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R. G. Price

Deciphering the Gospels: Proves Jesus Never Existed Paperback – October 27, 2018

by R. G. Price (Author)

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The idea that Jesus may never have existed has been around in modern scholarship for over a century,but it has never been sufficiently proven. In this book, R. G. Price presents new research to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Jesus of the Gospels never existed. Intertextual analysis shows that the Gospel of Mark is a fictional allegory written in reaction to the First Jewish-Roman War. Like other recent scholars, Price shows that the scenes of Mark are constructed from Old Testament scriptures and that the character and teachings of Jesus are based on the writings of Paul the apostle. Using intertextual analysis, Price shows that every biography of Jesus is derived from the Gospel of Mark and explores the implications of this finding. Price compellingly demonstrates that prior to the writing of the Gospels Jesus was understood as a heavenly being and that it was the Gospel stories, all derived from the fictional story of Mark, that led to the belief that Jesus was a real person.

Print length

370 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Lulu Publishing Services
Publication date

October 27, 2018
Dimensions

6 x 0.93 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1483487830
ISBN-13

978-1483487830
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This fascinating book is, among other things, a welcome sign that Christ Mythicism has become a true subfield of New Testament scholarship, that is, no longer merely a conventicle of eccentrics "despised and rejected of men," but a real school of thought in which Mythicists put forth and compare rival proposals, learning from one another. Mythicism becomes a positive field of studies, not merely an enterprise of anti-Christian polemic. New Mythicist books, while inevitably covering much familiar territory, contribute new variations on the theme, offering new arguments, new theories, new perspectives on issues that only Mythicism makes visible. That is certainly true of the present volume." -Robert M. Price

"At first, I was unsure about how the author was going to tackle this subject. The book's subtitle of 'Proves Jesus Never Existed' is a strong claim and could be offensive to the majority of Christians, especially as Jesus being real is still a wide belief today. If the author presented wild claims with little logic to their argument, the book's credibility would immediately suffer. However, I quickly became impressed by the way the author approached the subject." - OnlineBookClub

"Price's proof is not definitive--it is likely that none ever will be--but much of it is persuasive and all of it is thought-provoking. Anyone interested in the evolution of Jesus as a world figure should find much here to chew on.
An original and well-executed addition to the Christ myth theory canon." - Kirkus

"[Deciphering the Gospels'] evidence and conclusions are more convincing than those of the most famous mainstream scholar's book defending Jesus's historicity." -Tom Dykstra

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lulu Publishing Services (October 27, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 370 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1483487830
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1483487830
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.19 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.93 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,786,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #234,620 in History (Books)

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34 ratings

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David P. Graf

There are grounds for concern...

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2019

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I have revised my earlier review and rating and headline because I was rude in some of my comments and there's already too much nastiness when it comes to discussions involving belief and unbelief without my adding to it.

By way of disclosure, I am an evangelical Christian who has spent time trying to explain and defend Christianity to skeptics and outsiders. I have have thoughtful discussions with those who are not Christians and could respect their point of view. That's why I am saying that there are grounds for concern over this book's basic point that the picture painted by Paul was that of a mythic being who never existed. Celsus was an early skeptic and made a number of attacks against Christianity in the second century A.D. ( I find C.E. to just be silly but that's another topic) recorded in Origen's "Contra Celsus" (which can be read online). Celsus makes many of the same arguments that skeptics have made for centuries against Christianity. For example, he ridicules the credibility of the gospel accounts of the resurrection. However, he never says that Jesus never existed or that Jesus was just a mythic figure. Instead, he says that Jesus' father was actually a Roman soldier named Panthera. If a skeptic far closer in time than us to the days of Jesus accepted that Jesus was real then it's hard to accept Price's argument regardless of all time and effort and study he put into this book.

