Debunking The Christ Myth?

Argument from Glenn Kimball against
The Christ Conspiracy
(which he hasn't read)

This thinking is a new fade [sic] whose time for debunking is at hand.

Reply by Acharya S, author of
The Christ Conspiracy

"This thinking," i.e, that Jesus Christ is a mythical character, is not at all a "new fad." It has been around since the very beginning, because the intelligentsia of the ancient world knew that what the early Church fathers were palming off was mummified mythology. As Rev. Robert Taylor says:

And from the apostolic age downwards, in a never interrupted succession, but never so strongly and emphatically as in the most primitive times, was the existence of Christ as a man most strenously denied.

Indeed, the first and second epistles of John were written principally to combat such deniers of the historical Christ. (1 Jn. 4:2-3; 2 Jn. 7) The denial of "Christ come in the flesh" is an early "heresy" called "Docetism," whose proponents not only abounded during the first centuries of the Christian era but were the original "Christians," i.e., Gnostics.

We have letters written in the hand of Jesus. A myth doesn't write letters.

As concerns the "letters from Jesus's own hand," no scholar of any worth, Christian or otherwise, has ever considered these "letters" to be "genuine." Like most Christian writings and artifacts, these "letters" are forgeries. The Catholic Encyclopedia truthfully asserts that the legendary event purported in the most infamous of these "letters," i.e., that to "King Abgar," is an "imaginary occurrence," and states concerning the spurious letter from Christ:

The text is borrowed in two places from that of the Gospel, which of itself is sufficient to disprove the authenticity of the letter. Moreover, the quotations are made not from the Gospels proper, but from the famous concordance of Tatian, compiled in the second century, and known as the "Diatessaron," thus fixing the date of the legend as approximately the middle of the third century.

The Catholic Encyclopedia also says of this "letter":

Its legendary environment and the fact that the Church at large did not hand down the pretended epistle from Our Lord as a sacred document is conclusive against it.

As Wells says in The Historical Evidence for Jesus:

About 1200, Constantinople was so crammed with relics that one may speak of a veritable industry with its own factories. Blinzler (a Catholic New Testament scholar) lists, as examples, letters in Jesus' own hand, the gold brought to the baby Jesus by the wise men, the twelve baskets of bread collected after the miraculous feeding of the 5000, the throne of David, the trumpets of Jericho, the axe with which Noah made the Ark, and so on...

And Wheless says in Forgery in Christianity:

[T]hat "very dishonest writer," Bishop Eusebius, in the fourth century...forged the Letters between Abgar and Jesus, falsely declaring that he had found the original documents in the official archives, whence he had copied and translated them into his Ecclesiastical History... If the Gospel tales were true, why should God need pious lies to give them credit? Lies and forgeries are only needed to bolster up falsehood: "Nothing stands in need of lying but a lie." But Jesus Christ must needs be propagated by lies upon lies; and what better proof of his actuality than to exhibit letters written by him in his own handwriting? The "Little Liars of the Lord" were equal to the forgery of the signature of their God - false letters in his name, as above cited from that exhaustive mine of clerical falsities, the Catholic Encyclopedia.

No, a myth doesn't write letters. Forgers do.

There was a recent discovery of a prescription written by Jesus. A myth doesn't write prescriptions.

In the first place, considering the Holy Forgery Mill, I wouldn't trust that this "document" even dated from the proper time and place. I haven't seen it or any scholarship on it. Just Kimball's word. In the second place, the names IES, IESIOS, IASIOS, JESUS, etc., were terms that mean "salvation" and represented the mystical, allegorical and non-historical spiritual head of salvation cults that proliferated from England to China. The terms were used as secret spells by healers, or Therapeuts, who may have written a "prescription" with the word on it. Such claims as Kimball's truly reveal the shoddy "scholarship" and "science" accepted by blind believers.

For those who really have read they know that Jesus is mentioned in the archives of Roman, Druid, Indian, Japanese and a dozen more cultures. A myth doesn't get mentioned as a personal visit to that many diverse cultures and people during His lifetime.

We have financial records of the family. A myth didn't have money.

