Jesus myth theory (also the Christ myth theory, Jesus mythicism, and the nonexistence hypothesis) refers to several theories that hold that the New Testament account of the life of Jesus is so filled with myth and legend as well as internal contradictions and historical irregularities that at best no meaningful historical verification regarding Jesus of Nazareth (including his very existence) can be extracted from them.[2] It has been accepted by some academics.[3][4][5]
However, as Archibald Robertson stated in his 1946 book, Jesus: Myth Or History, at least as far as John M. Robertson was concerned, the myth theory was not concerned with denying the possibility of a flesh and blood Jesus being involved in the Gospel account, but rather, "What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded."[6]
Proponents point to early beliefs in a non-corporeal Jesus (docetism, as condemned in 2 John 1:7), which would help explain the lack of historical evidence for a human seed, and close correspondence of the Jesus story to many other myths of the time (a correspondence first noted by early apologist and saint Justin Martyr). The present-day Jesus mythicist position originated with Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis around the 1790s.
In fact, as the John Frum cargo cult shows that the cult version of 1957 (literate white US serviceman that appeared to the village elders in a vision on February 15, late 1930s) and historical version (illiterate native named Manehivi who caused trouble using that name from 1940 to 1941 and was exiled from the island as a result) of religion's "founder" can become effectively two different people in as short as 17 years.[7][8]
The theory in its broadest definition can be traced as far back as the concept of Docetism and Celsus (around 180 CE) and there is a possible hint of it in Justin Martyr's "Dialogue with Trypho"[9], though its modern revival goes back only to the 1790's with the ideas of Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis.
However, Volney and Dupuis did not agree on what the Christ myth was. Dupuis held that there was no human being involved in the New Testament account which he saw as an intentional extended allegory of solar myths while Volney allowed for confused memories of an obscure historical figure to be integrated in a mythology that compiled organically.[10] So from nearly the get go the modern Christ Myth theory had two parallel lines of thought: There was no human being being behind the New Testament and confused memories of an obscure historical figure were woven into the mythology. For the most part the 'no human being being behind the New Testamen't version is presented as the Christ myth theory ignoring Volney's confused memories of an obscure historical figure version.
The theory has been supported by a number of influential thinkers and Bertrand Russell expressed some doubt about the existence of Jesus, though he did not fully embrace the myth theory.[11] The idea seems to have gained a considerable amount of popularity among the secular community in recent years.
In June 2014, Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 1-909697-49-2 became "the first comprehensive pro-Jesus myth book ever published by a respected academic press and under formal peer review