Price also does not address Paul's statement in his first letter to Timothy where he says "For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,". Based upon that alone, it's hard to see Paul truly believing that Jesus was solely a spiritual being. And, yes, I am aware of the controversy over whether Paul wrote the pastoral letters (Price in fact brings that up in a comment posted below to this review) and we can get into that if necessary. However, it's a bit hard to believe that the letters should not be considered Paul's when you have Polycarp's writings. Polycarp was an early Christian who was said to have been associated with the Apostle John. Polycarp is understood as having lived between 69 A.D. and 155 A.D. dying as a martyr. During his life, he wrote a letter to the Philippians (which can also be read online) which incorporated a good deal of references to the works of the Apostle Paul including several tied to books on which there is no disagreement over Paul's authorship. As part of this letter, there are also references which tie to the the letters said to be written by Paul to Timothy. Given that Polycarp's work includes references to books accepted as Paul's, it's hard not to conclude then that Polycarp also accepted Paul's authorship of 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. And so, it seems hard in my opinion to conclude that Paul's statement about Jesus as a man can be discounted.

Lastly, I gave this book three stars but not because Price is a skeptic. I am aware of how many Christians flood Amazon and other sites with negative reviews and lousy ratings thinking that they are doing God's work but I see that as mistaken on their part. One can admire and respect the thought which went into this book but there are grounds for concern on my part.

9 people found this helpful

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James Branscome

A Compelling Argument That There Was Never a Jesus on Earth

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2018

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This is a great contribution--well researched and well argued--to mythicist literature. Price shows step by step that Mark is really a defense of Paul against the "pillars" in Jerusalem, namely Peter and the resurrection crowd. The gospel is constructed from Old Testament verses and stories to defend Paul against the Judaizers focusing on Paul's emphasis on the cross vs. Peter's crowd on the resurrection. That solves the mystery of why the apostles are depicted as such a bunch of dumbbells who never quite get the points Jesus is trying to make. Price is not a NT scholar but he knows the literature and provides new explanations of some of the mysteries in the first gospel. Well written and easy to read.

11 people found this helpful

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PJMD

A lot of effort for such a poor result

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2019

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The title of this book caught my eye. What is generally considered some of the best evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth actually proves that Jesus never existed? I had to read this and see what this book had to offer.

The author centers everything around the Gospel of Mark. Almost everything else that might be consider evidence of the existence of Jesus rises or falls in the author’s mind with that Gospel. Mark is declared a “fictional allegory,” likely written about 70-80 AD as a result of the Jewish-Roman war. As such, Jesus Christ never existed, nor did most of his followers mentioned in the Bible.

Problems with this book center around assertions without evidence, basic factual errors, failure to understand Christianity and its history, misleading statements and some things that are just plain silly.

Assertions without evidence

Price wants us to believe that Mark was written after the Jewish-Roman war in 70 AD and Matthew, Luke and John were written well after that. Luke and Acts are 2 books by the same author, with Acts following Luke. Acts is centered around 2 main characters: Peter and Paul. Both men were martyred a few years before that war. Paul was in prison in Rome twice, with only the first time being recorded in Acts. Jesus gives a detailed prophetic description of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem recorded in Luke. There is no mention of the war, destruction of the temple, Paul’s second imprisonment or Peter and Paul’s deaths in Acts. To think that none of these events would have been recorded by the author of Acts if it was written after the war stretches credulity to the limits.

Price doubts that the author of Acts was actually present for any of the events recorded. The “we” passages in Acts are simply a “stylistic device.” This would be a strange stylistic device, with much of the book written as a report from others, then suddenly changing to a first-person account.

1 Corinthians 15:3-11 is a very inconvenient passage for Price. Paul clearly believes that Jesus was a human being who lived on earth a short time before his writing. Paul reports the existence of over 500 witnesses to the risen Christ, challenging his readers to prove him wrong. Price says the authenticity of this passage is highly debated, a statement without evidence.

He states that the letters attributed to Peter were actually written by others, and the introduction of 1 Peter “clearly indicates” it was written after the Jewish-Roman war. There is nothing in the introduction to indicate that. He states the audience is Jews, when in fact, the letter makes it clear it is written to Christians.

Price states none of Jesus’ “supposed real associates…were ever identified or talked to. Not even the real burial places of any of these people are known.” There are writings from the real associates as well as the associates’ disciples. As for burial places, he expects to know those of poor itinerant preachers who were considered criminals, hunted and martyred?

Price dismisses the possibility of the supernatural elements in the Gospels: “…we can safely assume….” He offers no evidence for this assumption. Never assume is the first rule of life, which Price has yet to learn.

Price claims that reports of Christian persecution by Nero and others were simply “fabricated” but offers no evidence for that claim.

