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Shattering the Christ Myth

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Having been aware of this so-called "debate" on the Internet (please note: it is entirely an "online debate" not one advanced by serious NT or historical Jesus scholars) since the mid 1990s, I am glad that J.P. Holding has finally transcribed and edited some of his impressive "Tektonics" online articles for an entire book on "Shattering the Christ Myth." He and his amateur scholar contributors have pulled together an excellent set of articles and chapters debunking both the "myth" hypothesis and the "copycat" or "pagan parallel" thesis presented by many an anti-Christian conspiracy buff and uninformed skeptic of historical Christianity.

Chapters include an introduction on the history and origin of the "Christ myth" claims dating from the early 1800s; detailed defenses of the standard non-biblical references to Jesus from the Jewish historian Josephus (his two passages), the Roman historian Tacitus, Lucian, Pliny the Younger, and Papias; responses to the various "silences" argued by "mythicists" from Remsburg to G.A. Wells to Earl Doherty; analysis of the supposed "pagan Christs" from Mithra to Krishna to Horus to Dionysos; reviews and refutations exposing the abysmal scholarship and poor arguments of recent "Christ myth" movies "The God Who Wasn't There" and "Zeitgeist"; and additional material on the city of Nazareth, the academic and Internet mythicists, and more.

This book shows there is really nothing at all to the "mythicist" claims: they are groundless historically, poorly argued based on "silence" and refuted by numerous reliable witnesses to Jesus, and that includes the canonical Gospels and the earliest writings of St. Paul. The real debate among scholars is not whether there was a historical Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate around 30 AD, but on Christ's claims to divinity and being the unique Son of God, the miracles of the Gospels as signs of that divinity, and especially the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ -- i.e. the whole "Jesus of history" vs. "Christ of faith" debate among conservative evangelical and more "liberal" scholarship.

Jeffery Jay Lowder of Internet Infidels: "There is simply nothing intrinsically improbable about a historical Jesus; the New Testament alone (or at least portions of it) are reliable enough to provide evidence of a historical Jesus. On this point, it is important to note that even G.A. Wells, who until recently was the champion of the christ-myth hypothesis, now accepts the historicity of Jesus on the basis of 'Q'." ("Josh McDowell's 'Evidence' for Jesus")

British historian Michael Grant: "...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned...To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. In recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' -- or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." (Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels [1977], pages 199, 200)

Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright: "It is quite difficult to know where to start, because actually the evidence for Jesus is so massive that, as a historian, I want to say we have got almost as much good evidence for Jesus as for anyone in the ancient world....the evidence fits so well with what we know of the Judaism of the period....that I think there are hardly any historians today, in fact I don't know of any historians today, who doubt the existence of Jesus [aside from one or two]....It is quite clear that in fact Jesus is a very, very well documented character of real history. So I think that question can be put to rest." ("The Self-Revelation of God in Human History" from There Is A God by Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese [2007])

Robert Van Voorst: "Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their [i.e. Jesus-mythers] arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely....The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question....Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." (Jesus Outside the New Testament [2000], pages 6, 14, 16)

Shattering the Christ Myth is a welcome addition to the many evangelical defenses of Jesus Christ by well-known scholars such as R.T. France (The Evidence for Jesus), Moreland/Wilkins (Jesus Under Fire), and recently Boyd/Eddy (The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition). As a Catholic apologist, I also appreciated the brief chapter on "Leo's Line" explaining the "fable quote" sometimes attributed to Pope Leo X by mythicist skeptics.

My only complaint is the book is slightly "oversized" so it is not the size of your normal paperback and may not fit easily on your bookshelf. Nevertheless a definite 5-star effort from apologist J.P. Holding and company.

Phil Porvaznik

Around the year 56AD, St. Paul wrote to remind his converts in Corinth that: "We preach Christ crucified: to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." The event to which he refers had happened little more than two decades before; and it was the core of the message that had been preached by the earliest disciples of Jesus since the Day of Pentecost, and by their successors.

There had - as Paul reminds us - always been those who disbelieved that Jesus was the Christ, and who rejected what his earliest followers taught about him as mere 'foolishness'. But those who maintain that he never even existed are a rather more recent phenomenon. Probably the first was Bruno Bauer in the Nineteenth century. One of the ultra-Hegelians, Bauer convinced few others in a field where denial of orthodox beliefs was nevertheless fairly common. Over the next hundred years, proponents of the view that Jesus never existed can be counted on the fingers of one or at most two hands: they include Arthur Drews, JM Robertson, and GA Wells. None of these men were historians, all were dependent on arguments from silence. Furthermore, none of them could make sense of the New Testament documents on the basis of their theories, all of which required ignoring or rejecting most of the evidence. It is one thing to claim that there are mythical elements in the gospels - most likely around the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke: it is quite another to claim that there was no historical Jesus at all.

