Methodological Probletns

with the Jesus Myth

Hypothesis
Stephen ]. Bedard
Pree is:
While many Christians have seen the options for the identity of Jesus as the 'trilemma'
of Lord, liar or lunatic, there is an increasing trend to see the story as legend. This
is not the Bultmannian view of seeing mythic aspects within the Gospels, but rather
seeing the Gospels as completely mythological. The existence of a historical Jesus
is denied and pagan parallels are presented as the sources for the Gospels. This
Jesus myth hypothesis is flawed at its basic methodological foundation. These errors
include misuse of both biblical and pagan texts, forced parallelism, and an artificial
combination of myths.

Although largely ignored in academic circles, the Jesus myth

hypothesis has grown in visibility on the popular level. There are two
basic aspects to the Jesus myth hypothesis: (1) that Jesus never existed,
and (2) that the Jesus story as we have it is based on pagan myths.
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, in explaining their own support for
the Jesus myth hypothesis, ask this question: "Why should we consider
the stories of Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Mithras and other Pagan
Mystery saviours as fables, yet come across essentially the same story
told in a Jewish context and believe it to be the biography of a carpenter
from Bethlehem?" 1
Claims that the story of Jesus was a Jewish transformation of
pagan myths are found from a number of sources. Popular religion
writer and former professor of Greek, Tom Harpur, made this claim
in his best-selling book, The Pagan Christ: "The truth is that the
Gospels are indeed the old manuscripts of the dramatized rituals of
the incarnation and resurrection of the sun god Osiris/Horus, rituals
that were first Egyptian, later Gnostic and Hellenic, then Hebrew, and
finally adopted ignorantly by the Christian movement and transferred
to the arena of history. " 2 Robert Price, member of the controversial
Journal of the International Society ofChristianApo/ogetics, Volume 3, Number l, 2010, 57-66
58 ISCA JOURNAL

Jesus Seminar, states:

The Mystery cultists became God-fearers on the margin

of the Jesus martyr cult, just as the Jesus martyr cultists
had once been positioned at the border of Judaism.
Then the Mystery cultists joined, reasoning that they
weren't losing an old savior, they were only adding a
new one. Jesus Adonis, Jesus Dionysus was the result. 3

Dan Brown, in his extraordinarily popular Da Vznci Code, does

not deny the existence of Jesus but does affirm that the Gospels are
based on pagan myths. Brown puts these words into the mouth of his
character Leigh Teabing:

Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian

God Mithras-called the Son ofGod and the Light ofthe
World-was born on December 25, died, was buried in
a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the
way, December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis,
and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented
with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's
weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans. 4

While such statements are filled with error, they have had a
deep impact upon many modem readers.
Although such claims are abundant among modem authors,
the Jesus myth hypothesis is not a new innovation. Bruno Bauer
(1809-1882) was the first major scholar to actually deny the existence
of Jesus. 5 He was followed by Albert Kalthoff (1850-1906) who
also embraced this extreme skepticism toward the historical Jesus. 6
Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany (1807-1876) did not deny the existence of
Jesus but did see pagan origins to Christianity. 7 Rudolf Seydel (1835-
1892) saw Buddhist roots to the Gospel story. 8 On a popular level,
people such as Gerald Massey (1828-1907)9 and Alvin Boyd Kuhn
(1880-1963) 10 also argued for the non-existence of the historical Jesus
and the pagan origins of Christianity.
It is easy enough to disprove the details of such claims about
STEPHEN J. BEDARD 59

the historicity of Jesus or the supposed pagan origins, but the role for
Christian apologists goes deeper. 11 Beyond demonstrating the alleged
parallels with pagan myths to be false, it is also important to reveal the
basic errors of the Jesus myth theory on a methodological level. This
paper will highlight some of the major methodological errors of the
Jesus myth theory.

