The Christ Myth Theory

[Copernicus]

I think at this point we have established two things:

1. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus ever existed as a historical person.

2. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus never existed as a historical person.

Neither mythicism nor historicity can be reasonably defended with textual evidence, but mythologization can.

 

[dbz]

I think at this point we have established two things:

1. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus ever existed as a historical person.

2. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus never existed as a historical person.

Neither mythicism nor historicity can be reasonably defended with textual evidence, but mythologization can.

So what is preventing people from declaring an agnostic position?

Agnosticism scholars​

“”For all the evidence anyone has ever adduced from the Epistles (once we exclude those known to be forged): it is ambiguous as to whether an earthly or celestial Jesus is being referred to. The Gospels I found wholly symbolically fictional and not even interested in actual history. And the Jesus in them I found to be so very like other mythical persons of the period. And then I found that no other evidence can be shown to be independent of the Gospels. At the very least, putting all of that together should make agnosticism about the historicity of Jesus a credible conclusion.

—Richard Carrier[26]

The leading agnosticism scholar is Raphael Lataster, who argues that flaws in the work of Casey and Ehrman justify a de-facto position of agnosticism.[27] Lataster writes, "Ehrman should recognise that the middle ground is usually where the most rational views reside, and would also do well to recognise that the Historical Jesus agnostics should actually be paid far more attention than the sometimes ‘extreme’ mythicists" and further "Ehrman appears to set up a false dichotomy, a black or white scenario, as many Christian believers do in arguing over God's existence and other Christian claims, with no reasonable middle ground".[28]

Agnosticism scholars often hold that the historicity of Jesus is not relevant to understanding early Christianity. Tom Dykstra[note 3] writes, "As for the question of whether Jesus existed, the best answer is that any attempt to find a historical Jesus is a waste of time. It can’t be done, it explains nothing, and it proves nothing."[30] While Emanuel Pfoh warns, "The main reason for holding to the historicity of the [gospel] figure of Jesus . . . resides not primarily in historical evidence but derives instead from a modern theological necessity."[31][32] Alvar Ellegård

writes that, "most present-day theologians also accept that large parts of the Gospel stories are, if not fictional, at least not to be taken at face value as historical accounts. On the other hand, no theologian seems to be able to . . . admit that the question of the historicity of Jesus must be judged to be an open one."[33]

Robert W. Funk

writes:

The crisis in what the church believes about Jesus will not go away. . . . The crisis arises, in large part, from what we can know about Jesus himself. For example, as a historian I do not know for certain that Jesus really existed, that he is anything more than the figment of some overactive imaginations.[34][35]

Philip R. Davies

writes:

What I can see, but not understand, is the stake that Christians have in the unanswerable question of Jesus’ historicity and his true historical self.[36]

And R. Joseph Hoffmann

writes:

I no longer believe it is possible to answer the 'historicity question'. . . . Whether the New Testament runs from Christ to Jesus or Jesus to Christ is not a question we can answer.[37]

Funk, Davies, and Hoffmann admit to the plausibility of mythicism, but not to its probability; they all believe the historicity of Jesus is more probable. "But even that" Carrier opines, "would be progress, if it became the consensus position [i.e. that mythicism is at least plausibile] (as Davies among them did explicitly argue for)."[38]

Agnosticism scholars are often mischaracterized as "Mythicism scholars" by those who fail to understand that while agnosticism scholars may find some points of mythicism plausible, that does not imply that said scholars are asserting that these points of mythicism are the most probable or that the argument has been resolved in favor of mythicism.[note 4][note 5] Neil Godfrey writes:

The Vridar blog is not a “Jesus mythicist” blog even though it is open to a critical discussion of the question of Jesus’ historicity. I do not see secure grounds for believing in the historicity of Jesus but it does not follow that I reject Jesus’ historicity. Clearly, the Jesus of the Gospels and Paul’s letters is a literary and theological construct but it does not follow that there was no "historical Jesus".[40]

​

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The gospel protagonist is just another character in a piece of fiction. Is Topo Gigio based on a real mouse? Should we be agnostic about that?

 

[Jarhyn]

Believers understand that Davy Crockett killed himself a bear when he was just three years old. Surely such an event would have been written down, yet no credible archaeological evidence for the bear-killing has ever turned up. We can only conclude that Davy Crockett never existed.

