The Atheist Blogger

One question that I often wonder about as an atheist is “Did Jesus Christ really exist?”. It’s something that the vast majority of Christians blindly believe without question since Jesus plays such a large part in the Bible. The entire basis of Christianity relies on Jesus being a real person, who was the real son of God, and was really crucified for our sins. As an atheist, I have the freedom to question that belief, and I have done so on many occasions since I became one.

A few decades ago, the idea that Jesus Christ was an exaggerated myth would have been shunned by the community, but in recent years, especially with the rise of atheism and free thought, coupled with books such as “The God Delusion” and films such as “The God Who Wasn’t There”, the so called “Jesus myth hypothesis” is being more widely supported and investigated.

The biblical story of Jesus covers his birth and childhood with great detail (the nativity story especially so), but then a strange thing happens. 18 years of Jesus Christ’s life are inexplicably missed out. After a 12 year old Jesus is found by Mary and Joseph in a temple in Jerusalem, surrounded by scholars and priests, he vanishes from history. The next mention of him is when he is 30, and he gets baptised by John the Baptist. The rest of Jesus’ life (from the baptism to the crucifixion) is pretty much covered completely. However, if Christ’s life was being so well documented throughout his childhood, how come there is absolutely no reference to 18 years of his life? Obviously if Jesus was as popular as he supposedly was, his trial would have been well documented, as would his subsequent crucifixion. Unfortunately, if we follow the Bible’s historical account, that documentation just didn’t exist.

Assuming that Jesus died around 33 A.D, we should expect the gospels to have been written around this point as well, but historically this is not the case. The first gospel written was Mark, and it mentions the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D, which means that taken chronologically, Jesus Christ died on the cross, and then 40 years later, his life was documented. Of course, this assumes that Mark was written in the year 70 A.D, but the likelihood is that it was written much later. In fact, some scholars put the date of the Gospel of Mark as late as 135 A.D, after the Bar Kokhba Revolt. This leaves a staggering 102 year gap, with no historical documentation of Jesus’ life.

It is well documented however, that the Apostle Paul (originally Saul) lived in the era after the death of Jesus Christ, and he was the founder of the original Christian church. Jesus Christ supposedly came to Paul in a vision, and prompted Paul to teach people about their sins. Paul wrote hundreds of letters about Christianity during his life, but not one of them mentions the life of Jesus. In fact, Paul never believed that Jesus ever existed, and the only three events he knew about Jesus’ life - the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension - took place (according to Paul) in another realm of existence.

Already the validity of Jesus’ existence is being called into question. Surely a man whom people believe to be the son of God would have been remembered after his death? Surely people would have heard the story of his resurrection and written it down? History has already shown us that stories are very easily distorted when spread by word of mouth. It is very probable that in the 40 years or so that the story of Jesus was going around, it was exaggerated to the point where the only rational explanation of Jesus Christ is that he is the son of God, and thus people assume him to be so.

Let’s not stop there though, because there are some striking similarities between Jesus Christ, and just about every other popular “God” that came before him.

Gods and heroes of mythology such as the Egyptian Osiris and Dionysus, the Hindu Krishna, Mithras, Quexalcote, Buddha, the Greek Hercules, Hermes, Prometheus, Perseus, and indeed many more ancient mythological figures all share a similar list of attributes:

• Father is a God and mother is a mortal virgin.
• Born in a cave or cowshed on December 25th in front of shepherds and angels.
• Gifts of frankincense and myrrh were presented at their birth.
• Survived a massacre of newborns.
• Offer followers to be born again through baptism.
• Turn water into wine.
• Performed numerous miracles.
• Rode triumphantly into the city on a donkey.
• Had a following of 12 “disciples”.
• Died at Easter as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
• Crucified between two thieves.
• After death, they descend into hell, arise after 3 days, and ascend into heaven.
• Followers await for their return in a time known as “End of Days”.
• Death and resurrection is celebrated with bread and wine, to represent their body and blood.

Obviously each individual only has a select number of these attributes, and because of this, the list is actually much larger, but the ones I have listed are the most commonly held by each of my examples. For example, although Buddha was not born of a God or virgin, he did perform miracles, and had disciples, and therefore scores an average on the above list. Jesus Christ, the so called saviour of mankind, and the one true light of the world, ranks pretty highly in comparison.

I propose then, that Jesus Christ did not exist, and any historical record of a person known as Jesus Christ, is simply an exaggerated version of any of the ancient Gods who follow a long line of tradition. Jesus is simply one of the most recent branches of a story told across millenia, but nothing more.

• Wikipedia (all articles history checked for validity)
  
• The God Who Wasn’t There (Documentary Film)
• Zeitgeist Movie (Documentary Film)

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