Re-examining the Pre-Christian Jesus

Abstract

In recent years a number of scholars (such as Richard Carrier and Robert Price) have published arguments in favour of a new model of the origination of Christianity from a mythological Jesus. Part of their argumentation has been to make the case for the concept of a pre-Christian Jesus who was worshiped, or a part of Judaism before Christianity ever arose. This article seeks to provide a new analysis of this topic, since there has been almost no academic literature published in response to the pre-Christian Jesus thesis in several decades. This article largely concludes that the concept, while interesting, is not convincing and would require far more substantial evidence to be considered a better alternative to historicist conceptions of early Christianity’s development.

Keywords:

• Jesus’s historicity
• pre-Christian Jesus
• mythicism
• Christian origins