And I don't think sensible people believe that George Washington ever existed. Where is that cherry tree?

It's more an issue of the sort where there were no less than four guys named George who all did pretty much the same pattern of crazy, or close to, across a 150 year timespan, all of them would have triggered minor cults, and within 25-30 years of each, the cults would likely find themselves merging and history becoming cloudy.

"Jesus" Chrestus bleeds into "Jesus" ben Ananus bleeds into "Jesus" ben Stada, and then some time all the writings from the various histories of these people would get stitched together into some "truth" because at that point, people would be like "what even the fuck is the whole story about this Jesus rumor/cult/whatever?" And there would be ripe ground for an interest piece making the Roman circuit.

And this is where the idea that the gospel is from a rather successful Roman style tragedy successful on account of the proliferation of the cult comes from for me.

I rather think that proclaiming Jesus to be a singular personage and phenomena to be rather silly.

There were clearly several and nothing precludes mutual absorption of the figures into an amalgamated myth.

 

[Copernicus]

I think at this point we have established two things:

1. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus ever existed as a historical person.

2. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus never existed as a historical person.

Neither mythicism nor historicity can be reasonably defended with textual evidence, but mythologization can.

So what is preventing people from declaring an agnostic position?

...​

Nothing at all, and that is my position. I don't know whether there ever was a historical person behind the myth, but maybe we can discover some proof some day that there is evidence to support some form of historicism beyond a reasonable doubt. Nobody will ever prove mythicism beyond a reasonable doubt, but that doesn't mean that it should be dismissed out of hand with the excuse that "the majority of experts" believe that there was a historical Christ. That seems to be the most popular defense of historicism.

 

[uzersuperman]

If Jesus exists at all ?!! Is it possible that Philo did not mention anything about this Jesus who walked on water, healed the sick, and claimed to be God?

Well, yes. Why would he do that? He wasn't writing about Judean politics at all, and if he were, he would have every reason to downplay any hint of subversive anti-Roman activity. He was an Alexandrian, who came to prominence when he was sent to Rome on a peace-making embassy to end persecutions of Jews in his home city. His most famous work is an attempt to sunthesize Hebrew and Roman philosophy, making his ancient faith more tolerable to the Roman perspective by demonstrating how it could be adapted to a Middle Platonic framework.

Yet Philo says not a word about jesus, christianity nor any of the events described in the new testament. In all this work, Philo makes not a single reference to his alleged contemporary "jesus christ", the godman who supposedly was perambulating up and down the Levant, exorcising demons, raising the dead and causing earthquake and darkness at his death.
Strange, but only if we believe jesus and his merry men existed and that they established the church. If we recognize that the christian fable was still at an early stage of development when Philo was pondering the relationship of god and man, there is nothing strange here at all.
What is very significant, however, is that Philo's theological speculations helped the christians fabricate their own notions of a godman.

 

[Politesse]

Yet Philo says not a word about jesus, christianity nor any of the events described in the new testament. In all this work, Philo makes not a single reference to his alleged contemporary "jesus christ", the godman who supposedly was perambulating up and down the Levant, exorcising demons, raising the dead and causing earthquake and darkness at his death.

A rather disingenuous argument when you know full well, or would had you read up to this point, that none of your interlocutors are arguing for the historicity of miracles and so forth. And irrelevant in any case, as you still haven't explained why Philo would be expected to write about such things even had he heard about them, to the point that his not mentioning them is proof that they didn't happen. It would not serve any of his interests to repeat such rumors even if he believed them to be true, and he would have had no more reason to assume that said rumors were true than you do. He wasn't there, so all he could have known is the same thing you do: that some people said they had, and others said they hadn't. Why would he voluntarily bring up the matter, when it could only possibly hurt his cause of lessening ethnic tensions in Alexandria?

 

[Copernicus]

Yet Philo says not a word about jesus, christianity nor any of the events described in the new testament. In all this work, Philo makes not a single reference to his alleged contemporary "jesus christ", the godman who supposedly was perambulating up and down the Levant, exorcising demons, raising the dead and causing earthquake and darkness at his death.

