HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus (1999)

by Earl Doherty

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1836147,373 (3.76)4
A new presentation of the argument that no historical Jesus existed. A full and comprehensive survey of the question through an examination of the early Christian record, canonical and non-canonical, from Q to the Gospels, from the earliest Pauline epistles to the second century apologists, along with Jewish, Gnostic, and Greco-Roman documents of the time. The philosophy of the era, its religious expression in the pagan mystery cults, fascinating glimpses into the historical background of the period, an in-depth consideration of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, are only some of the additional topics covered in the book. A richly-detailed, highly lucid and entertaining account of how Christianity began without an historical Jesus of Nazareth, who came to life only on the pages of the Gospels. The book has been styled for the general reader, though the scholarly community will find it of value as well.… (more)
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 4 mentions

English (5)  Spanish (1)  All languages (6)
Showing 5 of 5
Very well documented history of early Christianity. ( )
  lpg3d | Nov 12, 2022 |
Why are the events of the Gospel story, and its central character Jesus of Nazareth, not found in the New Testament epistles? Why does Paul's divine Christ seem to have no connection to the Gospel Jesus, but closely resembles the many pagan savior gods of the time who lived only in myth? Why, given the spread of Christianity across the Roman Empire in the first century, did only one Christian community compose a story of Jesus' life and death-the Gospel of Mark-while every other Gospel simply copied and reworked the first one? Why is every detail in the Gospel story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion drawn from passages in the Old Testament? The answer to these and other questions surrounding the New Testament will come as a shock to those who imagine that the origins of Christianity and the figure of Jesus are securely represented by Christian tradition and the Gospels. With the arrival of the third millennium, the time has come to face the stunning realization that for the last 1900 years, Christianity has revered a founder and icon of the faith who probably never existed ( )
1 vote MarkBeronte | Jan 9, 2014 |
Provacative, scholarly work. ( )
  llrose01 | Apr 23, 2009 |
New paradigm:

On page 125 of his book Doherty writes: "When any set of assumptions is firmly in place, the evidence is usually interpreted in accord with those assumptions. Yet it is clear that the New Testament epistles present the Christian reader and scholar with difficulties and anomalies at every turn. These have traditionally been ignored, glossed over, or subjected to unnatural interpretations and questionable reasoning in order to force them into the mold determined by the Gospels.
"What is needed is a new paradigm, a new set of assumptions by which to judge the epistles (as well as the other non-canonical documents...), one capable of resolving all those contradictions and uncertainties. That paradigm should be determined by what we can see in the epistles themselves and how we can relate their content to what we know of the spirit and conditions of the time." This is how Doherty approaches not only the epistles but the gospels and noncanonical writings as well.
Why do the earliest New Testament documents (the epistles) show no knowledge of the life and teachings of the historical Jesus (apart from a few passages that are said to be revealed via scripture or vision) yet speak of this Jesus, without any justifying reference to his human life, as God and sustainer of the universe? Doherty shows that the traditional scholarly explanations for this puzzle are with less than adequate documentary and logical support. But by looking at the philosophical and theological milieu of the authors of the epistles (who wrote before the gospels were known to them) we see that their ideas of Jesus Christ are a part of the broader literature about an increasingly personified divine Messiah, Logos, Wisdom figure. Paul also appears to demonstrate closer affinities with some aspects of the mystery cults than with any knowledge of an historical Jesus. Doherty shows that many of the ideas expressed in the theologically divergent epistles of Paul, James, John and that to the Hebrews are more satisfactorily explained as a part of broader Son of God literature emerging in some circles of Hellenistic Judaism, and to whom this figure was exclusively a spiritual revelation of scripture or personal vision—not an historical person.
Part 2 of Doherty's book essentially explains why modern Christian scholarship finds so elusive the nature of the historical Jesus assumed to lie hidden beneath the earliest Q sayings and the gospel of Thomas. Doherty asks the questions that both conservative and liberal Christian scholars fail to address seriously: Do these earliest sayings point to a single Jewish historical figure at all? Or is the evidence more satisfactorily explained as the product of a more general counter-culture, Cynic-like movement arising from economic oppression in Galilee and to which a Jesus figure was later added and gradually fleshed out? Much of this section is a response to modern Christian scholars (especially John Dominic Crossan ("The Birth of Christianity" et al.) whose theological assumptions seem not to allow them to ask such a fundamental question. Doherty would say that such a question should be obvious when the earliest evidence shows no knowledge of any of Jesus' works or life-experiences (but only a collection of sayings that have little to commend themselves as unique) and especially when the evidence rather points to a gradual elaboration of biographical details of a Jesus character over time?
Doherty then looks at the tendentious nature of Christian scholarship's interpretation of Jewish and pagan sources such as Josephus and Tacitus and finds it logically flawed.
He points to the Gospel of Mark as the first attempt to unite the Galilean tradition (the evolved Q sayings) of Jesus with the completely separate Jerusalem tradition (of a dying and rising Messiah who becomes God). Historians such as Crossan see links between these two traditions in the Didache or even the Cross Gospel in the Gospel of Peter, but Doherty deconstructs such arguments with a rigorous but lay-reader-friendly analysis of the textual evidence. He takes us through a survey of Mark showing how these two traditions have been united through midrashic re-writings of many old testament passages and tales designed to meet the needs of the Markan community. The result was the first gospel of Jesus. This literary work was possibly the real beginnings of Christianity as we know it.
Finally Doherty examines the earliest post-gospel writings of Christians beginning with Ignatius and through to Papias. The relationship between Marcion, the writings of Paul and the Book of Acts is discussed. The second century apologists' writings are shown to draw more heavily from Middle Platonism than any gospel Jesus, and at least in one case appear to deny the very idea of such a figure being associated with their Christian faith.
The footnoting and appendices in the book are set out in such a way as to make this book one of the easiest introductions to the documents of early Christianity and also as one of the most accessible and easy return-reference tools I have read.
The book's strength is that it accepts modern scholarship's foundational evidence for the origins of Christianity (canonical and non-canonical writings along with their generally accepted dates) and shows that traditional interpretations raise unsolvable problems of logic and consistency. It shows how these problems are largely removed if we interpret the same evidence as pointing to Jesus being a creation of the broader philosophical, theological and religious world of the time. This Jesus then only gradually evolved into an historical founder after the original midrashic nature of the gospels was later confused with biographical reality.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/rfjprev.htm