It is quite understandable that no historian worth his salt has tried to defend such a view: those who do so must therefore be motivated by unhistorical - indeed anti-historical - considerations. But while serious scholarship rightly rejects the notion that Jesus never existed, there has been a recent resurgence among anti-Christian elements in the sensationalist press, and the twilight zone of internet chatrooms, of this preposterous notion. The `arguments' put forward to support their case have been eagerly seized upon by some of those who have ulterior motives for rejecting not just the historicity of Jesus, but the whole fabric of the Christian faith. The ensuing mischief has unsettled some who are not well-enough informed to withstand it. This book - by internet apologist JP Holding and a group of well-informed fellow-workers - goes a long way towards answering their `case'. It is a thorough and painstaking achievement, and the only sad thing is that it was necessary.

There is no need here to rehearse the contents, as a full description of its various chapters and contributors can be found on the Tektonics website of JP Holding - where earlier versions of many of the chapters have previously appeared. The book is a tremendous resource for all those engaged in countering the mischief and misinformation promulgated by deniers of the historical Jesus, and is a worthy complement to the excellent `Re-inventing Jesus' by Ed Komoszewski, James Sawyer and Daniel Wallace published in 2006. I found a few misprints, but nothing serious enough to compromise the value of this outstanding book. The editor and his contributors are to be congratulated. It is worth five stars.

As a seminary student, I've been very keen on finding all I can on the historical evidence for Jesus. This book was given to me as a gift, and I've recently completed it. In many ways, this book needn't have been written. Holding and the other authors in this book either misunderstands the Christ Myth theory, or deliberately misrepresents it as the position that "Jesus Did Not Exist!" Very few of the scholars, mainstream and self-published, who adhere to the Christ Myth theory ever claim that Jesus never existed. This accidental or deliberate deception is what leads me to not recommend this book to skeptics, scholars, or students- this is a book meant to keep the faithful in line, not to bring us closer to the truth about the man so many of us called Lord. I'm looking forward reading to the recently published work by Bart Ehrman on the topic, and hope to find something more substantiative there.

Those who don't support the Christ Myth theory would be well advised to avoid this book. The old tired standbys of Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the younger are toughted with all the pomp of Don Quixote showing off his "magnificent steed" and about as believable if you know the facts--Josephus is know to have been tampered with, Tacitus use of the wrong title shows that odds are he was repeating rumor NOT history, and all Pliny does is show there are Christians in the 1st century CE something not even the most rabid Christ Myth denys.

Then you hit the hypocrisy of using Lucian as a argument from silence and then later decrying arguments form silence regarding Remsburg. Papas has the problem of it is unclear if the Gospels he knew are the same ones we have. The other points Holding brings up are similarly either poorly researched or not researched at all.

For example, the easiest argument against the Remsburg list is that Remsburg was NOT a Christ Myth Theorist ala Drews as Holding has claimed on his website. In fact, in "The Christ" Rembsurg no less than three times stated where WAS a historical 1st century preacher named Jesus. Rembsurg's argument was in fact that the GOSPEL ACCOUNT was a historical myth on par with Columbus sailing West to prove the Earth was round NOT that there wasn't a 1st century Jesus. Remsburg clearly states this: "While all Freethinkers are agreed that the Christ of the New Testament is a myth they are not, as we have seen, and perhaps never will be, fully agreed as to the nature of this myth. Some believe that he is a historical myth; others that he is a pure myth. Some believe that Jesus, a real person, was the germ of this Christ whom subsequent generations gradually evolved; others contend that the man Jesus, as well as the Christ, is wholly a creation of the human imagination." THIS is how Remsburg defined the "Christ Myth" in his work. Also at the end of this Remsburg stated "After carefully weighing the evidence and arguments in support of each hypothesis the writer, while refraining from expressing a dogmatic affirmation regarding either, is compelled to accept the former as the more probable." Despite this right in his book on page 94 Holding states "But is is clear that his sympathies did lie with mythicists." Sorry, Holding, but this is only true if you define mythicist as one who denies the supernatural aspect of Jesus rather than the man himself not existing.