These claims is completely untrue. There are NO contemporary records, Roman, Indian, Druid, Japanese, or otherwise, of any character as depicted in the Gospel. There WERE plenty of people running around with the name of "Joshua" or "Jesus" or "Jason" or any variant thereof. None of their stories is what is recorded in the New Testament. (See also the IES, etc., comment above: To wit, there were salvation cultists from England to China.)

"Financial records" of his family? What's next, Mary's gynecological exam results?

The records of the Romans alone about the life and times of Jesus should be enough to convince the masses. Tiberius went to the floor of the Roman senate just after the death of Christ and petitioned that Rome adopt Jesus as a god (little g). (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons 1782) Tiberius knew Jesus and his family personally and said so. Tiberius corresponded with his Granddaughter Claudia Procula who was married to Pilate on the matter of Jesus. Tiberius made the foster father of Jesus Noblis Decurio for the Roman Empire. That made Jesus and His foster father Roman citizens worthy of note in the records of Rome.

Again, there are NO Roman records, save for countless FORGED "documents." The statement about Tiberius going to the Roman senate was made by Tertullian (c. 160-230 CE), one of the "little liars of the Lord," long after the purported event. Of this statement by Tertullian, the Catholic Encyclopedia (CE) says:

The narrative is not worthy of belief, still it is probable that Tertullian knew a document that professed to be a report of Pilate.

"Professed" being a key word here. Kimball is again referring to FORGED texts regarding Procla, etc., one of the many such spurious texts found in The Lost Books of the Bible, which is one of Kimball's "sources." The reason why these texts were "hidden" is because they are known forgeries.

In reality, according to GA Wells, the Roman historian Tacitus reported that UNDER TIBERIUS (42 BCE-37 CE) THERE WERE NO DISTURBANCES IN PALESTINE. If Tiberius had actually spoken about the god "Jesus," he would have been referring to the ubiquitous pre-Christian non-historical, non-carnalized "savior" of the (Gnostic) salvation cultists and would thus represent one of the first conspirators.

How is it that the early Church fathers and all the other Christian fanatics overlooked all of these "archives" and "records" when they were pressed to provide proof of their fables?

Longinus converted to Christianity and so did Pilate and his wife. They were slain for their conversion. Longinus converted and went with the Virgin Mary in exile to England. He was the one who threw the sword into the side of Christ at the cross. Longinus had a good job with the Romans and was the one who stood on the steps of the Roman Senate when Julius Caesar was stabbed to death. Would you have abandoned your entire life to live in exile for no reason?

The story of "Longinus" and the spear, like basically everything else in the gospel fable, including the Virgin Mary, is found in older mythologies. The rest of Kimball's assertion is fiction. Where do these people come up with this nonsense?

Regarding the old spear motif, here's an excerpt from The Christ Conspiracy:

The Spear of Longinus

Longinus was the name of the Roman soldier who stuck Jesus in the side with a spear. Legend held that Longinus was blind and was subsequently cured by Jesus's blood. Again, this is not a historical event but part of the mythos and sacred king ritual, as Walker relates:

The true prototype of the legend seems to have been the blind god Hod, who slew the Norse savior Balder with the thrust of a spear of mistletoe.... March 15, the "Ides of March" when most pagan saviors died, was the day devoted to Hod by the heathens, and later Christianized as the feast day of the Blessed Longinus.

Walker also states:

Up to Hadrians time, victims offered to Zeus at Salamis were anointed with sacred ointmentsthus becoming "Anointed Ones" or "Christs" then hung up and stabbed through the side with a spear.

In addition, the Scandinavian god Odin, and the god Marsyas of Mindanao in the Philippines were hung on a "fatal tree" and stabbed with a spear. The Hindu god Vishnu (Bal-ii) was crucified with a spear in his side, bearing the epithet "side-wounded." The gods Wittoba and Adonis were also crucified and "side-wounded" saviors.

Although a myth, many "authentic" "spears of Longinus" have been "found" in the Christian world. Indeed, Hitler purportedly spent a great deal of time, money and energy to track down the "true" spear, believing that it, like so many other "sacred" objects, held occultic powers.

The side-wounding in the mythos is due to the position of the sun near Sagittarius, the archer, also a centaur or centurion..

