The Casual Historian

Exploring the Christ Myth Theory: Writing my Senior Thesis, Part 2

Exploring the Christ Myth Theory: Writing my Senior Thesis, Part 2

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In part one of this series I explained the different reasons I’ve had for studying history, and what ultimately drew me to my chosen thesis topic, The Christ Myth Theory. However I didn’t explain it thoroughly.

The Christ Myth Theory is one of numerous schools that focus on questioning the historicity of something in the past. In part one I briefly mentioned the Saarbrucken School, which questions the historicity of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad. A better known school of historicity questioners would be Holocaust Deniers, who question whether or not the Holocaust occurred. These three “schools” of thought are responded to differently.

The Saarbrucken School is niche and only Middle East or Islamic History experts have even heard of the concept of questioning Muhammad’s existence,

Holocaust Denial on the other hand is well known, even if the deniers themselves are not. Holocaust Denial is so despised by the vast majority of historians and common people they are outright rejected, and its proponents are labeled Anti-Semites. Although in theory Holocaust Denial is not inherently anti-Semitic, it is implicitly so.

The Culture Wars

The Christ Myth Theory occupies a strange middle ground between the two. It’s more widely known than the Saarbrucken School, but not quite as wide as Holocaust Denial. This is probably because accusations of Islamaphobia are mostly focused on people who do believe Muhammad existed, and Holocaust Denial became widely known for the trial between Deborah Lipstadt and David Irving, dramatized in the BBC film Denial (Review coming eventually). However, considering the implicit anti-Christian nature of the theory, it wouldn’t be a big stretch to say that much of academia and the media think Christians don’t need to be defended. Also, believing in the theory doesn’t get you labeled a racist like the others will. Because of all this, little attention is given to it outside the religious sphere of the Culture Wars.

In the cultural war between Christians and Atheists, the sides are clearly drawn. Christians want the legitimacy of their religion recognized by society, and Atheists want to remove the legitimacy of all religions, with a particular emphasis on Christianity. Most of this war is focused on the questions of whether or not God exists, and whether or not religion is good for society. There is another front in this war that is weirdly empty, and yet very active, at least online. That field is the Historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, which is the subject of the Christ Myth Theory.

The Four Types of Arguments

Comparative Mythology

The earliest known proponents of the Christ Myth Theory came out of the French Revolution, with Constantin Francois de Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney, and Charles-Francois Dupuis. They were both supporters of the Revolution, and were influenced by the French Enlightenment. In both of their works, Ruin of Empires, and Origin of all Cults, they argue that Jesus is an amalgamation of Near Eastern Myths. This is the origin of what I’m referring to as the Comparative Mythology Argument. This argument focuses on comparing the elements of the story of Jesus in the Bible with other myths. It is the oldest, and most popular argument used to argue that Jesus did not exist. It’s also the least academic of them.

Negation

There’s a gap in time between Volney and Dupuis and the next wave, lead by German Theologian Bruno Bauer in the 1840s. Bruno Bauer applied to the Christ Myth Theory the methods of Historical Criticism, which is referred to as Higher Criticism when used on religious texts. Bauer is one of the most prolific contributors to the theory. His method was to question the historical legitimacy of the Gospels, which tell the life of Jesus. These criticisms focus on questioning the authorship of the Gospels, and dating them either later or earlier then they are traditionally believed to have been written. He would also go on to apply the same methodology to the Pauline Epistles. In my research and notes I have been referring to the questioning of historical source’s legitimacy as Argument by Negation. This type of argument focuses on eliminating the historical evidence for Jesus’s existence. It is probably the most academic argument, which means it is also one of the least popular among lay-men.

