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Tertullian
Tertullian

Tertullian, born around 160 and died around 220, was a prominent Christian theologian, philosopher, and author during the Roman Empire. His works had a profound impact on the development of Christian theology, especially his writings such as 'Apology' and 'On the Resurrection', which are still widely studied today. more

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“Moreover, it is not just that the early documents are silent about so much of Jesus that came to be recorded in the gospels, but that they view him in a substantially different way -- as a basically supernatural personage only obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period in the past, 'emptied' then of all his supernatural attributes (Phil.2:7), and certainly not a worker of prodigious miracles which made him famous throughout 'all Syria' (Mt.4:24). I have argued that there is good reason to believe that the Jesus of Paul was constructed largely from musing and reflecting on a supernatural 'Wisdom' figure, amply documented in the earlier Jewish literature, who sought an abode on Earth, but was there rejected, rather than from information concerning a recently deceased historical individual. The influence of the Wisdom literature is undeniable; only assessment of what it amounted to still divides opinion.”

LiteratureFictionHistorySyriaSupernaturalMiraclesJewishPaulHistorical JesusGospelsHistoricity Of JesusChrist MythJesus MythChrist Myth TheoryHistoricityBiblical CriticismEpistlesSt Paul
Author:George Albert Wells
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“If there is one fable, which would seem entitled to escape the analysis, which we have undertaken of religious poems and sacred legends, by the laws of physical and astronomical science, it is doubtless that of Christ, or the legend, which under that name is really dedicated to the worship of the Sun. The hatred, which the sectarians of that religion,—jealous to make their form of worship dominant over all others,—have shown against those, who worshipped Nature, the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, against the Roman Deities, whose temples and altars they have upset,—would suscitate the idea, that their worship did not form a part of that otherwise universal religion.”

ScienceAstronomyLegendsDeitiesRomanFableChrist MythSavantChrist Myth TheorySun Worship
Author:Charles François Dupuis
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“I argue that the Jesus of the Gospels is essentially a myth. The Gospels are largely fiction. They were created around the turn of the first and second century in order to give concreteness and substance to the Jesus who, as the Messiah, had appeared to Paul and his fellow apostles in ecstatic visions.”

MythApostlesMessiahVisionsUnreliableJewsHistoricity Of JesusChrist MythJesus MythChrist Myth TheoryHistoricity Of The GospelsEcstatic VisionsJewish MessiahPaul S Visions
Author:Alvar Ellegård
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“Philosophically, I am a logical empiricist and materialist, and I am a veteran of over 400 radio and TV interviews and debates. I am a Christ-myth advocate and am pursuing research into how Christianity could have begun without a historical Jesus of Nazareth. I am married with one daughter and three grandchildren.”

ChildrenMarriageAtheismResearchInterviewsMaterialismVeteranGrandchildrenBiographyNaturalismPersonalEmpiricismDebatesHistorical JesusHistoricity Of JesusChrist MythHistoricityMaterialistEmpiricist
Author:Frank R. Zindler
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“Young scholars, learning their historical method from Gospel scholars, often treat it as self-evident that the more skeptical they are toward their sources, the more rigorous will be their historical method. It has to be said, over and over, that historical rigor does not consist in fundamental skepticism toward historical testimony but in fundamental trust along with testing by critical questioning…”

MythApostlesMessiahVisionsUnreliableJewsHistoricity Of JesusChrist MythJesus MythChrist Myth TheoryHistoricity Of The GospelsEcstatic VisionsJewish MessiahPaul S Visions
Book:Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
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“...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.”

Historicity Of JesusChrist MythChrist Myth TheoryHistoricity Of The GospelsHistoricity Of The New TestamentHistoricity Of The Bible
Book:Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels
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