Jesus Is Dead [Paperback]

Robert M. Price (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2007

This book argues that (1) not only is there no good reason to think that Jesus ever rose from the dead, (2) there is no good reason to suppose that he ever lived or died at all.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert M. Price was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and moved as a child to New Jersey where he attended a fundamentalist Baptist church. He even became president of a chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and was for a time an apologist of the sort he refutes in Beyond Born Again, Deconstructing Jesus, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, and Jesus Is Dead. Editor of The Journal of Higher Criticism, he is also the author of The Widow Traditions in Luke-Acts, The Da Vinci Fraud, The Reason-Driven Life, and the monumental The Pre-Nicene New Testament. He holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a second PhD in New Testament from Drew University. He has served as Professor of Religion at Mount Olive College in North Carolina and is a member of the Jesus Seminar and its successor, the Jesus Project.

Product Details

• Paperback: 279 pages
• Publisher: American Atheist Press (April 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578840007
• ISBN-13: 978-1578840007
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert M. Price (Selma, NC), professor of scriptural studies at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is the editor (with Jeffery Jay Lowder) of The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave and the Journal of Higher Criticism. He is also the author of Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms; The Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind; The Reason-Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For? and many other works.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, November 9, 2007

By 

Todd A. Johnson (Rapid City, SD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jesus Is Dead (Paperback)

Jesus Is Dead is the first book I've read by Dr. Price and what a joy it was. The first third of the book is my favorite in which Dr. Price states his case of the historical Jesus. The last two-thirds of the book concerns him responding to other books. I began by not being too thrilled with the subject matter pertaining to the Templars and the Talmud of Jmmanuel, but soon I was wanting more. Next the good doctor deals with fundamentalist apologetics. I am a former Cristian fundie and used to read these types of books but didn't read many opinions on the other side. I missed a lot. The truth is that I didn't like what I read. I needed my miracles, the inerrancy of scripture, the literal word of God, etc. I believed that I could study the Bible on my own and God would show me the truth. I was no Biblical scholar though. As in other subjects one should rely on the experts. Biblical scholars know their Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and have the time to read the latest criticism. Truth is hard to accept at times. Losing my faith was the lowest point of my life but I don't regret it. One has to be honest with the facts wherever they lead even if they are not comfortable.

I do have one problem with this book though. On page 275 he refers to the National Inquirer. That should be National Enquirer. The Inquirer is out of Philly. I learned to differ these papers after I moved to Cincy which has the Enquirer.

I have to say that Dr. Price is my new favorite Biblical scholar. He is very knowledgeable about the Bible, forms of criticism, and he is extremely well-read. Plus he has a wonderful sense of humor. I appreciate Dr. Price's honesty above all though. His Bible Geek podcasts on his website are very informative and thoroughly enjoyable. I look forward to reading his other books.

113 of 139 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Apologetics is dead after this book, June 30, 2007

By 

NAO (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jesus Is Dead (Paperback)

This book does a fine job of demolishing the arguments of Christian apologists. Price shows how apologists operate by getting you to buy into some very shakey assumptions - that the gospel narratives, minus the supernatural - are basically historically reliable. Then they use events and characters in the story to argue that Jesus really did rise from the dead.

However, upon closer inspection the gospel narratives are not even remotely historical accounts, and provide numerous internal clues to this effect. The apologist tactic is tantamount to proving the existence of Batman by quoting the words of Robin, the Boy Wonder.

Price takes on quite a few specific big name apologists such as N.T. Wright, William Lane Craig, Glenn Miller, and Gary Habermas. He provides slam-dunk refutations for specific arguments, with observations on the general principle behind apologetic flim-flam tactics.

If you ever have to participate in a debate, THIS ONE BOOK is THE BOOK to read.

67 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is Robert M. Price as a Comedian, October 27, 2007

By 

F. Ramos "Exhaustive Thinker / Researcher" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jesus Is Dead (Paperback)

This book is something that is needed in scholarship today. The book is actually more of a conversation type book where it feels like you are speaking with Robert M. Price by a fire place as friends. He is very very funny and seems to not care about making fun of anything. This is kind of like the real Robert M. Price in a more comfortable tone and not in a scholarly setting. He makes jokes about the beliefs of some of the Christians like William Lane Craig, and Gary Habermas, but he is fair to the joking, since he does make fun of his comrade in the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan too. He of course has beef with William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and other writers and even devotes chapters to these guys individually just so he can give them a beating a la Robert Price.

At least he tries.

With this in mind, anyone who wants to read some funny criticisms of New Testament scholarship, and for that matter funny criticisms about general history that includes Roman, Greek and of course modern; then go ahead and check this book out. If you go to Robert M. Price's website you can get an autographed copy of the book for $20 flat with Shipping included. I believe another reviewer mentioned that.

