Examination of Christ Mythicism and Richard Carrier [PART I]

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism or simply mythicism) is the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels. Many proponents use a three-fold argument first developed in the 19th century that the New Testament has no historical value, there are no non-Christian references to Jesus Christ from the first century, and that Christianity had pagan and mythical roots. In recent years, there have been a number of books and documentaries on this subject. Some "mythicists" concede the possibility that Jesus may have been a real person, but that the biblical accounts of him are almost entirely fictional. Others believe in a spiritual Christ, but that he never lived. Still others, including some atheist proponents, believe Jesus was neither historical nor divine. (source, summary of key arguments here)

Typically our Muslim friends (e.g. Shabir Ally) appeal to premier scholars like Bart Ehrman or Raymond Brown who are quite critical of the conservative narrative of the historical Jesus and preservation of New Testament offered by (proto)-Orthodox Christianity, rather they have refined or revised history in light of what they view as a more authentic historical criterion. However I have noticed a growing trend in some Muslim circles to now leech onto the Christ Mythicist argumentation or elements of these ideas that advocate a purely mythical, fictitious or legendary Jesus.

First and foremost, there is no one singular monolithic form of the Christ Mythicst Position, and ancient historian and mythicist himself Dr. Richard Carrier is one of the first to point this out. In fact he gladly refutes many of these absurd theories and does an adequate job e.g. Caesars Messiah or the Flavian Theory:



Carrier also critiques documentaries like Zeitgeist (and other shoddy scholarship) but unlike Joesph Atwell and Acharya S, Carrier does not believe we need a second century conspiracy theory to argue the Church invented Jesus. For Carrier's rebuttal to the above documentary see here, and check out a scholar who reviews this absurd theory and in some ways is even more skeptical than Carrier, Dr Robert Price here

Since Carrier sufficiently refutes the other Christ Mythicist Theories, all I merely wish to do then is to take his theory to task, which in turn appears to be the central core of the Christ Mythicist Position. By refuting Carrier, this will virtually wipe out many of the rest of the absurd theories. Carrier has no qualms in admitting, he was once a historicist (someone who adhered to Jesus historical existence), but was convinced by a layman Earl Doherty (see his review here) to become more agnostic about this question. However since then Carrier has upgraded his position to the view that Jesus probably never existed at all, he is less agnostic and more atheistic.

To begin with I want to present Dr. Richard Carriers best version of his argument. He says about the following video:

"Obviously I have specifically humorously, designed this speech to be the most persuasive form of the argument ever. Not being a serious boring scholarly presentation" (42:57)

In this video essentially Carrier appeals to the Apostle of Acts and argues that men like Paul, Peter and Stephen (and others), viewed Christ as a heavenly celestial being rather than someone who ever existed on earth.

For a slightly more academic presentation by Carrier I recommend watching this clip:

Carrier takes for granted mainstream scholarship in rejecting six of the epistles in the New Testament attributed to Paul, while accepting seven of his epistles and the epistle of Hebrews as early and authentic (excluding what he believes are interpolations).

He then places the gospels and acts and the remaining New Testament corpus as written post-70 A.D. This reflects upon a movement that attempted to place Jesus on earth which is standard practice in the ancient world according to Carrier, the myth is always eventually shifted to earth.

In his own words Carrier (elsewhere) says:

• “Paul never clearly places Jesus on earth or connects him to human history.” 
• “Scripture and Revelation are the only sources of information Paul ever mentions anyone having.” 
• “The Jesus he knows and refers to and speaks to is always in outer space.”

Carrier also presents his view here:


(20:00: Nazarene didn't exist refuted by Carrier)

Carrier as a materialist appears to presuppose all supernatural visions have a naturalistic origin e.g. epileptic fits or hallucinations. But this is a highly controversial topic. Mike Licona presents evidence that NDEs (Near Death Experiences and other visions), do not necessarily fit into naturalistic categories in one debate with Carrier:





Carrier openly acknowledges the mainstream consensus of historians and scholarship disagree with him. Dr Mark Goodacre is one of these scholars. Here is a video where the two duke it out:



A similar debate took place with Doctors Licona and Habermas with hyper-skeptic Dr. Robert Price:



While Carrier has not yet published his final work, we have enough information here to address the fundamental arguments and general outline proposed. Watch out for Part II