Around the world
over the centuries, much has been written about religion, its meaning, its
relevance and contribution to humanity. In the West particularly, sizable tomes
have been composed speculating upon the nature and historical background of the
main character of Western religions, Jesus Christ. Many have tried to dig into
the precious few clues as to Jesus’ identity and come up with a biographical
sketch that either bolsters faith or reveals a more human side of this god–man
to which we can all relate. Obviously, considering the time and energy spent on
them, the subjects of Christianity and its legendary founder are very important
to the Western mind and culture.
Despite all of
this literature continuously being cranked out and the significance of the
issue, in the public at large there is a serious lack of formal and broad
education regarding religion and mythology, and most individuals are highly
uninformed in this area. Concerning the issue of Christianity, for example, the
majority of people are taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ
was an actual historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is
that some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others do
not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident in this field
today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may seem to the general
populace, the most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is
whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed.
Although this
debate may not be evident from publications readily found in popular bookstores1,
when one examines this issue closely, one will find a tremendous volume of
literature that demonstrates, logically and intelligently, time and again that
Jesus Christ is a mythological character along the same lines as the Greek,
Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian or other god–men, who are all
presently accepted as myths rather than historical figures2.
Delving deeply into this large body of work, one uncovers evidence that the
Jesus character is based upon much older myths and heroes from around the
globe. One discovers that this story is not, therefore, a historical
representation of a Jewish rebel carpenter who had physical incarnation in the
Levant 2,000 years ago. In other words, it has been demonstrated continually
for centuries that this character, Jesus Christ, was invented and did not
depict a real person who was either the “son of God” or was “evemeristically” made into a superhuman by enthusiastic
followers3.
This
controversy has existed from the very beginning, and the writings of the
“Church Fathers” themselves reveal that they were constantly forced by the
pagan intelligentsia to defend what the non–Christians and other Christians
(“heretics”)4
alike saw as a preposterous and fabricated yarn with absolutely no evidence of
it ever having taken place in history. As Rev. Robert Taylor says, “And from
the apostolic age downwards, in a never interrupted succession, but never so
strongly and emphatically as in the most primitive times, was the existence of
Christ as a man most strenuously denied.”5
Emperor Julian, who, coming after the reign of the fanatical and murderous “good
Christian” Constantine, returned rights to pagan worshippers, stated, “If
anyone should wish to know the truth with respect to you Christians, he will
find your impiety to be made up partly of the Jewish audacity, and partly of
the indifference and confusion of the Gentiles, and that you have put together
not the best, but the worst characteristics of them both.”6
According to these learned dissenters, the New Testament could rightly be
called, “Gospel Fictions.”7
A century ago,
mythicist Albert Churchward
said, “The canonical gospels can be shown to be a collection of sayings from
the Egyptian Mythos and Eschatology.”8
In Forgery in Christianity, Joseph Wheless
states, “The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their
pretended dates.”9
Those who concocted some of the hundreds of “alternative” gospels and epistles
that were being kicked about during the first several centuries C.E. have even
admitted that they had forged the documents.10
Forgery during the first centuries of the Church’s existence was admittedly
rampant, so common in fact that a new phrase was coined to describe it: “pious
fraud.”11
Such prevarication is confessed to repeatedly in the Catholic Encyclopedia.12
Some of the “great” church fathers, such as Eusebius13,
were determined by their own peers to be unbelievable liars who regularly wrote
their own fictions of what “the Lord” said and did during “his” alleged sojourn
upon the earth.14
The assertion
that Jesus Christ is a myth can be proved not only through the works of
dissenters and “pagans” who knew the truth – and who were viciously refuted or
murdered for their battle against the Christian priests and “Church Fathers”
fooling the masses with their fictions – but also through the very statements
of the Christians themselves, who continuously disclose that they knew Jesus
Christ was a myth founded upon more ancient deities located throughout the
known ancient world. In fact, Pope Leo X, privy to the truth because of his
high rank, made this curious declaration, “What profit has not that fable
of Christ brought us!”15
(Emphasis added.) As Wheless says, “The proofs of my
indictment are marvelously easy.”