A rather disingenuous argument when you know full well, or would had you read up to this point, that none of your interlocutors are arguing for the historicity of miracles and so forth. And irrelevant in any case, as you still haven't explained why Philo would be expected to write about such things even had he heard about them, to the point that his not mentioning them is proof that they didn't happen. It would not serve any of his interests to repeat such rumors even if he believed them to be true, and he would have had no more reason to assume that said rumors were true than you do.

I agree with your point about historicity and miracles. The miracles can all be reasonably rejected as invented stories, but there can still be some actual truths that made it into the narrative. Regarding Philo, however, it does seem suspicious that he and others wrote about cult movements without mentioning the one that generated such a huge following as to become the state religion of the Empire eventually. If Jesus was such a minor figure, why did all of those stories about him become so popular that an orthodox movement arose to filter out all of the alleged apocrypha? Yet the first that we get anyone writing about the actual life of Jesus is decades after the alleged execution. And we know that the historical record was heavily edited by the religious movement that arose to preserve it. For example, the only record we have of critics like  Celsus is from preserved records of rebuttals to his criticisms by  Origen.

 

[Politesse]

Regarding Philo, however, it does seem suspicious that he and others wrote about cult movements without mentioning the one that generated such a huge following as to become the state religion of the Empire eventually. If Jesus was such a minor figure, why did all of those stories about him become so popular that an orthodox movement arose to filter out all of the alleged apocrypha?

They obviously did not have that sort of pull in at the time. The Christianization of the empire was something that happened centuries after the people we are talking about were dead. I am not aware of any historians who argue that Jesus' career was widely seen as important outside of Palestine until after the Jewish Revolt, and really not until late in the 2nd century.

 

[Jarhyn]

Regarding Philo, however, it does seem suspicious that he and others wrote about cult movements without mentioning the one that generated such a huge following as to become the state religion of the Empire eventually. If Jesus was such a minor figure, why did all of those stories about him become so popular that an orthodox movement arose to filter out all of the alleged apocrypha?

They obviously did not have that sort of pull in at the time. The Christianization of the empire was something that happened centuries after the people we are talking about were dead. I am not aware of any historians who argue that Jesus' career was widely seen as important outside of Palestine until after the Jewish Revolt, and really not until late in the 2nd century.

And by the late second century, there had been several careers by several people named Jesus, and interest in any one of them would in such conditions easily lead to urban mythic conflation of all of them.

 

[Copernicus]

Regarding Philo, however, it does seem suspicious that he and others wrote about cult movements without mentioning the one that generated such a huge following as to become the state religion of the Empire eventually. If Jesus was such a minor figure, why did all of those stories about him become so popular that an orthodox movement arose to filter out all of the alleged apocrypha?

They obviously did not have that sort of pull in at the time. The Christianization of the empire was something that happened centuries after the people we are talking about were dead. I am not aware of any historians who argue that Jesus' career was widely seen as important outside of Palestine until after the Jewish Revolt, and really not until late in the 2nd century.

If mythicism is correct, that is because neither he nor his career existed at the time. However, historians did argue about other cult movements that were internal to Palestine. That's why people keep bringing up sources like Philo to bolster mythicism. Lack of evidence is no proof of mythicism, but it weakens the case for historicity, especially since Jesus ended becoming a very popular legendary figure much later after his martyrdom.

 

[Politesse]

However, historians did argue about other cult movements that were internal to Palestine.

What are you referring to?

 

[Copernicus]

However, historians did argue about other cult movements that were internal to Palestine.

What are you referring to?

What are you asking about?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Jesus agnosticism for the young reader:

Once upon a time there was a man named Jesus. As a little boy he was very smart and amazed other adults and his teachers.

When Jesus grew up he became a traveling preacher with super powers. Once he fed thousands of followers by making food appear. He also turned water into wine as kind of a magic trick. He met a blind man, smeared mud on his eyes and the man was not blind anymore. He cured a crippled man so he could walk again without crutches. On one occasion he brought a dead man back to life even after he had been dead for many days and had started to decompose. Jesus also talked and argued with the devil.

Jesus got in trouble for doing these things because it scared the local rulers. One day he started a fight over money in a local church. After this happened Jesus was put on trial and killed. But then he came back to life, talked with his friends and performed more miracles before he flew away into the sky.