Even worst Holding purposely ignores the strongest argument presented by another person Holding calls a Christ Myther: Richard Dawkins and his comparison of the Jesus story with the John Frum cargo cult. In fact Peter Worsley, in his "The trumpet shall sound: a study of cargo cults in Melanesia" (1968) which was quoted and sited in the University of Wollongong Thesis collection said "Belief in Christ is no more or less rational than belief in John Frum."

More troubling is there is this passage I found in a peer-reviewed journal article: "It is not possible to compare the above [several quotes regarding Jesus by several authors] with what we have, namely, that there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived." (Fischer, Roland (1994) "On The Story-Telling Imperative That We Have In Mind" Anthropology of Consciousness. Dec 1994, Vol. 5, No. 4: 16)

The final nail in the whole book is that per biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall "nonhistorical figure" covers everything from King Lear or Dr. Who to King Arthur.

Schweitzer from 1913 to the day he died firmly put Sir James George Frazer with John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, and Arthur Drews even though Frazer had expressly stated in 1912 "My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth".

G.A. Wells has been excepting the existence of a 1st century Jesus since 1996 and yet that work and even later ones have been called examples of the Christ Myth by Price, Stanton, Carrier, and Eddy-Boyd.

Archibald Robertson in his 1946 "Jesus: Myth Or History" states "(John M.) Robertson is prepared to concede the possibility of an historical Jesus perhaps more than one having contributed something to the Gospel story" and that "(w)hat the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded."

Holding's dismissal of Philo of Alexandria shows a clear lack of understanding of WHY the man non mention of Jesus is so important. Philo was the grandson of Herod the Great, loaned money to Herod Agrippa I, lived in both Jerusalem and Rome, had a philosophy that mirrors many of the teachings of Jesus and unlike many other of his contemporaries his works have survived intact. In his Flaccus IV (c39 CE) Philo devotes four paragraphs about "a certain madman named Carabbas ...(that) spent all his days and nights naked in the roads, minding neither cold nor heat, the sport of idle children and wanton youths" who was driven from the public gymnasium so that some of his tormentors could dress and mock him as a king. Later in "On the Embassy to Gaius" (c40 CE) Philo addressed the cruel and poor leadership of Pontius Pilate. And yet Philo makes NO mention of Jesus. In fact Jesus is so below Philo's radar that some naked crazy man gets more notice.

Irenaeus is another example of Holding's cherry picking--in Demonstration (74) Irenaeus states "For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar, came together and condemned Him to be crucified." The amount of historical nonsense in that one sentence is mind boggling.

1. The "King of the Jews" title here can NOT refer to Herod Antipas as his actual title was Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea

2. Due to expressing the desire for Tiberius to hurry up and die so his friend Caligula could become emperor Herod Agrippa I was thrown in prison and not released until 37 CE when Caligula came to power. By that time Pontius Pilate had been replaced by Marcellus.

3. Shortly before Caligula's death in 41 CE Herod Agrippa I governed Judea though Tetrarch Herod Antipas and Prefect Marcellus officially ran the region.

4. Herod Agrippa I's advice allowed his friend Claudius to become emperor and as reward for this he replaced Herod Antipas and Marcellus and was given the title "King of the Jews" and it is 42 CE.

Simply to get to the Roman Emperor listed takes us to least 6 years AFTER Pontius Pilate was recalled to Rome.

Sadly this is on par with most of the other apologetic stuff presented--cherry picking and a strawmaning of what the Christ Myth really is.

The reality is that Herbert George Wood in the Cambridge University Press book _Christianity and the Nature of History_ on page 40 defines the Christ Myth as among those "theories that regard Jesus as an historical but insignificant figure".

To anyone not familiar with him or the arguments Holding looks good but the moment you dig below the surface you find he is effectively Captain Vanderdecken sailing about the Cape.

This is a readable, and up-to-date debunking of a conspiracy theory that still has many followers today, especially on the internet. While some critics have pointed out that the author himself is not a biblical scholar (Holding holds a degree in library science, which essentially means he's good at looking things up), most of his opponents have no better credentials either. Likewise, the objections that Holding raises against this theory are sound, and his sources are legitimate. Perhaps it will help first time readers to gain a little bit of history:

