‘Deciphering the Gospels’, by R. G. Price, argues the case for Jesus mythicism, which is the view that Jesus never existed on earth in any real form but was an entirely mythical figure in the same way as Hercules or Dionysus. (The author is not the same person as Robert Price, also a Jesus mythicist author.) I’m an atheist who holds the opposing (and mainstream) view that Christianity started with a human Jesus. In other words, the Jesus referred to as the founder of Christianity was originally a 1st-century human being, about whom a later mythology grew up, whose followers became the original group that would mutate over time into Christianity. I’m therefore reviewing Price’s book to discuss his arguments and my reasons for disagreeing.

The first post in this book review is here. Links to the posts on all subsequent chapters can be found at the end of that post.

I’d optimistically planned for this post to finish off Chapter 12, but of course it got longer than I’d expected, so there will be at least one more post after this one addressing points in Chapter 12 (plus the planned posts for the question list at the end).

The Gospels

Price, having cobbled together his supposed proof about gMark being fictional, builds on this for the next stage of his argument:

The Gospels do not corroborate each other. In fact, the only thing that the Gospels do corroborate is that none of their authors could possibly have had any knowledge of a real Jesus, because every single Gospel, canonical and noncanonical, shows dependence on the fictional story that we call the Gospel of Mark. The only way that every single writing about the life of Jesus would be based on a single fictional story is if no one had any knowledge of a real Jesus.

…which, of course, falls down at the premise, since Price’s attempts to show that gMark is fictional have been so utterly unsuccessful, so that’s that. However, there is something further I wanted to say here:

This argument seems to be based on the assumption that the other gospel writers were casting around for the best account they could find of this Jesus person of whom they were writing. But this seems like yet another thing that doesn’t fit with the rest of Price’s argument, because Price also believes that this whole shebang started out with one fictional account written for a group who actually believed Jesus was a heavenly being, and that the people writing embroidered versions of that account somehow completely failed to find this out at any point.

Well… you can’t have it both ways. You can’t simultaneously claim that Matthew and the rest would be so colossally undiscerning that they never asked even basic questions like ‘hey, this Jesus sounds really interesting, can you tell us a bit more?’ and that they would also want to look round to see whether any better or more detailed accounts were available before opting for gMark as their source. Price, once again, doesn’t seem to have thought about how any of this would have happened in practice.

Meanwhile, Price has still completely failed to explain why on earth all these gospel writers would be putting so much effort into writing expanded versions of a fictional story. I mean, imagine someone reading gMark with no knowledge whatsoever of the background, just as a random manuscript they’d come across. Yes, some people would believe it. Yes, some might even have wanted to find out more about this Jesus person and whether he really had risen from the dead as the ending claimed. But Price’s theory seems to require a situation where multiple people would decide to start proclaiming this gospel as fact and rewriting it with a load of extra detail… but all without making any effort at all to check whether the existing group had any extra detail. There’s no realistic way in which I can see any of that happening.

By the way, while I think of it, let’s also not forget the unlikelihood of someone reading gMark with no context or background in the first place. Again: all manuscripts at that point were handwritten. No-one was going to be running off extra copies in a print run or keeping them on the shelves of a local bookshop. Mark would have been passing his copies around himself, because that was what happened in those days. Anyone who acquired one would be getting it from someone they knew (if not Mark directly, then someone else who was passing it on). So… did whoever passed a copy on to Matthew not give him any kind of explanation as to what this book was? Did Matthew not go back to that person to ask them any questions before writing an expanded version and spreading it as a new belief? How on earth does Price picture this as having worked?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…

Furthermore, if we accept that the Gospels do not actually describe the life of Jesus, nor do any of the early epistles, then what could possibly explain why a real Jesus person would have been worshiped as an eternal heavenly being capable of overcoming death, destroying the world, and saving the souls of the righteous? If one acknowledges that a real-life Jesus wouldn’t have performed miracles, risen from the dead, or fulfilled prophecies, then why would this real-life Jesus have been worshiped? Clearly, later Christians worshiped the Jesus character from the Gospels, precisely because they believed that he had performed miracles, risen from the dead, and fulfilled prophecies. Those are, explicitly, the reasons why Jesus is worshiped by Christians. But if those are the reasons that Christians worship Jesus, and a real-life Jesus wouldn’t have done any of those things, then why would the real-life Jesus be worshiped at all?

A couple of notes: Firstly, can we note that the actual explicit reason why Jesus is worshipped by Christians is that they believe he was part of God. Secondly, I’m slightly amused by how unaware Price seems that in fact quite a few real-life people have been worshipped by others over the centuries. Being worshipped certainly isn’t a sign of being fictional.

That said, I think the main point to make here is that I don’t think the real-life Jesus was worshipped by his original followers. I think that he was followed, not worshipped; in other words, his followers saw him as a human leader rather than as a divinity. And beliefs then changed over the years so that he came to be seen first as a divine being probably more on the level of an angel, and eventually (after what seems to have been some centuries and quite a bit of controversy) as a part of Yahweh himself.

As to why people would have followed a real-life Jesus, there are obvious reasons for that. He was apparently charismatic and a good preacher, and and he was what we would call a faith-healer (which does not involve actually performing miracles but has more to do with what your followers/the people you’re healing believe you can do). In addition, his followers were looking for someone who might be the prophecied king who would usher in the Messianic age, and Jesus looked like he might fit the bill. Wishful thinking did the rest.

It actually makes far less sense that worship of a powerful celestial being who had overcome death would have started with the worship of a mere mortal, than for it to have started with the worship of a celestial deity to begin with.

This gives Price a much greater problem which he still hasn’t solved: how would this belief take the reverse journey? How would worship of a powerful celestial being turn into a belief that this celestial being lived a mortal life? According to Price, all that was needed was for one person to write a fanfic. Multiple people then believed this so strongly and unquestioningly that they formed a whole belief system with even more detailed accounts of this imaginary life, completely obliterating the original belief in Jesus as a heavenly being, all without these people ever noticing that everyone else who believed in Jesus (including the original author of the fanfic that started the whole thing) believed that he had in fact been a heavenly being. Just how does Price think all that happened? He’s yet to explain.

There is absolutely no evidence of belief in a real human Jesus prior to the writing of the Gospel stories.

… you mean, other than Paul repeatedly writing about Jesus in human terms and mentioning having met his brother?

Price still misunderstands Docetism

When faced with opposition to the belief that Jesus was actually human, or had ever been on earth, even the earliest believers in “the flesh” of Jesus could do nothing more than cite scripture to support their beliefs […] Within two hundred years of his supposed life, the only evidence that could be produced to show that God, or God’s son, had come to earth and taken
human form was four written accounts that supposedly corroborated each other and corroborated the divine prophecies that predicted his life, deeds, and death.

Yes, because there is no evidence of anyone disputing that Jesus had been on earth. There was plenty of argument over whether he was human, a divine being cunningly disguised as human, or a divine being that had become human… but you know what all those beliefs have in common? The belief that this Jesus person had showed every indication of having been on earth as a human. And what would be the most likely reason why everyone would believe this? That Jesus actually was on earth as a human.

On which note, I’ll split the chapter here and hope to get the last of it dealt with in one more post.