This is Richard Carrier’s latest book. In it he vents his spleen on the people
opposing the Jesus myth hypothesis. And, being Richard Carrier, it is methodical, pointed, and devastating.
His subtitle is “What the Earliest Christians Really Believed about Christ” which tells the tale. The earliest version of the Jewish cult of the risen Christ (Christ meaning “anointed one,” and so there have been many, many of these—often they were kings who were anointed as a matter of course . . . in a theocracy) can be found in the writings of the Apostle Paul and in the Book of Daniel. Jesus was an archangel who descends to the realm of Satan in the lowest realm of Heaven. There he is crucified and killed and then resurrected. By tricking Satan into sacrificing this most favored son of god, he breaks the hold of death on humanity and allows them to live forever.
Now this story is nonsense, of course. Yahweh doesn’t need to trick Satan into anything as he can kick his ass in a fair fight, but myths are myths. The key points here being that Jesus, like so many other gods, is a celestial god, residing only in the Heavens. His normal home was the high heavens but he descended into Satan’s realm, which is the lowest Heaven, being between the Earth and the orbit of the moon, hence Carrier’s title (which I think is unfortunate as he is trying to gain respect for the myth position and the title probably won’t help, even though it is perfectly accurate). These people also believed that everything on Earth was but a poor reflection of the more perfect versions in the Heavens, so the Garden of Eden was up there, as was Jerusalem, etc. i.e. “as in Heaven, so below.”) There were trees to crucify Jesus upon, and graves, and everything else.
Now, before you get to the gospels and Acts, all of the earlier writings of Jesus hewed to this narrative. Paul’s authentic writings never mention Jesus being on Earth. He doesn’t mention a “second coming” only a “coming.” He doesn’t mention Jesus mission on Earth, or any of Jesus’s teachings, or the disciples, or anything covered in the gospels.
This was Christianity pre-gospels.
This was exactly like the vast majority of religions in the wider region. All of the gods start out as celestial beings and later, interestingly enough, all of them get historicized, that is they are claimed to have existed upon Earth. This is the normal progression for celestial gods. Carrier gives example after example of other gods that were so treated.
In my last post, I mentioned Carrier’s argument regarding the letter of Pliny, the Younger, in 112 CE that makes the point that Christianity was almost nonexistent, but was spreading. Converse to “Church histories,” Christianity didn’t grow like wildfire from the get-go because of a basic flaw. The only contact anyone had with Jesus was through revelations (dreams, delusions, imaginings, etc.). And, old Paul wasn’t in any place to declare others were worthy of such revelations as he, himself, was a nobody in the so-called story. This is why virtually every celestial god gets historicized, because while revelations can still occur, there are people who interacted with the real, historical god who can claim special knowledge. And a religion can be built upon this special knowledge. And a religion built solely upon revelations has no control of where it goes. The Catholic Church masterfully built its version of Christianity upon both scripture and “church tradition” which is anything they want it to be, but always trailing back to people who were known associates of the god on Earth.
While carrier does refer to Bayes’ theorem probabilities, he avoids all of the math so prominent in his previous books. He speaks about probabilities and possibilities in general terms, so if all of the Bayes’ Theorem mathematics put you off then, they will not here as they aren’t presented.
I was going to supply a few quotes but I highlighted so much of the book, I found I could not select out just a few which were representative. (I felt like the dog with too many tennis balls and too small a mouth . . . this one, no this one, no. . . .
If you are a supporter of the Jesus Myth hypothesis and love to see its opponents eviscerated, this is the book for you. Carrier is taking names and kicking asses. I highly recommend this book to all, from the merely curious about this hypothesis on up to people like me who are already sold on it. I give it Two Thumbs Up, wishing I had more thumbs to give.
Currently the book is only available in Kindle and hardcover versions. I assume a paperback is to follow.