The idea that Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish preacher called Christ and worshiped by 2 billion Christians today, was actually a fictional character, dreamt up long ago by purveyors of Myth, or even copied from ancient pagan gods, was, believe it or not, once a popular theory amongst enthusiastic amateur writers. Fueled by new discoveries from Egypt, and a post-Enlightenment hubris, these writers set out to prove what they already believed... that all the real knowledge of the world came from one ancient source in the East. Some wished to blend neo-occult practices, secret societies and new religious movements together with a mythical link to the past. Some wished to provide a justification for rejection of state Churches (especially those of the old order in Europe where the Catholic Church had lost so much ground). Negatively, others would take up their work and declare that all religions were false, coming from the same initial font of superstition. The 19th century was a very productive period for works espousing Christ Mythicism. What the Mythers had done often was to take the idea espoused by anti-Catholics and ethnocentrists in denouncing the ritual-based religions (such as Catholicism) as superstition borrowed from long-dead pagan cults one step further and apply it Christianity as a whole. What happens to a religion if its entire foundation is a big hoax? Perhaps there was even some projection going on, as the secret societies gained a following among the elite by claiming ancient roots to the Templars or Atlantis and ancient Egypt, and traditional Christianity was marginalized as being an outdated and legendary religion out of touch with empirical fact and history.

As time has gone on, the "Christ Mythers" have dwindled in number and in popularity, thanks to discovery after discovery from the ancient context of the Jesus and the early Christian movement. Greater understanding of not only the Greek language and 2nd Temple Judaism, but greater understanding of the Greco-Roman and Egyptian religions and mystery cults challenging the and undermining both the claims to mythicism and the entire notion of a sycretic mono myth being at the root of all religion. Finally, atheism has emerged as an intellectual movement in its own right, that is not dependent upon conspiracy theories to keep itself afloat.

Thanks to the internet however, a whole new generation of people have been introduced to these theories by an enthusiastic set of writers and filmmakers who have revived and repackaged the theories. A multitude of internet sites have proliferated espousing the theory that Jesus was a hoax, invented for some nefarious purpose, or else the inevitable result of "primitive peasants" misreading texts of a mystical nature intended for only higher minds to interpret symbolically. Books, mostly self published by one "Acharya S" (DM Murdoch) which claim that Christianity started out as a Sun god religion, having been inspired by ancient astrological god cults, have gained a cult following online, even inspiring "documentary" conspiracy films like "Zeitgeist: the Movie" (see my review elsewhere on Amazon) and Brian Flemming's "The God Who Wasn't There." What many don't realize is how badly out of date and flimsy is the data that these works are based upon, never mind the flat out deceptive way they are marketed. The appeal of such theories of course is obvious.

Long dismissed by the scholarly academic community, few have endeavored to address the claims of these conspiracy theorists point blank. Many academics consider addressing such a question beneath them (a few exceptions exist, such as Bart D. Ehrman, himself a non-theist).

JP Holding has written a number of apologetic books, and much criticism of him by anti-Christians exists on the web. Much of it surrounds his often sarcastic, sometimes abrasive tone on the web regarding his opponents (who, it should be known, are not often kind to him either). This book however, raises the tone of the discussion and is quite professional in its examination of the evidence, and readable in its format. Far from taking cheap shots at his opponents, the author provides adequate sources that can be checked, and for the most part deals very fairly with the evidence, when it would be easy for him to resort to heavy handed apologetics. Holding is not the only writer featured in this work, but his writing frames the conversation. By the end you'll feel as if you've gone on a journey exploring the issue, rather than being beaten over the head with a sermon.

My only complaint is the large format of the book (a magazine sized soft cover), which has the appearance of a published dissertation, rather than a traditional text. Overall, the author addresses each of the major Jesus Myther sources on the web, including various popular films that have come out espousing similar claims, and gets to the heart of these claims from and "ancient" Christ Mythers. While Holding is clearly a confessional Christian evangelical, he nevertheless keeps his own apologetic to a minimum when addressing the issues of fact and history. Every reader should check out the evidence for themselves, but I can't imagine that any honest person, having done so, would not find themselves siding with history rather than conspiracy on this issue.

Wherever you stand in the debate over the historical existence of Jesus, this book is an excellent resource. There has been a huge resurgence of interest in "Christ myth" and "pagan copycat" theories, mostly owing to 'Zeitgeist' and 'The God Who Wasn't There'. This book deals directly with both movies, and goes into incredible detail in picking apart the underlying theories. Unlike either movie, this book contains genuine scholarship on these subjects. If you have ever read Acharya S, Jordan Maxwell, Gerald Massey, Blavatsky, etc, you will immediately be struck by how rigorous genuine scholarship is. One of the central claims of the mythicist and pagan-copycat theories is that there is NO modern scholarly support for the historical existence of Jesus. This book completely obliterates that outrageous claim, as modern scholarship strongly supports the view that Jesus actually did exist as a historical person.

