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Robert M. Price

The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems Paperback – August 1, 2011

by Robert M. Price (Author)

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The Christ-Myth theory ... "Worse Than Atheism"? New Testament scholar Robert M. Price, one of America's leading authorities on the Bible, has assembled in his book evidence that shows that almost the entire "biography of Jesus" is a conscious reworking of earlier literature.It is one thing to say "There are no gods" or "Jesus was not a god, just a man." It is quite another thing to say "Jesus of Nazareth never existed at all" or that "Christ is a myth." But scholars have been saying exactly that since at least 1793 when the Enlightenment scholar Charles Dupuis began to publish his 13-volume Origine de Tous les Cultes, ou Religion Universelle, which elucidated the astral origins not only of Christianity but of other ancient religions as well. New Testament scholar Robert M. Price, one of America's leading authorities on the Bible, here summarizes much of the scholarship that has led him and a growing number of modern scholars to conclude that Christ -- a partial synonym for Jesus of Nazareth -- is mythical. Most usefully, Price has assembled evidence that shows that almost the entire "biography of Jesus" has been created from Greek Old Testament stories and themes and even incorporates motifs from Homer, Euripides, and perhaps Aesop. Because readers will have a hard time "taking it on faith" that the Jesus biography is merely a reworking of previous material, broad swaths of "Old Testament" context are quoted in association with each New Testament equivalent, so readers can judge for themselves whether or not Dr. Price's claim be true: the "Live of Christ" was not fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies; it was, rather, a conscious reworking of earlier literature.

Print length

427 pages
Language

English
Publisher

American Atheist Press
Publication date

August 1, 2011
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.1 x 8.4 inches
ISBN-10

1578840171
ISBN-13

978-1578840175
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ American Atheist Press (August 1, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 427 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1578840171
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1578840175
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,007,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #642 in Atheism (Books)
- #2,224 in Christology (Books)

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50 ratings

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Robert Hayes

Builds a rather thorough, and strong, case

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017

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Although I have long since left behind Christian belief (for my own reasons), works like this still hold my interest, if for no other reason that religion still remains a compelling subject worthy of study. This particular book, comprising previously published essays, goes into the mythic character of Jesus while also examining areas where this theory might fall short. Congratulations, I read the title! The most damning of these is probably the one on Mark being a midrashic rewrite of Old Testament episodes with some Homer thrown in for good measure. I also appreciated the conclusion, where Price clarifies that the issues of god and Jesus existing are separate, although he denies both (as do I). Ultimately, as with his other work, the impetus is on the reader to decide whether they buy what he (very compellingly, imo) presents.

11 people found this helpful

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THE SKEPTICAL SCHOLAR ADVOCATES, BUT ALSO CRITIQUES, “JESUS MYTH” THEORIES

Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2018

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Robert M. Price (born 1954) is an American theologian and writer---and former Baptist minister---who taught philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, and is now a professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He has written/edited a number of books, such as The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave , Blaming Jesus for Jehovah: Rethinking the Righteousness of Christianity , Jesus Is Dead , The Historical Bejeezus , The Case Against The Case For Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel , Killing History: Jesus in the No-Spin Zone , etc.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “I have not tried to amass every argument I could think of to destroy the historicity of Jesus. Rather, I have summarized the series of realizations about methodology and evidence that eventually led me to embrace the Christ Myth Theory. There may once have been an historical Jesus, but for us there is one no longer. If he existed, he is forever lost behind the stained glass curtain of holy myth. At least that’s the current state of the evidence as I see it. The present volume contains the major essays and papers I have written to set forth the case for the Christ Myth theory as well as my best attempts to deal with the major difficulties scholars have pointed out with it.” (Pg. 23)

He observes, “it is by no means only Christ-Myth cranks and eccentrics who have rejected the story of Pilate trying to free Jesus as a piece of implausible fiction. Who knows what happened? Maybe Herod the Great did try to kill the infant Messiah. Maybe the Sanhedrin did condemn Jesus as a blasphemer and a gutless Pilate finally gave in to their whims. But it does not seem very probable, and probability is the only coin in which the historian trades… it is a chain of very weak links that binds Jesus to the circumstances of the first century.” (Pg. 49)