From their own
admissions, the early Christians were incessantly under criticism by scholars
of great repute who were impugned as “heathens” by their Christian adversaries.
This group included many Gnostics, who strenuously objected to the carnalization of their deity, as the Christians can be
shown to have taken many of the characteristics of their god and god–man from
the Gnostics, meaning “Ones who know,” a loose
designation applied to members of a variety of esoteric schools and
brotherhoods. The refutations of the Christians against the Gnostics reveal
that the Christian god–man was an insult to the Gnostics, who held that their
god could never take human form.16
It is very
telling that the earliest Christian documents, the Epistles attributed to
“Paul,” never discuss a historical background of Jesus but deal exclusively
with a spiritual being who was known to all gnostic sects for hundreds to thousands of years. The few
“historical” references to an actual life of Jesus cited in the Epistles are
demonstrably interpolations and forgeries, as are, according to Wheless, the Epistles themselves, as they were not written
by “Paul.”17
Aside from the brief reference to Pontius Pilate at 1 Timothy 6:13, an epistle
dated ben Yehoshua to 144 CE and thus not written by Paul, the Pauline
literature (as pointed out by Edouard Dujardin) “does not refer to Pilate18,
or the Romans, or Caiaphas, or the Sanhedrin, or
Herod19,
or Judas, or the holy women, or any person in the gospel account of the
Passion, and that it also never makes any allusion to them; lastly, that it
mentions absolutely none of the events of the Passion, either directly or by
way of allusion.”20
Dujardin additionally relates that other early
“Christian” writings such as Revelation do not mention any historical details
or drama.21
Mangasarian notes that Paul also never quotes from
Jesus’ purported sermons and speeches, parables and prayers, nor does he
mention Jesus’ supernatural birth or any of his alleged wonders and miracles,
all which one would presume would be very important to his followers, had such
exploits and sayings been known prior to “Paul.”22
Turning to the
gospels themselves, which were composed between 170–180 C.E.22a,
their pretended authors, the apostles, give sparse histories and genealogies of
Jesus that contradict each other and themselves in numerous places. The birthdate of Jesus is depicted as having taken place at
different times. His birth and childhood are not mentioned in “Mark,” and
although he is claimed in “Matthew” and “Luke” to have been “born of a virgin,”
his lineage is traced to the House of David through Joseph, such that he may
“fulfill prophecy.”23
He is said in the first three (Synoptic) gospels to have taught for one year
before he died, while in “John” the number is three years. “Matthew” relates
that Jesus delivered “The Sermon on the Mount”24
before “the multitudes,” while “Luke” says it was a private talk given only to
the disciples. The accounts of his Passion and Resurrection differ utterly from
each other, and no one states how old he was when he died.25
Wheless says, “The so–called ‘canonical’ books of the
New Testament, as of the Old, are a mess of contradictions and confusions of
text, to the present estimate of 150,000 and more ‘variant readings,’ as is
well known and admitted.”26
In addition, of the dozens of gospels, ones that were once considered canonical
or genuine were later rejected as “apocryphal” or spurious, and vice versa. So
much for the “infallible Word of God” and “infallible” Church! The confusion
exists because the Christian plagiarists over the centuries were attempting to
amalgamate and fuse practically every myth, fairytale, legend, doctrine or bit
of wisdom they could pilfer from the innumerable different mystery religions
and philosophies that existed at the time. In doing so, they forged,
interpolated, mutilated, changed, and rewrote these texts for centuries.27
Basically, there
are no non–biblical references to a historical Jesus by any known historian of
the time during and after Jesus’ purported advent.
In the entire
works of the Jewish historian Josephus, which constitute many volumes, there
are only two paragraphs that purport to refer to Jesus. Although much has been
made of these “references,” they have been dismissed by all scholars and even
by Christian apologists as forgeries, as have been those referring to John the
Baptist and James, “brother” of Jesus. Bishop Warburton labeled the Josephus
interpolation regarding Jesus as “a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too.”29
Wheless notes that, “The first mention ever made of
this passage, and its text, are in the Church History of that ‘very dishonest
writer,’ Bishop Eusebius, in the fourth century...CE [Catholic Encyclopedia]
admits... the above cited passage was not known to Origen
and the earlier patristic writers.” Wheless, a
lawyer, and Taylor, a minister, agree that it was Eusebius himself who forged
the passage.