Some people think that Jesus will come back from the sky one day to make the planet a perfect place to live. These people worship Jesus and believe all those things in the story actually happened. Other people think Jesus is just another story like Superman or Paul Bunyan and that the author was only writing a fictional tale that included lessons on how we should all live. Still other people aren’t sure what to believe about the Jesus story and think there may be an actual Jesus that inspired the Jesus tale.

At one time long ago there were many different stories about this Jesus but we only have a few left and even those are different in what they say about Jesus. What do you think? Was a Jesus a real person or just someone like Superman?

 

[Politesse]

However, historians did argue about other cult movements that were internal to Palestine.

What are you referring to?

What are you asking about?

Which historians argued about what cult movements "internal to Palestine"? What contemporary documents are you referring to that discussed the religious politics of 1st Judea in any detail whatsoever? I am only aware of a single book by a single author that did so.

 

[dbz]

The gospel protagonist is just another character in a piece of fiction. Is Topo Gigio based on a real mouse? Should we be agnostic about that?

R. G. Price opines that: "The 'minimal Jesus' is a very odd thing that, for some reason, many people are drawn to, but in fact it makes no sense and isn’t really supported by any data. It’s more like just a sort of personal bargaining chip that people throw out so that they can both agree that the Gospels are exaggerations that don’t tell us anything meaningful and also that mythicism is bunk."[226]

• Carrier, Richard (2020). Jesus from Outer Space: What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ. Pitchstone Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63431-208-0.

Of course, there were thousands of men named Jesus in every generation of Jews. It was one of the most common Jewish names (it’s actually, in fact, the name Joshua). And there were surely many men so named who were executed by Pontius Pilate or any Jewish court in any decade you choose. So we aren't asking about whether some Jesus got himself executed. We are asking specifically about the Jesus whose execution launched the Christian religion. And in that role, Jesus might not even have been his original name, but a name assigned him after his death. The name means, after all, “God’s Savior.” Most scholars already conclude he was not called Christ, from the Greek for Messiah (literally, “an anointed one,” hence “chosen one”), until after his death. The same may be true of “Jesus.” If after his martyrdom his closest followers, reassured by dreams and visions of his spiritual victory, started calling him “God's Savior and Messiah,” they would be calling him “Jesus Christ.” So he might not have even originally been called Jesus!

So really, what we need to ask is, was there at least a Jewish man (by whatever name) who gathered a following and then was executed (whether by a Jewish court or Roman) and who had some followers, led by Peter (or “Cephas” in Aramaic), who became convinced God had resurrected and exalted him to be their Lord and Savior, the true and final Messiah for all time? If we can be certain of only just that, that would be enough to settle that there was a historical “Jesus” who started the Christian religion. Even if it turned out this all happened in the 70s B.C. Or any time and place.

But there has to have been at least that. Otherwise, no such man, no such Jesus.

Carrier gives the following definition:

[T]hree minimal facts on which historicity rests:

1. An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers in life who continued as an identifiable movement after his death.
2. This is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities.
3. This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping as a living god (or demigod).

That all three propositions are true shall be my minimal theory of historicity.[225]

 

[Swammerdami]

Let me again say that whether a historic Nazarene named Jesus was crucified or not is less interesting (and less "important") than the considerable effort to mythologize him. The Gospels tell us Jesus was a healer, a preacher, and an insurrectionist. Was he really all of these things? Does it even matter now?

But to me, the historicity question is an interesting puzzle. And one that can be solved with high probability using common-sense.

I think at this point we have established two things:

1. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus ever existed as a historical person.

2. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus never existed as a historical person.

Neither mythicism nor historicity can be reasonably defended with textual evidence, but mythologization can.

This is a reasonable summary. I have never offered any "proof" for historicity besides Occam's Razor.

But consider this:

Was St. Paul the Apostle historic? He is mentioned in contemporary documents, iiuc. Even Richard Carrier reports that his Magic Bayesian Crystal Ball thinks Paul was historic. And Galataians is one of the Epistles believed to be written by the authentic Paul. And Galatians specifically mentions meeting with "James the Lord's brother." ^*

What do mythicists think about this? Was "the Lord's brother" added in by the myth-makers in the 2nd century or 3rd? Was this doctoring done by the same people who doctored Josephus' apparently authentic mention of Jesus' brother?