Silence

In the early 20th century, we see the third type of argument was pioneered by an American School Teacher, John Remsburg. In his book, The Christ, he has a chapter dedicated to listing 42 contemporaries of Jesus who did not mention his existence. This argument has been incorporated into later arguments as well, with the list being expanded over the last 100 years. This argument already had a name when I came across it, The Argument from Silence. The purpose of this argument is to delegitimize the existence Jesus by pointing to all the people who would have known about him, but never mentioned him. This argument is fairly popular, but never by itself. It is always incorporated into a bigger thesis, rather than being the foundation of one. I classify it as a separate argument because it is using a different justification than the others.

Misinterpretation

I’m uncertain of where the fourth and final argument comes from exactly. I refer to this one as the Argument by Misinterpretation. This argument postulates that the gospels and epistles have overtime been completely misinterpreted from what the authors originally meant. And by “Misinterpretation” I don’t just mean we interpret it more liberally today. What I mean is that what we interpret as a story of a historical person who lived and died in the first century A.D., is completely wrong. Some proponents of this theory say that Jesus was never intended to be understood as a historical figure but as an allegorical one. Others say that he was originally understood as a separate god from that of the Hebrews, whose story took place in a spiritual realm. And others yet say that what we misinterpret about the New Testament is that it was actually a Conspiracy by the Roman government to pacify the Jews with a messiah figure who promised to bring success in the future if they patiently waited. These are the types of arguments you will find in any Christ Myth Thesis.

Clearing the Battlefield

This battlefield of the culture wars is largely empty. Publicly, the Christians have won the battle, with Atheists more or less ceding the field. However there is still a contingent of atheists continuing to fight this lost battle. Most Christians have also left the battlefield because it seems like they have won. Only a small group remains, staving off the rocks thrown by the few atheists who refuse to concede. Unlike the other battlefields where the line between Atheists and Christians are firmly drawn, the Historicity of Jesus also has Atheist defenders, who have put facts above sectarianism. But those who remain on the field do so because to them to cede any territory to Christians is to admit they are right about everything. The Christ Myth theory to them is simply another tool for promoting Atheism. “Not only is belief in any kind of god irrational, but the man made god you believe in is also fictional.”

Most works on this theory are focused on either proving it right or wrong. In my senior thesis I’ve decided to go a step beyond the debate of legitimacy, and focus on the Christ Myth Theory as a literature to be studied an analyzed, rather than a thesis to be debunked. I don’t need to debunk it because others have already done so far better than I ever could. But what I figure I can do is contextualize it as an intellectual history. Hopefully doing so can bring the discussion another step closer to ending. But with the internet being what it is, even I find that difficult to believe.

Finding a Fascination: Writing My Senior Thesis, Part 1

Finding a Fascination: Writing My Senior Thesis, Part 1

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The capstone to most college degrees, especially the writing intensive ones, is the thesis. As a history major, writing is my chief academic activity, and come fall 2017 I will be enrolled in the Senior Seminar Course for history majors. At the time of writing this (August 2017), Preliminary research for my thesis has been ongoing during the past several months, and I’ve come to believe that documenting the process is beneficial. I will post a series of articles between now and the end of the year to do exactly that.

Before disclosing the subject of my thesis, allow me to explain why several common (one might say cliché) topics were bypassed while reaching my conclusion.

I have been a self-professed history major since 2011 despite, until spring of 2016, attending a community college without a history option. In lieu of history, I majored in political science, which informed and fueled my political activism at the time. I remained politically active, even after unofficially changing my program to history. Bottom line, I have studied far more history than political science to date. At the time, I considered it a necessary component to political science, though I later discovered that a minority view, as most political science majors didn’t study history at all, or even economics. Rather, most studied public policy and ideology.

I was the errant member of the student body reading the work of historians to form and validate my political positions. As a conservative, I was committed to finding solutions based on historical precedent. My liberal classmates favored pseudo-economic ideas to rationalize the expansion of pet entitlement program. During class discussions I cited historians, while classmates quoted journalists writing for popular political journals as backing for their ad hominem assertions. Having tired of their emotional appeals, I defected. Political science was not for me — at least not as being practiced in academia — though political activism certainly was.

