.

This is painting with a broad brush, admittedly, but I started thinking about the similarities. Powerful forces joining together to perpetuate a lie across the centuries…only a few brave scholars willing to expose the truth even if they have to become pariahs…the sense of intellectual superiority you get when you see a truth that very few other people can see.

Nope. Not just me.

And then…I found it. A book on Amazon that comes right out and says it in the title!

The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, by Dorothy Murdock, AKA Acharya S.

And to hopefully remove all doubt that Christ Myth Theory dovetails quite well with conspiracy-obsessivism, here’s an excerpt from the Amazon page:

“…Christianity and the story of Jesus Christ were created by members of various secret societies, mystery schools and religions to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion. Through such fabrication, this multinational cabal drew on a multitude of myths and rituals that existed long before Christian era, reworking them over centuries into the story and religion passed down today.”

I should also add that this book is edited by a well-known proponent of Christ myth theory, Dr. Robert M. Price (he’s mentioned in the wikipedia link above). Wouldn’t want you to think I’m making a big fuss over a one-man (actually, in this case, one-woman) band!

So what?

Just because wikipedia claims a theory is fringe doesn’t mean the theory is false. Just because a theory reminds me of weird stuff from my childhood doesn’t mean it’s false.

But as I said last time, I don’t have infinite time to dig into all this. And I don’t want to be accused by non-Christian non-mythicists of launching a straw man attack against them. I’d rather “steelman” the skeptic’s position than straw man it.

So, in my search for skeptical books about the resurrection, I rejected any books by mythicists. That’s how I ended up with Barth Ehrman’s book How Jesus Became God. He’s not a mythicist, and his academic credentials are impeccable: he has a PhD from Princeton, where he studied various New Testament topics.

But I still wanted a book directly aimed at the resurrection, so I added one more book from a skeptic to my list. More on that later…