A Christian Response by Stephen J. Bedard
Jesus mythicists argue that Jesus never existed and the Jesus of the Gospels are based on pagan god-men, mostly Egyptian and Greek. I have examined the myths and have not found the parallels they claim. I have examined the historical evidence for Jesus and have found it more than adequate. But for the sake of … Read More “A Problem for the Jesus Myth” »
The Jesus Myth Theory, the belief that Jesus never existed and that the Gospels are based on pagan myths, just does not seem to go away. The recent appearance of a mythicists on the Unbelievable? podcast shows how much more prominent mythicist ideas are becoming. More and more books and websites are appearing that argue what is … Read More “5 Things You Need to Know About the Jesus Myth” »
Is there any evidence for the historical Jesus? What about the Gospels? Can they be used as historical sources? This episode looks at these questions. Books Mentioned in This Episode: What Are the Gospels? Quest of the Historical Jesus Relevant Posts: The Dirty Little Secret About Dating the Gospels
Philo of Alexandria lived between 20 BC and 50 AD, meaning all of Jesus’ life was within his lifetime. Philo was also a Jewish writer who left behind more first century writings than any other Jew. So why didn’t Philo mention Jesus? For some Mythicists this is a major nail in the coffin of the … Read More “3 Reasons Why Philo Never Mentioned Jesus” »
A number of years ago, I wrote an article for the Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics. It was on the subject of the Jesus Myth Theory. The article is called “Methodological Problems with the Jesus Myth Hypothesis” and it attempts to go beyond the simple assertion that the JMT is false. Mythicists … Read More “Methodological Problems with the Jesus Myth Hypothesis” »
Christianity has a bad guy named Satan. Egyptian mythology has a bad guy similarly named Set. Is this a coincidence or an example of Christians borrowing from Egyptian mythology. We need to start with the names. We actually don’t know what the Egyptian Set means. Satan, however, is not a name. It is a title. … Read More “Is Satan Based on the Egyptian Set?” »
One of the arguments by Mythicists against using the New Testament as historical evidence for Jesus is that is Scripture for a living religion. Scripture (of any religion) cannot be used as a historical source. Or can it? This is related to the idea of the New Testament being too biased. Ignatius and Clement of … Read More “Can Scripture Be a Valid Historical Source?” »
One of the disagreements between most scholars and Mythicists is about how appropriate it is to use the Gospels as evidence for the historical Jesus. The problem, according to Mythicists, is that the Gospels are obviously biased. They are not unbiased historians or biographers. John 20:31 makes it clear: “But these are written that you … Read More “Aren’t the Gospels Too Biased?” »
Are Christians even able to do historical Jesus studies? After all, Christians have a religious commitment to Jesus and so their scholarship will be “tainted” by their faith. Bias is a real thing and we should be aware of it. But let me turn this around. Can a Jesus Mythicist do historical Jesus studies? Aren’t … Read More “Can Christians Do Historical Jesus Studies?” »
This is slightly off topic from the Jesus Myth, but only slightly. We spend a lot of times differentiating Jesus from other gods. What about YHWH? The stories about YHWH were coming out at the same time as stories about gods of other nations. What is the difference? Of course there are differences in the … Read More “The Difference Between YHWH and Pagan Gods” »