And the apparently authentic Paul writes about Christians in Rome in the time of Nero. Yet mythicists insist those weren't Christians, they were Chrestians — some other group. Aren't there any mythicists here who will stipulate that this seems a bit disingenuous?

The century prior to the Fall of Jerusalem was filled with insurrections against Rome. There are a dozen or more insurrectionists who had much more vivid and more significant roles than the historic Jesus. How well represented are they in contemporary documents?

I think at this point we have established two things:

1. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus ever existed as a historical person.

2. There is no good historical evidence that Jesus never existed as a historical person.

Neither mythicism nor historicity can be reasonably defended with textual evidence, but mythologization can.

So what is preventing people from declaring an agnostic position?

Nothing at all, and that is my position. I don't know whether there ever was a historical person behind the myth, but maybe we can discover some proof some day that there is evidence to support some form of historicism beyond a reasonable doubt. Nobody will ever prove mythicism beyond a reasonable doubt, but that doesn't mean that it should be dismissed out of hand with the excuse that "the majority of experts" believe that there was a historical Christ. That seems to be the most popular defense of historicism.

I am not particularly a fan of majority rule. The common-sense arguments for Jesus' historicity just make sense to me. On the other hand, mythicists are unable, as far as I can tell, to come up with any scenario with enough detail to be evaluated. When you mythicists decide whether Paul's Christians in Rome 64 AD were the same group as Tacitus' Chrestians in Rome 64 AD, let me know!


* —

. . . Galatians specifically mentions meeting with "James the Lord's brother."

What do mythicists think about this? Was "the Lord's brother" added in by the myth-makers in the 2nd century or 3rd? Was this doctoring done by the same people who doctored Josephus' apparently authentic mention of Jesus' brother?

Hoping to forestall a trite rejoinder, let us note that Galatians 1:19 is the ONLY instance of the phrase "Lord's brother" in the King James translation. In the Douay-Rheims Version, Challoner Revision the phrase "brother of the Lord" occurs in lieu of "Lord's brother" and is, again, the only instance.

 

[dbz]

"ECR Interview: Dr. Nathanael Vette". PhD Students to Follow. 6 September 2021.

My latest book, Writing with Scripture: Scripturalized Narrative in the Gospel of Mark (LNTS 666; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022), argues that Mark made use of a popular literary convention whereby new stories were fashioned out of scriptural language. Second Temple authors often modelled stories on well-known episodes in the scriptures: so you have stories of Abraham being rescued from a fiery furnace (à la Daniel 3), Judas Maccabeus besieging a city he is unable to go around (as Moses destroys Sihon) and Judith assassinating Holofernes in a tent (as Jael assassinates Sisera), to name a few. So when Mark has Jesus spend forty-days in the wilderness and call his disciples like Elijah or Herod Antipas making promises to the young girl like Ahasuerus, the scriptures are being used in the same way, as a compositional model. Scholars have tended to see great exegetical significance in Mark’s use of the scriptures—like the Psalms in the Passion Narrative—but my research suggests that sometimes the scriptures were used for no other reason than to tell a new story in familiar language. It also raises interesting questions about the historicity of episodes told in scriptural language: did scripturalization lead to the invention of non-historical episodes? My answer should equally displease radical and conservative exegetes!

• Godfrey, Neil (28 September 2013). “Why the Gospels Are Historical Fiction”. Vridar.

One could write a book covering the literary artifice that makes up the Gospel of Mark. I have of course only scratched the surface of a few verses. The entire gospel could be analysed in such a way to reinforce the same conclusion.
So I’ll conclude with something Robert Alter wrote in relation to his literary analysis of tales from Genesis:

From this distance in time, it is impossible to determine how much of this whole tale was sanctified, even verbally fixed, tradition; how much was popular lore perhaps available in different versions; how much the original invention of the writer. What a close reading of the text does suggest, however, is that the writer could manipulate his inherited materials with sufficient freedom and sufficient firmness of authorial purpose to define motives, relations, and unfolding themes, even in a primeval history, with the kind of subtle cogency we associate with the conscious artistry of the narrative mode designated prose fiction. (p. 32, my emphasis)

It feels somewhat like if we only had Victor Hugo as a source for Napoléon!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

"ECR Interview: Dr. Nathanael Vette". PhD Students to Follow. 6 September 2021.