Inappropriate Disqualification of Sources

Proponents of the Jesus myth theory are able to boldly claim that
there is no evidence for the historical Jesus. That claim may leave some
traditional Christians confused as there seems to be ample evidence
for the historical Jesus. What Jesus myth theorists really mean is that
after they have disqualified most of the sources, there is no longer any
evidence for the historical Jesus. For them: the Roman sources are
mere hearsay and refer more to Christians than to Christ; Josephus
has been tampered with by Christians and is no longer reliable; the
Gospels are documents of faith and have nothing to do with history;
Paul writes only about the heavenly and glorified Christ and never
about the historical Jesus. If one accepts these claims, the first century
evidence for the historical Jesus is sparse indeed.
The problem with this is that it is unfair to rule out all opposing
sources before even beginning the conversation. Each source must be
evaluated on its own merits. The Roman sources will not be dealt with
here as they are the weakest evidence. 12 The rest of the evidence is
far from deserving of disqualification. It is true that the Testamonium
Flavianium does show evidence of Christian tampering. However,
most scholars claim that it is possible to determine the original pre-
Christian version of the passage. Even Robert Price's colleague in
the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, has this to say about this
passage once the Christian interpolations are removed: "That is how
Jesus and early Christianity looked to a very prudent, diplomatic,
and cosmopolitan Roman Jew in the early last decade of the first
century: miracles and teachings, Jews and Greeks, our 'men of highest
standing' and Pilate, crucifixion and continuation." 13 Regarding the
Gospels, it is true that there is a strong Christian bias to them. Yet, it is
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impossible to separate any writing, ancient or modem, from a religious,

philosophical, political, or social bias. While at one time the Gospels
were seen as a non-historical or non-biographical form of religious
instruction, times have changed. Mark Roberts explains: "The Gospels
are distinctive in some ways, including their theological emphases
and their focus on the death of Jesus, but they fit the general category
of Hellenistic biography." 14 In addition, the claim that Paul never
mentions the historical Jesus is highly exaggerated. It is true that Paul
does not spend much time passing on details of Jesus' earthly ministry,
but neither does Paul spend much time sharing biographical details of
his own life. 15 Yet, even a perusal of 1 Corinthians will demonstrate
that Paul was aware of details of Jesus' teaching and events of his
ministry. 16 In 1Corinthians15, Paul is so confident in the reality of the
earthly Jesus that he encourages his readers to go and interview the
eyewitnesses. Albert Schweitzer, who was not the most conservative
scholar, had this to say about the evidence for the historical Jesus:

It is not that the sources are in themselves bad. When

we have once made up our minds that we have not the
materials for a complete Life of Jesus, but only for a
picture of His public ministry, it must be admitted that
there are few characters of antiquity about whom we
possess so much indubitably historical information,
of whom we have so many authentic discourses. The
position is much more favourable, for instance, than in
the case of Socrates; for he is pictured to us by literary
men who exercised their creative ability upon the
portrait. Jesus stands much more immediately before
us, because He was depicted by simple Christians
without literary gift. 17

This is not the place to go into detail regarding the reliability

of the historical evidence, other than to say that it is inappropriate for
Jesus myth theorists to disqualify all of the evidence out of hand.
STEPHEN J. BEDARD 61

Inappropriate Ignorance of Chronological

Diversity among Ancient Texts

Jesus myth theorists have been known to make blanket

statements about what ancient religions, such as Egyptian mythology,
believed and what ancient Christianity believed. With a large amount
of material on both sides, it is not surprising that some areas of overlap
are discovered. Yet, to get to this point, such theorists must treat both
ancient mythology and Christianity with disrespect. Such authors do
not discuss what first century worshippers of Egyptian gods or mystery
religions believed and then compare that with what first century
Christians believed.
For example, in describing what Egyptian mythology consisted
of, ancient pyramid texts (24th century BC), records of the reign of
Akhenaten (14th century BC), the Book of the Dead ( 11-7th century
BC), Greek historians such as Herodotus (5th century BC), and Greek
philosophers such as Plutarch (2nd century AD) are taken and mixed all
together as if it was uniform body of material. In fact, there was great
diversity within Egyptian mythology, and it greatly evolved over time.
For example, the afterlife began as something only for the Pharaoh,
gradually became available to the wider aristocracy as long as they
could afford the proper funerary rites, and eventually became available
to the average Egyptian if they lived a good life. This diversity is not
taken seriously when Jesus myth theorists make their claim for pagan
origins for Christianity.
The same mistakes are made when describing Christian beliefs.
Instead of relying on the New Testament documents, a wide range of
texts from diverse theological positions and time periods are artificially
mixed together. It is popular to take Gnostic texts, most of which are
from the late second century and into the fourth and using them as
if they had the same value for describing early Christian beliefs as
the first century canonical writings. 18 For example, some authors have
noted that the ox and ass of the infancy narrative have parallels in
pagan infancy narratives. The only problem is that the ox and ass are
never mentioned in Matthew, Luke or any other first century text.
This image, found in popular Christmas carols, actually comes from
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the eighth century Pseudo-Matthew or Infancy Gospel of Matthew.