"Shattering the Christ Myth" is a large 350+ page book, packed with information and analysis. This is not a light inspirational read, but rather a very serious scholarly look at the arguments and evidence concerning the historical existence of Jesus.

Unfortunately, there does not exist a convenient video on the internet extolling the historical Jesus with quite the same force as 'Zeitgeist' and others. For some reason, going through the Testimonium Flavianum line by line and concluding that most of it is authentic is just not as exciting to most people as the blanket unsubstantiated claim that "There is no evidence for Jesus whatsoever!!" However, if you are truly interested in these questions, you would do well to at least read a serious presentation of the arguments on both sides. This book is an excellent place to go for the evidence that Jesus really did exist as a person in history.

As someone who has been tirelessly unimpressed by the unconvincing apologetic works that have come out in the past few years, this book surprised me greatly. As someone who doubts a lot of the history of the Old Testament and has read up on the subject, I usually encounter conservative scholarship that puts forth the "nuh uh!" approach to the claims of higher critics regarding the Old Testament. I was horribly afraid that New Testament apologetics would be no different. This book has proven me wrong to a high degree on at least that point. After reading this book, I have become convinced that conservative scholarship can greatly contribute to the truths of the New Testament, and that the claims made by Price are utterly absurd, claims made by Crossan are beyond the evidence, and that claims made by Carrier are overly-skeptical. Honestly, I was convinced to the point of certainty after the chapter on Lucian. If this book has made any accomplishment, it is that it truly has shattered the christ-myth. Those who accept it might as well be on the same level as flat-earthers: they have no respect for evidence, are not willing to admit they are wrong, and are not honest with themselves about reality. I know I have not really touched that well upon the book, but I do not need to go into great detail about it. Read it for yourself, it is very convincing.

This book is an excellent addition to anyone who is serious to start learning in greater detail how well Christianity is firmly rooted in facts and history and the history of the modern-day skeptics. It explains in great detail the point of view of some of the most well-known skeptics and provides an answer to all their arguments with solid verifiable data and plenty of references. It is a great introduction for everyday people to get a more advanced and complex view on Christianity.

A majority if not all scholars accept Jesus existed in 1st century Israel.Those that do not are either ill informed or reject the evidence right off hand. JP Holding takes this to task by examining these claims especially in terms of of the Josephus passage which mentions Jesus, scholars are aware there is some interpolation to this passage but when removing it restores the text to its entirety many maybe also not aware there is an Arabic copy of Josephus as well. JP also demolishes the shoddy research of Acharya
S aka Dorthy Murdock and her poor scholarship in regards to the so called pagan paralles and astrology she claims are within Christianity. Finally JP takes on other so called scholars like Kenneth Humphereys and Brian Flemming of the God Who Wasn't There leaving their arguements in the dust! this book is a must for true seekers and Historians. In the end all the Jesus mythers have no case except frindge scholarship, shoddy research and conspiracy theories!

In the last few years there has been a revival of sorts of "Jesus mythicism". This idea is long discard (by scholars) notion that Jesus did not actually exist as a person (there are many scholars who would dispute the miraculous accounts but believe there is a person at the root of the stories) with some going as far as claiming Jesus was some sort of solar deity whose myths are actually astrological metaphors. Films such as Zeitgiest and The God Who Wasn't There popularize such notions in varying degrees with such claims presented as representing the collective wisdom of scholarly investigation.

In Shattering the Christ Myth, James Patrick Holding and his associates at Tekton Education and Apologetics Ministry demonstrate the utter emptiness of the mythicist claims. In a series of sections on the extra biblical evidence for Jesus, the alleged "silence" of historical witnesses of the era, the copycat thesis, the aforementioned films promoting the mythicist view, and a final section on miscellaneous related topics. Each article is based information from their website - in many cases an expanded version - and the overall effect is one of hitting the mythicist view from every possible angle and exposing its origins in among 19th century crackpots.

Since most real historians do not bother with such nonsense, it is often left to the apologists to fight this battle. This is fine as Holding and company seem quite up to the challenge. Like the advocates of all manner of conspiracy theories, the "Jesus mythicist" crowd can seem impressive until someone actually researches their claims. They have done so and saved many others the bother. Shattering the Christ Myth provides an excellent reference for combating yet another contemporary anti-Christian delusion.