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THE JESUS PUZZLE
Was There No Historical Jesus? Earl Doherty

Preamble My investigations have led me to a fundamental disagreement with Professor Wells. (He is the only prominent writer on the "Jesus-as-myth" theory in the past generation; earlier proponents are difficult for the average reader to come by, so I will not address them.) Wells postulates that Paul and other Christians of his day believed that "Jesus" had lived in obscurity at some unknown point in the past, perhaps two or three centuries before their time. The problem is, there seems to be no more evidence in the epistles that Paul has such a figure in mind than there is for his knowledge of a Jesus of Nazareth who had lived and died during the reign of Herod Antipas. Rather, everything in Paul points to a belief in an entirely divine Son who "lived" and acted in the spiritual realm, in the same mythical setting in which all the other savior deities of the day were seen to operate. No Greek or Roman believed that the god Mithras had lived in an identifiable period of earthly history, or that the bull he slaughtered was "historical," and the mystery myths at the time of Christian beginnings tended to be moved to a supernatural sphere under the influence of current philosophy. With this view, Christianity can be seen to fit nicely into its surrounding milieu, a child of its time. It also enables us to read and understand Paul in all his spiritual richness—from an historical interest point of view—and to gain a thorough picture of what his faith constituted. Once early Christian belief is seen in its proper light, a whole new window is gained onto the religious spirit of the era, since Christianity was the great synthesizer and preserver of that spirit. But if we insist instead on seeing early Christian faith as some strange hybrid anomaly against the background beliefs of its day, that picture will remain forever deficient. Today we face two principal impediments to understanding Paul's belief in Christ as an entirely spiritual figure. One is the fact that it is based on views of the universe which are alien to our modern outlook. The second is our failure to grasp how the Jewish scriptures, as they were interpreted by certain circles in Paul's day, could confer features on the heavenly Christ which we perceive as "historical." I am referring to passages like Romans 1:3, that Christ was "of David's seed," or Galatians 4:4, that he was "born of woman," plus a smattering of references to things like Jesus' "flesh" or "blood." These matters I have been careful to address, and to provide an intelligible explanation for.

Did Jesus exist? Are the origins of Christianity best explained without a founder Jesus of Nazareth? Before the Gospels do we find an historical Jesus or a Jesus myth?