The author quotes Papias about the Gospel of Mark, then says, “We absolutely know now that none of what Papias said here could be true.” A very dogmatic statement for which no proof is offered.

Factual errors

Price states that the “Q source” derives from Mark and was used by Matthew and Luke. Scholars postulate Q as the written record from which the authors of the synoptic gospels took their information.

In comparing the birth accounts in Matthew and Luke, he states they both have, “a genealogy of Jesus going back to David.” Matthew’s genealogy goes back to Abraham and Luke’s goes back to Adam, the son of God. He states Matthew’s birth account indicates Joseph and Mary are from Bethlehem. There is nothing in the account to this effect. He “believes” that Luke’s account is derived from Matthew’s. Then why are there so many differences?

Price wants to make Matthew the originator of the idea that Jesus was born of a virgin. He states Isaiah 7:14, the prophecy Matthew refers to, does not indicate a virgin, but this is an appropriate translation of the Hebrew and fits the context. Simply having a young woman give birth would not constitute a sign (miracle). A virgin giving birth would.

Price states Jesus and Paul say “love your neighbor as yourself” is the greatest commandment. Neither actually said that. Jesus said this is the second greatest commandment (Mark 12:28-31). This comes from Leviticus 19:18. He says this is simply a statement, but it clearly is a command.

He wants writings from “scribes” since that term was used repeatedly in the gospels. He doesn’t seem to realize that these were essentially lawyers, not newspaper reporters.

Price confuses Nazarene with Nazirite.

He states Jesus makes a vow to “never drink wine again,” however Jesus says he won’t drink wine again until the Kingdom of God comes (Mark 14:25).

He states that Jesus promised the thieves crucified with him that they would be with Him in paradise. This promise was made to only one thief (Luke 23:39-43).

He quotes unbelievable statements from “The Martyrdom of Polycarp,” and states this is one of the most believable accounts of a Christian martyr. This indicates he made no effort to research other accounts of Christian martyrs.

Price indicates Christianity copied things from some of the “mystery religions” existing around the time of Christ. The similarities that have been pointed out in this book and elsewhere are generally not that comparable, and where they are, based on the time these similarities show up in the mystery religions, would have to have been copied from Christianity, not by Christianity.

Price states that “Islam is essentially a sect of Christianity.” This shows gross ignorance of both Christianity and Islam and is an insult to both religions.

Misunderstanding Christianity and its history

Price shows no concept of the Christian view of Jesus as the God-man. In discussing the Epistle of James, he states Isaac and Rahab are used as examples of works (James uses Abraham, not Isaac), Elijah is used as an example of the power of prayer and the prophets as an example of suffering. He thinks that Jesus should be used as the example in these instances. Given the view Christians have of Jesus, using him as the example would make no sense.

He states that “The entire case for Jesus’s divinity was based on the relationship between passages in the Gospels and passages in the Hebrew scriptures.” He then contradicts himself by stating Christians worshiped Jesus because he performed miracles, rose from the dead and fulfilled prophecies. Christians have never worshipped Jesus for any of these reasons. We worship Him because He is God. He demonstrated this through miracles, His resurrection and fulfilled prophecies. He declared He was God (e.g., Matt 16:16-17, Matt 26:61-68, John 4:25-26, John 5:16-18). Other writers of the New Testament stated he was God: John (e.g., John 1:1-14, 1 John 5:20), Paul (e.g., Phil 2:5-11, Col 1:15-17), Peter (e.g. 2 Peter 1:1), the author of Hebrews (e.g. Heb 1:8-12).

He expects that Jesus’ followers would venerate his grave, even if his body wasn’t there. Why venerate an empty grave? Especially when Christians believe that Jesus is alive.

He calls early Christian history mythology that came from the exact same culture that produced Greek and Roman mythology. Christianity came out of Judaism, not Roman and Greek culture. Christianity was an underground religion in most of the world in the last part of the first century. Why is it so hard to believe that Christianity has a real history?

That Mark portrays Peter very poorly does not suggest Mark’s information was from someone other than Peter. It indicates that Price does not understand the attitude of Christians.

Price declares that Christianity “had an absolutely devastating impact on Western thought and reason.” On the contrary, Western thought and reason would not exist without Christianity. Freedom of speech and religion, elimination of slavery and infanticide, elevation of the status of women, hospitals open to everyone and education for everyone are just a few of the things we enjoy because of Christianity.

