The Christ Myth Theory

[1Heidegger1!]

I remember back in 2012 when the spirited debate about the Christ Myth theory was really picking up steam. Earl Doherty, Robert M Price, and Richard Carrier were beginning to receive pushback from Bart Ehrman, and this article by R Joseph Hoffmann that received 255 comments!

 

[1Heidegger1!]

As I note in the comment section of the Hoffmann post I mentioned above, it's now more mainstream to acknowledge that the NT writers were rewriting OT scripture to flesh out the biography of Jesus, and so we have Mark create his crucifixion narrative out of Psalms and Isaiah since Paul doesn't record any details. Matthew presents Jesus as the New and greater Moses.

Spong had actually written about this for years prior. Mark says “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ ; as it is written in the prophets.” Mark immediately interprets John the Baptist as a forerunner of the Messiah (a la Elijah in II Kings 1:8). Mark then clothes John similar to Elijah (Mark 1:6. II Kings 1:8.) He then says John ate locusts and wild honey,the food of the wilderness in which Elijah lived (and so on and so on).

Dr. Kipp Davis recently noted the Dead Sea Scrolls writers did the same thing to flesh out a biography of their Teacher of Righteousness (who obviously existed) rewriting scripture because they saw their Teacher of Righteousness as realizing them.

How did the Christians do it? Again, I think Spong is on the right track:

In the synagogue people heard scriptures read, taught, discussed, or expounded. The vast majority of first century people could not read. So people didn`t own bibles. The Jews had access to their sacred stories in the synagogue. The memory of the historical Jesus could have been recalled, restated, and passed in the synagogue. And the gospel stories may also be shaped in terms of Jewish liturgy. The crucifixion may be shaped against the passover. The transfiguration echoes Hanukkah. Many things are reminiscent of Rosh Hashanah.. So as it says in Acts, they would read from the Torah, then from the former prophets (Joshua through Kings), and finally from the latter prophets (Isaiah through Malachi). At that point the synagogue leader would ask if anyone would like to bring any message or experience that might illumine the readings. So followers of Jesus may have then recalled their memories of him which that Sabbath elicited. This could be where all the midrash/imitation/mixing is coming from. This is what Paul does in Acts (13:16b-41). They went through this process for about forty years before the gospels were written (Spong, Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World).

We see mainstream acceptance of the NT writers rewriting scripture to describe Jesus such as in the Jewish Annotated New Testament, though back when Spong was writing these ideas he was considered a radical.

 

[1Heidegger1!]

One last thing I wanted to say about how the gospels imitate older Jewish (and sometimes Greek) writings is that this process doesn't suggest mythicism but rather is actually exactly the kind of thing we would expect to see if Jesus was a real historical figure the gospel writers wanted to proselytize (convert) you to. I just wrote this short argument up as a quick blog post HERE. Check it out! I think the analogy I use in the post with Donald Trump and the current election cycle is helpful. Bradley and I really appreciate it when you visit us at Secular Frontier, which is the official blog of Internet Infidels / Secular Web. This is also Internet Infidels donation season so if you like what we are doing please consider a small donation!