(This and other reviews on my blog at http://vridar.wordpress.com )
7 vote neilgodfrey | Oct 21, 2006 |
Though dead among scholarly circles - even among moderate and liberal ones - the idea that Jesus never existed has visceral appeal to many with negative attitudes towards Christianity. This book is not a serious academic work (it's published by the "Canadian Humanist Publications", whose bias is obvious and shared by the author), but it distinguishes itself from similar efforts by laypersons in its expansive scope. Rather than skirt the Pauline references to Jesus' human life, it embraces them and claims they support the notion that Jesus never existed. Rather than accept the consensus among historians and New Testament scholars that Josephus referred to Jesus on two occasions in Antiquities, the book rejects the idea that either reference is valid. The book's use of purported Middle Platonism to undercut seeming references to Jesus' human life in Paul's letters and Hebrews is especially clever (not the least because so few readers will have any understanding of what Middle Platonism is).

On style, the writing is uneven and at points amateurish and simplistic. The chapter titles and subheadings are often of no help in understanding what any particular chapter or section is about. There is no scripture or ancient writings index, though some of these are in the general index. The use of endnotes instead of footnotes (or even endnotes at the end of each chapter rather than lumped together at the end of the book) is particularly unhelpful because so much of the argument rest on the supporting references or discussion. And as I learned, checking Doherty's endnotes is vital given how unsupported many of his key arguments turn out to be.

But, what about the substance? Space constraints obviously limit, but I will comment on some of Doherty's central points.

Doherty's attempt to explain away references to Jesus' human life in Paul's letters (and Hebrews) is ambitious but unconvincing. As the book goes through these passages, it becomes clear that time and again he resorts to unsupported translations, far fetched interpretations, misrepresentations of Middle Platonism, and creative - to say the least - use of secondary sources in order to support his theory. This foundation is shaky and gets weaker the more closely it is examined. One example which taught me to check the endnotes closely was the book's assertion that the phrase "according to the scriptures" in 1 Cor. 15 when referring to Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection had nothing to do with fulfilled prophecy but meant instead that Paul had learned about these things from the Old Testament - not James and Peter and the other Christians. The support for this interpretation? It is not in the text and the reader is referred to an endnote. To my surprise, the endnote does not refer to Paul's use of the phrase elsewhere. Nor does he refer to another NT writer's use of the phrase. Or to any Greek Lexicon. Or to any other Greek writer using the term as Doherty claims Paul uses it. All that Doherty refers to is an extraordinarily anachronistic modern day example of reading a newspaper. I was genuinely surprised at how weak and anachronistic the support was for such a crucial point.

The rest of the book's explanations for the troubling Pauline and Hebrew references to a human Jesus are no more convincing and are ad hoc. Rarely does Doherty conduct any sort of meaninful textual discussion of how Paul uses these phrases elsewhere in his writings. This is especially true of his attempt to dismiss Paul's statement that Jesus was "born of a descendant of David according to the flesh" in Romans.

Another problem throughout Doherty's book is his use of secondary sources. Often they are quoted so selectively that they are offered to support points that the source's author would denounce in the strongest terms - as is the case with his use of C.K. Barrett's fine commentary on Romans (while trying to dismiss Rom. 1:1-4 as a reference to Jesus' becoming human).

Regarding other issues, Doherty relies on theories that have already been debunked, such as his attempt to dismiss Acts as a source for early Christian history by referring to V. Robbins' oft-refuted theory about the we passages, or his insistence that neither of the references to Jesus in Josephus are authentic (despite overwhelming contrary opinion and evidence). A continuing flaw in Doherty's argument is his rush to explain things in terms of Middle Platonism, while ignoring obvious Jewish influence, parallels, and beliefs. Finally, the dismissive classification of the Gospels as midrash is so brief and so uninformed that it is of almost no worth (and his radically late dating of them unsupported by the evidence)

This may be the best presentation of the Jesus Myth argument in print. Nevertheless, any informed and rational investigation into it will lead the reasonable person to conclude that if this is the best that the Jesus Myth has to offer, there is little to commend the theory. ( )
6 vote Layman | Aug 19, 2006 |
Showing 5 of 5
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

A new presentation of the argument that no historical Jesus existed. A full and comprehensive survey of the question through an examination of the early Christian record, canonical and non-canonical, from Q to the Gospels, from the earliest Pauline epistles to the second century apologists, along with Jewish, Gnostic, and Greco-Roman documents of the time. The philosophy of the era, its religious expression in the pagan mystery cults, fascinating glimpses into the historical background of the period, an in-depth consideration of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, are only some of the additional topics covered in the book. A richly-detailed, highly lucid and entertaining account of how Christianity began without an historical Jesus of Nazareth, who came to life only on the pages of the Gospels. The book has been styled for the general reader, though the scholarly community will find it of value as well.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.76)
0.5
1
1.5 1
2 3
2.5
3 3
3.5
4 15
4.5
5 5

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 202,649,232 books! | Top bar: Always visible