My tenure as a political activist had stretched to nearly eight years, volunteering for political campaigns on federal, state and local levels, as well as membership in the local chapter of the Republican Party’s central committee, and eventually becoming president my of Community College’s chapter of College Republicans. When not engaged in formal political activism, I engaged in informal political activism, such as online debates and discussions with members of student government. Political activism came to an end for me shortly after transferring to a four-year university. After Donald Trump secured the Republican Party’s nomination in April 2016, I stepped back from political activism and politics in general, while staying apprised of government and electoral politics, limiting my involvement to monitoring election news, and sharing political memes from a litany of Libertarian Facebook groups.

A proud American, I see value in national identities and deem it essential to study one’s own national history, accepting the good and the bad. In retrospect, it’s obvious there were political motivations behind my embrace of American history. In terms of fact and reason, history trumped everything, yet it’s inability to sway people’s attitudes and opinions is why I abandoned political science and, eventually, political activism. After walking away from the political arena, I found myself unburdened in many ways, including the need to constantly study American history. Though still passionate about it, I’ve concluded it is not very useful to my daily life or current interests. There is something burning far more brightly on my interest scale: The Fringe.

What do I mean by The Fringe? Those who have — or at least experiment with — fresh ideas. I am intellectually attracted to those who have something different to say. When everyone else is saying X, I’m naturally drawn to those who are saying Y. Indeed, my attraction to The Fringe has been present for some time. Does that make me a contrarian? Possibly. I won’t deny the attraction that exists for being intellectually edgy, but it’s not what it seems on the surface. What fascinates me about The Fringe is completely different conclusions drawn from the same information everyone else has access to. My beliefs do not change to adhere to whatever Fringe idea has my attention at the time. Rather, my fascination with Fringe ideas has more in common with being a Game of Thrones fan than a convert to a new ideology.

While politically active, I became a follower of George Friedman of Stratfor after reading The Next 100 Years. His views on China were exhilarating. While economists and media outlets were fixated on China superseding U.S. economic leadership and creating an inevitable military showdown, Friedman posits that China is more likely to politically fracture than go to war with the United States. Historical argument was used to justify his forecast, which comported with my own belief that history is the most accurate guide to future events. In essence, past is prologue. In a similar vein, studying history while others studied public policy and sociology, was another venture into The Fringe. Hence, the subject of my thesis: I should note that the Christ Myth Theory, which I’ll explain momentarily, was not my first choice.

Initially, I had planned a thesis on the Saarbruecken School, a group of revisionist historians who question the traditional narrative for the origins of Islam. Some believe that the Prophet Muhammad never existed, while others believe he existed, though not as typically portrayed. The problem: I don’t have a firm position on that issue, even though I was drawn to the topic for the same reason I was drawn to my final choice; i.e., no one was thinking or talking about it. The biggest problem with the Saarbruecken School is the lack of translated primary sources, because most of the research is being done in German, Dutch and French. It has not caught on in English-speaking countries, though that will not deter me from researching it, and will likely write something or produce a video on it in the future. I ultimately chose the Christ Myth Theory because of the fascination factor, and because there is a much larger pool of English-language sources available.

The basic premise of the Christ Myth Theory is that there are a number of people who question whether Jesus Christ existed as a historical character. Whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was the immaculately conceived son of God, or if God even exists, has been disputed for centuries and is something historians and scientists cannot prove or disprove. However, it has been the consensus among historians and academics in general that Jesus did exist in some capacity. The Christ Myth Theory is not accepted by the overwhelming majority of academics, and there is not one tenured New Testament historian who supports the theory.

For my thesis, I have decided not to look at the Christ Myth Theory as a hypothesis to be written in favor of or against. Rather, I am choosing to look at the subject as a movement and an intellectual history, analyzing its evolution and impact on scholarship and popular culture. I am fascinated by how this theory — which has almost zero academic support, and has had no new arguments or evidence surface in a century — somehow continue to gain adherents. I have my own hypothesis, but further research is necessary. My senior thesis paper will elucidate.