Talk:Christ myth theory/Sandbox
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The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory and nonexistence hypothesis) is the argument that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical figure, and that the Jesus of early Christianity was the personification of an ideal savior to whom a number of stories were later attached.[1]
The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis in the 1790s. More recent academic advocates include the 19th-century theologian Bruno Bauer and the 20th-century philosopher Arthur Drews. Writers such as G.A. Wells, Robert M. Price, and Earl Doherty have re-popularized the idea in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The hypothesis has at times attracted scholarly attention, but remains essentially without support among biblical scholars and classical historians.[2] Ancient Historian Michael Grant writes that "In recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' -- or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."[3] The biblical scholar Graham Stanton writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus existed, and that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contain valuable evidence about him.[4]
Proponents of the theory emphasize the absence of extant reference to Jesus during his lifetime, and the scarcity of non-Christian reference to him in the first century. They give priority to the epistles over the gospels in determining the views of the earliest Christians, and draw on perceived parallels between the biography of Jesus and those of Greek, Egyptian, and Roman gods. They argue that, while some gospel material may have been drawn from one or more preachers who actually existed, these individuals were not in any sense the founder of Christianity; rather, they contend that Christianity emerged organically from Hellenistic Judaism.[5] Arguing against the theory, the New Testament scholar James Dunn writes of the improbability that a figure would be invented who had lived within the generation of the inventors, or that such an elaborate myth would have been imposed upon a minor figure from Galilee who had no significant influence. This, he writes, is the fatal flaw of the Christ myth theory.[6]