The same could be said about the connection regarding Christmas
on December 25. It is true that the Christians likely first celebrated
Christmas on December 25 because it was already a pagan festival (it
is easier to Christianize a pagan festival than to ban a popular pagan
festival). However, this says nothing about pagan origins for the Bible
as we have no evidence of Christians celebrating the birth of Jesus on
December 25 before the fourth century. We should not be surprised
that over time Christians began to adopt themes and images of the
surrounding pagan culture, but that is not evidence for pagan influence
on the original belief system. Just as Jesus myth theorists misuse pagan
texts, they misuse Christian texts and traditions by artificially blending
naturally diverse sources.

The Peril of Parallelomania

When one begins to read the writings of Jesus myth theorists,
one is amazed by the numbers of parallels that are presented. Some
readers are convinced by the shear weight of the parallels even before
looking at primary texts for confirmation. This is one of the primary
tools of the Jesus myth theorists, not to rely on the quality of any one
particular parallel but to rely on the quantity of parallels they have
found, no matter how minor each might be. By doing this, they fall into
the trap of something that Samuel Sandmel called 'parallelomania.' In
an influential article, Sandmel argued that many scholars end up finding
parallels wherever they look because that is what they are looking
for. Sandmel defines parallelomania as "that extravagance among
scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and
then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary
connection flowing in an inevitable and predetermined direction." 19
Sandmel goes on to share these wise words: "It would seem to me ...
in dealing with similarities we can sometimes discover exact parallels,
some with and some devoid of significance; seeming parallels which
are so only imperfectly; and statements which can only be called
parallels by taking them out of context. " 20
It is in this final category that many of the supposed parallels
STEPHEN J. BEDARD 63

of the Jesus myth theory are found. For example, it is often claimed
that the gods Mithras and Horus experienced a virgin birth just as the
New Testament claims for Jesus. That would seem to be an impressive
parallel until one looks at the actual myth. Mithras emerged from a rock
and Horns was the result of postmortem sexual intercourse between his
parents Osiris and Isis. Neither case can be considered a true example of
a virgin birth. It is claimed that Horus experienced a similar crucifixion
and resurrection as Jesus. The actual myth says that Horus was left in
a swamp as a child, died from a scorpion sting, and was immediately
brought back to life after his mother prayed to another god. Mithras
is said to have twelve disciples as Jesus had. There are no accounts of
this in the Mithraic myths but cultic art does depict the twelve signs of
the Zodiac surrounding Mithras to indicate the importance of astrology
within the movement. One of the worst examples is the frequent claim
of Mithras as a dying and rising god. 21 It is understandable why Jesus
myth theorists would want this with the December 25 connection and
the fact that Mithraism was contemporary with early Christianity and
was an important rival. The only problem is that Mithras never dies in
the myth. It is a primeval bull that Mithras kills who is raised back to
life. Unless one goes to the actual myths or at least good scholarship,
they would never know that they were victims of parallelomania.
Another aspect of parallelomania is a lack of understanding of
common cultural images. The fact is that societies across the world
have embraced similar images and symbols. Light and darkness,
fertility and drought, famine and feast are common images and need not
require derivation or connection from one culture to another. When we
read about a flood in Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh, we suspect a
connection because of the common appearance of water, ark, animals,
and birds seeking for dry land. However, the appearance of shepherds
or fisherman in two different religious systems is not enough to claim
more than the presence of universal symbols.

Misunderstanding of Cultic Identification

One of the challenges for Jesus myth theorists is the fact that
there is no one god or hero that is a complete parallel. Mithras is an
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intermediary between the supreme god and humanity, but he is not