Regarding the
letter to Trajan supposedly written by Pliny the
Younger, which is one of the pitifully few “references” to Jesus or
Christianity held up by Christians as evidence of the existence of Jesus, there
is but one word that is applicable – “Christian” – and that has been
demonstrated to be spurious, as is also suspected of the entire letter.
Concerning the passage in the works of the historian Tacitus,
who did not live during the purported time of Jesus but was born two decades
after his purported death, this is also considered by competent scholars as an
interpolation and forgery.30
Christian defenders also like to hold up the passage in Suetonius
that refers to someone named “Chrestus” or “Chresto” as reference to their Savior; however, while some
have speculated that there was a Roman man of that name at that time, the name
“Chrestus” or “Chrestos,”
meaning “useful,” was frequently held by freed slaves. Others opine that this
passage is also an interpolation.
As to these references and their constant regurgitation by
Christian apologists, Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn says:
“The average Christian minister who has not read outside the pale
of accredited Church authorities will impart to any parishioner making the
inquiry the information that no event in history is better attested by witness
than the occurrences in the Gospel narrative of Christ’s life. He will go over
the usual citation of the historians who mention Jesus and the letters claiming
to have been written about him. When the credulous questioner, putting trust in
the intelligence and good faith of his pastor, gets this answer, he goes away
assured on the point of the veracity of the Gospel story. The pastor does not
qualify his data with the information that the practice of forgery, fictionizing and fable was rampant in the early Church. In
the simple interest of truth, then, it is important to examine the body of
alleged testimony from secular history and see what credibility and authority
it possesses.
“First, as to the historians whose works record the existence of
Jesus, the list comprises but four. They are Pliny, Tacitus,
Suetonius and Josephus. There are short paragraphs in
the works of each of these, two in Josephus. The total quantity of this
material is given by Harry Elmer Barnes in The
Twilight of Christianity as some twenty–four lines. It may total a
little more, perhaps twice that amount. This meager testimony constitutes the
body or mass of the evidence of ‘one of the best attested events in history.’
Even if it could be accepted as indisputably authentic and reliable, it would
be faltering support for an event that has dominated the thought of half the
world for eighteen centuries.
“But what is the standing of this witness? Not even Catholic
scholars of importance have dissented from a general agreement of academic
investigators that these passages, one and all, must by put down as forgeries
and interpolations by partisan Christian scribes who wished zealously to array
the authority of these historians behind the historicity of the Gospel life of
Jesus. A sum total of forty or fifty lines from secular history supporting the
existence of Jesus of Nazareth, and they completely discredited!”30a
Of these
“references,” Dujardin says, “But even if they are
authentic, and were derived from earlier sources, they would not carry us back
earlier than the period in which the gospel legend took form, and so could
attest only the legend of Jesus, and not his historicity.” In any case, these
scarce and brief “references” to a man who supposedly shook up the world can
hardly be held up as proof of his existence, and it is absurd that the
purported historicity of the entire Christian religion is founded upon them.31
As it is said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”; yet, no
proof of any kind for the historicity of Jesus has ever existed or is
forthcoming.
It is evident
that there was no single historical person upon whom the Christian religion was
founded, and that “Jesus Christ” is a compilation of legends, heroes, gods and
god–men. There is not adequate room here to go into detail about each god or
god–man that contributed to the formation of the Jewish Jesus character;
suffice it to say that there is plenty of documentation to show that this issue
is not a question of “faith” or “belief.” The truth is that during the era this
character supposedly lived there was an extensive library at Alexandria and an
incredibly nimble brotherhood network that stretched from Europe to China, and
this information network had access to numerous manuscripts that told the same
narrative portrayed in the New Testament with different place names and
ethnicity for the characters. In actuality, the legend of Jesus nearly
identically parallels the story of Krishna, for example, even in detail, as was
presented by noted mythologist and scholar Gerald Massey over 100 years ago, as
well as by Rev. Robert Taylor 160 years ago, among others.32
The
As concerns
the specious claim that the analogies between the Christ myth and those
outlined below are “non–existent” because they are not found in “primary
sources,” let us turn to the words of the early Church fathers, who
acknowledged that major important aspects of the Christ character are indeed to
be found in the stories of earlier, “Pagan” gods, but who asserted that the
reason for these similarities was because the evidently prescient devil
“anticipated” Christ and planted “foreshadowing” of his “coming” in the
heathens’ minds.