Pilate was the world's most important witness of the life of Christ. Pilate left his letters to Rome on this matter and met the resurrected Jesus face to face in the streets. Why would Pilate leave us letters describing a myth which cost him his life?

Writings regarding Pilate and Jesus, such as the obviously fictitious "Acts of Pilate," are well-known forgeries, admitted by the Catholic Encyclopedia. The Jewish historian Philo wrote about Pilate, mentioning his abuses, but not a single word about anyone remotely resembling Jesus Christ being crucified under his procuratorship.

These "letters" are KNOWN FORGERIES, which is why they are apocryphal. Much mythmaking surrounded Pilate. The Catholic Encyclopedia relates the troubles Pilate had with the Samaritans and states:

That is the last we know of Pilate from authentic sources, but legend has been busy with his name. He is said by Eusebius (H.E., ii, 7), on the authority of earlier writers, whom he does not name, to have fallen into great misfortunes under Caligula, and eventually to have committed suicide. Other details come from less respectable sources. His body, says the "Mors Pilati," was thrown into the Tiber, but the waters were so disturbed by evil spirits that the body was taken to Vienne and sunk in the Rhone, where a monument, called Pilate's tomb, is still to be seen. As the same thing occurred there, it was again removed and sunk in the lake at Lausanne. Its final disposition was in a deep and lonely mountain tarn, which, according to later tradition, was on a mountain, still called Pilatus, close to Lucerne. The real origin of this name is, however, to be sought in the cap of cloud which often covers the mountain, and serves as a barometer to the inhabitants of Lucerne. There are many other legends about Pilate in the folklore of Germany, but none of them have the slightest authority.

Kimball is also evidently referring to the "letter purporting to have been sent by Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Claudius" embodied in the apocryphal (BOGUS) "Acts of Peter and Paul," of which the Catholic Encyclopedia states, "This composition is clearly apocryphal though unexpectedly brief and restrained."

In his article Hidden Stories of the Childhood of Jesus, Kimball further claims that "there are millions of ancient texts that spoke of what He did and where he went in his life."

This statement that there are "MILLIONS of ancient texts" is completely absurd. What we have are some 200 gospels and epistles, many of which were Gnostic, i.e., they represented a fictional or allegorical Jesus, not a "man who walked the earth." The childhood stories as found in the Infancy Gospels are in large part tales about the Hindu god Krishna, whose name was "Christos" in Greek, by which the soldiers of Alexander the Great called him. The Indian text, the Bhagavat Purana, was historicized and Judaized sometime during the second century. Other "texts" purportedly mentioning Jesus that Kimball is apparently referring to are the myths of other cultures that revolve around the ubiquitous sun god or solar hero. These various Gnostic and noncanonical texts are not "hidden" but have been known for centuries and correctly dismissed as "apocryphal" or bogus. Kimball is attempting to make this "discovery" appear earth-shattering.

Kimball claims that these various "childhood" texts were written by those authors purported, i.e., the apostles such as Matthew and James. They were not. They are pseudepigraphical forgeries. As concerns such apocryphal texts, which were all the rage during the centuries preceding and succeeding the Christian era, the Catholic Encylopedia acknowledges:

Pseudographic composition was in vogue among the Jews in the two centuries before Christ and for some time later. The attribution of a great name of the distant past to a book by its real author, who thus effaced his own personality, was, in some cases at least, a mere literary fiction which deceived no one except the ignorant. This holds good for the so-called "Wisdom of Solomon," written in Greek and belonging to the Church's sacred canon. In other cases, where the assumed name did not stand as a symbol of a type of a certain kind of literature, the intention was not without a degree of at least objective literary dishonesty.

One of the texts Kimball uses, the Infancy Gospel of James, also known as the Protoevangelium Jacobi, is well known to be an apocryphal or pseudepigraphical forgery. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says:

It purports to have been written by "James the brother of the Lord," i.e. the Apostle James the Less. It is based on the canonical Gospels which it expands with legendary and imaginative elements, which are sometimes puerile or fantastic. The birth, education, and marriage of the Blessed Virgin are described in the first eleven chapters and these are the source of various traditions current among the faithful.... Critics find that the "Protoevangelium" is a composite into which two or three documents enter. It was known to Origen under the name of the "Book of James". There are signs in St. Justin's works that he was acquainted with it, or at least with a parallel tradition. The work, therefore, has been ascribed to the second century.