He explains, “the stories comprising the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are themselves the result of haggadic midrash upon stories from the Old Testament… The New Testament writers partook of a social and religious environment in which currents of Hellenism and Judaism flowed together and interpenetrated in numerous surprising ways… We must now envision proto-Christian exegetes ‘discovering’ for the first time what Jesus the Son of God had done and said ‘according to the scriptures’ by decoding the ancient texts… we will see how virtually any scriptural source was fair game… For his part, Mark relied about as heavily on the Iliad and the Odyssey…” (Pg. 60-62)

He notes, “Are we red-letter confident that Jesus rose from the dead, much less appeared to James? All we can say on the basis of 1 Corinthians 15:7 is that some faction claimed the honor of a resurrection vision for James because it was a pre-requisite for exercising the apostolic office (1 Cor 9:1, ‘Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?’). Was the claim true? What’s your favorite color?” (Pg. 270)

He states, “I have left unmolested most of the teachings of Jesus included as genuine items in The Gospel of Jesus . Many of them come from the Q source… I see nothing specific demanding some other author than Jesus. But that does not prove it was he who said them. There is no particular reason to deny these words to a historical Jesus, but where does that leave us? Can we henceforth simply assume that these sayings have passed the test and can be relied upon as authentic Jesus sayings?... I wonder if this is not one of those places where agnosticism is called for, and what we get instead is fideism… Jesus may perhaps have said these remaining saying, or maybe it was someone else.” (Pg. 312)

He argues, “I want to survey three ways of understanding James’ epithet ‘brother of the Lord’ that would not entail physical relationship to a historical Jesus. First is the possibility that James was understood, like Thomas, to be the earthly, physical counterpart to a heavenly Jesus. Second is that James was prominent among the missionaries known as ‘brothers of the Lord.’ Third is that his fraternal connection is fictive and presupposes the historicization of a heavenly Jesus and seeks retrospectively to co-opt the Jesus sect by subordinating its figurehead to Jesus as his brother.” (Pg. 336)

He summarizes, “We have seen that the Christ-Myth claim that Christianity developed from some sort of pre-Christian Jesus or Joshua religion has suffered mainly from reliance on weak (though not absurd) arguments, mostly dependent on the identification of the pre-Christian Jesus with a hypothetical pre-canonical Joshua god, distinct from Yahweh, a debatable doublet of the very case being argued with regard to the Christian Jesus. The evidence for a Joshua deity proved misty and equivocal…” (Pg. 420)

He concludes, “I do not believe in a free-standing God, one existing outside the dramatic, role-playing context of liturgy. My first problem with personalistic Theism is my inability to accept Idealist metaphysics… My second problem with theism is what seems to me the utter lack of evidence of a just and providential deity’s supervision of the world. If these problems could be overcome, I should still have great difficulties with the specific doctrines of the particular religions, though Pantheism or Monism might attract me. I should add, too, that I am a respectful God-denier. That is, I dissent from Theism from within the theological discussion, not from outside it. I would rather speak of the Death of God, along with Nietzsche and Altizer, than the non-existence of God.” (Pg. 423)

This book will be of great interest to Atheists, skeptics, and other freethinkers who doubt Christianity.

6 people found this helpful

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J. JAGELLA

Problems for Those Who Want a Real Jesus

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2017

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In case you're not familiar with the Christ-Myth Theory, it is a hypothesis that the Jesus of the New Testament never existed, or if he did exist, then he was so different from the Jesus of the New Testament that he may be irrelevant to the study of that Jesus. This theory is explored in Robert Price's The Christ-Myth Theory and its Problems. I will do my best to give you a good idea of whether you will like The Christ-Myth Theory and if you will find it informative.

Robert Price lays out the three major factors that led him to accept the Christ Myth hypothesis as the best explanation to explain the data about Jesus.

"First, almost every story in the Gospels (and Acts) can be plausibly argued to be borrowed from the Greek Old Testament, Homer, or Euripides...

...Second, every detail of the narrated life of Jesus fits the outlines of the Mythic Hero archetype present in all cultures...

...Third, the epistles, regardless of their dates as earlier or later than the gospels, seem to enshrine a different vein of early Christian faith which lacked an earthly Jesus, a Christianity that understood “Jesus” as an honorific throne-name bestowed on a spiritual savior who had been ambushed and killed by the Archons who rule the universe before he rose triumphant over them."