a dying and rising god. Horus has a miraculous birth, but the people
find no hope in his resuscitation. Osiris provides hope for an afterlife,
but he does not have a miraculous birth. Dionysus is persecuted and
betrayed, but he does not experience death. In order to find a pagan
parallel to Jesus, one must combine different aspects of all these gods
into a composite god.
To be fair, there is ancient precedent to this. As one reads ancient
texts, it is evident that different cultures identified their gods with the
gods of their neighbors. Sometimes that identification is complete as
is the case with the Greco-Roman pantheon. For example, the Greek
Zeus is the same as the Roman Jupiter, and the Greek Hermes is the
same as the Roman Mercury. Most often, however, this identification
is not so complete.
In the ancient world, as in our own, there were challenges
for different cultures to co-exist. One of the ways to build bridges
was to find similarities among their religions. Both cultures might
have a thunder god, and so by identifying the two gods there was an
opportunity for greater cooperation between the two cultures. That did
not mean that the one culture adopted the entire mythology or religion
of the other culture, only that it was now acceptable to use their names
interchangeably. An example of this is the calling of the gods of the
Mithraic mysteries by Greek names. Franz Cumont (a respected Belgian
archaeologist and historian) explains: "A pious mystic could, without
renouncing his faith, dedicate a votive inscription to the Capitoline
triad,-Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; he merely invested these divine
names with a different meaning from their ordinary inscription."22
Jesus myth theorists often note the identification of the
Egyptian Osiris and the Greek Dionysus. This is an example of cultural
identification being used for political purposes. 23 There were a few
things that these gods had in common which was useful in building
bridges between the cultures. But the Greeks did not bring the entire
story of Osiris into their understanding of Dionysus, and the Egyptians
did not bring the entire story of Dionysus into their understanding of
Osiris. The ancients would not recognize the artificial identification of
various gods that many Jesus theorists have presented to their readers.
STEPHEN J. BEDARD 65

Conclusion
The Jesus myth theory has been popular for hundreds of years
and will continue to be attractive to a certain segment of society.
The new atheism has already begun to latch onto this theory. 24 It is
important that Christians not ignore this trend, even if they see it as
nonsense from a scholarly perspective. It is important for the church
to both point out the problems in the details and in the methodology
of the Jesus myth theory. The best evidence continues to point toward
the existence of the historical Jesus and the uniqueness of the Christian
Gospel.

Notes
1. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus
a Pagan God? (London: Element, 2003), 11-12.
2. Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light (Toronto: Thomas
Allen Publishers, 2004), 80.
3. Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus (Amherst: Prometheus, 2000), 93. Price
also strongly questions the existence of the historical Jesus and places him in
the same category of other legendary figures. See Deconstructing Jesus, 261.
4. Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Anchor, 2003), 252.
5. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (Mineola: Dover, 2005),
137-60. Schweitzer, who is sometimes cited approvingly by Jesus myth
theorists, is quite critical of such extreme views.
6. Schweitzer, Quest, 313-18.
7. Schweitzer, Quest, 167.
8. Schweitzer, Quest, 290-91.
9. Gerald Massey, The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ (Edmonds:
Holmes Publishing, 1990). Massey was a self-educated layperson.
10. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, A Rebirth for Christianity (Wheaton: Quest, 2005).
Kuhn's Ph.D. was in the area of Theosophy, and he writes from that religious
perspective.
11. Stanley Porter and I dealt in detail with the form of the Jesus myth theory
as formulated by Tom Harpur in Stanley E. Porter and Stephen J. Bedard,
Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ
Idea (Toronto: Clements, 2006). Although focused on Tom Harpur's Pagan
Christ, much of the work is useful in dealing with other forms of the Jesus
myth theory.
12. That is not to say that they are without value. See Porter and Bedard,
Unmasking, 129-39.
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13. John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean
Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 374.
14. Mark D. Roberts, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), 85.
Roberts sees Luke-Acts as fitting within the genre of Hellenistic history, 86.
15. Paul seems to hold back on biographical details of both Jesus and his own life
until they are required for particularly difficult arguments.
16. Stephen J. Bedard, "Paul and the Historical Jesus: A Case Study in First
Corinthians," in McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 7:9-22.
17. Schweitzer, Quest, 6.
18. A helpful resource for sorting through these issues is Darrell L. Bock, The
Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006).
19. Samuel Sandmel, "Parallelomania," in Journal ofBiblical Literature Vol. 81,
No. 1(Mar.,1962), 1.
20. Sandmel, "Parallelomania," 7.
21. For example, see Freke and Gandy, Jesus Mysteries, 31 and Harpur, Pagan
Christ, 37.
22. Franz Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra (New York: Cosimo, 2007), 175-76.
23. One of the best examples of identification of gods being used for political
purposes is that of Sarapis who was created by the government in Egypt in
an attempt to unify a nation of various cultures. See Francoise Dunand and
Christine Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt (Ithaca: Cornell, 2004), 218-
21.
24. Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart,
2007), 109-22.