In his First Apology, Christian father Justin
Martyr (c. 100–165 CE) acknowledged the similarities between the older Pagan
gods and religions and those of Christianity, when he attempted to demonstrate,
in the face of ridicule, that Christianity was no more ridiculous than the
earlier myths:
“ANALOGIES TO
THE HISTORY OF CHRIST. And when we say also that the Word, who is the
first–birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus
Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into
heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those
whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed
writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all;
Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician,
was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after
he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to
the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri;
and Perseus, son of Danae;
and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals,
rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be
set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom
you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who
swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre?”
In his endless
apologizing, Justin reiterates the similarities between his god–man and the
gods of other cultures:
“As to the
objection of our Jesus’ being crucified, I say, that suffering was common to
all the aforementioned sons of Jove [Jupiter] . . . As to his being born of a
virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that. As to
his curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from birth,
this is little more than what you say of your Aesculapius.”
In making
these comparisons between Christianity and its predecessor Paganism, however,
Martyr sinisterly spluttered:
“It having
reached the Devil’s ears that the prophets had foretold the coming of Christ,
the Son of God, he set the heathen Poets to bring forward a great many who
should be called the sons of Jove. The Devil laying his scheme in this, to get
men to imagine that the true history of Christ was of the same
characters the prodigious fables related of the sons of Jove.”
In his Dialogue
with Trypho the Jew, Martyr again admits the
pre–existence of the Christian tale and then uses his standard, irrational and
self–serving apology, i.e., “the devil got there first”:
“Be well
assured, then, Trypho, that I am established in the
knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is
called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; just as some were
wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the false prophets in Elijah’s
days. For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by
[Jupiter’s] intercourse with Semele, and that he was
the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces,
and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce
wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated the
prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses? And when they
tell that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all
the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and
ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which
speaks of Christ, “strong as a giant to run his race,” has been in like manner
imitated? And when he [the devil] brings forward Aesculapius
as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in
this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ? . . . And
when I hear, Trypho, that Perseus
was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited
also this.”
And in his Octavius,
Christian writer Minucius Felix (c. 250 CE) denied that Christians
worshipped a “criminal and his cross,” and retorted that the Pagans did esteem a crucified
man:
“Chapter
XXIX.–Argument: Nor is It More True that a Man Fastened to a Cross on Account
of His Crimes is Worshipped by Christians, for They Believe Not Only that He
Was Innocent, But with Reason that He Was God. But, on the Other Hand, the
Heathens Invoke the Divine Powers of Kings Raised into Gods by Themselves; They
Pray to Images, and Beseech Their Genii.
“These, and
such as these infamous things, we are not at liberty even to hear; it is even
disgraceful with any more words to defend ourselves from such charges. For you
pretend that those things are done by chaste and modest persons, which we
should not believe to be done at all, unless you proved that they were true
concerning yourselves. For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of
a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighborhood of the truth, in
thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to
be believed God... Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You,
indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of
your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your
camp, what else are they but
crosses gilded and adorned? Your
victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also
that of a man affixed to it...”