An example of the first factor can be found on pages 38-39. Here Price makes a very astute observation that Mark 4 is a "midrash" (a commentary) on Jonah 1. I believe that the parallels between the story of Jesus calming the sea and God calming the sea after Jonah is tossed overboard cannot be mere coincidence. I agree that Mark 4 is a rewrite of Jonah 1, and it is a myth in the making.

Price explains the second factor in the following way:

"If the story of Jesus walking on the water bears a strong resemblance to old stories in which Hermes, Pythagorus, the Buddha and others walk on water, mustn't we conclude we are probably dealing with a legend in the case of Jesus too?"

As for the third factor, Price offers 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (NRSV) as an epistle passage of the "unearthly Jesus":

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes."

Note that in this passage Paul says he received the revelation of the Lord's Supper directly from God rather than from any person. Considering that the epistles were written before the gospels, we can see that The story of The Lord's Supper originated from Paul rather than any supposed eyewitness account! Price does a great job of catching Paul red handed in the act of creating the Christ Myth.

Unfortunately, many of the other examples Price offers for this myth making are not nearly as obvious. The bulk of The Christ Myth Theory includes page after page of what Price believes are other instances of "New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash," but he must rearrange the passages to demonstrate his point that the New Testament stories are rewrites of the stories in the Old Testament. It seems that he's trying to force square pegs into round holes.

Another problem with The Christ-Myth Theory is Price's use of language. I'm not sure if he wrote this book for a popular audience, but so many of the terms seem to require a degree in Biblical studies to understand. He often lost me and seems to assume that the reader knows a lot of the background information of the issues he discusses.

In any case, The Christ Myth Theory and it Problems is a very worthwhile read for anybody who wants to understand more about some of the best scholarship in the Jesus Myth Theory. Just keep in mind that it is often a challenge to comprehend.

You might also wish to consider Nailed by David Fitzgerald and The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S for more information about the Jesus Myth Theory.

8 people found this helpful

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Jerry Janes

Leaves out how orthodoxy shaped whatever written material that exist.

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2019

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The questions he leaves out is how orthodoxy shaped the material he has to use? The orthodoxy elimated anything that it found heretical and book burning was the norm. How the Roman decesion to wipe the memory of Judea out of history effected his view? I mean the government during the second wasn't even known until recently because the Roman's were so effective?

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Jeffrey J. Dionne

I saved the best for last

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2018

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Having read all the contemporary expositions of the Theory (Doherty, Lataster, Carrier, et al.), I saved the best for last.

2 people found this helpful

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E.P. McLean

Is Jesus a historic figure

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2015

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This is a dense academic consideration of the historic sources, figures, influence of pagan, Jewish and early Christians on the development of the story of Jesus. It is not for the novice reader in this area. It requires a strong understanding of the issues to follow the discussion and some understanding of philosophy particularly from the period under discussion. It is interesting if you have the academics and not for the average reader.

11 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Peter Marchant

Dr Price dazzles with his erudition and charms with his ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2015

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Dr Price dazzles with his erudition and charms with his style. He is an example to those who bury their heads in New Testament and Christian origins without accounting for analogy both from the ancient world and the modern.

D J Cook

Goodbye historical Jesus!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2013

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This is just one of many atheistic books I've been reading since the literary efforts of Prof. Vermes started me off on a journey of discovery. It's fairly dull reading, in my view, but the book delves a lot deeper than many and suggests that not only was Jesus not the Son of God, etc. but that he is most unlikely to have existed at all. The synoptic gospels and much else besides were cobbled together long after the event using bits and pieces cut and reshaped from parts of the so-called "Old Testament". Copious examples of the technique are provided, which seem highly persuasive. There's plenty more of interest and I recommend the book to those seeking the truth about the Christian religion.

8 people found this helpful

Pierre-Paul Larochelle

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada on April 24, 2017

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This book provides irrefutable proof that Jesus did not exist, that he is a myth created from scratch!

Cedric Vine

Methodological weaknesses

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2014

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(1.) When I checked out the suggested non-canonical sources for some of the Markan miracle stories I found that the parallels were weaker than suggested by Price. (2.) His analysis also fails to establish whether parallels between Mark and other sources indicates dependence. (3.) The story or narrative element of the Gospel is unnecessarily downplayed.

3 people found this helpful