My latest book, Writing with Scripture: Scripturalized Narrative in the Gospel of Mark (LNTS 666; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022), argues that Mark made use of a popular literary convention whereby new stories were fashioned out of scriptural language. Second Temple authors often modelled stories on well-known episodes in the scriptures: so you have stories of Abraham being rescued from a fiery furnace (à la Daniel 3), Judas Maccabeus besieging a city he is unable to go around (as Moses destroys Sihon) and Judith assassinating Holofernes in a tent (as Jael assassinates Sisera), to name a few. So when Mark has Jesus spend forty-days in the wilderness and call his disciples like Elijah or Herod Antipas making promises to the young girl like Ahasuerus, the scriptures are being used in the same way, as a compositional model. Scholars have tended to see great exegetical significance in Mark’s use of the scriptures—like the Psalms in the Passion Narrative—but my research suggests that sometimes the scriptures were used for no other reason than to tell a new story in familiar language. It also raises interesting questions about the historicity of episodes told in scriptural language: did scripturalization lead to the invention of non-historical episodes? My answer should equally displease radical and conservative exegetes!

• Godfrey, Neil (28 September 2013). “Why the Gospels Are Historical Fiction”. Vridar.

One could write a book covering the literary artifice that makes up the Gospel of Mark. I have of course only scratched the surface of a few verses. The entire gospel could be analysed in such a way to reinforce the same conclusion.
So I’ll conclude with something Robert Alter wrote in relation to his literary analysis of tales from Genesis:

From this distance in time, it is impossible to determine how much of this whole tale was sanctified, even verbally fixed, tradition; how much was popular lore perhaps available in different versions; how much the original invention of the writer. What a close reading of the text does suggest, however, is that the writer could manipulate his inherited materials with sufficient freedom and sufficient firmness of authorial purpose to define motives, relations, and unfolding themes, even in a primeval history, with the kind of subtle cogency we associate with the conscious artistry of the narrative mode designated prose fiction. (p. 32, my emphasis)

It feels somewhat like if we only had Victor Hugo as a source for Napoléon!

That's an excellent read on the literary artistry of GMark. It's not a story about a person named Jesus so much as it is a story about god's power and how astonished people were with gods power working through the protagonist. It's a great piece of historical fiction.

I'm off now to find out more about the historical Goldilocks.

"Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (originally titled "The Story of the Three Bears") is a 19th-century British fairy tale of which three versions exist. The original version of the tale tells of a not-so-polite old woman who enters the forest home of three bachelor bears while they are away. She sits in their chairs, eats some of their soup, sits down on one of their chairs and breaks it, and sleeps in one of their beds. When the bears return and discover her, she wakes up, jumps out of the window, and is never seen again. The second version replaced the old woman with a little girl named Goldilocks, and the third and by far best-known version replaced the original bear trio with Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear.

Goldilocks and the three bears

Similarity much?

 

[dbz]

I'm off now to find out more about the historical Goldilocks.

[ . . .]

Goldilocks and the three bears

Similarity much?

• Obviously the Goldilocks character is the historical Snow White!

Iona and Peter Opie point out that the tale has a "partial analogue" in "Snow White": the lost princess enters the dwarfs' house, tastes their food, and falls asleep in one of their beds. In a manner similar to the three bears, the dwarfs cry, "Someone's been sitting in my chair!", "Someone's been eating off my plate!", and "Someone's been sleeping in my bed!" The Opies also point to similarities in a Norwegian tale about a princess who takes refuge in a cave inhabited by three Russian princes dressed in bearskins. She eats their food and hides under a bed.[10]

All biblicists need for someone to exist is for a literary figure to be based on a real historical person. So Jesus existed too! It doesn’t really matter if Olive Oyl, or Dr. Watson existed, or Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. These additional literary characters are not relevant to the “historically certain” fact that Popeye, Sherlock Holmes, and Santa Claus were based on historically attested figures. So likewise, it doesn’t really matter if Lazarus or Judas Iscariot or Joseph of Arimathea existed. These additional literary characters are not relevant to the “historically certain” fact that Jesus existed.

—John W. Loftus • (2021). "Preface". In Loftus; Price (in en). Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist?. HYPATIA Press. ISBN 978-1-83919-158-9.