Bart Ehman vs. Timothy Freke: Did Jesus Exist?

Thanks to New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman's new book "Did Jesus Exist", the debate over the historical Jesus has reached mainstream. Today CNN posted an article about called The Jesus debate: Man vs. myth Interestingly, the only "Mythicist" writers they quote from are Robert Price (author of the Price, author of “Deconstructing Jesus “Deconstructing Jesus" published in 2000) and Timothy Freke (co-author of "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the ‘Original Jesus’ a Pagan God?" published in 2001). According ...

What really happened on Easter Sunday – Jesus, suffering and guilt

My sister sent me the following chain letter, which goes into surprising detail about exactly how, physically, Jesus suffered on the cross. The point of the letter is to get you to feel his pain, which generates an emotional catharsis; it makes you first feel guilty, and then overwhelmingly grateful. Don't forget that this highly robust psycho-religious emotional experience was already being practiced by the Jewish women mourning for Tammuz in the Spring on the ...

Who came first, Gnostics or Christians? Early engravings reveal the truth!

Recently scholars identified what appears to be the world's earliest Christian inscription, dating to the second century. It is in the collection of the Capitoline Museums in Rome. Orthodox or mainstream Christians argue that Jesus, the historical man came first and that Gnosticism was a later, paganized offshoot of "real" Christianity - if this were true, we would expect the earliest records of Jesus Christ to be more down to earth; however this is the ...

Bart Ehrman: Did Jesus Exist? Is there evidence for a historical Jesus?

When asked in a recent interview (The Infidel Guy Show) about the evidence for the historical Jesus, Bart Ehrman threw out the tired line "No Serious/No Reputable Scholar doubts that a historical Jesus existed." Ehrman's support of the historical Jesus is used by apologists to show how even extremely liberal theologians like Bart cannot bring themselves to doubt a historical Jesus (the title of one blog post is "Atheist Stumped by Overwhelming Evidence for Jesus' ...

Support JesusPotterHarryChrist on Kickstarter.com and get awesome freebies!

If you're looking for a late-summer read, check out the book "Jesus Potter Harry Christ." It claims that both Harry and Jesus are spiritual metaphors told in the literary form of historical fiction. The paperback is selling well on amazon, but we'd like to print hardcover copies - so we've set up a page on kickstarter.com where you can get a better deal and some great freebies by supporting the project. Thanks! Click here for the ...

Dionysus, Hades and Jesus: Marriage in Death to Lords of the Underworld

One of the literary threads I hope to investigate in the future is the tie between vampirism and the ancient tradition of linking death and marriage together; many religions deal with death as an intimate reunion or marriage with a god of the underworld such as Hades or Dionysus. Much of this symbolism was later preserved in Christianity. The following is a paper I wrote recently for a PhD course on Antigone (by Sophocles) Death, Marriage ...

Bible archaeologists discover tablet that refutes Jesus’ resurrection

Did Jesus Christ really resurrect from the grave after three days? Probably not, it turns out. In 2008 archaeologists found a stone tablet that tells of a Jewish rebel hero who died and came back to life after three days. Jesus? No! His name was Simon, and he lived decades before Jesus. What we learn from this is that the Jews already had a template of the messiah that they expected, and they began applying ...

The truth about CS Lewis, Tolkien and Pagan Christs: Christian Parallels in Mythology

Last Month Chuck Colson - Christian leader, cultural commentator, and former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon - commented on my book, Jesus Potter Harry Christ. His central criticism of my book is weak, desperate and unfounded - in fact I write quite a bit about CS Lewis and Tolkien in the book so I doubt Colson has read more than the introduction or summary. But I'd like the opportunity to address the issue, which ...

I’ll be back: Jesus’ Virgin Birth, Easter Eggs and the Terminator

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Jesus' Virgin Birth, Chicken and Egg The birth of Jesus from Mary the Virgin is a riddle, a mystery. Either God came down like Zeus as the Holy Spirit (God comes as a dove, Zeus as a swan) or Celsus was right claiming Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier. It's just a miracle, to be accepted on Faith. But when you look into other mythologies, the virgin birth becomes clear, understandable - even necessary. This is ...

Jesus and Mithras Revisited: Shared Symbolism between Mithraism and the Higher Christian Mysteries

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Part of the problem in comparing Christianity to other mysteries is that it retains a very ancient text, while corresponding texts for other traditions were lost (often purposefully destroyed by Christians). And the gospels chosen for the Bible were chosen because they portray a human Jesus, rather than reveal mystery truths (which were not meant to be written down, anyway). In contrast, although a trove of Gnostic gospels was discovered in 1978, much of the ...

Do Jesus Christ and Gilgamesh Share Similarities or a Common Tradition?

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As was pointed out earlier, the epic of Gilgamesh is not only one of the oldest recorded stories known to man, but it was also familiar to Israel and may have been rewritten into the Old Testament. It should come as no surprise that, in addition to the New Testament, elements from the epic of Gilgamesh may have crept into several other literary creations. According to Sumerian cosmology, when Ea had created man he mixed the ...

Jesus and Pythagoras Similarities

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Pythagoras is one of the most intriguing and mysterious figures in ancient history. Although today known only by his mathematical legacy, he was much more than a philosopher or mathematician – he was also the founder of a very secretive spiritual cult with serious political influence, focusing on initiation of the worthy, purification, and salvation. Born around 570BC, Pythagoras emigrated to Croton in Southern Italy, and there founded a movement that was a blend of politics ...