Of the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, evidently also promoted by Kimball, CE says: "It is a tasteless and bombastic effort, and seems to date from about the fourth century."

His book Hidden Politics of the Crucifixion, Kimball claims, "includes the actual letters of Pilate, Herod and the Caesars discussing the events of the Crucifixion. It also contains the actual conversation recorded in ancient texts between the resurrected Jesus and Pontius Pilate."

The "actual letters of Pilate, etc." Addressed above, but these specific "letters" are found in the "minor Pilate apocrypha, the Anaphora Pilati, or 'Relation of Pilate,'" in which, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "There exists a puerile correspondence consisting of a pretended Letter of Herod to Pilate and Letter of Pilate to Herod." These spurious texts are no older than the fifth century.

Kimball is also evidently referring to the "Acts of Pilate" or the "Gospel of Nicodemus," an obviously fictitious forgery of the fourth century that is so ridiculous it even presumes to record the actual conversations of the astonished faithful and prophets of old, such as David and Enoch, who have been resurrected from the dead after Jesus's own resurrection and ascension! This text was considered so evidently fictitious that it was nixed and buried, because it would so readily cast doubt upon the "veracity" of the gospel tale as well. Only the credulous and uncritical do not realize the fictitious nature of this text. These are, in short, fairytales, not historical accounts. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says of the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus, "The writers (for the work we have is a composite) could not have expected their production to be seriously accepted by unbelievers."

As concerns these various apocryphal gospels, the Catholic Encyclopedia says:

When, therefore, enterprising spirits responded to this natural craving by pretended Gospels full of romantic fables and fantastic and striking details, their fabrications were eagerly read and largely accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity. Both Catholics and Gnostics were concerned in writing these fictions. The former had no other motive than that of a pious fraud.... But the heretical apocryphists, while gratifying curiosity, composed spurious Gospels in order to trace backward their beliefs and peculiarities to Christ Himself. The Church and the Fathers were hostile even towards the narratives of orthodox authorship. It was not until the Middle Ages, when their true origin was forgotten even by most of the learned, that these apocryphal stories began to enter largely into sacred legends, such as the "Aurea Sacra," into miracle plays, Christian art, and poetry. A comparison of the least extravagant of these productions with the real [sic] Gospels reveals the chasm separating them. Though worthless historically, the apocryphal Gospels help us to better understand the religious conditions of the second and third centuries, and they are also of no little value as early witnesses of the canonicity of the writings of the four Evangelists.

Of yet another forged "letter," that of "Lentulus," CE says:

A brief letter professing to be from Lentulus, or Publius Lentulus, as in some manuscripts, "President of the People of Jerusalem", addressed to "the Roman Senate and People", describes Our Lord's personal appearance. It is evidently spurious, both the office and name of the president of Jerusalem being grossly unhistorical. No ancient writer alludes to this production, which is found only in Latin manuscripts. It has been conjectured that it may have been composed in order to authenticate a pretended portrait of Jesus, during the Middle Ages.

The list of spurious "documents" goes on and on, and it is from these that Kimball gets his "new history" of the mythical Jesus. For more information, please see the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Apocrypha.

And for those who have problems with the truthful statements from the Catholic Encyclopedia regarding fraudulent compositions from its own Church hierarchy, we have plenty of Protestant scholars also attesting to the fact of Christian forgery.

The Protestant Encyclopedia Biblica states, "Almost every one of the Apostles had a Gospel fathered upon him by one early sect or another."

Another Protestant authority, Dr. Conyers Middleton said:

There never was any period of time in all ecclesiastical history, in which so many rank heresies were publicly professed, nor in which so many spurious books were forged and published by the Christians, under the names of Christ, and the Apostles, and the Apostolic writers, as in those primitive ages. Several of forged books are frequently cited and applied to the defense of Christianity, by the most eminent fathers of the same ages, as true and genuine pieces.