I actually agree with many of his points, but I don't reach his conclusions. I for one think that there really was a Jesus and that he did do quite a few things described in the gospels and that the gospels are not that unreliable as the thinks. But he's open minded and comical. That's good to know.

Here's some stuff he touches upon: The resurrection of Jesus, empty tomb, his theory that Jesus may have been John the Baptist, and critiques of Dan Brown and company and their wacky ideas, N.T. Wright, William Lane Craig, Johnathan Smith, Gregory Riley, A.J.M. Wedderburn, James Holding, Glenn Miller, and Gary Habermas.

In the end, this is a good book that is needed in scholarship today since it shows that there is humor in history and scholarship. And it helps give you some fresh air for those who believe the Bible to be false and those who believe the bible to be true since it shows that even scholars are funny humans.

For anyone interested in empirical history of the Bible please read:

On the Reliability of the Old Testament
Jesus and Archaeology
"The HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament: What Archaeology Reveals about the First Christians"
"The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide (Essential Guide (Abingdon Press))"
Biblical Archaeology Review (great research articles on Middle Eastern archaeology by archaeologists and scholars from diverse secular/religious backgrounds)

Much of what is said in this book needs to be considered well and sometimes taken with a grain of salt. A good book to read before "Jesus is Dead", and any other work that tries to construct and reconstruct history, is Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought since historian's fallacies are found in "Jesus is Dead". Its good to keep historians and their beliefs in check to see if they are going beyond what can be historically concluded or assumed.

An interesting look at plausibility, or not, of miracles in historical cases can be seen in Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (2 Volume Set). This is just for perspective.

For anyone wanting to compare reliability, or not, of textual transmission of Latin and Greek writings read these and compare how well, or not, other works from antiquity fare in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics which gives a short but detailed history of the, usually few, manuscripts (many of which have variant readings) that were used to reconstruct the writings of ancient Latin writers (Cesar, Tacitus, Livy, Suetonius, both Plinys, Cicero, etc.) and Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature which gives a short but detailed history of transmission of both Latin and Greek texts.

Here are some books that detail textual variants and families of manuscripts in some popular writings:

"Homer's Text and Language (Traditions)"

"The Textual Tradition of Plato's Republic (Mnemosyne Bibliotheca Classica Batava Supplementum, 107)"

"The Manuscript Tradition of Polybius (Cambridge Classical Studies)"

Look also at the history and transmission of Buddhist scriptures in Buddhist Sutras: Origin, Development, Transmission and compare with reliability for the original Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama).

The issues concerning manuscripts such as "variant" readings, authorship, and transmission of writings are not unique to the Bible at all. They are common for ALL writings and histories from antiquity including all the Roman and Greek histories (which people never check for reliability or variant readings but believe without question or research). Copying by hand, translating to multiple languages, costs of writing equipment, and changes in conventions in writing have created multiple areas that have formed variants in all manuscripts from antiquity including accounts of Socrates, Alexander, Pythagoras, and the rest. Just read the omissions, insertions, and missing lines that are usually footnoted in modern editions of writings of ancient authors such as Archimedes or Aristotle or Plato, for example.

Furthermore, most people forget that Jesus, the original Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), Confucius, Socrates, Muhammad and many other historical figures never wrote a thing. It was their followers, friends, enemies and disciples that decided to write records, quotations, and biographies of these men.

Ultimately, people like Socrates, Pythagoras, Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar (aside from his own writings, which are not necessarily autobiographical in nature), Hippocrates, the original Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), Zoroaster, Confucius, and a basically all other historical figures are in the same situation if not worse than the accounts on Jesus. But it's all we got to work with. Perhaps Socrates didn't exist since his history is in the same situation as Jesus, not to mention that he has also never wrote anything and all of the "reliable" information on him was written decades later by only 3 or less "witnesses" (Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes (in his plays)). Check out the textual variants in Plato's writings (usually in the footnotes of critical editions)! Some stuff happened as Plato's writings were transmitted from Greek to Arabic to Greek. Anyone up for textual variants on Aristotle's writings or Tacitus or Lucretius? See comment # 28 for complete primary sources on Socrates and Pythagoras to compare to Jesus' situation.

All modern editions of writings (ancient and medieval) before the printing press were all reconstructed from variant manuscripts inevitably Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism. Of course most variants are insignificant such as spelling, grammar, repetition of words or letters, omission or insertion of terms for clarification, and so on. Usually, the overall messages in ancient writings do not get affected by much by a few lines or sections of variation. That's why we can trust many of them, including the New Testament writings. Also archaeology sheds light on the reliability or lack of these texts as well.