Attempts to mislead

Price says the trial and execution would not have happened at Passover—Jews didn’t do this. Many aspects of Jesus’ trial were illegal. The execution was done by the Romans, not the Jews.

In discussing the cleansing of the temple, the author states that the gospel writers all simply copied the story from Mark, and this is proof that they had no knowledge of it being a real event. Yet when John has stories not found in the other gospels, these are “fabrications” that again show that the story is not real. He can’t have it both ways. All 4 gospels relaying the same information, or only one relaying it is proof that a story is manufactured?

Price considers Nazareth as an invention of Mark despite the archaeological evidence of its existence in the time of Jesus.

The claim is made that Paul’s ideas are not historical. While most of the content of Paul’s letters do not describe history or biographical information about Jesus, his ideas are clearly grounded in a historical character, Jesus. The claim is made that Paul expected Jesus coming from heaven, but since he didn’t phrase it the way Price would like it, Paul is expecting Jesus to come for the first time in the future. There was no need for Paul to state that Jesus was coming for a second time. He was writing to Christians who knew that Jesus had already been on earth a first time.

The word “apostles” takes on several different meanings in the New Testament. In some contexts, it refers strictly to Jesus’ core group of 12 disciples. Paul’s failure to call them disciples does not mean these men had no association with a real, human Jesus.

Price states that Paul describes Jesus as being separate from God. On the contrary, there are numerous places that he identifies Jesus as being God (e.g., Rom 9:5, Titus 2:13, etc.).

In Galatians 1:19 Paul refers to “James, the Lord’s brother.” Price tries obfuscation here, pointing out that the term “brother” is used in other ways in other passages. What precisely is meant can be determined by the context, and the context in Galatians makes it quite clear Paul means a literal brother (actually half-brother who had the same mother).

Just plain silly

Cleansing the Temple is widely believed to be true, yet no one until the author recognizes this as a literary allusion!

“Clearly the core of every single Gospel is borrowed from Mark….” If you read 2 newspaper accounts of the same event, or read 2 biographies of the same person, you would expect many similarities. That is not proof that any of the writers copied from someone.

Price complains that all knowledge of Jesus the person comes from the Gospels. What does he expect? Photographs, videotapes, newspaper interviews, ticket stubs to the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus was a poor itinerant preacher living in the armpit of the Roman Empire. Communication was good for that time, but abysmal by today’s standards. Even though he was seen as an enemy to the powerful, he wasn’t well enough known by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem to be identified by sight. They had to use a traitor to identify him so that they could arrest him. Despite all this, we have more information from closer in time to when Jesus lived than for anyone else in the ancient world.

Price expects a written record of the “hundreds, or thousands, of infants killed in Bethlehem” on the orders of King Herod. Bethlehem probably had a population of a few hundred. Killing half a dozen baby boys would have merited a footnote at best in a biography of Herod, given his proclivity for murder.

In trying to make early Christians mythical, Price wonders why Paul didn’t visit Jesus’ mother Mary or why the early Christian community didn’t care for her. Simply because there is no record of these events doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

Price’s conclusion states the Gospel called Mark “is not a story that was written for the purpose of starting a religion or feigning to be a biography.” Then how strange that it tells the story of the life of Jesus, and from it came the world’s largest religion!

Price states “the best explanation for the Gospels is an unbroken chain of dependence starting with…Mark, and subsequent invention by later writers. There is absolutely nothing in the Gospels that compels us to believe that any of the writers based any part of their accounts on information that came from...a real human Jesus.” Occam’s razor would certainly compel us to believe that these writings were about a real human being. Common sense would also lead us to accept that.

This book shows a complete failure to properly research and understand the subject, a failure in basic logic and a clear attempt to mislead the reader. RG Price, why are you trying so hard to make one of the most well documented historical figures of the ancient world disappear?

6 people found this helpful

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swimdb

Good book on the good book, excellent analysis of a theory of the origins.

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2018

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This book expouses a theory similar to that of Doherty and Carrier though is very different in style.

This author focuses on a close comparative reading of Mark as it relates to the Septuagint and the Pauline letters.
The author quotes long passages from the source texts to make his point.

The book also references things like Testamonium Flavianum.