He also states, "Buddhism has also been influenced by Christianity, though it does not believe in a supreme being. At least we do not have an argument with the Buddhist over the name of God, or arguments over which brother received the real birthright. The Buddhists were influenced by the tradition of the Christian Gnostics, in that they knew Jesus, the prophet King, and felt that spiritually originates from within the individual and not necessarily from the hierarchy of the church."

Buddhism existed first and was copied by Christians. Many attributes and sayings of "the Buddha" were taken by the Christians in their creation of Jesus Christ. Kimball certainly does not know his history very well and simply makes any bald statement to support his case. The rest of his book seems to be composed of the endless silly legends made up by numerous priests to bedazzle their gullible followers. These legends are NOT history. These puerile and gullible statements are an insult to the intelligence, as well as to all the other cultures that had these stories long before the Christian era and the mythical advent of Christ.

I could go on for volumes, but it wouldn't do any good for those who have already made up their minds that Jesus was a myth. I had a near death experience seven years ago and I changed my mind in a tenth of a second. I have been an atheist most of my life and fought against religions and tradition. I was wrong. I have a personal witness that Jesus did live and still does.

Many people have had near-death experiences. They prove nothing but the conditioning of the individual's mind. The followers of Osiris, Isis, Buddha, Krishna and many others ALSO saw them in NDEs, visions and hallucinations. Hindus see the elephant-headed god Ganesha. If such serve as "proof" of their reality, then these gods are also real. I personally have had visions of Krishna, Buddha, Jesus and Mickey Mouse.

Someone has sold your friends a terrible lie. This movement is typical. It is easier to deny the existence of someone than to fight His teachings. The ignorant will follow anyone with passion until they read and study for themselves.

Sorry, Glenn, but it's you have been sold a "terrible lie." "The ignorant?" Much of what you have claimed is indicative of a profound ignorance of the ancient world. The mythicists have in general been better educated than blind believers. I too invite everyone to read and study for themselves - they will easily see that the absurd claims of believers, which should have been evident as fiction in the first place, completely fall apart. (My book, The Christ Conspiracy, lays out the case in over 400 pages. For FREE reading on this subject, please see my dissertation Origins of Christianity and Christ Conspiracy Links.)

However, don't believe me. Jesus said it Himself that in the end every knee shall bow and tongue confess that He was the Christ. After my experience and study I would like to be a fly on the wall when these people who believe Jesus to be a myth meet Him face to face. I too was not only brought to my knees, but lifted at the same time. I cried a steady stream of tears for two weeks solid. Try shedding tears for two solid weeks. Part of me wanted to hide under a rock and part of me had to do something to make amends. You will have to make up your own mind. I wish you well. I don't wish to make fun of those who have perpetrated this lie.They are trying to make sense of the world like everyone else. My old father told me something when I was very young that I didn't understand at the time. He told me it was a thousand times easier to critique than it was to advocate. Surely a belief in Jesus will take a thousand times more effort than to make Him into a myth in the minds of men. A belief in Christ changes a person. It is a belief that requires effort and character. It will take the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done to bring Him down. However, I have only one option left. I can't fight my eyes and ears.

Glenn Kimball

I don't accept that this wretched phantasm is a "god" of any sort. And the condescension of BLIND believers never fails to astound. Nice touch, the "atheist persecutor" bit. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, some guy named Saul who became Paul! And are you suggesting that your measly "efforts to bring him down" have somehow hurt this "omnipotent" god?

While the rest of this maudlin mush may evoke sympathy for an apparently pained existence, it does not serve as a demonstration of anything other than the mental state of its author.

Regarding the statement that it is "a thousand times easier to critique than to advocate" - HARDLY a truism in the case of Christianity, the proponents of which have tortured and slaughtered some 200 million or more unbelievers over the centuries. Considering how even today critical scholars and scientists are shouted down by emotional believers, it is MUCH more difficult to point out that there is NO historical or archaeological record for this fable having taking place in history. It takes an enormous amount of courage, in fact.

No matter what these guys come up with, the fact will remain that virtually the entire gospel story is found around the globe for centuries and millennia prior to the Christian era and represents the personification of the sun.

Acharya S

Update: Not content with hawking spurious Christian comic books, Kimball is now pretending to have found King Arthur's legendary sword, Excalibur, as was well as the stone it was stuck into!