The Jesus
story incorporated elements from the tales of other deities recorded in this
widespread area, such as many of the following world saviors and “sons of God,”
most or all of whom predate the Christian myth, and a number of whom were
crucified or executed.33a
·
Adad of
·
Adonis, Apollo, Heracles (“Hercules”) and Zeus of
·
Alcides of
·
Attis of
·
Baal of
·
Bali of
·
Beddru of
·
Buddha of
·
Crite of
·
Deva Tat of
·
Hesus of the Druids
·
Horus, Osiris, and Serapis of Egypt, whose long–haired, bearded appearance was
adopted for the Christ character34
·
Indra of Tibet/India
·
Jao of
·
Krishna of
·
Mikado of the Sintoos
·
Mithra of
·
Odin of the Scandinavians
·
Prometheus of Caucasus/Greece
·
Quetzalcoatl of
·
Salivahana of
·
Tammuz of Syria (who was, in a typical mythmaking move, later
turned into the disciple Thomas35)
·
Thor of the Gauls
·
Universal Monarch of the Sibyls36
·
Wittoba of the Bilingonese
·
Xamolxis of
·
Zarathustra/Zoroaster of
·
Zoar of the Bonzes
Although most
people think of Buddha as being one person who lived around 500 B.C.E., the
character commonly portrayed as Buddha can also be demonstrated to be a
compilation of god–men, legends and sayings of various holy men both preceding
and succeeding the period attributed to the Buddha.37
The Buddha
character has the following in common with the Christ figure:38
·
Buddha was born of the virgin Maya, who was considered the “Queen
of Heaven.”38a
·
He was of royal descent.
·
He crushed a serpent’s head.
·
Sakyamuni Buddha had 12 disciples.38b
·
He performed miracles and wonders, healed the sick, fed 500 men
from a “small basket of cakes,” and walked on water.38c
·
He abolished idolatry, was a “sower of
the word,” and preached “the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness.”38d
·
He taught chastity, temperance, tolerance, compassion, love, and
the equality of all.
·
He was transfigured on a mount.
·
Sakya Buddha was crucified in a sin–atonement,
suffered for three days in hell, and was resurrected.38e
·
He ascended to Nirvana or “heaven.”
·
Buddha was considered the “Good Shepherd”39,
the “Carpenter”40,
the “Infinite and Everlasting.”40a
·
He was called the “Savior of the World” and the “Light of the
World.”
The stories of
Jesus and Horus are very similar, with Horus even contributing the name of Jesus Christ. Horus and his once–and–future Father, Osiris,
are frequently interchangeable in the mythos (“I and my Father are one”).41
The legends of Horus go back thousands of years, and
he shares the following in common with Jesus:
·
Horus was born of the virgin Isis–Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger42,
with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise
men.43
·
He was a child teacher in the
·
Horus was also baptized by “Anup
the Baptizer,” who becomes “John the Baptist.”
·
He had 12 disciples.
·
He performed miracles and raised one man, El–Azar–us,
from the dead.
·
He walked on water.
·
Horus was transfigured on the Mount.
·
He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.
·
He was also the “Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God’s Anointed
Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word” etc.
·
He was “the Fisher,” and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and
Fish (“Ichthys”).45
·
Horus’s personal epithet was “Iusa,”
the “ever–becoming son” of “Ptah,” the “Father.”46
·
Horus was called “the KRST,” or “Anointed One,”
long before the Christians duplicated the story.47
In fact, in
the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus
being held by the virgin mother Isis – the original “Madonna and Child”48
– and the Vatican itself is built upon the papacy of Mithra49,
who shares many qualities with Jesus and who existed as a deity long before the
Jesus character was formalized. The Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to
the Mithraic version it replaced50.
Virtually all of the elements of the Catholic ritual, from miter to wafer to
water to altar to doxology, are directly taken from earlier pagan mystery
religions.51
The story of
Mithra precedes the Christian fable by at least 600 years. According to Wheless, the cult of Mithra was, shortly before the Christian
era, “the most popular and widely spread ‘Pagan’ religion of the times.” Mithra
has the following in common with the Christ character:
·
Mithra was born on December 25th.
·
He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
·
He had 12 companions or disciples.
·
He performed miracles.
·
He was buried in a tomb.
·
After three days he rose again.
·
His resurrection was celebrated every year.
·
Mithra was called “the Good Shepherd.”
·
He was considered “the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer,
the Savior, the Messiah.”
·
He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.
·
His sacred day was Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” hundreds of years
before the appearance of Christ.
·
Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become
Easter, at which time he was resurrected.
·
His religion had a Eucharist or “Lord’s Supper.”52
The
similarities between the Christian character and the Indian messiah are many.
Indeed, Massey finds over 100 similarities between the Hindu and Christian
saviors, and
·
·
His father was a carpenter.54