It was an easy read and a slightly different take on an interesting idea. The overall notion that Mark was written as literary allegory and later taken as some type of history is well explained.

8 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Guy Mannering

An notable contribution to the Christ Myth corpus.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 26, 2020

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There was no shortage Jesus sceptics around in the latter half of the 19th century and in the early 20th but between the publication of The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews in 1910 and the first of George Wells' works in 1971 the Christ Myth theory failed to gain much traction and and was largely relegated by scholars and historians to the status of a loony fringe interest. All that has changed in the last twenty years or so with works such as those by Earl Doherty, Richard Carrier, Robert M. Price and Raphael Lataster providing a solid corpus in support of the theory. None of these authors, with the possible exception of Price, would I think state unequivocally that Jesus never existed, only that on the balance of probabilities it's highly unlikely that he did. Now R.G. Price (not to be confused with Richard M. although he does provide the introduction) weighs in with a pretty hefty tome that has the bold sub-title "Proves Jesus Never Existed."

Among the theses advanced in Deciphering the Gospels are that Mark, by general consent the earliest of the gospels, is entirely fictional and was not intended to be viewed as history or biography; that it was composed at the end of the first Jewish-Roman War circa AD 70 or shortly thereafter and was intended as an allegory about how the Jews brought destruction upon themselves; that Mark derived all of his material either from OT models or from the letters of Paul for whom Jesus was a celestial deity and that by the time Matthew and Luke got their hands on Mark its allegorical purpose was no longer recognised and they simply added their own fictions; but Mark is the primary fabricator so need for theories about oral transmissions, eye witness testimonies or lost documents like Q. Of course not all of this is new - there is always a fair amount of overlap in mythicist polemic - and I'm not sure I buy into the Mark- as- total- allegory angle but the author is well in command of his material and develops his arguments carefully and often with interesting results. He demonstrates, for example, that the cleansing of the temple episode, cited by many scholars as one of the most-likely-to-be- true events in the gospels leading to Jesus' arrest and crucifixion, is just another fiction derived from the OT. And he successfully disposes of the few passages in Paul that are used by historicists to counter the arguments of the mythicists (as Raphael Lataster pointed out, it's a sad state of affairs if the entire evidence for an historical Jesus hinges on a few contentious passages in Paul.)

Does this book "prove" that Jesus never existed? Frankly I think it's impossible to prove absolutely that he either did or didn't, but I also find it impossible to read books such as this and those of the authors cited above without coming to the conclusion that if he did exist the nature of the NT material places the historical man beyond retrieval. Certainly the evidence for his non-existence is as good as the evidence for his existence and perhaps the balance has even started to swing in favour of the mythicists. What is most remarkable is that to date there has been no successful peer-reviewed refutation of Doherty, Carrier et al., the one recent attempt by the late professor Maurice Casey being something of an embarrassment to his name.

My copy of Deciphering the Gospels is the revised edition and I'm surprised that some typos weren't picked up, for example ""eminent" instead of ""imminent", " tenant" instead of "tenet" and "lie" twice used instead of "he" making total nonsense of one biblical passage.

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Thorough account.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2019

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The book is a convincing analysis of the existence of a corporeal Christ and it does what it says on the cover. It’s quite hard going simply because the author takes considerable pains to undertake a judicious and calm look at the historicity of the central figure in a world religion. In the end, faith can’t get over the essential tenet that there is no basis for a living Christ and all the superstructure of belief is based on fiction. In the end, Clem Attlee got it right - ‘Don’t mind the ethics, can’t abide the mumbo jumbo’.

Jeremy Sams

superb

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2019

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Cogently and impressively argued.

Craig Mac

a refreshing discussion about the basis of the Gospel of Mark & Christian origins in general

Reviewed in Australia on September 23, 2018

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This is a refreshing straight-forward read about the origins of the key text at the forefront of Christianity, the gospel of Mark, and about a number of other aspects of the development of Christianity. What the author proposes the Gospel of Mark is based on and what he proposes it is also a commentary on might surprise many people.

It is a first-principles approach that adds to the body of recent literature about early Christianity and the period it started in, by various people from academic orthodox Christians; to scholars of the apocryphal and gnostic and gnostic-like texts; to authors outside 'the academy', such as R.G.Price in this scholarly work.